The itinerant luxury bus medicine dealer starts with prayers, sings choruses and sells fake ‘omnipotent’ drugs to both the sick and the healthy. He touts a particular knowledge of Staphylococcus and expertise in improving watery sperms and weak erections. He will suggest his bag contains cures for every known disease. He will jump off the bus but not before he is done . He tells tales like the ‘zoo’ story, playing on the vulnerabilities of an impoverished and ignorant society.
Ugoji Egbujo
The police escort on the bus stands aside and lets his aloofness authenticate the scam . The consequences will fall on pockets but more on public health. When they realize it is not benevolence the nomad has dropped off the bus. The sons of Sceva have taken center stage.
It is noble and often effective to ignore obnoxious attention seekers. But when rabble rousers show signs of lunacy they deserve attention. Because when speech comes to be filled with hate and incitement to violence , continuing silence becomes recklessness.
[b]When the rabble is roused, devilry is afoot and typically dissent is not brooked. Soon Igbos whose opinions contradict radio Biafra and its reprobates will become enemies of the land, saboteurs or Efulefus (misfits).
And since hysteria occludes reason, fellow Biafrans , supposedly shackled by ‘zoo’ keepers , would be the first targets because , like the Hutus and their interahamwe theorized, an efulefu is worse than the real enemy.
Biafra should be sacred because at the cost of over a million lives with torture and horror on scales that make Rwanda pardonable , Biafra should be strictly ‘out of the reach of children’. Biafra should not be trivialized or desecrated, neither by conceited scoffers nor by peripatetic con men with confused minds and mobile radio transmitters.
When shadowy megalomaniacs given to flimsiness and gifted with volubility run out of life options but seek emergence from obscurity, nothing is sacred. You can wonder if they contemplated opening a church and selling fake gospel before opting for Biafra . Yes, shed anonymity like Simon the socerer , the man from Gitta, by holding people bound with spells of charm, magic and sophistry until those who can find them him out.[/b]
[b]But I guess Igbo politics is so bereft of integrity and purpose and destitute of true apostles now that radio Biafra can continue with its sorcery for quite sometime . But the tragedy is that, like Simon who later took to following the apostles with magic in his pocket and greed in his heart, these latter day Biafran magicians insinuated themselves into Ojukwu’s politics, temporarily and only for ulterior interests.
Simon, the wolf, needed apostolic clothing . His flirtation with Christianity, like the pimps hawking Biafra, would yield money but will adulterate doctrines and values . There is no pogrom. Igbos are not under any life threatening siege. These hustlers are enticed by Ojukwu’s fame. Yet they wont form a political party as he did and mobilize the people. No. They do not even want a referendum. They want guns and bullets. They , with irritating nonchalance , say violence is unavoidable.
Their Biafra is a sham. Simon, like many fake pastors today, profited from hoodwinking the public, selling the counterfeit . Like fake pastors , these Biafran speculators do incalculable damage to the authentic concept by inviting mockery and scorn rather than belief, dignity and conversion. Radio Biafra has made a laughing stock of the Igbos.
Charlatans, whether on buses selling fake drugs or on Radio Biafra polluting Biafra , selling adulterated toxic freedom, can be charming. And many susceptible to razzmatazz succumb to the seduction of the false promise of paradise. Biafra is dear to many Igbos and is guarded jealously. Though perhaps a mere vent for ethnic chauvinism for those devoted to chest beating and superficiality.
For many thoughtful Igbos and many who saw the war or its aftermath, the attachment is more meaningful and deeply emotional. A struggle against murderous oppression. An excruciating toil to withstand death before a ‘no victor no vanquished’ gallant capitulation . A collective resolve to overcome annihilation, to grasp at freedom, to pursue greatness undeterred by staggering odds. Biafra is hope in the face of impossibility. Hopefully, the scar of a bad wound.
Igbos are sensitive to the contempt Biafra receives from others whose sense of patriotism or of conceit , as conquerors, mandate a disdain for the supposed vanquished and anything Biafra . All who cant help but see Biafra as real nuisance. As an impracticable fantasy , a manifestation of the perceived greed and domineering tendency of Igbos whose crude penchant for disregarding bounds of propriety is consuming.
These victors are often confounded by the egotism and vainglory they read in the attitude of Igbos towards Biafra, and the incongruous air of triumphalism they furnish themselves even from that defeat. When scorn is poured on Biafra rather than the fraudsters peddling its counterfeit , Igbos are forced into defensive sympathy with charlatans.
