The
Nigerian police have arrested 47 members of Biafra Independence Movement (BIM)
and Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) in
Aba.
Anthony Ogbizi, who is the state commissioner of police, said that the
protesters were arrested because they wore army camouflage uniforms and had
Biafra flags and insignia with them
He said that although they were peaceful
during their march, they were arrested because they wore army camouflage
uniforms and had Biafra flags and insignia with them.
On whether or not BIM and MASSOB were
proscribed like the IPOB, the commissioner said that they would vet the persons
arrested to see if they belonged to IPOB to know what next to do with them.
He said: “We are profiling them and when
we finish they would be charged accordingly. The legal department is there.
They will advise us before we know what else to do."
However, the leadership of BIM and MASSOB
in Aba said the police arrested 115 of their members in the commercial city.
The zonal leader of the group, for Abia
south, Fredrick Onyenucheya, disclosed this to newsmen at the Nigerian Union of
Journalists (NUJ) office on Tuesday, May 22.
Onyenucheya was accompanied by Obi Anyanwu,
the zonal leader for Abia central.
He said about 200 members gathered at
Umuorieoma junction near Osisioma junction by 9 a.m. and were peacefully
marching to No 154 Faulks road to celebrate the 18th anniversary of hoisting
the Biafra flag in Aba.
“At a point on Faulks Road, at about 10.10
a.m, the Nigerian Police came and began to shoot tear gas canisters at us and
many of our members were injured and they arrested over 115 members.
“They came with over 20 Hilux vans with
which they took our members. We want to say that it is unfair for the police to
be intimidating and harassing innocent and peaceful citizens moving on the road
without disturbing anybody.
“We were only going there to celebrate our
anniversary and nothing more. We did not ask anybody to sit at home but to go
about their businesses.
“We want to tell the Nigerian Police to
release our members they arrested unconditionally because we were on peaceful
demonstration,”
he said.
He said that the celebration was a
programme going on in all the southeast zone of Nigeria and wondered why
members in Aba were being singled out for arrest and molestation.
Onyenucheya said that they
would want the Nigerian police to know that they could not be cowed, adding
that “no amount of intimidation and harassment can stop us until Biafra is
actualised,” he said
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