Detained leader of proscribed Igbo separatist group, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has threatened to sue anyone who labels the bloody military coup of 1966, which was led by Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, as an Igbo coup.
Kanu who made this known through his Special Counsel, Barrister Aloy Ejimakor, said he would take what he called a “vigorous legal action against any person or entity that henceforth refers to the unnecessary 1966 coup as an Igbo coup.”
Ejimakor who shared Kanu’s position in a post on his X handle, @AloyEjimakor on Tuesday, said the Biafran agitator gave the instructions during a routine visit to him by his legal team at the Department of State Services (DSS) detention facility on Monday.
“At the visitation with Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, he instructed us as his team of lawyers to take vigorous legal action against any person or entity that henceforth refers to the unnecessary 1966 coup as an Igbo coup,” Ejimakor wrote.
Ejimakor went on to give the full list of the 1966 coup plotters and their ethnicities, and wondered why anyone would tag the coup an Igbo coup.
According to Ejimakor, major players in the coup were:
“Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu — Igbo; Major Adewale Ademoyega — Yoruba; Major E. Ifeajuna — Igbo; Capt. G. Adeleke — Yoruba; Capt. Gibson Jalo — BALI; Capt. Swanton — MIDDLE BELT; Lt. Fola Oyewole — YORUBA; Lt. R. Egbiko — Esan; Lt. T. Katsina — Hausa/Fulani; Lt. O. Olafemiyan — Yoruba; Lt. Hope Eghagha — Urhobo; Lt. Dag Warribor — Ijaw; 2nd Lt. Saleh Dambo — Hausa, and 2nd Lt. John Atom Kpera — Tiv.”
Continuing, he said:
“Out of 14, only 2 were Igbo; why Igbo traducers & Igbophobic falsifiers of history tagged it ‘Igbo Group,’ only God knows.
“Such unfounded and unjustifiable hatred is why Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is in detention without trial.
“Being the quintessential leader that he is, he doesn’t want any Igbo person to go through what he has experienced at the hands of the judiciary in Nigeria.”