The Hangman and the Sacrificial: 2019, Time For Britain To Recognize The Humanity Of Biafra -By J. Ezike

The disconnection of the mind from the knowledge of its reality, places a “false cloud of awareness” in one’s stream of thoughts and the fascination it espouses over “illusionary visions” that are certainly not in semblance with its reality, makes common sense a costly item to be fancied. But the mind, if actively engaged with the “existential visions” it registers, will discern the blurred difference between “flame” and “fire.” Both combustible energies by essence share common purpose and can be described as twin elements of same ancestry but vary in degree of disposition and reaction to the external factor. And the “external factor” determines the range of illumination and evokes the extreme disparity of both energies by transcendental gaps.

Philosophically, the “flame” comes in the forefront of perception and vends to the mind of the keen observer a hypnotic spark of subtleness, a bewitching charm of innocuous radiance and a gripping, incomprehensible death beautiful enough to be embraced but conceals the knowledge of its existential, “apocalyptic complexions” that can only be made manifest in reality if its original essence is “pushed” beyond the phenomena of its natural structure. And the grand delusion that struggles with an evident effort to relate “flame” and “fire” by shallow definition is the invention of the mind driven by “a false cloud of awareness,” for if the mind is sober to the transcendental possibilities of the “flame,” it will acknowledge the savage that it is the “fire.” The former is merely a “diplomatic portion,” and/or “reactionary version” of the latter and thus, are two incomparable Worlds of Madness.

The curbing of the mind from comprehending this reality begins when we see both “distant elements” as identical lights of same temperament. This stream of thoughts should be purged in voluminous amount to enfeeble the formidable lie over the inexorable imminence of the “warring fire” escalating into a somewhat “wild awakening” when provoked in its stage of “insipid diplomacy.” But perhaps the most significant difference in the attitude of both elements is the popular article of truth that bestows with a subtle undertone a hue of sanity to one and the withholding of it from the other. As the saying goes, “All flames are fire but all fires are not flames.”

In line with the above-mentioned philosophic truth, we, the witnesses of this untiring, broad-shouldered tyranny, are therefore “alerted” to look upon the subdued, diplomatic, benign flame as the precedent of a “Warring Monster” shackled in its dark heathen cave, biding its time for a seismic eruption, to unbind the leash on its fiery nape and transcend into the consuming “fire” it was provoked to be. And like the phantom of havoc aroused from deep sleep, it saddles on the Mad Horse, secretly incensed, laying bare all of its suppressed orgies of prehistoric savagery and brutality, staggering forth with a poetic revenge as strong as death, with a barbaric anger as unforgiving as Karma and with a sinister dance as volatile as war language!

2018 was the year of the flame. We all poised as “sacrificial” through the condemned seasons. We saw the sheep and the wolves both of same tribe but the extreme opposite in mien, beaten to their last muscle of stoic endurance, and their ghouls floated from their distant origins to rent space in the tent of the slaughterer. We saw our shelters and lands crowded by gun-toting servicemen, hyped by a somewhat spirituous rhythm of the British command, bullying their senses to commit their rifles on a slope. It was like hunters invading a human habitation and triggering hails of projectiles on a sect of meat that wore the soul of Adam. Dreadful things befell the tribe who never got the meal of peace throughout the flame temper of those seasons. But every project of mortal creation, like a fairytale inked by the Great Storyteller, has a divine closing that encounters three stages: the beginning, the middle and the end.

Curiosity is the drug that keeps the mind dry and famished for the unknown. And it was this drug that fed me with the right amount of fire needed to burn within and smoke out uncommon thoughts. And so I pictured Nigeria as the “Hangman” and Biafrans as the “Sacrificial.” The Hangman in all his savagery and mastery of kill, does not see the Hand of Death seizing the “Sacrificial” suspended by a noose and jerking in that sluggish strangulation, dribbling red from the nose, trickling down juice of breath from the mouth and the seepage of feces running down the anus, and legs kicking back the fangs of torture – a scene symbolic of the pang of survival. He did not, but the “Sacrificial” saw it with the eyes of an ebbing soul. He saw the manifestation of Death, in all its glory, in all its horror. There it was, all through the moment of condemnation, in the decaying silence, owning what had been proffered by the Hangman acting under its influence. And in that process of transcendence the “Sacrificial” is purged of the “grave fear” it bore and gained a great size of “survival impulse” to face that “Almighty Unknown,” to coil its chaotic world around its stake and become an extension of its very essence. And so the “Sacrificial” became Death and the “Hangman” became the Sacrificial. This is a prophetic statement!

