Founder of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Chief Ralph Uwazuruike has renamed the secessionist group to Biafra Independent Movement (BIM).

He announced this on Sunday while addressing newsmen at the Ikemba Ojukwu Memorial library in Owerri.

This is even as the Igbo freedom fighter profusely apologized to the South-East and South-South for the recent demonstration by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) which he lamented brought senseless grief, sorrow and pains to thousands of innocent members of the public.

Uwazuruike said: “MASSOB was not in any way involved in that demonstration but the only difference was that the former MASSOB Director of Information Uchenna Madu who had been expelled was their spokesman and we sincerely sympathize with the families of those who lost their lives and who were in one way or the other affected in that exercise. It is our obligation to offer this unreserved apology because we were the first to speak of Biafra in Nigeria in 1999”.

Uwazuruike who had earlier addressed a crowd of MASSOB supporters explained that the change in name became necessary following the strange introduction of violence in the struggle to actualize the Sovereign State of Biafra by a faction allegedly sympathetic to Nnamdi Kanu of Radio Biafra, London.

However, he appealed to the federal government to urgently release Nnamdi Kanu and his colleagues who are currently languishing in detention, stressing that he would not delight to see Kanu and others experience what he (Uwazuruike) had gone through over the years in the quest for the realization of the sovereign state of Biafra.

“If you block roads, impede free flow of traffic and force traders to close markets, you are violent and all these are against the non-violence principle of MASSOB”, he stated.

Uwazuruike made it abundantly clear that Biafra could not be realized through violence and that the South- East is land-locked with no neighbouring countries for possible assistance when it matters most, stressing that anybody preaching violence to realize Biafra is a day dreamer.

Source: http://easyonlinenews..com.ng/2015/12/massob-renamed-to-biafra-independent.html#sthash.KJU2kceI.dpuf