If there was a Referendum for Biafra

Posted by Felix Okoli on Saturday November 7, 2015 at 12:50:35:

If there was a Referendum for Biafra, would you vote a yes or a no?

My father was one of the survivors of Biafra and one of the reasons why he survived was because he did not go to the war front. He told me that many people died and he had to escape while carrying a wounded man back for treatment and the man later died on his head.

There was a lot of atrocities that happened during the Biafran war and it was a war for survival, from the way I saw it. The British and Russians helped the Nigerian army and this helped make it easy for Nigeria to defeat Biafra. It was not as if Igbo people started the war but that they were basically trying to protect themselves from being killed by choosing to die bravely fighting rather than dying as cowards. Genocide was committed against Biafran people in many states of Nigeria but the ruling government of the day failed to protect them and so they chose to protect themselves in a new nation they chose to identify with.

I don't think any modern day Igbo person would want another Biafran war but I think they would want a country of their own if it came through peaceful means like the case of South Sudan. South Sudan became a country through a referendum which was basically a vote carried out by people who wanted an independent nation of their own out of the current nation they found themselves in.

There seems to be a Biafran spirit dwelling in the heart and minds of every Igbo person and it's a spirit crying for freedom. Freedom from a nation that has enslaved them since the 1960s. Freedom from being made amalgamated to people with whom they share little or no similar interests. Freedom to aspire for greatness without being limited by the Nigerian factor.

Why do I think so? Well, because every time there is a call for Biafra, it always draws support from the millions of people who identified with Ojukwu during the struggle that lasted for 3 and a half years. Many people in South East and South South Nigeria still feel cheated in the entity called Nigeria and would want an independent nation of their own where they can have more control over their resources and future. They feel that for over 40 years, successive Nigerian governments have ruled them unjustly and wasted their resources.

Chinua Achebe, a popular and talented writer even acknowledged the importance and significance of this independent nation different from Nigeria and how Biafrans still dream about it and that's probably why he titled his last book "There was a country" so that generations would not forget in a hurry that a country existed separately from Nigeria for over 3 years in the 1960s.

In the developed world we now have, many nations support the idea of people doing a referendum to create their own nation outside an existing nation without it being seen as treason. Great Britain allowed Scotland to do their own referendum and they were not persecuted for it. In Nigeria however, some people feel others are committing a treason by even thinking about the idea of Biafra. Are those people really enlightened? That is one of the reasons why Igbos keep hoping for Biafra because they have a different and higher way of thinking which is quite different from the way other Nigerians think especially in the North.

Nigeria doesn't need to go to war when people cry for Biafra because we are in a democracy and if majority of people vote to have change, change should be allowed to take place.

A referendum doesn't need to be taken by every one in Nigeria as the case in Scotland but by people who have identified with the cause, have a common geographical location and want a nation of their own. If people living in the former region where the Republic of Biafra existed were allowed to vote, I'm thinking they would rather opt for a new country outside Nigeria

If Biafra resurrects again through a referendum and hence peaceful means, it would most likely consist of Delta North, Anambra, Imo, Abia, Enugu, Ebonyi, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Rivers and Bayelsa states which were all part of Biafra when it once existed from 1967 to 1970.

Would you support the creation of the Republic of Biafra through peaceful means?