Biafra: Oodua Group Supports Biafra, Urges Buhari To Release Nnamdi Kanu
A Pan-Yoruba group, Apapo Oodua Koya, (AOKOYA) has expressed support for the agitation for the State of Biafra by some Igbo youths.
The group also urged the Federal Government to release the leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, (IPOB), Mr Nnamdi Kanu who has spent about three weeks in detention without trial.
A statement by Apapo Oodua Koya, (AOKOYA) issued on Wednesday said the continuous detention of Kanu without trial violates the basic tenets of democracy and the rule of law. The Pan-Yoruba group stated that it supports the agitation for the sovereign state of Biafra saying that the Yoruba will not allow its people to be used by a renewed alliance of the reactionaries from the South West and the Hausa-Fulani North that seem to be running Nigeria at the present.
“Irrespective of the offences Mr Kanu is deemed to have committed, he is innocent until proven guilty by the court of law. President Mohammadu Buhari is acting the script of a military dictator by keeping an accused in detention without trial. This is not the change Nigerians voted for”, the statement signed by AOKOYA’s Deputy Director of Publicity, Akinolu Adebo, stated.
“We are ready to work with the Igbo people. We stand with them in this period of persecution. Our hearts are with them. We commend the peaceful nature of their protests. The agitation for Biafra is supported by various United Nations, (UN) conventions on the rights of indigenous peoples. It is wrong for President Buhari to assume that all nationalities must support his government when in reality his political and economic programmes are vague.”
The group said the agitation for Biafra and Oodua Republic will continue as long as Nigeria remains the fiefdom of a few despotic and deceitful leaders who for half a century have fooled and deluded the people with their self-serving policies.
“It is the same trick over and over again. It is either some people do not have a sense of history, they are daft or self-serving. President Buhari will not initiate any fundamental change. His generation is part of the problem. He claims to be fighting corruption but does not wish to deal with the root cause of corruption which is the fraudulent political and economic structure of the Nigerian state that keeps some people as perpetual masters and those who lay the golden eggs as perpetual slaves.” AOKOYA said.
“In a true Federalism, a Northerner should not be the Chairman and at the same time Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, (NPA). There is no reason why police should not be a matter for states and there is no justification why oil revenues should be appropriated by the Federal Government in a multi-ethnic society. These are the age-long trends of repression that Buhari and his Hausa-Fulani cohorts which to sustain in the name of fighting corruption.