OPEN LETTER TO THE AREWA YOUTHS. By Charles Ogbu.

OPEN LETTER TO THE AREWA YOUTHS.
By Charles Ogbu.
Brethren from the North,
I bring you greetings from the Southern part of Nigeria.
On behalf of the peace-loving people of the south in general and millions of Igbo youths in particular, I start this letter by commending you for your recent open letter to the acting president, professor Yemi Osinbajo, where you called on the pastor-turned politician to organise a Referendum for the Igbos to enable them determine their future in line with international law on self determination.
By that letter, you proved to be better versed and more sophisticated in legal matters and ways of international laws with regards to the right of Indigenous People on Self Determination than the acting President who ironically is a law professor but who happen to think that quest for self determination is a crime simply because the fraudulent document known as the 1999 constitution imposed on us by military thugs did not recognise it.

Having said these, let me come to the main reason why I'm here. In your letter to the Ag. President, I noticed what I've been trying to figure out whether to classify as an innocent amnesia-induced oversight or a calculated attempt to re-write history on your part.
You cited the January 15th coup which you mischievously tagged Igbo coup and claimed was the Igbos manifestating their hatred for Nigeria. Quite frankly, when I read that part, I was left wondering whether to pause and die laughing or die crying.
You and your kind invented the word "hatred" and even went further to prove that indeed, it is not just a word. You started manifesting hatred for other Nigerians as far back as 1945 when your kind butchered hundreds of innocent southerners mostly Igbos in North central Nigerian city of Jos in an anti-Igbo pogrom, 15 years before Nigeria even got her independence from Britain. And of course, your Vampiric spirit would later rise again in search of more Igbo blood in 1953 when your people carried out another anti-Igbo pogrom in Kano which resulted in another hundreds of Igbo lives being wasted once again. This time, all you needed to start doing what you know how best to do was a minor legislative disagreement at the Lagos parliament where your lawmakers were booed for trying to delay a motion for Nigeria's independence by claiming the North wasn't yet ready for self rule.
Isn't it a classic definition of irony that a people who started doing exceptionally well in the business of killing and maiming their fellow Nigerians as far back as 1945 when Nigeria had not even dreamt of gaining independence would now open their mouth and accuse others of manifesting "hatred for Nigeria unity"? If you ever believed in the so called Nigeria's unity, why kill and maim your fellow Nigerians for the flimsiest of excuses??
Secondly, the January 1966 coup was not an Igbo coup. It was a coup carried out by mostly junior army officers led by Major Kaduna Chukwuma Nzeogwu and it had soldiers from Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa/fulani, Tiv, Esan, Ijaw, Urhobo, Bali etc on board. Hassan Usman Katsina, an hausa/fulani, who was later made military governor of Northern region, was Nzeogwu's right hand man and a major participant all through the period of the coup. Major Adewale Ademoyega, the author of "Why We Struck" was of the same rank as Nzeogwu. He was an active participant in the coup. There were major Ifeajuna, Lt. Fola Oyewole of "The Reluctant Rebel", Lt. Tijani Katsina and Saleh Dambo who were both hausa/fulani, there was Lt. Hope Harris Egheagha among other Igbos.
And that same coup was foiled by two brave Igbo men, Aguyi Ironsi in Lagos (West) and Ojukwu in Kano (North).
Now, assuming WITHOUT CONCEDING that the January 15th coup was organized and executed by only Igbo army officers, does it not still amount to conscientious idiocy for you guys to blame the whole Igbo nation for a coup carried out by few military men from the region?? How can anyone seek to justify the savagery visited on defenceless Igbo men, women and children residing in the North in the aftermath of that coup?? Did Nzeogwu who was from Delta state consult the indigens of the state before leading that coup?
How come we don't blame Dimka's coup on his ethnic group neither do we blame IBB and Buhari's coup on the whole hausa/Fulanis?

Let me quickly remind you that in the evening of the January 15th coup, a Boeing 707 belonging to the Nigerian Airways arrived Kano with almost the whole Northern establishment back from Lagos where they had gone to attend Commonwealth Prime Ministers' conference. Ojukwu, it was, who received them at the airport and even when orders from the coup plotters were to shot all Politicians, Ojukwu gifted them with protection. I don't suppose you would like this kind of history, seeing as it seem to contradict the adulterated version you were groomed with.
In the said letter, you correctly stated that Ojukwu refused to recognize Gowon but you mischievously failed to state that Ojukwu's refusal to recognise Gowon was in protest over the refusal of the hausa/fulani military officers who killed the head of state, Aguyi Ironsi, to allow Brigadier Ogundipe to take over as the next in rank according to military tradition.

