Uwazuruike renames MASSOB to Biafra Independent Movement (BIM); ...opens up on disagreement with Nnamdi Kanu's IPOB

In a strategy designed to separate himself from a controversial movement that parades two factions, the leader of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, Chief Ralph Uwazuruike, has announced a new name, Biafra Independent Movement, BIM, for the group.

Chief Uwazuruike, who made the announcement, yesterday, while addressing the press in Owerri, also said that he was irked by the bad corporate image some dissidents of MASSOB, were attracting to the group.

“The change in name became absolutely necessary because of the sad introduction of violence by the disgruntled dissidents and this is at variance with the non-violence stance of MASSOB over the years,” Uwazuruike said.

He said that real loyalists of MASSOB feel ashamed to be associated with violence, promising that they will restructure MASSOB to make it the youth wing of the Biafra Independent Movement.

While saying that there is vicarious liability in civil law, Chief Uwazuruike equally recalled how he recruited Nnamdi Kanu in 1989, to head Radio Biafra.

“I recruited Nnamdi Kanu in 1989, when I established Radio Biafra and appointed him the director of the establishment. He started preaching hatred and brainwashing the youths. MASSOB sacked him,” Uwazuruike recalled.

Answering a question, Uwazuruike said he had been imprisoned 16 times in the past and wondered why and how the heavens should fall because Kanu was incarcerated for just one month.

He pleaded with the Federal Government to release Kanu and Benjamin Onwuka, a former student of Emmanuel College, Owerri, and chieftain of MASSOB, who had been in prison for years.

Uwazuruike reminded those preaching violence that Biafra could not be achieved through violence, pointing out that, “the South East is landlocked and there is no way we can win the battle for freedom through violence.”

He reminded followers of Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, that if they close the Niger Bridge for one month or more, it will not affect activities in either Lagos or Abuja.

“Closing the Niger Bridge will only scuttle the business activities of Ndigbo. The protest in the South East, as arranged and implemented by IPOB, ended up unleashing a high degree of suffering on Ndigbo,” Uwazuruike said.

He, however, blamed the Directorate of State Services, DSS, for bungling the arrest, detention and prosecution of Mr. Kanu.

“The DSS is largely responsible for the protest. They arrested Kanu, charged him for bailable offences and the court granted him bail, but the DSS refused to release him. They later came up with treason charges and asked the court to give them 90 days to conclude investigations. This cannot hold in democracy,” Uwazuruike said.