MY LITTLE WORRY ABOUT BIAFRA (EPISODE II). By KEMKA S. IBEJI

Having been at the forefront of Igbo agenda for few years now starting from my undergraduate days in the University, I have come to realize certain things that have kept me more worried than ever about the Igbo nation. All along, it seemed we have been engaged in a movement but have never bothered to know either our steps, our timing or our plans. It merely seems we only know our destination.

However, it would have not been a problem as it has become now if we actually know our destination. Perhaps one would have been consoled with or by the Machiavellian maxim of "the end justifying the means". I got more worried when I turned around to ask my friends in the struggle questions on our assumed destination. Honestly, no one seems to know for sure where we are headed.

It is obvious that everyone seems to know what light is till you are asked "what is light? ". I am sure almost everybody will begin to understand the need for details. It is for this reason that I have paused to ask certain questions as the following;

1. What is Biafra?
2. Who are the Biafrans?
3. Do the said Biafrans know they are Biafrans?
4. Do the Biafrans agree they are Biafrans?
5. Is there any need for the Biafrans to know and agree that they are Biafrans?
6. What happens if they do not know?
7. How will the Biafrans know that they are Biafrans?
8. Who will let them know they are Biafrans?
9. How, when and where will they know they are Biafrans?
10. What happens if and when they realize and agree that they are Biafrans?

The above questions are very important to the definition of Biafra of yesterday, today and tomorrow. It particularly true that if you do not know what you are running after, you will run without end. Before you send someone to go and buy you grape, you at least be sure that the errand maid knows what the object of purchase is. It is for the reason that we must first of all know and sincerely understand what Biafra is and what it stands for. To appreciate this as well, we must understand what the first dreamers saw it as.

To know what Biafra is, it will be important to know what and who constitute Biafra or Biafrans. Are Biafrans Igbo people or are some other people involved? To also understand what aspect of Igbo we mean, it is important to note that the north sees everyone down South as Igbo. In fact, some stories have it that most of the issues that caused Biafrans war was not just the sufferings or maltreatment of the people of South-East but that of the "Igbos" and Igbo here means everybody in the South including Yoruba, Ibibio ,Efik, Anang, Ijaw, etc. Other conceptions of Igbo will mean the South-East and South-South.

To the above end, one will ask; who are the Biafrans geographically and anthropologically? By Biafrans geographically I will mean the areas in landmass and communities that are part of Biafra. And by anthropologically I intend to mean tribes and cultures that are constituting Biafra.

A vital aspect of Biafra and which is the fulcrum of this episode is the essence of Biafra. And I wish to ask, what is the essence of Biafra? Why Biafra?

The above essential question of Biafra was muted earlier when it quibbled about what the creators or earliest protagonists of Biafra defined it as.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle will argue that every action, every move and every intent is aimed at the good. For him the good here is the utmost good - the summum bonum. Ethicists will argue that the summum bonum is the 'reason deter' (reaonson to be)  of human existence - the goal of life. And dear thinkers will always ask; what is the utmost good for man? Why are we here?

In fact, every action of man in the society has been focused on answering the above question willy-nilly. It is on the reigning pedestal that we must situate Biafra within the confines of the search to answer the question of human existence. For this truism, Biafra will not by any minutest inch be removed from the search for the common good of the Biafrans.

Posturing and mainstreaming Biafra in the social milieu, it should therefore be all about the good of the Biafrans; their security of lives and property, their welfare, their health, their leadership, their food, their education, their association, their worship, their rights and privileges and the likes.

In the case above, Biafra should be the search for the common good of the Biafrans. And the next concern is that of how best and where is this common good of Biafrans best served.

Before the 1914 Amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates, the Lagos and Southern colonies were merged in 1886. Furthermore, Preindependent African map connotes the two (2) Bights namely; Bight of Biafra and Bight of Benin. However, at independent in 1960, Nigeria was a happy nation with Nigerians loving together happily and without fears and insecurities of selves - suspicions. All peoples of Nigeria enjoyed safety of their common good till suspicions came in and rendered their various life goals insecure. It was at this point that the issue of Biafra came up by some identity group.

The inference therefore from the premises above is that Biafra is a child of circumstance and a seed of protection of the common good of a certain group of people. This raises the question of, once again, where the summum bonum of the Biafrans will be beat served.

It is cultural to hear people say that relationships are bad for mending. This simply will explain why most Biafran agitators will clearly tell you that there is nothing that can make them be Nigerians qua Nigerians again. For them, once beaten, twice shy. However, this human strand of understanding does not remove the fact that the most important thing is that the common good of all Nigerians being safe and sound whether jointly or separately.

It is the above immediate concern that draws the attention of this episode of MY LITTLE WORRY ABOUT BIAFRA. Where is the common good of the Biafrans best served? How best is it served; jointly as Nigerians or separately as Biafrans under sovereignty? But before this question, the superior question should be what is the common good of the Biafrans in clear instantiation? By instantiation here I wish to extricate intellectual tonic from symbolic logic where general cases are reduced to particular and immediate matter. By this I verily want to particularise out from general and universal case study and bring down to the grassroots understanding what the Biafran agitators see as the good for their people. And I wish to emphasize that here is the main worry about Biafra.

No Biafran agitator in the current agenda colourations either as MASSOB, IPOB, Zionist Movement, etc has been able to articulate what amounts precisely to the common good of the Biafrans. The worry became excruciating as the call for Igbo Presidency by some Igbo group incured the wrath of especially the IPOB.

The very same and reasonable thing is that Biafra is not an end in itself but a means to an end. And so any attempt to see Biafra as an end in itself is a misnomer and non-sequitor. And again the worry about Biafra here is that some of the Biafran agitators are seeing Biafra as an end in itself. They see Biafra as the solution for all the problems of mankind within the geographical and anthropological precincts of Biafra. I see this as a huge loss of sight from the essence of Biafra and wrong shot.

The summum bonum of the Biafrans will remain only threatened in the Nigerian sovereignty purview if and only if they are not given appropriate sense of belonging and their due. It is also very instructive to note that the issue of Biafra would not have arisen if the Biafrans (though undefined yet) did not feel their good was threatened.

The most important thing for the Biafrans and the Biafran agitators now should be to clearly delineate why, where, when and how the concerned people are not given their adequate sense of belonging. It should also be to articulate the common good of their people and tender it to the Nigerian polity and weigh their stance upon that scale. It is only when this is done and the threats clearly and succinctly pinpointed as existent or nonexistent that the issue of Biafra came make best reason to all and sundry. This position is born out of the current posture of many Nigerians on the other divide who keep praying and saying that we are better together.

To be better together is to be sincere to one another and to clearly embrace each other as co-owners of the commonwealth called Nigeria. Anything outside that would mean nothing but hypocrisy and unfaithfulness. And such will grant express insecurity of the common good of the Biafrans.

This simply means that the Biafrans really need to know what Biafra is all about, articulate it, present it for test and thereafter define their mainstay through the test result. This derives from the fact that Biafra needs the sympathy and support of the international community and the others who are rooted in moral existence.

To fashion the roadmap for the Biafrans therefore, I set forward to test the sincerity of the Nigerian love and interest in our happy coexistence. This test will also stipulate the degree of the safety of the common good of the Biafrans. And this test is the Igbo Presidency 2023.

All Biafrans of good conscience and understanding should therefore buy into this as their hypothesis for continued Nigerianness or the declaration of the independence of Biafra and Biafra therefore as a sovereign nation.


I am,
KEMKA S. IBEJI