₦airaland Forum

NwaAmaikpe:



Point of correction Prof,
It's not Biafra has not been defeated

But

Biafra can not be defeated.

This ideology is ingrained in the mind and souls of toddlers and babies unborn,
The cry for liberation echoes from the anthills of Nsugbe to the mountains of Ngwo,
The cry of injustice is heard from the lakes of Oguta to the beaches of Buguma.

Never again,
Never again shall we see the Hausa-Fulani and call him brother.
We are not genetically identical
We are not psychologically identical
We are not spiritually identical
Those are no brothers of ours,
At best, they are neighbors but not our brothers

Our brothers don't mate with animals
Our brothers don't marry underage girls
A neighbor is not a brother.

Our lands are ravaged,
Our resources are exploited,
Our tomorrow is raped,
Our hands are tied,
Our mouths are gagged
They've made us believe all we can do is mumur
We can't shout or fight because we are powerless.
But our resolve is unflinching.

One day,
The sun will rise again,
Power will return to the people

Viva Biafra.

I love ur use of poet, great weldonsir

NwaAmaikpe:



Point of correction Prof,
It's not Biafra has not been defeated

But

Biafra can not be defeated.

This ideology is ingrained in the mind and souls of toddlers and babies unborn,
The cry for liberation echoes from the anthills of Nsugbe to the mountains of Ngwo,
The cry of injustice is heard from the lakes of Oguta to the beaches of Buguma.

Never again,
Never again shall we see the Hausa-Fulani and call him brother.
We are not genetically identical
We are not psychologically identical
We are not spiritually identical
Those are no brothers of ours,
At best, they are neighbors but not our brothers

Our brothers don't mate with animals
Our brothers don't marry underage girls
A neighbor is not a brother.

Our lands are ravaged,
Our resources are exploited,
Our tomorrow is raped,
Our hands are tied,
Our mouths are gagged
They've made us believe all we can do is mumur
We can't shout or fight because we are powerless.
But our resolve is unflinching.

One day,
The sun will rise again,
Power will return to the people

Viva Biafra.

SirChime:
Knocked down but never DEFEATED.

Dumaknesset:
WS only stated obvious, Biafran is based on a brash and deadly foundation. It is a concept steep ed in blood, needless deaths on both side of the divide.Biafra has been further denatured and sullied with opportunistic upstart and mentally marauded morons. Biafra is concept and philosophy screwed up to self-stultify. Igbo's can give a pristine version of Biafra, one created with essentials replete with respect for others, respect for the rule of law, other dissenting views with rendition of cerebral superior arguments not lumpen laden travesty of intelligence been propagated by dim witted iPods. Are there no deep and robust intellectuals in Igbo nation that can take the gauntlet.

myhotbrain:
Most of these IPOB members are stark illiterates... At the end of his epistle, Wole Soyinka clearly stated his preference for Nigeria's Unity by actually conceding to rational reasoning of the great implications of IPOB's wishes.

Prof. Soyinka, sir with all due respect, these current IPOB agitators are mostly simpletons, who lacks the ability to think critically of the pros and cons of their actions.

If my last statement were to be true, then you, our erudite professor has also failed in your primary obligation as teacher, a scholar and an activist cum social crusader! There is no doubt that the greatest affliction on the youths of this nation is the miseducation, and rot in the educational system. Not only were you reputed to have been the co-founder of confraternities in Tertiary Institutions, you have not a, so done enough in your unique capacity as a scholar of repute, to arrest the ugly situation by, exposing your colleques or even an open campaign against them.

If most of Nigerian youths are well educated all roundly, our society, in general, would have been better for it and we would have been saved from this unnecessary bickering and threat of doom.

Now, sir if you wish prosperity to judge you aright, please dont add fuel to fire: its time you come down from your high horse and boldly and frankly inform the secessionist in plain and clear understandable grammar: IPOB's dont campaign for secession again. It will be painful and destructive and remotely possible to achieve even a semblance of Biafra, if at all.

I rest my case. For now, at least!

Dumaknesset:
With the what you have just typed. the typos, syntax and grammatical shellings, judge yourself who needs a Doctor between the two us.

