₦airaland Forum

Built2last:
Askaboutbiafra your analyses are apt and touchy. My posts on this forum on subject matter has remained resolute.

The mind of Igbos are made up. It is difficult to stop a man who has made up his mind to succeed against all odds. Well done

askaboutbiafra:
Ask me any question including but not limited to Agriculture, Economy, Wealth creation, Currency, Banking, Democracy, Human resources, Natural resources, Taxation, Law and order, Infrastructure, Education, International relations, Health and Social care.

Progressive Nigerians can also learn from this conversation and are invited to join
Discusion starts now and closes at 13:00 hours

Ebubedike Okonkwo

Billyonaire:
So much noise you are making. Cos I come from SS and you want to tell me about my own people. You are deranged. I am warning you all against these chants of war. Because what you all will see, you wont believe. The Armors of today is not that of 1967-1970. No one win today's wars. Has America won any war after Vietnam ? Has America won the war against even terrorists ? There are arms merchants everywhere ready to supply arms while their payloads are stations over 200 nautical miles away. Can we stop the war chants ?

If war is what you want, then rest assured that you will get it 12 folds. Biafrans are now more organized than ever before. Do not threaten us with war, cos no one will win. Oil/Gas is the only pivot that Nigeria stands on. Once its removed, you wont even afford to buy a litre of petrol. You wont have external reserves. A few twits here and there and Nigeria's external reserves will be fleeced. Arms embargo placed while boys run here and there to blow up installations.

Make una take am easy with useless rants about power of Nigeria. Nigeria cant win a war today, so be guided.

If Biafrans are listening to call for Regionalism, then it is the best bet. Biafrans have achieved all that you all never expected within 2yrs, now your greatest might just be granted.

Be guided. We want peace, not war. But if you insist on war, then no one is a coward.

YelloweWest:
My brother these people are so dumb it's almost unbelievable!
Upon the fact that I said am a woman. What if I'm Ikwerre married to a Kalabari man??

As a woman in Nigeria you have a choice to come from your father's place or husband. I know some woman who contested elections from their husbands community and others who contested from their fathers community.
That's not even the case for me. My father's father is Kalabari while his mother is Ikwerre.
However despite the marriage of his parents and bearing his father's name , he settled in his mother's place because his mother's father did not have a male child. So her father left a lot of property for his daughter on the condition that her and her children will return.
Today our family house is in Ogbumunabali, my grandmothers compound.
But at the same time she was married therefore we ate not bastards. We still bare our Kalabari name despite settling in Ogbumunabali.

Super1Star:
You are a bloody liar Sir.

Yorubas have been clamouring for restructuring since 2nd Republic. In April of 1994 theygave the country a blueprint and warned that Nigeria will still come back to it whether then or kater. Is it not happening now? That is uncommon foresight.

Kicking out GEJ was about Corruption and CLuelessness. We voted for GEJ in 2011 against PMB and we voted him out for his lack luster performance in 2015.

On restructuring we have always stood and we are still satnding. Why do you think the Northern Elites fear the Yorubas, because we have their code.

Who went to the North before GEJ could step in as Acting President for the sick Yar Adua? -- OBJ, Bakare etc

Who went to jail because of Biafrau'd - Soyinka Tai Solarin and Gani fawehinmi.

