Ever since Nnamdi Kanu, the director of Radio Biafra, was arrested and incarcerated in police custody about a month ago, the Igbo in many South-East states of Nigeria have continued to agitate for his release. Last week, businesses were disrupted for several hours in Onitsha, the main commercial city of Anambra State by youths who were sympathetic to the cause of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB.
The same week, thousands of pro-Biafra supporters protested in Rivers and Ebonyi States. And in the Capital of Delta State, Asaba, about 1,000 youth members of the Delta State Chapter of Indigenous People of Biafra stormed the ever busy Onitsha-Asaba-Benin Expressway to protest against Kanu’s continued detention. Those who live by the expressway on the Asaba side of Onitsha Head Bridge were said to have fled their homes and shops for fear of being attacked by the protesters who chanted war songs, demanding the unconditional release of Kanu. The protests caused serious gridlock.
In Owerri, the capital of Imo State, economic activities and vehicular movements were crippled for several hours over the week following the protest of members of the IPOB and a faction of the Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB). They were protesting against the continued detention of Nnamdi Kanu by the Department of State Security. IPOB protesters who stormed the Imo state capital in their hundreds as early as 6am were said to have walked all the way from Aba in Abia State and Port Harcourt in Rivers State – a distance of well over 60 miles. They met at strategic positions in the state capital from where they linked up with their members who were on ground to begin the protest. Despite the heavy security presence of armed soldiers and mobile policemen who drove their vehicles behind them, the protesters showed no signs of relenting as they marched through the major streets of Owerri, displaying the Biafran flag and placards with such inscriptions as: ‘FG free Nnamdi Kanu now’, ‘Kanu is Biafra and we are Kanu’, ‘We need Biafra now.’The leaders of the protests said they mobilized their teaming members to join the protesting Biafrans, because the demonstration was non-violent and it was a noble cause. They wanted the South East governors to advise FG to free Nnamdi Kanu or “face the oncoming doom”.
MASSOB said that their members were participating in the protest in solidarity with IPOB because “Kanu is a true Biafran.” It said the protest would continue to send the message across that they need Biafra, that they are not secured in Nigeria and that they felt that their future was not secure in Nigeria. The demonstrations would remain non violent. “Today we are in Owerri and by the time we finish in the Southeast and Kanu is not released we will match to Abuja so that we can all be detained because we are ready to die for what believe in. We are tired of being slaves in Nigeria. What is happening now shows that Biafra is ready to go. So let them give us Biafra and release our leader immediately”.
It is important for the Federal Government to note, as a Biafran war veteran, Colonel Achuzie has pointed out, that the people who have been demonstrating were from the ages of 45 years downwards. The war ended over 45 years ago. Therefore, it is easy to recognise the people the country is dealing with. They were children during the civil war. Half of them were born in Biafra at the time. Their birth certificates say they were Biafran citizens. When the war ended, Nigeria did not address this issue. Those who took it upon themselves to manage the affairs of reconstruction, rehabilitation and so on made the terrible mistake. They did not look into the situation that existed because most of those born during the three and half years the war was going on were babies with Biafran birth certificates. Now they are adults, and as far as they are concerned, there must have been Biafra. They may not have seen but they definitely heard about Biafra, the land of their birth. They have seen the injustices that are prevalent in Nigeria, especially the greediness that culminates in their high level of corruption. Based on their perception, their knowledge and their intelligence, they felt the best thing is to reclaim their territory. Perhaps they would be able to turn it into a model for other states in Nigeria.
Writing afterwards in the Vanguard newspaper edition of 3 November 2015, Rotimi Ogundana observed that “if for any reason Biafra must come alive”, majority of the people in the South East would need to decide that in a referendum. He implied that Nigerians from the South East should be given an opportunity by the Nigerian authorities to have their say in the determination of their destiny. Mr Ogundana argued that Nigerians from the South East have continued to vote for “others” since the end of the civil war and deserve to be voted for to clinch the Presidency in 2023. According to him: 45 years after the end of the civil war led by Ojukwu, the South East has not “grabbed” the highest position in the land and it is only fair that they be given the chance come 2023 or Nigeria should let them go in peace.
Much as I think that Mr. Ogundana has a point here, I do not subscribe to the fact that “grabbing” the highest position in the land at any time is what the Igbo need. No one needs to grab anything. And if you ask me, I think the position of the Igbo in the entire Nigerian experiment is very straight forward. Either they are truly One Nigeria or they are not. And if they are not, they should be allowed to go. Simple!
Although the Igbo are the ones now being hounded for agitating for the actualization of the Biafran nation, they are also the ones for whom the unity of Nigeria means so much. They are the ones who have made the most enormous sacrifices to keep Nigeria together. They are the ones who have invested their money and skills in the development of Nigerian villages, towns and cities other than their own. And these facts are incontrovertible.
For the Igbo, being truly One Nigeria implies that ethnic chauvinism has to be expunged from our national dictionary. It means that any Nigerian child born in any part of Nigeria has legitimacy of citizenship of his or her place of birth. It means that any citizen of Nigeria can live, work and help develop any village, town or city in Nigeria where he feels comfortable to live in, without being constantly reminded by those who claim to own the land that he is a foreigner in his own country. It means that Nigerians have to realize and accept that they are Nigerians first, before they can see themselves as Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba.
And if we can, for once, be honest to ourselves, the question is: is it possible? The answer is ‘no’ and ‘yes’.
