Aloy Ejimakor, the special counsel to the detained leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu has taken a swipe at those opposed to conducting of referendum for the state of Biafra, saying it was referendum that made Abubarkar Atiku a Nigerian.
In a statement sent to Africa Today News, New York on Saturday, Ejimakor while providing more clarifcations on the gains of referendum, pointed out that it was through plebiscite that Midwest Region came into being in 1964.
While making a case for a plebiscite, he asserted that many nations including Eritrea, Kosovo, South Sudan and others, were created through referendum.
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‘It is referendum that made Abubakar Atiku a Nigerian and which may as yet make him President. It’s through referendum that Midwest Region came into being in 1964.
‘This is all within Nigeria, not counting the many nations that were created through referendum, such as Eritrea, Kosovo, South Sudan, etc.’
The IPOB leader’s counsel said the problem is not the separatist agitation, IPOB or Nnamdi Kanu, but what he described as the ‘misguided militarist response to it which, instead of containing it, is actually validating the agitation and convulsing Southeast and Nigeria to boot’.
Africa Today News, New York reports that the citizenship of the former Vice President of Nigeria has remained on the front burner in the last few years as many of his political opponents have continued to insist that he hails from Cameroun and not Nigeria citing the citizenship by birth clause in the Nigerian constitution as a prerequisite for becoming President in Nigeria.
Meanwhile, Atiku has continued to insist that he is a Nigerian and should be accorded his full rights as a citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which includes the freedom to seek any political office of his choice.