The statement credited to the leadership of the self-serving Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) asking the United States of America not to sell high-tech aircraft to Nigeria to execute the lingering Boko Haram war in the North East looks childish and trite.
The administration of President Donald Trump announced yesterday, the move to sell the 12 Embraer A-29 Super Tucano aircraft with sophisticated targeting gear for nearly $600 million to Nigeria for which the US Congress is expected to receive formal notification within weeks.
The negotiations for the sale of the high-tech aircraft started during the regime of Barak Obama. As a matter of fact, the US had similarly sold war arsenals to other countries troubled by terrorism and or other life threatening situations, including the $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
And in a statement signed by its spokespersons, Emma Nmezuand and Clifford Chukwuemeka Iroanya, IPOB alleged that the aircraft will be used (by the government) for aerial bombardment and mass-murder of Biafrans. IPOB said: “apart from the genocidal intents of the Nigerian government as the overarching reason for the procurement of the attack aircraft, the IPOB is appealing to the US Congress to deny approval of the sale of these attack aircraft because of three reasons, namely; Mis-use of Technical capabilities, Legal (violation of Leahy Law), and Commercial (procurement fraud).”
The group said the Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano (A-29) is a turboprop light attack aircraft which is designed to operate in extremely rugged terrain with aerial reconnaissance missions’ capability, especially in low-threat environments.
The fact that some human beings, in modern world and with modern technology, could take an act of hatred for certain part of the country to such a mad height beats one’s imagination.
The IPOB leaders, in their myopic struggle for an imagined Republic, for purely selfish reason, forgot that even if they have a Biafra Republic today, they would need to operate in a world free of terrorism and, of course, kidnapping and smuggling and other inhuman transnational crimes. And that the sale of…to Nigeria by the US government is part of the move to free not only Nigeria, not only Africa, but the world and, even the dream Biafra Republic from terrorism which had hit major countries of the world.
These Biafra desperadoes are pursuing their ambition with such blindness and deafness that, they hardly give a thought to the fact that, for now, and before their dreamt Republic manifests, they still owe allegiance to the Federal Republic of Nigeria…and that, by denying such allegiance, they have simply made themselves rebels.
They may not have known that with such stand, as rebels, they are already building the dream Biafra Republic on the foundation of quick sand that will collapse as quickly as it is made to stand. [myad]
