…Agitating Igbo groups form Biafra Peoples National Council

 … Call on Commonwealth of Nations to expel Nigeria

From Chidi Nnadi, Enugu

IGBO groups agitating for a sovereign state of Biafra may have begun a major move to actualising their dream by streamlining ef­forts and re-strategising.

The Igbo groups, in the new effort, have formed a unified body called Biafra Peoples National Council (BPNC) which the leaders believe would expedite ac­tion in actualising Biafra.

The new body does not however include Chief Ralph Uwazuruike’s Bi­afra Independent Move­ment (BIM) or faction of MASSOB and detained Nnamdi Kanu’s Indig­enous People of Biafra (IPOB). The groups and leaders who formed BPNC include Uchenna Madu faction of MASSOB; Felix Obioha, Eastern Peoples Congress; Austin-Mary Ndukwu, Biafra Libera­tion Council; Osita Chuk­wuagbanarinam, Salvation People- Biafra; Jackson Nebechukwu, Ekwenche Organisation. Others are Adiele Chikadibia, Biafra Nations Youth League; Rev. Dr. Stanley C. Ajah, Biafra Revolution Organ­isation; Prince Oliver Chi­dozie, Biafra Liberation Crusade; Mr. Ayers Shi­mobi, Biafra Movement for Sovereignty; Godwin Offor, Biafra Regional Emancipation Movement; Joseph Ohanenye, Bilie Organisation and repre­sentative of Biafra in the Diaspora, Dr Chukwuma Egemba.

In a communique signed by all their leaders, after the All-Biafran Conference (ABC) organised by the Organisation of Emerging African States (OEAS) in Accra, Ghana from May 27 to 31, the newly formed BPNC would form a col­legiate parliament com­prising representatives of Biafra ethnic nationalities and pro-Biafra organisa­tions.

They also agreed that “Biafra shall be a state founded on equity, fair­ness, justice, participatory democracy and egalitari­anism and even develop­ment.”

To achieve this, they also agreed that the adminis­trative and political capi­tal of Biafra should not be concentrated in one loca­tion but spread across the Biafran land.

“These capitals shall in­clude but not limited to; executive, legislative, ju­dicial, cultural, economic, science and technology, agriculture and defence,” they disclosed, agreeing to draw up a legal framework for the new Biafra state.

Leaders of the new group frowned and con­demned “the attitude of the Commonwealth of Na­tions towards the sense­less, cruel, inhuman, de­grading and extra-judicial killings of more than 700 unarmed civilians of Biaf­ran origin and pro-Biafran activists by various securi­ty apparatus of the Federal Government of Nigeria and its militias under the disguise of Fulani herds­men.”

Accusing the Common­wealth of playing double standards by not invoking sanctions on the Federal Government, they called on the body to “imme­diately begin a process of expelling the Federal Republic of Nigeria from the Commonwealth of Na­tions.