South East
Cleric Urges Release of Incarcerated MASSOB Members
A Clergy man, Pastor Paul Offordile, has called on the federal government to release members of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) presently languishing in police cells and prisons across the country.
Pastor Offodile who made the call recently during a church service at Awgu, Enugu state, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the movement condemned what he described as incessant harassment and victimization of members of the group by the authorities reasoning that it was not only unjustifiable but smacked of ethnic prejudice.
He stated that MASSOB had continued to maintain its peaceful and non-violent agitation against the marginalization of Igbos in the country and wondered why its members were being targeted and made to suffer all kinds of degrading treatment by the authorities.
The clergyman noted that both the Christian Bible and the Nigerian constitution both supported lawful agitation against oppression stressing that the authorities should listen to and address the issues being raised by the organisation instead of hounding MASSOB members.
He, however, enjoined members of the organisation not to deviate from its non-violent posture and to ensure that they were always law abiding and conducted themselves and their activities within the limits of the law in order to ensure that “the Law, morality and conscience were always on their side”.
Pastor Offordile further urged them to remain steadfast and patient in the pursuit of justice and to retain their trust in God whom he said, was in charge of all affairs and would work out things in his own time and according to his own plans.