This is the News Analysis segment of the Voice of Biafra International Broadcast.
For March 23, 2002.
You have heard the news; now, the analysis…
At last, an epiphany. The dictionary defines “Epiphany” as “a sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something.” The Attorney General’s Office and Justice Department of Nigeria just had an epiphany about Sharia. Sharia is not consistent with the constitution of Nigeria, it now says; Sharia denies Nigerian citizens equitable justice. Does the Justice department speak for the President of Nigeria and his government? No: General Obasanjo, whose initial remarks about Sharia constitutes the hallmark of ignorance and naiveté, as recently as a couple of months ago, was boasting that he instituted Sharia, as if proud and taking credit for Sharia, while at the same time denying any negative effects of Sharia. General Obasanjo even went as far as stating that Nigeria is a “multi-religious” country as opposed to a secular State in his efforts to deny the havoc which Sharia has wreaked on the peoples of Nigeria. The Vice President of Nigeria is on record as supporting Sharia. The real power brokers and kingmakers of Nigeria—the Northern Nigerian generals and ex-military heads of state, the heads of the Northern feudalistic system—have all come out in support of Sharia.
The question now is, Now, what? First of all, all the Igbos and the Biafrans living in the North or anywhere Sharia is practiced should get out of there and get back home—real quick. We predict that the Shariarists are going to take out their anger on the Igbo and Biafrans in the North, just as they have done in both the remote and recent past. If you are an Igbo/Biafran still living in the North at this time, we sympathize with you, but don’t say you were never forewarned.
Second, the Shariarists have a right to adopt Sharia, and to stick with it. But, they should leave Nigeria which is neither Sharia nor has any inclinations in that direction. The Shariarist Northerners should separate and secede from Nigeria. The message now is that they have to choose either one Nigeria OR Sharia: they cannot have it both ways. This is the correct message. That has always been obvious—epiphany not withstanding.
Third, the Nigerian government must be very direct, realistic and practical in this matter. The Nigerian government cannot expunge Sharia, and cannot force the Northerners to give up Sharia, the Nigerian government should not and must not. What the Nigerian government should do now is to say, Given the fact and reality of Sharia, there is no way that Nigeria can remain one; the peoples need to get together to work out their disengagement, one nation from the other. In short, the Nigerian government should now provide the environment and facilitate the process of peaceful separation of the different nations living in Nigeria. This is the Sovereign National Conference that we have been asking for. We should all thank Sharia for making this possible.
Regardless of what the Nigerian government decides to do now, the Biafra actualization process continues. We will state here again: if Nigeria did not exercise the political and constitutional will necessary to challenge and stop Sharia, then Nigeria has no legal or moral justification to stop Biafra actualization.
More epiphany: a sitting Igbo Governor, Udenwa, has just expressed the “A”-for-“autonomy” or for “Aburi” word, as suitable for Ndigbo in Nigeria! What a day of less darkness and relative enlightenment. He actually acknowledged some of the more basic and obvious odious conditions that one Nigeria has imposed on the Igbo, and he thinks that is wrong! Bravo! Sooner or later, even the blind shall see. But typically, he didn’t go far enough. Aburi was over 33 years ago. That was before many things. That was well before Sharia. That was well before Obasanjo II. That was before Arewa consciousness. That was before PDP. But, we are talking about today. And today, it is Biafra. Biafra all the way: nothing less, nothing more. Nigeria has offered Ndigbo nothing other than misery and death. Ndigbo would have nothing to do with Nigeria, not even Aburi which still leaves Ndigbo in Nigeria. Biafra is the only answer.
Aburi was well before 14 worshippers and 2 students were murdered in cold blood in Igboland just this past week.
Woe unto the Igbo so-called leaders on whose hands is the blood of 14 worshippers and 2 students. Woe unto every single Igbo who is in any way connected with the unnatural death of 28 Igbos just in the past few weeks. Is it not enough that the Northerners kill us without remorse in the North: must we kill ourselves even in our own homeland? By and by, the day of reckoning shall come, and you shall be held accountable and responsible for what you have wrought.
Woe unto those Igbo whose continued blind support for one Nigeria has led to the desecration of not only Igbo culture and tradition, but also, the desecration of the Church. What level of depravity can corrupt one’s heart so thoroughly that the mind will conceive of such a plan as to murder people who are approaching their God in worship, people seeking divine relief from the crushing burden that life in one Nigeria has become? What audacity and temerity! What foolishness!
