Connect with us

Politics

Biafra: A menace or a worthy crusade?

Published

on

In from Timothy Enietan Matthews . . .
The stage was set when Nnamdi Kanu, Director of Radio Biafra and leader of the separatist Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, boarded a flight headed for the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, MMIA, Lagos.

Kanu’s decision to leave the comfort of the United Kingdom, where he had been waging a relentless verbal war against the Nigerian government, was considered by many to be a foolish move, accusing him of walking into the hands of the enemy. This was however countered by those who claim to know, insisting that Kanu’s trip to Nigeria actually turned out the way it was planned. In other words, it was a trap laid for the federal government.

The trap theory may not be far from the truth for two reasons. One, a relatively unknown Nnamdi Kanu has suddenly become a house hold name, grabbing headlines in every major newspaper in the country and gracing their front covers. He has become some sort of cult hero among his supporters, who proudly refer to him as ‘our leader’.

Two, it has reawakened an agitation that has taken the backseat for several years. Keen followers of the Biafran agitation would agree that for so long, the agitation had lost steam except for occasional noise making from the leader of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, Chief Ralph Uwazurike and his band of followers. But at no time has the agitation attracted so much attention and popular participation like the ones witnessed lately in the South East and parts of the South South.

The protests were massive, drawing out multiple thousands of people in processions across major cities. The protests were also crippling, shutting down business activities in large commercial cities of the South East. The protesters were daring, ignoring threats and warnings from government security agencies to halt their protests. But like people who meant business, they held the South East hostage for weeks.

It should be noted here that before Kanu’s arrest by the Department of State Services, DSS, he had been broadcasting what was considered inciting and hate messages against Nigeria, calling it a zoo and labeling other tribes in country, except the Igbos, in very uncomplimentary ways. He had asked the Igbos to rise up and claim their freedom from the zoo called Nigeria but the message seemed not to have caught up well the way he wanted it and pronto, he changed tactics and the rest is history.

The current protests, though temporarily suspended, portend danger for the polity if not properly handled. The militancy in the Niger Delta started with the agitation for the control of resources in that region by its people. The late Ken Saro-Wiwa, alongside others, led massive protests in favour of resource control, but as with every dictatorship, the government of the day crushed the protests and eventually executed its leaders.
That act, sowed the seed for violent agitation for resource control, throwing up people like Asari Dokubo, Ateke Tom, Tompolo, Boyloaf and the likes.

Read also: Biafran agitation legitimate – FG

The Buhari administration, which has maintained a disturbing silence since the eruption of protests, except for last weekend’s veil reference to the pro-biafran agitation as legitimate by the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, must do all it can to handle this agitation properly and avoid allowing it to degenerate.
Though not everybody agrees with the violent agitation and the way IPOB/MASSOB is going about it, there is however an agreement of the cause.

Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, on his part, urged the Federal Government to employ more diplomacy in handling the agitation for the Republic of Biafra.

Soyinka said statements like “Nigeria is indivisible”, “This won’t happen under my watch,” “Nigeria’s unity is non-negotiable” would not help matters.

The Nobel laureate in an interview on Channels Television stated that ”Once an idea has taken off, you may defeat those behind it in a war but that does not mean the end of the idea.”

Chuks Ibegbu, of the Igbo Information Network lobby group, said the current agitation would not serve the cause.
“We can no longer pretend that all is well when some groups capitalise on our sad experience of the past to try to railroad us into fighting another avoidable civil war,” he said.

For 60-year-old Patrick Odife, a textile trader in Onitsha, “the Biafra flame is burning again because nothing has changed since the civil war.

“The younger generations of Ndigbo (Igbos) are bitter about the structure of Nigeria. They believe that the structure is skewed against them, in politics, in education, in the provision of social infrastructure”, he said.
One of the campaigners for the creation of the State of Biafra, Chukwuemeka Ezeobika, spoke the minds of the agitators thus: “The southeast has been neglected by successive governments in Nigeria in the area of good roads, hospitals, seaports and jobs.

“Many Igbos were forced to abandon their properties in Nigeria during the civil war and have not been able to recover them, making many feel like a defeated people.

“The slogan ‘No victor, no vanquished’, declared by Nigerian head of state General Yakubu Gowon after the war, is a myth.

“Even the three Rs — Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Reintegration — introduced to heal the wounds of the war has not been faithfully implemented”, Ezeobika said.

The silence of President Muhammadu Buhari in the face of renewed agitation may be counterproductive. It was the kind of initial silence which the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan kept over the Boko Haram issue, hoping that by ignoring it, would somehow make it go away, disappear or fizzle out.

It turned out to be a mistake. It is a mistake being repeated by the current administration, whose policies seem to have increasingly alienated the Eastern part of Nigeria and Ndigbo. It would not be out of place to make a categorical statement on the current Biafran agitations, or the factors currently stoking it.

RipplesNigeria …without borders, without fears

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now