STARVATION IN NORTHEN NIGERIA AS BOKO HARAM CONTINUES TO WREAK SOLDIERS.

STARVATION IN NORTHEN NIGERIA AS BOKO HARAM CONTINUES TO WREAK SOLDIERS.

By Chima Onyekachi

Watching Biafra Television has enlightened me on the conspiracy and intention of the worst genocidists, General Yakubu Gowon and his cohorts, to wipe out Biafrans from the surface of the earth during the 1967-1970 Biafra Genocide. Hospitals, Churches, Markets, Schools, Farmlands and Refugee camps were purposely targeted and bombed by Egyptian mercenary pilots with the intention to kill civilians and cause hunger in Biafraland. Biafrans who survived most of the shelling from the Nigerian troops had to also battle starvation due to blockade of humanitarian aid from reaching Biafra; food, medicines and other materials brought for Biafrans by foreign agencies were seized and sent to Lagos state to feed Nigerians. Hunger was used as a weapon of war against Biafrans by Nigeria and the British government of Harold Wilson.

Recently, while watching a Nigerian television station with my mother who survived the Biafra Genocide, she was taken aback by the pictures shown on the television screen baring starving children, women and aged in refugee camps (IDPs camps) in Northern Nigeria. She was more shocked when I explained to her that Boko Haram Islamic terrorists are responsible for the disaster, and she wondered if it is a nemesis while feeling sad for the starving northerners.  
Senator Ali Ndume, who is representing Borno South Senatorial zone has appealed to well-meaning individuals, non-governmental agencies and international communities to help tackle challenges of hunger, poverty, and malnutrition in Nigeria’s North East region. The Senator said that immediate measures should be taken by stakeholders to ameliorate the suffering of the people in the zone. He said, “we are crying out, we are looking up to you to help us in the North East, particularly in Borno state, for three years our people who mostly depended on subsistence farming, did not go to their farms, and government alone cannot feed the whole North East or Borno state alone, and that is our greatest challenge” he appealed.

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French acronym MSF, has stated that Northeast Nigeria is close to famine with hundreds of thousands trapped without help and must be declared a top emergency by the United Nations (UN). MSF said the region devastated by Boko Haram had between 500,000 and 800,000 people trapped in areas that cannot be reached by humanitarian workers. “We need the UN and all their agencies to consider this as a top emergency”, Bruno Jochum, director of MSF Switzerland, told reporters. MSF’s emergency programme manager Hugues Robert who just returned from Borno state, spoke as thus “What was extremely shocking was the level of severe acute malnutrition,” he added that communities he visited are faced “close to a famine situation.”

The UN has suspended humanitarian towards the internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Nigeria. The suspension was prompted by an attack on UN aid workers by Boko Haram Islamic terrorist group. The attack occurred while a UNICEF humanitarian convoy was travelling from Bama to Maiduguri in Borno State on an aid mission to an IDP camp. It is ironic that the northerners who claim to be responsible for providing food for people in Nigeria can no longer feed themselves. The Borno state Commandant of the Nigeria Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Ibrahim Abdullahi, has raised an alarm about the happenings among the IDPs. He said most of them engage in stealing. Prostitution and sexual abuses while some are into illicit hard drug use. This is as a result of the widespread hunger and poverty in the north, and the IDPs will do anything to get money

A paper leaked to CHIMA ONYEKACHI revealed that Colonel HG Tafida of the Nigeria Army is carrying out a research titled “Boko Haram Insurgency and Poverty in Nigeria: A Study of North-East.” He is a participant of the Senior Executive Course (SEC) 38, 2016 at the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos. The questionnaire revealed that the Nigeria Army is very much aware of the starvation and poverty caused by Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria.
Nevertheless, Boko Haram Islamic terrorists have continued to wreak soldiers in Northern Nigeria. As usual in Borno State, the month of July was no different as Boko Haram killed soldiers randomly on various days; two soldiers, a Captain and a recruit, were killed on the 12th of July at Gubio L.G.A. Also on the 27th of July, more soldiers were killed in Zabarmari village by the Islamic terrorists. The worst of the atrocities on soldiers for the month of July, was the killing of soldiers by a landmine; the soldiers were on a routine patrol on their TATA Hilux vehicle and the vehicle trucked a landmine killing over ten soldiers instantly.

A soldier who pleaded anonymity, has cried out over the killing of soldiers who are mostly of Biafran origin. He spoke as thus “If you visit the cemetery and check the list of over five thousand soldiers buried there, the majority of the names are Biafrans, and you must know that these are soldiers that their bodies were able to be recovered.” When I asked him if Yoruba and Hausa/Fulani soldiers are not part of those fighting the terrorists. He revealed that Yoruba soldiers are mostly stationed in the offices while most of the Hausa/Fulani soldiers are privy to the activities of Boko Haram Islamic terrorists. The soldier who spoke to me lamented the low morale of the soldiers due to “no food, no rank for soldiers, no salary for soldiers, no RCA for soldiers.” He also mentioned that soldiers are beginning to run away from their duty post, recently 15 soldiers ran away with their service rifles (AK-47) from Mamalari Barracks in Maiduguri.

Authored by Chima Onyekachi, for The Great Biafra Journalists

Published by Okpalaeze.