Only a few doubt that the breathtaking ingenuity, imagination , creativity and resourcefulness worthy of veneration that Biafra unveiled can be owned, even fleetingly, without feeling special. Biafra , in spite of the horrors, manages to leave some room for some nostalgia. Some still regret the loss of a greatness that could have been or that had begun. That wistfulness must be more harrowing 45 years after, ‘one Nigeria’ still imports toothpicks.
The susceptibility of some Igbos to the incantations of radio Biafra is not therefore totally inexplicable Biafra isn’t just unity and oneness , it is justice, moral justice. Because regardless of the interpretation that may be given to the events leading up to the pogrom , the pogrom in itself, in being allowed to fester unrestrained, in its scale , was egregious evil. Innocent everyday people hunted and disemboweled?
The pogrom made Biafra almost inevitable. Then the agony of dying and death of infants in state sponsored starvation. Asaba saw savagery that the Hutus in their murderous prime may not have matched. Recurrences of disturbances and dislocations have continued to grate scars. And persistence of injustice and lack of equity continue to make the idea attractive to many. And groups are morally and legally entitled to right to self determination. Biafra is not necessarily treason.
But true freedom fighters are easy to discern. Personal sacrifice, dedication, honesty to the course and painstakingness make freedom fighting not just arduous and valorized but a vocation not undertaken by flippant merry making fellows attending wild and wet parties thousands of kilometres from where the shackles are. It doesn’t start and end with delusions of grandeur and with threats of making Nigeria worse than Somalia.
A shallow , scheming , manipulator remarkable for overt opportunism and glibness cannot be a freedom fighter. A man of promise? A visionary rather than a scoundrel? Mbanu, no. And because the number of many lives and livelihoods needed to service these delusions , to catapult to a position of some influence , money and crumbs of power is subservient to such outsized ambitions , mania rather than sheer cruelty could be responsible.
Radio Biafra gun suppliers arrested with weapons
Desperation impairs diligence and cautionary appraisal. When frustration and hopelessness engender or entangle desperation even a drug addict hallucinating in the right direction , any direction of remote promise, will be embraced. And they, his zombies, believe that Nigeria is a zoo. Yes impunity reigns here. But there is no lopsided distribution of social evils.
Prophecy has taken the place of philosophy, even in universities. And practicing atheists clothe their guiles with the refrain “ to God be the glory”. It does appear that any hallucinating youth , incapable of sobriety and self reflection let alone charity, can , if he chooses, become an emancipator, a messiah. Igbos have a God that is exclusively theirs, we are now told . Europe has a secret she wont admit – the realization of Biafra would end human existence. When he speaks red herrings, syllogisms, fabrications and confabulations tumble over themselves.
“ We are being deported and killed in Lagos. Our shops have all been burnt. So we need guns and bullets …… Everything happens in triangles, Hausa Fulani fixed Rochas in Owerri , once they take Uyo and Port Harcourt , we are finished “. He pauses and lets a sardonic smile create an impression of wizadry. Inscrutability is lent to the mundane to create mystery. Everything , blasphemy included, is done so barefacedly that cringing is forced on the audience.[/b]
Archbishops now sprout overnight, like weeds. So a depressed charlatan can look at himself in a mirror in London and see an emperor and look in the atlas, see Igbo land , and say “ Yes I can”. Yes, he is the leader of a new farce. The fellow whose pedigree needs some archeological excavation to unearth, in a society where even confessed fraudsters publish colourful biographies and flaunt their habitation of the National Assembly.
He remains deliberately as rootless as a ‘UFO’. But pedigrees and values and convictions are superfluities where vice competes with virtue for honors. The last time a similarly named apparition hovered around Abuja, he was choreographing a charade that was earnestly, in all honesty, yearning for servitude.
A Nigeria where equity and fairness reigns, where lives and property are sacrosanct, where potentials are maximized, is Biafran. It is not a sin, however, to seek self determination. It is not a sin to canvass iconoclastic political options and alternatives. But these endeavours must respect the rights of the collective enshrined in the constitution. Boko haram wants a sharia region and they could have gone about it sanely.
When greedy politicians recruited sharia to exploit the people they laid foundations for radical Islamic fundamentalism because they sold the counterfeit. They sought not societal transformation but private political profit. And that was why even boko haram managed to attract sympathy rather than blanket scorn in their early days. They came selling fake sharia. Things have gone full circle and the northeast is decimated.
