From its beginnings in 1999 when the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) embodied its goals, and now when the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has given it added vibrancy and renewal, the Biafra concept has refused to be a passing fancy. It is unlikely to go away anytime soon. Both MASSOB and IPOB, sometimes now used interchangeably because their goals converge, are a recrudescence of an idea that took root in 1966, was romanticised in the sanguinary accounts of epic battles between 1967 and 1970 during the civil war, and continues to achieve striking relevance because of the dire failings of an unstructured and distorted federation. Since 2005 when Ralph Uwazuruike gave MASSOB some ideological and administrative oomph, and since early this year when Nnamdi Kanu’s Voice of Biafra Radio gave IPOB resonance and poignancy, the Biafra idea has steadily grown in scope and appeal in the hearts of southeasterners. Nigerians and their leaders, including many sceptical Southeast opponents of the idea, are mistaken to think the idea will suddenly dissipate because it is denounced or repressed by force.
Speaking at the launching of the 2016 Armed Forces Remembrance Emblem at the Presidential Villa last Monday, President Muhammadu Buhari, who has not really addressed the ferment in the Southeast, observed that: “Our nation has recently celebrated 55 years of political independence and continues to remain as one indivisible entity despite several grievous challenges. Since independence, Nigeria has witnessed a lot of internal strife, survived a civil war and has remained united. This feat achieved by the country is an eloquent testimony to the determination of our citizens to remain as one people.” This is perhaps his first real attempt to speak to the problem that is gradually assuming a disturbing dimension. Many southeasterners themselves are ambivalent over the Biafra idea. Biafra died with Emeka Ojukwu, argue some. Yet others suggest that the economic imperatives of Nigeria and the so-called Biafra, not to say the peculiar map and demographics of the country, make the idea unattractive.
Governors of the Southeast have been more hesitant taking a position. As elected leaders of the region, they bear the brunt of the disruptions and agitations for Biafra. Their first major attempt to address the matter was inconclusive. They will be reconvening to examine the matter more carefully, perhaps with more tact, and will doubtless take a stand sooner or later. The region’s cultural leaders have also been full of vacillation. They are sensitive about the yearnings and aspirations of Biafra’s advocates and their own relevance as traditional and social leaders of the region. They will see which way the cats are jumping before they take a more definitive position. Ohaneze Ndigbo has denounced the Biafra idea as impracticable and useless, hinging its position inelegantly on a troubling materialistic view of Igbo destiny. But it acknowledges that Southeast grievances are real and legitimate. Sundry media commentators have also equally been less squeamish in taking a position. From the safety of their media establishments and columns, some have denounced Biafra as anachronistic, and others have suggested that the federal government must engage Biafra advocates to resolve the contentious issues and controversies predisposing the region to centrifugal tendencies.
Security and law enforcement agencies have on their own been very predictable. The police see the matter strictly as one of law and order, leading to the shooting or detention of some Biafra advocates during marches. The Department of State Service (DSS) has similarly been stereotypical in its approach. The army inexplicably speaks thunder, almost as if its officers forget the beginnings and the trajectories of the Boko Haram insurgency in the Northeast and how difficult it has been to combat the menace. Army commanders, who still can’t get military rule out of their veins, have spoken of their readiness to crush the separatist tendencies of Biafra’s advocates once the order is given. Do they know the implication of what they are saying? Have they done their study to find out whether once military muscle is applied, the problem would invariably yield to superior force? Have they studied contemporary military campaigns such as the United States’ Iraq War, the Syrian War, Afghanistan War, and many others which offers ample examples to militaries to look beyond the punch they pack?
The restiveness in the Southeast is real and growing. There is nothing puzzling about it. But so far, neither the government nor the security agencies have shown any modicum of understanding of the Biafra phenomenon and what it presages. Worse, given the way they speak and the approach they have taken, it is unlikely they will view the problem with the wisdom and surefootedness needed to tackle it. Since the presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo, right through those of Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan, the Biafra crisis has steadily grown in scope and worsened in temper. It would not matter whether the federal government seems favourable to the Southeast, the Biafra idea will grow in stridency. And if not Biafra, then other groups, whether Boko Haram or a hypothetical Yoruba Liberation Group. The reason is clear. Youths are unemployed and drifting, and a vast majority of Nigerians are frustrated and alienated.
Nor would it matter just how much force is applied to check the crisis. The logic and the environmental elements that feed it are expanding; and as long as the crisis remains unattended to, it will grow more menacing. It is surprising that the dithering and foolishness that enabled Boko Haram to fester are being replicated in the Southeast. Many years back, the federal government was either ignorant of the forces that birthed and fed Boko Haram or it was simply careless. Now they are displaying even worse ignorance and carelessness. Somehow, Nigerian leaders and many others, including some southeasterners, seem to believe that Biafra is nothing but a romantic and nostalgic idea. They don’t think it is a manifestation of deeper fissures in the country’s political tectonic. They think a decisive application of force, using what the army elegantly calls its rules of engagement, would be effective.
Said the General Officer Commanding 81 Division, Major General Isido Edet: “It is in the public domain that certain elements are agitating for secession, though they have been counselled by elder statesmen that such exercise is not for the good of Nigerians because we have gone through that lane before…The Nigerian Army would like to send an unequivocal warning to all and sundry, more specifically, to all those threatening and agitating for the dismemberment of the country, those committing treasonable felony and arson as well as wanton destruction of lives and property that once the army is deployed, we shall apply ROE to the letter.” The officers seem to forget that this is the age of asymmetrical war, wars without borders, wars most armies are unprepared and poorly equipped to fight, wars in which territories reclaimed by regular armies cannot be held in the face of radicalised and suicidal militants. Had the Nigerian civil war been fought today, the outcome would probably have been different.