Please read up and get informed toddler,

OBAGADAFFI:
But certain SW Politicians have opposed restructuring

ipodstinks:
You are right. Just look at the hidden atrocities they perpetrated against ppl of south south and south east during the war which they hide from ppl. read it.
THE UNKNOWN VICTIMA MINORITIES 1967-1970
By kelvin Amurun.
The Nigerian civil war from 6 July 1967 to 1 January 1970 was fought to counter the secession of Biafra from Nigeria. Biafra was a nationalistic aspiration of the Eastern Igbo people at that time and it was borne from the fact that they could no longer coexist with the Northern dominated federal government.
The Nigerian Civil war otherwise known as the Biafra war attracted international attention due to the brutal events of that period. How the conflict was interpreted by foreigners and Nigerians cannot be over emphasised.
The conflict took a toll of human lives. The Igbo tragedy was largely perpetrated in Northern Nigeria, however there was a forgotten tragedy that most international and national observers over looked. The forgotten Biafra ethnic minorities- Efik, Ogoja, Ibibio etc and the Mid West (Urhobo, Edo, Itsekiris, Isoko, Asaba) experience during the Biafra invasion and the Federal Government occupation.
Each time I get into debate with my Igbo brothers and the issue of marginalisation, distrust and ethnic cleansing is shown to my face in a one dimensional sense, I have often reacted with the question….Is warfare one-sided? And who is marginalising who in Nigeria?
The slaughter, rape and torture of the people of the mid west have not been fully blown out in the open until now. Many present day Mid Westerners of my generation have no clue on what actually transpired in a Biafra occupied Mid Western region and what transpired among the Biafra minorities in the East.
This write up is not to point a blaming finger at anyone but is meant to catalyse the objectivity of the individuals from the various regions of Nigeria to sense aright the issue of marginalisation and also to show the reader that the sins of warfare and conflicts is not one-sided. This write up will have to kill the delusion and one sided bias of that question…..WHO IS MARGINALISING WHO and what really happened to the Southern minorities during the war.
In Omakas book titled The Forgotten Victims: Ethnic Minorities in Nigeria Biafra War, 1967-1970, he said: The gory experiences suffered by the Biafra minorities have largely been neglected in the historiography of the Biafra war.
This write up will also assert that the atrocities perpetuated by Biafra soldiers on Biafra minorities during those early and late months of the war has largely been hidden from the public debate hence they should be accorded due recognition of victim hood.
Following the massacre of the Igbo people living up North, the Federal Government responded to the Igbo secession with “police action” that was partially military. I will not go into the reason for these atrocities. That is not the purpose of this write up.
However it must be pointed out that blame for atrocities must not be one sided. The Igbo people had a right to defend themselves and the UN recognition against genocide gives a people the right to secede. This is not debatable.
Wikipedia states that the Geneva Conventions comprise four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment of war. This convention is binding to all warring parties.
The dominating argument of the Nigeria Biafra War is that the Igbo were targeted for extermination by the Muslim North. International media played a significant role in exposing humanitarian tragedies especially in Igbo speaking parts of Biafra. However not much was reported on the atrocities perpetuated against minorities in Biafra both by the Nigerian military forces and Biafra militias.
A Newsweek magazine once report that some of the worst massacres of the war occurred when the federal troops captured minority regions whereupon minority tribesmen turned on the Ibos in blood fury. The quote presents Igbo as victims in the hands of minorities without referencing the experience the minorities suffered in the Igbo dominated region before the arrival of the federal troops. There was another report stating that Ibos were killed by the local people in their thousands in the Mid West on arrival of federal troops. No one seems to ask the question…..why was this the case?
It is not denying the fact that Igbo were massacred during the civil war, however there is an error in the representation of the victims of the massacre.
The number one question is: Attributing the 1966 massacre in the North as only Igbos is an error of judgement. In the G C M Onyiuke led tribunal, it was clearly shown that ethnic minority groups in Eastern and Mid Western Nigeria were victims. It was easy to mistake an ethnic minority for Igbo apart from mere physical appearance there was no other distinct feature to differentiate Igbo from non Igbo. You cannot tell unlike the Yoruba or Hausa facial marks. Ethnic minorities were also killed.
While the Igbos retreated back to the East to form a defence line and secede, no one seems to ask the question if the Biafra ethnic minorities (present day Cross River, Akwa Ibom etc) were actually consulted on the need to secede and if they agreed.
The argument that the war was only Hausa Fulani and Igbo is purely too simplistic.
In the early days of Nigeria, the domination of the three major ethnic groups of Yoruba, Hausa Fulani and Igbo in the political atmosphere of Nigeria was obvious. The leaders of the ethnic minority ethnic groups had found themselves in a disadvantaged position in the entire federal political equation. As a result of this, minority leaders in different regions began to form movements that started the agitation for the creation of more states were their interest will be largely protected. Some of this movement included the Calaber Ogoja River (COR) state, Mid West State movement and Middle Belt State movement. This movement agitated for minority rights in the larger state.