March visited gnashing of teeth on may southern politicians . Let these politicians leave Biafra out of their intrigues. Ojukwu we know, Achuzia we know , Okpara we know, Mbakwe we know, Ekwueme we know, Nwabueze we know. But who are these? Sceva’s sons have arrived. Vanguard
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a people seeking self-determination. The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia are examples of patchworks that failed the nation test. As in any team sports, it is better to play a less talented player than a talented saboteur. The writer above is actually asking for esteemed Igbos to take up the Biafra struggle.
But I guess Igbo politics is so bereft of integrity
and purpose and destitute of true apostles now
that radio Biafra can continue with its sorcery for
quite sometime . But the tragedy is that, like
Simon who later took to following the apostles
with magic in his pocket and greed in his heart,
these latter day Biafran magicians insinuated
themselves into Ojukwu’s politics, temporarily
and only for ulterior interests.(FACT)
This Nnamdi Kanu, that Radio Biafra and the tragedy of charlatanism (2)
on November 07, 2015 / in Frank & Fair, News 12:14 am / Comments
Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Reddit Print By Dr. Ugoji Egbujo
From the great heights of Ikemba Ojukwu to the wretchedness and mediocrity of an Nnamdi Kanu. What a tragedy! “As long as your mother ties a two piece wrapper you are a Biafran, you are a descendant of light. …..Why would anyone go to church to worship the Son of God when we have many Nwachukwus( sons of God) in our midst?”
Director of pirate radio, Radio Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu Director of pirate radio, Radio Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu At some point Nnamdi Kanu will jump off the bus ,plead insanity , and walk away. “There was a blood moon in 1967, astronomers say there will be a blood moon this year, if we don’t get Biafra everybody will perish”. His insanity defense is clearly made out.
But what should sane Igbos who are passionate about Biafra or sick of Nigeria rather do? They should not succumb to the seductions of the tales of the seeming peripatetic luxury bus medicine dealer, so they should not embrace Nnamdi Kanu , his Radio Biafra and their desperate and devious schemes. They cannot afford lunacy.
Lucidity must be deployed to defuse the confused euphoria of some of our youths. Perhaps the nobility in ignoring the charlatans and waiting out their folly has lapsed. The fire that has been lit is spreading on the fuel of mischief, political disgruntlement, perceived marginalization, joblessness and hopelessness. And men of goodwill must speak up and douse the inferno with the water of reason. And the government must think jobs and devolution of powers.
Some Igbo professionals in diaspora for reasons that are more fantastical than pragmatic find Kanu and his Radio Biafra fascinating. They are at a protective remove and thus have a luxury the Igbo trader in Alaba or Zungeru does not have. They can fantasize from afar about secession because for them, from their safe distance, Biafra is also excitement.
Any calamitous consequences of that divorce will not trouble directly their everyday lives. They may promise participation but even that will retain the optionality which will elude the Igbo woman in Kano. But like the Abakiliki chief who called me to discuss the first part of this article asked – what should those who are genuinely interested and passionate about realizing Biafra do under the present circumstance?
They can subject their obsession to the redemptive therapy of sober clear- eyed rational analysis which would inform circumspection. Yes, but passion is often , unfortunately, refractory to such cold rationality . Should they hold onto it, explore it, in exercise of their right to self determination? Whether buoyed by passion or reason, they would need to overcome some immediate questions. Because millions of lives are involved, morality will leave no room for sentimentality and indulgence of whims and superstitions. Is secession the answer to the plight of Igbos? Is it the minimum needed to cure the mischiefs that agonize them? South Sudan is a cautionary tale. My answer to that question will be the conclusion of this article.
They must answer other subsidiary questions. Why are secessions, generally, not common despite the ubiquity of sectarian political strife and social injustices? Why are the Hutus and Tutsis still of one country? It is because secession is a problematic slippery slope. It is because, though an expression of freedom, it negates and circumvents democracy.
The idea that a dissatisfied minority in any political equation can ride on a certain right to self determination and pull out and become a country is a recipe for unmitigated disaster. Nuclear families will become nations and we’ll be back to the pre political era. These moral burdens do not foreclose secession but make the conditions that could morally warrant unilateral secession more stringent.
What are the boundaries of this new Biafra? All kinds of maps have been bandied but nothing suggests that any ethnic minority is comfortable with any scenario that makes it a minority where Igbos will be overwhelmingly dominant. Haven’t lessons of history been learnt? Eziokwubundu. Because the welcome given Biafran flags in PortHarcout some days ago is a Greek gift.
