When python goes dancing

Pythons are a group of non-venomous snakes that ambush and constrict their prey to death, then swallow them whole.
True, python is a dangerous reptilian creature. It belongs to the specie of divinely cursed animals. It hates man so much it does not waste its precious time to bite him. Rather it ambushes and constricts its prey to death, then swallows them whole. Just as the Nigerian state is wont, using its coercive and most repressive instrument, the Nigerian Army.
In furtherance of its endemic hatred for the Igbo, the Nigerian Army has engaged the fearsome python in a bizarre dance east of the Niger. The army began this weird dance with pythons late last month in an exercise in the five South East states, code-named ‘Exercise Python Dance’, ostensibly “to checkmate anticipated rising wave of crimes usually prevalent during the Yuletide.”  Naturally, there has been apprehension in Igbo land as regards the true intention of the exercise, especially when the army threatened that it would not hesitate to apply the ‘Rule of Engagement’ to deploy troops and appropriately deal with pro-Biafra agitators. It is not only the Igbo that are worried but all human rights organisations have condemned this latest maneuvering against harmless, armless Igbo youths, exercising their constitutional rights to demand self-determination.
Ironically, this is coming after the recent damning report of Amnesty International, AI, which revealed continued mass massacre of innocent Igbo across the Nigerian state. The AI report, entitled: Bullets were raining everywhere”: Deadly repression of Pro-Biafra activists, exposed extrajudicial killing and torture of the Igbo by Nigerian security forces, resulting in the death of about 150 pro-Biafra protesters in the last one year.
Instead of extricating itself from such unflattering report after its initial lame denial of the atrocious act, even as Biafra claim the estimated victims was too conservative, the Nigerian Army has brashly moved to entrench or continue Nigeria’s customary pogrom against the Igbo, who have become sport for the Nigerian authorities.
President Muhammadu Buhari just told a delegation of some South East leaders that the Biafran youths should forget Biafra because it is impossible to breakup Nigeria. Much as I do not subscribe to the president’s insincere reasons and promises, I think he is right somehow. It is my humble submission that most Igbo do not actually wish for a dismembered Nigeria. Rather, they dream of a Nigeria where the Igbo will be accorded their pride of place as one leg of the tripod on which Nigeria stands and live as equal stakeholders with full dignity.
It is unfortunate how people play politics with just everything, including the collective destiny of an entire race. Those people that occupy front rows in mosques and churches have simply refused to acknowledge Nigeria’s sin against the Igbo. They have remained obstinate in perpetuating this evil and claim or pretend not to notice but as Dame Patience Jonathan would say, ‘there is God o’.
However, the Igbo need a new strategy. We cannot continue to call out unarmed youths to march on the streets against Nigerian soldiers, who relish mauling them to death. We cannot continue to preach hatred of others whereas we clamour to be loved. Seriously, we are all agreed that Biafra is alive and can never die but in the present circumstances, we should not be talking about an independent state of Biafra.
My reasons are many but most importantly, as an apostle of homeward integration, the Igbo will be worse off for it if the independent state of Biafra materialises today.  How do we intend to run such a state when majority of Igbo investments are offshore? Over the years, the Igbo had developed their host communities more than the indigenes. Many have assimilated the cultures of other lands and neglected or forgotten their own. Now, even such things as traditional marriages are conducted outside their homesteads in other lands. Also, the Igbo now have a stupid arrangement, called Eze Ndigbo in the Diaspora. Arrant nonsense! Have you seen Oba of Yoruba in Onitsha? Or Emir of Hausa-Fulani in Aba?
How can we seriously be claiming a Biafran state that will wither at the birth table? There is confusion everywhere. Today it is Nnamdi Kanu? Who really is this young man, who came from nowhere to dislodge his fathers from IPOB, a group they laboured to form? What, truly, is his agenda? If I were President Buhari, I would have since ordered Kanu’s release from detention, as keeping him in jail has enabled him to achieve his feigned heroism.
Before it was Ralph Uwazurike but now, one Uchenna Madu claims to have driven Uwazurike out MASSOB, a movement Uwazurike founded and used to reignite the Biafra agitation. Even the Nnamdi Kanu he made Director of Radio Biafra betrayed him. This subterfuge, blackmail, sabotage and selfishness can never give us Biafra. Even though Uwazurike may not be perfect (nobody is), his non violence template stands a better chance of getting us to Biafra overtime. It is suicidal to incite youths to confront armed soldiers, because as they say, only a fool would dare a man with a gun.
Let the Igbo heal themselves before the talk of Biafra. Nigerian armed forces kill the Igbo with glee and nothing happens because there is no strong voice to speak for us. Sadly, we scuttle the efforts of those that should speak for us. That is how we have ended up with political minions in the National Assembly. Judge it yourself: Apart from Ikeoha, Ekweremadu, how distinguished are those people in the senate? How honourable are those in the House of Representatives? Are they the best Igbo can afford? What is their impact? How did they get there? Even the governors, what manner of governance is ongoing in Igbo land, tragicomic or downright comic? And we want Biafra? Where will we get the leaders in Biafra land? We have to be careful about this matter. Let us invest at home. Let us stop developing other lands. Let us recreate Nnewi in every town in Igbo land. Let us love one another and eschew all evil, including kidnapping and armed robbery that drive away interested investors. Let wicked relations repent and all witch doctors abandon their shrines and run to God as new creatures.
We can then talk about Biafra or even not at all because economic prosperity and freedom is higher than any other right. After all, Buhari wanted power at all cost and got; yet all he does is making a singsong of how corrupt the Jonathan and gang he supplanted were. Both Buhari and the power he inherited had receded so fast people are now asking that their corruption be brought back. It is certain that with economic freedom, nobody would be talking about recession.
Nevertheless, the Nigerian Army can dance with the python for as long as it desires. Though it may ambush and constrict the Igbo to death, it can never swallow the Igbo whole.  The Igbo never slump; we die standing, on our feet.