IPOB supporters hijack ship, demand Kanu's release - Defence Ministry alleges

An unidentified group said to be associated with the pro-Biafra agitators in South-East  Nigeria have hijacked a merchant ship and threatened to blow it up with its foreign crew unless the Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of the Independent People of the Biafra, is released.

Nnamdi Kanu, director of banned Radio Biafra, has been arrested since by the Department of State Services, DSS, since Oct. 17 detained. He is currently facing trial over alleged acts of terrorism, an incident that has sparked protests in which police are accused of killing several demonstrators.

The Defense Ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Rabe Abubakar, yesterday confirmed that the incident occurred on Friday but did not, however reveal the name of the ship affected.

He simply described the incident as an "an act of sabotage."

One "General Ben", who is not a known pro-Biafra activist issued the ultimatum from the separatists at the weekend.

Evidence that the hijackers may be in cahoots with the pro-Biafra agitators is a statement credited to Uchena Madu, a leader of the Movement for the Actualization of a Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), to the effect that "some Niger Delta militants have shown interest in working with us." This indicates that other groups could be working with some Niger Delta oil militants blamed for recent bombings of pipelines in the oil-rich south.

This is, however, the first of such hijack linked to the pro-Biafra agitators.

According to him, the Nigerian Navy is on the trail of the captured vessel, a tanker seized about 100 miles (160 kilometers) off Nigeria's Bakassi Peninsula, along Nigeria's south-eastern Atlantic Ocean coastline, near the border with Cameroon.

The Bulgarian News reported that the hijackers "boarded the tanker from two fast boats and took control over the vessel and locked the crew in the mess room" and commandeered it towards the Niger Delta.