The defunct Republic of Biafra will be revived on or before September 30, 2015, Executive Director of Radio Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, has said.

He made the declaration yesterday at Hill Top Ngwo, near Enugu, during a ceremony to commemorate the May 30 anniversary of Biafran fallen heroes. Kanu in his speech regretted the non-payment of benefits due to Biafran soldiers, describing it as “a continuation of the same injustice that led them to try to extricate themselves from this Lugard creation called Republic of Nigeria.”

A Sunday Independent report of the event said that Kanu warned that the indigenous People of Biafra would commence what they called a new wave of freedom fighting to carve a separate state of Biafra from the present Nigeria.

He said the implication of what they were doing was that they have honoured their dead and remembered those that fought and died for Biafra, stressing that from this day onwards they would now do proper freedom fighting, the way it should be done, the report said.

Kanu, according to the paper, explained that though the agitation would begin peacefully, it would entail taking up of arms since according to him, “there cannot be real freedom fighting by drinking a cup of tea.”

He was quoted as saying: “We come in peace but we bring hell with us. If there is no Biafra this place will be completely destroyed. Everything will die here or they give us Biafra. So there is and will be no compromise. We won’t retreat and we won’t surrender. We have come here to fight for our country or we die fighting for our freedom.

“That is why it is very disheartening that you see old men in every blessed month crying and wishing that their money will come to them and nothing happens. The Yorubas have been paid, the Hausa Fulani have been paid and then those of them belonging to Biafra have not been paid. It is an injustice that must be addressed and it is part of the reason why we are doing what we are doing because in the new Biafra we would not have this level of injustice.”

Kanu stressed that it was in reaction to the monumental and serial acts of injustice against the Indigenous people of Biafra that the movement has awakened to fight for freedom adding: “Nigeria has no choice because Biafra will come on or before September 30, 2015.”

The highpoint of the memorial included march past by various divisions of Biafra war veterans, sing song and the unveiling the cenotaph in commemoration of “all those that lost their lives fighting for Biafra and members of the Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra, (MASSOB).”

•Photo shows a cross section of Biafran activists.

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