Echoes of Biafra By Uchenna Nwankwo, An Opinion

                                                                                 Pro Biafra Group Zionist Movement

In my last article captioned Zik, Ojukwu and Ndi-Igbo’ published Monday, 25th August 2014 by The Guardian, I averred that Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s speech at the Consultative Assembly in Enugu opposing Lt Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu’s intentions to pull the Eastern Region out of Nigeria in 1967 earned him the  ire of the latter.

In order to gag and prevent Azikiwe from doing anything further to openly or covertly frustrate his desires or organize effective opposition to his resolve to pull the Eastern Region out of Nigeria, Ojukwu took the pre-emptive action of tactically placing Azikiwe under house arrest without letting the general public and even most government insiders know he had done so.

Security operatives were simply put in place at Azikiwe’s residence ostensibly to provide security and protect the former Nigerian Head of State from harm but actually to keep unwanted or unauthorized visitors away. Zik’s close confidants, associates, friends, possible cohorts or likely supporters and even relatives were quietly kept at bay. Those who tried to see Zik were discreetly informed by the security men emplaced by Ojukwu that the great Zik did not wish to see them or words to that effect.

Of course, some of Zik’s relations or kinsmen were not convinced or were distrustful of the farcical reports of Zik’s disinclination to be reached. Soon, highly informed sources say, some prominent Onitsha indigenes, Azikiwe’s kinsmen, especially those of themwho knew and agreed with Azikiwe’s position and nonsupport for secession began to meet to address the unfolding ugly situation. Apparently, they imagined that the traditional freedom of association and free speech everybody took for granted still existed.

Of course, Ojukwu got wind of what was going on and promptly arrested the supposed ringleaders of the group and clamped them into detention on charges of sabotage and illegal assembly.

Those arrested included such Onitsha prominent citizens as Barrister Dan Ibekwe, Solicitor-General of Eastern Nigeria;Mr. Michael Ibekwe, who later became the Police Chief in the East Central State; Mr. Edwin Nzegwu, a very successful lawyer; Justice Araka, who later became the Chief Justice of East Central State;  and a host of others. It is not for me to talk about what became of the Araka family or wife! It is equally remarkable that many of those arrested or detained were not even remotely associated with the said meetings of concerned Onitsha indigenes.

There was no doubt that many Onitsha people, Azikiwe’s kinsmen, were going to rally behind Zik and his idea that it was premature, risky and rash to declare the secession of Eastern Nigeria at least at that point in time. Many of them agreed with Azikiwe’s pragmatic viewpoint that the action could lead to the annihilation and humiliation of Easterners by Nigeria’s Federal troops given the fact that the East was at that point ill-equipped for war.

The said meetings and possible rally against secession were of course actions which under normal circumstances could have passed as an inherent democratic expression of a group’s preferences, enacted to moderate government policy. But from the way the matter was handled, Onitsha people became a byword for saboteurs in the region. Many suffered various degrees of discrimination and persecution as a result of the smear campaign that followed both in the region and later in Biafra.

No doubt, this matter created intra-ethnic disharmony between Onitsha people and the hinterland Igbo during and after the Nigeria-Biafra war. Indeed, the faceoff and mistrust between Ojukwu and Onitsha people got so bad that Colonel Chude Sokei, an Onitsha indigene, is even up to dateequated to or regarded by Onitsha people as the “Uriah” of the Biafran State; to say nothing about the attitude of ndi-Onitsha to the condemnation and execution of their son, Lt Colonel Emmanuel Ifeajuna, by the Biafran authorities.

It is against this backdrop that one might begin to rationalize or understand the nuances, undercurrents and simmering tension in Onitsha today over some of Peter Obi’s actions towards the end of his tenure as governor of Anambra State.

Indigenous population

When Peter Obi erected Ojukwu’s statues in Onitsha metropolis, the indigenous population of the town gasped. They would rather prefer that Governor Peter Obi took the statue away from Onitsha land!

Somehow, it appears, some Onitsha elders and influential citizens have so far managed to check the palpable anger of the people over the issue. But the people’s anger is not by any means extinguished. It is seething. The place is restive. The embers are in fact smouldering, and my reading of the situation is that sooner than later there will be an explosion. Onitsha people regard Peter Obi’s action in this regard as an affront on the indigenous population of Onitsha.

The situation calls for the immediate attention or intervention of Dr. Willie Obiano, the State’s new governor. There is need to nip the gathering storm in the bud; to forestall an impending civil commotion in the town over the matter.

Over the weekend, I overheard an Onitsha man grumble to his mates in a restaurant in the city that the planting of Ojukwu’s statue in Onitsha land is as insensitive and provocative as erecting the statue in Calabar, Uyo, Port Harcourt or Yenegoa. It is unacceptable, he lamented. Come to that, it is doubtful whether any Igbo town for that matter would accept to have Ojukwu’s statue in its town square if the people have an inkling of how Ojukwu actually handled the crisis leading up to secession and  Biafra, and the war that followed.

It is my considered opinion that governments in the Southeast should always take steps that would not exacerbate tensions arising from the war. If anything, they must adopt policies that will help mitigate the injustices, real and imagined, perpetrated by the Biafran government as well as join hands with other groupings in and outside the old Eastern Region for the achievement of reasonable reconciliation; to bury the hatchet and provide psychological and material relief to those who were scorched by the violence of war and the attendant discriminatory enactments and inflammatory and adverse propaganda orchestrated before and during the entire crisis period on all sides.

There is need for understanding and empathy. In the case of ndi-Onitsha and their travails in Biafra, such empathy has not been forthcoming from the rest of ndi-Igbo, not out of wickedness and lack of care but simply because most people are still ignorant of what really happened; why ndi-Onitsha were erroneously branded saboteurs based on the cover-ups and lies peddled by the powers that be at the material time.

Indeed, governments in the Southeast must also continually adopt ideas and policies to recreate cherished Igbo values and society that were destroyed by the Nigeria-Biafra war. To borrow a refrain of Mrs. Rose Adaure Njoku, the long suffering wife of Brigadier Hilary Njoku, we must endeavour to “withstand the storm”.

Uchenna Nwankwo is the author of the book: Zik, Ndi-Igbo and their Southern Neighbours