Biafra’s shallow grave By Emeka Omeihe

biafra

Agitations for the sovereign state of Biafra took a new dimension across the country with the arrest of Nnamdi Kanu, the director of Biafra Radio. Kanu was arrested in October, in connection with his pirate radio that has been championing the Biafra dream.

At the last count, there have been demonstrations in many South-east and South-south states calling on the authorities to have him released. The agitators said they want to exit from the Nigerian state citing ill treatment, alienation and marginalization. For them, the attraction of Biafra lies in its envisaged capacity to offer them limitless opportunities to realize their potentials to the fullest.

The development has raised concerns given that Nigeria fought a civil war for three years to quell similar agitations between 1967 and 1970. In that war, an estimated six million people lost their lives. Renewed agitations of the magnitude witnessed in the last couple of weeks are bound to raise serious discomfort especially among those privy to the circumstances of that war.

Equally of concern is the fact that most of those protesting were born after that war and may not have known much about all the events of that historical episode. But this reality also raises its own puzzle given that the same issues that gave rise to that war are at the root of the current agitations. That the youths, 45 years after, are raising the same grievances that gave rise to the war is something that should give our leaders a food for thought. It is a serious development that calls for new approaches; new thinking and proactive measures rather than the stereotype of yesteryears. It should task our creative energies on what we did wrong within this timeframe with a view to remedying the situation. That is the path of great leaders and great nations.

For Yakubu Gowon who prosecuted that war as military head of state, “with Biafra, it is finished”. He said it was to sooth frayed nerves and erase bitter feelings that his regime at the end of the war came out with the policy of “No victor, No vanquished”. There was also the reconciliation, reconstruction and rehabilitation slogan of the time aimed at integrating the defeated into the mainstream of the nation’s affairs. We shall return to this shortly.

On its part, Arewa Consultative Forum ACF also declared that Biafra was settled in 1970. For this northern elite group, the issue of Biafra is as dead as dodo. Yet, some others have sought to find causal explanation for the rising agitations. Here, political motive is being alleged.

Yes, Biafra may have been finished with in 1970. It may have also died at that time. Forty-five years thereon, it is doubtful whether the issue was very well finished with. It is also not certain whether it was properly buried through the satisfaction of all the rites of passage to enable it rest in perfect peace.

It is either Biafra did not die properly because its undertakers refused to obey the rules for its final interment or it was buried in a very shallow grave. For any of these possibilities, what we are witnessing today is the rising ghost of a Biafra that was not allowed to rest in peace due to actions or inactions of those who presided over its final funeral rites.

That was the contradiction thrown up by Gowon when he said with Biafra, it is finished. Those protesting are saying contrary to the promises of no victor and no vanquished, those who fought on the side of Biafra have remained the vanquished. They are saying that the Nigerian state instead of providing equal opportunities for them to realize their full potentials, treats them as second class citizens. They are not alone in this.

They are increasingly coming to terms with the fallacies of the reconciliation, reconstruction and rehabilitation mantra of the post civil war era. They can see these in the state of infrastructure in their zone; it is palpable from the selective attacks on their lives and property on the guise of religion, it is no less evident in the appointments made since Buhari took over. Of about 39 initial key appointments by Buhari, no south-easterner was deemed fit for any. Yet, people came out to justify them on the spurious and feeble ground that he needed to appoint those he can work with. There is something inherently untidy that a vibrant segment of this population could neither qualify nor trusted to occupy any of such positions.

Some even rationalized the appointments on the inverted logic that the Igbo had a disproportionate share of such offices during the Jonathan regime and therefore should not complain. But those who canvass this jaundiced and self-serving viewpoint fail to adduce evidence of any geo-political zone that was so excluded during that period. That is not to say that the failure to carry that zone along in those appointments is the mono causal explanation for the agitations.

The activities MASSOB have been there since our return to democracy. A couple of years back, MASSOB called for a sit-at-home protest to press home its demands. The outcome shocked many as the order was obeyed not only in the south-east but beyond.

Agitations for restructuring which are seen as the only path to the nation’s stability and development have been a recurring decimal. So also are separatist tendencies among groups in the federation. What is now required are new approaches to those dysfunctions that induce competition for the loyalty of the citizens between the government and the primordial units. Not long ago, two former heads of state Olusegun Obasanjo and Ibrahim Babangida issued a joint press statement lamenting that even known patriots are now beginning to question the basis of Nigerian unity.

But for one or two zones, there is a wide gamut of consensus that restructuring holds the ace to the numerous problems of this country. Despite its allure, some people have sworn not to allow it see the light of the day for some inexplicable reasons. The 2014 National Conference which had copious recommendations on how to build a nation unfettered by sectional prejudices has been trapped in the vortex of high wire politics.

Situations as this cannot but give rise to frustrations within and among sections whose future are deliberately stunted on account of their membership of the Nigerian state. These are the subsisting realities. Yes, the Igbo may be better with a wider political and geographical space to play with. They may be better playing in the big league which Nigeria provides. But this can only stand when the state provides equal opportunities for all. The Igbo have made enormous sacrifice for this country. They have demonstrated this with their huge investments in parts of the country which will suffer serious reverses if they are confined to the boundaries of their ethnic group.

They are not unaware but for the informal sector, they may have remained hewers of wood and drawers of water in a land supposedly flowing with milk and honey. They are not oblivious of the mounting constraints and organized conspiracy they face in ascending the commanding heights of the military, bureaucracy and the highest political office in the land-the presidency.

The rise in Biafra agitations may be a desperate move out of a desperate situation. Those who protest wear the shoes and should know where it pinches most. But the Nigerian state will neither let go nor do the needful to allay their fears and guarantee their future.

The impression that our leaders attach higher premium to continuously holding this country together through coercive state apparatus than building a consensual order that will imbue patriotism and selfless services in all, is a patently misplaced one. That is the missing link. And in it can be located the reasons for the rising spate of systemic schism.

 
NATION

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2 Comments

  1. The truth is that the BIAFRA agitations will never go away. It has become an easy tool for politicians. The recurrent shout of ‘marginalisation’ each time Igbos want something does not make them the most maginalised group in the country, rather it shows they believe in the potency of the noise. Igbos have been every thing except being president(Zik was no president!). The way to it is not via noise or rotational presidency. Others nationalities have been most tolerant of Igbos

  2. To keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done but not at all cost.
    If igbo want to leave by all means they shd have their own way but that should be in compliance with the provision of the constitution. There must be a referendum where the wish of the people will be determined not a group of people protesting all over the place and parading themselves as the voice of the people, note the south south has already distance themselves. There’s need to who wants to leave if at all anyone wants to.

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