Still in that same letter, you stated that Ojukwu declared Biafra but you conveniently failed to tell the public that Ojukwu didn't just wake up in the morning, smoke his Benson cigarette and rushed to declare Biafra. He (Ojukwu) did his best to de-escalate tension and even succeeded in reaching a landmark accord with Gowon in Aburi, Ghana, which if implemented, would have put an end to the Igbo genocide going on in the North and averted the moral tragedy that was the Biafra war. But, Gowon, unilaterally chose to defy the terms of this last minute Aburi Accord, leaving the Oxford product, Ojukwu, with no choice but to pull his people out of a country that was and still is, deaf, dumb and blind to the sanctity of the lives of the same people it exists mainly to protect.
Let me quickly say this not just to you, The Arewa Youths but to all Nigerians and foreigners alike:
This current Biafra agitation IS NOT a bait for Igbo presidency, Restructuring or appointments. Any Igbo man thinking it is should simply go for a DNA test to ascertain not just his paternity but his ancestry, too. My generation is simply sick and tired of sharing the same country with people who derive enormous pleasure from killing their fellow human beings over the flimsiest of excuses like the burning of the Koran in a far away Afghanistan, the shooting of a Palestinian boy by a murderous Israeli soldier in Gaza, the drawing of the cartoon of Prophet Muhammad in far away Denmark by a cartoonist who is neither Igbo nor Nigerian.

Igbo youths are not aggrieved with Nigeria solely because their parents were massacred in the Biafra war. We are aggrieved because almost 50 years after the war, the same people who killed our parents are still killing us even in our homes using fulani herdsmen, in our churches and cities using hausa/fulani soldiers who kill us and bath us with acid, and our places of business using almajiris who slaughter us and burn our shops with state-sponsored impunity for no just cause other than the insatiable urge to spill blood.
My fellow youths, we have lied to ourselves for far too long. How about a little honesty here? All these killings points to one thing which is that our world views are world apart. While you delight in resorting to violence as solution to almost every disagreement, we, the Igbos and indeed, all southerners have serious aversion to bloodshed. It is our belief that our God fight for us, not the other way round.

I love the concluding part of your letter where you rightly asserted that the Biafra agitation is not an issue over which a single drop of blood should be shed. We agree completely. We have all advanced beyond the primitive era of war. We are not asking for war. We are only asking for a YES or NO vote known as Referendum. Now, my dear brethren, add a little work to your faith by prevailing on your leaders who control every facet of the Nigerian govt to allow for a Plebiscite for the Igbos. After they have voted and the YES vote carries the day, you can then give Igbos living in your region whatever condition under which you want them to live.
Dishing out quit notice to Igbos residing in your region when they are yet to be officially granted their referendum and Biafra is only tantamount to putting the cart before the horse. Until the Igbos officially get their Biafra, they remain Nigerians with all the right and privileges of Nigerian citizens including the right of living and doing business anywhere in Nigeria.

Lastly, let me conclude by reminding you that even in the event of a successful referendum for Biafra, all property legally acquired by the Igbos anywhere in Nigeria remain theirs and are protected by international law. Nigerians did not loose their property in Britain when the latter granted her independence in 1960, did they?? The world has progressed considerably. I would remind you that the 'abandoned property' era is over but I'm sure you know that, don't you??
Instead of killing ourselves and creating IDPs everywhere, let us peacefully do "To Your Tent, Oh, Israel!". That way, we will still do things together but as good neighbours under a mutually agreed terms.
Love From A Biafran,
Charles Ogbu
(culled from facebook)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/radiobiafralondon/permalink/1492714134176351/

THE BIAFRAN LOYALTY

When you see Biafrans disparaging the struggle, please send them this article

THE BIAFRAN LOYALTY

By M.M. Mbanaja

You don't need to wait till you are hit by my case before you identify positively with your root. I was born in Ebute Meta area of Lagos before the war, I started my schooling and life in Lagos and as soon as the war broke out, we were bundled back to the east, then I was about ten years old.

My parents feel very much at home in Lagos and were loved so much by the Yaba/Ebute Meta community that as we came back to Lagos by 1970 to start life afresh after the civil war, my father's hotel, then at Alagomeji, Yaba called New Nigerian hotel was protected and managed by my father's Yoruba friends. This made us fall in love with the Yorubas and as I was going through my education I mingled with my Yoruba friends as if I was a Yoruba myself since I write and speak the Yoruba language fluently. I was a perceived stakeholder or what we used to call omo oluwabi, son of the soil. At this time I joined my Yoruba friends to make a caricature of Ndigbo whom we referred to as" aje okwute ma mu omi", Igbo man that eats stone without drinking water.

