A high ranking chiefatin of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, Chief Arinze Igbani and 18 other members of the group were, yesterday, arrested by soldiers from the 302 Artillary Regiment, Onitsha over yet to be disclosed offences.
Igbani, the Onitsha Region 4 adminstrator was arrested in a native orthopaedic centre where he was receiving treatment following injuries he sustained from a motorcycle accident in June this year along with five MASSOB members who had allegedly gone to visit him.
It was not clear at press time what led to yesterday’s arrests, but MASSOB’s Director of Information, Mr. Uchenna Madu, said that 13 other members of the group were arrested in different locations at the slum settlement of Okpoko in the outskirts of Onitsha which is very close to where Igbani and the six other members of the group were staying at the time.
Madu, who addressed reporters in Onitsha over the incident, claimed that electronic gadgets which Igbani was using in the hospital, as well as five motorcycles belonging to the five people that visited him and six handsets, were seized from them.
He alleged that the soldiers aggravated Igbani’s fractured leg, adding that some traditional othopedic equipment used in treating patients at the center were