April 8 2006

This is the News Analysis segment of the Voice of Biafra International (VOBI) broadcasts

For April 8th, 2006

You have heard the news; now, the analysis…

Fellow Biafrans:

We continue to ask Obasanjo and his government to release Ralph Uwazurike, the leader of MASSOB; Uchenna Madu, the Information Director of MASSOB; the other MASSOB leaders, and the other members of MASSOB; and also, Uche Okwukwu, an attorney for MASSOB--all currently being held in Nigerian jails. None of these persons who are being held on charges of Treason by Nigeria has committed any crime. All they have done is to pursue the option and the course of self determination for our people—the Biafran people; and they are following a non-violent agenda. For his part, Mr. Okwukwu came to present a legal defense on behalf of these our MASSOB brethren, and was arrested by the Nigeria SSS. This all is wrong. Our people must be released.

Self determination is a right guaranteed by the UN itself, even if the UN is unable to enforce it. It is up to us to claim that right. Self determination is a self-evident natural human right instituted and guaranteed by God Himself. We have a moral obligation and divinely mandated duty to claim that right. Especially when the current environment and conditions in Nigeria are such that the entire Igbo and Biafran nation and its people, its culture, its language and traditions have suffered and are always suffering malignant persecution and repression, now to the point of near-annihilation. Especially when there is a determined and well executed ongoing anti-Igbo anti-Biafra State policy by Nigeria. Especially when the level of brazen injustice selectively directed against Igbo–Biafrans by Nigeria has become unbearable, even for a long-suffering people that Biafrans are by nature. And, especially, when Nigeria is imploding with dysfunction and under its own weight of internally generated evil. Self determination, in this context, is just a (crucial) matter of survival: we have a right to survive—to live. Why and how should it be a crime for people to be seeking self determination? Obasanjo and Nigeria should quit pretending that these concepts are alien to them; they must release our MASSOBians and their representatives from Nigeria’s jails, because their continuing imprisonment cannot be justified and could never be supported.

Now we learn that Yoruba Ethnic leaders in Nigerian jails are ready for bail. Ralph Uwazurike and many of the jailed MASSOBians have already spent more time in jail than the Yoruba prisoners, and yet, have not received a court decision on bail. Uwazurike and MASSOBians are non-violent and are not a flight-risk. Is this not a case of heaping more injustice on them, our MASSOB brethren—selectively? There is not even a pretense any longer on the part of Nigeria regarding her brazen selective unfairness to our people. Nevertheless, we continue to request the release of all our people of the MASSOB and or Biafra who are currently being held in Nigeria jails. Uwazurike et al must be released, and must be released now. Injustice must end. Let it not be overlooked or forgotten that engineers of injustice and authors of injustice have a case to answer in the Court of Humanity, as well as in God’s Court.

We now move to the PRONACO Sovereign National Conference (SNC) events. We have stated time and again our stand on SNC, which is that the basic agenda for a genuine or true SNC is Self Determination, and not the tacit or overt protection of Nigeria or one-Nigeria. We have pointed out that once Nigeria or one-Nigeria becomes the goal of any meeting or event or process, then, such a process is already doomed and is bound to fail. This is not just our deduction: it is the fact and reality of Nigeria and the realities of all peoples forced to live in Nigeria. It is historical; it is our undisputed experience. Therefore, we do not participate or support any process whose agenda is one-Nigeria.

We suspected that the PRONACO SNC is pushing for one-Nigeria because one of its leaders, Anthony Enahoro (who, incidentally and curiously advocated for separation of Nigeria at one time), is a staunch one-Nigeria supporter. This is a shame, and turns the conference into another sham; but on a personal level, this makes nonsense of Enahoro’s earlier but late apology for his world tour during the Biafra-Nigeria when he represented the Gowon Nigerian government during which he defended the use of starvation by Nigeria as an instrument of war against Biafra. Apparently, even in old age, Enahoro has not learned anything. Speaking of old age, what really does Enahoro have to lose if Nigeria remains the hell it is now? With one foot, as they say, already in the grave, exactly nothing! Enahoro has nothing more to lose. That is why he can afford to close his eyes to the correct and real and only completely effective and lasting solution to the problem that is Nigeria.

It is for this reason that we acknowledge and praise the practicality, honesty, bravery and courage of Yoruba and Delta groups who are attending this conference and who have rightly asked for Self Determination and Secession for their nations, and also chided Enahoro’s Conference leadership for dropping their submission reflecting their position as above and trying to exclude it from the committee reports (predictable). By these groups insisting that every ethnic nationality should be allowed to go its own way and fend for itself, there is ample demonstration that the groups understand the real problem that is Nigeria, and the real deficiency in any previous and even current attempts to solve that problem. We quote from a Nigerian newspaper report:

“…the spokesman of the Coalition of Odua Self–Determination groups (COSEG)… raised a point of observation that the groups position on Monday, did not reflect on the committees proposed by the conference…At yesterday’s session, we in COSEG made our position known without any fear that, we are no longer interested in the forced marriage called Nigeria, we want to go our own way, and that nobody should force Nigeria on us. But to our surprise, we cannot find the reflection of that position in the committees proposed here…We stand by that position, we are representing it here and again, and it should be reflected in the committees as an issue which deserves a very critical look because we are tired of Nigeria…” And also:

“…Niger-Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF)…hinged its call for secession on the grounds of the “artificial union forced on Nigerians by Colonial imperialists…“There is no need pretext that today’s Nigeria is faulty, built and packaged on a deceitful premise enunciated by the British imperial masters. Left for us alone as Ijaws in the Niger Delta we will go our own way, let others also stay on their own and manage their resources”.

