₦airaland Forum

7lives:
You mean the hated Afonjeezies?, they have mouths and they have chests which they know how to beat, these two factors are good enough to get them the presidency or Biafra.
They don't even know how to play it at home and they want to grab the presidency by barking out orders.
Comedians.

menxer:
It still was to solve a problem, I didn't say your problem.

Do you think this Biafra will solve "my" problem?
No, it intends to solve a problem from the Igbo point of view, same as the amalgamation of Nigeria solved a problem from the British point of view.

Besides, which country was founded by Democratic consensus by referendum?

successmatters:
Eye opener!

This interview has thought me more Nigerian History than any book before. I just became more afraid of the southern minorities again, and for the treachery of the yorubas, no be today e start.

Biafra is more needed than we think.

fuckpro:
...rather the question is what is the perception of the Ibo tribe by the minority and the answer is cunning and self centeredness,not out right power grabbing like the north but scheming the minority out of relevance in the new order

dapsonlou:
That was back then, Indians, Lebanese and Chinese own 80% on the Industries in Lagos, had to go and check.

Cooly100:
The Yoruba have fought counttess wars with their neigbours...Can you state any war the Igbos have fought with their neiighbours, before 1914? The perception is fed by the Hausas and the Yorubas, who have more wealth from the same ND than their Igbo neigbours...Don't you see how foolish is it for you to travel from Yenegoe to Abuja or Lagos than to travel to Enugu or Portharcourt, for instance for your needs...Mister this is penny wise pound foolish...The Igbos are not as you claim...looking at the antecedent of history...I am waiting for your other lies and deceits which you have been fed over time....

fayaayoa:
Reading the piece makes me laugh, anyway am a yoruba middle aged man so I will definitely have sentiments like everyone of you.
My truth is Igbos and Hausa/Fulanis had alliance to control the country while the yoruba played the opposition. The pact was sacrosanct until the first coup which was biased and opened the eyes of every rational nigerian to know that Igbos were wickedly ambitious. This was the genesis of Hausa and Igbo hatred. The Biafra war was the result of 2 biased coups; yorubas were victims of the two coups.
The truth be told, presently yorubas are the unifying factors of the three major tribes. Yorubas have learnt their lessons and they are ones really playing the politics.
My advise is Hausa/Fulani should mentally disassociate from the belief they are meant to rule; they are least developed of the three tribes. they need to respect and appreciate every tribes especially the Niger-Delta and learn to work with them.
Igbos-whatever that happened in Biafra war was self inflicted. When wars are fought, many things are certain; destruction, death and hatred. You need to move on, don't get fixed on the past failure, play the politics. Germany has moved on from the world wars, Japan too. There is much better opportunities for the igbos in Nigeria than Biafra.
Niger-Delta- Restructuring has never being the problem. Bad leadership, you need to change the crop of leaders you have. There is absolutely no reason why the region has not developed with the money pumped in via 13% derivation, Federal allocation, NDDC and Ministry of Niger Delta., One of your son President for 6 yrs and so on. hold your leaders accountable then you will see the difference.
Yoruba- continue to play the politics and develop your region. Make other south west states an extension of Lagos. Make the south west autonomous for agriculture and industrialization.

madenigga:
All of the people agitating for Biafra your end is near.

I don't hv time to be debating or arguing with u people again, see you at the battle field. If you want Biafra come nd collect it.

Eggcelent:
With Due Respect For Their Ages & Personal Accomplishments, I Will Advise These Old Men To Please Refrain From Some Of These Utterances.

We Should Move On From The Past & Work Towards Building A Better Society For Ourselves & The Next Generation.

Thanks

DeRay98:
Whether you like it or not, believe it or not, the minorities which Biafra is claiming will never accept Biafra because they know that the Igbos will oppress and turn them 2nd class citizens. Igbos are domineering they only want to add the minorities to get the numbers. That is a fact!

Oyiboman69:
The goals they want to achieve with new Biafra – Tanko Yaksai

dailytrust.com.ng

Jun 4, 2017 2:04 AM

Alhaji Salihu Tanko Yakasai, a former Special Political Adviser to former President Shehu Shagari, spoke on why the agitation of Biafra continued to attract attention, why it is impossible for the Igbo to secede and why they will be better off in Nigeria than Biafra, among other things.



Why is the agitation for Biafra gathering momentum in recent times?

Well, the agitation for Biafra started soon after the demise of Major-General Aguiyi Ironsi. So the name is not new. The only difference is that the old Biafra actually was intended to occupy the whole of southern region. 