It smacks of shameless opportunism in the face of the prospects of a repeat governorship elections there. No one should be carried away. Personalities from Ikwerre land and other groups who had torn their dresses in the past to prove their distinctness are now vocal about their Igbo identities. Change of hearts, any such repentance, must begin with some restitution .
So wouldn’these gimmicks be tested for altruism by asking the Rivers government questions about ‘abandoned property’? They know the stolen assets. So, verify victims , assess the properties and commensurately compensate them with fresh land allocations in Port Harcourt. When pretentions are shed, states outside the southeast will resist inclusion in Biafra.
[b]These proponents of Biafra are particularly expansive. They want the Niger Delta, accusations of naked greed and covetousness notwithstanding. Assuming they limit themselves to the Southeast only , they must consider if they have the moral legitimacy to railroad other Igbos into a secession. It is not enough to dismiss dissenters as efulefus or slaves, their dissent must be countered by superior arguments and they must have the support of a convincing majority of Igbos.
They will have to show that secession is either an immediate necessity or that it has such an appeal that it makes the status quo , the ‘zoo’, utterly detestable. Pathetic propaganda aimed at seeding fear in clear disregard for facts is immoraland unhelpful. Lies wont sell.
Unlike 1967, Igbos do not currently face any serious threat of immediate selective violence supported by acts of commission or omission of the national government. There is no lopsided distribution of social evils in Nigeria such that the southeast and Igbos are especially imperiled.
Boko Haram has damaged Igbo lives and livelihoods but it has left the north east utterly desolate. The continued existence of Igbos and Igbo culture is not in any present or foreseeable danger. Igbos despite structured, systemic , disadvantages have flourished, on the aggregate, more than other groups.
If the appeal or promise of Biafra rather than its necessity is the argument, then that appeal must be demonstrated. It is possible that a land locked Biafra, without the Niger Delta and its oil, may yet do much better than an unwieldy and fractious Nigeria economically.
But nothing factual supports the proposition that such a Biafra will do better politically. A theoretical argument founded on appeal would only have force if it articulates the social position of Igbos today , enunciates the impacts of secession before prognosticating about a landlocked Biafra. Even then a practical demonstration of the appeal must be provided even if in just one local government area. Prophesies and superstitions won’t do[/b].
Igbos are willing and able to compete fairly, they seek only a stable platform where equity and fairness reign. Igbos feel marginalized by successive federal governments. But any feelings of such deprivations must be tempered by the universality of poverty and under development in Nigeria.
[b]Igbos, in their own states, haven’t distinguished themselves politically either. Embezzlement of public funds and general misgovernment have done damage to states and local councils in the south east run by Igbos as it has done at the federal level where Igbos insist they have been left out. But they haven’t quite been totally left out in the looting of the federal treasury.
But passion, the sort furnished by obsession, wouldn’t let the agitators for secession appreciate the enormous inherent draw backs of secession. That secession may beget further uncontrolled secessions and ultimately political instability. Because inter and intra ethnic feuds and squabbles and rights of smaller groups to self determination will not die with the birth of Biafra.
That since Aguleri and Umuleri nearly exterminated themselves, unprompted by the Hausa Fulani, Igbo cohesion needs effort and is not guaranteed even by Biafra. That the Osu’s plight is not linked to Hausa Fulani hegemony but to the bigotry of Dialas and Biafra doesn’t guarantee equality.
Assuming the appeal of a Biafran paradise is so overwhelming that the proponents of secession consider the effects of secession on the lives and properties and livelihoods of Igbos in far flung parts of Nigeria as dispensable, assuming they make a consequential argument that many more would be happier in Biafra, the instigators of secession must meet further moral requirements.[/b]
The great philosopher Immaneul Kant would insist that humans be not used merely as a means to an end. And to that extent the consent of Igbos must constitute a factor in the moral legitimacy of any secessionist engagement. The 1967 Biafra sought and obtained Igbo consent even though it could have dispensed with it in the face of the massacres.
To stay somewhere in diaspora and claim the existence and leadership of a certain independent peoples of Biafra and begin to solicit for arms to fight the Hausa Fulanis is delusion. Jeopardizing the peace the Igbo trader in Potiskum needs to fend for his family is callous nonsense at the best and perhaps mindless cruelty. The lives of these Igbos begin and end in their small shops which are neither insured nor indemnified against fickle mobs. True freedom fighters bother about the intrinsic rightness of their actions
[b]Ojukwu would have advised them to join APGA. And Ojukwu was not stupid. Create a party or join one. Make Biafra a significant zonal autonomy, in the first instance , a priority and test its popularity within the southeast. If your party wins then you can claim popular consent. But to assume consent without a test beyond mobs running through Port Harcourt’s streets is not only presumptuous , it is also contemptuous of the dignity of the Igbos.
