AN APEAL TO THE UNITED NATIONS AND THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY ON THE PLIGHT OF BIAFRA
By Mattew M. Mbanaja
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our dearest nation Biafra.
About 47 years ago, a great and new nation Biafra, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, agreed to have a sovereign state. This momentous agreement came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of former eastern region after the 1966 pogrom who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice, massacre ,rejection, oppression ,marginalization and untold hatred through various attempt of annihilation of a Christian nation. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one 47 years later, the Biafrans still is not free. 47 years later, the life of the Biafrans is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation, marginalization and cold war in the northern part of Nigeria by Boko Haram and the Nigerian establishment through their army and police and the chains of discrimination and constitutional marginalization of the eastern region.
47 years later, the Biafran lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. 47 years later, the Biafran is still languished in the corners of Nigerian society and finds himself in exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we’ have come to our world capital ,UN WASHINGTON today to press peacefully for the self-determination of oppressed people of Biafra through legal and peaceful means as enshrined in the united nations charter of indigenous peoples right .
When the architects of our false republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the false structure called Nigeria ,mistakenly put together by no other person than a British failure and co fusionist called Lord Fredrick luggard in 1914 for the selfish rule of the British colonial masters to suit their immediate needs, they were signing a promissory note to which every people in the region he lumped together as Nigeria with divergent culture,religion, language and understanding was to be forced together as one country in a false constitutional jargon
called amalgamation.
This note was a promise that all men, yes, , Ibibio-Akwa Ibom state-Cross River
state,Akoko-edo-Edostate,Degema-River state,Estako{Auchi peers}-Edo state,Urhobo-Delta state,Igala – Kogi &Benue states Igbirra – Kogi, Benue & Plateau area,Kalabari – Rivers,Bachama – Adamawa.igbo, yoruba etc would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that Nigeria has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of Biafra are concerned.
Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, Nigeria has given the Biafran people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice for the Biafran nation comprising today of the forced division of our united people , namely:ABIA, ANAMBRA,AKWA IBOM, BAYELSA, DELTA,EBONY, ENUGU, IMO, RIVERS , CROSS RIVERS AND ENUGU STATES , that make up Biafraland.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind Nigeria and the world of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy and equity as stated in the united nations charter on self determination of indigenous peoples. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of equality for all and justice., Now is the time to lift our false unity from the quicksand of tribalism, nepotism ,marginalization and injustice to the solid rock of neighborhood in progress. Now is the time to make Justice and equity a reality for all of God’s children since it is said that he who goes to equity must wash his hands clean for justice to prevail.
WE THE PEOPLE OF BIAFRA THEREFORE CALL ON YOU TODAY TO INVOKE THE UNITED NATIONS DECLARATION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
WHICH GURANTEE TO ALL, THE RIGHT TO:
A. LIBERTY AND SECURITY OF PERSON (ARTICLE 3)
B.NATIONALITY(ARTICLE 15 11 )
C .FREEDOM AND PEACEFUL ASSEMBLY (ARTICLE 20)
D.FORM TRADE UNIONS FOR THE PROTECTION OF HIS INTEREST(ARTICLE 23:4 AS WELL AS THE AFRICAN CHARTER ON HUMAN AND
PEOPLES’ RIGHT :
E.RIGHT TO SELF DETERMINATION(20:1:11)
We can never be satisfied as long as the Nigerian project have continue to marginalize our
people in many and visible fastest of life, as long as we continue to be the victim of the unspeakable horrors
of various victimization , marginalization, and police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels in the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Biafra’s basic mobility is from our smaller villages to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by and our brothers insignia is ‘born to rule” We cannot be satisfied as long as our youths are changing their names from okoro to Adamu in order to secure employment, we cannot be satisfied as long as our people have abandoned their home and migrated to other parts of the federation and beyond in search of livelihood because the Nigeria project has not provided any federal project to keep them from migration, we cannot be satisfied as long as their is quota system to disadvantage our children from fairly gaining admission into tertiary institutions, we cannot be satisfied as long as the inferiority complex of the civil war has made our leaders vulnerable to being traitors, we cannot be satisfied when our people believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”¹ comes to reality in the form of the independent state of Biafra.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of slavery like the Israelites in Egypt.
You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Anambra, go back to Akwa ibom, go back to Delta, go back to Rivers state, go back to Ebonyi, go back to the slums and villages of our beloved Eastern region , knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed very soon.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the Biafran dream.
I have a dream that one day this Biafra will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equally
I have a dream that one day on the red savanna region and the palm plantations in the eastern region, the sons of former Nigerian leaders and the sons of former farmers in the hinterland of eastern region , the South /.South and south east as created by our common enemies to put knife in the cord that holds us together so that we can fall apart will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood with one destiny as the oppressed people .
I have a dream that one day even the state of Rivers , Bayelsa and Delta,will be a state sweltering with the
heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my three children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by their tribe but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Calabar and Uyo, our brothers will know we are brothers as it used to be prior to 1966
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every youth from the eastern region shall be gainfully employed at the right time.
I have a dream that our youths, men , women and children shall joyfully be in our various farm settlements with mechanized farm implements tilling the lands , harvesting for our fatherland and singing our new Biafran national anthem..
EBE KA UNU SI, BIAFRA, EBE KA UNU JE BIAFRA AGAMA HAPU BIAFRA JE NIGERIA JE BIRI ,AGAMA HAPU BIAFRA JE NA EBE
OZO GABIRI , AGAMA HAPU BIAFRA JE NIGERIA JE BIRI, BIAFRA GADINDU, UMU OKORO IBEMU JIKERE KWANU NA HEMEHE, UMU
AGBOGHO IBEMU JIKEREKWANU NA HEMEHE
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