National Broadcast: ‘Defeat IPOB With Arguments, Not AK47’, Nnamdi Kanu Replies Buhari

The leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has said that agitators for an independent state should not be defeated with guns but with “the superiority of arguments.”

The Biafra leader made the statement in an apparent reaction to the order issued by President Muhammadu Buhari to security agencies to deal decisively with Boko Haram terrorists, IPOB agitators, marauding herdsmen and other criminal elements.

Speaking during a chat with journalists at his country home in Afaraukwu Ibeku, Umuahia in Abia State, Kanu faulted Buhari’s method at solving burning national problems, saying it would never work.

“In this debate for freedom everybody has to be heard. Buhari should defeat me with the superiority of his argument, not AK47.

“Those that quickly resort to violence, hate and intimidation do so because they have lost the force of argument”.

Kanu argued that it was very wrong for the president to compare and lump IPOB, a peaceful mass movement, with Boko Haram, an internationally recognised terrorist organisation.

“It is the continuation of the Buhari regime’s dictatorial and unwholesomely undemocratic approach to governance. I find it unacceptable, abhorrent and insulting that somebody elected by the people can turn around and dictate to them how he wants them to behave,” the IPOB leader said.

Kanu reminded Buhari that he was elected to govern Nigeria and he should therefore face the business of governance “and not to instigate another war”.

He advised the Nigerian president to borrow a leaf from former US President Dwight Eisenhower who was an army commander, fought in a war and later became president because he was a democrat at heart.

Nonetheless, Kanu insisted that no matter how menacingly Buhari intends to bare his fangs, his action would in no way diminish the quest for Biafra’s self-determination, saying: “We are not afraid because IPOB is a peaceful mass movement, not a violent armed group.”

He said: “There is no record of injury being sustained, people fighting or having any altercation in any of the numerous IPOB gatherings where people converged in their millions to listen to this gospel of the restoration of Biafra. Not one single incident.

“We are the most disciplined, most well behaved mass movement anywhere on the face of this planet.

“Despite the genocidal killings, despite the arbitrary arrests, illegal detentions without trial, we can never be provoked into any armed conflict.

“We have refused to be provoked to armed rebellion; that is what Buhari is looking for. Buhari wants a war but we won’t oblige him because we are civilised people.”

On the formation of the Biafra Security Service (BSS), the IPOB leader said, “No army was set up. We have a Biafra Security Service to give us intelligence regarding the October 1 quit notice,” he said.

“The majority of our people across the length and breadth of the South-east and South-south support what IPOB is doing. They also support the formation of the Biafra Secret Service that will take care of this land in terms of its security needs.

“The rampaging Hausa-Fulani herdsmen will be a thing of the past, we can no longer allow it to go on,” Kanu said.