PREPARING FOR IGBO EXIT BY DR AUSTIN ORETTE

When I write about thorny issues of Biafra, the proponents of Biafra always tell me my observation is one-sided. This makes me laugh. What have they been doing since the end of the war? They have been telling one sided stories. I can’t help it but laugh. What were they expecting from me? Were they expecting a love letter that extol their braggadocio? Were they expecting me to accept the lies and grandiosity of Mr Kanu? This is ridiculous.

Nigerians are beginning to counter the lies that the Biafrans have been telling their children. These people are emotionally disturbed that the only answer they have is emotional subterfuge that short circuits the observation that led to our present discontent. Telling me that they are angry does not become a corollary to the facts that created our present history.

Most things the current Biafrans say are not factual and they Know it and also stretch the truth that makes any third party and independent observer give them a fair hearing, which is nothing but propaganda and epithet that will put Nigeria in bad light.

The lies they tell are due to deliberate ignorance of the facts as they occurred. The lies are so gross that any intelligent person will question their sanity. This is how they have succeeded in de-marketing Nigeria over the years. Truth is a slower walker. The lies will go round the world and return home to see the truth while still dressing and applying makeup. The truth does not need defense.

My job here is to defend my country that has been maligned by these so-called Biafrans who were not alive during the Civil war and are ready to go to war for Biafra.

Nigeria must avoid the option of war at this time. Going to war means victory for them even if they are defeated again. They will use their propaganda and AI to continue the sabotage of Nigeria.

Biafra is not worth the blood of any Nigerian. If we leave them alone, they will self-destruct. These people are not capable of self-governance. They will destroy themselves before they realize the reason they left Nigeria. They have no endurance to cope with intricacies and challenges of self-governance.

See what they have done to Nigeria. The South-East is a zone of death and destruction. Do they have to kill their own kith and kin to form an Igbo nation? Kidnapping and manufacturing of fake drugs are the major industries in that zone. If they can kill their own people, why will it be difficult for them to kill Nigerians with fake drugs and poisons?

Nigeria has been a shield for their mediocrity. Left to their own devices after they leave Nigeria, they will turn on themselves and the world will see the real carnage these people are capable of inflicting on themselves.

I don’t want to wait. Now is the time. We cannot pass this responsibility to the next generation. I no longer want to live in a country of black people who consider Donald Trump as a role model. I don’t share any ideological or cultural relationship with the Igbo people. I can work with them if improving Nigeria is an ideal they are willing to work for.

They have checked out of Nigeria psychologically. Any conversation with them at times is a conversation of the deaf. Our relationship with the Igbo people has always been transactional and exploitative.

The first place they invaded was my homeland. The federal government paid Biafra’s civil servant compensation, restored and paid Biafra soldiers compensation. These people fought against us. The Mid-West region that was turned into a battlefield was never compensated for the deaths, pain and suffering the Biafrans inflicted in the Midwest.

During the Oputa panel, the Igbo people made a presentation and cited the falsehood that was amplified by the Igbo authors. They were very angry and demanded that Nigeria should pay reparation to Biafra to the tune of eight trillion naira. I was shocked and confused and could not fathom how the Igbo people were able to repeat lies upon lies that any person with modicum of intellect will see through their vituperative stand.

They have convinced a lot of Nigerians and their fellow ethnic jingoists that Nigeria hates them. They repeated their lies over and over again that gullible people who have no other source of information took their propaganda and emotional blackmail as true. These are the people that Nnamdi Kanu tells every day to destroy and kill other Nigerians. They even managed to convince our fellow Nigerians that we hate the Igbo people because they are very successful. These lines of thought gained currency that people like Aisha Yusuf actually echoed this as a fact and pilloried Nigerians for this character defect of hatred.

Nigerians don’t hate Igbo people. The Igbo people hate Nigeria. They hate Nigeria with a passion. They have kept this fact very subterranean that they can benefit from Nigeria and destroy it at the same time . The duplicity of their loyalty and dedication must be questioned at any time.

The Igbo people checked out of Nigeria a long time ago. Nigerians don’t know this. If you peruse the internet, you will see how I am pained that these people go to the internet daily to fabricate negative stories that will hurt Nigeria politically and economically. I no longer see them as my countrymen. I don’t want to live in a country where those I share space and sovereignty are willing to tear down our edifice and kill me if they have the opportunity.

The only way I can accept an Igbo man as a patriotic Nigerian is to get all their senators, members of the House of Representatives, all their governors, traditional leaders, all their college students to make a clear presentation that their vision of the South-East is diametrically opposed to where Nnamdi Kanu is taking them to. This is all I ask.

