Biafra: Choices before Nigeria 

Acting president Yemi Osinbajo (APYO) was speaking in Calabar last week in continuation of his effort to preach unity and peace in the country. Indeed, during his first coming as acting president, one of his greatest achievements was the reduction of the tension in the Niger Delta. Ibe Kachikwu had laid the foundation through a series of consultations and engagements with the leaders of the Niger Delta and the acting President took a tour of the Niger Delta states to close the deals. That our crude oil production has reached and exceeded 2 million barrels per day with minimum disruption by the militants must be credited to the effort of the acting president and his team. What did they do to bring the apparent peace in the Niger Delta?

I do not have the details of the all that transpired. But I know that they went to the leaders of the region, especially the Ijaw at their base and held discussions with them. The protesting & militant youth  nominated some leaders to participate in the discussions. I believe that during the discussions and engagements, the youth and their leaders presented their grouses and their demands. Certainly the federal government accepted to meet most of their demands (if not all). And also I believe that the federal government has met some of the demands and may be working on the others (with longer times of implementation). It is also clear to me that if the FGN reneges on the agreements or understanding, trouble would most likely resume in the Niger Delta, because I do not think a permanent resolution has yet been achieved.

For a long time, the Boko Haram insurgents kept the abducted Chibok girls in captivity. Even after degrading their capabilities and technically defeating them, we could still not “bring back our girls”. Then we flushed them out of the Sambisa forest, after capturing “camp zero”, yet our girls did not come back. Thank God for the #Bring back our girls movement that would not allow the government “to drink water and put down the cup”. Eventually government swallowed its pride and went to negotiate with the criminals. And our girls began to come home in tranches.

It is nice to talk about the benefits of having a big country as APYO was doing in Calabar last week. Because we are big, so the world notices us. That’s fine. But I am aware that many small countries like South Korea (50m),Canada (36m), Switzerland (8.3m), Denmark (6m), Norway (5.27m) and Singapore (5.69m) are better noticed than big-for-little large countries like Nigeria (186 m) Pakistan(192m), Bangladesh (162m) Democratic Republic of Congo (80m) etc. Small countries in Africa like Kenya (47m), Ghana (28m) Rwanda (12m), Botswana (2.3m) and even the islands of Cape Verde and Seychelles are currently better noticed than Nigeria. For its bigness, Nigeria contributes more to the burden of the world: Infant mortality, maternal mortality, poliomyelitis, meningitis, malaria, HIV/AIDS, illicit drug trade, crime, insecurity, violence, terrorism, corruption and poverty. On all these scores we are in the global top league!

What has our size done for us, except to be a dumping ground for foreign goods? Nigeria’s green passport is one of the most loathed passports in the world. Nigeria cannot manage efficiently the natural resources God has placed on its land. The more oil we produced, the poorer many Nigerians became. What have we gained from our size? Is it representation in international organizations? Ghana with about a third of Nigeria’s population has more of their nationals in the global world bodies than Nigeria.

Then we continue to preach about Nigeria’s unity while we daily take actions to undermine the unity. Movement for the Survival of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) was formed around 2001, when President Obasanjo was in power. The Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) instituted a case against the Federal Republic of Nigeria at Federal High Court in 2012 or thereabout when President Jonathan was in power. Many Nigerians never heard of MASSOB or IPOB until 2015, when the present government came to power and determined that they would extinguish anything and anybody connected with Biafra. At the same time, this government fostered a regime of bare-faced discrimination, and marginalization of the people of the South East of Nigeria. The discrimination is so obvious that people of conscience from other parts of Nigeria have taken up this repression and suppression of the Igbo in Nigeria. I must salute such writers as Olusegun Adeniyi, Simon Kolawole, Odumakin, Femi Fani – Kayode, Ayo Fayose etc who have consistently written, deprecating this manifestly unfair treatment of the Igbo nation in Nigeria.