2019, is the year of the fire! It is the season when the benign “flame” shall transcend and become the consuming “fire” it was provoked to be. It is the time when Rage weds Revenge and the Hunter becomes the Hunted. Listen, my friend, I do not dance to the music of the world. No. I dance to the music inside. No man tells me what to do, except the one guided by spirits. And it was the music of the spirits that led my wandering feet to an unusual destination under the watchful eyes of the first sunrise of 2019. My fixed nature went off track and sought the adventure of an avian creature. Although I am not the social bird that reaches out to the flock but suddenly I turned jolly like a merry toddler. Perhaps, it was the gratitude of living, of seeing the face of a new year that shifted my other self to an effacing corner and I could not resist the urge of embracing the birth of another season. I wanted an unconventional way of meditation without being confined in an isolatory space. I wanted to hear from the wind, to feel the intense romance of the cold in my skin and know what the earth beneath my feet yearned to reveal. The bar was not my sanctuary for I understood the great conflict between alcohol and the spirit within. In all of the beautiful places that existed around me, my spirit led me to one singular point that symbolized everything that would become of Nigeria this year 2019.

I had walked out of my shelter, carrying along with me the oddities of a political refugee, of a total stranger in a strange White-Land. I thirsted for the company of my loved ones faraway in a country I had sworn to devour. Self-exiled in a world I barely knew, in a world I prayed would be Biafra’s template of evolution. Everything about this “White-Land” inspired me to dream of a Glorious Biafra. And even though I may not live to see that fateful day, I had sworn to partake in the foundation of it so that posterity would have a place to call home.

With inner promptings in that winter noon that would forever be evergreen in my memory, I met the proudest part of the White-Land’s dominion whose first language was “WAR” by artilleries far beyond the range and power of a benign flame. It was a whispering of secrets into my mortal being, secrets of the unknown events scheduled to erupt in the nearest future…

Today, no literate “adult mind” on earth is ignorant of the historical, genocidal war of 1967-1970 that ravaged, decimated and culled almost to an outright extinction the humanity of Biafra, with Nigeria as the “Hangman” and Britain as the “sentencing judge” and the “River of Crude Oil” serving as the bone of contention – even till this very day.

But there are nations, though imperfect thrived without the great comfort of natural resources and in the course of time, built an enviable place worthy of admiration and respect. Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore are few on the list. They survived through sheer determination, strength of character and purpose, creative leadership, humanitarian vision and the exploiting of the abundant human talents and the continual maximizing of those talents into “productive investments” for trade and commerce. Biafra can do the same.

This article is solely engineered to resonate with the collective cry of the colonial subjects caged in West Africa, Biafra. These people who chant in frenzied tones for freedom for over five decades, forced in a marriage of attrition, persecuted to a staggering tragic proportion are now saying in one voice: “TAKE THE OIL BUT GIVE US OUR FREEDOM.”

I was once a part of the humanity of Britain. I studied there. I had friends and lovers there. My footprints still breathes somewhere in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Aberdeen. In top honesty, I see Britain as my family. It is now time for Britain to recognize the humanity of Biafra. Two wrongs cannot make a right. What is the benefit of building this immortal hatred that would consume all of us?

If oil would be, as it were in the past, the cause of yet another bloody civil war, Britain and Nigeria, we say to thee: TAKE THE OIL BUT GIVE US OUR FREEDOM.

This essay of mine and the previously published are warnings of what is to come in this year 2019. For the revenge of the radicals upon the world is the perfect allegory of the “benign flame” turned “hellish fire.”

How do we avoid this imminent war looming from its cave? The answer is obvious and has been staring at us for over three years. And I stated in the first quarter of this essay that, every mortal creation has a divine closing that encounters three stages: the beginning, the middle and the end. Nigeria, has reached the final page of its story. And those who argue against this righteous truth should prove us wrong through the arm of BALLOTS and not BULLETS.

A general vote on a single political question otherwise known as “referendum” will end this death-match and prevent the escalation of the benign flame into a consuming fire!

Let the Wise-Men listen.