THE BIAFRA QUESTION: A CASE FOR SELF- DETERMINATION REFERENDUM

THE BIAFRA QUESTION: A CASE FOR SELF-
DETERMINATION REFERENDUM



(Being the Position Presented to the World
Media By the Lower Niger Congress On the
Issues Arising from the Global Biafra Protests)
BACKGROUND
Nigeria was a colonial-era creation of the British.
The country was on January 1st 1914 artificially
cobbled together by the annexation the then
Protectorate of Southern Nigeria to the then
Protectorate of Northern Nigeria in an exercise
officially tagged "Amalgamation".
The mind-boggling failures of this otherwise giant
promise on the African Continent has been the
subject of many researches and academic
inquisition.
Decades of routine, massive bloodletting which
punctuate these monumental failures came to
global reckoning in the years 1967-1970 when
Eastern Nigeria, one of the four Federating
Regions that constituted Nigeria, found itself in a
genocidal war. The war was levied on it by the
rest of Nigeria, having proclaimed itself the
Republic of Biafra in a desperate bid to preserve
the remnants of its population who were being
decimated in mass xenophobic killings by
rampaging Northern elements who clung unto a
false interpretation of a botched military putsch
in January 1966 in which leading Northern
politicians lost their lives.
These pogroms collapsed the Union of Nigeria
and the attempt to revive the Union failed in
January 1967 after an Accord reached in ABURI
was jettisoned by the Federal Side.
In the war that erupted, over 3 million Easterners
perished amidst the search for self-determinat
ion, in circumstances that cast a shadow of
doubt on the humanity of mankind of that era.
The gory pictures from the killing fields of
Eastern Nigeria, particularly defined by the bony
frames of thoroughly malnourished infants, with
protruding stomachs signaling the terminal
stages of hunger-induced kwashiorkor.
At the cessation of bomb and bullet hostilities in
1970, the victorious Federal side isolated the
Igbo of Eastern Nigeria and continued the War by
other means, particularly on the economic,
political and other fronts.
In the words of Lamido Sanusi Lamido, the
immediate past Governor of the Central Bank of
Nigeria and now the Emir of Kano:
"The Northern Bourgeoisie and the Yoruba
Bourgeoisie have conspired to keep the Igbo out
of the scheme of things. They have been
defeated in war, rendered paupers by monetary
policy fiat, their properties declared abandoned
and confiscated, kept out of strategic public
sector appointments, and deprived of public
services. The rest of the country forced them to
remain in Nigeria and has continued to deny
them equity. Our present political leaders have
no sense of history. There is a new Igbo man
who was not born in a 1966 and neither knows
nor cares about Nzeogwu and Ojukwu. There are
Igbo men on the streets who were never
Biafrans. They were born Nigerians and are
Nigerians, but suffer because of the actions of
earlier generations. They would soon decide that
it is better to fight their own war and maybe find
an honourable peace than to remain in this
contemptible state in perpetuity. The Northern
Bourgeoisie and the Yoruba Bourgeoisie have
exacted their pound of flesh from the Igbo. For
one Sardauna, one Tafawa Balewa, one Akintola
and one Okotie-Eboh, hundreds of thousands
have died and suffered. If this issue is not
addressed immediately, no Conference will solve
Nigeria's problems." (Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, at a
Public Lecture titled, "Issues in Restructuring
Corporate Nigeria" 11th September, 1999, at
Arewa House Kaduna).
For the sake of brevity, the Lower Niger
Congress adopts this succinct 1999
encapsulation of the Igbo misery in Nigeria,
though as to be expected, the situation has gone
much worse for the Igbo, with the introduction of
violent sharia by 12 States of Far North since
year 2000. There is no doubt that the 1999
prophesy of Lamido Sanusi Lamido is simply
fulfilling itself now, simply because nobody
heeded that sober call for equity.
Needless to recount here the several debilitating
Constitutional shackles, consciously emplaced by
the same victorious Alliance of the rest of
Nigeria against the East, in what now translates
to a master-servant Constitutional Order,
comparable only to the apartheid era South
Africa, presently anchoring Nigeria's
"Democracy."
It is against this backdrop that one can
meaningfully examine the dynamics driving both
the relentless, ubiquitous demand for 'Biafra,"
and the world-wide outrage of the Easterners
against the incarceration and molestation of
"Biafra" agitators.
