The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) have urged women in South-East to ignore an order by Nnamdi Kanu’s American lawyer, Bruce Fein to protest.
IPOB stated this in a statement by its media and publicity secretary, Emma Powerful, on Friday.
Fein, a constitutional lawyer and legal counsel to IPOB’s leader, Tuesday, had asked ‘Biafran Mothers’ to take to Abuja streets and protest incarceration of Kanu.
In its reaction, IPOB ordered Igbo women to shun such an advice, as it said it would be tantamount to suicide.
Powerful, speaking for the separatist group, said protest is part of tools of democracy in the United States of America, which is strange in Nigeria,
The statement partly reads: “Following the opinion of USA based IPOB legal adviser Mr. Bruce Fein, asking IPOB women to embark on a street protest in Abuja, we the global movement of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) ably led by our great leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu wish to completely disassociate from such opinion and instruct Biafran women to please ignore such opinion and avoid the unnecessary risk.
“We wish to state also that Bruce Fein overstepped his bounds as IPOB legal adviser in issuing such directive which will only expose our women to avoidable dangers and harm.
“Bruce Fein is our legal adviser and not IPOB Spokesperson. He does not quite understand that the version of Democracy operational in Nigeria is different from the real Democracy being practised in the US where he resides.
“In the US, protests are part and a common feature of Democracy and protesters enjoy protection from security agencies. But maybe unknown to him, in Nigeria, protesters are termed terrorists and shot on sight. To protest in Nigeria, particularly under the regime of President Muhammadu Buhari, is a suicide mission.
“IPOB will not advise Biafra women to hit the streets for any protest now because their safety is not guaranteed. We have lost a lot of innocent souls in the past protests and the international community watched without any intervention.
“Therefore, we won’t allow more people to be sent to their untimely grave by wicked security operatives in Nigeria who run away from terrorists and Fulani bandits in the North but shamelessly show their might when it has to do with unarmed agitators of self-determination in the South.
“We, therefore, urge all Biafrans to please ignore such directive from Bruce Fein, and any other of such directive not emanating from IPOB Spokesman and communicated through our proper channels of information dissemination.”
