WHERE ARE THE ELDERS?

                                      WHERE ARE THE ELDERS?

"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. "

(James Madison, Jr.1751 – 1836) political theorist, American statesman,served as the fourth President of the United States (1809–17).)


The article titled "Where are the Elders" and written by Muyiwa Adetiba under his column "MY WORLD" in the Vanguard of Saturday, 17th June 2017 is riddled with misinformation. Looks more like a Jihad of Deception from a Northern Nigeria oligarch.
1. On 29th May the whole of South-East was occupied by Police, Army, Navy and Air Force re-Enforcement of a level I have in my several decades of my life never seen except in 1967-70. I live in Enugu and on that day military surveillance helicopters hovered over my roof more than ten times. I went out to a meeting around 4 pm and the police and soldiers were all over the place. I saw no IPOB boys forcing anybody home. They were well advised to stay at home for  the Army and Police would have happily made mince meat of all of them. Nigerians like Mr. Adetiba who have not experienced the brutality of Nigerian security agencies do not know what is happening in the conflict zones outside their home states. Conjecture takes over,
2. 90 % Igbo people support a Remembrance Day for over 3 million Igbos slaughtered 1966-70. On June 12, 2017 SouthWest remembered MKO, of blessed memory, with street matches, symposia, demonstrations. No one was killed or questioned. Why should Igbo sit-at home like conquered people they are, anger the oligarchy, if it is not out of any intention to display their suzerainty over the Igbos and the rest of Nigeria.
3. Igbos wanted street Marches on 29th May as remembrance for their dead. Police and Army threatened hell and brimstone. The program was changed to Church services. Yet the Police and Army branded it Security threat. They decided on sit-at home to reminisce; yet people like Mr. Adetiba invented all kinds of falsehoods to introduce violence into a most pacifist venture.
4. He  asked about Igbo elders' control. IPOB is a rebellion of Igbo Youths against Igbo Elders' docility. Nigeria has fed excrement to Igbos since 1970 and the elders swallowed all of it without complaining.
5. 3,000 Igbos were killed in the May warning riots of 1966 in the North. In October/Nov. 1966 another 30,000 were slaughtered by soldiers, police men and thugs. 1.129 million fled Nigeria for their lives and requested a loose federation so that each region would control its security. The North refused and compelled occupied Western Region to join them in a war the North forced on the Igbos. Let's forget that the West, using its intellectual power maneuvered Biafra into a defeat.  The North alone, with its reliance on brute force had no capacity to defeat Biafra. Thereafter the real oppression commenced.
6. Today Igbos are killed anyhow in the North without question. In 2016 alone over five were slaughtered in Abuja including a young man who urinated near a make-shift Mosque. He was beheaded and it took more than two weeks to recover the head for proper burial. 74-year old Mrs Bridget Agbahime was killed in Kano earlier this year by zealots and the Kano Governor entered nolli prose qui (plea of no prosecution) in court and the five zealot/ murderers of elder, Mrs. Agbahime were let to go.
Enough of Igbo story of woes in Nigeria. For mor information visit my blog: emekaonyesoh.blogspot.com.ng.
6. The question is why should northern youths, get angry if they do not regard Igbos as slaves, which is what the 1999 Enslavement Ordinance called "Constitution" makes all Nigerians outside the oligarchy and their collaborators. Unknown to Yorubas this attitude unfortunately includes them in a way. Chief Olu Falae's repeated encounters with Cattle Fulani herdsmen Islamic militants is a bye-product of this attitude.
7. Gani Adams and OPC have pledged support for Biafra self determination agitation but also want their own Oduduwa independent State forYorubas. Kayode,Soyinka and even Afenifere understand the essence of the struggle.

Mr Adetiba wrote like an apologist of northern oligarchy's enslavement of other Nigerians. The difference between us  is that I know and want to be free. Mr. Adetiba does not know that he is enslaved and therefore might never aspire to be free.

It was Mahatma Gandhi (1869 -1948) who said and I quote "The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. He frees himself and shows the way to others. Freedom and slavery are mental states."

The Igbos probably have forgiven the Yoruba for defeating Biafra in a  war they took over from the North. Igbos know they can do business with Yoruba; disagree, argue and agree & nobody gets killed. The North will always kill fo no cause and the security agencies would ask no questions.

I stand on Aburi. It is either Nigeria is re-structured into six confederal states, each controlling its security or separation without violence. Or time will resolve Nigeria by disintegration.

