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.