“This is what we have been demanding over the years because we cannot as a people, harbour the nation’s resources, yet we are the worst in terms of development in this country”…”

This is precisely what we have been saying, and what we have been working towards, as the people of Biafra, as MASSOB, Biafra Foundation (BF), Biafra Actualization Forum (BAF) and other pro-Biafra groups. This is what a genuine SNC should be supporting. In case any of you had wavered before or doubted it, WE ARE NO LONGER ALONE in asking for separation from Nigeria. Now, there is even less justification for Obasanjo to keep our people in jail; he should release them all forthwith.

Biafra alive: because God makes it so.

That’s the News Analysis for the week. Thank you.

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God bless and keep Biafra, and you, until our next broadcast. Voice of Biafra International (VOBI) broadcast continues (http://www.biafraland.com/vobi.htm), now with the summary of the News Analysis in Igbo language.

Ndi Biafra, ekele e o-o! Anyi e kelee unu.

Nkea wu akuko nke anyi na a kpo News Analysis si na Voice of Biafra International Radio, di na Washington DC, na ala America, na a bia ra unu na abali a.

Anyi ka na a gwa Obasanjo na govumenti ya ka ha kpoputa Ralph Uwazurike, onye isi MASSOB, na Mazi Uchenna Madu, otu na ime ndi isi MASSOB, na ndi MASSOB ndi ozo no na nga ndi Nigeria—ka Obasanjo kpoputa ha na mkporo. Anyi na e kwu ya maka o nweghi njo ha mere, ma o wu iwu ndi anyi ndia dara. Ihe ha na a choro ndi Biafra—Biafra i nweta onwe ya, noro onwe ya, na a chi kwa onwe ya—wu ihe di otu Chineke siri kee ya; wuru kwa otu Chi Uwa siri choo ya. Nzuko ndi mba na ile di na Uwa a na a kpo UN e kwekoritala na ndi mmadu ndi mba o wula nwere ike i noro onwe ha, na a chi kwa onwe ha. Nkea mere anyi ji na e kwu na ihe Uwazurike na MASSOB na anyi na e me a wughi ihe ojoo ma o wu i da iwu. Ma Chi Uwa ma Chineke ma nzuko ndi Uwa kwu anyi na azu.

Ma o wu anyi onwe anyi ga e ji aka anyi zota ihe Chineke di mbu nye anyi—Biafra. Anyi a gaghi e kwe ka onye o wula nochie ra anyi uzo anyi si e nweta Biafra. Anyi a gaghi e kwe ka a tuo onye o wula na e du anyi na uzo ya, ma o wu onye o wula na a cho nweta Biafra—ka a tuo ya—mkporo. Anyi ga na e me ihe dum kwesiri i me i ji hu na a ghapuru ha aka, weputa ha na mkporo. O kachanke mgbe anyi nuru na ndi isi ndi Yoruba no na nga, na a ga e nye ha bail mgbe o nweghi onye nyere ndi nke anyi bail.

Na ihe gbasara Sovereign National Conference (SNC) nke PRONACO na e me ya na Enahoro, onye ndu ha, otu anyi siri kwuo ya na mbu, o wu naani nzuko ebe a ga a ga kewaa Nigeria ka anyi ga a ga. Enahoro na a cho one-Nigeria: SNC-ya a gaghi e nwe isi, dika anyi jiri gwa ha na mbu. Ma na anyi a nula na otu ndi Yoruba na ndi Delta gara nzuko ya a tufughi oge tutu ha gwa ndi nzuko ya na ihe ha na a cho wu nkewa Nigeria ka ha gawara onwe ha (nke wu otu ihe ahu anyi na acho kwa). Anyi na e kwe otu-abuo ya aka a na a kwe dike, maka ujo a tughi ha i kwu eziokwu, i kwu ihe wu ihe mere e me, i kwu ihe obi ha na isi ha na oha-mba ha choro. Enahoro na SNC ya jiri kwa nkea muru ako. O nweghi ihe onye o wula nwere ike i me i ji mezie Nigeria mebichara e mebi, o wuru na o wu one-Nigeria ka onye ahu na a cho. So-o-so nkewa Nigeria wu ihe ga a gwo ihe na a ria Nigeria. Obansanjo jiri kwa ihe ndi Yoruba na ndi Delta kwuru na nzuko a mara na o nweghi iwu Uwazurike na ndi MASSOB dara, ma o wu ihe ojoo ha mere; ya kpoputa kwa ha na nga ugbua. Ihe anyi na a cho, nke wu nweta Biafra, anyi ga na a cho si ya ike, maka ndi mba ndi ozo bi na ime Nigeria, o wu otu ihe ahu ka ha na kwa a cho. Otua ka Chineke siri mee ya.

Biafra, ndu gi! Biafra, ndu gi!! Biafra, ndu gi!!!—na ndu anyi kwa. Maka Chineke nonyere la gi—nonyere kwa ra anyi!

Ndewo unu.

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Voice of Biafra International (VOBI) broadcast continues

Voice of Biafra International (VOBI)
A SHORTWAVE Radio Broadcast Service
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