President Buhari should get serious about tackling the Biafra matter. And the army should keep quiet, await orders, refrain from offering unsolicited public opinion on critical issues, and avoid fouling the polity with superfluous display of valour. Whether the government likes it or not, Biafra and other separatist ideas will not fizzle out until they are scrupulously and comprehensively addressed. Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State gave probably the best indication of what needs to be done to tackle the problem. At a lecture in Abuja last week, the governor suggested: “There is a major issue that we must address urgently in Nigeria, and that is the issue of unity of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Today, I must say that the only force holding Nigeria is God because all the qualities and qualifications of nations that have broken, all of them are here, and all the characteristics of a broken nation are in Nigeria.” Two observations flow from the governor’s point of view.
One, Biafra and similar separatist tendencies flow from a lack of national identity. No government since independence has been able to unite Nigerians around a set of national values, principles and ambitions to give the country a sense of being and purpose. The constant romance with the so-called national orientation movement and ethical revolution mantra have proved wasteful, useless, sentimental and irrelevant. Right from its founding constitution as authored by a set of brilliant and philosophical leaders, the United States had envisioned a great and powerful nation, one that would assume regional and global leadership based on the universality and applicability of the principles and values it espouses. Since no leader can give what he doesn’t have, it is a ringing indictment that the absence of national guiding ethic and ambition reflects the intellectual and philosophical poverty of Nigerian leaders.
The undisputable fact is that no Nigerian leader, from Balewa to the present, has ennobled the office they so grandly and garishly occupied. In consequence, the Igbo gravitate strongly around the powerful cultural values of their founding and metamorphosis; and the Yoruba, Hausa/Fulani and other ethnic groups yield supinely to their own worldviews and historical antecedents. Until Nigerian leaders can distill from their country’s national history a lofty and unifying perspective, and then imbue it with a great and robust essence and ambition, the country will continue to gravitate towards its centrifugal core. How the Nigerian Army, despite their study of great military empire builders such as Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great and Suleyman the Magnificent can imagine that the application of force will replace a vacuous and brittle core is hard to fathom. Can force replace the philosophical and existential magnet around which a country should successfully and enduringly coalesce?
Two, as Gov Okorocha suggested, and as many other patriots have argued, Nigeria was founded on a poor, untenable and conflictive foundation. That foundation needs to be broken down and rebuilt. Biafra agitators are merely reminding the nation of the responsibility it has shirked for a long time. If that responsibility is not embraced now, the consequences will indeed be grave and unmanageable. Past leaders have played ducks and drakes with the national emotions. Whether it was the hedonistic Sani Abacha, or the sanctimonious Olusegun Obasanjo, or the experimentalist Ibrahim Babangida, or the opportunistic Goodluck Jonathan, none of these former leaders had altruistically attempted to restructure the country on the nationalistic foundations that conduce to a successful, united, modern, stable and prosperous nation-state.
President Buhari will have to face the responsibility of political restructuring squarely if he is not to lose the initiative and the little momentum triggered by his ascendancy. The problem of the country is not primarily corruption which needs integrity and honesty to resolve. The problem, contrary to the president’s obsession, is largely the constitutional enthronement of an unworkable and highly flawed federation. With many national conferences already held over the decades, it may be time to take a look again to synthesize the various reports. This is necessary in order to find a workable and inspiring mean strong and sensible enough to be placed before a constituent assembly and perhaps for a referendum. Above all, this vital revolutionary change must be anchored on the president’s own political vision. For if he does not have a deep appreciation and conviction of the problem, and does not believe in his panaceas and vision for Nigeria, how can he drive the process wholeheartedly? The problem, it must be reiterated, is not whether the Igbo can survive as an independent and landlocked nation with a restrictive geographical space, as some have rightly drawn attention to. The dominant issue is that without a consensual political and economic federalism that can endure far into the future, Nigeria’s ethnic groups will continue to view irredentism as a practicable and beguiling prospect.
Indeed, the great question is whether President Buhari, whose perspectives on economic and political issues need depth, tremendous broadening and harmonisation, can take the bold and revolutionary step to redraw Nigeria’s internal boundaries, fine-tune its demographics into coherent and harmonious parts, and rework its internal dynamics essentially along linguistic lines. The task is huge, and the risk manifold. If he fails, or if by commission or omission he embraces military application of force, the consequences may be far graver and more complicated than he imagines. The time is short, and the leeway to take bold steps is getting constricted. Now is the time for President Buhari to forswear his instinctive conservatism and hesitations and bravely and intelligently break the mould. After all, Nigeria’s present boundaries were drawn a little over a century ago. There is nothing that says certain forces cannot be unleashed to redraw it sooner or later in ways no one has contemplated.
Credits: Idowu Akinlotan, The Nation
What we are witnessing is mere agitation for an independent Biafra, if they mean it, let them declare the independence formally and you will see the consequence. I pray it does not go beyond this. The first civil war came abruptly, no agitation. This is just a ploy to test the waters. Those people agitating were not born between 1967 and 1970. They either read it as history or were merely informed but Yorubas would say “eniti Sango ba toju re wole, ko ni mu Oya leke” (whosoever witnessed the striking of thunder would feel its impact)