The Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-Determination (NINAS) has accused the Federal Government of paying black Americans $500 per head to stage a pro-Buhari and ‘one Nigeria march’ opposite the United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York.
Chairman NINAS, Prof. Banji Akintoye, who is also chairman of Ilana Omo Oodua (IOO), the umbrella body of more than 100 self-determination groups in Yorubaland, made the allegation in a statement by the Director of Public Communications, Mr. Maxwell Adeleye.
NINAS had commenced its ‘million-man freedom march’ opposite the UN Headquarters on September 14, the day the UN General Assembly commenced its 11-day 76th session. The grand finale of the march has been fixed for today, when President Buhari will address the 76th Session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA).
The group is demanding the conduct of a regional referendum so that indigenous people from the southern and Middle Belt can decide on their nationhood, describing the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria as a fraud having been enacted without the consent of the people. The million-man march is also targeted at showcasing to the world the crimes against humanity, attacks on press freedom, free speech and other criminalities allegedly aided by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government.
Akintoye alleged that an unnamed top Nigerian government official and a popular Lagos journalist were hired to pay foreigners of African descent to masquerade as “One Nigeria” protesters to counter the NINAS march.
He, however, assured that no matter how the Federal Government tried to scuttle the NINAS march, the will of the people would prevail and urged all people of the South and Middle-Belt in the US and Canada to troop out in their numbers for the protest against what he said was the “rape of our ancestral land and hijack of our assets and sovereignty by the Fulani-controlled Nigerian government.”
“The Friday grand march in New York shall be historic, hence, the Nigerian government is jittery. The ring leader of government officials from Kwara State and a top Lagos journalist are now in New York to start hiring black people who will pretend as Nigerians to stage a pro-Buhari and One Nigeria Protest to counter NINAS on Friday. But we refuse to be rattled. We shall not be intimidated. No oppressor has ever triumphed against the collective will of the people. The people are the government and power belongs to the people. The people make the constitution. Sovereignty belongs to the people.”
