₦airaland Forum

How to kill Biafra
— 19th March 2017

Ever since the end of the Nigeria-Biafra war and the resuscitation of the Biafra dream by Chief Ralph Uwazurike and his Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), the Biafra agitation has, perhaps, not been as strident as it is now. Many attribute the resurgence to the emergence of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). Though the formation or leadership of IPOB has been mired in controversy, Nnamdi Kanu, the Radio Biafra director, has given the agitation a lot of punch, especially since his incarceration and ongoing trial for treasonable felony.

For many Nigerians, the agitation is needless, as they feel Nigeria is big enough for everyone. That, exactly, is the belief of yours sincerely, as repeatedly expressed here. The Biafra agitators, however, disagree, saying their decision to opt out of Nigeria was an unavoidable choice due to several years of neglect and deliberate marginalisation. The Biafra hopefuls postulate that those that are too hasty in condemning their quest for self-determination lack understanding simply because they do not feel the pinch since they do not wear the shoe.

Of course, virtually every section of the country cries of marginalisation, much of which is a ruse to mask the hurt of a people so glaringly marked for mistreatment. However, I stumbled upon this anonymous exchange between a Biafra agitator and his Yoruba friend and I feel this can go a long way in proffering a solution to the ills of our crumbling monolith, Nigeria.

Yoruba: Under what conditions would you support “One Nigeria” and let go of the Biafra agitation and let it die down, finally laid to rest for good?

Biafra agitator: Close down Lagos ports and open up Port Harcourt, Calabar, Onitsha and Warri ports.

• Cancel all direct and major connecting flights to Lagos and Abuja airports, allowing only local connecting flights. While this is being done, open up Enugu, Owerri, Asaba, Uyo and Port Harcourt to direct international and major connecting flights.

• Ask all international and diplomatic missions to move their embassies and consulates from Lagos, Kano and Abuja to Enugu, Port Harcourt and Calabar.

• All Federal Government agencies in Lagos and Abuja shall be relocated to Enugu, Port Harcourt and Calabar. Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), etc., shall and must relocate to Port Harcourt, Calabar and Enugu.
• All multinational companies in Lagos and Abuja, shall and must relocate their offices to Port Harcourt, Calabar and Enugu.
• All oil companies must relocate their head offices to Port Harcourt, as the oil capital of Nigeria.
• Let the northern children gain admission into federal schools with 300 score points while the South-East children should gain admission with only 20 score points.
• Let all federal road projects in the North/South-West be handled by one local company and the one in the South-East/South-South be handled by Julius Berger and foreign construction companies.
If these conditions can be fulfilled and implemented for 50 years, we can try one Nigeria and let’s see if you the North and South-West will like it for a month…

• Also, Yoruba and Hausa needing to get international visas shall travel to Port Harcourt, Calabar or Enugu to do that. Same with flying or connecting flights; with shipping and importing their goods, etc.
Yoruba: You can’t be serious, this is wickedness…
Biafra agitator: Really? Don’t you think the south-eastern part of Nigeria has been suffering and enduring this very same wickedness for over 50 years?
Yoruba (quiet for a few seconds): Wow, you are right but it never occurred to me…

Biafra agitator: That’s the problem with One Nigeria, those who are benefiting from it, love it and would love to maintain the status quo. Let each region develop at her own pace, with airport, seaports, industries, major projects open to be developed in any part of Nigeria without government interference or strangulation due to tribalism and nepotism!
Let Nigeria be fair to ALL, irrespective of tribe, religion and place of birth. Let there be true federalism and resources control. Let’s have equal respect for one another, irrespective of where the person comes from in Nigeria. That is what Biafra agitation is all about.

Of a truth, the foregoing may not totally reflect the entire story but it certainly exposes how injustice has led us to where we are today. A truly united Nigeria must redress these ills. Instead, by shutting out the South-East from this government, Nigerian leaders have brazenly told the South-East to go to hell and, to them, Biafra is the ‘hell’ they are willing to go to. Strangely, the same people pushing the people out are intent on keeping them on a leash by force. That is most unfair, a prelude to anarchy.

