THE NORTH CANNOT SPEAK FOR SOUTH-SOUTH

THE NORTH CANNOT SPEAK

FOR SOUTH-SOUTH, HE WHO COMES TO EQUITY

MUST COME WITH CLEAN HANDS: 

Donald Ekpo replies Alhaji Sagir

 

RE: BIAFRA IS A PLOT BY IGBO TO COLONISE SOUTH SOUTH – Alhaji Sagir Ringim

 

Sir, I want to thank you for your concern about the welfare of the people of the South South by exposing the plans of the Igbos to recolonize the region. But I am worried about the sincerity of these your concerns. Because of these worries, let us dissect and carefully assess your statements of fear and concerns in four (4) segments, so as not to repeat the mistakes of 1964, 1966 and 1967-1970s till date. In your carefully written letter or chat with the Journalists as reported in the national dallies yesterday, you clearly stated that the Igbos want to;

 

(1). SEIZE THE ECONOMIC PROSPECTS OF THE MINORITY ETHNIC NATIONALITY OF THE OIL RICH REGION.

 

Alhaji Ringim, may I remind you that the economic prospects of the South South is currently being seized and controlled by your people of the Northern protectorate of Nigeria. Does that in anyway mean that you agree that your people have colonized my region? Are you also aware that even the oil wells in Abia State, Imo State and Anambra state and recently Enugu State (Igbo land) is being owned by your people in the Northern Protectorate? Are you aware that we in the oil rich region (South South) do not have control over our wealth, and its fortunes are determined by your people? Are you also aware that after sharing the proceeds of oil between your protégés in Shell, Mobil, Agip and Chevron, the left over is given to 44 local government of your state Kano, and only 8 Local government of Bayelsa? How more criminal could that be?

 

Do you know that even when the Natural Gas from my State Akwa Ibom is used to generate power from my state owned Power Station, that the fraud of a constitution you fostered on my people does not allow me to use same electricity in my state or region, but I am forced to load it into the National grid that sends same power to your home in Kano State? Have you seen how the United Nigeria is enslaving me? Are you aware that the fraud of your constitution took away the economic prospects of my region by empowering only the Federal government to build roads that your people from the Northern protectorate never built in my state for over 40 years until the coming of our own Son Goodluck Jonathan, when he allowed state governments to tamper with Federal Roads, yet you were busy building all the so called federal roads in your region.

 

That your fraud of a constitution imposed on us by you and your allies in the southwest took away the power from us to develop on the economic prospects of the region thereby taking away our rights to economic progress for over 50 years. And here you are sir getting worried of what the Igbos will do to my people. Sir, have you been ever worried about what your people have done to my people? How many of my people have you killed in your region? Please tell me the number of my people slaughtered by the Igbos in their land that is enough for me to be weary of them. Remember that these are my neighbors that lived peacefully with us for centuries, shared cultures, intermarried and even celebrated common cultural events before you came with your successful propagandas that deceived our fathers?

 

(2). COLONISE THE SOUTH SOUTH, CAPTURE THE REGION, COLONISE THE OIL FIELD FOR BETTERMENT OF THE IGBOS.

 

Alhaji Sagir Ringim may I remind you that the Igbos are not the colonist as you have insinuated here, but you and your people in the northern protectorate. They have so far not shown the threat to colonize as when compared to your people. It is your people that used the oil from our region to better the livelihood of your people and that of your few allies in the Southwest. It is you that is synonymous with the word “CAPTURE”. It is your people that kill non-indigenes in your region to take-over their property. Alhaji Sagir Ringim, just in case you think this generation is as vulnerable are our grandfathers and fathers you deceived by your propaganda. You were able to make them see the Igbos as their enemies in the 60s. Please note that this is the 21st century of 2020.