Woe unto all those Igbos who invited PDP to settle an Igbo problem. When the Yoruba have a quarrel, do they call in the Igbo to settle it for them? When the Northerners fight among themselves, do they invite the Igbo to be their judge and counselor? How is it then that General Obasanjo and Atiku and Ogbeh have been called in to solve an internecine Igbo dispute? Who asked them to come? Why has the PDP—a Northern sociopolitical party dominated by the Northerners—taken up the role in exclusivity to settle this dispute in the thick of Igboland?
Woe unto those one-Nigerian Igbos whose ignorance and stupidity is so dense that they can’t even tell that they are ignorant and stupid. These are the Igbo who sleep and dine with one Nigeria while refusing to admit and accept that they are being raped and derided and taunted at the same time by one Nigeria. You will never hear these lost souls demand the due of the Igbo from Nigeria. When the Igbo are selected and killed solely on grounds of their ethnicity, these one Nigerian Igbos turn a blind eye and ask for proof or another occurrence before they can accept that genocide is being perpetrated on the Igbo.
It is these one Nigerian Igbo who praise General Obasanjo and worship him, knowing fully well that General Obasanjo’s self-declared mission in life is the destruction of the Igbo. They know fully well that General Obasanjo heaps insult and scorn on the Igbo every time he gets a chance, and he will go out of his way to create an opportunity to humiliate the Igbo; yet, these one Nigerian Igbos show no sense and no sensibility by embracing their avowed tormentor.
These one Nigerian Igbo are sycophants turned into beggars foraging for crumbs in the corridors of power in the rotten institution of Nigeria, an institution which is firmly controlled by Northerners, Muslims to whom the average Igbo is still an infidel whose life is not worth much more than that of a cockroach. Yet, the one Nigerian Igbo go to these Northerners to beg for favors. In all their endeavors, these Igbo one Nigerians must and will go to great lengths to curry the blessings and favor of their Northern masters and handlers. These one Nigerian Igbo have shamed Igbo nation and Igbo culture.
We have seen these one Nigerian Igbo handed power in the form of appointments and through rigged elections. We have seen how they have all failed—every last one of them—in leadership of the people and even worse, in the service of the people. We knew they would fail, because their objective is not to serve or lead or help the generality of the Igbo, but to enrich themselves and bask in borrowed power. Of that power, it is even laughable to see these one Nigerian Igbo think that they have a lot of it—sure: does not even the puppet believe that it is powerful?
We know these one Nigerian Igbo are grooming themselves for Nigerian government contracts, of which the Northerners make the final determination and award, expecting and receiving kickbacks. For this, these Igbo will never voice the truth about the fact that one Nigeria has completely strangulated the Igbo. For them, becoming wealthy is more important than becoming dead from the brutality of one Nigeria.
It will be difficult for this class of Igbo Nationals to imagine that their days are numbered, soon to be swept away in the same stroke as one Nigeria. The endurance of the people has worn thin, and time has run out for one Nigeria. Yes, believe it, our wayward brothers and sisters. Soon, Biafra shall be actualized. You will then have to turn a new leaf. But, you shall also answer to the court of law if you have been implicated in any way in the murder or false incarceration of Ndigbo.
Today, we call on the Church to shun all political institutions based on one Nigeria, and shun their agents—whether such agents are governors or janitors. As is now obvious, these agents use the church to get elected and or get appointed, but they soon turn around and become anti Igbo, pro one Nigeria, enough to stalk and menace Ndigbo even in the place of worship. The church can help in grooming a new leadership based on what is good for Ndigbo in Igboland, not what is good for PDP, APP, AD, or one Nigeria.
We call on all our students to show a firm resolve, an unshakable conviction that they will never again support these one Nigerians. We would like the students to be courageous in pointing out to the one Nigerian Igbos the error of their ways.
We call on all our women to disown these one Nigerian Igbos if they do not change their ways. We call on all our women to begin to educate their children young and old, and their husbands, on the need to rebuild Igbo Nation and Igbo culture before it is too late.
We call on Igbo Professionals to boycott the Igbo one Nigerians’ activities and to abandon their ranks and philosophy should that Professional belong to the one Nigerian Igbo group.
We call on the Igbo labor force to lead the way in the direction away from these Igbo one Nigerians.
If governor Udenwa has reformed, what excuse do you have? You, too, can, and must!
The time is now. Biafra is now. Every Igbo and every Biafran must awaken now. Biafra is the only answer.
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, http://www.biafraland.com : follow Voice of Biafra link.)