We’ll treat pro-Biafran ship hijackers as criminals – Military


The Defence Headquarters on Tuesday vowed that some suspected Pro-Biafran militants, who hijacked a merchant vessel off the coast of Nigeria on Friday would be treated as criminals and saboteurs.
The ship, believed to be an oil tanker, was said to have been hijacked by some militants, who issued a 31-day ultimatum to the Federal Government to release the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Mr. Nnamdi Kanu.
While some maritime industry sources claimed that the vessel was an oil tanker seized about 160 kilometres off the Bakassi Peninsula near the border with Cameroon, the Defence Headquarters revealed on Tuesday that the ship was seized about 7.5 nautical miles off the Port of Cotonou.
The suspected pro-Biafran militants had hijacked the foreign merchant ship and threatened to blow it up with its crew if the Federal Government failed to release Kanu.
It was learnt that the 31-day ultimatum by the militants was given at the weekend by one ‘General Ben.’
Kanu is being prosecuted by the Department of State Services for running an illegal organisation (IPOB), threatening to break away from Nigeria to create an independent country; importing radio transmitters and making inciting and seditious statements, while his co-accused persons had been charged with possession of firearms.
Defence sources, who claimed knowledge of the hijacking on Tuesday, explained that the operatives of the Nigerian Navy were on the trail of the captured vessel and the hijackers.
One of the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the hijackers had threatened to blow up the ship and its crew members if the government refused to release Kanu, who is currently being detained and undergoing prosecution for treasonable felony, after 31 days.
The Director of Defence Information, Brig. Gen. Rabe Abubakar, confirmed on Tuesday that some militants hijacked a vessel on Friday off the Nigerian coast, but threatened that the military would deal decisively with those he called criminals and saboteurs.

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