Intro: To paraphrase the historian, mathematician, reporter, Marxist, and also modern thinker, Edwin Madunagu, every political background has its significant days, spots or transforming points. In Nigeria’s political background, as an example, spots would include October 1, 1960, (the day Nigeria got freedom from Britain), January 15, 1966, (when the very first of what would certainly come to be a practice of army stroke of genius occurred), July 6, 1967, (the authorities beginning of the 30-month Nigeria-Biafra battle) as well as January 15, 1970, (the authorities end of the civil battle).
To these dates, I will certainly add January 1, 1914, (the combinations of the Southern and Northern Protectorates by the British to produce Nigeria), May 27, 1967, (the start of state production in Nigeria), as well as May 30, 1967, (the official affirmation of the secessionist state of Biafra). The latter days, May 27 and also May 30, 1967, are considerable in numerous ways. On May 27, 50 years ago, Yakubu Gowon, who worked as president of Nigeria from 1966 to 1975, possibly in anticipation of the audacious move by the Armed force Governor of the Eastern Region of Nigeria, Lt. Col. Emeka Ojukwu, announced the department of Nigeria into 12 states from 4 areas. The department of Nigeria into 12 states and Ojukwu’s statement of Biafra were choices that would transform the nation for life.
Gowon’s activity did not just change the framework of Nigeria, it led to the reconstruction of the nascent nation via the lenses of the supposed Nigerian armed force; an armed forces that was provincial in expectation as it was ill-equipped for leadership. The army central economic as well as political power as well as moved Nigeria from a government republic to a unitary state. In numerous methods, we can comfortably claim May 27, 1967, was the day Nigeria started to unravel and also any effort to understand the present situations and also our lack of ability to make progress as a Country need to always return to the activity of the military junta on May 27, 1967.
The roadway to Biafra
Three days later on, May 30, 1967, Lt. Col Ojukwu, a Nigerian soldier of Igbo extraction proclaimed an “independent sovereign state of the name as well as title of the Republic of Biafra,” officially excising the Eastern Area from Nigeria. Ojukwu based his activity on the resolution, 4 days earlier, on Might 26, 1967, of a joint meeting of the Eastern consultative assembly as well as leaders of idea that asked him to declare the Eastern region as a different republic at an “early practicable date”.
Was the bloodletting that begun with the January 15, 1966, army coup. Three: No Igbo political leader died and also the only Igbo army casualty occurred not due to the fact that he was a target but since he was thought about a ‘nuisance’. 4: The tried successful stroke was the culmination of a lengthy duration of political situation in Nigeria, a situation whose centre of gravity was Western Area where, prior to the army intervention, the dilemma had come to be an armed popular uprising.”
On July 29, 1966, there was one more armed forces stroke of genius led by police officers from North Nigeria and also Lt. Col Yakubu Gowon ended up being president. According to Madunagu, the coupists “initially made a move to pull the North Region out Nigeria, but when they were suggested that they were currently in a military situation to rule the whole nation, as opposed to a part of it, they dropped the idea of secession and came to be champions of ‘One Nigeria’. Lt. Col Ojukwu refused to recognize Lt. Col Gowon as president.”
The second successful stroke brought about the assassination, among other prominent casualties, of the country’s first armed forces head of state, Gen. Aguiyi Ironsi, an Igbo, as well as the military governor of the Western Area, Lt. Col. Adekunle Fajuyi. This was adhered to by, as Madunagu notes, “mass murders not just in the North yet around the country, except the Eastern Area. Now, multiply the Might 1966 disaster by a variable of 50, contribute to it the fact that the murders were currently led by armed soldiers whose commanders were currently in power as well as add to this the truth that the killings did not mellow out for a minimum of 5 months as well as you start to have an idea of what happened.”
The criminal indifference of the Nigerian state to the reveal pogrom against individuals from Eastern Nigeria, particularly Igbos, the repudiation by the Nigerian section (as well as the “independent implementation” by the Eastern regional government) of the contract on decentralization of power got to at a conference in Aburi, Ghana, including the main lead characters, Yakubu Gowon and Emeka Ojukwu, at the instance of Gen. Ankrah of Ghana, ultimately led the roadway to Biafra.
