Ben Nwabueze warns Buhari to unban Ipob or Igbo elders will take over agitation struggle

CONSTITUTIONAL lawyer Professor Ben Nwabueze has warned that Igbo elders may be forced to take over the agitation for justice across the southeast geo-political zone unless the government is fair in its dealing the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob).

 

Over the last three years, Ipob, has championed the cause of marginalisation across southeast Nigeria, pointing out that Igbos are discriminated against in terms of appointments and infrastructure. In response, the federal government has cracked down on the separatist group, driving its leader Nnamdi Kanu into hiding and labelling it a terrorist organisation.

 

Following the crackdown, there have been calls for dialogue between Igbo leaders and the government and already, several meetings have already taken place. However, professor Nwabueze said he will not partake in any peace talks until the federal government reverses the proscription of the Ipob and removed it from its list of terrorist organisations.

 

He stated this when the leadership of Ipob who visited him in his Kosisieme Family Estate residence in Atani, in Ogbaru Local Government Area of Anambra State. Ipob had gone to apologise to him and the leadership of Eastern Consultative Assembly for disrupting their meeting in Enugu on February 27, 2018.

 

Professor Nwabueze said, “If the injustice being meted by the federal government on Ipob is not addressed, it will get to the stage when it will become an all-embracing Igbo movement, that elders like me will take over the agitation and it will spell doom for the country. The injustice meted on Ndigbo and everything concerning them in Nigeria, justifies the agitation by Ipob.

 

"Injustice against Ndigbo, dates back to 1965 when the governing council of the University of Lagos, dominated by the Yoruba attempted to illegally remove a vice chancellor of Igbo extraction of the institution, Professor Enyi Njoku. At the time, I mobilised all the university students and lecturers in protest and the university was closed down for a whole session."

 

He lambasted the current administration for proscribing Ipob when organisations and associations like armed herdsmen, whom he said had massacred and slaughtered many Nigerians and are still killing people, have not been proscribed or declared a terrorist organisation. Professor Nwabueze said that as a minimum requirement to participate in talks, the government must unproscribe Ipob and remove it from the list of  terrorist organisations.

 

“I will not participate in any kind of peace talk so long as Ipob remains proscribed and so long as it remains a terrorist group or organisation in the eyes of the federal government. Ipob is only agitating for Biafra and self determination and they have killed nobody.

 

"On the contrary, Ipob members have been killed and are still being killed by the federal government’s troops. Nothing has been done to those who have committed murder and slaughtered innocent and law abiding citizens as they have not even disarmed the herdsmen who are still moving about with AK 47riffles slaughtering people all over the place,” Professor Nwabueze added.

Share