With that confidence, on my return from Europe, I joined politics in my area of residence at Okota and was a state officer of CNC and later contested and won an election as the councilor of ward F3, Okota, under the Babangida's zero party. At the end of the celebration, the SS officers came to my house with a letter informing me that I cannot be sworn in as the councillor for security reasons, before I knew what was going on, I was bundled to Shangisha the SS office where I was detained till after a Yoruba shoe maker, Taiwo living in my street was sworn in as the councillor instead of myself, the winner.

Before the arrival of my lawyer and notable Igbo leaders from Okota, to my rescue with copies of my earlier security clearance at the same office , Alhaji Sabiu Okolanwo who is the current population commissioner of Lagos state and my supposed political mentor came in with chief Wilson, now late to appeal to me to accept the illegal verdict in good faith because the family took the decision and that there is no way the Ejigbo family can allow a non-indigene to rule them in their soil and that there is a compensational position awaiting for me as a board member of NTA, then with head office at V.I., Lagos. Engr. Maduka was the then DG and a brother Charles Nwachukwu was his secretary.

It was Chief Dapo Saromi, the then minister of communication that gave me a letter to be appointed as a board member. But, overnight, the same group that gave me the appointment over turned it via phone calls saying that if I take that position, what will their people say hence I was referred to my state for any appointment. From there, I became a born again Igboman. It donned on me that no amount of force or Yoruba I speak can make me a Yoruba man and, north, south, east and west, no place like home. Since then, I never looked back in tracing my root and saying nice things about the only people I have, the Igboman.

This is why, whenever I hear an Igbo man criticizing an Igboman, or the burden of self-imposed marginalization by an Igboman to Igboman, I feel very sad, I see it as total ignorance and total submission to our foes.

The most common comment you often hear is this: “Biafra (permit me to use Biafra in this contest because it represents the only unity of Ndigbo) will be nice but you know our people, they can’t govern themselves; they are always arguing among themselves and love money more than themselves.” Horrible! This is what Nigeria has done to the Igbo and indeed other Easterners. Nigeria has made the Igbo lose faith, and trust in themselves, their relatives, community and Igbo land itself. Nigeria has made the Igbo lose faith in their talent, ingenuity, creativity, competence and abilities. It is shocking, but it is true. Fear and doubt are now our bedfellows and our greatest enemies. Our people have been programmed to believe that they cannot govern themselves successfully and effectively; in fact that they cannot live together peacefully. Our people have been programmed to hate themselves, their children, their extended families and their communities. This poison has been fed not only to the Igbo but also to other ethnic groups in the Eastern Region. In many of our communities, especially in Cross River State people are torturing, and killing their children, calling them witches. False prophets are making money branding innocent children witches and programming parents to believe that these children are responsible for their poverty, hardships, and illnesses. Thousands and thousands of Igbo people troop to Lagos and Ogun State to hand over millions of hard earned dollars given to them by their relatives to charlatans and con men who claim to be prophets and evangelists. The con men then “prophesy” to them that it is members of their families and their best friends who as witches are the cause of their poverty, joblessness, suffering, failure to have a husband, failure to have a baby, illness and other misfortune. Then they go back home and literally set their families ablaze. We have become a society that is cannibalizing itself. The elders are selling our youth up North for money. The youths are kidnapping the elders and demanding huge ransom money. This is the tragedy that has befallen Igbo society. It breaks my heart to watch magnificent Igbo Nation become degenerate in just one generation. Nigeria has almost destroyed the Igbo and her sister Nations in Eastern Region.

Our people have lost contact with the reality of their history as they are continually fed garbage by Nigeria. In 1965 and just before the first coup, there were four regional governments and the federal government of Nigeria. Of these five governments, the government of the Eastern Region was the most stable, politically and fiscally. The next was the government of Midwestern Region. Don’t take my word, check the records for yourself. Who said that our people cannot govern themselves? Ask your elders about Igbo Union and Ibibio Union Organizations dispersed all over West Africa. These Unions organized our people wherever they lived all over Africa, channeled resources home and became one of the engines of development throughout the Eastern Region. Most of our political leaders Michael Okpara, Akanu Ibiam, Mbonu Ojike, E.O. Eyo, Dennis Osadebay, H.U. Akpabio, Eyo Ita, Jaja Wachuku, Alvan Ikoku, Nwafor Orizu, M. C. K. Ajuluchukwu, Nyong Essien, Margaret Ekpo, Oyibo Odinammadu, Mokwugo Okoye and so many others were men and women of vision and transparent honesty who transformed Eastern Region into an enviable model of political stability and economic empowerment.

