The founder and president of Uma Ukpai Evangelistic Association, a non-denominational gospel ministry based in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State capital, South-South Nigeria, Rev. Uma Ukpai, has opposed Biafra agitations.
The leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, who is also the Director of Radio Biafra, is agitating for the Republic of Biafra. His group, the IPOB which is also seeking to break away from Nigeria had since been proscribed by President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
Like IPOB, the Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) is also fighting the same cause along with other pro-Biafra groups in Nigeria.
Addressing reporters in Uyo, headquarters of his ministry, the Abia-born clergyman condemned agitations for Biafra, describing those agitating for the actualisation of Biafra Republic as “mad people.”
Ukpai, an evangelist and a preacher, stressed that anyone agitating for Biafra only confirms the level of his or her madness, adding that everybody is mad but the difference only being in the level of madness.
His words: “There will always be crazy people, even when people are seen to be normal. Whoever is agitating for Biafra shows the level of his madness, but everybody is mad, the difference is the level of your madness,” he said.
Ukpai, who assessed Nigeria at 60, said he is disappointed there are still divisive elements holding the country apart.
According to him, until Nigerians begin to love and respect another, it would not make any meaningful progress.
“In Nigeria, we are all in a hurry to reach where are going to, so much so that we have no regards for others, no time for others and no love for others.
“As a nation until we love one another, we cannot notice one another. Only when we love that which we have, that we can develop. But in Nigeria, we don’t care whether others eat or not. If we have no respect for one another, it also means we don’t care whether others exist or not,” the cleric lamented.
Also speaking on the clamour for restructuring by Pastor Enoch Adeboye, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) and the controversies it generated, the clergyman said: “I don’t think that he (Adeboye) is not entitled to his opinion.
“He is a man of God and he must have seen what happened during the civil war, which would guide him in the deductions he made. But to me, everybody is entitled to his opinion,” Ukpai added.
