It gets closer to the brace line. It gets more interesting that Nigeria’s cracks and the gaps keep widening and have got to the point that some have given others ultimatum to leave their region or be forced out.
Before they could end their comments, others took it up from there. I must say these are very interesting times for Nigeria’s existence. Good enough, all of us know how and why we got to this point. We are here at this stage because some believe that others are their slaves in Nigeria and such slaves have no rights.
Nigeria is land of injustice and inequality and the people at the centre of the unjust acts gloat over their victory and want the conquest to last forever. It is the slaves that refuse to suffer in silence that are rather blamed for causing trouble in the country.
In 1966, things got so bad that the same north asked the South Easterners to leave. But it wasn’t in a press address. It was said in bloodshed. In fact, they never gave them the chance to leave before they swooped on them with swords and made genocide of them.
Someone in charge then, Yakubu Gowon compromised, obliged the killers and became the highest genocide collaborator in modern history. In several occasions after some years, he denied setting out to obliterate Igbo and the Easterners from existence. His excuse was that he sought the oneness of Nigeria. I have asked him severally: At the expense of millions of souls and innocent blood?
At last Gowon laid the foundation of one Nigeria on bloodshed. But he omitted unity or nature deleted unity from the list he drafted. I am sure God gave the number one man of blood of Nigeria long life to witness what is happening 50 years after as a sign to him that you can never lay the foundation of a nation with blood and waste of souls. It is human beings that make a nation and when you waste them to build a nation you fail.
Today, Gowon must have found he labored in vain because whereas he never achieved the unity of Nigeria, he also never achieved his objective of exterminating the Easterners including Igbo. Yakubu Gowon, Genocide Collaborator of the Federal Republic (GCFR) is colossal failure and should be a lesson to all that plan to act like him.
Today, the Arewa Youths coalition raised the blood pressure of the nation with a very interesting call to evict Igbo out of the north should they fail to yield to the mandate to leave on their own. They said they would enforce peace sorting and removal of them all. We understand what that ‘peaceful’ means in the threat.
What is their grouse? That Biafra agitation groups called for a sit-at-home order in South East on May 30 on the 50th anniversary of the Biafra genocide. They said that infringed their rights. How? Answer is that their people resident in South East were stopped from their work by that order. But I have heard severally the calls for Biafra which I never supported until the load of anger and hate has started turning the elite that have always supported restructuring and preservation of Nigeria to start tilting. The Biafra agitators never for once ordered anybody out of the region.
I am happy this happened because if it would hasten Nigeria’s change, then we lost nothing.
And just a day after, the reactions start coming from several quarters. We understand all those. It is a game of the elders compromising the youths and urging them on in secret and in the open distance themselves. It is propaganda and has always been there that people see through such tricks. So did the entire north discuss and agreed on that order. Not really. There are still northerners with conscience who would not associate with it, even among the politicians that are known for being callous. But people discussed and asked the young ones to call the shots. It wasn’t a spontaneous action.
The call and ultimatum portends good especially to the Igbo that scatter their wealth. It is a good reminder that one day, Nigeria would snap and the one that believes in having his wealth outside the domain would be the real loser.
I loved the response of the Biafra agitator group to that Arewa ultimatum that urged the Igbo in the north to respect that order and leave. This has been my position over the years not because of division of the nation but because of wanton killings in the past of the southerners and Igbo in particular in the north.
There could be one Nigeria but nothing is codified in the constitution that some people must live in a particular part of the country for Nigeria to work. An adage of my people says you don’t use a tall man to test the depth of the river. It’s a serious gamble. Therefore using the killing of strangers in the north to test run the unity or oneness of Nigeria is what I should be counted out of and I argue that any Igbo that still lives in the core north apart from Sokoto that never shed the blood of innocent strangers in their land should have herself to blame.
There is no business or prosperity I pursue at the expense of my life when I am not sure if I would remain alive the next day.
I would not sound alarmist because I wish Nigeria remains but with a different structure, but I would not see any Igbo insistent on living in the north after the threat of eviction as reasonable. Most of the calls that the ultimatum should be ignored are political and ends with media address. When the action starts, none of them would be there to save the victims, and in case the threat becomes reality, the outcome would be just condemnations in the media like the ones to the pronouncement.
For those Igbo that would feign hard headed, our people have an adage that only the tree hears it would be cut down and stands waiting. Whenever a human being is told he would be cut down, she runs for her life.
For whatever it is worth, the Igbo in the north especially those places belonging to the Arewa Youths that made a public statement must know the authors of the threat were not feigning. It was real cold threat and unprovoked, because even in the Biafra agitations, they never asked anybody to leave Igbo land or attacked anyone. This call is real and must not be taken lightly.
Let’s make a bet that from now to this time in next 10 years, not minding all the calls for their heads, none of those that made the pronouncement would ever be arrested or prosecuted. If we never witnessed any prosecution of culprits that killed southerners or even the herdsmen that kill everywhere, those that merely spoke some words can’t be punished. If murder and mass killing cannot attract prosecution, ordinary words can ever be an issue.
The Igbo man or even those Southerners that would be mistaken for the Igbo should rather run and never look back. That declaration was planned, discussed and arrived at and some people sent to air it. They mean all they said and it should be seen as that by any wise person especially since going to your part of Nigeria does not automatically mean Nigeria ending today.
The governments of the South East states should make arrangements to bring the Igbo back to their domain to avoid the 1966/1967 incident. Those that executed the pogroms and genocide are still much around and in charge.