Take the admission policy into Nigeria’s erroneously named unity schools, where everything points to disunity. Anambra and Imo states students, for instance, must score 139 and 138 per cent respectively to be considered for admission, whereas students from Zamfara and Taraba states require as low as 3 per cent to be admitted into the same school. This political contrivance is only meant to favour the North, dubiously tagged educationally disadvantaged. In other words, no matter how herdsman the brain of the northern student, he is guaranteed admission. Today, they are still saying education is evil (boko haram) and busy destroying everything and everyone while the rest of Nigeria, especially Igboland, bears the brunt of this madness.

For some of us, moderates, Biafra may not be the ultimate dream. However, it behooves Nigerian authorities to do the needful to kill the agitation, which they deliberately neglect to do. To keep Nigeria truly one, the country must be redesigned on the foundation of equity and fairness; it must not pander to the caprices of a particular section that is intent on keeping others down, as no force of arms can cow a determined people for too long.

It is worth reminding Nigeria, too, that Scotland is again pressing for another plebiscite to decide whether to remain in Britain or not and nobody has been killed or jailed for making this demand.

http://sunnewsonline.com/how-to-kill-biafra/#comment-61330

What are we waiting for? Isn’t it very obvious even to the daftest that the contraption called Nigeria is a failed state by every definition and every parameter? Is this what a country of 186 million people supposed to be? Should we continue to sustain a country that is unsustainable? Should we continue to live a lie and in self denial when all onlookers know that we are merely living the life of the ostrich? This country is no longer together. In fact and in truth it has never been together. If it was ever together it was before 1914, before a self seeking, insidious and wickedly partial drunken soldier called Fredrick Lugard forcibly yoked together nation states of the Southern Protectorate and those of the North in the name of trade and amalgamation.
The story of the fraud called Amalgamation is now too well known to require re-telling. The fraud of forged population census figures, the fraud of creating a tripod whose head was three times the size of its two legs, the fraud of constituency allocation, the fraud of Land Use, the fraud of indirect rule for a section, and the fraud of Divide and Rule were the fraudulent foundation of the Amalgamation from which the so-called country had never found a breathing space!
There are five fundamental reasons why Nigeria’s breakup is imminent. For a start, the over 250 nationalities that were forcibly brought together under one umbrella were never consulted before they were coerced into a marriage. There was no negotiation, there were no agreed premises, and there was no courtship of any kind before fist cuffs were put on the wrist of the beautiful bride and handed over to the overbearing bridegroom. The marriage has been bumpy in the last 103 years. The enterprising bride was chained and bedraggled and every effort to free herself was thwarted by the backward looking husband. The marriage is now ripe for dissolution and MUST be dissolved.
As far back as 1947 Alhaji Shehu Shagari opined that there was no future for the so-called union and canvassed that the North should be free to develop at its own pace while the South should be allowed to go. In 1953 and thereabout when the Western Region and Eastern Region called for Self Government that would usher in political independence, the North said NO! And when independence was sought from Britain in 1957, the North said it was not ready for independence. Because of the cosy relationship that existed between the Colonialists and the hugely favoured northern colony, the North did not mind if Britain remained in power indefinitely.
When the North eventually reluctantly agreed to allow independence, it had been employing all shenanigans and crooked means both political and military to thwart the advancement of the South. All sorts of stratagems including the so-called JAMB, Quota System, Federal Character, Creation of unwieldy states for the purpose of weakening the federating units, creation of fraudulent local governments, and over centralisation of the polity were/are some of the mischievous ploys by the Fulani Cabal controlled civilian and military governments. To ensure enforcement of its feudalist approach to governance the British predesigned and programmed the North to have perpetual dominance and control of the Military and all agencies of Intelligence, Coercion and Border control.
Of course you can only fool some people for a limited time. The federating units in all parts of the country minus the Oligarchy have become severely fed up with over centralised Unitary government that has stifled their progress and has made them slaves in their own land. Agitation for Self Determination has become rife in the land, and all the major nationalities now want to live in their own country and be in charge of their own destiny. And it appears no force on earth can stop the actualisation of their desired goals.
Add to the foregoing is the historical fact that all forced empires of the past have crumbled and disappeared. India had to let go Pakistan and Bangladesh. Bros Tito’s Yugoslavia had disappeared in a fierce internal eruption. United Socialist Soviets Republics, [USSR] collapsed. Czechoslovakia disappeared. The Sudan had to break into two after a fierce 47-year old war. The trend may see the beginning of the US losing two or three states while the United Kingdom may lose Scotland and Wales. Right now Nigeria has a choice: either to breakup without shedding a pint of blood the way the Checks and Slovaks resolved their irreconcilable differences or go into bloody and destructive war that would make the Biafran experience a child’s play.
As pungently argued by the respectable War veteran and hero of the Nigeria Biafra War Lt General Alani Akinrinade, God did not desire that humans should live in large communities. Throughout history it was city states that engineered human development. The glorious era of ancient history was the period when Rome, Athens, Sparta, Thermopylae and other city states dominated the then world’s commerce, military and politics. Big for bigness sake has no relevance in human development. The successful countries of the world today are the small countries of Northern Europe and the countries that practice either loose federation or outright confederation.
Fortunately almost all the federating units of Nigeria can survive on their own. All the nationalities that have been dubiously pulled down or dragged down in the myopic mindset that one needed to pull down others for their own advancement would now bloom once they proclaim their independence.
Unfortunately for those who may be foolishly contemplating that they would use force to stop the breakup, there is no longer the kind of Military that fought the Biafrans and stopped the secession. The suspicion, the schism, the cynicism, the absence of patriotism, the crazy corruption that have come to define the Nigerian character in the last twenty years or so have eaten deep into the fibre of every Nigerian whether Customs Officer, or Police, or Military. I dare say that what is on ground now are Fulani police or soldier, Igbo police or soldier, Yoruba police or soldier, Hausa police or soldier, Tiv police or soldier and Izon police or soldier.
It is the prayer of this writer that the current leaders of today will have the wisdom to choose a peaceful breakup.
No force on earth can stop a movement whose time has come. Kalu the leader of IPOB should be released without further delay.

