About 4 months ago, while I was participating in an
internship program at my uncle’s law firm in Port Harcourt, I saw a woman in
khaki pants and a green shirt stamp up the staircase that led to the office
complex the firm was located in. She was in a furious frustration, apparently,
the road that led to her destination has been blocked for more than 3 hours by
broken-down trucks, destroyed by the deplorable state of the roads.
Each step she took, she punctuated with lamentation and
individual flurry of hissing. Then she arrived at my uncle’s firm breathing
hard and mouth poised like a loaded gun, just waiting for an unsuspecting
victim to enter her radar. Unfortunately, the firm secretary did with the
question ‘What happened?’
And she began.
“You people better start supporting for Biafra, because I
can’t take this thing anymore. What is this nonsense? I’ve been sitting on this
road for more than an hour, Buhari will not fix it, Nigeria will not fix it,
Biafra will fix it. You people support Biafra – o!”
I was baffled, then amused then consequently worried. I, of
course, had been hearing and feeling the direct effect of the IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu and his minions with their propaganda machine; using illicit radio
transmitters and illegal newspaper publishing. But I thought that it was
probably some ‘jobless people’ looking for how to bring notice and money from
the government. However, that lady’s lamentation on that hot Thursday afternoon
made me wonder how many more common folks held this pro-treason mentality. So
being me, I set to work to do some investigation.
After doing some interviews (of course, I cannot disclose
names), I came to realize that a substantial number of persons were in support
of this southeastern secession once again. Although all of them confessed that
they did not want another civil war, but a peaceful secession that was denied
to them in 1967.
I will have to agree that the civil war of 1967-1970 was an
avoidable one, and one that many have claimed to be the battle of a bloated ego
between Chukwuemeka Ojukwu and his northern counterpart Yakubu Gowon. Should we
now put the events that led to the pogrom under the lens of a critic microscope
we will discover that the Igbo people, very much unlike the southerners now,
had no choice. It was either leave or be killed.
The real cause of the Biafran war was not as many people
believe, from the moment that Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu plotted a coup against
the government of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and the assassination of Sir Ahmadu,
but it’s root is from the very moment the Igbo people became the most elite
race in Nigeria. The nature of an Igbo man (or woman) is a competitive,
open-minded and self-sufficient as is simply demonstrated in their ruthless
business sense. Unlike the northerners, who were the least educated at that
time and the westerners who were tied down by religion and loyalties, the Igbo
people were the most accepting of the colonial master’s education and they
competed to oust themselves in the spotlight. By the time Nnamdi Azikiwe had
launched his monumental newspaper The West African Pilot propagating and
fighting the rule of the British in Nigeria, many of the other Igbo
intellectuals had established themselves in key positions in the government and
economy of the country.
After Ghana saw their independence in 1957, the pressure on
Great Britain to release Nigeria multiplied by twofold and Nigeria saw their
independence in 1960, sailing into a parliamentary system of government with
Tafawa Balewa at the helm winning the majority seat of the government. Chinua
Achebe in his book There Was a Country, stated with reference that the
election was rigged by the British to favor the North. This conclusion makes a
lot of sense, because it was the only way Great Britain could put a check on
Nigeria despite their absence.
Now, with Tafawa in power, a lot of crisis broke out just
before the coup of January 15th 1966. These catastrophic events led
to Nzeogwu’s semi-successful coup. Semi-successful, because Aguiyi Ironsi who
was the highest-ranking Igbo military man at that time caught wind of the
operations and thwarted Nzeogwu’s offensive from the capital in Lagos. Many of you
might wonder why Nzeogwu and Ironsi didn’t work together since they were both
essentially cultural brethren, but in truth, Nzeogwu was only an Igbo man by
name since he was born in Kaduna and spoke Hausa even better than he did Igbo.
With Tafawa dead, Ironsi in power and Igbo people dominating
leading sectors in the country, there was upheaval in the north. Fear now drove
the northerners and a countercoup was masterminded by Murtala Muhammed and Theophilus
Danjuma, causing the death of Ironsi and the regime of Yakubu Gowon.
Then the killings began. No one stopped the bloodshed that
began in the north, leading to the death of about thirty thousand Igbo people.
The Igbo people were being driven in hordes back home and the country stood by
and watched.
Ojukwu, who was the military governor of Eastern Nigeria at
that time was forced to take action and after a meeting with some chosen
notables, they agreed that after all their efforts to nationalism and one
Nigeria, Nigeria had now turned their backs on them and they had to defend
themselves with a secession.
Most of what transpired after that is common knowledge. The
death, pillaging, looting, bloodshed, rape, raids, starving and political bias
on an international level is etched in black and white all over history books.
The reason Biafra failed then was because of one thing and
that was support, for their cause was a legitimate one. A Holocaust that
threatened the very survival of an ethnic group cannot be countered in any
other way in my personal opinion.
Now, a bunch of hooligans are agitating for something that
they have not the will or the power to see through. Much after the
rehabilitation of the Igbo people, they feel that now is the perfect
opportunity to secede.
It’s quite ironic because even the Igbo are fighting amongst
themselves, and their ethnic rivalry is now so intense that they are even nepotistic.
A man from Abia cannot work in Owerri, it’s become that bad.
The federal government is trying to resolve the issue before
it blows to epic and irredeemable proportions. What I hear now is that Kanu is
on the run and the government is hot on his tail.
I will admonish all you would-be Biafrans to stop following
in the footsteps of a thrill seeker.
 |
| This is what war in Nigeria looks like |
