₦airaland Forum

Paris - Fifty years ago, the Igbo people of southeast Nigeria seceded, declaring an independent Republic of Biafra and sparking a brutal civil war that left about one million people dead.

Coups and secession

On May 30, 1967, the military head of Nigeria's eastern region, Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, declares "the independent Republic of Biafra".

His move comes two days after the head of Nigeria's military government, General Yakubu Gowon, divided the federation into 12 states, including three in the east.

Biafra, accounting for less than 10% of Nigerian territory, at the time had a population of 14 million out of 55 million nationwide.

Its mainly Christian population was two-thirds Igbo.

Since independence from Britain in 1960, Nigeria had managed to stay a single entity despite historic enmity between the mainly Muslim north and the largely Christian south.

But the Igbos felt discriminated against by the two other main ethnic groupings, the northern Hausa-Fulani and the Yoruba in the southwest.

In January 1966, Nigeria suffered its first military coup, led by the Igbo General Johnson Aguiyi Ironsi. A counter-coup launched in the north in July kills Ironsi and many of his senior Igbo officers.

Thousands of Igbo civilians are killed in reprisals, especially in the north, and millions of survivors flee back to the southeast.

The government rejects the secession of the southeast, which is rich in agricultural and mineral resources, especially oil.

Bombardments and blockade

Gowon announces a general mobilisation and denounces the independence declaration as "an act of rebellion", saying it will be "crushed". The military imposes a blockade on eastern Nigeria.

On July 6 the army unleashes a general offensive with its first air bombardments.

In October federal troops take Biafra's capital, Enugu, then the port of Calabar. Onitsha and Port Harcourt are recaptured in the first months of 1968.

Britain, the Soviet Union and the Organisation of African Unity (the forerunner to the African Union) side with the federal government.

Only a few African countries and France back Biafra.

Humanitarian drama

On July 3, 1968 the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says that eight to 12 million people are affected by the conflict and that 200 people a day are dying of starvation in Biafra.

"One would think we were seeing ghosts marching past, thin and silent, wrapped in grey rags," an AFP special correspondent reports in August.

"Nearly all are women of all ages and old people... there are no longer many children in Biafra.

"The refugees travel, their stomachs empty, fleeing the noise of federal cannon. The noose is tightening."

In late August he writes of a million new refugees in 15 days as the army advances.

"One person dies every 15 minutes... refugees are dying from starvation and exhaustion," he reports.

The Biafra famine caused by the blockade makes headlines around the world, with heartrending photographs of children, stomachs bloated by malnutrition, their legs bent with rickets.

A handful of French doctors working for the ICRC, including the future French government minister Bernard Kouchner, brush aside convention and political borders to launch an aid effort.

In 1971, they go on to found Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).

'No victor, no vanquished'

From August to September 1968 the army retakes several towns after a major offensive.

In March-April 1969, the new Biafran capital, Umuahia, falls.

After raids by secessionists on oil wells, Nigerian troops reinforce their blockade, and in June start preventing international Red Cross aid flights.

Only Christian churches and the French Red Cross continue their aid flights in ever more dangerous conditions.

In early January 1970 the army begins its final assault, and on January 15, Biafra ceases to exist.

Ojukwu flees on January 11 to Ivory Coast, leaving his deputy, Philip Effiong, to officially surrender to Gowon in Lagos, the federal government's capital at the time.

The east resumes its place in a united Nigeria. Gowon vows "No victor, no vanquished", and pledges to work for national reconciliation.

But resentment lingers and deepens over the decades, as the Igbo complain of a lack of investment in the southeast, which many view as a punishment for Biafra.

The war invests considerable power in the army, with military coups becoming a feature of Nigerian political life for decades.


http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/biafra-a-painful-chapter-in-nigerias-history-20170528

We told them 1967 is not 2017, Those people have all the contacts, education, money and live all over the world.

Hmmm

Hmm

Na waoo

By Emmanuel Aziken, Emma Ujah, Clifford Ndujihe, Dapo Akinrefon, Charles Kumolu, Godfery Bivbere, Joseph Erunke, Nkiruka Nnoorom, Emmanuel Elebeke, Jonah Nwokpoku, Ediri Ejoh & Prince Okafor ABUJA—

