INTERVIEW: Why Do You Want To Know If I Support IPOB? Senator Abaribe Evasive On Biafra

Eyinnaya Abaribe, the Senate Minority Leader who stood as surety for Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) during his treason trial in 2017, did not disappoint the pro-Biafra agitators in his interview with Channels Television on Tuesday.

His interviewer, Seun Okinbaloye, rephrased his question twice to extract from the senator any information to confirm whether he actively supports the activities of the group or not, but found a media-savvy politician in Abaribe.

The federal lawmaker representing the Abia-South Senatorial District of Abia State tactically declined to reveal whether or not he supports IPOB — which has been at the forefront of agitations for the declaration of the South-East region as an independent state of Biafra.

Okinbaloye had asked “are you a supporter of IPOB,” to which Abaribe responded: “I’m a supporter of the cries of our people against injustice”

THE WHISTLER reports that Abaribe granted the interview days after President Muhammadu Buhari alleged that a “serving member of the National Assembly” is among the financiers of secession agitations by IPOB and other groups.

Buhari had said in his 2021 Independence Day speech that the “recent arrests of Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Adeyemo, and the ongoing investigations being conducted have revealed certain high-profile financiers behind these individuals” adding that his administration was “vigorously pursuing” them.

When Okinbaloye pressed Abaribe to make a declarative statement on whether or not he supports IPOB, the lawmaker asked why the interviewer was interested in knowing his position on the secessionist group.   

“There are several groups [in the South East]. The problem that the media has is that they tag everything IPOB. In the South East, you won’t believe it that there are more than thirty separatist organizations. IPOB, MASSOB…there are so many and each one of them comes back to the same thing,” said the Senate Minority Leader.

Again, the interviewer asked Abaribe if he supports IPOB “psychologically”, “physically” or “intuitively”.

His response: “Do you want to know whether I support IPOB? I want to know why because it looks to me that you want to put everybody in one bracket.

“I have said that there is nobody from the South East that I know who does not feel that the way that people from the South East are treated today, there is something fundamentally wrong [and] which should be resolved.”

The lawmaker seemed to suggest through his responses that IPOB was fighting the cause of the South East region.

The secessionist group has been linked with several assaults and attacks on security agencies and facilities in the South East.

In an interview in July, Abaribe said he would stand surety for IPOB detained leader again, “if the circumstances are the same”.

He had said, “The first circumstance was that the judge said they needed a senator to be part of his sureties. So, if a judge says that again, I don’t see why I won’t. I am a senator and I come from the south-east.

“I don’t think we will run away from our responsibility. He’s our son. He’s from our state.”