Col Joe Achuzia accused the federal government of trying to uproot the Igbos from Nigeria

- The Biafra warlord explained that Biafra is not about breaking away from Nigeria

- He said it was about survival based on the way they were treated by the government

Col Joe Achuzia who is a Biafra warlord and the Secretary-General of Indigenous People of Biafra worldwide has revealed that the word Igbo is not a tribal identity as it used to be a language used by people known as South Sudan.


The Idea of Biafra is not to leave Nigeria - Achuzia

In an interview with Vanguard, Achuzia spoke about the issue of Biafra insisting that Igbos are not interested in pulling out of Nigeria but maintaining their own identity.

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He said: “You see people tend to forget the paradox about the Igbo. The word Igbo is not a tribal identity, it is linguistic identity. It is a language of a people collectively residing in the eastern region that used to be known as Southern Sudan. From the 14th, 15th, 16th century, the area was known as Southern Sudan. That is where the people known as Biafrans lived, hence the Bight of Biafra.

“There would never have been a Bight of Biafra if there were no inhabitants occupying the mainland. I’m not here pleading a cause for Biafra. No, I’m only taking you to historical antecedents.


“You asked a question about the so called Igbo leaders. There are two types of Igbo leaders – Igbo political leaders who professed to be Igbo by residing in certain rural areas in the south east of the country and by accumulation of wealth, imposed themselves on the people as their leaders.

“They have all the sophistication of political activities, while the indigenes because of poverty imposed by the activities of the civil war were unable to elevate themselves to the level required by the new masters. These were the people that impose themselves as leaders of Igbo. In our language, it says ‘ebo nwe nwunye nzo, nwunye nzo mala onye nwe anyi’, meaning that the community knows their wife or leader and the wife and the true leaders know the people who appointed them. Unfortunately, what we have is the Pharaoh that does not know Joseph.

“Some of the so-called leaders of Ndigbo even up to date are those whose wealth are questionable. Yet unfortunately, it is only wealth that decides who becomes a leader of a people that goes for activities of government.”

“No, we fought for survival. Biafra never fought or did not attempt to break away from the Lugardian set up known as Nigeria.

“No! We, from the south east fought to prevent us from being exterminated in an effort to push us out of the federation. That we remembered out past, the thought came to our succour because when a people are under pressure of extermination, history comes to their assistance.


“How did our forefathers survive under the pressure that we had at the time from colonial masters? How did they survive? They survived by recollecting who they were and pulled together, hence the mark on our faces.

“Those marks differentiate the people who are Biafrans. Each community has a peculiar mark even though nowadays, we don’t do it anymore but it is engraved in our heart. And that is why we resolved that we cannot fight individually as Nigeria wanted us then.

“We had to fight collectively as Biafrans. Biafra wasn’t coined to break up Nigeria, no.”

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The Biafra warlord explained that Igbo people are only focused on retaining their name which is Biafra and that it is Nigeria that is trying to uproot them.

“From our own point of view, we remnants of Biafra are seeking judicial intervention or call it judicial translation, we want to know the stand of the judiciary over our claim that we have a right to answer any name that we feel and that the Federal Government has no right to deny us our human right to a name because we have a right to reject any name that the Federal Government might want to impose on us and that led to an unpleasant standoff position which we don’t want.”