December 19 2023 | Radio Biafra
According to the renowned English Physicist, Isaac Newton in one of his postulations of what is now globally acknowledged to be the Laws of Motion; “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”. This implies that whatever happens anywhere in the universe; regardless of motive or cause, will surely and invariably prompt a response, which will be opposite and undoubtedly equal. It can be otherwise called the law of cause and effect.
Let’s now bring this into the context of the Biafra-Nigeria upheaval that has endured for decades without clear-sighted resolution, especially with the emergence of Indigenous People Of Biafra (IPOB), a self-determination movement whose leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is being detained indefinitely and illegally after he was kidnapped and extraordinarily renditioned to Nigeria from Kenya, two years ago.
We will also take cognizance of the recent judgement of the Nigerian Supreme Court on 15th December, 2023, which many have described as the Supreme Court’s failure in its legal obligations to uphold justice like the Appellate Court did a year earlier. The above cited law then imports that the acting or aggressive party is, and has always been Nigerian, while the Biafrans have been left not much of choices but to react, or eventually play defensive.
Unarguably, what transpired on 15th December can only be described as a caricature of justice. How could the court Justices acknowledge the obvious wrongs committed by Federal government against the defendants [Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, IPOB], yet failed to decisively issue or uphold the judgement of the appellate court which discharged and acquitted the IPOB leader on the bases of same acknowledged wrongs, and barred his further trial in Nigeria. This was more like a challenge to the aggrieved to do their worse if they could, or be damned.
Same scenario played out in the 1960s, where People from the Eastern region where witch-hunted and massacred in mass across Western and northern Nigeria, and attempts to reach objective resolutions such as the Aburi Accord, were consciously and actively sabotaged by the Nigerian side and enablers. Then, when the Biafrans opted for self-preservation by invoking and exercising their Indigenous People’s right to Self-determination, they were forced and brought back into the Nigeria enclave after the lives of over 3.5 million of them had been extinguished in the most gruesome and harrowing manner.
While some may have argued that the IPOB movement ought to be offensive in her strategy and pursuit for freedom like their progenitors, for the fear that they could meet the same fate; insisting that offensive yields more result than defensive, it is however imperative that the benefit of doubt be allowed or given.
And that is what IPOB have done over the years, although with heavy price. IPOB have given a benefit of doubt not only to the Nigeria establishment, its legal and political system, but also to the International community to bear witness to its sincerity in resolving the issue, with the proposition of a United Nations supervised referendum.
IPOB have endured what even the countries that holds and chants, “democracy, human rights and nonviolence process-solution” as their slogan and mantra cannot accept. A clear-cut instance is Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Russia-Ukraine standoff amongst others. No country or people could withstand the level of oppression and suppression the Biafrans have put up with for decades, yet peaceful; without rising up in a stiff and violent resistance.
A people who were denied all their funds and monetary assets and were only given a diminished token of £20 each to rebuild their region and homeland after the end of a war that was forced upon them, a war which was declared “No Victor, No Vanquish”, which was totally pulverized in a brutal genocidal war. A people with severally means of access to the sea, yet all seaports are shut down infinitely. A people whose legally-acquired properties are being destroyed with impunity across the length and width of Nigeria, only because it belongs to them and nothing else. A people whose region is the most militarised yet the most peaceful as far as security is concerned in Nigeria and even Sub-Saharan Africa.
Unfortunately, IPOB is most likely left with no choice than to react aggrievedly, just like their predecessors. Since justice has erode the Nigerian legal system and political resolution is also in dim-sight. There is not much option left.
How, When, and with what? will be left for the IPOB movement to decide. However, one apparent truth that must be told by all and sundry, should they be sincere enough on the day of accountability, would be that; they gave their all in the attempt to resolve the issue amicably but the opposite was obviously and evidently not forthcoming. No one can take that away from them.
Source: iCons News
Published by:
Chibuike Nebeokike
For: Radio Biafra Media