Agitating for the right to self determination is allowed by Nigerian law which ratified the African Charter on Human and People's Rights (ACHPR); ACHPR Article 20 and United Nation's International Convention on Civil and Political Rights. Nigeria even domesticated ACHPR into a Nigerian domestic Law.

Britain and Canada did not threaten Scotland and Quebec province respectively with war when they demanded independence. Like civilized people they deregulated powers to the provinces, guaranteed minority rights in their Constitutions and then allowed the Scots and Quebeckers to decide to stay or go in referenda. None left their federation. Federations is no longer fashionable by force. Quebecans constitute merely 8.5% of Canadian population. Yet to reassure Quebecans stay in the Federation of Canada, French, Quebecans official language was accepted as official language of Canada in parallel with English, the language of the other 94.5% Canadians.

The North should imbibe 21st Century best practices of the world and stop behaving like 7th Century AD Islamic fundamentalist who are today terrorizing the world and causing 90 % of the wars/unrest and terrorism in the world.

 General Alani Akinrinade interviews, lecture and book contain good reference points on civilized behavior in a federation . So also is Elder Fasaronti's recent press interview on restructuring.

God bless.

Emeka onyesoh (Prince)

IPOB VICTIMS SUE BURATAI ET AL IN U.S. DISTRICT COURT

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT ENTERS ORDER AUTHORIZING TEN BIAFRAN PLAINTIFFS TO SUE FOURTEEN NIGERIAN DEFENDANTS FOR COMPLICITY IN TORTURE AND EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLINGS UNDER COLOR OF NIGERIAN LAW STEMMING FROM PEACEFUL BIAFRAN PROTESTS AGAINST ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS OPPRESSION


WASHINGTON, D.C.—The United States District Court for the District of Columbia entered an order on June 2, 2017 authorizing ten (10) Biafran Plaintiffs to sue fourteen Nigerian Defendants for complicity in the 2016 torture and extrajudicial killings under color of Nigerian law to retaliate for peaceful Biafran protests against ethnic or religious oppression.  The next step in the litigation is to serve the Torture Victims Protection Act and Alien Tort Claims Act Complaint on the Nigerian Defendants.

The Biafran Plaintiffs are seeking millions of dollars of damages to compensate for their grievous losses and suffering.  The case name is John Doe, et al v. Tukur Yusuf Buratai et al, United States District Court for the District of Columbia Civil Action No. 1:17-cv-01033.  It has been assigned to United States District Judge Ellen S. Huvelle, appointed by President William Jefferson Clinton.

The District Court’s Order noted:

“Each Nigerian Defendant allegedly committed crimes against humanity and, as regards each of the Decedents, extrajudicial killings actionable under the Alien Torts Act and Torture Victims Protection Act.  The Complaint alleges that Defendants’ sole or substantial motivating force behind the extrajudicial murders and torture…was the ethnicity, religious and political beliefs of the victims which match those of each Plaintiff, i.e., Igbo ethnicity, Christian faith, and support of Biafran independence through peaceful means.”

The District Court added that the “Plaintiffs’ allege that identifying Plaintiffs or Decedents would expose them, their families, and relatives to an intolerable risk of death or serious bodily injury at the hands of Defendants or the Government of Nigeria.”

Attorney Bruce Fein, of Fein & DelValle PLLC, who represents the Plaintiffs with his partner W. Bruce DelValle, explained:

“This landmark lawsuit is about justice and the rule of law coming to rescue Igbos, Biafrans and their political supporters who are persecuted because of their Christian religion, their ethnicity and their political viewpoints since Nigeria’s independence from its colonial master Great Britain in October 1960. Nigeria’s decolonization violated the1960 United Nations General Assembly Declaration on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples.  Paragraph 2 declares, ’All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social, and cultural development.’  Great Britain never allowed Biafrans to ‘freely determine their political status‘ through a plebiscite or otherwise.

That stands in stark contrast to the self-determination vote Great Britain afforded the Scots in 2014.  Biafrans are decidedly more distinct from other Nigerians in matters of democratic culture, history, religion, language and ethnicity than the Scots are from the English.  The time to remedy the flagrant decolonization injustice to Biafrans through peaceful means is long overdue.”

