Members of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) have upped the ante to carve out a nation called Biafra from the ashes of the Civil War.
They are going about it with a doze of techy intellectualism and a network of alliances garnished with global conventions signed by the Nigerian state.
How far can the agitation go this time? Special Correspondent, SAM NWOKORO, investigates.
Civil right activists know when to hype demands. They are smart in exploiting opportunities and are experts in timing plots.
That was the pattern set by great revolutionaries like Martin Luther King, the black civil rights activist whose agitation led to racial equality in the United States.
King, a keen student of history and sociology, capitalised on the social sclerosis afflicting his country. The American society was fractured along all spheres.
Inequality in access to scholarships, bank loans, employment, fair wage, school enrolment, and other social provisions put blacks in the inferior rungs of social attainment.
That was all the tonic King needed to launch the campaign to repeal all racially biased laws. By 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed abolishing all forms of laws and policies lacking in social equity for tribes and races in America.
Many revolutionaries everywhere have since been inspired by King’s “I have a dream” speech – as in the independence of more African countries, eradication of apartheid in South Africa; as in agitations in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the independence of countries forced into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
Thus the agitation for carving out Biafra out of Nigeria is not new.
In the first attempt in 1967, a combination of local politics and dysfunctions that followed the departure of the colonialists (as the form of political structure left by Britain comprised a four-region nationhood) led to the championing of a Biafra Republic ignited by Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu.
Ojukwu had complained that the Nigeria created by Britain via the 1914 amalgamation had not accommodated the wishes and aspirations of the more than 250 ethnic groups and tribes in the country.
His grouse was that the major ethnic groups – Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba, and Igbo – had been lording it over the others, especially the Eastern region and the minority ethnic nations there.
The minority nations in the North and South when pooled together in population, landmass, economic resources, and productivity are greater than the major tribes.
Ojukwu’s attempt at separatism led to a civil war which lasted from July 1966 to January 1970. He surrendered after it became obvious that the international community saw the happenings in Nigeria as chiefly a British Commonwealth affair.
Even the major powers whose activism on the global stage today had helped accelerate the light of democracy around the world (the U.S., France, Russia, Canada, and Germany) had little or no interference in the Nigerian civil war.
The war was largely shut out of global consciousness and political calculations of the world powers, unlike what obtains nowadays.
Perhaps owing to the small size of the Nigerian economy at the time, which was largely agrarian, economic indices did not warrant the big powers to see the civil war as a threat to their own interests.
The root causes of the civil war – unequal access to political power and control of the economy in the central government – have not been revolved, even as military and civilian administrations have initiated several constitutional conferences.
Murmuring escalates into activism
Even as there has been a resurgence of clamour for regional autonomy, only a few of the Biafra agitators can provide detail of how the agitation resurrected after a long lull.
However, the absurdities that arose after the annulled presidential election of June 12, 1993 gave impetus to the Biafra resurgence.
Militancy in the Niger Delta for resource control in the face of the corruption during the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency (1999-2007) further emboldened the Biafrans to tinker with the idea of formalising their grievances into an effective force.
Part of the strategy is to get the government to tackle the social and economic problems in the South East.
MASSOB arrowhead, Ralph Uwazuruike, an Indian trained lawyer who claimed to be a follower of India’s hero, Mahatma Ghandi, maintains that Biafra could be attained with the force of law in a non-violent manner, unlike the 1967 experience.
His words: “The new United Nations is pro law. The old school theory that there must be a bloodshed before a new nation is created no longer holds since we entered the millennium 2000.
“Nigeria is signatory to all these conventions of the United Nations and should be bound by them. That is why Nigeria is supporting the Palestinian independence.
“That is why Nigeria has recognised the newly created nations such as the Czech Republic, Slovenia, the balkanisation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and even Namibia and Southern Sudan.”
Uwazuruike’s claims that successive governments have oppressed and discriminated against an estimated 30 million Igbo have struck a chord among thousands of young Igbo born after the civil war who have joined the MASSOB ranks.
The government initially saw MASSOB as an irritant, but its attitude hardened after the group organised a successful stay-at-home on August 26, 2004, which shut down private businesses and markets in the South East and in cities such as Lagos and Kano where the Igbo dominate commerce.
“It was not just a vote for MASSOB but a protest against the government (then under Obasanjo),” recalled Uche Okereke, a political science lecturer at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka.
“People in this region believe they are still being punished for the Biafran war and would point to the region’s bad roads, poor electricity supply and absence of Igbo in top military and security positions to illustrate allegations of systematic neglect by successive regimes.”
Just like then, President Muhammadu Buhari somehow has created the same feeling among them since he was sworn into office on May 29.
The consequence of Buhari’s missteps MASSOB usually points out is the appointments into key positions such as chief justice, attorney general, head of service, heads of military and paramilitary organs such as the Army, Air Force, and Navy.
That this lopsidedness took place despite provisions in the Constitution, especially national character principle, exacerbates the grievances, more so in a civilian administration where the deputy senate presidency is the only office occupied by the South East.
These new perceived anomalies reignited the campaign for the creation of Biafra, something MASSOB members know the government may not easily yield to without external pressure.
But the group too seems not deterred.
Last month, the government swooped on Radio Biafra sponsored by a new group called the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) comprising activists mainly from the South East and South South, about nine states put together.
