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3,000 Massob Members Killed, Group Alleges

Vanguard (Lagos)
NEWS
November 13, 2002
Posted to the web November 13, 2002

By Emma Amaize
Benin City
DIRECTOR of Mobilization of the Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign
State of Biafra (MASSOB), Mr. Ike Samuel, yesterday alleged that about 3000
members of the movement had been killed by security agents in different parts
of the country since 1999.
Speaking in Benin, the MASSOB boss stated that over 20 members of the group
were killed in Aba in 2000 during a confrontation with securitymen over the
flag of Biafra.
"Two weeks after that," he said, "another 20 people who were MASSOB members
were killed during a peaceful rally in Lagos. Early this month (November),
about 10 members of MASSOB were killed by Nigerian armed security men at
Onitsha. Are we at war? Are we at war in the Eastern region.
"Yet, the MASSOB members are being killed daily by Nigerian securitymen while
there are no violence situations," he lamented.
Ike also noted that "there are a lot of militant groups today in Nigeria, but
they operate freely without molestation," adding that since the past three
years of the existence of MASSOB, no member of the movement has slapped or
killed any policeman.
"But the police have decided to kill us on a daily basis. I do not say that the
Nigerian government should withdraw their mobile policemen from the Eastern
states, because as at now, we are expecting our sovereignty," he asserted.
Ike, however, warned that the Federal Government should ask its security agents
to stop harassing and killing MASSOB members "because we are not chickens." The
MASSOB boss who addressed newsmen with several members of the movement lamented
that the Igbos have been badly marginalised in this country, saying that the
movement is poised in actualizing a free Biafran state.
He further revealed that MASSOB machinery had commenced sensitization
programmes in the proposed Biafra states which include Delta, Cross River,
Bayelsa, Akwa-Ibom, Rivers and the five Igbo-speaking states.

   

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