About 52 civil society and community-based organisations have threatened to join forces with the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) to intensify the campaign for Biafra’s self-determination if the federal government fails to release the detained leader of IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu.

The groups insisted that restructuring Nigeria remain the best solution to salvaging and rebuilding the nation.

The possible merger with IPOB was among resolutions taken at a meeting held in Enugu Saturday which was attended by representatives of various groups from the South East and South South geopolitical zones.

The groups include Igbo Women Assembly, Igbo Youth Movement, South East Christian Network, Igbo Traders Association, Igbo Students Union, Christian Association of Nigeria, Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, Umuada Alaigbo, World Igbo Congress, and Niger Delta Youth Forum.

Representatives of South East Professionals, Igbo in Academia, Eastern Nigerian Congress, South South Youth Congress and Igbo Diaspora Organization, Umuigbo United Front, South South/South East Coalition, Traditional Healers Union, United Road Workers Union and Food Stuff Dealers Association, among others, were also in attendance.

In a two-point communiqué made available to newsmen after the meeting, the third in recent months, the groups expressed deep concern about the state of the nation and vowed to merge with IPOB this month if “Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is not released unconditionally, in obedience to a high court ruling in December 2015.”

“We are giving notice to the world, that if the unjust, provocative and very divisive detention of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is not specially looked into for the sake of peace, equity and justice, we may no longer restrain our members, affiliates, friends and sisters groups who have indicated their resolve to join and merge with the IPOB in solidarity with their persecution and unjust detention of their leader,” the groups said.

The groups pointed out that the United Nations Charter on Freedom makes the pursuit of self-determination an inalienable right of all oppressed people all over the world but regretted that the “arrogant posturing of the federal government” was not helping matters in the quest to build a truly united Nigerian nation.

The groups, therefore, alleged that “the federal government is steadily making it difficult for the country to remain one, through its brazen, oppressive and determined effort to strike fear into the hearts of citizens in order to foist a fascist reign of ethnic, regional and religious dominance of one region over another.”

While vowing to resist the “unholy agenda” of fascism the CSOs and CBOs warned that “capitulation to the agenda would mean sentencing our progeny to a permanent status of serfs.”

The groups argued that it has become so obvious that the actions and policies of the federal authorities keep pointing to the fact that “everything is being done to rub in that we are not part of Nigeria (hence) Buhari is deliberately pushing us out of Nigeria.”

Groups from the Niger Delta that attended the meeting, like in the previous ones, expressed their strong support for the clarion call for restructuring of Nigeria, insisting that “the delay to redesign Nigeria into six regions is the source of 99 per cent of the problems afflicting the nation today.”

Accordng to the groups, “six regional structures remain the only formula to salvage, and rebuild Nigeria,” stressing that those opposed to the six regional structure were “only working towards the eventual disintegration of the country.”

“All political, economic and social indicators point to the self-evident truth that only an early reversal to the six-regional structure will save the country now,” the groups said.

•Photo shows Nnamdi Kanu.

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