opinion
Unbelievable! That was the screaming headline of one of the newspapers, heralding the success of the stay-at-home order by the Raph Uwazuruike-led Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB. The movement had called on all Igbos to stay at home on 26 August, 2004, to draw attention to the injustice visited on Igbos in Nigeria. Of course the police issued their usual threat, as if people violate any law if they choose not to leave their homes on a particular day.
Lagos - As the agitation for the 2007 presidential election gathers momentum,
Ndigbo have been cautioned not to muddle up the agitation for the
realisation of the Biafran Republic with the campaign for Igbo
Presidency.
The call, was made by the Oodua Liberation Movement (OLM) that posited
that the call became imperative since the two projects are two different
things.
Port Harcourt - Legislators in the Rivers State House of Assembly yesterday warned
agitators for the sovereign State of Biafra, to stop henceforth the use of
the state as one of the territories to test the acceptability or otherwise
of their course by the citizens.
The News (Lagos)
interview
Rotimi Obadofin, president, United Self Determination Groups of Oodua,
says all self-determination groups are behind MASSOB. He spoke with Richard
Elesho. Excerpts:
Q:How do you see the stay-at home call by MASSOB?
The News (Lagos)
Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, reboots its agitation for self-determination in a show of popularity as
sympathisers shut down eastern Nigeria
Chief Ralph Uwazurike, President of the Movement for the Actualisation
of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, is back in national
consciousness. For years, Uwazurike's agitation for an autonomous Igbo
nation drifted in and out of public discourse. Five years ago, when he first
began the process of reviving the Biafran dream, he was ignored by the Igbo
elite who derided him as an obscure Indian-trained, Lagos-based lawyer
seeking cheap publicity.
Lagos - Last Thursday's sit-at-home directive to Ndigbo by the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) has come and gone but its memory would linger for a long time to come.
The order recorded a high level of compliance as Igbo traders across the country closed shops in obedience to MASSOB's directive that the day be observed as work-free day to draw attention to alleged marginalisation of Ndigbo.
Nigeria may not be a failed state. However, it is performing the
ablution of moving into that stage. Between those populating the President
Olusegun Obasanjo administration (it's quite a crowd in there), who see on
the firmament a glorious dawn, a land where milk and honey would soon flow,
on the one hand, and those calling for a thorough restructuring of the
Nigerian nation, who also form a crowd on their own, they see different
things. Where the former sees milk and honey at the end of the tunnel, the
latter sees chaos, disaster and all the ingredients for melancholy.
THE All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has expressed support for
last Thursday's sit-at-home protest called by the Movement for the
Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), describing it as
another effective way of pressing home the inevitability of a national
conference to decide the country's political future.
interview
WAY back in 2000, the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign
State of Biafra (MASSOB), disclosed its agenda to proclaim the Republic of
Biafra and vowed that nobody could stop the quest. The group's leader, Chief
Ralph Uwazuruike was quoted to have said "we must have Biafra" in one of his
media chats.
Thursday's 26 August shut down of the South-East region and some other
parts of the country on the orders of an amorphous group known as MASSOB
(Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra) took most
people by surprise. MASSOB led by Chief Ralph Uwazurike had said it was
using the day to draw attention of the world to the need for the creation of
the Republic of Biafra through peaceful means. Before now, MASSOB had been
seen as a bunch of idealist group, pursuing the resuscitation of the Biafran
state that collapsed in 1970, at the end of Nigerian civil war.
follow MASSOB