Embattled Biafra Nation agitator, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has not been removed or replaced as the IPOB leader, his legal counsel confirmed in a statement.
The reports making the rounds that Kanu has been replaced with one Sofia Chinyere Kalu as Director of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB in the United Kingdom has been trashed by his lawyer, Aloy Ejimakor.
Naija News understands that reports in some quarters have claimed Mrs Kalu who is the group’s Financial Secretary in the UK, has taken the position of Kanu who is currently in the custody of the Department of State Security Service, DSS.
A separatist who manages IPOB and Radio Biafra Community Interest Companies (CIC) Registry in London, UK, Ezeji Chukwuma had said Kalu is the new Director of IPOB worldwide.
Naija News understands that the claim was re-echoed by a self-styled disciple of Kanu, Simon Ekpa.
The reports have, however, called for a clear clarification from Ejimakor.
In a statement made available to newsmen on Thursday, Ejimakor insisted that Kanu is still the Director of IPOB in the United Kingdom, UK.
He maintained that IPOB’s structure has not changed even though the leader has been in detention for many days.
“The report is untrue in its entirety. The organizational structure of IPOB as a legal entity in the UK remains as it was, with Mazi Nnamdi Kanu as the Director,” Ejimakor said.
Meanwhile, Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Youth Council, has urged people of South-West and South-South to allow a Southeast extraction of a Nigerian president in 2023 to reciprocate the latter’s political sacrifices to them.
Naija News reports that the national president of OYC, Comrade Igboayaka O. Igboayaka, made this known in a press release on Thursday ahead of the Southern Youth Leaders’ Summit coming up in Owerri.
He said, “In every fairness, former Governor Bola Tinubu’s political teams and APC political elite and members from South-West owe Dr Ogbonnaya Onu a political reciprocation. Dr Onu dropped his presidential ambition in 1999 with APP, which made Chief Olu Falae the party’s presidential candidate. Dr Onu deserves a regional honour from Yoruba nation.
“It is obvious that towards the actualization of South-west presidential project in 1999, South-East paid an ultimate price through Dr Alex Ekwueme who played low and accepted internal arrangements for Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to pick the presidential ticket of PDP in 1999.
“It will amount to regional and tribal hatred if any presidential aspirant from South-West decides to challenge South-east presidential aspirants in APC in the forthcoming 2022 primary election. The South-East became political spectators in the 1999 presidential election just to allow South-West to play the presidential political tournament which led to the victory of Chief Obasanjo.”
He also appealed while reminding the South-South people of the gestures displayed by the southeasterners which paved the way for the emergence of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as the vice and later president of Nigeria in the year 2011 and 2015, respectively.
This article was originally published on Nigeria News