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| Nigeria is a dead horse: Biafrans should start planning for post-Nigeria era |
Biafrans should start thinking and working towards post-Nigeria era rather than wasting time beating the dead horse called Nigeria. However, there were a few misgivings depicting feelings of pessimism, despair, and even resignation. It is these feelings that I want to address and also use the opportunity to reiterate that it is imperative for the Igbo to begin immediately to think and work towards post Nigeria. Delay will be dangerous.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that almost 98% of Biafrans share the belief that they have suffered and continue to suffer terrible degradation, deprivation, and devastation at the hands of Nigerians and as a result of being part of Nigeria and so want to get out of Nigeria. But a tiny sliver of Biafran politicians and elite believe that the Biafrans should do nothing to remove themselves from this devastation and that even if by some magic Biafrans are extracted or ejected from the scourge that is Nigeria as was witnessed between 1967-1970, they must strive to get back in because Nigeria is the only hope and future for them. This absolutely incomprehensible and nonsensical logic pervades the thinking of this tiny piece of Biafran elite. Their belief may partially account for the fact that you always find them positioned prominently in the vanguard of every silly and futile effort at “fixing Nigeria”. I believe that if suddenly crude oil is discovered in commercial quantities in Northern Nigeria and the Northerners slaughter massive numbers of Easterners and drive the rest out of Northern Nigeria, then declare an independent “Republic of DanFodio”, the same tiny piece of Biafran elite will preach to Easterners to beg the government of DanFodio State to admit them into their country, even as field slaves.
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That’s how low some Eastern leaders have sunk. In the past 45 years Ndigbo and other Easterners have been slaughtered in massive numbers all over Northern Nigeria; their property and goods have been burned, looted, and smashed; their homes, businesses, churches and schools have been demolished and bombed to smithereens; their children have been orphaned; wives and husbands widowed and families torn apart till as I write this piece They have been told in clear, unmistakable language: “You are not welcome here; we don’t want you here, even the arewa youths just last week issued an ultimatum to Biafrans to quit the North as the result of their peaceful protest for the self determination of their homeland and the release of Nnamdi Kanu.” Why do these Easterners keep begging the same people who massacred them in tens of thousands, looted and destroyed billions of dollars worth of their property, destroyed many of their families, rejected them as infidels, and are hell bent on converting them to radical Islam by force – why are these Easterners begging these same people to accept them into a country that the same Northerners see as their private estate bequeathed to them by Allah through the instrumentality of Uthman Dan Fodio? Why? That is more of the real meaning of this current Biafran spring than the release of those incarcerated, that is why we analysts regard this peaceful march an expression of the peoples conscience, a transferred aggression of long oppression and annihilation passed down on the youths from their forefather who are the remnants of the 30 months genocidal war .
If my reader is unbaised ,he/she will agree with me that no honest African can deny the humongous loss, both in terms of lives and wealth: the Easterners have suffered for being citizens of Nigeria. I do not think any statistician can give accurate facts as to the details of loss which ethnic hatred has led other Nigerians to cause on Biafrans for more than four decades now. The grand design has been to put Easterners down in any possible way everywhere including their own natural enclave.” The question I keep asking myself is, “what would a reasonable human being expect of someone who finds himself in this situation?” Fold his hands and do nothing? Crawl on all fours in submission to the oppressor and annihilator? Be on his knees twenty four hours every day praying to God and ancestral spirits to magically deliver him from this hell called Nigeria,wait on the floor topick the crums from the masters table as is the case today? Stand up straight and firmly demand his freedom, and work to liberate himself from this persecution, and tyranny? What will you think of a person who chooses the first four options but not the last one? What will his neighbors think of him? What will the world think of him? And finally what will his oppressors think of him? Really, what will you think of this person?Obasanjo says they are miscreants kill them all and nothing will happen, The Arewa youths say send them back to their homeland and go their to annihilate them as was the case between 1967-1970,.In the print media,electronic media social media, all you hear from other Nigerians about the oppressed Biafrans is crucify ,hate speech , we have done it before we are going to do it again if you don’t accept your condition,the army commanders have threatened to shoot them all with authority if they step past their new barricade.
