₦airaland Forum

Six months after leaving the PDP, former president and ex-chairman of the party’s Board of Trustees, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday said he remained a “partyless” Nigerian and would continue to carry the toga of a statesman.
Obasanjo who hosted a delegation from Kogi State led by Governor Idris Wada at his Abeokuta residence, said despite not playing active partisan politics anymore, he would continue to work with any Nigerian with capability of good intention and leadership traits.
The former president said, “Everybody is welcome. But, they must be with good leadership traits, with genuine intention to improve the country”.
He noted that contrary to the praises being showered on him for his performance as president, it was important to emphasize that personality comes before the platform one represents to achieve desired goals.
“We should understand first that, not the party made the person, but the person makes the party. It is who you are that you bring into the party. Though for now I remain a “party less” Nigerian, I will continue to welcome any Nigerian with good leadership qualities.
“It does not matter which party you are, either, PDP, APC, Labour, APGA any party at all, as long as you are a committed, sincere and a purposeful leader, I am ready for you. And that is what our brother is doing. I pray that this country will never be short of this type of people,” Obasanjo said.


http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/news/obasanjo-i-remain-party-less/105838.html

Just like the last minute resolve to tackle boko haram hard, Jonathan was a prime example of a man who never managed to do the right thing at the right time.

Sahara reporters may be compromised, but this threat is juvenile especially coming from a trained lawyer. If your arena is the court room please proceed so we may observe your talents!

AnambraDota:
Wwhere are the joiners now and who is the joinee

Please even if you go and ask the gateman at apc headquarters, he will amuse you sufficiently! Even your beloved Mr. TAN has been seen loitering around enough to annoy people.

socialmediaman:
Does APC as a party share this ethnic view? Every Nigerian is welcome to Join APC or PDP

Joining a party after it has won elections is highly suspicious and surely a sign of lack of foresight, indecent timing, and an unprincipled nature!

The people who claim every ibo-speaker for their biafra project are deluded. Instead of using persuasion to deal with reality, they paper over the many cracks in igbo society, hoping to impress outsiders with the resulting numbers. Onicha and anioma etc, have always been on the fringes on the core East and were for quite a while, integrated into the Benin Empire. Their path has been different enough historically irrespective of whether they share a language. (Exactly the same problem with assuming everyone in the north is hausa). Perhaps the Peoples of Nigeria who were empire builders in the past, actually learned something in that process that many Igbos have failed to take on. Unity, the power of ideas and persuasion, and the forging of cross cultural ties to enhance power, security and opportunity...

Her position as a judge meant to dispense justice to all sides in the state, has been compromised by her own actions. And I'm sure she knows that she will be looking for a new job soon. How many people has any governor given appointment and cancelled? How many are even still patiently waiting for the opportunity to book appointment? If she has any evidence EFCC and icpc are all there. Ridiculous woman.

It is obvious few have even seen the full article he wrote in the papers. Piling ignorance on ignorance... Joe Igbokwe is an apc leader in lagos and knows more about politics than some of these lame commenter could imbibe in a lifetime.

All Progressive Congress chieftain, Mr. Joe Igbokwe has revealed that his Igbo people are now on their knees begging to join APC after they put all their eggs in one basket and support former president Goodluck Jonathan in the last election: “I remember a night in the house of a very successful Igbo trader in Ikoyi shortly after the presidential election, when it became obvious that President Buhari had carried the day. They gathered to contribute money to support the APC. Even those who travelled home for the Easter holiday donated money from the East just to belong. I felt ashamed that my people couldn’t defend their honour and integrity even in the time of trouble.

“After the 2015 election, when the Igbo lost their resources by putting all their eggs in one basket, many Igbo leaders claimed that the Igbo made the right political choices given the circumstances on the ground then. Yes, the Igbo have said they voted right, but in action and in deed, they have been busy looking for ways to sneak into the APC.

“On Saturday, July 25, 2015, a group that worked against the APC in Lagos called Igbo United Political Forum organised a programme to honor Governor Rochas Okorocha. Behind the smokescreen was an attempt to sneak through the back door to the APC, having missed the front door on March 28 and April 11, 2015. The organisers reaped what they sowed, as all the APC leaders they invited stayed away.

“They licked their wounds and went home to cry. Time and space will not permit me to recall various moves our people have made to find their way to the APC. Those who are still very angry about the colossal loss have pitched their tent with the Biafra mantra. When we lose out in national politics as a result of myopic and timid political thinking and calculation, the next move is to resort to ethnic politics. Nobody is deceived.”

melzabull:
op God bless you!

It is common knowledge that schacris and ngeneukwenu aka cleverly aka urennaNkoli are two self-hating ba.stads. All the threads they have created on nairaland are anti-igbo.