The leaders of the state creation movement believed that the formation of their states will eliminate the domination of the major ethnic groups.
In Chinua Achebes book titled There was a Country, he had this to say on the Niger Delta Region page 47: …”The minorities of the Niger Delta, Mid West and the Middle Belt were always uncomfortable with the notion that they had to fit into the tripod of the largest ethnic groups that was Nigeria…….many of them Ijaw, Kanuri, Ibibio, Tiv, Itsekiri, Isang, Urhobo, Anang and Efik were from ancient nation states in their own right. Their leaders however, often had to subsume their own ethnic ambitions within alliances with one of the big three groups in order to attain greater political results.
And so during the civil war this minority groups were faced with a great dilemma.
THE CONFLICT AND WAR CRIMES.
Revelations about the war atrocities on the minorities have emerged recently. New surviving records, physical evidences and oral histories of the war suggest that minorities in Biafra and mid west became individual and collective victims of the war.
The Biafra minorities did not have a say in the succession. A prolific journalist named Suzanne Cronje on the Biafra war stated that the feelings of the minorities were difficult to define. Loyalties were in fact divided. The cry out for a separate state by the minorities was not a clamour to secede.
When the war broke out, Biafra had stationed some of its troops in the Cross River region including Ikun in Biase Local Government. Though the Ikun initially supported Biafra and had friendly relations with the soldiers, as time went on tensions emerged. Some Ikun men were suspected of collaborating with Nigerian soldiers with no hard evidence. As a result murder, arrests, looting and rapes was meted on that community. William Norris of the London Times who visited Biafra reported an eye witness account of how Ibibio men were surrounded and beaten to death in Umuahia on April 2 1968. They were reportedly forced to march across an open space while the local people attacked them with sticks and clubs.
On another episode, Biafra soldiers took Ikun men to Ohafia for a meeting but never came back with them. An informant alleged that soldiers returned to the community and rounded up some men within their reach and shot them. A survivor who lost her four day old son and grandmother seemed to have suspected foul play from the Ohafia people with whom they share a common boundary.
This victimization continued until the Biafra headquarters issued a statement to stop the genocide. However by this time, the remaining people had escaped leaving behind only soldiers and Ohafia, also some Ikun with a mixed blood of half Ohafia.
B J Ikpeme a Senior Medical Officer in the then Eastern region revealed atrocities perpetuated by Biafra soldiers against the minorities in towns of present day Cross River and Akwa Ibom States.
Ikpemes argument was that Ojukwu`s declaration of Biafra was done against the wishes of the majority of Calaber, Ogoja and Rivers provinces who for many years had agitated for a separate state and not a secession from Nigeria. They were never consulted and Ikpeme also argued that the Igbo leadership had concluded plans of either to force the five million non Igbo speaking Biafra minorities to accept Biafra or eliminate them out rightly. It was on this basis that soldiers were quickly sent to the minority areas to keep down the people, detain or kill anyone who raises an opposing voice against Biafra.
In Asang town alone about 400 people were carried away to unknown destinations and never came back. Attan Onoyon town suffered the same fate. Enyong was burnt down and many people killed by Biafra soldiers. Biafra soldiers shot many villagers in Ekpenyong, present day Akwa Ibom. On October 18 1967, about 169 civilians in detention were lined up by Biafra soldiers and shot (source: New York Times as an informational advertisement by the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Nigeria New York).
There was a special operations group within the Biafra forces called Biafra Organisation of Freedom Fighter (BOFF). It was set up in Bende. The objective of the special operations was to suppress the enemy within.
On the disappearance of a Major Archibong, investigations revealed that members of the special operations decapitated their victims for ritual purposes. Head hunting in warfare was a cultural practice in some parts of Biafra known as old Bende.
The minorities in Rivers area seemed worse off. Apart from torture and other forms of human rights abuses, they were also evicted from their homes and Igbo names were allocated to streets. Some Kalabari young men were evicted and sent to Umuahia, Owerri, Abiriba and Ozuitem most likely to avoid infiltration of the enemies. Chief Samuel Mbakwe a Biafra Provincial Administrator of the Okigwe Province had noted the influx of refugees from Port Harcourt.
An Irish priest who served in Rivers State reported that the Igbo soldiers were suspicious of some Rivers people who sometimes led federal troops through their lines along hidden creeks. This attitude, according to the priest, created a mixture of panic, fear, and hatred among the Biafra troops towards some indigenous people of Rivers State. People who were maltreated were said to have been involved in this act of “sabotage” against Biafra.
It is asserted that no fewer than six thousand Rivers people were sent to different refugee camps in Igboland.
I have the second part called Midwest invasion.

