BIAFRA: Ex-Gov Obi joins fight for Kanu’s release, urges Buhari to change hardline posture

The number of prominent voices and groups from South East and other parts of Nigeria calling for the release of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu and other Biafra activists have continued to rise by the day.

Joining the demand is the immediate past governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, who has called on the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari to “change its hard-line posture on this issue and yield to the persistent clamour for the release of Nnamdi Kanu and other Biafran activists to douse the tension in the country.”

The former governor stated this while fielding questions from newsmen in Enugu on Thursday, stressing that the employment of force by the present administration cannot solve the Biafra agitation because agitations such as these are best resolved by the use of dialogue.

He said, “I wish to appeal to the Federal Government to change its hard-line posture on this issue and yield to the persistent clamour for the release of Nnamdi Kanu and other Biafran activists to douse the tension in the country, especially in the South-East and South-South geo-political zones.

“The Federal Government should engage them in dialogue. Every agitation in the world is resolved through dialogue and not by means of force.

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“This has been my consistent position, and I remember making the same point when I spoke at an event organised in Enugu in February 2016 by the Igbo Youth Movement.”

Obi further said that though the Federal Government may have reservations about the Biafra agitation, but it must also realise and acknowledge that Biafra agitators, like other citizens, have their fundamental rights of freedom of expression and assembly guaranteed by the Nigerian Constitution.

Other prominent Nigerians and group who have called for the release of Kanu and others include, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Prof Charles Soludo, Governor Ayodele Fayose, Prof Pat Utomi, Nzuko Umunna (Group of Igbo Professionals) and Femi Fani-Kayode, among several others.

Kanu and others are being prosecuted by President Buhari-led government for demanding for the separation of Biafra from Nigeria.

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