1966

January 16, 2012 12:04 pm 0 comments

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In recent days David Mark, the Nigerian Senate President, and Goodluck Jonathan, the President of Nigeria, have made statements referencing the year, 1966, the living symbolism of the final fracture of Nigeria; and the Biafra, the equally living reality of Nigeria as fully divorced from Biafra. Allusions such as “The situation today is worse than Biafra[-Nigeria]”; and “What is happening now is beginning to give an impression of 1966” were made not in response to the portentous Fuel Subsidy crisis—the crisis of the day for Nigeria, a mere spoiler at that, but to the sustained spike in the on-going selective killing of the Igbo in Northern Nigeria.

But, 1966 is a factual and historical reality which Nigeria has done everything in its power to repress and suppress, and David Mark represents a generation which supports and practices such repression, even if he can argue that he has not gone as far as some of his colleagues such as Gowon, Obasanjo, Danjuma, Yakassi, Babangida, Buhari and co. who in fact relish and justify the ethnic cleansing and pogrom which they incited, encouraged and participated in against the Igbo then and afterwards. Until recently, Jonathan for his part represented the generation who did not want to talk about Biafra. As a matter of fact, when Atiku, another member of this league and then Vice President of Nigeria, gave a policy-and-principle speech to the Nigerian Press and Media ostensibly on “Freedom of the Press”, he specifically chided them for allowing the word “Biafra” to reappear and be used and published by any outfit of the Nigerian press and then proceeded to exhort them to never mention Biafra. Imagine that!

Many Nigerians do not know that after the war, Nigerian rulers actually compelled international cartographers to strike the term, “Bight of Biafra” and erase it from the maps of Africa, West Africa and Nigeria. Parenthetically and ironically, just as many Nigerians do not know that the name, Biafra, for this region precedes Nigeria by—yes—five centuries! No matter: Nigerians wanted Biafra erased—literally, figuratively and symbolically. That’s how far they carried on just to avoid admitting and confronting history, and to rewrite such history for gullible Nigerians.

Speaking of that, no one illustrates such gullibility as Orji Uzor Kalu, the former governor of what’s-his-face-state-of-Nigeria in Biafraland, and the generation he represents. About six years ago, Kalu actually officially asked that the Igbo tender a collective apology to the North for the Igbo’s role in the 1966 pogrom against same Igbo by same Northern Nigerians; and for Nigeria’s ensuing genocidal war against same Igbo: imagine that. That was what the North convinced Kalu—and he agreed—had to be done, to accomplish what, one might ask? In fact, Kalu outdid himself: a Christian, he proceeded to use the instruments of state that were available to him as the governor to build mosques in Umuahia when the people of Umuahia made no such request of him. Of course, today, Kalu, like Mark and Jonathan seems to be waking up to the reality which they have tried so hard to avoid; in the news recently, Kalu is beginning to publicly question the on-going killing of the Igbo by Northerners. A case of “Better late than never” or “Too little, too late”?

Nigerian leaders and Nigerians have invested a lot of energy in avoiding a review and reflection on what happened to the Igbo at the hands of Northern Nigerians and the government of Nigeria in 1966, and the genocide committed by Nigeria on Igbo-Biafrans in the war of 1967-70 declared against Igbo-Biafra by Nigeria. Only the unavoidable shock of Boko Haram’s unconscionable, unimaginable atrocities against the Igbo today, but especially coupled with world attention, compels Nigeria to even make an allusion to similarities with the past—a past which they will not even admit, and which there is no sign that they will visit and learn from. This is reflected in the question of why it is the policy of Nigeria never to allow this history to be part of the Education / Academic curriculum.

So, when Mark says:

“We are confronted by security challenges in different parts of the country, which are testing our collective resolve to live together as a united indivisible nation…In the words of Gandhi, for unity to be real it must stand the severest strain without breaking…”

he certainly continues to reveal that he and his ilk are not facing up to reality—the reality of 1966 which he himself called the peoples’ attention to. There is in fact no “collective resolve to live together” as he claims. There is no such thing as “united indivisible nation” called Nigeria. 1966 through today prove him wrong and Boko Haram delivers the correct and practical lesson of the day for Nigeria. Can the Mark’s of Nigeria for once be truthful and factual? Even where Mark invokes Gandhi, one is left feeling sorry for his “…Let us not despair…” Well, Gandhi’s post-colonial India failed Gandhi’s own “unity test”: Muslim-dominated Pakistan could not live in unity with Hindu-dominated India resulting in the break we all know today. This has to be a Freudian slip for Mark: Nigeria, like post-colonial India does not pass Gandhi’s “unity test”, and just as India broke up, Nigeria will surely breakup officially. Biafra will finally split out of Nigeria and such will be reality and the result of the test of “unity” for Nigeria.

Regarding Biafra and the war, in “How I Got My Inspiration To Write Biafra Story -Chimamanda“ in the Saturday Tribune January 14 2012, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, award-winning author of “Half A Yellow Sun” was asked: “What led you to write a book about the Nigeria-Biafra war?” Her answer, in her own words, is culled below:

“…because I lost both grandfathers in the Nigeria-Biafra war,
because the war changed the cause [sic] of Igbo history,
because “Biafra” is still an incredibly potent word in Nigeria today,
because many of the issues that led to the war remain unresolved,…
because almost every Igbo person alive in the 1960s was affected by the pre-war massacres,
because colonialism makes me angry,
because the thought of the egos of organisations and men leading to the unnecessary deaths of children makes me angry,
because I realised how central Biafra was to my history…
because I grew up in the shadow of Biafra…
because I think we are in danger of forgetting…”

When pressed on the last point: “You say you think “we are in danger of forgetting.”Can you talk further about how the war is treated in Nigeria today?” Ms. Adichie, without any indication that she had them in mind, accurately describes the Marks’ and Jonathan’s of Nigeria thus:

“The war is still talked about, still a potent political issue. But I find that it is often talked about in uninformed and unimaginative ways–people repeat the same things they have heard and often don’t know the full story. It also remains–surprisingly–very ethnically divisive. The (brave enough) Igbo talk about it and the non-Igbo think the Igbo should get over it.”

1966 will not go away; it will not let anyone go either. The Igbo can never “get over it.” Neither can Nigeria / Nigerians, stealth-references notwithstanding. 1966 was there before Boko Haram. It will be there long after Boko Haram—in one form or another. After all, it already started in the 1940’s.

After the dust settles from the Subsidy debacle, 1966 will still be here—in the cloak of “Boko Haram” today; and tomorrow, by a different formation; and just as deadly, if not deadlier. Only the Independence of Sovereign Biafra can provide the proper lens for all sides to explore it, and the appropriate context to effectively deal with it—for all sides. Indeed, that is the destiny of the Igbo. But it, Biafra, is a destiny that will not come about passively: the Igbo must actively court and actualize that destiny—now. There is no time like the present: it is still 1966 and for the Igbo, that urgently means, “get out of the Hell called Nigeria!”

Oguchi Nkwocha, MD
Nwa Biafra
A Biafran Citizen
oguchi@comcast.net