It presupposes a herd mentality for a people renowned for independent mindedness. Ojukwu didn’t promote APGA because of cowardice. If those who seek Biafra can win democratic control of Southeast states and demonstrate through innovative people oriented governance the distinction that Biafra represents then their Biafra agitation will acquire ‘purposive legitimacy’- moral legitimacy acquired by being true to purpose.
And all of these must precede a formal referendum because consent secured by mere propaganda is not informed consent. And I guess Ojukwu opted for APGA to further this objective. But they wont contest elections yet they claim popularity
Self determination needs informed consent of the Igbo.Will they,who preach Eldorado , allow Igbos to have a glimpse or perhaps a taste of their political ‘Nkwobi’ or ‘Nmanyankwu’ before a bargain is forced on them? Other groups are largely sequestered in their homelands but not Igbos.
Igbos are too deeply entrenched in the Nigerian matrix that they can only be teased out, not forcefully separated from Nigeria. This new agitation cannot, by any stretch of imagination, be in the interest of Igbos who own over 50% of commerce in Lagos and 70% of real estate in Abuja.
Is this agitation for Biafra in 2015 in the interest of the average poor Igbo man? I don’t think so. Some degree of regional autonomy first.[/b]
Some Igbos still get sense. This is what i remember of my time in the south east, people with civility, who question logic with logic. Not this zoo must fall mob that have taken over social media now. Unfortunately, soon Kanu will start killing Igbos who oppose his view, then the shit will really hit the fan
Biafra should be sacred because at the cost of over a million lives with torture and horror on scales that make Rwanda pardonable , Biafra should be strictly ‘out of the reach of children
Biafra should not be trivialized or desecrated, neither by conceited scoffers nor by peripatetic
con men
with confused minds and mobile radio transmitters.
Their Biafra is a sham.
Simon, like many fake pastors today, profited from hoodwinking the public, selling the counterfeit . Like fake pastors , these Biafran speculators do incalculable damage to the authentic concept by inviting mockery and scorn rather than belief, dignity and conversion. Radio Biafra has made a laughing stock of the Igbos.
Charlatans, whether on buses selling fake drugs or on Radio Biafra polluting Biafra , selling adulterated toxic freedom, can be charming. And many susceptible to razzmatazz succumb to the seduction of the false promise of paradise. Biafra is dear to many Igbos and is guarded jealously. Though perhaps a mere vent for ethnic chauvinism for those devoted to chest beating and superficiality.
Dr Ejigo dey Para abeg , Everybody don tell these jobless mofos say na scam , dem no gree
Biafra is something dear to the oppressed people of the SE and SS. In her we see hope because Nigeria has offered us no hope. In her we see our voices listened and our grieves attended to. We were born into an oppressed region and we grew up under inhumane conditions and our little efforts to make our conditions better our oppressors still destroy; polluted farmlands and water bodies, herdsmen destroyed farmlands and destruction of our homes and investments by muslim fanatics among others. We that are seeking biafra do so to guarantee our future and ensure we bequeath a country our children will be proud of. Oh yes the youthful exuberance of Mr. Kanu may have affected his mode of voicing out but the situation that informed radio biafra and the renewed call for biafra still remains. It is on this note that we are calling on any and all true lovers of justice and freedom from the old eastern region to arise and support our course. Many youths have died and many are still willing to face the demons of Nigeria if that will bring a biafra our offsprings will enjoy. Do not stand there and point to us as mad men simply because of the crumbs they offer you. You and us are capable to eat unspoilt food. We cannot be treated like beggars in the lands of our ancestors. Do you wish to be a spokesman for our oppressors? Do you wish to stir dissension among us after all we have suffered together? Why oh brother! Where was your voice when our people were murdered during the various sharia riots in the north? Where was your voice when for cartoons in far away Denmark our people were hacked down without any provocation? Did you lose your voice when many of our peaceful relatives going about their normal businesses were killed for a beauty pegeant they never cared about? The extra judicial killings of Massob members that went on for long didn't see you speaking up; where you in coma then? Oh ye brother, our steps might not be perfect but our course is. Therefore offer us solid strategies and not mockery or condemnation. Mr. Ugorji Egbujo we await your response. Finally death to this one Nigeria.
