Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, representing Abia North, has revealed that the secessionist agitations led by the convicted leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, resulted in the deaths of over 30,000 people and the total collapse of businesses across the South-East.
The former Abia State governor made the disclosure on Sunday, days after Kanu was convicted on terrorism charges by a Federal High Court in Abuja.
Kalu urged South-East political leaders and Kanu’s supporters to end “noise-making” and focus on a quiet political settlement with the Federal Government, warning that continued agitation only deepens the region’s suffering.
Do you know that over 30,000 Igbos were killed? People who had shops lost their businesses. I used to sell my own manufactured products in Aba. I know what the numbers were,” Kalu said.
He lamented that public discourse has focused almost exclusively on clashes involving security forces while ignoring the massive civilian toll.
“My mother’s friend had a rice shop. The woman who owed my mother about ₦4.2 million; they ransacked the old woman’s shops and she went bankrupt. Nobody talks about it,” he added.
The senator disclosed that he has been quietly engaging the Federal Government to secure a political resolution to Kanu’s detention, describing it as “part of my job.”
Recounting his past efforts, Kalu said he personally pressured the Muhammadu Buhari administration in 2016–2017 to grant Kanu bail, threatening not to join the APC unless the IPOB leader was released to face trial from home.
I told them I wouldn’t join the party if Kanu was not released on bail, Alhaji Mamman Daura and Abubakar Malami are alive; they all helped to make sure he was released on bail in April 2017,” he revealed.
Kalu expressed deep disappointment that, despite his interventions, Kanu’s subsequent actions “almost brought the South-East to its knees.”
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