President Muhammadu Buhari, Thursday, explained why Dasuki, Kanu and others on the alleged flouting of court orders by the state on the issue of Dasuki and detained Biafran agitator, Nnamdi Kanu, he said: “Technically, if you see the kind of atrocities those people committed, if they jump bail? I am sorry to say this publicly…the former president just wrote to the governor of the CBN and said give N40 billion to someone while you have two million Internally Displaced Persons, what kind of country do you want to run? “The one you called Kanu, do you know he has two passports? One Nigerian, one British and he came to this country without using any passport? Do you know that he brought sophisticated equipment into this country and started broadcasting for Radio Biafra? There is a treasonable charge against him and I hope the court will listen to the case. Biafra and marginalisation of Ndigbo “They say they are marginalised but they have not defined the extent of marginalisation. Who is marginalising them? Where? Do you know? Choosing a minister is not a matter of ethnicity, it is a matter of the constitution. I am limited by what the constitution says that there must be a member of the executive council from each state. There is a lot of partisan politics in it. Who is the Minister of State for Petroleum? Is he not an Igbo? Who is the governor of the CBN? Is he not an Igbo? Who is the Minister of Labour? Who is the Minister of Science and Technology? What do they want? I stood elections and I won, I am limited by the constitution, I have a member of every state in the Federal Executive Council and I have to listen to them when I sit as chairman. That is the limit the constitution gave me”.

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/12/biafra-why-i-cant-release-kanu-buhari/

Boko Haram Leader, Shekau, Releases New video Tp Proof He Wasn't Injured In Nigerian Airforce Bombardment

Abubakar Shekau, leader of Nigerian Islamist terrorist group, Boko Haram, has dismissed claims by Nigerian Airforce that he was injured in a recent aerial bombardment of the sect in Sambisa forest.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxjzRUsBlu0

yes

Na soo

The journey of great economy

welcome ...

funny country

how true

good move..

where is he ?

since then ....

Again hope they will..

Hmmm still waiting

The minister of finance, Mrs. Femi Adeosun, has been accused of derailing the Federal Government’s economic progress by her body language, actions and utterances.

According to the Nigerian Youth Entrepreneurship Forum for National Development (NYEFOND), since her appointment as Minister of Finance late last year, the minister has made statements not fit for a minister of her status.

“We have watched with dismay as the minister has tried, albeit in vain, to bring the current administration into disrepute, through her actions; most times, without even knowing it and, other times, so brazenly that it is difficult to know if she is intent on bringing down the government’s efforts or bent on seeing the government’s policies work.

The minister has displayed great incompetence in handling the Nigerian economy, owing to her poor understanding of how things really work.

“So far, the minister has refused to heed the presidential directive to take action against directors in the ministry who were indicted in the ‘budget padding’ scandal. Rather, she has covered up for them and retained them within the ministry.

“Worse, she has refused to pay the salaries and entitlements of former head of states and displayed great inexperience and confusion in tackling issues relating to the recession.

“In the history of the Nigerian Civil Service, the minister was the first to be turned upon by the civil servants in the ministry, who demanded that she go, due to huge debts owed them.

“The minister has shamelessly and blatantly urged the Federal Government to borrow billions of dollars to salvage an economy which she described as “not really being in recession; recession is just a word,” thus mortgaging the future of our children and giving the next administration a huge bill of debt to pay.”

How can we borrow to pay the salaries of our civil servants? When we want to construct rails and invest in the agricultural sector, what are we going to do, if we run to borrow billions of dollars just to pay salaries? The regularity of workers’ salaries has been lost since2014 and our foreign reserves have been depleted prodigally by the last regime and all a minister, in this era of change can tell us is that we are not in any form of trouble, but she can encourage the borrowing of billions of dollars?

“It is embarrassing, shameful and heart-breaking to watch a minister who is supposed to know better run around seemingly confused and without direction.

“Is this how she is helping to promote the policies of this government? Is this how she will help the country get out of the recession? Sadly, she is derailing the progress of the current administration, no thanks to her confusing statements and body languages,” read the statement signed by the group’s secretary-general, Victor Nse.

The group further advised the government to make a decision on whether it wants to keep her or do away with her.

“We, therefore, advise the Federal Government to make a decision on her continued stay as a minister, before she embarrasses the government and makes the nation a laughing stock before the world.


http://leadership.ng/news/560348/finance-minister-derailing-pmbs-economic-progress

Olalekan Adetayo, Abuja

The Presidency again on Sunday shifted the timeline during which it plans to employ 200,000 graduates, saying beneficiaries will resume work on December 1.

That was the second time the Federal Government would be shifting its position on the employment scheme which it earlier promised would start in October.

Two weeks ago, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo was quoted as attributing the failure of the government to engage the graduates in October as promised to the need to get the required equipment.

He then assured Nigerians that the graduates would be engaged “in the next two weeks.”..


http://punchng.com/fg-shifts-200000-graduates-employment-date/

Why not roads,schools, hospital...


Sorry just check the man profile

Honorable Adebayo Shittu,he gained admission into University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun south west, Nigeria in the year 1974. At the end of 1978, he had obtained his first degree in Law from the same university.

FULL STOP.

Up VP

They have a plan,

They hope he will soon 'eid'

The reflection in the mirror looks like Yaradua.

The shadow cannot be faster than the object.

Good we are all brothers

Were eriri manye Ewu na were Ewu manye na eriri , bu ofu ife

The proverb of the Goat and the Rope


Ndi ara !