That said, as an Igbo girl from Anioma, i don't see anything that makes me different from an Igbo person from Abia, Anambra, Ebony, Imo, Enugu or Rivers. The divide and rule tactics by the north aimed at alienating Igbos in the SE from Igbo in SS and to further emasculate the Igbo territory is nothing but pure, unadulterated evil which every reasonable Igbo man should kick against.


Any Igbo man from the skewed geographical SS that isn't proud of his Igbo heritage needs his or her head examined.


God bless proudly ndi Igbo in SE & SS
Abia
Anambra
Anioma
Ebonyi
Enugu
Imo
& Rivers

It is good to keep pretending. Blame the north. Delta state has never been part of the 'igbo' region, and even onitsha people are not considered core igbo. But I guess in your desperation to make allies you are willing to overlook this until your objective is reached. I know many from anioma area and this your fantasy is not even considered a serious topic among them. Igbo will celebrate their fractious 'republican' spirit, but claim unity across all speakers of a similar language to advance the selfish aims of a few! We are not fooled. The same bitter ethnic prejudice that spills out into the public domain from that area, is only evidence of what lies within.

egift:
Are we to believe that the PDP do not know the road to Court?

This is just a useless campaign to deny Amaechi an opportunity to serve in the present administration.

They only know the road to chief justice's house... At night!

asha80:
what is the difference btw igbo and ibo if i may ask in this situation!

It would appear to me that they see people from across the bridge as fairly different in attitude, culture and language. Delta state (carved out of Bendel state, formerly the Mid-Western region) is a complex mix of ethnicities which may contribute to why they have learned to live agreeably with their neighbours.

Udmaster:
you ewedu eaters are pathetic!

Bitter ignorance. There is more to Nigeria than hausa yoruba or igbo. And I am none of the above.

#iyanlafixhislife

kettykin:
The problem with some of you is that you have a very faint idea of what you argue most times ,most of the valiant biafran soldiers are from delta, Nzeogwu is delta, Joe Achuzia is delta, Raph Uwechue who was the president of ohaneze ndigbo was a deltan and a biafran.

Possibly the deltans you asked were afraid of rabid ethnic victimisation, tribalistic predatorship that has been used by less fortunate tribes to try to stop igbo progress.

Please do not cling to your ignorant beliefs. I was making a statement not arguing. I have family members that come from Oshimili-side and friends from kwale. Wtf? They don't go with all your biafra jazz. And many make a point of saying they are Ibo, not Igbo.

kettykin:
Much as i do not subscribe to ipob or biafra my candid suggestion to Sunday Oliseh and co is that if you are not igbo kindly drop or change your igbo name .

Igbos have too many accomplished deltans to be begging for membership from someone who was not even an accomplished footballer

Most of the Ibo deltans I know do not associate with talk of the fantasy biafra and think there is a difference once you cross onitsha bridge. Freedom of association!

Beremx:
seems you're not getting my gist. Does she have to carry water on her head to create awareness? I am not against her many projects in Malawi to provide clean water.
I bet you if it was Aisha Buhari that did this, I know what TANoids will be saying now.

Just let it slide biko!

Would you have paid any attention to the plight of the women there if her famous face was not used to publicise the issue? And even if they can provide the cash for the project, why should they not make people understand the basic services governments should provide for their own people? Only in Nigeria, the Gates foundation has provided billions of dollars to help in malaria, polio and hiv control. Sneering at her bringing awareness to this issue is cheap!

Jonathans people have stolen our oil, revenues, and now our property and yet people will have all manner of strange explanations for why he ended up as a failure, and was booted out of office?

http://sunnewsonline.com/new/jonathans-ministers-aides-share-500-fg-houses/

Jonathan’s ministers, aides share 500 FG houses

By Our Reporter on August 1, 2015 COVER

■ EFCC boss, others also beneficiaries
■ We’ll investigate them – Presidency

BY VIVIAN ONYEBUKWA, JULIANA TAIWO-OBALONYE AND FRED ITUA

Influential ministers and aides of for­mer President Goodluck Jonathan were among those who allegedly shared over 500 Federal Government houses located in high brow areas of Abuja and Lagos as parting gifts from the immediate past ad­ministration.

Beside the influential ministers and top pres­idential aides, heads of some powerful feder­al agencies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the armed forces as well as top military officers are also beneficiaries of the last minute largesse of the Jonathan’s administration, as documents sight­ed in the office of the Secretary to the Govern­ment of the Federation (SGF) have revealed.

Curiously, most of the beneficiaries have one common feature; the allocation of the houses to them was not done in their individual names but in the names of front-companies and/or faceless companies.

Another interesting development is that with the decision of President Muhammadu Buhari to probe the Jonathan administration with a view to recovering billions of public funds and assets illegally taken by top officials of the immediate past government, many of the ben­eficiaries of the last minute sharing of public assets have abandoned the properties, most of which are now under lock and key and over­grown with weeds while others have refused to pay for the properties to avoid losing their money in the event that the Buhari government choses to revoke the sales.