                                BIAFRA REMEMBRANCE 30th MAY 2017
                                       By Greg Ugbaja

# I’m heading to Uzoakoli to do battle
I’m heading to Uzoakoli, but My lover cries out, she didn’t want me dead.
My lover begs me to flee,
But who will defend the land When I flee?
My sweet heart begs me to Flee,
But who will do battle when the Hausas come#

With this song Biafran men marched into battle to defend their fatherland  as Northern troops led by British tanks and Russian planes invaded their land to continue the Genocide that they started in the North  in 1966.

Every Month of May, we Remember Over 45, 000 innocent people, men, women, children of old Eastern Nigeria , butchered in 1966 all over Northern Nigeria just  in 3 months in the first govt supported genocide in Africa.

Many were laid on rail tracks and crushed by train, men buried alive, pregnant women had their bellies ripped open,Children clubbed to death, Innocent souls whose only crime was  belonging to a different ethnic group and Faith,

To the 45,000  Innocent souls whose blood was used to irrigate the deserts of Northern Nigeria, although the conspiracy of silence continues by most Nigerians, although no monuments are erected, although no atonement has been made for that unprecedented horror,their Blood continue to cry out against this nation, a nation that pretends it never happened - but we, your kins, forced to bury empty coffins, we your brothers-
WE REMEMBER

The Thousands and thousands unaccounted for- in unmarked graves, from Kano to Maidugiri, to Jos to Markudi, to Zaria, to Kafanchan,to illorin,

Although Nigeria sits on these graves and pretends it didn’t happen but we in whose home steads you left empty spaces-
WE REMEMBER

To the he brave hearts who stood up to the British armoured cars with matchetes

Two Boys who shared a riffle so when one fell the other will pick up his gun to defend his freedom. To the men who went into battle with five rounds each and must only shoot when he was sure to kill. The men who laid down their lives so I may live
WE REMEMBER

My three kinsmen who volunteered in Oguta and Ontisha sectors,brave men Who never returned-still on patrol
YOUR FAMILIES REMEMBER

To Bruce Mayrock, an American student who set himself on fire, laid down his life to protest against  the Genocide by Nigeria against its own people
WE REMEMBER

Artur Alves Pereira and Count Von Rosen  of the Biafran airforce who came to Biafra in protest against the state sponsored pogrom
WE REMEMBER

To Wole Soyinka, who stood alone and insisted” the man died” who kept silent in the face of such a pogrom
WE REMEMBER

Tanzania, Ivory Coast, Zambia and Haiti, nations that hoisted our flags against the silence of the world
WE REMEMBER

All members of the Research And Production unit (RAP),
with no outside help YOU demonstrated that the black man can do wonders if only he looks inwards; Home made armoured cars, rockets, beer from cassava, engine oil from coconut, the Biafran Red Devil (Amoured vehicle), the Shore Batteries, the Ogbunigwes. Your ingenuity, your bravely, today-
WE REMEMBER

To our brave mothers , who cooked and sent to their sons in the trenches, knowing it could be their last meal-
WE REMEMBER

The little boys who went “combing” many returned, many did not
WE  REMEMBER

The World Council of Churches, The Caritas, The Red Cross who saved millions of children with food aid, despite the blockade,
WE REMEMBER

Millions of our Children who had no milk and died before their time
WE REMEMBER

Ah! Corporal Nwafor, you took in the hail of bullets from the vandals yet continued your final run towards their armoured car with a grenade in your hand, until you successfully threw the grenade into the troublesome vehicle and disabled it before you let your bullet riddled body fall to the ground and your comrades captured the precious armoured car and renamed it “Copral Nwafor”
WE REMEMBER

Col Patrick Achuzie-, General Alexander Madiebo, Gen. Philip Effiong, Col. Onwuatuegwu, Nkonko Ndem and all brave men who stood in the gap
WE REMEMBER

Odumegwu Ojukwu switched from Ball rooms to Bunkers, leaving behind a tremendous wealth to give shelter to a people faced with death, you turned artisans into fighters and scientists,  your mission, to build the first black nation with an indigenous technology.

Under the pressure of  mortar shells and in less than three years, you demonstrated that  the black man can hold his own, but the whites didn’t seem to be comfortable with an indigenous African technology, so  UK and USSR suspended their enmity and empowered their Northern stooge to distract you. The Arab League threw its weight behind the North, the rest is history

General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu,Eze igbo gburugburu, oguejiofo..
WE REMEBER

May justice prevail, may peace reign, may we NEVER find a need to shed blood,May  God open the eyes of this Nation to see that like the blood of Abel, the blood of the innocent Easterners shed  needlessly in 1966 calls for atonement and until the Nation collectively owns up to it, it can never be free from this vicious circle.

