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| Is America sponsoring Biafra: Revisiting Campbell’s Prediction On Nigeria’s Disintegration |
In August, 2015 the former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria John Campbell, reiterated his prediction that Nigeria would not exist beyond 2015. He first made the controversial prediction in 2011. Going by unfolding events in the Nigeria, with massive protests by Biafrans hitting major cities in Nigeria and overseas, could Campbell’s prophecies actually be coming to pass? Is the United States also tacitly supporting Biafra?
“My view has not changed about the serious challenges Nigeria faces. I think the challenges are more pronounced than they were before the Boko Haram insurrection began in the North. Political life is also unsettled by the approach of the 2015 elections.” Campbell stated in an interview last August 2014.
In the aftermath of Campbell’s predictions, the Nigerian government through Nigeria’s Ambassador to the United States, Professor Adebowale Ibidapo Adefuye, took on the former US envoy, calling him a ‘Prophet of Doom’. Some other Nigerian leaders also tackled Campbell who was then and is still believed to be working for the political opponents of President Goodluck Jonathan.
Subsequently, the United States Government said that there are no signs that Nigeria will disintegrate before, during or after the February general elections. The US Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. James Entwistle, stated that indeed Nigeria was faced with “big challenges,” but the problems at stake were surmountable.
Entwistle spoke in Lagos while donating a US naval ship, christened, “NNS Okpabana” to the Nigerian Navy.
According to the American envoy, Nigerians should “throw out of the window” the idea from “some think-tank or somebody outside the (US) government” stating that Nigeria was going to fall apart in 2015.
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The US diplomat said, “I have been plagued by the question (on Nigeria’s 2015 disintegration) and I have gone back to look and I can’t find any government report that said Nigeria would disintegrate in 2015. Maybe some think-tank or somebody outside the government said it; I don’t know.
As Soviet Union was DISSOLVED so would Nigeria: Restoration of Biafran Republic is a matter of time
“But in my opinion as the US Ambassador to this country, I am not worried in the least that Nigeria is going to disintegrate in 2015. Regardless of what someone may have said, the question is that we are now here in 2015: Do we see signs that Nigeria is going to disintegrate or fall apart or something? I don’t know what you think. But I don’t see those signs.
“But I see signs of growth, optimism and I see that to minimise the challenges that you have, in this life, you have to keep on keeping on, and I think the future is quite bright.”
However, between 2013 and 2015, much of what John Campbell said came to pass. Political developments, security and economic situations in Nigeria since the prediction have also suggested that Campbell, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) actually did his research well before concluding that the country would not exist beyond 2015.
The country’s economic situation has worsened. Insurgents attacks have heightened. Campbell in his book “Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink” delivered a provocative analysis of a country “in trouble” with insurmountable challenges which, if not addressed and carefully managed (by Nigerians, the United States, and other partners) risk of becoming a failed state.
After the book was released, Nigerian Ambassador Adebowale Adefuye, described Mr. Campbell, as an “attention-seeking and disingenuous prophet of doom”, noting that the former US envoy seemed to have made up his mind that whichever way the election goes, Nigeria would implode.
But political developments in Nigeria are actually proving Campbell right. As the permutations of the elections were going on, no one gave any attention to the Biafran undercurrent.
The marginalised and oppressed people of Biafra have through their family and town hall meetings holding in over 84 countries of the world, galvanising themselves into a formidable force.
The first inkling to what was to come was the call by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) for the boycott of the 2015 Nigerian election. The call was heeded to, which saw many Biafrans not voting in the election as could be seen the number of votes that were returned from the region. Biafrans had set their eyes on a target far greater and more honourable than Nigeria. They had their eyes the Restoration of Biafra Republic.
The emergence of Muhammadu Buhari and the crass display of tyranny of majority displayed immediately after the election exacerbated the worsening situation. Buhari's infamous announcement that he would punish Biafrans for not voting for him, and Junaid Mohammed's taunting of Biafrans to secede if they are not happy with Nigeria [”If the Igbo don’t like it, they can attempt secession again. If they do, they must be prepared to live with the consequences. Nobody owes them anything and nobody is out to compensate them for anything." -Junaid Mohammed, the convener of the Coalition of Northern Politicians, Academics, Professionals and Businessmen.], calcified the resolve of Biafrans to seek self-determination. With Buhari's brash nepotistic appointments that was short of telling Biafrans they have essentially been excised from Nigeria, it was only a matter of time before Biafran would realise that the time has come.
However, Buhari gave Biafrans the opportunity to vent their anger when he decided to crackdown on Radio Biafra. That and the illegal arrest and continued detention of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the IPOB catalysed Biafrans quest for self-determination.
Now Nigeria really has a big problem in her hands. They entire world has heard of the decadal mistreatment of Biafrans. The world also know that Biafrans have very compelling reason and legally justified to seek self-determination. Nigerian government is literally shitting its pants.
In a review of John Campbell’s book “Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink” by Benjamin O. Arah of Bowie State University, Campbell, with his rich insight and privileged access to credible sources of information as well as his first-hand experience, painstakingly articulates an impersonal and up-to-date account of the prevailing harsh economic realities and political problems facing the most populous country in Africa and the most strategic partner of the United States in West Africa.
According to Campbell, Nigeria is rich and enjoys “ghost prosperity” while most Nigerians are very poor. He noted that poverty is so pervasive throughout Nigeria and widespread poverty can clearly be seen in the faces of its children. Like other yet to be developed nations, the country presents shocking contradictions. Paradoxically, despite its wealth and resources (human, natural, capital, intelligence, etc.), there is the inescapable‚ concentration of Nigeria’s vast oil wealth in the hands of a small group of wealthy Nigerians. The wealth and oil boom, based on a long history of mismanagement and abuse by the country’s ill-prepared and myopic leaders, have resulted in the incurable‚ widespread poverty, lack of employment opportunities for university graduates, the state of underdevelopment, and lack of serious long-term investment in the agricultural sector that would have helped in the take-off stage of economic development.
Campbell’s position was that‚ the same people had run Nigeria by the same kleptocratic rules since the end of the Biafra war. Nigeria is being led by a group of powerful and greedy, coteries of patron-client networks with limited ambition, porous pockets, and an insatiable thirst for material accumulation, he submitted.
With Biafra shaking the foundations of Nigeria, one wonders what role the United States is playing.
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