By Obi Nwakanma
Let me be on the record, and say that I align myself ideologically with those who seek the right to self-determination as a fundamental human right. This right is enshrined in the charter of the United Nations of which Nigeria is a signatory.
These facts are so clear that it begs the question, why is the Nigerian government persecuting, and criminally violating the rights of those like Nnamdi Kanu who has devoted his life to the pursuit of what he sees as his right to be free of the Nigerian enterprise? The answer is: the word, “Biafra” gives Buhari and his ideological fellow travellers the excuse to wallop the Igbo.
It has much to do with his perceived and psychologically
unresolved sense of an “Igbo threat.” But is a presidential psychosis that is
driving Nigeria to the very edge. Here is the problem: in 1970 Nigeria ended a
very bitter civil war with the republic of Biafra, now defunct, but which had
seceded unilaterally from the Nigerian federation on May 29, 1967. For the sake
of a younger generation of readers who may not know a thing about the history
of these events, and the backgrounds of the action leading to them, I will put
it all in a very brief context using facts that have since emerged.
Leading towards the 1964 election was the Federal Census of
1962, on which new constituency allocations and re-mappings were to take place.
Its release was marred by disputes. First, the Northern region rejected the
first census figures because the figures placed the North clearly at a
disadvantage. The 1962 census results showed that the North had lost its
majority share of the population, in spite of a net gain within ten years of
30% rise.
The two Southern states, the preliminary reports showed, had
made even more stupendous population gains since the 1952 census. Northern
politicians insisted on a recount which the Federal Prime Minister, Sir
Abubakar Tafawa Balewa forced, and another census was conducted in 1963, in which
this time, the North gained 8 million new people, while the East lost its
population base. Dr. Okpara and the leadership of the East rejected the new
census figures as fervently as they rejected the results of the December 1964
Federal elections.
The 1965 Western Regional elections compounded the political
strain. Meanwhile, Dr Azikiwe who had just been given executive power by the
new 1963 Republican Constitution was coy about assuming his emergency powers,
and stabilizing the nation, after the British GOC of the Army refused to accept
his constitutional power as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and in
spite of the serious nudges asserted on him by key, “nationalist officers” of
the Armed Forces.
The political crisis festered until January 15, 1966, when Major
Emmanuel Ifeajuna leading a rump of mid-level officers of the Nigerian Army
carried out a coup, which had anticipated the Maimalari coup already scheduled
for Monday, January 17, 1966. The outcome of the coup, quashed in any
case, by establishment soldiers led by the new GOC, General Ironsi, and the
pattern of killings in that coup, fed the very potent propaganda that it was an
“Igbo coup” designed by the Igbo to take over Nigeria completely.
The second coup of July 29, 1966, was thus conceived as a
“retaliation coup” by Northern officers, in which the current president Buhari,
played a very active role.
Except that this time, it was not only military officers
–including highly professional and apolitical officers who were Igbo or from
the East that were targeted – the Igbo and Eastern civilian population across
Nigeria were also massacred as soldiers and mobs whom they gave coverage fell
upon Easterners across Nigeria in a very devastating pogrom, more vicious than
the Rwandan genocide. This targeted mass killings of the Easterners, especially
the Igbo led to their escape to their Eastern homelands for protection.
From their own perspective, the inability of the Federal
government to guarantee their safety forced them to unilaterally declare a new
sovereign state of Biafra. The declaration of Biafra had been preceded by an
unconstitutional, unilateral creation of states, whose intent was to radically
deconstruct the Eastern region, isolate the Igbo, and fragment its resource
base.
The resistance was fierce, but at the end of three bruising
years of battle, the Igbo returned to Nigeria under the terms of a “No Victor,
No Vanquished.” But since 1970, the federal government has failed to keep its
promise of rehabilitation and integration.
The Igbo have been discriminated against, both in terms of
economic investment; access to federal jobs (which happens to be significant);
and in political restitution. The Igbo, though, was rapidly coming back unto
their own and into the country between 1970 and 1983.
Through those first thirteen years after the war, there was a
complete re-embrace of Nigeria. Perhaps because of the “oil boom,” the Igbo
were swept back into the tide of nation-building.
There was discrimination, but the Igbo took advantage of the
economic opportunities of the boom years to create private businesses.
