Monday, November 16, 2015

I don’t want another country

pro-biafra agitators
By Owei Lakemfa
SOME  days ago, I woke up  to find  that someone, or group had decided to change my country. It was there on Facebook; a supposed map of a new country called Biafra. I was neither consulted nor my opinion sought. I am not also aware that the Ijaws, who are my parents, our neigbours the Isokos, Itsekiris, Urhobos, Efiks, Ibibios, Orons etcetera, were consulted. Some fellow Nigerians  in demonstrating their right  to  self-determination, decided that I do not have the  right to be consulted.
If I were to reincarnate and have power of choice, I would ordinarily, not decide to be a Nigerian. I would prefer to be an African, in that united continent Kwame Nkrumah prophesied, with a single government, currency, economy and citizenship.  I will not trade a continent for another small enclave, while industrialised Europe has almost evolved into one entity. That will not be strategic thinking, it will be collective backwardness.
 I understand why the agitators need the Southern nationalities; they require their oil and gas resources, and access to the sea. But they are being quixotic by forcing these peoples into a map. They need to consult and persuade. But this will be difficult as the advocates of a new Biafra have not made public any known philosophy, ideology, vision, road map, socio-economic programme or policy, including on peoples and minority rights.
I have read some juvenile Boko Haram Shekarau-like outbursts by the new kid on the bloc, Nnamdi Kalu  of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) who vomits words like “If they don’t give us Biafra, no human being will remain alone in Nigeria by that time; we shall turn everybody into corpses; you better go and buy your coffin.”  He reminds me of the quixotic ‘uprising’  by the Biafra Zionist Federation led by Benjamin Igwe Onwuka who on June 5, 2014  tried to seize the Enugu State Broadcasting Service (ESBS) ostensibly to declare a Biafra Republic.


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