The Indigenous People of Biafra has issued a blistering rebuttal to Senate President Godswill Akpabio following his recent remarks in Enugu, characterizing his call for Igbo youths to shun armed struggle as a failed attempt at state propaganda and political coercion. In a comprehensive press statement released Tuesday, May 5, 2026, by the group’s spokesperson and Media and Publicity Secretary, Comrade Emma Powerful, the organization asserted that Akpabio’s rhetoric was not a message of peace, but rather a direct threat aimed at the self-determination movement. The group maintained that the Senate President’s warning—that state power will always overwhelm you—exposed a deep-seated democratic bankruptcy within the Nigerian political establishment.
A primary pillar of the response was the categorical denial that the movement is engaged in militancy or armed conflict. Powerful emphasized that the organization remains firmly rooted in a singular, democratic demand: a national referendum to determine the political future of the Biafran people. The group argued that a referendum is not war or terrorism, but the most democratic expression of political will known to any civilized society. According to the statement, the Nigerian state deliberately mischaracterizes a movement for self-determination as armed struggle because it cannot defeat the movement’s democratic legitimacy on its merits. By criminalizing the agitation, IPOB claims the government seeks to justify ongoing military repression and avoid the fundamental question of popular consent.
The statement delved deeply into legal arguments, citing both the Nigerian Constitution and international charters to bolster the claim that sovereignty resides with the people, not the political class. Powerful cited Section 14(2)(a) of the 1999 Constitution, which stipulates that government derives all its powers and authority from the people. He argued that power therefore does not belong to the Senate President or the Presidency, but to the citizens. Furthermore, the group invoked the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, a document domesticated into Nigerian municipal law. The group pointed to Article 20(1), which guarantees all peoples the unquestionable and inalienable right to self-determination, and Article 19, which asserts that nothing shall justify the domination of a people by another.
Powerful reminded the Senate President that the Nigerian Supreme Court affirmed the enforceability of this Charter in the landmark case of Abacha v. Fawehinmi. By ignoring these legal guarantees, the group argued, Akpabio is attempting to use political blackmail to bypass binding municipal and international laws. During his address in Enugu, Akpabio suggested that the Southeast could benefit from the creation of an additional state and recycled promises of federal inclusion. However, the group dismissed these offers as insulting administrative tokenism. They argued that you do not answer a sovereignty question with local government arithmetic and that symbolic adjustments within the same failed structure cannot neutralize the demand for self-determination.
The statement further criticized Akpabio’s attempt to link the economic struggles of the Southeast solely to sit-at-home protests. Powerful countered that the true economic injury began with the deliberate political and military destabilization of the region and the destruction of commerce through years of state-sponsored militarization. The press release also addressed the ongoing detention of their leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, characterizing the judicial proceedings against him as a theatre of managed pressure and political intimidation. They accused the Nigerian state of carrying out an extraordinary rendition from Kenya in violation of international law and now using political agents to demand an ideological surrender in exchange for a conditional peace.
Powerful was firm in stating that no amount of judicial manipulation or elite blackmail would compel Kanu to renounce the cause. The group concluded by challenging the federal government to respond to their demands with democratic tools rather than military threats. They argued that when a government responds to a call for a vote with the language of force, it admits it has no moral or constitutional argument left to present. The truth, according to the group, is that they are not asking for war, but for a vote. As of Tuesday afternoon, the Senate President's office has not issued a formal response to the statement, but the exchange highlights the deepening chasm between the Nigerian legislative leadership and the proponents of the movement.
With the Senate President emphasizing the overwhelming power of the state and IPOB insisting on a democratic referendum, how do you see the role of international human rights organizations evolving in this specific conflict over the next year?