It was a scheme for getting the entire southern Nigeria to break away. The intention was to block the North from access to the sea. If that happened, the North would be starved of many things coming from the port, including fuel and imported items we rely upon. So that was the old Biafra. Because of that, when they were preparing to declare Biafra, southern minorities from the present day Cross River and Akwa Ibom led a delegation to the North to plead with General Hassan Usman Katsina, the then military governor of Northern Nigeria, to plead with the central government not to allow Biafran secession to succeed because, according to them, if it was allowed to succeed, they would remain forever as second class citizens in what would be known as Biafra. 

The young men are not agitating for the five Igbo-speaking states to constitute Biafra, rather, they are thinking of the old Eastern Region, with the four minority states, together with five majority Igbo-speaking states. You don’t dismiss idea by a wave of hand. But the practical aspect of it is very difficult because all along there has not been love lost between the Igbo and their minority.

In fact, when Nigeria was to be granted independence and constitutional conference was held in 1957, the minorities in the East complained of oppression and marginalisation by the Igbo. They wanted their interest to be safeguarded in an independent Nigeria. It was agreed that a special arrangement would be made to protect their interest, and it was made with the creation of the Niger Delta Development Authority which was put under the care of Shehu Shagari, who was then the parliamentary secretary to the prime minister.  It was decided that the development of the Niger Delta shall not come from the Eastern Region, even though they were located under the old regional government. 

I don’t think it is possible for the minority to go into any political association with the Igbo.

This agitation started right from the time of Obasanjo, with Uwazurike as its leader. Now, I think Uwazurike has realised that it is an impossible task to realise their dream; that is why he is more or less quiet. This young man, Nnamdi Kanu, was just a broadcaster. I don’t know whether he was under Uwazurike or on his own, but he was not a leader on his own. He was a broadcaster. I believe he got some of their people in the United States, collected their money and set up a radio station, which I think is being broadcast from America and beamed somewhere in West Africa. The boy became popular after his arrest. I think what they are trying to do is to develop the agitation into a political movement and try to gather support from the Igbo and any of their sympathizers.

This agitation for new Biafra came at a time when the Niger Delta people are agitating for resource control, and at the same time, the South-West, who are more interested in brewing trouble in the country, joined forces with them to change the whole issue into restructuring. So there is now a connection between the agitation for restructuring, the realisation of Biafra and resource control. They started during the 1994/95 constitutional conference, where they were holding regular meetings. At that time, every week, the minority from the East would meet with Igbo, and after that, they would meet with the Yoruba. All these three ideas emanated from former Vice President Alex Ekwueme. 

This is the situation now.  The issue to be addressed is whether the present Biafra would include the former Eastern Region, whereby the four minority Igbo-speaking states would join forces with five Igbo-speaking states and form new Biafra? That has not been spelt out. The only thing I heard was that Rivers would not be part of the Biafra; I think Akwa-Ibom too. But it is not clear yet whether the four minority Igbo-speaking states have openly declared that they are not going be part of Biafra. This is the immediate challenge the agitators for new Biafra will face. But grant it that Biafra will materialise; everybody is aware that the major ethnic groups in Nigeria are Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. 

The minorities are everywhere and our minorities are not distinct; we are interwoven. Even the North-Central, which is the official area regarded as the Middle Belt, is made up of six states. Four of the six are Muslim majority; they are Nasarawa, Niger, Kogi and Kwara states and the minority elements left in Plateau State, for instance, are themselves fighting one another. In addition, they don’t speak with one another except in either Hausa or English. None of them can speak with the other in their own native language, and all of them were at loggerheads with the Tiv. Initially, when our committee was asked to recommend creation of states, we intended to create Middle Belt state but when the idea was put forward, the people of Niger said they were out of it; the people of Ilorin said they were out of it and the people of Kogi also said they were out of it. So the old Plateau had to be merged with Benue and made one province while other provinces were regrouped.

So, the reality is that the three major ethnic groups, Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo, need Nigeria. Every one of them needs Nigeria. Let’s start with the Yoruba. Most of the industries are located in the South-West, mainly in Lagos, some in Ogun and some in Ibadan. According to a letter written by the late General Adeyinka Adebayo, the industries in Oyo are owned by Lebanese and Indians, but 70 per cent of the industries located in Lagos State are owned by Igbo. So the industries that are manufacturing goods in the South-West and some in the Eastern Region have the whole of Nigeria as their market, a market of about 200 million people. If there is no Nigeria, there would not be that market and what would be the consequences of lack of market? 