The accounts of what happened in those unstable days are as varied as there are ethnic groups in Nigeria. But something is specific: the effects of those events, particularly the activities of May 27 as well as 30, 1967, are still being really felt today. In one dropped swoop, the army unilaterally restructured Nigeria according to its dictates. While Ojukwu drafted “reluctant” minorities in the Eastern Region to produce a Biafran state where Igbos remained in the majority, the Nigerian armed force which was just the armed wing of a reactionary feudal class that had power thrust on it at freedom started the application of a schedule of conquest. Remarkably, hardly a year previously, the area of the armed force that took power after the January 15, 1966 coup had attempted to rebuild Nigeria as a unitary state with the promulgation of the unification mandate 34 of 1966. That attempt was opposed very by those (consisting of a section of the military) who felt they had lost in the power formula. The remainder is history.
When background repeats itself
Nigeria is on the cusp of that heartbreaking background repeating itself. In a couple of days, there will certainly be occasions in Nigeria and around the globe to note the 50th wedding anniversary of the declaration of Biafra on May 30, 1967.
Is Biafra the solution? In various other words, can we solve the troubles of 2017 Nigeria using the unfortunate option of 50 years ago? “A country which falls short to effectively keep in mind significant factors of its very own background is like an individual with Alzheimer’s.
Seventeen years earlier, Edwin Madunagu, in the item referenced above, advised “the young Nigerians currently endangering to realise Biafra (to) shelve the plan or forget. If 30 years after Biafra, you want to create its second edition, you need to benefit from the criticism of the. On the various other hand, those who delight in mocking Biafra– instead of researching it– are politically shortsighted.
Madunagu’s reproach needs no explanation. It is clear sufficient for the youths promoting the actualization of Biafra, a number of whom were born after the end of the Biafra war 47 years earlier. The facet of his placement on Biafra that I intend to concentrate on is the element that warns of the “political shortsightedness of mocking Biafra”.
Balkanizing the country
When the army program headed by Gowon split Nigeria right into 12 states, it sought to compromise the prospect of the various groups in the Eastern Region joining against the Nigerian state. Naturally, that action was music to the ears of minority teams, particularly those in the Eastern Area, who had lengthy required their very own state. With the development of states, nevertheless, the military not just unilaterally abrogated the geo-political structure that existed after that, it went an action better to damage the principle of federalism on which Nigeria obtained self-reliance in 1960 and which had maintained and also maintained the country together. We need to comprehend that this principle was taken on not just to relieve the concern of supremacy by a solitary group in the country but as acknowledgment of the differences (multi-lingual and also multi-ethnic) of the numerous “ethnic citizenships” that were united to produce Nigeria.
Part of Gowon’s program on May 27, 1967, signaling the separation of Nigeria right into 12 states applies below: “The primary obstacle to future security in this country is today structural discrepancy in the Nigerian Federation. Also Decree No. 8 or Confederation or ‘loose association’ will certainly never make it through if any type of one area of the country remains in a setting to hold the others to ransom money.
” This is why the initial product in the political and administrative program embraced by the Supreme Military Council last month is the production of states for stability. This should be done first so regarding remove the worry of domination. Reps drawn from the brand-new states will be more able to exercise the future constitution for this country which can include stipulations to secure the powers of the states to the max extent desired by the Nigerian people.
” As soon as these are established, a brand-new profits allocation compensation consisting of global experts will be designated to advise an equitable formula for earnings allowance taking into consideration the desires of the states. I propose to act faithfully within the political as well as management program embraced by the Supreme Military Council and released last month. The globe will acknowledge in these propositions our need for justice and also fair play for all sections of this country as well as to fit all real aspirations of the varied individuals of this excellent nation.
” I have actually ordered the re-imposition of the economic procedures created to safeguard federal rate of interests till such time as the Eastern Military Guv abrogates his prohibited ordinances on profits collection and the administration of the federal legal firms based in the East. The nation has a lengthy background of well-articulated demands for states. The anxieties of minorities were discussed in great detail and laid out in the record of the Willink Payment assigned by the British in 1958. A lot more recently, there have been comprehensive conversations in Regional Consultative Boards and leaders-of-thought meetings. Resolutions have been taken on demanding the creation of states in the North and also in Lagos. Requests from minority areas in the East which have been subjected to fierce intimidation by the Eastern Military Government have actually been publicized.
” While the present conditions sadly do not enable consultations via plebiscites, I am completely satisfied that the creation of new states as the only feasible basis for security and equal rights is the frustrating need of the vast bulk of Nigerians. To ensure justice, these states are being created at the same time. To this end, therefore, I am promulgating a decree which will certainly separate the Federal Republic right into 12 states. The 12 states will be 6 in the present Northern Area, three in today Eastern Region, the Mid-Western will stay as it is, the Colony Province of the Western Area as well as Lagos will form a new Lagos State and the Western Region will otherwise stay as it is.”
