Chapter One
Time Does Not Heal Wounds
David A. Seamands wrote that ‘time itself does not and cannot heal those painful memories which are so painful that the person’s mind cannot tolerate them.’ Sejal, also maintains that ‘time does not heal all wounds. It is what you do in and with the time that heals.’ The question on my lips then is: what has the Nigerian government done in the 50 years after she fought a brutal war of unification to improve the memories of inflicted injuries? The answer to this question sticks out like an ugly sore in a visible spot before our eyes.
In the twilight of another painful period in the chequered history of Nigeria, and while I sit back this 2017 to mark the 60th anniversary of the day I was born, it is with a heavy heart that I recount the ugly memories of the Biafran war from the discomfort of a foreign country in far away from Europe. I can say that many of us who migrated abroad in the aftermath of the civil war in the 1970s and 1980s was constrained to do so as a necessity rather than by choice. Many of us have also remained abroad since then. The reason for our mass migration abroad is the result of what I call the ‘Nigerian factor’ which has led to self-imposed exile!
The choice that we face today, especially those of us from the Eastern part of Nigeria, is either to come ‘home’ to a country that denies us necessary privileges of full citizenship or to stay abroad at least to enjoy a tolerable human dignity offered us as economic migrants. Sadly, many of us are trapped outside Nigeria separated from beloved ones: mother, father, friends, relatives, and friends. It is thus not completely correct that Diasporian Biafrans are living in their comfort zones. Economic migrants of the recent era, that is, those of us that could survive the horrors of the Libyan desert and the Mediterranean Sea have become quasi-stateless persons under the aegis of the International law for obvious reasons of a continued quest for survival.
After the devastating effects of the Biafran war fifty years ago, Igbos faced and still face the ugly plight of a conquered population. Our parents were deprived access to pre-war Bank accounts while many could not secure admissions into the Institutions of higher learning. This denial was because of a lopsided and ob-noxious quarter system that limited our chances to get admissions. Meanwhile, a special fund was set aside, not to reintegrate a people ravaged by war, but to help the so-called educationally disadvantaged states of the North, a privilege that still exists till date, but had made little progress.
I have always desired to tell the story of my Biafran experience, but each time I tried, I ended up postponing the idea. However, I resolved that this my desire will not pass this year and hence summoned the courage to start the process.
My shock and disappointment can easily be imagined when I read on the pages of Nigerian Newspapers that a quit notice was again handed down to the Igbos residing in Northern Nigeria! This declaration which I later saw on video contained despicable hate statements that sent ripples down my spine. The so-called Kaduna Declaration gave a deadline of October 1st, 2017 for all Biafrans to vacate their places of residence in the North or face grievous consequences! This action is said to be in response to a call for a Referendum by Biafran Activists (the indigenous peoples of Biafra - IPOB) who are seeking for the right to Self-Determination. The eviction order brings to the mind a similar scene of 1967 when the Igbos were massacred in their thousands. It is also an indication that history is about to repeat.
I read that a veiled assurance was given to the Igbos by the Governor of Kaduna State, El Rufai, who offered to protect their lives and property. It must, however, be noted that such assurances were equally given by Colonel Hassan Katsina, the then Governo of Northern Nigeria in 1967. In 1967 when Nigeria was still operating a regional system of government, such a guarantee did not avert the killing of over thirty thousand Igbos. That was before the Biafran civil war took its toll on the lives of over three million people.
As I take a careful inventory of my sixty years of livelihood and the fifty years of post-war events in Nigeria, numerous questions spontaneously spring to the mind: Is this another one-way ticket to Biafra of my infant memory? What is the federal government that insists on the unity and indivisibility of Nigeria doing to secure the lives of millions of Southerners living in the North? Let us be reminded that it is the primary duty of the central government of Nigeria (that controls both the Police and the Army) to safeguard the lives and property of all Nigerians wherever they may live! We are witnessing yet the beginning of another pogrom as the Nigerian Military deploy tanks to the Southeast on the so-called operation python dance.
From my humble apartment in Europe, independently of my migrant status, no amount of racism will warrant anyone to issue me with a quit notice requesting that I forfeit a house that I purchased with my hard-earned money. And no amount of legislation will be improvised to confiscate my house classifying it as ‘abandoned’ property. In Nigeria, however, I am likely to be forced to forego my assets which will then be acquired by others just because I own them in another part of the country. If the October 2017 Quit Order to the Igbos is not eventually executed, what guarantee do I have, should I still choose to reside in a part of the country different from my state of origin without facing harassment and without a threat to my life? Is it not too simplistic for anyone to argue that I must be confined to my home or village to develop my area? The argument that I must live in my hometown runs contrary to the nature of human beings and infringes on my fundamental human rights as a Nigerian citizen. More-so Basic infrastructural facilities drive development usually provided by the government. People are constrained to migrate to areas where such facilities are present. It must be noted that the federal government appropriates the lion’s share of all Revenues to provide these basic needs.
The Nigerian president may decide to be medically treated in the United Kingdom instead of dying in his remote village in Daura. It is within his fundamental human rights to do so. In the same token, I have the constitutional right to reside where I choose to live in my country without the fear of a quit notice.
The Nigerian democratic process that produced the ruling APC government and the administration of president Mohammadu Buhari allows the president albeit undemocratically, to make a significant declaration in far away from the United States of America about his country. At the US Institute of Peace, President Buhari was reported to have said to Dr Baker while replying to a question on the all-inclusive government: ‘I hope you have a copy of the election results. The constituents, for example, (that) gave me 97% [of the vote] cannot, in all honesty, be treated on some issues with constituencies that gave me 5%.’ The implication of this declaration goes to buttress ‘the winner takes it all’ mindset in Nigerian politics. Let me quickly say that presently, the entire resources that will be denied the so-called 5 per cent constituencies come from these same neglected areas! I believe that this utterance will shock anyone with a sound mind in this 21st century because it amounts to bigotry.
Top politicians, especially from northern Nigeria like El Rufai, have maintained that rectifying the anomaly in the present political structure is both unnecessary and uncalled for. Authorities in Nigeria rather than follow the reconciliatory examples of Rwanda and South Africa by setting up Commissions of Inquiry and Reconciliation, prefer to follow the unstable road of intimidation and ‘divide and rule’. Unfortunately, when the ill wind begins to push the political stream downhill, it will become very difficult to arrest or reverse the trend. The various agitations being witnessed today can still be avoided if Nigeria would muster enough political will to tackle her endemic problems.
Emphasising Sejal’s postulation which I have earlier mentioned, it is what we are able to do on time and with the time that heals a wound. I doubt if Nigeria has not already run out of time to check the political tsunami that may befall her.
