No Further Negotiation with FG until Kanu’s Release, IPOB Declares

David-Chyddy Eleke in Awka

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has asserted that the group would not enter any fresh negotiations with the federal government until Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is released from detention.

IPOB’s publicity secretary, Emma Powerful stated this yesterday in a press release made available to THISDAY in Awka, Anambra capital.

Powerful’s release was coming at a time when northern elder statesman, Alhaji Tanko Yakassai had granted an interview, saying that Biafrans cannot lay claims to ownership of oil in the region.

He (Powerful) stated that the move was meant to whittle the power of Biafrans and also reduce it. For this reason, he added that the group was not ready to go into any further negotiations with the federal government except the release of its leader.

It berated Yakassai for his poor sense of history over ownership of oil in Nigeria, saying it was a deliberate attempt to cause disaffection in the country.

Part of the release reads, “We condemn the statement credited to Alhaji Tanko Yakassai that the Biafra agitation is annoying and the oil in Biafra-land does not belong to the owners of the indigenous people of the land.

“This statement contained in this interview is irritating that an elder like Tanko Yakassai does not know history of Nigeria and why Biafra must leave Nigeria without leaving any of her clan or tribe behind.

“It is pathetic that this Alhaji Tanko Yakassai did not see anything wrong with the amorphous geographical expression called Nigeria. The late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe allowed himself to be tricked and used by the then British government to keep this vacuum named Nigeria by Flora Shaw.

“We reiterate again that no negotiation of any sorts unless the government releases our leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and other members detained illegally in all the prisons and security cells across the country.

“He (Yakassai) and his fellow politicians in Nigeria cannot stop the restoration of Biafra. Our parents were not born Nigerians for the information of this politician and others; therefore we cannot secede from something we were not part of”, the release noted.