From Stanley Uzoaru ,Owerri
The Indigenous People of Biafra(IPOB) has urged the Federal Government to desist from tagging it an unlawful organisation even as it claimed that a judgment from a competent court in Nigeria vindicated it.
Media and publicity secretary of the group, Emma Powerful, in a statement, yesterday, said the group would table the case before the International Criminal Court (ICC) to absolve it from being labeled a terrorist group.
“History they say is the best teacher and we therefore want to remind that a Federal High Court, in Abuja, presided over by Justice Binta Nyako, had on March 2, 2017, ruled that IPOB is not an unlawful organisation. The court which struck-out six of the 11-count criminal charge the Federal Government preferred against our leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and three other pro-Biafra agitators, declared that IPOB was not unlawful. In the landmark ruling, the court said that the fact that IPOB was not an organisation registered in Nigeria did not make it an illegal society. In her words the Honourable Justice ruled thus: ‘It may be true that IPOB is not registered in Nigeria, but does that make it an illegal organisation.’
“Justice Nyako held that the Federal Government failed to prove that IPOB, allegedly managed by Kanu and his co-defendants — Chidiebere Onwudiwe, Benjamin Madubugwu and David Nwawuisi, is an unlawful society.
“If the Federal Government could not prove that IPOB is a terrorist organisation before its own court, is it then before the ICC that it can prove the contrary.
“The Nigeria government already knows that we are prepared for it at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Just very soon we shall meet there. The whole world is also aware of all the atrocities of the Nigeria government through the instrumentality of its terrorist security agencies against the innocent and non violent people of Biafra. Very soon we shall get the justice that we have been asking for! Biafra shall be actualised in our lifetime,” Powerful said.