Breaking it down, the present day version of Biafra is flawed and will fail, present a better version galvanized with superior Intellectual fervour. I hope you get it now. Omotegwu

Amah70:
With person of pseudo-intellect of your sort, nothing really can ever be done through.

Dumaknesset:
WS only stated obvious, Biafran is based on a brash and deadly foundation. It is a concept steep ed in blood, needless deaths on both side of the divide.Biafra has been further denatured and sullied with opportunistic upstart and mentally marauded morons. Biafra is concept and philosophy screwed up to self-stultify. Igbo's can give a pristine version of Biafra, one created with essentials replete with respect for others, respect for the rule of law, other dissenting views with rendition of cerebral superior arguments not lumpen laden travesty of intelligence been propagated by dim witted iPods. Are there no deep and robust intellectuals in Igbo nation that can take the gauntlet.

Amah70:
The day they force crude oil down your throat in the Nigerdelta, all these your false entitlement to intellectual prowess shall disappear. You then start to face the reality of the present, which is: you or those whose interest you represent have taken about 50 years of booty from the Niger delta region. Now is time to stop.

Cooly100:
On July 6, 1967, civil war broke out in Nigeria between the country’s military and the forces of Biafra, an independent republic proclaimed by ex-Nigerian military officer Odumegwu Ojukwu on May 30 of that year. The war killed more than 1 million people, many of whom died from starvation. It ended in January 1970 with the reintegration of Biafra into Nigeria. Malnutrition, Red Cross, kwashiorkor, relief flights, genocide, the Uli airstrip used by Biafran planes to elude the Nigerian blockade, mercenaries, the Aburi accord that broke down and led to war—these are some of the memory triggers of the Nigerian civil war of secession that we would like to re-assign.


Over a million lives perished—a shameful proportion of them children—mostly through starvation and aerial bombardment. The Nigerian federal government, committed to the doctrine of oneness, had boasted that the conflict would last no longer than three weeks of “police action.” We had learnt much from the politics of other nations, but apparently not from history; the war lasted more than two years. Noble Laureate, Prof Wole Soyika Tormented by the image of a herd of human lemmings rushing to their doom, as a young writer, I made the “treasonable” statement warning that the secessionist state, Biafra, could never be defeated. The simplistic rendition of that conviction in most minds—certainly in the minds of the then-ruling military and its elite support—was that this applied merely to the physical field of combat. Thus it was regarded as a psychological offensive against the federal side, an attempt to demoralize its soldiers while boosting the war spirit of the enemy. That “enemy” had also boasted that no force in black Africa could defeat them. My visit to the Biafran enclave in October 1966 resulted in arrest and detention.

During interrogation, I insisted that my statement was meant as a counter to the surge of emotive nationalism and a slavish sanctification of colonial boundaries. Biafra was therefore an expression of that rejection and its replacement with a people’s self-constitutive rights. This specific challenge owed its genesis to memory at its rawest, the memory of ethnic cleansing, whose remedy could not be sought rationally in a campaign of subjugation against an already traumatized community. One question, rhetorical in tone, stuck in my mind for long afterwards. It went thus: “Why should you take it on yourself to make such a statement? Is it because you’re a writer? Who are you to take a contrary stance to the government?” I replied to myself that I had learned to listen. The young man countered that he was on the side of history, and Biafra would be crushed. Not quite, as it turned out.

The Biafrans were indeed defeated on the battlefield, but crushed? Today, most Nigerians know better. Biafra has not been defeated. If anyone was left in any doubt about this, the last work of my late colleague, Chinua Achebe’s There Was A Country, has left us re-thinking. New generation writers, born long after that brutal war, have inherited and continue to propagate the Biafran doctrine, an article of faith among the Igbo populace, even among those who pay lip-service to a united nation. Millions remain sworn to uphold it. Many have died at the hands of the police and the military as succeeding guardians of that legacy troop out to reclaim it in defiant manifestations. Amnesty International estimated that at least 150 pro-Biafra activists have been killed since August 2015. Some of their leaders, including the director of their official mouthpiece, Radio Biafra, remain on trial for alleged subversion and treason. Others have gone underground. The war is not over, only the tactics have changed. One could claim that a project of internal secession is unfolding, one that skirts the peripheries of Nigerian laws, testing what they permit, and daring what they do not.


