Biafra Day: Misusing the power of remembrance. The killings in the South East and other egregious actions that impact negatively on the Igbo population in the name of Biafra are needless. They do not honour the memory of those who died so that we may live. It is high time the masterminds stopped.
In his article titled, “Biafra Day: How not to honour the fallen heroes,” my friend and colleague, Emeka Alex Duru, lamented the bizarre attempt of some misguided Igbo youths to keep the spirit of the dead alive by killing the living all in the name of a utopian Biafra.
“Causing harm to the living, putting the future of the youth on the cliff, disrupting the life of the people and economy of the region, instigating chaos, lawlessness and loss of lives in the South East, cannot be a way of remembering the Biafran fallen heroes,” he admonished.
I agree in toto! And every Igbo should be worried over what happened in the South East on May 30, 2024.
I am worried because those who are promoting this war mongering ideology seem to have learnt nothing from our history. There is no doubting the fact that May 30, 1967, will remain epochal in Nigeria’s socio-political annals. That was the day the then military governor of the defunct Eastern Region, Lt. Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, declared the region an independent, sovereign nation called Biafra following military coups that culminated in the 1966 anti-Igbo pogrom.
The ensuing civil war which began on July 6, 1967 and lasted through January 13, 1970, remains one of the most bestial ever fought in human history where starvation of fellow human beings, an unconscionable crime against humanity and one of the most egregious violations of human dignity was proudly proclaimed a legitimate instrument of war.
Mr. Alison Ayida, one of Nigeria’s most celebrated civil servants who led Nigeria’s delegation to the July 1968 Niamey Peace talks in Niger Republic, told his scandalized audience that “starvation is a weapon of war, and we have every intention of using it against the rebels.”
And they did to the consternation of many across the globe. Out on the hustings on September 9, 1968, Richard Nixon, the U.S. Republican presidential candidate, accused the Nigerian authorities of committing genocide against Ndigbo using starvation as a weapon.
“Until now efforts to relieve the Biafran people have been thwarted by the desire of the central government to pursue total and unconditional victory and by the fear of the Ibo people that surrender means wholesale atrocities and genocide. But genocide is what is taking place right now – and starvation is the grim reaper. This is not the time to stand on ceremony, or go through channels or to observe diplomatic niceties. The destruction of an entire people is immoral objective, even in the most moral of wars. It can never be condoned,” he said.
But the starvation was an official course of action by the General Yakubu Gowon regime, a fact which was reiterated by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, then Minister of Finance on July 28, 1969, when he said: “All is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I don’t see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight harder.”
READ ALSO: Tinubu’s best-forgotten first year in office
But it was not only the Biafran soldiers that were denied food. The civilian population was the worst hit and women and children were deliberately starved to death in their millions.
But those blood-chilling utterances were mild compared to what Benjamin Adekunle, Commander, 3rd Marine Commando Division, Nigerian Army told a French Radio reporter in the heat of the war: “I want to see no Red Cross, no Caritas, no World Council of Churches, no Pope, no missionary, no UN delegation. I want to prevent even one Ibo from having even one piece to eat before their capitulation. We shoot at everything that moves and when our troops march into the centre of Ibo territory, we shoot at everything, even things that do not move.”
Two decades after the horrendous World War II, the world could not understand such atrocious disposition by people laying claim to humanity, so much so that Washington Post, in its editorial of July 2, 1969, not only lamented that, “One word now describes the policy of the Nigerian military government towards secessionist Biafra: genocide. It is ugly and extreme but it is the only word which fits Nigeria’s decision to stop international Red Cross and other relief agencies from flying food to Biafra,” but also likened the federal forces to the Nazis.
“The Nazis had resurrected just here as Nigerian forces,” the newspaper lamented.
So, remembrance is in order because as the Jews would say, every Remembrance Day is a poignant historical moment of reminder, of bearing witness, of learning and acting upon the universal lessons of history because there is always the danger of forgetting, which is tantamount to the killing of the victims a second time.
Remembrance is not a call for vengeance and retribution but as an Igbo proverb tells us, a man who does not know where the rain began to beat him cannot say where he dried his body. That is the essence of remembrance. The power in remembrance lies in the fact that it sustains humanity with hope because remembering is one of the things that actually makes us human.
But how we remember is important because it determines what lessons we draw from what we remember, which explains why the last May 30 Remembrance Day as ordered by the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) went awry.
When IPOB and other allied groups ordered South East residents to compulsorily stay indoors in honour of those who lost their lives during the 1967-1970 civil war, it was a recipe for crisis. It was no surprise that it turned tragic with the killing of five soldiers in Aba by unknown gunmen.
They should have paid heed to Chinua Achebe’s admonition that: “A man who makes trouble for others is also making trouble for himself. When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool. The only thing we have learnt from experience is that we learn nothing from experience.”
There are definitely better ways of marking the Biafra Remembrance Day. What about organizing a lecture under the auspices of Ohanaeze Ndigbo? What about holding Church services across the South East in honour of the dead? What about imploring those so inclined to wear a symbolic black armband on the day? What about requesting Ndigbo all over the world to observe a one-minute silence at a given time in honour of the fallen heroes? What about honouring, in a special way, Bruce Mayrock, the 20-year-old Jewish American student who set himself ablaze in protest against the genocide on May 30, 1969.
Till date, Mayrock remains one of the unsung Biafran heroes. Here was a young man who paid the ultimate price for a people he never met, a country he never set his foot upon by setting himself ablaze in the UN garden in New York with a placard that read, “You Must Stop Genocide! Please Save Nine Million Biafrans.” He was a pacifist. Legend has it that while he was being chased by UN guards, he ran to a statue bearing the Biblical inscription “Let us beat our swords into plowshares.” He didn’t die immediately as he was rushed to Bellevue Hospital where he was pronounced dead on May 31, 1969.
The events of last Thursday in the name of remembrance do not honour the memory of Bruce Mayfield and, indeed, all the fallen Biafran heroes.
Nigeria as presently structured is not working and will not work until it is fundamentally restructured. That is not a job for Ndigbo alone because the country is happening to all. When Nigerians come to the realization that despite the temporary advantages those adept at gaming the system enjoy now, we are all losers in the long run, ultimately they will collectively do something about their country.
What is required of the Igbo in this season of anomie is wisdom, not rash action no matter the provocation. Let us not repeat the mistake of 1966. All the crises that led to the January 15, 1966 coup had nothing to do with Ndigbo. But at the end of the day, they were left to carry the can.
The killings in the South East and other egregious actions that impact negatively on the Igbo population in the name of Biafra are needless. They do not honour the memory of those who died so that we may live. It is high time the masterminds stopped. And this, I must say, is not cowardice because those who orchestrated the genocide of the late 1960s will do same again if given the opportunity and the international community that looked the other way while Biafrans were starved to death in the 20th century will do same again in the 21st century.