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From Stanley Uzoaru, Owerri
Founder of the Biafra Independent Movement (BIM-MASSOB), Chief Ralph Uwazuruike, has called on members of the Eastern Security Network (ESN), Biafra Liberation Army (BLA), and other pro-Biafra groups to suspend the Monday sit-at-home order and abandon the forest-based approach to agitation.
In a speech released on Sunday, Uwazuruike, who turns 70 soon, framed his remarks as “a meeting between a father and his son,” directed at the ESN and BLA. He said the purpose was to prevent more deaths of young agitators “before their fathers.”
Referencing recent videos showing corpses of youths in the forest, Uwazuruike said, “It has been a long they have been displaying the corpses of our children.” He argued that many ESN members have “genuine minds” believing Biafra can be achieved from the forest or that it will secure the release of IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, but said that approach will not work.
“If you’re inside the forest looking for Biafra, it won’t get Biafra for us, rather, it will make Biafra go back,” he said. “Staying inside the forest to threaten the government to free Kanu, it’s a lie. No amount of threat will make the Federal Government free Kanu.”
On the sit-at-home directive, the BIM-MASSOB leader said ordering people to stay indoors every Monday or for “seven days for the next 100 days” will not compel Abuja to act, because it “won’t have any impact in Nigeria” and the “federal government will not succumb under intimidation.”
Uwazuruike also warned that the planned State police legislation would make forest operations harder in the South East for the Biafra agitators due to limited land mass, compared with states like Kogi or the Sambisa forest.
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“The moment this State police legislation is passed now and it goes into operation, you’re in trouble,” he said.
He drew a comparison with Boko Haram, alleging that members of that group are “protected,” granted amnesty, and, sometimes, absorbed into security agencies, while asking: “Who is protecting the ESN?” He accused pro-Biafra voices abroad of exposing young people to danger while they live abroad with their families.
Uwazuruike’s first demand was for ESN and allied groups to “stop sit-at-home on Mondays” and publicly announce its cancellation. He said the May 30 sit-at-home is acceptable as “part of the struggle,” but the weekly Monday lockdown “will not help Kanu to be freed, rather it will bring death to everybody and backwardness.”
“If they lay low, solutions will come out, all the atrocities committed will be forgiven,” he added. “We must get Biafra, but not through violence or living in the forest. If we can get Biafra without you dying, why must you die.”
Defending his position, Uwazuruike said he launched the Biafra agitation in Lagos in 1999 and relocated to the South East within six months, where he has remained. “If getting Biafra is by staying inside the forest I will be the first to go to the forest,” he said.
He dismissed suggestions that he had been bribed for the speech, saying, “Let my conscience judge me, future will tell who is a saboteur.”
