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Uwazuruike resurfaces, blasts SSS
EMMA OGU, Owerri and KENNETH UFOMA,
Abakaliki
LEADER of the
Movement for the Actualisation of a Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Chief
Ralph Uwazuruike has resurfaced and blasted the State Security Service (SSS)
over the allegation that he planned to use last week’s nationwide strike to
advance his Biafran agenda.
Chief Uwazuruike, who spoke to Daily
Champion after he narrowly escaped last Wednesday’s invasion of his country
home (which doubles as MASSOB headquarters) in Okwe, Onuimo council area of Imo
State, described the SSS claim as "a tissue of lies".
But, Gov. Sam Egwu of Ebonyi State has
dismissed the MASSOB cause, saying "there is no way you can be talking of the
sovereign nation inside another sovereign nation."
The governor told newsmen at Government
House, Abakaliki, weekend, that he (governor) does not support the MASSOB cause
to the extent that the group is campaigning for Nigeria’s dismemberment.
Director of SSS in Imo State, Mr Alex
Amaechima, last Friday justified their storming of the MASSOB headquarters to
pre-empt an alleged bid by the group to hijack the strike for Biafra purposes.
The SSS sees the clamour for Biafra as illegal.
However, Chief who told Daily Champion
that he is back following the raid on his country home, said the SSS
position lacked credibility.
According to him, since MASSOB "does not
believe in Nigeria in the first place, we have nothing to do with a strike
called in Nigeria".
Chief Uwazuruike saw the SSS position as a
mere excuse" to attack his movement and its members, insisting that "strike was
never discussed in any of our meetings."
He challenged the SSS to re-examine its
information gathering machinery properly.
Chief Uwazuruike again alleged that the
sum of N110,000 a generating set and sundry items were taken away during the
invasion on his home.
If the SSS believed such raids would
dampen the crusade for an independent Biafran republic to be carved out of
Nigeria, he added, then the security agency had got it all wrong.
In Abakaliki, Gov. Egwu publicly declared
that he does not support MASSOB.
"If they are clamouring for the unfair
treatment of the Igbo or the South East, I will see them as a pressure group
like other pressure groups in the country, but not asking for the dismemberment
of this country. Nobody is going to support that," he said.
He dismissed "insinuations in some
quarters that the agitation by the Movement poses a threat to the Igbo
aspiration to the Presidency inn 2007.
Egwu said that Igbos are very serious
about their agitation for the presidency now than ever before, adding that the
governors of the South East States are united in purpose and are reaching out to
the other ethnic groups in the country.
He, however, cautioned MASSOB to change
its tactics and concentrate more on agitation against the unfair treatment of
Igbos rather than asking for seccession.
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