What the armed forces program of Gowon gave with one hand it took with the other. Which would certainly become the hallmark of succeeding military routines in Nigeria. Gowon failed to understand, or purposely neglected the fact that the concern had not been the department of the unwillingness yet the country or inability of the army to maintain its assurance, viz., “This need to be done initially so regarding eliminate the worry of supremacy. Reps drawn from the new states will certainly be extra able to work out the future constitution for this nation which can have provisions to protect the powers of the states to the max level wanted by the Nigerian people.”
That never taken place. It could not have, taking into consideration the savage and also parasitical nature of the Nigerian armed forces so-called and the rate of interest it represented as well as still stands for. As soon as the military couldn’t provide on that guarantee, it likewise indicated that the 2nd part of its statement that, “The globe will acknowledge in these propositions our wish for justice as well as fair play for all areas of this country and also to accommodate all authentic goals of the varied individuals of this fantastic nation,” was just worthless soundbite by a rampaging army sub-class in hopeless search for legitimacy.
The sham of a federation that the military developed has actually progressed right into a Monster’s beast. Cleary, it is the nebulous federal government that is holding the nation to ransom. The moment the military federal government took economic powers from the states, there was no means we could guarantee justice and reasonable play.
The politics of state creation
When Gen Murtala Muhammed created added 7 states– 3 in the “South” and four in the “North”– bringing the total to 19 states, and a brand-new government resources region, Abuja, on February 3, 1976, ten days prior to his assassination on February 13, he left no person unsure that the conquest was actual. While Gowon revealed an inclination to balance Nigeria geo-politically, Muhammed guaranteed that the “North” had 10 states while the “South” had 9. It has been alleged that the decision was to develop four new states in the “North” as well as 4 brand-new states in the “South”, yet when Muhammed announced the development of states, instead of developing two states (Cross River and Akwa Ibom States) out of the old South-Eastern State, he just introduced the improvement of South-Eastern State right into Cross River State.
10 years later, in 1986, when the self-professed bad brilliant, Gen Ibrahim Babangida, established up a Political Bureau to review the country’s democratic and political system, one of its recommendations was the production of an added state (Akwa Ibom State) in “South” to develop a geo-political balance of 10 states each in between the “North” as well as “South”. He did create Akwa Ibom State, however he added another state (Katsina State) in the “North” to keep the inequality. Geo-politically, today, Nigeria is made up of 36 states: 19 states in the “North” and also 17 states in the “South”.
Generally, this ought to not matter. In a federation, the federating units (states) are intended to handle their events substantially as well as contribute to the sustenance of the Federation. For that reason, just those who feel their states can suffer themselves would clamor for the creation of such states. Obviously, even more self-sustaining states would certainly imply much more possibilities for the nationwide federal government to take advantage of the exploration as well as exploitation of resources in every state. Regrettably, that is not the situation with Nigeria.
In a country where the armed force had pirated and streamlined the control of financial resources and political power by, as an example, arrogating to itself the authority to develop city governments as well as positioning itself in the placement of chief dispenser of funds based upon its very own requirements, consisting of population, land mass, number of local governments, derivation concept, etc., the dog eat dog need for states was unavoidable. Thanks to the military– the armed wing of Nigeria’s leading power bloc– Nigeria has a strange federation where states can not create their very own city governments; where local governments are noted in constitutions that have actually been nothing but armed forces mandates writ huge. Thanks to the military, Nigeria has rejected justice and fair play as well as neglected the authentic goals of the diverse individuals of this excellent country.
It is except absolutely nothing that Nigeria is referred to as a federal republic. It was an option made by the 3 regions in Nigeria coming before self-reliance. Both the Eastern and also Western regions acquired interior self-government (self-reliance) in 1957, while the North got same in 1959. Each area could have opted to go its very own method 1960. We might have had 3 nations as opposed to one at self-reliance. The choice by the regions to be part of a common region called Nigeria came with some responsibility as well as expectation. There is little to recommend that the federating region agreed to reject the greater part of their political and financial self-reliance for “one Nigeria”.
In 1963, the areas (the precursor of our existing states) controlled half of the revenues accruing from their region; today we are quibbling whether the states have right to as low as 13 percent. In a feeling, this manifest heist by the federal government has actually continued oppression in some areas of the country while pardoning indolence in others. It is this quest for control or lack of, that is at the heart of the Nigerian crisis.
