Nigeria: Group seeks UN recognition for Biafra Republic
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- Published on Monday, 13 August 2012 21:37
- Written by Elombah.com
Another group in Nigeria seeks United Nations recognition of its nationhood. Biafra Zionist Movement, BZM, said, Monday, that it had formally written to the United Nations asking it to accord Biafra the status of an observer member of the body. President of the group Mr. Benjamin Onwuka, who briefed newsmen in Enugu, said the
application was submitted to the UN Security Council on August 6, 2012.
Last week President of Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), Dr. Goodluck Diigbo declared autonomy for the Ogoni people in South south Nigeria. Diigbo said they declared self-government in a frantic bid to enforce the United Nations Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
''The urgency behind the declaration is that self-government for Ogoni was overdue in view of many important issues bordering on indigenous rights of the Ogoni people being tampered with now. The UNEP Ogoni Report is one out of many'', he said.
Onwuka, who expressed the determination of his group to project Biafra to the world economic community, noted that the move was the first of its kind since the struggle for an independent state of Biafra.
The British-trained lawyer disclosed that his group had also, through the African Union Secretariat, Addis Ababa Ethiopia, requested for a meeting of all African Union Heads of State and Governments to be convened in Kampala on October 22, this year.
Onwuka explained that with the application, the United Nations membership would give Biafra the recognition and support it had lacked since the Republic was born on May 30, 1967.
He said: ”The United Nations would now have the mandate and power to intervene, investigate and issue arrest against anyone who uses violence or force to kill Biafrans in their quest for self determination.
”It would now be against International Law for the Nigerian State through its President, Governors or security forces to use force to kill Biafrans either as individuals or groups.”
The BZM leader explained that the application was based on the grounds that, “the security of life and property of the Biafra people are no longer guaranteed in the entity called Nigeria.
”It is also clear that the right of the Biafra people to practice their religion and freedom of association is no longer safe and guaranteed in Nigeria.
”Therefore the people of Biafra have resolved that on November 5, 2012 we shall be re-declaring our Independence and opt out of Nigeria in order that we Biafra people can guarantee and protect the Biafra peoples’ right to practice their religion without being bombed.”
Onwuka who also reacted to a recent statement by leader of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, Chief Ralph Uwazuruike dissociating himself from the planned re-declaration of Biafra in November, however, described him as one who has lost faith in the struggle.
”We have information about him and his preference for Nigeria and her politics so we are not interested in him or what he thinks.
“The struggle for Biafra is on and advancing; we are determined and we shall realize the dreams of our people with or without Uwazuruike,” he added.
Another seccessionist group known as Bakassi Self-determination Front has also declared independence from Nigeria and set up a radio station at Dayspring Island in Bakassi Local Government Area of Cross River State. The group, which has already hoisted a blue-white-red flag, said its action was meant to ensure the reclamation of the peninsula. Dayspring Island is the only portion of the old Bakassi Peninsula that was not ceded to Cameroon by Nigeria.
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