Major Hamza
Al-Mustapha
…Stop
campaign of calumny against Kanu, MASSOB tells
Shettima
…IPOB’s
agitation, reaction to state of lopsideness —Ex PSC boss
…Accuses
Gowon of bias in creation of 12 states
By Peter
Okutu, Bashir Bello & Chimaobi Nwaiwu
ABAKALIKI—Former
Chief Security Officer to late General Sani Abacha, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha,
said Nigerians should expect the end to Biafra agitations soon.
This came as
the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB,
weekend, called on Yerima Shettima to stop his campaign of calumny against Mazi
Nnamdi Kanu, as the group will not accept or condone anybody associating MASSOB
with Ralph Uwazuruike or Biafra Independence Movement, BIM, in the country.
This is even
as the former chairman of Police Service Commission, PSC, Chief Simon
Okeke, said the agitation by the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, is a
reaction to the hopelessness and lopsidedness of successive governments
in Nigeria.
Agitations
will end soon
Major
Al-Mustapha disclosed this while speaking to newsmen at an International peace
campaign organised by Awareness for Good Leadership, Peace and Development, in
Katsina, weekend.
He said he
is working to see the end of the agitations and also working out ways on how to
mend issues from within the six geopolitical zones of the North and the
South.
He said he
has plans to bring together all classes of Nigerians together to identify
what the principles of peace is all about in the interest of the nation.
According to
him, “I’m already handling that issue of agitations for Biafra. If you have been
following what is going on, I’m at the centre of it. And this will come to pass
pretty soon and will take a new dimension on how we can mend issues from within
the six geopolitical zones or within the North and the South. You will
soon see the results and that will soon come to national attention. I left
there for here and I’m going back there, God willing.”
Stop
campaign of calumny against Kanu
In a
statement issued in Abakaliki, National Secretary of MASSOB, Comrade Ugwuoke
Ibem Ugwuoke, lambasted Yerima Shettima, leader Arewa Youths Consultative
Forum, for allegedly trying to deceive the people of Biafra and create
disaffection among the genuine pro-Biafra groups that are committed towards the
actualization and restoration of an independent and sovereign state of Biafra.
The
statement read in part: “MASSOB is not against BIM or Ralph Uwazuruike. We will
not accept or condone anybody associating MASSOB with Uwazuruike even
ignorantly.
“MASSOB has
a new leader in the person of Comrade Uchenna Madu, the former MASSOB National
Director of Information. We still wish to correct Yerima Shettima that the
so-called Ojukwu memorial lectures he annually attends in Owerri with tens of
Hausa-Fulani people is not MASSOB programme but that of Uwazuruike-led BIM.
“MASSOB
advises Yerima Shettima to stop his campaign of calumny against Mazi Nnamdi
Kanu and also his propaganda of deceit to paint Uwazuruike a white saint. The
people of Biafra know their leaders.”
IPOB’s
agitation, reaction to state of lopsideness —Ex PSC boss
Speaking
with select journalists during his quarterly news conference in his Akata
House, Amichi, Nnewi South Local Government Area, Anambra State, Chief Okeke
told Igbo elders and Nigerians who are castigating IPOB leader, Mazi Nnamdi
Kanu, to listen to him and address some of the points he has made through IPOB
activities.
Chief Okeke,
however, stated that secession is not the best option for Ndigbo,
rather if there is equitable governance in Nigeria and equity and fairness in
doing things in the country, there will be no need for Biafra restoration.
“IPOB’s
secession idea is arising from a state of hopelessness and lopsidedness that
successive governments in Nigeria have kept Biafrans. The agitation for Biafra
restoration is a reaction to some actions of non involvement of Ndigbo in the
Nigerian governance.”
Chief Okeke
blamed some Nigerian leaders, particularly former Head of State, Gen. Yakubu
Gowon (retd) for the woes in the country, saying: “His creation of 12 states,
instead of the regional government he met in office, has brought unnecessary
agitations by different ethnic groups in Nigeria.
“Gowon
created 12 States with jaundice in his head; he created the states to humiliate
Ndigbo, by ensuring that Ndigbo who live near the river banks, like today’s
Obigbo in Rivers State are lost to other states.”
I pray for
Biafran agitation to collapse in 2019—Methodist Prelate
Meanwhile,
the Prelate of the Methodist Church of Nigeria, Samuel Uche, has condemned the
agitation for the break-up of the country, saying that those championing it
were being sponsored by selfish politicians.
“All these
campaigns that the Igbo must leave the country or that Biafra must be are
all sponsored by politicians who are looking for political power,” Uche
said, yesterday, in Ibekwe, Ikot Abasi Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom State,
during a thanksgiving church service organised by Managing Director of Niger
Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Nsima Ekere.
Uche prayed:
“Any politician who sponsors people to kill others so that they can enter
political office will never enjoy that office. I pray that Biafra and all those
agitations will crumble in 2019. I am not PDP, APC or APGA. I am for every
Nigerian. Nigerians will reject bad leaders in 2019.”
Uche spoke
about “great deprivation” in the Niger Delta region and called on the Federal
Government to urgently address the problem of the area.
“As a leader
of the Methodist, I am saying here that we should allow this area, Niger Delta,
to control its resources and pay a certain percentage of money to the centre.”
“Let us
practice true federalism,” he said, adding that what is keeping Nigeria one was
nothing other than oil.
“All these
shouts of one Nigeria, one Nigeria is because of oil.
“If the oil
dries up today, it will be to your tents oh Nigeria!”
Mr. Uche
said he heard the finance minister say recently that there was improvement in
the nation’s economy.
He said he
believed the minister but that he would believe her the more when he sees
families around him enjoy three square meals daily.
He attacked
the nation’s politicians as being greedy lots.
Nigeria has
enough to take care of the people’s needs but not enough to satisfy greedy
politicians, he said.
“If we spend
responsibly what we have, everybody could be taken care of and everybody will
be happy.”
The NDDC
chief, Mr. Ekere, in his remark during the church service, thanked God for His
blessings upon his life and that of his wife.
Mr. Ekere
asked Nigerians to continue to pray for President Muhammadu Buhari and the
nation.
The event
was attended by several dignitaries, including Governor Solomon Lalong of
Plateau State, the former governor of Akwa Ibom State, Victor Attah; and the
Deputy National Chairman of the All Progressive Congress, APC, Segun Oni, who
represented the party’s National Chairman, John Oyegun.
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