Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo***** (unedited, originally published on Marvelous Nnatu’s Facebook Wall)
JUST LIKE THE birth pangs of a woman
in labour heralds the innocent cry of a new-born baby, so do the travails and
committed struggles of any oppressed people herald the dawn of their freedom.
This is the natural sequence of events in the integral calculus that create
freedom. History cannot afford me any parallel where a nation has emerged from
the womb of oppression into freedom without bitter struggle and sacrifice. In
the entire history of mankind it has been a constant war between the lord and
the serf; between the oppressed and the oppressor and between death and life.
If we bring home this truism to Africa, when it is not the Mau-Mau Revolt in
Kenya, it will be the Maji-Maji uprising in Tanganyika. In all these battles
for freedom, men have had to die that others will live.
The fate of Ndigbo in Nigeria is not
different from the dynamics that signal the end of an era and the birth of a
new dawn. As a people, our lives would be worse than the lives of dogs in a
manger if we fail to rise up and say to the Nigerian establishment “enough is
enough”. If as a people, we should ever fail to pursue our legitimate demands
and condemn the serial atrocities against the Igbo nation, we would cease to
have meaning. The contradictions of the Nigerian state have compelled Ndigbo
into coordinated demand for the state of Biafra and with each passing day,
stakes keep getting higher.
The emergence of nations like
Eritrea, South Sudan, Croatia, Czech Republic and the many independent Baltic
States followed this pattern. Even more instructive was the emergence of the
State of Israel in 1948. Time was in the history of Israel when King David, one
of the most outstanding and successful kings of Israel asked a very rhetorical
question. Faced with the conspiracy of the Gentiles David, in the second
chapter of the Book of Psalms, asked: “Why do the heathen rage and the people
imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers
take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying: Let us
break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us”. In verse 4 of the
same chapter, David declares the response of such plotters against the Lord’s
people. According to David, “He (God) that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh;
the Lord shall have them (those plotters) in derision”. But even after the
Holocaust and with renewed anti-Semitism, the State of Israel had to chose
between actions that pull down the Temple of Humanity itself rather than
surrender even a single member of the Jewish family to the oppressors.
Ndigbo, like the Jews, have risen to
say that we will no longer tolerate the continued cold-blooded murder of
harmless and innocent Igbo sons and daughters by the Nigerian state under any
guise or excuse. From 1966 to 1970, Ndigbo had to endure a genocidal pogrom
orchestrated by hate and jealousy. If any person or group in Nigeria thinks
that in 2016, we will sit idly by and watch a re-enactment of the macabre dance
of 1966 in Igboland, that person or group must have his or their heads
examined.
I say this because presently
virtually every part of South-east and South-south has been taken over by
combat-ready Nigerian troops. From Onitsha, to Enugu, Abakaliki, Umuahia, Aba,
Owerri, Port-Harcourt, Calabar and other south-eastern cities, the swarm of
these fierce-looking soldiers can be seen. This policy of military occupation
of our political space has been code-named “Operation Python Dance” by the
Buhari administration. The reason, I am told, is to forestall any break down of
law and order an account of the continued incarceration of Nnamdi Kanu, the
leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPoB). While the sinister intention
of this operation is not in doubt, what is curious is why the government has
chosen the Yuletide to execute such infamy. Our political space has been
significantly militarized by the Nigerian occupying forces. This has led to
heightened tension in the southeast and south-south and crippled commercial and
other economic activities.
According to the Deputy Director, Army Public Relations, 82 Division of the Nigerian Army Enugu, Colonel Sagir Musa, “the prevalent security issues such as armed robbery, kidnapping, abduction, herdsmen-farmers’ clashes, communal clashes and violent secessionist attacks among others…” are the reasons driving “Operation Python Dance”. I consider these reasons naïve and pedantic. There is more to “Operation Python Dance” than meets the ordinary eye. The code name of this operation is in itself very ominous. It has both spiritual and physical implications.
