The All Igbo Youth Forum, a pressure group, has warned that Igbo youths will boycott the 2027 General Elections unless the Leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, is released.
The National President of the Forum, Chief Chinedu Obilor, issued the threat at a news briefing held at the Secretariat of the Abia Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Umuahia on Tuesday.
Obilor said that the group shelved its planned protest over Kanu’s continued incarceration, after its discussion with the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr Benjamin Kalu.
He said that Kalu assured the group that discussions with President Bola Tinubu on the IPOB leader’s release were ongoing.
He said, “We believe the president will listen to the cry of Ndigbo and release Kanu.”
According to Obilor, the forum’s position remains unchanged and we cannot leave Nnamdi Kanu and be talking about 2027.
He said that the group would give the deputy speaker two more months to engage the president on Kanu’s release.
He said it was the group’s resolve that he must take the demand for Kanu’s release to the president urgently.
“If they fail, we will hold 10 million-man march to Abuja and dare them to jail all of us,” he said.
He wondered why other agitators and terror suspects were released but Kanu remained in custody.
“If they feel they will use Nnamdi Kanu to do politics, we will not agree.
“We’ll mobilize 10 million Igbo youths to march and tell the government we won’t vote, if Kanu is not released,” Obilor said.
The group kicked against the exclusion of the South-East in recent political appointments, describing it as unacceptable.
It further spoke on the ongoing coalition in the African Democratic Congress, saying that “any coalition that won’t cede the presidential ticket to the South will not fly”.
It said that the South supported the North for eight years under late President Muhammadu Buhari, adding that the time is now ripe for equity.
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