Welcome to Nma Olebara's Blog

The Tragedy That is Nigeria Written by Dr. Emma Enekwechi Created on 18 January 2014.

On January 1 1914 a British soldier called Fredrick Lugard, appointed by the government of Britain to oversee a big swatch of African territory whose peoples the British had conquered, subjugated, and colonized; people who were vastly, often breathtakingly different from one another in their ethnicity, religion, geography, culture, world views, philosophy of life, beliefs, values, etc amalgamated (not unified) them into a country that his girlfriend had given the name “Nigeria”. The people ranged from the Kanem Bornu in the North East with very strong Arab influence and culture, to the numerous Hausa States conquered and Islamized by the Fulani who having established Caliphates exercised suzerainty over the areas covering Sokoto, Kano, and as far south as Bauchi, and Ilorin; to the Nupe, Kwararafa, Jukun, Tiv in the middle; to the Oyo, Ekiti, Ijebu, Ife and the kingdom of Benin in the South West; to the Aro Confederacy in the South East – stretching from Calabar, Opobo, Bonny, Nembe, Sapele, Agbor, Equatorial Guinea, Southern Cameroons to as far north as Idoma, and Igala, maintaining a Constitutional Monarchy but comprising of fiercely autonomous states that had organized themselves through military conquest, alliances, and treaties into a Confederation of autonomous states. These were the peoples who Fredrick Lugard under the direction of the British government amalgamated into one country called Nigeria. But why did Lugard amalgamate the peoples of what the British called the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria and the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria (including the Colony and Protectorate of Lagos) into one country? Was it to weld the people into one sovereign nation? No. Was it to help the different peoples develop economically or politically? No. Did he do this in consultation and agreement with the governments of the people the British had conquered and overthrown? No. Did he even attempt to consult the leaders of the different political and social units to seek their input and opinion? No. So, why did Lugard amalgamate them without as much as consulting the people concerned? In amalgamating these widely divergent peoples, Lugard and the British had one goal and only one goal in mind and that was to create, enhance and advance British trade in the vast territory it had conquered and occupied. The creation and advancement of British trade and the protection of British financial interest against other European competitors in the newly acquired territory was the sole goal of the tragedy called Nigeria. The amalgamation had zero consideration for the interests, welfare, and progress of the inhabitants of the areas amalgamated. What did Lugard and subsequent British administrations do to enhance unity and understanding among the amalgamated states? The autonomous states of the Aro Confederacy of the Eastern Region and the Kingdom of Benin had given the British invaders nightmares in the fight over rights, concessions and regulations in trade in palm oil and other commodities along the Atlantic coastline. The bloody conflicts of the Aro and Benin expeditions were not to be easily forgotten by the British who now regarded the fiercely independent and assertive inhabitants of the Niger Coast with disdain and hatred and branded them “trouble makers.” It didn’t matter that many of these people who had their traditional religion or were animists had embraced Christianity, and converted to the religion brought by European missionaries. In the North, British colonialists were thrilled that Islam was a religion of obedience and that the masses will without question obediently carry out instructions given by their religious leaders. They also found that Northern leaders were not only suspicious of western education and Christianity but actually rejected both in preference for Koranic education and Islam. In essence the North despised democracy, western education and Christianity preferring feudalism, Koranic education and Islam. Their leaders extracted unquestioning obedience from the masses making it easy for the colonialists to control those masses without having to interact with them directly. Conversely the peoples of the south especially the South East had a long history of self-determination and democracy, loved and embraced western education and massively converted to Christianity which not surprisingly was theologically very close to their traditional religion. However, the British reasoned that these attributes, beliefs and values of Easterners though a mirror image of their own made it difficult to control the masses of these colonized people since it required direct negotiations and dealings with individual communities, and groups. The British also noted that subjects of the Fulani ruling aristocracy lived a primarily nomadic existence with little attachment to particular pieces of land or ancestral holdings. The peoples of the South East maintained a settled agrarian lifestyle with strong attachment to their land usually handed down from parent to offspring and from one generation to another. The British reasoned that it would be easier for the colonial government to exploit natural resources if rulers with nomadic culture and non attachment to the land were in control of the government in Nigeria. The colonial government then translated these tenets into government policies designed to achieve the objectives of the British administration: the creation, enhancement and advancement of British trade and the protection of British financial interests in Nigeria against other competitors during both the colonial and post colonial eras. To this end the British resolved to: Support and adopt Northern feudal system of government, export it to the south, and destroy the democratic system that was well developed in the south east. They introduced what they called “indirect rule” in both the south west and the south east. It succeeded in the south west but failed miserably in the south east as Easterners clung to their long held democratic tradition. This infuriated not only the British administrators but also northern aristocrats. It was not a surprise when the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello said, “the Igbo (generic term for Easterners) have never been friends of the North and never will be.” Place northern political leaders in an ascendant position to permanently control the government of Nigeria especially after Nigeria achieves independence. To this end the British government allegedly instructed her colonial officers in Nigeria to dramaticallyh during the last census it conducted as a colonial master to assure that even in a democratic dispensation their northern friends will still control the government of Nigeria thereby giving them the much desired guarantee of effective control, enhancement and creation of trade opportunities and protection of British financial interests in Nigeria. By this act British colonial masters made it impossible to conduct a reliable census in Nigeria. Grant any and all requests by northern aristocrats so as to make them allies of the British administration and propagate the belief that their southern counterparts especially from the south east were their enemies whose motives were to destabilize northern feudal society, turn their masses against them, wrestle power from them and flush them from their choice positions of influence and power. So when the northern aristocrats demanded the restriction of Christian evangelization in the north, the British colonial government granted it without question. However it did not impose similar restriction on Islamic expansion in the south. Also when the northern aristocrats demanded that western education because of its alleged corrupting influence be restricted to just a handful of her citizens, essentially the children of northern leaders, the British colonial government acquiesced. Koranic schools became the model in the north while western education flourished in the south. Did the British colonial masters sow the seeds for the tragedy of Boko Haram of today? You be the judge. Reward the loyal feudal government in the north with funds from the south. To this end British colonial government transferred massive amounts of funds from the south to the north for the purposes of administering the north. Proceeds from palm oil trade and taxes in the Niger Coast Protectorate which by the early 1900 had topped 1.5 million pounds sterling were transferred to the north to run the government of northern Nigeria and maintain the lifestyle of the northern aristocracy. In fact this massive transfer of funds from the south to the north was one of the main reasons for the amalgamation of the North and South. Massive transfer of funds (now euphemistically called revenue allocation) from the south east to the north is still the tragedy that is Nigeria today. After implementing these policies the British colonial government decided to seal them with one last deadly slab – bribery and corruption. As a matter of policy the British colonial government corruptly enriched all those in politics, government, and public service who were loyal to the colonial administration. Loyalty to the colonial administration was rewarded witial administration was rewarded with juicy contracts, and access to the finances of the treasury. The colonial government called these loyal locals “our boys.” This practice was across the board – mostly in the north, but also in the west and east and continued among political office holders, and public servants after Nigeria became independent, with devastating consequences. This is the genesis of the terminal cancer of corruption and bribery that has metastasized to every organ in the body of Nigeria and devoured the heart of Nigeria to this day. This was how the British colonial government designed and created Nigeria to be a perpetual human tragedy with intractable problems and unending internal bloody conflicts. It has remained so for one hundred years and counting. Nation states with functioning dictatorships were forcibly lumped together with confederation of autonomous states that loved, cherished, and practiced democratic governance and these were then yoked on to feudal theocracies that hated democracy and progressive ideas and squashed individual freedoms like irritating bugs. How to weld these divergent sociopolitical, economic, and philosophical systems into a workable union was never given serious consideration. Rather all that was done was to amalgamate them through the barrel of the Maxim gun and a wicked scheme that set one group against the other in a deadly cycle of never ending feud and an orgy of unending violence and bloodbath. And so in 2014 we find that all the problems that beset Nigeria in 1914 are still plaguing her and have been magnified to the point where the Nigerian state has been so overwhelmed by the problems that the state exists only through the barrel of AK47’s and massive military weaponry just as was the case in 1914. The Arab leaning people of Kanem Boronu have clearly stated their hatred of democracy and western education and values, expressed their rejection of western judicial system and preference for Sharia legal and judicial systems. They have been joined by their brothers from Kano, Sokoto, Kaduna, to Minna and Bauchi who share similar beliefs and values. They have taken up arms to press their release from the forced union. They made their point clearly in 1914 just as they are making it today one hundred years later. What has been the response of the Nigerian state? Send in the army to force them to accept democracy, and western education, for which they have expressed their deep hatred. In one of my previous essays I discussed democracy thus: “Let us be clear about one thing. Democracy is not a haphazard aggregation of anemic and crazily run institutions. After all Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin Dada, Mobutu Sese Seko, Jean- Bedel Bokassa, Francisco Macias Nguema, Teodoro Obian Nguema Mbasogo, Olusegun Obasanjo, Sanni Abacha, and several others had parliaments supposedly making laws, judiciary interpreting the laws and rendering judgments, government departments conducting day to day public services; had army and police formations to defend the country and “protect the people”; they even organized elections, census, and conducted other affairs of state. But everyone knew that they did not run any democratic governments. It is not these institutions that make democracy.

Welcome to Nma Olebara's Blog

The Tragedy That is Nigeria Written by Dr. Emma Enekwechi Created on 18 January 2014.

