The UpNEPA Generation And The Memories Of Biafra – By Chinedu Ekeke

children, women and men. There is uproar in the land; the echoes of our discord, long lost to the façade of unity we have patched up with for forty years, are reverberating again. Biafra is back, this time not as the country that is said to have been, but as the nemesis that is, our nemesis, a reminder that this union was faulty from foundation, and that, worse than the faulty foundation was the absence of true leadership from those on whose shoulders the future of Nigeria was thrust. We call them founding fathers.

I’ll come back to them.

In my village, those whose feeling of accomplishment is founded in vain comparison with others, rather than themselves, like to brag that our clan has produced more educated people than the other clans. They count the graduates from family to family and house to house, and ignorantly pass on to us the message of supremacy over others; you know, that body language that conveys feeling of superiority; “I’m better than you!” Beyond the village, it is even in the Local government. Some parts consider themselves more educated than others, more enlightened, more exposed, totally superior. It extends to the entire state, my home state. In Igbo land, that is. When we seek leadership in my village, should we look out for the man from my clan who daily impresses our assumed superiority upon my clan indigenes – and by extension unwittingly communicates to others their assigned second class status, or should we seek the man who daily reiterates to us all the equality of man and the necessity of mutual respect as the only condition for peaceful co-existence?

I did my youth service in Oyo State, South West Nigeria, and listened as a traditional ruler from one of the towns declared to us, in words that sounded like these, at the orientation camp; “Those of you who will be posted to Ibadan, be very careful with Ibadan people. They are backstabbers. They would smile with you in the day and kill you at night!” We were over 2000 corps members on that field, from every part of Nigeria. You would think that shocked me? Well, it didn’t. Rivalry, whether ethnic or group, is synonymous with Nigeria; from Otukpo to Gboko and Ikot Abasi to Ikot Ekpene. If we dissect the Yoruba nation in isolation, with such rivalry, when an Ibadan man becomes the leader of the Yoruba nation, it’ll be natural for an average Ibadan man to want to rub it on the face of the other Yorubas, wanting to emphasize their superiority, their dominance and their lordship. “We are better than you all!” In such moments, leadership shows forth or flees. If the leader from Ibadan knows the complexities of the human nature, as well as the demands of leadership, he must be the first to call his ‘people’ to order, and strongly caution them against treating fellow humans with disdain. Actually, once you become a leader, “your people” become everybody, and you remain perpetually vigilant to forestall those with little understanding of peaceful coexistence and its demands from making utterances that will stir up hate in others.

This is where our problem began. Our ‘founding fathers’, those we either openly or secretly venerate and deify today, failed Nigeria and left for us heaps of work undone. Fifty two years later, we have yet to be a nation. Our founding fathers were majorly ethnic bigots, and would have been seen clearer today if they presided over their various ethnic groups in isolation. A segregationist in a larger society is a segregationist even in a smaller one, and will ensure he does that even into his family. The only reason we venerate these men is because we compare our part of the country with the rest of the country and conclude, whether rightly or wrongly, that we are better than others, and for that, choose to exalt those to whom we owe the ‘betterness’. Compared to what we should be, can we in truth say we have exhausted our potentials?

Let’s look at the cause of the progrom that began the secession of Biafra and eventually led to thecivil war. There was a military coup during which leaders (I hear they were too corrupt and lacked focus) were killed. The coupists were made up of majorly Igbo soldiers. I can’t say it was ethnically motivated, but it was poorly managed. We have reports of how Igbos living in the North mocked their Hausa hosts for the death of the Northern Premier and even mimicked his dying sounds. I don’t know whose emotions that will not stir. If there was leadership from the Igbos, why would what was termed a coup meant to sanitize Nigeria be converted to superiority contest between the South East and the North? If it was in the best interest of Nigeria, good, but the Igbo elements in the North should have been made to know, by Aguiyi Ironsi, that what happened wasn’t a coup to mock the North, but a cleansing to put Nigeria back on the path of sanity. Failure to do that was what established the “We better pass una” contest that became the progrom. The mass killing of Igbos in the North worsened an already bad situation which eventually led to the war. Clearly, there wasn’t leadership.

The leader is the man who understands the natural tendency of man to seek dominance over fellow man, but ensures he makes his followers appreciate that all men are equal, and that every man deserves respect. This understanding is key for every leader. It is from here that the ability to fairly and equitably distribute resources springs.

