Following the May 30th declaration by Biafra
agitators as sit-at-home Day in commemoration
of the Biafra Independence Day, some members
of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)
claimed to be based in Malaysia but travelled
home for the planned Biafra Day have allegedly
donated a live cow allegedly named “Buhari” to
their leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, to be killed on
Biafra Day.
The story seen on an online news medium, The
BreakingTimes, said that Mr. Kanu “who has
received hundreds of important visitors including
high-placed politicians since he was released on
bail by an Abuja High Court in April, accepted the
gift warmly.”

The reports also claimed that the members
named the cow before donating it to their leader.
In the photo, two of the claimed IPOB members
who donated the cow are seen standing with
Nnamdi Kanu while another picture shows them
standing beside the said cow.
Recall that Fifty years ago, the Igbo people of
southeast Nigeria seceded, declaring an
independent Republic of Biafra and sparking a
brutal civil war that left about one million people
dead.
– Coups and secession –
On May 30, 1967, the military head of Nigeria ‘s
eastern region, Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu,
declares “the independent Republic of Biafra”.
His move comes two days after the head of
Nigeria ‘s military government, General Yakubu
Gowon, divided the federation into 12 states,
including three in the east.
Biafra, accounting for less than 10 percent of
Nigerian territory, at the time had a population of
14 million out of 55 million nationwide.
Its mainly Christian population was two-thirds
Igbo.
Since independence from Britain in 1960, Nigeria
had managed to stay a single entity despite
historic enmity between the mainly Muslim north
and the largely Christian south.
But the Igbos felt discriminated against by the
two other main ethnic groupings, the northern
Hausa-Fulani and the Yoruba in the southwest.
In January 1966, Nigeria suffered its first military
coup, led by the Igbo General Johnson Aguiyi
Ironsi. A counter-coup launched in the north in
July kills Ironsi and many of his senior Igbo
officers.
Thousands of Igbo civilians are killed in reprisals,
especially in the north, and millions of survivors
flee back to the southeast.
The government rejects the secession of the
southeast, which is rich in agricultural and
mineral resources, especially oil.
– Bombardments and blockade –
Gowon announces a general mobilisation and
denounces the independence declaration as “an
act of rebellion”, saying it will be “crushed”. The
military imposes a blockade on eastern Nigeria .
On July 6 the army unleashes a general offensive
with its first air bombardments.
In October federal troops take Biafra’s capital,
Enugu, then the port of Calabar. Onitsha and
Port Harcourt are recaptured in the first months
of 1968.
Britain, the Soviet Union and the Organisation of
African Unity (the forerunner to the African
Union) side with the federal government.
Only a few African countries and France back
Biafra.
– Humanitarian drama –
On July 3, 1968 the International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC) says that eight to 12
million people are affected by the conflict and
that 200 people a day are dying of starvation in
Biafra.
“One would think we were seeing ghosts
marching past, thin and silent, wrapped in grey
rags,” an AFP special correspondent reports in
August.
“Nearly all are women of all ages and old
people… there are no longer many children in
Biafra.
“The refugees travel, their stomachs empty,
fleeing the noise of federal cannon. The noose is
tightening.”
In late August he writes of a million new
refugees in 15 days as the army advances.
“One person dies every 15 minutes… refugees
are dying from starvation and exhaustion,” he
reports.
The Biafra famine caused by the blockade makes
headlines around the world, with heartrending
photographs of children, stomachs bloated by
malnutrition, their legs bent with rickets.
A handful of French doctors working for the
ICRC, including the future French government
minister Bernard Kouchner, brush aside
convention and political borders to launch an aid
effort.
In 1971, they go on to found Medecins Sans
Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).
– ‘No victor, no vanquished’ –
From August to September 1968 the army
retakes several towns after a major offensive.
In March-April 1969, the new Biafran capital,
Umuahia, falls.
After raids by secessionists on oil wells, Nigerian
troops reinforce their blockade, and in June start
preventing international Red Cross aid flights.
Only Christian churches and the French Red
Cross continue their aid flights in ever more
dangerous conditions.
In early January 1970 the army begins its final
assault, and on January 15, Biafra ceases to
exist.
Ojukwu flees on January 11 to Ivory Coast,
leaving his deputy, Philip Effiong, to officially
surrender to Gowon in Lagos, the federal
government’s capital at the time.
The east resumes its place in a united Nigeria .
Gowon vows “No victor, no vanquished”, and
pledges to work for national reconciliation.
But resentment lingers and deepens over the
decades, as the Igbo complain of a lack of
investment in the southeast, which many view as
a punishment for Biafra.
The war invests considerable power in the army,
with military coups becoming a feature of
Nigerian political life for decades.
www.vanguardngr.com/2017/05/ipob-supporters-donate-cow-allegedly-named-buhari-nnamdi-kanu/

OK

Obj once donate monkey wey e name na patience to someone

kini big deal