The proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra has sacked their want-away leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and replaced by Mazi Ezenwachukwu Sampson Okwudili.
This was announced by the media arm of the group, Radio Biafra on Sunday when it resumed operations.
The presenter of the programme, Ifeoma Okorafor, said the decision to remove Kanu was reached after “extensive and intensive consultations.”
Giving reasons for Kanu’s dismissal, she accused the embattled IPOB leader of “Personalisation of the Biafran struggle and derailing from the core objectives of IPOB as a grassroots movement.”
Okorafor further said, “Kanu’s actions and his decisions to incite members of IPOB towards violence leading to the death of many innocent young people in Onitsha, Aba and Umuahia is totally unacceptable and grossly irresponsible.
“Kanu privately collected £14 million and another $22 million to purchase landed properties abroad in his name and that of his father, Igwe Israel Kanu, in a clear case of ‘monkey dey work baboon dey chop’.
“Kanu turned our collective struggle into a money-making enterprise for himself and his father. Thus the monies contributed by enterprising and hard-working Igbo youths across the world are being collected and converted by one man and his father while pretending to be sacrificing for the cause.
“Upon his release from detention in April 2017, one expected Kanu to drum up support for the release of his colleagues and co-detainees such as Chidiebere Onwudiwe, Benjamin Madubugwu and David Nwawuisi. These are our brothers who were arrested at the same time with him and they should not be forgotten. We hereby demand their release. Kanu, since his release, has never spoken about them or appealed for the release of these our freedom fighters. Instead, he has been going about collecting chieftaincy titles and having a messianic swagger that even allowed full-blooded Igbo men to kneel down and kiss his feet.
“Kanu threw away the original meaning of our collective struggle for personal gain and vain glorification. IPOB believes in democracy as a solid base of any modern state, the rule of law, and will always reject violence in all its ramifications.”