A source in the SGF office told Saturday Sun that properties whose owners are now scared to take possession of them are scattered all over Asokoro and Maitama areas of Abuja as well as Ikeja GRA, Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Apapa areas of Lagos.

Investigations by Saturday Sun revealed that the abandoned properties are more in Lagos. They litter Emotan road, Apapa GRA; Liver­pool road, Apapa, Marine road, Apapa; Park lane and Child avenue, both also in Apapa. In Ikoyi, they are located at Oyinkan Abayomi (Former Queen’s Drive) and Bourdillion road where the EFCC boss, Ibrahim Lamorde has his allocation; a mansion and two bungalows on a large expanse of land.

It was also gathered that while some of the former ministers and presidential aides have their allocations in Abuja, top military officers and some heads of government agencies have theirs in Lagos. Further investigations show that the former ministers, presidential aides and Heads of Departments and Agencies were allo­cated Guest Houses and other buildings owned by their MDAs at ridiculous prices.

The source, who is a top official of the SGF office, however, told Saturday Sun that most of the houses were abandoned because “the owners are obviously looking for private sec­tor individuals that can buy them as many of them didn’t really get the allocations to live in the houses, they only want to sell them off and make profit.”

When asked why the allocations were done in the names of companies rather than the names of the actual beneficiaries, the top offi­cial said: “Most of the owners got the houses while still in government and they wouldn’t like to disclose such huge assets in their assets declaration forms with the Code of Conduct Bureau because of the questions on the source of the funds used to pay for such. We’re only the ones who knows who owns what but if you follow the table of allocations, you will only find names of companies as beneficiaries.”

The source, however, exonerated the com­mittee in charge of the houses which is directly in charge of some of the sales of any complici­ty, adding: “Decisions and approvals more of­ten than not, come from the Presidency.”

“The committee also has no control over which name will be used for the purpose of allocation and what such beneficiaries do with the properties afterwards”, the official added.

Beside the sales done by the committee, it was also learnt that some public institutions like the NNPC, PHCN, NPA and CBN handled the sales of some of their properties based on approval from the Presidency. It was said that some of the controversial sales could have been done by the ministries and agencies that have presidential approval to dispose of their own assets.

Another source in the Ministry of Lands and Housing however said that the number of houses allocated was far lower than 500. The source, who is an official of the ministry, dis­closed: “It is true that some requests for allo­cation came towards the end of the last admin­istration but the real allocation was tactically delayed by some officials to avoid running into trouble with the then in-coming Buhari admin­istration.”

Reacting on behalf of the Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the commission’s spokesman, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren said he was not at liberty to comment.

Although he did not deny the claims, he in­sisted on sighting the document wherein Lam­orde was named as one of the beneficiaries. He maintained that his reaction would be based on what the document alleged, rather than reacting in a vacuum.

He further insisted that the claims could have emanated from anybody who might be out to smear the image of the EFCC chairman.

“I cannot just react to your claims. At least, it is only fair that I see the document you are relying on. I need to study the contents of the document and then react accordingly. You know too well that anybody can make such a weighty allegation just to smear the image of the chairman of EFCC,” Uwujaren added.

But the presidency in its reaction vowed to investigate the development. Special Adviser to the president on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina said the Buhari administration “will investigate such deals.”

President Buhari has said he will not extend his corruption probe beyond the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

The President had said during his recent vis­it to the US that he would arrest and prosecute past ministers and other officials who stole Ni­geria’s oil and diverted government’s money into personal accounts.

But the President’s Special Adviser on Me­dia and Publicity, Femi Adesina, said the Pres­ident will limit his anti-corruption war to the immediate past administration.

He said even before he was inaugurated on May 29, the President had categorically stated that he would not extend his corruption probe beyond the Jonathan government.

“If you recall, that was already settled before he got inaugurated as President. He has said he will not waste time digging into the far past,” Adesina said.

“The far past will include Obasanjo and oth­ers. But the President has said he will not waste time to go that far.”

Before leaving office, Jonathan had said any probe by the new government would be seen as a “witch-hunt” if it fails to go beyond his ad­ministration.

Discredited story about someone using the name aisha to defraud someone. Ish. All this was thrashed out during the elections and here you are...? Early bird

Oghara, the hometown of former Delta State Governor James Ibori, is boiling. The youths are up in arms against their monarch. The fight may get messier, reports OKUNGBOWA AIWERE

ll is not well with the residents of Oghara community in Ethiope West Local Government Area of Delta State.

Fear of insecurity has enveloped the community of former Governor James Ibori, with residents living in mutual suspicion. The past few weeks have been tumultuous. Irate youths have barricaded its streets, setting bonfires at intersections, seeking justice for the extra-judicial murder of the community’s vigilante boss.

