LAGOS, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- The leader of a Nigerian separatist group advocating the peaceful secession of the country's oil-rich southeastern region, Ralph Uwazurike, on Monday urged his followers to disregard the call for boycott of election by a rival group.
Uwazurike, leader of the Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), gave the warning in southern city of Owerri.
The leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, who recently resurfaced in Israel, announced on Sunday in a video message that there would be no election in South-East, Nigeria, in 2019.
Uwazurike said such a call was laughable because Kanu did not have control of elections in Nigeria, and that his intention was to incite his members into a venture that could lead to death of innocent people.
Kanu said in the video message that he would return soon to Nigeria to revive the agitation for Biafra independence.
His whereabouts had been unknown since July when the military launched an operation to check IPOB activities.
Uwazurike said Kanu was recruited to destabilize activities of MASSOB, adding that the reason he resurfaced again was to use the IPOB's platform to make money for his selfish gain.
According to Uwazurike, without the vote of South-East, a president can emerge in Nigeria, arguing that it will make no meaning for South-East to boycott the 2019 election.
Biafra represented nationalist aspirations of the Igbo people in the southern part of the country. An attempt in the 1960s to proclaim an independent Republic of Biafra resulted in a three-year civil war in which millions of people were killed and displaced.
