By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
It
Is A Goal! No! – The Necessity of Biafra by Hanum Mary Chioke (ISBN: 978-978-977-670-2; 2018; 259 pp)
Man’s existence on earth can be understood like a football match in which a goal must be scored for victory to be achieved. Hanum Mary Chioke in his book It Is A Goal! No! – The Necessity of Biafra understands that a radio or television commentator almost always enthusiastically screams “It is a goal!” only to reverse himself when the ball does not eventually hit the back of the net. The players must then keep on trying until the goal of victory is scored.
Hanum Mary Chioke has lived through the gamut of the early promise of Nigeria at independence in 1960, the horrors of the Igbo genocide after the coups of 1966, and saw action as a Biafran soldier in the civil war. He now stands strong as a witness to the denial of justice and equity in post-war Nigeria, and thus bears testimony that the clear and present necessity is to let the oppressed people go.
It is remarkable that Hanum Mary Chioke in It Is A Goal! No! – The Necessity of Biafra goes way back to the 1914 amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates of Nigeria by Britain. His discussion of the country’s early politics is foregrounded by an unpublished paper entitled “A Quick Review of the Development of Nigerian Politics 1945-1966” written by one of the permanent secretaries of the era. The author adds gravitas to his thesis with Philip Asiodu’s “The Formal Structure of British Colonial Government in Nigeria.”
