The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has strongly condemned a recent statement by Sunday Dare, a media aide to President Bola Tinubu, which sought to differentiate the terrorism conviction of IPOB leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu from the activism of Yoruba self-determination advocate Chief Sunday Adeyemo (popularly known as Sunday Igboho).
In a fiery press release issued on Tuesday, February 17, 2026, by IPOB’s Directorate of Media and Publicity, the group described Dare’s remarks—published in several newspapers under the headline “Kanu’s terrorism conviction different from Igboho’s activism”—as “desperate,” “laughable,” and a clear demonstration of “Yoruba-led ethnic desperation” to justify what IPOB calls the judicial persecution of Nnamdi Kanu.
While acknowledging one point of agreement—that Kanu and Igboho are “not in the same league”—IPOB insisted the comparison itself is insulting. The group portrayed Kanu as a “towering liberator” fighting for the restoration of a sovereign Biafran state, while describing Igboho as an “ordinary self-determination agitator” whose actions never constituted an existential threat to Nigeria.
IPOB went further, placing Kanu in the company of global icons of liberation who were once branded terrorists or criminals by oppressive regimes:
Chief Obafemi Awolowo, convicted of treasonable felony in 1963 and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment with hard labour, yet later celebrated as a Yoruba hero with streets and statues named after him.
Nelson Mandela, imprisoned for 27 years as a “terrorist” by apartheid South Africa.
Mahatma Gandhi, repeatedly convicted of sedition by British colonial authorities.
Martin Luther King Jr., jailed nearly 30 times during the U.S. civil rights struggle.
Malcolm X, who served prison time before emerging as a leading voice for Black liberation.
African leaders including Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Kwame Nkrumah, and Julius Nyerere, all of whom faced sedition, libel, or imprisonment charges.
“History always vindicates such men,” the statement declared. “The Tinubu aide and his propagandists should be ashamed for attempting to rewrite this universal truth.”
IPOB accused the judicial process against Kanu of being ethnically rigged from the outset, pointing to what it called a “Yoruba affair”: a Yoruba judge (Justice James Omotosho), Yoruba prosecutors, a Yoruba Attorney-General of the Federation, operating under a Yoruba-led executive headed by President Tinubu.
The group also linked Kanu’s formation of the Eastern Security Network (ESN) to the relative security in the Southeast compared to parts of Yorubaland, which it claimed has suffered from unchecked insecurity including Fulani herdsmen attacks. “The same insecurity they downplayed and ignored when Mazi Nnamdi Kanu warned the nation years ago has now reached even the village of their own Justice James Omotosho,” the release stated. “The chickens have come home to roost.”
IPOB dismissed any suggestion of equivalence between Kanu and other agitators, attributing such narratives to “backstabbing treachery” by some Igbo politicians. It described Kanu as a “man of destiny” whose name would “echo through generations long after Tinubu and his aides are forgotten.”
The statement concluded with a defiant reaffirmation of IPOB’s commitment: “The more they persecute Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the stronger the resolve of IPOB and the Biafran masses becomes. Biafra’s liberation is unstoppable.”
Signed by IPOB Spokesperson Comrade Emma Powerful, the release urged Yoruba leaders—including President Tinubu—to focus on addressing insecurity and other challenges in their region rather than “manufacturing differences to cover ethnic persecution.”
The Tinubu administration and Sunday Dare have not issued an immediate response to the latest IPOB statement as of the time of this report.
The exchange highlights the persistent ethnic and political tensions surrounding the detention of Nnamdi Kanu, who remains in custody despite court rulings ordering his release, and the broader struggle for self-determination in Nigeria’s Southeast.