On January 1 1914 a British soldier called Fredrick Lugard, appointed by the government of Britain to oversee a big swatch of African territory whose peoples the British had conquered, subjugated, and colonized; people who were vastly, often breathtakingly different from one another in their ethnicity, religion, geography, culture, world views, philosophy of life, beliefs, values, etc amalgamated (not unified) them into a country that his girlfriend had given the name “Nigeria”. The people ranged from the Kanem Bornu in the North East with very strong Arab influence and culture, to the numerous Hausa States conquered and Islamized by the Fulani who having established Caliphates exercised suzerainty over the areas covering Sokoto, Kano, and as far south as Bauchi, and Ilorin; to the Nupe, Kwararafa, Jukun, Tiv in the middle; to the Oyo, Ekiti, Ijebu, Ife and the kingdom of Benin in the South West; to the Aro Confederacy in the South East – stretching from Calabar, Opobo, Bonny, Nembe, Sapele, Agbor, Equatorial Guinea, Southern Cameroons to as far north as Idoma, and Igala, maintaining a Constitutional Monarchy but comprising of fiercely autonomous states that had organized themselves through military conquest, alliances, and treaties into a Confederation of autonomous states. These were the peoples who Fredrick Lugard under the direction of the British government amalgamated into one country called Nigeria. But why did Lugard amalgamate the peoples of what the British called the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria and the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria (including the Colony and Protectorate of Lagos) into one country? Was it to weld the people into one sovereign nation? No. Was it to help the different peoples develop economically or politically? No. Did he do this in consultation and agreement with the governments of the people the British had conquered and overthrown? No. Did he even attempt to consult the leaders of the different political and social units to seek their input and opinion? No. So, why did Lugard amalgamate them without as much as consulting the people concerned? In amalgamating these widely divergent peoples, Lugard and the British had one goal and only one goal in mind and that was to create, enhance and advance British trade in the vast territory it had conquered and occupied. The creation and advancement of British trade and the protection of British financial interest against other European competitors in the newly acquired territory was the sole goal of the tragedy called Nigeria. The amalgamation had zero consideration for the interests, welfare, and progress of the inhabitants of the areas amalgamated. What did Lugard and subsequent British administrations do to enhance unity and understanding among the amalgamated states? The autonomous states of the Aro Confederacy of the Eastern Region and the Kingdom of Benin had given the British invaders nightmares in the fight over rights, concessions and regulations in trade in palm oil and other commodities along the Atlantic coastline. The bloody conflicts of the Aro and Benin expeditions were not to be easily forgotten by the British who now regarded the fiercely independent and assertive inhabitants of the Niger Coast with disdain and hatred and branded them “trouble makers.” It didn’t matter that many of these people who had their traditional religion or were animists had embraced Christianity, and converted to the religion brought by European missionaries. In the North, British colonialists were thrilled that Islam was a religion of obedience and that the masses will without question obediently carry out instructions given by their religious leaders. They also found that Northern leaders were not only suspicious of western education and Christianity but actually rejected both in preference for Koranic education and Islam. In essence the North despised democracy, western education and Christianity preferring feudalism, Koranic education and Islam. Their leaders extracted unquestioning obedience from the masses making it easy for the colonialists to control those masses without having to interact with them directly. Conversely the peoples of the south especially the South East had a long history of self-determination and democracy, loved and embraced western education and massively converted to Christianity which not surprisingly was theologically very close to their traditional religion. However, the British reasoned that these attributes, beliefs and values of Easterners though a mirror image of their own made it difficult to control the masses of these colonized people since it required direct negotiations and dealings with individual communities, and groups. The British also noted that subjects of the Fulani ruling aristocracy lived a primarily nomadic existence with little attachment to particular pieces of land or ancestral holdings. The peoples of the South East maintained a settled agrarian lifestyle with strong attachment to their land usually handed down from parent to offspring and from one generation to another. The British reasoned that it would be easier for the colonial government to exploit natural resources if rulers with nomadic culture and non attachment to the land were in control of the government in Nigeria. The colonial government then translated these tenets into government policies designed to achieve the objectives of the British administration: the creation, enhancement and advancement of British trade and the protection of British financial interests in Nigeria against other competitors during both the colonial and post colonial eras. To this end the British resolved to: Support and adopt Northern feudal system of government, export it to the south, and destroy the democratic system that was well developed in the south east. They introduced what they called “indirect rule” in both the south west and the south east. It succeeded in the south west but failed miserably in the south east as Easterners clung to their long held democratic tradition. This infuriated not only the British administrators but also northern aristocrats. It was not a surprise when the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello said, “the Igbo (generic term for Easterners) have never been friends of the North and never will be.” Place northern political leaders in an ascendant position to permanently control the government of Nigeria especially after Nigeria achieves independence. To this end the British government allegedly instructed her colonial officers in Nigeria to dramatically inflate the population of the north during the last census it conducted as a colonial master to assure that even in a democratic dispensation their northern friends will still control the government of Nigeria thereby giving them the much desired guarantee of effective control, enhancement and creation of trade opportunities and protection of British financial interests in Nigeria. By this act British colonial masters made it impossible to conduct a reliable census in Nigeria. Grant any and all requests by northern aristocrats so as to make them allies of the British administration and propagate the belief that their southern counterparts especially from the south east were their enemies whose motives were to destabilize northern feudal society, turn their masses against them, wrestle power from them and flush them from their choice positions of influence and power. So when the northern aristocrats demanded the restriction of Christian evangelization in the north, the British colonial government granted it without question. However it did not impose similar restriction on Islamic expansion in the south. Also when the northern aristocrats demanded that western education because of its alleged corrupting influence be restricted to just a handful of her citizens, essentially the children of northern leaders, the British colonial government acquiesced. Koranic schools became the model in the north while western education flourished in the south. Did the British colonial masters sow the seeds for the tragedy of Boko Haram of today? You be the judge. Reward the loyal feudal government in the north with funds from the south. To this end British colonial government transferred massive amounts of funds from the south to the north for the purposes of administering the north. Proceeds from palm oil trade and taxes in the Niger Coast Protectorate which by the early 1900 had topped 1.5 million pounds sterling were transferred to the north to run the government of northern Nigeria and maintain the lifestyle of the northern aristocracy. In fact this massive transfer of funds from the south to the north was one of the main reasons for the amalgamation of the North and South. Massive transfer of funds (now euphemistically called revenue allocation) from the south east to the north is still the tragedy that is Nigeria today. After implementing these policies the British colonial government decided to seal them with one last deadly slab – bribery and corruption. As a matter of policy the British colonial government corruptly enriched all those in politics, government, and public service who were loyal to the colonial administration. Loyalty to the colonial administration was rewarded with juicy contracts, and access to the finances of the treasury. The colonial government called these loyal locals “our boys.” This practice was across the board – mostly in the north, but also in the west and east and continued among political office holders, and public servants after Nigeria became independent, with devastating consequences. This is the genesis of the terminal cancer of corruption and bribery that has metastasized to every organ in the body of Nigeria and devoured the heart of Nigeria to this day. This was how the British colonial government designed and created Nigeria to be a perpetual human tragedy with intractable problems and unending internal bloody conflicts. It has remained so for one hundred years and counting. Nation states with functioning dictatorships were forcibly lumped together with confederation of autonomous states that loved, cherished, and practiced democratic governance and these were then yoked on to feudal theocracies that hated democracy and progressive ideas and squashed individual freedoms like irritating bugs. How to weld these divergent sociopolitical, economic, and philosophical systems into a workable union was never given serious consideration. Rather all that was done was to amalgamate them through the barrel of the Maxim gun and a wicked scheme that set one group against the other in a deadly cycle of never ending feud and an orgy of unending violence and bloodbath. And so in 2014 we find that all the problems that beset Nigeria in 1914 are still plaguing her and have been magnified to the point where the Nigerian state has been so overwhelmed by the problems that the state exists only through the barrel of AK47’s and massive military weaponry just as was the case in 1914. The Arab leaning people of Kanem Boronu have clearly stated their hatred of democracy and western education and values, expressed their rejection of western judicial system and preference for Sharia legal and judicial systems. They have been joined by their brothers from Kano, Sokoto, Kaduna, to Minna and Bauchi who share similar beliefs and values. They have taken up arms to press their release from the forced union. They made their point clearly in 1914 just as they are making it today one hundred years later. What has been the response of the Nigerian state? Send in the army to force them to accept democracy, and western education, for which they have expressed their deep hatred. In one of my previous essays I discussed democracy thus: “Let us be clear about one thing. Democracy is not a haphazard aggregation of anemic and crazily run institutions. After all Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin Dada, Mobutu Sese Seko, Jean- Bedel Bokassa, Francisco Macias Nguema, Teodoro Obian Nguema Mbasogo, Olusegun Obasanjo, Sanni Abacha, and several others had parliaments supposedly making laws, judiciary interpreting the laws and rendering judgments, government departments conducting day to day public services; had army and police formations to defend the country and “protect the people”; they even organized elections, census, and conducted other affairs of state. But everyone knew that they did not run any democratic governments. It is not these institutions that make democracy.

The biafra massacre is as real or fake as the chibok girls kidnap and rescue.

Well Gen Gowon owned up to the mass execution of helpless civilians in Asaba and environs. His apologies for the evil committed by murtala mohammed and ibrahim taiwo show govt was aware of the genocide but tried to cover up facts.
well forgiveness is a faster way to recieve healing

blues20:
These are unbiased report from foreign observers.

like the foreign observers that participated in the chibok scam?
there was nothing like genocide. it's all propaganda to curry sympathy from international community.

blues20:

These are unbiased report from foreign observers.

Its a scam. Nothing like genocide, big scam.

