Videos showing members of the proscribed secessionist group, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), insisting that there would be no elections in the southeast have begun making the rounds on various social media platforms.
In one of the videos, protesters are seen chanting a popular IPOB song, “Onye tuo vote ona ugwu Hausa” as they move across a market in southeastern Nigeria.
The video is generating a lot of controversies and fears amongst many in the east due to the rise in violence attributed to “unknown gunmen”, which many suggest are members of the proscribed group.
History of the agitations against the Nigerian state
Separatist groups over the years have been at loggerheads with the government over their desire for independence and to run parallel governments.
The history of succession in Nigeria can be traced to far back as 1950, when leaders from various regions came together to discuss the Richards Constitution.
From 1967 to 1970 the republic of Biafra declared its independence from Nigeria and sought to break away from the country. The region was eventually defeated by the Nigerian state, but separatist movements from the region have remained to date.
The Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) emerged in 1999 as a non-violent Biafran nationalist group. The group is led by an Indian-trained lawyer Ralph Uwazuruike, with headquarters in Okwe, in the Okigwe district of Imo State.
The Biafra Zionist Front (BZF), formerly known as the Biafra Zionist Movement (BZM), was formed in 2010 and is led by British-Nigerian lawyer Benjamin Onwuka.
The group which is based on Zionism ideologies was responsible for the 2014 Enugu Government House attack on March 7, 2014, and was behind an attack on a State Broadcasting Service office a few months later.
Onwuka was arrested in 2014 but was released three years later. In June 2017 the group proclaimed the independence of Biafra and Onwuka as president.
The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) was founded by Nnamdi Kanu and Uche Mefor in 2012.
It is led by Nnamdi Kanu, who is currently in a legal battle with the Nigerian government over terrorism charges.
IPOB was deemed a terrorist organization by the Nigerian government under the Nigerian Terrorism Act and proscribed in 2017.
Who are the protesters?
Verifying the authenticity of the video, CDD Election War Room analysed the banners seen in the video to confirm if the protesters were members of IPOB, MASSOB, or BZF.
We also searched for the term being chanted in the video, “Onye tuo vote ona ugwu Hausa”, to find out which group it is associated with.
We found out the term originated from a song by an IPOB member Don Prince. This song was used to issue threats to Anambra indigenes to prevent them from taking part in the November 17, 2017 elections.
This was widely condemned even by another secessionist group MASSOB. IPOB has since then issued various “No election” messages at various times.
Video shows call to boycott 2019 elections
In 2019, under the umbrella of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi was the running mate of Atiku Abubakar, who ran for the office of the president.
The IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, had in October 2018 called for the boycott of the 2019 general elections in the south-east insisting “no restructuring, no elections”.
Kanu would later call off the boycott a few days before the February 19 election, stating that some of his conditions have been met.
One of such protest is what has resurfaced on social media as a recent opposition against Obi’s 2023 presidency.
Going through multiple news sources, we found this protest video from 2019.
The most popular version of the videos is from 2018, and it was not in Anambra state but in Ebonyi.
The protesters were kicking against any elections in Anambra state in 2019. The protests were held immediately after Kanu’s announcement.
Verdict
The viral videos against elections in the east are not recent; they are at least four years old.