Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka - Politics (4) - Nairaland
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| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by sukkot: 7:59pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
AngelicBeing:  |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by Mcowubaba: 8:00pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
Alexbrain:This is what many people have failed to understand. It's not even forefathers, what the did to our Fathers... My father was affected, forefathers is farfetched. Some wounds can't easily heal, impossible. Up till today, African Americans and blacks in USA and other western countries still scorn and remind white people of slave trade and their human right abuses on Blacks. My white friends usually complain that the had nothing to do with this, it was their ancestors, but the don't understand that such events can't just be wished away. The must live with it. 7 Likes |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by misspineapple(f): 8:00pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
Dem go gree？ |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by cooljude(m): 8:04pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
successinlife: Lies, Chinua Achebe was the spokesperson of Biafra and he was in charge of Biafra foreign diplomatic mission. 5 Likes |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by thinkdip(m): 8:04pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
NwaAmaikpe:Words 4 Likes |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by Smooyis(m): 8:05pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
What a great writer. The clamor for a state of Biafra should never be trivialized. We should face the issues at stake headlong. No one is happy with the situation of things in Nigeria. If we must live together we need to agree together. 5 Likes |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by Amah70: 8:07pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
successinlife: The "high rank Igbos" still supporting one Nigeria? Tell your self the truth: are the Igbo leaders in politics of Nigeria representing the interest of the majority Igbo? No. They represent only their personal political interest. Just like Wike, Okowa, and Dickson represent their personal political interest. 6 Likes |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by Ngozi123(f): 8:07pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
millionaireman: I completely agree. This is actually one of the biggest reasons why I support the Igbo independence movement. 7 Likes |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by Buharimustgo: 8:09pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
[quote author=NwaAmaikpe post=58322826]  Point of correction Prof, It's not Biafra has not been defeated But Biafra can not be defeated. This ideology is ingrained in the mind and souls of toddlers and babies unborn, The cry for liberation echoes from the anthills of Nsugbe to the mountains of Ngwo, The cry of injustice is heard from the lakes of Oguta to the beaches of Buguma. Never again, Never again shall we see the Hausa-Fulani and call him brother. We are not genetically identical We are not psychologically identical We are not spiritually identical Those are no brothers of ours, At best, they are neighbors but not our brothers Our brothers don't mate with animals Our brothers don't marry underage girls A neighbor is not a brother. Our lands are ravaged, Our resources are exploited, Our tomorrow is raped, Our hands are tied, Our mouths are gagged They've made us believe all we can do is mumur We can't shout or fight because we are powerless. But our resolve is unflinching. One day, The sun will rise again, Power will return to the people Viva Biafra. [/quote This is the best quote of the year,please keep it up 8 Likes |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by salford1: 8:12pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
Soyinka was imprisoned for the sake of biafra yet Igbos would still curse him out alot of times. The prof has a thick skin. 1 Like |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by ipob1(m): 8:13pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
Fadiga24:what! Na pesin be that abi na goat? |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by Vutseck(m): 8:13pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
lionness: 2 Likes |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by LoveJesus87(m): 8:13pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
Mcowubaba:Hmmm. Heavy. 7 Likes |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by kingrt2(m): 8:17pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
This bs again? |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by loadedmax(m): 8:18pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
jjjjj2017: 1 Like |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by modik(m): 8:19pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
wawappl: Correction: Baba is not on side of Biafra but on side of Freedom, fairness and Dignity of the black race devoid of Colonial mentality and racial inferiority Blacks are capable of defining their destiny. Give Biafra a chance and see the proof of his point. God bless NK God bless lovers of freedom God bless freedom fighters God bless Biafra. 5 Likes 1 Share |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by ipob1(m): 8:19pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
pweetiedee:see jamb question oo give him sub machine guns nd grenad nd see if na play he go use them dey play. Afonja 2 Likes 1 Share |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by mema900: 8:19pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
Long live biafra 3 Likes
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| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by bilazego(m): 8:20pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
lionness: Do you like the way the country is structured or would you prefer that something is done about it? 1 Like |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by AbrahamIsrael: 8:20pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
