By Joshua Evangelista
Fourty-six
years after the end of the war in Biafra, the South and the South-East
of Nigeria are again fibrillation. On October 14th Nnamdi Kanu, Director
of Radio Biafra and leader of theIndigenous people of Biafra – IPOB (one of the main movements for the independence of the Abuja-jurisdiction area), has been arrested by the State Security Service
(SSS) around Lagos with the charge of conspiracy, terrorism
and intimidation. Despite the fact that the High Federal Court of Abuja
has sentenced for his immediate release, Kanu is still under custody.
The arrest of the activist and British citizen (based in London),
brought to several demonstrations in all the main cities of the
south-east of the Country, which have often been “pacified” with arrests
and killings. There are so many videos on YouTube showing plainclothes
policemen and soldiers shooting to unarmed people. The previous 9
February more than 20 people belonging to the secessionist movement died during
a collective prayer in the yard of the Ibo National High School of Aba,
after being surrounded by soldiers and policemen. Now the Biafran
diaspora is organizing itself to pay the funerals of the victims and the
expenses for its leader’s trial. We have therefore contacted the
Coordinator of coordinators of IPOB, in order to understand which are
the reasons behind this new secessionist boost and to understand toward
which scenarios the situation might lead. Dr. Clifford Iroanya, Shell’s
engineer in Nigeria until 2006, is now coordinating the Independence
Movement from Houston, from where he keeps working in the Oil Business.
We ask him if he is an “American Citizen”, and he answers “No. I am a
Biafran citizen but I’m forced to accept a foreign citizenship because
my very National identity has been denied to me”.
Dr Iroanya, several international analysts are afraid of a new civil war. Are they right to be worried?
This
is not a civil war, it is a massacre. A war can be defined civil when
there is an internal conflict inside a nation. I live in the USA, where
in the ‘800 there was a conflict between Unionists and Confederates (who
were divided by the issue of slavery); this conflict gave birth to a
civil war. To have a civil war you need to have two factions. This is
not the case. I call it genocide. There hasn’t been armed reactions by
the Biafrans; the military shoots the demonstrators – and there are
videos to prove it – and then it piles up corps in mass graves.
Are you therefore not going to respond to the repression with armed struggle?
None of us is talking about an armed struggle. We
want a peaceful independence. The United Nations and other major
international institutions like the European Union must recognize that
this slaughtered, devastated and constantly threatened people has to be
released. That’s all. We are a peaceful people and we pursue the path of
non-violence. But we expect to be heard.
No retaliation is contemplated?
We have always been non-violent. We are for the beauty of life. It’s not allowed in Biafraland to
take the life of someone else. We are tired of blood. While they
continue to kill us, we only have a flag to grab to. The flag of Biafra.
How would you reach independence?
By
creating awareness on the outside. In ’67 the British forces have
hampered each of our attempts to raise our voices and to therefore make
ourselves heard. Still in schools no one teaches what happened during
the Massacre, which for us was Genocide. We constantly have to implore
the media in order to gain a space.
Why struggling for independence instead of focusing on the demand for more rights to the residents of the southeast?
The concept of Nation is different from the concept
of Country. A nation is made up of people with a shared value system.
Ideally we can say that in Nigeria there are three nations – that carry
three models of values – that do not converge. In northern Nigeria there
is a feudal values system; in the western part of the country there is a
monarchical conception of public life. In Biafra, on the contrary,
there is a republican system of values: we believe that we are all equal
before God. It is not recommended for countries with such different
conceptions to share a territory. It is a waste of human resources and
time to struggle to be united when it is not possible. We want to relate
and to have good relations with our neighbors, but within our own
independence.
How important is religion in this political conception?
Biafra means ‘come
and join us’. The word Biafra is the composition of two Igbo words:
“bia,” which means ‘come’, and “fara” which can be translated as
joining. We are a tolerant nation. There is no restriction for anyone,
as long as one’s religion is not imposed nor it becomes a state religion
and nobody confuses citizenship with the belonging to a religion. Not
everyone is aware that Nigeria is a member of the Organisation of
Islamic Cooperation. In its Constitution, Nigeria is said to be a
secular country; but this is not true: in the constitutional text the
word “sharia” is mentioned 73 times, “islam” 28 times, “Muslim” 10.
