=50 YEARS AFTER BIAFRA 1967,
NIGERIA HAS LOST THE EASTERN
HALF OF ITS SOUTH. - LNC May
30th, 2017.=
¶The Month of May in 1967
witnessed two significant events
that permanently redefined and
truncated the manifest destiny
the giant promise on the African
Continent the World called
"Nigeria".


The background to those two
events was that
following a botched Military Coup
in January of 1966, led by middle
rank officers which nevertheless
led to the death of Leading
Political figures in the North
including the Prime Minister
Tafawa Balewa and the Premier
of the Northern Region Ahmadu
Bello and that Western Region,
Ladoke Akintola, amongst others.


A blood-soaked revenge Coup
was executed by Northern
Military Officers in July 1966 in
which the Military Head of State
that emerged from the botched
Coup of January, Aguiyi Ironsi, an
Easterner and over 300 Igbo
Officers and men were
summarily rounded up and
executed after which a free-for-
all xenophobic killings of
Easterners wherever they were
found in the North in wave
pogroms.

Most accounts from
foreign journalists who covered
the events put the casualty
figures at over 30 thousand.


Survivors who escaped the
pogroms fled to the their Eastern
Region Homeland for safety.
Others from other Regions also
had to dress back to their
respective Homeland Regions for
safety.


=The Federation of Nigeria
Nigeria had collapsed
unceremoniously.=
In the first week of January
1967, following various futile
attempts to bring all the sides to
the dispute together since the
July 1966 fracturing event, as
none would venture into the
Territory of the other, Ghana's
Head of State, General Ankrah,
succeeded in bringing the two
sides to Aburi, Ghana, for what
was essentially the last ditch
attempt at Dialogue to save the
badly fractured Union of Nigeria.


After exhaustive deliberations on
the issues at stake, a fair
Consensus, expressly accepted by
both sides, was reached and
Documented as the Aburi Accord
and hopes were high that a
breakthrough had finally been
achieved in halting Nigeria's slide
into disintegration.
Upon return to Nigeria, the
Ojukwu-led Eastern Region
quickly carried out its own key
obligations under the Aburi
Accord but on the Gowon-led
Federal side, there was foot-
dragging that degenerated to
outright repudiation and
abandonment of the Aburi
Accord.


Shocked and surprised by the
inexplicable volte face by the
Federal side, the East insisted on
the sanctity of the Accord which
birthed the popular slogan ON
ABURI WE STAND.


Things negatively cascaded
rather quickly through the 4
Months that followed the Aburi
Sovereign Conference of January
1967 such that by the last week
in May 1966, (precisely 27th), a
Solemn Eastern Nigeria
Consultative Assembly, after a
thorough consideration of the
situation, Mandated the Military
Governor of Eastern Region
Lieutenant-Colonel
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-
Ojukwu to take the East out of
the failed Federation of Nigeria
and to Declare the embattled
Eastern Region as the Republic of
Biafra.


A formal Declaration of the
Sovereign State of Biafra was
slated for 30th May, 1967.
In a matter of hours, same day
27th May 1967, the so-called
Federal Government, in what was
an obvious preemptive strike to
undermine, incapacitate and
derail the exit of the East
announced, by way of a Decree, a
12 State Structure which basically
balkanized the Eastern Region
into three States namely East
Central State, Rivers State (now
Rivers and Bayelsa States), and
the South-Eastern State (now
Akwa-Ibom and Cross-River
States).


This May 27th 1967 malevolent
fracturing of the Eastern Region
by the so-called Federal
Government of Nigeria marked
the official beheading of the
dying Federation of Nigeria.


On the 30th off May 1967, the
Military Governor of the East,
Declared the Eastern Region the
Republic of Biafra as Mandated
by the Eastern Regional
Consultative Assembly.


This May
30th 1967 Declaration marked
the interment of the already
beheaded Federation of Nigeria.
These watershed events of May
27th 1967 and May 30th 1967
effectively wound-up the failed
Lugardian experiment of 1914
along with the 1960 adoption of
same in what was popularly
tagged "Independence" and
permanently altered the
prospects of the realization of
the giant promise on the
Continent of Africa.


By the 6th of July 1967, the
Federal Side fired the first shot at
Biafra at a place called Gakem, in
what it