#May30thBiafranHeroesDay

​​​​​Biafra 50 Years After -

   Reconciliation: What have we learned?

      Paper presented at The Conference -

MEMORY AND NATION BUILDING: BIAFRA 50 YEARS AFTER:

​A SOBER REFLECTION.  

By

PROF. T. UZODIMA NWALA

President

Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF).

1. Introduction.

Before I thank the organisers of this Conference and pay my tribute to the Memory of my friend, late Major-General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, in whose Foundation Centerthis historic event is being organised, let me quickly dismiss certain lingering pernicious fallacies that have dominated all discussion about the coup of January 15, 1966 and the Biafra War.

First, the Chairman of the occasion, Alhaji Ahmed Joda, has alluded to the January 15, 1966 coup as an Igbo coup that, according to him, was replied by a Northern coup of July 29 1966.

Let it be said loud and clear that that coup, namely January 15, 1966 coup, was not an Igbo coup. It was a coup led by certain Igbo and Yoruba Officers, involving the active participation of soldiers from the North. The aim, as has been stated again and again, by the leaders of the coup was to release Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who was in detention at the time and install him the Prime Minister of Nigeria.

That coup was foiled by Igbo military officers. Igbo political leaders and activists knew nothing about the coup.

Again the Incursion into the Mid-West by the Biafran troops was not a quest for territorial grabbing by the Igbos. Ojukwu sent troops under the Command of Col, banjo in response to Chief Awolowo’s request for troops to help liberate Yoruba land from the occupation of soldiers from the North. By the time Col Banjo got to Ore, the British had gotten Gowon to offer Chief Awolowo Vice Chairmanship of the Nigerian Government. Awolowo, therefore, asked Banjo not to proceed on his mission.

General Yakubu Gowon knows the truth of all these things. And that is why the Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF) had written him and asked him to tell Nigerians and the whole world the truth about the January 15, 1966 coup and the Biafra incursion into the Mid-West.to stop all the lies against Ndigbo, which havebeen the basis of the burden they carry as a nation within the Nigerian Federation.

Secondly, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the former Head of State and a frontline commander on the Federal side during the war, said that they (the Federal military leaders) conducted the war without any hate or vengeance because it was a quarrel between brothers.

To this one is constrained to ask a few pertinent questions

i. How did the world come to describe the conduct of the war as POGROM?

ii. What about the policy that hunger was a legitimate weapon of war and so was justified in its application against the Biafrans?

iii. What about bombing of refugee camps, market places, churches, etc?

Again, when Chief Obasanjo said that they, the victorious side, have been more magnanimous than the victors in the American civil war, where, according to him, those who lost the war never had a chance to be President of America until several decades if not a century later, I would ask him WHAT ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA? WHAT ABOUT NELSON MANDELLA?

Such assertions rather than heal the wounds of the war, keep the wounds aglow, rather than reconcile pour raw paper of unjustified arrogance on the wounded hearts of the Biafrans. How can you genuinely talk about reconciliation with that kind omind-set. The truth is that for General Obasanjo, the Biafrans are defeated people. Period!

Indeed, before we can talk about reconciliation, we must accept that grave wrongs were done to the Biafrans, Before, During and Since the end of the war. 

2. Tribute to General Yar’Adua.

NOW, Mr Chairman, Ladies and \Gentlemen, let me go on to thank the organisers of this Conference  - the Yar’Adua Foundation and the six Nigerian Universitiespartnering with the Foundation; the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Initiative for West Africa who have provided support for this Conference - Biafra: 50 Years After.

What is more, I would like to pay tribute to the memory of my late friend, General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua. I met him for the first time during the 1994-5 National Constitutional Conference. There we struck a friendship that would have born great fruits but for his untimely death. I personally escaped being arrested with him. 

General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, became a great democrat after the war despite his aristocratic background. He genuinely believed that this wobbly Federation could be given a dependable foundation. Consequently, he set out to recruit gifted compatriots to work with him for that purpose. What a great hunter of talent Shehu was!

I remember two memorable moments in our interaction. One afternoon, after lunch in his house, we sat down on the sofa. I asked him 

“General why is it that when you are not smoking cigar (cigarette), you are chewing kola nut?

He answered me. I will not tell you his answer today. Wait for my Memoire that should be ready by my next birthday.

