IPOB blasts Buhari

 

Counsel to the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mr. Amobi Nzelu has accused President Muhammadu Buhari of using frequent jibes on Biafra agitators as a means of diverting attention from critical issues of governance facing the nation.
 

Nzelu described the president’s rejection of a referendum on Biafra, during his visit to the United States of America for the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) as most inauspicious.
 

He recalled that the president had lately used the opportunity of Eid-el-Kabir Sallah homage to him by National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members in Daura, Katsina State to ask Easterners among them to go and tell their people to forget Biafra.
 

The legal practitioner noted that Nigeria was saddled with too many problems including economic recession, Boko Haram insurgency, large scale unemployment and hunger that should have taken priority instead of bringing the issue of Biafra to the front burner.
 

Insisting that self-determination was an accumulation of grievances that did not come overnight, he said “only constructive dialogue can redress it.”
 

Nzelu reasoned that there was nothing wrong in allowing a referendum so long as “the condition that gave 

rise to the agitation was yet to be addressed.
 

“The president is trying to bring the issue of Biafra to the front burner at the expense of what is going on economically in this country; it’s not worth it.
 

“People are dying. The issue of Biafra is diversionary; let him address the serious issues of Nigeria. If they say they want referendum so be it; test it out.
 

“It is the treatment that made them to ask for certain things they ask for; treat them equally and this matter will end. That is why I said it requires constructive dialogue,” Nzelu said.