Washington, D.C., U.S.A.
IgboZaraIgbo is a United States Igbo non-profit organization unapologetically committed to the promotion of Igbo values in all their ramifications, including the reestablishment of an Igbo State to ground those values.
Igbo exclusion in Nigeria has reached new heights since the inauguration of the Nigeria’s Fourth Republic in 1999. Because onye ajuru aju anaghi aju onwe ya (excluded people do not participate in their marginalization), the Igbo masses have acted to reclaim their right to self-determination from where it was snuffed out in 1970 by Nigeria’s borrowed military force after a three-year genocidal war the like the world has scarcely seen.
Our efforts are bearing fruit and this is a good point to pause to reflect loudly for the benefit of all on exactly the self (as in self-determination) that we are seeking to determine here. Before the world, we make unequivocally clear for the avoidance of doubt that the self in question is none other than the Igbo ethnic group numbering more than 40 million people in Nigeria alone.
The clarification has become necessary in view of recent developments in Nigeria. These events include the false allegation by some misguided Nigerians that advocates for Biafra have their eyes on non-Igbo natural resources. Nothing can be further from the truth as the Igbo are self-sufficient in both human and material resources to fix their sights on other people’s resources. Last but by no means, least, these breaking events include the ultimatum by the Northern born-to-rule caliphates mandating all Igbo residents in the North to leave their area on or before October 1, 2017, or else face the wrath of these born-to-rules.
The reader should bear in mind that the only justification the caliphates provided for their desperate “quit notice” to the Igbo is because of the globally acclaimed successful sit-in the Igbo masses used – within the very vicinity of their own Igboland – to mark the 50th anniversary of Biafra’s independence! The born-to-rules were probably aggrieved that by choosing this passive yet potent celebrate in-your-home option, the Nigerian military occupation forces mined through all nooks and corners of Igboland could not find an excuse to engage in extrajudicial murders of Biafra protesters as they did time and again under maximum ruler General Muhammadu Buhari, including last year when they engaged in the cold murder of over 150 peaceful Biafran demonstrators, according to a recent Amnesty International report.
With all due respect to our neighbors in the former Eastern Nigeria and the former Midwest, and to dispel even the remotest charge of domination, imperialism, or ethnic irredentism by detractors who look at our struggle with mischief in their hearts, again the self that is engaged in the current Igbo statehood campaign, unlike the one in 1967 to 1970, is the Igbo ethnic group alone and no other group. This position fits hand-in-glove with the long-standing mantra of IgboZaraIgbo that each ethnic group in Nigeria must:
Ø Speak for itself, govern itself and grow at its own pace, including
- Control of 100 percent of its political space
- Control of 100 percent of its boundaries, and
- Control of 100 percent of its resources.
In short, because no serious traveler undertakes his journey on the legs of another person, where we are right now, each ethnic group in the British hand-me-down artificiality called Nigeria must by itself free of interference by any other group, make a decision on the way forward by itself and for its own people. In other words, as the Igbo say it, every group must answer their Papa’s name (surname) rather than opportunistically appropriate or piggyback itself on the numerical strength of another ethnic group, as some minority ethnic groups who misrepresent themselves as majority groups, such as the parasitic born-to-rule Fulani, do time and again. After they have claimed their own self-determination, finally reversing the forced marriage by Britain in 1914 (the universally acknowledged mistake of 1914), ethnic groups who find it in their mutual interest to align together should then feel free to consummate that alliance via a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) completely free of any coercion.
In addition to freeing us from the charge of “domination” of any ethnic group, this approach is also most potent, judging from the resounding success of the May 30, 2017, sit-in in the Southeastern states to mark Biafra’s 50th birthday anniversary.
The Igbo people have the resources of people and natural resources to fight independently for their own self-determination and consummate their separate existence free from Nigeria. There are over 40 million Igbo in Nigeria alone not counting the tens of millions in the Diaspora. Additionally, our land is rich in all manner of natural resources that include oil and gas products.
This said, from an economic development standpoint, the Igbo’s greatest resource lies in their creative human resources. Excluded for over 50 years from the access of Nigeria oil resources, including those in our own homeland, the Igbo have held their own economically where outsiders who distribute Nigeria’s oil wells among themselves have shown little result in economic development from the cart of stolen wealth from our land they have directed to themselves for over a half century. So an Independent Igbo homeland will work to diversify its economy from the monoculture of a depleting natural resource like oil, which as we all know, has inflicted untold environmental damage on the Niger Delta area that includes Igbo territories. The Igbo are a hardworking people who put a premium on people-oriented economic progress in a post-industrial global economy that is not based on deplete-able natural resources.
Signed:
IgboZaraIgbo
1629 K Street, N.W, Suite 300,
Washington, DC 20006
Email: IgboZaraIgbo@gmail.com
