BIAFRA
Historically, Nigeria got her independence on October 1, 1960, with Tafawa Balewa as the Prime Minister and Nnamdi Azikiwe as the "ceremonial president" suffix it to add that before the British left Nigeria, they relied on merit rather than quota system nor federal character in employing Nigerians that replaced them. As a result of this policy, the aggressive, self-competing and well educated Igbos were able to dominate the civil service and government agencies like the railways, postal service, universities, etc. At the same time, they controlled the East, completed to an extent with the Yorubas in the West while in the North, they also competed favourably against the mostly illiterate masses that were still wary of western education.
The fear of Biafran domination was an existential threat to the country and culminated in the Saudauna of Sokoto and then premier of the North, during his address to the Northern legislative council making an infamous hate speech against the Biafrans that would make that of Hitler against the Jews seem like a recommendation. During this period, through Nnamdi Azikiwe, were the most vocal proponents of a one and indivisible Nigeria while the North, scared of competition with the more illustrious South were keen on having their country through the then familiar chants of Araba! As classified documents and interviews granted by some of the British personnel involved then would later reveal.
The British before independence were able to convince Ahmadu Bello that the North, through a manipulated census, favourable landmass, a fair number of seats in the parliament and dominance of the army would still be able to control Nigeria politically even with their obvious shortcomings.
Fast-forward to 1966, the West was in crises, during the operation were and wild-wild West fame with riots, curfews and political killings common place. A biassed federal government is supporting Akintola, premier of the West against the popular choice of Awolowo. Then emerged a young Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, a Delta-Igbo man from the Midwest but was born and resided in Kaduna.
He had ideas of a utopian Nigeria devoid of corruption and other ills. To actualize this, he planned alongside Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Major Adewale Ademoyega and several others that included ethnic Tivs, Ijaws, Hausa/Fulani, Urhobo, Yorubas, Igbos etc while those that were assassinated included Tafawa Balewa (the Prime Minister), Ahmadu Bello (Premier of the North), Samuel Akintola (Premier of the West), Festus Okotie Eboh (Minister of Finance), Brigadier Maimalari,Col Arthur Unegbe (he was in charge of armory) and about seven others that were murdered in cold blood. Incidentally, the Premiers of the East and Midwest, both of whom were Igbos escaped unhurt.
This was probably why it was called an Igbo coup despite the fact that the roll call of the perpetrators was a pan-Nigeria list. Six months later, there was a counter coup and Aguiyi Ironsi, was assassinated and in quick succession, hundreds of Biafrans in the army were massacred in the military across the country which was followed by a pogrom that resulted in the death of an estimated thirty thousand Igbo civilians in the North. If the counter-coup plotters led by Theophilus Danjuma had stopped with the assassination of Ironsi and many top Igbo officers in the army, they would have been justified in their vendetta mission but when they extended it through omission or commission to mass murder of Biafrans in the military and tens of thousands of Biafra civilians living in the North, it transformed into a mission on ethnic cleansing, comparable to the Holocaust in terms of its magnitude and horror.
For the first time in the history of Nigeria, Biafrans demanded secession against a state that couldn't protect them, not because they preferred having their country but merely because they had no choice. After much politics between Ojukwu and Gowon bothering on the latter's refusal to implement Aburi accord and the creation of twelve states to break Ojukwu's grip on the Eastern region. In response, Ojukwu declared Biafra and a thirty-month civil war ensued that resulted in the death of an estimated three million Biafrans, including men, women and children. If such large number of people had died during combat, it would be better understood, but they died in one of the world's worst known siege or blockade, regarding geographic reach and casualties.
It was worse than both the Nazi German siege on Leningrad (former St Petersburg) during the second world war that resulted in the death of about 670,000 people and the Serb attack of Sarajevo during the Bosnian war that led to the death of about 150,000 people. The majority of those that died on the Biafran side was as a result of starvation and Egyptian airstrikes! Battered on all the parties, Biafra surrendered, and Gowon promised a 3R's policy of Reconciliation, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction which later turned into a cheap rhetoric that was never kept despite the oil boom of the 1970's.
Like Achebe once said, what united other Nigerians was their consensus hate on Biafrans, and every regime seemed to sustain this unwritten rule. In 1976, during the military government of Olusegun Obasanjo, Justice Mamman Nasir boundary commission was formed and with it came more punishment for the Igbos, Oil-bearing and Igbo speaking communities were blatantly carved out (Egbema and Ndoki areas) of East central state and ceded to Rivers state without recourse to their kit and kin. This Nigerian form of an apart-held system against Biafrans continued till the time of Goodluck Jonathan who tried to reverse some of these obnoxious policies.
After the Biafra/Nigeria civil war, Biafrans has in one way or the other, brutalised or maimed by either the security agents or the terrorists bred by the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari. Biafrans has always faced all inhumane, degrading treatments, tortures and other human right violators. The leader of the indigenous people of Biafra, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and other freedom fighters arrested and detained for almost a year, is an example. Despite three different court orders to release them, the paedophile in power instigated disobedience to court orders, therefore determined to continually detaining them. The plights of Biafrans is simple and must be accepted; else the rest will become history.
EMMANUEL PRECIOUS
EDITOR UDEAGHA OBASI
UMUCHIUKWU WRITERS.
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