THE BIAFRA QUESTION: IS SECESSION THE ANSWER? (2)

Over four decades after the devastating secession bid by the Igbos through the Nigerian civil war, many Igbos are still vigorously pursuing the actualization of the Biafran dream. So much so that a radio station called “Radio Biafra” broadcasts hate messages against the Nigerian government. Efforts to close down the broadcasts have proved unsuccessful. It turns out that quite a number of Igbos tune-in to the station and agree with the message.

The Nigerian Constitution in Section 39 (1): ‘Every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference. There is nothing wrong with wanting to secede. This piece is just to examine the feasibility of the whole idea.

One thing I would like to point out is that secession is hardly done peacefully. No nation will let go of a territory perceived to be theirs without a fight, especially with the fact that crude oil, the bulk of the nation’s foreign exchange earner comes from there. The least of wars is extremely devastating. The horrors of war are far better imagined than experienced. The bloodshed, widespread devastation, destruction, displacement and resultant famine are not worth it. There is no justification for inciting the public, or attempting to instigate violence. War is never pretty. It is only glamorous in movies, not in real life.

Let us assume that the Biafra advocates intend to do it peacefully, by means of a referendum. What exactly is their game plan? What really do they want?

Let’s get real. MASSOB is agitating for a sovereign state. If Biafra is allowed to exist, what then happens to Igbos scattered across the country? What would become of their various businesses? Many Igbos will automatically become foreigners in Nigeria, requiring visas and passports to travel and requiring permits to continue to operate their businesses. Many of them would be at the mercy of immigration officers who would order their deportation at will. How feasible is that?

How many Igbos would surrender their property acquired in Lagos and Abuja to the government of Nigeria? How would Biafra compensate them in return? Let us not forget that majority of people in the “clearing and forwarding, importer and exporter business” are the Igbos.

So all these successful people will leave the big cities- Lagos, Abuja, Kano, Kaduna etc. to live in that small niche of land? Remember that it was land constraints that forced them out in the first place.

Another bone of contention is the extent of Biafra land. We all know for sure that it comprises the Igbo-speaking states. One does not know what would become of the South-South states, or Delta state which has a small Igbo population.

Instead of clamouring for a Biafran state, it would be wise for Biafran agitators to focus on fighting for a level playing field in Nigeria. For instance, it’s only the South East region that has 5 states, all other regions have 6 states, and one region has 7.  This has immense implications because the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) is shared by many criteria including number of Local Governments in a state. More revenue would translate to more funds at their disposal. This should be a focal point for those fighting for the Biafran cause.

Let the Biafra agitators fight for capital projects that would benefit their people. The South East has no Federal steel rolling mill, a region which has Aba, Nnewi and Onitsha, three manufacturing and industrial hubs. Even more astonishing is the fact that there was no sea port or international airport in decades.  Those clamouring for Biafra will do well to make demands on the executive and the legislative arms of government. These are legitimate demands.

Why can’t the agitators hold each State Governor in the South East accountable for the infrastructure in those states? For instance, most South Eastern roads are in a terrible state. It isn’t too much for them to build standard multiple-lane expressways with rail services that would link all South Eastern states.

How about education? How about healthcare? How about welfare? How about employment? How about crime? How about human rights? How about erosion control? What have the Biafran agitators done to improve the lot of their people in these key areas?

It is very foolhardy to believe that all these issues will miraculously be solved when Biafra comes to existence. Biafran agitators make Biafra seem like Paradise, a place where things could never go wrong. Whether you like it or not, if you don’t tackle your problems now, your problems would multiply when you have your separate country. It is your governors that you fail to task on good governance that would still rule you in Biafra. You will have it rougher because Nigeria would be as hostile as your other neighbor, Cameroon.

I believe those that want Biafra should work towards improving the lot of their people… simple. Biafra should be a fight for good governance and improved lifestyle.

THE BIAFRA QUESTION: IS SECESSION THE ANSWER? (1)

This is one topic that I try as much as possible to shy away from. The truth is that I dislike it so much that whenever I see any literature pertaining to Biafra, I scroll furiously away with the speed of Usain Bolt. Operation waka pass. However, a colleague has been asking for my two dollars on the issue. (Someone predicted an exchange rate of N1 to the dollar). For that reason, I shall be sailing in forbidden waters today.

The concept of “Biafra” is older than quite a number of us that utilize the various social media platforms. This is not a history lesson, so I am just going to gloss over the major highlights.

Biafra, officially the Republic of Biafra, was a secessionist state in south eastern Nigeria that existed from 30 May 1967 to 15 January 1970, taking its name from the Bight of Biafra (the Atlantic bay to its south). The inhabitants were mostly the Igbo people who led the secession due to economic, ethnic, cultural and religious tensions among the various peoples of Nigeria. The creation of the new state that was pushing for recognition was among the causes of the Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Nigerian-Biafran War.

The Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Biafran War, was a war fought to counter the secession of Biafra from Nigeria. Biafra represented nationalist aspirations of the Igbo people, whose leadership felt they could no longer coexist with the Northern-dominated federal government. The conflict resulted from political, economic, ethnic, cultural and religious tensions which preceded Britain's formal decolonization of Nigeria from 1960–1963. Immediate causes of the war in 1966 included a military coup, a counter-coup, and persecution of Igbo living in Northern Nigeria. Control over oil production in the Niger Delta played a vital strategic role.

The war cost the Igbos a great deal in terms of lives, money and infrastructure. It has been estimated that up to three million people may have died due to the conflict, most from hunger and disease caused by Nigerian forces. More than two million people died from the famine imposed deliberately through blockade throughout the war. Lack of medicine also contributed. Thousands of people starved to death every day as the war progressed. (The International Committee of the Red Cross in September 1968 estimated 8,000–10,000 deaths from starvation each day.) The leader of a Nigerian peace conference delegation said in 1968 that "starvation is a legitimate weapon of war and we have every intention of using it against the rebels". This stance is generally considered to reflect the policy of the Nigerian government. The federal Nigerian army is accused of further atrocities including deliberate bombing of civilians, mass slaughter with machine guns, and rape.

Reconstruction, helped by the oil money, was swift; however, the old ethnic and religious tensions remained a constant feature of Nigerian politics. Accusations were made of Nigerian government officials diverting resources meant for reconstruction in the former Biafran areas to their ethnic areas. Military government continued in power in Nigeria for many years, and people in the oil-producing areas claimed they were being denied a fair share of oil revenues. Laws were passed mandating that political parties could not be ethnically or tribally based; however, it has been hard to make this work in practice.

The Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) is a secessionist movement with the aim of securing the resurgence of the defunct state of Biafra from Nigeria. It is led by an Indian-trained lawyer Ralph Uwazuruike, with headquarters in Okwe, in the Okigwe district of Imo State.

MASSOB's leaders say it is a peaceful group and advertise a 25-stage plan to achieve its goal peacefully. There are two arms to the government, the Biafra Government in Exile and Biafra Shadow Government.

The Nigerian government accuses MASSOB of violence. Since its inception, MASSOB has continually alleged mass arrests and killings of its members by government forces.

Till date, the average Igbo man alleges marginalization by the other tribes, particularly the North. I totally agree that the marginalization is real, but not in the way he thinks.

Igbos are marginalized by …themselves!

The Igbos are highly resourceful, enterprising and innovative people. The average Igbo man is proficient in business. We have lots of Igbos that are stupendously wealthy. Many of them make their wealth outside Igboland.

The kind of wealth at the disposal of their multibillionaires is more than enough to build 20 bridges across River Niger, but what do they do with their wealth? They develop their host communities and build a palatial mansion in the village which they visit biannually to show off.

Igbos are marginalized by …their elders!

Their elders are selfish, I must tell the truth. They benefited from Nigeria when things were much better. They messed things up for the rest of them, and they are still in the business of ruining things. Don’t you dare give me that line that they fought for independence, for democracy or whatever! Many of them have compensated themselves adequately at the expense of the average person. They have property that you and I can only dream of.

When an elderly person presents the argument of “16 years of rot”, I always ask what he was doing those 16 years. It’s either he was participating, or just observing. Either way, he is an accomplice to evil.

All over the world, the younger generation is taking over and making progress. That is how it should be. The elders have done their best, or worst. It is time for them to take a back seat.

Igbos are marginalized by …their politicians!

There are some states in the South-East that are nothing to write home about. If your kinsman, who is your governor, is ruling with impunity, is it because he has he has suddenly turned Hausa-Fulani? Learn to place blames where they belong. If you cannot call your own leaders to order, you have no business accusing the North of marginalizing you.

Igbos are marginalized by …their attitude to politics!

When it is time for things that truly matter, may your love for money not deprive you of your rights. Can I get an “amen”?

Time for census, some people will never go. National ID card, dem no get. PVC nko? Dem no get.

Your mates in the North would troop out en masse each time, just to get registered. The average Hausa man would register himself, his wives, his kids, his aged parents, his goats and his cows. You’re there doing business, and shouting “marginalization”.

Every Hausa man owns a transistor radio which they use to listen to news and political discussions in their own language, even when they are miles away from home. You don’t even know the name of your local government chairman, you are busy doing business and screaming “marginalization”.

You are marginalizing yourself.

