The Nigerian state bears huge responsibility for the recurring Biafra agitation. And thats due to the manner it has treated Igbos since the civil war ended. Commentators have often drawn parallels with Germany. How the Allied Powers utilised the Treaty of Versailles and its so-called War Guilt clauses to humiliate and punish Germany for waging WW1. And how, years later, Hitler in revenge of that humiliation led Germany to wage an even more devastating war.
But there is a more proximate example.
Think back to pre-independence Nigeria.

Tiv illustrious son Joseph Tarka led the United Middle Belt Congress ( UMBC) party. UMBC never allied with the Northern People’s Congress ( NPC), as Tiv people always wanted out of northern Nigeria.
After the 1959 general elections, NPC formed a coalition with the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroons (NCNC). UMBC allied with Awolowo’s Action Group ( AG), as AG had promised to create a Middle Belt State it it formed government.
Buoyed by its control of the northern region and by its relative grip of the federal government, NPC took a punitive posture against Tiv people. The Tiv were marginalised in the northern region scheme of things. In 1960 the first Tiv Riots broke out. The federal government declared emergency rule and deployed the military.

So vindictive and narrow-minded, NPC government committed exactly the kind of blunder that caused WW2. They humiliated and punished Tiv people by imposing reparation burdens. Laws were made that required every Tiv adult male to pay certain penalties in reparation for the damages caused during the riots. Squeezed by this punishment and by even more marginalisation meted out to them, the people revolted. The second Tiv riots ensued in 1964. Tiv people attacked government officials and establishments.
Balewa declared emergency rule and Defence Minister Mohammadu Ribadu sent in the military who went in and decisively crushed the riots, at significant human costs. The exact death toll remains unknown as no proper count was taken. However Prime Minister Balewa later stated on the floor of Parliament that no less than 3000 people lost their lives. The military would station (indeed it was an occupation) in Tiv land until the civil war broke out in 1967.

Yet post civil war was anything but different. Although no reparation obligation was imposed, and while there was the so-called 3Rs policy - hollow as it was - statecraft was deployed to systematically humiliate and punish the Igbos. Instead of treating the ended conflict as a national tragedy and a solemn reference for collective introspection, the Nigerian state consistently treated it as a matter of the Igbo man’s sin against Nigeria. A matter of his shame and guilt.

National dialogues were never held about the causes and conduct of that war.
Which explains why Biafra has hardly been part of any school curriculum, not even for the subject of history. It is the reason that not even a single person has been investigated let alone tried for the unspeakable war crimes that happened in that conflict. No date is set aside for the national mourning of the millions who perished in that war. The names of the heroes of that war, on both sides, are not written on any walls. Indeed, the victims of that war remain nameless.

No tomb stones, statues, shrines, city arches, cenotaphs, mausoleums, or monuments of any types, stand anywhere in commemoration of the millions of Nigerian souls (Biafrans and fotherwise) who Nigeria sacrificed in that war to preserve its existence and the so-called unity. Wreaths have never ever been laid by any Nigerian leader, in tribute specifically to the fallen of that conflict, combatants or civilians. A flame has never once been ignited in remembrance of the innocent children who died of starvation – starvation that was administered as a weapon and a policy of the Nigerian state. Not even one of the many blood-soaked sites of battle was preserved. No efforts whatsoever have been made to further research or develop the incredible scientific and technological inventions that Biafrans made in those desperate times under the oddest conditions. Instead, it was better that Biafran industrialisation died eternally with Biafra, as long it helped to vanish the history.
The people of former eastern nigeria, mainly Igbos, were gaslighted to the point of almost feeling ashamed for fighting to defend themselves. They were forced to mask their pains and trauma and never talk about it. They were just only able to whisper the stories of the war only within their own circles. And so they found a way to deal with their trauma.
The Biafra scare slowly permeated and wove into their group consciousness and identity. And that marked the birth of Biafra nationalism. Any wonder you see, years since the war ended , generation after generation of Igbos have grown up to embrace Biafra as their ethic heritage?
And peoole who don’t belong to these parts of the country might never understand this. Our experiences differ. For many Igbos of my generation, the story our fathers and mothers, of our grandparents, and of that uncle you never ever met, are, themselves, the story of the Biafra war. Our modern history as a people is inextricably tied to the memories of Biafra. Poignant human stories about a resilient people who faced the fearful odds, achieved improbable feats, and survived the unlikeliest conditions. These stories, in their collective, are now a romanticised mythology that make us feel thick as a people. It is now a matter of identity. And we are in the age of identitarian politics.
And yet Nigeria continues to commit an even bigger blunder. Its leaders seek to use the barrel of a gun to kill or face down this phenomenon that is now part of a people’s inner fabric and very identity.

I don’t think it will work. And it has never worked anywhere else in history.

Nigeria must accept Biafra war as a national tragedy, not a matter of the Igbo man’s sin, shame or guilt. For it is only when Nigeria and Nigerians come to truly embrace and own the Biafra tragedy as part of the Nigerian story that Biafra shall cease to be the rallying cry for Igbo ethnonationalism . That is how we will begin to match towards unity.

This is a front page material.


Cc: lalasticlala
Cc: Mynd44

Wey the mods

Welk said...make wetin go do u,do ur enemies.

Mexzy4sho:
This is a front page material.

Who are the moderators incharge of this section.
They should move this to Front page.
Lalasticlala
Seun

That depends on how someone views it

helinues:
That depends on how someone views it

Werey.


I believe it won't cost you anything to accept that millions of people died during the civil war irrespective of sides.
No monument, no remembrance, Nothing!!!

Not everything has to be an argument.