Mentor Ogbeni Kadiri,
I know that the mere mention of one word "Biafra" is anathema and enough to bring some people out of hiber-nation. If only the same name could also achieve the resurrection of the dead.
As Curtis sang, sadly,
"And the soldiers who are dead and gone
If only we could bring back one" ( Curtis Mayfield : We got to have peace)
I'm thrilled by your latest pronouncement that "An Igbo republic will, however, be a just cause." I have never heard or read you saying that before, so it looks like there's some hope on the horizon and I hope that the Igbo are listening and can hear you : Ogbeni Kadiri says that going for an Igbo Republic would be a just cause !
From the Biblical point of view, given that everybody presently inhabiting this earth is a descendant of Noah and his sons, the Igbo as probable/ improbable descendants of one of the ten lost tribes of Israel that were kidnapped and taken to Babylon which was in Iraq - from where they may have escaped/migrated and found their way to South-Eastern Nigeria - at least just like the Israelites of old, the Igbo must have a sense of people-hood - not just religion, in their genetic code. and as you know it's a family affair, the House of David etc. it's all about people-hood...
The causes / motivations for the first push for Biafra have not completely disappeared and today there are several other severe causes such as what some may describe as the severe shortcomings bordering on mismanagement of the nation and the economy by the current administration which is not seen to be living up to the promises of change that the leader made when he was campaigning passionately all over the country, on the election trail. You have already apologised for him and explained that it is not his fault that the price dropped from $100 to $40 per barrel of the nation's lifeblood oil or that the senate has been dragging its feet - in fact will never confirm President Buhari's preferred appointee as anti-corruption lord , the very one who many members of the current senate know/ fear is the one who would be investigating them for alleged corruption and so in the name of self-interest above national interest, they will never confirm any such appointment or wish him any success.
According to all reports Vice-president Yemi Osinbajo Buhari's new Tunde Idiagbon is doing well in the absence of President Buhari who has been away in London on medical leave since the 19th of January this year, so it's not as if the country will be facing a constitutional crisis if - God forbid - President Buhari does not return to his office in Nigeria until he is completely recovered / recuperated
But let's face the reality Sir : If only they could have their own choice - by e.g. a peaceful referendum! It's not everybody that would like to continue forever, to be a part of a nation in which Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen (so they say) are now holding sway. It's natural. You do remember this kind of clamour from the brethren in the United States :
"Amidst the cries of Let's build a nation!
Separation, y'all, separation t y'all
Separation, separation" (The Last Poets : It's A Trip )
Of course in the US, at this late stage we hear about "Nigerian Americans" - it has not yet degenerated to any particularisms of tribal factionalism such as "Igbo-Americans", "Hausa-Americans" etc. As Richard Pryor joked, "I think that niggers are the best of people who were slaves, and that's how they got to be niggers 'cause they stole the cream-of-the-crop from Africa and brought them over here. And God, as they say, works in mysterious ways, so he made everybody a nigger…he brought us all over here — the best — the kings and queens, the princesses, the princes, put us all together and called us one tribe: Niggers." — Richard Pryor, Wattstax (1973)
Since I'm here to learn please, you and those who know and care, please correct me when I'm wrong: re- what you say about coercion : "can never be a just cause as long as it wants to forcibly incorporate the ethnic minorities" and so forth.
When were the borders of Biafra finally drawn? I ask because I don't know.
You know better than anybody else that the war proceeded in a flash and I guess that for strategic purposes the Biafrans at the very least had to create a buffer zone ( I'm thinking of Israel and the strategic Golan Heights which must be a part of Israel in any final status deal when it comes to delineating in Israel's case, defensible borders - and Israel and their little enclave in the Bekaa Valley in South Lebanon 1985 - 2000 - another temporary buffer zone and more pointedly, about your comment on "Obi Nwakanma wrote, "By September 1966, in its own counter measure, Enugu 'captured' the Midwest, and was on its way to capturing Lagos and Ibadan." I'm thinking of Ariel Sharon in 1973 in the Yom Kippur War in a position to surround and capture Cairo - which did not mean that Israel was going to annex the capital of Egypt or all of Egypt and the Sinai. It was all about defeating the Arab armies and in the case of Biafra - in defeating the federal army and being able to hold on to the land mass of Biafra proper - not that Ojukwu was hell-bent on annexing Lagos or Western Nigeria???
