₦airaland Forum

okooyinbo:
My friend, where there have been war there have been blockade and its resulting devastation and human tragedies. Did you study the Sudan crisis very well? What about Ethiopia and Eritrea, they did employ blockage tactics in these conflicts. The difference is that in the case of Biafra, it was devastatingly efficient in breaking moral and killing and maiming. Something I am happy about though is that the Nigerian conflict parties (FMG and Biafra) did not make an extensive use of landmines as witnessed in Mocambique, Angola etc.

You are right about that but I still insist that the world developed a HUGE conscience after Biafra. Nothing similar has ever been allowed again in Africa. I have only started to understand why the west is quick these days to rush relief to troubled spots around the world and to charge leaders with war crimes like in Sudan.

The Congo war would have led to 20 million deaths if the world had allowed what happened in Biafra to continue.

okooyinbo:
Or are you suggesting that Ojukwu should have sacrificed more Igbo and Southeastern people lives by fighting harder? Josif Stalin got an enormous aid from the allied, else he would have defeated the Nazis. Besides, the cold winter in Russia aided him too. It is always warm in Biafra and there was no serious millitary aid to the too.

Ojukwu never sacrificed a sinlge Biafran life for the war. That is what revisionists have been busy trying to prove. And our response has been a resounding -NO IT IS NOT TRUE.

okooyinbo:
Well it could be! But do you know that Stalin was actually the useless person that put the Soviet union on danger list in the first place? Did you know he killed the top brass of Russian Army to secure his power and wanted to buy time by signing a bogus "aburi" like agreement with Nazi Germany? Ojukwu is a finer person than Stalin.

Frankly I don't want this to degenerate to Ojukwu/Stalin or Biafra/USSR. The comparison is strictly limited to the enemies they fought. Their enemies wanted to win by all means and that led to millions of civilian deaths. Or can you tell me that Stalin killed more Soviets that Germany?

The Biafran war brought a permanent change to the way wars are fought in Africa. There has not been another war in Africa where starvation was allowed ever since. The world have developed a conscience since Biafra.

okooyinbo:
No, the enemy were not the same. Nigeria was not as murderous as Hitler. Hitler wanted to completely annihilate the Soviet union whereby Nigeria wanted to keep herself ONE. And some in the Nigeria GOVT wanted to teach that "proud" Ojukwu a lesson.

That is where I completely disagree with you. Please refer to my first quote about this. If Ojukwu had continued fighting and Nigeria continued blockading, which Nigerians would be left on the Biafran space at the end of the war?

The comparison is not meant to be complete, but they fought the same type of enemies. If Stalin never fought the way he did, there may be no Russia or even the free world today. Just like Nigeria is still backward because Biafra lost the war.

okooyinbo:
Onlytruth, please dont compare Stalin to Ojukwu. I think Ojukwu is beyond Stalin. Stalin was no better than Adolf Hitler. Do you know how many people died through the hands of Comrade Josif Stalin?

The comparison is not meant to be complete, but they fought the same type of enemies.

Dede1:
I had rather blame the blockade employed by the Nigeria for causing deaths in millions of women and children than blame Ojukwu for fighting without surrounding. War is not fun in the sun. However, my people say regardless of death war should be fought.

Granted that Biafra was defeated, I still appreciate the fact the Nigeria’s nose and those of her bloody allies were blooded by the tinny Biafra. If Ojukwu had surrounded, north and west regions of Nigeria would have been flexing for war since the end of civil war.

At least, Nigeria realized the weight of the burden of what it took to make tinny Biafra to capitulate.

Bro Dede1, you have made my day with the above words. Thank you.  It is easy for revisionists masking as concerned fellow citizens to mock the cause and the memory of the dead in Biafra. We must never forget what really led to the deaths. Remember that Nigeria was fighting to unify the country, right? So why use a tactic meant for an outright foreign enemy? Assuming Ojukwu was "stubborn" as they always like to say and continued fighting, which Nigerian citizens will be left in the territory of Biafra if Nigeria continued blockading? Which means that Nigeria simply mounted pressure on Biafra hoping for Biafra to self-annihilate -a strategy meant to fight a foreign country like Cameroun. Why use if against fellow Nigerians? This only leads me to believe that Nigeria knew that Biafra was actually a foreign country then. So why not admit it  instead of pretending that we were one?