On several occasions, I have had to
state that there is a calculated attempt to Islamize this country despite our
secularist pretensions. At each turn, apologists of the core northern
establishment have dismissed such fears with a wave of the hand; whereas in reality
this project is truly alive and well and is being systematically implemented.
If this is not so, I want somebody to explain to me why the motto of the
Nigerian Army is written in Arabic, which when translated into English means
“Victory is from God alone”? Arabic inscriptions, the official and acceptable
language of Islam, can be conspicuously seen on our N200, N500 and N1000 naira
notes in a country that is supposed to be a secular state.
For us to fully appreciate the
spiritual import of “Operation Python Dance”, it is important that we
understand the significance of snakes in the Islamic faith. The Islamic
understanding of the spiritual significance of snakes is directly linked to a
bizarre and ridiculous assumption that snakes are evil incarnation of morphed
jinn. In Islamic theology, jinn are regarded as free-willed creatures made by
Allah from smokeless fire. A variant of these jinn known as Iblis disobeyed
Allah when they refused to bow to Adam as Allah commanded. Consequently, Allah
expelled Iblis from Paradise and called him Satan. Snakes are Iblis and
representative of unbelievers or infidels. Large volumes of the Moslem Hadith
declare Prophet Mohammad’s instruction to warn snakes three times and then kill
them if they refuse to go away. Muhammad had commanded the killing of all
snakes because they are “the devil” and the emissaries of Satan.
Since snakes are representatives of
infidels in Islam, they are to be treated like infidels according to the Qur’an
wherever they are found. Our people are regarded as Iblis among the Moslems and
therefore should be eliminated on sight. This elimination, since the brutal
genocidal pogrom against our people, has continued unabated in the north. For
instance, in northern Nigeria, we have had instances where Moslems slaughtered
and beheaded our people, the latest one being the beheading of an Igbo woman
few months ago in Kano. These brutalities and bestiality in the name of
religion have never ceased appalling the sensibilities of civilization and one
wonders why people should behave in this grisly manner. The answer, I dare say,
can be found in the Qur’an. Surah 47:4 (Ali Translation) enjoins Moslems thus:
“When you meet the unbelievers, smite at their necks; at length, when you have
thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly on them…”
It is in this context that “Operation
Python Dance” should be understood. The people of southeast and south-south are
regarded as snakes, that is, unbelievers and therefore must be eliminated. In
recent history we read of the desire of the core north to dip the Qur’an into
the Atlantic Ocean. If you take this as the imaginations of the mind, I urge
you to think twice. My age and national standing impels me to warn our people
of the impending journey to Golgotha. The emergence of this Buhari presidency
is seen by the north as the only opportunity to implement this agenda because
there could, and indeed will not be any other opportunity.
It is indeed worrisome that since
caming to power in 2015, over 3,000 thousand people of southeast and south-south
extraction have been murdered in cold blood for no other reason than peacefully
demanding an independent state of Biafra or at least for a renegotiated and
restructured Nigeria where our people would have unfettered freedom to externalize
their God-given faculties. The latest militarization of the southeast and
south-south by the Nigerian military has once more demonstrated the naivety of
the Buhari government and its penchant to shed the blood of our people. In
truth, Buhari’s brutal military assault on the southeast and south-south
code-named “Operation Python Dance’’ can best be described as criminal and a
full declaration of war against our people. This suffocating military operation
has been programmed to last till January 2017. Until then, the southeast and
south-south would remain in a state of siege by the Nigerian military, which
has effectively transformed itself into an occupying force.
This military onslaught is the latest in the litany of atrocities so far unleashed on the people of the south-east and south-south in this country and a continuation of the northern establishment resolve to over-run our political space by force and impose Sharia law on our people. This evil imposition did not start today. It is rooted in history. But what is also rooted in history is that, as a people, we have weathered these storms. There is no doubt that in the present circumstances, we will overcome because that is our heritage as the sons and daughters of the living God. In the 19th century, the brutality and high-handedness of the Royal Niger Company (RNC) was vehemently resisted by our people especially during the Akassa war of that period. In 1929, our woman courageously fought against the draconian British tax regime. From times past, our people have always shown tremendous resolve to resist suppression and oppression from the enemies.
