The Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), yesterday described as a welcome development, President Muhammadu Buhari’s comment that any Nigerian is free to leave the country if they have another one.
The president had on Tuesday, during a meeting with Niger Delta leaders at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja, said “any Nigerian is free to leave the country if they have another one”.
He also stated that “If anybody has a country to go to, let him go, we will stay here and salvage our country”.
In its reaction, IPOB, in a statement entitled, “IPOB welcomes Muhammadu Buhari’s declaration on the impending disintegration of Nigeria, but says no to conditions”, said that it is delighted with the comment of Mr. President, who it said seems to have bowed to international pressure to consider the inevitable disintegration of Nigeria.
The statement signed by signed by the group’s spokespersons – Emma Nmezu, a lawyer and Clifford Iroanya –reads: “We, the IPOB are delighted with the comments attributed to retired Maj-Gen Muhammadu Buhari, who seems to have bowed to international pressure to consider the inevitable disintegration of Nigeria, though with conditions we find inconsistent with common sense and logic.
“It is crystal clear that Buhari has seen the futility of fighting against a determined people who are bent on restoring their God given nation which was unjustly robbed them by slave merchants later turned colonialists.
“From all indications, Buhari must have consulted with his colonial backers and religious hardliners in Saudi Arabia who perhaps have taken the time to school him on the sanctity of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP), the inviolability and irreducibility of the rights of Indigenous People to self-determination”.
