Biafra: Agitation for self Determination is legal and Nigeria’s Unity is Negotiable

Biafra: Agitation for self Determination is legal and Nigeria’s Unity is Negotiable

Written By Rose Chinedu / IPOB Writers

 

Biafra was formed by Igbo nationalists who believed they could no longer coexist with Nigeria, leading to the Nigerian Civil War. Nigerian government had reneged on the Aburi accord agreement which could have averted the war. Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu who was the arrow head of that agitation for the Biafra Nation fled to Ivory Coast. Nigeria declared war on Biafra shortly after its declaration of independence, a war that lasted for three years from July 1967 to January 1979, eventually resulting in the defeat of Biafra and the reunification of the two states.

 

 

History has it on record that over 3 million people were killed in that war, some from gun shots and some from starvation. Yet, since the war was declared ended in 1970, the Eastern region have not witnessed any improvement or any deliberate effort by the Nigerian government to keep to the terms of “No victor No vanquished “status upon which peace was brokered.

 

The three Rs agreement of Reconciliation, Reconstruction and Restructuring have not been followed nor adhered to. The Eastern zone have continually been marginalized by the government at the center. The rebuilding of the war-torn zone has consistently been ignored by successive governments and it has been left at the mercy of individuals.

 

The zone has remained an abandoned zone and is regarded as a conquered territory by the governing class of Hausa/Fulani oligarchy who have clinched to power for most of the time since after the war. The zone ever since has been bedeviled by a lot of deprivation and its void of infrastructural and man power development.

 

As a result of this neglect and gross violation of human rights witnessed by the indigenous people of the eastern region, their best brains have been massively drained while other capable youths who stayed on in their lands have been made redundant such that after years of toiling and gaining high academic feats and laurels, they get nothing from Nigeria to show for their intelligence, ingenuity and brilliance.

 

There are no opportunities for capacity building and harnessing of their potentials on their own soil. They only find reprieve, recognition and excellence outside the shores of Nigeria. The need for the restoration of Biafra therefore becomes inevitable and imperative.

 

The people therefore yearn for a better country where they can find expression and where their aspirations can be actualized. They desire daily for a country they can call their own having been displaced in the scheme of things in Nigeria.

 

It becomes therefore clear that due to increasing rate of unemployment, marginalization from the commonwealth of the country, bad government, corruption, high cost of living and lately the menace of marauding Fulani herdsmen terrorists who are now moving into the eastern part to graze their cattle destroying peoples farmlands and crops, armed and killing indigenes with their Ak 47, maiming and raping women, hence the desire to opt-out of Nigeria has also become paramount in the hearts of several youths.

 

The restoration of Biafra has become imperative in the face of continued oppression of the indigenous people even on their ancestral lands. It is noteworthy that there is a deliberate and continued effort to emasculate and strangulate the economy of entrepreneurs of East geopolitical zone while granting their counterparts from the North several incentives and economic boosts.

 

 

The menace of Boko Haram in the North which the government is treating with kids gloves by negotiating with them, granting them amnesty and integrating them into the army and using them as their foot soldiers is not only worrisome but very regrettable.

 

Whereas in the peaceful eastern states, the government of the day places heavy military and police teams who kill youths with reckless abandon and extort money from motorists. This has become another catalyst that fuels the embers of disunity and secession.

 

The government at the center has recently exhibited gross misconduct by clamping down and silencing journalists, banning press freedom, frustrating the autonomy of the judiciary, flouting court orders, shooting protesters, proscribing freedom fighters killing some, jails them without trial and designating them as terrorists while pampering the real terrorists and all these culminated in the agitation for the restoration of Biafra.

 

 

the Biafran restoration will not only wake up the sleeping giant which is Africa, it will resurrect and bring back to life the enormous resources of African sons and daughters, it will bring back to life the pan African initiatives which Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and other great heroes that fought for when they worked hard against colonialism.

 

Nigeria under the present regime is now colonialism. Its rulership of Fulani, a nomadic pseudo illiterate races whose main agenda is to conquer, dominate and take over ancestral lands from their hosts countries will only record failures and demerits. In Biafra, the entire continent of Africa shall be liberated from the shackles of these wanderers from the Sahel whose mission is to destroy any country whose religious orientation is averse to their Islamization and jihadist tendency.

 

In Biafra, Africa will recover its complete autonomy from the western world’s domination and subjugation. In Biafra Africa will witness again and of course enjoy the benefits of the rising sun which Biafra is symbolic of. In Biafra, Africa will become a risen giant among the committee of nations. Africa shall be recognized again as the cradle of civilization. In Biafra, Africa will reclaim its place and lost glory among the world powers.

 

Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra is a young man that has been fighting for the liberation and freedom of the eastern states trapped in Nigeria. He has called for a referendum to determine the fate of these states in Nigeria but the government of Buhari has consistently maintained that the unity of Nigeria is not negotiable, a statement that one of Buhari’s kinsmen has recently faulted.

 

Nnamdi Kanu had in 2015 been arrested and detained for two years and the president failed to adhere to court orders to release him unconditionally. He was eventually released in 2017 after stringent bail terms were met. He had called the Nigerian government to organize a referendum that will eventually lead to the secession of Biafran states from Nigeria, a move that is not palatable to the northern oligarchy.

 

As a result of his failure to drop his agitation, he was accused of treason and inciting terrorism. Kanu was bailed after two years and while awaiting his next court appearance at his home in Afaraukwu Umuahia in Abia state, his home was raided by the military while a good number of persons in his father’s compound were killed.

 

He escaped assassination by the whiskers and he fled to reappear in Israel after a year. Kanu was extraordinarily renditioned back to Nigeria in July 2021. He has since been in the custody of Nigerian DSS (Department of States Services), to answer to an amended 7 count charge bordering on terrorism and treason.

 

He is being illegally detained because he has not committed any offense known to law. We hereby alert the international community to wedge into this case of human right abuses by the Buhari government because injustice to one is injustice to all.

 

Kanu is a British citizen who has renounced his Nigerian citizenship and who has not committed any treasonable and incriminating offense worthy of the demonization and humiliation he is being subjected to.

 

Nnamdi Kanu is a freedom fighter whose rights have been infringed upon, a victim of the corrupt socio-political menace that Nigeria has become among fellow African countries. Nigeria is a signatory to the United Nations chatter on self-determination.

 

Self-determination is an inalienable right of individuals who feel marginalized in their home country and who for one reason or the other want to belong to a separate nation. If Britain could negotiate their exit from European Union, why would any sane leader in Nigerian government still hold on to the archaic belief that negotiating the existence of Biafra outside Nigeria is a terrorist act.

 

Why would Nigerian’s unity be sacrosanct? We, call on the Nigerian government as a matter of urgency to desist from overheating the East and causing heightened tension. The government should as a matter of urgency release Mazi Nnamdi Kanu unconditionally and amend the Nigerian constitution to make provision for referendum so that indigenous peoples can determine their stay or otherwise in Nigeria