Obasanjo: another half-illiterate ranting

Obasanjo: Lazy statements on Biafra

By Tim Tochukwu

For Biafra Choice Writers

Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigerian former military head of state and former president, always presents himself as an overgrown baby. The older he gets, the more he talks like an immature child; and the more his statements indicate a man bereft of deep thoughts on issues.

Apart from his immature mind and childish utterances, he often presents himself as personification of half-education. Incidentally, that is case with many of Obasanjo’s contemporaries who were drafted into the military because they could not do much academically and dropped out of school. Each time Obasanjo, and his likes speak; their immature mind and half-education show.

Such was the case recently when he commented on the issue of Biafra. He sounded as childish as ever – leaving the substantive issues and the compelling arguments in favour of Biafra to engage in meaningless sloganeering. The setting was a round table discussion on “Nigeria and the Biafra Agitation”, which was organized by Nextier Advisory, an unknown organisation – perhaps one of those ad-hoc groups Nigerian government often set-up to help them advance some empty slogan and propaganda.

When it was time for Obasanjo to speak, he did not disappoint, he said Biafra was dead. “No right-thinking person who has experienced the horror of war will ever agitate for more wars. Most wars stem from real and perceived injustices and dissatisfaction and invariably wars emanate from a desire to correct or redress such situations” he said.

Pray, how does asking for Biafra’s separation from Nigeria amount to agitating for war? How does the over-aged kid, Obasanjo, think that warmongering would answer to the well-documented arguments for Biafra? It did not even occur to him that what he was doing was take time to discuss something that was dead. Is that not childishness at its highest level? Biafra, for which Biafrans are demonstrating all over the world and demanding its restoration cannot be dead.

Biafrans demonstrating in front of EU office

He said more: “Our civil war wasn’t any different. But at the end, almost all wars, jaw-jaw takes over from boom and devastation of the gun. That is the path of wisdom, prudence and political sagacity.”

To start with, Biafra/Nigeria war was not a civil war. There was nothing civil about the war. In fact it was worse than an international war as Obasanjo and his fellow Nigerian murderers made it out to be. Now, if he knew that to “war-war would” must eventually end in “jaw-jaw”, why has he and his co-murderers not initiated the “jaw-jaw” with Biafrans since 1970?  Why has he not told his contemporary, Buhari, to jaw-jaw with Nnamdi Kanu and Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), instead of trying to intimidate him with trumped-up charges?

Obasanjo should understand that this is not 1966, and that intimidation and persecution will no longer work on the issue of Biafra. If he and his co-travellers do not have the mental sagacity to engage in healthy argument on the issues, they should stand aside. Serious minded individuals all over the world are already debating Biafra.

Fein: strong intellectual support for Biafra

For instance, in a recent article by Bruce Fein, he intelligently marshaled out strong argument for Biafra. Fein is an American lawyer who specializes in constitutional and international law. He has written numerous articles on constitutional issues for The Washington Times, Slate.com, The New York Times, Legal Times, and is active on the issues of civil liberties.

In his article titled, “Biafra Nationhood: Unfinished Decolonization” he advanced arguments showing that Biafra has a stronger case than such independent states as Bangladesh, Namibia, South Sudan, Zimbabwe, East Timor, Eritrea, and Kosovo. Those are issues Obasanjo should counter rather that engage in lazy and meaningless.

It is on record that Fein, imputed that the sum of all that happened to Biafrans from the colonial era to independence, violated international law by failing to transfer power to the peoples of Biafra in accordance with their freely expressed will. He stated further that the violation of international law in the case of Biafra “was not a technicality, but an affront to a fundamental human right. All governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Consent is required to legitimate authority and to forestall external subjugation, oppression, persecution, or even genocide fueled by tribal, sectarian, ethnic, or megalomaniacal ambitions or hatreds”.

Fein went on to say that Britain’s failure to offer Biafrans the right to self-determination violated the United Nations General Assembly Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, which was adopted on December 14, 1960. According to him, paragraph 5 of the Declaration required that immediate steps be taken by the colonial power “to transfer all powers to the peoples of those [colonized] territories...in accordance with their freely expressed will and desire...in order to enable them to enjoy complete independence and freedom.”

On the other hand, he stated that 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States accordance with the Charter of the United Nations emphasized that, “By virtue of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, all peoples have the right freely to determine without external interference their political status....” This was never granted Biafrans, and that is the issue, which half-educated empty vessels like Obasanjo would never bring themselves to discuss, but would rather take the lazy and shallow part of sloganeering.

Read Fain further: “The people of Biafra—recognized as distinct by British colonial authorities—were never provided an opportunity to vote for complete independence and freedom from the rest of Nigeria according to their freely expressed will and desire. They were never consulted on the subject when Nigeria became independent in 1960. Further, the 1960 Constitution of Nigeria was never approved by the people of Biafra in a referendum or otherwise. And neither has any subsequent Nigerian Constitution, including the current version decreed by a military dictator in 1999”.

These (and more not stated here) are the compelling arguments in favour of Biafra. If Obasanjo and his likes have any argument to the contrary, let them bring them on. If not, let them go and enjoy their loot rather than come to the public domain to foul the intellectual space.