Dr. M.I. Okpara Was Different

 By Christopher C. Ulasi 

Dr. Micheal Iheonukara Okpara governed the nine states which made up eastern Nigeria from 1959 to 1966.  When the military coup of 1966 terminated his governorship on January 16, 1966 the only property he owned was an old bungalow he had in his village Umuahia Abia State.  When the Biafra war ended in January 1970 he desired to study Economics in an American University but he could not raise the fees.

In 1974 after he had gone back to brush up his medical knowledge and was in Edinburgh for his membership examination he shared a flat with a foreigner, a West Indian. 

Caging A Nutcase Called Simon Ekpa

 By Ochereome Nnanna

There is a madman in Finland who has wittingly or unwittingly joined the enemies of the Igbo nation to destabilise the South-East. Reputed to be a Finnish national and an ex-soldier, the 37-year-old wears costumes depicting himself as an Igbo traditional ruler (or native doctor, as some say).

He goes on You Tube and internet radio to spew messages he believes portray him as the placeholder for the incarcerated leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. Kanu’s movement is committed to the peaceful separation of indigenous people from Nigeria through referendums.

Biafra Haram And The Rest Of Us

Onuoha Ukeh

In the last couple of months, what could pass for President Muhammadu Buhari’s phobia for Biafra has been apparent. These days, he seems to always use every opportunity to talk about the failed republic. The vehemence with which he talks about it sometimes leaves one wondering what it is that makes him mad about Biafra. Is it the fact that the thought of Nigeria breaking up frightens him? Or that he thinks that if the agitators are left, they could actualise their dream? Or that he feels insulted that some people will have the audacity or effrontery to talk about a separate country when he is in charge?

*Buhari

Indeed, President Buhari may have talked about Biafra more than any other single thing. Three days ago, he took up the Biafra issue, yet again. Speaking at the breaking of fast for members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, he had stated: “We need to reflect very seriously on what happened between 1967 and 1970, where about two million Nigerians lost their lives. At that time, as young military officers, you hardly heard of anything about petroleum or whatever money you got from it.

“Look at what Gen. Yakubu Gowon said: ‘To keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done’ and every soldier, whether he had been to school or not, knew what the General meant. But we were quarreling with our brothers; we were not fighting an enemy, and somebody is saying that once again he wants Biafra.

“I think this is because he was not born when there was Biafra. We have to reflect on the historical antecedents to appreciate what is before us now and what we intend to leave for our children and our grandchildren.”

Last May, President Buhari also talked about Biafra. Speaking at the palace of Emir of Katsina, during his official visit to his home state, he referred to the promoters of the Biafra agitation as “kids” who were not born during the civil war.  According to Buhari, “today, Nigeria is a strong and united sovereign entity because some people laid down their lives for the country…At least, two million people died during the civil war, but, today, some people who were not born during the civil war are agitating for the division of the country. We will not let that happen.

“For Nigeria to divide now, it is better for all of us to jump into the sea and get drowned.”

On many other occasions, President Buhari had talked about Biafra. Each time he did, his impatience and anger were always betrayed. This, for instance, showed during one of his presidential media chats when he was asked about the detention of Director of Radio Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, even after he was first granted bail by the court. He had lost his cool and made pronouncements that directedly “convicted” the accused of the charges he was facing. He had said that what Kanu did was treason, even when trial was still on and verdict not delivered by the court.  As it stands, it is obvious that in Buhari’s world, Biafra, in thought, dream and action, is haram (taboo). In fact, sometimes I suspect that he wishes he could, with a stroke of the pen or brute force, erase Biafra from the consciousness of those who talk passionately about it.

Buhari and the Biafran Challenge

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.

*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.

Biafra Agitation And Antics Of Divide-And-Rule

         By Nwobodo Chidiebere

“I freed a thousand slaves; I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.”— Harriet Tubman

FOR weeks now, the issue of Biafra agitation has been at the front burner in the polity. The movement is being propelled by Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Movement for Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) via peaceful protests ravaging the old Eastern region. The promoters of IPOB are led by the detained Director of Radio Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu.

Agents of divide-and-rule have gone back to their age-long work of dividing the indigenous people of Biafra. Their major target is to Igbonize this present struggle of Biafra restoration using the instrumentality of the media to tag Biafra agitation Igbo “affair”. Majority of those divide-and-rule advocates are non-Biafrans, who ordinarily should not have any say in determining the future of old Eastern region.

Why is it that Hausa and Fulani which comprise major ethnic groups especially in Northern part of Nigeria are always referred to as Hausa/Fulani – as one indivisible people, instead of Hausa and Fulani? Why do we have South-South as a geo-political zone carved out of old Eastern region, but there is nothing like North-North in the Northern Nigeria? How did the creators of this South-South mantra invent this word that is not in line with known cardinal points as enshrined in the principles of geography? How come there is Niger-Delta in the South but nothing like North-Sahara in the North? Why is there one Northern Governors Forum in the North, but coming down Southern Nigeria; we have South-East, South-West and South-South Governors Forums; all in one Southern Nigeria? Why do we always hear about Northern Elders Forum and nineteen Northern states as one socio-political block and one North, but we hardly talk of Southern Elders Forum, seventeen Southern states or one South? Someone should put on his thinking cap by now.

Why Hasn’t Biafran Spirit Died?