It is, therefore, time for Ndigbo to stop digging their own graves through self-condemnation and unwarranted criticisms that have served only the purpose of our foes.

It is my view that unless all Igbo, Efik, Ibibio and Anang tribes see BIAFRA as their avatar through an unalloyed loyalty using the old Eastern Nigeria unity that gave Biafra the leadership, courage and vision to withstand the barrage of land, air and sea attack on the heavily armed federal Nigerian troops, Russian MIG fighters British and European support for 30 gruesome months, our people will continue to play the second fiddle under her foe, Nigeria.

The most salient political wisdom today is for our political class, organized labor, students union, market women, captains of industry, the intellectuals, the clergy and the pro-Biafran groups to understand that everything positive demand we want from Nigeria is inside closing ranks, uniting and showing loyalty to well organized non-violent Biafran struggle. There is a full package inside a united Biafran struggle and that includes Igbo presidency, political, infrastructural and economic development of the Eastern region, Biafra in and outside Nigeria and above all, the pride and love of a nation in unity as partners in progress

This clarion call for healing, peace and reconciliation amongst Ndigbo through a common front, Biafra, is more germane today than ever before where our ancestors will invoke the spirit of 'onye aghala nwanne ya' which is an Igbo philosophical thrust of our 'Igbo bu ike' that made Ndigbo an inseparable bunch in the Igbo Union days before the civil war of survival.

IF NIGERIA is a Baby in my WOMB, I will ABORT it,

BIAFRA Girl Spit Fire: IF NIGERIA is a Baby in my WOMB, I will ABORT it, If is LIFE, I choose DEATH

Why it is better to Free Biafra- Obasanjo writes to share his views Admin June 1, 20

Obasanjo writes to share his views Admin  June 1, 20

The whole world is now watching and listening closely to know the important plea for independence which is coming out of Western Africa. Nigeria has a population of roughly 180 million people with a balanced religious mix of roughly 49.3% Christian and 48.8% Muslim. We know most of the Christians live in southern Nigeria, a land previously controlled for over thousands of years by a people living in a land known as Biafra. Biafrans were a proud people. They were mostly Christian and a bastion of free-enterprise in Western Africa. With the formation of Nigeria in the breakup of Great Britain’s empire, Biafra lost its independence when it was unilaterally combined with the Muslim dominated north.

Today, the drive for a Muslim caliphate in Africa remains focused on three primary African states, South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria, where large populations of Christians remain. The all-out effort to destabilize the Christian power base has been carried out by Al-Shabaab in Kenya and Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria.

Boko Haram, an extremist Sunni Islamic fundamentalist sect strongly influenced by the Wahhabi movement, is committed to establish Nigeria as an Islamic State under Sharia Law. Their impact is strongest in the North. Seeking more grazing land for their herds, Fulani militants, linked to Boko Haram, have killed at least 20,000 people since 2009. The Fulani herdsmen have been moving south to areas dominated by Christians and non-religious farmers. They are well armed, and their coordinated attacks are increasing.

The atrocities against moderate Muslims and Christians are well documented but not widely covered in the Western press. Recently, angry Muslims youths in Kano decapitated a woman plastics trader alleging that she blasphemed the Prophet Muhammad. When the shop owner refused to allow a young man to wash his legs for the usual Muslim’s prayers in her shop because other customers were there, the young man shouted Allahu Akbar and lied to his friends that the owner had blasphemed. They dragged her away, beheaded her carried her head through the market and town center.

Many feel that now is the time for Biafra independence. The Biafran “George Washington,” Nnamdi Kanu, is out from jail from trumped up charges. Judges have refused to officially charge him. But fearing his leadership, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has decided to free him instead to know the fate of Biafrans. His long sustained incarceration has just fueled the flames for independence. The number of supporters of freedom for Biafra has quadrupled since Kanu’s imprisonment.  

Recently, Niger Delta Avengers blew up vital Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation oil pipelines. A new militant group, Red Egbesu Water Lions, has joined them in demanding that Nnamdi Kanu be released. Unless the Buhari government releases Kanu and moves toward a referendum on independence for Biafra, militants promise to shut down oil and gas production in the region.

In the past, Shell and British Petroleum have formed lucrative agreements with the Northern Muslim politicians to control 80% of the Nigerian oil, primarily from wells in the south. Not only are resources from Biafra being sold and profits diverted, the lack of environmental controls have resulted in pollution—hurting farming and fishing in the south.

Freedom isn’t free, but nowhere in Africa is freedom more important than in Biafra. But what are the Western powers doing? Unfortunately, very little. Britain has called for the release of Nnamdi Kanu but said little about the freedom referendum he supports. While covering the atrocities of Boko Haram in the North, there is little or no coverage of the Islamic terrorists brutalizing the Biafran Christians in the South.