http://sunnewsonline.com/nigeria-is-ripe-for-breakup/

good one ...

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The Federal Ministry of Water Resources has budgeted N4 billion for research and development as well as governance institutional reform this

year. Analysis of the 2017 budget of the ministry’s headquarters shows that N2.21 billion has been earmarked fof “governance and

institutional reforms,” while “research and development” is N1.14 billion.

The ministry is planning to spend N360 million on “monitoring and evaluation.”

These monies were captured under “acquisition of non-tangible assets” of the headquarters “other capital projects.”

Other expenditure for the year includes N33.3 million for “purchase of computers,” while N30.5 million was earmarked for “fuel and lubricants

for general purposes.”

The ministry has also set aside N29 million for “welfare packages,” and N17 million for “electricity charges”.

For anniversaries and celebrations, the ministry’s headquarters is planning to spend N10.5 million.

www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/general/water-ministry-budgets-n4bn-for-research-reform/182795.html#Bv0MuEXlfrHrrxFx.99

Posted on Jan 23 2017 - 2:22am by Steve Uzoechi, Chukwu David and Emmanuel Onani

A major arms struggle that could further jeopardise Nigeria’s security situation may be in the offing as major separatist group, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), yesterday declared its resolve to take up arms to forestall extra-judicial killing of its members.
IPOB vowed to invoke the principle of self-defence. The threat followed the alleged killing, maiming and illegal detention of their members during a rally to show solidarity to the US President Donald Trump on Friday, January 20 in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.
The pro-Biafra group stated that 20 of its members were killed in Port Harcourt. But the police had insisted that nobody was killed during the pro- Trump rally.
IPOB warns that the killing of its members last Friday would inevitably lead to an armed conflict unless the perpetrators are brought to book. But the police warn that anybody or group that take up arms in self-defence will be treated as a criminal.
The Force Public Relations Officer, Don Awunah, an acting Commissioner of Police, told New Telegraph last night that the law will take its course if IPOB or any group take up arms in self-defence.
“There is no law in Nigeria that permits an individual or group of individuals to take up arms in self-defence under any guise. The law will take its course against infractions of the law,” Awunah said.
The Nnamdi Kanu-led group said that it would no longer stand and watch its members mowed down by trigger-happy security agents.
The group, in a statement signed by its spokesman, Comrade Emma Powerful, said: “This disgraceful episode of statesponsored terrorism will inevitably lead to armed conflict sooner or later unless the culprits are brought to book.
Those that issued the orders from Aso Rock must face trial or IPOB will resort to armed conflict since they have made peaceful change inevitable.
“We are placing humanity in notice that events of 20th of January 2017 will be the last time IPOB will march without self-defence mechanism in place. Nobody should say we did not warn them because we will continue to march until Biafra is restored.”
The group argued that all over the world, there were anti-Trump rallies held without a single loss of life. “Even in Washington DC itself, there were violent protests, but not a single soul was shot, talk less of being killed.
“But the Nigeria Government, led by President Muhammadu Buhari and his security agencies, have proven once again how primitive they are by killing groups of people who were doing nothing wrong except partake in solidarity rally for the new American president.
