News - South East
Updated: April 24, 2020

Biafra: 'COVID-19 Exposes Nigeria As A Disaster' - IPOB's Nnamdi Kanu

By Ridwan Yusuf
April 24, 2020
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The leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, on Friday, asserted that the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) "exposes Nigeria as a disaster", while also alleging 'grand deception in the country's Presidency'.

Allnews reports Africa’s most populous nation has tested just over 10,000 people so far out of a population of more than 200 million and as at 1:10 pm 24th April, there are 981 confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported in Nigeria, with 197 discharged and 31 deaths.

The current lockdown in Nigeria has paralyzed economic activity in its two main cities as concern over the government response to the outbreak grows.

The lockdown has kept more than 40 million people at home since March 30 and discontent is mounting in the country, which late February became the first in sub-Saharan Africa to identify a person with the virus.

According to self-exiled Kanu in a Tweet on his known handle, the "masses are restive".

As #Covid_19 exposes #Nigeria as a disaster & with the grand DECEPTION in its Presidency, masses are restive#SelfDetermination offers a pathway

Join me via my FB page,#RadioBiafra FB, FM, App, satellite & online

Date: Sun. 26/04/20
Time: 7:00 PM GMT#HoleInBuhariNeck pic.twitter.com/tBcowmrFUA

— Mazi Nnamdi Kanu (@MaziNnamdiKanu) April 24, 2020

Kanu was a relatively obscure figure until 2009 when he started Radio Biafra, a station that called for an independent state for the Igbo people and is broadcast to Nigeria from London.

Though he grew up in Nigeria's south-east and went to the University of Nigeria (UNN), Nsukka, Kanu moved to the United Kingdom (UK) before graduating.

Soon after setting up the now-outlawed IPOB in 2014, he spoke to gatherings of the large Igbo diaspora, calling for Biafran independence.

The plan for a Biafra state is not new.

In 1967, Igbo leaders declared a Biafran state. But after a brutal civil war, which led to the deaths of up to a million people, the secessionist rebellion was defeated.

Kanu is the latest in a line of ethnic Igbo activists taking up the cause of pushing for an independent state, saying the Igbos have been marginalised by successive Nigerian governments.