The FG And Mishandling Of The Biafra Agitation

Back in the rolling 80’s, when music made sense and sense was found in music, Jamaican reggae great, Max Romeo, waxed philosophical in a song titled, “Tan and See.” He crooned, “When your hand in the lion mouth/Me said me take time pull it out/ No need to jump and prance/ Danang see no spoil no dance.” Hmm! One believes that a little heeding of Romeo’s advice could solve many of Nigeria’s domestic problems. Unfortunately, Nigeria’s domestic policies have always resembled a “macho” attempt to shove the hand down the lion’s throat in the hope of killing the lion.

The handling of the Biafran problem is a case in point. The Federal Government has, at all opportunities, dismissed the agitation as a futile exercise, and disdainfully advised the agitators to shut up and face the “fact” – Nigeria must remain one no matter whose ox is gored. Paradoxically, Vice President Osibanjo, recently made history as the first government official to appeal to reason and logic. He famously said, while commenting on the agitation, “The most successful of the nations of the world are those who do not fall into the lure of secession, but who through thick and thin forge unity in diversity."

Against the run of federal government sabre rattling and threats, Osibanjo’s statement acknowledged that “Today some are suggesting that we must go back to the ethnic nationalities from which Nigeria was formed. They say that secession is the answer to the charges of marginalization.” However, the statement failed short of asking the necessary questions and providing the needed answers to checkmate the agitation and halt the Biafran uprising. It failed to address the issue of marginalization, though it was broached.

It is public knowledge that the South East and the South South have the strongest sense of distinctiveness and grievance in the country. The South South had a psychological reprieve when Goodluck Jonathan, by an act of God, became president. The South East have not had that small sense of inclusiveness after the war, and still feels unsafe in large swaths of territory in Nigeria. They (and the South South) still record great casualties in genocides in the North (without the malefactors being brought to book) and are usually shortchanged in politics. This strong sense of grievance was the reason the lock down ordered by pro-Biafra forces in the region in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the declaration of Biafra in 1967 was such a great success.

The Nigerian Civil War (which birthed the ill-fated Republic of Biafra) was a curious misadventure. Some Igbo soldiers attempted a coup and in the course of it killed some national leaders. By commission or omission, most of the leaders killed were from the North, which party, was in power then. Another Igbo soldier, who was not part of the coup but head of the military, cashed in on the situation and took over as Head of State. The sense of grief in the North was strengthened by this indiscretion. Sadly and unfortunately, it led to a pogrom and a counter coup. It also led to divisions in the army.

Wikipedia maintains that Ojukwu insisted that military hierarchy be preserved after the killing of Aguiyi Ironsi, and urged for Brigadier Babafemi Ogundipe to be allowed to take over the leadership of the country. Gowon, however, was the coup plotters’ choice. “The fall out from this led to a stand off between Ojukwu and Gowon leading to the sequence of events that resulted in the Nigerian Civil War,” Wikipedia posits. According to New York Times, Ojukwu was a reluctant rebel who tried unsuccessfully to dam the tide of anger in the east after the pogrom in the North. Thereafter, “the East saw war” and, technically, the war ended in 1970. General Yakubu Gowon won the war to keep Nigeria one, but failed to win the peace.

That is the real discontent, fueling the Biafran fire. Gowon did not live up to his hype of “reconciliation, reconstruction and rehabilitation” (the three R’s.) The three “R’s” rather took place in Lagos and other parts of the country – not in the theatre of war. The sense of defeat was left to hang like a fog in Harmattan. The war scars were not healed. The nation moved forward and left the East behind to stew in its defeat and pick up the pieces of its broken life.

Successive governments have failed to fix things up and give the South East a greater sense of inclusiveness. Obasanjo’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which could have helped to put some healing balm on that sense of grievance, turned out to be a national talk show of comic proportions. Gowon, in recent interviews, had admitted that he could have done more to heal the wounds of the war. Other statesmen have acquiesced that after 57 years of the nation’s existence, there would be nothing amiss in taking steps to let the South East know that it is as much a stakeholder in the Nigeria project as the other regions.

Perhaps having a South East president would douse the Biafran fire, some statesmen suggest. It is a formula the nation should consider in solving the Biafra equation. Given the strong sense of regionalism, whenever a group produces a leader, members of the group would believe that it is their turn “to shine.” More so, a South East president might be able to talk the South East out of thoughts of secession. More so, The South East might want to rally behind their son and support him to succeed. This is largely hypothesizing, but then every scientific law started as an hypothesis.

This is the “nut in the bottle” approach. There are several ways to catch a monkey. One way is to put a nut in the bottle and the monkey would grab the nut and then find it difficult to free his paw. Perhaps we need to put the presidency in a bottle for the South East and see whether Nigeria could use that to “catch” them and keep their "paws" in the national project.

All said and done, dialogue remains the best option to address nationalistic issues - not arm chair sermonizing or sabre rattling. When a man says that he is pained, you do not tell him “shut up and live with the pain.” You ask him, “Why are you pained?” This is the question that empathizes with the aggrieved and seeks a solution. This is the question Nigeria should ask the South East.

It is sad to note that Nigeria’s hand is in the lion’s mouth with conflicts everywhere – Boko Haram, IPOD, MASSOB, Fulani herdsmen, Niger Delta militants etc. What is needed is to take time and wisdom to pull it out. If you seek to shove the hand down the lion’s mouth, you simply give the lion more meat to chew off. That is what the Federal Government has been doing lately – shoving its hand down the lion’s mouth. They inadvertently give the Biafra secessionists enough meat to chew off. They should rather seek to pull the nation’s hand out of the mouth of secessionists. The lockdown was so successful in the South East because we have not tried to heed Max Romeo’s advice.