Sunday, August 6, 2017. 03:02GMT
The Continuous Ignorance Of The Igbo Politicians
The continuous forceful amalgamation of Nigeria since 1914 has been at the expense of Biafrans. The issue of history being scrapped out of the Nigeria educational curriculum is voluntarily meant to keep Nigerians locked up in darkness because without knowing your past, you would never determine your future.
During the era of colonisation by the British, the North and Southern Nigeria were ruled differently - the direct rule in the South and indirect rule in the north. The then Northern Emirs were highly opposed to the western education of their masses hence they used the Islamic religion to block the minds and brains of their subjects even till date. They were afraid that if they allowed their subjects to embrace western education, they will become wise and they (the Emirs) will become irrelevant.
Contrary to the northerners, the Southerners, in general, embraced western education. This imbalance in education created many vacuums in the civil service in the north which they cannot fill. Nnamdi Azikiwe's father was sent to the north as a civil servant and in 1904, Nnamdi Azikiwe was born in Zungeru.
During the quest for the independence of Nigeria from the British, the southern politicians were at the forefront while the Northern political leaders were anxious and afraid that given the economic and educational backwardness of their region relative to the South, with negligible representation in the bureaucracy, complete political autarky on that date would be detrimental to the North. Thus, they wanted independence delayed until the region was “ready” for it. Now, unknown to Nigerians ignorant of our chequered political history, domination of the political architectonic by Northern Nigeria after independence was a logical consequence of the lopsided political engineering carried out by the British.
Let's flash back to history. While Nnamdi Azikiwe formed the political party named the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons for all Nigerians, the Action Group (AG), led by Obafemi Awolowo, and the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) headed by Ahmadu Bello mutated from Egbe Omo Oduduwa and Jamiyya Mutanen Arewa respectively. It must be observed that, with the formation of AG and NPC (whose membership was restricted only to Northerners), ethnic nationalism and regional cleavages steadily supplanted centripetal forces for national integration.
Since independence, the average Biafran has portrayed the image of a true one Nigerianist. The Northerners and South-westerners have been hypocritical about the Nigeria unity but the South Easterners embraced one Nigeria hook, line and sinker which has been to their detriment to this day. This is the reason why every Igbo person feels comfortable in any part of Nigeria he finds himself. He constructs his home, builds his business and feels free with the hope that he is in his country. But the same is not the case of the Hausa/Fulani/Yorubas. They always believe that they are strangers in other parts of Nigeria except in their ethnic regions. This is why they never invest in landed properties in Biafraland.
The hypocrisy of the Northerners towards one Nigeria came to the apex in 1966 when they massacred more than 200,000 Biafrans living in the north and south west. They used the military coup d'etat which they dubiously but falsely dubbed 'Igbo coup' as a pretence but what have ordinary civilians got to do with military affairs? Even if it was a mistake which needs to be corrected for the sake of national unity, why were the perpetrators of this pogrom never brought to book instead they remain in the corridors of power talking tough till date.
The Rwandan genocide was sparked by the death of the then Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, when his plane was shot down above Kigali airport on 6 April 1994. They blamed it on the current Rwandan President, Paul Kagame - at the time the leader of a Tutsi rebel group - and some of his close associates for carrying out the rocket attack. We know what happened next. But the issue is that after the whole genocide, every world press were carrying the news and many people were held accountable and sent to jail. Others are being hunted and tracked till date.
The Rwandan government also organised a genuine Truth and Reconciliation programme where people were compelled to say the truth and confront reality. This genuine effort by the Rwandan government shows that they want to move forward as a country and today, Rwanda is doing well as a country. But in the case of Nigeria, many of the people that committed atrocities and genocides against Biafrans are still alive and unrepentant. How can Nigeria live in self-denial only to continue the forceful amalgamation of people that should never live together?
The Oba of Lagos threatened to throw the Igbos to the Lagon if they fail to cast their votes for his chosen candidate. That episode was swept under the carpet by the Igbo politicians without knowing that it is a collective insult to all and sundry.
The Arewa Youths recently gave out quit notice to the Igbos living in the North and the politicians of Biafran extraction are playing politics with it. It is extremely horrible and pathetic.