At another moment, also after lunch with him and late Prof. Aborisade, we sat down on the sofa. Shehu said to me “Dr Nwala, let me show you why we Northerners are reluctant to relinquish political power”.

He brought out two volumes of strategic studies which he had commissioned some intellectuals to produce in preparation for the Constitutional Conference of 1994-5. I glanced through volume 1 which deals with the indices of power in Nigeria. I read the discussion, looked at the statistics and the graph, and shook my head, and said to myself this guy is a great political actor. I also reserve the details of what I read in that volume as well as our discussion for the sake of my forthcoming memoire.

I saw those two volumes of strategic studies at the Library of the Yar’Adua Centerwhen I visited there about two week ago.

What is important in this narrative is that General Yar’Adua was avery sincere leader, he always spoke to me and to anyone in his political company from the bottom of his heart. He was sincerely in search of a genuine way forward. He was a man who knew that all is not well with the Nigerian Federation and genuinely sough the correct path to its healing!

The point of the story is to reveal a bit of the life of this great political strategist, who if he had lived after that Conference, he and the powerful circle of comrades he had built at the Conference would have helped to see to a more liberal accommodating political order in Nigeria. Shehu was the darling of a liberal democratic movement that was emerging in Nigeria before he died. He was equally hated by what many of us call the hegemonist who have consistently aborted every opportunity to create ademocratic political culture. It is the later who have consistently made it difficult to achieve a genuine reconciliation in Nigeria. It is these forces that have insisted on aFederation founded on the peace of the grave yard.

Yes, General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua along with the compatriots he had worked to put together would have constitute an authentic force for reconciliation and national integration. He was a victim of the forces of hegemony.

3. Post –Biafra Reconciliation – What Lessons?

​

During the trial of Adolf Hitler after Germany and her allies lost the war to the Allied Forces, the following exchange took place between Hitler and his interlocutor –

Interlocutor to Hitler:​You were responsible for the Second World War?

Hitler:​​​​No! The Versailles Treaties was.

I believe this Conference has been provoked by the renewed agitation for Biafra. In that case, a similar question can be posed to the Biafra Self-determination Agitators in Nigeria today as to whether they are responsible for the renewed Agitation for Biafra.

I imagine that the Biafra Freedom Agitators, just like Adolf Hitler, would emphatically respond NO! They would rather blame the present upsurge for Self-determination and Biafra and all its fallouts on all those leaders on the victorious side who, rather than pursuing the path of genuine Reconciliation, pursued the path of punitive retributions against those who lost the war. 

Unfortunately, as it was in the case of the defeated Germany that was neither pacifiednor conciliated, nor was it permanently weakened, so do we find in the case of Biafra, that despite all the retributive measures against her people, Biafra and the Biafrans, have neither been pacified, nor conciliated, nor have they been permanently weakened.

Unlike the Treaty of Versailles that exerted bloody pound of flesh on the side that lost the First World War, the victorious side in the Second World War padded their retributive actions with the Marshall Plan. And thus unlike the intended Carthagenian peace of the Versailles Treaty of 28 June 1919, the Marshall Plan brought a relatively permanent peace to Europe that withstood the shock waves of the cold war including the Cuban Missile crises.   

In pursuing the lessons of the retributive post-war treatment of the Biafrans, I would ask the leaders on the victorious side –

When you took all their financial deposits in the banks and paid them only £20 (twenty pounds), what did you expect the result to be – pacification, conciliation or to have them permanently weakened?

When you allowed massacre of unarmed soldiers and leaders even when they had declared their return to Nigeria, what did you expect? I mean when you murdered Prof. Kalu Ezera or when you killed unarmed Col Onwuatuegwu in cold blood, what did you expect?  

When you killed and also buried alive thousands of innocent civilians in Asaba, was that a circus show?   

I escaped being killed at the end of the war through the mysterious intervention of my college mate, Mr Nwogugbe from Asa in Abia State who was a member of the Nigerian battalion that overran my area on that fateful day of January 8, 1970. The solders had sent for me and when I arrived at Nkwo Mbaise their base, Nwoguegbeinstantly recognised me and shouted Nkume! I responded Nwoguegbe! Despite being introduced to his commander, Captain Jibowu, the later took him to one corner,asking to be  convinced why I should not be treated in accordance with the official instructions, namely to waste any such able-bodied young-man who may have been an actual or potential Biafra soldier. I was lucky. Nwoguegbe saved me, but several of my mates from my community were not.  Cornellius Oguikpe, Michael Osuagwu, Efriam Chukwunoyerem, Echewodo Onwunali, all were murdered at the end of the war by the Nigerian soldiers. 

