BREAKING: TROUBLE AS RADIO BIAFRA SACKS NNAMDI KANU AS DIRECTOR, IPOB LEADER
BREAKING: TROUBLE AS RADIO BIAFRA SACKS NNAMDI KANU AS
DIRECTOR, IPOB LEADER
There was a mixture of excitement and
confusion in Nigeria security circles Sunday morning when the controversial
Radio Biafra, the mouthpiece of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra
(IPOB), again hit the airwaves about 6am-7am.
But instead of the fiery rhetoric
with which it was associated with the radio announced the sack of Nnamdi Kanu,
as director and leader of IPOB.
Initial response in some quarters was
that the move may have been orchestrated by security operatives to further
dampen morale of members of the group.
That explanation was, however,
dropped when it became obvious that the announcement itself took security
operatives by surprise.
Indeed the sack of Kanu, it was
learnt, kept the security agencies worried, as it could only suggest a
mutation, perhaps to a more dangerous group.
It would be recalled that IPOB was a
splinter group from Ralph Uwazuruike’s Movement for the Actualisation of the
Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB).
According to top security sources,
the development is a source of concern.
All had been quiet on the IPOB front
until on Friday in Anambra when IPOB members despite ban demonstrated and vowed
to stop the state’s November 18 gubernatorial election.
The organisation has been receding
from the public consciousness as many Igbos began to openly talk against the
separation and disunity agenda of IPOB.
The Federal Government has been
reaching out to the South East and their state governors have taken a hard
stance against IPOB, accusing the organization of pursuing the anti-Igbo
interest. Now comes this totally new and unexpected development.
At the height of the IPOB controversy
the national unity was greatly challenged when Northern youths issued Igbos
resident in the North a quit notice.
The Radio Biafra’s programme started
with the lady announcer, who gave her name as Ifeoma Okorafor, stating that the
radio was back on air and that IPOB was restructuring.
Then the shocking announcement that
“Mazi Nnamdi Nwanekaenyi Kanu, the former Director of Radio Biafra is hereby
dismissed and removed as Director of Radio Biafra following extensive and
intensive consultations”.
The announcer named one “Mazi
Ezenwachukwu Sampson Okwudili as Kanu’s replacement.”
The announcer reeled out reasons why
Kanu was removed to include:
“Personalisation of the Biafran
struggle and derailing from the core objectives of IPOB as a grassroots
movement.
“Kanu’s actions and his decisions to
incite members of IPOB towards violence leading to the death of many innocent
young people in Onitsha, Aba and Umuahia is totally unacceptable and grossly
irresponsible.
“Kanu privately collected £14 million
and another $22 million to purchase landed properties abroad in his name and
that of his father, Igwe Israel Kanu, in a clear case of ‘monkey dey work
baboon dey chop’.
“Kanu turned our collective struggle
into a money-making enterprise for himself and his father. Thus the monies
contributed by enterprising and hard-working Igbo youths across the world are
being collected and converted by one man and his father while pretending to be
sacrificing for the cause.
“Upon his release from detention in
April 2017, one expected Kanu to drum up support for the release of his
colleagues and co-detainees such as Chidiebere Onwudiwe, Benjamin Madubugwu and
David Nwawuisi. These are our brothers who were arrested at the same time with
him and they should not be forgotten. We hereby demand their release. Kanu,
since his release, has never spoken about them or appealed for the release of these
our freedom fighters. Instead, he has been going about collecting chieftaincy
titles and having a messianic swagger that even allowed full-blooded Igbo men
to kneel down and kiss his feet.
“Kanu threw away the original meaning
of our collective struggle for personal gain and vain glorification. IPOB
believes in democracy as a solid base of any modern state, the rule of law, and
will always reject violence in all its ramifications.”
The security agencies do not as yet
know what to make of this new development in IPOB.
The sack of Kanu is only the latest
change in the checkered history of Radio Biafra, which began as the mouthpiece
of MASSOB.
