6th Dec., yesterday we
were at an award dinner to celebrate some of the fiercest opponents.
Some of the honorees included Rev.
Father Mbaka, el-Rufai, Bishop Kukah, the Sultan of Sokoto, President Jonathan
– Peace Ambassadors Award. I was blogging simultaneously Time: 5pm – 10pm
Sunday. Ace Comedian Gordon cracked a joke of Prof Soyinka and botanical names
for meals he had attempted to order, waiter didn’t understand the order.
This morning I was compelled to read
the article entitled “Thoughts on the Neo-Biafra Agitations” by one of the
Legal Practitioners for whom I have high regards. I took this from Prof Ben
Nwabueze SAN. Years ago at an event to honour him by Otu-Okiwu in Golden
Gate Restaurant Ikoyi I greeted and tried to introduce myself and he said I
read you on the Law pages. It is not every author I read. I recall he was
leading a consortium of lawyers for VP Atiku at the time against Obasanjo’s
efforts to diminish the VP/strong political rival.
Anyway, the question that should
come to mind was it a legal article “Thoughts on neo-Biafra Agitations”? And
was the author thinking legally or he just writing literature?.
Author, disappointingly, completely
failed to advert his thoughts to the rights of people to secede and that
International law did not foreclose the rights to self-determination and
independence and if lawyers don’t recognize the privilege of secession, who
should?
CA
|
Subject: Thoughts On The Neo-Biafra
Agitations
|
he
neo-Biafra agitations are nothing but a condition of anomie catalysed in part
by the seeming success of Boko Haram in holding Nigeria to ransom these past
couple of years; and in part by joblessness.
The
Biafra agitations, like Boko Haram, are a sad commentary of our national psyche
in the 21st century. The agitations are childish, suicidal and lacking in
rigorous intellectual thought.
Perhaps
there is something I do not know, or perhaps, these neo-Biafran agitations are
in themselves a strategy to force a national discussion. But if they are not,
they would be a strategic error on the gargantuan scale of the first Biafra
war. The Igbo atop the political, military and civil service architecture in
Nigeria, have not yet recovered from their dislodge therefrom by the
ill-advised war led by a youthful, brash, Oxford-educated, spoilt son of a
multi-millionaire, now deified. The few times I have listened to Nnamdi Kalu in
his videos gone viral all over social media, I see another immature leader
whose language does not even manifest the intellect of the first. I cannot help
but observe that the saying, 'nature abhors a vacuum' has definitely come home
to roost in Igbo land, as the absence of genuine, acceptable leadership has
left that space wide open.
Do
the neo-Biafra agitators imagine that the war they are spawning would take
place outside Igboland? They neither seem to know enough history to recall that
the theatre of the first Biafra war with attendant devastation was the
south-east. Perhaps, this is one more reason History as a course of study ought
to be reintroduced in the secondary schools in Nigeria. Nor do they consider
that the major theatre of the Boko Haram war with attendant negative
consequences is the north-east.
At
what cost are these agitations ultimately to the economy of south-east
Nigeria?
When
MKO Abiola was interviewed by CNN in the wake of the annulment of his mandate
by a capricious military, he said he was going to avoid war because Lagos would
be the theatre of such a war; and when the war ended, where would the resources
to rebuild Lagos come from?
A
cursory look at the political space between 1999 and 2015 will leave one with
the view that perhaps, the Yoruba ethnic nationality which MKO belongs to are
better diplomats and more skillful politicians than my excellent-in-business
Igbo kith and kin. Neo-Biafra is poor politics unless of course, the
agitations are in themselves a strategy to force a national discussion.
As
I said to a young lady who incredibly seemed to be trying to recruit me as I
bought recharge cards from her, 'why do you want to exchange Nigeria, where the
quintessential business-minded Igbo can do business across a wide territory
complete with sea ports, and boundaries with other nations, with a landlocked
Biafra? Or do you think that the oil-rich, by the ocean South-South will go
with you? If they did not go with you the first time, what makes you think they
will go with you this time? Has anything happened to make you think that the
parts of the South-South which were once eastern region have lost their dread
for Igbo domination, and are willing to be part of an Igbo-dominated Biafra?Or
do you think the oil and gas deposits in parts of Abia, Anambra and Imo States
are significant enough to make a difference in a time of plummeting oil
prices?'
Energies
currently channelled towards secession ought to be channelled rather towards
more authentic federalism in Nigeria.
Whatever
the grievances are, and I concede that they are many, they should not be
expressed in terms that run against the corporate existence of Nigeria. I am
personally affronted by some of the hatred exhibited against the Igbo in
Nigeria. For example, when a Danish cartoonist paints a picture found offensive
by Muslims, a needless riot starts among Muslims in Nigeria with the Igbo as
target, with neither effective police nor military protection. And certainly,
an education policy which puts much higher barriers for admission into schools
in Nigeria for the south, and much lower cut-off points for some states in the
north which was once seen as necessary, now seems, by its tiresome endlessness,
deliberately skewed against some ethnicities in Nigeria. A federal police whose
operatives are sent to far-off geopolitical zones whose language and culture
they do not understand, and which practices extra-judicial killings is simply
aggravating. Take a look at the names of those policemen on trial for the
murder of Boko Haram founder, Mohammed Yusuf, and you ask yourself how southern
sounding names got into that mess.
More
federalism and not secession is the solution, and I hope that the Buhari
administration acts in wisdom and rapprochement in dealing with the grievances
(latent or manifest); and that the forces of subversion (religious, political
or ethnic), of the corporate existence of Nigeria do not seize the initiative
to unleash their purpose.
As
Herbert Ogunde said to the Yoruba in the 1960s, Yoruba Ronu (Yoruba Think), I
say to my Igbo kith and kin who are sold on this Biafra brouhaha, Ndi'Igbo
chelu'che.
These
neo-Biafra agitations are (an incoherent) tale. Told by an idiot, full of
sound and fury. Signifying nothing. — Macbeth ( Act 5,
Scene 5, lines 17-28).
By
Ikeazor
Akaraiwe
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