THE ADF GREENBOOK

THE FUTURE OF NDIGBO IN THE NIGERIAN FEDERATION

MEMORANDUM OF

THE ALAIGBO DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION (ADF)

[Part 2]

3.0 THE PREDICAMENT OF NDIGBO IN NIGERIA.

3.1 Roots and State of Igbo Predicament in Nigeria.

To understand the plight of Ndigbo in Nigeria one has to understand the history of the formation and development of Nigeria as we have tried to sketch above. What is more, one has to understand the peculiar place of Ndigbo in the course of that history.  Given this background, one is fully armed to appreciate the nature and intensity of the longing for freedom by Ndigbo, nay by other nationalities that have suffered tremendously under the arrogant yoke of Fulani Moslem domination. 

Indeed, the predicament of Ndigbo since the Amalgamation of 1914 and up to today clearly shows: –

  1. That there has been a problem of Igbo integration in Nigeria.
  2. As a people, the Igbos are like an endangered species in the Nigerian Federation. This is what is today called the Igbo Question or the Igbo Predicament in Nigeria.
  3. The Igbo society, by its socio-cultural character, is highly development-oriented, but the situation within the Nigerian Federation seriously retards its development potential.
  4. The political conditions in Nigeria are grossly antithetical to the egalitarian/republican, democratic, and development-oriented nature of the Igbo society.
  5. The cumulative effects of the above are a state of persistent and explosive physical, moral, political, socio-economic, religious-spiritual, and psychological pressures on the peoples of Igbo origin in Nigeria. This has often taken the form of gruesome pogrom, murder, punitive neglect, and denial of fundamental social and human rights.  The 1967-70 Biafra War and the attendant pogrom against the Ndigbo with the Asaba massacre during when 2000 unarmed innocent men and young people were shot and buried in a mass grave, as its high watermark.
  6. The capacity of the Igbo nation to overcome its present predicament in Nigeria through democratic methods is highly circumscribed given the feudal, anti-Christian, and undemocratic nature of the Nigerian Federal Republic, and the vulnerability of Igbo leadership, some of whom were reared by the Fulani feudal lords.

(Below are cited some of the incidents of unprovoked attacks and killings of Ndigbo in Nigeria).

3.2 Ndigbo and the Burden of History.

The Igbo nation has, indeed, continued to carry the burden of survival and political relevance since the 1994 Amalgamation by the British which, as we have clearly shown above, brought together various nationalities, distinct in their history, language, culture, institutions, and values just as the English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Greek, etc., are to one another.

3.21   The Origin of Igbo Phobia in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Radical opposition of Ndigbo to British Colonialism. It all began with the uncompromising nature of the stiff and fierce Igbo resistance against British colonial penetration of Alaigbo (1902-8); the resistance of Igbo women during the Aba Women Resistance Movement in 1929 and the militant nationalist movement in Nigeria and the entire African continent in which Igbo leaders played prominent roles, etc.; these were the root-causes of British antagonism to the Igbos in Nigeria, and incitement against them as part of the British policy of “divide-and-rule”

Consequently, to isolate Ndigbo in the Nigerian Federation, the British created a federal structure within which Ndigbo became politically marginalized and at the same time antagonized their neighbors. During this era of colonial history in Africa, the British and other European powers were very antagonistic to those who stood in the way against colonial domination. The Kwame Nkrumahs, Lumumbas and to a different extent Dr Azikiwe were intensely loathed and harassed by the colonial powers. Lumumba himself was consequently killed and Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was deposed by a neo-colonial military, and later died in exile.

3.22 Organized attacks against Ndigbo as a War of Attrition.

The series of the massacre of Ndigbo in Nigeria from the forties up to the Nigeria-Biafra war which continued in greater intensity with the Boko Haram insurgency that killed thousands of Umuigbo drove millions of them down to their Southern ancestral homes and further pursued and killed; their women and daughters raped by armed Fulani herdsmen, etc., are the serial sordid experiences of Ndigbo as a result of the seed of intense hatred sowed by the forces of colonialism and their agents in Nigeria.

3.23 Fulani Ambition to make Nigeria an Estate of their forefathers.

The Fulani have never made secret of their intention to dominate the entire territory of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.  Ndigbo appears to be their greatest obstacle and the Fulani has never hidden their hatred for Ndigbo.  The Igbo experiences under the present Buhari regime are only an echo of the Fulani intention to annihilate and occupy Alaigbo as a prelude to occupying the entire territory.

3.24 Ndigbo have remained an Endangered species in the Fulani-dominated Federation of Nigeria.

All these sordid experiences of Ndigbo have been compounded by the state of economic and social ruin of  Alaigbo due to refusal to reconstruct  or  develop  Alaigbo  after  the  Biafra  war;  the  punitive economic  and  political  measures  that  have  virtually  ruined  the economy of Alaigbo, brought internal disharmony in Igbo-land and ruin to such major cities as Onitsha, Aba and Port Harcourt that were once the economic and social pride of West African and the entire African continent; the flight of Igbo business and capital outside Igbo land, etc; the deliberate punitive boundary adjustment created to dis-member Alaigbo, assign parts  of their territory to other zones and land-lock their territory;  all these constitute the state of helplessness of a nation that has been under siege since the beginning of the last century; and this is a nation whose friendly and enterprising citizens are all over the Nigerian Federation helping to develop different parts of Nigeria; a nation whose citizens have been  made vulnerable  to constant  physical  massacre,  religious,  political  and  social marginalization, manipulation and harassment.

