Biafra Needn’t Be Definition Of Igbo

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Generational change can do a whole lot of harm. Well, it can do a whole lot of good too. The Western world shows the mix the most. Communities in that part of the world used to be scandalised if a man lived with a woman without tying the nuptial knot.

Compare that to today when man and woman cohabit as partners, bear children, and no one blinks. It was a reason I had stated in the past that it was not enough for Nigerians to say same-sex marriage is against tradition and religion so it would never be permitted here. If Nigerians raise a next generation that’s not as religious or tradition-minded, that next generation will care less if the constitution is changed to support the very practices that the present generation abhors.

In any case, the possibilities in generational change are already showing in Nigeria, and in Japan too. This is noted here because two stories make the headlines at about the same time in both countries.

The generation that witnessed the World War 2 in Japan was wary of war. For that reason, it felt comfortable living with a constitution that forbade Japan from raising an army for the purpose of engaging in war. Japan’s military formation therefore hadn’t been configured to globetrot wielding guns like the Americans, for instance. Now, the next generation cared less when Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, took it upon himself to get lawmakers to change the constitution and allow Japanese soldiers engage in battles. There are geopolitical and strategic calculations in Abe’s preference. What’s more in focus here however is that a new generation that cares less about war controls much of the votes; this gives Abe the confidence to go ahead and prepare Japan for war. Nigeria also has a post-civil war generation that doesn’t mind fragmenting Nigeria, and cares less if it happens through war. This is as much as there’s a connection between recent happenings in Japan and at Nigeria’s backyard.

A Federal Government agency announced not long ago that it had been involved in a cat and mouse chase with managers of a radio station that broadcast what it called treasonable contents. The agency said, just like the internet where individuals have the freedom to post uncouth comments, the radio station in question had provided a platform for individuals with a dream to fragment Nigeria and create Biafra Republic an opportunity to express their views. The agency said it had blocked transmissions by the station several times but failed. 

The matter was so serious that a Nigerian TV station did a story on it, warning of the dangers of allowing such a radio platform to exist. Commentators spoke, some saying there was nothing wrong in people expressing themselves, while others insisted that the unity of the nation was under threat. It’s not the pros and cons of allowing such a radio station to exist that’s my focus, rather it’s what led to a situation whereby anyone would dream of a breakaway nation, as it was the case at the time the Nigerian Civil War broke out in 1967.

 What I shall state here has characterised my conversation with many (not even people of Igbo origin) who have expressed their desire to have this nation broken into ethnic enclaves because, as they argue, Nigeria does not accord them recognition and a fair share of the national cake.

I have always stated that it’s a defeatist approach when citizens, rather than seek to properly manage their affairs, desire to withdraw to their ethnic cocoons instead. Withdrawal doesn’t solve the problem. To me, desiring a country that’s occupied by only one ethnic group epitomises an illusion that all humans don’t have certain vices that they share in common, that a particular ethnic group is immune to some of the negativities that have ensured that successive Nigerian leaderships don’t deliver to citizens in such a way that no section feels neglected.

 This is because over the years, I have come across people from one ethnic group complaining that people from a town among them has a tendency to dominate other towns, and they hate the accused for this reason. Now, I think that if people of Igbo origin do not get what they feel they deserve in Nigeria of today, the focus should be more about the need to take a look at the rules that guide the relationship among the components part of the country, rather than seek to create another nation with a homogenous population. More than that, a careful thought about what makes anyone feel dissatisfied with Nigeria will show an informed mind that fragmenting is not the best option, as attractive as the option seems not only to some people of Igbo origin but people from other ethnic groups also.

Why is Biafra attractive? Why is Oduduwa Republic or a variant of it attractive to some people that I have heard advocating it, or Middle Belt as a country? It’s naïve to assume that only the younger generation desires Biafra Republic or Oduduwa Republic. Many public figures who declare their support for a united Nigeria in the public space express their desire for an ethnic-based country in their privacy. I have met not a few over the years. The only difference is that those who witnessed the Nigerian Civil War or any other war would not want such fragmentation to happen through another war. 

Some of the answers to why any Nigerian today would dream of creating fragments out of Nigeria are obvious? In it all, I think the cause of the desire to fragment is less about one ethnic group that’s deliberately left behind in the scheme of things, but about a nation that has been so configured to be unable to deliver the best to all its citizens irrespective of where they come from. Every part of Nigeria is a victim of this situation, a reason why I state that creating another nation out of Nigeria isn’t the way out. But I guess this view can’t be understood by the mind that’s frustrated and angry enough to utter the kind of comments that have been on the illegal radio station.

Some commentators said a resurgence in the desire for Biafra expressed on the said radio happened because the South-East lost out of the power game at the federal level. I think there’s something limiting, a total lack of appreciation of the stature of an ethnic group if it understands its relevance only by the number of political offices it occupies, and so when it doesn’t have them canvasses a withdrawal into ethnic cocoons. I’ve never been bothered even if no one from the South-West holds a political position at the federal level. I don’t read the stature of the Yoruba race from the prism of political offices held. To me there’s more substance to the Yoruba race than the holding of political offices; the more of the past and present of the Yoruba that I understand, the more convinced I am that the race can never be relegated whether or not Yoruba are represented at the federal level.

 I think it takes a high level of understanding and confidence as to what one’s race is for one to feel that way. In the past, I had taken a different view on this page when a group from the South-West complained to a past administration about the Yoruba being marginalised. My view was that occupying political offices at the centre wasn’t what made the South-West to produce men and women who had made the zone a force to reckon with; instead it was the Yoruba values, a committed leadership in the zone, and the revenue generated locally from the sweat of hardworking cocoa farmers in the 1940s and 1950s.

I think the South-Easterners have made significant contributions to give Nigeria its widely-acknowledged vibrant character nationally and internationally, and I’m proud of them. I therefore think the Igbo shouldn’t define their relevance in Nigeria by the temporary political offices that they may or may not occupy at the centre. They should drop this on and off call for Biafra, and instead define themselves by the quality of men and women they have produced and will continue to produce to make the race remain one that can never be pushed to the backseat either within Nigeria or anywhere in the world.

Culled article- Punch