BIAFRA REALIZED, THE NEEDLESS FEAR.

Icheoku is very emphatic that the United States of America and the United Nations are waiting feverishly for the beginning of hostilities to step in and divide Nigeria in fulfillment of their 2015 prediction. The choice is now left with President Muhammad Buhari to accelerate this outcome by overreaching himself in his avowed plans to mercilessly crush the protest for a Biafra Nation currently effervescing in Southeastern Nigeria. Unfortunately for the lean and mean Cassius of Daura, he might not be ceased of the fact that those who make peaceful change impossible, inevitably force up violent change. The ever gathering whirlwind that is the protests in Eastern Nigeria, if not handled carefully, might spell the end of Nigeria as we currently know it. 

Any rational person as well as the nomad in charge of affairs in Nigeria, should or ought to know that the people protesting for their independent existence from Nigeria have crossed the proverbial point of no return by braving their first gathering. They fluffed and flew flags of Biafra, adorned Biafra shirts and outfits, adorned other Biafra insignias and screamed their lungs out with their demand for a Biafra Nation. These are no small milestones in the quest for Biafra, except for delusional small parochial minded riffraff, who would dismiss such a big step with a wave of their little hands. If the authorities in Abuja are a thinking lot, they would immediately commence consultations to negotiate a way out of the impasse. Failing which, they stand themselves to be surprised when they would plunge the country into a cataclysmic abyss following the way and manner they are planning to react in order to suppress and quell the ongoing peaceful protests. Icheoku says the first crucial step for those protesters have been taken and they are no longer afraid; and this is pivotal in the unfolding protest. 

As always and as repeatedly positioned in the past, Icheoku would prefer a one united Nigeria to a disintegrated Nigeria; but the reformed Nigeria must be one completely restructured, where fairness and justice reign supreme; without a gang up by some to continuously marginalize and discriminate against some others. This equitable, functional Nigeria is the ideal Nigeria which every sound minded Nigerian and of Biafra extraction desires and wishes for. However, it has been elusive as discrimination and marginalization have subsisted for several decades and continuing. A matter made worse under the current government of cattle rearer Muhammadu Buhari, who has now taken this to the next level of utter crass indifference. 

A situation where President Buhari's central government of Nigeria would appoint over 38 persons to very critical government positions, in a 36 state country, without any one person from the Southeast making any of these offices, is one such glaring nepotism. Therefore, if these people of Southeastern Nigeria are not considered Nigerian enough to be so appointed into Nigerian offices, what use then is their being forced to remain part of the country? Fairness demands that if the people of Nigeria hate these people and don't want or trust them enough to allow them equal participation in the affairs and running of Nigeria, they should be let go. It is called divorce and countries have been divorcing for centuries, including the latest Sudan that was divided into South-Sudan and Sudan. But reiterating, a united one Nigeria would be preferred as as stronger larger country but this unity should not be at the backs of others. 

Now to those Southeasterners, those turncoats, those current fence-sitters and apologists anti-Biafra sentimentalists, who are condemning and holding press conferences to denounce this awakening, as well as branding and calling these brave agitators names, Icheoku says to remember that records are kept for a reason. First, if only they are students of the Godfather, the movie, they would have properly advised themselves on the imperatives of not taking sides with outsiders against the family. They should know that the horse has since bolted out of the barn with the arrest and continued detention of Nnamdi Kanu; and have continued to supply fuel to the fire with the refusal to honor his bail which condition has since been met. Indeed they actually magnified the current crisis, giving it more wind, with the amateurish way they handled the situation. However, one thing is certain and it is that baring any sensible quick resolution of the present crisis and it degenerates into a conflict, the outcome will certainly be different from that of 1970. 

Unlike the last conflict, weapons that were denied then will be supplied this time; food and provisions as well as medicine will be assured to protect against another Obafemi Awolow's starvation is the best instrument of war induced death from kwashiorkor. The boys are there and they are brave and courageous; and as proved thus far with these protests, are not afraid to lay down their lives for a cause so deservedly germane. As for publicity and propaganda war effort, Hitler's Goebbels will resurrect this time in Biafra. Luckily Britain no longer maintains its vice hold on the world and so some countries might be forced to have a rethink on helping defeat Biafra again. But Icheoku does not want it to get to this point and prays the government can start with some good measure and gesture by releasing Nnamdi Kanu, implementing the National Conference Report, dust up its 3Rs and start their implementation as well as creating one more state in Southeastern Nigeria to redress a long existing imbalance and inequity.  This sure sound like a good way to begin their romance of this tired bride, threatening to bolt out of the marriage with Nigeria.  

Icheoku has heard of some whiners, of Southeast extraction, lamenting that with a successful Biafra, the people of Southeastern Nigeria will lose all their investments in Nigeria. To these Joe Igbokwes, Icheoku says to remember how Oby Ezekwesili, Festus Odimegwu, Joe Igbokwe and Osita Okechukwu were used and dumped by their Fulani/Hausa overlords in APC during the last election. So, these peasants have the option to naturalize in Nigeria, become her citizen and even change their names to Adeyinka Abowole or Yusuf Adamu or Yemis Oladipo or Binta Abubakar. You can also chose to just domicile in Nigeria and become a Diaspora Biafran? Whatever works; and as to your assets, homes and business, remember that Nigerians own businesses and homes in China, Dubai, United Kingdom, United States of America etc. So it is allowed in international relations for citizens of the world to become world citizens, residing and doing businesses wherever they like provided they meet the local immigration requirements of their host country. 

There is no reason Biafrans cannot own and maintain their assets in the new Nigeria because the separation will be more of a political event than anything else. A lot of Dimka people of Southern Sudan still live and work in their former country's capital Khartoum. As a result, properties and homes of the new separating Biafrans will be secured in Nigeria; only that new documentations may have to be required and made to conform into the new order. At worse, they can be offloaded as a trade-off for the new independence  and everyone can start all over again. It happened before with the abandoned properties saga as well as the twenty pounds money in the bank payout. So now that these pinheads know that their assets will still be safe under the new dispensation, could they now curb their fears and either join or stay out of the way of the movement for equity and fairness in Nigeria, instead of throwing their very own under the bus just to please some of their mentors for a piece of crumbs from their table.  

Icheoku says kudos to the brave protesters who are holding the fort for every true blue blooded Southeasterner and calling for the various injustices in Nigeria to be addressed and redressed; and in the alternative to let the people go their way. At least marriage is not by force, the reason the law provides for divorce when irreconcilable differences make it impossible for a continuation of marital relationship. Icheoku is emphatic that a forcibly amalgamated nationalities in a country can similarly unravel and go their separate ways where they cannot continue to peacefully co-exist as one. But as always, a one united Nigeria is better than a fragmented separatists states, but it must be a Nigeria truly united where every citizen partake fairly in the affairs and governance of the country on equal footing and not as is presently constituted and operated. No one group in Nigeria should be marginalized and discriminated against, moreso after the ?no victor, no vanquish" mantra of the Federal Government following the last civil war.