Big genocide . Nigeria should apologise

Biafra genocide is a big scam like the Chibok girls

victorvezx:
Biafra genocide is a big scam like the Chibok girls

bosco2017:
Big genocide . Nigeria should apologise

Machinery11:


Its a scam. Nothing like genocide, big scam.

Its genocide, can't you live alone without Igbos?

See them, APShit zombies running amok to discredit a properly documented historical fact. The images and videos of starving Biafran children and mothers abound on the internet. Why will you evil minded Nigerians not claim its a scam? As long as you, APShit zombies, can maintain the status quo, in your delusion, with the bid bury the truth; but don't forget that karma is a blind bittch, that will continue dealing with Nigeria till infinity.
.....my likes don't even give a fuvck on the Chibog girls scandal. Whether its real or scam, that's your fuvcking business,. But don't mess with historical facts. Those innocent Biafran children you starved to dearth are still crying for justice. Mutherfuckers.

[s]

blues20:
See them, APShit zombies running amok to discredit a properly documented historical fact. The images and videos of starving Biafran children and mothers abound on the internet. Why will you evil minded Nigerians not claim its a scam? As long as you, APShit zombies, can maintain the status quo, in your delusion, with the bid bury the truth; but don't forget that karma is a blind bittch, that will continue dealing with Nigeria till infinity.
.....my likes don't even give a fuvck on the Chibog girls scandal. Whether its real or scam, that's your fuvcking business,. But don't mess with historical facts. Those innocent Biafran children you starved to dearth are still crying for justice. Mutherfuckers.

[/s]

You will just kill yourself, its a big scam just like the chibok girls. The images are photoshop pics like those of those chibok. Die if you hate the truth

Now is a scam when evidence is staring at you.Nigeria will not have peace till the right thing is done

ruggedizedd:
[s][/s]

You will just kill yourself, its a big scam just like the chibok girls. The images are photoshop pics like those of those chibok. Die if you hate the truth

You are a Nigerian, even your president is a scam. Deal with it. Anufia.

blues20:

You are a Nigerian, even your president is a scam. Deal with it. Anufia.

I am half Nigerian. You and your loudmouthed people are even more Nigerian than everyone in that country, cos you troop to other region daily, yet make noise online. Cry or kill yourself if the truth hurts, its a scam. Onye Oshi

misterme:

‘It is relevant however that not only the Ibos, but all Easterners – including the Minority Peoples, Ibibio, Efik, Ijaw etc were victims of Northern massacres and expulsions. According to refugees, the only non-Northerners generally spared in those events were those who wore the dress or bore the distinctive face markings of the Yoruba tribe of the West.’ [“A Condemned People”, Conor Cruise O’Brien, The New York Review of Books, December 21, 1967">

‘Nigerian soldiers have massacred more than 500 Biafran civilians in the town of Urua Inyang on the southern war front. Most of the townspeople are members of a minority tribe, Annang … Most of the refugees were Annang, Ibibio, Efik, and Ogoni.’ [Charles Taylor, Toronto Globe and Mail, October, 10, 1968.">

‘The Associated Press reported yesterday from Umuahia that 500 persons died Saturday night in the shelling of a Biafran town and refugee camp at Urua Inyang south of Aba. Refugees from the camp said Nigerian troops entered the town yesterday morning.’ [Toronto Globe and Mail, October 7, 1968">.

So the question remains, ‘Did the federal government of Nigeria engage in the genocide of its Igbo citizens through their punitive policies, the most notorious being starvation as a legitimate weapon of war?’ This question is now howling like hurricane wind. Everyone must keep asking this question until Nigeria and the world give us an answer. The calculated murder of one to three million Igbo children is a heinous crime against humanity. Every Igbo and indeed every Nigeria who has conscience must join in asking for a response to this question. Many of the people who orchestrated this genocide are still alive and must be held accountable. The collective voices of three million children are crying out for justice.

As you can see in this piece, there is almost nothing Chinua Achebe said in his work about the activities of Nigerian leaders during the Nigeria Biafra war that has not been said before and even in stronger language. So why have Nigerian leaders especially from the Western Region been attacking him so viciously and with such vituperative and acerbic venom? Why did they keep dragging Prof. Wole Soyinka (one of the foremost defenders of the rights of Biafrans) into this? Soyinka who was actually thrown in jail by Nigerian dictators for standing up for justice for Biafrans? Did they ever read his book ‘The Man Died’?

After 30,000 -100,000 Easterners, men, women, and children were massacred by Northerners all over Northern Nigeria from May 29th to October 1966, what did Yoruba leaders do? Remember that the immediate goal of the coup of January 15th 1966 was to forestall the ‘walloping of the West’ according to Adewale Ademoyega, one of the key three planners of the coup. So what did Yoruba leaders do? They sent a delegation of Yoruba Obas (traditional rulers) to tour the North and to thank Northern Emirs and political leaders for not killing Yorubas during the pogrom [Ekwe-Ekwe">. They did not go there to say that the killing of Igbo and other Easterners was wrong or to demand that the wholesale slaughter of unarmed civilians must stop. No. They just thanked the Emirs for not killing Yoruba.

Which of the Nigerian Army officers that committed the mass murder of civilians, raping of defenseless women and girls at Benin, Warri, Sapele, Asaba, Onitsha, Aba, Umuahia, Port Harcourt, Ameke-Item, Ngwa, and Abakaliki etc were ever punished for their crimes?

Chinua Achebe and his family like thousands of other families from the Eastern Region were chased out of Western Region and Lagos in 1967 like thieves for no other reason than they were Igbo. I have never heard Achebe say that anyone called him this past forty years to apologize for treating him and his family like criminals. Note that thousands of Igbo residing all over Yoruba land and Lagos were not so lucky to escape to the East. They were killed by their Yoruba neighbors and co-workers and never lived to write about their experience or to tell their stories. Who knows what many of these people would have been. Some may have been as famous as Achebe or even more. But they never lived to be who God created them to be. If you are 43 years and older; lived in Eastern Region in 1966-70, and you are alive today, it is partly because of the valor of Biafran soldiers and the heroism of Biafran administrators as well as the magnanimity of God that you are alive today. As you can see from these accounts Nigeria never wanted you to live.

Nigerians have never told themselves the truth about what happened from 1966-1970 and immediately after. Nigerians have been lying to themselves and their children about their history, the absurdity of yoking together people who do not share much in common except that somebody roped their nations together and gave them a name and then told them that they must be one country. Since the amalgamation they have mindlessly slaughtered more than four million of themselves in the stupidity of remaining one unworkable country. Some groups have been forced to live with other groups that hate them with a passion. As the harvest of this hatred, the mindless slaughter of millions of innocent people piles up, the plutocrats pretending to run the government revel in their ability to loot every government treasury on which they can lay their hands. The result is degradation of the environment, decay of society and despair of the people culminating in chaos and unprecedented human suffering for our people. This is what Nigeria is today.

So what does the future hold for Nigeria? Anyone who says that Nigeria as a country and as it is today is working is delusional. No, Nigeria is not working and will not work. The different groups in Nigeria must sit down in an environment of total freedom and decide for themselves who wants to continue to be in One Nigeria and who wants out. Those who want out of Nigeria must be free to leave without conditions while those who want to remain in One Nigeria exercise their right to do so. Biafrans want out of Nigeria; I repeat, Biafrans want out of Nigeria. Until the Igbo and indeed other nations that make up Nigeria are free to express their choices without hindrance or let, the societal decay, personal desperation and attendant chaos will continue and get worse. History has taught us that no amount of force can stop a people indefinitely from demanding and exercising their freedom, liberty, and self determination. Nigerians have a choice – face this reality and deal with it or continue to live a lie.

* BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

This report is slanted. There is no report of Igbos bombing of public spaces in Lagos, thereby killing so many Yoruba people. This happened at a time when the Yoruba people were not participating in the war.

What about the attempted invasion of Yorubaland by Igbo's (ie the Biafran Army) while the Yoruba people were minding their own business, not actually participating in the war.

The Igbos got what they deserve during the war. I have never felt any pity for them for what happened to them in the war.

Trouble dey sleep, dem go wake am.mtchew ;

misterme:
Welcome to Nma Olebara's Blog

The Tragedy That is Nigeria Written by Dr. Emma Enekwechi Created on 18 January 2014.

