Why democracy will continue to be threatened in Nigeria, by MASSOB

The Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) said yesterday said democracy would remain threatened in the country as long as the federal government continues to arrest and detain its members and those of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) for no just cause.

Lamenting the massive arrest and detention of IPOB members in various prisons in Abia State over the recent clashes with soldiers during the just-concluded Operation Python Dance 11 in the Southeast, MASSOB stated a country that preaches peace and unity should not be associated with such level of treatment on a segment of its citizens.

Assistant Comptroller General of Prisons for Zone E, Mr. Alloy Uchenwa, recently lamented that prison facilities in the state have been overstretched by the presence of IPOB members arrested and clamped into various prisons in the wake of the military exercise.

A MASSOB leader in the Southeast, Godwin Chukwudi Ugwumgbor, while reacting to Uchenwa’s statement, queried the rationale behind their continued detention and called on the federal government to release them.

He noted that the development was dangerous and could impact negatively on the health of the affected inmates, adding that it showed that people were no longer free to expression their displeasure over certain policies of government.

He said: “It really provokes one to anger and tears that people who were arrested for carrying out peaceful demonstration are languishing in various prisons.”