Truth is, no man on earth can accurately calculate what Ndigbo have lost to Biafra agitation from the time of the Okwe-born lawyer, Chief Ralph Uwazurike to the era of the political economist from Afara-Ukwu – Nnamdi Okwu Kanu – down to the self-proclaimed ‘Biafra Prime Minister’ Simon Ekpa Njoku who hails from Ngbo, Ohaukwu L.G.A. The losses both in human, material and mental resources including opportunities and other intangible assets, are way too big for any human imagination to comprehend let alone calculate.
The real tragedy is, due to our aversion to INTROSPECTION, we as a region have never sat down to calculate the losses and anyone who dared is met with threat of violence by those who are working so hard to normalize terror as our way of life.
Under Uwazurike, thousands of our youths were pushed to their early grave in unnecessary confrontations with the highly unprofessional Nigerian security forces. Ndigbo were violently prevented from fully participating in the 2006 National Census in a country where population is one of the main determinants in resource distribution. And today, Uwazurike is chilling at home occasionally entertaining social media with pictures of his mansions and fleet of cars, mostly acquired from public donations made by ndigbo to him in the name of actualizing a geographical Biafra.
Under Kanu, AlaIgbo and Ndigbo completely lost their innocence. Some of our people became soulless monsters. Hate, mutual suspicion, paranoia, intolerance and division were sowed and nurtured and accepted as a culture. Our republican nature of debating issues and disagreeing to agree was erased. We started preying, not on the Buhari govt that was manifestly treating us like the children of a lesser god, but on ourselves. We threw our age-long culture of respect for the sanctity of life to the wind. Even on sacred days such as May 29th-30th when we were meant to remember our forebears who perished in a war they were fated to fight and even more fated to lose, a sit-at-home was unilaterally instituted across AlaIgbo with a specific and instruction for defaulters to be killed even if they were some poor sachet water seller who risked starving to death unless they came out for business. Fellow Igbos who dared expressed divergent views were marked for elimination. Our land, our precious land that once served as a safe space for her sons and daughters, our region once rated the most peaceful in the entire country, became a safe haven for all manner of crimes and criminals.
Came Simon Ekpa, a man who made no pretense about the fact that he had come only to k!ll, maim and destroy. This one would order destruction in AlaIgbo all the way from his Finland base only to go on social media dancing and celebrating the bloodshed he has ordered. Our homes, towns and villages were raided and thousands k!lled, not by fulani herdsmen but by our own sons who are drunk on the blood of their fellow Igbos.
After two decades of losing thousands of Igbo lives, losing billions in cash, having our innocence destroyed, our villages burnt down by our own kits and kins, our kids having their academic future truncated, WHAT EXACTLY DID WE GAIN?
When will we summon the courage to acknowledge that the Biafra agitation has since been bastardized and taken over by soulless criminals and that the best way for Ndigbo now is to aggressively pursue the economic development of our region by massively investing at home and turning our homeland to whatever we desire? Is it not high time we dropped this nzogbu nzogbu mentality which has cost us everything while giving us nothing and focus on THE BIAFRA OF THE MIND where we use ako-n’uche to develop our region and hold our elected local leadership ACCOUNTABLE to ensure they use our resources and allocations to serve the needs of our region? How can it be that a people touted as being one of the smartest peoples on earth are not smart enough to understand that they cannot be doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results?
As it stands, states can now generate their own electricity, transmit and even distribute same. With IMPROVED electricity supply, even the sky would be too scared to be our starting point as a region. What is stopping our leaders from exploring this option? Can we pause for a moment and imagine how much progress we would have made if these past two decades (over 20 years) had been spent in holding the feet of those representing us to the fire to ensure they spend every kobo of public fund for the betterment of Ndigbo and AlaIgbo?
Taa bu gboo. It is not too late for us.
The post Ndigbo and the Biafra agitation
By Charles Ogbu
first appeared on Diaspora Digital Media DDM.
