By Okey Maduforo, Awka
Ex-Biafran soldiers have condemned the mass killings in the South East, Nigeria by the Fulani herdsmen.
The war veterans, Col. Joe Achuzia (aka) Air Raid, and Prof Boniface Egboka, said that the killings have resurrected the ghost of the 1966-1970 Biafra Nigeria civil war, which prompted some Igbo leaders to call for a full-scale war in defense of their teritory.
Achuzia in a telephone interview described the killings as yet another pogrom against the old Eastern Nigeria Region, while urging Ndigbo to rise and defend themselves against what he called a plot to exterminate the race.
According to Achuzia, “The killing by Fulani people is reprehensible. Before, we know them as nomads that carry cattle from place to place. Now they have started killing people. This is reprehensible and I make bold to say that this is a similar way our people were killed in the north. What is happening now is pogrom. Any mass killing of a people by another race is pogrom and that is exactly what the Fulani herdsmen are doing. ”
Achuzia pointed out that it was wrong for one to sleep without protecting his home. “It is only a mad person that will go to sleep without securing his home. Our people should stand and protect themselves. We have that constitutional right to do so. This is called self-defense. If this type of thing continuous then we are doomed. How can a community watch its homes attacked and their kinsmen killed and they keep calm. They should protect themselves. This is no longer those days when we see them as Fulani men that carry cattle about and we see them as harmless people. A fresh and new pogrom has started and it nay spread to other parts of Igbo land if we fail to defend ourselves at this point.
“While we wait for government to come into the matter we should be seen to be doing something proactive and not to keep mourning and crying while death is close to our door step.”
In the same vein, another ex-Biafran soldier and former Vice Chancellor of Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, Prof Boniface Egboka, alarmed that what snow-balled into the Biafran-Nigeria civil war has started again.
He said that the massacre by the Fulani herdsmen was “an attempt to remind Ndigbo that they are war captives.”
“It is unfortunate that Ndigbo are again faced with another mass killing.
“That was how it all started and our brothers and sisters were killed in the North. Pregnant women had their unborn babies ripped-off and children were killed like chicken. This time around it is happening in the South East and our senators and House of Representatives members are watching. This is yet another way of telling us that we are war captives and we must remain a conquered race.
People may think that it is one of those things and sooner or later we shall come to terms with the realities of the under current.
“I saw the pogrom and I saw the war. I saw people suffer. I saw hunger I saw frustration. I saw orphans. I saw psychological distress. There was pogrom and those things are still happening now”.
Also, leader of Movement for the Actualization of a Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Comrade Uchenna Madu, said that the time for action was now or never.
“This is no longer the time for so much talking. Talking is cheap and anybody can say whatever he or she wants to say. All we need now is action. I mean real action. Does it mean that we do not have men in Igbo land? Does it mean that our young men and women are cowards?
Enough of this nonsense. This is a game plan by the Nigerian government. They first arrested Nnamdi Kanu and then sent their people to start the killings people should not see us as cowards. We have all that it takes to get back at them and the time is now.”