3.25 The Biafra War.

We should also emphasize that the Biafra war is a nodal point in the sordid experiences of Ndigbo in Nigeria. In that war, and the massacres that preceded it, Ndigbo lost over three (3) million innocent civilians and soldiers; their territory was devastated, millions of children and old people died of malnutrition (kwashiorkor), many of those airlifted overseas thanks to the humanity of the morally and spiritually inspired mankind, are still there. Indeed, some non-Igbos burnt themselves in protest against man’s inhumanity to man. One would have thought that after 50 years of the Biafra pogrom, the forces in control of Nigeria would relent and allow Ndigbo to be, no, today under President Buhari, they have gone berserk terrorizing and killing other ethnic nationalities, who are today facing their music of fire and brimstone and are now searching for a way out of this Golgotha. The movement of total Islamization and ethnic cleansing targeted at the entire Federation has become like a great monster supervised by the Fulani-controlled security forces.

3.25 Ndigbo: Victims of Serial Massacre and Genocide in Nigeria.

For the record, several recent test-runs involving bloody attacks on Igbo Villages in Anambra, Imo, Abia, Ebonyi, and other parts of Enugu State, all the States in Eastern Nigeria have been conducted by the Fulani insurgents without any repercussions. What do you think such mindless slaughter of Igbos was meant for? They were not the real thing planned for Igbo annihilation. Let us go down memory lane to examine such massacres of Ndigbo by those who insist that Ndigbo must live in the same country as them: –

  1. In Jos Northern Nigeria, in 1945, there was a massacre of Igbos.
  2. There was genocide against Igbos in Kano in 1953.
  3. 1966 pogroms- over 60,000 civilians were killed in different parts of Northern Nigeria.
  4. May 29th, 1967- over 200,000 soldiers and civilians of Igbo origin were killed in different parts of Northern Nigeria.
  5. 1967-70 – over 3,100,000 were killed during the bloody Biafra war (including the Asaba Genocide, during which over 2000 unarmed men and youth were slaughtered and buried in a mass grave.
  6. Another riot occurred in Kano in 1980. Many Igbos were killed and billions of their property was destroyed.
  7. There was a series of massacres of Igbos in Maiduguri in 1982
  8. Jimeta 1984
  9. Gombe 1985
  10. Zaria 1987
  11. Kaduna & Kafanchan 1991
  12. Bauchi & Katsina 1991
  13. Kano 1991
  14. Zangon-Kataf 1992
  15. Funtua 1993
  16. Kano again in 1994
  17. Kaduna 2000
  18. Kaduna 2001
  19. Maiduguri 2001
  20. Jos Maiden Crisis-September 2001
  21. Kaduna 2002
  22. Jos-November 2008
  23. Beheading of Gideon Akaluka in December of 1995 in a Police Station in Kano.
  24. Post-April 2011 Presidential Election: 10 youth corps men & women and numerous citizens were murdered because a Christian Southerner was elected President against a Moslem Northerner.
  25. Christmas Eve Riot in Jos in 2010
  26. Madalla Christmas Day bombing in 2011
  27. Mubi January 6, 2012
  28. Thousands of Igbo killings were caused by Boko Haram (which of course has the full backing of the northern elites). We should also include the more recent cases of –
  29. Nimbo, Enugu Massacre, 2016 by Fulani Herdsmen armed with sophisticated weapons.
  30. Similar massacre of unarmed civilians in Awgu Enugu in 2016
  31. Another massacre in Abia in 2016 by Fulani Herdsmen.
  32. Beheading of a 74-year-old Mrs. Bridget Agbahume of Ebonyi State. The killers of Bridget were released on the orders of the Governor of Kano State, Alhaji Abdullahi Umar Ganduje.
  33. The killing of the Apo 6 (six Igbo youth) was brutally killed by the police; a case whose disposal and handling reveal much about the federal security agents and their hate or non-value for the Igbo.
  34. In late January 2013, more than 50 dead bodies were seen floating on Ezu River in Anambra State. These bodies were later identified as the remains of some missing MASSOB members who were taken away from a meeting venue in Anambra State.
  35. In 2016 a university graduate farmer, Ndubuisi Uzoma, was beheaded on his farm at Iddo community along the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Road, Abuja by Fulani herdsmen. His headless corpse was found in the pool of his blood on a Sunday by his relations, who went in search of him when he failed to return from the farm.
  36. This year, the Arewa (Fulani) youth issued a Quit Notice to all Igbos living in the Northern part of Nigeria to leave the Region before October 1, 2017. Global outcry prevented the intended attack and killing of Igbos.
  37. This Quit Notice prompted petitions that ADF and some other organizations sent to the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the United States of America Congress, requesting protection.
  38. What followed next was the invasion of Alaigbo by the Nigerian Army in what it called OPERATION PYTHON DANCE, during when many unarmed youth, members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) Movement were tortured and killed in most inhuman conditions. The home of their leader, Mr. Nnamdi Kanu was sacked by soldiers; up till today nothing has been heard about their leader and his parents.
  39. In 1999, President Olusegun Obasanjo set up The Human Rights Violations Investigation Committee under the Chairmanship of Justice Chukwudifu Oputa. Ohanaze Ndigbo submitted a Memorandum detailing a series of atrocities and deprivations against Ndigbo. That Panel was spurned by the former Military President Ibrahim Babangida and other former Military leaders mainly of Northern origin.

To be continued…