Biafra of the mind vs Biafra of the area
What is Biafra? If that question was tough to address in 1967, it is even more hard today, fifty years after. As a country, Biafra was going to be difficult to receive even if it had been realised. Was Biafra a nation composed of ethnic nationalities? Simply put, was Biafra a microcosm of Nigeria? One of things those who are perturbing for Biafra have not had the ability to define or connect efficiently is an answer to the concern: What is Biafra? The answers to this concern are as varied as there are agitators.
There are those that will certainly tell you that Biafra encompasses the location that used to be the Eastern Region of Nigeria as well as past, including parts of Southern Cameroon as well as extending to Equatorial Guinea and also Gabon. Some specify Biafra as simply the previous Eastern Area of Nigeria that was given the name Biafra on May 30, 1967. Some state it is the five states (Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo) in south-east Nigeria where the Igbos are the major ethnic group. Others define Biafra as incorporating all the Igbo-speaking locations of southerly Nigeria, including components of present-day Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Cross River and Benue States. The problem of meaning is necessary due to the fact that the lack of understanding and agreement can present wonderful issues.
Naturally, up until Might 30, 1967, there was absolutely nothing like Biafra as nation or political region. The only point that bore the tag Biafra was a bight off the West African shore, in the easternmost part of the Gulf of Guinea, stretching to Cape Lopez in Gabon, over which Britain developed an early american protectorate in 1849. Biafra as a country was a kid of scenario that would become a youngster of necessity.
What if the bloody January 15, 1966, stroke of genius as well as the consequent assassinations didn’t occur; if Igbo political leaders had been eliminated alongside their counterparts from the “North” as well as “West”; if the “retribution stroke of genius” of July 29, 1966, and the attendant murders really did not take place; if the Nigerian state had checked the murderous groups (armed forces and private) that had targeted Igbos after the July 29 successful stroke; if Gen Aguiyi Ironsi– the first native general and also leader of the Nigerian Army– an Igbo who was not part of the January 15 abortive coup, had not been a significant beneficiary by taking power and coming to be president; if Gen Ironsi had carried out the successful stroke plotters ofJanuary 15 as army practice determines; if the regimen of Gen Ironsi did not promulgate Decree No. 34– which abrogated the country’s government structure for a unitary one; if the “January 15 boys” had finished their “job” either by one of them becoming president or as some have suggested, launched the sent to prison leader of the nationwide resistance, Principal Obafemi Awolowo, and mounted him as prime minister; if the Nigerian federal government led by Gowon had applied the contract got to at Aburi?
We can raise several questions as well as speculate as much as we such as, but we will never ever understand. Of course, a couple of things are recognized. Madunagu reminds us that, “In Eastern Region, a militant group in the present Bayelsa State, led by Isaac Boro, increased in armed disobedience versus the (January 15) stroke of genius. They wanted political freedom for the minorities, not the substitute of (the premier) Dr. Michael Okpara (an Igbo) by Col. Ojukwu (an Igbo). Boro’s rebellion was beat after 12 days. My reflections and also researches convince me that this rebellion was the authentic placement and voice of the minorities of Eastern Nigeria at the time.”
I don’t think that setting has altered even though many advocates for Biafra would certainly say or else. My very own research encourages me that if the minorities in the Eastern Area wanted “political autonomy” from the Igbos half a century earlier, today that feeling is even more powerful today. If this is the circumstance, how then do we construe the restored clamor for the actualization of Biafra? If the minorities reject to be part of the renewed Biafra experiment, will they be forced to be part of it? Some Biafra activists think that need to hold true. If we relate Biafra to the Igbo ethnic citizenship, how do we specify Igbo (or any other ethnic race) in a country where ethnic borders have ended up being amorphous and hybrid has taken place for over a 100 year?
Clearly, once the Biafra experiment fell short, it was going to be hard to put it back with each other once again. Perhaps, that was why Ojukwu, the man who led the Biafra war of independence many years later discussed “the Biafra of the mind” rather than “the Biafra of the field”. On January 9, 1970, soon prior to the end of the Nigeria-Biafra Battle on January 15, 1970, Ojukwu turned over power to his second in command, Principal of General Personnel, Major-General Philip Effiong, as well as went into exile in Cream color Coast where he lived for 12 years.
