Aloy Ejimakor, counsel for the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu has said the demand for self-determination is not personal.
Ejimakor stated this in a post on his verified Twitter handle on Wednesday. The lawyer asserted that it is a demand on the Nigerian State, and not against its President.
Ejimakor explained that it was then President Muhammadu Buhari who took it personally to the point that he killed and renditioned for it.
He, however, advised President Bola Tinubu to be smart enough not to repeat the same mistake.
"The demand for self determination is not personal. It is a demand on the Nigerian State, not against its President. “It was Buhari that took it personal to the point that he killed & renditioned for it. President Tinubu should be smart enough not to repeat the same mistake. RONU," he wrote.
Also in May, Ejimakor said it is only through dialogue that a self-determination movement can be contained. Ejimakor also stated that repressive actions cannot overpower a self-determination agitation, citing cases of how Nigerians who fought for the nation’s independence could not be defeated by colonialists.
He, however, said the country’s independence agitators prevailed through dialogue, stating that the same was applicable to the late South African legendary leader, Nelson Mandela and his compatriots who defeated apartheid.
Ejimakor, who had condemned the rendition of Kanu in June 2021 and his detention in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS), has also argued several times that dialogue is the antidote to the self-determination movement.