Obiora Emmanuel Gibson Chinwike was one of the counsels to the Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, during the early stage of his trial at the Federal High Court, Abuja.
As events unfolded, when agents of the state were allegedly hounding him, he fled Nigeria for the United States.
Narrating his relationship with the IPOB leader, Chinwike, told Daily Sun why he joined the organisation and maintained that he remains resolute to the struggle for the actualisation of Biafra.
Read Also: Osinbajo Offers $2m Monthly Bribe To Stop Biafra – Kanu
What has been your experience since the Biafra struggle?
Firstly, I practiced law in Abuja between 2009 and May 2016. I was born 40 years ago, and an adherent supporter of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
I am equally a dye in the wool supporter of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s idea for secession from the Nigeria for reasons every discerning Nigerian, whether Igbo and non- Igbo alike should acknowledge.
In this vein, I was among those who appeared to defend him at the early stage of his trials at the Federal High Court, Abuja with Barr Obeta as our lead counsel, and thereafter, I started facing harassment from the Nigerian police and the Department of State Security, which prompted my running away from the country with my only daughter on May 19, 2016 to the United States of America to seek political asylum. My wife had before then left with my son on February 8, 2016 to the United States.
Why did you join IPOB?
I joined IPOB on March 2015. The reason was that I perceived the organisation to be a genuine platform to liberate my people from agony and perpetual suffering, oppression and marginalisation. Nigeria has not been fair to the Igbo since after the end of the civil war; the civil war is still on, but the only difference is that there is no more staccato sounds of guns, shelling, mortar, grenades, etc in Igbo land, but the policies of the government have been anti -gbo; formulated to asphyxiate the race. So, it was and it’s still a divine call for me just like God divinely called Moses to liberate His people, Israel from the bondage and affliction of Pharaoh.
What is your relationship with Nnamdi Kanu?
Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is my leader; he is the only genuine leader Biafrans have had since the demise of Chief Odumegwu Ikemba Ojukwu). I fell in love with his ideology behind the actualisation of Biafra when I started listening to Radio Biafra broadcast from London since 2013, which corroborated my experience, the truth of what my father told me about the Igbo stories and books that I have read especially the cause of the civil war in Nigeria that began in 1967 through 1970 and how my people were massacred; and over two million Biafrans killed.
We also have to be aware that Biafra is not just a group of persons that just came out of nowhere to start existing, but have been in existence for over 400 years far before Nigeria was ever conceived although the First Republic of Biafra was first declared by the late Chief Odumegwu Ojukwu in 1967.
Have you had any bitter experience in this struggle?
Yes. No struggle is sweet. The late Nelson Mandela passed through untold tribulations.
Agents of the state have harassed me severally.
The first was, when we, IPOB members organised a peaceful demonstration at Onitsha in Anambra State and in Aba, Abia State, on December 2, 2015 and February 9, 2016 respectively, in conjunction with the coalition of some human rights organisations from the East, agitating from the Nigerian government, “the restoration of the Sovereign State of the Republic of Biafra.”
We were attacked by heavily armed Nigerian military alongside the police, who threw tear gas canisters on us. They arrested and shot a lot of my brothers and sisters that very day.
I was among those arrested and detained unjustly inside a military van for two days without food leaving us to die inside. We were later taken to an unknown location outside Anambra State, where we were arrested. We were flogged on daily basis to denounce our beliefs, zeal and passion for the movement of the actualisation of the Republic of Biafra and also to say detestable things against Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, our leader in the movement.
One Nnadozie, and I were forced to sign an undertaking that we will not associate ourselves in any way with any group or persons who in any way want or is already championing any secession group in Nigeria. I was released from detention on December 9, 2015. Then on our next peaceful non-violent protest in Aba on February 9, 2016, two hours into the protest, almost all the Nigerian security apparatuses were unleashed on IPOB members. Some people lost their lives to sporadic gunshots and the dehumanisation from the Nigerian security, especially the military. I saw them, I watched them point gun on peaceful people and shot them. At Aba, I was subjected to abuse, intimidation by the Nigerian security operatives. I was also molested by one Hamed (according to what his colleagues called him) of the Nigerian Army, who told me emphatically that, that day will be my last on earth, he took our pictures after stripping us and threatened to make it go viral if we failed to cooperate.
He told me to call my wife and my mother and say farewell to them and also let them know that we will not see any more because it will be either I die now or they take me to Kuje prison, Abuja, the following week without any trial.
They refused taking our injured members to hospital, so many people were allowed to bleed to death in my very presence, and seven people were shot to death the following morning. We were released after some human rights groups mounted pressure and raised the alarm on the unjust and illegal detention of some IPOB members by the military in an unknown location.
If you read the Amnesty International reports on the military killing of Biafran agitators, these dates I mentioned were captured in the reports.
In your view, how can IPOB be appeased?
The Nigeria government has never been fair to the Igbo even before the declaration of Biafra in 1967. The Igbo have been suppressed and marginalised for decades. Even the blind knows that the Nigerian establishment ran by the Northern oligarchy is suppressing Igbo in all ramifications.
In addition, we are underrepresented in nearly all top government positions, thoroughly neglected by federal authorities, except in the quasi-confiscation of oil revenues. Igbo continue to be marginalised in all facets of the national polity. Nigeria is a very sick political enclave, deceiving people that know the price of everything but the value of none.
THE SUN, NIGERIA