Nigerians are largely keeping quiet about the activities of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). Maybe they are doing so because a few years ago the Federal Government had declared the organisation a terrorist organisation and so they do not want to be terrorists by association. Or maybe Nigerians are waiting to see how the trial of its leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu at the Federal High Court in Abuja will go. Or perhaps this siddon-look posture is because Mr Simon Ekpa one of the promoters of the Biafra cause is undergoing a trial in Finland for activities connected with terrorism in Nigeria. Or maybe Nigerians are simply saying to themselves that if the young people promoting the cause choose to destroy Igboland they can do so because that is their territory. But the truth is that whatever happens in one part of Nigeria invariably affects other parts of Nigeria or is likely to have some kind of reverberating effect on our country as a whole.
Last Friday May 30, there was a sit-at-home order issued by the IPOB. The IPOB spokesman, Mr Emma Powerful explains that the action was intended to honour those who lost their lives while fighting for Biafra independence since the struggle began in 1967. The IPOB is leading the struggle for an independent State of Biafra which it wants carved out of the South East region. That struggle was started by the Military Governor of the Eastern Region, Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu and it ended in a collosal failure in January 1970. It is now 50 years and five months since that war ended. By conservative estimates the war took to the grave not less than one million lives and billions of property. It is obvious that almost all the proponents of a Biafra Republic today were not born or at best were toddlers when that war was fought. They may have read some books on the war and the misery, the madness and the mayhem that accompanied it but it is not the same thing as witnessing it live, seeing your relations shot dead in your presence, seeing your sister or daughter taken away to give comfort to soldiers in their trenches. They, the young men who are pushing this Biafra dream afresh have no idea what is involved. They have no idea that they are riding a tiger and when you ride a tiger you cannot dismount. Their response to this may be that there is a risk in crossing the street and there is also a risk in not crossing the street.
It is estimated that in the last four years since the sit-at-home drama started the South East may have lost at least N8 trillion naira. That is the equivalent of about two trillion naira per year. And that is a collosal sum of money for any country, no matter how rich, to lose by its indiscretion. Don’t forget that there are other losses, through natural and human causes, such as flooding, erosion, gas flaring, drought, rainlessness, deforestation and oil pollution etc. And the South East is a territory that is cushioned by business run by shop owners, wholesalers, retailers, craftsmen, artisans, transporters and industrialists. They have huge shops in Onitsha, Aba, Nnewi and several other towns that give life to Igboland. In those shops you can find – and buy – almost anything you want.
But these disruptions of life and business goes further than these immediate losses. The fact that force is being used by these IPOB fellows and their agents means that they cannot hope to have local or foreign investors coming with their money to invest in a territory that the ease of doing business is nil. No matter how exotic the natural and man-made resources are in the territory tourists, local or foreign, cannot be tempted to fly in there and savour these endowments without fear for their lives. That is a strong disincentive to investment in the territory because those who attack and kill people in these areas do not discriminate between indigenes and visitors. They simply want all and sundry to stay at home and eat food if they have and watch television if they have light. And it will take many years and much effort to restore the confidence of investors in the economy of that region.
But let’s move away from the economy because such problems affect more than the economy. They affect national unity and stability. There are five elected Governors in the zone and yet there is an authority that issues orders and people obey. That amounts to a miniaturisation of power in the zone and it makes the five governors to feel hapless and helpless and the Federal Government to wonder what in fact it can do about the situation.
Yes, the leader of the IPOB Nnamdi Kanu is being tried in court. This has been going on for four years or so now. The longer the case lasts the more problematic it becomes. Every time Kanu is taken to court the South East region is on edge and no one knows what may happen next. Before President Muhammadu Buhari left office a number of Igbo leaders had approached him and requested that Kanu be freed. He told them that it was a very difficult problem. They went away without getting any assurance that Kanu would be freed any time within his period in office. And he left office without Kanu being freed.
I am not sure whether Igbo leaders are making any moves, overt or covert, in that direction as the ding dong game goes on in court. It is easy to understand the government’s reluctance to order for the release of a man who is being tried for treasonable offences. That would seem like encouraging other would-be terrorists or similar crime suspects particularly as the government knows that a Nigerian, Simon Ekpa, is being tried in a foreign country for similar offences.
The Igbos have been complaining of being marginalised. They point to the fact that since Dr Alex Ekwueme was elected as Vice President in 1979 no Igbo man has been in that position. And of course no Igbo man has yet become President since the onset of the 4th Republic in 1999. But political positions are determined in a democracy through networking, compromises and adroit bargaining between persons and parties. If the Igbos have not yet been able to achieve that they have themselves to blame. But not achieving that is not a sufficient reason for wanting a separate country at any cost, at least not by violence. If the Igbos want a separate country they can negotiate with Nigeria. It is not a decision that can be arrived at by force. Ojukwu tried it and failed. In any case, is there any evidence that most Igbos want a separate country? There is none, otherwise we would not have five Igbo leaders manning the affairs of their states today. They probably think that it is better to be a significant part of a whole than to seek to be a tiny whole.
Marginalisation is a curable disease and my view is that the Federal Government should initiate a conversation with Igbo leaders or the Igbo leaders can make a push for such a discussion. We cannot just ignore these disruptions of life in Igboland in the hope that the security agencies can nip it in the bud. It is not just a security matter only. It is also a political renaissance story, the story of rebuilding Nigeria and its component parts. The establishment of Development Commissions in all the six geopolitical zones is a way of rearranging regional powers since we destroyed the strong Federal structure that Yakubu Gowon gave to Nigeria with the 12- state structure. The creation of mini states all over the place by the Military Governments has been a major distortion of the Federal structure since it did not come with the devolution of more powers to the states.
I urge President Bola Tinubu not to see what is happening in the South East as simply an Igbo problem. It is a national problem that must not be allowed to linger unresolved otherwise it may snowball into something we do not anticipate. There are too many centres of violence already that are threatening to turn Nigeria into a major killing field. And the more violence that spreads the more difficult it will be for our security personnel to cope with. Mr President please initiate action towards resolving the Biafra conundrum.