MASSOB, IPOB, other youth groups urge Ndigbo to vote

Alphonsus Nweze, Awka

About 10, 000 youths in Anambra state from different organizations, including the Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) under the aegis of Anambra Youths Association (AYA), yesterday staged a rally in various parts of Onitsha, Anambra state to sensitise the populace on the need for them to go out and cast their votes for the candidates of their choice during Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections in the country. The youths who carried placards bearing inscriptions such as: “Elections must hold, nobody can stop the elections,” “ There must be election, come out and vote for your credible candidate,” “Vote for people that will care for us,” “Nobody can stop you, we are all Nigerians,” among others, commenced the rally at the Obosi Park along Onitsha/Owerri Road in Onitsha and traversed other parts of the commercial city like the popular Upper Iweka, chanting songs in Igbo Language. Addressing the participants shortly before the exercise which lasted for about three hours took off, Leader of the youth, Nnaemeka Onyemaechi (popularly called Timer), said the issue of sit-at-home, election boycott and referendum, as is being canvassed by some people should not arise as they would do more harm than good to Ndigbo. Onyemaechi pointed out that sit-at-home or election boycott cannot be the best option for Ndigbo at this critical point of their historty, warming it would be AN opportunity for “wrong candidates to emerge right under our noses and we will live to regret our action in the near future.” He therefore urged all Ndigbo sons and daughters to ignore any call for sit-at-home or election boycott and come out en masse to cast their votes on February 16 and March 2, to elect credible leaders who will pilot the affairs of the nation.. In a related development, Leader of Biafra Independence Movement (BIM), and founder of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, (MASSOB), Chief Ralph Uwazuruike, has distanced himself and his members from any group calling for sit-at-home or boycott of the general elections. In a statement issued by his Personal Assistant on Media Matters, Mazi Chris Anierobi Mocha, Uwazuruike said that although the organization has no preferred candidate, in the coming elections, he has directed all his members to go out and vote for any candidate of their choice during the elections. The statement quoted Uwazuruike as saying that BIM-MASSOB has no interest in the said elections, rather its main aim has been the struggle for the achievement of self determination for Biafra through non -violence, non exodus principle. He therefore called on the global community to exercise the will to actively support the United Nations principle of self determination as the inalienable rights of oppressed peoples and to avoid double standards by permitting self determination only in Europe and elsewhere. Uwazuruike said it was on record that the world and the UN had at various times encouraged and supported the oppressed peoples exercise such a right of self determination in the contemporary times with acts of active help and even participation in order to see the process through to consummation.