 

We are aware of these same lies you told our grandfathers and fathers in the early 60s. We are aware that after lying to them that they were different from the Igbos, you still went ahead and killed them in the name of killing the Igbos. We are aware of the devilish, malicious and infernal act you used one of your willing protégés General Gowon to do when you suddenly created the South East State (Today’s Cross River/Akwa Ibom State), Rivers State (Today’s Rivers and Bayelsa state) just to devise the divide-and-rule policy that was advise by the evil British woman just to break the unity of the region.

 

We know that is was also based on Awolowo’s advise that certain parts of Igbo were sliced off, and added into the new states you created so as to weaken any form of unity that could hold. We have also read from a list of newspaper publications from the New York Post of the 60s as compiled by the LOWER NIGER CONGRESS on all the atrocities you committed against the people of the region before your final propaganda to separate them by these hypocritical lies. And we promise you that even though you used your fraud of a constitution to discourage the study of Nigerian History of the said period in Nigerian Schools, we will do well to expose this events in a carefully Chronicled format for every child/youth of this generation to know the truth. How dare you assume that even in the retard state of your protectorate, that you can conveniently influence the minds of the learned region in this millennium?

 

(3). BIAFRA IS LANDLOCKED AND WASN’T BLESSED WITH SOLID MATERIALS APART FROM COAL, ADDED THAT THE GEOLOGY OF THE ENCLAVE CAN’T SUPPORT AN INDEPENDENT COUNTRY.

 

Alhaji Sagir Ringim, if these are your fears about the existence of Biafra, first of all, are you revealing the fears of your region, the Northern protectorate of the 12 Sharia states or the entire protectorate? You do not have any mineral resources and you are landlocked. Are you telling me you and your people have been so worried of surviving alone hence your insistence of a non-functional ONE NIGERIA PROJECT? Let me explain this to you Sir;

 

The Igbos you are taking about do not just have a large reservoir of Coal in Enugu that can last for another century knowing that Coal is presently running major economies in Europe, South America and South Africa, the region also has a large reserve of Oil and gas in Abia and Imo state. Oil exploration in Anambra state has also commence and will soon commence in Enugu State. Can you see that your propagandas won’t work as it did in the 60s?

 

Apart from the fact that your people maliciously separated the Igbos from their original race to Delta, Rivers and Akwa Ibom states, we at the LOWER NIGER CONGRESS have taken it upon ourselves to expose the malicious schemes of lies you used to separate our region. Your protégé General Buhari made it easier for us on National Television when his hatred for the people overwhelmed his ability to continue in the cover of your propaganda. He acknowledged the fact that we were all the same people. That notwithstanding, in a matter time, your lies and propaganda will hit the broken bridges of discontinuity. How dare you generate fears that do not exist for your selfish interest? You must have been thinking how successful your deceitful and hypocritical lies would go in rejuvenating the lies of the 60s.

 

(4). BECAUSE OF THESE NATURAL SHORTCOMINGS, IGBOS SURVIVED AS A DIASPORA RACE THAN ANY DOMINANT GROUP IN NIGERIA. THE ECONOMIC PROWESS OF THE IGBOS IS DOMICILED OUTSIDE BIAFRA.

 

Alhaji Sagir Ringim, this is the most absurd and ridiculous of all your concerns as expressed by your expression of love towards my people in the Niger Delta region. Industrialist do not just sit and lazy about as expected by you. And these were one of the fears and concerned expressed by your late Sultan in a video we managed to see where he was worried about the Igbos in the north. Alhaji, are you aware that your successful brother, Dangote; one of the richest man in Africa, has his economic wealth spread and domiciled outside the Northern region? Or are you in anyway saying that because people expand, explore greener areas, that means such an individual has no space in his home? Your points are a bit too ridiculous to have considered as your reasons for granting this interview.

 

Having segmented your major reasons for advising my region to be weary of our Igbo brothers as those that intend to recolonize my people, I stand bold to say that you and your kinsmen are guilty of all your worries. It is also a cause for concern that you and your allies have suddenly decided to worry about the Niger Delta region. When did you love the region this much?

 

1. Are you not the same people that classify us all as Igbos during your killing and butchering spree and largess in the north?