As for the victorious side, analysts continue to cite the lingering consequences of the war of secession among the main causes of the nation’s instability, alongside contemporary factors such as mismanagement of petroleum resources, corruption, visionless leadership, etc. Today, secession simmers openly, and is moving steadily beyond rhetoric. It has already taken on a dangerous complement—ejection. A number of combative youth organizations in the northern part of Nigeria recently called for the expulsion of the Igbo from their lands for daring once again to talk about secession. Mainstream leaders have disowned them, but some support has been voiced by individuals within the same adult cadre, including its intelligentsia. Debate is intense, often acrimonious. Sadly however, one is left with a feeling that most participants in this discourse shy away from a fundamental component of nation being, one that transcends the Biafran will to corporate existence. That principle virtually gasps for air under the wishfully terminal mantra that goes:

“The unity of Nigeria is non-negotiable.” I have never understood how this is supposed to differ from the dogma of certain religious strains that declare conversion from faith to be an act of apostasy, punishable by death. Nationality, like religion, is only another construct into which one is either born, or acquires by accident or indoctrination. Those who insist on the divine right of nation over a people’s choice seem unaware that they box themselves into the same doctrinaire mould of mere habit, just like religion. In the Nigerian instance, however, the matter is even more troubling. Since the absolutists of nation indivisibility are not ignorant of the histories of other nations and are immersed daily under evidence of the assertive factor of negotiation—be it in the language of arms and violence or the conference table—since they know full well that this process straddles pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial histories, such speakers unconsciously imply that Africans are sub-citizens of the real world and are not entitled to make their own choices, even in this modern age. This smacks of an inferiority complex, if not of a slavish indoctrination, when we additionally consider how today’s Africa came to be, a land mass of constitutive units that were largely determined by alien interests, and thus, hold possibilities of fatal flaws.


Also requiring contestation is the implicit equation of supreme sacrifice with supreme entitlement: Those who say, “We have shed our blood for Nigerian unity, and will not stand by and watch it dismantled.” My observation is that in civil warfare—indeed in most kinds of warfare—civilians pay the higher price in lives, possessions and dignity. We need therefore to eliminate the distracting lament of professionals of violence and confront, in its own right, the issue of the collective volition of any human grouping. This leaves us with the other line of approach, the line of frankly subjective or reasoned, pragmatic preferences. It is a positioning that admits, quite simply, I am a creature of habit and prefer things as they are. Or: I like to be a big frog in a small pond, and allied determinants. Such individual and collective preferences for nation validation offer sincere basis for negotiation and resolution. Once conceded, we proceed to invoke the positives of cohabitation that render fragmentation mostly adventurist and potentially destructive. Habit is a great motivator, but it should not be permitted to transform itself into categorical controls that make any existing condition “non-negotiable.”

Should Biafra stay in, or opt out of Nigeria? That is the latent question. Even after years of turbulent co-tenancy, it seems unreal to conceive of a Nigeria without Biafra. My preference for “in” goes beyond objective assessment of economic, cultural and social advantages for Biafra and the rest of us....


Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/07/biafra-has-not-been-defeated-wole-soyinka/

Mcowubaba:
Some people think Biafra started with APC administration, I laugh.

The wounds of Biafra are still existent in many Families up till today.
Personally, I wasn't born then, but I was told Nigerian Government dropped a bomb in our Village market, killing many civilians, my Dad's 2 sisters and their small children lost their lives.
The were in the Market, this happened when the war was still starting, it wasn't full scale yet.

My family was personally affected, Nigeria has never apologized for this, even the program to reconstruct, rehabilitate the places that were destroyed by the war, never saw the daylight.
I know some disabled people still alive today, who got their disability as a result of the Biafra war.

Biafrans were given just £20 to start life, all their previous money was useless, the were sacked from all Government work, the were declared resigned...

Their properties declared Abandoned by Nigerian Government.
And some deranged Lunatics will say Igbos are too hateful, why won't we . Some things can't be forgiven, if the are forgiven, the can't be forgotten

I'm not an IPOB member or a full supporter of Nnamdi Kanu, but Biafra is far from Over.