“In January 2009 there was a solidarity rally in support of the then elected President Barack Obama in Nigeria, no killing was recorded.
The world must know that governance in Nigeria has become too crude and uncivilised that acts clearly provided for in the constitution are termed illegal by law enforcement agents to the point that wholesale massacre is warranted and, in this case, justified,” the pro-Biafra group stated...


https://newtelegraphonline.com/news/ipob-vows-take-arms/

Power generation in Nigeria has crashed by 1,297 megawatts (MW) in 18 days as the dwindling gas supply and water level worsened the crisis rocking the sector.
This came as the 11 Dis-tribution Companies (DISCOs) have begun shedding of 2.662MW available for over six million customers in their networks.
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) confirmed the drop in power yesterday, maintaining that the power generation dropped to 2,662 megawatts on January 22.
It stood at 3,959 MW on January 4. A sub agency of TCN, Nigerian Electricity System Operator (SO), dis-closed the figure in its daily forecast on power generation data posted on its website yesterday.
The drop in power generation, the agency said, was due to low water levels at the hydro power stations and dearth of gas to the power generating companies.
The total output of 2,662.20 megawatts from all the generation companies yesterday had, according to the TCN, been transferred to the 11 distribution companies across the country.
“We have to fall back on load shedding to accommodate the little power transmitted to us from the TCN,” Head of media and communications at one of the 11 DISCOs told New Telegraph.
The power sector, according to the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) operational report for January 4, hit a peak generation of 4,959 megawatts, but dropped to 2,662.20 megawatts on January 22. The sector, NESI added, recorded highest system frequency of 51.32Hz and lowest system frequency of 48.52 Hz, while the highest and the lowest voltage recorded yesterday were 372KV and 300KV, respectively.
Egbin Power Station, biggest thermal power plant in Nigeria with a capacity of 1,320 megawatts, checks by this newspaper showed, now generates 340 megawatts due to gas constraint.
The 340 megawatts Egbin generated was wheeled out to the national grid at 6a.m. yesterday. It would be recalled that the gas constraints led to the shutdown of seven power plants across the country last week, a situation that led to a total electricity load loss of 1,899.7 megawatts.
Four plants belonging to the National Integrated Power Projects (NIPP), the latest industry data on sector reforms/activities showed were shut, while others have remained non-functional for some days.
The report, seen last weekend, indicated that a partial system collapse occurred on January 12 this year, adding that the system frequency dropped by eight hertz on the same day. “Partial collapse occurred on January 12, 2017. At 8:41 hours, system frequency dropped from 51Hz to 43Hz. Lagos, Osogbo, Jebba, Kainji and Shiroro lost supply, while other areas survived.
The total load loss was 1,899.7MW. “As of 6a.m. on January 13, the following plants were still shut down: Geregu NIPP and Sapele NIPP, in addition to the plants previously reported as shut down. Plants previously reported as shut down include Alaoji NIPP, Ihovbor NIPP and Gbarain.
“The following plants lost turbine functionality as of 6a.m. on January 13, 2017: Okpai (GT11, out due to flame monitor problem; the ST18, out due to hydraulic valve problem) and Olorunsogo I (GT2,out since partial collapse on January 10, 2017).”..