The truth of the matter is that we are all being marginalized by ourselves, and by the politicians that rule over us. The tribe we like to point fingers at, the Hausa-Fulani, are even the worst hit. They have the highest poverty rate in the whole country. You can imagine an “aboki” who arrived Lagos on a grueling 12-hour journey via a trailer carrying cows, shouting “Sai Buhari” because of the promised stipend of five thousand Naira each for the poorest Nigerians.

What could 5k possibly do in the life of this man? With the falling value of the Naira, inflation and all. It could probably  buy him 3 pieces of meat instead of 1, with his favourite tuwon shinkafa. If he’s in a good mood, he would love a bowl of fura da nunu to step down his meal. In the evening, he might buy maganin burantashi and visit the yarinya that has been causing him many sleepless nights. He would also want to give her a little gift.

In a space of three days, the 5k is gone.

The marginalization of the North is heartbreaking. Their region has produced the majority of Nigeria’s leaders, but there is absolutely nothing to show for it.

It is good to agitate for better conditions; it is good to want a positive change. It is constitutional to ask for secession.  I only implore you to look at the bigger picture. Turn your anger into something positive. Don’t misdirect your frustrations.

References: Wikipedia

August 20, 2014
 
People are gathered, but they are avoiding as much body contact as possible. Worry is etched all over their faces as they speak in hushed tones. Their focus is on the national dailies conspicuously displayed at a vendor’s stand. Usually, each one of them would have picked up a newspaper to read for a fee. Today, everyone is afraid to touch the papers. The vendor is equally scared of receiving money from all these customers. Anyone of them might have had contact with an Ebola patient.
A shrill voice emanates from across the road over the drone of traffic. It is the voice of a young teenage male calling out to people to buy hand sanitizer. The sanitizer is expensive and its authenticity is in doubt, but people rush to buy it all the same, some buying as many as five bottles. His wares finish in twenty minutes.




It has been over a year since Nigeria was threatened with an Ebola epidemic that ravaged parts of West Africa. The Ebola virus killed more than 9,000 people – about 2,000 in Guinea, 3,000 in Sierra Leone and 4,000 in Liberia. The outbreak started in Guinea in December 2013, but the Ebola crisis really started in April 2014 when it began to spread. We had our own share of casualties too. The most notable of them all was Dr Stella Ameyo Adadevoh, who is credited as being the person that ensured that the infamous primary carrier, Patrick Sawyer, did not go about spreading the disease to other parts of the densely populated Lagos. A real heroine, I must say. She refused to succumb to pressure from high-level diplomats to get him released. Nigeria will always be indebted to this great woman.
Ebola was nipped in the bud before it got a chance to ravage many communities. The disease was brought into the country on July 20 by Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian-American financial consultant. Sawyer initially denied exposure to Ebola. He was treated for presumed malaria after suffering from a fever, vomiting and diarrhoea.
Sawyer died five days after his arrival. By then he had triggered a line of exposure. By September, 20 people had been infected. Twelve of whom were in Lagos state and eight in Rivers state. Seven more subsequently died. In the week that Sawyer was diagnosed, an emergency operation centre was set up. At its core was the system Nigeria had developed for its war against polio and lead poisoning. The deputy manager of the polio campaign was brought in to head the Ebola response team and operations were rapidly scaled up.
You need to have seen the way many communities in Liberia and Sierra Leone became ghost towns with corpses littering the streets. The sick and dying completely overwhelmed the enormously strained health facilities.
It took months of hardship, sorrow, blood and tears before the other countries afflicted with the Ebola virus were able to pull through to eradicate the virus. The deaths and the resultant socio-economic implications were devastating, but it would be a real tragedy if we did not learn a thing from the whole episode.
I often wonder that if Ebola were to spring up again, would the response of all necessary agencies be better, the same, or even worse than the last time.
What is the level of preparedness of our medical institutions to handle crises such as these? How much has gone towards the research of this virus and the procurement of drugs? Have we learnt from the past, or would we go cap in hand begging the Western nations if Ebola were to strike again? Can we elicit a swift response to contain highly communicable and infectious diseases whenever they break out?
Ebola ravaged communities in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea because these countries lacked the public health infrastructure to identify and contain it. Nongovernmental organizations had been trying to help address health problems in the region, but much of their effort seemed geared to what would appeal to donors and supporters. Many organizations focused on a single illness without deeply addressing the underlying problem that allows all of these diseases to spread.
Prediction, or at the very least understanding, of possible threats should be a key goal of future risk reduction strategies, to ensure we prevent another outbreak. For infectious diseases, prediction rests on strong disease surveillance in both human and animal populations.
The main international treaty underpinning health security, the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR 2005), requires the 195 member states of the WHO to have in place “core capacity requirements for surveillance and response to events.”
Less than one-third of the WHO member states have declared their compliance with IHR 2005. Efforts to help poorer nations to achieve this have not been forthcoming.
Apart from adequate disease surveillance, how have we developed our research facilities, or have we forgotten so soon? We shouldn’t leave it up to the developed countries to research for prevention and cure. Many professionals would have loved to go into this field, but for inadequate funding. The government should channel more funds into medical research that borders on disease prevention and cure.
Another cause for concern is the training of our medical personnel. We were lucky during the last Ebola epidemic because we had the personnel that handled the Wild Polio virus outbreak on standby. Relevant health authorities should undergo continuous training to know how to handle specific kinds of disease outbreak.
The state of our medical facilities is also called into question. Patrick Sawyer was a high level diplomat; hence, he was taken to a private hospital and had his own private ward. If he was taken to any of the General Hospitals, what would have happened next is only best imagined.
There is so much rot in the health sector. There is no plausible reason why our nationals should be seeking healthcare abroad. We have produced some of the best doctors in the world but they are forced to seek greener pastures elsewhere because the motivation is not just there. The equipment isn’t there. Doctors are being forced to improvise all the time. At times, hospital workers aren’t paid regularly. Situations like this don’t allow us to get the best of the medical sector.
Because of the paucity of funds, doctors are forced to cater to the rich only, completely ignoring the poor. It is this phenomenon that has made hospitals to rent out their ambulances for the purpose of carrying corpses to burial ceremonies, instead of their original purpose of rushing sick or wounded people to the hospitals. This needs to be curbed.
Learning from our past mistakes is the only way we can avoid repeat performances in the future. Health is indeed wealth. We owe it to ourselves and our future generations to revamp the health sector. Otherwise, Dr Adadevoh’s death will have been in vain.

