NIGERIA MASTERWEB DAILY NEWS

*Nigeria: To The South-East Governors I write

By Ikechukwu Enyiagu

Your Excellencies, It is with all human humility yet in the immutableness, emphaticness, and fearlessness of the spirit of truth that I address your honors this day as captains of the five (5) Igbo-speaking South-Eastern states in the present Nigeria. I write, not as to a people with limited wisdom and knowledge, but as to a people refined with all wherewithals to both reason and apply wisdom in leadership-as to captains who, through frequent plying of this route, have mastered the compass of history and the future as far as leadership is concerned. I write to a people who have forever lost their rights to excuses, to irresponsibilities and to unaccountabilities. I write to you this day, not just because I’m concerned, but because you are more concerned.

Where there is leadership, there are, unequivocally, the led. When a leader is either appointed or elected by his people, his first and only allegiance lays to his people-to those who saw him fitting for their voice. It therefore goes to say that the politics and policies of the governors in this zone should and must revolve around getting the best from Nigeria for your people, and making your states icons of your names: Excellencies. I have reiterated, with renowned sages, that “history is bound to repeat itself when men refuse to learn from it.” As the Holy book says, “The days of ignorance, God winked at, but He has now commanded all men to repent;” even so I say to you this day: the days of ignorance are past, and we have entered the generation where everyone must be accountable for his actions and everything accounted for-not only to the public and the government, but to self and to God. ( Continues below..... )

Photo Above: Map of Nigeria showing its 36 states, including South-Eastern States and Federal capital (Abuja or FCT)

In Africa, Igbos are a unique race in every sense of the meaning of uniqueness; and in the whole world, Israel becomes a clear partner in our many sorrowful experiences. While the whole of Arab world and parts of Europe worked towards the extinction of the Jews, the whole of the Arab world, with Britain and Russia, worked with the Nigerian government to wipe out our generations from existence. Those were the days of great ignorance, not on the part of the enemies who never stopped in their hell-and-failure bound agenda, but on the part of those who needed deliverance, the Jews and Igbos. As Israelis fought from June, 1967, to defend their statehood, Ndigbo fought from July of that same year to defend their humanity in a new state. And while America and Britain were in support of Israel’s right to statehood, the Russians and this very Britain opposed vehemently the Igbos’ right to life. Now, these were also days of Ignorance.

Whoever dreams that Biafra will be erased from our memories? Whoever imagined that Igbos, even those yet unborn, will ever, even for a split second, regard the Biafran genocide as a history of the gone-world? And whoever calculated that 2020-2023 would produce only Igbos with no information, history, and zeal for an Igbo nation worthy enough to be integrated into the Nigerian leadership? It’s a hell-bound ignorance to imagine that Igbos of any generations ahead would ever forget the Nigerian genocide against us. The events of the Biafran war have become one with our blood, one with our spirit. Let it be known and clearly understood today that no amount of restructuring, delocalization, renaming, rebranding, coercion, disintegration, denial, or killings, amongst which have become legalized ways of trying in vain to reduce Igbos In Nigeria-both in number and in self-belonging, will ever erase the 1967-1970 imprinted memory, and the eventual consequence. On the contrary, the more Ndigbo are denied, hated, cheated, maltreated, called names, and killed by Nigeria, the faster our resolve to never forget or forgive and to gain our freedom from dominance by any becomes. The events which carved this present Nigeria have, not by our choice, become indelible imprints in our souls; they have become the “Uli” of mourning and eternal determination. ( Continues below..... )

Photo Above: Map of Igboland (homeland of Ndigbo of Nigeria )

Biafra represents what your Excellencies have not dreamt or had the courage, hitherto, to do for your people since after the war; Biafra stands as the only true representative Igbos have and will ever have in the polity of nations. And Biafra will only die when every other creation dies in the hands of the creator. Biafra is Igboland and, therefore, will never leave nor be forgotten. And let it be known to you that, while you are working for one Nigeria, (which has been anti-Igbo from its creation) you are working against the land upon which you stand and are housed. Upon this very land many innocents have laid in death. Upon this land older, weak, and sick family members have been tortured to death.

On this land children have been starved until they turned into animals, before being devoured by the kings of carnivores. Upon this land many sons, brothers, and husbands, even many days after the war, watched torturously and helplessly while Gowon’s and Obasanjo’s murder machines raped, before killing, their mothers, sisters and wives. Upon this land the plane carrying humanitarian aid workers was shot down. On this land humans were dehumanized. Upon this land children’s mouths were forced at gunpoint to become pit toilets for Nigerian soldiers. Against this land a man, who had a family, declared that “hunger is a necessary tool in winning wars.” And on this land, Nigeria defied, defiled and ridiculed God and all He stands for. Upon this land the end of Nigeria was born.

