By Michael Chibuzo
Biafra. A name that evokes diverse feelings among the people occupying the geographical location known as Nigeria; some being the feelings of resentment, despair, tribal supremacy and victimhood.
Before I delve deeper, let me point out that the word Biafra was never indigenous to any tribe in the present day Nigeria. Contrary to claims that it is an Ijaw word, Biafra actually had its earlier known usage in the present day Cameroon. Portuguese explorers as far back as the 15th Century named the bay area extending from the Bonny River through Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon as the Bight of Biafra after a kingdom known as Biafara that was in the present day Cameroon.
During the events leading to the secession of the then Eastern Region of Nigeria from Nigeria in 1967, an Ijaw man, Chief Frank Opigo suggested to Lt. Col. Ojukwu that the new country be called Biafra. This was principally to give the new country a semblance of inclusiveness since the Bight of Biafra covered coastal areas principally in Rivers (including Bayelsa) and Cross Rivers (including Akwa Ibom). The new Republic collapsed as the civil war came to an end in 1970. Forty three years later, the ghost of this short-lived Republic is still hovering around in different incarnations, the latest major one being the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB).
Before 2012, there was no group called IPOB and Nnamdi Kanu, the CEO of IPOB was running an online Radio Biafra in London after falling out with Chief Ralph Uwazuruike in 2009. In the 2015 Presidential Elections, IPOB threw its support behind then PDP candidate and incumbent president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, who lost to President Muhammadu Buhari of the APC. The victory of the APC in the Presidential Election gave IPOB an opportunity to harvest the pain of defeat of mostly Igbos who perhaps saw Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as more Igbo than Ijaw. Igbos refused to move on from the defeat and Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s IPOB reawakened the perennial secession thirst in many Igbos.
IPOB through the use of Radio Biafra with hidden transmitters in communication masts in parts of the Southern Nigeria dished relentless propaganda continuing the pre-election campaign PDP rhetoric of an imminent fulanisation/islamisation agenda following the victory of the APC at the polls which brought a Fulani man as President. The South East political, traditional and religious leaders, who are mostly PDP-leaning watched with glee from the side-lines as Mazi Nnamdi Kanu brought out thousands of Igbo youths unto the streets of the South East mostly, who dorned Biafra flags and marched in many cities demanding a referendum and restoration of Biafra, sometimes leading to violent altercations with the security forces.
These political, traditional and religious leaders of the South East did not use their vantage position to sound the warning bell to the people but rather gave tacit support to the IPOB orchestra as they played the tune of secession, most likely because they were still reeling from the shock of having their darling PDP booted out from the presidency. They hoped that the pressure from IPOB and the Niger Delta Avengers and other destabilising groups would be too much for the Buhari administration to handle. In October, 2015 the leader of IPOB was arrested and subsequently charged on a seven-count charge bordering mainly on terrorism.
Mazi Nnamdi Kanu upon his arraignment became a tool for many opposition elements who want to gain political mileage and exact their pound of flesh on the APC-led Federal government. Many called for the release of the IPOB leader and then Senate Minority Leader, Sen. Enyinnaya Abaribe was at the very forefront of the theatrics and volunteered to stand surety for Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, Osita Chidoka drove him home upon his release. After his release, the IPOB leader severally flouted his bail conditions of not being in an assembly of more than 50 persons, granting press interviews and restricting his movements to the FCT.
Like a new president the IPOB leader who was on a conditional bail embarked on a well publicised tour of the South East, his supporters fell over themselves to see the man they have come to call ‘Onye Ndu’ (Leader) with some prostrating before him and kissing his feet. Like an emperor, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu revelled in their adulation. He made more controversial statements, reiterating his fulanisation and islamisation propaganda in interviews. The South East elites including his bail sureties looked the other way as he flouted all his bail conditions. In fact, visiting Mazi Nnamdi Kanu became a sort of pilgrimage for many of them who wanted to be in the good books of IPOB supporters for future political support.
