On July 6, 1967, civil war broke out in Nigeria between the country’s military and the forces of Biafra, an independent republic proclaimed by ex-Nigerian military officer Odumegwu Ojukwu on May 30 of that year. The war killed more than 1 million people, many of whom died from starvation. It ended in January 1970 with the reintegration of Biafra into Nigeria. Malnutrition, Red Cross, kwashiorkor, relief flights, genocide, the Uli airstrip used by Biafran planes to elude the Nigerian blockade, mercenaries, the Aburi accord that broke down and led to war—these are some of the memory triggers of the Nigerian civil war of secession that we would like to re-assign.


Over a million lives perished—a shameful proportion of them children—mostly through starvation and aerial bombardment. The Nigerian federal government, committed to the doctrine of oneness, had boasted that the conflict would last no longer than three weeks of “police action.” We had learnt much from the politics of other nations, but apparently not from history; the war lasted more than two years. Noble Laureate, Prof Wole Soyika Tormented by the image of a herd of human lemmings rushing to their doom, as a young writer, I made the “treasonable” statement warning that the secessionist state, Biafra, could never be defeated. The simplistic rendition of that conviction in most minds—certainly in the minds of the then-ruling military and its elite support—was that this applied merely to the physical field of combat. Thus it was regarded as a psychological offensive against the federal side, an attempt to demoralize its soldiers while boosting the war spirit of the enemy. That “enemy” had also boasted that no force in black Africa could defeat them. My visit to the Biafran enclave in October 1966 resulted in arrest and detention.

During interrogation, I insisted that my statement was meant as a counter to the surge of emotive nationalism and a slavish sanctification of colonial boundaries. Biafra was therefore an expression of that rejection and its replacement with a people’s self-constitutive rights. This specific challenge owed its genesis to memory at its rawest, the memory of ethnic cleansing, whose remedy could not be sought rationally in a campaign of subjugation against an already traumatized community. One question, rhetorical in tone, stuck in my mind for long afterwards. It went thus: “Why should you take it on yourself to make such a statement? Is it because you’re a writer? Who are you to take a contrary stance to the government?” I replied to myself that I had learned to listen. The young man countered that he was on the side of history, and Biafra would be crushed. Not quite, as it turned out.

The Biafrans were indeed defeated on the battlefield, but crushed? Today, most Nigerians know better. Biafra has not been defeated. If anyone was left in any doubt about this, the last work of my late colleague, Chinua Achebe’s There Was A Country, has left us re-thinking. New generation writers, born long after that brutal war, have inherited and continue to propagate the Biafran doctrine, an article of faith among the Igbo populace, even among those who pay lip-service to a united nation. Millions remain sworn to uphold it. Many have died at the hands of the police and the military as succeeding guardians of that legacy troop out to reclaim it in defiant manifestations. Amnesty International estimated that at least 150 pro-Biafra activists have been killed since August 2015. Some of their leaders, including the director of their official mouthpiece, Radio Biafra, remain on trial for alleged subversion and treason. Others have gone underground. The war is not over, only the tactics have changed. One could claim that a project of internal secession is unfolding, one that skirts the peripheries of Nigerian laws, testing what they permit, and daring what they do not.


As for the victorious side, analysts continue to cite the lingering consequences of the war of secession among the main causes of the nation’s instability, alongside contemporary factors such as mismanagement of petroleum resources, corruption, visionless leadership, etc. Today, secession simmers openly, and is moving steadily beyond rhetoric. It has already taken on a dangerous complement—ejection. A number of combative youth organizations in the northern part of Nigeria recently called for the expulsion of the Igbo from their lands for daring once again to talk about secession. Mainstream leaders have disowned them, but some support has been voiced by individuals within the same adult cadre, including its intelligentsia. Debate is intense, often acrimonious. Sadly however, one is left with a feeling that most participants in this discourse shy away from a fundamental component of nation being, one that transcends the Biafran will to corporate existence. That principle virtually gasps for air under the wishfully terminal mantra that goes:

“The unity of Nigeria is non-negotiable.” I have never understood how this is supposed to differ from the dogma of certain religious strains that declare conversion from faith to be an act of apostasy, punishable by death. Nationality, like religion, is only another construct into which one is either born, or acquires by accident or indoctrination. Those who insist on the divine right of nation over a people’s choice seem unaware that they box themselves into the same doctrinaire mould of mere habit, just like religion. In the Nigerian instance, however, the matter is even more troubling. Since the absolutists of nation indivisibility are not ignorant of the histories of other nations and are immersed daily under evidence of the assertive factor of negotiation—be it in the language of arms and violence or the conference table—since they know full well that this process straddles pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial histories, such speakers unconsciously imply that Africans are sub-citizens of the real world and are not entitled to make their own choices, even in this modern age. This smacks of an inferiority complex, if not of a slavish indoctrination, when we additionally consider how today’s Africa came to be, a land mass of constitutive units that were largely determined by alien interests, and thus, hold possibilities of fatal flaws.


Also requiring contestation is the implicit equation of supreme sacrifice with supreme entitlement: Those who say, “We have shed our blood for Nigerian unity, and will not stand by and watch it dismantled.” My observation is that in civil warfare—indeed in most kinds of warfare—civilians pay the higher price in lives, possessions and dignity. We need therefore to eliminate the distracting lament of professionals of violence and confront, in its own right, the issue of the collective volition of any human grouping. This leaves us with the other line of approach, the line of frankly subjective or reasoned, pragmatic preferences. It is a positioning that admits, quite simply, I am a creature of habit and prefer things as they are. Or: I like to be a big frog in a small pond, and allied determinants. Such individual and collective preferences for nation validation offer sincere basis for negotiation and resolution. Once conceded, we proceed to invoke the positives of cohabitation that render fragmentation mostly adventurist and potentially destructive. Habit is a great motivator, but it should not be permitted to transform itself into categorical controls that make any existing condition “non-negotiable.”