Orji Uzo Kalu - the former governor of Abia state met with the leaders of the Arewa Youths to appease and beg them not to carry out their violent plans against Biafrans. He later announced that the Arewa Youths have agreed to abandon their threats. Orji Uzo Kalu's approach, which is a typical approach of an Igbo politician is highly pathetic and laughable. For how long shall the Igbo politicians continue trying to appease their Hausa/Fulani counterparts in order to continue living in One Huge Mess called Nigeria? If Nigeria is really a country where Biafrans have the same rights as the Hausa/Fulanis, somebody like Orji Uzo Kalu should have confronted them with the law instead of begging them. He should have informed them categorically that the so-called law of Nigeria protects the Biafrans as equal citizens. But lo and behold, there are no equal rights for Biafrans in Nigeria because they are viewed by the Hausa/Fulanis as 'infidels'.
This means that if the Hausa/Fulanis agree to lay aside their quit notice today, they can come up with it another day or the following year. Does it mean that the generations of Biafra will only live at the mercy of the Hausa/Fulanis? Does it mean that our future generations shall continue appeasing the Hausa/Fulanis by living in bondage and slavery all the time? Nnamdi Azikiwe tried all his life to preach the gospel of One Nigeria but he died without ever achieving it. The problems of inequality, nepotism and injustice continue. He is never celebrated by his own people till date because of his myopic vision on an artificially created Nigeria. Sadly, our present day Igbo politicians are ignorant of the reality and they are committing the same error as Nnamdi Azikiwe.
According to the gospel of our leader Nnamdi Kanu, it is time to take the bull by the horn. This politics of perpetual appeasement should stop. Every human is born free and in freedom we should remain. We can no longer allow the likes of Orji Uzo Kalu and other politicians to continue entangling and trapping us into this slavery and servitude called one Nigeria simply to achieve their greedy and evil political ambitions. We can no longer be the sacrificial lambs of One Nigeria. In Biafra, we believe and Biafra we shall restore. It is better to stand on our feet for a day than remain on our knees as slaves all the rest of our lives.
God bless Biafra!
God bless Nnamdi Kanu!
Written and published by Jonas Rafael.
The Continuous Ignorance Of The Igbo Politicians
The continuous forceful amalgamation of Nigeria since 1914 has been at the expense of Biafrans. The issue of history being scrapped out of the Nigeria educational curriculum is voluntarily meant to keep Nigerians locked up in darkness because without knowing your past, you would never determine your future.
During the era of colonisation by the British, the North and Southern Nigeria were ruled differently - the direct rule in the South and indirect rule in the north. The then Northern Emirs were highly opposed to the western education of their masses hence they used the Islamic religion to block the minds and brains of their subjects even till date. They were afraid that if they allowed their subjects to embrace western education, they will become wise and they (the Emirs) will become irrelevant.
Contrary to the northerners, the Southerners, in general, embraced western education. This imbalance in education created many vacuums in the civil service in the north which they cannot fill. Nnamdi Azikiwe's father was sent to the north as a civil servant and in 1904, Nnamdi Azikiwe was born in Zungeru.
During the quest for the independence of Nigeria from the British, the southern politicians were at the forefront while the Northern political leaders were anxious and afraid that given the economic and educational backwardness of their region relative to the South, with negligible representation in the bureaucracy, complete political autarky on that date would be detrimental to the North. Thus, they wanted independence delayed until the region was “ready” for it. Now, unknown to Nigerians ignorant of our chequered political history, domination of the political architectonic by Northern Nigeria after independence was a logical consequence of the lopsided political engineering carried out by the British.
Let's flash back to history. While Nnamdi Azikiwe formed the political party named the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons for all Nigerians, the Action Group (AG), led by Obafemi Awolowo, and the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) headed by Ahmadu Bello mutated from Egbe Omo Oduduwa and Jamiyya Mutanen Arewa respectively. It must be observed that, with the formation of AG and NPC (whose membership was restricted only to Northerners), ethnic nationalism and regional cleavages steadily supplanted centripetal forces for national integration.