Ojukwu was granted political asylum by President Félix Houphouët-Boigny whose nation had actually recognized Biafra on 14 May 1968. He returned to Nigeria to a hero’s welcome in 1982 after he was provided state pardon by the private government led by Shehu Shagari. He joined the ruling event at the federal degree, the National Event of Nigeria (NPN), to the dissatisfaction of numerous who had actually wished or desired him to sign up with the party that was in power at the state level, the Nigerian Peoples Event (NPP). He could not get sufficient support (or was undermined by his very own celebration as some have suggested) from his kinsmen to represent them at the Us senate.
2015 quotes placed the Igbo populace at around 33 million, close to 20% of Nigeria’s approximated 180 million people. He had no remorses, rightly so, regarding his duty in the statement of Biafra. He was worried concerning the oppression in Nigeria, yet he was likewise enthusiastic concerning the need to deploy brand-new collections, taking right into account current facts, in the mission to end oppression in Nigeria.
Plainly, we can listen to the yells of oppression (read Biafra) across the size and breadth of Nigeria. The question then is what must we do to obtain Nigeria out of the present quagmire and inevitably save the country from self-destruction?
Mythological nation
There are no simple responses, thinking about the historic trajectories of Nigeria as well as the beating the country has actually extracted from rogue leaders (noncombatant as well as army) in the last 57 years. Yet we can start from somewhere. An authentic nationwide discussion based on shared existential experience can be a good beginning point. We need to involve the realization that we have extremely limited choices and also time is essential. The solitary schedule of such national discussion is to exercise a agreeable and sustainable framework for the country. This is crucial for lots of factors, the most vital being that it is on such contract that every other point, consisting of the survival of the nation, relaxes. It is this sentiment that the late political leader and lawyer, Principal Bola Ige, revealed when he noted: “There are two fundamental questions that must be answered by all Nigerians. One, do we intend to remain as one nation? 2, if the solution is indeed, under what conditions?”
Undoubtedly, a majority of Nigerians would react in the affirmative to the initial concern. The question then is if we consent to stay together, under what problems? Do we desire a really government country? Do we want a secular as well as egalitarian country where the policy of regulation prevails? Do we desire a religious as well as semi-feudal republic that impersonates a modern democratic society? Do we want a country where some people are dealt with as second-class people? Do we want a nation where some people feel rejected, marginalized, dispossessed and also neglected or a comprehensive country of equal opportunities, responsibility, trust, and also liberty? The choice is ours, yet that decision must include the majority of Nigerians. Enter the term restructuring!
To understand Nigeria and also why we need to reorganize the nation, we need to unmask a couple of misconceptions as well as lay bare specific realities. Misconception: Nigeria has actually always been one “unified” nation. Nigeria was primarily 2 various nations (Northern as well as Southern Protectorates).
Let’s not romanticize Nigeria or take it for provided. Having claimed that, it is also vital that we comprehend that there is second best concerning the method Nigeria was developed. As well as this is in reaction to those that describe Nigeria as a “imaginary country” or an “man-made creation”.
Who hesitates of restructuring?
For those who are afraid the word restructuring, let it be clear that it doesn’t indicate damaging Nigeria into small sovereignties or going back to the condition quo ante. Many individuals truly do not recognize what is at risk when the problem of restructuring is mentioned vis a vis the national politics of Nigeria, while others, for ethnic as well as purely partial reasons, choose to merge the concern.
Make no error, the “restructuring” of Nigeria both politically and economically has actually been a continuous process because combinations in 1914. In 1946, the nation was once more reorganized to produce a federation of three regions: East, West as well as North.
Primarily, what restructuring will certainly do is to create new, workable and typically appropriate rules on how Nigeria must federate. We require to reorder the polity for effective governance. Clearly, our ton of money as a country is tied to the sort of political, economic as well as social structure we implemented. We require to examine income generation and also allotment. We can’t talk or desire our means to prosperity as a nation. We should end financial irresponsibility and also monetary rascality by reviewing the concern of monetary federalism. We need to enable states to share greater obligation in the policing of their states. We need to abrogate local governments as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution and also allow states to produce local governments according to their requirements. We must redefine citizenship legal rights and also eliminate the indigene-settler duality. This is what restructuring is about. We must continue to question Nigeria since our misleaders (past and existing) have failed to create a nation out of what was bequeathed to us by the colonialists. The nationhood question is never ever resolved. The escape is to never ever hesitate to confront it.
