By Tunde Rahman
Last Tuesday, President Muhammadu Buhari met with
South-east leaders, majorly from his the All Progressive Congress, at the Aso
Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja.
The meeting came a day after the country celebrated yet another May 29
Democracy Day.
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*Buhari |
But it was also a day after the bloody Biafran protests in the
South-east cities and Asaba in the South-south, which left in its wake death
and destruction. Over 50 pro-Biafran protesters were reportedly killed across
South-east states and in Asaba, the Delta
State capital.
According to newspaper reports, two policemen also lost their
lives in the protests. One of the policemen was said to have been thrown into
River Niger.
The South-east leaders met with Buhari under the aegis of South-east Group for
Change and the 18-man delegation was led by former Senate President Ken
Nnamani. After the meeting, the delegation declined to speak with State House
Correspondents, but asked by the newshounds whether Biafra came up for
discussion at the talks, Nnamani reportedly said, “No, no, not now”. If we
believe the former Senate President that the issue of Biafra did not come up
for discussion at that meeting, then it was just a matter of time for a
presidential meeting on Biafra to be arranged because the Biafran issue has
become a thorny issue for the South-east and for Nigeria.
The Biafran issue
had become knotty again since Indian-trained lawyer, Ralph Uwazuruike, around
1999 or so, established the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign
State of Biafra (MASSOB) with the aim, as the name suggests, of securing the
resurgence of the defunct State of Biafra. Based on the group’s activities,
including hoisting Biafran flags at different locations in the South-east, the
government accused MASSOB of violence and Uwazuruike was arrested in 2005 and
detained on treason charges. That year, MASSOB had re-introduced the old
Biafran currency into circulation. Uwazuruike was later released in 2007 but
the secessionist activities of the group, however, did not stop. For instance
in 2009, MASSOB launched ‘Biafran International Passport’ in commemoration of
the 10th anniversary of the group.
But around May 2014, the Biafran agitation took a new dimension with a new
leader for the struggle: the British-Nigerian Nnamdi Kanu who spoke of his
readiness to fight all the way. He said Nigeria would seize to exist by
December 2015. Speaking at a gathering of members of defunct Biafra, including
scores of its aged war veterans on May 30, 2014, Kanu vowed that he would not
rest until the Biafran
Republic is realised. The
event held at Ngwo, Enugu State, was the maiden commemoration of Biafran Day,
in remembrance of the events of 1967 when the late Igbo leader, Dim Chukwuemeka
Odumegwu-Ojukwu, declared the Republic
of Biafra. Kanu who was
also the Director of the outlawed Radio Biafra used the occasion to unveil a
multi- million naira cenotaph in memory of Biafra
fallen heroes killed during the civil war. He alleged that despite the
declaration of the “No Victor, No Vanquished” after the Nigeria/Biafra civil
war in 1970, successive governments in the country had continued to
deliberately marginalise and make life unbearable for the Igbo nation and its
people. He said it was unfortunate and painful that 47 years after the civil
war, the reasons for which the war was fought were still evident in Nigeria.
Kanu has been slammed with treason charges and remains in detention at present.