Biafra Is An Illusion, A Phantom Republic.
Warning: I’ll like to use this opportunity to warn my fellow Nigerians or Biafrans who will come here to comment please try and be civil, make your points without insults, name calling and abuses, if you do you’ll be blocked and you won’t ever get the second chance to write anything on my page. So be warned!!! Let’s go…
It is in the nature of man to dream, dreams make life have meaning, it helps us to aspire for a better future. However, we must learn to differentiate between dreams and illusions, while dreams paints to you a glorious future that is attainable through a due process, illusions on the opposite lifts you up, gear up your emotions and expectations only to smash you down the concrete floor of reality. As hard as this truth is it has to be spoken that the Biafra and Oduduwa dream is an utopia never to be realised. Unfortunately the proposers of this illusion are also aware of their deception but since they are cashing out on it they’ll rather continue to raise their goose with the golden eggs. Write this down, take the snapshot of this article, Biafra is an illusion that’ll never come to pass, it only exists in the delusional fantasy of a deceived masses.
People like Nnamdi Kanu know that a large section of Igbo people nurse a feeling of deprivation in them so he decided to capitalise on it. Some people follow him thinking he is the only Igbo man that has offered something tangible to the ordinary Igbo person. As laudable as that may sound, I’ll say it’s only a poison well wrapped up in a beautiful cover, when a lie becomes or is sold as a viable dream, then those who believe in it are doomed. As long as people keep this utopia of Biafra before them several Nnamdi Kanus would continue to take advantage of a pain some section of Igbos have collectively refused to let go. As for the man himself, Nnamdi Kanu can’t be poor again. He has made it politically and of course financially. By taking advantage of the collective fear of his people he has risen to the top, it’s now his turn to live his good life at the expense of his gullible followers. National, State and Zonal Coordinators of IPOB now use every fraudulent means to defraud the people, as they divert monies realised from levies to personal accounts; at least not after remitting the share of Nnamdi Kanu through his proxies. Market dey sell, business na business, wet in be ya trouble.
Another major reason why Biafra is dead on arrival is the fact that people like Nnamdi Kanu uses tactics that are self destructive to his cause, especially the use of lies and deceptions. When he first started his campaign he made some outrageous claims and people seem to quickly forget. Using the social media and internet Kanu projected the entire world as having embraced and recognized Biafra. From Donald J. Trump, to Theresa May, to Benjamin Netanyahu and the United Nations, Kanu constantly dished out the lies of international endorsement. According to him by now the whole world was supposed to have recognized the Republic of Biafra, but rather it’s the opposite we are witnessing. He himself as the leader is now a fugitive trying to find a place to hide, even England whose documents he carries are not in a hurry to identify themselves with him. He is now an unrecognised leader of an unrecognised pseudo country.
The other day I was listening to the leader of IPOB claim that what they are fighting for is not for Igbo self determination, but rather they are fighting for the secession of Biafra land, which according to him includes south southern part of Nigeria and much more than that. At that moment I knew that that is a dream that’s not meant to be, because it’s an illusion, a mirage in the mind of a delusional self acclaimed leader. It’ll forever remain a phantom republic. Funny enough these same Biafra people claim that Nigeria is a forced Union on them without their consent, yet they are not against repeating the same force against other nationalities in the south south, who don’t want to be a part of Biafra. They talk about sitting down to decide if the ethnic groups in Nigeria want to live together or not, meanwhile they are not making any efforts to gather their future Biafra peoples together to hear from them if they want to live together with the Igbos or not. Just a bunch of self seeking hypocrites.
If you want to talk of Biafra as the Igbos campaigning for self determination just as the delusional Yorubas are talking of Oduduwa Republic, then in my own opinion, I believe they already have it. There are no less than 5 autonomous states that are being ruled and governed by Igbo people. If you want to count just the Igbo nation, I don’t remember any time since the 1999 democracy, that a Hausa person or a representative of any other tribe has become the leader, governor or mayor of an Igbo state or city.
The Igbo people have their land to themselves. These lands have not been taken over by Yoruba, Hausa or any other nationality in Nigeria. Igbo still have their territory where they are predominantly populated. They have the right, freedom and the opportunity to build heaven on earth in their area, anytime if they so wish. If the Igbo or Yoruba man wants to make his own state or region better than any other state there is nothing stopping him from doing it. The only thing that will change, if they get an independent Biafra Republic, is just the name. They will still need to govern themselves, only this time without any allocation from the Federal Government of Nigeria. So can you imagine those Igbo states governing themselves but without any government allocation from the Federal Republic of Nigeria? To say the least, things will be much more difficult for those states. Even today with the federal allocations the Igbo states can hardly make ends meet, can’t pay civil servants and with very limited internally generated revenues.
As I am writing this, I can almost hear the objection coming from my Biafran brothers, I think some are thinking that “No, we are going to go with the oil states”, which means in their own understanding, the South-South states of Nigeria also belong to Biafra. I am not too good in the history of Biafra itself so I will not take it upon myself to say if this is true or not, but one thing I am sure of is that the South-South states will need to declare their willingness to join the Biafran state. So far, as far as I know, none of the South-South states are willing to join Biafra. Even if they will not remain in Nigeria, they would rather stand alone. As things are however, these states are more than willing to remain in the Nigerian Union. In fact I just watched a few days ago, the video address of one of the South-South governors, banning the Biafra demonstrations in his state.
