[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he international media arm of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Radio Biafra, has resumed operations.
But instead of the fiery rhetoric with which it was associated with, the radio announced the sack of Nnamdi Kanu, as director and leader of IPOB.
The Radio Biafra’s programme started between 6am -7am on Sunday with the lady announcer, who gave her name as Ifeoma Okorafor, stating that the radio was restructuring.
Then the shocking announcement that “Mazi Nnamdi Nwanekaenyi Kanu, the former Director of Radio Biafra is hereby dismissed and removed as Director of Radio Biafra following extensive and intensive consultations”
According to Okorafor, one “Mazi Ezenwachukwu Sampson Okwudili is Kanu’s replacement.”
She reeled out reasons why Kanu was removed to include:
“Personalisation of the Biafran struggle and derailing from the core objectives of IPOB as a grassroots movement.
“Kanu’s actions and his decisions to incite members of IPOB towards violence leading to the death of many innocent young people in Onitsha, Aba and Umuahia is totally unacceptable and grossly irresponsible.
“Kanu privately collected £14 million and another $22 million to purchase landed properties abroad in his name and that of his father, Igwe Israel Kanu, in a clear case of ‘monkey dey work baboon dey chop’.
“Kanu turned our collective struggle into a money-making enterprise for himself and his father. Thus the monies contributed by enterprising and hard-working Igbo youths across the world are being collected and converted by one man and his father while pretending to be sacrificing for the cause.
“Upon his release from detention in April 2017, one expected Kanu to drum up support for the release of his colleagues and co-detainees such as Chidiebere Onwudiwe, Benjamin Madubugwu and David Nwawuisi. These are our brothers who were arrested at the same time with him and they should not be forgotten. We hereby demand their release. Kanu, since his release, has never spoken about them or appealed for the release of these our freedom fighters. Instead, he has been going about collecting chieftaincy titles and having a messianic swagger that even allowed full-blooded Igbo men to kneel down and kiss his feet.
“Kanu threw away the original meaning of our collective struggle for personal gain and vain glorification. IPOB believes in democracy as a solid base of any modern state, the rule of law, and will always reject violence in all its ramifications.”
Daily Independent Newspaper reports that there was a mixture of excitement and confusion within Nigeria security circles as a result of this new development in IPOB as security agencies do not know what to make of this.
The sack of Kanu is only the latest change in the checkered history of Radio Biafra, which began as the mouthpiece of MASSOB.