wirinet:
Tanko Yakassi is highly misinformed, there is no way Igbo's own 70% of Industries in Lagos. If he said they own 70% of commercial activities, I might agree.
There are are about 5 industrial estates in Lagos namely; Ikorodu (Odogunyan), Ikeja, Isolo, Ilupeju and Agbara Industrial Estates. I live right in the middle of Ikorodu industrial estate, with mega industries by the Chinese and Indians, examples are PZ, Nutricima, Spintex, African steel, Phoenix, chiki-chiki, and lots of others I cannot remember any owned by igbos. I hardly know any owned by igbos. The biggest poultry within the estate, Zarm Farm is owned by a Yoruba man. Even one of Dangote's companies is located in Ikorodu.
I know that there are lots of Igbo manufacturing outfits within Isolo estate but there are lots of foreign owned manufacturing companies too.

ipobarecriminals:
me apply in hypob coy? God forbid!I have my own wirk/transportation biz,God is more than enough. Nah so I see one igbo oga slapped one of his boy for not em em! make I nor talk

Chukabiz1961:
One thing I don't understand is why every Yoruba behave alike. No wonder people misinterpret them to be cowards.

SuperS1Panther:
Don't mind him.

He is testing the waters for Atiku/Okonjo or Soludo.

In his naive political calculation, that is a failed project against PMB/PYO. Still at it PMB will deliver NE, probably not Adamawa. PYO will deliver SW, NC and Xtian parts of NW and NE and maybe some objective and progressive SS -- Itshekiris Urhobos Edos etc

SE can give their usual 99.9% vote, who cares?

One thing he should realise is Yorubas and Core Northerners are born with Politics and Politricks. We see through tactical alignment, strategic alliances, subtle machinations and deft political moves. An average Yoruba man is politically enlightened, no matter how less educated he is.

wale101010:
Something Tells Me That A Powerful Foreign Intelligence Agency Is Behind IPOB. I have never seen a movement so well organized, disciplined where everything goes in phases with sheer perfection and incredible grassroot mobilization. Something is fishy. Why is Nnamdi Kanu so fearless? Did a powerful person in the world assured him that nothing will happen to him? You can't be so fearless in this world unless you are supported by some powerful forces that run this world.

evanscheck:
Bruce was a 20yr old Hebrew-Ameeican student at the Columbia university, New York, who immolated himself in front of the U.N. building while protesting against the 1967-1970 Biafra genocide.

Bruce doused himself with a flammable liquid and shortly set himself on fire on the lawn outside the U.N. building. Even when two guards chased him with fire extinguisher while engulfed in flames, Bruce eluded them, while hundreds of horrified delegates and onlookers watched.

He finally fell down to his knees and the guards extinguished the fire. He was rushed to the Belleone Hospital where he died shortly after midnight of May 30th, 1969, nine hours after he set himself ablaze.

His family said that Bruce worked actively to protest the war in Biafra, writing letters about the war to the president and leading government figures. He felt that people were being killed in Biafra and no one was doing anything about it.

His placard reads:
"Peace is where there is an absence of fear of any kind.", "You must stop genocide, please save nine millions of Biafra,."

The address of his resting place is:

Mount Ararat Cemetery,

East Farmingdale,

1165 Route 109 (NY-109)

Lindenhurst, NY 11757,

New York, USA.

