Founder and leader of Biafra Independent Movement/ Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (BIM/MASSOB), Chief Ralph Uwazuruike says the organization is working hard at ensuring that the UN recognizes Biafra very soon.
Uwazuruike in an interview with The Sun, said he started MASSOB in 1999 with a 25 agenda. “I took into consideration the protocol of the Montevideo Convention of 1933 in mind. Before this time, there was this belief that the United Nations would recognise people who are fighting for their independence using whatever means.”
“So, what I did is to come up with a 25 agenda of action towards the realisation of an independent Biafra. The first thing I did was to produce the Bill of Rights which I sent to the United Nations in the early part of 2000. I remembered that it was even one of our great sons, Emeka Obasi of Hallmark, who helped me with the correct addresses of the offices of the United Nations.
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“However, I did not make the 25 agenda of action public because I knew that our people are hijackers and that they would steal the programmes. So, I was just taking them one after the other. One of the reasons is that at a certain stage in the struggle, we would have political parties for participation in elections in Nigeria because we took into consideration that referendums are not part of the 1999 constitution as amended and such provisions have to be inserted into the constitution before you start talking about referendums in Nigeria.
“And this has to be done by our own platform, our people and supporters. That was even why, at a later stage with the late Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, we even had to float the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), so that the APGA government in the South East could push for such an agenda.
“But the politicians who came into the party did not understand our motives but rather started carving their own agenda of becoming the president of Nigeria. Today, you can see where APGA is. Instead of a party that is supposed to be present in all the Southeast states, it is only now in Anambra State and being managed by a small group of people who are using APGA as their source of livelihood.
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Uwazuruike also stated that the lack of unity among the Igbo is why it may be difficult for the region to present a common front ahead of the 2023 presidential election.
“Yes of course, because they hate themselves. Now, take for instance all those people talking of the President of Nigeria from Igbo extraction, how many have visited me as Ijele Ndigbo, to tell me, even though they know that I have a platform of millions of followers? Rather, it is people from the North who have come here to seek my support for their ambition because they recognise me.
“But because we hate ourselves, my own people cannot come here because of hatred. They would rather go to the Yoruba and Hausa. It is not their fault because it is in their genes. With disunity, hatred and bigotry, how can we achieve anything?