Mr Adams had six wives. Each of the
wives had a minimum of five children. Years ago, Mr Adams was wealthy.
He lavished his wealth on his family...
However, there was always some
misunderstanding in the family, as expected in a polygamous family. To
make matters worse, Mr Adams did not have the skills in managing a large
family. He did not use the same rules on members of his family. He was
either favouring one child or discriminating against another. Distrust,
hatred, quarrels, fights, and even deaths occurred frequently in his
household.
Mr Adams swam in wealth but was not good
with managing resources. It was not surprising that he soon ran into
hard times. Things became worse. The available funds were insufficient
to take care of the needs of the household. That heightened the
frustration in the household and led to more friction and tension.
One of the children, Peter, protested
that he and the children of this mother were not being treated fairly.
Mr Adams ignored him. Peter’s voice rose and he became caustic. His
father locked him up and refused all entreaties and advice by elders to
release him or even look into his complaints. Each day Peter stayed in
detention, sympathies grew in his favour. Even his brothers who never
liked his words and agitations began to have sympathies for him and his
message. Eventually, Mr Adams released his son on a temporary basis.
Peter and some of his siblings continued
with the agitations, insisting that they were tired of remaining in Mr
Adams’ household and wanted to move out and run their own household. Mr
Adams tolerated the taunts and agitations for a while. Then, he decided
to show the agitating children his might and what he was capable of
doing. He bought a double-barrelled gun and took it to the quarters of
Peter and his siblings. He believed that if he walked around their
quarters with the gun, they would know that he had the power and
seriousness to deal with them if they crossed the “red line”.
Surprisingly, the more he displayed his
gun and shot into the air to prove that indeed there were bullets in the
gun, the more Peter and his siblings dared him. Peter called him names,
daring him to do his worst.
Mr Adams could no longer take this
insult and unruliness. How dare these little children insult him and
question his authority? He believed that if he allowed this to continue,
other children of his would copy this and turn his house into a mad
house. So, he aimed his gun at the children and fired. Two of his
children lay dead.
If you were to react to this matter,
what would you say? Would you commend Mr Adams for teaching his children
a lesson to save further spread of the unruliness in his household?
Would you tell Peter and his siblings that they got what they asked for?
The happenings of last week in Aba,
South-East Nigeria have a semblance with the events in the house of Mr
Adams narrated above. The agitations in Nigeria have been coming in
different forms and shapes. From the February 1966 Niger Delta Republic
agitation of Isaac Adaka Boro to the current agitations for Biafra from
Nigeria, when one is quelled, another starts.
But the interesting thing about the
Biafran agitation is that it has been off and on since 1967. After the
defeat of the Biafran Army in 1970, it seemed as if the issue of Biafra
was dead. In 1999, it resurrected under the aegis of the Movement for
the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, led by Ralph
Uwazuruike. After some years of protest, MASSOB did not resonate with
the people. Gradually, it lost relevance. Other pro-Biafra groups which
sprang up after MASSOB did not get much traction.
In 2012, Mr Nnamdi Kanu started the
Indigenous People of Biafra as well as Radio Biafra. Because of his
ranting, the few people who listened to him wrote him off as an uncouth
young man that should not be taken seriously. Things continued like that
until after the inauguration of President Muhammadu Buhari on May 29,
2015.
As he made appointment after
appointment, no South-East person was mentioned. Complaints rose that he
had proved people right that he did not like the people of the
South-East and the South-South. That was also the period he made the
undiplomatic statement that ordinarily he would not treat those who gave
him 97 per cent vote as those who gave him five per cent per cent vote.
He made 47 appointments in his first few months with no South-East
person named.
It was that period that the Niger Delta
Avengers sprang up from the South-South with the mission to sabotage oil
production by blowing up oil facilities. That same period Nnamdi Kanu
took advantage of Buhari’s treatment of the Igbo to win hearts over to
his Biafra cause. Many of those who thought that he was not worthy to be
listened to and believed began to change their views.
Then, in October 2015, he came into
Nigeria and was arrested and charged to court for sundry offences.
Repeatedly, different courts granted him bail but the government refused
to release him. Protests broke out in many South-East cities and some
South-South cities calling for his release from detention. Some of the
demonstrators were shot dead by security agents. All these steps by the
government elicited sympathies to Kanu and his Biafran cause. For close
to two years, he was detained. From relative obscurity, Kanu’s profile
skyrocketed. Even though many disagreed with the bile he spewed out,
they aligned with his message that Nigeria was unfair to the Igbo and
that it would be better for them to leave Nigeria to form their own
country.
There were other issues that helped to
make this narrative sound good. The murderous activities of the Fulani
herdsmen in different parts of the nation and the fact that they were
treated with kid gloves by President Buhari was a point. The continued
lopsided appointments and siting of projects by Buhari, which was
clearly against the Igbo, was another point. The lynching of some Igbo
and Southern people on religious grounds in some parts of the North
without any penalty meted out to the perpetrators was another issue.
Then, the non-conciliatory method the President employed in quelling the
agitations angered many Igbo people. If he was negotiating with a
front-line terror group like Boko Haram, and granting freedom to some of
its members, why treat a non-violent IPOB with maximum force? If he was
not arresting or prosecuting Fulani herdsman, described by the Global
Terrorism Index as the fourth deadliest terror group in the world having
killed thousands of people, why come hard on IPOB that had not killed
anybody? The conclusion by many Igbo was that Buhari did not like the
Igbo and was not treating them well. That worked to the advantage of
Kanu and his pro-Biafran cause.
Last week’s action of the military
against IPOB followed the same hard stance. Even though Kanu had said
some unacceptably unprintable things, the fact that the military shot
and killed his civilian members in their Operation Python Dance in Abia
State made his wrong steps pale into insignificance. What has surprised
many is why Buhari believes that the most result-oriented way to solve
this Biafran agitation is the use of force.
Last week, the government announced that
IPOB had been designated a terrorist organisation, even though they did
not use guns on the military, but rather some of its members were seen
foolishly throwing stones, sticks and bottles at armoured tanks. Many
lawyers have argued that the government does not have the right to
unilaterally designate any group a terror group. The same reaction
followed last week’s proscription of IPOB and other Biafran groups by
the South-East governors. The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, was
quoted as saying that both actions were illegal and unconstitutional.
There is no denying the fact that the
use of force against the pro-Biafran agitation exacerbates the crisis
and wins many over to become apostles of Biafra. When will Buhari
understand this and change strategy to stop this avoidable bloodshed in
Nigeria?
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