Members of the Press, Ladies and Gentlemen, I make this Statement on behalf of the Chairman and the entire Leadership of the Movement of Biafrans in Nigeria (MOBIN), the political arm of the Indigenous people of Biafra (IPOB).
It has become necessary for MOBIN to address the public on our quest for the self-determination of the Biafran people through due process of the law, which includes political, diplomatic and judicial processes. Pursuant to this, MOBIN reached an agreement with the national leadership of the party to from partnership for building the party as a Biafran brand.
MOBIN has activated the three strategic engagements. For our political process, our organization went into an alliance with the United Progressive Party (UPP) in lieu of a Biafran National Party. MOBIN believes that the time has come for us to report to Biafrans and the general public our experience in the quest to achieve Biafra self-determination through political participation. We make this press statement as part of our promise to our Biafra people to always ensure that Equity, Justice and Fairness- which is what Biafra ideology represents is maintained and respected by the party in all its dealings with MOBIN and party faithful in general.
Against all norms of democratic practice and civilized conducts obtainable in all democracies, MOBIN regrets to make public the fragrant violations and bizarre abuses perpetrated by the leadership of the UPP at National level, as led by Chief Chekwas Okorie:
· The UPP national leadership instead of ratifying the Delegates list for conducting the Anambra State governorship primaries, they (the national leadership) sat in abuja national secretariat and mutilated the list by adding and removing names, re-designating several elected officials with the single aim of deciding for their nefarious purpose, who should be the delegates for the Anambra primaries against the express provisions of the UPP constitution and the Electoral Act. This was done in such a bizarre manner that a particular candidate has already been favoured by the doctoring that went on across board in all the LGAs of the state. This act of impunity saw a man taking up the position of woman leader in some wards, dead people taking the posts of chairmen and many chairmen downgraded as vice or other offices. Some were even taken off completely. What an act of rascality by people bestowed with public trust! Let me use the Anambra East LGA Wards Executives list as example of the said mutilation that has occurred in all the LGAs to give you an insight into what happened. The Anambra East LGA has a total of 15 wards; this will give you a total of 75 delegates emanating from this LGA since each produces 5 delegates namely: Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer, Woman leader, and Youth leader. Out of this 75, 38 names (57.33%), Nando ward III where the entire list was excluded by the national. We also gathered that the reason for these strange exclusions of some ward lists by the national exco is for their perceived absence of party members loyal to their favoured candidate, and replacements of which they are working out as we speak. These illegal and fraudulent re-designation and replacements of elected officials is purposely meant to deny these authentically elected Ward executives their rights to vote at the Anambra guber primaries. As said, in some cases, the entire lists submitted by the State EXCO for some Wards were totally thrown out and new names imported. It is important to state at this juncture that many of these imports are not UPP members but drafted for the purpose using them for the primaries only. How can you go to primaries with this level of manipulation and criminality? Where’s is the Biafra Ideology? Where’s the fairness? Where is the Democracy the UPP has promised?
As it stands, MOBIN will never be part of a system that upholds injustice, criminality and impunity, and can never support any candidate that emerges from this skewed process even if he is a pro-Biafran. MOBIN is totally committed to the integrity and had wanted to use the Anambra governorship election as a test case and for the gauging of the preparedness of Biafrans for the Biafra model of change. For the members of MOBIN therefore, the integrity of the process is far greater than its outcome. All the candidates of UPP for the primaries are Biafrans by birth so the issue of MOBIN supporting a particular candidate doesn’t even arise as our position is hinged on JUSTICE, EQUITY, FARENESS AND ABSOLUTE INTERNAL DEMOCRACY which is what Biafra ideology represents and MOBIN will defend these cardinal principles to their logical conclusions.
Therefore, as a political arm of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) that went into an alliance with UPP, MOBIN is insisting that the party does what is right before the law viz-a-viz respecting the party constitution and states that;
· MOBIN is supporting the action of one of us Mr. Obi Emekaekwue who’s the party’s Assistant Publicity Secretary in Anambra State UPP Exco that went to court to insist that the party constitution be respected. In the said court order, the court is mandating the party to respect Article 10(4)(i-ix) and xi which stipulates the category of people that must be part of the congress. Also, MOBIN is insisting that the party respects Article 12(1) and (35) of her constitution which states that the congress for the state can only be presided over by the State Working Committee of the party while the National organ of the party will only observe the process.
We are making it emphatically clear that our alliance with UPP is in no way a servant and master relationship as our organization was given a key role as the mobilization agents of the party, which we have done judiciously and thus has earned us the right to challenge this gross criminality and impunity in the process as partners. MOBIN cannot allow itself to be ridiculed in any way after assuring Biafrans that UPP represents a new dawn.