This is about more than stopping Islamic extremism in Nigeria. Supporting the freedom of Biafra establishes a beachhead for Christian capitalism in Africa that puts a stop to a vision of a united Muslim caliphate in all of Africa.

America received support from France in breaking free of England. It’s time for the UN and Western powers to do their part to free the people of Biafra while independence is still possible without expanded bloodshed.

Chief Olushegun Obasanjo

http://dailyinfong.com/article-why-it-is-better-to-free-biafra-obasanjo-writes-to-share-his-views/

Northern House Of Assembly Proceedings, February - March 1964

Northern House Of Assembly Proceedings, February - March 1964

Below is an extract from the proceedings of the Northern Region House of Assembly between February and March 1964, less than four years after Nigeria’s independence from the British.

I have nothing to add. Read and judge for yourself:

• Mallam Muhammadu Mustapha Mande Gyan:On the allocation of plots to Ibos or allocation of stalls, I would like to advise the Minister that these people know how to make money, and we do not know the way and manner of getting about this business. We do not want Ibos to be allocated with plots. I do not want them to be given plots…
  

• Mallam Bashari Umaru:
  I would like (you), as a Minister of Land and Survey, to revoke forthwith all Certificates of Occupancy from the hands of the Ibos resident in the Region… (Applause)
  

• Mr. A. A. Agogede:I’m very glad that we are in a Moslem country, and the government of Northern Nigeria allowed some few Christians in the region to enjoy themselves according to the belief of their religion, but building of hotels should be taken away from the Igbos, and even if we find some Christians who are interested in building hotels and do not have money to do so, the government should aid them, instead of allowing Ibos to continue with their hotels.
  

• Dr. Iya Abubakar (Special Member, Lecturer, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria):
  I am one of the strong believers in Nigerian unity, and I have hoped for our having a united Nigeria, but certainly if the present state of affairs continues, I hope the government will investigate first the desirability and secondly the possibility of extending Northernisation policy to the petty traders. (Applause)
  

• Mallam Mukhtar Bello:
  I would like to say something very important, that the Minister should take my appeal to the Federal Government about the Igbos in the post office. I wish the numbers of these Igbos be reduced…. There are too many of them in the North. They are like sardines and 1 think they are just too dangerous to the Region.
  
  

• Mallam Ibrahim Musa:Mr. Chairman, Sir. Well first and foremost, what I have to say before this Hon. House is that we should send a delegation to meet our Hon. Premier to move a motion in this very Budget Session that all the Ibos working in the Civil Service of Northern Nigeria, including the native authorities, whether they are contractors or not, should be repatriated at once…
  

• Mallam Bashari Umaru:
  There should be no contracts either from the government, native authorities, or private enterprises given to Ibo contractors (Government Bench: Good talk and shouts of “Fire the Southerners”). Again, Mr. Chairman, the foreign firms too should be given time limit to replace all Ibo in their firms by some other people.

• The Premier (Alhaji the Hon. Sir Ahmadu Bello, K.B.E., Sardauna of Sokoto):It is my most earnest desire that every post in the region, however small it is, be filled by a Northerner (Applause)

• Alhaji Usman Liman:
  What brought the Ibos into this region? They were here since the colonial days. Had it not been for the colonial rule, there would hardly have been any Ibo in this region. Now that there is no colonial rule, the Ibos should go back to their region. There should be no hesitation about the matter. Mr. Chairman, North is for Northerners, East for Easterners, West for Westerners, and the Federation is for us all. (Applause)

• The Minister of Land and Survey (Alhaji the Hon. Ibrahim Musa Cashash, O.B.E.):Mr. Chairman. Sir, I do not like to take up much of the time of this House in making explanations, but I would like to assure members that having heard their demands about Ibos holding land in Northern Nigeria, my ministry will do all it can to see that the demands of members are met. How to do this, when to do it, al1 these should not be disclosed. In due course, you will all see what will happen. (Applause)

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THE TIMES OF ISRAEL :Biafran Jews mark 50 years since failed bid for independence

Nigeria on Tuesday marks 50 years since the declaration of an independent Republic of Biafra plunged the country into a civil war, amid renewed tensions and fresh calls for a separate state.

The main pro-independence groups — the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), and the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) — have called for a day of reflection.