So when people preach national unity and give the impression or insinuate that the Igbos are the problem, because they are asking for Biafra, they miss the point. They ignore the disease and focus on the symptoms. Treating symptoms alone will never cure any disease! It is clear to most Nigerians that the Igbos in Nigeria do not just preach unity, they practice and demonstrate it. In most communities in Nigeria, after the host indigenes, the Igbo always represent the second largest ethnic group. They invest, build houses and create homes anywhere they go in every part of the country. That is why they are the primary victims anytime there is trouble anywhere in the country. For example, their homes, offices and churches were the first victims of the Boko Haram insurgency in the North East and North Central.

If the truth must be told, the real problem is that the Nigerian establishment seems not to want the Igbo or the Biafrans. At times it looks as if Nigeria is merely tolerating the Igbos. The statement credited to a prominent traditional ruler during the 2015 elections about drowning the Igbos in the Lagos lagoon if they failed to vote for his preferred candidate lends credence to this. It may not have been written in a document, but Nigeria has a policy of keeping the Igbo down since the civil war. The intensity depended on who was in power. Some were more tolerant, others less so. This particular government is actually not pretentious. The official policy of discrimination against the Igbo was announced by the president and only last week, Dr Chris Ngige reiterated this policy.

The evidence is everywhere. Many have written and spoken. The current Ohaneze Ndigbo President-General, Chief Nnia Nwodo has been most vocal on these brazen acts of marginalization and suppression of the Igbo in Nigeria. Prof Uzodinma Nwala of Alaigbo Development Foundation and other speakers at a recent conference in Abuja drew world attention to these. The recent World Igbo Congress held in Enugu touched on this. Except for the constitutionally-mandated minister per state, the Igbo is absent from the leadership of federal government and its machinery – Ministries, Departments and Agencies. They are absent from the leadership of the security services- police, army, navy, airforce, military intelligence, civil defence, road safety, police, DSS, EFCC, NIA and even the boy scouts! Those in the military have been predominantly retired. Some of those in foreign service have been prematurely recalled and retired. Recently a thorough-bred pension administrator- Mrs Chinelo Anohu-Amazu was unceremoniously removed as Director General of the National Pension Commission (PENCOM). She had done only 2 years of her 5-year term. Previous occupants in the position who were non-Igbos completed their terms. What is worse, her successor is from another geopolitical zone, which is contrary to the law establishing PENCOM, which stipulates that her successor must come from her geo-political zone to complete her term. And this travesty is subsisting under the supervision of the acting president- a professor of Law and the current preacher-in chief for Nigeria’s unity. When a similar matter happened in the NDDC, the law was followed to the letter. But when matters concern the Igbo, the equation changes!

If Nigeria wants unity, the matter is simple. Create a new nation where all the ethnic groups- the Oduduwa People, the Arewa People, the Ijaw, the Ibibio, the Berom, Itshekiri, the Edo, the Idoma, Jukuns, the Tivs, the Biafran people etc are treated with Justice, equity and fair play. Let’s have a new nation where there will be no discrimination or glass ceilings against any group. A nation where we must treat each other as equals and love each other and stop threatening each other, where people receive rewards commensurate to their inputs or sacrifice. The recommendations of several conferences including those of PRONACO, Obasanjo’s Political Reform Conference and Jonathan’s National Conference, indicate how to begin the journey of recreating a new Nigeria (or you can read my book published in 2010: NIGERIA: TIME FOR THE EVOLUTION OF  A NEW NATION). If we are unwilling to consider these recommendations as this government, especially President Muhammadu Buhari has stated, then there is no need for the acting president to be wasting his time just preaching. The unity between oppressors and the oppressed, between slaves and their masters, or between kidnappers and their hostages cannot last. The song of freedom will continue to be sung by the oppressed until they achieve it. That is what history teaches. May God grant us the wisdom to learn from history!

Mazi Sam I. Ohuabunwa OFR