It is also against this backdrop that one can
appreciate the urgency of Richard Branson's
recent reminder to the whole world of this dark,
shameful chapter of human history when he
republished those horrifying pictures and war-
time editorial comments on his Twitter page,
indicting his home country, Britain, for leading
other Allies, including the United States and
Russia, to visit such genocide upon a people for
no reason beyond oil.
Probably prompted by the resurgence of the
agitations for the resuscitation of Biafra, Richard
Branson had queried aloud, why 48 years after
the Biafra Genocide, the World pretends that
nothing happened.
••• OPTIONS FOR THE NIGERIAN STATE AND
THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY •••
Perhaps, a brief review of the circumstances of
the birth of Nigeria might help distill a clearer
understanding of the present difficulties and a
more informed solution model.
Recently Declassified British Colonial Records
and Documents in Nigeria, obtained by the Lower
Niger Congress and which have been widely
published in the last five years, show that the
Nigerian Union was deliberately skewed against
the South in favour of the North, with a clear
intent to create a permanent dominion of the
North over the South.
For purely commercial reasons, the more
endowed Southern Nigeria was politically
subjugated to the North in what the British
creators of Nigeria explicitly envisaged as a
permanent marriage between a poor Northern
husband and a Southern Lady of means that
gives Britain an indirect control of the Country.
By a cablegram message of December 1913, the
then British Secretary for the Colonies, Lord
Harcourt, boss to Lord Frederick Lugard, had
captured the purport and import of the
impending Annexation of the then Protectorate
of Southern Nigeria to the then Protectorate of
Northern in the following words:
"We have released Northern Nigeria from the
leading strings of the Treasury. The promising
and well conducted youth is now on an
allowance of his own and is about to effect an
alliance with a Southern Lady of Means. I have
issued the special license and Sir Frederick
Lugard will perform the ceremony. May the Union
be fruitful and the couple constant."
It is noteworthy that the Amalgamation
announced January 1st, 1914 was celebrated by
grand durbars in Zungeru and Sokoto while it was
greeted by loud protests amongst the then Lagos
elite.
It was in celebration of this grand British bequest
to the North, that the then Premier of Northern
Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello declared to his
lieutenants in the week of Independence in 1960
that:
"THE NEW NATION CALLED NIGERIA SHOULD
BE AN ESTATE OF OUR GREAT-GRANDFATHER,
UTHMAN DAN FODIO. WE MUST RUTHLESSLY
PREVENT A CHANGE OF POWER. WE USE THE
MINORITIES OF THE NORTH AS WILLING TOOLS
AND THE SOUTH AS CONQUERED TERRITORY
AND NEVER ALLOW THEM TO RULE OVER US
AND NEVER ALLOW THEM TO HAVE CONTROL
OVER THEIR FUTURE" ~ Parrot Newspapers,
12th October, 1960.
It is self-evident that the current Constitutional
regime in Nigeria is the full implementation of
this script and it is within the context of that
1960 Mission Statement and Battle Script of
1960 that one can understand the mindset of the
Northern political gladiators who in 2010
proclaimed that the North would make Nigeria
ungovernable should Jonathan or anyone else
from the South emerge President in 2011, since
according to them, "it will be tantamount to
stealing our Presidency."
With all these in focus, the Lower Niger Congress
posits as follows:
(1) That the Union of Nigeria was a grossly
inequitable imposition on the Peoples Southern
Nigeria by the British Crown.
(2) That all efforts to transform it into a Union of
agreement had been frustrated by those from
the North, who proclaim they were born-to-rule
the rest.
(3) That the disputations constantly rocking the
foundation of Nigeria are more of a deep-lying
clash of civilizations than the previously held
views revolving around shallow symptomatic
issues such as economic disparity and
corruption.
(4) That the twin phenomena of Sharia and
Feudalism, make the Union of Nigeria unworkable
since the faith and social dictates of one group
requires them to kill the other group who they
consider "infidels" and inferiors. Since no one
can compel the Muslim North to abandon Sharia
and embrace Democracy and Constitutionalism
nor can anyone compel the Christian South to
embrace sharia and feudalism in place of
Christianity and Constitutional Democracy. It has
been a Union of attrition.
