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Biafra Agitation: Any Justification
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Before the arrival of the British,
these different peoples, even though they were of different political
sovereignties, had some friendly and diplomatic relations among
themselves especially through trade. They dwelled side by side more
peacefully than now. Their relationship with one another turned very bad
with the above happenings. They now find it extremely difficult to
co-exist and since then have always held one another to the throat. Yet
they were going to be a country by 1st October 1960, without first being
a people. How would they manage together to get their independence, one
may ask? What would follow afterwards?
The answers to the questions
above are not surprising at all. They never worked in harmony even close
to the independence. At a point the date for the independence itself
became a source of serious political clash between the poles, which was
crowned with the Kano riot of 1953 that left tens of thousands of
Southerners in Kano dead and their properties looted. It further led to
the attempted secession of the North5. Even among the Southerners
themselves there was no unity of purpose. Apart from the earlier
nationalists like H.O. Davies, Herbert Macaulay, Ernest Ikoli etc. who
were true nationalists, in the West, the younger generation of Yoruba
politicians led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo were ethnic nationalists who
were fundamentally interested in the welfare of their ethnic group other
than the general good. 6 The same was also the case in the North, were
Ahmadu Bello was totally playing egocentric sectionalism, especially
after the independence. The Northerners led by Ahmadu Bellow once said
that the 1914 amalgamation of Nigeria was a regrettable mistake in the
Nigerian history7 while Awolowo said that Nigeria is a mere geographical
expression.8
In the East, you again find a people of different
belief altogether. Led by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, they strongly believed and
worked for a united Nigerian course, sometimes to a self-destructive
extent. Thus Uwalaka puts it:
The early Igbo positive disposition in
the construction of this Nigerian project contrasted sharply with the
attitude of the leaders of the other two major tribes, the Hausa and
Yoruba… in 1947, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa(later to become the first Nigerian
Prime minister) said “since the Amalgamation of the Southern and
Northern provinces in 1914, Nigeria has existed as one country on
paper…â€â€¦Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto(later to become the first
Nigerian Governor of northern region ) said “Nigeria is so large and the
people so varied that no person with any real intellectual integrity
would be so foolish as to pretend that he speaks for the country as a
whole.†We know the famous statement of Obafemi Awolowo, the post
independent Yoruba leader, that “Nigeria is a mere geographical
expression.â€9
After everything the summary is that there
was no unity of purpose. There has always been a strong division between
North, East and West, but the division has been stronger between North
and South in general. Therefore the people we now parade as Nigerian
nationalists were actually ethnic nationalists, except in some cases.
But after everything, they got their so-called independence as a
country. How come that this could happen? At least from the story so
far, there is no basis for unity. Instead there have been some
separatist signs. The Muslim North had never wanted to associate with
the Christian South, and had at least once made a bold step to secession
but which was neutralized by the British.
Looking at all these,
there are certain things glaringly clear to any thinking mind. The
totality of the Nigerian political structure is a product of the British
mind, imposed on the people, for the former’s future use, despite
protests by the later. They had all this while been putting things in
positions for use, mainly after the so-called independence. Now look at
it. The British strongly wanted to lock these peoples together as a
country, not in a real sense, but in a formal sense, so that they would
continually exploit them after the so-called independence, as they would
be at one another’s throats as had been institutionalized. For this
they cleverly neutralized every move towards disintegration. Because
they felt they could always deceive the North than the South, they put
everything in the control of the North, through the regional inbalance
by which the North would always control every political decision in
Nigeria through their population domination, and then they would now
make the North their mouthpiece and hence control Nigeria through them.
That was why they hypocritically played romance with the North to the
detriment of other sections, to deceive them into believing that they
were friends, and always inspired every of their political moves. But
the North is only a means to an end; we are all looked at together as
Africans. Therefore Nigeria is not real; instead it is a mere economic
institution of the British. The so-called Independence Day was the day
everybody in Nigeria ‘gloriously’ matched into the tract of the race to
perpetual dependence and slavery, otherwise called neo-colonialism. What
happened after the so-called independence, which I classify in this
work as the immediate causes of the Biafra declaration gives credence to
this.
1.2 The Immediate Causes of The Biafra Declaration.
After
the federal fraud called federal election 1959, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Sir
Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Chief Obafemi Awolowo became the
Governor-General, the Prime Minister and the opposition leader in the
Federal House of legislature respectively. Also, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Chief
S.L. Akintola and Dr. Michael Okpara became Premiers of North, West and
East respectively and the race started.
After the independence,
Nigeria was hailed as Africa’s hope for democracy. This was because the
independence was by peaceful means rather than violent revolution, and
because Nigeria was economically viable with great potentials for future
development, particularly in view of the large market it presented for
industrial goods.10 All this big hope came to nothing for the
destructive seed of ethnicity, corruption, inter-ethnic mutual hatred
already institutionalized in the system during the foundation laying by
the colonial masters, which had long matured into a big tree, soon began
to disperse poisonous fruits into every sector of the society’s life.
There were socio-political explosive situations originating from
unhealthy inter-ethnic rivalry, nepotism, chauvinistic and egocentric
sectionalism, corruption, power tussle etc.
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