Biafra, South Sudan and Pakistan
The passion for Biafra is evidently
running high among some Ndigbo of South East Nigeria. Since the arrest of the
anchor of the fugitive Radio Biafra, Mr. Nnamdi Kanu by the State Security
Service, there have been reported massive protests of members of the Indigenous
People of Biafra (IPOB) and the faction-ridden Movement for the Actualization
of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) for his release.More louder than the release of Kalu are the calls for the secession of the
whole South East region and some parts of the South-South with predominantly
Igbo speaking people from Nigeria, in other to actualize the defunct state of
Biafra.
The deed of the collapse of Biafra and its reintegration into Nigeria was considered a done deal, until around the last decade of the last century that its restoration was first muted amidst the heightened national question related to self-determination in Nigeria that turned many ethnic nationality groups restive.Some elements of the mostly Ijaw dominated Niger-Delta took up arms, just as some from the Yoruba ethnic nationality engaged the Nigerian state in a cat-and-mouse street fight to drum up the quest for regional autonomy or an outright sovereign state of Oduduwa that has never existed in the modern sense.The sense of outrage of the Yoruba ethnic nationality was stoked further with the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election that its kinsman, the multi-billionaire businessman, Chief MKO Abiola was poised to win.
However, the recent and rising passion for Biafra soon after the election of President Muhammadu Buhari, himself of the Hausa-Fulani ethnic nationality stock, seemed to have reinforced the fear of the mythological but politically potent Hausa-Fulani oligarchy, the same perception that triggered the angry reactions of some Yoruba people at the annulment of the June 12 presidential poll.
The search for an exclusive and puritan community either of ethnic or religious type as basis of modern statehood is not actually new and is not exactly the same thing as self-determination.
South Sudan was the latest state to be achieved in Africa on the basis of ethnic and racial exclusivity, as recent as just four years ago. The South Sudanese people, though of different ethnic group but of the same racial stock of black Africans have staged durable war against the former Sudan, with pointed accusation at the Arab dominated leadership in Khartoum of marginalization, deprivation and even pogrom.The war against the Arab dominated regime started in the late 1950s with the Anya-Anya rebellion and took more bolder shape in the 1970s, when John Garang, a colonel in the Sudanese army, sent to pacify his people, turned round to lead them in rebellion against Khartoum and formed the South Sudan liberation Movement (SPLM) with an armed wing known as the South Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA).John Garang actually pursued a minimum programme of a federal Sudan that would offer its constituent units, large dose of autonomy to manage its own affairs and only demanded outright secession of South Sudan in the case of intransigency of the Khartoum’s Arab elites to agree on power devolution through a federal structure. The death of John Garang in a plane crash in late 1990s sealed the fate of any agreement of the two parties on the basis of a United Sudan.Eventually in July 2011, South Sudan was birthed as Africa’s 54th state but the jubilations in Juba did not last long. Barely a year after, the President of South Sudan, Mr. Silva Kirr from the Dinka ethnic nationality, fell apart with his vice president, Dr. Riek Machar of the Nuer ethnic nationality. President Kirr quickly sacked Dr. Machar and in December 2013 using the phantom coup d’état, allegedly instigated by his sacked former vice president, attempted to purge the army of the Nuer ethic nationality.The action to implicate officers and soldiers of Nuer ethnic extraction in a coup allegedly master minded by Dr. Riek Machar quickly backfired and triggered a spilt in the army mainly along the Dinka/Nuer ethnic lines. The result was a fratricidal war broke out between former comrades of the same army.The war has killed far more South Sudanese than during their struggle against the Arab dominated regime in the former Sudan. More South Sudanese have been displaced, rendered homeless and are hungrier than in the period of their struggle for the creation of South Sudan.The South Sudan experience, which is the most recent and even an on-going nightmare, is a graphic mirror from which the agitators for Biafra must closely examine and find what would make Biafra any different.Pakistan of the former Indian sub-continent was led by the legendary Mahatma Ghandhi in the struggle against British colonial rule.
As independence advanced in the late 1940s, Ali Mohamed Jinnah, the fire brand leader of the Muslim League demanded a split from India on the basis of religious exclusivity with a claim that the overwhelming Indian Hindu majority would deprive the Muslim minority of enough space to practice their faith. He hinged his demand for the establishment of a separate state of Pakistan on the need for a safe and secure political space for the Muslim community.
Ghandhi pleaded in vain with Mr. Ali Jinnah for a United India and in 1947, the British colonial authorities acceded to the independence of India and Pakistan as separate states.
First in the early 1970s, East Pakistan broke out to form the sovereign state of Bangladesh, leaving a deep crack in the purported blissful Muslim homeland. Pakistan herself has been in a near state of permanent turmoil over sectarian fracas of Muslims. From the Pakistan Madrassa, the hard-line Taliban was born, from where it marched to conquer power in neighbouring Afghanistan.
The Peoples Republic of China has 56 ethnic nationalities. Even as China is a multi-national united state, it practices ethnic regional autonomy, where the ethnic national minorities have self-governing institutions. The constitution of China unequivocally proclaimed that all the ethnic nationality groups are equal founders of modern China and also equal stakeholders in the construction of modern China’s socialist state. Ndigbo and other ethnic nationalities should direct their struggle to a united, democratic and socialist Nigeria, the only guarantee to harmonious and peaceful co-existence.