In the Second world war, the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin lost 22 million to its war of attrition against the invading Nazi Germany. I'm sure the same people blaming OJukwu would have wanted Stalin to surrender to Adolf Hitler to avoid the Soviet deaths.
ndu_chuks, you and I have had this conversation before and I remember asking you whether the war has ended; whether Ojukwu's death (because frankly that is what snakes like you would have wanted, stop trying to fo'ol yourself) would have saved or killed more Easterners. I put it to you that if Ojukwu had died as you planned, you would have since wiped out the easterners if not outrightly turning us into slaves in our own land. So, for the umpteenth time, Ojukwu served us well. Warts, mistakes, idiocy, or whatever his faults were in the war, we LOVE AND APPRECIATE all he did. We love him to death. So, go hang if you don't like that.

So ndu_chucks, we must lose all baggage to run the race of survival. Some of the baggage include things like morality and fairplay. We died because we wanted to escape mass murder. We were killed more.

ndu_chucks:
Onlytruth, my good friend, your skin is getting softer o. no be you first talk about Nigerians in terms of food chain? OK, no vex.

Why are you so bent on revenge na? Cool down biko.

Let me tell you my good friend ndu_chucks, the Jews are still hunting for the Germans who committed genocide during the holocaust (65 years after the fact). Israel today is prepared to erase any country threatening it today -all for the same reasons. You don't survive planned extermination and remain the same, unless you are a fool and I know Ndigbo are not fools.

I have really thought about it and seen that all our setbacks in Nigeria today are from that Biafran war and even folks we fought for have become our internal enemies. We don't need that. We must plan to survive.  Remember -no paddy for jungle!

So my fellow Igbos, let us think past Biafra, and please before any of you comment on this topic, please spend some time to read all the previous posts. That was what I did before posting here. It is disingenuous to just jump into these topics without reading the background of the topic and what others have posted.
The issue is a matter of life and death for our children in Nigeria. Thanks.  

I'm so convinced that Biafra was a BAGGAGE, and we had to carry even our enemies along. It's like running a 100 meters dash with a 50kg iron tied to your leg! It was brought on by necessity. Now that we have survived that, we must free ourselves from it completely. We must also prepare to work with any forces on this earth to ensure Nigeria stays ONE. That is our destiny.  It is a bright one. We have paid in blood. We must inherit it.

ndu_chucks:
are you an animal or a baboon to be describing yourself as being part of a food chain? Apologies to my Abriba brothers, abi you dey eat people ni?  Ngwuanu post ya picture in your profile now now

Excellent, please join the rest of us in building a great ONE NIGERIA.

You are the animal no doubt but I'll leave that for another day.

Yes, we should build a great ONE NIGERIA because there are some people to deal with in Nigeria. How can we deal with those people if we leave? It doesn't make sense. I am 1000% sure that we will gain the upper hand eventually in Nigeria and bring those people to account. This should be obvious to anyone with half a human brain, not idiots like the one making this statement below:

akigbemaru:
Lol, I bet you he doesn't mean it that way, moochers want to secede but scared of overcrowding or possible famine on that 27,000 square kilometers of land that belongs to Biafrans.

If you still want to remain in Nigeria, tell your cowards and traitors among you guys to shut the "F" up.

He will wake up one day to sweep my compound in Ibadan   If he tries any idiocy, I will then show him that I am a survivor of his father's plot to exterminate me and make him pay.

I tell my people again, we OWN Nigeria's future. Just keep being yourselves and be STRONG as always. We own the future of Nigeria.  

ndu_chucks:
Na wa for wayas.

(a)The South will never secede and form a new country as proposed by several people particularly those from the ND.  There will be no help or cooperation forthcoming from ndiigbo to promote that cause.

(b)Ndiigbo will never team up with  Niger Delta people to fight the rest of Nigeria under any condition. There is too much bad belle between these 2 groups.

(c)It will take at least 1 more generation before Ndiigbo and Yorubas begin to fully trust each other again.

(d)The rest of Nigeria needs Arewa to provide survival balance; with Arewa out of the picture, I submit that you people go kill all of una selves finish. awon olodo 

God Bless ONE NIGERIA.

I know this has always been your goal- to create a need for Arewa at the very top of the food chain.
The truth though is that Biafra was never chiseled on iron even before the war. If Gowon had implemented an agreement he signed at Aburi, if he never moved to weaken the East by blockading the East even before a shot was fired and so many other things he did to make the Easterners feel insecure in the Nigeria of 1967; the East would not have seceded, and the war would not have been fought.