By law or by force
The government arrested Nnmadi Kanu, a presenter on Radio Biafra, an outfit sponsored by IPOB to propagate its mission of carving out a country for the Igbo.
The station has been operating in several countries in the Americas and Europe. It has been broadcasting in Nigeria since 2010 but heard more loudly in recent times in many parts of the South East.
The government claims the views of Radio Biafra critical of its policies breach the peace.
But many have advanced arguments why Abuja ought to let Kanu off the hook because what he is saying on the airwaves are not different from what Nigerians have been hearing since MASSOB came into being.
IPOB, led by Dozie Ikedife, argued that the government is heating up the polity by harassing free speech.
MASSOB National Deputy Director of Information, Chris Mocha, insisted that IPOB is non-violent and its broadcast is not insurrection against the Nigeria authorities.
He urged the government to release Kanu and not breach his right to free speech.
“In as much as I am not in support of violent agitation or making of inflammatory statements against anybody for him to pass his message, I was the person that built Radio Biafra and commissioned it myself on behalf of MASSOB and the people of Biafra.
“But when I discovered he was using it against the main aim of the radio station, I backed out but I am calling for his release unconditionally,” Mocha said.
“MASSOB hails the steady and pragmatic progress of the Palestinian authorities in its bid to achieve statehood.
“The Palestinian flag was raised for the first time [last month] at the UN headquarters.”
He said the raising of the Palestinian flag is viewed in the context of MASSOB as opening the door of the spread of freedom to the darkest corners of the world to deserving “would-be nations.”
Campaign for Democracy (CD) has also called on Buhari to set up an enquiry on the alleged death of over 2,338 members of MASSOB since 1999.
CD South East Chairman, Dede Uzor, urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate all former South East governors whom he alleged collaborated with the federal authorities to maltreat Biafra advocates.
Online blogs and portals have been awash with pro Biafra sentiments since the independence of Southern Sudan five years ago.
Body politics, grave messages
Demand for the political restructuring of Nigeria rose after the annulment of the election held on June 12, 1993 and the death of Moshood Abiola, winner of the presidential vote.
The election in 1999 was seen as appeasement for the South West whose indigene, Abiola, died in prison custody while trying to reclaim his mandate.
That event marked the formation of pro-democracy movements and emboldened previously passive human rights agitators.
Past years of military brutality and the indifference of civilian leaders since 1999 to the fault lines in Nigeria’s federalism stoked audacious movements for regional autonomy, resource redistribution, and more individual human rights.
Various UN mandates and conventions since the new millennium have added impetus to these clamours.
Short aims, long aims
Notwithstanding intrusion by state security apparatus into its movement, MASSOB has gained sympathy for how it presents its case to the public.
Asked why MASSOB takes all the risks in pushing for separation, Mocha, said: “Boko Haram is making a case for Islamic state in a publicly announced confrontation and armed insurrection against the Nigeria state. But we are not doing that. MASSOB is nonviolent and only following the rule of law.”
Ikedife urged Abuja to negotiate with Biafra campaigners if it can consider negotiating with Boko Haram terrorists.
The issue of Biafra has also presented political actors in the South East the opportunity to blackmail.
When they lose relevance in federal power games, they run to MASSOB so they can be settled or compensated with appointments or largesse so as to not give the group credibility.
When All Progressives Congress chieftain, Rotimi Amaechi, sensed that he might be dropped from the list of ministerial nominees if he failed to boost his relevance in the party, he allegedly formed another MASSOB group.
Shortly afterwards, he was confirmed.
Uwazuruike said: “That is how they have been using the movement. But they cannot demystify us because we have the backing of the UN Charter on the rights of indigenous people for self-determination.
“They know MASSOB is greater than all of them, even their Ohanaeze.”
Some believe that MASSOB may settle for the restructuring of Nigeria along the present six zones if Biafra Republic is not realised in the immediate future.
However, most of those in the MASSOB high command scoffs at anything short of Biafra Republic.
Gregory Unachukwu, its zonal mobilisation official, said “whether they [Nigeria] like it or not, they must follow international conventions they have agreed to.
“Nigeria must restructure to progress.
“Nigeria cannot make any headway the way it is presently. Zonal autonomy is good, but you may also end up creating another minority within, and in the long run another agitation for separatism.”
Regionalism and the fears
Others who have asked for the restructuring of Nigeria include constitutional lawyers Ben Nwabueze and Itsay Sagay, and the late legal luminary, Rotimi Williams.
They had urged past administrations to reshape Nigeria to cut the cost of a presidential system, bring kit and kin closer in the bond of nationhood, and curtail the threat to the security of the country due to the value orientation of different ethnic nationalities.
They also asked Nigeria to follow global trends in harnessing the talent of citizens choked by the present fiscal system.
The eminent personalities had made the call long before the current insurgency began. But no administration since the return to democracy in 1999 has attempted to run Nigeria differently from the way it has been run since 1914.
The argument that restructuring does not necessary mean the break up of Nigeria has not been well articulated by leaders who think reshaping the country may cost them their heritages amassed in different parts of the country for their unborn offspring.
But OPC leader, Gani Adams, insisted that “restructuring of Nigeria is overdue, and whether we like it or not we would any moment come to it.”
