BIAFRA: The unquenchable flame

KWENU! Our culture, our future

BIAFRA The unquenchable flame

CHINEDU MADUABUM

Onitsha, Nigeria

“The greatest asset of any nation is the spirit of its people, and the greatest danger that can menace any nation is the breakdown of that spirit - the will to win and the courage to work.”

- George Bruce Cortelyon

On the 30^th of May 1967, the sovereign state of Biafra was declared mainly as a result of the unaccommodating spirit that Nigeria had demonstrated a year earlier – the Pogrom. Biafra was born. It was like Jesus whom Herod, for fear that he would lose his glory, successfully, yet unsuccessfully made sure that the little Christ does not live to become king. Thus for 33 years, the mission was successfully put to rest but unsuccessful in the sense that the spirit of Christ dominated even till date. So also is Biafra. Hated from the day she was born, Biafra never saw the daylight. Surrounded by darkness, she struggled to survive and for more than 30 months, she held unto that dream till that day when the physical presence of Biafra became history. That history is what is being told even presently. Thus when those Biafran sons and daughters were in faraway New Jersey, remembering and recollecting their experiences and more importantly paying tribute to those who did not survive the ordeal, I knew that the spirit of Biafra is still alive and, as long as the spirit is still alive, Biafra shall one day be restored to its glory far better than we used to know, just as many still believe that Christ will surely come to rule forever. Thus, I am writing this article as my own quota and in agreement with what my brothers did in New Jersey. For I am one of those who still believe strongly that this beautiful bride of ours shall one day be actualised.

I am dedicating it to my uncle, Stephen Ernest Oranuka Maduabum who was executed by the Gowon Administration in 1966, and to all those who lost their lives during the struggle.

INTRODUCTION

Biafra is a legacy and cannot be wiped from the history of Nigeria whether as a nation or a divided entity. I cannot truly give a personal account of what actually transpired within that period of darkness in Biafra history because I was born after the war. Even at that, I have refused to accept the fact that I was not physically present during the war as long as reincarnation (ino uwa) is a reality in Igboland. My spirit within me testifies that. But we are living in a physical world that we have to accept realities more of the physical than the metaphysical. Thus I have been able to decipher the truth about Biafra from people who survived the War. These people, most of them wander the streets in Onitsha, where my focus is, in search of menial jobs to survive. It was at the instance of one of them, who came to repair the roof of a building, that I was able to know that most of the old men sitting at Ogbommanu -- a popular street in Onitsha, are Biafran veterans. He did not say much, but the little was enough to write a book. “It was like… you see a brother in pains, and you ask him… Kedu and he replies, Obi siri m ike; and, in less than a minute, the news flows in… He is dead!” They were killed by the science of destruction – war, yet their minds were stronger than the minds of the elites or elders of our land today.

A SHOW OF SHAME

The situation presently is no longer what Ndiigbo wants collectively but what “I want for my family” -- our brothers fought for the collective interest of Ndiigbo; a situation that is very much contradicting presently among Ndiigbo. The Southeast was the only region that Obasanjo so manipulated to the extent that he was able to dictate who will be who in the East. An unconfirmed source quoted him as saying: “Igbo no get leader, so anybody can be leader”! He is right of course; no thanks to these “errand boys” in Abuja. There can be no better confirmation of those words than the National Assembly “selection” in Anambra State. It is really shameful that such a thing will happen to a state like Anambra. If the Anambra situation is so sad, the manner and method for the selection of the Senate President was a stab to Ndiigbo. A man who did not win an election emerges Senate President and the highest ranked Igbo political appointee. Is this a curse or a course? Sometimes, I used to ask myself whether our so-called leaders or elders are indeed Igbo. Ohanaeze to me has failed as a group towards actualising the Igbo interest in Nigeria and should be dissolved and replaced by the Igbo National Assembly, where men of integrity will have to decide for Ndiigbo. Men born from 1960 and above, except for “Joshua” and “Caleb” -- that is to say, those born before 1960 but still believe by grace and faith: Biafra shall one day be actualised even against the “seven mighty Canaanite nations.” This is the type of spirit that must be injected in Biafra because Biafra is still alive.

A SHOW MORE SHAMEFUL

I have taken my time to criticise our leaders and even suggest they be exempted from the Igbo National Assembly, but I truly believe that the larger portion of the blame should be ascribed to Ndiigbo abroad. It will surprise many to know that the major obstacle to restoring the spirit of Biafra is Biafrans abroad, who have abandoned their land and seek to redress Biafra from a foreign land. How shameful that one will have to sing the “lord’s song” in a strange land. It is one thing to have the spirit to win and another to have the courage to work. Every year we sit and discuss about Biafra and Ndiigbo, yet we have not been able to look down to the root cause of our problem. I have always made it clear to those who care to know that as long as we continue to see Western civilization as the only effective mode of social life, we will never ever reach the “promised land.” Those who are leaders today were once youths, and what they were made to believe in their youthfulness is what seem to be driving them today. We cannot actualise our dream as long as we continue to allow our youths to make mockery of our pre-existing system. Those abroad stand the best chance of making our society more stable because they have seen both sides of the coin. Organising seminars in a strange land has little or no effect in transforming the lives of those who occupy the true land. How many of the affected attend these programmes if not the very few rich ones who have demonstrated over the years that all they want is theirs; something more and nothing less. Rather, you give the impression that America is heaven on earth. How do you then think that these young ones will ever live to think about the sacrifice, which their forefathers did for them? I will rather advice that if these seminars should be held in foreign soil, then let the participants be the youths abroad and the topic: “How America is psychologically destroying Biafra”; by so doing, our youths will have our ancestors in mind and not the Wilberforces; the Wilsons; Lincolns, to say the least.

The problem with our brothers and sisters abroad is that they know fully well that life is not as easy in America, as these our youths believe. They know fully well that poverty rate in America is among the highest in the world; poverty in this view has to do with the highest rate of frustrated and socially excluded people. They know very well that the blacks in America are not given good managerial positions. They know very well that for one to live in an apartment (a room, as it is called here) he must be ready not to accommodate more than one extended relations -- if the need be. They know that for one to visit, the terms of his stay must be reached and long before. They know all these things, to say the least. The question now is, why are they not educating our youths on all these to avoid the unnecessary flux of our youths into foreign soil only to end up more frustrated than they never were? If Biafra must survive, then her survival is squarely in the hands of the youths who will have to preserve the legacy for the upcoming generations. All that is being taught today is how America got her independence; deceptively, how Christopher Columbus discovered America at the expense of the aborigines; how shameful to say that Mungo Park "discovered" the River Niger when the Ijaw and other riverside inhabitants have been doing fish-farming in the river. The history of Biafra is not even part of the WAEC syllabi, but that of the Hausa and Yoruba is there. My fellow brothers abroad, I am very sorry to say these to you but the truth of the matter is that you have been to “heaven” and to “hell,” but you have failed to say the truth: that the true hell in this picture is “America” where people prostitute their true nature and character for material benefit.

CONCLUSION

The Biafran flame cannot be quenched no matter the effort made to quench it. It is a nation that has been chosen even before it was born; a nation predestined to war and lost, to be betrayed by her people and be sold into a foreign culture. But as it was prophesied “the bones shall rise again” so also shall the Biafran bones, which in this perspective has to do with the burning desire of Biafra by Biafrans to factualize their dream amidst stiff resistance from Nigeria and the Western powers by grace and faith. It is a flame that cannot be quenched by any person or persons. It is a dream that has come to stay. For so many years many people including Ndiigbo have sought for means to put to an end to the Biafran legacy by writing or reporting mendacities that cannot be imagined. We know what happened and the truth of the matter is that, no matter what people say there is bound to be an iota or element of those who will always say the truth and theirs is always unique.

Do not fail to always note that the devil was the first to practise falsehood under saintly show. Be wise as serpent, for it is better to trust the angel you don’t know than the devil you know.

OUR CULTURE IS OUR IDENTITY.