https://newtelegraphonline.com/news/power-generation-crashes-1297mw-18-days/

Mine is there

Each time I read stories of Nigeria’s past, I become convinced that leadership recession and economic recession are like Siamese twins. I wonder: Why do the leaders of Nigeria fail to learn from history? One man recently told me that the reason history as a subject was abolished in Nigerian schools (until now maybe) was that some people conspired to hide the truth from the younger generations.
Well, the conspirators have failed, and they will fail again. Those of us born before the first military coup will always have stories to tell the younger ones.  It’s unfortunate the stories are almost always sad ones. My generation in Nigeria is perhaps the most traumatised, cheated and dehumanised.  That’s why I’ve always regarded the generation of Nigerians that fought a civil war as the worst in Nigeria’s history so far.
I’m commenting on Aburi today because it’s the 50th anniversary of an agreement that could have put Nigeria on the right path after the massacres of 1966. Between January 4 and 5, 1967, the leaders of Nigeria were invited to Aburi in Ghana by the country’s military leader, Lt. Gen. JA Ankrah, to head off a crisis that was brewing between Eastern Nigeria and other regions of Nigeria. After the meeting, which Gen. Ankrah did not attend but “urged the Nigerian leaders to bury their differences, forget the past and discuss their matter frankly but patiently” [I’m quoting from Emeagwali.com], everyone was satisfied that peace would be restored to Nigeria.
Head of state Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon was then a 32-year-old while Lt. Col. Emeka Ojukwu was just 33. Of the scores of Nigerians that attended the meeting at Aburi, only Gowon, David Ejoor and Mobolaji Johnson are alive today. But the then young people made resolutions which, if implemented, would have preserved Nigeria’s federal structure and averted a civil war that killed more than 3million people. If the Aburi Accord had been implemented, all other coups and counter-coups that claimed the lives of the brightest and the best in the army wouldn’t have occurred. There would have been no need for other “national” conferences that produced the disasters that were the 1979 and 1999 constitutions.  Other conferences including those of 1994, 2004 and 2014 that cost tens of billions of taxpayers’ naira (but have been ignored) wouldn’t have happened. June 12 would have been a myth. And Nigeria wouldn’t have been in the sorry state it is today.
The hawks that have damaged Nigeria existed more than 50 years ago. So when young Nigerians hear of a “cabal” or a “mafia” pulling the strings that have ruined several leaders of Nigeria, let them know that it’s nothing new. Gowon was literally hijacked when he and his team returned from Aburi. The hawks forced him to renounce all that had been agreed upon. Importation of arms and ammunition, which Ojukwu had spoken against, continued as the mafia prepared for war. There was no devolution of certain powers to the regions, as was resolved at Aburi. To further ensure that Nigeria remained a unitary state (but addressed as a “federal” republic) – the primary reason for Supreme Commander JTU Aguiyi-Ironsi’s assassination was Decree 34 of 1966 – Gowon went ahead to divide Nigeria into 12 unequal states.
Ojukwu had no choice. Pressured by his own people, he declared the Federal Republic of Biafra. And Gowon went to war. The rest is history. But Nigeria has not recovered from the violation of the Aburi Accord. That violation has begotten many more violations to shape Nigeria into the monster it is now: We remember that Gowon reneged on a promise to return Nigeria to civil rule in 1976. A clique that “owned” Babangida dribbled Nigerians several times, resulting in the “annulment” of a free and fair presidential election and truncating the Third Republic. Then, Abacha happened on Nigeria! And Obasanjo again!
When an agreement has been reached, it must be respected; it’s a matter of honour. In the same breadth, a country’s constitution must not be violated. Court judgements must be obeyed. Anything outside of these civilised norms belongs to autocracy – high-handedness, arbitrariness, chaos. It can only lead to one place: doom.
Nigeria is crying for reforms in virtually every sector. Can’t our leaders today simply dust up the Aburi Accord and the subsequent conferences (especially that of 2014) so the country can have a new lease of life? It’s crazy to ignore the loud calls for true fiscal federalism; the current arrangement is not working. We might decide to postpone the great day of reforms until oil is discovered in the Chad and Gongola basins, but reform must come someday.
The cabal is fighting in vain. The wrong steps taken since Aburi are the true causes of Nigeria’s current economic recession – and soon economic depression – from which it may never recover. Nigeria is trapped in unworkable political and economic structures because of a few selfish people who confuse those in the corridors of power. Why wouldn’t there be a recession where fewer than 1, 500 idle “leaders” consume a third of resources belonging to 180million people? We have multiplied offices in 774 local government areas and in 36 states, yet nobody is engaged in actual production of goods and services.
During the civil war, the rallying cry in the east was “On Aburi we stand!” Now, it’s no longer a Biafran affair. Until we return to Aburi, Niger Delta militancy will not cease and Boko Haram will not be defeated.  Agitations for a sovereign national conference will not end. The younger generation is growing more impatient.