On January 1 1914 a British soldier called Fredrick Lugard, appointed by the government of Britain to oversee a big swatch of African territory whose peoples the British had conquered, subjugated, and colonized; people who were vastly, often breathtakingly different from one another in their ethnicity, religion, geography, culture, world views, philosophy of life, beliefs, values, etc amalgamated (not unified) them into a country that his girlfriend had given the name “Nigeria”. The people ranged from the Kanem Bornu in the North East with very strong Arab influence and culture, to the numerous Hausa States conquered and Islamized by the Fulani who having established Caliphates exercised suzerainty over the areas covering Sokoto, Kano, and as far south as Bauchi, and Ilorin; to the Nupe, Kwararafa, Jukun, Tiv in the middle; to the Oyo, Ekiti, Ijebu, Ife and the kingdom of Benin in the South West; to the Aro Confederacy in the South East – stretching from Calabar, Opobo, Bonny, Nembe, Sapele, Agbor, Equatorial Guinea, Southern Cameroons to as far north as Idoma, and Igala, maintaining a Constitutional Monarchy but comprising of fiercely autonomous states that had organized themselves through military conquest, alliances, and treaties into a Confederation of autonomous states. These were the peoples who Fredrick Lugard under the direction of the British government amalgamated into one country called Nigeria. But why did Lugard amalgamate the peoples of what the British called the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria and the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria (including the Colony and Protectorate of Lagos) into one country? Was it to weld the people into one sovereign nation? No. Was it to help the different peoples develop economically or politically? No. Did he do this in consultation and agreement with the governments of the people the British had conquered and overthrown? No. Did he even attempt to consult the leaders of the different political and social units to seek their input and opinion? No. So, why did Lugard amalgamate them without as much as consulting the people concerned? In amalgamating these widely divergent peoples, Lugard and the British had one goal and only one goal in mind and that was to create, enhance and advance British trade in the vast territory it had conquered and occupied. The creation and advancement of British trade and the protection of British financial interest against other European competitors in the newly acquired territory was the sole goal of the tragedy called Nigeria. The amalgamation had zero consideration for the interests, welfare, and progress of the inhabitants of the areas amalgamated. What did Lugard and subsequent British administrations do to enhance unity and understanding among the amalgamated states? The autonomous states of the Aro Confederacy of the Eastern Region and the Kingdom of Benin had given the British invaders nightmares in the fight over rights, concessions and regulations in trade in palm oil and other commodities along the Atlantic coastline. The bloody conflicts of the Aro and Benin expeditions were not to be easily forgotten by the British who now regarded the fiercely independent and assertive inhabitants of the Niger Coast with disdain and hatred and branded them “trouble makers.” It didn’t matter that many of these people who had their traditional religion or were animists had embraced Christianity, and converted to the religion brought by European missionaries. In the North, British colonialists were thrilled that Islam was a religion of obedience and that the masses will without question obediently carry out instructions given by their religious leaders. They also found that Northern leaders were not only suspicious of western education and Christianity but actually rejected both in preference for Koranic education and Islam. In essence the North despised democracy, western education and Christianity preferring feudalism, Koranic education and Islam. Their leaders extracted unquestioning obedience from the masses making it easy for the colonialists to control those masses without having to interact with them directly. Conversely the peoples of the south especially the South East had a long history of self-determination and democracy, loved and embraced western education and massively converted to Christianity which not surprisingly was theologically very close to their traditional religion. However, the British reasoned that these attributes, beliefs and values of Easterners though a mirror image of their own made it difficult to control the masses of these colonized people since it required direct negotiations and dealings with individual communities, and groups. The British also noted that subjects of the Fulani ruling aristocracy lived a primarily nomadic existence with little attachment to particular pieces of land or ancestral holdings. The peoples of the South East maintained a settled agrarian lifestyle with strong attachment to their land usually handed down from parent to offspring and from one generation to another. The British reasoned that it would be easier for the colonial government to exploit natural resources if rulers with nomadic culture and non attachment to the land were in control of the government in Nigeria. The colonial government then translated these tenets into government policies designed to achieve the objectives of the British administration: the creation, enhancement and advancement of British trade and the protection of British financial interests in Nigeria against other competitors during both the colonial and post colonial eras. To this end the British resolved to: Support and adopt Northern feudal system of government, export it to the south, and destroy the democratic system that was well developed in the south east. They introduced what they called “indirect rule” in both the south west and the south east. It succeeded in the south west but failed miserably in the south east as Easterners clung to their long held democratic tradition. This infuriated not only the British administrators but also northern aristocrats. It was not a surprise when the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello said, “the Igbo (generic term for Easterners) have never been friends of the North and never will be.” Place northern political leaders in an ascendant position to permanently control the government of Nigeria especially after Nigeria achieves independence. To this end the British government allegedly instructed her colonial officers in Nigeria to dramatically inflate the population of the north during the last census it conducted as a colonial master to assure that even in a democratic dispensation their northern friends will still control the government of Nigeria thereby giving them the much desired guarantee of effective control, enhancement and creation of trade opportunities and protection of British financial interests in Nigeria. By this act British colonial masters made it impossible to conduct a reliable census in Nigeria. Grant any and all requests by northern aristocrats so as to make them allies of the British administration and propagate the belief that their southern counterparts especially from the south east were their enemies whose motives were to destabilize northern feudal society, turn their masses against them, wrestle power from them and flush them from their choice positions of influence and power. So when the northern aristocrats demanded the restriction of Christian evangelization in the north, the British colonial government granted it without question. However it did not impose similar restriction on Islamic expansion in the south. Also when the northern aristocrats demanded that western education because of its alleged corrupting influence be restricted to just a handful of her citizens, essentially the children of northern leaders, the British colonial government acquiesced. Koranic schools became the model in the north while western education flourished in the south. Did the British colonial masters sow the seeds for the tragedy of Boko Haram of today? You be the judge. Reward the loyal feudal government in the north with funds from the south. To this end British colonial government transferred massive amounts of funds from the south to the north for the purposes of administering the north. Proceeds from palm oil trade and taxes in the Niger Coast Protectorate which by the early 1900 had topped 1.5 million pounds sterling were transferred to the north to run the government of northern Nigeria and maintain the lifestyle of the northern aristocracy. In fact this massive transfer of funds from the south to the north was one of the main reasons for the amalgamation of the North and South. Massive transfer of funds (now euphemistically called revenue allocation) from the south east to the north is still the tragedy that is Nigeria today. After implementing these policies the British colonial government decided to seal them with one last deadly slab – bribery and corruption. As a matter of policy the British colonial government corruptly enriched all those in politics, government, and public service who were loyal to the colonial administration. Loyalty to the colonial administration was rewarded with juicy contracts, and access to the finances of the treasury. The colonial government called these loyal locals “our boys.” This practice was across the board – mostly in the north, but also in the west and east and continued among political office holders, and public servants after Nigeria became independent, with devastating consequences. This is the genesis of the terminal cancer of corruption and bribery that has metastasized to every organ in the body of Nigeria and devoured the heart of Nigeria to this day. This was how the British colonial government designed and created Nigeria to be a perpetual human tragedy with intractable problems and unending internal bloody conflicts. It has remained so for one hundred years and counting. Nation states with functioning dictatorships were forcibly lumped together with confederation of autonomous states that loved, cherished, and practiced democratic governance and these were then yoked on to feudal theocracies that hated democracy and progressive ideas and squashed individual freedoms like irritating bugs. How to weld these divergent sociopolitical, economic, and philosophical systems into a workable union was never given serious consideration. Rather all that was done was to amalgamate them through the barrel of the Maxim gun and a wicked scheme that set one group against the other in a deadly cycle of never ending feud and an orgy of unending violence and bloodbath. And so in 2014 we find that all the problems that beset Nigeria in 1914 are still plaguing her and have been magnified to the point where the Nigerian state has been so overwhelmed by the problems that the state exists only through the barrel of AK47’s and massive military weaponry just as was the case in 1914. The Arab leaning people of Kanem Boronu have clearly stated their hatred of democracy and western education and values, expressed their rejection of western judicial system and preference for Sharia legal and judicial systems. They have been joined by their brothers from Kano, Sokoto, Kaduna, to Minna and Bauchi who share similar beliefs and values. They have taken up arms to press their release from the forced union. They made their point clearly in 1914 just as they are making it today one hundred years later. What has been the response of the Nigerian state? Send in the army to force them to accept democracy, and western education, for which they have expressed their deep hatred. In one of my previous essays I discussed democracy thus: “Let us be clear about one thing. Democracy is not a haphazard aggregation of anemic and crazily run institutions. After all Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin Dada, Mobutu Sese Seko, Jean- Bedel Bokassa, Francisco Macias Nguema, Teodoro Obian Nguema Mbasogo, Olusegun Obasanjo, Sanni Abacha, and several others had parliaments supposedly making laws, judiciary interpreting the laws and rendering judgments, government departments conducting day to day public services; had army and police formations to defend the country and “protect the people”; they even organized elections, census, and conducted other affairs of state. But everyone knew that they did not run any democratic governments. It is not these institutions that make democracy.

Nonsence history. As if there are no other formerly colonised countries where its people are living together in peace.

Instead of fighting for the future of Nigeria, they are busy planning how to dominate minority ethnic group closer to them and their resources. Mtchew

Few reasons history was abolished in schools in Nigeria.

BIAFRA MASSACRE OF 1967--1970:
Author : Femi Fani Kayode.

“I want to see no Red Cross, no Caritas, no World Council of Churches, no Pope, no missionary, no UN delegation. I want to prevent even one Ibo from having even one piece to eat before their capitulation. We shoot at everything that moves and when our troops march into the centre of Ibo territory, we shoot at everything, even things that do not move” (Benjamin Adekunle, Commander, 3rd Marine Commander Division, Nigerian Army to French Radio Reporter).

“All is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I don’t see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight harder”, (Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Nigerian Minister of Finance, July 28, 1969)

“Until now efforts to relieve the Biafran people have been thwarted by the desire of the central government to pursue total and unconditional victory and by the fear of the Ibo people that surrender means wholesale atrocities and genocide. But genocide is what is taking place right now and starvation is the grim reaper. This is not the time to stand on ceremony, or go through channels or to observe diplomatic niceties. The destruction of an entire people is immoral objective, even in the most moral of wars. It can never be condoned”, (Richard Nixon, during the presidential campaign, September 9, 1968)

“Federal troops killed, or stood while mobs killed, more than 5000 Ibos in Warri, Sapele, Agbor” (New York Times, 10th January, 1968).

“Its (mass starvation) is a legitimate aspect of war (Anthony Enahoro, Nigerian Commissioner for Information at a press conference in New York, July 1968)

“Starvation is a weapon of war, and we have every intention of using it against the rebels” (Mr Alison Ayida, Head of Nigerian delegation, Niamey Peace talks, July 1968.)

