July 13 2007

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

For July 13^th 2007

You have heard the news; now, the analysis…

Fellow Biafrans:

Dim Ojukwu, this past week, made the most direct and (true) statement to the World about Biafra, through the BBC medium, when he declared that our only alternative to Nigeria is a separate existence. Accurate in every sense, this is not a unique statement—not to Dim, since it is the same action-backed statement on which Biafra, led by Dim himself, was founded and realized in 1967. It is not a unique statement to the generality of Biafrans, either, since we have been acting on the principles of such statement starting from 1999 when MASSOB was founded by Ralph Uwazurike: today, we continue to work on Biafra actualization under the banner of MASSOB, which is the manifestation and reality of our deserved separate existence from Nigeria. It is, though, a sobering statement; it is a courageous statement by Dim Ojukwu living in the patently hostile environment called Nigeria as the defeated leader of a people and nation first thoroughly victimized, then conquered in a war of their self-defense, and thereafter treated with disdain and contempt as non-people with no rights, dispossessed of their land and property.

It is necessary to point out a historical pattern, especially for the benefit of the relatively young, and for the re-education of those who would try to rewrite history with distortions. In reminding us of this pattern, we also bring out the firm-grounding of Dim Ojukwu’s declaration on this matter. Biafra was declared in 1967 when we had run out of viable, reasonable and fair options: there was no other alternative. Then, led by Ojukwu himself, there was an agreement called the Aburi Accord which would have saved the then battered and “still-dripping-with-Biafran-blood” relationship with Nigeria, on mutually sustainable conditions which the leaders of Nigeria agreed to. Gowon, the rebel leader of Nigeria, and his cronies, reneged on that agreement, foreclosing any chance of reconciliation. Prior to that, our people, already once massacred in hundreds of thousands in Northern Nigeria by their erstwhile “fellow-citizens”-indigenous Northerner Nigerians, had been persuaded to return to the same region as a demonstration and reassurance that they were still welcome Nigerians, that their safety would be guaranteed in every part of Nigeria, that the earlier genocidal action against us was a mere fluke and simply accidental. Thus was set the condition for the second and third waves of bloodletting to be visited on our people in the period of six to nine short months in Northern Nigeria as the Northerners outdid themselves and their previous record in killing peaceful Igbo and other Biafrans living in their region. We tried hard to be Nigerians: we try hard to be Nigerians—we do in fact try extremely hard, but to no avail. Since after the war, no one has tried harder to be Nigerian than Dim Ojukwu himself. He embraced Nigerianism fully and wholeheartedly, much to our chagrin. We have criticized him in the past for this. Along with him, many of our people went overboard trying to be Nigerian—abandoning our towns and cities, abandoned our culture and even language, and changing even our names. Many went a step further: they hated anything Igbo or Biafran with an irrational passion and made every effort to deny their “Igboness” or “Biafraness.” We developed other places in Nigeria while deliberately starving our own land, singing loud a one-Nigerian mantra that never changed the fact that Nigeria is not interested in us—only in using and humiliating and erasing us as a people. It is this pattern of continuing to try hard to be Nigerians while Nigeria hardly accepts us as even second class citizens, which needed to be pointed out. So, when Dim Ojukwu says that it is time again for Biafra to get out of Nigeria, he is coming from convictions based on firm grounds of fact and common, obvious experience. When Dim Ojukwu says that there is no other alternative to Biafra, he speaks out of the experience of one who has tried so hard to be Nigerian. We criticized him in the past for trying so hard to be one-Nigerian; now, we have to admit that his trying so hard and failing to be accepted by Nigeria—the same experience of other Igbo and Biafrans in Nigeria—has yielded the best evidence for our case for Biafra. When Dim Ojukwu says that there is no alternative to Biafra for us, his experience lends credibility to his statement: he tried otherwise; we tried otherwise; it (one-Nigeria) didn’t work for us forty years ago, it hasn’t worked for forty years. One Nigeria does not work for us now and will never work for us in the future. There is no alternative to Biafra for our people.

There is no alternative for our people other than Biafra. We have always known that. That’s why we work, and will continuing our efforts, to actualize Biafra, until it is accomplished. Obasanjo and Nigeria, and now, Yar’Adua, are holding Ralph Uwazurike, the leader of MASSOB, Uchenna Madu, the Information Director of MASSOB, other MASSOB officials, and other MASSOB rank-and-file members in Nigeria’s jails because these our brethren are spear-heading the work of Biafra actualization, and they are doing so using a non-violent agenda. We call for their release—unconditionally. We have learnt that the non-legitimate Yar’Adua’s administration is trying to force our brethren to sign a statement renouncing Biafra and or Biafra actualization as a precondition for their release from Nigeria’s Gulag. Knowing Ralph Uwazurike and MASSOB, no such statement will be signed. We remind Yar’Adua of his responsibility to release our MASSOBians unconditionally and without harm; we remind him of the futility of blackmail and forcefully extracting anti-Biafran concessions from our MASSOBians physically and emotionally battered as a result of their imprisonment by Nigeria: we remind Yar’Adua that every Igbo is BiafraN; Every former Eastern Nigerian is Biafran. Because, Biafra is the only alternative to Nigeria.