Among the IPOB are one of the largest ethnic groups in the central African nation, the Igbo people, and among them is a small minority of practicing Jews, who believe they are descended from the tribes of Israel.During the last 30 years or so, many Igbo Jews have moved to match their tradition of Jewish descent with the practice of rabbinic Judaism, the learning of Hebrew, observance of kosher dietary laws and observance of Jewish holidays. Many Igbo Jews are passionately Zionist.

In 1970, after nearly three years of fighting, Biafran soldiers, who were outnumbered 10 to one by federal troops and under-equipped, laid down their arms.

The conflict caused an estimated million deaths, many of them by starvation after the secessionist region was blockaded.

With surrender went their dreams of a separate state for the Igbo people, who are the majority in the southeast.

Half a century later, Biafra remains an extremely sensitive subject in Nigeria.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/biafran-jews-mark-50-years-since-failed-bid-for-independence/

MEMORY AND NATION BUILDING: BIAFRA 50 YEARS AFTER : A SOBER REFLECTION

Paper presented at The Conference - MEMORY AND NATION BUILDING: BIAFRA 50 YEARS AFTER : A SOBER REFLECTION.

By PROF. T. UZODIMA NWALA
       President

Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF).

1. Introduction.

Before I thank the organisers of this Conference and pay my tribute to the Memory of my friend, late Major-General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, in whose Foundation Center this historic event is being organised, let me quickly dismiss certain lingering pernicious fallacies that have dominated all discussion about the coup of January 15, 1966 and the Biafra War.

First, the Chairman of the occasion, Alhaji Ahmed Joda, has alluded to the January 15, 1966 coup as an Igbo coup that, according to him,was replied by a Northern coup of July 29 1966.

Let it be said loud and clear that that coup, namely January 15, 1966 coup, was not an Igbo coup. It was a coup led by certain Igbo and Yoruba Officers, involving the active participation of soldiers from the North. The aim, as has been stated again and again, by the leaders of the coup was to release Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who was in detention at the time and install him the Prime Minister of Nigeria.

That coup was foiled by Igbo military officers. Igbo political leaders and activists knew nothing about the coup.

Again the Incursion into the Mid-Westby the Biafran troops was not a quest for territorial grabbing by the Igbos. Ojukwu sent troops under the Command of Col, banjo in response to Chief Awolowo’s request for troops to help liberate Yoruba land from the occupation of soldiers from the North. By the time Col Banjo got to Ore, the British had gotten Gowon to offer Chief AwolowoVice Chairmanship of the Nigerian Government. Awolowo, therefore, asked Banjo not to proceed on his mission.

General Yakubu Gowon knows the truth of all these things. And that is why the Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF) had written him and asked him to tell Nigerians and the whole world the truth about the January 15, 1966 coup and the Biafra incursion into the Mid-West.to stop all the lies against Ndigbo, which have beenthebasis of the burden they carry as a nation within the Nigerian Federation.

Secondly, Chief OlusegunObasanjo, the former Head of State and a frontline commander on the Federal side during the war, said that they (the Federal military leaders) conducted the war without any hate or vengeance because it was a quarrel between brothers.

To this one is constrained to ask a few pertinent questions

1. How did the world come to describe the conduct of the war as POGROM?
2. What about the policy that hunger was a legitimate weapon of war and so was justified in its application against the Biafrans?
3. What about bombing of refugee camps, market places, churches, etc?

Again, when Chief Obasanjo said that they, the victorious side, have been more magnanimous than the victors in the American civil war,where, according to him, those who lost the war never had a chance to be President of America until several decades if not a century later, I would ask him WHAT ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA? WHAT ABOUT NELSON MANDELLA?

Such assertions rather than heal the wounds of the war, keep the wounds aglow, rather than reconcile pour raw paper of unjustified arrogance on the wounded hearts of the Biafrans. How can you genuinely talk about reconciliation with that kind o mind-set. The truth is that for General Obasanjo, the Biafrans are defeated people. Period!

Indeed, before we can talk about reconciliation, we must accept that grave wrongs were done to the Biafrans, Before, During and Since the end of the war.

1. Tribute to General Yar’Adua.

NOW, Mr Chairman, Ladies and \Gentlemen, let me go onto thank the organisers of this Conference- the Yar’Adua Foundation and the six Nigerian Universities partnering with the Foundation; the Ford Foundation and theOpen Society Initiative for West Africa who have provided support for this Conference - Biafra: 50 Years After.

What is more, I would like to pay tribute to the memory of my late friend, General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua. I met him for the first time during the 1994-5 National Constitutional Conference. There we struck a friendship that would have born great fruits but for his untimely death. I personally escaped being arrested with him.

General ShehuMusa Yar’Adua, became a great democrat after the war despite his aristocratic background. He genuinely believed that this wobbly Federation could be given a dependable foundation. Consequently, he set out to recruit gifted compatriots to work with him for that purpose. What a great hunter of talentShehu was!

