The recent Court Of Appeal judgement affirming the Indigenous People Of Biafra (IPOB) as a terrorist organisation raises the question: “When will Nigeria/Biafra war end?”.
Ironically, this war officially ended on 15 January 1970, 54 years ago after 30 months of bitter war that reportedly defied all war rule of engagement on the side of Nigeria.
For instance unconventionally, hunger was deployed as a legitimate instrument of war by the Nigerian side leading to more casualties outside the war front than you had fighting on the trenches.
While lowering the Biafran flag and raising the Nigerian flag on that day, General Effiong, who was the number 2 man in chain of command in Biafran Armed Forces said in his surrender speech among others “this war has ended but Nigerian government is urged to treat the Biafrans well. If they fail to do so, their children will rise again”.
For all we know, General Effiong is a gallant combatant soldier. But what has been happening between successive Nigerian government thereafter testifies that General Effiong is indeed a prophet.
Post war Nigeria has not been treating Biafrans well despite General Yakubu Gowon’s famous declaration of “no victor, no vanquished”. Because they are not treating Biafrans well, their children have risen up again.
However, on agitating for Biafra, the scenario today is radically different from what it was in 1967 when Gen Odumegwu Ojukwu declared Biafra Republic after the Eastern Nigerian House of Assembly in a majority vote in Enugu mandated him to do so.
Unlike in 1967 when Biafra Republic was not recognised under international law as a country because it was not part of the countries partitioned out of Africa by the colonial masters which was ratified by the United Nations General Assembly, in 2007, the same body made a resolution on the right of Indigenous people to self determination. It is a public document which anyone can download from the internet and read.
Suffice it to say that under the UN resolution (it does not matter if Nigeria that is a signatory to UN charter did not vote in favour of the resolution) the agitation for Biafra is legitimate under international law. That is why it is worrisome that Nigerian government criminalized the renewed agitation for the establishment of Biafra.
Why is it that only agitation for Biafra is criminal in Nigeria? There are open agitations for Oduduwa Republic, Niger Delta Republic, Arewa Republic, Middle Belt Republic. The leaders of these movements are well known and walking the streets freely. Many of them are prominent citizens, indeed elder statesmen, why are they not arrested and charged with criminal offences and jailed or the agitators killed as the agitators for Biafra are being killed by the Nigerian Armed Forces?
It is really unfortunate that the Nigerian Army is saying that the Court of Appeal judgement affirming the proscription of IPOB as a terrorist organisation will empower them to deal with IPOB members decisively.
That means the court has given them power to engage in extra judicial killing with no consequences. That is the main reason Nigerian government went to court to declare IPOB a terrorist organisation to which many people of goodwill outside Nigeria declared that IPOB is not a terrorist organisation.
One will wish that the energy and military might Nigerian Army is devoting in fighting IPOB, they deployed same in fighting Boko Haram. Since 2009, the Nigerian Army have not been able to decisively deal with Boko Haram that is challenging the sovereignty of Nigeria, indeed are controlling Nigerian territories in Borno and other North East states. These people challenging the sovereignty of Nigeria are treated with kid gloves. They are given soft landing of surrendering, being de-radicalised, and sent on overseas educational training by Nigerian government using tax payers’ money.
But IPOB, which otherwise is a peaceful movement until Nigerian Army forced them to create Eastern Security Network that carry arms in self defence, is proscribed and treated as terrorists and killed in numbers extrajudicially.
Needless to say that some Boko Haram captors at war front are subjected to judicial process and some of the convicted ones are magnanimously released.
Nigerian government is also in violation of court orders including United Nations orders to release IPOB king pin, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, from unlawful detention.
If one may ask, is Nigeria no longer a member of the United Nations and international community that have men of goodwill and human face for peaceful resolution of the matter? Has conscience of Nigerian leaders to fairness and justice gone to the dogs?
For record purposes, let it be said that the Nigerian Army is haunted by the ghost of Biafra. Nigerian Army could not militarily defeat Biafra. General Yakubu Gowon’s boast of crushing Biafra in two weeks did not come to pass. The war dragged on for the better part of two years. It was Harold Wilson’s Britain, Russia, Egypt that flew fighter jets, other British allies and Organisation of African Unity forces minus, Ivory Coast, Gabon and Tanzania that defeated Biafra.
Nigerian Armed Forces could not do it without external help. Those coalition of foreign forces after doing the dirty job brought in General Olusegun Obasanjo to receive the instrument of surrender from General Effiong.
In the course of the war, Biafran Navy sank British Ship blocking free movement of food and arms off the coast of Bakassi and Bonny Island with locally manufactured “shore battery”. These were ships almighty Germany could not sink during the Second World War in open combat.
In spite of everything, Nigeria lost the positive side of Biafra. If Nigerian Army did not destroy the Biafran war laboratory that manufactured potent weapons like ground and flying “ogbunigwe”, mass killer, the fight with Boko Haram, bandits, insurgents or terrorists would have been won by deployment of these weapons.
Besides militarily losing the positive side of Biafra, Nigeria is also losing the civil positive side of Biafra.
Love Ndigbo or hate them, they are ingenious and blessed by Almighty God. They are nation builders. General Yakubu Gowon’s 90th birthday was capped with an interview with the Guardian. The interviewer asked him why he did not allow Igbos to go during the war, he answered ” I cannot let them go. They are nation builders. Anywhere you go in Nigeria and you don’t see an Igbo man, know that there is nothing there”.
Nigeria should stop chasing shadows by fighting Biafra. Biafra is a spirit, you cannot fight a spirit. After the war in 1970, the Nigerian government gave every Igbo bank account holder twenty pounds irrespective of your balance in the bank. This was an economic war to impoverish the Igbo.
Today, are Igbo the poorest of the poor in Nigeria? No! Are Igbo among the richest and most progressive in Nigeria? Yes! Nigerian government is advised to key into the God-given talent and entrepreneurship skills of the Igbo to make Nigeria a great country instead of deploying Nigerian Army, complemented with obnoxious unwritten laws and political intrigues to suppress Biafra. The United Nations have ruled that the agitation for Biafra is legitimate.
Nigeria should leave Biafra alone. Nigeria has myriads of internal problems begging for solution. Biafra is not Nigeria’s problem. Leadership, corruption, tribalism, nepotism, religious bigotry, electorial fraud have hindered national cohesion and nation building. These are problems Nigeria should tackle.
If indeed Biafra is Nigeria’s problem, why don’t they let Biafra go in peace? That would have been good riddance to bad rubbish and decisively mark a happy end to the needless Nigeria/Biafra war.
*Chris Enyinnaya, author and Fellow, Chartered Institute of Bankers
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