Before you open your dirty mouth to shout 1 Nigeria, pray for your family members to be blown away by bomb

Buhari given his nepotism, undiplomatic, bigoted and fanatic nature just increased the fire, but the fire was always burning...
I still insist that Buhari is a curse from the gods, no doubt.
No country deserves Buhari as a president, it's pure wickedness, many people are suffering so much.

Xano:
Straightforward and un-diluted message.

Thank you.

Some of my family members were killed by bomb that was dropped by the Nigerian Air Force in the first few months of the war.

I know a number of friends' family members that were killed during the war. They are strong advocates of secession. The elderly parents told us how they survived with $20, some did not receive, so they ventured into farming. Then, some sacrificed their desire to go to university to cater for their siblings.
The desire to achieve was strong, and has been so for decades since then.

Aladinn:
Whoever you are, you're just too intelligent. You really captured the message WS was passing across. Biafra needs another approach if it's going to succeed. Thank you for this brilliant summary.

Dumaknesset:
The days they force Lagos salty beach water down your throat, you will also realise that IPod's that contribute least to federal till are thieves for wanting to hamstrung Nigerian into giving them presidency of Nigeria by there sudden found Zionism.

I bet you have heard of reverse zoo, You iPod's are the wild animals and we are watching you cannibalis the remainder of your wretched self worths.

lionness:
Shameless useless IPOBS, so the same Shoyinka you all ridiculed because he criticized your Messiah and Bloda GEJ is suddenly the same person you are quoting. The Biafran folks are desperately seeking for validating and appeal. If Biafra is something you truly believe in, you dont need to care what Trump, or the UN, or the same person you all abused and shamed during the GEJ's government think. Its a matter of time before a baboon is quoted as a staunch supporter and lover of Biafra. Hopeless and insincere cause sponsored by criminals who are afraid of been investigated after looting the GEJ administration into tandem. Kanu is definitely collecting his pay check from Ekweremandu, Ubah, Odua, Obi, and the likes. A silly puppet dancing to the tune of this pay master, and half of the entire SE youths cant see this fraud for his insincerity. Just please give them the Biafra, and see these people self-destruct like ticking timebomb in less than a decade.

Mcowubaba:
Some people think Biafra started with APC administration, I laugh.

The wounds of Biafra are still existent in many Families up till today.
Personally, I wasn't born then, but I was told Nigerian Government dropped a bomb in our Village market, killing many civilians, my Dad's 2 sisters and their small children lost their lives.
The were in the Market, this happened when the war was still starting, it wasn't full scale yet.

My family was personally affected, Nigeria has never apologized for this, even the program to reconstruct, rehabilitate the places that were destroyed by the war, never saw the daylight.
I know some disabled people still alive today, who got their disability as a result of the Biafra war.

Biafrans were given just £20 to start life, all their previous money was useless, the were sacked from all Government work, the were declared resigned...

Their properties declared Abandoned by Nigerian Government.
And some deranged Lunatics will say Igbos are too hateful, why won't we . Some things can't be forgiven, if the are forgiven, the can't be forgotten

I'm not an IPOB member or a full supporter of Nnamdi Kanu, but Biafra is far from Over.

Before you open your dirty mouth to shout 1 Nigeria, pray for your family members to be blown away by bomb

Buhari given his nepotism, undiplomatic, bigoted and fanatic nature just increased the fire, but the fire was always burning...
I still insist that Buhari is a curse from the gods, no doubt.
No country deserves Buhari as a president, it's pure wickedness, many people are suffering so much.

Amah70:
Lol.

Just after one little push, you now condescend to the level of a semi-literate and nagging housing wife. Before now, you paraded yourself here as an anti-Biafra intellectual powerhouse.

Go and sleep.
Agitation for restoration of Biafra is a subject beyond the understanding of those of you who believe that crude oil is all there is for a country to survive. Unity beggars.

Amah70:
Lol.

Just after one little push, you now condescend to the level of a semi-literate and nagging house wife. Before now, you paraded yourself here as an anti-Biafra intellectual powerhouse.

Go and sleep.
Agitation for restoration of Biafra is a subject beyond the understanding of those of you who believe that crude oil is all there is for a country to survive. Unity beggars.

