South – South Nigeria is never part of Biafra Great Benin Descendants Worldwide, an Edo socio – cultural group has fired back at Nnamdi Kanu.
This was in reaction to a statement credited to him; acclaimed leader of the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB); a group agitating for Igbo cecession from the Nigeria State that the South – South region is part of Biafra.
The Group said last Saturday in a statement delivered by its coordinator general, Imasuen Amowie Izoduwa in Benin that the claim was an aberration.
Hence no inch of the South – South region will ever be ceded to Biafra, the group warned.
“… at what point in history did Igbos own South – South region? Is it in the days of the imperial exploit of the Great Benins or during the time the British amalgamated them and gave them a name and an identity as a people?
“Nnamdi Kanu should be properly lectured about the history of the pre – colonial era of Nigeria.
“He should be taught how the Benin people and its descendants controlled this whole region of South -South, part of South East and South West and that it took the British to cut off our power and gave it to some selected few.
“Of which the Igbos are the biggest beneficiary otherwise people like Nnamdi Kanu wouldn’t have the effrontery to place all this older ethnic groups, who have been in these places for more than 5,000 years under the wings of a group that is purportedly claiming to had come from Israel about 2,000 years ago.”
The group however said it was ready to engage Kanu and IPOB in an intellectual debate to resolving the unecessary controversy.
Also, the group warns the Ijaw people against continued claim of ownership over parts of Edo land even as they disregard the personality and authority of the Benin Monarch, HRM Oba Ewuare II.
“… They vilify us and our revered Oba and we have maintained so much decorum; and we have been threatened in our lands by those who have no historical nor legal claim to any parts of Edo land.
“We may have abandoned our way of violence after the unfortunate episode of the year 1897 but we have not lost it.
“Maybe a little refreshing of the minds of these modern Ijaw youths in our lands should be appropriately done by their elders about who the Benin people were, and still are.
“Certainly it could make them have a re – think of not waking up a sleeping lion.”
In the same vein the group condemned Benin natives who in its observation have formed the habit of uttering misguided statements about the Oba.
It advised that they desist from such acts described as uncommon in the Kingdom and rather channel whatever grudge or pain they hold through the existing avenues to the Monarch.
“Consequently, GBD will no longer tolerate any person seen using social media as a tool of committing abomination against the Edo traditions as we have sworn to uphold the very socio – cultural values that bind our people,” it warned.v
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