…Knock President for equating IPoB to Boko Haram
Stephen Ukandu, Umuahia
Three United States of America, US-based organizations, have urged US government, to release the records of President Ahmed Tinubu to the public.
This is as the groups knocked the President for allegedly equating the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPoB, with the murderous Boko Haram terrorist organization which has been on a killing spree in parts of Northern Nigeria.
President Tinubu was said to have made the “inflammatory remark” while speaking when he visited Imo State on Tuesday.
In a swift reaction to the President’s remarks, three pro-Igbo diaspora groups – Advocates for Victims of Injustice and Discrimination (AVID); the Rising Sun; and the Ambassadors for Self-Determination; accused him of a deliberate attempt to blackmail IPOB.
According to the groups, IPoB is a non-violent movement agitating for the self-determination of Biafra, and, should not in anyway, be compared to Boko Haram.
The groups’ position is contained in a joint statement titled: Tinubu’s Reckless Utterance Against IPOB is Sub Judice and Ethnically Prejudiced.”
They also said the President’s remarks were sub-judice as IPoB leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s trial, is still pending at the court.
The statement read in part: “We, the undersigned U.S.-based organizations, strongly condemn President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s reckless remarks equating IPOB with Boko Haram. It is deeply unfortunate that a sitting president would make such a false, inflammatory, and prejudicial statement while IPOB’s appeal is pending before the Supreme Court of Nigeria and while Mazi Nnamdi Kanu battles for his life before a Yoruba judge, Justice James Omotosho, at the Federal High Court.”
According to the statement, the President’s “utterance is not only sub judice, but a blatant attempt to poison the atmosphere of justice, intimidate the judiciary, and prejudice ongoing proceedings.”
Continuing, the statement said that Tinubu’s comment “reflects a continuation of the ethnic persecution relay that has characterized Kanu’s ordeal—from Fulani domination under Buhari to Yoruba domination under Tinubu.”
The groups challenged President Tinubu, to rather focus on tackling the insecurity being perpetrated by Boko Haram and other know terror cells in the North, instead of dissipating energy on a non-violent freedom seeking group like IPoB.
“Rather than obsessing over IPOB—a non-violent self-determination movement—Tinubu should direct his energy towards Fulani terrorists and bandits who are ravaging Nigerian farmlands, displacing communities, and slaughtering citizens with impunity.
“It is shameful that while armed Fulani militias destroy the very fabric of Nigeria, Tinubu chooses to slander IPOB and persecute its leader for daring to demand justice for his people.
“We remind Tinubu and his cohorts that envy and jealousy of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s popularity among his people will never succeed in silencing him. If anything, every additional day of his illegal detention only magnifies his stature and makes him even more beloved by millions at home and abroad.
“History teaches us that the persecuted always outlive their persecutors. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu embodies the resilience of the Igbo nation. Just as the Eboe Landing martyrs chose honour over slavery, so too has Kanu chosen courage over submission.”
The group, called on the United States Congress, and the US Department of State to: “Declassify and release President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s full records (immigration, financial, and educational) into the public domain in the interest of transparency, democracy, and accountability.”
They also call on the Government of Canada to: “Gazette and enforce the Canadian court’s designation of APC and PDP as terrorist organizations, recognizing that these ruling parties have long sponsored electoral violence, against the Nigerian people.”
“It is a scandal of international proportions that peaceful IPOB is falsely labeled terrorist, while the real terrorist organizations are treated with diplomatic legitimacy,” the statement regretted.
The Igbo groups, therefore, called on the international community to: “Condemn Tinubu’s reckless and prejudicial utterances against IPOB.”
They also urged the global community to: “Demand the immediate and unconditional release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, who has already been discharged and acquitted on jurisdictional grounds.
“Hold Nigeria’s ruling elites accountable for ethnic persecution disguised as national security.”
“President Tinubu has only succeeded in proving one thing: the more he persecutes IPOB and detains Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the stronger and more popular both become,” the statement said.
It added that “No prison walls, no courtroom manipulations, and no executive propaganda can extinguish the light of truth.”
Kanu has been in incarceration since June 2021 when he was extraordinarily rendered from Kenya.
