Ikenna Ozulumba Mbaegbu [Editor]
With a heart filled with dismay and disgust, I write this missive on this day (1st October) of Nigeria paper Independence celebration, which is a mockery of freedom, hoping that people of good conscience and lovers of freedom out there will hear my cry, feel my pain, understand my plight and possibly come to our rescue for my race is under threat of extinction.
My name is Onyechere Ugochinyere and am a depressed youth. I hail from Biafra land, a place that most of you out there still refer to as the eastern part of Nigeria. This beautiful nation can be found located on the trigger of a gun on the African map.
Before the advent of the colonial masters, Biafra land was a very beautiful place to be. The people are so friendly and their land is richly blessed with natural resources. The name Biafra means come and join because the people never treated their strangers badly. In fact, they welcomed them with open arms.
Unfortunately, things automatically turned so rough and so bad for the Biafran people when the Whiteman came to our land, tricked our fathers who were so good to them and then forced us to be in the same country with other races (Hausa – Fulani people and the Yorubas) whose belief systems are entirely different from ours.
And the white man had called us NIGERIA, a name derived from a river because of their ulterior motive to subjugate us. This heinous act was carried out in 1914 by Fredric Lord Lugard, the then British Representative in Africa. Many years later, Nigeria was given its (paper) independence and all hell was let loose.
But, Is Nigeria really an independent country? That is the question, every right-thinking person should be asking. The answer is no! Since her independence in 1960, the country has experienced nothing but backwardness due to her foundation was laid on lies and deceit.
As a youth who is still in her early twenties (21 to be precise), I have witnessed many things about this life. In some, I had won and in some, I had lost - The obstacles of life. But what still beats my imagination and drives tears out of my eyes when I get to behold it, is the continued celebration of Nigeria independence by its citizens amidst untold hardship and perpetual slavery. A country that Its backwardness is second to none. A nation in which its leaders feed on the sufferings of the poor masses. Tufiakwa! May I never enter a ban filled up with cocoyam!
It is indeed a shameful thing to recall here that Nigerian as a country has celebrated her freedom for over 57 years now and yet there is nothing to show for it. Now remove my age which is 21 from the 57, you will then have 36 left. Let's just say before I came to be, Nigeria had already celebrated 36 years of being an independently dependent country. What a shame! I can proudly declare here, that even though Nigeria is much older than me, am more mature in every stratum of life.
I am addressing this missive to you out there, I mean you, the world leaders, Human Rights Organizations, People of Good conscience and Lovers of Freedom and so on and so forth, to please put aside the worldly politics and look towards morality and intervene to save a people, save souls from total annihilation. Save my race from this mayhem by the marauding armies of the Islamic caliphate whose only joy is to kill and loot. Come now and do the needful by addressing this ugly situation my people have been subjected to over the years.
Today, being 1st of October,2017 these human vultures have gathered again to celebrate our death, our subjugation, pogrom, untold hardship and the abject pauperism the Biafran people are being subjected to in this contraption called Nigeria. These pagans have gathered once again to rejoice over the killings of my people and to drink the blood of the innocent in front of their gods. will you just look on and allow such evil being perpetrated by these bloodsuckers to continue to linger on?!
As Edmund Burke rightfully wrote, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Will you just keep calm and watch while your fellow humans are being treated like animals?! Come now and do the needful! Come and put into practice the teachings of morality and the good conscience and love and peace that you, world leaders and your likes have been preaching to the world in your pulpit of law. Come now and restore tranquility in our land and save my people from this holocaust. Your attention is needed because here in Nigeria, injustices have become part of the law and the Biafran people are always at the receiving end. We are always the victims of these evil practices. Come and save a people whose lives are under serious threat. Come and save my people from this abominable concoction, the seat, and den of all criminality that was put together by the British Government since 1914. Your interference will help to discontinue this sacrilegious celebration of the so-called freedom.
Nigerians should be celebrating their backwardness, underdevelopment, bad roads, the killing of talents, lack of electricity power supply, fuel scarcity, exorbitant school fees, poverty, low employment, ill health, inadequate social amenities and in fractures and not FREEDOM!
I still feel ashamed of myself to have been once regarded as a Nigerian. Tufiakwa! May Okike (God Almighty) forbid bad thing! I can no longer clamor for Such a backward country, for it is the worst place to live on earth! A country that had a seven-year-old girl convicted and killed for asking for her freedom, the same freedom they claim to celebrate today. What a shame and disaster!