By Asikason Jonathan

” What had started as a belief was transmuted to total conviction; that they could never again live with Nigerians. From this stems the primordial political reality of the present situation. Biafra cannot be killed by anything short of total eradication of the people that make her. For even under total occupation Biafra would sooner or without colonel Ojukwu rise up again”

– Frederick Forsyth

Let me start by disagreeing with Forsyth that apart from total eradication of Biafran people that Biafran spirit cannot be killed. The problem here is with the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and what Achebe described as the ‘Igbo problem.’

The 1999 constitution of the  Federal Republic  of Nigeria did not only incorporates the colonial mistakes of 1900s which made the Northern Nigeria a force  to be reckoned with in the country’s politics but it created also a leviathan out of the federal government to such a nauseating level that the component units are seen as dependents and not co-ordinates.

Many people have asked: what do Igbo people want? The answer is very simple! We want political inclusion, we want a society where fair play, justice and equity, rule of law and meritocracy reign – that’s just what Ndi Igbo want!

The resurgence in the agitation for Biafra lies on fact that the Igbo – 48 years after civil war – are yet to find their bearings in the Nigerian federalism. We are yet to distinguish between the dictionary and the political conception of the maxim: No Victor No Vanquished. Let us not forget Ojukwu’s question: What did he [Gowon] do to make the victor not being the victor and the vanquished not being the vanquished?

Biafra: A Home Truth

By Chuks Akamadu

THE current pro-Biafra wind blowing across the length and breadth of south- eastern Nigeria and some contiguous parts of the south-south geo-political zone reminds me of the timely warning of the Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido. Not too long ago, the banker- turned traditional ruler was reported to have cautioned the nation on the grave danger in failing to pay proper attention to the worries of Ndigbo, noting that this generation of Igbo youths would likely dare the Nigerian state in an unimaginable manner since they neither suffer from a hang-over of the Nigeria/Biafra civil war – having not witnessed it, nor do they harbor any memories of that darkest page of Nigeria’s story book.

I would like to add that the present crop of Igbo youths grew up with a be- ware-of-the-enemy-within mindset, a siege mentality and a vanquished orientation, all of which combine to leave them in highly inflammable state. To make matters worse, the environment where they were nurtured was (and still is) rich in lack, rich in deprivation and rich in hostility. It is little wonder, therefore, that they willingly received the strange dogmatic exhortations of an Nnamdi Kanu and his Radio Biafra as food (holy sacrament, if you like) to their drained souls.

Elsewhere, I had argued that who I see on the streets clutching Biafra flag are not Biafran patriots – and they are not Biafra enthusiasts either; they are frustrated youths who are at war with a system that appears irrevocably committed to shrinking their individual prospects of survival and forecloses their chances to prosper.
Fortunately for them, the Radio Biafra hate ministrations capture, in significant ways, both their corporate imagination and existential realities whilst Nnamdi Kanu’s present duel with the law has offered them a window for self-expression.

Biafra Is A Challenge, Not A Solution

By Emeka Asinugo

The current agitation for the unconditional release of the director of Radio Biafra, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, and the resuscitation of the Biafra nation became more intense after Kanu was arrested during his visit to Nigeria from the UK about a month ago. Before then, the Nigerian government had nothing to worry about a rather distantly located “pirate” radio station and whatever influence it may have been exerting on any section of the country.

Because I recently wrote about Nnamdi Kanu and the Biafra dream, I would not have liked to be dragged into the issue of Biafra any longer. But after listening to my colleague Emma Agu addressing the Biafra issue on YouTube, I was obviously disturbed. Mr Agu and I worked in the defunct Nigerian Statesman newspaper in the early 1980s and I know that he is a respected veteran journalist.

I was disturbed because I know that the Biafra issue is not a matter anyone can conveniently wish away or easily dismiss with a wave of the hand. Biafra was a reality. It happened. And that is perhaps why, in his wisdom and foresight, the universally respected Igbo writer, Professor Chinua Achebe, wrote his last book and titled it “There was a Country”.

Indeed there was.

The Nigeria-Biafra war ended about 45 years ago. And if you take a cursory look at what is happening, you will find that the people demonstrating in Nigeria and Overseas about Biafra and Nnamdi Kanu are all below 45 years of age. Most of them were possibly born in the Biafran side of Nigeria during the war. Their birth certificates say they are Biafran citizens. Those of us who live in Europe and America know what that means. We know the value and importance of birth certificates.

Some of these people who were born in Biafra could have witnessed what happened to their families during the war with the eyes of childhood. And the experience could have remained indelible in their minds. When the war ended, Nigeria did not address this issue of Biafran birth certificates. So, as far as those children born in the Biafran side of Nigeria during the war are concerned, they are Biafrans.

Soon after the war, General Yakubu Gowon introduced his ‘3Rs’ – an acronym for reintegration, rehabilitation and reconstruction. It was his vision of implementing his National Development Plan [NDP], following his “no victor, no vanquished” declaration at the end of the war. 

It is 45 years since. Yet, most Igbo who were either born in Biafra or fought on the side of Biafra are yet to be reintegrated and fully rehabilitated into the Nigerian mainstream. Some of them come from the Igbo heartland. Others come from such riverside areas as the Niger Delta Region. Marginalization which was the foundational cause of the Nigeria-Biafra war is still very much the problem of the nation.