By Chris Enyinnaya
The word
Biafra has been a taboo to successive governments in Nigeria
simply because Republic
of Biafra was defeated by
a coalition of Nigerian Armed Forces and forces deployed by Organisation of
African Unity (OAU) to join them in 1970. The first thing the government of
General Yakubu Gowon did was to outlaw the word Biafra, and gazetted it; which
is why any mention of Biafra got any Nigerian
government angry. Yet, the Igbo cannot do away with the word Biafra .
Why? Biafra is a spirit. You can kill the body
but not the spirit. That is why the word Biafra
keeps recurring like a decimal. To the true Igbo man, Biafra means freedom from
operation in this country called Nigeria . The Igbo man feels, and
events seem to justify it, that he is oppressed in Nigeria nation. The Igbo man
believes in fairness and level playing ground in a competitive environment.
Like all competitions, it is winner takes all. The corollary is that the Igbo
man believes in merit-driven, just and egalitarian society. Nigeria is not
providing the Igbo man the platform to freely express himself.
When the
University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) was established by the Dr. Nnamdi
Azikiwe-led Eastern Nigerian government in 1960, it was widely criticised as a
glorified secondary school when compared to the University College Ibadan,
which was actually University
of London , Ibadan Campus
which was established in 1948. UNN was awarding her own certificates to pioneer
graduates in 1963, when University of Ibadan , established was still awarding the
certificate of University
of London .
Because the
Nigerian nation is denying Igbo man merit in the scheme of things, and in the
right sense of the word, Igbo man feels short-changed with Federal Government
policies like federal character, state of origin, catchment area, and equality
of states principle applied in admission to Federal Government owned secondary
schools and tertiary institutions. That was why my daughter, born in Lagos and
classified as an indigene of Abia State with a higher cut off mark than Lagos
State (72% post JAMB) was denied admission to read Economics at the University
of Lagos whereas her classmate from Ogun State that scored 65% was offered
admission.
The irony here is that my daughter was born in Lagos like her classmate. But when it comes
to admission to Federal government college or university, she is classed as
indigene of Abia State
where my father comes from, and get knocked out by higher Abia cut-off mark
being classed as an educationally advantaged state instead of Lagos State
which at the time was lower.
Everywhere
in the developed world, you qualify to become a citizen with all citizenship
rights by birth or migration when you continuously stay and work there for 10
years with no criminal record and show evidence of payment of tax.
Unfortunately, it is not so in Nigeria .
You remain a settler for life. It is policies like this that fuel Biafra .
However,
Igbo are not alone in receiving this kind of injustice that fuel Biafra . It happens across the country whether you are
Yoruba, Hausa, Ijaw, Jukun, Tiv, Idoma etc. as long as you are not resident in
your so-called state of origin, you suffer discrimination and get short-changed
in the distribution of privileges in a country they call their own.
Thus , I am for Biafra, but not in the sense of breaking away from Nigeria . Even
at that, those clamouring for separatist Biafra are inviting the Federal
Government headed by President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) for treat, to
re-negotiate Nigeria because
by United Nations charter of 2007 that grants the right to self-determination
to minorities, Nigeria
is negotiable. They are calling for equity in the distribution of resources,
political power and opportunities because Nigeria belongs to all of us. God
created all of us equal.
Why will
people like Alhaji Balarabe Musa, an elder statesman want to bridge the
educational gap between the North and the South when by choice they do not want
to embrace western education because of their religious and cultural bias? Boko
Haram ( western education is evil) is a product of this mindset about the
usefulness of western education.
It will now
appear that our Northern brothers are holding the rest of Nigeria back by
aspiring to bridge the perceived educational gap between the North and the
South of Nigeria which is an aberration in a federal set-up. Statesmen like Alhaji
Balarabe Musa cannot be ignored.
Now, what is fueling Biafra is that the Nigerian army through the barrel of the
gun abolished the economic and political model the British introduced in Nigeria .
Colonial masters got it right by enthroning regional federalism with degrees of
political and economic autonomy to the regions. Each region had its coat of
arms and controlled its resources and was developing at its own pace. Each
region worked hard to develop its domain; no region was advancing the argument
of bridging the gap between North and south. All that changed when the military
took over government by force and introduced unitary system of government.
Attempts
were unsuccessfully made by previous administrations to expunge unitary system
of government from our constitution so that Nigeria can move forward. It is the
inequities created by this style of government that is fueling calls for Biafra .
PMB must be
made to understand that he is a Nigerian citizen and cannot be bigger than Nigeria . If
Nigerians met in 2014 in
a National Conference and reached conclusions that will to a large extent meet
theirs, who is he to throw it to the dustbin as he has vowed to do? It will
seem that PMB does not understand Nigeria ’s problems in that regard
talkless solving it. If he will not implement the 2014 confab report, then let
him embrace regionalism for that is the only economic and political structure
that our heroes past won from the British colonial masters that was agreed upon
in London
conference with representation from all the regions. That is the only way to
ensure that the labours of the forefathers of Nigerian nation who are truly our
past heroes are not in vain.
*Enyinnaya, Fellow, Chartered Institute of Bankers, wrote from Ikeja,Lagos .
*Enyinnaya, Fellow, Chartered Institute of Bankers, wrote from Ikeja,
Someone once said that those who make peaceful resolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.
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