No, because it will be difficult, if not impossible, for instance, to ask a Yoruba to minimize speaking his language and learn to speak more of Igbo or Hausa as a way of getting properly integrated nationally. The same goes for the Hausa and the Igbo. It will be an extremely difficult task for an Igbo not to see an Hausa who has lived in any part of Igbo land for years as Hausa, even if that Hausa was born there. By the same token it will be exceedingly difficult for an Hausa to see a Yoruba or Igbo in Adamawa or Bauchi as an indigene, even if they were born there.
Those who “migrated” to some other villages, towns or cities away from those of their birth are not making the situation any simpler. They are known to always congregate along ethnic groupings in the places they reside. The Igbo are guilty of this. The Hausa are. The Yoruba are. The Deltans are. Every where they live in Nigeria they have a tendency of forming their ethnic unions or organizations.
So, how can anyone talk of total integration when the mental attitude and mindset of most Nigerians are so ethnically embedded in their tradition and culture that it is practically impossible for them to see themselves as belonging to One Nigeria? A total integration is obviously a herculean, if not an impossible task.
First, the laws put in place at the moment to emphasize nationalism in Nigeria are very weak. Added to that, only lip service is paid to their implementation. So, unless stringent laws are put in place and ardently enforced to ensure that Nigerians of whatever extract are made to feel at home in any village, town or city of Nigeria they choose to live in, the question of oneness in Nigeria can never be fully resolved.
And yes, because the National Assembly can plan the type of integration I have in mind. In fact, the National Assembly should have embarked on a programme like this a long time ago.
A critical look at the behavioral pattern of societies shows that the language of a people is the bedrock of their tradition and culture. People will embrace and integrate a stranger who speaks their language more easily than the stranger who does not.
So, one way to get the ethnic bridge solidly built is to introduce the compulsory study of the three main Nigerian languages, Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba into the national school curriculum. In such a way, every Nigerian child learns in school to speak those three languages as a stepping stone towards total integration and enhancement of Nigerian nationalism. The fact that the National Assembly had not seen or taken the importance of this innovative programme seriously gives the impression that they had all along endorsed the ethnic sentiments that underline Nigerian nationalism in its present context.
On that note, I must say that I personally do not agree with Ogundana that what the Igbo desire to stabilize and come back into Nigeria is an Igbo President. I rather think that we need to learn from our own history.
When Chief Obasanjo, the only two-time Head of State of Nigeria manipulated situations to get the immediate past President, Dr Jonathan, into office as President, he was goaded by haunting two facts. First was that Nigerians had got tired of the rule of military officers. They were agitating for a proper university graduate to run the affairs of the country, believing that normal university graduates would do better in governance than those from the military schools. So, he sponsored the late former President, Alhaji Musa Yar ‘Adua and Dr. Jonathan, both of them university dons.
The second was that Obasanjo believed that a President coming from the Delta Region would be able to settle his people who had, at that point in time, taken to arms to bring home their agitation against their marginalization despite the fact that their land produced the crude oil which had become the mainstay of the national economy. But when Jonathan eventually became President after the demise of President Yar ‘Adua, what happened? The Delta insurgency increased in intensity. In addition, 12 Northern states immediately declared total sharia rule in their states, in a robust attempt to offset the shift in the balance of power from the North which the election of Jonathan as President represented.
Even now that Buhari is President, the same trend can be easily deciphered. It will be recalled that at a point in time, when the Federal Government was about to negotiate with some Boko Haram representatives, the insurgents had made some criteria mandatory before any meaningful dialogue could possibly take place. First was that the meeting be held on a neutral ground, preferably Saudi Arabia. Second was that Buhari should be in the team to represent the nation during the negotiation. To many Nigerians at that time, it appeared Buhari knew so much about Boko Haram. Not until Buhari publicly informed the nation that he had no hand in any dealings with Boko Haram did Nigerians come to know the truth. But even at that, many Nigerians still have confidence that Buhari will, at some point, totally sack Boko Haram from Nigerian soil.
I have said this somewhere before. And I am saying it again that just as Jonathan could not solve the problem of Delta people as President, so it may be difficult for Buhari to terminate the menace of Boko Haram, despite being a Northerner and a retired General.
So, to make Nigerian nationalism real we need to plan for it. The National Assembly needs to work harder. Building up a nation is not a day’s affair. As they say: Rome was not built in a day. Nigeria cannot be built in a day either. We need to start somewhere. The National Assembly needs to make laws which will make the study of Nigeria’s three main languages compulsory in all Nigerian schools. In a decade, hopefully, we should be getting results.
And if that is not in the agenda, then they must give the Igbo a chance to determine their future on their own. Voting in an Igbo President by 2023 is not the problem of the Igbo. Their problem is to know their true position in One Nigeria – whether Nigerians want to be truly united as one people or whether the lip service being paid to “One Nigeria” is all about exploiting the crude oil in their land and making the rich richer while the poor get poorer. The National Assembly should provide answers to these questions. The Igbo are traditionally Republican people (Igbo enwegh Eze) and so, interminably widening the gap between the rich and the poor in their society is not a part of their Biafra dream. Neither is Kanu’s continued detention a way forward for the young APC government. The wise thing, I would suggest, is for government to dialogue with the IPOB officials to find a way forward.
Mr Asinugo is a London-based journalist