Insecurity in the Southeast, and lessons not learnt from the Nigerian Civil War -By E.O. Ojelabi

State-threatening insecurity challenges have increased in Nigeria in the last decade, from insurgency and Islamist terrorism in the northeast; banditry and kidnapping in the northwest; militancy in the Southsouth; and a growing insurrection in the southeast born out of a rekindled and intense call for secession in that region over the past six years. Per usual, Abuja’s instinctive strategy to address this issue in the southeast is the regular hawkish strategy of heavy clampdowns and indiscriminate killings without full regards for the rule of law; or a meaningful attempt to address the cause of the conflict with an underlining view of peacebuilding. Sadly, this has resulted in many needless causalities indicating that Nigeria has learnt little or no lessons from the sad events of 1967-1970 despite Gowon’s very emotional post-war speech espousing a united, consequently stronger and better Nigeria. This brief appraisal of the events of the past few years, argues that the growing insecurity in the southeast is a consequence of a ‘historical memory of societal trauma’ reaching back to the Biafran war, its preservation through; an unfair, continued militarization of the region, its accompanying inflictions and emotional literature, a developed sense of marginalization, consequent reaction of southeasterners, and the resultant counterreaction of Abuja with a reputably disastrous repressive strategy inherited from colonialism. It warns of a cataclysm if this continuum is not altered timeously.

A very short history

The Nigeria Civil War was fought amidst a torrid history between 1966 and 1970. Three years of attrition between the asymmetric forces of the Supreme Federal Government (SFG) of Nigeria and the Southeastern people of the country who adopted the name Biafra. Surprisingly, the war lasted for 24 months not because of the professional restraints of the SFG forces but for the audacity of the Biafran forces reinforced by factors such as the externalization of the war during the western cold war. The immediate grievance of the war was the unfortunate and barbaric killings of thousands of Easterners “mostly Igbos” in the Northern parts of the country in retaliation for a perceived Igbo coup earlier in 1966 which took the lives of very important figures mostly among the northern civilian and military elites and a few in the south.

“Operation Araba” which was historically the northern elites’ third attempt to leave Nigeria since 1953, changed to Gowon’s “one indivisible Nigeria” after much intervention from Westminster and Washington. In what could have been a dialogue around democratic referendums, talks failed as political actors pursued exclusive interests on an agreeable state structure, the south southern oil, and access to the sea. Consequent to the war, millions were lost in lives in approximately 100 and 3 million on the SFG and Biafran sides respectively. The war left an indelibly bitter mark in the social consciousness of Igbos, and enduring is the trauma of such societal memory.

Subsequently

Governments under the fear of widespread Igbo resentment kept the region under heavy militarization and strict repressive policing and the situation brought adversities and brutality upon Southeasterners. Many expressed: “it is as if the war has not ended”. Further preserving this history of societal trauma are the works of Igbo intellectuals viz, Chimamanda Adichie and Chinua Achebe in their books “Half of the yellow sun” and “There was a country” respectively. These emotional attempts at preserving a history the Nigerian government had rather deliberately, “kept in the dark corners” of the Nigerian socio-political memory, perhaps informed young literate Igbos the reason why their streets are so besieged by intimidation and brutality. Both literature paint grim pictures of the civil war with interesting debates on discursive issues such as; whether the Igbo pogroms of 1966 were a fair price for the controversial January 1966 coup. More intense conversations grew in Igbo circles on how the Igbo nation is still paying for the events of 1966-1970 in a Nigerian state that has continually reminded them of their “liminal citizenship”.

The situation worsened post-2015 with the emergence of a repressive, close-minded, ethnized Federal Government (FG) followed by the countrywide escalation of conflict between pastoralists and farming communities. The blatant disregard for law and order by these weapon-wielding herders found its way to the Southeastern parts and complaints were met with laxity by the FG. Surprising phrases like “tolerance” for neighbours, “politicization” of the conflict, “misrepresentation of facts”, and “accommodation” of fellow countrymen characterised the “travailously-achieved” comments from the presidency. Thoughts, therefore, grew of an enduring Igbo hate highlighted by brazen attacks on Igbo communities by northern pastoralists coupled with the partial sidelining of Igbos from the Nigerian federal politics since 1966. The optics became of a northern-dominated FG tolerant to an erring northern aggressor group. Igbo activists and agitation groups such as Ohanaeze Ndigbo and Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOP) found their voices anew to condemn the activities of the Nigerian security operatives and the marauding herdsmen in their region and more virulent groups like the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) arose as a dangerously ethnicized pressure group to revive the history of 1967 Biafra and demand for the liberation of the Igbo people in the face of insecurity and the “inability of the Nigerian State to protect the Igbo nation”. Sounds familiar?

Strategies deployed

As a common response since the colonial periods till date, the proven misbegotten “state repression” strategy was adopted by Abuja. Since 2017 both government forces and local belligerents have painted with blood on the canvas of Imo and Abia States. Several “community meetings”, “association gatherings” and ‘family meetings’ were invaded and desecrated with the blood of innocent “Nigerian” citizens whose only sin was having the misfortune of aspiring for “self-determination” and freedom of association. News broke daily of an invasion of a meeting held by members of IPOB or MASSOP wherein “numerous” people were killed. In response before December 2020, IPOB and others only explored protests, rallies, strikes and boycotts as political tools of expressing their grievances.

