By: Samuel Adesina
These are the reasons why I believe Biafra will not succeed and Igbos have no way to succeed in creating their own country. In fact, if eventually igbos are given their own country, it will be so full of hunger, division, and conflict that they may eventually beg for the northerners to return and rule over them.
When you hear northerners begging the FG to let Igbos go, consider the below reasons. Pay close attention at no. 4!
1.) if Biafra is to happen, it will be limited to five states. Nigeria will not hand over the Niger delta to the igbos even if the south south will eventually get its own independence on a different date and separately. What the north will not have, the igbos cannot get.
2.) Niger deltans either do not want to be part of Biafra or will eventually not want to remain in Biafra. That means conflict and even bloodshed. If the igbos think their Biafra will be a mini version of Nigeria where they will have hegemony over the Niger delta, and its oil, that is Satan dreaming of making it to heaven.
3.) the international community have nothing to gain from Biafra. And it will never want bloodshed and conflict that will send oil prices skyrocketing due to conflict between igbos and Niger deltans.
4.) if Nigeria is to allow the five Igbo states to conduct referendum today and give them independence, Biafra will literally be like Lesotho. A country within a country. (If you do not know how Lesotho looks like, please check you world map. It is a country inside South Africa; and Nigeria or neighbors won’t be to Biafra what South Africa is to Lesotho). Nigeria can close its borders with a thick fence and close its airspace to Biafra of five Igbo states. Literally, your clamor for independence will end up being cries of siege. It will be hunger and poverty.
5.) Igbos of five states clamoring for independence is not geographically feasible. It is like kanuris in parts of the north asking for independence. Your landmass is poorly situated. It’s not even about the size. Your Biafra of five states is inside another country if your dream ever come to pass.
6.) the north can feed itself and Biafra cannot. Arable land is in abundance in the north and the north has been a bastion of agriculture.
7.) the north is a big market economically. It’s landmass and population means big business. It is a big consumer market. That is money.
With your independence turning into a siege, you’re literally finished. No agriculture of the north and no Niger delta oil for you and in an hostile environment, you are doomed. And this doom will also affect others. Therefore your Biafra project is aimed at destruction for everyone. To bring down the house on everyone’s heads; and that is why many will stand against it to prevent such destruction from happening.
And far from being peaceful, no partition goes smoothly in places with ethnic and religious divisions and rivalry. Take example of India and Pakistan.
The best bet for igbos is to forge alliances across the nation and even go as far as mending fences with the north. People like okorocha and Amaechi have done well in that line of building bridges with the northerners.
You can clamor for restructuring or whatever it is called. Division of Nigeria will not end with a Biafra of anything more than five states. It will witness multiple divisions in both the south and the north. It could see continuos wars, famine and starvation which will be rampant in the north. Five states with 30 to 40 million igbos will be too populated with little sustenance or means for survival.
You will definitely not eat your cake and have it after asking for division. And that’s where the north is hitting hard by asking igbos to leave. Such divisions means igbos starting from ZERO. You can’t ask for your country and still try to live, and work elsewhere and want to control lands of other minorities.
As Nigeria is, it is not a land of a majority. It is a land of minorities. Add the biggest three ethnic groups, and the minorities will end up being more in terms of numbers.
And if the inevitable happens, igbos will be on their own. Both the middle belt and the south south or the Niger delta will not come to the help of igbos or want to die for igbos to have a country to dominate. Whether in Nigeria, in Biafra or in small independent countries, those ethnicities in the Middle East belt and in the Niger delta will remain minorities. Corruption cuts across ethnic groups. So what would they really stand to gain by dying for igbos? The igbos will end up besieged and beaten again if the inevitable (war) happens and may God forbid that.
Those few voices outside the five Igbo states cheering the igbos to secede will be no where to be found if the worst happens. The northerners will literally have a picnic in the south east, again! It will be really messy for igbos and they may never ever recover or survive as a group again. In fact, after such loss and dent to their image, anything Igbo may end up being treated like pariah. So those with much adrenaline flowing in their blood should think well before following the loud mouth of Kanu who may well end up proven to be an empty barrel.
Secession and partition are not child’s play. I fully believe that self determination is human right. But in time of conflict, human right is abused. And how worse if the abuses and divisions are a never ending spiral? More or less a Pandora box! Half bread is better than none. Greed is a vice not a virtue.
Adesina writes from Lagos
