On Tuesday, May 30, 2017, people across the South East of Nigeria to a large extent supported the sit-at-home proposed by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB).
The sit-at-home lead to a widespread discussion on social media at the centre of which is Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the IPOB, who was recently released on bail in April.
Below are some facts about him:
1. He refuses to give his exact age, but was born in the 1970s. He was the eldest of five children, he grew up from a young age with stories from his father about the Biafran resistance.
Nnamdi Kanu has become a kind of religious figure with a large following
2. As far back as 2009, Kanu launched virulent diatribes against Nigeria from London, where he settled after his studies and founded the pirate radio station Radio Biafra.
3. He was formerly a member of another pro-independence group, MASSOB, but he left and founded IPOB in 2013.
READ ALSO: Meet a very young trooper in Biafra army who believes that Biafra is going to win (photos)
4. In 2015 at the World Igbo Congress in Los Angeles, Kanu crossed a line with an apparent call to take up arms. "We need guns and we need bullets," he said.
5. He was arrested at his hotel during a visit to Nigeria in October 2015.
6. Kanu's detention caused widespread anger among Igbos, and a series of protests calling for his release ended in bloodshed.
According to Amnesty International, Nigerian security forces killed at least 150 IPOB supporters in 2016.
7. The recent turn to Jewish religion by IPOB members dates back to a "divine revelation" Kanu says he had during a trip to Jerusalem: the Igbo -- most of whom are Christian -- are descendents of a lost tribe of Israel, he says.
PAY ATTENTION: Watch more videos on NAIJ.com TV
Kanu feels that Biafra is the "promised land" and it is his mission to restore it.
NAIJ.com earlier reported that in an interview he termed Nigeria a stupid country. Kanu who spoke to Al Jazeera in the parlour of his father's home in Umuahia insisted that the Igbo people have nothing in coming with Nigeria.
The interview was the first time he has spoken to an international media outlet since he was granted bail on health grounds in April by .Justice Binta Nyako.
Watch a video on Biafra and what Nigerians think of it below:
