We Are All Biafrans… but are we all Biafrans?

The headline sounds strange? I agree. Give me a few seconds to explain; please.
We Are All Biafrans is the title of a new book by Chido Onumah, a prolific opinion writer described by Professor Odia Ofeimum as someone who has raised “opinion-making about Nigeria to the standards of great, uncompromising art.”
As stated in my previous writings, I get easily excited about books. The launch of a new book is, to me, more like the birth of a child.
On Thursday last week, I took delivery of seven publications sent from the United States. All, except one, are on the American Senate and House of Representatives. Most were written long before I was born.
Two of my friends who saw me with the books quickly concluded that I must be preparing for a career in politics; and in the legislature. A secret service agent who was present asked: tell us the truth so that we can start the necessary preparation.
The truth is that politics is not good at old age; except you want to be a lazy bench warmer. That ended the discussion.
The U.S. legislature, or what they call the Congress, is reputed as the most stabilised and influential in the world. It is good to know how they did it. How did their system evolve to be where it is now?
My only concern is that a hungry man can hardly read with understanding. It doesn’t matter, I’ll keep the books until the price of garri drops and tomatoes are purged of Ebola.
For your information, books don’t get old. Or let’s put it the other way: the older the books, the more nutritious they become; especially historical materials.
The reason is that ideas hardly fade. They can be improved upon; but they are hardly outdated. Yes, digital age has replaced analogue. So what!
Please don’t be misled; the book by Chido Onumah is not about Biafra – a geo-political contraption, though a hugely necessary one, spearheaded by the late Ikemba Nnewi, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu in the late 60s.
The author, Chido, as we all call him, has a way with words. The use of Biafra is merely metaphorical.
His previous two books Time To Reclaim Nigeria and Nigeria Is Negotiable: Essays on Nigeria’s Tortuous Road to Democracy and Nationhood, as you can see, have hair-raising titles also.
We Are All Biafrans is simply “a participant-observer’s interventions in a country sleepwalking to disaster,” according to the author.
It is “a book that aims at reawakening our consciousness to the precariousness of our present situation. The intention is not to scare us but to highlight the urgency of addressing our existential crisis in order to avert the looming catastrophe.”
That is where the metaphorical application of the term Biafra comes from.
The title of the book, on a closer look, comes from a statement by Ojukwu in Because I am Involved. In that book, Ojukwu did note that “all over Nigeria, there is Biafra, but that the Biafra of today is the Biafra of the Nigerians and not the Biafra of the Igbos, the Biafra of the mind not the Biafra of the fields.”
On another day, I will try to respond to that unacceptable and curious description of our dear Nigeria by Chido as a “… a country sleepwalking to disaster.”
For today, I will allow him to enjoy the peace and fresh fame the public presentation of his book splash on him.
Chido’s book, though a compilation of his writings on both the conventional and online newspapers in the last three years, is timely and unsparing. He argues that many, if not all of Nigeria’s problems, are rooted in the structure of the country.
That is vintage Chido, an apostle of a proper federating structure for Nigeria.
In the book, he proposes a socio-political restructuring of Nigeria; contending that the country needs to properly engage what he calls episodic convulsions that are threatening its very foundation.
These include Biafra, June 12, Boko Haram, the National Question, Citizenship Rights and what he has coined “militocracy.” He left out the Niger Delta militancy.
Let me quote an analysis of the book by a certain anonymous reviewer: “In We Are All Biafrans, Onumah takes on Nigeria’s indolent and reactionary ruling elite – civilian and military – and their allies, as well as bandits in uniform, scoundrels posing as statesmen, and conservative ideologues, religious bigots and ethnic chauvinists posing as patriots.
“He raises the fundamental questions: What is Nigeria and who is a Nigerian? If Nigeria is a federal republic, what constitutes or should constitute the federating units?
“He posits that the different manifestations of Biafra may well be a metaphor and, to that extent, we are all Biafrans as long as we seek to confront the clear and present danger.”
The great Edwin Madunagu, states in a prologue to the book: “The young Nigerians now threatening to actualise Biafra should forget or shelve the plan.
“In place of ‘actualisation’ they should, through research and study, reconstruct the Biafran story in its fullness and complexity and try to answer the unanswered questions and supply the missing links in the story.”
We Are All Biafrans is a compilation of beautiful narratives by one of Nigeria’s radical commentators. You may not agree with everything Chido says but you are likely to agree with the manner he says them.
He fires straight; no pretensions. My conclusion is that the Biafra in all of us is gaining roots and deserves in-depth examination.