To further worsen the matter, the community is inexorably drawn into further crisis with a low level war being prosecuted between the youth’s group and the traditional institution.

The crux of the matter is a government’s directive lifting ban on youth activities in the twin communities of Ogharafe and Ogharaeki.

The battle line is drawn between executive members of the subsisting youth organisations jointly led by Ejiro Efetobore and Favour Ededey and the traditional institution.

•Hrm Eshemitan
Ejiro and Ededey, the pre-ban leaders of the youth groups, want to continue in office following the lifting of the ban, but the traditional ruler (Ovie) of Oghara, Noble Oyibo Eshemitan, Oreki III, wants a new youth’s body elected based on new guidelines. The net effect of the monarch’s plan will see the removal of the executive and usher in a new group, a situation the subsisting youth group find intolerable.

Youth activities were banned in 2013 by the Uduaghan administration following allegations of rampant criminality, including kidnapping, oil bunkering and extortion of oil companies by youths in the area.

But the youth’s chairmen alleged that the king, who upon ascension in 2013 to the throne, misled the Uduaghan administration into banning youth activities, stressing that the real reason for the ban was to have unrestrained access to oil companies.

The monarch debunked such insinuations, adding that he and his council of chiefs have resolved to put an end to the violent crimes in the area engineered by the youth’s group by electing credible youths.

He said the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in a tripartite agreement between the youth, traditional ruler, and the women at a meeting with the ex-Governor Uduaghan at his Warri residence, required him to set new guidelines for election into the youth’s group.

According to him, the process was close to completion, stressing that the new rules include pegging membership of the youth group to those between the ages of 20 to 40 years old and other criteria that will be unveiled soon.

He said the youth group did not meet conditions stipulated in the new guidelines, stressing that the ‘youth’ are ‘discredited men of over 50 years’.

He alleged that the current youth constituted themselves into an extortionist body that terrorised oil companies in area.

•Efetobore
•Efetobore
However, Ejiro Efetobore, who is the Chairman Ogharefe community, argued that it was wrong for the king to implement new conditions to elect new youth group when there is a subsisting youth executive council.

His words: “We were delighted following the lifting of the ban on youth activities by ex-Gov. Uduaghan on the 26th May 2015. Uduaghan invited the youths, traditional ruler and the chiefs. This meeting culminated in the lifting of the ban on youth activities. There is the assumption that the youths ought to resume their various functions including building our secretariat, liaising with youth leadership at clan level for the good of the community. Whether you like it or not, the youth is the mouthpiece of every community. The tradition has been that we the youths take on issues afflicting community and report to the elders.”

He traced the crisis to 2013 when three persons aspired to the kingship position, adding that since the kingship tussle had been resolved and staff of office presented to the new king, the youths had pledged their allegiance to the new monarch and are prepared to work with him.

Continuing, he said: “Some time ago after the demise of our former King the tussle for the position between three persons but some persons believed the youths were not in support of the reigning monarch. When he became King he opposed the youth body and told lies to Uduaghan who banned youth activities in the community. Some of the allegations ranged from extortion of oil companies, illegal bunkering, kidnapping and other social vices. A traditional ruler who is supposed to support the youth has turned around to fight us. We are surprised we do not know where the problem is coming from. We pledged our loyalty to him, but we are surprised that the king does not want us to function.”

On what exactly the monarch is doing to frustrate their efforts at performing their functions, Ejiro stressed, “since the ex-governor lifted the ban on youth activities we have not been allowed to function. If we gather in our secretariat for a meeting or organise a party, he instigates the law enforcement agents to disrupt the occasion”.

At the heart of the dispute, according to our investigation, is the annual N200 million royalties, allegedly accruable to Oghara community from the oil companies operating in the area.

Efetobore maintained that the monarch stopped the youth from providing labour contracts to the oil companies, while accusing the monarch of ‘appointing his chiefs to the positions of community liaison officer of the various oil companies’.

His words: “He stopped us from performing our various function to oil companies and appointed some people who reports to him all transactions between the community and the oil companies. The persons appointed by the king have side-lined the community and reports only to the king and this has not been the tradition and custom of Oghara community.

“The former monarch never intruded into community affairs, he was entitled to 40 per cent royalty from the oil companies, but we are surprised that this reigning king wants all the money and always intrudes in our activities. The custom is that the youth’s intermediates between community and oil companies including homage, appointments, labour contracts, and so on, these are passed through the youths onward to our king. The situation is that the king has direct transactions with the oil companies including yearly homage.”

On the rampant cases of criminality for which the community has become infamous, Efetobore blamed the upsurge in criminal activities to the ban placed on youth activities, adding that, ‘There has been series of criminal activities, but thank God, we have the military and the police which are working round the clock to check their activities.