First, the goods cannot be sold, there will be no production and there will be unemployment, and the people that are employed in industries located in the South-West are largely Yoruba. The day there is no Nigeria, there will be massive unemployment in the South-West. This is apart from the food and livestock they are getting from the North. If there is no Nigeria, they will not get them, and if they are going to import, it will take time and will be costly. By nature, they cannot grow livestock and some food items in their area. The geographical situation in South-West is different from that of the North; the animals they are growing do not enough meat and milk, unlike the ones in the North.

For the Igbo, at present there is no village where there is a flourishing market where you cannot have the Igbo conducting their own businesses. And they are living in peace; nobody is harassing them. They live within thousands of other ethnic groups and nobody is attacking them. It is a well known fact that the business of building materials is surrendered to Igbo people, as well as electrical appliances, fittings and spare parts. Commuter transportation; those luxury buses that are plying our roads from one state to another are owned by the Igbo. The day there is no Nigeria, the Igbo will have no alternative than to relocate to their states. And with the hate speeches being circulated on the social media and other platforms, it is impossible to have a peaceful dissolution of Nigeria.

That is the take on the Igbo and the Yoruba people. We the Huasa Fulani too need Nigeria. I have sat alone, without reading any book and said to myself: “What do we need from Nigeria?” And I have come up with five things we really need Nigeria for. One, we have no way of having immediate access to the sea than from Nigeria. If there is no Nigeria, we have to go to Libya, and there are no enough roads to achieve that. 

Two, we need the current oil revenue. In Nigeria, only six states can survive with the oil revenue they are getting. There are four oil bearing states that cannot survive with the quantity of oil located in their areas. These states are Abia, Imo, Ondo and Edo, they have oil, but it is not as much as they could rely on for survival. But Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers and Akwa-Ibom and one other state can survive with the oil located in their respective areas. So, during the first Biafran agitation Ojukwu entered agreement with France whereby he gave concession for the entire oil and gas resources in the Biafran region. If Biafra succeeded, there was no way the Niger Delta people could claim ownership of oil and gas located in their areas. 

Three, the North also needs education. Today, in most of our universities the lecturers are mostly from the South - even the students. We need education and we cannot get it without teachers, so we need Nigeria to get teachers from southern part of the country to come and teach us. 

Four, we need the technical know-how the South has. So we need them for that. 

Five, we also need the South for investment. The only northerners that have huge investments are three - Aliko Dangote, T. Y Danjuma and Alhaji Abdulsamad Isyaka Rabi’u. But if you go to the South you will get thousands of them with huge capital. 

So, the three major ethnic groups need Nigeria because everybody is benefiting from Nigeria. For the Igbo, if there is no Nigeria, there will be no market for them to do their businesses. At least if you take the North, you are talking of 55 per cent of the population of Nigeria, which is about 100 million out of the 180 million of Nigerian population. The Yoruba also need market because their industries cannot sell the goods to themselves. By nature, the Yoruba man likes the Hausa man more than the Igbo man and the Igbo man likes the Hausa man more than the Yoruba man, yet the Yoruba are now trying to convince the Igbo to forget aganist the Hausa. 

The Igbo, unfortunately, are lacking in diplomacy. This is the weakness of the Igbo and that is what the Yoruba are capitalising on to manipulate their way of thinking. During the first declaration of Biafra, it was a public knowledge that when Gowon sent Awolowo to persuade Ojukwu not to embark on secession, they met on the River Niger bridge and discussed. Later on, the media said that according to unofficial report, Awolowo assured Ojukwu that if they seceded, the West would also secede. When he came out, he declared publicly that if by any act of commission or omission the East was allowed to go, the West would follow. This is the public announcement he made and the record is there, which means the West would also secede from the rest of Nigeria. The Igbo believed in him and Ojukwu told all the Igbo to go back to their respective areas. At that time, the Igbo were holding various positions in government, but they all left. When they came back after the civil war, they found that the Yoruba had occupied their positions, and till today, they have not regained such positions, and they will never regain them.

https://dailytrust.com.ng/news/general/the-goals-they-want-to-achieve-with-new-biafra-tanko-yaksai/200428.html

36STATES:
With Hausa man, Igbos know where they stand. With Yoruba man, we don't know where we stand.
The pogrom in the North can be rationalized, even though over done, (our too naive Igbos sons most of them below 30 yrs) stupidly killed their leaders. But for the Yorubas you call your allies to to stick a knife your back, is a worse act.

Yorubas don't seem to understand this, that they helped kill over 2 million Igbos which Igbos will
never do to them even in today's Nigeria. The worst is that they think that such facts can be distorted by daily doses of
lies and propaganda spread through the media.

IRobot7:
The amalgamation was not to solve problems but for Britain's selfish interest. You need to read this book ' there was a country' by chinua Achebe. Honestly everyone needs to get a copy of that book and read to digest its contents.

