The South-East Renewal Group (SRG) has written to President Muhammadu Buhari and the United Nations alleging security threats by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), in Southeast Nigeria.
Highlights:
- The group drew the attention of the Nigerian leader as well as the world body to what it termed various atrocities by IPOB members in the region. It expressed concern that if not quickly put in check, the activities of IPOB will cause socio-political dislocation and spark a crisis of regional and national dimension.
The letter signed by the National-Co-ordinator of the SERG, Comrade Charles Mbani reads:
Your Excellency Sir, the Southeast Revival Group (SRG) seizes this unique opportunity to formally welcome you, Mr President, back to Nigeria from your medical vacation in London. As patriotic citizens of this great country, we owe you a religious and moral duty to continue to beseech Almighty God in prayers to ceaselessly grant you good health and long life to continue to pilot the affairs of our long-suffering nation to prosperity.
We have no hesitation electing upon ourselves as representatives of our people at the lower rung of leadership, the worthwhile obligation of loudly proclaiming your sterling leadership qualities. Within two years in the lifespan of your administration, you have rapidly pushed Nigeria into the path of economic recovery and prosperity, tackled Boko Haram terrorism and other burgeoning internal insurgencies. Your undaunted anti-corruption campaigns have begun to instil sanity in public governance.
Your Excellency Sir, however, we wish to draw your attention to a nagging insecurity problem currently threatening the coherence of the Southeast region, with the potential to continue to dubiously snatch away the economic fortunes of the region; cause socio-political dislocation and spark insecurity crisis of regional and national dimension.
The letter particularly pointed at the recent formation of the Biafra Secret Service (BSS) by IPOB led by Nnamdi Kanu.
“By its conception, design and intendment, BSS is the militant arm of IPOB…The national security agencies must have intimated you with the other forms of aberrations of IPOB in this direction,” it stated.
The letter was copied to the national security council, All Heads of Security Agencies in Nigeria, The Senate President, Speaker, House of Representatives, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) and the South East Governors Forum.
Others, the group claimed it copied the letter are all South East State Governors, some National and International Human Rights Organizations, Civil Liberties organizations’ (CLOs), some Civil Societies organizations’ (CSOs), High Commissions and Foreign Missions in Nigeria.
It said others are First Class Traditional Rulers in Nigeria, as well as some religious organizations. SERG said it feared that failure to checkmate what it called “this illegality, the trend may be replicated in other parts of the country,” as the next general elections in 2019 approaches.
It, therefore, pleaded with President Buhari, “never to abandon the Southeast region to elements who have activated their media infrastructure to blackmail the Nigerian military from carrying out its lawful constitutional duties.”
