OHANAEZE Draft Submission to NASS Committee on Nigerian Constitution Review – A Response from BIAFRA FOUNDATION

By Emmanuel Enekwechi, PhD. and Oguchi Nkwocha, MD

on behalf of Igbo People

 We have studied the “OHANAEZE Draft Submission to NASS Committee on Nigerian Constitution Review” (supposedly on behalf of “Igbo-speaking People of Nigeria”) of July 2, 2012
http://www.nigeriamasterweb.com/OhanaezeDraftSubConstitutionReview.html
and respectfully submit as follows:

 We disagree with the basic premise of the document which is its continuing belief in the concept of “One Nigeria”.  

    Nigeria is a hopelessly flawed political arrangement that will never succeed, survive or thrive. British colonialists forced our people into this unworkable political union with Nigerians whose different values, beliefs, philosophies of life, worldviews, attitudes, cultures, and religions are totally conflicting and often clash with our own.

    Since 1945, our relationship with Nigerians especially Northern Nigerians has been marked by conflict, havoc, hostility, extreme violence, and now, terrorism directed at our people, all resulting in the slaughter of millions of innocent Igbo men, women, and children and destruction of billions of dollars worth of their property by Nigerians.

    The reality of the un-workability of Nigeria as a nation is now clearly confirmed in the public declaration by the terrorist organization, Boko Haram, that all our people who are overwhelmingly Christian must convert to Islam or be killed. Boko Haram has backed this threat up with terrorist bombing of our churches and businesses and massacres of thousands of our people living among them in Northern Nigeria.

    It will only be a matter of time before these terrorists unleash terror on our people in our own homeland, bombing churches, businesses, markets, industries, hospitals, schools, colleges and universities and slaughtering our innocent people in thousands. Is this what OHANAEZE wants our people to wait for as OHANAEZE pursues its fantasy of “one Nigeria”?

    The threat of forced Islamization of our people by Islamic Northern Nigeria is real and our people must see it as such. It will be foolish not to do so and tragic not to quickly begin the process of separating our people from the murderous terrorists.   

    Countries in which the federating nations are not well-suited predictably dissolve. In the recent times, former Soviet Union broke up into fifteen different countries; Yugoslavia split into seven different countries; Czechoslovakia divided into two sovereign countries, and just last year Sudan broke up into two countries. All of these countries now live side by side as neighbors, and for most of them, peacefully; instead of pretending to be one when it actually means being perpetually engulfed in internal war, creating chaos and slaughtering millions of their people unnecessarily.

    OHANAEZE should therefore be asking for nothing other than what the whole of our Igbo population and other people of the Eastern Region are asking for, which is Self Determination, leading to the establishment of our own sovereign independent state of Biafra where the freely participating federating units will exercise the highest degree of autonomy and freedom to govern themselves in a truly democratic framework. This is the wish of the Igbo people of Biafra and if OHANAEZE is truly representing the Igbo as it claims, then this is what OHANAEZE should be asking for and working towards, on behalf of Ndigbo.

    The suggestion of constitutional review under the umbrella of “One Nigeria” is unsound, silly and deceiving at best; we want to remind OHANAEZE as to why:

a)      Nigeria is so basically structurally defective that anything short of dissolution is an ongoing murderous exercise in madness and senselessness.

b)      Patchwork constitutional amendments—even if the exercise succeeds—have never worked and will not now. Such cannot help Nigeria today or in the future.

c)      According to known facts, no constitutional arrangement upholding “One Nigeria” has ever worked. This is because all such constitutions try to “force square pegs into round holes”: it just won’t happen.

d)      It is not just that it’s better to stay apart and live and prosper rather than be forced together to rot and die; it is in fact the Natural Order. The Igbo and other Biafrans want and will stay APART from Nigeria; what other Nigerian peoples do about themselves is entirely up to them and we respect that.

e)      Therefore, the issue today is not Nigeria’s constitution and how or what the Igbo can contribute to its amendment. The issue is Self-Determination for the Igbo and other Biafrans.

Released by:

Biafra Foundation
BiafraFoundation@yahoo.com
July 18 2012

Contact information:
Emmanuel Enekwechi, PhD.  eenekwechi@aol.com
Oguchi Nkwocha, MD.  oguchi@comcast.net