“Numerous”, this term is being used sparingly here because while it was captured live on several cameras as the Nigerian Army opened fire, even life rounds, on protesting citizens on the sad night of the 20th October 2020. It took the FG several months to admit that the event “may have” happened and then the next debate was whether or not there was a “massacre”. There is no doubt we have an impossibly deceitful Government who will rather visit Nigerians with vicious force than move to calm nerves or listen to reason.

FG declared IPOB a terrorist group without any anti-state assaults in 2017 and used the instrumentality of the court as well as the Igbo political elites (majorly the Governors) to proscribe it; effectively driving the group underground and passing a clear message of a repressive and indifferent FG-Igbo relationship. This was done at a time when cries from the Middle-belt and Southern parts of the country lamenting the baneful activities of some Fulani herdsmen and demanding their proscription and gazetting as a terrorist group was utterly ignored by the FG. Instead, a bromance was entrenched between Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), representing the marauding pastoralists, and the FG and subsequent nebulous legislation favourable to the demands of MACBAN emerged from the presidency to the dismay of Nigerians. This explains why IPOB and other southern agitation groups gained much public support from their communities. IPOB’s proscription was followed by a much more lethal militarization of the Southeast through “Op. Python Dance”. It is descriptively acknowledged among social circles that even the more-destabilized north is not as besieged by military occupational presence and intimidation as the Southeastern parts. This state of affairs led to the militarization of IPOB in 2020 with the emergence of the Eastern Security Network (ESN) which had the clear aim of insurgency or in the least, militancy.

Even though denied by IPOB and ESN, apparent insurgent groups have dealt deadly blows against the state in the Southeastern States of Abia, Imo, Anambra, Ebonyi among others adopting “hit and run” guerilla strategies, attacking security bases, checkpoints, formations, and prisons, deploying sophisticated guns and IEDs. The police and army in response have also commenced underground operations visiting confirmed and suspected IPOB and ESN members with summary executions, random raids, checkpoint shootings, and aerial bombings. Both sides have adopted propaganda deploying social media to their respective advantages.

Lessons from history

It is not news that factors responsible for the Nigerian Civil War principally: ethnic apprehension, mutual resentment and distrust, have not been well-managed post-1970. Efforts like the FCC and other policies driven by the desire to manage the plurality of the country like Gowon’s RRR have been bastardized by socio-political vices such as nepotism, favouritism, and corruption perpetrated by the political elites. Political elitism here speaks to the general dealings of the Nigerian elites, majorly in this context, the Southeast elites viz; Governors, Senators, HORs Members, Local Government Chairmen and Councilors, largely responsible for the underdevelopment and socio-economic marginalization of the region, however, bloated recently by the FG.

Certain parallels can be drawn from history. Like the 1964-65 Ibadan tension between Nnamdi Azikwe and Obafemi Awolowo and the Lagos NCNC, the Igbo question of the 1999 PDP consociational arrangement is leading both dominating parties into another contentious ethnic debate. Ethnic tension and apprehension embodied by the weaponized Fulani pastoralists’ invasions across the country have resulted in an indirect intrastate arms race in the name of regional security outfits ‘ancillary’ to the central forces and akin to the regional “reassignment” of officers of the Nigerian Army especially the Igbos in July 1967. Alloy Ejimako, a lawyer to IPOB stated following an April 2021 security briefing of the Southeast stating that all the security chiefs attendant in that meeting and in charge of security in the Eastern region except the political elites, the “Supreme Court approved” Governors, were northerners. A situation like this further reinforces the apprehension of southeasterners of an occupational regime and a systemic subjugation.

In the fashion of the old Western region’s collapse in security during the “weti e” crisis of 1962-1965, the northern region has been engulfed in insurgency, banditry, and kidnapping with terrorism being principal; and armed robbery, kidnapping and militancy have engulfed the south without any meaningful intelligence-driven counter-efforts by the state leaving a vacuum for non-state actors like Sunday Igboho, Nnamdi Kanu and the ESN to have sentimental reasons to carry out actions independent of the state security in the name of self-defence. Like the “police operation” of July 1967, the military has commenced operations in the southeast in occupational style to repress IPOB and ESN and their sympathizers in the exact way its precursors did during the years of ‘Pacification’ and it inherited in 1960.

Considering the daily death indices, it’s not entirely wrong to say Nigeria is in a state of civil war. The next move of the FG can only escalate or deescalate. But going by its hawkish antecedence, the presidency of General Mohammadu Buhari is tendentious at escalating even the most politically reconcilable conflicts while neglecting all options for peace and the most recent example of this fact is the 2015 Zaria Shia Massacre and the 2020 #EndSars shooting. It’s a government that deploys the “iron fist” rule, instilling fear instead of entrenching democratic principles or respect for the rule of law. However, Nigeria is better advised to embrace negotiations in serious dialogues on the country’s future rather than the usual excessive force it instinctively adopts. Throughout the country’s history and till date, imbalance in her justice system and socio-political inequality as well as over-militarization in cases of ethnic relations characterized by insensitive and unlawful killings, and claims of marginalization have resulted in resentments and worsened apprehension. Nigeria should consider a new strategy in her dialogues, and this time, consider the truth. The truth here are the real grievances: marginalization, ethnicism, favouritism, inequity and injustice. The earlier Nigeria considers this very simple and straightforward strategy the better.

E.O. Ojelabi, M.A.
Contact @: ojelabiemmanuel@ymail.com