The Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) has vowed to resist the reintroduction of toll gates in the South East and some parts of South-South if it discovered that the objective was to disfavour the people.
MASSOB leader, Comrade Uchenna Madu, said in a statement that the organisation would never fold its hands and watch the federal government occupy the Biafra land forcefully in the name of toll gates. According to Madu, although Biafra seemed to be an occupied territory in the Nigerian state, MASSOB and other pro-Biafra groups would never allow those he described as invaders to occupy their land forcefully. He said, “Igbo land and the entire Biafra land can never continue to be an experimental ground for the exhibition of wickedness, malice, hatred, genocides, police extrajudicial killings, military terrorism, political subjugation and unprovoked massacre of innocent and harmless citizens.
“MASSOB condemns and insists that there will be no toll gates in Biafra land as wickedly proposed by the Nigeria government.
“MASSOB wonders how the establishment of these toll gates in Nigeria will even work.
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“MASSOB observes that South East, with only five states, has more toll gates (56) than the entire 19 states of the Northern region with only 35 toll gates. Igbo states are higher with 21 toll gates and there is no justification for it.
“South East has the greatest number of dilapidated federal road networks than any other region in Nigeria and even the northern region of Nigeria that claims to have the largest population will pay the lowest of the federal government toll gate fees.
“Also, South East has the smallest landmass and the shortest distances from one point to the other within the zone when compared with other zones.”
MASSOB wondered the basis of erecting more toll gates in the South East than the other zones, adding that the toll gates should be mounted proportionately to reflect the mileages of federal roads in the zones.
