BIAFRA UPDATES...

Biafra update Biafra: Ndigbo elders have misled their youths Hussain Oboro 10:02 17/11/2015 The usual practice in Nigeria is that when politicians fail to make a meaningful impact or succeed in National politics they resort to playing ethnic or regional politics as a way of making themselves relevant and popular, at least among their Kit and Kin. The roles of intellectuals who are the worse peddlers of tribalism, hate and ethic jingoism in Nigeria today cannot be over emphasized and has been the chief impediment militating against National Cohesion, Integration and Unity. The culture of silence that has greeted the renewed protest and agitation by members of IPOB across the streets of the SouthEast and South-South states, by Igbo political and traditional leaders is a source of worry and calls for concerns. This goes on to expose the fact that there are very powerful, wealthy, traditional and political leaders that are jeering and encouraging the youths to continue to ground the economy of the SouthEast just for selfish desires. One would have expected the elected representatives of Ndigbo origin at the two chambers of National assembly and the traditional leaders to as a matter of urgency, return home and seek ways to calm their youths. The fact that ndigbo Youths have been deliberately brainwashed and misled by their elders and intellectuals is reflected in their utterances and threats in the build-up to the general election and against the government of President Muhammadu Buhari. First it was the cries of marginalisation and exclusion as a result of what they termed “Northern-dominated appointments” even when it was clear that the SouthEast and South-South only gave about 2.8% votes to president Buhari at the last general election. Not even the fact that each of the southeast and South-South states have been represented in the cabinet of president Buhari, together with some other appointive positions has been able to quel the tension and hate against the administration of president Buhari and the APC. It is also evidenced in the words of Prof. Chinua Achebe, in his book, ‘there was a country’. Page 68 of the novel reads in part. Also Read: Biafra Protests: Group foresees slide to tyranny “As many of us parked our belongings to return east, some of the people we lived with for years, Some for decades, jeered and said ‘Let them (Igbo) go; food will be cheaper in Lagos’ that kind of experience is very powerful. It is something I could not possibly forget... there were more and more reports of massacre, and not only in the North but also in the West and in Lagos. People were hounded out of their home as we were in Lagos, and returned to the East. We expected to hear something from the intellectuals, from our friends. Rather, what we heard was ‘oh, they had it coming to them’ or words to that effect..." Obviously, prof. Achebe wrote with a bit of emotions in trying to narrate the ordeal of Ndigbo during the 'dark episode' but the misleading aspect of his narration is the deliberate failure to mention or identify the sacrifices of people like Wole Soyinka, who lost the wardrobes of their wives to disguising Igbo officers and men as women till they were safely moved to the East. Prof. Achebe did not also mention the supreme sacrifice of Col. Fajuyi, the Military Governor of the West and host of Gen. Aguiyi Ironsi, who was credited to have told the mutineers not to kill his guest or else kill him alongside in that counter-coup of July 29, 1966. I suppose there’s a lesion to be learn from such gallantry., But I am still surprised why prof. Achebe deliberately left these out in his book. Achebe’s submission suggest to readers that the Yoruba in the west and Lagos also participated in the killing of Igbos in their midst, which was not the case. Contrary to widespread believe by Igbo youths (at least that’s what they were told by their elders) that Biafra war was as a genocide by the Northern-controlled Nigerian government against Ndigbo,