A group demanding its own
independent country, separate from Africa's biggest economy, wants President
Donald Trump to support their demands.
At of last year the Nigerian police reportedly said
Sunday 90 people were arrested and 150 were killed by the Nigeria police force
at a demonstration supporting President Donald Trump. It was organized by
a group that advocates for an independent country that will be formed from
regions of southeast Nigeria.
While massive demonstrations against
Trump were held across the world on Friday, the day of his inauguration, the
pro-independence activists from the Biafran region, who want Trump to
support the creation of an independent Biafran state , conducted a rally in
the southern oil hub of Port Harcourt.
"Some suspected members of the
Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) staged an unlawful protest in the Port
Harcourt metropolis," Ahmed Magaji, deputy police chief of Rivers State —
where the region is located — reportedly said, adding that the police had
to use tear gas to disperse the crowd because the unauthorized march
disrupted public order. The 90 people who were arrested were believed to
be a part of IPOB and were seen carrying the movement's flags, he said.
But the Nigerian separatist group reportedly said the
rally in support of Trump led to clashes with the police, in which about 150
people died and some others went missing. A spokesman for Rivers
State police, Nnamdi Omoni, said 90 people were arrested but no one had died.
Ugochukwu Chinweuba, a member of IPOB, reportedly said Saturday their
lawyers were working on the release of those arrested, as well as trying to
locate those still missing, whose number he put at about 200.
Biafran fought a civil war from
1967-70, in which about one million people died, to press for their demand to
create an independent Biafran state. After the rally Friday, several
pro-Biafra activists claimed on Twitter that police had attacked unarmed
demonstrators, killing some in the process.
None of the separatists' claims
could be verified independently
by Mr Iwuh
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