Like a herd inoculated with a dose of adrenalin, IPOB members and followers intensified rallies across the South East with their Supreme Leader walking freely. The weekly marches continue and became increasingly violent, which led the military to carry out an exercise in the South East code named, Operation Python Dance. The Operation Python Dance commenced in the South East and the propaganda machinery of IPOB was in full swing with Radio Biafra calling on Igbo youths to defy the military and come out to confront them anywhere they see them in ‘Biafraland’. Ohaneze Ndigbo and other political, traditional and religious elites in the South East kicked against the exercise, describing it as a ”containment policy of the FG to intimidate the people of the South East from freely expressing their anger and angst at their marginalisation and treatment as second class citizens”.
Youths across the South East heed the call and clashes between them and the military were reported with the confrontation in Abia, the home state of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and soldiers getting the widest coverage. Two days later Mazi Nnamdi Kanu disappeared and later resurfaced in Israel, effectively jumping bail. The Federal Government obtained a court order proscribing IPOB and designating it a terrorist organisation. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu on his part resumed his vitriolic broadcasts on Radio Biafra and sought to create a military wing for IPOB called the Eastern Security Network who according to him will fight Fulani herdsmen and prevent the capture of Igbo land by Fulani jihadists. He tasked Igbos in diaspora and even within Nigeria to donate funds to enable IPOB acquire weapons for ESN. Many South East even at this point maintained a stoic silence, many even secretly financed the activities of IPOB.
ESN became a terror organisation, unleashing attacks after attacks on security personnel they came across in the South East. Many in the South East both elites and peasants hailed the ‘boys from the forest’ and gave them many nicknames such as Unknown Gunmen (UGM), Umu Chukwu (Children of God), Umu Elohim (Children of Elohim) among other names. The South East elites as usual played the ostrich. IPOB being the king of propaganda found a bizarre way to accuse the DSS as those masquerading as ESN to kill military personnel, police officers, civil defence officers, prison officials and even civilians in order to paint ESN as a terrorist organisation. Funny enough, many of their die hard supporters especially those addicted to listening to Radio Biafra bought the propaganda and ran with it. Political leaders in the South East tried hard to either absolve IPOB of these killings by quoting IPOB’s official line of reassurance that they are non-violent and not responsible for the killings or look for political opponents to blame as sponsoring jobless youths to destabilise the South East. Governor of Anambra State blamed invaders from other Igbo states as those perpetrating these crimes in his state. They lacked the balls to make IPOB take responsibility and sadly, even today they still do.
ENDSARS Riots of 2020 provided IPOB with a perfect opportunity to further their agenda of wrecking destruction and havoc on Nigeria, a country their leader frequently refer to as a “Zoo”. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu from his sanctuary overseas ditched out orders after orders to supporters to kill policemen and their families, burn their stations and target enemy politicians and their properties both real and imagined. He beamed his searchlight on Lagos and alongside other insurrectionists orchestrated the burning down of Lagos. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was in his elements! Political leaders, traditional and religious leaders maintained their omertà code. Nobody at this point wanted to incur the wrath of the Supreme Leader. It was therefore a rude shock to many of his supporters in June 2021 when news filtered that the IPOB leader has been re-arrested in Kenya and brought back to Nigeria to continue his trial before Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court, Abuja.
Cracks surfaced in IPOB when Mazi Simon Ekpa was announced as the Acting Leader of IPOB. Two factions emerged and battle of supremacy intensified with the two factions often issuing conflicting directives. The new leader began imposing regular sit at homes across the South East to demand for the release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. The military wing under his control enforced these sit-at-homes with lethal force at times. Prior to the 2023 general elections, the usual shouts of ‘No referendum no elections’ were muted because a son of the soil, Mr. Peter Obi who has a very soft spot for IPOB was on the Presidential ballot. The election came and he finished 3rd. IPOB went back to default mode by intensifying sit-at-home directives and their brutal enforcements, the latest being the 5-days shutdown it imposed between last week Monday and Friday across the South East.