Another major challenge that the Biafran agitations and its actualization will create for the new Biafran Republic is that, as of today, the Igbos are hugely scattered all over Nigeria. It would not be an exaggeration to say that millions of Igbos are living outside of their enclave. Let’s take just the South-South states for example; if all the South-South states choose to remain in Nigeria, that will cause a huge economic and humanitarian catastrophe for the Igbo people. Can you imagine a situation where all Igbo people are been evicted from the South-South states? I can only imagine what a catastrophe that would be if all the Igbo people were to leave Port Harcourt today. If all these people were to leave their businesses, connections and in some cases their family members only to go and create the Biafran nation, there is just no way the economy of the Biafran nation would be able to absorb these people. For some of the people themselves it would be too late to start all over again, some of them would simply not survive it. My dear Biafrans, a second thought must be given to the idea of separation from the Nigerian nation.
I have only mentioned the South-South region that only consists of 6 states. What will happen if we begin to talk about the economic and humanitarian consequences of evicting Igbo people from our two capitals, Lagos and Abuja? Igbo people control Nigeria, at least economically and socially, there is no official deprivation whatsoever in Nigeria for any tribe. Yes, I know of the Fulani herdsmen killings in all parts of Nigeria, but that is not a policy of deprivation if we are to talk about it. If there was such a policy, how come the Igbo people wield such a huge influence over the economy of the nation?
Yes I’m aware of the quota system, but in this provision of the law it does not specifically say a particular tribe or nationality cannot have more than a limited opportunities. Do you know there is quota system in advanced countries too, there is quota system in America, Europe, Scandinavian countries etc. Nigeria didn’t invent quota system we learned it from countries who have used it to ensure justice, equality and opportunities for all. What quota system says in Nigeria is that no state or region should have something all to itself depriving others from similar opportunities. An example of quota is that every state must produce a government minister, another example is that a parastatal shouldn’t employ all the workers only from one state or region.
Same with federal universities the federal character must be maintained but in state universities each state can have their liberty to admit as many as they want from their own states. Private schools and universities don’t have to apply the federal character at all. What I don’t understand about the Igbos who constantly complain about quota system and federal character is you too benefit from it, it’s exactly the reason why no state or region can marginalize you, since in the provision of the law the federal character and quota guarantees that. Most of the Igbos I hear talk about this most often complain about admission into universities, but it affects Yorubas and all 371 tribes the same way it affects the Igbos, why should it only bother you. More so there are state universities where it doesn’t apply. As I’ve mentioned earlier, quota system doesn’t only affect admission to universities, it affects all federal agencies, ministries and parastatals if not for it you’ll not have your allocations, or your ministers, civil servants, federal pay rolls etc
I know the objection of my Biafran friends, most of the agitators claim that they will be better off without Nigeria. If they could produce so much in Nigeria, the argument is that away from Nigeria they will produce much more; well I personally doubt it. Let’s look at the facts. If Igbo people could produce more, what stops them from producing more in their own states where they have the right and authority to build the nation of their dream? Why can’t they produce more where they govern themselves with little influence from the Hausa, Yoruba and Fulani people?
I know there are a lot of thoughtful and analytical people in the Igbo nation. Let’s assume the Igbo people managed to get their Biafra Republic; that will limit their sphere of activities to the square kilometers that the Igbo nations control primarily. What that means in economic terms is that, for example, the Nigerian land mass is a thousand square kilometers; in that the Igbo nation will only be at most three square kilometers. The economic activities you can have in a thousand square kilometers far exceeds what you can do in 3 square kilometers. In Nigeria the Igbo people have access to much more land mass and population for their businesses, social and political activities. In the case of a separation, that will limit the potential of the Igbo people.
I’m afraid if Biafra becomes a reality we will have an exodus of Igbos away from Igbo land in such a number that it’ll force all neighbouring states to introduce visa entry to keep the Igbos away. Today even with the fact that Igbos have a huge field of operation for there enterprises in Nigerian landmass, yet look at the troubles neighbouring countries like Ghana, Cameroon, Togo etc are creating for the Igbo Nigerian traders. Now imagine there won’t be the Nigerian market and landmass for the Igbos to operate in, the number of Igbos trooping into other African countries will be so overwhelming that those nations will possibly start a policy of ethnic cleansing to keep their countries away from the Igbo traders. Even now, most African countries have some form of discriminatory policies against Nigerians who are mainly Igbos. Countries like South Africa, Kenya, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Zambia etc are causing a lot of problems for Nigerian Igbo traders, now imagine most Igbos being chased away from northern Nigeria, western Nigeria or southern Nigeria. It’ll be catastrophic where will they all go to.
Someone could say they’ll come back home to Biafra land, so what stops them from doing so now? It’s because it’s not feasible, economically not viable, the number of sellers outscores the number of those who are able to buy. To make money you must sell to others, you need the market, the population, these are all the advantages a United Nigeria provides with ease, it is senseless to break down this our huge advantage. Look at the European Union where they spent centuries fighting each other, but they learned the lesson in a hard way, now they all came together as a union. Africa is also trying to unite, but we are already United together here in Nigeria, it’s our vantage point like that of China, USA, Brazil, Japan. Don’t let us use our own hands to destroy the blessings God himself gave to us to be a United nation. I pray he that has ears, hears the voice of the preacher. Peace…
For The Love Of God, Church And Nation,
Dr. Sunday Adelaja.