Cooly100:
Edo is part of the Afonjas..Who cares what you do...I was right in my assessment...

fuckpro:
...come 2023 if ibos are not given the presidency then forget Nigeria

ProWalker:
Which tribe is richest ? Are you ok?

Cooly100:
Agreed nothing will happen. Can you remind me again when Nigeria would go beyond 3000MW of power/elctricity for its growing population of almost 200 million people..? Continue going in futile circles...

7lives:
Eyaa so Yorubas actually started the Biafra war, get a grip bro.
There is nothing wrong with fighting for Independence, what is wrong is going all out to declare a war without making provision for plan eventualities.
If Adolf Hitler and his allies can fail, which war Commander cannot?.
Even sabotages are parts of warfare , personal interest will still be the deciding factor so stop wailing up and down about Yoruba sabotaging you.
If If the Vietnamese can rubbish the Americans in Vietnam, Ojukwu should be blamed for the failure of Biafra, better luck next time.

steppins:
No, you hate being called Igbo. A Yoruba man in PH has suddenly turned to an ikwerre man.

steppins:
Funny how everyone is claiming Niger delta, forgetting that there are Igbo communities in Niger delta.
Keep dreaming.

SHAKABOOM:
Which osibanjo?Evry region get him own fight..osibanjo is not our fight and problem, we want biafria simple..
Yorubas have to win our trust.You heard what the grumpy old cow said about them ad awolowo..Pls use your brain they can never be trusted.

steppins:
Ask yourself one thing, which tribe is the richest?
You can't own industries if you're not rich.
Majority of Yorubas are in the civil service. Do they own industries too, while working for government?
You guys need to wake up and smell the coffee.
Lagos was made to be a business hub and people from all over Nigeria came in to invest in it.
Whatever it's earning now or any status it has attained, will wane off if this country is divided.
Why do you think your people avoid secession?

kelechi17:
hmm Edo was Neva part of Biafra...in fact we dnt even need dem sef

steppins:
Sir, you haven't answered the question.

MetaPhysical:
This thread is new, not even half a page yet and Ibos are already racing off Yakasai's comment to spew hatred. For once, listen to what the man said in this interview, you are behaving in exact pattern the interview was scripted to influence your emotions. Is he god? What makes you believe that these things he said about Yoruba and Akwa Ibom and Cross River people against you are true? Why is he not talking about the various ways in which North has betrayed Ibo or as Sultan of Sokoto recently admitted, "they killed Ibo in North necause they invaded their communities and set up trades and became affluent".

Do not surrender your emotions to his words, stay strong and wave him off. This article does nothing to subtract or add to your struggle, Yakassai cannot move biafra forward or ret.ard your progress. So why respond with hatred to those who you truly need to aid your mission.

This time around make it mission accomplished, not mission impossible!

OmniSparrow:
Not claiming anywhere. But at least I'm not a biafran trying to drag other tribes into their senseless war. Nobody wants to follow igbos. Fight for your 5 states. Any igbo in another state is a minority and can go to those 5 states. You can't say because a state has a small percentage of igbo-speaking people, it must be part of you. Then the other non-igbos in the state noko?
You don't care. People saying biafra are a big joke. You're trying to do same thing to people what you claim Nigeria is doing. Jokers. Carry your 5 states and fight for yourselves. Leave the rest people.

YelloweWest:
No biafra for ona. Cry me a river u delusional bunch

oluamid:
Lol. It's funny really. I mean, it's so obvious yet you and other people with similar sentiments are missing the point.

Yaksai is against the SW because it's the only region that has prevented the northern elite from perpetuating themselves in power and having their way with the country. The SW has always gone toe to toe with the north and called them out on their shenanigans.

Trace Nigeria's political/electoral history, the SW has always opposed the North (apart from 2015 and even then, the vote was evenly split). The SW is the only thing standing between the north and total control of Nigeria so naturally, it is the enemy.

You only see someone as an enemy when you know they are either above you or your mate. You ordinarily would not care about someone you are better than/or below you.

I hope you get it now. And I hope the south can put aside their silly rivalry and fight their common enemy because no matter how patronising the north is, they can't love any region of the South better than themselves. For once, let's put emotions aside and look at issues with shrewdness.

I hate to comment on sectional and ethnic politics but it amuses me to see that a lot of people are falling to see behind the ruse of this interview and see what it is really about. The northern elite feel threatened. And they have started reacting the only way they have always been - divide and rule. Sow the seed of discord among your enemies and watch them tear themselves apart. It's a classic Art of War strategy.