“The Igbos must be considerably reduced in number”, Lagos Policeman quoted in New York Review 21 December, 1967)

“One word now describes the policy of the Nigerian military government towards secessionist Biafra: genocide. It is ugly and extreme but it is the only word which fits Nigeria’s decision to stop international Red Cross and other relief agencies from flying food to Biafra ( Washington Post editorial, July 2, 1969).

“In some areas in the East, Igbos were killed by local people with at least the acquiescence of the Federal forces, 1000 Igbo civilians perished in Benin in this way” (Max Edward Reporter, reporter on the ground - New York Review, 21 December 1967).

“After federal forces take over Benin, troops killed about 500 Igbo civilians after a house to house search with the aid of willing locals” (Washington Morning Post, 27 September, 1967)

“The greatest single massacre occurred in the Igbo town of Asaba where 700 Igbo male were lined up and shot as terrified women/children were forced to watch” (London Observer, 21 January,1968)

“Federal troops killed or stood by while mobs killed more than 5000 Ibos in Warri, Sapele, Agbor (New York Times, 10th January, 1968).

“There has been genocide on the occasion of the 1966 massacres, the region between the towns of Benin and Asaba where only widows and orphans remain, federal troops having, for unknown reasons, massacred all the men” (Paris Le Monde, 5th April, 1968)

“In Calabar, federal forces shot at least 1000 and perhaps 2000 Igbos, most of them civilians” (New York Times, 18th January,1968)

“Bestialities and indignities of all kinds were visited on the Biafrans in 1966. In Ikeja Barracks (Western Nigeria) Biafrans were forcibly fed on a mixture of human urine and faeces. In Northern Nigeria numerous housewives and nursing mothers were violated before their husbands and children. Young girls were abducted from their homes, walking places and schools and forced into intercourse with sick, demented and leprous men” (Mr Eric Spiff, German War Correspondent, eyewitness, 1967)

“650 refugee camps, contained about 700,000 haggard

When Opposites Repel: Why Biafrans and Nigerians cannot coexist successfully in one
By Osita Ebiem
Fri Apr 1, 2011

To understand the absurd and often incomprehensible things that have been happening in Nigeria for a very long time, one must go back hundreds of years. When Europeans first came to West Africa the nations they met included the Igbo, Ibibio, Efik, Ijaw, in the East; the Bini, Ijaw, Urhobo and Itsekiri in the middle, and the Egba, and Ijebu in the West. Most of the nations in the East were functioning democracies. Europeans established trade and commerce with these nations, signed treaties, and some even exchanged ambassadors with the governments of these nations.

Later, greed and avarice led the Europeans to treacherously overthrow the leaders of these nations, and impose colonial rule on these otherwise independent nations. In the scramble to forcibly take possession of the lands, resources, and even people of these nations, European governments sitting around a conference table in 1885, simply put pencil and ruler to a map and divided the lands of Africa and the people living in them among themselves, thus arbitrarily creating some of the most incongruous and artificial states known to man. In the case of Nigeria, by June 1885, The London Gazette announced that a British Protectorate had been established in “the territories on both banks of the River Niger from its confluence with the River Benue at Lokoja to the sea as well as the territories on both banks of the River Benue from the confluence up to and including Ibi.”

The British then renamed the territory in the East “the Oil Rivers Protectorate” and later the “Niger Coast Protectorate.” On January 1, 1900 the British Government officially took over the administration of The Niger Coast Protectorate from the Royal Niger Company. When they added the areas south of Idah, they renamed the Eastern Region “the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria” with headquarters at Calabar and made Sir Ralph Moore its High Commissioner (administrator). Then the British set their sights on the nations to the north. After conquering territories under the Sokoto Caliphate, including the Emirates of Kano, Katsina, Zaria, Borno, Gombe, Adamawa, Nupe and Ilorin as well as territories north of Idah, the British renamed this area “The Protectorate of Northern Nigeria with headquarters at Jebba, later moved to Zungeru and finally to Kaduna, and appointed Sir Fredrick Lugard its High Commissioner (administrator). In 1906, The British Government added the Colony and Protectorate of Lagos to the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria and renamed it “The Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria.”

The British Government noted that the territories under the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria had radically different form of government and social structure than those in the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria. The peoples of the North practiced a feudal, dictatorial, system of government. The people had no representatives in the government. The Emir appointed Caliphs, Village Heads and other lieutenants who “ruled” different communities and who were answerable only to the Emir. There was no rule of law. The people had absolutely no rights whatsoever. The Emir and his lieutenants constituted the judiciary and the Emir possessed the power of life and death over his “subjects”. There was no right to private property as all property belonged to the Emir and his lieutenants. They levied and collected taxes as they pleased and accounted only to the Emir who accounted to nobody. The people believed that the Emir was appointed by God and possessed the “Divine Right” to rule them including the right to own all property.

Individual’s status in their society was determined by his or her birth (ascribed), not as a result of his or her hard work, talent, skill, and achievement (achieved) in society. Entrepreneurship which could lead to accumulation of wealth by “a commoner” was severely discouraged as it could lead to the garnering of economic power and eventually to heretic challenge of the divine authority of the “God anointed” Emir. Thus, society in the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria was segregated into two classes: the aristocrats (The Caliphs, Emirs, village heads, their sons and daughters, in-laws and other members of the ruling class) who owned and controlled everything and everybody; and the “talakawas”, commoners, who owned and controlled nothing, including their lives. Governance and indeed all aspects of life were based on “spoils or patronage system.” Life inside the Emirate Administrations was characterized by subterfuge, intrigues, and massive corruption as people jockeyed for power, and control using all imaginable means and tactics to secure an advantage.

The British government found this system very attractive and conducive to colonial administration. British administrators did not have to deal with the masses in the North. They ruled the people through the Emirs and did not care what the Emirs did to the people.

In the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, especially in Eastern Region, the political system, government and social structure were radically different from what obtained in the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria. Easterners were extremely republican in their political philosophy and practice. The people of the East ran a highly organized democratic system of government structured around community assembly. Meetings where decisions were made were often held in the village square. The community assembly vested executive and legislative power in elected leaders of the different communities. The elected leaders were accountable to the people in their different communities and were rewarded, punished or removed from office according to their performance in the judgment of the community assembly. The communities emphasized individual rights and vigorously enforced and defended them. The right to private ownership of property was conceived as “natural right” and thus was non-negotiable and not amenable to the whims and caprices of any laws irrespective of who made them. Freedom of speech was jealously guarded. Entrepreneurship was highly encouraged and hard work using the individual’s skills, talents and abilities was the hub around which every individual and community advancement revolved. Competition among individuals, communities, and social groups was the standard means of demonstrating talent, skill, ability, competence, and achievement, as well as accumulating wealth, acquiring status, and ensuring economic prosperity. Communities in the East had very efficient judicial systems which relied on the services of highly respected elders, titled men, and women, “Umuada/Umuokpu”, and in extremely difficult cases special masquerades which were portrayed as ancestral spirits possessing omnipotent and omniscient powers. Governance and indeed all aspects of life were based almost exclusively on the “merit system.”

The British government found this system in the East repulsive as it made the administration of the colony complex. British colonial administrators had the unenviable task of dealing with each community and its leaders. This was quite tedious and so the British government immediately sought to import the feudal system in the North into the East by appointing “Paramount Chiefs” to “rule” the people dictatorially just like the Emirs in the North. This failed woefully as exemplified in the Aba Women Revolution of 1929 during which women of Eastern Region (Efik, Ibibio, Igbo, Ijaw and others) in an unprecedented act of heroism revolted against the tax policies and practices of these Chiefs; sacked, humiliated and

This failed woefully as exemplified in the Aba Women Revolution of 1929 during which women of Eastern Region (Efik, Ibibio, Igbo, Ijaw and others) in an unprecedented act of heroism revolted against the tax policies and practices of these Chiefs; sacked, humiliated and forced them to renounce their appointments and titles, then went ahead and sacked the divisional administrations, their offices, and trading posts belonging to the British government. In a shameful and dastardly act of cowardice the British government brought in her soldiers who shot and killed more than forty unarmed, defenseless women protesters who carried no weapons but green leaves and their flapping boobs.

Thus the North and the South were administered as separate entities in recognition of these huge differences. But the North was not generating enough revenue to run its government so revenue from the South was funneled to the North to administer that territory. Then on January 1, 1914, the British government ordered Sir Fredrick Lugard to “amalgamate” (not unite) the North and South. He did, and then went on to remark most prophetically that “the North and the South are like oil and water, they will never mix.”

This has been the status of Nigeria since the amalgamation of the North and the South almost one hundred years ago. Therefore it should not shock anyone with even a modicum of honesty that Nigeria has been like a blind, lame, and mentally retarded centenarian (my apologies to the physically and mentally challenged people of the world) incapable of wiping its nose and euphemistically often putting food in the wrong orifice in its body. In one hundred years Nigeria has not been able to organize one credible census, or a general election. Her so-called democratic institutions (judiciary, police, public service, executive, and parliament) constitute the laughing stock of the world. The education system, the hitherto lone star in her cap has finally been dismantled, disfigured, and beaten into the mud. This state rather than resembling a well-oiled automobile looks like a heap of scrap metal.

