The Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, says there are over 30 separatist groups in Nigeria’s South-east, besides the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB).
Abaribe disclosed this while featuring on Channel TV’s Politics Today programme on Tuesday.
The lawmaker said the media was creating an impression that IPOB was the only group agitating for Biafra in the South-east.
Abaribe was responding to a question on whether or not he supports the pro-biafran group.
He said, “I am a supporter of the cries of our people against injustice.
“Last Friday, I was chairman of a book launch – Children of Biafra. It is a book about the Biafran war, seen through the eyes of a child.
“Several people wrote their childhood experiences, a very poignant book that everybody needs to read. And in my statement, I said that a short while ago, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar made a statement, whether jokingly or not. And that statement was that the actions and policies of this government is turning everybody into a Biafran. Everybody is complaining about injustice, everybody is complaining about marginalization, everybody is complaining about nepotism.
“I stand with my people.
“There are more than 30 different separatist organizations, apart from IPOB.
“Why we are having agitations in different parts of Nigeria is that we aren’t able to manage our diversity.”
He added that the administration brands IPOB members as terrorists, while it continues to “beautify” perpetrators of insecurity in the north as bandits.
“The single most dangerous part is this influx of non-Nigerians with military-grade weapons sweeping across our country, going into the countryside and committing mayhem, but no effort is made to profile them, no effort is made to ensure that there is a counter surge against them. All that has been happening is the attempt to reach (an) agreement. How do you reach (an) agreement with a terrorist who is coming from outside the country, trying to take over?”
The senator faulted the argument that Buhari inherited the current security challenges from the Goodluck Jonathan-led administration.
He said, “In the build-up to the 2015 election, we didn’t have insurgency in the North-west, we didn’t have any in the South-west, and neither did we have any in the South-east.
“The problem in the South-south, in the Niger Delta, had been largely resolved by the PDP government of President Yar’Adua.”
Abaribe was among those who signed a surety for the IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, to be released on bail in 2017.
