The struggle of the Igbo for self determination

In most of my writings and even in my books, I always advocated for a non-violent approach to the self determination struggle of Igbo people in Nigeria. This week, my friend and brother, a gentleman and Anglican priest, the Venerable Promise Okoroafor who resides in Poland forwarded a clip to me. That clip rekindled my desire to revisit the Biafra struggle, which I thought I should share with my friends and associates.

Unfortunately, the originator of the script preferred to write incognito although his message resonated with what I had always preached – that if Biafra must come, it should no longer be at the expense or waste of the lives of the cream of Igbo youths. After all the excruciating experiences the Igbo had before, during and even after the Nigerian civil war, Biafra should no longer be about shedding blood.

All through history, there have been numerous cases of countries that opted out of a union without going through the path of violence. And of course, there have also been a few that waded through bloodshed into freedom. A few examples, and the reasons separation is a plus and not a minus, will suffice.

In 1776, America seceded from Great Britain. Their declaration of independence from the United Kingdom was a momentous event. All of the reasons they desired self determination were chronicled in one document appropriately named The Declaration of Independence.

The declaration noted that when, in the course of human events, it had become necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitled them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind required that they should declare the causes which impelled them to the separation.

So, they declared: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to accomplish their safety and happiness.

"We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honour.” And that was how America broke up with Britain.

In 1830, Belgium separated from Netherlands. Belgium, known at the time as Southern Netherlands, and Holland as Northern Netherlands were united to form one state. The new state was ruled by King William I. The king’s policy which was beneficial to the Belgian bourgeoisie, made the way for secular protest. Catholics in the union objected to the interference of the Protestant king in clerical matters. The Liberals demanded more freedom. The Catholics and the Liberals had drawn up a list of demands in 1828. After a series of incidents, a revolution erupted in Brussels in 1830. William I sent in his troops, but they were expelled on 27 September 1830. Following a successful revolution against rule from the Netherlands, a provisional government in Belgium declared its independence on 4 October 1830.

In 1905, Norway split from Denmark and also from Sweden, each going its separate way. Norway over the centuries had been an independent kingdom which formed part of a unified Scandinavia and had been joined with Denmark alone and then with Sweden alone. Over a century ago, the union with Sweden was dissolved.

In 1921, Ireland split from United Kingdom. 2021 marked 100 years since the government of the United Kingdom and Ireland divided the Emerald Isle into two self-governing political entities—Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland—under the Government of Ireland Act. What was intended as a temporary solution in the face of unrest, violence and rebellion became known, even a century later, as Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

In 1944, Iceland split with Denmark with remarkable ease. Even though Iceland remained under Danish rule, the Icelandic ‘Althing’ was restored in 1845 as a national consultative assembly, and in 1874 the country obtained a constitution giving the Althing its own legislative power. Home rule was introduced in 1904, and in 1918 Iceland became an independent and sovereign state in personal union with Denmark. Among other things, the union meant a joint monarchy and that Denmark was responsible for Iceland's foreign affairs. The union came to an end in 1944.

In 1947, Pakistan separated from India. India and Pakistan won independence in August of the same year, following a nationalist struggle that lasted for nearly three decades. It set a vital precedent for the negotiated winding up of European empires elsewhere. Unfortunately, it was accompanied by the largest mass migration in human history of some 10 million. As many as one million civilians died in the accompanying riots and local-level fighting, particularly in the western region of Punjab which was cut into two by the border. The agreement to divide colonial India into two separate states – Pakistan with a Muslim majority and India with a Hindu majority – was commonly seen as the outcome of conflict between the two nations' political elites. This explanation, however, renders the mass violence that accompanied partition difficult to explain.

Malaysia and Singapore union flags

On 9 August 1965, Singapore separated from Malaysia to become an independent and sovereign state. The separation was the result of deep political and economic differences between the ruling parties in Singapore and Malaysia. Even before the proclamation of the formation of the Federation of Malaysia on 16 September 1963, leaders from both sides were mindful that these differences “could not be wiped out overnight”. At a press conference announcing the separation, then Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew was overcome by emotion and broke down. Singapore’s union with Malaysia lasted for fewer than 23 months.

In 1971, Bangladesh seceded from Pakistan. An internal crisis in Pakistan resulted in a third war between India and Pakistan and the secession of East Pakistan, creating the independent state of Bangladesh.

