The Biafra Independent Movement, BIM, has asserted that it was not interested in the restructuring of Nigeria, but a complete break out from the country.
It was reacting to President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent warning that his government would not tolerate any agitation for the division of the country.
BIM’s National Director for Information, Mr. Sunday Okereafor, while speaking with Punch explained that the movement would never be intimidated into dropping the struggle for Biafra.
He lamented a situation where its members were tagged miscreants, maintaining that it was wrong for those seeking for a Biafran nation to be given bad names.
“We don’t want restructuring. There is a difference between restructuring and what we stand for; it is Biafra or nothing. BIM supporters and members are not miscreants. Nobody should describe us as miscreants because our style of agitation isnot violence.
“If we are called miscreant, then those calling us such a name are saying Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo and others who fought for the freedom of Nigeria were miscreants.
“Without Azikiwe, Awolowo and others, who fought for the freedom of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari would not have been the President of Nigeria now.
“In his recent speech, he (President Buhari) referred to us as “some elements”; but we are freedom fighters, we are not elements. We are fighting for freedom through our non-violent approach and in line with internationally recognised practice,” he stressed.
He added, “Secession is not an abomination; if the President thinks secession is an abomination, why then is he in support of the call that Israel should give Palestine freedom.
“If he says it (secession) is a taboo, but Britain allowed Nigeria and other former colonies to go. So, there is nothing wrong if Biafra gets freedom.”
On the controversy surrounding the ownership of Radio Biafra in London, Okereafor insisted that contrary to the claim by the Indigenous People of Biafra, the radio station belonged to BIM and its leader, Chief Ralph Uwazurike.
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