This mission of Biafra

The future for Biafra couldn’t be more reassuring. Biafrans really have their work cut out. Their mission is not to begin to construct a state that is merely post-genocide or post post-conquest/post post-“colonial” state – in other words, cancelling out here and there, in some mechanical venture, that which was Nigeria, arguably “Berlin-state” Africa’s most notorious state.  Instead, Biafra is a realisation, a profound reclamation of that which makes us all human and part of humanity. 

Babies and children-survivors’ leadership

Biafrans have an opportunity to begin to build a new civilisation where human life, fundamentally, is sacrosanct. This salient feature cannot be overstressed. Nigeria has been, for the Igbo, a haematophagous quagmire throughout its history. In June 1945 and May 1953, right there under the very watch of the British occupation, the Hausa-Fulani north region allies of the conquest, opposed to the Igbo-led African restoration-of-independence campaign,  carried out carefully planned pogroms against Igbo migrant populations in Jos and Kano, respectively. Hundreds of Igbo were murdered in these outrages. The occupation charged no one for these crimes and the pogroms became dress-rehearsals for the the May 1966-January 1970 genocide.

It should be stressed that those who lead the current phase of resistance to the Igbo genocide, launched by Nigeria and ally Britain on 29 May 1966, were the babies and children-survivors of the July 1967-January 1970 refugee death camps of Biafra who have now come of age. A total of 3.1 million Igbo people, overwhelmingly children/younger people and older members of the population, were murdered in the genocide.

Biafra is an inclusive state where women and men live as co-operators and co-creators in fundamentally transforming their society. This is a state that accepts and accords full rights to all its people. This is a state where people enjoy the rights to differ and to dream dreams and dream different sets of dreams as they choose.

Essay

Biafra is a state dedicated to furthering and nurturing the resilience of its people and to enabling them pursue their highest creative endeavours. This state continuously strives to remove all limitations in the paths of its people and committed to making life better and better and better. 

This is a state that primes its people to flourish.  Already, 50 years since the first murders of the genocide were committed in north Nigeria on 29 May 1966, the Biafrans have written an extraordinary essay on human survival and fortitude, a beacon of the tenacity of the spirit of human overcoming of the most desperate, unimaginable brutish forces.

This long drawn out catastrophe that was Britain’s Nigeria hotchpotch is over and truly Africans do stand poised on the eve of a new beginning.

(John Coltrane Quartet, “Wise One” [Coltrane, tenor saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 27 April 1964])

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