You cannot make your money and livelihood in Nigeria and use your tongue to curse Nigeria. This is why we must let the Biafrans leave Nigeria. We will never know peace if the Biafrans are not pushed out of Nigeria. Their hatred of Nigeria is pathological. If a people can destroy their own abode by killing anyone with contrary views in their homeland, what will they not do if they gain the levers of power through the help of misguided people. They will use Nigeria resources to achieve their dream of greater Biafra. These people don’t consider Nigerians as equal citizens. Has anyone seen Nnamdi Kanu talk? I can never surrender to that kind of leadership. That is an Igbo leader. They should go to Biafra and elect Nnamdi Kanu as their president. The Igbo people made their choice by asking the president to pardon Nnamdi Kanu. On what ground are they making this request? Did they tell Finland to free Simon Ekpa? That is the Igbo sense of justice.

I cannot and will not live under any person who lacks moral calibration and love of this country. All the Biafra apologists are people trying to recreate the events of 1966. We should let them go.

These same people authored the Nigerian constitution that says Nigeria unity is sacrosanct and cannot be violated. These are the same people killing their own brothers in the South-East. From the events that are happening in Igbo land, one can deduce that the Igbo people are a bunch of anarchists. They will not evolve into good citizens by waving a magic wand. The Igbo man is not fit to dialogue with other citizens because he is always speaking the language of war. They will not succeed with Biafra. By the time things settle, they will have done a lot of damage to Nigerians home and abroad.

We must act to forestall the present Igbo expansionism and Igbo supremacy syndrome which they have adopted as culture. What is happening in Igbo land is almost a corollary to what happened in Germany after the First World War.

After the First World War, Germany was devastated. The Vassal Treaty imposed a lot of penalties on Germany. Life was brutal and short. A house wife will go to the market with a will barrow of the German mark and return home with only one tomato. The vassal treaty was blamed for the destruction of Germany. Germans were upset. Germany rebuilt their country, one step at a time. Their condition improved but their hatred of Europe never dissipated. Hitler was elected and he told the Germans what they wanted to hear. They were a superior race of people and the Jews, communists and other less deserving people. There was a staged attack on the Reichstag which he blamed on the communist. He got rid of communist leaders. He used this to grab more powers and the rest is history.

What propelled Holer is what is propelling a lot of the supporters of IPOB and Biafra. Both entities lost a war. After their post mortem analysis, they created new realities which will motivate them. They settled for hyper nationalism and Germanic purity of the Aryan race. It didn’t matter who they hurt. The murmurs of their hostilities were ignored and he was appeased. By the time Europe could make any move, Hitler had invaded Poland. All other European countries were calling for more appeasement. Britain declared war on Poland and the rest is history. History rhymes.

The Igbo people look at the loss of the Nigerian civil war as a dream deferred. When Nnamdi Kanu speaks, there are two similarities that you can decipher. He emphasizes his Igbo supremacy and expansionism that will bring all the Igbo people under one umbrella. He tells us Ijaw, Itsekiri and Isoko are Igbo and Biafrans. Unfortunately for a lot of these people, he wants to annex their history very well. Telling an Edo man that he is Igbo is grandiosity beyond pardon. We must let them go. We can have a treaty with them that Nigeria as the nation will police its borders and the Igbo people cannot carry out a perpetual war with Nigeria. The energy being used to deal with Igbo people can be utilized somewhere else for the greater good of Nigerians. The Igbo people have made it very difficult for Nigerians in foreign land. The hate is too much. We cannot force an unruly horse to be in the ban. A rabid dog is a danger to all inhabitants of a household. The Igbo people have a Nigeria phobia. I don’t have Igbo phobia. There is no right I am enjoying that is denied to the Igbo man. The main difference I have with them is that they don’t want to be Nigerian citizens. I have no desire to force anyone to be my neighbor. Nigerians should start preparing for the Igbo exit. Let them go. There were no Igbo people in Nigeria during the civil war. There is nothing special about a group of people agitating for fairness when they are not fair. He who seeks equity must come with clean hands. There should never be any bloodshed. One condition of this separation is that Nnamdi Kanu cannot be elected or appointed into any position in their New Biafra. Any attempt to flout this will be a treaty violation that will be sanctioned severely. Giving Kanu a position is an emblem that the hatred and destruction of Nigeria is their real objective.

DR AUSTIN ORETTE WRITES FROM HOUSTON, TEXAS