“We have endured enough and cannot continue to die in silence. Biafran politicians must now continue to speak with courage, and with the
mind that we must no longer remain in one Nigeria.” A recent statement by Nigeria’s Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, appeared to suggest that some Biafran politicians are beginning to gain courage, if not for anything, to defend their people in the geo-political space called Nigeria.
Speaking at Eziagu council area of Enugu State, Ekweremadu declared that Nigerian government had provoked Igbo Biafrans enough. Part of his words read: “As Ndigbo, we are going through trying period; we are being provoked everyday by the government of this country in the way they treat our people, especially the marginalization going on at the federal level by the federal government”.
Biafra Choice Writers, think that what came from the Deputy Senate President should not just be a case of having courage to speak out alone. We think that it should also be that Biafran politicians have found the courage not only to engage in costly compromises with Northern Nigerians, as was the cast with past Biafran politicians.
Biafra Choice Writers believe that such compromises turned out to be Biafrans’ worst mistakes in history. If our past political leaders had stuck to their guns to do the right things without compromising, we as a people would have been in better position in the world today. Biafran politicians of the past should have known that Nigeria was just “a garden shelter” for the British government, and should have rejected some of the compromises they made in the past. Instructively, it was in order to pave way for what he believed was peace and unity in Nigeria that made Nnamdi Azikiwe, the first and last indigenous Governor-General of Nigeria, and leader of National Council for Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) to enter into an accord with Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC). It was that accord that brought Abubakar Tafawa Balewa into governance, as Prime Minister, and Azikiwe as President.
Another of such accord took place again, in 1979, when Azikiwe entered into an accord with Shehu Shagari led National Party of Nigeria (NPN). These accords turned out to be mistakes because they eventually led to what has become a culture of massacre of Biafrans by the Northern peoples, led by the heartless Fulanis. Killing and massacre of Biafrans by Northerners have continued even till today. If those accords were not entered into, Fulani jihadists operating as herdsmen would not have extended their murderous activities to the South, even to the extent of going into remote villages to killing Biafrans.
They have also raped Biafran mothers and daughters without anyone challenging them. The Police, which have found every opportunity to kill peaceful and none-violent Biafran demonstrators, have become powerless over the Jihadist who carry AK 47 around in a country where bearing of firearms is illegal. With these in mind, every Biafran politician must bear in mind that Biafrans are no longer safe anywhere in one Nigeria. We have endured enough and cannot continue to die in silence. Biafran politicians must now continue to speak with courage, and with the mind that we must no longer remain in one Nigeria. It was Anthony Enahoro, former Nigerian minister of information who said that unity by force was not unity at all.
Biafran politicians should consider it wickedness for any right thinking person to support such a Union as Nigeria. The only reason for one Nigeria – as is being preached by the Northerners and Western Yoruba people, is because there is crude oil in Nairaland. One Nigeria has forced the youths to go into various kinds of crime, and it is time to dismantle this British killing field called Nigeria.”
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