BIAFRA ....

WHAT is Biafra? Is it an ideology or a country? Or both? I see it more as an ideology, but it could end up being both an ideology and a country. Biafra my way is a struggle for freedom;.  But the Biafra agitation goes way beyond ultra-reactionary government of nepotism. It has its roots in the doubts raised in the minds of the Easterners, especially the Igbo, as to their real place in Nigeria based on how they were treated in the wake of some historical events. For instance, the first military coup of 1st January 1966 was dubbed an “Igbo coup”. Coups usually don’t bear ethnic names. Usually when a coup takes place and it is crushed, those implicated in it would be apprehended and dealt with according to the law. Rather than insist that the law must take its course, its inciting branding as an “Igbo coup” led to massive pogroms against innocent and defenceless Igbos, especially in the North. Thousands were murdered in an orgy of violence that went on for months. Eventually, Ironsi was also killed and a Northerner, Col. Yakubu Gowon, took over as Head of State. The killings continued and the Federal Government seemed unwilling to stop it. Biafra would not have come up if the coup plotters who killed Northern leaders were arrested and punished according to the law. Biafra only came up when it became clear that the East had to do something drastic to protect its people who were no longer safe in their supposed country. Biafra was pushed or forced to fight a war of self-preservation. Secession was never in their political calculation just two years earlier. Smarting from the loss of the cream of their leadership, the North convinced the rest of the country to join it in a “war to keep Nigeria one”, though vengeance and consolidation of regional power were their hidden motives. After the war, General Gowon’s declaration of “No victor, no vanquished” was just on paper. The confiscation of the savings of Ndi-Igbo in exchange for Twenty Pounds, the declaration of Abandoned Property in Rivers State and the promulgation of Indigenisation Decrees that favoured only Western and Northern aristocrats betrayed the real intentions of the “victors” over the “vanquished”. Usually after a civil war, a Marshall Plan is created to rebuild the theatre of war. But in Nigeria, policies were made to subjugate and exclude the former Biafrans from full participation in the affairs of the country they were forced to return to. Fifty years after Biafra, with no end in sight to the sidelining of Igbo people which the regime has made no pretences about, the Igbo youth are fed up. Most of them want out. They want Biafra, where they will live like free people. It does not matter if Biafra is just the South East zone. After all, Rwanda and Botswana are among the best-governed countries in Africa with thriving economies despite being landlocked. But the silent majority of Igbo people do not believe in pulling out of Nigeria. I am one of those. Our reason is simple. Igbos are part of the owners of the Nigeria commonwealth. They led the fight for independence. They demonstrate their co-ownership of this country with massive investment of their wealth. They cannot run away from what belongs to them. The battle for restructuring, which is gathering more steam, will afford everyone the freedom to develop their homelands within the Nigerian commonwealth. I am a Biafran-Nigerian, just as Northerners are Arewa-Nigerians and the Yorubas may be Oódua-Nigerians, and so on. The battle for restructuring is viable, and it will be won sooner than later. That is Biafra my way. But if, sadly, Nigeria breaks up, no one need to shed blood. The day the Soviet Union collapsed or the Berlin Wall went down, it did not cost a drop of blood because its time had come. I am willing and ready to join hands in getting Nigeria restructured to bring out it greatness and make all its various peoples truly at home. But I respect the wishes of those who want out. ***prbxselfnetwork***