A review of Dr Ngozi Funmi Okeke’s book, Biafra Mark II: Nigeria: Kaduna Nzeogwu, Kano Nnamdi – Myopic Fantasists, by Adewale Oshodi.
Dr Ngozi Funmi Okeke’s book, ‘Biafra Mark II: Nigeria: Kaduna Nzeogwu, Kano Nnamdi – Myopic Fantasists,’ will definitely stir the hornet’s nest, especially among sympathisers of Biafra in the South-East and those in the Diaspora.
The author’s declaration that ”Igbo land is too small for Igbo; they need expansion, not secession,” aptly captures the idea behind the book.
However, Dr Okeke’s blunt use of language to drive home her point reveals to the reader how much the issue of the fight for the creation of a separate homeland for Igbo people, which she believes is a scam, is giving her cause for concern.
She, however, prefers a more saner approach if Biafra is what the majority of Igbo and Nigerian people want, and not through the gimmicks of Kano Nnamdi (intentionally written that way), who is now championing the secession of Igbo land from the rest of Nigeria.
The author says “if some Igbo people have issues, they should express them through their representatives in the lower and upper Houses (House of Representatives and Senate). Parallel unelected powers undermine democracy.” She specifically points out that if any region is to secede from Nigeria, it should be with the consent of the whole country, and such should first be tabled at the National Assembly by the secession-demanding region’s representatives.
The book, however, finds a way to link the ambition of the late Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, who organised the coup d’etat in Nigeria in January 1966, to the current activities of Kano Nnamdi, just as she also criticised the roles of Colonel Emeka Ojukwu in the war that led to the death of millions of Igbo people, especially children, through starvation.
In recalling Major Nzeogwu’s role in that first coup, the author writes, “Kaduna Nzeogwu was a snake in sheep’s clothing. He was ungrateful. He misunderstood his hosts, abused their generous hospitality, and unlawfully slaughtered their shepherd in cold blood. His real people [Igbo], particularly women, children and the elderly, paid a very severe, grossly disproportionate, and undeserved price for the myopic fantasies and miscalculation of their kindred.”
She writes that Kaduna Nzeogwu had guns and bullets which he used to impose his will on his unharmed and defenceless “fellow countrymen, and apart from guns and bullets, Nzeogwu was nothing.”
The author likened soldiers’ employment of guns to harass, rob and dispossess Nigerians to what armed robbers do to the people daily, “and this is what the military did to Nigerians for several decades.”
For Ojukwu, the author states that “He neither found his salvation in brainless Biafra, nor died for the myopic fantasy called Biafra,” despite the fact that he ordered true Biafrans to work for Biafra and die for Biafra.”
She castigated Ojukwu’s ‘lie’ to lure his people “into merciless starvation to shield himself and his suicidal desire for power,” believing millions of Igbo then were failed by the parochial egotism of the political and military leadership, adding that this is currently playing out again through self-styled Igbo freedom fighters.
However, she admits that not all Igbo supported Ojukwu, and not all are supporting Kano Nnamdi. She says: “The silent majority did not. They kept mum because they were trapped (imprisoned) by a lunatic that they had not employed and could not sack, who, at gunpoint, told them what they must do as if they were juveniles or servants in his father’s yard.”
Recollecting how Alhaji Tafawa Balewa, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, among others were killed, and the counter coup of July 29, 1966 that claimed the lives of Aguiyi Ironsi, Adekunle Fajuyi and others, takes the reader to the foundation of the distrust between the Igbo people and the other ethnic composition in the country.
The book particularly captures the intrigues, particularly on Major Nzeogwu and Colonel Ojukwu’s ambitions, which ultimately led to the first coup, the counter-coup and then the civil war. One of the reasons given that nothing could have even prevented the war was the fact that Ojukwu, who had the best of education and came from a wealthy home, considered General Yakubu Gowon to be inferior and would never be able to serve under him.
Ojukwu’s advisers, including Professor Chinua Achebe, who was a member of the National Guidance Committee of Biafra, also came under the hammer of the author, who blamed him for not realising that there was no way Biafra would have succeeded considering its landlocked status. The author believes the food blockade of the region during the war might not have been given a thought, especially when the South-East had for two years been subjected to economic barricade by the Nigerian government under General Gowon.
The food blockade by the Nigerian government eventually led to millions of people starving to death and contributing to the surrender of the Biafran soldiers.
Now, fast forward to the present, the author considers considers Ojukwu to be more brilliant and ambitious than the Kano Nnamdi, and for that, if Ojukwu failed, it is highly unlikely that Kano would succeed. She premised her conviction on the fact that because the Igbo are landlocked, they have expanded to other parts of the country in their millions, and should Biafra triumph, their closed in country would not be able to contain the millions that would be expelled from other parts of Nigeria.
However, before one attacks the author for her views on the Biafran issue, one should consider that she is half-Igbo, whose Igbo father died in Biafra in 1968, and was raised by her Yoruba mother in Lagos and Europe.
The ‘open secret’ about the book is that those agitating for Biafra can channel their energy into productive ventures that would raise the economic profile of the South-East in a stable Nigeria.
The 157-page book, published by AuthorHouse, is recommended for Nigerians in general, and even non-Nigerians who want to know about the roles played by key players in the build-up to the civil war of 1967 to 1970.
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