Kanu’s quest for Biafra

By Aunde T. Emmanuel

Nigeria, a multi-ethnic country, is a nation of nations. More than two hundred and fifty ethnic groups make up Nigeria. The country, however, sits on a tripod, namely Igbo, Yoruba, and the Hausa-Fulani. Since the inception of Nigeria many years ago, there has been no love lost among the different tribal groups in the country. Little wonder, ethnic animosity as well as hatred characterise the country. People of an ethnic group view   people from other ethnic groups with suspicion and hatred. This has bred and engendered disunity and fissures in the country.

Consequently, the political parties which were formed in the country in the First Republic were not truly nationalistic in composition and outlook. What NPC was to the North was what AG was to the Western region. Here, we place our ethnic nation’s interests above national interests and other considerations. Not surprisingly, we witnessed and experienced the January 1966 coup, and the July 1966 counter-coup, which precipitated the bloody Nigeria-Biafra civil war.

In the war that raged between 1967 and 1970, the Igbo and other Easterners were pitted against the rest of Nigeria. Millions of human lives were wasted in the gratuitous war. The war was fought to keep Nigeria one. And now, we’re being told that the unity and continued existence of Nigeria as one indivisible and indissoluble country is non-negotiable and sacrosanct.

 But, that postulation is fallacious, presumptuous, arrogant, and self-serving. People with that mindset are the corrupt political bigwigs in Nigeria, who live off our collective wealth. Have some federal states in today’s world not disintegrated? And Nigeria is a federal state. The former Soviet Union, which was composed of fifteen nations, split into smaller countries. Then, USSR seemed impregnable. USSR was a federal state. Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia have dismembered, too.

In Africa, Eritrea had pulled out of Ethiopia; and South-Sudan emerged from Sudan after they had fought an internecine civil war for many years.

 Right now, the wave of clamour for the achievement of statehood for homogenous groups is sweeping ferociously across the world. The Scottish people conducted a referendum to determine their continued stay in Great Britain some years ago. In Spain, the Basque people want to optout of Spain. And, across the world, some countries are being ravaged by ethnic rivalries, which always ignite the clamour for the creation of sovereign states for homogenous people(s).

 In Nigeria, which is the potential giant of Africa, there is a resurgence and resuscitation of the agitation for the creation of the state of Biafra. In the recent past, Ralph Uwazuruike led the charge for the carving out of a geographical space called Biafra for the Igbo-speaking people of the South-east of Nigeria. The lawyer-turned freedom fighter, however, was accused of being a self-out and political turn-coat. His steep downfall coincided with the rise of Nnamdi Kanu, the director of Radio Biafra and the IPOB leader. Nnamdi Kanu has become popular with the teeming Igbo masses owing to his hate speeches on Radio Biafra.

 His platitudinous speeches resonate with his followers, who are largely unlettered and impressionable youths. They have acquiesced in his notion that the Igbo people’s opting out of Nigeria will be an open sesame to the rapid development of the proposed state of Biafra. The plank of his argument for wanting the creation of the state of Biafra is that the Igbo are being   marginalized in Nigeria’s scheme of things. It is a platitudinous mantra that’s mouthed by some foxy selfish politicians, who are struggling to better their lot in life.

 But the fact is, the Igbo people and some other groups in Nigeria are being marginalised in Nigeria’s scheme of things. In this country, most times, they’re given a raw deal. This is clearly exemplified in the skewed appointments into federal establishments, which do not favour the Igbo people. But, the antidote to the problem is not opting out of Nigeria. Aren’t we better off as one country considering that Nigeria is blessed with immense human and material resources that are distributed across the country? And, we can harness our diversities in many areas to achieve true national growth. It is an incontrovertible fact that the greatness of Nigeria lies in its diversity in many areas.

 So, instead of stoking and fanning the embers of disunity, beating the drums of war, and agitating for a separate country, the Igbo should enter the mainstream Nigerian politics, and form and forge political alliances with other ethnic blocs and groups in order to produce a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction. Doing this will disabuse the minds of people from other ethnic groups of prejudices and sentiments about the Igbo ethnic group.

 Again, instead of clamouring for the disintegration Nigeria, we should push for the restructuring of Nigeria, practice of true fiscal federalism, and the implementation of the recommendations of the 2014 national confab. The South-East can become an economically prosperous and technologically advanced area given its potentialities if Nigeria is to become a truly federal state. USA is a federal state, and the states there are not as impoverished as the ones in Nigeria because they practise true federalism. They don’t go cap in hand begging for money from the centre oftentimes.

 A united Nigeria with workable federal structures is preferable to a fragmented and dismembered Nigeria with many nations coming out of it. And, there is no guarantee that the proposed state of Biafra will enjoy unity and political stability, which is the foundation of national development, if it becomes a nation-state. South-Sudan, which is a break-away country from Sudan, is embroiled in another civil war. Is Eritrea, which used to be in Ethiopia, a model of a developed, peaceful, and united nation-state? Some countries that broke away from other countries are still engaged in needless wars today.

 So, is Nnamdi Kanu, the IPOB leader, a student of world history? Is he aware that the circumstantial events that led Col. Emeka Ojukwu, who was the governor of Eastern Region then, to declare the state of Biafra are different from what obtains in today’s Nigeria? Has he delineated the areas that Biafra will encompass if it becomes a sovereign state? Has he enlisted and got the support of the Igbo-speaking people in the Niger-Delta area? Apart from executing periodic stay-at-home order, which paralyses economic activities in the South-east, what is his policy of action for actualising his dream, which is the creation of the state of Biafra?

This is why I find his call for the abolition of the forthcoming Anambra governorship election as presumptuous, rash, and ill-conceived. If he tries to organise a mass action to prevent the conduct of the election, it’ll put him on a collision course with the federal government, which will be a repudiation and disavowal of his non-violent approach to achieving his political ends.

 A united Nigeria is better than a fragmented and dismembered one with many nation-states coming out of it.