Any kind of attempt to understand as well as tackle Nigeria’s apparently intractable problems need to go back to the fundamental principles of the development of Nigeria. It won’t solve all our problems, however trying to fix our nationwide crises without reorganizing the country properly will amount to putting the cart before the equine.
The bottom line is that Nigeria is not working for Nigerians. It may be benefiting some Nigerians, either Igbos, Fulanis, Yorubas, Hausas, Kanuris, Efiks, Tivs or Ijaws, but for most of the country, it is a nightmare living the Nigerian desire. We can point to bad management, bad governance, corruption and the demand for attitudinal modification, however these are symptoms of a much insidious problem, the existential situation that faces Nigeria.
Nigeria is not functioning not since Nigerians can not make it work or are not going to make it function. Since there is no reward to make it function; there is no obligation to the Nigerian dream if it does exist, Nigeria is not working just. That explains the mindless corruption in the nation, the ridicule the rulers have for the country as well as its people, their eagerness to run it stranded and their readiness to run to the Metropole at the smallest opportunity either for clinical attention, to educate their children or merely to appreciate the good life. And, the country, the proverbial titan of Africa remains, in the words of Noble Laurette, Prof Wole Soyinka, “the open sore of a continent”; a country that made billions of dollars from oil, yet (with Pakistan as well as Afghanistan) is just one of the 3 remaining polio-endemic nations worldwide with among the highest possible situations of out-of-school kids as well as maternal mortality.
Recovering Nigeria
The function of restructuring, for that reason, is to establish Nigeria on the course of a civic nationhood, a contemporary egalitarian culture, and not to create brand-new fiefdoms for ethnic warlords. It intends to finish interior manifest destiny any place it exists in the country and to release the imaginative as well as intellectual abilities for Nigerians from the eastern, west, north as well as south, to add to the growth of the nation.
Can we rebuild Nigeria? Can we reclaim the country as well as provide succor to millions of our compatriots and also women in the eastern, west, north, and also south who have endured decades of misrule, injustice, fascism as well as impoverishment? Can the post-civil battle generation of Nigerians recover the country and produce a brand-new Nigeria that can end up being a worldwide competitor?
The future of Nigeria comes from boys and guys, millions that are out of work and also everyday wandering the streets of significant cities across the country. I share your aggravation, discomfort, rage, anxiousness and suffering. No one feels the discomfort a lot more than you and, as a result, you are in the finest placement to bring regarding the kind of modification you and also Nigeria require.
You are the future of this terrific country. Nigeria of 2017 is not Nigeria of 1914, 1960, 1966, or 1967-70. You need to accept your own obligation for the future.
Nigerian youth must seize the minute and also specify the sort of future they wish to create. No one will live that future but you. Do not allow our so-called statesmen as well as jagged political leaders define that future. You can’t leave the solution to Nigeria’s problems to those who created it to begin with for, as Einstein poignantly placed it, “No worry can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” Our leaders have defined themselves as well as the country for as well lengthy; they have no right to specify you as well as the future.
Our leaders and also supposed senior citizens should not represent you any type of longer. Don’t let a 90-year-old Edwin Clark or Prof. Ango Abdullahi, that as Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello College from 1979– 1986, was even more of a despot than an administrator, messing up the future of numerous trainees while doing so, speak for you. Do not let the wrong men and women posing as your agents in the Senate and Legislature speak for you. Afenifere, Northern Elders Discussion Forum, Ohaneze Ndigbo, OPC, Arewa Youth Forum (AYF), IPOB, MASSOB, as well as miscellaneous agglomeration of ethnic jingoists and chauvinists, shouldn’t represent you.
Don’t allow the bias of the past hold you down. As we mark the 50th wedding anniversary of Biafra and also the begin of the civil battle, we need to remember our fellow residents from the east, west, north and also south and anywhere in between who lost their lives or loved ones, were harmed or incapacitated for life in that unfortunate 30-month war and resolve to say never once more!
I think we can a construct a country where no group or individuals place their ethnic, sectional, state, spiritual or local rate of interests above the nationwide rate of interest. That is the problem precedent for the survival of Nigeria. That is what restructuring can do for us.
The everlasting words of Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, the excellent Pan-Africanist that died on Africa Day, May 25, 8 years earlier, are apropos:” don’t struggle, arrange”.
Onumah is the author of We Are All Biafrans. Connect with him by email [email protected]; Twitter: @conumah
The post Death Of A Nation: Biafra and the Nigerian question appeared first on Republik City News.