However, from the military coup of December 1983, through the
military years up till the return of civil governance in 1999, the Igbo felt
isolated; alienated, and marginalized. A vast number of the Igbo of my
generation who grew up in that period, and went on to the university were
locked out of government jobs.
The Igbo suffered the highest rate of unemployment and underemployment.
By the middle of the 1990s, the craze to “check out” was highest among the Igbo
youth.
They spread across the world, many forming a new diaspora
network of criminal gangs; drugs mules; and dealers in all kinds of infamy. Not
all Igbo who fled Nigeria went into highflying professional jobs overseas. Many
had grown bitter and fierce, and those who expected that the return of a
civilian administration would do justice to the Igbo have grown even bitterer
with disillusion, and have ultimately given up on Nigeria.
The election of Muhammadu Buhari and his complete policy of
discrimination against the Igbo especially, finally tipped the balance, and
Buhari’s utter mismanagement of the youth agitation under the IPOB and his
brutal, high-handed treatment of the Igbo situation has created a new front of
the battle for Nigeria.
It made Nnamdi Kanu an unlikely hero. It gave teeth to the
Biafran agitation. This administration was warned to study Igbo cultural
psychology carefully and to approach the Biafran agitation strategically: the
Igbo do not back down from threats.
The more you threaten them, the more they defy you, until they
bring down the social order. The Igbo culture is a consensus-building system.
Your dialogue and through dialogue, you arrive at honourable compromises. “Ana
akpa ya akpa.” That is the only way the Igbo respond to conflict.
But Buhari sent in boots to march on Igbo land. Very clearly he
never read the minutes of our last meetings. In any case, that is where we
stand today: a separatist movement has grown full-blown in the East, which if
it is not properly handled and understood will most certainly spell the end of
Nigeria.
Here is why: today, the Igbo have nothing to lose if Nigeria
does not exist. To most Igbo today, Nigeria as a nation does not offer them a
future, or a purpose, or any prospects. A tragedy is playing out right before
our eyes as an entire generation is wasted.
Young Igbo have no jobs, even after very high education. I have
a cousin with a degree in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Benin,
and a PhD in Environmental Engineering from a University in China, and he has
no job! The South Eastern states are basket cases. They are what you call mere
Administrative states.
That is, they exist only on Paper, but they are non-generative
systems. They are dependencies rather than coherent catalysts for social and
economic production.
As a result, they are incapable of conceiving systems that
could, even without the federal government, absorb the high number of the
unemployed, or provide them with some stop-gap social and economic relief
through some social welfare program.
The Igbo youth – highly educated and jobless – is thus restless
and bitter.
About 18% of Igbo women have aged out at 35 Years. Highly
educated; never had a job in their lives, unmarried and unlikely to reproduce.
The average age of marriage for the Igbo male population is now
between 40-45 years. So, the possibilities of couplings and partnerships among
the Igbo is at a very catastrophic turning point. What is going on among the
Igbo, in other words, is genocide by other means.
A massive, very unreported drug crisis amongst the youth,
including in the rural areas is now real. The decline of the once vibrant rural
economy in the East, and particularly the cluster states, is a terrible time
bomb.
Here are the issues at play: the drug crisis is opening very
serious avenues for the infiltration and settling of the international drug
cartels from Colombia, Mexico, Italy, China, and Malaysia, using their local
fronts.
The Biafra agitation is now giving coverage to these
international crime syndicates. IPOB is no longer the only game in town. The
Biafran movement has metastasized. We hear now about the “Unknown Gun Men.”
Many are fronts for international drug networks seeking to
establish local territories; some are rogue operations designed and deployed by
rogue operatives of the DSS; and in general, with the cover of a Biafran
movement, they are on the path towards turning the entire East into a violent
narco-republic.
The failure rests squarely with Buhari’s federal government and
the administration’s mishandling of the agitations in the East, as much as the
failure of the governments in the East, especially the South-East states, to
provide an oasis of prosperity for the teeming population, and thus stem the
bitterness, which has given rise to this agitation. The situation is dicey, but
not yet irretrievable.
*Obi Nwakanmma, a Nigerian poet and critic, teaches at the University of Central Florida. He writes a weekly column in Vanguard newspaper
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