David Boro, 72, is the younger brother of the late Isaac Boro, who led the struggle for the emancipation of the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The declaration of the Republic of Biafra in 1967 by Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, which led to the Nigerian Civil War is a story familiar to many Nigerians but arguably, not as many citizens of the country know an independent republic within Nigeria was first declared by Isaac Boro – Niger Delta Republic. The declaration was made on February 23, 1966, shortly after the January 1966 coup. It led to what later became popular as ‘The Twelve-Day Revolution’, as the fight between the Federal Government and Boro and his comrades lasted for 12 days.
He and his comrades were later arrested, tried and sentenced to death by the Aguiyi Ironsi-led military regime. Isaac Boro’s brother, David, tells DANIELS IGONI about the revolution and the unwillingness of the Niger Delta political class to appreciate his sacrifices, among other issues
Did you witness the struggle for the emancipation of the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria, which was started by your elder brother, the late Major Isaac Adaka Boro?
Yes, I did. I was in Class Five in secondary school then. On the day they struck, I mean for what is now known as the 12-Day Revolution in 1966, we were in school – Bishop Dimieari Grammar School, Yenagoa – when we started hearing the sound of dynamite blasts all over. It was terrible. People were running helter-skelter. Later, we saw some uniformed men running into our school compound and everybody took off. They said it was Isaac Boro and I said he was my elder brother.
I waited to be sure it was him. And there he was, leading a group of young men. They were members of the Niger Delta Volunteer Force. He came to tell our principal to close the school because they had declared a Niger Delta Republic and they knew that federal troops would be coming down and there would be exchange of gunfire. So, in order not to expose the schoolchildren to danger, he told the principal to close the school. The principal complied and all of us went home. By the time I got home, everybody had run away. Our father was then a headmaster at Taylor Creek. I didn’t meet anybody. I went into the village and asked where they were, and I was told. I went to meet them. Then some policemen came and we ran into the bush.
Was the Boro family not surprised at his action?
No, we were not. We were not surprised as he had told our father about it. But our father advised him against it and told him to face his studies because he was a student. You know, after the 1963 general election, they took the Federal Government to court to seek its nullification. At that time, he came to tell our father because he was in university. And our father asked how he could imagine that kind of thing. He told him to go and face his studies. But he told our father that he had Eastern Region scholarship and they wanted him to champion the cause for them.
But later, they disappointed him and the Northern Region leadership accepted him because they saw the courage in him. Actually, the 12-Day Revolution did not happen out of the blue. It had the silent consent of the northern Nigerian hierarchy.
As a minority in this part of the country, we had always felt cheated out of our oil wealth. Because we were not many, somebody could come to your land, take your oil and if you talked, they would point a gun at you so you would keep quiet; it’s federal law. If it were a large tribe in Nigeria that had the oil, the law would have been different. But that did not prevent us from agitating. At some point, we thought the Eastern Region was the problem and Isaac Boro went to them but during their interaction, he found out that the Eastern Region was not ready to give Ijaw people a state like the Bayelsa State we have today.
But northern leaders like Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Ahmadu Bello and others were disposed to it. That’s where the alliance between the North and South came from. So, Isaac Boro did not just start the 12-Day Revolution and decide to declare a Niger Delta Republic. There was some degree of encouragement from the North. That’s why the North and the Niger Delta, especially the Ijaw bloc, have been in close alliance all these years. It is just that the new generation of northerners is not aware of the covenant that exists between the North and the Niger Delta people.
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