MASSOB founder and leader of BIM(Biafran Independence Movement), Chief Ralph Uwazurike, has released a video below to celebrate 21 years since he founded MASSOB and started the agitation for Biafra.

Choosing to speak in Igbo language, Uwazurike said that he founded MASSOB on 13th of September 1999. He said he was a boy during the Biafran war and was running around with his family from one place to the other as the war raged. After the war ended and he began Secondary School, he was intrigued to learn about Mahatma Ghandi, the man who got independence for India using non violent means. His admiration for Ghandi was one of the reasons he travelled to India to study law and was later called to the Nigerian Bar.

Uwazurike said that he was practising law in Lagos in the early 90's when OPC started killing non indiigenes all over Lagos. Him and other Igbos reached out to Ojukwu to intervene which led to him meeting Ojukwu for the first time. Ojukwu came to Lagos to negotiate with Yoruba leaders to stop the killings by OPC.

He grew very close to Ojukwu over the years and when Ojukwu took his wife Bianca to America to have a baby in 1999, he founded MASSOB while Ojukwu was away. He said that Ojukwu was very angry when he returned from America and heard that MASSOB had been formed, but he gave his blessings when he learnt it was for non violent means.

Uwazurike said that he had been arrested, tortured and detained numerous times over the years. He had been kept in several prisons all over Nigeria and charged to court for various crimes linked with his agitation for Biafra, but he remained undaunted about the realisation of Biafra for the Igbos

He asked all the Biafran groups out there to speak with one voice. He ended by telling Igbos that Nigeria was already dead and that Biafra was just a matter of time.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-H5B3K-gGY