Director General of the Voice of Nigeria(VON), Osita Okechukwu, has said actualisation of the Republic of Biafra is no longer feasible.
He requested Igbo elders to call the agitators to order, do a rethink and support President Muhammadu Buhari “in constructing a prosperous and progressive Nigeria.”
He said with the unwritten zoning convention for the rotation of political power in the country, the Igbo race in the South East zone would likely produce President Muhammadu Buhari’s successor in 2023.
Okechukwu spoke on Wednesday in Abuja at a colloquium organised by the Federal Capital Territory chapter of the Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo.
The leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, is currently facing treason charges over the group’s agitation for the actualisation of the Republic of Biafra.
The Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), began the agitation some years ago.
The attempt to carve out Biafra Republic in Southern Nigeria led to 30 months civil war.
Mr. Okechukwu said the greatest indication that Biafra was impossible to actualise, was the successive national conferences in the country where the five Igbo states voted against regionalism.
“If we must tell ourselves the truth, the greatest obstacle to the actualisation of Biafra, was glaringly demonstrated by successive national conferences, the Abacha conference and Jonathan conference, in each of the two conferences the issue of region was voted against by Enugu and Ebonyi states,” he said.
“The Jonathan Conference of 2014, for instance was made up of pro-Biafra elements, whom a lot had assumed will support regionalism as a prelude to secession. Other states like Ogun, Lagos, Bayelsa, Cross River and majority of Northern States rejected regionalism. ‘
mended the creation of over 50 states.”
Mr. Okechukwu said Biafra agitators must sample the opinion of the people, both at home and abroad, especially the itinerant travellers if their agitation was for collective benefit.
He said: “One is sure that most Ndigbo will call for ceasefire, especially when we are aware that the zoning convention of rotation of president between North and South offers the South East the greatest opportunity of producing Nigeria’s president of Igbo extraction.
“This golden opportunity will end the issue of marginalisation, will gazette the true republican nature of Ndigbo and return us to the mainstream of Nigeria.”
“The doubting Thomases will doubt this projection, but it is real and anchored on the truism that in the public domain is the law with its legal teeth and the convention with its moral weight, mostly unwritten. This thesis projects that in 2023 when President Muhammadu Buhari, by God’s grace completes his two term tenure, it will be the turn of the South.
“At this juncture, Ndigbo, relying on equity and justice will make a good case, persuade and lobby Nigerians, in particular our South West and South-South brothers and sisters to support us, since they both had served eight and five years respectively in this Fourth Republic. For no one ethnic group can win the presidency of this great country alone.”
Mr. Okechukwu said the scenario he painted showed that if it was good for Nigeria, the Igbo ethnic nationality, which he described as the second largest in population after the original indigenes of Lagos, Kano, and 23 other states of the federation, would be one of the greatest beneficiaries.
“The agitation for Biafra sounds as a good music, much fun and furry as if it is the only route to Eldorado. This is false, as some of us who lived in the defunct Biafra enclave can narrate.
“The question one had always posed is can Biafra be achieved via democracy or by force? Most people one had discussed with had always told me it will be achieved via peaceful means, which in other words means democracy,” he said.
The VON DG said he recalled while on the entourage of Mr. Buhari to the World Igbo Congress (WIC) in the United States in 2004, papers were presented to the effect that the United Nations (UN) was processing the application of Ndigbo for an independent Biafra.
“This is over a decade
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