Fortunately, it seems many Igbos are now beginning to grunt over the endless and meaningless sit-at-homes. However the groaning of many is still laced with hypocrisy and confusion because most of those who are now complaining about the sit-at-homes earlier supported these shutdowns but now feel the villain is Simon Ekpa, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s successor. This sentiment is shared by many prominent leaders in the South East who have called for the capture of Simon Ekpa blaming him for the violence and insecurity currently being experienced in the South East. These leaders always conveniently point to the denials by the other faction of IPOB called DOS who usually declare that they did not impose any sit-at-home while also disowning Simon Ekpa.
The latest show of hypocrisy from some of these leaders was on display this week from the former Minister of Education, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, Ohaneze Ndigbo President, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu and former Labour Party Presidential Candidate, Mr. Peter Obi. Madam Oby Ezekwesili is known to be a loud critic of government (mostly the FG since 2015) and uses her Office of the Citizen to make her stand known on many issues of national concerns including matters of insecurity in the three regions of the North and Lagos State.
Curiously Madam Oby Ezekwesili is usually mute when it comes to insecurity in the South East as a result of the activities of IPOB and its affiliates. When she attempted to weigh in on insecurity in the past was during a military crackdown on gunmen terrorising Orlu in Imo State. Madam Oby Ezekwesili in a quoted tweet in Jan. 2021, queried the deployment of the military to restore order to Orlu. She described the deployment as having the appearance of a war scene and asked the President to tell Nigerians who ordered the operation!
When a lot of people on twitter persistently called her out over her graveyard silence whenever issues of IPOB-instigated insecurity in her South East region is being discussed, the Anambra-born former Minister, wrote an epistle in her defence stating she does not have Presidential powers and therefore not expected to comment on South East security matters. Invariably her Office of the Citizen only allows her to condemn killings and violence in places like Southern Kaduna, Plateau, Benue, Zamfara, Katsina and other parts of the North.
Perhaps, the individual who upholds the oath of omertà to the fullest when it comes to the issue of IPOB and insecurity in the South East is the former Governor of Anambra State and the 2nd runner-up in the 2023 Presidential Election, Mr. Peter Obi. Mr. Peter Obi is an active tweeter right from the campaign season up till this moment. He tweets on things as insignificant as funeral and condolence visits, birthdays, graduation of Nigerian students in foreign land, Presidential convoys, etc as well as on significant things such banditry/killings in the North, multidimensional poverty in the North among many other things. He does these without having Presidential powers of course. However you will rarely see a tweet or statement from Mr. Peter Obi condemning IPOB and IPOB affiliated groups over the sit-at-home stranglehold it has placed on the neck of the South East people neither will you see a tweet condemning the insecurity and killing of security personnel and innocent civilians in the region by gunmen whether known or unknown.
His supporters usually toe the same line with Oby Ezekwesili when they defend his silence over the deteriorating insecurity situation in the region, telling anyone who cares to listen that Obi is not the President and therefore not mandated to speak out on the insecurity in the South East. Sensing that the ‘dragging’ was becoming too much and that his eerie silence was becoming too obvious, Mr. Peter Obi dropped an epistle on twitter on Thursday. However true to his sly character, Mr. Peter Obi found a way to shift the insecurity narrative to the North by mentioning specific states in the North Central (Plateau and Benue) as well as Zamfara in the North West and even going as detailed as mentioning recent insecurity incidents in these places while also dropping statistics on numbers of casualties recorded in these attacks comparatively to casualties from the Russian-Ukraine war.
When Mr. Peter Obi wanted to mention IPOB and its siege of the South East, he simply started like this: “Also disturbing is the continued disruption of business and social activities in the South East region over the Sit-at-Home directive purported to be coming from the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB, when the body has publicly denied issuing such directive.” The above statement as shocking as it is, is not totally surprising coming from Mr. Peter Obi because he has never found the activities of IPOB as an act of illegality. In the face of what is happening in the South East, a figure like Mr. Peter Obi is still describing the sit-at-home directives of IPOB as ‘a directive purportedly coming from IPOB’ meaning he does not believe the IPOB organisation is responsible for the sit-at-homes and their brutal enforcements! You cannot find a better definition to hypocritical delusion!