https://www.thecable.ng/aburi-nigeria-will-stand


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BBC spy broke into my flat as I snuck into Biafra with an arms dealer’ – Frederick Forsythe

A BBC spy known only as ‘The Investigator’ broke into Frederick Forsythe’s flat after he decided to cover the Nigerian civil war independently, the thriller author has claimed.

Bestselling writer Forsythe was addressing an audience at the Edinburgh Book Festival when he made the remarks.

He said he had been told by the BBC, for whom he worked at the time, that his reporting of the 1962-1970 struggle by the country’s Biafran minority to secede from Nigeria was biased.

He claimed that because his reports were unacceptable to the British state – which armed the Nigerians during the war – his political leanings came under scrutiny. He then decided to cover the war as an independent journalist.

“I got my own ticket to Portugal and conned an arms dealer into taking me into Biafra and while I was there someone entered my flat,” the Day of the Jackal author said.

“They said to the neighbors that we had concerns for my health ... the door was duly beaten in.”

Asked exactly who had kicked his door in, Forsythe said: “It was the BBC. I was told there is a very secretive fellow in the BBC called ‘The Investigator.’”

“They were terrified because the BBC had had a correspondent who had defected and it caused a huge scandal. Very, very embarrassing, so just in case there were any other backsliders they had a man to investigate the politics,” he explained.

Forsythe, who recently admitted that he himself engaged in intelligence work for the British state while a journalist, had withering words about the UK establishment.

He told the audience he preferred “to be an outsider looking in because as far as I can tell most of the establishment are b*stards and I don’t want to join them.”

The BBC had been very much a part of the country’s power structures as an arm of the “establishment ... not a news organisation,” he said.

https://www.rt.com/uk/356270-bbc-spy-frederick-forsythe/

The complete list of all 371 ethnic groups in Nigeria. Pictorial credit: Heritage Bank.