I remember two memorable moments in our interaction. One afternoon, after lunch in his house, we sat down on the sofa. I asked him

“General why is it that when you are not smoking cigar (cigarette), you are chewing kola nut?

He answered me. I will not tell you his answer today. Wait for my Memoire that should be ready by my next birthday.

At another moment, also after lunch with him and late Prof. Aborisade, wesat down on the sofa.Shehusaid to me “Dr Nwala, let me show you why we Northerners are reluctant to relinquish political power”.

He brought outtwo volumes of strategic studieswhich he had commissioned some intellectuals to produce in preparation for the Constitutional Conference of 1994-5. I glanced through volume 1 which deals with the indices of power in Nigeria. I read the discussion, looked at the statistics and the graph, and shook my head, and said to myself this guy is a great political actor. I also reserve the details of what I read inthat volume as well as our discussion for the sake of my forthcoming memoire.

I saw those two volumes of strategic studies at the Library of the Yar’AduaCenter when I visited there about two week ago.

What is important in this narrative is that General Yar’Aduawas avery sincere leader, he always spoke to me and to anyone in his political company from the bottom of his heart. He was sincerely in search of a genuine way forward. He was a man who knew that all is not well with the Nigerian Federation and genuinely sough the correct path to its healing!

The point of the story is to reveal a bit of the life of this great political strategist, who if he had lived after that Conference, he and the powerful circle of comrades he had built at the Conference would have helped to see to a more liberal accommodating political order in Nigeria. Shehu was the darling of a liberal democratic movement that was emerging in Nigeria before he died. He was equally hated by what many of us call the hegemonist who have consistently aborted every opportunity to create a democratic political culture. It is the later who have consistently made it difficult to achieve a genuine reconciliation in Nigeria. It is these forces that have insisted on a Federation founded on the peace of the grave yard.

Yes, General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua along with the compatriots he had worked to put together would have constitute an authentic force for reconciliation and national integration. He was a victim of the forces of hegemony.

1. Post –Biafra Reconciliation – What Lessons?

During the trial of Adolf Hitler after Germany and her allies lost the war to the Allied Forces, the following exchange took place between Hitler and his interlocutor –

Interlocutor to Hitler: You were responsible for the Second World War?

Hitler: No! The Versailles Treaties was.

I believethis Conference has been provoked by the renewed agitation for Biafra.In that case, a similar question can be posed to the Biafra Self-determination Agitators in Nigeria today as to whether they are responsible for the renewed Agitation for Biafra.

I imagine that the Biafra Freedom Agitators, just like AdolfHitler, would emphaticallyrespond NO!Theywould rather blame the present upsurgefor Self-determination and Biafra and all its fallouts on all those leaders on the victorious side who, rather than pursuing the path of genuine Reconciliation, pursued the path of punitive retributions against those who lost the war.

Unfortunately, as it was in the case of the defeated Germany that was neither pacified nor conciliated, nor was it permanently weakened, so do we find in the case of Biafra, that despite all the retributive measures against her people, Biafra and the Biafrans, have neither been pacified, nor conciliated,nor have they been permanently weakened.

Unlike the Treaty of Versailles that exerted bloody pound of flesh on the side that lost the First World War, the victorious side in the Second World War padded their retributive actions with the Marshall Plan. And thus unlike the intended Carthagenian peace of the Versailles Treaty of 28 June 1919, the Marshall Plan brought a relatively permanent peace to Europe that withstood the shock waves of the cold war including the Cuban Missile crises.

In pursuing the lessons of the retributive post-war treatment of the Biafrans, I would ask the leaders on the victorious side –

When you took all their financial deposits in the banks and paid them only £20 (twenty pounds), what did you expect the result to be – pacification, conciliation or to have them permanently weakened?

When you allowed massacre of unarmed soldiers and leaders even when they had declared their return to Nigeria, what did you expect? I mean when you murdered Prof. KaluEzera or when you killed unarmed Col Onwuatuegwu in cold blood, what did you expect?

When you killed and also buried alive thousands of innocent civilians in Asaba, was that a circus show?

I escaped being killed at the end of the war through the mysterious intervention of my college mate, Mr Nwogugbe fromAsain Abia State who was a member of the Nigerian battalion that overran my area on that fateful day of January 8, 1970. The solders had sent for me and when I arrived at NkwoMbaise their base, Nwoguegbe instantly recognised me and shouted Nkume! I responded Nwoguegbe! Despitebeing introduced to his commander, Captain Jibowu, the later took him to one corner, asking to be convinced why I should not be treated in accordance with the official instructions, namely to waste any such able-bodied young-man who may have been an actual or potential Biafra soldier. I was lucky. Nwoguegbe saved me, but several of my mates from my community were not.CornelliusOguikpe, Michael Osuagwu, EfriamChukwunoyerem, EchewodoOnwunali, all were murdered at the end of the war by the Nigerian soldiers.

