"Produce Nnamdi Kanu Within 7 Days" - IPOB Tells FG, South-East Governors

Awka – THE Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, last night gave the federal government ans South East governors seven days to produce its leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, or be prepared to face consequences that would come from the group.

IPOB media and publicity secretary, Comrade Emma Powerful said in a statement that the where about of Mazi Kanu has remained unknown several days after the attacked on his house in Umuahia by the military

According to him, IPOB members had gone deep in search to locate Kanu and his parents to no avail.

“We are giving the federal government and South East governors seven days to produce or tell us the condition of our leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. If he still alive, they should charge him to court because if anything happens to him, the South East governors should bear the consequences after the expiration of this notice, or they should hasten to build more prisons and acquire more weapons which they will use to kill more Biafrans,” Powerful said.

Powerful said further that after going through the record of IPOB members in Kanu’s compound on the day of the attack, it was discovered that about 38 members were arrested, adding that they had also not been seen to date.

The statement read: “We are once again raising alarm for the United Nation and the relevant bodies across the globe to ask Nigerian government and her security operatives to give details of IPOB leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and his parents, including those dead bodies and those picked up alive during the attack and invasion of our leader’s compound in Isiama Afaraukwu Ibeku Umuahia.

“We wonder why the South Eastern governors would decide to collaborate with Hausa Fulani oligarchy to kill our leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and parents. Nnamdi Kanu has been using nonviolence approach for the actualization of Biafra since 2012 when the struggle for Biafra independence started.

“It is important for the Nigerian government and South East governors to produce our leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu before the situation gets out of hand.

“Let the world also ask the Nigerian government and South East governors why and how they sent military to invade Nnamdi Kanu’s compound, which led to the loss of many innocent lives within five days of the operation in his compound.”

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Nigerian federation is unbalanced – el Rufai

The chairman of the All Progressive Congress Committee on restructuring, Mallam Nasir El Rufai yesterday disclosed that his committee will submit its report to the national chairman of the party, Odigie Oyegun by the end of October.

Mallam Nasir El Rufai

Mallam El Rufai who disclosed this at the Chatham House in London where he delivered a paper on restructuring admitted that although the Nigerian federation as it presently is is ‘unbalanced’, majority of Nigerians believe that we are better off as a united country. “As I have argued since 2012, there is no doubt that the Nigerian federation is unbalanced and in dire need of structural rebalancing. This I think we all agree as Nigerians, but the devil is in the details. While some advocates of wholesale abandonment of the existing political structure are probably unrealistic in their expectations, I believe most Nigerians appreciate and cherish our unity in diversity but seek the enthronement of a fairer, meritocratic system that puts social justice above everything else. It is not very hard to achieve this” he noted.

According to the Kaduna state governor, “the preponderance of opinion is that the Federal Government needs to shed weight, and return powers and resources to the states where most government functions can be more efficiently undertaken. For the states to take on these powers, they need to access a greater share of the nation’s resources. And we need to sort out the notion of citizenship so that every Nigerian can enjoy the protection of the Constitution wherever they choose to reside. In many communities, people still use the notion of ‘indigene-ship’ to consign compatriots to a position of ‘settler’ and, by implication, perpetual exclusion from enjoying the full political, social and economic opportunities guaranteed by the Constitution to every citizen”. He said after preliminary research and a careful review of history, literature and reports, the committee has reduced the debate on restructuring into twelve ‘contentious issues’. These are Creation or merger of states and the framework and guidelines for achieving that; Derivation principle; Devolution of powers; Federating Units: Should Nigeria be based on regions or zones or retain the 36-state structure? And Fiscal federalism and revenue allocation. Others are Form of government – (parliamentary or presidential?); Independent candidacy; Land tenure system; Local government autonomy; Power sharing and rotation of political offices; Resource control; and Type of legislature – part-time or full-time, unicameral or bicameral? Governor El Rufai noted that even “without any legislation, national conference or constitutional amendment” the APC government is already restructuring the country through “convention and pragmatic devolution”. “For instance, my colleagues and I in the Kaduna State Executive Council requested that the Federal Government should re-designate two major roads in Kaduna, our state capital, as state roads. The Federal Executive Council granted our wishes, restoring the two roads to our control and saving us the inconvenience of seeking permission from a federal bureaucrat before we can install street lights on a major road in our state capital. “I also cited the fact that the Federal Government no longer just issues mining titles in Abuja; rather it now works with state governments that control the titles to land, unlike in our recent non-collaborative past. In Kaduna State, we are trying to devolve control of forests, management of fire services and other ‘state-level’ functions to our 23 local governments, in addition to many others” he said. Adding his opinion to the debate on restructuring, governor El Rufai noted that “I do not believe that a single, centralised police force can deliver on the necessity to visibly project state power and enforce the law in this vast country of ours with nearly 200 million people. Neither is the exclusive control of over-crowded prisons and an unmanageable number of federal trunk roads and railways”. 

source: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/09/nigerian-federation-unbalanced-el-rufai/

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Court Proscribes IPOB, Designates it as Terrorists Organisation

Abuja: The federal High Court in Abuja on Wednesday granted an order declaring the activities of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) as a terrorist organisation and “acts of terrorism and illegality.” The order, which followed a motion filed by the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, also proscribed the existence of IPOB throughout Nigeria, with particular attention paid to the South-East and South-South regions. 

sourcet: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/09/breaking-court-proscribes-ipob-designates-terrorists-organisation/

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