Oftentimes, war narratives are expressions of interest. Every plot in the historical milestones that transcended to a full-blown war depends on the political, religious, national, and ideological leanings of the person telling the story. The justification of every war’s horrid moment is passed from one generation to another to solidify and maintain the winner’s war gains. And the loser of the war always disapproves of the sense of the carnage that mostly accompanies warfare.
The clinical research on the epistemological anatomy of war has clearly proven that wars are not only fought on the battlefield. Wars are also fought in memories through institutionalised history. Each side records a favourable version of the storyline in history books. Every warring side and its allies basically play the blame game. With this, the fresh memory of every war is preserved and kept alive in the mind of the future generations.
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A new era of predominant ideological armed conflicts in the last few decades were reincarnations of the past battles fought by the older generations. For instance, Biafra as an ideology for liberation is more rooted in the past than the present. The nature of the socio-political conflagration that birthed Biafra as a symbol of fraternal resistance and ethnic liberation in 1967, as narrated in all history books, doesn’t properly fit into the present socio-political trajectory.
The current 4th republic has produced Evan Enwerem, Chuba Okadigbo, Anyim Pius Anyim, Ken Nnamani, and other top national political leaders from the South-East extraction as Nigeria’s Senate Presidents. Every governor in the Southeast geopolitical zone duly receives humongous revenue allocation like their counterparts in other states. The South Easterners have a thriving business empire across Nigeria. In the 2023 general elections political twist, a presidential candidate from the East had a vote bloc spread across the nation. An Easterner currently supervises the development and maintenance of the country’s infrastructure.
It is public knowledge that the people of the South-East are dissatisfied that the zone has not produced a president. The discontent is justifiable, as the highest political office ought to be rotated across the board due to Nigeria’s ethnic dimension. The way forward to Igbo presidency is not through secession threats, defaming the country’s name at every slight opportunity, and cyberbullying other ethnic groups in the country. There are a plethora of civilised mechanisms to vent any form of injustice suffered.
The indiscriminate killings of security operatives, the assassination of dissenting voices against Biafra’s agitation, the vandalism of public and private property, and the sabotage of the Eastern states’ economy are more of self-destruction than the pathway to liberation. It is ironic that Biafra’s agitators have indirectly shed more of their brotherhood blood and rendered their businesses grounded than the injustice proclaimed at the first instance.
The present situational assessment in the East is tantamount to beating war drums. The South-East must resist the international decoy to turn the geopolitical zone into a theatre of war and learn from the ongoing Arab-Israeli war, the Ukraine-Russia armed conflict, and the Sudanese civil war. The humanitarian crisis in these war-torn areas is barbaric and despicable.
Both the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran, which mainly procure arms to Israel and Arab nations, respectively, have been avoiding a direct armed confrontation with each other. In the same vein, the European nations alongside the US, which are the major financiers of Ukraine’s war against Russia, are conscious of not escalating the war to their home territories.
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The superpowers are currently not only testing the capabilities of their destructive weapons but also creating artificial demands for weaponry in the global arms market. It behoves the South-East to resist the ploy to get trapped in the ongoing subtle power play. It is time the Easterners forgo the mental scar of the past, create room for national reconciliation, embrace Nigeria as a mutual project, and safeguard their future in the country.
Binzak Azeez writes from Newworth LLP (Legal Practitioners), Onikan, Lagos
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