Pro-Biafra Protests: The Hoffer Principle

By Tiko Emmanuel Okoye

Most Nigerians can hardly understand that Biafra is not just a location or geographic expression but a phenomenon as far Ndigbo are concerned. The declared intention of then military Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, to reintegrate Ndigbo into the fabric of the Nigerian society at the end of the civil war with his 3R’s programme (Reconciliation, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction), ended up just being a mere pipe dream.

How could there be reconciliation, rehabilitation and reconstruction when Ndigbo who fled to safety had their homes in Port Harcourt and its environs classified as ‘abandoned properties’ and seized without any monetary compensation and with active government support? When the government abruptly changed its currency just to impoverish Ndigbo with stacks of pre-war Nigerian currency? When returning Ndigbo were not reinstated in their previous positions even as the government ruled that they should be considered as having ‘resigned’ from their posts?

When every man was given a paltry twenty pounds irrespective of the money he/she had in the bank or the amount of pre-war Nigerian currency and Biafran currency they owned? When the Nigerian government hastily embarked on an indigenization policy even as erstwhile Igbo middle and upper classes were deliberately schemed out through impoverishment? When the entire Southeast lacked infrastructure and no single federal industry was in existence for decades?

When one considers the lot of Ndigbo more than 45 years after the civil war ended, one can readily concede that Nigeria is yet to become an equal-opportunity nation as far as we are concerned. The least number of states in the other five geopolitical zones is six – with the Northwest having as many as seven – but the Southeast has only five. The high opportunity cost of this deliberate attempt to suppress their political development can be seen in the disparity between the number of our elected representatives and that of other zones.