It is difficult to understand how Mr. Peter Obi in the face of obvious evidence that the sit-at-home directives emanate from IPOB led by the person Mazi Nnamdi Kanu handpicked to pilot the affairs of the organisation in his absence would be describing these directives as PURPORTED! This fuels allegations that Mr. Peter Obi is an unapologetic sympathiser of IPOB since he doesn’t see them as criminals or terrorists. He has not for one day raised his voice against the unrelenting attacks on security personnel deployed in the South East and one begin to wonder what colour of hypocrisy is this from a man who claims he wants to make a new Nigeria POssible. It is most likely that Mr. Peter Obi is simply upholding the Italian style code of silence called omertà as it relates to the IPOB mafia simply because he is probably a member of the Mafia. Time will tell.
The last example of the culture of denial by the South East elites is the latest utterances from President General of the Ohaneze Ndigbo, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu who among other things sought to push the narrative that the South East is on siege by non-state actors only because of the continued detention of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and called for his immediate release. He even went ahead to state that nobody has told Ohaneze what exactly are Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s crimes! Iwuanyanwu couldn’t give a direct response when asked if the release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu will bring an end to sit-at-homes in the South East. Iwuanyanwu like many Igbo leaders have refused to call a spade a spade. You cannot now be against unknown gunmen activities and sit-at-homes and be blaming Simon Ekpa alone because Simon Ekpa did not initiate sit-at-home and the brutal enforcements, he did not also create the militant wing of IPOB that go about attacking security agents and civilians. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu did! So, you cannot separate the two individuals under any circumstances, Simon Ekpa simply CONTINUED with what he inherited from Nnamdi Kanu.
It therefore smacks of premium hypocrisy for leaders of the South East including elected officials to be calling for the release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu on one hand and the arrest, extradition and prosecution of Simon Ekpa on the other hand. Simon Ekpa is using the network and methodology already established by Nnamdi Kanu, which enjoyed the approval and support (both tacit and open) of South East elites and many brainwashed commoners. When the then President, Muhammadu Buhari declared that the military will deal with the troublemakers in the South East in the language they would understand, Igbos rose in defence of these non-state actors accusing Buhari of attempting to carry out a genocide on the Igbo race! Now, the handshake has gone beyond the elbow and these same fellows are now blaming the Federal Government of not tackling criminality in the South East.
As I conclude I need to remind our leaders and brethren in the South East that the time for hide and seek is over. We have to break that Code of Silence to move forward. If we want to tackle the menace of criminality instigated by IPOB and its affiliates there is ONLY one route – we have to disown IPOB and its vestiges in its entirety. We have to define what we want as a people. If we want secession, then let us fully back IPOB and endure its inconveniences, if we want a South East Nigeria that will be calm again then we must take a stand against IPOB. You cannot support the two at the same time. IPOB wants the Nigerian military and other security agencies to leave the South East, so you cannot be supporting IPOB and want the Nigerian military to still go after subservient elements in the South East who are mostly under the umbrella of the same IPOB you support. This is the message our political elites need to clearly understand.
If you want self-determination, fine and good. You can come together and fine tune a realistic path and strategy, which does not involve IPOB nor any of its methodology. You must make the people understand that the only way to peacefully leave Nigeria is through the instrumentality of the Nigerian Constitution and your first task is therefore to make other constituents in Nigeria agree to amend the Constitution to include a clause for secession and referendum. In doing that, you should not go and forcefully include people who have made it clear they are not interested in joining you in your secession struggle as part of your map. If you feel suffocated in Nigeria because it was a forced union of heterogeneous people and cultures, then you dare not force others into a Union they are very vocal they do not want to be part of. Now, that our people of the South East are gradually realising that you don’t drink poison to kill your enemy, they should begin to take a bold stand and stop speaking from both sides of the mouth!