TheCable

Annkio Briggs, social critic and human rights activist, says the “dot in a circle” comment by President Muhammadu Buhari is an attempt to divide the people of the south-east and the south-south.

In an interview with Arise Television, Buhari had said the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) is “a dot in a circle”, and that the group is isolated in its call for secession.

But speaking in a virtual conference organised by Njenje Media in collaboration with Elombah TV on Monday, Briggs said the president’s description is wrong.

The conference was titled ‘Addressing The Dot In Circle In President Buhari’s Interview, A Return To 1966?’

“First of all, I don’t even recall any access or non-access to the sea during the onslaught of the civil war,” the activist said.

“It was the federal government that came through the sea and the creeks. So having settled that, there are millions of elders and there are millions of youths in the Niger Delta, and there are ethnic nationalities in the Niger Delta that make up the south-South.

“For the president to therefore assume that whoever has told him that there won’t be access to the sea, that gives him pleasure and gives him joy because obviously an attempt to divide and rule both the south-south and the south-east, which in the past between our people would have keyed into, and I warned against during the celebration of my hero Adaka Boro.

“We may not agree on things per se, but one thing we do know and have, is a common enemy, a common problem, a common crisis and we do almost have a common desire, which is our collective survival.”

On his part, Don Pedro Obaseki, former managing director of DAAR Communications PLC, said the president “is trying to be clever by half by trying to play the devil’s advocate in between the south-south and the south-east”.

“He has made it clear from his body language, spoken language and all else that Nigeria is a different country with different nations,” he said.