THE DEATH-TRAPS THAT ARE OUR ELECTRICAL INSTALLATIONS

We hear about another avoidable death, and then we all shout ‘eeyah!’ type RIP then continue with our business like nothing ever happened.

What is wrong with us in this country? I wonder when we will ever start to value life. I mean, actually place a premium value on the life of everyone that calls himself a Nigerian.

On the Tuesday, the 8^th of September, 2015, Oluchi Anekwe tragically lost her life when a high tension cable fell on her. She was a UNILAG student and she was within the campus premises at the time. She was rushed to LUTH immediately but pronounced dead on arrival.

Many of our electrical installations are disasters waiting to happen. You see some cables tangled and criss-crossed like ancient cobwebs and then you wonder how electric poles in more populous countries like India and China look like.

Over 300 Nigerians have lost their lives to electrocution since 2012. All avoidable deaths.

Young Oluchi was a 300 Level Accounting student. She was a first-class brain. All her dreams died with her.

All the investments and hope that her parents had placed in her died as well.

For how long will this trend continue?

It is not just the duty of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission to provide electricity; it is also their duty to provide safe electricity. Safety issues should never be taken with levity. Most fatalities are due to negligence on the part of the electricity company workers. When incidents of weak and sagging wires are reported, these workers display a lackadaisical attitude towards the reports.

Electrocution by falling cables is almost always fatal, especially if the route of passage of the current is through any of the vital organs. If by some stroke of luck the victim survives, he would have to live with burns and disability. The victim would be hospitalized for a long period.

It’s high time we started holding the electricity workers accountable. Most victims do not get justice. We must demand that victims of electrocution by public installations and their families get adequately compensated.

We must demand that there must be a quick response to reports of fallen electricity poles and exposed wires.

We must demand that all overhead cables in UNILAG be buried.

We must demand that the NERC workers go round on routine inspection of equipment. They only show up when they want to disconnect people’s lines for non-payment.

We must stem the endless cases of incidents of electrocution now, not later. We don’t have to wait until another promising young person dies.

YOUR SILENCE IS MURDER.

The moist earth bears the stench of our blood.
The fear is palpable, the terror real.
Our villages are strewn with corpses
Of children that would never play again,
Of adults that would never reach their prime,
Of aged ones that breathed their last too soon.
The Death Knell tolls very often.
Horror is our daily companion.
The herdsmen come swiftly, reality becomes a blur.
Menacingly ravaging, slaughtering and looting.
Destruction lying in their wake.
Their duty of cattle rearing albeit forgotten,
Has metamorphosed into something sinister and deadly,
Something we do not understand.

What did we do to deserve this fate?
For we are also Nigerians.
Is it because we are not as dominant as our neighbours,
That there is no one to save us?
Who will tell our story, or plead our cause?
Our only crime was tending our own and our land.
See what has befallen us.

Nigeria belongs to everybody.
We heard the president rears cattle, too.
Why is he keeping quiet?
Is he not for everybody anymore?
Will he watch as we are being exterminated?
Will he allow our tribe to be annihilated?
Let him take action against this evil.
We also want to be a part of ‘everybody’.
We too, have a right to live.
The blades and the bullets kill us, yes,
But your silence is the greatest culprit.