About what you call ethnic minorities (of course the Yoruba are not an ethnic minority anywhere in Nigeria) but let's take South Sudan for example - in 1991 I met a lot of Dinka people ( refugees) in Alexandria in Egypt and got to know a little about the ethnic diversity of South Sudan . Consider the various minorities living everywhere in Nigeria...
Finally (since it's getting kind of long) I should just like to add that the greatest fear of non-Biafrans about Biafrans achieving their goal seems to be that if they do, then other ethnicities would probably like to follow suit, maybe even like to strengthen their positions in the South-East, by making an alliance with Biafra proper in order to achieve a joint aim - who knows, some kind of future confederation/ economic union. If you recall Sir, at the 2014 National Conference in Nigeria any talk about the dissolution of Nigeria was a non-starter - so it would seem that Nigeria should be held together forcibly, if need be, as a just cause?
I leave you with
Cornelius
On Saturday, 4 March 2017 19:08:29 UTC+1, ogunlakaiye wrote:
Biafra cause has never been, is never, and can never be a just cause as long as it wants to forcibly incorporate the ethnic minorities of Ikot-Ekpene, Uyo, Eket, Ogoja, Calabar, Oron, Annang, Yenogoa, Warri, Ahoada, Degema and Port Harcourt who are not Igbo into Biafra. An Igbo republic will, however, be a just cause.
S. Kadiri
Från: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com > för Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
Skickat: den 4 mars 2017 15:45
Till: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Ämne: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Today's Quote--Chidi,
Re- Biafra revisited :
Verily, it's a matter of "He who feels it knows".
I say this now and forever, that the Biafran cause is a just cause.
If Lord Lugard were alive today, I'm sure he would be examining the realities of the UK leaving the European Union...
Maybe I'm biased because I have spent so much time in Owerri, Aba and Umuahia, but I can find no reason for anyone not to respect another person's or people's collective wish for unfettered freedom / self-determination, whether it is the Palestinians or the Biafrans who happily or unhappily, fairly or unfairly have been welded together without even as much a marriage vow that goes "from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part" - a vow administered over their heads and without their consultation or mutual consent , the amalgamation of so many very different nations, different religious and cultural grouping into Lord Lugard's grand visionary colonial experiment known as the United States of Nigeria.
How you go about pursuing this goal of One Nigeria is another matter altogether. The experiment can succeed with the goodwill and the needed flexibility for compromises by the parties to the concept. I'm not saying that it was a forced marriage of many nations wedded or welded together against their will. Fact is that even marriage vows, duly and willingly attested, can be annulled or disbanded - the ideal of " till death do us part" is not written in stone and that's why divorce is always an option , even in Islam. I'm sure that the Supreme Being of the Igbo, whether you call Him Hashem or Chukwu or Olodumare, in His infinite mercy does not want two people - or the host of some 250 human ethnicities to be unevenly yoked together for all perpetuity, if they do not consent to such.
The political scientists among us will tell us that Nigeria is a political and not a religious amalgamation - and in saying so they are partly right, even as they point to the evolution of the Holy Nigerian Constitution ( not written in stone) a constitution which still anticipates and probably needs further amendments to meet the exigencies of foreseen/ unforeseen situations.
Muammar Qaddafi did give his reasons for saying that Nigeria should be split into several states
Chidi , that other matter, the legend of the Igbos as one or more than one of The Lost Tribes of Israel ( As for me and I'm very proud of my heritage, I don't have that kind of problem as it's quite clear and beyond any kind of dispute whatsoever that my mother, and her mother and sister (fiercely and assertively so - just ask Shola Clarkson or the Stobers or Rogers-Wrights) and her mother's mother and father all down the line are bona fide Yoruba and not of "one of the lost tribes"
Sincerely Yours,
Cornelius
On Saturday, 4 March 2017 13:10:00 UTC+1, Chidi Anthony Opara wrote:Anybody who read Ojukwu's Aburi speech and "Ahiara Declaration" would know what it means to be prepared for a cause, unlike the current jokes in the name of Biafra. When prepared, even those who disagree with you will respect you.
CAO.
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