THIS piece is intended as
a brief excursion into recent history to determine how the post-Civil War
Biafran idea came into being; the major characters who translated the idea into
an agitation; the impacts of the diverse methods and strategies deployed to the
agitation, and what might have now gone wrong with the struggle.
Most people will agree that, in this present era
of IPOB, Radio Biafra and Nnamdi Kanu, It has become necessary to travel
back in time to examine how a piquant idea that died in the battle field in
1970 was later given an impetus and then an unprecedented degree of
consciousness that survived several regimes and still endured, but now appears
to have been eroded in one fell swoop.
First, rewind back to the immediate era after the
end of the war when the former Eastern Nigerian citizens (aka former Biafrans)
were scrambling to re-embrace their Nigerian citizenship. The scramble was more
profound amongst Igbos because they carried the greater burden of having led
the war and thus were prone to far more stigmatization (and denial) than their
other Eastern Nigerian brethren.
The tempo of this scramble to once again be
Nigerians was such that any Igbo that as much mentioned Biafra became a pariah
amongst his fellow Igbos; not to talk of the terrible fate that might befall
him at the hands of non-Igbo Nigerians. Recall the horrible fate of Sam
Rose-Anyaugo, who was brutalized and summarily jailed by Gowon’s regime in 1971
for writing a piece – Killing Biafra – in the defunct Daily Star newspaper.
Fearing reprisals and wishing to belong, Igbos shied away from Anyaugo; and
Gowon was left free to deal with him as he wished.
That entire era of Igbo collective denial of the
Biafran idea became near-absolute with Shagari’s pardon of Ojukwu; and Ojukwu’s
immediate emergence as a major player in the NPN – the ruling party of the time
at the federal level. So, it came to pass that, with Ojukwu’s pardon and
re-assimilation into the Nigerian project, Biafra was considered dead and gone,
forever. It remained so for many years despite the simmering feelings of
neo-marginalization by vast majorities of Igbos.
Then, came a young man by name of Ralph Uwazurike,
a lawyer and a gutsy fellow driven by a sense of mission, yet not then
possessing any national or even regional renown. Uwazurike, who did part of his
tertiary education in India must have understudied Mahatma Ghandi – the father
of the non-violent approach in the struggle for self-determination. Ghandi’s
style was credited to have been the most effectual factor that ended the
British Raj in India without firing a shot. In adopting this strategy,
Uwazurike was in lock-step with Martin Lurher King, who had deployed the same
path to ending segregation in America.
So, to the young Uwazurike, the better way to,
once again, pursue the Biafran idea was through a non-violent struggle but one
that is stubborn and geared to sufficiently raising the consciousness of the
people while at the same time not unnecessarily antagonizing the world around
us. Uwazurike pursued that goal under the platform of a non-violent, but highly
effective MASSOB.
Yet, from the very beginning, and especially from
the IBB era to the Yar’Adua era, Uwazurike was to endure a lot of arrests,
incarcerations, and prosecutions (plus persecutions) that would’ve worn out the
strongest Ghandis, Kings, and all the others in history that have led their
people through a long match to freedom. But the man stayed the course, buoyed
by his abiding fate, millions of followers, a dose of international goodwill, a
sense of history, and most importantly – an understanding larger Nigerian
population that respected his approach to the issue.
All these were not with their pitfalls. Uwazurike
paid a huge price. He lost his youth to the struggle, and suffered professional
retardation, plus more. But better yet, Uwazurike became established world-wide
as a freedom fighter of renown. The net result of Uwazurike’s doggedness was
that Igbos no longer felt guilty about Biafra, other Nigerians became less
hostile to the idea, and overall, Igbos regained their self-pride, culminating
in what Ojukwu aptly called ‘Biafra of the mind’. Uwazurike was the architect
of all that. In time, he became the poster-boy for the struggle of an entire
people to rise against marginalization and rank political injustice. In the
end, it indirectly translated to more inclusiveness of Igbos in the federal
scheme of things in Nigeria. Igbos became more respected by their Nigerian
brethren; and the international community, for the first time, took positive notice
of Biafra since the end of the civil war.
During all of these, Uwazurike never preached hate
against Nigeria, he never called for the head of Nigerian leaders, he never
profaned other Nigerians. Why? Because he rightly calculated that turning that
path was the easiest way to court the destruction of the Biafran idea. Like
Uwazurike, Ghandi never alienated the British with some talk about their
leaders being ‘cattle and goats’; and Rev King never called for the head of the
white people in America.
But what do we have now? We have a situation where
a Radio Biafra Uwazurike legally set up in London and appointed Nnamdi Kanu as
Director was later illegally diverted from the ‘lofty’ purposes for which
Uwazurike founded it. To be sure, Radio Biafra was founded for the
singular goal of employing civil/non-violent and intellectual broadcasts to
make the case for Biafra. The later-day incendiary broadcasts purveyed by
Nnamdi Kanu were considered unwise and inimical to any serious efforts to
actualize the idea of Biafra. And as it came to pass, the negative trajectory
of Radio Biafra and Nnamdi Kanu’s hate speeches combined to erase the
decades-old gains made by Uwazurike.
The fallouts are legion: Igbos are now being
killed by security forces which was not the case before. Some Igbos are now
talking of taking up arms against Nigeria which makes no sense, considering the
debacle of the civil war. Nigerian security forces have now been offered an
easy excuse to unleash unreasonable force – all thanks to Nnamdi Kanu, who
himself has been charged for terrorism, thus placing him at par with Shakau of
Boko Haram and the leaders of ISIS/other terrorist organizations. What this
means is that a Biafran struggle that had gained momentum and an optimum level
of respect and serious consideration under the stable hands of Uwazurike has
suddenly turned a negative path to the point that it is now seen as an act of
terrorism to stand with Biafra. That’s what went wrong. And the truth is that
Igbos are worse off for it.
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