Sorry but “Biafra” Lives (3)

In the early 1970s, we sold bats, yes bats, those miserable creatures, to an Igbo man who had fled Igboland and settled down as a tenant at somewhere in Kwaddaga, in Tudun Wada, Birnin Kebbi. His name is Mr Nwosu Udoaka and he ate the bats with bliss and handed us Kobo coins for our […]

In the early 1970s, we sold bats, yes bats, those miserable creatures, to an Igbo man who had fled Igboland and settled down as a tenant at somewhere in Kwaddaga, in Tudun Wada, Birnin Kebbi. His name is Mr Nwosu Udoaka and he ate the bats with bliss and handed us Kobo coins for our trouble. Mr Udoaka has since risen in status and is currently the Ezeigbo of the entire Kebbi. Today he is a landlord with tenants of his own. He worships at the Catholic Church, Nassarawa, Birnin Kebbi and probably has the custody of its certificate of occupancy. Mr Nwosu has materially succeeded beyond his wildest imagination. The other Igbo man called Emeka, began by serving beer at Channel 1 hotel and then became a front for a well-known ex-NEPA official. Today, Emeka also owns mansions, hotels and companies of his own in Birnin Kebbi and Abuja.
Although they describe themselves as Republicans, the Igbos fight one another over who is the King of Kings among them, not only in the South east but elsewhere in the country. Some few weeks ago, the Deji of Akure had issued a stern warning to them not to turn his domain into war theatre in their desperation to belittle his authority and install one of their own as a sovereign (Ezeigbo).
The recent agitation for Biafra was inspired by the savage attack on Buhari by the anti-Northern, hate filled, cancer-stricken, Professor Ben Nwabueze. All his life, Ben Nwabueze, has been struggling to unbundle the North because in his reckoning, a united North bears an unfair advantage in Nigeria, like a giant among minnows, which frustrates their designs on the country. Prof Nwabueze exploits all manner of platforms to hoist himself on national consciousness; if he is not speaking in his private capacity, he is doing so on behalf of self-appointed Igbo Leaders of Thought (ILT) or The Patriots, so called. Even the most foolish Nigerian cannot fail to see the contradictions of an ethnic champion struggling to be a patriot. 
The defeated party – the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) which the Igbos wanted to use to gain the presidency also sold them a facade of restructuring. Of course, the All Progressives Congress torpedoed those calculations and the PDP neither delivered on restructuring nor Igbo presidency. Ojukwu founded the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) for the Igbos to use as a vehicle to secure power, but they jumped ship and splintered into Progressives Peoples Alliance, Labour Party, Peoples Democratic Party, etc. Though they wanted the Nigerian Presidency badly, they offered no thoughtful challenge inside the ruling party in 2011 and 2015.
The Ohaneze Ndigbo had spurned Buhari’s requests to meet them during the presidential campaigns, saying they had committed themselves, egg and chick, to their son, Goodluck Jonathan. Why do they now want to force an agenda on him? Those calling for Biafra lost the 2015 election, like the 1970 war. They are PDP, and instead of waiting for 2019, they toy with a bloody route to a separate country.
President Muhammadu Buhari has broken his silence over the Biafran issue, he wasn’t elected to preside over the balkanisation of Nigeria. In his reckoning, a tough new leadership that minimises corruption, restores security, manages the economy efficiently, creates jobs and re-establishes functional national institutions will usher in peace, national unity, stability and prosperity that benefit all citizens. How else do you suppress separatist tensions?
A flag and a radio cannot make a country. The Biafran separatists should get the scales off their eyes; there is no peaceful path to their republic. The only way they can create a separate country out of Nigeria is through armed struggle and here they have history to guide them. Those who call themselves “Biafrans” or “Indigenous People of Biafra” (IPOB) and want to use “guns and bullets” to carve a country for themselves are traitors, they will not be treated differently from Boko Haram. The Biafrans can expect more deadly fire than the one the former army chief, Lt Gen Azubuike Ihejirika, dropped on Boko Haram.
Once you take up arms against Nigeria, you are regarded as an enemy and fought as such until submission. That’s how Nigeria treats armed separatists, are those Biafrans truly ready to bear “guns and bullets” to fight Nigeria? How much blood can they shed? Will they chicken out after three years and cry genocide? Because if your motive is to take up arms and fight marginalisation, you could end up worse when the shooting war starts. The call by the Chief Gary Enwo-Igariwey faction of the Ohaneze Ndigbo for the unconditional release of Nnamdi Kanu is irresponsible and the misguided young man will have to face the full wrath of the law.
Christmas is here and Ohaneze cannot afford to keep their shops closed and lose ahia. The agitation for Biafra is a stunt that will peter out. Although there is some measure of frustration in Igbo land as in other parts of the country, Buhari will leave Nigeria better and whatever restructuring we attempt can only be achieved by a sincere government like his or his successors from the South West.
I hope after reading this article, Mr Nwosu Udoaka; the Ezeigbo of Kebbi, will share with Nigerians his experiences of the horrors of civil war and warn his people to retrace their steps from the path of annihilation. Sorry, “Biafra” is not alive; Biafra is dead. Igbo kwenu, Oga dinma.
Twitter:@ComradeAbubakar