Another comment ran thus: “The fact that the entire SE is bereft of federal government investment, has the lowest number of states, local governments and consequently representation at the national assembly is a clear pointer. This is irrespective of the fact that Igbo clearly are the most populous single ethnic group in Nigeria,spread across the country with their massive investments in commerce and industry …..” This statement is very correct and the point is well taken. However, anyone trapped in the web of systematized oppression and tyranny and who at the same time expects his oppressor to shower him with liberty, justice, equity, and fairness is a fool, or an irredeemable coward. Even children will tell you that the best way to stop the ceaseless haranguing of a bully is to banish fear, take the bully on, and give him the fight of his life. You may be bruised and battered, but thereafter, you will have your freedom. Crawling on hind legs and sweeping the floor with ones butt never buys freedom from bullies whether internationally, inter-ethnically, or interpersonally. Go back in history to Yar A’dua, Obasanjo, and Abacha; then back to Gowon, Ironsi, and Balewa; then back to 1945 and earlier. You can even go further back to before the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates. See if you can point at one Nigerian government constitutional arrangement that transparently guaranteed freedom, liberty, justice, equity, and fairness for the Igbo and other people of Eastern Region. Mention just one political arrangement that guaranteed these and produced acceptable outcome.
Was it the Census, Federal Elections, representation in the House of Representatives, Revenue Allocation, Federal Government Establishments, Federal Character, Northernization, and even Sports? In the early 1990’s General Muhammadu Buhari was put in charge of a huge reservoir of funds by General Abacha, then Head of State of Nigeria. The fund was called “Petroleum Trust Fund.” Buhari was charged with the responsibility of using this vast resource to develop infrastructure in the six geographical zones of Nigeria. Which zone benefited least from this fund? It was the South East. Which was the second least beneficiary? It was the South-South. These are the two zones where infrastructure was decimated during the Nigeria-Biafra war. Yet they received the least funds and least infrastructure benefits from the PTF. Interestingly these two zones also produce 90% of the resources that fund Nigeria’s budget every year. Strangely, you hear some Efulefu leaders begging that Biafrans should support Buhari to better their lives,. Strange, isn’t it ?
There is a handful of Igbo elite that have deeply entrenched financial interest in Nigeria. They know that Nigeria is not and will never be a just, free and safe place for the S.E/S.S but they are blinded by their slavish attachment to their financial interests in Nigeria. They constitute the tip of the “fix One Nigeria” arrow. They are the ones that are very quick to accuse anyone talking about separation from Nigeria of planning to instigate another war. They pretend to love Easterners so much they would rather have them live as slaves in Nigeria than struggle to separate from their oppressor. When you point out to them that the situation Igbo and other Easterners find themselves now in Nigeria is worse than being at war, their eyes glaze over and they pretend not to understand what you just told them. But come to think of it, how many Eastern christians were slaughtered in Northern Nigeria between 1980 and today? I know you don’t have an accurate count, but just guess. We have the records.
You will be shocked when people who have kept fairly accurate records give you the number. It is in the tens of thousands. President Obasanjo ordered military campaigns at Odi ,Okigwe and Onitsha during his latest administration. Do you know how many innocent civilians were massacred in these three military campaigns? What is the total number of Easterners recklessly killed every day in towns and cities all over Eastern Region by the Nigerian police and army? What do you think will be the total number since 1980? How about JTF’s repeated invasion of communities around Warri and other parts of the Delta – how many innocent civilians do you think perished in those invasions? And while you are at it, try imagining the number of Easterners who die every day on the death traps we call roads, and morgues we call hospitals, all because of purposeful underdevelopment and tyrannical, oppressive governance. And now if you care, imagine the cost in billions of dollars, of houses, businesses, goods and property belonging to our people and destroyed in those incidents. Many of those who survived these massacres were made to “start afresh”. Without a doubt we have been at war for a very long time but some people just can’t see it.
The most common comment you often hear is this: “Biafra will be nice but you know our people, they can’t govern themselves; and they are always arguing among themselves.” Horrible! This is what Nigeria has done to the Igbo and indeed other Easterners. Nigeria has made the Igbo lose faith, and trust in themselves, their relatives, community and Igbo land itself. Nigeria has made the Igbo lose faith in their talent, ingenuity, creativity, competence and abilities. It is shocking, but it is true. Fear and doubt are now our bedfellows and our greatest enemies. Our people have been programmed to believe that they cannot govern themselves successfully and effectively; in fact that they cannot live together peacefully.
