By Phil Okose, Onitsha
The leadership of BIM-MASSOB otherwise known as Biafra Internal Government (BIG), has restated its commitment that non-violent process for the achievement of self-determination for Biafra is legal and legitimate, and as such, would continue with it.
A statement issued by the Biafra Director of Information and Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Elder Chris Mocha, said that self-determination was the right of a country or a region and its people to be independent and to choose their own government and political system.
“It is not only natural and inalienable, but it is also articulated, recognized and supported by the United Nations (UN) which Nigeria is a signatory to,” Mocha said.
He further stressed that in the course of leading BIM -MASSOB in the genuine quest for self-determination struggle, “our non-violence members have become the constant target and victims of the state of Nigeria, a fact well documented by independent human rights bodies
from May 23, 2000, with the killing of Mr. Gabriel Ogu and Joseph Okereke, till April this year.
“While we condemn the frequent arrests of Biafrans, BIM-MASSOB stated that the acts of human right abuses perpetrated by the Nigerian state against our members over the past 22 years, included public humiliation, aggression, torture, prolonged detention without trial, wrongful imprisonment, battery, assault, murder and dispossession of property.
Specifically, Mr. Uchenna Okeke and Ikechukwu Ajah have just regained their freedom, but several officials of BIM-MASSOB and many Biafrans are currently being held in various prisons across Nigeria.”
“This time, on the orders and powers of the draconian regime of President Muhammadu Buhari, even when self-determination struggle for Biafra is being carried out in a very peaceful manner.”
The statement further accentuated that self-determination was “the only thing standing between the exhausted people of Biafra, who are predominantly Christians, and their total annihilation by the state of Nigeria,” stressing that “our commitment to actualizing Biafra as a sovereign state is firm and resolute.”