IMPORTANT things to know about Biafran self-determination REFERENDUM

IMPORTANT things to know about Biafran self-determination REFERENDUM

A referendum or plebiscite is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to vote on a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new law.

Some definitions of plebiscite suggest that it is a type of vote to change the constitution or government of a country ,from a political philosophical perspective, referendums are an expression of direct democracy. 

Catalan self-determination referendum, 2014

The citizen participation process on the political future of Catalonia was a non-binding vote on the political future of Catalonia that was held by the Government of Catalonia on 9 November 2014. While also known as the Catalan independence referendum, the vote was rebranded as a "participation process" by the Government of Catalonia, after a "non-referendum popular consultation" on the same topic and for the same date had been suspended by the Constitutional Court of Spain.

The ballot consisted of two questions: "Do you want Catalonia to become a State?" and "Do you want this State to be independent?". The second question could only be answered by those who had answered Yes to the first one.The Catalan government indicated that 2,305,290 votes were cast overall,[8] but did not provide a turnout percentage figure. Turnout estimates published by media outlets range between 37.0% and 41.6%.[12] 80.8% of the cast votes supported the Yes-Yes option, 10.1% the Yes-No, 4.5% the No option.

Minors and immigrants were allowed to vote, something that in a legal referendum would not have been possible.

The Scottish independence referendum was a referendum on Scottish independence that took place in Scotland on 18 September 2014.

The independence referendum question, which voters answered with "Yes" or "No", was "Should Scotland be an independent country?The "No" side won, with 2,001,926 (55.3%) voting against independence and 1,617,989 (44.7%) voting in favour. The turnout of 84.6% was the highest recorded for an election or referendum in the United Kingdom since the introduction of universal suffrage.

The Scottish Independence Referendum Bill, setting out the arrangements for this referendum, was passed by the Scottish Parliament in November 2013, following an agreement between the Scottish and the United Kingdom governments, and was enacted as the Scottish Independence Referendum Act 2013. To pass, the independence proposal required a simple majority. With some exceptions, all European Union (EU) or Commonwealth citizens resident in Scotland aged 16 or over could vote, a total of almost 4.3 million people.

Yes Scotland was the main campaign group for independence, while Better Together was the main campaign group in favour of maintaining the union. Many other campaign groups, political parties, businesses, newspapers and prominent individuals were also involved. Prominent issues raised during the referendum included which currency an independent Scotland would use, public expenditure, EU membership, and North Sea oil.

From the above two recent examples of unsuccessful self-determination referendum, it become pertinent that every Biafran, man women and children must guard the loins with love,truth and imbibe the original Biafran spirit of onyeaghala nwanneya because there is no doubt the fact that Britain will motivate failure using the Uncle Toms in our mist to scuttle the noble project because for the sake of oil, they will pose a bottle neck to our freedom just as they did to the Scottish National Congress because of North sea oil. The house slaves will once again be used by our foes to maintain the status quo in other to remain the captive in Egypt. We must go back to memorize the command of God I the bible verses of exodus from first to the last verse as our spiritual weapon to disengage ourselves from Pharaoh.

There is no doubt to every right thinking Nigerian today that the problem with Nigeria is ‘’One Nigeria’’which has retarded her growth for the past 57 years .We cannot fold our arms and allow our future generation to remain in this unholy marriage with a continuous ill wind that has blown the embattled indigenous people of Biafra out of proportion. We must start now to educate and sensitize our people from the rural communities on the importance of the referendum and its significance to our freedom from Nigeria’s impunity. Self-determination is about our personal autonomy. We need to feel in charge of our actions where the locus of causation appears to be inside ourselves. We need to feel we have a choice. To support us in this way others need to step inside our shoes.

Finally, the Biafran avatar,General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu wrote in his visionary book, the principles of Biafran revolution(Ahiara declaration)’’The right to self-determination was good for the Greeks in 1822, for the Belgians in 1830, and for the Central and Eastern Europeans and the Irish at the end of the First World War. Yet it is not good for Biafrans because we are black. When blacks claim that right, they are warned against dangers trumped up by the imperialists - “fragmentation” and “Balkanization”, as if the trouble with the Balkans is the result of the application of the principle of self-determination. Were the Balkans a healthier place before they emerged from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire? Those who sustained the Ottoman Empire considered it a European necessity, for its Eastern European provinces stood as a buffer between two ambitious and mutually antagonistic empires - the Russian and the Austrian. For the peace and repose of Europe, it therefore became a major concern of European statesmen to preserve the integrity of that empire. But when it was discovered that Ottoman rule was not only corrupt, oppressive and unprogressive, but also stubbornly irreformable, the happiness and well-being of its white populations came to be considered paramount. So by 1918 the integrity of that ancient and sprawling empire had been sacrificed to the well-being of the Eastern Europeans. Fellow Biafrans, that was in the white world.

But what do we find here in Negro Africa? The Federation of Nigeria is today as corrupt, as unprogressive and as oppressive and irreformable as the Ottoman Empire was in Eastern Europe over a century ago. And in contrast, the Nigerian Federation in the form it was constituted by the British cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered an African necessity. Yet we are being forced to sacrifice our very existence as a people to the integrity of that ramshackle creation that has no justification either in history or in the freely expressed wishes of the people. What other reason for this can there be than the fact that we are black?

In 1966, 50,000 Biafrans - men, women and children - were massacred in cold blood in Nigeria. Since July 6, 1967, hundreds of Biafrans have been killed daily by shelling, bombing, strafing and starvation advised, organised and supervised by Anglo-Saxon Britain. None of these atrocities has raised enough stir in many European capitals. But on the few occasions when a single white man died in Africa, even where he was a convicted bandit like the notorious case in the Congo, all the diplomatic chanceries of the world have been astir.; the whole world has been shaken to its very foundations by the din of protest against the alleged atrocity and by the clamour for vengeance. This was the case when the Nigerian vandals turned their British-supplied rifles on white Red Cross workers in Okigwe. Recently this has been the case with the reported disappearance of some white oil technicians in the Republic of Benin. But when we are massacred in thousands, nobody cares, because we are black.

Fellow countrymen and women, the fact is that in spite of their open protestations to the contrary, the white peoples of the world are still far from accepting that what is good for them can also be good for blacks. The day they make this basic concession that day will the non-Anglo-Saxon nations tell Britain to her face that she is guilty of genocide against us; that day will they call a halt to this monstrous war.

Because the black man is considered inferior and servile to the white, he must accept his political, social and economic system and ideologies ready made from Europe, America or the Soviet Union. Within the confines of his nation he must accept a federation or confederation or unitary government if federation or confederation or unitary government suits the interests of his white masters; he must accept inept and unimaginative leadership because the contrary would hurt the interests of the master race; he must accept economic exploitation by alien commercial firms and companies because the whites benefit from it. Beyond the confines of his state, he must accept regional and continental organisations which provide a front for the manipulation of the imperialist powers; organisations which are therefore unable to respond to African problems in a truly African manner. For Africans to show a true independence is to ask for anathemization and total liquidation’’. 

‘’Truth is treason in the empire of lies’’ Long Live the United States of Biafra

-M.M.Mbanaja