As the 2023 general election inches closer, Omoyele Sowore, the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), has said that addressing secessionist agitation by Biafra proponents “would be the easiest thing” for him as he “already knows what they are looking for”.
Speaking in a recent interview on Superscreen TV, monitored by POLITICS NIGERIA, Sowore said he has always expressed solidarity with Biafra agitators – even in the face of death threats.
“I am about the only presidential candidate running now that who has ever met with the leader of IPOB (Nnamdi Kanu. I met with him in 2019 in New York before I came to Nigeria and I was arrested and detained for four and a half months,” Sowore said.
“And we had an extensive conversation about what is going on.
“And he (Kanu) says to me, ‘all we want is justice’.
“You see, the right to self-determination is a fundamental right, recognised by even the United Nations (UN).
“We are having it wrong by killing people who are asking for secession because as I have often been quoted, a lot of Nigerians have mentally seceded from Nigeria. They are not here with us anymore. They are just trapped here. Anybody that can get away now has practically left the country.
“So you have to bring people together, talk to them as I have done, I have already done my own assignment in that department. And it would be the easiest thing to address because I already know what they are looking for and how to address them.
“I get attacked for standing with Nnamdi Kanu. People (thugs) come there (during Kanu’s trials at the Federal High Court, Abuja) with daggers, to kill me.”
