This is the News Analysis Segment of the Voice of Biafra International Broadcasts.  

For October 19th 2002  

You have heard the news, now, the analysis…

Fellow Biafrans:

We start today by analyzing one news account of the events of the recent Igbo Day Celebration. The most spectacular and heartwarming sight on that occasion for Biafrans is the presence of Biafran Flags with the Red Black and Green Stripes and the gold-yellow rising sun in the center of the middle black stripe, being waved by MASSOB members in Biafraland, braving serious confrontation with armed Nigerian security men. To this glorious sight we shall return later in the analysis; before then, let us examine some issues.

It was reported in this account that the Arewa leader, Alhaji Yusufu gave a lecture on the occasion, and we shall evaluate his message according to what was reported in the newspaper. Apparently, the Alhaji :

·        claimed that if you go back in history, "the groups that now pass for different tribal entities in Nigeria were once people of one stock"

·        canvassed the usual centralist position of most Northern elites

·        stated, as such, that Nigeria owns the component parts that make it up

·        claimed that Nigeria caters for them [the different peoples living therein], both the rich and poor among them.

·        claimed that Nigeria protects [ethnic groups] them from one another

·        concluded that "therefore, power should be in the centre to enable Nigeria perform this mother-hen role."

·        stated that "any measure that removes power from the centre would lead to collapse of Nigeria and uncontrollable chaos"

It is so sad that the Alhaji who acts like he has a sense of history from where he derived his initial primary argument (which is not just a fallacy, but is in fact wrong and incorrect), should be standing in Biafraland, knowing the history of what Nigeria, allied with Britain, Soviet Union and quite a few Moslem countries, did to exterminate Biafrans, to lecture us about history. The blood of the innocent and oppressed; the blood of those that died in self-defense against the Alhaji’s murderous people and the rest of Nigeria, the blood of the innocent Igbo-Biafrans killed and dispossessed in the Alhaji’s land, the blood of Biafran children starved and ravaged by kwashiorkor by the genocidal blockade of Biafra—such blood shall lie on the path of the Alhaji for him to wade through first.

First and foremost, unless you trace history all the way to Adam and Eve, there is no other way whereby Biafrans are of the same stock as the Hausa / Fulani / Northerners, or Yoruba in the West; or vice versa. WE SPEAK DIFFERENT LANGUAGES—NOT JUST DIALECTS. WE HAVE DIFFERENT RELIGIONS—NOT JUST DENOMINATIONS. WE HAVE DIFFERENT CULTURES; DIFFERENT TRADITIONS, DIFFERENT CUSTOMS—NOT JUST ATTITUDES. Where did the ignorant notion come to the Alhaji from that those whom his people differentiate and call “’infidels’ and ‘nyamiri’” were at any time of "one stock"? This is gross intellectual dishonesty. This is the validity check for the rest of the Alhaji’s lecture: it is all an exercise in dishonesty. There is no history or experience to even suggest that the peoples of the Nations living in Nigeria are of one stock. Even recent intermarriage has failed to erase the hard-coded differences.

Imagine the Alhaji making the nonsensical claim that Nigeria “owns the component parts that make her up”? What a moronic idea. Everybody knows that a country is made up of its constituent peoples, and not the other way around. What informs the Alhaji and the people whom he represents?

Nigeria protects the ethnic Nations from themselves? Come on, Alhaji! Are you blind; and if you are, are you deaf; and if blind and deaf, are you also dumb? How and when is it that Nigeria has protected even the basic unit of citizenry, the common person unfortunate enough to live in Nigeria, from the government and raving dictators that rule Nigeria, from criminals that roam the region, from the cruelty of Sharia; when and how has Nigeria protected Nations from inter-ethnic clashes between Hausa Fulani and Tivi, from Muslims killing Christians in Muslim North, and from Muslims killing Biafrans living peaceful among the Muslim North? It is in fact likely that the Alhaji does not realize the full implication of this false statement of his, because he is applying the same scare-tactic that the North has perfected in the past, trying to get the so-called ethnic minorities in the South to be afraid of the larger Biafran Nation, thereby requesting a centralist federal government to be in charge. If so, the Alhaji has once again demonstrated his ignorance. The so-called ethnic minorities have since learned that it is only the Federal Government of  Nigeria (and those who run and control it—the Northerners) that are to be feared. It is the same government and the Northern handlers whom the so-called ethnic minorities need protection from; the so-called ethnic minorities have since decided that such an arrangement not only does not work, but must be broken.