Mcowubaba:
Some people think Biafra started with APC administration, I laugh.

The wounds of Biafra are still existent in many Families up till today.
Personally, I wasn't born then, but I was told Nigerian Government dropped a bomb in our Village market, killing many civilians, my Dad's 2 sisters and their small children lost their lives.
The were in the Market, this happened when the war was still starting, it wasn't full scale yet.

My family was personally affected, Nigeria has never apologized for this, even the program to reconstruct, rehabilitate the places that were destroyed by the war, never saw the daylight.
I know some disabled people still alive today, who got their disability as a result of the Biafra war.

Biafrans were given just £20 to start life, all their previous money was useless, the were sacked from all Government work, the were declared resigned...

Their properties declared Abandoned by Nigerian Government.
And some deranged Lunatics will say Igbos are too hateful, why won't we . Some things can't be forgiven, if the are forgiven, the can't be forgotten

I'm not an IPOB member or a full supporter of Nnamdi Kanu, but Biafra is far from Over.

Before you open your dirty mouth to shout 1 Nigeria, pray for your family members to be blown away by bomb

Buhari given his nepotism, undiplomatic, bigoted and fanatic nature just increased the fire, but the fire was always burning...
I still insist that Buhari is a curse from the gods, no doubt.
No country deserves Buhari as a president, it's pure wickedness, many people are suffering so much.

NwaAmaikpe:



Point of correction Prof,
It's not Biafra has not been defeated

But

Biafra can not be defeated.

This ideology is ingrained in the mind and souls of toddlers and babies unborn,
The cry for liberation echoes from the anthills of Nsugbe to the mountains of Ngwo,
The cry of injustice is heard from the lakes of Oguta to the beaches of Buguma.

Never again,
Never again shall we see the Hausa-Fulani and call him brother.
We are not genetically identical
We are not psychologically identical
We are not spiritually identical
Those are no brothers of ours,
At best, they are neighbors but not our brothers

Our brothers don't mate with animals
Our brothers don't marry underage girls
A neighbor is not a brother.

Our lands are ravaged,
Our resources are exploited,
Our tomorrow is raped,
Our hands are tied,
Our mouths are gagged
They've made us believe all we can do is mumur
We can't shout or fight because we are powerless.
But our resolve is unflinching.

One day,
The sun will rise again,
Power will return to the people

Viva Biafra.

RisingSun1:
Who can stop the sun from rising from the EAST?

dolphinife:
So what happened in 1970?

Mcowubaba:
The whites really helped us.
Red cross saved my mother that time.
That's when Médecins_Sans_Frontières was established.
Doctors without Borders, it was because of the war.
Nigerian really did evil, to women and children

Jetjacky:
I feel your pain: my mum lost her aunties and uncles to the war; her father would have died as well, if not for his Bible taking a bullet for him.

Dumaknesset:
I am sorry you lost loved ones, the reason why this war or cavalier approach is silly. Note there were casualties on the other side. So Sol tempo.

Sacluxpaint:
You get brain!

Nigeria has refused to apologize, and people are shouting one Nigeria to cover the atrocities of the past.

If only Nigeria has a listening ear.

Mcowubaba:
Yes Nwanne, that's why we haven't forgotten...
Nigerians will not understand

beatiegirl:
When you say casualties on the other side, do you mean civilians? I never read or heard that biafran army went beyond the river Niger to attack or bomb Nigerian civilians at the time. Biafra was defending their territory.

The igbo people survived a war, a genocide, people do not think of the damage on their ecosystem afterwards, the psychological effect of living in about 5 different locations within a period of 3 years.

My mother told me that during the war, whenever the running starts, people leave their valuables, their sick and even their babies behind to save themselves.

Families were separated, some never saw each other again. The biafran war is a sympathetic topic to igbos, IPOB or not.

It will help if the economy is restructured, so that each entity can be focused. The northerner considers someone from Mali or Niger to be his brother much more than an Igbo man.

beatiegirl:
When you say casualties on the other side, do you mean civilians? I never read or heard that biafran army went beyond the river Niger to attack or bomb Nigerian civilians at the time. Biafra was defending their territory.

logica:
Apologize for what?