Should Biafra stay in, or opt out of Nigeria? That is the latent question. Even after years of turbulent co-tenancy, it seems unreal to conceive of a Nigeria without Biafra. My preference for “in” goes beyond objective assessment of economic, cultural and social advantages for Biafra and the rest of us....


Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/07/biafra-has-not-been-defeated-wole-soyinka/

''The war is not over, only the tactics have changed. One could claim that a project of internal secession is unfolding, one that skirts the peripheries of Nigerian laws, testing what they permit, and daring what they do not''. Prof is always on the side of Biafra

well said, don't know what makes Baba backed that rotten vegetable in the 2015 general election & not candidate from other party except PDP/APC

This man is indeed a professor of books. Only that just like other intellects from the west sides, they support illiterates even over themselves. I don't understand why in the world an educated man will support and promote mediocre? I mean, it's unfortunate and preposterous.He talks big, but acts small. Typical

Who can stop the sun from rising from the EAST?

raw intelligence............. see rational human being


check my signature......

I see the war been won soon..... BIAFRA has come to stay

One of the greatest Nigerians to ever grace this earth. It's a shame that people like him are often left on the peripheries of government whilst people like Buhari are given the highest status in the country. Nnamdi Kanu should have gone further in his comparison of Nigeria to a zoo; Nigeria is a zoo where the zookeepers, like Prof Soyinka, are caged and the animals roam free.

Ngozi123:
One of the greatest Nigerians to ever grace this earth. It's a shame that people like him are often left on the peripheries of government whilst people like Buhari are given the highest status in the country. Nnamdi Kanu should have gone further in his comparison of Nigeria to a zoo; Nigeria is a zoo where the zookeepers, like Prof Soyinka, are caged and the animals roam free.

The same Soyinka who is regularly pilloried on this website by the ipob zombies.
I agree with you that he is indeed a great Nigerian.

Who cares

Food for thought

.

Afonjas already attacking Wole Soyinka...enemies of Yoruba people. Giving Yoruba bad name.

I didn't expect this from my respected Prof .

NwaAmaikpe:

NwaAmaikpe drop that joint, if u ffuck up I will personally fall on u, u know say u dey directly under me


modified.......
NwaAmaikpe, thanks for the doing the needful

Point of correction Prof,
It's not Biafra has not been defeated

But

Biafra can not be defeated.

This ideology is ingrained in the mind and souls of toddlers and babies unborn,
The cry for liberation echoes from the anthills of Nsugbe to the mountains of Ngwo,
The cry of injustice is heard from the lakes of Oguta to the beaches of Buguma.

Never again,
Never again shall we see the Hausa-Fulani and call him brother.
We are not genetically identical
We are not psychologically identical
We are not spiritually identical
Those are no brothers of ours,
At best, they are neighbors but not our brothers

Our brothers don't mate with animals
Our brothers don't marry underage girls
A neighbor is not a brother.

Our lands are ravaged,
Our resources are exploited,
Our tomorrow is raped,
Our hands are tied,
Our mouths are gagged
They've made us believe all we can do is mumur
We can't shout or fight because we are powerless.
But our resolve is unflinching.

One day,
The sun will rise again,
Power will return to the people

Viva Biafra.

Shameless useless Igbos, so the same Shoyinka you all ridiculed because he criticized your Messiah and Bloda GEJ is suddenly the same person you are quoting. The Biafran folks are desperately seeking for validating and appeal. If Biafra is something you truly believe in, you dont need to care what Trump, or the UN, or the same person you all abused and shamed during the GEJ's government think. Its a matter of time before a baboon is quoted as a staunch supporter and lover of Biafra. Hopeless and insincere cause sponsored by criminals who are afraid of been investigated after looting the GEJ administration into tandem. Kanu is definitely collecting his pay check from Ekweremandu, Ubah, Odua, Obi, and the likes. A silly puppet dancing to the tune of this pay master, and half of the entire SE youths cant see this fraud for his insincerity. Just please give them the Biafra, and see these people self-destruct like ticking timebomb in less than a decade.

Have you heard of israel being defeated in a battle

No way

Biafra is a must

God is good

when biafran war ended, we too measures of what we lost and what we gained. Our hope and prayers was that the sacrifice burn by so many would have spawn to bring a new nation where equity, justice and fairness will be for all. But instead the reverse was the case. This time around the spirit of biafran has risen and she is asking for independent because of injustice. Its either Nigerian government grants that freely or with violence. If they chose war, i guarantee them that this time the war is not gonna be fought in some distant battle field,the war will be fought among us, in the mist of us, the children will learn of it with their own eyes and the innocents will die with the rest of us.

Who asked him ? Suddenly he wants to reclaim the stage

Patient dog! Eats the fatest bone till hungry kill the dog!

Biafrans will love this. For today, soyinka seems to be talking like soyinchukwu.


Check my signature for your quality customised ATM card flash drive.

They'll now call him a good man. These my people can be really funny atimes

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Correct gist

If the SS people understand the need to free SS/SE together from Nigeria through Biafra, nothing is going to stop both groups to be freed from Nigeria shortly; after which it becomes as easy as ABC for Nigerdelta Republic or any other country in the SS to be.

He made sense for the first time in a very long time.

This is the Soyinka I know and respect.

The one romancing ameathief must be a body double imposter!

Ericaikince:
Who cares

Wetin go make u care? Huh where ur granny still dey register NPOWEr

maxiuc:
Have you heard of israel being defeated in a battle

No way

Biafra is a must

God is good

So what happened in 1970?