The Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, has rejected the Labour Party, LP, presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and Igbo presidency.
Why IPOB does not endorse Peter Obi: IPOB said it’s neither interested in an Igbo President nor a Nigerian President of Southeast extraction.
What is IPOB's business?: The group said its members are not part of Obi’s supporters because they are interested in Nigeria’s disintegration.
Emma Powerful, the spokesman of the separatist group, said Nigeria was irredeemable.
In a statement he signed, Powerful said: “The Igbo people rallying behind Peter Obi are not IPOB members because IPOB’s goal is the disintegration of the Nigerian enterprise irrespective of whether Peter Obi or anyone else from the Biafran geographic space is contesting in the Nigerian farce of an election.
“IPOB is a freedom fighting movement and has nothing whatsoever to do with or in Nigerian politics. So long as we in IPOB are concerned, Nigeria is irredeemable.”
IPOB also reiterated its call for the release of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, and a referendum in the Southeast.
What you should know: Nnamdi Kanu is the current leader of the IPOB. He is a Nigerian- British citizen. The IPOB leader, who was granted bail in April 2017, fled the country after an invasion of his home in Afara-Ukwu, near Umuahia, Abia State, by the Nigerian military in September of that year.
He is currently in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS), and undergoing trial for act of terrorism against the federal republic of Nigeria, amongst other charges.
IPOB is a nationalist separatist group in Nigeria that aims to restore the Republic of Biafra, a country which seceded from Nigeria prior to the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970) and later re-joined Nigeria after its defeat by the Nigerian military. IPOB and its arm wing the Eastern Security Network are populated with Southeastern believers. They are also allied with the Anglophone Cameroonian independence movement.
About Biafra: Biafra was established on 30 May 1967 by Igbo military officer C. Odumegwu Ojukwu. Biafra was a response to series of ethnic tensions and military coups after Nigerian independence in 1960 that culminated in the 1966 massacres of Igbo people and other southeastern ethnic groups living in northern Nigeria.