Biafra Not Nigeria's Problem

By Chuks Iloegbunam

Biafra is not one of the problems besetting Nigeria. Those un­able to appreciate this fact may require a dose of creative thinking. Nigeria's stubborn thorn in the flesh is its adamant repudiation of the self-evident concept of the changelessness of change, upon which sits a crippling unwillingness to engage that same constancy of change. There are two random but famous declarations – one little remembered today, the other something of a mantra – that neatly wrap up the na­tional antiparty to inexorable change and its management.

Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu taking
 the oath of office as the Head of State of the Republic  of Biafra in 1967 

On January 15, 1970, there was a ceremony at Dodan Barracks, Lagos, the then seat of political power. Biafran acting Head of State, General Philip Effiong, Colonel David Ogunewe, Colonel Patrick Anwunah, Colonel Patrick Amadi and Police Commis­sioner Patrick Okeke had gone to submit Biafra's docu­ment of surrender, which of­ficially marked the end of the civil war. "The so-called rising sun of Biafra has set forever," declared Head of State Gen­eral Yakubu Gowon, on that occasion. In the leaps and dips of Nigeria's turbulence, it is common to hear politicians of varying persuasions de­claring, as a way of "helping" to stabilize the listing ship of state, that "Nigeria's unity is not negotiable."

Between Gowon's pre­sumption of Biafra's finality, which rode on the crest of tri­umphalism and was hailed as prescient by many, including Gowon's biographer Profes­sor Isawa Elaigwu, and the incessantly voiced exclusion of terms on Nigeria's one­ness, lies the country's prob­lematic. General Gowon is alive and bouncing. Were he to honestly comment on his 45-year old declaration today, he would readily admit to not having thoroughly considered all sides of everything. For it is clearly outside the bounds of political authority to decree the irreversible amputation of human predilection and proclivity. The current hoopla around Biafra lends credence to the assertion.

Now, there is something baffling in the oft-repeated statement on Nigeria's unity not being negotiable. The statement does not mean that Nigeria's unity is a fait ac­compli. It simply insists on a spiteful denunciation of any thought of mapping out a sus­tainable road on which the assumed or anticipated na­tional unity must travel, free from iniquity and cataclysms; a method for mastering the imperatives of national unity which is, anywhere in the world, a particularly daunt­ing proposition. It is because Nigeria has kept its back ob­durately turned to change that even the littlest molehill on its uncharted road invariably becomes a precipitous moun­tain.