‘We’re not interested in 2019 Igbo presidency,’ IPOB says

monjola sotubo

December 10, 2015 12:05 PM

This was disclosed to journalists on Wednesday, December 9, 2015, by the group’s spokesperson Emma Powerful.

Pro-Biafra protesters in Owerri on November 13, 2015

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has said that it is not concerned with the possible emergence of an Igbo president in 2019.

“If politics of compensation was used to favour Obasanjo in place of June 12 annulment and was also used to favour Buhari in place of insurgency, that is their own cup of tea. But for us in IPOB, we are not interested in that politics of compensation whereby we are being told that an Igboman will become Nigeria’s president in 2019 and we will begin to listen to them,” Powerful said.

“All we want or are interested in is to release our leader, Kanu and then allow Biafra to be and not Igbo presidency,” he added.

Pro-Biafra protests intensified in the past month and turned violent in Onitsha, Anambra State on Tuesday, December 2, 2015, after 9 people died from bullet wounds.

Former Head of State, Ibrahim Babangida subsequently spoke on the demonstrations calling them a distraction and saying that he would vote for an Igbo presidentin 2019.

The ongoing agitations were sparked off by the arrest of Radio Biafra boss, Nnamdi Kanu by the Department of State Services (DSS).

However, IPOB and the Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra, (MASSOB), on Tuesday, December 8, signed a resolution that they would halt the protests pending the outcome of a dialogue with the Federal Government.

Kanu was arrested at a hotel in Lagos on October 17, and reportedly granted bail but never freed.

He was arraigned in an Abuja court on November 23 and the case was adjourned till December 1.

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Meanwhile, the DSS is seeking to charge Kanu with terrorism after it accused him of participating in and sponsoring terrorist acts.

monjola sotubo