“There was an upsurge after youth activities were banned as they were no longer given chance to function, but since the lifting of the ban and with renewed collaboration with the military criminal activities will be minimised. The youth group does not harbour criminals, when we discover any such persons we usually hand over such to the police. The vigilance group set up by the last administration had bad elements among them, some were criminals. We cannot guarantee that they are all clean’.

Ededey
Ededey
Favour Ededey, co-chair Oghareki community corroborated Efetobore. He said, ‘Our present king is really giving us hard time. During the reign of the former King, the three tier of administration were functioning in the community. After the presentation of staff of office, we have been banned from his palace.

According to him, ‘during the last meeting with Uduaghan, it was resolved that three members be drawn from among the youths, chiefs in order to fashion a proposal to guide youth activities. Since on the 28th May, the monarch and his chiefs have not put anything forward to resolve this conflict’.

He alleged that monies collected from oil activities in the area have been diverted into pockets of individuals, stressing that the monarch has usurped the activities of the youths.

He said: “In Oghareki vessels berth daily and NI million is collected, we ask where this money is going to. It is going to the pockets of individuals in the community. This has been going on since youth’s were banned, they cannot account for the money. In the past when oil companies come to the community they deal with us, but not so any longer as the king is directly in charge they give the jobs to their children and sell the other job slots.”

But, the monarch in an interview with our reporter blasted the youth body labelling its members extortionists. He said since he assumed the throne he had done a lot to curb the excesses of the youth group.

His words: “The youth group has been terrorising the oil companies in the area, and this has impacted negatively on the community. The task given to us by Governor Okowa is nearing completion and we will make our proposals known in due course. Youths are normally from ages 20-40 years but this set of youths is over 50 years. This situation will not be allowed in this community. The youths in the community are known to us.”
http://thenationonlineng.net/iboris-kinsmen-draw-battle-line-with-monarch-over-n200m-oil-royalties/

Cousim:
1) Diezani Allison
2) Diezani Allison
3) Diezani Allison

Lol
I agree

South Africa allows both multiple wives and gay marriage! Why look at the west and not closer to home? There are African cultures that allow all manner of domestic arrangements that include homosexuality and lesbianism, and in some places a man will offer his wife to house guests. Why do we chose to look at our own continent as some pool of simple minded monocultural environment, but assume that it is the West that is capable of human complexity? Why don't we ever accuse the west of bringing adultery and fornication to Africa? Human beings whatever their race or location are capable of the same behaviours. God made us as one.
The west is built on a common foundation of judeochristian values influenced by Roman law and modern philosophy. Thus they have a different culture and understanding of their rights and obligations to each other and to the state. There was a time the Mormons were allowed polygamy but now the penalty is excommunication from that church. It may interest you to know that a major part of this is to ensure the state is not burdened by having to take care of children whose parents are unable. Cold economics. So basically they are agreed on the point that a man will have one legal partner in their culture and by law.
Whether or not people can marry whoever, their constitution also forbids discrimination on the basis of gender, race and increasingly sexuality. That is why the supreme Court had to rule as it did, because the state offers benefits to married couples (hetero) and denied gay couples the opportunity to access the same benefits, tax, inheritance, child custody, health care, insurance etc etc.

How many oil wells does Odili have, and how has he improved the lives of his own people? Tompolo and Asari are billionaires and how has that improved the lives of their people?
Nigerians are too easily deceived by the parasitic class of leaders who know no tribe or tongue problem when it comes to sucking the nations resources dry. What has Asari built in his village, before starting to build his university in a Benin Republic? Has anyone concerned themselves with fiscal discipline in the local governments or states that receive so much in derivation and directly from the oil companies? Wike made his fortune from local government and his reward is that you make him governor, abi? All good, I might as well start my own marginalisation song too!

Amazing that the quality of respondents here is almost as the writer put it. Misdirected unrealistic with no sense of history. Now the author is no longer an igbo man because he does not parrot your latest whine?
Tackle the points in the article and show some intelligence.

You are looking at things from a certain prism. Let me ask you the following.
1. Is it OK for a society to agree that killing twins is a good thing?
2. Is it acceptable for a society to adopt scarification as a means of identifying it's members?
3. Is it acceptable for a 'society' to decree that all children born alive but differing from the norm physically, be put to death?

At the end of the day it is not just about the majority having its way, there must also be a moral (not necessarily religious) and ethical basis and understanding for the way people relate with others in society. Nigeria is full of adulterers and fornication who will happily quote the bible to justify their anti-gay sentiments, and then say man no be wood to explain their own shortcomings. Hypocrisy from any corner remains what it is, hypocrisy. We have a country that citizens pay good money to leave, they even trek across deserts to flee Nigeria, and we don't yet have time to ask ourselves serious questions about the kind of people we are.

