We’ve Over 30 Separatist Groups In S’East, Abaribe Admits

The Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, has said that aside from the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), there were more than 30 separatist organisations in the South-East zone of the country.
He stated this, yesterday, in an interview aired on Channels Television.
Abaribe, who represents Abia South in the red chamber, was deputy governor to Senator Orji UzorKalu from May 29, 1999 till March, 2003.
According to him, the government of President MuhammaduBuhari, might crush secessionist agitators but it would be difficult for the government to crush the ideology until the current administration address the root cause of the problem and embrace dialogue.
Abaribe lamented that the people of the South-East have been grossly marginalised and unfairly treated by the All Progressives Congress (APC) government.
The senator and two others had stood as sureties for detained IPOB leader, NnamdiKanu before he was granted bail by the Federal High Court in Abuja on April 25, 2017.
Kanu had jumped bail same year but he had said he fled Nigeria because of the extrajudicial attempt on his life in Abia in September, 2017.
The IPOB leader is facing terrorism-related charges before Justice BintaNyako and the case had been adjourned to October 21, 2021, for continuation of hearing.
When asked whether he was a supporter of IPOB, Abaribe said, “I am a supporter of the cries of our people against injustice…I stand with my people.
“One of the biggest problems that the media also has is that they tag everything IPOB in the South-East. You won’t believe that there are more than 30 different separatist organisations. IPOB, MASSOB, there are so many and each one of them come back to the same thing.
“Why we are having separatist agitations everywhere in the country is that some people are unable to manage our diversity,” he added.
The senator also said that he does not regret standing as one of Kanu’s sureties in 2017 and said, “I will still stand surety because you feel that you are being unfairly treated.”