The leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has called off the election boycott order he had issues his supporters in the South East.
Mazi Kanu, in a statement by IPOB’s Media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful, said due to “our terms and conditions had been met by those wishing us to lift the ban on voting, it was unanimously agreed that the boycott should be lifted.”
Kanu had issued the boycott order, saying there would not be election in the south-east until the federal government conducted a referendum.
Kanu, who is wont of given orders to his supporters during election and as well as declaring sit-at-home orders to IPOB members to underscore the group’s demand for a referendum, Friday, recanted on his earlier boycott order.
kanu had, last year, vanished from Nigeria after the military launched an exercise code-named Operation Python Dance (Egwu Eke) which saw the troops attacking the home of the Biafran leader.
The group had claimed that their leader, who went underground for over six months, was killed by the military only for him to surface in Israel, alive.
Since he issued the boycott order, condemnations had trailed his order, especially from the Igbo apex Socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, who had urged him to call off the order.
However, just few hours to the election day, th IPOB leader and his group called off the boycott order, saying some conditions it gave were met. The group said all the terms and conditions it gave those wishing it to call off the order had been met.
In the statement by the group’s spokesperson, it said in due course, it would made public the document of the agreement it signed with those who urged it to call of the boycott order.
The statement partly reads thus: “It’s important we notify the world at large and the indefatigable global IPOB family in particular that our supreme leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has called-off the election boycott in Biafraland.
“After a brief emergency session of the Directorate of State late last night, presided over by our leader, it was determined that all our terms and conditions had been met by those wishing us to lift the ban on voting, it was unanimously agreed that the boycott should be lifted.
“The signed document agreeing to IPOB terms and conditions are in our possession and will be made public in due course.
“We can, therefore, state with utmost sense of responsibility and pride that IPOB has accomplished what no other people or group has been able to do in the history of our people. Without prejudice, this will go down as the defining moment when the irreversibility of the restoration of Biafra was firmly entrenched in the subconscious of all and sundry. As a result of which we can state categorically that Biafra is a lot closer than we think as a result of this.