All you hear now is DEMOCRACY!, DEMOCRACY!!, DEMOCRACY!!!, with criminals of all strips, shapes, sizes, and genders jostling to get their snots into the money trough often with the aid of international collaborators who believe that “any democracy” no matter how rotten, stinky, polluted, and denatured is good enough for the African despite the fact that the Igbo, Efik, Ibibio, and Ijaw, for example, have practiced elegant democracy for hundreds of years.

Let us be clear about one thing. Democracy is not a haphazard aggregation of anemic and crazy democratic institutions. It is a state of mind, a set of beliefs, values, and attitudes rooted in deep philosophical precepts that form the core of a people’s concept of the relationship between men, women, children, social groups, and communities. These attitudes are mediated by clear, intrinsically reinforced beliefs about the “self” and “other” in social, interpersonal, and international relationships. Such beliefs as these: (I am a free person entitled to my freedom, liberty and individual rights; other persons are equally entitled to their freedom, liberty and individual rights. I have a right to own and control my private property and so do other persons. I have to work hard using my talents, skills, and abilities in order to make achievements which will attract requisite rewards based on merit for my labor. Other persons are entitled to be rewarded based on merit for their labor and achievement when they work hard using their talents, skills and abilities; the society I live in is governed by laws which are applicable to everyone and no one is above the law.) These beliefs are etched indelibly in the minds of citizens of democratic societies and form the core, the moral compass by which they navigate complex interpersonal and intergroup relationships. Justice, peace, and

Justice, peace, and economic prosperity derive from the unshakable belief in, robust enforcement and defense of these fundamental principles of interpersonal, inter-communal, and international relationships.

In the process of safeguarding and propagating these high democratic principles, social groups, communities, nations, establish institutions that protect, defend, and guarantee the observance of these high democratic precepts. Such institutions include independent, impartial judiciary; freely elected representatives, executives, as well as legislators, to form a government of the people, for the people by the people; non corrupt, honest government security agents (police, and other uniformed services); free and unencumbered press that guarantees free access to information; and honest and efficient public servants among others. The mere existence of these institutions especially if they are corrupted and denatured does not constitute “democracy”. It is the belief in, and honest application of these principles, as well as their robust enforcement through these democratic institutions that qualifies a political system to be described as “a democracy.”

The challenge for any person from the Eastern Region who still believes that somehow, sometime, by some magic the people of Eastern Region and those of Nigeria will meld into one progressive democratic state is to demonstrate the magical means by which they will weld together a republican people whose citizens are used to robust representative democracy, and a feudal system whose subjects are accustomed to the oppressive and retrogressive paraphernalia of vile dictatorship. How will you reconcile two systems in which one believes in the private ownership and control of property and the other believes in the ownership and control of all property by a dictator? How will you reconcile two systems in which one believes in individual freedom, liberty, and respect of human rights, and the other believes in bondage, no individual freedom, no liberty and abhors human rights? How do you reconcile two systems in which one believes in open society and individual entrepreneurship leading to individual accumulation of wealth, and the other believes in closed society and the concentration of all the instruments of wealth generation in the hands of a dictator resulting in resignation, hopelessness and laziness among the subjects? How will you reconcile two systems in which one believes in, encourages, and literally worships individual achievement, and the other actively scorns, suppresses, and squashes, individual achievement? How can you reconcile two systems in which one believes in individual’s status in society resulting from recognition and reward of talent, skill, ability and achievement (achievement orientation), and the other believes in individual’s status in society being determined by which aristocratic family he or she was born into (ascribed status)? How can you reconcile two systems in which one believes in economic prosperity for all who merit it through their individual hard work and personal efforts, and another that believes in economic prosperity for a handful through corruption, stealing, massive looting of public funds and all forms of criminality? How in God’s name can you reconcile two systems in which one is based purely on patronage and spoils and the other is based almost exclusively on merit? How can you perform this magic?

As you look at this, it will no longer be difficult for you to surmise that believing in One Nigeria as presently constituted is like believing in fool’s gold. The entity called Nigeria is a lie. The man who “amalgamated” the North and South knew that one hundred years ago and said so quite clearly (the North and South are like oil and water, they will never mix). All the “rulers” of Nigeria past and present are fully aware of this truth. They know that Nigerians and Easterners, henceforth called Biafrans are incompatible. They cause aversion to each other. They don’t attract each other. They are incompatible opposites and rebuff each other. Nigerians repel Biafrans. What other explanations could be proffered for more than thirty highly organized, massive, homicidal attacks by Nigerians against Biafrans since 1945? What explanations would anyone give for organized looting and burning of private property of Biafrans by Nigerians in numerous cities, towns, and villages all over Nigeria every single year? What explanation would anyone give for the savage slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent Biafran men, women, children, and even babies in towns and villages all over Nigeria by organized Nigerian mobs from 1945 till date?

Is it lack of democracy that caused these Nigerians to commit these heinous crimes against Biafrans? No. Nigeria was practicing “democracy” as far back as 1956 during self- government. This was interrupted by military dictatorship from 1966 to 1979, followed again by democracy from 1979 to 1983, then interrupted again from 1983 to 1999. Nigeria has again been practicing democracy from 1999 to date, 2011. Apart from 1966 to 1970, the period of the Nigeria-Biafra war, more Biafrans have been mindlessly slaughtered by Nigerians from 1999 to 2011 in democratic administrations than at any other time. So what has democracy got to do with it? Nothing!

Is it lack of leadership that made Nigerians commit these heinous crimes against Biafrans? No. Actually the people who kill Biafrans, loot and burn their property are organized by intelligent, well educated, strategists in Nigeria. They are very capable leaders of various groups in Nigeria. But when you listen to their public utterances you clearly can discern their motives for organizing these regular massacring of Biafrans all over Nigeria. Nigerians have said it time and again, overtly and covertly that Nigeria and Biafra are incompatible; that they repel each other; that as Lord Lugard said they are like oil and water and cannot mix. In 1947, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, OBE, CBE, who later became the Prime Minister of Nigeria and who was lionized as a great leader of Nigeria by the British Government said in the Northern Region’s House of Assembly: “We do not want sir, our Southern neighbours to interfere in our development. I should like to make it clear to you that if the British quitted Nigeria now at this stage, the Northern people would continue their interrupted conquest to the sea.” Again in 1948 Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa stated at the Legislative Council meeting: “Since 1914 the British Government has been trying to make Nigeria into one country, but the Nigerian people themselves are historically different in their backgrounds, in their religious beliefs and customs and do not show themselves any sign of willingness to unite... Nigerian unity is only a British intention for the country.”

The first premier of Northern Nigeria, Alhaji Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sarduana of Sokoto and the most powerful leader in Northern Nigeria then said on October 12, 1960, less than two weeks after Nigeria gained flag independence from Britain: “The new nation called Nigeria should be an estate from out great grandfather, Othman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We must use the minorities in the North as willing tools, and the south as conquered territories and never allow them to have control of their future” (The Parrot (newspaper), October 12, 1960)

In 1964 during a budget session in the Northern House of Assembly Mallam Maude Ahmadu Sidi Gyani, member of the house for Zaria Southwest stated amidst applause: “I will use my position as district head to draft all the native authority policemen at my command to deal with the Igbo.”

In 1966 after participating in the slaughter of Biafrans and anointing himself Head of State and Supreme Commander of Nigeria, Yakubu Gowon actually stated: “Taking everything into consideration, the basis of unity (in Nigeria ) is not there.” People of the Eastern Region what else do you want to hear to be convinced that Nigerians do not like you, do not want to be with you and for all practical purposes see you as their sworn enemies. You can pretend as much as you like about “democracy” and “leadership” being the problem with Nigeria. You can continue with this self-delusion at your own peril, or you can declare unequivocally your intention to separate from Nigeria and establish your own independent, sovereign states whether you call it Biafra or something else and then pursue it to its ultimate conclusion.

One could be tempted to view these hideous statements as mere rhetoric, but then Nigerians ruthlessly implemented these genocidal intentions when Nigeria declared war on Biafra. Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Vice Chairman of the Federal Executive Council 1968, when challenged about massive starvation of children in Biafra because of the total blockade of Biafra by Nigeria responded: “All is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I do not see why we should feed our enemies in order for them to fight us harder” (Financial Times, London, June 26, 1969; Daily Telegraph, London, June 27, 1969). Yakubu Gowon in response to the issue compared providing relief materials to starving children to gun running when he stated: “Food is the means to resistance: It is ammunition in this sense and the mercy flights into rebel territory are looked upon as tantamount to gun running” (Tablet, London, December 7, 1968; Spectator, December 27, 1968.) Anthony Enahoro, Benjamin Adekunle, Hassan Usman Katsina, and Shittu Alao all leaders during the Nigeria Biafra war agreed to starve more than two million Biafran children, pregnant women, and old men to death. Which brother or sister purposely starves his consanguine relative to death?

Since the end of the Nigeria Biafra war, Nigerian leaders, military as well as civilian have continued to pass laws designed specifically to disenfranchise, and impoverish Biafrans and to dismantle and destroy those aspects of Biafran culture that have been the cornerstone of Biafran political and economic progress. One important example is the belief in and respect for private ownership of property. This major plank of Biafran culture is probably the single most important factor that guaranteed massive economic progress and wealth accumulation among Biafrans as well as absence of massive corruption and poverty in Biafran society before now. This foundational belief has since been uprooted and destroyed by Nigeria. In 1969 while the Nigeria Biafra war was still raging the Nigerian military government lead by General Yakubu Gowon, enacted a military decree (The Petroleum Resources Decree, 1969) by which it robbed the people of the oil producing communities of Eastern Region of the natural resources (oil and gas) that were in their land and which naturally belonged to them. General Olusegun Obasanjo followed his example and enacted the (Land Use Decree # 6, 1978) by which he took away by military decree the right of Biafrans to own their ancestral land, a right that Biafrans hold sacred and have respected for thousands of years. Not to be outdone, General Sani Abacha enacted a decree (The National Inland Waterways Decree # 13, 1997.) By this decree the Nigerian government once again confiscated all the water resources and land adjoining them in every part of Biafra. All these were done through military decrees.

