ariesbull:
IF the IGBO did not MARGINALIZE her MINORITIES DURING the ANALOGUE YEARS, Why Will They Do So In This DIGITAL AGE?


A Cross Riverian (A Calabar man)
Some weeks back on one of your posts I made a rebuttal about the erroneous and mischievous rants of some of my (our) misinformed NigerDelta brothers. First and foremost let me tell you all a little story for the avoidance of doubt. I am from the Agbo ethnic group in Cross River State. We are located in Abi Local Government Area which is a coastal settlement and unarguably the smallest LGA in Cross River State in terms of landmass and to a large extent population – slightly a few thousands ahead of Bakassi LGA. My fore bearers both on my maternal and paternal side were given the opportunity to serve in then Eastern Nigeria regional government.


My grand uncle Dr.S E Imoke of blessed memory was an all influential cabinet minister in the regime of Dr M I Okpara. He held the Trade portfolio and was also Finance minister at the time until the unfortunate incident of January 1966. He was the longest serving Education minister. His son the Urbane Liyel Imoke is the immediate past Governor of our state “Cross River”.


During the outbreak of the war, he was the Biafran Commissioner for Refugees and Humanitarian affairs. One of my maternal uncles also served as Permanent Secretary in the ministry of health at Enugu. My maternal grand father was also a frontline member of the Eastern Nigeria regional house of Chiefs.
Outside my family circles, another great Cross Riverian M T Mbu was nominated a Federal Minister for Transport and Navy by the Igbo controlled NCNC. It’s on record that Mbu was Nigeria’s first Ambassador to the UK, UN and the USA. He is from Boki in Cross River state. Boki is another minority ethnic group just like my native Agboland. The Igbos gave him the opportunity to excel ahead of their own worthy sons at that time. He is the father to a Senator MT Mbu jr. Another person who is noteworthy is the late Chief Michael Eta-Ogon who was the Administrator of the oil rich PortHarcourt province in the first republic. He is also from the same Boki with Mbu. Thomas Weir Ikpeme an Efik man from Odukpani in my native Cross River was the longest serving Permanent Secretary in the Eastern Regional Ministry of Education.


The key point is that the Igbos were comfortable with us “the minorities” that was why they entrusted education solely in our hands. Not only education but other critical areas like Public Works and Transport etc. N U Akpan an Ibibio man from Akwa Ibom state was the technocrat behind the eastern regional public service. He was the Secretary to the regional government.


Thompson Akpabio, an Annang man from Ukana in present day Akwa Ibom state was the regional minister of health. The former Governor of Akwa Ibom state Godswill Akpabio is his nephew. There were other high ranking cabinet ministers of minority origin like one of our family good friends, HRH Amanyanabo E P Okoya, Agada III the Ibenanowei of Ekpetiama in Bayelsa State, Chief. Erekosinma of Rivers and a whole lot of others who are too numerous to mention.


During the secessionist struggle, an Ogoni from Rivers state, Chief.Ignatius Kogbara was Biafra’s Ambassador to Britain. My dad’s friend Chief. Lekam Okoi, from Idomi in present day Yakurr LGA of Cross River state was one of Ojukwu’s trusted drivers. He is today a successful lawyer and a former commissioner in the Federal Character Commission.
Capt Akpet a minority from Cross River was also Ojukwu’s dependable aide on intelligence.
Secondly for the avoidance of doubt, aside these political appointments, our people enjoyed immense goodwill from the Igbo dominated region by way of social security. My dad’s immediate elder brother received a scholarship from the regional government that enabled him study for a PhD in soil science. He is the first man “arguably” in Africa to obtain a doctorate in Soil science. I have friends across the Niger Delta whose parents, uncles, aunties and relatives also benefited from the benevolence of the Eastern regional government.


Unarguably our Niger Delta region received it’s last major facelift in terms of infrastructure when we were under the Eastern region. Till the abolition of the regional system of government, the Eastern region was the most united region, they was never a recorded case of ethnic skirmish or BLOOD letting between the Igbos and other minority groups.
During the pogrom of 1966 we all carried the same cross to “Golgotha”, both Igbos and Eastern minorities were maimed in their thousands across Northern Nigeria by the blood thirsty HausaFulani/Northern folks without blinking an eye. It doesn’t really matter if you were Igbo, Ijaw, Efik or a miniature Agbo person.

I never really wanted to bore you with reading this lengthy essay but it’s my moral responsibility to tell the truth at all times. I was thought by my fore bearers never to distort history and to always separate facts from fictions.

If we were not marginalized by the Igbos during the “analogue” age, how then can the Igbos marginalize us in this digital age?



http://etimes.com.ng/2017/03/07/igbo-marginalised-niger-delta-minorities-60s-efa-iwa-rex-egbe/#more-3869

Soreza:
Nonsense divide and rule talk

Rose2014:


Op just used that caption so yorubas will rush to thread lol

Go back and read the article again.

ariesbull:



How you take know

Rose2014:
If we were not marginalized by the Igbos during the “analogue” age, how then can the Igbos marginalize us in this digital age?


My Yoruba brothers reading and walking away disappointed

ariesbull:



How you take know

oooppp2:




Hahahahhahahhahahhhahahhahahahahhaa



The op reposted my post in a more appealing manner

Kondomatic:
This post = Sleepless nights for we Niger Deltans crew

Rose2014:
If we were not marginalized by the Igbos during the “analogue” age, how then can the Igbos marginalize us in this digital age?


My Yoruba brothers reading and walking away disappointed

thuggCheetah:
our Yoruba skulls were already rejoicing wen we saw d topic
That first sentence nearly gave us heart attack

thewarrior72:
Today na very bad and sad day to yoruba muslim skulls.
They are losing in all front

The Unknown Victims Ethnic Minorities 1967 – 1970 | Written by By Kelvin Amurun | November 6, 2015

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 debateable.

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 dorminating 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 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 Achebe's 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.

Ikpeme's 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.
http://pointblanknews.com/pbn/articles-opinions/the-unknown-victims-ethnic-minorities-1967-1970/

timecapsule:
The divide and rule tactis they use before against old eastern region tribes, can never work again. Everybody have known their plan. Very soon the rising sun will rise to lighten up AFRICA & THE WORLD.

longayink:



Africa, mostly sub-Saharan Africa, shall continue to remain in darkness unless Biafra sovereignty is restored.

Nigeria failed, it's not Nigerians that still hold Nigeria as one country. One or two foreign interests that has Nigeria as ATM hold Nigeria one.

But those foreigners can't succeed far too longer.