 

2. How come you are bothered that the people you classify as one when butchering, are two different people when it comes to owners of wealth?

 

3. If you could desecrate our land as if we do not exist, come in and take away our oil wells as though it belongs to you?

 

4. Announce on National Television that the Oil in Bayelsa belongs to you in Kano and Jagawa?

 

5. Kill us at will if your religion is disrespected in faraway Norway?

 

6. Determine for us when and how our roads are built and how we use power generated from our resources?

 

7. Swore over your graves that our our kinsman cannot be President or else you make the country ungovernable of which you did?

 

Yet you have the guts to tell us to be weary of those that have not in any way attempted to take anything from us by force. I truly hope you realize that this is 2020 and not 1964.

 

It is best to inform you and all those that have decided to cry more than the bereaved that we are aware that these are the same propaganda you used to separate us, then forced us to continue in this unholy Union. That was a very unfortunate thing to have happened that kept us in this bondage.

 

Fortunately for us, the UNITED NATION CHARTER ON THE RIGHTS OF THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE is a tool you cannot do anything about. THE LOWER NIGER CONGRESS has taken advantage of these rights and it is set to call for a referendum. Quit crying on our behalf, we are presently studying the Constitution of which the Region will be built upon and so far, it can never be an evil as the Forced Marriage called Nigeria.

Thank you for your concerns Alhaji and co."

By Donald Ekpo

The Politics of Ethnicity, Its Impact on Development

 

Nigeria: The Politics of Ethnicity,

Its Impact on Development And

Biafra’s Quest for Self-Determination

Undoubtedly, Nigeria has entered a period of political uncertainty. With the next presidential election fast approaching, some politicians and experts are strongly advocating for, among others, a constitutional review considered as the best way to preserve peace and stability in the country. The reviewed constitution will take into account the ethnic diversity and provide for equal representation of southern and eastern regions in the federal system of governance.

 

In an early September interview, Maazi Oluchi Ibe, a historian and a former lecturer at Gregory University, a private educational institution named after Pope Gregory, located in Uturu, Abia State of Nigeria, talks to Kester Kenn Klomegah, about the political developments, the reasons for economic disparity and the Biafrans’ unquenchable desire for political freedom and self-determination.

Here are the interview excerpts.

 

Kester Kenn Klomegah: Do you consider an urgent constitutional review as the first step towards national integration in the Federal Republic of Nigeria?

Maazi Oluchi Ibe: I think it is better to look at this issue from the perspective of who, in the present-day Nigeria, wants integration. If the Hausa, Fulani, or Yoruba want integration or re-integration for that matter, they are welcomed to it. There is a section of Nigeria that has long gone beyond the idea of integration. That part is the Biafra which has been under forceful military occupation by Nigeria since 1970. Biafra gave Nigeria a clear, unambiguous path to integration at Aburi in 1967. What Biafrans saw clearly in 1967 is what the rest of Nigeria is contemplating today. Biafrans are also telling Nigerians today that that we saw 53 years ago is no longer tenable. Possibly in a couple of decades, Nigeria will wake up to that reality too.

 

The net minimum for any look at the Nigerian constitution is a simple declaration for a plebiscite amongst the people of Biafra for self-determination. That remains the only basis. However, it is important we let those who feel concerned and who think that a mere constitutional review will solve the Nigerian quagmire, to know that history our guide. Every Nigerian constitution was watered on the blood of Biafrans. From 1945, to as recent as August 25th, 2020 when young Biafrans holding a peaceful meeting were shot to death at Emene Enugu, it has been genocide and countless killings of Biafrans. What then is the guarantee that the next constitutional review will not follow suit?