There was no consultation or negotiation with the owners of the property. Individuals and communities were simply robbed of their right to own and control their property by military fiat enacted by Nigerian “rulers”. Nigerian feudal lords have since stolen hundreds of billions of dollars realized from the sale of petroleum and gas belonging to oil-bearing communities in Biafra. They have allocated to themselves portions of the land which rightly belong to different communities in Biafra. They call them “oil blocks”. They sell or lease these portions of land to oil companies for hundreds of millions of dollars while the rightful owners of the land wallow in poverty and squalor and often die slow miserable deaths. Oil companies pollute the ecosystem especially the land and water in Biafra with reckless abandon never bothering about sanctions. After all just a few million dollars bribe to the Nigerian feudal lords and all will be quiet. This is the genesis of massive corruption and overwhelming poverty in Eastern Region, and which has given rise to a harvest of intractable conflicts in the oil-bearing communities of the Niger Delta.

It will soon be one hundred years since the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria was amalgamated with the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria by the British government to form the country called Nigeria. The British man, Lord Fredrick Lugard who carried out this amalgamation knew that a united country called Nigeria is impossible. In fact he knew that Nigeria is a lie and will never happen. He even said so openly. For several decades many “rulers” of Nigeria have observed and restated this reality in their brief moments of honesty. Yet the stakeholders in the fallacy called Nigeria have continued to deceive their peoples and the international community about an imaginary, eventual rebirth of a united Nigeria. Unbiased evidence shows that One Nigeria of 1956 was more united than One Nigeria of 1966, [Mallam Umaru Altine who hailed from then Sokoto Province was president of the Enugu branch of the NCNC and was elected the first Mayor of Enugu, the political capital of Igboland and Eastern Region. Where else in Nigeria has that ever happened] which was more united than One Nigeria of 1976, which in turn was more united than One Nigeria of 1986, which indeed became more united than One Nigeria of 1996, that obviously was more united than One Nigeria of 2006, which now is proving more united than One Nigeria of 2011. In essence One Nigeria has become more fragmented, more disunited, more disjointed, and more hellish as the years have gone by.

More than two million human beings, Igbo, Efik, Ibibio, Efik, Ijaw, Ogoja, and other Easterners were starved to death by the stakeholders of one Nigeria between 1967 and 1970. More than 100,000 of the same people have been slaughtered in cold blood all over Nigeria in the name of one Nigeria between 1980 and 2011. Private property belonging to these people and worth billions of dollars have been looted, destroyed or burned all over Nigeria in the name of one Nigeria. Several millions of their young men and women have been rendered homeless, jobless, unemployed, and dirt poor in the name of one Nigeria. Yet, the people of Eastern Region are among the most brilliant, most enterprising, most creative, and certainly some of the hardest working people in the world. How many millions of liters of Biafran blood will it take to build “one Nigeria?” Some of the stakeholders in one Nigeria are indeed people of Eastern Region who pretend to be leaders of their people but are actually their “rulers” enslavers and tormentors. Why are they superintending over the destruction of their own people?

There is only one reason: MONEY! The money they are stealing and sharing among themselves is the only reason why all of them have colluded to keep their own people in bondage, and virtual slavery.

Nigeria uses the army, police and other uniformed services to keep Easterners in that state, always hoping and believing that “FEAR” of the police and army will keep them in this state of servitude and coma forever. But they are wrong. The day Easterners banish this fear and wake up from their coma, that day they’ll take back their destiny, that day they’ll take back their lives, that day they’ll take back the future of their children and children’s children, that day they’ll become free men and women. Look around you, look all over North Africa and the Middle East; people are banishing their fear of the police and the army. They are waking up from their coma and now they are taking back their freedom; their liberty; their destiny; from the people who have oppressed them for decades. In Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Jordan, and other parts of North Africa and the Middle East the people are banishing fear, waking up from coma, and liberating themselves from slavery and bondage. They are not afraid anymore. Those people are no longer waiting for their corrupt, thieving, politicians and stakeholders to save them. They have realized that it is those thieving politicians and stakeholders that are their problem. More than seventy percent of the population of Eastern Region is 35 years and younger. So, the young people, secondary school students, university students, graduates, journalists, the unemployed, the working poor, indeed all those who the stakeholders have banished to perpetual poverty and penury, all of them should now band together to take back their freedom, their liberty. The whole world will be cheering and rooting for them. The world will support them. The youths of North Africa and the Middle East have finally woken up from their coma, they have found their voices and now they are taking back their freedom. The kleptomaniacs who have persecuted them for so long are on the run.

A similar thing happened in Asia from the end of the Second World War to the 1980s. The youths in Asia woke up from their coma; they banished fear and then went after the kleptomaniac dictators who kept them in bondage and penury for decades. The youths confronted and deposed the dictators, took over governments of their countries and set up democratic governments and modern economies. Today Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, and even Cambodia and Vietnam have very vibrant economies and some of them have been dubbed “Asian Tigers”.

The same thing happened all over Europe between 1830 and 1840 after the Industrial Revolution created terrible working conditions, massive unemployment, population explosion, and horrible economic conditions for the poor masses in Europe. Reactionary rulers and the bourgeoisie were exploiting the people and treating them worse than animals. The masses rebelled against their oppressors, the kings, queens and bourgeoisie. In the process a new form of thinking centered around who should govern, own property, vote, control the economy etc erupted. The result is the democracy that you see all over Europe today with all its paraphernalia of freedom, liberty, respect for private ownership of property, human rights, the rule of law, and economic prosperity.

The additional dimension is that European Nations realized the folly in one ethnic or socio-cultural group imposing itself on another and trying to dominate it by force. They recognized that this is not only inhuman and a source of unending conflict but also antithetical to economic and social development. It only results in the people wasting their energies and talent trying to dominate one another by force of arms. Peace never exists in the same bed with forced unity. This is why lately European countries

This is why lately European countries that have been held together by force of arms have disintegrated into their natural component parts. Since 1990 fifteen new countries have been created out of the former Soviet Union; seven new countries have been created out of the former Yugoslavia; two have been created out of the former Czechoslovakia; following the United Nations-sponsored act of self-determination in 1999, Indonesia relinquished control of East Timor which became the first new sovereign state of the 21st century on May 20, 2002.; and quite recently Kosovo was created out of Serbia while two new countries, South Ossetia and Abkhazia were created out of The Republic of Georgia through Russian assistance. All twenty-eight countries are living peacefully as neighbors rather than their citizens slaughtering one another year after year. Most of them are members of the United Nations Organization. General Yakubu Gowon has not gone to the UN to protest the takeover of the United Nations Organization by these new countries. That was one of the asinine reasons he gave for declaring genocidal war on Biafrans in 1967.

People of Eastern Region must rise above silly squabbles, and mindless suspicions and come together to save their heritage through self-determination. You must work relentlessly towards establishing your own independent states just as South Sudan did recently. If your population is only two, five, or ten million and you want to be an independent state that is your right. Most of the powerful economies in Europe today have populations less than six million. Indeed some of them have population of less than one million people. In fact only a handful of European countries have population of 10 million people or more.

This is true not only for Nigeria; it is true for all of Africa. Africans must begin to think for themselves rather than continue to accept the ridiculous contraptions put together by colonial governments in 1885. Unless Africans begin to think for themselves they will continue to be trapped in the quagmire of unworkable states created by Europeans and characterized by incongruity, ancient fears generating hatred and violence, gross mistrust, and flagrant structural defects that no one can fix; and they will continue to slaughter one another in millions.

Have you ever wondered what will happen if all the young people, secondary school students, university students, graduates, journalists, the unemployed, market women, the working poor; indeed all those young people who the stakeholders for one Nigeria have banished to perpetual poverty and penury; all of them in Eastern Region from Calabar to Forcados, Sapele to Uromi, and from Nsukka to Obudu band together and publicly and loudly declare their firm stand for self-determination. What do you think will happen if all the youth leaders in these areas using new media hold a national conference after which they put together a charter, the blueprint that will govern the relationship among their diverse nations, then declare openly and without equivocation that they are no longer part of the entity called Nigeria and that they are exercising their right to self-determination. Then follow this up with massive rallies in all cities, towns and villages to demonstrate support of the masses. What do you think will happen?