The Igbos have been treated with disrespect and have been subjected to cold civil war since 1970 till date. They are not carried along in the scheme of things in the country called Nigeria hence their agitation for Biafra. Take for an example, I know a yoruba parents that warned their daughters strictly never to marry Igbo men and one of the daughters asked why and the father said no reason but he didn't want anything that would associate him with Igbos. In a similar vein, a muslim northerner can never allow his daughters get married to an Igbo man in the Nigeria of today but their men are at liberty to marry Ibo ladies and convert them to Islam. There are cases where some tribes detest to hear the Igbo language spoken to their ears. Look at the lopsided appointments in this APC led administration, does it speak oneness? Employments in big fed.govt agencies are secretly made with mostly two tribes dominating the entire work force with few or no ibo person employed, e.g custom with hausa as their major language, the same with NNPC, Army, Navy, etc. An Igbo military personnel is retired compulsorily on getting to the post of a Major General or its equivalent. You don't see an Ibo soldier getting to the post of a General. If we really want to be one, then let's act like one and treat everybody equally as failure will consume and sink Nigeria. Those who are complaining about the Biafra agitation are those who are benefiting from the deceptive structure of Nigeria. 7 Likes |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by Imerson(m): 8:20pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
[when an experienced man talks the air listens. I perceived that those white hairs there are full of wisdom and knowledgequote author=Cooly100 post=58321268] On July 6, 1967, civil war broke out in Nigeria between the country’s military and the forces of Biafra, an independent republic proclaimed by ex-Nigerian military officer Odumegwu Ojukwu on May 30 of that year. The war killed more than 1 million people, many of whom died from starvation. It ended in January 1970 with the reintegration of Biafra into Nigeria. Malnutrition, Red Cross, kwashiorkor, relief flights, genocide, the Uli airstrip used by Biafran planes to elude the Nigerian blockade, mercenaries, the Aburi accord that broke down and led to war—these are some of the memory triggers of the Nigerian civil war of secession that we would like to re-assign. Over a million lives perished—a shameful proportion of them children—mostly through starvation and aerial bombardment. The Nigerian federal government, committed to the doctrine of oneness, had boasted that the conflict would last no longer than three weeks of “police action.” We had learnt much from the politics of other nations, but apparently not from history; the war lasted more than two years. Noble Laureate, Prof Wole Soyika Tormented by the image of a herd of human lemmings rushing to their doom, as a young writer, I made the “treasonable” statement warning that the secessionist state, Biafra, could never be defeated. The simplistic rendition of that conviction in most minds—certainly in the minds of the then-ruling military and its elite support—was that this applied merely to the physical field of combat. Thus it was regarded as a psychological offensive against the federal side, an attempt to demoralize its soldiers while boosting the war spirit of the enemy. That “enemy” had also boasted that no force in black Africa could defeat them. My visit to the Biafran enclave in October 1966 resulted in arrest and detention. During interrogation, I insisted that my statement was meant as a counter to the surge of emotive nationalism and a slavish sanctification of colonial boundaries. Biafra was therefore an expression of that rejection and its replacement with a people’s self-constitutive rights. This specific challenge owed its genesis to memory at its rawest, the memory of ethnic cleansing, whose remedy could not be sought rationally in a campaign of subjugation against an already traumatized community. One question, rhetorical in tone, stuck in my mind for long afterwards. It went thus: “Why should you take it on yourself to make such a statement? Is it because you’re a writer? Who are you to take a contrary stance to the government?” I replied to myself that I had learned to listen. The young man countered that he was on the side of history, and Biafra would be crushed. Not quite, as it turned out. The Biafrans were indeed defeated on the battlefield, but crushed? Today, most Nigerians know better. Biafra has not been defeated. If anyone was left in any doubt about this, the last work of my late colleague, Chinua Achebe’s There Was A Country, has left us re-thinking. New generation writers, born long after that brutal war, have inherited and continue to propagate the Biafran doctrine, an article of faith among the Igbo populace, even among those who pay lip-service to a united nation. Millions remain sworn to uphold it. Many have died at the hands of the police and the military as succeeding guardians of that legacy troop out to reclaim it in defiant manifestations. Amnesty International estimated that at least 150 pro-Biafra activists have been killed since August 2015. Some of their leaders, including the director of their official mouthpiece, Radio Biafra, remain on trial for alleged subversion and treason. Others have gone underground. The war is not over, only the tactics have changed. One could claim that a project of internal secession is unfolding, one that skirts the peripheries of Nigerian laws, testing what they permit, and daring what they do not. As for the victorious side, analysts continue to cite the lingering consequences of the war of secession among the main causes of the nation’s instability, alongside contemporary factors such as mismanagement of petroleum resources, corruption, visionless leadership, etc. Today, secession simmers openly, and is moving steadily beyond rhetoric. It has already taken on a dangerous complement—ejection. A number of combative youth organizations in the northern part of Nigeria recently called for the expulsion of the Igbo from their lands for daring once again to talk about secession. Mainstream leaders have disowned them, but some support has been voiced by individuals within the same adult cadre, including its intelligentsia. Debate is intense, often acrimonious. Sadly however, one is left with a feeling that most participants in this discourse shy away from a fundamental component of nation being, one that transcends the Biafran will to corporate existence. That principle virtually gasps for air under the wishfully terminal mantra that goes: “The unity of Nigeria is non-negotiable.” I have never understood how this is supposed to differ from the dogma of certain religious strains that declare conversion from faith to be an act of apostasy, punishable by death. Nationality, like religion, is only another construct into which one is either