The Leader of the Biafra Independence Movement (BIM), Chief Ralph Uwazuruike, has attributed the successes recorded by the movement to God, saying that when MASSOB started in 1999, nobody gave the Africa’s leading non-violent group any chance of survival as people felt that the clamour for the resuscitation of new Biafra would fizzle out the next day.
He stated this while addressing members of the movement on the preparation for the 17th anniversary of MASSOB, which comes up on September 13, 2016.
In a press statement issued to newsmen, yesterday and signed by the movement’s Director of Information, on his behalf, Mazi Chris Mocha, Uwazuruike lamented the killing of members from May 23, 2000 after the declaration of Biafra by Chief Ralph Uwazuruike, at Aba, Abia State.
The leader of the Biafra Movement recalled that from May 23, 2000 to May 22, 2013 the groups have lost about 3,006 of her members even as unrecorded causality figures may be close to recorded number, yet the struggle has refused to die.
He said they also destroyed his cars in Lagos and confiscated his three SUV jeeps, BMW motorcycle out rider machine and a Yamaha generator, all in a bid for the former Imo State Governor, Chief Achike Udenwa to win the hearts of his Abuja political masters for a second term.
Explaining further, Uwazuruike said that the group’s national headquarters at Okigwe, Imo State, was razed on December 21, 2001 yet the struggle has refused to die.
He recalled that so many attempts on his life were made in order to truncate the struggle, but rather the struggle dying, the movement has continued to wax from strength to strength each day.
The BIM Leader disclosed that because of his refusal to pay the sum of N5million police protection fee to the former Director, Department of State Services (DSS), Imo State, Mr Alex O Amechina (now retired) he was advised to leave the country and go on exile.
When he refused to go in to exile, there were regular invasions of his residence and MASSOB secretariat by security agencies.
Chief Uwazuruike also decried the unprofessional conduct of Nigerian security agencies in managing separatist agitations, claiming that the blood of the dead activists who died in active service have promoted the Biafra struggle.
He likened the struggle for the actualisation of the sovereign state of Biafra to the struggle of the late South African President Nelson Mandela, recalling that Mandela’s mother died while her son, Mandela, was in prison like his (Uwazuruike’s) mother Ezinne Monica, also died while her son, Ralph Lebeanya was in Keffi Prison in Nassarewa State.
The BIM Leader lauded the efforts of his members for their commitment and consistency to the Biafra struggle, pointing out that if they were wrong persons, God would not have used them to achieve these successes recorded so far.
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