This is the News Analysis segment of the Voice of Biafra International Broadcast. 

For June 8, 2002

You have heard the news; now, the analysis…

We start today by noting the continued squandering of the oil money taken from the rightful owners—those nations residing above the Bight of Biafra and Benin—and spent by Nigeria. Nigeria has stolen this money alright, and the Nigerian Supreme Court, ruled by sycophants of judges, have predictably sided with Nigeria in a shameless legal opinion which robs these nations of their natural rights, and which is so blatantly prejudiced as to make Communist-style courts look like shining examples of justice. We now know that most of the oil revenue cannot be accounted for or directly traced, as the money flows through the sponge of corruption and greed that is called Nigeria, to enrich insatiable individual money mongers, many of them highly placed in Nigerian society, government and other military and civic institutions. Today, we read admissions by Nigerian authorities that not much of the oil wealth trickles down to the average so-called citizen of Nigeria, not by way of employment of these ordinary people by the multinational Oil companies, not by way of reasonable local fuel cost, not by way of improved amenities or improved living standards.

What is not stolen is squandered. General Obasanjo has published his June and July travel plans. Can anyone point to any other National Leader that has taken as many trips overseas as General Obasanjo has? And, who do you think is paying for these trips? Would it surprise you to learn that each of these trips costs probably no less than $50,000 average, a conservative estimate? Since by one count he has made over 80 foreign trips in his 3 years of reign, can you begin to figure out how much of the treasury he alone has consumed by his unquenchable appetite for foreign travel on other people’s money? Now, General Obasanjo may say his trips are business trips—to improve the image of Nigeria, or to get Nigeria’s IMF debt cancelled. But, we know that he is either lying or has deliberately refused to face the facts. General Obasanjo has been paying Andrew Young’s US firm millions of dollars to whitewash the image of Nigeria and present that fake to the US; he knows that it is not working. The image of Nigeria in the world today is that of an irredeemably corrupt behemoth which has gone from bad to worse, and which has become so talibanized that every few months, the world has to shout and scream at Nigeria to stop supporting the inhumane punishment imposed by Sharia. What makes General Obasanjo think that he can change this image, given that he himself has bragged to the whole world about initiating Sharia in Nigeria? General Obasanjo has also admitted that all his foreign trips and speeches geared towards the forgiveness of the IMF loans have been to no avail. The General thought he could fool IMF the same way he fools Nigerians. IMF knows that based on revenue figures, Nigeria is not poor. IMF knows that it is the General and his colleagues who are responsible—directly or indirectly—for stealing the money from oil revenues and enriching themselves, to the neglect of the peoples living in Nigeria. IMF knows that any debt relief awarded to Nigeria will not in any way benefit the common person living in Nigeria, but would only end up in the pockets of these highly placed thieves—rewarding these corrupt few and bankrolling their thieving acts.

As the electioneering keeps heating up, we begin to discern the path to political oblivion, which is the destiny of one Nigeria. General Obasanjo, known as the most inept leader of Nigeria, is supported by the Yoruba for re-election for the mere reason that he is Yoruba, not because of his competence or performance, of which there is none—and the Yorubas know it, too. The Northerners are backing Northern candidates, ex-military dictators or poor previous rulers, not because they are any more competent than they were before, or that they would perform better than Obasanjo, but because they can be counted on by Northerners to pursue Northern Nigerian interests and agenda, to the neglect and malevolence of the rest of the nations living in Nigeria. At least, they have dropped their earlier arrogance which had led them to assume and vocalize that they were born to rule Nigeria; and they have dropped the idea of a pure or full-blooded Hausa-Fulani as ruler of Nigeria although even they could see that the previous rulers did nothing for the masses of Northern Nigeria, except for infrastructural up-liftment (accomplished, by the way, with the Oil revenues from the South, but) of which the average Northerner was poorly disposed to take advantage of. We can predict that the Northerners will be asking the North to not vote for any candidate who is not Muslim, as they have intoned in the past.

The Igbos are finally waking up, and if they stay focused, will be demanding an Igbo President for Nigeria, as a challenge to the rest of Nigeria to prove that the Igbo still have a place in the power and rulership structure of one Nigeria; and to test some Igbo’s wishful thinking and hope against hope that Nigeria can accept the Igbos any time soon and anywhere in Nigeria where it counts. The fact still remains that Nigeria is very much afraid of the Igbo’s abilities, capabilities and prowess, and feels forever threatened by the Igbo psyche, Igbo drive, and Igbo personality, and is not willing to voluntarily hand anything over to the Igbos. But Nigeria will not verbalize this publicly, instead, she proves this by her daily decisions, actions and deeds. If an Igbo gets the Presidency, the mandate must be for a Sovereign National conference, leading to the formal dissolution of one Nigeria, of which mostly the North is mortified, because the result will surely deny them the present arrangement where they (the North) are taking the lion share of the Oil revenues from the South in the name of one Nigeria, while they have pursued their own Sharia culture in spite of one Nigeria. And while the Yorubas have been at one time champions of A Sovereign National Conference and are already poised to embark on and benefit from it, they may still balk, if for nothing else, to deny the Igbo the chance of Igbo self-determinism, out of sheer spite.

It is for these and other non-palpable reasons that the impending elections will be the end of one Nigeria. This can only be a deserving coup de gras, assuming that the peoples of Nigeria are smart enough to not go on another killing rampage of one another, but instead, recognize the dying throes of one Nigeria as such, see the structure, and not the peoples, as the problem, and as such aid in the dissolution of the structure rather than in the annihilation of the peoples. Otherwise, there will be nothing graceful about this inevitable and imminent death of Nigeria; otherwise, there will be unnecessary misery for the peoples and nations of Nigeria. But, there is no other way out of this morass than by the dissolution of one Nigeria.

Speaking of the Igbo drive, we seek Biafra not because we could not overcome Nigeria eventually. Given the Igbo psyche even as a repressed and suppressed and rejected nation in one Nigeria, we can, will, and shall dominate the rest of Nigeria in time, based on meritocracy, hardwork, intellect, drive and determination. We are proving that even now, even with the uneven playing field designed and maintained not in our favor. But at what cost? So that the rest of Nigeria can vent their envious anger against us by cyclically killing us, destroying our property, dispossessing us, and harboring overt and covert hostility against us all the time? If you stop and think about it for a moment, you will realize that since we are always going to be Igbo / Biafrans, we will always be domineering in every field of human endeavor—that’s our nature; for that reason, the rest of Nigeria will always hate us and feel threatened—justified or not. For that reason alone, we have to have our own country, and shall have it, so that we can be who and what we are without constituting a threat to some other nations who feel they will be out-competed in the pursuit of limited one-Nigerian resources.

Biafra remains the only viable solution for the Igbo / Biafrans. By the same token, Arewa nation, and Yoruba nation and any other nations—all independent and sovereign—living as international neighbors, with international norms governing their interrelationship and bilateral or multilateral agreements determining national engagements—is the only viable answer for the ailment known by one-Nigeria.

God has blessed Biafra.

Biafra lives!

That’s all the news analysis for this week.

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God bless and keep Biafra and you, until next week. VOBI broadcast continues. (Audio version part of weekly VOBI broadcast posted on Biafraland website, www.biafraland.com, follow the "Voice of Biafra" link)