A political analyst, Clement Nwankwo, has said there is no legal basis for the designation of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) group as an illegal organisation.
The lawyer, who said this while speaking on Sunday Politics, a Channels TV programme, pointed out that the decisions of the military in a democratic government is guided by the rule of law, the constitution, and other processes.
“There is no legal basis for the declaration of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) as an illegal organisation, it is not in the position of the military to make those declarations.
“I think certainly, the military hierarchy needs to understand that this is a democracy, they are guided by the rule of law, there is a constitution and there are laws and processes for declaring an organisation an illegal. If you look at the terrorism act of 2011, the procedure for declaring an organisation a terrorist organization is outlined there.
“So, I think the military needs to go back and read the law and understand that they are an institution that is subject to the laws of this country. They have no right to declare an organization to be illegal.”
IPOB demand illegal
The lawyer further stated that IPOB’s demand for Biafra is illegal as it has no right to speak for the people of South-East region.
He said the people are instead aggrieved at the government because of what they described as marginalization.
“The whole idea or the whole notion that the South-East was once a Biafran country is totally wrong, I have not seen too many people from the South-East region of the country who really want a Biafran country.
“What you see are people who are very aggrieved about what is described as ‘marginalization’, about the inequity and inequality that this particular administration has perpetrated. I think that people are angry that this government is very insensitive to the need to balance and be equitable in the allocation of resources.
“We are very disappointed that rather than face these issues (arising from external aggression), the army is instead generating internal wars in the country, fighting and abusing the rights of citizens.
“There are several millions of people from the South-East who do not believe in (the ideologies of IPOB) but when you go in and attack, and abuse people who are doing their businesses, you kill people, then you create sympathies and that is dangerous for this country and the army needs to put a stop to what it is doing, it is not in the interest of Nigeria’s democracy,” he said.