Yes, post-Biafra was not attended by any genuine efforts to seek reconciliation nor even to find out what led to the war. Rather, what we have witnessed is decades of vengeance, arrogance and conspiracy against Alaigbo and Ndigbo–

Yes these are on record -

• Immediate post-war punitive massacre,
• Dismissal of some officers on the losing side, reduction in rank of others
• Dismissal of civil servants.
• Secret Execution of some officers (Col. Onwuatuegwu, Prof, KaluEzera)
• Abandoned property seizure of Igbo property.
• Punitive boundary adjustment.
• Closure of the Eastern Sea Port and Railway lines.
• Deliberate policy of encirclement of Alaigbo, inciting Igbo outside Igbo heartland to reject their Igbo identity.
• Deliberate policy of exclusion from the governance and power equation i Nigeria..
• Deliberate policy of destroying Igbo businesses.
• Continued massacre, lynching of Igbos in many places in the North
• Insensitivity to the plight of the IDPs of Igbo extraction whowere initially the major targets of Boko Harm bombings and killings.
• No serious effort at post-war reconstruction and reconciliation

I strongly recommend to all those who care to understand how the Igbos view their predicament in the Federation to read the Petition of Ohanaezendigbo to the Human Rights Violations Investigating Committee of 1999. It is captioned

The Violations of the Human and Civil Rights of Ndigbo in the Federation of Nigeria (1966-1999).

President Obasanjo should speak to the nation now about why and how that initiative of his was aborted. A Truth and Reconciliation was a great idea, but just like all National Conference decisions meant to deal with the resolution of the injustices of the system. It was arrogantly dismissed and nothing happened.

1. Biafra : A Collective Guilt

• Have we forgotten that Biafra was a collective guilt and that those who created the Nigerian Federation did so to satisfy their own agendaThey designed a local a local agenda for the same purpose?
• Have we forgotten the cause of Biafra and the war? Have we ever come together to examine why Biafra?
• Obasanjo’s Truth Commission and the Justice Oputa Commission were arrogantly dismissed and nothing happened.
• Who was the aggressor in that war?

1. Aborted Efforts to Solve the Nigerian Problem

What about several efforts to sit down and dispassionately examine the fate of the Federation and how to heal the wounds of the past.Several aborted historical opportunities for peace and stability, or a genuine democratic system include -

• Ibadan Conference of Sept/Oct 1966
• Aburi Accord.
• Abiola’s election that wuld have set a precedent.
• 1994-5 Constitutional Conference and the 1995Draft Constitution, the best Constitutional Draft in the history of Nigeria.
• Conferences organised by Obasanjos regime.
• President Jonathan’s 2014 Conference.
• Current Ferocious opposition to restructuring.

1. Laying the Foundations for Genuine Reconciliation – The Biafra Initiative

The Birth of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) – A child of the post-war East Central State Youth Volunteer Services Corps (ECSYVSC) whose memo to General Gowon led to the establishment of the NYSC by the Federal Government.

I led the delegation, as Chairman of the ECSYVSC, that delivered the Memoradum to the Federal Government on the eve of the first post-war independence anniversary, precisely on30th September, 1970.

In response General Gowon had given Dr UkpabiAsika’s Government £75,000 (Seventy-five thousand pounds) in appreciation of that historical initiative of the youth of Alaigbo.

The great objective of that historical initiative as conceived by us, the youth of Alaigbo, was to forge a genuine instrument of national reconciliation and national integration.

What has happened to the NYSC? Any credit to the initiators? Several attempts have been made by the chaps in the NYSC Foundation in Abuja to interview me in order to draw inspiration from the original mind that conceived the NYSC; each time they were discouraged from a follow-up.

It was the same way that a former Governor had advised the Federal Government to create an institution to house the Biafra scientist. The answer was no!, because doing so would give credit to the Biafrans.

1. The Road to Reconciliation.

Not Restructuring but Renegotiation of the basis of the Nigerian Federation.

Nigeria is a multi-national Federation. The task is to agree on the terms for a form of political union among these nations and mini-nations.

Unless this is done, there would never be any stable Federation uniting all these peoples who are culturally, religiously and philosophically separate nations and mini-nations.

Prof. UzodinmaNwala
President
Alaigbo Development Founda tion (ADF)