Written by Mr Onunaiju, a journalist based in Abuja.
The deed of the collapse of Biafra and its reintegration into Nigeria was considered a done deal, until around the last decade of the last century that its restoration was first muted amidst the heightened national question related to self-determination in Nigeria that turned many ethnic nationality groups restive.Some elements of the mostly Ijaw dominated Niger-Delta took up arms, just as some from the Yoruba ethnic nationality engaged the Nigerian state in a cat-and-mouse street fight to drum up the quest for regional autonomy or an outright sovereign state of Oduduwa that has never existed in the modern sense.The sense of outrage of the Yoruba ethnic nationality was stoked further with the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election that its kinsman, the multi-billionaire businessman, Chief MKO Abiola was poised to win.
However, the recent and rising passion for Biafra soon after the election of President Muhammadu Buhari, himself of the Hausa-Fulani ethnic nationality stock, seemed to have reinforced the fear of the mythological but politically potent Hausa-Fulani oligarchy, the same perception that triggered the angry reactions of some Yoruba people at the annulment of the June 12 presidential poll.
The search for an exclusive and puritan community either of ethnic or religious type as basis of modern statehood is not actually new and is not exactly the same thing as self-determination.
South Sudan was the latest state to be achieved in Africa on the basis of ethnic and racial exclusivity, as recent as just four years ago. The South Sudanese people, though of different ethnic group but of the same racial stock of black Africans have staged durable war against the former Sudan, with pointed accusation at the Arab dominated leadership in Khartoum of marginalization, deprivation and even pogrom.The war against the Arab dominated regime started in the late 1950s with the Anya-Anya rebellion and took more bolder shape in the 1970s, when John Garang, a colonel in the Sudanese army, sent to pacify his people, turned round to lead them in rebellion against Khartoum and formed the South Sudan liberation Movement (SPLM) with an armed wing known as the South Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA).John Garang actually pursued a minimum programme of a federal Sudan that would offer its constituent units, large dose of autonomy to manage its own affairs and only demanded outright secession of South Sudan in the case of intransigency of the Khartoum’s Arab elites to agree on power devolution through a federal structure. The death of John Garang in a plane crash in late 1990s sealed the fate of any agreement of the two parties on the basis of a United Sudan.Eventually in July 2011, South Sudan was birthed as Africa’s 54th state but the jubilations in Juba did not last long. Barely a year after, the President of South Sudan, Mr. Silva Kirr from the Dinka ethnic nationality, fell apart with his vice president, Dr. Riek Machar of the Nuer ethnic nationality. President Kirr quickly sacked Dr. Machar and in December 2013 using the phantom coup d’état, allegedly instigated by his sacked former vice president, attempted to purge the army of the Nuer ethic nationality.The action to implicate officers and soldiers of Nuer ethnic extraction in a coup allegedly master minded by Dr. Riek Machar quickly backfired and triggered a spilt in the army mainly along the Dinka/Nuer ethnic lines. The result was a fratricidal war broke out between former comrades of the same army.The war has killed far more South Sudanese than during their struggle against the Arab dominated regime in the former Sudan. More South Sudanese have been displaced, rendered homeless and are hungrier than in the period of their struggle for the creation of South Sudan.The South Sudan experience, which is the most recent and even an on-going nightmare, is a graphic mirror from which the agitators for Biafra must closely examine and find what would make Biafra any different.Pakistan of the former Indian sub-continent was led by the legendary Mahatma Ghandhi in the struggle against British colonial rule.
As independence advanced in the late 1940s, Ali Mohamed Jinnah, the fire brand leader of the Muslim League demanded a split from India on the basis of religious exclusivity with a claim that the overwhelming Indian Hindu majority would deprive the Muslim minority of enough space to practice their faith. He hinged his demand for the establishment of a separate state of Pakistan on the need for a safe and secure political space for the Muslim community.
Ghandhi pleaded in vain with Mr. Ali Jinnah for a United India and in 1947, the British colonial authorities acceded to the independence of India and Pakistan as separate states.
First in the early 1970s, East Pakistan broke out to form the sovereign state of Bangladesh, leaving a deep crack in the purported blissful Muslim homeland. Pakistan herself has been in a near state of permanent turmoil over sectarian fracas of Muslims. From the Pakistan Madrassa, the hard-line Taliban was born, from where it marched to conquer power in neighbouring Afghanistan.
The Peoples Republic of China has 56 ethnic nationalities. Even as China is a multi-national united state, it practices ethnic regional autonomy, where the ethnic national minorities have self-governing institutions. The constitution of China unequivocally proclaimed that all the ethnic nationality groups are equal founders of modern China and also equal stakeholders in the construction of modern China’s socialist state. Ndigbo and other ethnic nationalities should direct their struggle to a united, democratic and socialist Nigeria, the only guarantee to harmonious and peaceful co-existence.
Written by Mr Onunaiju, a journalist based in Abuja.
source:http://dailytrust.com.ng/news/opinion/biafra-south-sudan-and-pakistan/121713.html
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