The Urhobo Progress Union Youth Wing Press Secretary has added his voice to the recent denouncements of Biafra by minority groups in the South-South region. This denouncement is against the idea being peddled by IPOB and other Biafran secessionists groups that the South-South and non-Igboid minority groups are parts of Biafra. It can never be stressed enough that these minority groups, especially the Urhobo, share nothing in common with Igbos except for proximity with the Anioma people with whom they share a state. Igbos have their own cause, as the Urhobos also do. The common issue of marginalisation is not enough for the Biafran secessionists to force uninterested groups into their prospective nation. What more? This denouncement of Biafra was first done by UPU (the apex socio-political organisation in Urhobo) in 2014 and yet the wishes of Urhobos to be left alone from the Biafran secessionist plans have not been respected. What more proof is needed that IPOB and other Biafran secessionist groups that they don’t respect the wishes of minorities? Let’s hear from the horse’s mouth:

Following claims by agitators for the resuscitation of the defunct Republic of Biafra that the Urhobos of Delta State in Nigeria’s South-South geo-political zone are part of Biafra, Delta Central Coordinator of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), Efemena Kelly Umukoro, has declared that “the Urhobo nation has no arrangement with the agitators and can never and will never be part of Biafra.”

Umukoro, who was reacting to the claims by some Biafra agitators that Urhobo is part of Biafra, maintained that Urhobo nation believes in Nigeria as an entity, adding that as long as there was fairness, justice and equality, it would remain undivided and stand with Nigeria.

Umukoro, who is also the National Press Secretary of the youth wing of Urhobo Progress Union (UPU), said that the struggle by Biafra agitators was a joke, adding that when the group started its campaign to break out of Nigeria, it never consulted the Urhobo nation, “but since they have had insight into the potentials of the Urhobo nation, they want to drag the Urhobos into it struggle.

“We know nothing about their campaign and struggle and anybody who tries to drag Urhobo into this campaign is wicked and satanic. The Urhobo nation can never and will never be part of Biafra because we believe in the unity, growth and progress of Nigeria.”

He called on the Biafra agitators not to drag the Urhobos into this campaign, insisting that it would never be part of any arrangement that was capable of destroying Nigeria, while saying that Nigeria has a lot to gain as a nation than as a divided entity.

He however called on all stakeholders in the Nigerian project to ensure equity, fair play and justice in the socio-economic and political administration of the country saying, as long as these values are held sacrosanct in Nigeria, the country would live up to its great potentials.

Guardianng