Founder of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Chief Ralph Uwazuruike, has leveled heavy accusations against the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, claiming he is directing deadly violent activities from his prison cell.
Uwazuruike alleged that Kanu, who is serving a life sentence for terrorism at the Sokoto Custodial Centre, has continued to actively recruit impressionable Igbo youths from inside the facility.
He stated that this ongoing recruitment pipeline directly drives the rising body count of young people across the Southeast region.
In a widely circulated video broadcast on YouTube, the MASSOB founder expressed deep worry over the situation. He urgently appealed to prominent Southeastern leaders and the leadership of the apex pan-Igbo socio-cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, to intervene immediately.
He urged them to form a high-powered delegation, travel down to the Sokoto prison facility, and confront Kanu with a strict warning to stop pulling young men into fatal operations.
Expressing his frustration, Uwazuruike said: “I hate violence, and anyone who knows me will agree that I do not have anything to do with violence. How can someone who was sentenced to prison remain there and be recruiting our youth to go into violence? He has been sentenced, he should remain in prison and serve his jail term in peace and not recruiting more people into violence. Everyday, our young men are killed because they are being deceived into engaging in violence by Nnamdi Kanu, who is recruiting them from prison.”
He further pushed for a paradigm shift toward peace and rehabilitation, drawing a sharp contrast with how the federal government handles armed actors in northern parts of the country.
“I want to suggest that Igbo leaders and the leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo should mobilize to Sokoto and give Nnamdi Kanu a stern warning to desist from recruiting our young men into violence that will end their lives. In the north, we hear things like repentant terrorists and bandits, and federal government spend money to reintegrate them into society, so why can’t we have repentant IPOB members here? Why can’t the people who have been in violence renounce it and come out and seek amnesty, so that the federal government can rehabilitate them? Why do they have to be initiated deeper and deeper into violence, instead of thinking a way of coming out and embracing amnesty and enjoying rehabilitation,” Uwazuruike lamented.
The strong remarks from the MASSOB pioneer follow an increase in alarming video clips emerging on various social media platforms. These videos feature numerous masked, armed individuals asserting their allegiance to Kanu and identifying themselves as functional wings of IPOB.
Filmed deep within thick forests and unidentified locations across the region, the militants can be heard chanting solidarity anthems for Kanu while threatening a massive wave of armed unrest in the Southeast if the federal authorities fail to release him.
Tensions within the separatist movement have been boiling over for some time. Reports indicate that Kanu recently issued directives from detention to dissolve the powerful Directorate of State (DOS), which had long served as the administrative core of IPOB. Alongside stripping his closest confidants and allies of their administrative powers, Kanu reportedly initiated a new governance structure.
He is also alleged to have launched a recruitment drive for 100 individuals under a secretive initiative tagged the 100-man-project, though the definitive operational mandate and duties of these specific recruits remain highly ambiguous.