 

We will not cease saying that what ails Nigeria is beyond constitution making and reviews. What ails Nigeria is the forceful amalgamation of incompatible entities into a geographical expression. Is it not callous that pre-war Europe made up of multi-ethnic nations who were mired in ceaseless wars until they unbundled through the creation of ethnic nations will turn round in Africa and create exactly what made old Europe unstable for centuries? Even the two Germans that were separated in 1945 have joined back together as one nation. That is the natural order of things. Same Europeans came to African and forced ethnic nation, some as twice the population of an average European nation, into forceful unions with others as large and they think it will stand? No, it will not stand as the former USSR has proved, ditto, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and in Africa, Eritrea, and Sudan. To further muddle the waters, the British allowed two contentious expansionist religions that are almost equal in population to live in one geographical space called Nigeria. What sort of idiotic experiment was that? Imagine what it has caused since 1914 in terms of human lives, mainly the lives of innocent Biafrans. No, it is not a constitutional review matter.

 

KKK: Why are there rising blatant criticisms about the current constitution adopted in 1999?

 

MOI: Simply because Nigeria has never had a constitution. Even the so called ‘famed’ 1963 Republican constitution was a gross failure and that was why the army step in a mere three years after its proclamation. The current infamous 1999 constitution was merely a baring of the fangs that in the past were covered with a glove. The ‘good’ thing about this constitution was that its criminal creators did not hide the fact that it was a creation of a military decree. Imagine the impunity and the blood cuddling guts of declaring a military decree as emanating from ‘We the People!’ That very first statement in that piece of paper was and is a blatant lie and they are not hiding the fact.

 

KKK: What are the narratives and the reasons for underdevelopment in the Biafra State?

MOI: Some of the greatest disaster that befell Biafra from the war of independence were so subtle that an unconscious mind will hardly notice them, while many were so conspicuous that they scream to the high heaves for all to see. For instance, the divide and rule system introduced by the British colonizers where perfected by the Fulani oligarchy that took over Nigeria with Biafrans at the receiving end.

 

Across a once peaceful land compared to what was obtainable in other sections of Nigeria, the conquering caliphate army imposed all sorts of divisions, ethnic, geographic, demographic, and so on. That is why today, they would rather want Biafrans to fight within themselves over artificial boundaries they created to divide us, like their British did. Such externally imposed divisive tendencies does not call for economic development. But, we are more conscious of such subtleties now.

 

In addition, there is what Professor Chidi Osuagwu, defined as the deprivation of Knowledge and its concomitant effect over the decades on Biafran economy. Professor Chidi Osuagwu, Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Imo state, had done an article on Igbo deprivations in Nigeria from where the excerpt on the missionary school’s take over came from. Immediately after the war, the Nigerian caliphate government struck at the lifeblood of Biafran development, that is, the Missionary Schools. They took over the mission schools after the war aimed at slowing down and degrading the booming educational Sector in Biafraland that was the driver of Biafran progress. Today, the state of education in Biafraland viz-a-viz what was obtainable pre-Biafran war of independence speaks volume.

 

By consciously shutting down economic activities in Biafraland through strangulatory policies, significant amongst them the £20 policy, that is, giving Biafrans only £20 without putting into consideration whatever holdings Biafrans held in their prewar bank accounts which the conquering army confiscated. Their nationalization decree of 1972 that turned over all major companies and conglomerated into the Nigerian caliphate governments’ hands. Other examples are the policy of importing from far away Lagos instead of nearby Port Harcourt and other natural seaports available in Biafraland. Mind you, Port Harcourt seaport was opened as far back as 1917, but today lies fallow. The cumulative effect of these policies was the forceful dispersal of Biafran youths from our homeland. Today they remain the largest economic migrant group the whole of Africa.

These glaring constraints naturally forced an implosion leading to insecurities which were in turn blamed on the people and used as an excuse to militarize the land. Biafra is the most militarized region today in West Africa, if not the whole of Africa. Why not militarize the North with an ongoing war that has lasted over ten years?

Let us also not forget that by consciously imposing political leadership akin to the warrant chiefs the British imposed on Biafraland during the colonial period, the present Nigerian system has a grip on what gets done and what does not in Biafraland. What brings home the truth of the parlous economic situation in Biafraland today is not to compare it with what obtains in Northern Nigeria but to recall the fact the pre 1967 economic indices showed the then Eastern region (Biafra) as the fastest developing economy in the world.