There is no doubt that the Nigerian
establishment, over the years, has initiated several strategies to route us of
our homeland to no avail. The events of the Nigerian civil war, doubtless
presented the Nigerian establishment the rare opportunity to wipe us out in a
planned genocidal program. Buhari was part and parcel of that genocidal pogrom.
His brutality and cold efficiency in prosecuting the war against our people has
been recorded on the pristine walls of time. Even after the civil war, we were
further subjected to economic and physical genocide. Concerted and official
attempts have been made to cannibalize demographic strength and present us as
minority ethnic group. At each turn, we have come forth like pure gold. But let
it be known to all the forces of darkness in this country, that time is coming,
and now it is, when the scroll of the mindless iniquities committed against our
people will be unfolded and all the persons who dealt with us treacherously
will be judged.
It is the height of leadership idiocy for anybody to think that in 2016 the government could fiddle with the idea of re-inventing the earth-scorch policy of old, which was deployed to devastating effect in a choreographed plot to annihilate our people. General Muhammadu Buhari should be told in clear language that as his forebears failed woefully, so also he will fail miserably. I am not surprised with what Boko Haram is doing in the far-north. Irrespective of the interpretation anyone may adopt in explaining the bloodletting in the region of the country, I am persuaded that Boko Haram is God’s own judgment in avenging the gruesome killing of our people in Nigeria. The blood of our people which the Nigerian soil has drunk is crying out to God for vengeance. God’s ears are not closed nor His hands too short to redeem His people. The tide of this Divine judgment cannot be reversed by using “Operation Python Dance’’ to intimidate our people and cripple our economy.
That the present Buhari government
has not been able to read that hand writing on the wall is a sign of the
tragedy that awaits this country. Just like the handwriting appeared in the
time of Belshazzar to pass judgment on Babylon, the same handwriting has
appeared on the walls of Nigeria to proclaim that Nigeria has been weight in
the balance and found wanting, and very soon the country would be divided among
her ethnic nationalities. This is the truth starring us in the face. Yes! The
blindness and revulsion against our people may not allow the present leadership
to see or appreciate this imminent reality; but it is the reality all the same.
The truth is that you cannot force a
woman to remain in a marriage that has brought her nothing but pain and misery;
a marriage that has daily threatened her very existence and a marriage where
all the pillars of trust have been destroyed. Even God Almighty himself permits
divorce in matters of infidelity and lack of trust in any marriage. There is no
denying the fact that the Nigerian contraption is a marriage of convenience; an
“arranged marriage” package and delivered by British colonialism in the most
treacherous circumstance is a settled historical truth. Though our people initially
felt that in the course of time, some of level trust and confidence would be
established, time and time again we have been led to the slaughter slab in a
most unconscionable manner. We have watched our commonwealth lay to waste and
our faith repudiate. We have known nothing than treachery in this marriage and
therefore have come to the point of asking out. This divorce is sanctioned by
the provisions of self-determination and international law.
The divorce papers have been signed
and execution will soon follow. Not even a thousand “Operation Python Dance”
can abort the new dawn so patiently waiting to be born. The Biafra agitation is
not only legitimate; it is also active and well; and the coming referendum in
the form of BIAFRA-EXIT, will signify a new beginning for our people. Let no
one be in doubt of this.
*****Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo is a prolific exponent-of-freedom scholar, chair and
publisher of Fourth Dimension
Publishing, Enuugwu, Biafra, Africa’s most enduring and successful independent publishing organisation
(The New York Contemporary Five plays “Sound barrier” [personnel: Archie Shepp, tenor saxophone; Don Cherry, pocket trumpet; John Tchicai, alto saxophone; Don Moore, bass; JC Moses, drums; recorded: live, Jazzus Montmarte, Copenhagen, Denmark, 15 November 1963])
Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe
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