Biafra: 50 years on and the violence continues

It was 14 September 2017. I woke up with a start. It was about 4pm. I was still recuperating, and I was sleeping that afternoon in my room, and someone was shaking me and calling my name. I blinked. I might have started involuntarily. I was in my old home in Umuahia. My parents and other members of my family were there, brothers, nephews, nieces, cousins. We had friends and supporters outside and inside. I had felt safe, secure.

Then I heard the gunfire and I understood what the man standing over me was trying to tell me. I had to get up. I had to get out now. Soldiers had come. They were attacking the compound, shooting, killing my friends and family.

But I refused to go. I suppose for a minute or so I refused to believe what they were telling me: that the soldiers had come to kill me; I would be shot in the head, dumped among my dead companions in a shallow grave on the side of some road. They would say I had resisted arrest. That we had opened fire on the soldiers. That we were to blame. But we had no guns in the house. We only had our voices. And my men had been telling the soldiers they had no right to en ter.

My name is Nnamdi Kanu. I am the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). All my life my colleagues and I have been working for Biafran self-determination, the right for the people of Biafra to choose their own destiny, to be free from persecution. You may remember the Biafran war, 50 years ago. In May 1967 Biafra was left with no choice but to secede from Nigeria only to face a vastly superior invasion army and a blockade of food supplies supported by governments as diverse as the UK and the Soviet Union.

You may remember those photographs of starving children, their bellies distended, crying with hunger, crying without tears because their tear ducts had dried up. Dying mothers, Biafran youth dead on the roads around Port Harcourt. How many Biafrans were killed because of this deliberate policy of starvation has been argued ever since. But it is in the millions. We believe five million. Other estimates are anything between one and eight million. But a handful of adults and children would have been too many, never mind millions. 

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Mbaka’s gov prediction in Imo State shocking - PDP elders

The Elders Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party in Imo State has reacted to the prediction of Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka, who declared that the All Progressives Congress’ governorship candidate in the last election in the state, Senator Hope Uzodinma, will take over power from the incumbent Governor Emeka Ihedioha.

The elders expressed shock that the priest pronounced judgment at his Adoration Ground in favour of the APC candidate in the election.

They, however, dismissed the prediction as very sad and contemptuous of the nation’s Supreme Court.

Their views were contained in a statement issued on their behalf by Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu.

They argued that the Independent National Electoral Commission which conducted the polls had in the pursuit of its duty as the electoral arbiter, declared Ihedioha of the PDP, who scored the highest number of votes cast and also fulfilled all the other constitutional requirements, winner of the poll.

The decision, the elders said, was received with a loud ovation by the people of the state.

They said, “Since then, Emeka Ihedioha has assumed office and very noticeable transformation has taken place in all aspects of life of the Imo people.”

The statement explained that the elders were impressed with the governor’s achievements in the areas of road maintenance, water supply and security.

The elders urged the people of the state and supporters outside the state who worked hard to effect the change in the state that brought Ihedioha to power, to remain calm.

They also urged the people of the state to wait on God and the verdict of the highest court in the land.

The elders congratulated the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), for maintaining neutrality and for resisting the temptation and pressure from some politicians, to use his position to influence the result of the election.

PUNCH