STEER CLEAR, BIAFRA GROUP WARNS NIGER DELTA MILITANTS

The Biafra Liberation Council (BLC) has warned some Niger Delta militants purportedly sup porting its cause to steer clear of agitation for the release of the leader of Indigenous Peo ples of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu.
The BLC, which is a coalition of 15 pro-Biafra groups, accused the militants of canvass ing for Kanu’s release purely out of selfish reasons because they want to use it to attract sympathy to themselves, which could in turn worsen the IPOB leader’s travails.
In the BLC are several pro-Biafra groups like Biafra Liberation Organization, Igbogadi Movement, Eastern Peoples Congress, Voice of the East, Eastern Salvation Movement, MORIPAD, MORUEN among others.
The group recalled that some ‘faceless’ Niger Delta militants recently issued a threat to the Federal Government to release Kanu or face their wrath.
But BLC’s Head of Media and Publicity, Justin Okenwa; and Administrative Secretary, Austin-Mary Ndu, told the The AUTHORITY on Sun day in Owerri that the mili tants should rather demand for the release of Henry Okah, leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), who is being detained in South Africa.
According to Ndu, “the threat issued by the Niger Delta militants is an affront on BLC. The militants want to play to the gallery, and stoke more trouble for Kanu”.
He called on Igbo elites and leaders to as a matter of urgency “put their acts together and begin to speak with one voice on issues concerning Igbo people, and not to dance to the tune and taunting of detractors and oppressors”.
Ndu warned those, who ac cording to him, derive pleasure in condemning everything about Biafra for cheap political and business gains to desist and watch their backs, saying Igbos have suffered untold wicked ness, insults, and rejection in the country.
The duo stressed that the only authentic Niger Delta agitation group known to the BLC remains the MEND.
In his remarks, Okenwa said that “after a review of happen ings in Biafra land, the national council of BLC decided that the uncoordinated, unproductive, and playing-to-the gallery protests for the release of Kanu should be suspended to make room for proper orientation, cohesion and the best approach to achieve self-determination for independence and free dom.
“BLC believes the continued detention of Comrade Nnamdi Kanu and other pro-Biafra activists by the Nigerian authori ties is totally wrong and unacceptable and demands for their immediate release”.
The group condemned the Nigerian military for recently violating and killing unarmed Biafra protesters in Onitsha, Anambra State, noting that without uniform and weapons, the military personnel are fal lible.
It said it did not believe in the cowardly non-violence mantra of pro-Biafra groups but that a “Biafra by any means possible”, and warned that it will achieve its own country by whatever means required.
BLC further demanded for the release of all pro-Biafra ag­itators like Benjamin Onwuka and his 14 members of Biafra Zionists Movement (BZM) currently incarcerated in fed eral prisons across the country.
The group warned that dissolution of Nigeria was imminent and called on President Muhamadu Buhari to deploy tact and wisdom, and to tow the example of Mikhail Gorbachev of former Soviet Union so that the emergence of Biafra would be without much strife.
In the interim, BLC advised that Nigeria should return to the era of regions like East ern region and not zones like South/South or South East as currently in practice, saying that the 1914 amalgamation of Nigeria was premised on tri pod of East, West, and North.