Former Minister of Interior, Lt. Gen. Abdulraham Dambazau (retd.), has come under heavy criticism for comparing the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), and Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) with Boko Haram.
The former Army Chief had said the proscribed IPOB and OPC shared similarities with the terrorist group, Boko Haram.
Speaking on Friday in Abuja at the inauguration of Army War College Nigeria Course 5/2021, Dambazau said that both the OPC and IPOB were making attempts to plunge the nation into an ethnic war.
But in a statement on Sunday, by its National Director of Information, Edeson Samuel, MASSOB described the statement credited to Dambazau as unguided, reckless, debasing, and unprofessional.
The group knocked the former minister for comparing an internationally accredited terrorist group with self-determination groups without condemning the atrocities of Fulani herdsmen.
It noted that Fulani herdsmen were the ones terrorising and destroying Nigeria, saying that the failure of the minister to condemn the activities of the herdsmen across the country showed conspiracy in the South.
The statement partly read, “It is a well-known fact that IPOB, OPC, MASSOB and other self-determination groups in Nigeria are engaged in a legitimate self-determination struggle for our people’s liberation from the series of slavery the British yoked us with the Hausa Fulani-dominated Nigeria Enterprise with their Islamic and Sharia hostages.
“How can a man who has served in the military as Army General suddenly become myopic and exhibit loss of his sense of reasoning by comparing IPOB, OPC to Islamic terrorist Boko Haram?
“The Fulani from Sudan, Mali, Niger and Libya are now residents in Nigeria. They are in our rural villages as shoe menders, water well diggers, okada riders and tailors waiting to execute their plans of overtaking the Southern and Middle Belt regions.
“The coordinated synergy of all pro-independence agitators in Biafra, Oduduwa and Middle Belt lands will always resist the Fulani domination.”