Since independence, the average Biafran has portrayed the image of a true one Nigerianist. The Northerners and South-westerners have been hypocritical about the Nigeria unity but the South Easterners embraced one Nigeria hook, line and sinker which has been to their detriment to this day. This is the reason why every Igbo person feels comfortable in any part of Nigeria he finds himself. He constructs his home, builds his business and feels free with the hope that he is in his country. But the same is not the case of the Hausa/Fulani/Yorubas. They always believe that they are strangers in other parts of Nigeria except in their ethnic regions. This is why they never invest in landed properties in Biafraland.
The hypocrisy of the Northerners towards one Nigeria came to the apex in 1966 when they massacred more than 200,000 Biafrans living in the north and south west. They used the military coup d'etat which they dubiously but falsely dubbed 'Igbo coup' as a pretence but what have ordinary civilians got to do with military affairs? Even if it was a mistake which needs to be corrected for the sake of national unity, why were the perpetrators of this pogrom never brought to book instead they remain in the corridors of power talking tough till date.
The Rwandan genocide was sparked by the death of the then Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, when his plane was shot down above Kigali airport on 6 April 1994. They blamed it on the current Rwandan President, Paul Kagame - at the time the leader of a Tutsi rebel group - and some of his close associates for carrying out the rocket attack. We know what happened next. But the issue is that after the whole genocide, every world press were carrying the news and many people were held accountable and sent to jail. Others are being hunted and tracked till date.
The Rwandan government also organised a genuine Truth and Reconciliation programme where people were compelled to say the truth and confront reality. This genuine effort by the Rwandan government shows that they want to move forward as a country and today, Rwanda is doing well as a country. But in the case of Nigeria, many of the people that committed atrocities and genocides against Biafrans are still alive and unrepentant. How can Nigeria live in self-denial only to continue the forceful amalgamation of people that should never live together?
The Oba of Lagos threatened to throw the Igbos to the Lagon if they fail to cast their votes for his chosen candidate. That episode was swept under the carpet by the Igbo politicians without knowing that it is a collective insult to all and sundry.
The Arewa Youths recently gave out quit notice to the Igbos living in the North and the politicians of Biafran extraction are playing politics with it. It is extremely horrible and pathetic.
Orji Uzo Kalu - the former governor of Abia state met with the leaders of the Arewa Youths to appease and beg them not to carry out their violent plans against Biafrans. He later announced that the Arewa Youths have agreed to abandon their threats. Orji Uzo Kalu's approach, which is a typical approach of an Igbo politician is highly pathetic and laughable. For how long shall the Igbo politicians continue trying to appease their Hausa/Fulani counterparts in order to continue living in One Huge Mess called Nigeria? If Nigeria is really a country where Biafrans have the same rights as the Hausa/Fulanis, somebody like Orji Uzo Kalu should have confronted them with the law instead of begging them. He should have informed them categorically that the so-called law of Nigeria protects the Biafrans as equal citizens. But lo and behold, there are no equal rights for Biafrans in Nigeria because they are viewed by the Hausa/Fulanis as 'infidels'.
This means that if the Hausa/Fulanis agree to lay aside their quit notice today, they can come up with it another day or the following year. Does it mean that the generations of Biafra will only live at the mercy of the Hausa/Fulanis? Does it mean that our future generations shall continue appeasing the Hausa/Fulanis by living in bondage and slavery all the time? Nnamdi Azikiwe tried all his life to preach the gospel of One Nigeria but he died without ever achieving it. The problems of inequality, nepotism and injustice continue. He is never celebrated by his own people till date because of his myopic vision on an artificially created Nigeria. Sadly, our present day Igbo politicians are ignorant of the reality and they are committing the same error as Nnamdi Azikiwe.
According to the gospel of our leader Nnamdi Kanu, it is time to take the bull by the horn. This politics of perpetual appeasement should stop. Every human is born free and in freedom we should remain. We can no longer allow the likes of Orji Uzo Kalu and other politicians to continue entangling and trapping us into this slavery and servitude called one Nigeria simply to achieve their greedy and evil political ambitions. We can no longer be the sacrificial lambs of One Nigeria. In Biafra, we believe and Biafra we shall restore. It is better to stand on our feet for a day than remain on our knees as slaves all the rest of our lives.
God bless Biafra!
God bless Nnamdi Kanu!
Written and published by Jonas Rafael.
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