Our people have been programmed to hate themselves, their children, their extended families and their communities. This poison has been fed not only to the Igbo but also to other ethnic groups in the Eastern Region. In many of our communities, especially in Cross River State people are torturing, and killing their children, calling them witches. False prophets are making money branding innocent children witches and programming parents to believe that these children are responsible for their poverty, hardships, and illnesses. Thousands and thousands of Igbo people troop to Lagos and Ogun State to hand over millions of hard earned dollars given to them by their relatives to charlatans and con men who claim to be prophets and evangelists. The con men then “prophesy” to them that it is members of their families, and their best friends who as witches are the cause of their poverty, joblessness, suffering, failure to have a husband, failure to have a baby, illness and other misfortune. Then they go back home and literally set their families ablaze. We have become a society that is cannibalizing itself. The elders are selling our youth up North for money. The youths are kidnapping the elders and demanding huge ransom money. This is the tragedy that has befallen Igbo society. It breaks my heart to watch magnificent Igbo Nation become degenerate in just one generation. Nigeria has almost destroyed the Igbo and her sister Nations in Eastern Region.
Our people have lost contact with the reality of their history as they are continually fed garbage by Nigeria. In 1965 and just before the first coup, there were four regional governments and the federal government of Nigeria. Of these five governments the government of the Eastern Region was the most stable, politically and fiscally. The next was the government of Mid-western Region. Don’t take my word, check the records for yourself. Who said that our people cannot govern themselves? Ask your elders about Igbo Union and Ibibio Union Organizations dispersed all over West Africa. These Unions organized our people wherever they lived all over Africa, channeled resources home and became one of the engines of development throughout the Eastern Region. Most of our political leaders Michael Okpara, Akanu Ibiam, Mbonu Ojike, E.O. Eyo, Dennis Osadebay, H.U.Akpabio, Eyo Ita, Jaja Wachuku, Alvan Ikoku, Nwafor Orizu, M. C. K. Ajuluchukwu, Nyong Essien, Margaret Ekpo, Oyibo Odinammadu, Muokwugo Okoye and so many others were men and women of vision, and transparent honesty who transformed Eastern Region into an enviable model of political stability and economic empowerment.
Fast forward into Biafra; the Biafran government was never a dictatorship even in war time. General Ojukwu stated very clearly that his government will never be a dictatorship. This is why at every turn of the war he consulted regularly with the Eastern Region (Biafran) Consultative Assembly and the Advisory Committee of Chiefs and Elders representing all the communities in Biafra. The administrator of each province in Biafra was a native of that province. Think of the marvelous job done by the administrators of the twenty provinces of Biafra as well as the Biafran cabinet. Check the records and see for yourself. Yakubu Gowon on the other hand never consulted representatives of the peoples of Nigeria even once or sought their input into any matters whatsoever. During the war, Biafra was blockaded by land, sea, and air by Nigeria. Biafrans went ahead and built their own armored cars, petroleum refineries, refined their own salt, manufactured break fluids, automotive lubricants, batteries for running radio and other electronic equipment, etc. Biafrans manufactured their own rockets and rocket launchers as well as the famous Ogbunigwe (missile) which they eventually refined to be launched. Biafrans even tried to build their own airplanes. Read the report of the ingenuity and efficiency of the Biafran government and people by a team of experts from the United States led by senator Goodell that visited Biafra during the war. That report is in the Congressional Record in the United States, February, 1969. The tragey of Biafra by the American Jewish Congress frown emoticonhttp://www.biafraland.com/1968_biafra%20_report_by_american…) google American congressional Sen. Charles Goodell on biafra 1969
Yes, we argue and criticize our leaders. But so does every progressive, open, democratic society. Legendary Israelis are reputed to argue endlessly about anything and everything more than anyone. But they have the only stable democracy in the Middle East. Threaten their freedom by attempting to undermine the State of Israel and they take your head off. Why? “Freedom!” All said and done, it is the same Igbo, Efik, Ibibio, Ijaw, and Ogoja who did all these things before and during the war that still inhabit Eastern Region today. The only thing that has changed is that Nigeria has corrupted their values, beliefs, attitudes, confidence, and culture; rendered them impotent, and ground them into self-doubt, self-loathing, and self-hatred. Remember this wise saying: “A person who stays too long in a garbage dump starts feeling and smelling like garbage.”
Nigeria should have no fear in our exist because we are still going to corporate in other areas ,we don’t want destruction because we have collectively invested outside Biafra more than any tribe, When Southern Sudan disengaged from Sudan, the United Nations worked out a deal where Sudan a deal on the oil in Southern Sudan
Hence we have worked out the post Nigeria programmer of cooperation with Nigeria
‘’Truth is treason in the empire of lies’’
LONG LIVE THE UNITED STATES OF BIAFRA
-M.M.Mbanaja
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