Constitutional lawyer, Prof. Ben Nwabueze, has warned the Igbo against boycotting the 2019 general elections because of its implication on the south east.
He gave the warning yesterday in a terse statement in a reaction to alleged threat by the exiled leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Mr. Nnamdi Kanu saying boycotting the exercise would be a suicidal mistake.
Kanu had, in his broadcast on Radio Biafra, London, on Sunday restated his call for the Igbo to boycott the election.
He said among other things that IPOB is not interested in anything else other than for the government to set a date for a referendum.
“We will not relent till referendum is conducted. We stand for the truth. It’s referendum or nothing else,” he said.
But Nwabueze in a 29-word statement entitled ‘Press Release on Nnamdi Kanu’s call to boycott the 2019 general election,’ disagreed and urged those threatening to boycott the 2019 general polls to have a re-think.
“My stand on the boycott of election is that it is a suicidal mistake. For this reason, I am totally opposed to it, and have repeatedly advised against it,” he said.
Also reacting to Kanu’s broadcast, the secretary of the Eastern Consultative Assembly (ECA) Mr. Elliot Ugochukwu-Uko, said the IPOB leader’s comments would excite ‘’millions of Ndigbo all over Nigeria because an average Igbo man sees him as a hero except the political class, who sees him as a threat and want him dead.”
He said Kanu could influence the course of the 2019 elections because the masses love him.
The ECA secretary therefore urged the authorities to look for Kanu and talk to him and address the issues that gave rise to the Biafra agitation by IPOB.