It is a Jewish Cemetery.

But why have the Western media suppressed this tragedy? Not many Nigerians nor Biafrans know about Bruce Mayrock.

Well, Bruce is our hero and Martyr.
Bruce will always be remembered by true Biafrans.

You gave up your life for people you never met prior to your death.
Very soon when Biafra becomes a Nation and we, Biafrans have our freedom your name will forever be immortalized.

Rest in Peace our hero ...

hammer6:
This picture is important. He was only 20 years old.

On this month, 30 May 1969, a Jewish American died for Biafra. May his gentle soul continue to rest in peace.

MetaPhysical:
Please see following for proper perspective. The above quote should not come from someone of Nwodo's caliber and status. He should know better. If he wants his statements to be trusted he needs to stop telling lies to the public.

Ojukwu's lack of management skills is evident in the quotes below. He had no competent hands to advise or manage the fiduciaries and mint, it led to a collapse of the economy and a bankrupt.


If you want to read the whole book go here.... http://www.pjsymes.com.au/articles/biafra.htm





Who is Hank Wharton? Evidently Wharton is not Awolowo. Biafra became financially wrecked through the incompetence of Ojukwu to manage finances and as well the double agent hired by Biafra, named Hank Wharton.





What was the financial worth of a Biafran relative to their total bank deposits?





So were the money tendered by Biafrans exchanged at value point, below point...or above point? Awo paid them at rate of double the value point!





Here is the link again for those interested in the whole article. http://www.pjsymes.com.au/articles/biafra.htm

MetaPhysical:
Please see following for proper perspective. The above quote should not come from someone of Nwodo's caliber and status. He should know better. If he wants his statements to be trusted he needs to stop telling lies to the public.

Ojukwu's lack of management skills is evident in the quotes below. He had no competent hands to advise or manage the fiduciaries and mint, it led to a collapse of the economy and a bankrupt.


If you want to read the whole book go here.... http://www.pjsymes.com.au/articles/biafra.htm
You should v been at the event to contest your position. I wonder why you people r born with lies and i see its destruction in future. What makes you think a book written by someone should be the only reference point to your arguement.Subjective history?One sided view?Please grow up,u and ur generation v a lot of better things to learn from Nwodo's speech.





Who is Hank Wharton? Evidently Wharton is not Awolowo. Biafra became financially wrecked through the incompetence of Ojukwu to manage finances and as well the double agent hired by Biafra, named Hank Wharton.





What was the financial worth of a Biafran relative to their total bank deposits?





So were the money tendered by Biafrans exchanged at value point, below point...or above point? Awo paid them at rate of double the value point!





Here is the link again for those interested in the whole article. http://www.pjsymes.com.au/articles/biafra.htm

MetaPhysical:
Please see following for proper perspective. The above quote should not come from someone of Nwodo's caliber and status. He should know better. If he wants his statements to be trusted he needs to stop telling lies to the public.

Ojukwu's lack of management skills is evident in the quotes below. He had no competent hands to advise or manage the fiduciaries and mint, it led to a collapse of the economy and a bankrupt.


If you want to read the whole book go here.... http://www.pjsymes.com.au/articles/biafra.ht
You should v been at the event to contest your position. I wonder why you people r born with lies and i see its destruction in future. What makes you think a book written by someone should be the only reference point to your arguement.Subjective history?One sided view?Please grow up,u and ur generation v a lot of better things to learn from Nwodo's speech.





Who is Hank Wharton? Evidently Wharton is not Awolowo. Biafra became financially wrecked through the incompetence of Ojukwu to manage finances and as well the double agent hired by Biafra, named Hank Wharton.





What was the financial worth of a Biafran relative to their total bank deposits?





So were the money tendered by Biafrans exchanged at value point, below point...or above point? Awo paid them at rate of double the value point!





Here is the link again for those interested in the whole article. http://www.pjsymes.com.au/articles/biafra.htm

kogistar:
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/05/%E2%80%8Ebiafra-fools-learn-experience-wise-history-osinbajo/