Tallesty1:
^^^Are they gays?

So if I support freedom of worship that would mean I was religious?

http://blogs.premiumtimesng.com/?p=168263


Radio Biafra’s Siren Song, By Chris Ngwodo
Premium Times July 27, 2015 Radio Biafra’s Siren Song, By Chris Ngwodo2015-07-27T05:57:00+00:00 Guest Columns, Opinion Comment (47)

The angst and alienation that fuel Radio Biafra and which it feeds, in turn, are rooted less in the distant past than in our recent history. They stem, in part, from the structural inequities of a socioeconomic order that has nurtured too many disillusioned young Nigerians in a highly unequal and polarised society. Typical of cases of alienation in plural polities, those who feel excluded are responding to and with the narratives that best conform to their socio-cultural matrixes.

A few weeks ago, I was on a trip below the Niger when I encountered Radio Biafra. It was a brief encounter in a taxi cab negotiating the streets of Enugu and the broadcast was a rambling angry monologue inveighing against enemies and calling down the wrath of the gods upon them. In the weeks since then, Radio Biafra has gained national infamy, confounded federal authorities, excited some people and alarmed others.

The question is why ‘Biafra’ continues to evidently resonate with a section of the population more than forty years after the civil war. This is all the more puzzling since Nigeria’s demographic profile suggests that 70 percent of the population was born after the war and therefore have no memories of the carnage. Secondly, Radio Biafra has been in existence for a while but has only recently entered the mainstream of national attention. Why now?

The angst and alienation that fuel Radio Biafra and which it feeds, in turn, are rooted less in the distant past than in our recent history. They stem, in part, from the structural inequities of a socioeconomic order that has nurtured too many disillusioned young Nigerians in a highly unequal and polarised society. Typical of cases of alienation in plural polities, those who feel excluded are responding to and with the narratives that best conform to their socio-cultural matrixes. In the far North, it is Boko Haram’s lethal extremist theology that rejects democracy and the nation-state as infidel contraptions; for Igbo discontents, it is Biafra.

In this vacuum of political meaning, Radio Biafra’s simplistic and incoherent message of disruption, its one-sided and one-dimensional rendition of history, its manipulation of popular myths and grievances, appeal to some, especially given the Nigerian tendency to scapegoat other groups for individual and collective shortcomings. The pirate station is tapping into a sense of victimhood and the persecution complex which is the all-purpose narrative which various groups use as leverage for demanding concessions in Nigerian politics.

Radio Biafra’s appeal is also explained by the emotional fallout of the ouster of a president, who possessed the symbolic value of being nominally the first president from the losing side of the civil war, although the Niger Delta had favoured their chances in the Nigerian federation over minority status in an Igbo-dominated secessionist state; who during electioneering emphasised his middle names “Ebele” and “Azikiwe” to signify his kinship with the Igbo. Under Jonathan, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) shrank from a national party to a regional party with its base in the South-Eastern heartland. The rhetoric promoted by President Jonathan’s camp tapped into the fears, insecurities and anxieties of that region, and while it proved a winsome strategy in the South-East and the Niger Delta, the blatant provincialism repelled so many Nigerians and ultimately cost Jonathan the presidency. His defeat in the March 28 poll has been (wrongly) interpreted as a defeat for both zones.

The suggestion in some quarters that the South-East erred in rejecting the All Progressives Congress and must now prepare to languish in oppositional irrelevance need not trouble anyone. For decades, the South-West was the base of the opposition tendency. There was neither weeping nor gnashing of teeth among its elite. Instead, new and more broadminded political leaders emerged from the zone and jettisoned the nativist irredentism of the past, built effective political machines and expanded their networks reaching across fault lines to forge new alliances and coalitions.

In contrast, the South-East has no clear political leadership that could do the same. Few politicians seem to have the stomach for opposition politics. The PDP has yet to regroup and redefine its future while the All Progressives Grand Alliance, the nominal partisan vehicle of the South-East’s regional aspirations (whatever they are) lacks leadership and direction. To be sure, a central leadership has never sat well with the Igbos’ fierce republicanism – a unique political heritage now scandalised by the emergence across the East of legions of self-proclaimed pocket satraps and monarchs of no consequence.

…no ethnic group is under attack in Nigeria; Nigerians are marginalised as citizens, and suffer as a result of a derelict state’s continuous failure to protect its citizenry. The villain of our national odyssey is not any one ethnic group but rather a very Pan-Nigerian and ecumenical parasitic plutocracy. The South-East is no more neglected than the North-East.

The added problem is that the days of having politicians with a guaranteed regional base of support on the basis of sectarian mobilisation are passing away – even in the South-West and in the North. Furthermore, an iron law of Nigerian politics that seems to have eluded the PDP and, which the recent polls only reinforced, is that even a guaranteed sectarian base of support cannot earn a national electoral mandate.