From 1992 to 1993, the two parts of Czechoslovakia agreed for each to go its own way. In such a way, the Czech Republic and Slovakia evolved after what was named the “Velvet Divorce”.

About the same time, another kind of separation occurred in Yugoslavia which led to bloodshed. Yugoslavia effectively ceased to exist between 1991 and 1992, when four of its six constituent republics – Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia seceded. The federation of the two remaining republics, Serbia and Montenegro, was called Yugoslavia until 2003, and from 2003 to 2006, the Union of Serbia and Montenegro. In 2006, the union was dissolved.

Yugoslavia broke up into its six constituent republics: Croatia which seceded in 1991, Slovenia which also seceded in1991, Bosnia and Herzegovina which seceded in 1992, Montenegro and Serbia both of which seceded in 2006. Kosovo separated from Serbia in 1999 and declared independence in 2008. The end of the Cold War brought about political liberalization in the Communist states of Eastern Europe, including Yugoslavia, which was a multi-ethnic federation. Another cause of tensions was economic crisis of the socialist system. In new conditions, people demanded democracy and self-governance for their homelands, which led to their secession from Yugoslavia.

Ethiopia and Eritrea put an end to their war

In 1993, Eritrea split from Ethiopia. Following the communist Ethiopian government's defeat in 1991 by the coalition created by various armed groups notably the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) among others, Eritrea declared its independence. Eritrea officially celebrated its 1st anniversary of independence on 24 May 1994.

In 2002, East Timor split from Indonesia. The landmark vote in 1999, in which 78.5% of East Timorese chose independence from Indonesia, was the culmination of 24 years of occupation by Jakarta and, before that, hundreds of years of colonial rule by Portugal.

In 2011, Southern Sudan declared its independence from Northern Sudan. Despite some obstacles, the eagerly awaited referendum took place. A week-long vote on independence for Southern Sudan was held 9–15 January, 2011, with the results indicating the south’s overwhelming preference to secede. The nation of South Sudan declared independence on 9 July 2011. Today, Northern Sudan and Southern Sudan are two separate countries.

Russia today is broken down into several countries. The former superpower was replaced by 15 independent countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

One important fact about these splits is that they created the scope for healthy competition among the various ethnicities. In the case of Nigeria, a split between the ethnic races of the northern Hausa Fulani going for an Arewa Republic, the western Yoruba going for an Oduduwa Republic and the Eastern Igbo going for a Biafra Republic would make a healthy competition possible within an ECOWAS umbrella and a wider African Union umbrella. And of course, this should not call for bad blood or any form of misunderstanding.

On the contrary, Nigerian political leaders should appreciate the truth that this amalgamation into a ‘giant of Africa’ where human life no longer has any meaning, where people are being kidnapped every day for ransom, where children cannot go to school anymore for fear of being kidnapped from their schools, where the police is mauled down at check points while on official duty, where elderly men and women cannot go to market anymore for fear of sit-at-home enforcement, where royal fathers and members of their families are brazenly kidnapped in broad day light and in some cases killed, where judges are hounded out while delivering judgments at court and shot dead in court premises in the full glare of everyone and no arrests are made, is not working to anyone’s advantage.

The rich and the poor of Nigeria

The giant of Africa is bleeding and there is just one way to stop all this waste of human and material resources. Let Nigerians go for a referendum to decide for themselves if they have any reason to continue to stay together or if they want to carve out more independent countries from Nigeria, that might cooperate among themselves and other countries like China, Japan, Australia, Canada, Israel and so on, to keep Africa more diversified in its choice of allies that can influence its democratic growth. An overview of the Nigerian situation might help project the need for a seamless breakup of the ill-working Nigerian experiment.

The major problem with the Nigeria “Union” appears to be the determination of the northern political bloc to use its supposed greater population to have its way in everything that concerns the country. So, let us take the circumstances one after the other and see how this mental attitude of the northerners is affecting the togetherness of the Nigerian state.

Both in the north and in the south, it is an open secret that the struggle of poor Nigerian families has continued to hinge on how to wage the war on hunger from devastating their families and how to send their children to school. On the other hand, the ‘struggle’ of the rich has always been for the ownership of oil blocks and the security of fat contracts from government. Many of them who own oil blocks make billions of naira every week. To consolidate and maintain their circle of the rich and powerful from the north, the west and the east, is what ‘one Nigeria’ is all about as far as they are concerned.

