Biafra At Fifty

By Ray Ekpu

It was on May 30, 1967 that Col. Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the military governor of Eastern Nigeria, declared that region the Republic of Biafra. A few weeks later, Col. Yakubu Gowon, Nigeria’s head of state, declared war on the secessionist territory. The war dragged on for 30 horror-filled months until the Biafrans threw in the towel in January 1970. Gowon announced a three-point programme of Reconciliation, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction. A few days ago, Biafra became 50 and was marked with a solemn seminar titled “Memory and Nation-building: Biafra 50 Years After.” It was well attended: Olusegun Obasanjo who commanded troops in that war and later on became head of state and President of Nigeria; Prof. Yemi Osinbajo who was in primary school then but is now the Acting President of Nigeria; Ahmed Joda who was one of Gowon’s super permanent secretaries at the time. He headed the Muhammadu Buhari transition committee in 2015. John Nnia Nwodo, the President of Ohaneze Ndigbo, a former minister of Information and a scion of the famous Nwodo family; Professor Ebere Onwudiwe, a well-known political scientist and public intellectual.

There were several others, most of them young Igbo intellectuals who were probably not born during the war. There was nothing substantial or divergent to be expected from a group like that. It was largely a gathering to do some introspection on the lessons of the war and why Biafra as an idea has not gone away. It was an exercise in admonition and not quite a forum for soul searching. But it was worth it because since the end of the war things have not moved swimmingly either for the Igbos or for Nigeria. There have been renewed agitations for the actualisation of Biafra as a republic. The agitators have been harassed and detained by security agencies but there is no let-up in the agitation.

Today’s Biafra is a lingering echo of the Biafra of 1967 and of the fact that many years down the road many Nigerians feel excluded from Nigeria’s dinner table which means that we have not been able to build an inclusive, consensual union that caters for all interests fairly, equitably, and in a fashion that is not perceived as discriminatory and sectional. When the Federal Government sites amenities and makes appointments in a manner that is nakedly discriminatory then that is the real spelling of exclusionism. Exclusionism is a reflection of bias and lack of trust which leads in turn to reciprocal bias and lack of trust. That is not bridge building, not nation-building.

When Gideon Orkar did his coup some years ago against the Ibrahim Babangida government he said he was carving some states out of Nigeria. Such an attempt at fissure was a product of accumulated frustration with the state of the union. Since then not much has been done by elected politicians at the Centre to give a new and sincere approach to nation-building and inclusiveness as articles of faith.