In this vacuum of political meaning, Radio Biafra’s simplistic and incoherent message of disruption, its one-sided and one-dimensional rendition of history, its manipulation of popular myths and grievances, appeal to some, especially given the Nigerian tendency to scapegoat other groups for individual and collective shortcomings. The pirate station is tapping into a sense of victimhood and the persecution complex which is the all-purpose narrative which various groups use as leverage for demanding concessions in Nigerian politics. However, no ethnic group is under attack in Nigeria; Nigerians are marginalised as citizens, and suffer as a result of a derelict state’s continuous failure to protect its citizenry. The villain of our national odyssey is not any one ethnic group but rather a very Pan-Nigerian and ecumenical parasitic plutocracy. The South-East is no more neglected than the North-East. The problem is that of civic insecurity which is universal in its afflictive scope.

There is no indication that Radio Biafra represents the sentiments of the majority of the Igbo and we must always resist the temptation to judge whole groups of people by their extreme lunatic fringes.

Writing in the West Africa magazine of October 1982, the former Biafran functionary, Arthur Nwankwo warned his kin against entertaining “a chronic persecution complex.”

Victimhood has never suited the Igbo particularly well being Nigeria’s most visible and ubiquitous entrepreneurs. By every measure, the Igbo are actually a Nigerian success story having recovered from the extreme adversity of the civil war to regain geo-economic ubiquity. As exemplars of entrepreneurial wanderlust, they are the main actors in the informal economy which keeps Nigeria chugging along. This economic visibility accounts for their vulnerability and disproportionate suffering in class wars disguised as sectarian upheavals that erupt periodically. Radio Biafra’s hate messages merely intensify this vulnerability.

There is no indication that Radio Biafra represents the sentiments of the majority of the Igbo and we must always resist the temptation to judge whole groups of people by their extreme lunatic fringes. Clearly, some people see the pirate station as an enterprise in creative defiance and for them listening to it is their own private act of subversion. However, it is one thing to traffic in Biafran memorabilia – currency, flags and other such items; it is quite another to traffic in venomous hate speech, sow enmity between people and incite violence. For this, Radio Biafra should be bracketed along with Radio Television Libre des Milles Collines, which infamously enflamed the Rwandan genocide.

Radio Biafra is the opium of the historically illiterate, benefitting from the pervasive ignorance about Nigeria’s past that plagues the post-civil war generation. No one who actually witnessed the war or who has studied it diligently craves an encore. It is also among this generation that Biafra is apt to be romanticised beyond reason, in part, because of our society’s failure to adequately memorialise its defining tragedies and to enshrine their necessary moral lessons in the national psyche.

In a democracy, the very meaning and worthiness of the nation-state will always be questioned by the citizens and they are well within their rights to peacefully advocate alternative political arrangements of any description. But hate-mongering, incitements to violence and the adoption of violence to further those aims are absolutely unacceptable.

Radio Biafra is the opium of the historically illiterate, benefitting from the pervasive ignorance about Nigeria’s past that plagues the post-civil war generation. No one who actually witnessed the war or who has studied it diligently craves an encore. It is also among this generation that Biafra is apt to be romanticised beyond reason, in part, because of our society’s failure to adequately memorialise its defining tragedies and to enshrine their necessary moral lessons in the national psyche. There are, for instance, no national monuments to the civil war, or totems of remembrance for the lives lost in serial episodes of internecine strife and thus no memorials with which to say ‘never again.’ Where clinical historical recollection is lacking, myth, falsehood, half-truth, revisionism and prejudicial innuendo flourish.

Biafra is infeasible today because the South-East is essentially landlocked, the bulk of Igbo-owned assets and investments are outside the zone, its soil is too poor to sustain demand by a large population and there is neither mainstream Igbo sympathy nor a regional elite consensus for a Biafra 2.0. In addition, like most of the rest of Nigeria, there are sufficient intra-ethnic antipathies to subvert the coherence of any potential Biafran identity construct.

Arguments for Nigeria’s disintegration are undermined by the fact that her ethnically homogenous states are among the worst-governed. Separatist sentiments are a misappropriation of sociopolitical energies that are best deployed towards holding state governments accountable. In the South-East, such a movement could mobilise state governments to develop a regional economic agenda that opens up the zone and attracts sufficient infrastructural and fiscal investment to enable it realise its potential as Nigeria’s natural industrial hub. This will benefit the South-East far more than some federal appointments for some Igbo politicians. What is patronage for the elite is often symbolic and sterile tokenism to the people they claim to represent.

