The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has enjoined other agitators for self-determination from other ethnic nationalities in the country to join its one-month sit-at-home protest commencing on October 21.
This was contained in a statement issued by the Media and Public Secretary of the separatist group, Emma Powerful, on Sunday.
According to him, the one-month protest would be subject to the refusal of the Directorate of State Services to bring its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, to court on the said date.
The group alleged that it had learnt that there was a plan by the Nigerian Government not to bring Kanu to court on that day as a ploy to continue to incarcerate him. File photo used to illustrate story.
The statement read in part, “Following our earlier declaration of one-month lockdown of Biafra land should the Nigeria Government fail to bring our leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, to the court on October 21, we, the global family of the Indigenous People of Biafra request our brothers and sisters in Oduduwa republic and Middle Belt, including Igbo and Biafra businessmen and women, traders who are doing business outside Biafra land, to shut down their businesses to demonstrate our resolve for the emergence of our new nation, Biafra, and support for our leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, and others who are facing a similar fate with us to join us in sympathy protest.
“We need to put our differences behind us and rise as one people to defend our ancestral land against our common enemy and show Fulani and their cohorts that Nigeria belongs to all of us and any Biafra man residents in Kano, Kaduna, Jos, Jigawa, and other parts of North and western parts of Nigeria must shut down their shops in support of this fight for freedom and release of our leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
“We cannot afford to abandon him at this point after sacrificing so much for us all. We must not fail to understand that the Federal Government dread Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Igboho; two heroes of freedom, and that is why it wants to keep them out of circulation. But we must resist the evil plot.”
In June, the IPOB leader was arrested in Kenya and extradited to Nigeria to face treason charges.
He was subsequently arraigned and brought before Binta Nyako, a judge of the Federal High Court in Abuja, who asked him to be remanded in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS).
Kanu is facing charges bordering on treasonable felony instituted against him at the court in response to his agitation for the Republic of Biafra.
The scheduled trial in July suffered a setback, with the judge adjourning till October 21.