When Biafra comes to Be

When Biafra Comes to Be (1)

Sunday Damina Goshit

The dream for a second attempt for a nation called Biafra to secede from Nigeria is one of the numerous issues in the country today. Should people be allowed to dream? Yes!!! Because no one has a right to go into another man's sleep and determine what he sees, hears and wishes. But should a dreamer come out and declare his dream real? Again that is left for him to decide the sense in it. Not even the Biblical Joseph claimed that his dreams were true when he was narrating it to his parents and brothers. And yet everyone was mad with him and that led him to the well and since it was God's design, to the palace as slave, to prison and then back to the palace as Premier. Honestly, fellow Nigerians, like Sunny-Unachukwu Chukwuemeka, who hold Nigerian passports while in diaspora, even though they are non-existent Biafrans, are free to think that I am equating or prophesying that Ndigbo are the Josephs of Nigeria. But that is not the crux of the issue here.

The issue to me is found in this paragraph well written, but selfishly;

" ……. The roads in her region are not as bad as mine, My Nigerian friend has no brick walls erected to checkmate her from excellence. She has not been systematically driven into exile like me. Her people and Obeya's have not been massacred and hounded home to their region by Nigeria; Her people are not slaughtered in yearly rituals of genocidal proportions in a country that is supposed to protect them as nationals. Her people have not seen themselves in a brazen design to negate them rights of citizenship and has not been relegated to perpetual marginalization and servitude to the other regions. How can she understand when her environment is not degraded and her people can occupy properties of my people seized from them by their so called a nation?"

It leaves one asking if Sunny, really knows Nigeria. The story and state of the nation had better be told more intelligently. The defense of nationhood cannot be weakened by trivialities and mere uncooked sentiments. Nigeria has come so far. It is worth being a nation only if it defends first of all its territory. The day Nigeria fails to do that, even Igbo land would not exist to bear the name Biafra!! If there is any group that should complain, I thought I should be listening to the Itsekiris, Anangs Urhobos, the Tivs, Berom, Kaje, Kuteb, Waja, Zuru etc. Ask me why.

Talking about rights, citizenship and marginalization, there is not a single LGA in Nigeria that the Igbos have not and do not (today) live and trade. They are very industrious and are great survivalists anywhere in the world. In Jos, they almost solely own the hotel industry. The building material and motor spare parts business is solely theirs in all parts of the country. There is not a single institution of higher learning in Nigeria that the Igbos are not found and in most cases dominating. Sunny's "self exile" is a pointer to this self determination to survive. Most Nigerians have admired rather than become jealous of the Igbos. It is therefore ridiculous that what most of us consider a virtue has been misconstrued and misrepresented for the clamor for a Biafra. Meanwhile, the Biafrans control the economy, and until now (ask me why) they were half and half with the Yorubas in education. That is why they have the tendency to refer to every one north of the Niger as illiterate, since all of us are Hausa, and by their interpretation, a Hausa man is some unschooled illiterate who is politically loading it over them. They forget that you cannot have all! While they were busy looking for education (in the early days, not now), and trading, the Hausa man settled down to power. Whose fault is it that Ahmadu Bello would gather more political cloud than the Zik of Africa? Whose fault is it that Ekwueme the intelligent Architect would be VP to the grade two politician from the royal house of Sakwatto? Who is responsible for the late Great political scientist Chuba becoming a running mate for the Katsina general? How is it that Shehu Musa Yar Addua would determine the political direction of this nation from the grave? The Yorubas knew it quite soon. They were one and no party could penetrate the South-West and beat Action Group turned Unity Party of Nigeria and then AD. They never conceded until they were sure their own was there. Obasanjo got the South-West for PDP except the radical Lagos. Meanwhile, the east dumbed Alex Ekwueme, and the former rebel leader Chief Odumegu Ojukwu at the polls. I think the Igbos are the true Nigerians. The most detribalized, the most objective and the most accommodating. They can come to your home town and feel at home, trade, intermarry and live as though no home ever existed anywhere and yet very conscious of home. They are great in speaking Igbo anywhere and their children loose their identity either through their name or loss of their language. And even when they speak your language you cannot make them change to say "wake" instead of "wanke" for beans!!

When the University of Ibadan, Jos campus became University of Jos in 1976, the first Vice Chancellor, Prof. Gilbert Unuaguluchi ensured that more than 75% of the cleaners, typists, clerks, messengers, secretaries, admin officers and lecturers came from IMO state. The southeast which consists of Igboland can decide to pride itself as the only region to have produced five senate presidents within the span of six years.

Someone has not told us what is right!!

Talking of environmental degradation. I know of the Agulu Nanka erosion menace and the havoc done by coal mining in the past. I am not sure what percentage of Igboland is affected by petroleum exploration and exploitation. When Saro Wiwa was dying, I never heard any Igbo voice. The Niger Delta region, the Jos Plateau Tin Mining Region, the Atakpe iron ore region, and the various cement industry locations in many parts of the country suffer the same fate as did the coal mining region. How come those environmental issues are only in Igboland. In fact the people of the Delta region should be the ones complaining now; because the environmental impacts of oil exploration is enormous.

The spate of killings in Nigeria is not restricted to one region. There are conflicts in Lagos, Kano, Kaduna and Onitsha. I am not sure anyone has documented how many innocent Nigerian have died from the menace of armed robbery. How many people have lost their lives from the struggle for power between Ngige and his political godfather? How many people have died in the religious crisis in Kano, Kaduna, and Jos etc? To insinuate that the targets of these crises are only the Igbos is absurd. It leaves a lot of expectations of an intelligent person, even if he has read the Nigerian crisis in the papers.

Should these be reasons for the leaders today to make a nonsense of the labor of our past leaders? Are they worth forfeiting the gains of the blood of Nigerians who fought on both sides during the civil war?

Some one needs to understand the problem of the Igbos better than the call for a Biafra because before it is thought of coming into being I need answers to many questions that any response to this write up would lead to.