Keywords from the other big religious confession as “Christianity”,
“church” and “Christ” have zero mentions. In Chapter 6 of the
Constitution there is an article, the 261 one, about the Court of Appeal
of sharia. How can this be true? We can not force anyone to follow a
religion.
Why not to focus on a reform of federalism, with a concentration of resource management within single States?
It will never work, not with this constitution.
Without political freedom there is not economic freedom. The taxes that
we pay are going to the Congress in Abuja and to almost all the military
institutions of the North. Independence is the only way.
Why is the Movement for the liberation of
Biafra scaring the political system now? Almost half a century passed
since the Civil War.
There are various reasons. First of all, we believe
that the resources and the environment around us can be the key to
living well. We have the skills and energies to become one of the most
developed countries. On the other hand, those who are now ruling –
by practicing a feudal political system – expect us to remain always
submissive. They even expect us to be satisfied with the crumbs falling
down from the table. Obviously these people have always been
feeling encouraged by the fact that the British placed them in power, in
this state called Nigeria, so that they could get rich by
accounting to the western chiefs. But today we have the resources and we
have a people who have studied and know its rights. And this
fact scares the central government. They have a terrible fear of the
fact that we can ask for what belongs to us.
What is the role of the Diaspora in this new awareness?
We are in constant contact with those who live
there. We recommend them, we care of their trials: it is not easy to
stay sharp when you are in constant oppression. We make the “count” of
the dead, we design new strategies.
Some people accuse the Movement of being
mainly formed by young ideologized people, who do not know what has
happened during the war and that are totally far from the real needs of
the people.
I was a teenager during the war, I know what
happened. Anyway, it’s a crazy idea: you do not need to have lived
through the massacre to be aware of it. What fathers have experienced is
what is told to the children.
Why the State has got such an attention towards Nnamdi Kanu?
People like Kanu are born one every million. He is
honest and upright. But, above all, he is practical. He does not trust
the promises. He does not want words. What he says must be done. And
this attitude is inspiring a new generation of Biafrans. It is very
adept at deconstructing all the propaganda against us. And this is a
great danger for those who rule Nigeria.
What do you think about the liberation movements of the Niger Delta, which seem so much closer to your battles in recent times?
Let’s start with a basic precondition. That land
has been known as Biafra for so many centuries. Subsequently it has been
named Eastern Nigeria. Finally someone has picked up the wording “Niger
Delta” and the geographical delineation “South-South” to indicate the
states around the mouth of the River. This is ridiculous, in no other
state exists a “south-south”: in Nigeria only the cardinal points are
not respected! This is the classic strategy of “divide and rule”. In
reality we are all inhabitants of Biafra. They firstly divide us and
they finally tell us that we just struggle to grab all the resources.
Some young people – who have undergone this brainwashing – call
themselves “Niger Delta Militants”. This name is conceptually wrong, in
my opinion. As well as the focus of their fight, which is only centered
on resources.
What has changed toward you with the election of the new president, Muhammadu Buhari?
We
must first explain who is Buhari. He is someone who joined the army in
1961. Someone who has never concluded a course of study and whose
education is low and therefore not certified. So we’re talking about a
not qualified president. The second point is that he is not “new”. In
December 1983, a coup overthrew a democratically elected
government. He should be in jail, and instead he is the president of
everyone. Since he’s there we have been seeing many more killings and
massacres against civilians, in a proportion that I would
define “geometrical”. Nothing similar has ever been seen since the ’70s.
Not to mention his “fight” against Boko Haram.
Give us a better explanation of this last sentence, please.
Buhari
is from the north. In an official statement, he has asserted that an
attack against Boko Haram means an attack against the whole north. Boko
Haram had earlier accounted him as a chief negotiator. Do you all
believe he is the right person to fight them? We do not. It’s sufficient
to say that Boko Haram has killed more people since Buhari is charging
than from the very establishment of the terrorist group itself, in 2009.
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