The oil block business in Nigeria had become so lucrative that any attempt to investigate the activities of players in this sector of the economy was always frustrated. The money that passed through the undercurrent was so much so that those who were in the game offered bribes in millions of dollars. A birthday gift or child naming gift from an oil block owner to a government official could be as “little” as $US2 million. And if the official's father died, the condolence gift could come up to an “ordinary” $US3 million. If an oil block owner in Nigeria wanted to bribe a legislator, it was in millions of dollars and if there was any investigation of his activities, it ended within days in his favour.

Those families who were favoured with oil blocks in Nigeria were so confident that with their money they could buy up the country. And they were succeeding. Among them from the north were Alhaji Mai Daribe, Retired General Theophilus Danjuma, Prince Nasiru Ado Bayero, Colonel Sani Bello, Alhaji Mohammed Indimi, Alhaji Saleh Mohammed Gambo and Alhaji Aminu Dantata. Rilwanu Lukman, one-time OPEC Chairman also had stakes in Nigeria's oil blocks. In the West, there were Alhaji W.I. Folawiyo and Mike Adenuga. And in the East there were Dan Etete, a former petroleum minister, Peter Odili, a former Rivers State governor, Andy Ubah and Emeka Offor. This was just one way military rule led those in authority to balkanize Nigeria.

We are not yet talking of the billions that went by way of payment to hundreds of thousands of ghost workers in the civil service or the billions that were stolen from pension funds meant for the upkeep of older Nigerian citizens who spent the better parts of their lives working for the country. With all the money at their disposal and with the teeming millions of hunger ridden, ordinary citizens yet unable to find two square meals a day to eat, Nigerians still unashamedly talked of ‘One Nigeria’. They still talked of democracy.

Hand amputation for stealing in Zamfara state

But times are changing. Many years ago, a Muslim in the north who was caught stealing a cock or tuber of yam because he was hungry would have his arm amputated as punishment. These days they do not simply steal cocks or yams but human beings and they are paid millions of naira for it and not their heads cut off in punishment. They are compensated for kidnapping fellow Nigerians. This sort of 'climate change' in our generation simply means that Nigeria must reinvent itself. Nigerians must reassert their old selves. They must discover new ways of grappling with old problems and new challenges. One way to do this is to genuinely agree to the truth that the ‘one Nigeria’ experiment is just not working. It has never worked.

The likelihood is that things might get messier and messier until no one is safe anymore. Even those who go around with bullet proof cars, they don’t sleep in those cars. They come and they mix with their hungry, red eyed ‘supporters’. They too are at risk. So, no one is really safe. Even royal families in the south and north have been kidnapped at some point. The situation is as bad as that.

So, just as I have been drumming it in a long while in my writings, there is a serious need for Nigeria’s political leaders to liberate their countrymen and women from their colonial slave mentality, remembering that even Britain was once a Roman colony. Today, compare Rome with London. America was once a British colony. Compare America today with Britain. To do this, Nigerian political leaders should first change that name ‘Nigeria’ to something authentic and African. Arewa is an African name and it is fine. Oduduwa is an African name and it passes the test. Biafra is not exactly an African name. It was of Portuguese extraction but the Igbo can opt for another name such as the Igbo Republic.

In other climes, the British named them Burma. They rejected it, restructured and renamed themselves Myanmar. The British named them Upper Volta, but they rejected it, restructured and renamed themselves Burkina Faso - Land of Incorruptible People. The British named them Gold Coast. They rejected it, restructured and renamed themselves Ghana. The British named them Southern Rhodesia. They rejected it, restructured and renamed themselves Zimbabwe. The British named them Northern Rhodesia. They rejected it, restructured and renamed themselves Zambia. The British named them Tanganyika. They rejected it, restructured and renamed themselves Tanzania. Germans named them Colony of South West Africa. They rejected it, restructured and renamed themselves Namibia. France named them Dahomey. They rejected it, restructured and renamed themselves Benin. Belgium named them Congo. They rejected it, restructured and renamed themselves Zaire. Britain named a bunch of people - Nigeria. They preferred to kill themselves to preserve the name given to them by their colonial master rather than restructure and give themselves a befitting African new name. That is as far as Nigerian leaders can go with the “giant of Africa”.

