Biafra II?

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 15^th 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