Dim Ojukwu’s “Renewed call for Biafra” through BBC is one of two crucial messages in this past week which have spawned spirits now alive in the geo-sociopolitical space known as Nigeria today. The other message—earlier—is by the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Abubakar Saad III, who “…vowed to counter the upsurge of Christian evangelization in Nigeria with the message of Islam [which] shall be heard loud and clear”; and called for “...deploy full time Da’wah workers in its strategic areas of operation and make maximum use of emerging media technology…” for this purpose. Of these spirits, one is a benevolent Spirit of Hope and liberation for Biafrans; the other is obviously the same spirit for destruction of Biafra which has always been in invocation ever since the British force-cobbled Nigeria together and handed the key over to the Muslim North.

We choose Dim Ojukwu’s message and the life and hope it brings to us: it’s Biafra for us! Biafra is our right. It is our place. We will have Biafra. There is no other meaningful alternative.

Biafra alive! Because it is God Who 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.

Dim Ojukwu e kwuo la na izu ya gara a ga na Opi-Igwe (Radio) BBC, na a bia na ihe gbasara ndi Igbo na ndi Biafra na Nigeria, na o nweghi ebe ozo ma o wu uzo ozo diri anyi karia kwa naani Biafra; na e kwu na oge e ruola anyi i ga wa na Biafra maka ihe mmegbu na ogbugbu Nigeria na e megbu na na e gbu anyi ka no kwa ya ta ka karia ka o siri diri tutu aha Biafra na Nigeria. Anyi a hula otu Dim jiri were obi ya na ile nabata Nigeria nke ukwu mgbe o lotara na Nigeria; hu kwa otu ndi Igbo na ndi Biafra ndi ozo jiri gbali sie ike i wu nde Nigeria; oge na ile, anyi a hu na eziokwu-eziokwu, Nigeria choro anyi so-o-so o gbugbu na mmegbu; o wu kwa nu maka nkea ka Dim Ojukwu ji a si na anyi a gbalia la otu ike ha anyi i bi na Nigeria, ma naani onwu na ighiere ka Nigeria choro i nye anyi, nke wu na anyi i ka noro na ime Nigeria e nweghi isi ncha-ncha.

Anyi ma a ma na Nigeria e nweghi isi, na o wughi ebe anyi kwesiri i no, nke mere anyi ji na a cho Biafra. Eziowku ka Dim Ojukwu kwuru. I nweta Biafra wu kwa nu ihe MASSOB na anyi na a cho kemgbe 1999, nke mere Obasanjo jiri tuo ndi MASSOB na onye isi MASSOB, Ralph Uwazurike mkporo. Anyi na a gwa Yar’Adua na Nigeria ya ka ha weputa Uwazurike na Uchenna Madu na ndi MASSOB ndi ozo si na nga Nigeria puta ugbua. Ya mara kwa na anyi na ile wu ndi Biafra—o wughi so naani ndi MASSOB. Ya mara kwa na Nigeria e nweghi ike nwera anyi isi: so-o-so Biafra wu uzo diri anyi mma.

Mgbe Dim Ojukwu na e kwu na anyi ga a pu na Nigeria ga wa Biafra, onye Isi-Ukwu ndi Alokaba di na Nigeria a na a kpo Sultan of Sokoto, na e kwu na nke ya, na ha ga a gbasa ozi okpuke ndi Alokaba, nke wu Islam / Muslim na ebe dum na ime Nigeria, na a gbasa ozi Islam ahu na ike na ike, ma o wula na ala ndi Christian nde Jesu Kristi bi na Nigeria. Unu a mara ihe nkea putara—ndi Awusa na Alokoba i gbasaa Islam na Nigeria na ile.

Na okwu abuo ya, anyi ghorola okwu Dim Ojukwu: Biafra ka anyi na a cho, Biafra ka anyi ga e nweta. Nigeria na njo ya, na okpukpe Alokoba ha, ha gawara kwa o nwe ha. O nweghi ihe anyi na ha nwekoro otu. Anyi wu ndi Biafra.

Biafra: biri kwa!

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)
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