Nigerian Civil War: A Colossal Waste -By Ike Willie-Nwobu

In any serious country, it should be inconceivable that a ragged and ragtag group with laughable claims of legitimacy should restrict any one person’s movement not to talk of holding an entire region to ransom every other Monday.

But that is the situation with Nigeria’s southeast region, with the stench of failure rising over this noxious failure of security and strategy strong enough to suffocate an entire country.

The long held suspicion was that the Southeast was taking in great losses over the weekly grounding of activities in the region begun by the Indigenous People of Biafra Movement after its leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was arrested in Kenya and bundled back to Nigeria like a common criminal.

Once the lockdown started, reinforcing the feeling of alienation and helplessness in the region, even the blind knew that a region famed for its commerce was suffering crippling losses.

However, in an age where data is the new oil, until the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Benjamin Kalu put a figure to it, there was no estimate, even a wildly inaccurate one.

According to Kalu, in two years during which insecurity has pervaded the Southeast forcing people to remain in their homes every Monday, the Southeast has cupped four trillion Naira in losses.

That figure, accurate or not, puts some grim perspective on the pain of the region in the past two years. Most damningly, it indicts the country and the ruling All Progressives Congress.

The groundwork for the chaos roiling the Southeast was laid in 2015 by former president Muhammad Buhari. After an expectedly chastening defeat in the Southeast during the 2015 presidential election, he could not help but threaten the region. His message of alienation was cryptic but nevertheless it was picked up by those who sow chaos.

Since then, so many lives have been lost as have livelihoods as a region that defied the odds, dusted itself from the ashes of the Nigerian Civil War, and mounted a rousing comeback has found itself gripped by fear and haunted by violence. To make matters worse, since the carnage started, those sworn to protect lives and property in the country and the region have shown unsurprising ineptitude and inertia.

There is also something to be said about the IPOB. The group declared a terrorist organisation by the Nigerian government has failed to grasp one of history’s most important lessons – that true legitimacy can only come from people when they freely exercise their right to choose.

In its bid to get the Southeast region to secede and become the Republic of Biafra, the IPOB has reached for the sledgehammer when a scalpel would have been perfect. In the hands of the Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, that sledgehammer has mercilessly bludgeoned the region they seek self-determination for.

A series of attacks In the Southeast had precipitated his trial in 2016. His escape from Nigeria, arrest and return completed a hologram of humiliation for the IPOB whose frequent attacks before and since then, have weakened the security architecture of the Southeast, emboldening hitherto hibernating criminals to crawl out of their lairs.

The group has since washed its hands off the sit-at-home and the deadly attacks which meet those who flout it. Unknown gunmen have been blamed for many attacks since then. But who is to tell who the unknown gunmen are?

Nigeria is a country of shades and shadows. A biting lack of transparency is evident from top to bottom. Consequently, so many things happen in the country and there is usually no one to account.

For Nigeria, there must be stinging shame. That non-stake actors can hold a key region of the country to ransom, taking away the Monday of every week, is a horrifying humiliation.

For the IPOB, the lesson endures that no genuine legitimacy can be got by the butt of a gun.

For the Igbo nation which has called the Southeast home for as long as anyone can remember, it is yet another station in what has always been a journey of adversity.

Nigerian authorities must work hard to make the Southeast feel an inseparable part of Nigeria. The Nigerian Civil War left many wounds. More than sixty years later, these wounds are yet to heal. If anything, there have been deeper wounds over the years.

It Is doubtful whether the historic sense of alienation and exclusion the Southeast feels can be softened. But drastic measures can be taken to soothe lingering pains.

Until this is done, people like Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and groups like the IPOB whose merchandise is controversy and chaos will continue to find ample opportunities in the Southeast from where they hope to destabilize Nigeria.

Ikewilly9@gmail.com