By 247ureports.com
The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has declared solidarity with the Hausa people and other ethnic nationalities in northern Nigeria, saying its agitation for self-determination is not driven by hatred for any group and that “the Hausa people are our brothers.”
The statement was issued on Friday by IPOB’s Media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful, on behalf of the group’s Directorate of State (DOS), and says it was issued on the direct instruction of its detained leader, Nnamdi Kanu. It responds to what it calls a solidarity declaration by Northern youths and the Northern Nigeria Rescue Movement (NNRM). 247ureports.com could not independently verify the NNRM declaration or the claim that Kanu personally directed the statement, and the statement itself calls the declaration “reported.”
IPOB said the pursuit of freedom for one people must never be read as hostility toward another, and rejected what it called attempts to turn ethnic, religious or regional differences against ordinary people. It accused agents of the Nigerian state of falsely portraying Kanu as hostile to northern ethnic groups in order to divide the oppressed. It said Kanu had used his Radio Biafra broadcasts over the years to voice a wish to see “an emancipated, politically conscious, and self-assured Hausa nation,” drawing on the history of the Habe monarchies, and that the freedom of Biafrans and the emancipation of the Hausa nation are “not mutually exclusive aspirations.” “No people should have to remain subordinate for another people to be free,” it said.
The group praised what it called the political awareness of Hausa youths in the North-West, saying they have identified the real enemy as a corrupt political structure rather than the Igbo people, and listed groups it said have the right to determine their own future regardless of size, among them the Hausa, Kanuri, Tiv, Berom, Nupe, Igala, Jukun, Idoma, Ebira, Gbagyi and others. Its position is that a peaceful, internationally supervised referendum is the democratic route to deciding how peoples live together, and that smaller groups could negotiate alliances or federations under it. It cited former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s remarks on the failure of imported governance models and the 2014 National Conference as supporting ideas.
The statement is a notable shift in tone for a movement whose rhetoric has often been taken as hostile to northerners, which IPOB says is state propaganda. Critics and the federal government see it differently. The government proscribed IPOB as a terrorist organisation in 2017, and Kanu is in custody after a long terrorism trial. IPOB has also been through internal splits, including a break with the exiled broadcaster Simon Ekpa, whom Powerful publicly denounced in 2022. Violence in the South East, including enforced sit-at-home orders, has been blamed on groups claiming links to the movement, a charge IPOB has repeatedly denied. 247ureports.com had not located a response from the federal government or from the NNRM at the time of this report.