Biafra is infeasible today because the South-East is essentially landlocked, the bulk of Igbo-owned assets and investments are outside the zone, its soil is too poor to sustain demand by a large population and there is neither mainstream Igbo sympathy nor a regional elite consensus for a Biafra 2.0. In addition, like most of the rest of Nigeria, there are sufficient intra-ethnic antipathies to subvert the coherence of any potential Biafran identity construct. Like other parts of Nigeria, the South-East is best served by remaining part of a larger whole and the geo-economic synergy that is Nigeria.

Radio Biafra broadcasts out of the United Kingdom where its main voice, Nnamdi Kanu, is safely ensconced in sedate environs while seeking to ignite a conflagration that will consume the unwary, the angry and the malleable which he will doubtlessly observe from his remote perch. The cynical opportunism of his enterprise is obvious.

Pro-peace elements in the Biafran establishment who favoured a negotiated settlement were marginalised or in danger of detention or execution as saboteurs. A number of such elements defected to the federal authorities or simply abandoned the doomed cause.

Biafra was a tragic exercise in quixotic futility, by turns, heroically defiant and catastrophically costly for millions. A year after its inception, a Biafra whose boundaries were coterminous with the Eastern Region had effectively ceased to exist. As Brigadier General Godwin Alabi-Isama noted in his civil war memoir, The Tragedy of Victory, by October 1968, Biafra had shrunk to less than a third of its original size and was struggling to accommodate half its population now crammed into that space with nowhere to go.

Despite Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu’s rebuff of a peace delegation in May 1967 with the boast that he possessed “the biggest army in Black Africa”, his vow to “wage open and total war” on the federation and turn it into a “desert”, Biafra was militarily unsustainable. Less than a year of fighting exposed these claims as delusional. Pro-peace elements in the Biafran establishment who favoured a negotiated settlement were marginalised or in danger of detention or execution as saboteurs. A number of such elements defected to the federal authorities or simply abandoned the doomed cause.

Biafra’s collapse after Ojukwu’s flight into exile suggested that the war’s protraction stemmed largely from one man’s oratorical gifts and hubristic perception of his historical self-importance, as participant-observers like Raph Uwechue and Ken Saro-Wiwa charged.

One of such defectors was the former president, Nnamdi Azikiwe who believed that Ojukwu’s intransigence would reduce Biafra to a “cemetery.” Biafrans had made their point. Their courage, resilience and the martial prowess had been proven above and beyond all rational measure and had careened into the path of collective suicide. Biafra’s collapse after Ojukwu’s flight into exile suggested that the war’s protraction stemmed largely from one man’s oratorical gifts and hubristic perception of his historical self-importance, as participant-observers like Raph Uwechue and Ken Saro-Wiwa charged.

Ojukwu returned to Nigeria after twelve years in exile, and went on to contest the senate and the presidency, served as the Abacha regime’s special envoy, and upon his death, received a state burial. His dramatic odyssey made him a success in Nigeria. The same could not be said for the many that perished during the war. That conflict was a tragically needless march of folly. It need not be re-enacted today.

Chris Ngwodo is a writer, analyst and consultant.

chuna1985:
And tinubu is regretting his marriage with north.

Who else is worth marrying?

DaBullIT:
They were proztitutes if not for that, loyalty should not be bought

Amaechi was hounded out of the pdp by a dumb president and his wife with a greed and ego beyond control. Even governor Dickson of Bayelsa is glad to have the Jonathans removed from his neck. See how life turns...

TRUTHTOPOWER:
'Drunken' 'beer parlour' in a 15 word sentence as a response to a point of view containing no vulgarity. It is futile to expect dignity of intellect from a people who are irredeemably stuck on literal filth - no pun intended. it is your preroragative and the justice of your crime is also a societal prerogative. Happily the law does not proscribe homosexuality, so you can do it only on the pain of imprisonment QED.

Hear ye this. A person can have whatever sexuality and not act on it. For Christians whatever your sexuality you are meant to express it only within marriage. The ideal Catholic priest has voluntarily forsaken sexual activities. So, (light-bulb moment for you) your sexuality is not something "you can do", it is more about who you are. Because ignorance like yours is so common, most Nigerian homosexuals are married and probably church and mosque - going, to satisfy the prejudices of the ignorant many.

TRUTHTOPOWER:
Everything that involves intrinsically perverse facets in Africa is unAfrican. By perverse I mean (1) not widespread (2) dirty. (homo) philia is natural but (homo) sex has no anatomical basis. as it is unnatural to walk on my hands, it is also unnatural to subject non-genital organ to sexual use. The question is what happens if we do what is anatomically unnatural? When it is about sex the consequence is multidimensional, sexual meltdown as we have in Western countries. This places a greater burden on health and social fabrique. can poor African countries permit this as a sacrifice for homosexual minorities. the answer is no. will Africa evolve? not likely! heterosexuality supports gender separation. when you mix things up the current system will collapse and it will be bad for all.

Lol. Astounding ignorance on display. This is not a drunken beer parlour discussion!