(5) That the attempt to "equalize" the two
mortally opposed civilizations saw the elevation
of mediocrity in the name of Quota System and
now "Federal Character" and the result has been
the wreckage the world calls Nigeria. The
frustrations arising from this has more than
anything else, fueled the demand by the peoples
of Eastern Nigeria to get off the yoke of Nigeria,
with the routine bloodletting engendered by
irreconcilable religious and political differences.
(6) That the issues that led to the Biafran War
remain starkly unaddressed, as recently
espoused by Senator Godswill Akpabio (Former
Governor of Akwa-Ibom State) who also named
the perpetrators of the Biafra Genocide to
include Yakubu Gowon, Theophilus Danjuma,
Olusegun Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari.
(7) The geopolitical alignments that drove the
2015 electoral round re-enacted a sharp imagery
of the geographical formations in which the
Nigeria-Biafra War of 1967-1970 was fought.
However anyone else may view it it, APC, was to
the Peoples of Eastern Nigeria, simply the same
old North/Southwest Alliance, formed to hound
off Jonathan of Eastern Nigeria (apologies to
Murtala Nyako).
The voting pattern in that election, forcefully
reinforced this perception, reminding us of the
painful past in which Eastern Nigeria was at the
receiving end of the conspiratorial Alliance of the
rest of Nigeria. The heavy, undisguised partisan
involvement of the Western powers on the side
of that Alliance in the rowdy 2015 Elections was
a sad reminder of the unconscionable
international marauding in the Nigeria-Biafra War
as recently pointed out by Richard Branson.
The current escalation of the quest for an exit
from the failed Nigerian Union must therefore be
seen by the global Community in its true context
as the continuation of an almost 50 years old
fight for Self-determination driven by a clash of
irreconcilable civilizations and cultures, erected
by Colonial fiat.
Providentially, the United Nations Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2007, offers a
fresh window of engagement with these volatile
issues in a manner that steers everybody away
from the specter of violence, since a simple
Referendum can resolve the matter instead of
War and violence.
It was in pursuit of this NON-VIOLENT option
that the Lower Niger Congress stepped in in April
2015 by Convening a SOLEMN ASSEMBLY OF
THE PEOPLES OF THE LOWER NIGER IN PORT
HARCOURT 27th April 2015 at which it was
unanimously resolved that the Peoples of the
Territory shall go to a Referendum to determine
their political future in exercise of their Right to
Self-determination.
An 1885 Map of the Lower Niger (being the
contiguous aggregation of the Ethnic
Nationalities of the former Eastern and
Midwestern Regions of Nigeria), was adopted as
the geospatial description of the Territory and
preliminary works are already in progress to
achieve the Referendum in the first Quarter of
2017.
In choosing to Federate in this formation, deep
consultations have been ongoing for several
years now and an appreciable measure of
consensus reached, having regards for actual
ethnic demographics in the Territory, apart from
the Decreed creations of Nigeria.
Plebiscites shall be used to ratify borderline
cases where such needs arise. It will be recalled
that Midwestern Region first opted to stay out of
the Nigeria-Biafra War until the botched swift
military maneuver of Biafran Troops to Lagos
dragged the Midwest into the War.
Lower Niger Congress therefore invites all
stakeholders including the International
Community, to accept the pursuit of this
peaceful process of Referendum as the most
viable answer to the long-standing Biafra
Question.
It needs be restated that what the Biafra
Agitators are seeking is simply Self-determinat
ion, completely legitimate under the relevant
United Nations instrument to which Nigeria is
signatory. The method of pursuit is by way of a
Referendum. It is therefore unnecessary to
criminalize the agitations nor introduce violence
as Nigeria seems to be doing in its heavy-
handedness against the Biafra agitators.
In the same vein, the Lower Niger Congress also
calls on the Biafra agitators to embrace the
Referendum Option since it leads to the
destination of the freedom they seek.
The Lower Niger Congress also calls on the
Nigerian authorities to immediately release all
persons detained in connection with the
agitations for Self-determination and instead
engage them in dialogue, as is done in a
democracy, especially since the President of
Nigeria had at 2015 United Nations General
Assembly called on the World Body to facilitate
the exercise of that right by the people of
Western Sahara in Morocco.
ISSUED BY THE LOWER NIGER CONGRESS THIS
5TH DAYS OF NOVEMBER, 2015.
FRED AGBEYEGBE (President)
TONY NNADI (Secretary-General)
LNC Secretariat: +234 810 056 9448