We are not a terror organisation – IPOB insists
The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) on Saturday reiterated that it was not a terror organisation.
It faulted a presidential spokesman Mallam Garba Shehu who reportedly was of the view that the international community to should declare IPOB a terror group.
The group said the world did not need to be told who terrorists were as they already knew them.
In a statement by its Media and Publicity, Emma Powerful, IPOB urged Shehu to support the international advocacy for a referendum.
The statement reads in part: “The world does not need to be told who terrorists are because they already know them…
“The world knows that IPOB is for freedom of Biafra.
“IPOB operates in over 100 different countries and they know what IPOB stands for.
“None of those countries has ever declared as terrorists. Garba Shehu’s cries cannot change their conviction about IPOB.
“Garba Shehu should instead…call Western Powers to help organise a referendum for Indigenous Peoples in Nigeria to decide where they want to be – whether in Nigeria on standing on their own.”
IPOB leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is on trial over treasonable felony charges at the Federal High Court in Abuja.
He has been in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS).
The Federal Government had also proscribed IPOB.
The charges against Kanu read in part:
*Bright Chimezie, Chidiebere Onwidiwe, Benjamin Madubugwu, David Nwawuisi and Kanu, in 2014 and 2015, in Nigeria and London, conspired to broadcast on Radio Biafra their plan to secede from Nigeria and form the Republic of Biafra, thereby committing an offence punishable under Section 516 of the Criminal Code Act, Cap. C77 of 2004.
*Kanu illegally smuggled radio transmitters into Nigeria, which he used to disseminate “hate broadcasts”, encouraging the “secession of the Republic of Biafra”, from Nigeria.
*Kanu imported a Radio transmitter known as TRAM 50L, which was concealed in a container that was declared as used household items, to use same to disseminate information about secession plans by the IPOB.
*Kanu, “on or about the 28th April, 2015 in London, United Kingdom did in a broadcast on Radio Biafra monitored in Enugu, Enugu state and other parts of Nigeria within the jurisdiction of this honourable court, referred to Major General Muhammadu Buhari, GCON, President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as a paedophile, a terrorist, an idiot and an embodiment of evil, knowing same to be false and you thereby committed an offence contrary to section 375 of the Criminal Code Act, Cap C. 38 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004”.
*The defendants committed treasonable felony, an offence punishable under Section 41(C) of the Criminal Code Act, CAP C38 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria.
*The defendants managed the affairs of the IPOB, “an unlawful society”.