born, or acquires by accident or indoctrination. Those who insist on the divine right of nation over a people’s choice seem unaware that they box themselves into the same doctrinaire mould of mere habit, just like religion. In the Nigerian instance, however, the matter is even more troubling. Since the absolutists of nation indivisibility are not ignorant of the histories of other nations and are immersed daily under evidence of the assertive factor of negotiation—be it in the language of arms and violence or the conference table—since they know full well that this process straddles pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial histories, such speakers unconsciously imply that Africans are sub-citizens of the real world and are not entitled to make their own choices, even in this modern age. This smacks of an inferiority complex, if not of a slavish indoctrination, when we additionally consider how today’s Africa came to be, a land mass of constitutive units that were largely determined by alien interests, and thus, hold possibilities of fatal flaws. Also requiring contestation is the implicit equation of supreme sacrifice with supreme entitlement: Those who say, “We have shed our blood for Nigerian unity, and will not stand by and watch it dismantled.” My observation is that in civil warfare—indeed in most kinds of warfare—civilians pay the higher price in lives, possessions and dignity. We need therefore to eliminate the distracting lament of professionals of violence and confront, in its own right, the issue of the collective volition of any human grouping. This leaves us with the other line of approach, the line of frankly subjective or reasoned, pragmatic preferences. It is a positioning that admits, quite simply, I am a creature of habit and prefer things as they are. Or: I like to be a big frog in a small pond, and allied determinants. Such individual and collective preferences for nation validation offer sincere basis for negotiation and resolution. Once conceded, we proceed to invoke the positives of cohabitation that render fragmentation mostly adventurist and potentially destructive. Habit is a great motivator, but it should not be permitted to transform itself into categorical controls that make any existing condition “non-negotiable.” Should Biafra stay in, or opt out of Nigeria? That is the latent question. Even after years of turbulent co-tenancy, it seems unreal to conceive of a Nigeria without Biafra. My preference for “in” goes beyond objective assessment of economic, cultural and social advantages for Biafra and the rest of us.... Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/07/biafra-has-not-been-defeated-wole-soyinka/[/quote] |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by dedunji: 8:23pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
Soyinka knows that bihari is not in town |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by nkwuocha: 8:25pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by Paulpaulpaul(m): 8:25pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
maduxs: It's either you are too young to know the meaning of war or you are an old simpleton. Your type will be shouting MY MUMMY when war starts or start wearing skirt like a loose who.re just to escape to Niger. War indeed Quote me and get
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| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by Sapiosexuality(m): 8:27pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
I agree with him. It's actually a slavish mentality to assume Nigeria's Unity is nonnegotiable. It's borne out of the cancerous mindset built in the minds of Africans by the colonialists. How can Igbos, Hausas and Yorubas be living separately and fine and one white guy comes around and forces them to live together and these forced people threaten fire if a person asks for a return? These guys really messed up the minds of Africans. How can Igbos, Hausas and Yorubas be enjoying life when their was little modern technology and someone will say some regions will suffer if Nigeria splits? How do people think? 9 Likes 1 Share |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by modik(m): 8:29pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
Sambaby7640: You can never win 21st century war with 20th century tactics . The tactics have changed. Sadly, you did not read that piece as penned by Prof. God bless NK God bless lovers of freedom God bless lovers of equity, fairness, fair play, justice and peace. God bless Biafra. 6 Likes |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by KINGOFTHEEAST: 8:29pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
LordOfNaira:typical Yoruba style 2 Likes |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by ivolt: 8:31pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
nkwuocha: I bet you don't understand the article, hence your unhinged vituperation against the prof. SMH 1 Like |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by omohayek: 8:33pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
nkwuocha:Are you incapable of basic reading comprehension, totally ignorant of history, insane, or a combination of all three? This man has just offered the most eloquent defense of pro-Biafran agitation to be made in recent Nigerian history, and his is the most prominent voice to step forward to do so, with no living Igbo intellectuals of similar stature having done the same; he actually went to prison in defense of Biafran independence, which is more than you can claim to have done! How dare you insult the man after all that, and who are the 40 other imbeciles who have given your ridiculous statements "likes"? Abusive ignoramuses like you are your own worst enemies, abusing even those who stick their necks out to support you, only to turn around and whine endlessly about how "everybody" hates you while calling the very people you drove away "backstabbers". 5 Likes |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by pweetiedee(m): 8:36pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
ipob1: I'm Omo Oodua... and you are...? |
| Re: Biafra Has Not Been Defeated – Wole Soyinka by cumbak60: 8:36pm On Jul 10, 2017 |
lionness:What sort of madness is this  How and why will just dish out allegation without evidence? Do you have facts to back those highlighted name as sponsors of IPOB? Can you testify before a court.... that these are behind the current agitation?Don't allow your hate push you into unknown water. Self-determination is not a call for hate or war. 2 Likes |
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