Self-determination, Biafrans and their delusions

Africa has a glorious past. Before the advent of white imperialists, Africans had their own systems of government. We had the ancient Benin Kingdom, Oyo Empire, Ghana Empire, the reign of Mansa Musa in Mali, and others. To say that colonialism dislodged Africa’s peculiar indigenous types of government is to state an obvious and indisputable fact. In the pre-colonial lgboland, the cultural practices and norms of the people were embedded in their republicanism, which used to be their system of government. Achebe’s anthropological novels documented the historical past of the Igbo people.

The white people came to the African continent with Christianity, western education, and representative government. Our forebears were taught that the African traditional religion is inferior to Christianity; that Christianity is the pathway to eternal life in heaven. And the white colonizers planted and institutionalized democracy in Africa. Today, millions of black Africans belong to the Christendom, and democracy is the acceptable type of government in Africa and elsewhere. Even countries with theocracy and monarchy are reforming, and embracing democratic norms.

Nigeria is now a democratic country. We owe it to colonialism. Nigerians suffered under colonial rule, however. Late Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ojike Mbonu, Ahmadu Bello, Anthony Enahoro, and others fought for our political emancipation. Our political sovereignty wasn’t won on a silver platter. Happily, now, almost every country on the African continent is politically independent. But the irrefutable truth is this: irrespective of our sufferings and humiliations during the colonial era, the advantages of colonialism far outweigh its flipsides or disadvantages, in my own estimation.

But the imperialists erred gravely in their lumping of disparate ethnic groups together as one country on the African continent. Did they consider cultural and religious affinities of the groups before carving up the continent into countries? In most cases, the natives weren’t consulted. So, from Kenya to Ethiopia, from Sudan to Nigeria, many African countries are buffeted and riven by ethnic animosity. Perhaps, it’s for administrative convenience that disparate ethnic groups are amalgamated as one country. But ethnic heterogeneity as well diversity is at the root of political troubles and tension in Kenya , where  Kikuyu and the Luo tribes are at enmity with each other. Somali has split up. And South Sudan had emerged from Sudan after they fought a bloody civil war for years. More so, Eritrea seceded from Ethiopia.

Back home in Nigeria, even before our attainment of political freedom in 1960, religious conflicts and ethnic hatred have been the centrifugal forces tearing the country apart. Nigerians are conscious of their ethnic origins and heritage; and they place their primordial and ethnic interests above national considerations. So, the Hausa-Fulani people threatened secession in their nine point programme in the early 1950s. And the Ijaw people declared the Niger-Delta republic in 1963, which was short-lived. And the late Col Emeka Ojukwu led the Igbo people of South-east Nigeria to fight a secessionist war between 1967 and 1970. So Nigeria could be likened to a cat with nine lives. Whenever our country got to the precipice, it would be pulled back instead of bowling over and dismembering.

Now, a wave of renewed agitation for the creation of the sovereign state of Biafra has gained momentum and is sweeping across the south-east of Nigeria. The Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) is championing the cause. The arrow-head of the group is the detained and erudite director of Radio Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu. MASSOB, another secessionist group, is in disarray with its leader, Mr. Uwazurike, discredited and thought to be a sell-out. But, IPOB had successfully paralyzed economic activities and curtailed movement of people several times in the past with its stay- at- home order. Sadly, the clampdown as well as violence being visited on the group has led to the detention and deaths of many IPOB members. Members of the group are being killed and hunted down for exercising their right.

Globally, homogenous groups are clamouring for political emancipation. In Britain, the Scottish people want out of the British union. The Basque people in Spain are still agitating for a separate country of their own. The Oromo people in Ethiopia are disaffected as the Ethiopian leadership has been giving them a raw deal. But why are the Igbo people of South-east Nigeria clamouring for the state of Biafra now? Feelings of marginalization are the chief incitement and motivation for Igbo people’s agitation for a sovereign state. Truly, they are being shortchanged in the scheme of things in the country. But the Igbos are their own worst enemies. In 1999, Alex Ekwueme stood a good chance of becoming the PDP Presidential standard bearer and winning the presidential election. But his ethnic compatriots sabotaged his efforts and sold him down the drain. Had he won the presidential election, he would have corrected the imbalances and injustices being meted out to the Igbos. It is obvious that Igbo people are disunited; and that’s the reason why an Igbo person hasn’t led Nigeria in the true sense of the world.

Now, the agitators for the creation of the state of Biafra believe that the South-east would become economically prosperous if the south-east became the state of Biafra. And those idealistic young people, most of whom are lumpen proletariats, believe that they would be entitled to receiving handsome salaries monthly as idlers if the Biafran state became a reality. They believe, and rightly so, that Biafrans in the diaspora are with skills, expertise, and knowledge, which they can deploy to build an economically prosperous and technologically advanced country. Yes, we can reenact the technological feat the Biafran engineers achieved during the Nigeria-Biafra Civil War.

But nation – building is an arduous task that requires dedicated, honest, visionary, and competent Political leadership. The south-east is a landlocked area, and oil is not produced in large commercial quantities in the south-east as it is produced in the Niger-Delta region. So if Biafra became a reality, its leaders would explore the non-oil sector to boost its revenue profile. To achieve the state of Biafra cannot translate to transforming the south-east to a prosperous paradise overnight.

More so, as ethnicity and corruption have divided and ruined Nigeria so would clannishness, statism and corruption bifurcate and threaten the survival of Biafra. Are Biafrans immune to being corrupt? Are most of the Biafrans’ dreams not utopia?

Chiedu Uche Okoye