November 16 2022 | The Biafra Restoration Voice The Igbos are one of the numerous Indigenous Peoples in Nigeria and are known and addresse...
November 16 2022 | The Biafra Restoration Voice
The Igbos are one of the numerous Indigenous Peoples in Nigeria and are known and addressed politically as The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and are predominantly domiciled in the South Eastern part of Nigeria. The Igbos are also domiciled in various other parts of Nigeria and are addressed based on their dispersed or localised locations. Examples are as follows; those domiciled in the Delta region of Nigeria are for instance known and addressed as Delta Igbos, while those in the middle belt areas of Nigeria are addressed as Middle Belt Igbos or Northern Igbos. Most of these Indigenous People of Biafra, and the Igbos were deliberately or otherwise ceded to those areas as a result of decades of political and constitutional developments and reforms during and after the rule of the colonial masters orchestrated and led by the British Empire in the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries.
At the end of the colonial rule in 1960 and the attainment of a Republican status in 1963, Nigeria was plunged into a 30-month civil war against the Indigenous People of Biafra. During this period, over five million people of the Indigenous People of Biafra were murdered and these included women and Children who were starved to death by the Federal government of Nigeria via a deliberate food blockage and financial starvation employed by banks as instructed by the regime of Gen. Yakubu Gowan.
The war was said to have ended in January 1970 through a truce brokered in Aburi, Ghana, between the Federal government of Nigeria and the leaders of the Indigenous People of Biafra, then referred to as The Republic of Biafra following a declaration made by the then Governor of the defunct Eastern Region of Nigeria in the person of Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu in 1966 as a result of mass massacre and genocidal attacks meted out on the Igbos all over the nation of Nigeria. It was declared in that Aburi Accord that it was a No Victor, NO Vanquished settlement.
The war was perceived as an ethnic cleansing masterminded by the Hausa Fulani oligarchs in their drive to dominate the Indigenous Peoples of Nigeria as it were. They started this drive from massacring the Igbos and other Southerners wherever they were domiciled at that time, even as it is till date.
The recent upsurge of this massacre got to an alarming, unprecedented and unacceptable level from the moment the General elections of 2015 were concluded, and where a candidate then and the present President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Gen. M BUHARI who was a key player in the genocide meted out to the Indigenous People of Biafra in the 1966 upheaval, was a candidate, and who vowed to repeat exactly what they did to The Indigenous People of Biafra during that civil war against the Igbos and other Indigenous Peoples of Nigeria if he lost the 2015 Presidential Election. He eventually "WON".
This escalated the fears of the Indigenous Peoples of Nigeria thereby aggravating agitations from different Indigenous Peoples of Nigeria to separate from a country that delights in the killing of the Indigenous People.
In 2014, an Indigenous People of Biafra organisation was founded and registered in the UK for the purpose of campaigning for the Indigenous Peoples in Nigeria to peacefully separate from Nigeria through referendum to avoid being massacred again as they did during the 1966/67 genocidal upheaval against the Indigenous People of Biafra and the Igbo nation. This registered organisation in the UK is The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Radio Biafra as the Ogene Ndigbo (The Voice of the Igbos) aimed to aid the campaign for self-actualization and Self-determination of the Indigenous People of Biafra wherever they are domiciled in Nigeria.
The organisation called The Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, under the Leadership of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has since been the umbrella organisation for this campaign and it wasn't long after being sworn in that the New President, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari began to hunt down those he said did not vote overwhelmingly for him which are The Indigenous People of Biafra and most especially those leaving abroad who they concluded are members of the registered Indigenous People of Biafra in UK.
The Federal government of Nigeria went ahead to arrest and detain many youths from the South Eastern and South Southern part of Nigeria as members of the Indigenous People of Biafra. Some were killed by both the Nigeria Police and the Nigerian Army during their rallies, while thousands of others were arrested and detained in underground prisons in the Northern part of the country.
During one of his visits to Nigeria, the Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and others were arrested in their hotel rooms and detained for about two years until, 2017, when Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was granted bail and released by a Federal High Court in Abuja. The arrest and detention of the Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu escalated the spate of separatist agitations all over the country and the Federal government of Nigeria now saw more reasons to begin a clandestine war against the Indigenous People of Biafra especially those leaving abroad.
In September 2017, the Federal government of Nigeria went ahead to declare that a whole region and the whole people of that region, which are the Indigenous People of Biafra, are a terrorist group. This Declaration by the Federal government heightened the tension and war was declared in various parts of the Biafran enclave by the Federal government. They rolled out armoured tanks against the South-South States in an Operation Crocodile Smile and in the South Eastern part, it was Operation Python Dance.
During the Operation Python Dance 2, the Federal government rolled out armoured carrier tanks and several battalions of the Army to Afara-Ukwu in Umuahia, Abia State of Nigeria in a mission that looked like the Armageddon. They headed straight to the country home of the Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, who was restricted to his house as a condition of the bail granted him by a Federal High Court in Abuja Nigeria. On that day, they began to shoot at anything on site and about 28 men and a dog were mulled down in that compound on that fateful day.
By an unbelievable act of Miracle, the main target, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB was able to escape. His whereabouts were unknown to everyone and everyone thought that he was killed in that clandestine operation. After some months he was sited in Israel on a prayer ground. The hunt for him and other members of the registered organisation, the Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB, began in earnest until June 2021, when Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB, was kidnapped by agents of the Federal Government of Nigeria, and forcefully and illegally renditioned back to Nigeria on a chartered plane.
This act of illegal rendition of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to Nigeria by the government of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari has worsened the case of organised attacks, kidnapping and all kinds of reprisals against the Igbos and the entire garmoth of the Indigenous Peoples in Nigeria whether it is in the South East, South-South, South West, North Central, etc. In the South East, many have been killed, detained and lost without trace. In the South West, many have also been dispatched to their early graces by the Army and the Police. In the North Central states of Kaduna, Benue, Kogi, etc, several Christians have been killed by state actors and non-state actors such as terrorists and bandits.
The problem is that the Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB as the main target, are now being hunted for and can no longer travel to or within Nigeria if they want to be alive. Few months ago, a Kaduna-Abuja bound train were hijacked by so-called terrorists and a young medical doctor of the Igbo stuck was immediately shut and killed on identification from her appearance and accent. Many who travelled from different parts of the world to Nigeria and are Indigenous People of the South East, South-South have also been killed by Nigerian Armed forces since 2015 that the New President of Nigeria came to power.
The Indigenous Peoples of Nigeria needs help from to whom it may concern and the International Community. The UN, The EU, The UK, US, Canada and France should help to save lives in the enclave called Nigeria. Raising alerts of Security threats and terrorist attacks is not enough. The alerts recently raised by US, UK and Canada about an imminent terror attack were rubbished by the Federal Government of Nigeria and swept under carpet while many terror attacks albeit.
This is the Travail of the Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB.
Written by:
Osmond Ogbu
For: The Biafra Restoration Voice - TBRV
Published by:
Chibuike Nebeokike
For: The Biafra Restoration Voice - TBRV
TBRV | Biafra
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