Igbo Leaders, Speak Up Now

The so-called pro-Biafra campaign threatened to get out of hand last Wednesday when a large demonstration by its activists resulted in the loss of lives, injuries, the burning of property and untold suffering for the residents of Onitsha city. The demonstrators, members of the Indigenous People of Biafra [IPOB] and Movement for the Actualisation of […]

The so-called pro-Biafra campaign threatened to get out of hand last Wednesday when a large demonstration by its activists resulted in the loss of lives, injuries, the burning of property and untold suffering for the residents of Onitsha city.
The demonstrators, members of the Indigenous People of Biafra [IPOB] and Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra [MASSOB] said they were calling for the release from detention of Mr. Nnamdi Kanu, leader of IPOB and director of the so-called Radio Biafra. They blocked the Niger Bridge that connects Onitsha to Asaba. Markets, banks and other business activities were shutdown when the demonstrators set bonfires at several places including Old and New Market Roads, Ogbommanu Junction, Savoy, Nkpor Junction, Afor-Nkpor Bridge Head and Oguta Road.
After hours of blocking the strategic bridge, soldiers together with policemen, Department of State Services [DSS] agents and men of the Civil Defence Corps moved in to forcefully reopen the bridge. This led to a fracas in which a number of lives were lost. While some media reports said five people died, others said as many as nine lives were lost including two policemen who were killed by the demonstrators. Not long afterwards, some people described as “miscreants” went to the Onitsha Central Mosque and set it ablaze. Also burnt were some trucks belonging to the Dangote Group.
Even though IPOB and MASSOB elements had staged many demonstrations in several towns and cities in the last two months, including in Abuja, last Wednesday’s episode in Onitsha is so far the bloodiest and most violent. Burning of the mosque and Dangote trucks also threatened to introduce an inter-communal dimension to the agitation. IPOB leaders later disowned the arson attacks and said it was not their men that did it, that it was miscreants that hijacked the peaceful demonstration. This lame excuse is but an afterthought. Anyone who organises a demonstration on such a sensitive issue as secession in a city such as Onitsha, teeming as it is with unemployed and restless youths, cannot but be fishing in troubled waters.
The burning of the central mosque could be the work of miscreants, but it could also be a well calculated stratagem to ignite an inter-communal conflagration across the country and achieve the aim of the country’s break up by backhand means. In this wise it is no better than the strategy pursued by Boko Haram a few years ago of bombing churches on Sundays and on Christmas Day, with the hope that it will invite a backlash that will wreck the country. To that extent we condemn last Wednesday’s arson in Onitsha as heinous, devilish and evil. The perpetrators must be apprehended speedily and should be visited with the full wrath of the law.
Luckily, political, religious and traditional leaders in Northern Nigeria moved quickly to avert any possible “reprisal” attacks. Sultan of Sokoto and President General of the Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, urged Muslims in the country to resist the temptation of retaliating for the burning of the Onitsha Central Mosque. Governors of the nineteen Northern states also took pro-active steps to prevent the crisis from spilling over into the region. Chairman of the Northern States Governors’ Forum [NSGF], Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State, said in Maiduguri that the governors were in touch with one another and had taken firm measures aimed at averting any spill over, especially in the major cities.
We congratulate His Eminence the Sultan and the Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum for their rapid response, their visionary patriotism and their very humane efforts to save lives and property and in the service of peace. By their forward-looking actions they have thwarted the devilish plans of those who wanted to plunge the country into chaos in order to achieve the so-called sovereign state of Biafra.
It is also time to tell ourselves some home truths. There is nothing that the Buhari regime has done in its six months in power that could be said to have inflamed this agitation. All parts of the country have certain grievances, all of which could be resolved through democratic governance structures. Apart from the unconstitutionality of the Biafra agitation, educated and patriotic writers of Igbo extraction that have written on this matter have pointed out that the strategic communal interest of the Igbo people will not in any way be served by a retreat to a small and congested enclave. Far from it, such a dynamic and industrious people would benefit from an expansion of national borders to incorporate all of West Africa or even the entire African continent. 
To that extent, it is incomprehensible why the cream of South Eastern political, business, traditional, spiritual, academic and other leaders should remain silent at this point while the illogical agitation for Biafra festers. Many people, especially Southern Nigerians, have said over the years that Boko Haram got out of hand because key Northern leaders did not speak out against it in its early stages. It could well be that Igbo leaders will plead the same excuse earlier pleaded by Northern leaders, i.e. personal safety, for their silence at this stage. However, with the events in Onitsha last week, it is time for them to speak up.
Governors of the five South Eastern states as well as eminent leaders of the Ohanaeze Ndigbo have so far been dragging their feet. After a meeting they held two weeks ago, they called for “dialogue” between the Federal Government and IPOB.  We reiterate our stand that Nnamdi Kanu must answer the charges preferred against him in court. He threatened to kill everybody in Nigeria if Biafra is not created. No responsible government can fold its arms and “negotiate” with such a man, no matter that miscreants are running up and down the streets calling for his release.