The Alhaji’s final argument is a case for the desperate. We hear this all the time from the North who have ruined Nigeria . He believes that any measure that removes power from the centre would lead to the collapse of Nigeria and uncontrollable chaos. In case the Alhaji is not aware of it, there is chaos in Nigeria . A lot of that chaos is being generated by Northerners—Shariarization, Muslim killing of Christians in the North, Hausa-Fulani usurpation of power in Nigeria, even though the Northern leaders do not have the ability or experience to lead or manage a country; the looting of the Nigerian treasury,. Northerners forcing Presidential candidates to sign on to conditions that favor the North exclusively, without merit, as a condition for anointing the President. We will not even mention the Northern policy of Igbo-Biafra marginalization, domination and repression—so bad that the Hausa-Fulani control the police and security in the whole of Biafra .

But we do agree with him some. It is not a matter of "Nigeria will collapse"—it is already collapsing. Nigeria will not stand, because the Nations that live in Nigeria will be free. If the Alhaji listened on this occasion, the presence of MASSOB members and the sea of Biafran flag should answer his lecture; and he can take that message back to whoever sent him. We are on the move to fulfill our destiny--Biafra; the Alhaji and his minions can stick to what is left of Nigeria .

We have harsh words for the news reporter who saw MASSOB action as a “dislocation” of the event. He needs education, perhaps in history. If you have an Igbo Day from now on without a Biafra agenda, it is meaningless, not just incomplete. If you have an Igbo Occasion today without Biafra being represented as the main, that is in fact the dislocation, the real disconnect.

The proof that “the Igbos cannot be silenced,” the concept that captured the news reporter’s imagination on this occasion, is not the Igbo Day dignitaries and their speeches, or the convocation of the occasion itself. After all, the invited and attending dignitaries still expected the blessing of the Northerners and still regard Northerners as the King-makers. The proof that Igbo cannot be silenced is the action of MASSOB on this occasion, the message of Biafran flags waving in Biafraland. We are Biafrans, and not Nigerians. We are an independent Nation, not part of one Nigeria .

The reporter’s use of terms such as “disruptions”; “trouble-makers” and “tragedy” to describe MASSOB activities is thus ignorant and ill-informed. But his conclusion that:

“…What happened in Aba is the sort of thing that could be copied and replicated in other cities, such as Umuahia, Owerri, Onitsha, Enugu, Nsukka, Abakaliki, Asaba and Port Harcourt, though Ndigbo hope not!...”

only reveals the depth of his lack of understanding of the torment that Nigeria has put Biafra through, and is still doing so; it is disgusting. We want to assure him and whatever party he represents, and Nigeria for that matter, and Biafrans at large, that what happened in Aba shall surely be repeated in Umuahia, Owerri,, Onitsha , Enugu , Nsukka, Abakiliki, Asaba,  Port Harcourt , and all cities and towns and villages where Biafrans reside. (In fact, MASSOB rallies have been held in most of these places, though the Nigerian press has been paid not to report on these events.) Not only will this happen, but in fact, Ndigbo hope that it happens, and not the other way around, as the reporter would hope. Any reporter who does not know and does not understand Madiebo’s idiom: “Agwo ka no n’akirika” with regards to Igbo-Biafra existence in one Nigeria is too naïve and too uninformed to do the job.

When the MASSOB leader, uninvited, asserted his way and self unto the “high table” and podium on the Igbo Day occasion, contrary to what some may believe and claim, he did not establish a chair for himself as a person, nor a place for MASSOB even. It was Biafra that was thus asserted on that day in the view of Biafrans, and in the midst of those persons who would rather not mention Biafra at all for any number of reasons best known to them. This is the only answer to Nigeria and the likes of Alhaji Yusuf and whoever he represents.

It is for this reason that we recognize that singular brave act by the members of MASSOB and their leader on that occasion, and thank them from the depth of our being, for being there and doing that for Biafra . We also seize this opportunity to recognize and thank all other organizations and individuals who in their own way are placing Biafra on the podium and in chairs and on high tables. God bless and protect you.

Biafra lives!

That’s the news analysis for the week. That’s the news analysis for the week.  Thank you.

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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.)