It is abominable for Biafrans to inflict upon their children and future generations the deadly pestilence and plague of one Nigeria. Youths of Eastern Region, stop dithering, stop begging; banish fear; take your destiny in your hands at this moment in history when the world is on the side of all who have the courage to liberate themselves. This is your moment. Seize it. Always remember as Krishnamurti wisely said: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

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Obinna Oleribe
Executive Director at E&F Management Consult Ltd
Let’s do away with their conspiracy of silence – May 31, 2017

Friends, the success of the 50 years commemoration of Biafra on May 30 2017 is a pointer that the season of silence is OVER. I was born towards the end of the civil war and I lost my twin sister probably because of the war, although my parents never told me what killed her!
My father told me many years ago that you do not solve problem by pretending it does not exist. He also told me that whatever you hide under the carpet (now rug) will be exposed when the carpet is removed.
The time has come for a round table discussion – not by those who have sold our nation for naught; not by the current Igbo or Nigerian representatives or the current political leaders; but by those who mean well for Nigeria as a nation, the Igbo people, and our children and children’s children.
The time for this conversation is NOW! The farther we postpone this conversation, the more difficult it becomes to achieve a peaceful resolution with an outcome that will be fully acceptable to all, without bloodshed and conflicts.
The more we delay this conversation, the more we empower the enemies of the nation who love chaos and are already exploiting it to maximize their gains at the expense of the nation.
The more we delay this conversation, the more likely all parties will lose and the nation will suffer.
NOW is the time for this long-awaited discussion and conversation to take place.
Can the current leadership of Nigeria muster the needed courage to do what is right? Can they take steps in the right direction to foster real peace and harmony with all parties rejoicing at the end of the day?
Could this be the real CHANGE we were promised – a new NIGERIA where everyone has equal rights and privileges, equal opportunities to the nation’s resources, and equal access to positions and promotions?
Could this be the real CHANGE where every tribe is proud of who he/she is? Where every tribe has the freedom to develop and maximize their potentials? Where leaders lead the people and not their offices and for their pockets? Where men show and do what men are known for – courage and exemplary leadership?
Could this be the hour for true change where people can associate freely and as they desire, where the voice of the common man is heard and respected; where leaders emerge from the people and are not imposed on them; where the vote of the ordinary man counts in the election of new leaders?
The hour has come. Let us UNITE to UNIFY through honest dialogues, restitutions, real and sincere apologies to those we have wronged – knowingly or otherwise, and strategic road map to a new Nigeria.
Friends, let the conversation begin.

Let The Terrorists And Their Friends Break Away From Nigeria & Form Their Own Country, Where They Can Kill As They Like
– Fani Kayode
nigeriatoday.ng
Jun 2, 2017 6:10 PM

Former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani Kayode, has again called for the division of Nigeria, saying “give us Oduduwa or let us die.”


Recall that the former Minister has been a strong advocate of the struggle for a state of Biafra, and has supported the leaders of different pro-Biafra groups in the country, most notably, Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB.

In an article he entitled, “Give me Oduduwa or I die,” Fani-Kayode noted that he cannot stay in a country with those who, according to him engage in underage marriage and kill their fellow human beings at will.

Fani Kayode said “O Nigeria, how are the mighty fallen. I loved Nigeria but now I have stopped believing in her. She is saddled with many different sub- nations that were simply incompatible right from the start.

“She is plagued and cursed with one particular sub nation whose ruling elite are dangerous and unyielding, whose guile and deceit is second to none, who treat their own people with contempt and derision, who believe that they were born to rule, who think that power belongs to them, who suppress the religious and ethnic minorities within their ranks and who were taught from an early age that there is none besides them.

“Those people have killed Nigeria. They and those who have consistently bowed and trembled before them and who have always allowed them to have their way.

“Our nation has become a cruel joke, she is a maliciously contrived contraption that has shattered many dreams and frustrated many ambitions and aspirations. This was a country that was created for the benefit of just a few at the cost of the misery and pain of so many.

“I will never accept the idea of living in a nation side by side with religious extremists who slit the throats of children, who habitually slaughter the innocents and who abduct and fornicate with small girls. Animals have no place in the homes of men.

“It is time for us to stop pretending: let the terrorists and their friends in high places break away and establish their own country where they can marry as many young girls as they please and chop off as many limbs as they want.

“Let them form a nation where they can stone adulterers and turn women into chattels that are not even worthy of life.

“Let those of us from the west establish Oduduwa and let us celebrate and enjoy our freedom from the bondage and ineptitude of a cruel failed state that has no soul and that lacks humanity and compassion.

“Let us be liberated from the deceit that is known as Nigeria: a nation that once was but that is no more. Let us be free of Nigeria: a nation where injustice, evil, persecution, insensitivity, impunity, terror, graft and wickedness reign supreme.

“Let us be rid of Nigeria: a country where those of us that had the misfortune of being born on the ”wrong” side of the regional divide or who are adherents of the ”wrong” religious faith are butchered for our heritage and can never be treated as equals. Give us Oduduwa or let us die.”

OPINION: BIAFRA, AND FINDING THE NIGERIAN BLACK BOX
uncova.com Jun 5, 2017 7:58 AM
The land of the rising sun…Biafrans, Igbos, the South, Federating units, restructuring…revenue formula and now are some of the words that are trending, there are hate speeches from all sides, the Jewish Rabbi Nnamdi Kanu has also been in the mix. And if I say that all this is the usual noise I may only be naive, and if I say that it is a serious matter, I would still need to be proved right or else I would been seen as naive.

But the divide, the hatred, angst, the “we versus them, they and us” are signs that are in the air. Arguments and debates surrounding the Yorubas are ready, or we will not allow them go, and some say let them go radiate the horizon. However let me thread this path to reinforce an earlier though pattern, and my belief that really very little have changed.

A year thereabout ago the Indigenous People of Biafra retained lawyer Prof. Dr. Göran Sluiter to file a complaint against Nigerian President Buhari before the International Criminal Court. He was instructed to file a criminal complaint against Nigerian President Buhari before the International Criminal Court (ICC), on account of crimes against humanity.

In that period very little has changed, it is still same difference; in the mainstream media, interestingly everyday keeps providing fresh news item, either on Biafra as a subject or affiliates, a case of those for, and those against, interestingly and naturally a divide amongst the Igbos themselves, and a few who are asking that we all thread with caution.

The recent sit-at-home in most states of the southeast, was successful, the agitations continue, whether forced or willingly, grudgingly one must agree there seems to be a huge increase in followership for the “cause”.

Just a quick glide into history would show that what many think started out as the occasional security clashes between a group of idle minds may soon if not handled with tact and diplomacy become another BH, and for many a student of political history it is so easy to see the trend in comparison to the Niger Delta militants, but this may turn out worse in that weapons may not be REALLY used.

The Biafra ‘struggle’ needs to handled, and trust me, it cannot be suppressed in the manner it is being handled, it cannot be waved off by the hands, current strong arm tactics will not work, denying that there is no followership, only reminds one of the first handful members of Yusuf Mohammed. And thinking that the entire drama is symptom of an episodic ailment called marginalization may be wrong. In the past I have looked at the Biafran renaissance as partly the story of the Youth today and the challenges as mirrored by Maduabuchi Dukor, philosophically speaking, “we recognize that the southeast or Ndigbo is an emerging society, developing society in search of identity in a multi-racial Nigeria state and in the world. This “identity” question is not only omnibus but also a logical challenge because you an Igbo or you are not an Igbo. In this wise it is difficult for an Igbo to deny that he or she is an Igbo because doing so would amount to a contradiction. Identity does not brook any contradiction in the logical sense of the concept”.

What is the identity of today’s Biafra I dare ask? “Again the fact that it is existential and encompasses a whole personality presupposes that it is defined by the history, culture, economics, politics and education of the people which again logically entails that the challenges of youth empowerment among Ndigbo are the challenges of history, culture, economics, politics, leadership and education.” In the above regard, has the Biafra question been answered…who are the Biafrans, where is Biafra…it is a challenge of history, culture, economics, politics, leadership and education.

Maduabuchi Dukor speaking further “The youth question since after the defunct Biafran and Nigerian war is an unfortunate historically necessitated experience that has left Ndigbo like a rudderless both on Nigeria, Africa and the world. The traumas, alienation, economic subjugation, discrimination, political marginalization and the consequent psychological dislocation of Ndigbo by successive Nigerian governments until the dawn of the second republic is worse than color dissemination in United States now and before”.

In what Professor Mercy Anagbogu of the Department of Guidance and Counseling, Nnamdi Azikwe University, Awka, Nigeria, captured in the metaphor of zero empowerment, the Igbo youth is in “a black box”, a state of mental, psychological tabula-rasa and moral, religious, educational economic degeneration and alienation.

The historical phenomenon of “black box”, state of doldrums and darkness is still with Ndigbo youth in this regime and dispensation. The youth at zero empowerment has no place in the political, economic and educational calculation and space in Nigeria.

This scenario has brought a kind of flux where nothing holds and somewhat state of nature where wickedness, jealousies, confusion, disrespect and loss of Igbo and family values become the other of the day. The consequences or indicative factors again are negative disposition, ritual moneymaking, individualism and lack of corporate business, which are not conducive to the corporate, cultural and political existence of Ndigbo. Unfortunately, inability of Ndigbo leaders to confront and address the historical, existential, cultural, educational, political and economic challenges led to the dispersal of Igbo youth, in search of means of livelihood in Diaspora…and one of the many reasons why defining Biafra is really difficult.

Today’s Biafra certainly cannot be land of erosions, land of the likes of Rochas the don of double speak, and land that elects a governor while he is in Kirikiri Maximum Prisons, the land where everyone is a leader, yet no leadership and direction, envied by many, yet not sure of itself.

A land where its greatest enemy is itself, a land where its sons and daughters on one hand are marginalized yet, are in every nook, cranny and corner, of Nigeria doing very well…a people whose sons continue to do well in Lagos, but wont go and develop ‘alaigbo’…but will whine “marginalization”.

So the land needs men of goodwill, leadership that needs to get it’s path right and stop playing third and fourth fiddle, leadership that are ready to write and teach their children their true history, teach their wards the dialect, culture and values, and not continue to engage in revisionist tendencies. While it remains true that Nigeria needs true federalism to thrive, the federating units equally need leadership to get it right, and are sons and daughters of Ndi-Igbo ready to take up the challenge—Only time will tell.