 

KKK: How do you envisage women’s role in the current struggle for freedom, peace, and development in Biafra State?

 

MOI: Biafran women are the most resilient in Africa if not world over. Possibly no other group of women have passed through what they did and are still passing through in contemporary history. These were women who lost children, siblings, husbands, fathers, and mothers in the genocidal war Nigeria imposed on Biafra in 1967. 53 years after they are still forced to endure rapine, and harassment in their very homes and farms by terrorist herdsmen buoyed by Nigerian government. Yes, they are very patient but whenever their patience dissipates as it has, you are going to be confronted with a different level of struggle. No other people know this more than the British who thinking that Biafran women were as docile as their British counterpart of the early 20th century crossed the invisible line. The now famous Aba women war of 1929, remember was fought solely by Biafran women based on same issues as has been confronting their nation since 1970.

 

It is only in this part of the world that you have women having equal if not superior rights to men. That was why when confronted by the British judicial panel over the Aba women’s war, on why the women listened to their menfolk and went on rampage, the angry women leaders of the revolution had retorted, ‘here, men do not speak for us!’ This, when published in the British press in the 1930s was picked up by British women suffragettes and became their catchphrase, ‘here men do not speak for us, as reported by Harry Gailey. Gailey authored “The Road to Aba: A Study of British Administrative Policy in Eastern Nigeria” and was published by New York University Press in 1970.

 

KKK: Is human rights violations becoming a thorny issue in Nigeria? Why armed northern Islamic attacks on Christian-dominated southwestern and southeastern States?

 

MOI: Human rights violations and armed Northern Islamic attacks on Christians have gone beyond the description, ‘thorny.’ It is now an existential threat. It is a choreographed, preplanned attempt at not just ethnic cleansing but a grand Islamization conquest in their quest to ‘deep the Koran into the Atlantic,’ as promised them by their forebears. This is happening with impunity with tens of thousands killed as the world watch without lifting a finger. What did we do? Is it wrong to be Christian and Biafran? What makes our own Christianity different from that of the rest of the world that they have refused to help? How come all the international news media have refused mentioning the daily carnage? Who says Biafra with its 95% Christian population, an ancient democratic and republican system, sharing the best of contemporary Western ideas cannot be helped to be a bastion against militant Islamism that poses a great threat not just to Biafrans but the rest of the world? It is unbelievable.

 

KKK: Does Buhari’s administration recognize all the issues you have discussed above?

 

MOI: How can someone who subscribes to the philosophy that ‘Western knowledge’ is bad recognize any of these issues? These issues are diametrically opposed to his ideals and what he has come to execute. He has been sincere in stating, in clear terms, all he has been doing are pro-militant Islam and anti-westernization and modernity. Buhari’s administration is completely blind to these important facts. The federal government would rather exacerbate them than otherwise.

 

KKK: What are the expectations from regional organizations, especially the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and of course, the African Union?

 

MOI: They do not exist. There is no point wasting energy on things that do not exist unless we want to get entangled in an empty academic exercise. When last for instance did ECOWAS or African union make a statement on the daily bloodshed in Nigeria?

 

Unfortunately for ECOWAS, Africa and the Western world that have refused to raise a finger and are all seating on the sideline waiting for Nigeria to implode, that implosion will come sooner or later and when 200 million refuges start streaming all over Africa and into the Western world, a world that could not handle six million Syrian refuges, maybe, then all our eyes will open. This is the time for the world to halt the recalcitrant marauding Nigerian legal and illegal security forces bent on decapitating everything on their path to the total domination of our space.

 

This is the time for the world to force Nigeria to a round table. This forced amalgamation of 1914 has not worked and will never work. Our situation is not that of a window dressed constitutional review. We are all worlds apart. There is simply two diametrically opposed cosmological views that cannot live side by side in this space. It happened in India and in 1947/8, the British did the right thing – separated Hindu India and Islamic Pakistan. That right thing – separation, is our minimum demand.