Yes, post-Biafra was not attended by any genuine efforts to seek reconciliation noreven to find out what led to the war. Rather, what we have witnessed is decades of vengeance, arrogance and conspiracy against Alaigbo and Ndigbo –

Yes these are on record -

• Immediate post-war punitive massacre,

• Dismissal of some officers on the losing side, reduction in rank of others

• Dismissal of civil servants.

• Secret Execution of some officers (Col. Onwuatuegwu, Prof, Kalu Ezera) 

• Abandoned property seizure of Igbo property.

• Punitive boundary adjustment.

• Closure of the Eastern Sea Port and Railway lines.

• Deliberate policy of encirclement of Alaigbo, inciting Igbo outside Igbo heartland to reject their Igbo identity.

• Deliberate policy of exclusion from the governance and power equation iNigeria..

• Deliberate policy of destroying Igbo businesses. 

• Continued massacre, lynching of Igbos in many places in the North

• Insensitivity to the plight of the IDPs of Igbo extraction who were initially the major targets of Boko Harm bombings and killings.

• No serious effort at post-war reconstruction and reconciliation

I strongly recommend to all those who care to understand how the Igbos view their predicament in the Federation to read the Petition of Ohanaeze ndigbo to the Human Rights Violations Investigating Committee of 1999. It is captioned

The Violations of the Human and Civil Rights of Ndigbo in the Federation of Nigeria (1966-1999).

President Obasanjo should speak to the nation now about why and how that initiative of his was aborted. A Truth and Reconciliation was a great idea, but just like all National Conference decisions meant to deal with the resolution of the injustices of the system. It was arrogantly dismissed and nothing happened.   

4. Biafra : A Collective Guilt

• Have we forgotten that Biafra was a collective guilt and that those who created the Nigerian Federation did so to satisfy their own agenda Theydesigned a local a local agenda for the same purpose?

• Have we forgotten the cause of Biafra and the war? Have we ever cometogether to examine why Biafra?

• Obasanjo’s Truth Commission and the Justice Oputa Commission were arrogantly dismissed and nothing happened.

• Who was the aggressor in that war?

5. Aborted Efforts to Solve the Nigerian Problem

What about several efforts to sit down and dispassionately examine the fate of the Federation and how to heal the wounds of the past.  Several aborted historical opportunities for peace and stability, or a genuine democratic system include -

- Ibadan Conference of Sept/Oct 1966

- Aburi Accord.

- Abiola’s election that wuld have set a precedent.

- 1994-5 Constitutional Conference and the 1995 Draft Constitution, the best Constitutional Draft in the history of Nigeria.

- Conferences organised by Obasanjos regime.

- President Jonathan’s 2014 Conference.

- Current Ferocious opposition to restructuring.

-  

6. Laying the Foundations for Genuine Reconciliation – The Biafra Initiative

The Birth of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) – A child of the post-war East Central State Youth Volunteer Services Corps (ECSYVSC) whose memo to General Gowon led to the establishment of the NYSC by the Federal Government.

I led the delegation, as Chairman of the ECSYVSC, that delivered the Memoradum to the Federal Government on the eve of the first post-war independence anniversary, precisely on30th September, 1970.

In response General Gowon had given Dr Ukpabi Asika’s Government £75,000 (Seventy-five thousand pounds) in appreciation of that historical initiative of the youth of Alaigbo. 

The great objective of that historical initiative as conceived by us, the youth of Alaigbo, was to forge a genuine instrument of national reconciliation and national integration.  

What has happened to the NYSC? Any credit to the initiators? Several attempts have been made by the chaps in the NYSC Foundation in Abuja to interview me in order to draw inspiration from the original mind that conceived the NYSC; each time they were discouraged from a follow-up.

It was the same way that a former Governor had advised the Federal Government to create an institution to house the Biafra scientist. The answer was no!, because doing so would give credit to the Biafrans.

7. The Road to Reconciliation. 

Not Restructuring but Renegotiation of the basis of the Nigerian Federation.

Nigeria is a multi-national Federation. The task is to agree on the terms for a form of political union among these nations and mini-nations.

Unless this is done, there would never be any stable Federation uniting all these peoples who are culturally, religiously and philosophically separate nations and mini-nations. 

Prof. Uzodinma Nwala

President 

Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF)

6