Hundreds of supporters of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra MASSOB, shut down Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, demanding to break away from Nigeria on Tuesday.Waving the Biafran flag as they marched through major roads in Port Harcourt, both MASSOB members and their supporters chanted war songs as they also demanded the unconditional release of one of their members, Mr. Nnamdi Kalu, said to have been arrested by the police in Lagos.
Though, the MASSOB members were tear-gassed by men of the Nigeria Police, the action did not deter them from marching through Ikoku, Ikwerre and the Government House in Port Harcourt.
The policemen later stopped firing teargas at the protesters and decided to watch the protest march by over 3,000 youths.
The protesters displayed placards with inscriptions such as, ‘A state of Biafra is non-negotiable,’ ‘On Biafra, we stand,’ ‘It is do or die,’ ‘We need our freedom peacefully,’ and ‘Release Nnamdi Kalu now.’
The peaceful demonstration caused a gridlock along Ikwerre road as a result of the huge number of persons involved in the protest, even as men of the Joint Military Task Force watched as the youths chanted freedom songs.
It was observed that some police operatives decided to shoot into the air to scare away the protesters when they (police) noticed that some of the protesters had stormed the premises of a new generation bank on Ikwerre road and pulled down a Nigerian flag.
One of the protesters, who identified himself as Okechukwu, told our correspondent that he had decided to sacrifice his life for the struggle to actualise Biafra as a country.
According to Okechukwu, who is a member of the Indigenous People of Biafra, “I will not stop being part of this struggle to actualise the sovereign state of Biafra. I am ready to sacrifice my life for this struggle so that my children will enjoy the freedom that will come from it.”