“I freed a thousand slaves; I could havefreed a thousand more if only they knewthey were slaves.” —Harriet Tubman.FOR weeks now, the issue of Biafraagitation has been at the front burner inthe polity. Every vendor’s stand has beenturned into a theatre of arguments by freereaders and potential customers, who spendhours analysing the fresh Biafra movementbeing propelled by the Indigenous People ofBiafra, IPOB and Movement forActualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra,MASSOB, via peaceful protests.The social media was not spared as it hasbeen inundated with intellectual fireworksby proponents and opponents of the Biafrastruggle. Almost every known andunknown columnist has written in supportor against Biafra’s resuscitation by thepromoters of IPOB led by the illegallydetained Director of Radio Biafra, NnamdiKanu..I have been prompted to express mythoughts on the Biafra agitation by thedimension the argument has taken,especially where spin-doctors who areknown agents of divide-and-rule have goneback to their usual work of dividing theindigenous people of Biafra. The major aimof these divide-and-rule elements who tendto cry more than the bereaved is to use theinstrumentality of the media to tag theBiafra agitation an Igbo “affair”. Theirony of the debate is that majority of thosedivide-and-rule advocates who have swornto keep inciting Biafrans against eachother are non-Biafrans. I think the futureor restoration of Biafra should strictly beleft for indigenous people of Biafra todecide..I would like to expose some of the antics ofthese divide-and-rule agents who onlywant to keep enslaving us by creatingdivision amongst us. The followingthought-provoking questions would help inhighlighting the points of my submission:Why is the major ethnic groups inNorthern Nigeria are always referred to asHausa/Fulani—giving the impression thatthey are one indivisible people, instead ofHausa and Fulani? Why do we have South-South as a geo-political zone carved out ofold the Eastern Region, but there isnothing like North-North in NorthernNigeria? How did the creators of thisSouth-South mantra come aboutsomething that questions all the principlesof geography? How come there is Niger-Delta in the South but nothing like North-Sahara in the North? Why is there oneNorthern Governors Forum in the North,but coming down Southern Nigeria, wehave South East, South West and South-South Governors Forums? Why do wealways hear about Northern Elders Forumand 19 Northern states as one socio-political bloc and one North,but we hardlytalk of Southern Elders Forum, 17Southern states or one South? Someoneshould put on his thinking cap over this..The Yoruba, one of the major tribes inNigeria, has roots in North-Central statesof Kwara and Kogi—which are outsideYoruba-dominated region of South West.Yet Yorubas in Kogi and Kwara are allseen and respected as full-fledged Yoruba-speaking people with their rights andprivileges protected in line with Yorubacustoms and traditions. There is nothinglike Kogi and Kwara Yoruba being inferiorto Yorubas in Lagos or Ogun or otherSouth-Western states..In line of this thought process, why woulddivide-and-rule propagandists keep onreferring to Igbos in Delta and Riversstates as not being “real” Igbos bybranding them Delta or Rivers Igbo withthe sole purpose of creating divisionbetween them and their brothers and sistersin the South East? As a result of years ofpropagating these wicked falsehood anddeceits via the media owned and run bydivide-and-rule proponents, these baselessconjectures and unproven innuendos haveended up sinking deep into the psyche ofmajority of Igbo people from these statesborn after the civil war, who nowignorantly view their brothers as strangersor even enemies!If Yorubas in Kogi and Kwara states are“true” Yorubas like their brothers andsisters in Osun and Ekiti, why on earthwould Igbos in Rivers and Delta states—whoare of Igbo origin, bear Igbo names andspeak its languages– be made to believeunconsciously using the media that theyare “half-caste” Igbos in other not only todivide old Eastern Region but to limit theso-called “real” Igbos to five states ofSouth-East—thereby consolidating anddeepening the seeds of division and discordin the region. Could the ill-conceivedpurpose of this segregation and creation ofanti-geography mantra called South-South be to reduce the size of Igbo-speaking people in the old Eastern Regionor to continue referring to South East aslandlocked?.Unfortunately many of our brothers andsisters born during and after the civil warunknowingly bought into this gimmick. Theemergence of Radio Biafra has helped todeconstruct this mountain of falsehood anddeflate the balloon of fallacies bandied bydivide-and-rule campaigners who nowtermed the undiluted and unalloyed truthemanating from Radio Biafra as “hatespeeches”. What an irony!I have asked these questions several timeswithout getting reasonable answers: Whydo we have BBC Hausa Servicebroadcasting in the Northern Nigeria andthere is no BBC Yoruba Service and IgboService or Ijaw Service broadcasting in theWest or East? Who is afraid of RadioBiafra? Could the difference between BBCHausa Service and Radio Biafra be thatone is propagating divide-and-rule antics-cum-born-to-rule ideology, while theother is championing restoration of rightsof Indigenous People of Biafra via self-determination as enshrined in the UnitedNations Charter? Where were those anti-Radio Biafra elements when Radio Chanjiset up by the APC apologists in the Northbefore the presidential election for the onlyaim of inciting Northerners againstPresident Goodluck Jonathan byheartlessly misinforming them thatPresident Jonathan and General Ihejirikawere the ones funding the dreaded BokoHaram—the same insurgents they werefighting?.Former President Jonathan lost the lastpresidential election as a hero but thecampaign that preceded the election unifiedthe entire old Eastern region for once sinceafter the Nigeria-Biafra civil war. The2015 presidential election result showedclearly that Jonathan got 80 per cent ofhis votes from old Eastern region, theremaining 20 per cent votes were given tohim by Biafrans residing outside the oldEastern Region.It is on record that Igbos sacrificed a lot toensure re-election for Jonathan during thecampaign not because of governmentpatronage they were enjoying—of course anaverage Igbo man doesn’t need governmentto survive but as a result of the umbilicalcord intertwining Ijaws, Ibibio, Igbos,Ogonis, Uhrobo, Efik and other ethnicnationalities that make up old Easternregion together. The Igbos voted en massfor Jonathan to entrench justice, equalityand fairness in the overall interest of oldEastern region in particular and Nigeria atlarge..For my brothers and sisters in Ogoni, Ijaw,Enang, Efik and other ethnic nationalitiesthat make up the so-called South-Southzone, who are still under the spell ofdivide-and-rule propaganda by believingthe concoction sold to them by those whowant to continue to enslave us that Igbosare their problem. Can I ask the followingquestions: was he an Igbo man that killedKen Saro Wiwa?Who murdered IsaacIdaka Boro? Who ordered the invasion andmassacre of thousands of innocent peoplein Odi town of Bayelsa? Why NorthernNigeria does normally referred to as oneNorth irrespective of hundreds of tribes inthat region, yet we allowed ourselves to bedivided into states and villages?,What is the ethnic affiliation of those incontrol of eight-three per cent of oil blocsin Niger-Delta, how many of them areIgbos? Weren’t the same people who aretrying hard to divide us now conspired toremove your son, President Jonathan fromAso Rock? Why would we remain inperpetual slavery by allowing outsiders todivide us by rewriting our history for us?.The time has come for all lovers of freedomand prosperity in old Eastern to stand up and be counted. There is a timewhen silence is no longer golden.Be Wise Brothers...Mr Nwobodo Chidiebere, a political analyst,from abuja

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Radio Biafra has really done a great job.

AFTER dz wt nxt!i v seen ibos claiming not to b ibos!lyk Etche and ikwerre!pls my own is to create a Family dt r nt nigEria!EvEry tin is bleeped up since 1914