Police crack down on separatist group

Nigerian police destroyed the headquarters of a separatist movement in the southeastern town of Okigwe and arrested several of its leaders, area residents and media organisations said on Thursday.

Val Okeke, a resident of the town, told IRIN “no fewer than six people were killed by the policemen who flattened the building that served as the headquarters of MASSOB”.

MASSOB stands for Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra. The group is campaigning for the resuscitation of the defunct Republic of Biafra, whose declaration in 1967 led to a three-year civil war in which more than one million people died.

Okeke said MASSOB leader Ralph Uwazuruike was arrested along with several of his followers during the police action in Okigwe on Wednesday.

The French news agency, AFP, reported the police commissioner in charge of the area, Ahmed Abubakar, as denying that there were any deaths but confirming the destruction of MASSOB’s headquarters as well as the arrest of its leader and nine others.

They will soon be charged for “public disturbance, incitement and the unauthorised use of firearms and attempting to set up an illegal republic”, AFP quoted Abubakar as saying.

MASSOB, which says it is non-violent, has been battling with security agencies since it was formed more than a year ago in protest against the perceived marginalisation of the southeast by President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government. It has organised several demonstrations in different parts of the country during which it has hoisted the Biafran flag.