If we look at data on Nigeria, we find that Nigerians actually no longer need this “giant of Africa” mantra. Rather, there is a need for more vigorous and healthy competition between the various tribes that make up Nigeria, especially now that the controversial southern crude oil has been found in the north and there would be absolutely no reason this time for the stranglehold the north always had on the southerners with their purported numerical strength, on account of their oil. This has been one area of conflict in the difficult relationship between the northerners and the southerners. But now that oil has been found in the north, hopefully, the northern political elites would concentrate on exploiting and exploring their new find and leave the south alone.

Another important point to note is that the north has so much land for agriculture that it can compete favourably with the manufacturing technology of the south, especially the east. In terms of land ownership, Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital territory are ranked as follows: Niger State 76,363 km²; Borno State 70,898 km²; Taraba State 54,473 km²; Kaduna State 46,053 km²; Bauchi State 45,837 km²; Yobe State 45,502 km²; Zamfara State 39,762 km²; Adamawa State 36,917 km²; Kwara State 36,825 km²; Kebbi State 36,800 km²; Benue State 34,059 km²; Plateau State 30,913 km²; Kogi State 29,833 km²; Oyo State 28,454 km²; Nasarawa State 27,117 km²; Sokoto State 25,973 km²; Katsina State 24,192 km²; Jigawa State 23,154 km²; Cross River State 20,156 km²; Kano State 20,131 km²; Gombe State 18,768 km²; Edo State 17,802 km²; Delta State 17,698 km²; Ogun State 16,762 km²; Ondo State 15,500 km²; Rivers State 11,077 km²; Bayelsa State 10,773 km²; Osun State 9,251 km²; Federal Capital Territory 7,315 km²; Enugu State 7,161 km²; Akwa Ibom State 7,081 km²; Ekiti State 6,353 km²; Abia State 6,320 km²; Ebonyi State 5,670 km²; Imo State 5,530 km²; Anambra State 4,844 km² and Lagos State 3,345 km². From the above data, it is easy to observe that in terms of landmass, in the East, Anambra plus Enugu plus Abia plus Imo plus Ebonyi equals 29,525 km² while Kogi alone is 29,833 km².

More than enough land in the north for cattle ranching

In the west, Lagos equals 3,345 km². Add that to Ogun plus Oyo plus Osun plus Ondo plus Ekiti is equal to 76,320 km² while Niger alone is equal to 76,363 km². This means that Niger State is equal to the entire Southwest States minus Lagos while in the east, the entire southeast is little less than Kogi State. So, the North has enough land for ranching and cattle colony. The South has very little land in comparison and yet Fulani herdsmen find pleasure in forcing their way into the farmlands in the south, destroying farmers’ crops, raping the women and their daughters they find in the farms and killing any farmer that challenges them.

The quest for self determination is the inalienable right of human beings. Unfortunately, the political and military leaders of Nigeria erroneously made up their minds that “to keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done.” Some insisted that the unity of Nigeria is non-negotiable. That was because those in public offices were benefitting from that sort of hypocritical ‘unity’ at the expense of their suffering countrymen and women. In a true democracy, if one member of the union is no longer comfortable with its situation in the union, it has the right to opt out and no one has the right to force it into a union it feels it has nothing to gain from.

Northern Nigeria has more than enough land to do cattle rearing and has no business terrorising farming communities in the south in the name of cattle rearing. The north now has oil and would need to explore that and take its eyes off the oil in the south. With all these facts and figures, there will be no need for any form of violence in the struggle for self determination of the Igbo, the Yoruba and the Fulani/Hausa nations. The new government that is led by Alhaji Asiwaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his deputy, Alhaji Kashim Shettima, should give these new facts a serious thought and come up with laws that can seamlessly allow federating members of the experiment called Nigeria to quietly go if they so desire to do. Forcing them to stay together creates the impression of a conquered people and if that is the case, I think the Igbo and perhaps the Yoruba are capable of telling the world that no country can do that to them. Only the Igbo can conquer the Igbo by sabotaging themselves. That, they must avoid if they don’t want to be enslaved in their own country.