Buhari, Let The Igbos Go -By Ezinwanne Onwuka

Our country, the Federal Republic of Nigeria, lies in the paths of sundry tornadoes, hurricanes, cyclones, storms, superstorms, whirlwinds, and typhoons all of which are rushing towards our Republic with deadly speeds and their concomitant devastating momentum.

Nigeria has been enmeshed in a firebox of insecurity. The number of violent crimes such as kidnappings, ritual killings, religious killings, politically-motivated killing and violence, ethnic and/or religious clashes, armed banditry and others have increasingly become the regular signature that characterises life in Nigeria.

Incapable of addressing these issues, President Muhammadu Buhari‘s major concern is to quell the Biafran agitation by treating the Igbos “in the language they understand.” If I may ask, has Buhari been able to quell Boko Haram’s agitation for the establishment of an Islamic state in the North? His isolation of the Biafran agitation clearly reveals his hatred for the Igbos.

Abimbola Adelakun on her opinion piece for the Punch, Nnamdi Kanu: Buhari finally captures a hero of his own making published on July 1, 2021 wrote that, “Nigeria is currently going through one of its darkest periods in history; issues of insecurity and economic crunch are squeezing the life out of Nigerians, but all the complexity of what beguiles Nigeria has been reduced to IPOB and Kanu.”

It is worthy to note that the Biafran agitation did not start today. Today’s agitation is a leftover of the agitation that led to the Nigerian Civil War in 1967. The conditions that spurred the war are still as virulent as ever – marginalisation of the Igbos.

That Biafra was defeated or that it surrendered in 1970 does not mean the issues which birthed Biafra had died. It is the inability of the Nigerian state to come to a round table to negotiate the basis for the existence of the country that had given birth to renewed agitations for self-determination.

Biafra

Sadly, President Buhari has failed to realise that the level of injustice, inequity, marginalisation and exclusion that triggered a chain of reactions, resulting in a coup in January 1966, a counter coup in July of the same year, pogroms against Igbo living in Northern Nigeria, and finally a civil war in 1967, is much higher under his administration.

President Buhari’s sectionalism which has polarised Nigeria along ethno-geographic and religious fault lines and left the country more divided today than it was in the years preceding the civil war; and the consequent marginalisation of the Igbos, is directly responsible for the resurrection of the spirit, body and soul of Biafra in the form of Nnamdi Kanu’s IPOB (Indigenous People of Biafra), 51 years after.

Kanu has been a thorn in the flesh of the Buhari government, and his Radio Biafra, based in the United Kingdom, continues to advocate for Biafran independence. In addition to pushing for Biafra’s independence, he came to symbolise for Buhari everything wrong with Nigeria; a convenient deflection from his serial failures in issues ranging from the economy to security.

Little wonder, since Kanu fled Nigeria to preserve his life in 2017, the Buhari government has invested a disproportionate amount of effort into hunting him. The fact that a coalition of Northern groups placed a bounty of N100m on Kanu, reveals how much of a high-prized target he had become. What joy must fill their hearts on capturing him, at last!

Nnamdi Kanu in handcuffs at the Federal High Court Abuja.

Suffice to say that the Biafran agitation is legitimate and in tune with the international law on self-determination. The agitation is not different from the Scottish agitation in the United kingdom; the Catalonia agitation in Spain; the Eritrean agitation in Ethiopia; the South-Sudan agitation in Sudan etc.
It baffles me why President Buhari is determined not to let the Igbos go. It is ironic that the Buhari’s administration declared IPOB a terrorist organisation in 2017 but, the same administration pampers terrorists, bandits and kidnappers from the Fulani tribe. Recently, he described the Igbos as a “dot in a circle” and called the Fulanis his “brothers.”

Apparently, President Buhari clearly holds a grudge against the Igbos for voting against him in his four attempts at getting elected to the Presidency. This might explain his hatred for the Igbos.

Croatia emerged from Yugoslavia in 1991. Other countries that were formed from the breakup of Yugoslavia include Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Slovenia. The Russia we know today emerged after Russia, Belarus and Ukraine broke away from the Soviet Union after the Belavezha Accords of December 1991.

In 1937, Burma (now called Myanmar) was separated from British India. Eleven years later (1948), Ceylon now called Sri Lanka became independent of British India. Of course, Pakistan was separated from India in 1947, while Eastern Pakistan broke away from Pakistan in 1971 to give rise to Bangladesh.

The Sweden-Norway union broke in 1814 from the long-lasting (for 291 years from 1523 to 1814) Kalmar Union in Scandinavia that included Denmark. Ninety-one years later, the Sweden-Norway Union separated in 1905 into Sweden and Norway.

In briefly reminding us about the breakup of what were initially four countries (Yugoslavia, the USSR, India and the Scandinavian Kalmar Union) into what are 26 sovereign countries of our contemporary world, my point is to debunk the fallacy that the disintegration of countries, is intrinsically pernicious and innately injurious.
The Biafran agitation is a product of the failed state that Nigeria had become. It is a constant reminder to the Nigerian state that all is not well with the structural configuration of the country. Why the Buhari’s administration has failed to see the calls for self-determination in this light is puzzling.

President Muhammadu Buhari

If President Buhari thinks that by capturing Kanu, the Biafran agitation will be brought to an abrupt end, he should think again. Biafra has become a monumental phenomenon that cannot be silenced by force or crushed. The Biafran spirit cannot be quenched by the furious guns of hatred. There is an Igbo adage that says ochu nwa okuko nwe ada mana nwa okuko nwe mwee mwee oso (he who pursues the chicken will inevitably end up with a terrible fall).

Ezinwanne Onwuka, Cross River State.
ezinwanne.dominion@gmail.com
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