BIAFRA GENOCIDE AND SENATOR PWAJOK?S JOKE

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Recently a report came out in the online news magazine The Nation where it reported that a Nigerian senator who represents Plateau North Gyang Nyam Pwajok said that the Islamic jihad crisis going on Plateau State is worse than Biafra Genocide. His reason for saying that the unfortunate crisis going on in his state and in the other Northern states is worse than Biafra is; ?. . . because . . . people have died on all sides, whether it is Muslim, Christian, indigene or non-indigene.?

In Pwajok’s opinion, because people of all faiths and different ethnic origins have died in the Plateau crisis, then that makes it worse than Biafra. In Biafra it was only Igbo and other peoples from Southeast who are also mostly Christians and Animists and no Muslims that died. In Biafra a whole region’s properties and infrastructures were destroyed through Nigerian government’s mortar, shelling, bombing and an all-out war. At the end no reconstruction, reconciliation or stability fund was ever provided by the victor to the vanquished after the destruction. In the senator’s opinion if other people had died in Biafra other than those that died then he would have considered Biafra substantial enough to classify it as bad as Plateau.

Pwajok is very wrong to compare Plateau with Biafra. Nevertheless, without doubt, the only sensible area that Pwajok’s Plateau compares with Biafra is the fact that One Nigeria is responsible for killing and destroying his people just as it had been in Biafra. (Remember, ?Go on with one Nigeria? or ?to keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done? slogans of few years back?) Though a One Nigeria does not deserve the death of the least developed human fetus, yet the death toll of the Plateau is still less than 100,000 while in Biafra more than 3.1 million people died. One wonders, at this point, if the infinite differences between Biafra and Plateau are getting any clearer to the senator.

Pwajok no doubt is pained by the unprovoked Islamic violence against his people but he should have not trivialized his loss and pain by reducing it to the level of a joke. I think someone can state the severity of their loss and pain without castigating and demeaning someone else’s ordeal. Such acts will by no means help the person’s cause, I believe. A united Nigeria is still the pain and burden that everyone that finds themselves within the enclave has to bear until the union is finally dissolved. But in the meanwhile the agony gets more excruciating when the people who are suffering through the same affliction of a forced and inconvenient marriage become so insensitive and choose to rob salt in their neighbor’s wound. Maybe the senator will really be helped if he could take a few times to know about Biafra. In a different clime and another country anyone who would aspire to be a leader and rise to the position of a senator would not be totally ignorant of the history of genocide in his country where more than three million children and adults died. Such ignorance surely borders on the fringes of criminal negligence or outright gleeful dishonesty.

Biafra was a genocide, pogrom and ethnic/religious cleansing.

Nigerian government rolled out weapons of mass destruction after its private citizens and government officials had had a field day for one full year killing children, women and men from Biafra; from May 29, 1966 to May 30, 1967.

Biafra was genocide, pogrom and ethnic/religious cleansing and not a civil war.

On July 6, 1967, Nigerian government invaded Biafran territory and fired the first shot. And that was how the war started.

What is going on in Plateau, Jos and other middle belt areas of Nigeria is quite horrific and must end. What in my opinion, Pwajok should demand for is an end, a permanent one, to the genocides of his people and of course those of Igbo/Biafrans, as they are taking place today in Jos and other places in Nigeria. He or any other person within those areas does not need reconstruction that he is asking for. If anything is reconstructed within the area, they would get destroyed again. I think that this simple logic is not too hard, for anyone who is willing, to understand. The best that would be achieved under the prevailing circumstance, following Pwajok’s recommendation, is to vote money for reconstruction which would be corruptly misappropriated by the local politicians. One of the qualities of good leaders should be the ability to know what their people need. What the people of Plateau need is honesty, sincerity and boldness in the rank of their leaders and it should start with Pwajok, I think. Plateau and the rest crisis-ridden places in Nigeria need leaders who are honest, sincere and have balls.

Next time, Pwajok and others like him need to recognize Biafra as being on its own class and address Biafra only when they have all the facts. They need to recognize what the problem that is going on in Nigeria is and be honest to want a solution. They should stop the mischievous and deliberate attempt of directing people‘s attention away from the real issues.

It’s amazing that someone in the senator’s capacity as a leader of his people does not know what his people need; an end to the genocides. Before anyone can solve a problem they will first of all correctly define what the problem is. From Pwajok’s statements it is very clear that he has little or no idea of what the problem is in Plateau and why his people are getting killed and looted. It’s either that he does not know much about the problem or that he lacks the courage or sincerity to openly state what the problem is. Throughout the report it was never mentioned that the senator has a name for the problem. And he was unable to call out the people who are killing and destroying his people. Why was the senator afraid to talk about Plateau genocides and Boko Haram and instead talked about Biafra?

In Plateau, at least the government of Nigeria pretends to be combating the genocidal atrocity of ethnic/religious cleansing. This is completely contrary to Biafra. In Biafra, Nigerian government did the killings with the active support of Great Britain, Russia (the then USSR), Egypt and other members of the Arab League.

You see, that is the difference between Biafra and Plateau. And it’s a big difference. Pwajok would have made more sense addressing the murders, a few months ago, of his fellow senators from Plateau State by the same Muslim jihadists rather than dabbling into Biafra. Apparently he would have only heard about the name Biafra mentioned without knowing what it is about. (Those Plateau senators were killed by the jihadists as they were returning from the funeral of those of their people who had been murdered previously by the same jihadists). That is a clear statement about the dangers and stupidity of organizing ceremonies and reconstructions without first of all taking out the root cause of the problem.

If he had known, the senator would have realized that 3.1 million people died in Biafra. That figure is definitely more than the population of Pwajok’s constituency multiplied several times. If there were honorable people in Nigeria the senator would have apologized for desecrating the memory of these people who perished in Biafra all because they were Biafrans. Maybe living Biafrans will have to find a way to demand and enforce respect from others who would willfully and mischievously desecrate the unjust death of their dead heroes.

Pwajok is wrong to compare Biafra with Plateau and should never have. Biafra was genocide, pogrom and ethnic/religious cleansing and not a civil war. Biafra was not a fratricidal war either but a war of extreme hatred and bitterness on the side of Nigerian peoples who are fundamentally culturally different from the other people (Igbo/Biafrans) they desired and deliberately set out to annihilate. There is absolutely nothing that connects the two groups (Biafrans and Nigerians) together except as members of the same human race, and they have no business being citizens of the same country.

So, how would anyone compare Biafra with Plateau? Plateau is genocide and ethnic/religious cleansing being orchestrated by the Islamic jihadists which variously go by different names and are currently operating as Boko Haram. Why is it so difficult for a leader with a constituency to understand such simple problem that is affecting his people? And why would Pwajok choose to complicate so simple an issue by associating it, so ignorantly, with the complexities of Biafra?

Source: Osita Ebiem.

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