IPOB Mounts Campaign for Biafra Referendum

 

With the successful outcome of the June 23 referendum which paved the way for Britain to withdraw its membership of the European Union (EU), the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) at the weekend launched a campaign on Biafra referendum tagged BIAFREXIT.

IPOB also launched a BIAFREXIT logo and urged the British government which wields enormous influence on the present Nigerian government to support Biafra referendum.

IPOB made the demand in a statement titled: ‘There must be BIAFREXIT in line with the just concluded BREXIT’ issued by its spokespersons, Mr. Emma Nmezu and Dr. Clifford Chukwuemeka Iroanya, saying that the British people have made their choice and it was now time to support the people of Biafra to do the same.

 
While congratulating the government and people of Britain for organising the BREXIT vote and also lauding the British government for respecting the wishes of her citizens, IPOB said it smacks of hypocrisy that the British Prime Minister, Mr. David Cameron that initiated the BREXIT vote has been propping up the Buhari‘s Government in their murderous acts of suppressing the quest by Biafrans to exit from Nigeria.

“This leaves Biafrans to ask if Cameron’s hypocrisy is because Biafrans are blacks and if black Africans are inferior to white British people?

“The British government has a historical aversion to the quest for self-determination for Biafra and supported Nigeria with every resource during the civil war.

“It is rather contemptuous attitude to the present agitation by pro-Biafra movements is a pointer that its policy on Biafra has not changed.”

But IPOB wondered why Cameron should think that what is good for the white British people is not good for the black people of Africa, especially Biafrans, adding that the British Prime Minister “in organising BREXIT is taking advantage of the rights of people to make their choice.

“But in denying Biafrans the right to choose their own nation, Cameron is telling Biafrans that they are inferior because of the colour of their skin. Cameron is directly telling Biafrans that because they come from an inferior race, they do not deserve to exist as a nation of their own choice,” the pro-Biafra organisation stated.

In reinforcing its argument for BIAFREXIT, IPOB alluded to the signals coming from Britain indicating that a second referendum for the quest of Scotland to exit from Britain was underway, adding that there would never be any attempt to suppress the Scottish agitation for self determination.

“Both Cameron and his would-be successor will not stop (Scottish referendum) nor will they roll out tanks and other lethal weapons to mow down the Scots like the British-supported Nigeria has been doing to Biafrans.

“We have to re-emphasise here that self-determination is a right that must be exercised by all free people. Even Donald Trump, the presidential candidate of the Republican Party in the USA tweeted on June 24, 2016 that ‘Self-determination is the sacred right of all free peoples.’ By blocking the self-determination efforts of Biafrans through overt and covert supports to the killer called Muhammadu Buhari, is David Cameron telling the world that Biafrans are still in slavery despite the abolition of slavery in 1833?”

IPOB faulted: “The faulty argument by Cameron and the British Government that they do not want to alter the pre-independence territorial integrity of Nigeria,” noting that “this same territorial integrity of Nigeria was tampered with by the ceding of Bakassi to Cameroun.

“We recall that in 1982 Britain went to war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands but this same Britain never supported Nigeria to prevent the ceding of Bakassi to Cameroun and this distortion of the pre-independence territorial integrity of Nigeria is the same excuse used by Britain to continue to keep Biafra under Nigeria,” IPOB said.

It brooded over “the consistent British official policy of not supporting any Christian nation that needs support for independence or that is going through any form of internal/external aggression,” citing the British government backing of “the Muslim-dominated Nigeria to carry out genocide against a Christian Biafran nation between 1967 and 1970.”

The pro-Biafra movement said it was encouraged by the successful conclusion of the BREXIT referendum hence the British government has a moral obligation to support BIAFREXIT and exert the needed pressure on the Buhari government to make it happen.

Said IPOB: “From the success of BREXIT, we call upon the incoming Prime Minister to work with Buhari to speedily organise BIAFREXIT. In addition, we warn the incoming Prime Minister that failure to probe the criminality of Buhari against the Biafrans will make Britain culpable in the re-enacted 21st century Biafran genocide. It is unfair and hypocritical that the British Government will allow free expression of the wishes of her citizens while on the other hand supporting Buhari in his brutal mass-murder of Biafrans who are exercising their God-given freedom to determine their nationality. We believe that the days of slavery are gone and the black race should not be treated as an inferior and expendable race.”