I remember back in the day, when I was still tender, I had foolishly joined the so-called Nigerians, the band of vandals in singing and pledging allegiance to this fake nation's unity out of sheer ignorance. I still recollect that countless of times I had joined the gullible ones in our society in celebrating her independence without knowing I was treading on the path of hopelessness and stupidity. In those days, as a naïve primary school girl, who was yet to understand the world, I had felt very happy anytime we had had to board the school van and moved down to our Local Government Area headquarters to celebrate the Independence Day. But those days are gone, now, I know better. Now I have come to realize how long we have been deceived. All thanks to Chiukwu Abiama who used our leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to open our eyes to realize how wrong we had been, following a path that led to nowhere!
I used to be one of those who had vowed to do everything within my powers to obey and maintain the laws prevalent in this fake nation called Nigeria. And in my own little ways, I never failed to do what I felt would help to uplift the country's image just for the sake of making my country proud. But unknowingly to me, I was chasing a wild goose. And when I had realized that the road in which I was walking on was filled up with weapons and dangerous armadillos, it had taken me days to recover from the shock I had sunk into.
When I realized that I was from another nation that is gifted and blessed with so many natural resources, but was too busy helping to build another man’s land, that same man who had failed to recognize the fact that I was a human just like him and constantly treated me like I was a slave, I had felt so bad! And then I saw my love for this nation slipping and fading away like an overused cloth and like the sun at sundown. The affection I had natured for years for this damnation called Nigeria had suddenly disappeared and was replaced with hatred the moment I discovered that it was nothing but a faux entity.
Today, I regret being a part and parcel of the country's well-being, having realized that it is nothing but a killjoy. I was busy contributing my own quota towards her development and this evil nation in return has been stealing and swallowing my future since day one. This is a lament from a depressed girl. Once again, I am Onyechere Ugochinyere and am from Biafra land. And I have come to say no more to the Unity of Nigeria and the celebration of her untrue independence!
Independence? Really?! Did I just mention Independence here? Well, you see, I laugh when I get to hear people preach about it, people from this same zoological country called Nigeria. I ask again, is Nigeria really a free nation? The answer remains no! The last time I checked, the word “Independence” was aptly defined by Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary as “freedom from being governed or ruled by another country.” But in the case of Nigeria, the British Government are still in full control of the affairs of this animal Kingdom called Nigeria.
Have you not noticed why the Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari always runs back to the UK? Why the United Kingdom? Why not other countries like Saudi Arabia? I thought Buhari is a Muslim. Have you also not noticed why Britain has remained silent over the killings of the Biafran people? It is because the British government in conjunction with the Hausa – Fulani people and the Yorubas whom they merged us with are enjoying the proceeds from our land. And to execute this perfectly well, they are using the method of “Divide and Rule” to gain control over us so as to continue to steal from us. Why won’t they rejoice over it?
Celebration of Independence!!! Nigeria at 57 is a big slap in the face of freedom! Nigeria at 57, cannot provide a meaningful living to her citizens. Nigeria at 57 cannot protect the interest of her inhabitants. Nigeria at 57 is known to be the poorest in the provision of social amenities and infrastructures for her natives. Nigeria at 57 is a shame to the human race. A 57-year-old Nigeria still watches and allows her children being denied access to free education, job opportunities and good living. Children are always seen hawking on the streets, our young girls have all gone into prostitution and our young men have possessed guns and resorted to armed robbery. Do we even talk about our mothers and our fathers, their own case is far worst? All these came to be because the condition is terrible and everybody wants to survive from it.
And when people try to revolute over these harsh conditions of life they have been exposed to, this same 57-year-old Nigeria will unleash her armies from the pit of hell to mercilessly massacre them. Very sad indeed!
To conclude this, I, therefore, appeal to the world powers, Human Rights organizations, People of good conscience and lovers of freedom out there to please come to our rescue and save us from this “hell” called Nigeria. We need our absolute freedom. We need to be able to control our affairs and maintain our resources by ourselves. We no longer want to stay underdeveloped and continue to celebrate backwardness, untold hardship and sufferings, rather we just want a better tomorrow for our unborn generation and to be able to achieve this, that development ought to start today and not in the future. We need a country we can call our own. We need a “true, absolute independence” and not some “Paper Independence” like that of Nigeria.
By Prince Richmond C. Amadi
For Umuchiukwu Writers
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