The UN states it clearly that a race may become independent if they choose, provided the methods are observed; Biafra qualifies for this. Nigeria’s unrepentantness for what was done Ndigbo has rubbished its credit as a sovereign state. Every tribe in Nigeria, with their governors and leaders deeply involved, has been forcing their way through to their rights in Nigeria. MEND of the Deltas gained relevance through violence; Boko Haram now issues ultimatum and the government scampers to carry them out. While they do these, the Nigerian government begs for reconciliation and amnesty; why have peaceful and non-violent MASSOB members been attacked, killed, and imprisoned in all your sates and on your watch? I make bold to state here that Nigeria is not Igbos opposition to freedom, all of you are. ( Continues below….. )

Photo Above: Hon. Amb. Ralph Uwaechue, President General Ohaneze Ndigbo

You have been the enemy of Igboland and Ndigbo whom you swore to defend to every level. By your silence and nonchalance, you have declared where your allegiance truly lie. You have used the mercies of the land and the people of the land to attack the land and the people of the land. You have joined hands with Nigeria to defy, defile, and ridicule the God of Ndigbo and on Igbo soil. One of the you who, though may have seemed philanthropic at first when, in reality, he was deceitfully and treacherously trying to work his way into leadership by his numerous charity claims, said some days ago that “Nigerians should be patient” and that things will be fine.

I address your Excellency, as an elder and not as a leader of his people: you ought to be ashamed of yourself for making that statement. If you have learnt nothing from the one who gave birth to you, or you simply decided to throw his elderly advice to the bin of modern life and politics, then you have no right leading clan at all, let alone an Igbo state. Whoever deceived you into thinking, believing, and now, selling it to all Ndigbo that Nigeria will ever be good without settling the case of genocide carried out against us-even if you claim to be a Nigerian and not an Igbo son any longer? ( Continues below..... )

Photo Above: Chief Ralph Uwazuruike (middle) being led into Federal High Court, Abuja., Tuesday, November 9, 2005 to face treason charges.

This day, there are sites, organizations, funds, and websites dedicated to the Holocaust memorial all over the world, and anyone who denies the fact of the Holocaust simply stands in the wrong; where then is a memorial in Igboland marking the over three (3) million Igbos killed during Nigeria’s genocide against Biafra? What measures have been put in place to teach our children our history and journeys so far in schools? How many of our children are told the history of their generation? Many families were wiped to a remainder of one (1), who tells them what happened to their people? Many Igbo artifacts have been stolen and stored in the museum of the western countries, who shall ask them back? Only Ndigbo, out of the three (3) major tribes, has only five (5) states; who asks for our rights to more? And now that you are coming up to do so, shall you not follow it through?

Anambra, Enugu, and Ebonyi equally have the oil which makes Niger Delta a favored son, living our state governments with barely enough to run; who will stand and stamp his feet on the ground and demand that we be included also? Igbos control commerce in Nigeria and Africa, yet we have been denied direct access to international sea and airports; who shall stand and oppose all these wickedness? Nigeria has not adopted state policing, yet the federal government has turned Alaigbo into police states-close to states of emergency; why has that been so and who allows it? The federal government has refused, for decades, to build (not repair) federal roads in the South-East, and has refused you to do it; whose work is it, then, to kick against these wicked policies against Ndigbo and rectify them? Boko Haram kills at will without seeking any justifiable cause, yet their leaders blame the federal government in every move to contain them; is MASSOB a wrong movement, are they illegal; whose work is it to defend them and their pursuit? ( Continues below..... )

Photo Above: Map of Defunct Republic of Biafra

The Muslim North has added the killing of Igbos who cannot recite the Quran as another feather to their cap of wiping out the Igbos; shall we remain silent and unconcerned? Since they have succeeded in their previous threats to keep Nigerians frightened, they have now gone further to state that “the country would not have peace until there is 100 per cent implementation of Sharia law in the country as enshrined in the holy Quran;” now, who is a leader who is silent?

Your excellencies, if you believe that your leadership roles in these South-East zones cover these, then the time to speak up and be personal in favor, not only about the rights of Igbos in Nigeria, but about the eventual actualization of a sovereign state called Biafra has come. But if any of you claims not to have anything to do with these matters pointed out above, or insists on remaining a secret believer in the Biafran course, then, you can be sure that no one hides from Ani; no one escapes from the land which received him at birth, contained him, supported him and watched him grow-no one. If judgment shall start from the house of God, then those in Igboland who hold relevant authorities but used them to slow the Biafran dream, terrorize Igbo remnants and try to compel us to give up our dreams of being free from Nigeria shall lie down on the foundation of justice when it speaks in our favor. Nwa agu apughi ita ahihia m’oli; go and ask the Haitians which values of life our fathers taught their generations. I rest my case.

Ikechukwu Enyiagu can be reached at ike.enyiagu@gmail.com

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