Having said that, the bigger lesson of this war (I have to say this again because I have not seen much change in my Igbo peoples world view about Nigeria), is that we must make sure that Nigeria never disintegrates in the future. I say this because I strongly believe that most of those who fought against Biafra will one day seek secession. Something deep down tells me that one of these days, the same people will get uncomfortable with Igbo presence in their corner of Nigeria and want to stop that. So my advise to my Igbo brothers is to completely drop the Biafran idea and spend some time to assimilate Nigerian politics which is largely Machiavellian.

If we must support progressive parties in Nigeria, we must limit that support to Igboland (APGA for example in governorship elections in the south east, PDP in presidential and other national elections). Any national political maneuver must be purely to protect our interest -nothing more. I don't need to remind us of what constitutes our interest in Nigeria. If we do that, we own that country. All we've lost in the past was as a result of our progressive politics.

So my friend ndu_chucks, tell your Arewa brothers that the Igboman has decided to stay in Nigeria(they should stop panicking), but that Arewa's chance of secession is zero because we will make sure Nigeria stays one.

babapupa:
Igbo people should really ban this dude from saying anything on their behalf.

Do you even read/believe the nonsense you typed?

You have done irreparable damage to your people by your gloating and mocking of innocents who were starved to death by your father Awolowo. Keep up the good work!

olafolarin:
What role did the Yoruba's played in the civil war?Obasanjo as the last commander of the Nigerian forces,lead the largest and final attack on the Biafran Army.Thousands of lives were lost .[b]The same OBJ contested for 1999 elections and won with huge votes in all eastern states [/b]while he lost in his ward,village,contituency and state.

I think the biafrans cant read within the line.Yorubas love and accommodate everybody.Biafras problem is BIAFRA itself.

Wrong! He did not win in the east, Falae won there, PDP rigged eletions in the east. It is an open secret that Obasanjo was an unrepentant Igbo hater. We should have connived with Abacha to kill the idiot. That is exactly part of my grouse with some Igbo folks. Only few of them saw the true picture during Abachas days. More of us are seeing the true picture today though.

SEFAGO:
^ Hehe Onlytruth don craze finish. He has gone the way of becomrich, dede1, mekusxx and jona all the craze people from NL. I say na craze world, na craze world we dey

Believe me the biggest madman in Igboland is anyone who fails to identify the real enemy inside Nigeria. My people are the most cosmopolitan Nigerians (they travel and live anywhere!), so they need this lesson. Part of why we failed in the 60s is because we fought the wrong people. Huge mistake! We must not repeat it again. Mine is to try my best to open Igbo man's eyes. We are too trusting and we've been paying for it.

H2O2:
Completely Sstupid talk.

Because it fails to meet your standards for sanity. Your standards led to the death of innocents in Biafra. I would rather be sstupid.

After going through comments from many people about this war, it has become abundantly clear to me that the biggest enemy of Biafrans and Ndigbo was actually Yoruba. Awolowo wasn't really alone in his plans to annihilate Easterners. It was really his tribesmen all along. If that is not true, how come we have characters like babapupa, and the other idiot (what's his name again), akamugberu or akamubrain and many more like them mocking a planned extermination of Easterners with full glee and fan fare? And no one from their tribe is repulsed by the hate they attract to themselves?!

In all of these I really start to see that the Hausa or northerners were not really THE ENEMY. They may be extremists, but their hate is not deep like that of Yoruba. That leads me to the main question: If eastern leaders of the 60s knew whom the enemy was, would Biafra have failed the way it did? If the war was between the East and West, is there a question at all about who would prevail? If such situation comes up again (and I know it can still come up in Nigeria anytime), is it not better if we Ndigbo fight only our real enemy -the Yoruba?
These questions are for today's Igbo leaders. There is a real danger in continuing the way we do. Agwo no na akirika! Sorry to my fellow Igbo who are cosmopolitan, but cosmopolitanism is actually idiocy in Nigeria. Open your eyes!

As we integrate ourselves into the politics of Nigeria, we Ndigbo must never forget what happened in Biafra and who actually won. The Hausa think they won, but in fact the Yoruba won. The Hausa thought they were fighting for themselves but they were in fact fighting for the Yoruba who are today boasting! When men conclude wars, woman boast!

Like I said in one my posts, let us forget the idea of secession, because only then are we assured of gaining the upper  hand one day. It is inevitable. It will happen. In fact we must be ready to fight anyone trying to secede. Our innocent women and children starved to death must not have died in vain.  

akamubrain, if you noticed I ignore you for your id'iocy. This conversation is helping the Igbo know who the real enemy is. This is my last comment to you.

^^^
We never knew who the real enemy was then. We thought it was Hausa. Do you know how much resources we lost fighting everybody? Now it is only Yoruba. You are no match to the Igbo.