The lack of leadership continued even in the war. That was why declarations like “all is fair in war” were made by well-educated key government officials, concerning feeding of civilians, without recourse to the 4th Geneva Convention of 1949 on the protection of civilians during wars. The convention specifically requires that food supply be provided to civilian persons in war zones, either directly or through a neutral state or some humanitarian organizations. There are rules in war. All isn’t fair in it. If Chief Obafemi Awolowo felt bad, as he was quoted to have said, by the sight of kwashiorkor victims in Enugu and Port Harcourt even when he was sending food to the South East, what did he think would happen when he stopped sending food completely? Was the starvation expected to naturally ease out? Agreed, there was a deadlock between Ojukwu and the Federal Government on how to send food, a little more brainstorming would have thrown up possible ways out to save the civilians and the vulnerable. War is between soldiers, not civilians. The starvation policy wasn’t the best possible way out considering that it carried major consequences. Yakubu Gowon, a man who made mockery of honour, reneged on an agreement he was part of in Ghana and Odumegwu Ojukwu, even when he needed to hold on and consult and engage more, wasn’t quite open to earlier peace. Our fathers erred. But then, no point begrudging them.

I consider it a tragedy that Ojukwu did not pen down his memoirs before death, neither did Awolowo. Yet Achebe’s book is a gift to the UpNEPA Generation, for a thorough understanding of our turbulent past. When read alongside other accounts – by other authors – of the Nigerian civil war, we should be able to see where the lack of love for one Nigeria has left us. The authors may give out lines that portray their individual prejudices, yet our attention should be knowledge; to learn those things with which to correct the mistakes of those who should have loved the idea of nationhood more than ethnic rivalry. Today, more than ever before, the choice, clearly, is ours to make.

Under the reviving beats of Fela’s prophetic renditions last January, and standing upon fresh green fields of Gani Fawehinmi Park for hours and days, our generation jolted the tribe of nation-wreckers as we forged a rare unity, the kind never seen before since Independence. From then till now, that unity has only waxed stronger.

The future we seek is ours, and there’s no doubt that only sound leadership – not what we presently have – can take us to that future. We ended up with an inadequate president because we sacrificed competency for ethnicity. We do not need to toe that path ever again.

We would need the involvement of the young from all nooks and crannies of Nigeria. But an old wound has just been laid bare. How do we manage it without losing sight of where we are headed?

As a kid growing up, my parents always warned me to exercise restraint when fighting with my mates. They emphasized that whenever a fight results to death, nobody remembers the initial provocation that led to it. This is a local African narrative which holds true because of the premium placed on human life.

The provocations and counter provocations that led to the civil war may have been forgotten, yet the case of many lives lost is on the front-burner again. Other parts of Nigeria lost lives, no doubt, but Igbos did lose much more number by far. As a generation seeking cohesion, what do we do?

If we say “we are sorry” to the Igbos for the loss, would we lose more lives? If we show a bit of empathy, would any tribe lose extra 3 million people? It doesn’t appear like the man who is human enough to say sorry will make much enemies, does it?

The danger of squaring up for unnecessary war of words about Achebe’s book while our children learn under rickety schools and illiterate teachers is that we would be postponing Nigeria’s redemption time, if it will ever come.

Since after the war, Nigeria has given birth to all manner of rogues and leeches in government, and they are traceable to every single tribe in this country. They have conspired to defraud us of our present and future. There is no ethnic group, including the Igbos, which hasn’t had its own share of the state and national thieves as government functionaries.

In the Secondary school where I served in Ibadan, I could not find up to 5 – out of 97 SS2 students – who could speak English language correctly. The classrooms were not even plastered, and the desks weren’t enough for all the students. It wasn’t just the school; the neighbouring secondary schools – about five of them -were in similar states. In the same compound stood a primary school with even worse challenge: the pupils sat on the floor to learn.

My friend, Segun, who served in Enugu the same period painted a similar picture: no class rooms, no qualified teachers, no worthy students. Demola is presently serving in Kwara and his testimony is the same. In fact he specifically dared me to “come to Kwara and see” for myself” the rot in education in the state. From Taraba to Akwaibom and from Oshogbo to Sabon Gari, Nigeria decays by the second. Our generation has the unenviable task of quickly intervening, and then putting an emphatic stop to this inglorious slide to the days of mass illiteracy. Life expectancy drops by the day because Nigeria has the perfect mix of all the ingredients that ensure people don’t grow old.

The story is strictly that of criminality in governance. If it will take us only “sorry” to be able to enlist the army of people we need to take back our country, I don’t see what we stand to lose.

Source: Ekekee.com