66 years: Ojukwu’s warnings still valid, says Uwazuruike

ONITSHA — Founder of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Chief Ralph Uwazuruike, has said the concerns raised by the late Biafran leader, Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, about Nigeria remain relevant 66 years after independence.

Uwazuruike made the assertion in a statement issued on his behalf on Wednesday by MASSOB’s National Director of Information and Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the Biafra Independence Movement (BIM), Mazi Chris Mocha.

The statement, titled, “66 years after, Ojukwu’s predictions about the evil entity called Nigeria are still staring us in the face because Abuja politicians and contractors are never deterred,” criticised the country’s political structure and called for the restructuring of Nigeria into six independent countries.

Uwazuruike argued that the 1914 amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates had produced an arrangement that, in his view, disadvantaged southern Nigeria.

He also accused what he described as “Abuja politicians and contractors” of using the idea of one Nigeria to sustain corruption, inequality and impunity.

According to him, ordinary Nigerians continue to bear the consequences of the country’s political and economic challenges.

Uwazuruike further attributed insecurity and other difficulties facing the country to what he described as divine displeasure over injustice and the treatment of Nigerians.

He said Nigeria had failed to make sufficient progress at 66 because, in his view, the country had not addressed the underlying issues surrounding its political structure.

The MASSOB leader proposed the division of Nigeria into six independent countries corresponding to the existing geopolitical zones.

He listed them as the South-East, South-West, South-South, North-Central, North-East and North-West.

Uwazuruike argued that such an arrangement would allow the different regions to manage their affairs while international law and bilateral agreements would govern relations among the new republics.

He rejected the possibility of a national conference resolving what he described as deep-rooted tensions among Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities.

“National Conference cannot solve the problems facing Nigeria because there is deep-rooted hatred among the different ethnic nationalities in Nigeria,” he said.

Uwazuruike said the continued loss of lives to insecurity should prompt Nigerians to reconsider the country’s existing political arrangement.

He maintained that MASSOB would continue to advocate the creation of an independent Biafra and the restructuring of Nigeria into six countries through what he described as non-violent means.

“That was what our great hero, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, tried to do in 1967, but he was misunderstood. That is what I, Barr. (Chief) Dr. Ralph Uwazuruike and the members of MASSOB are still saying today,” he said.

He urged Nigerians to consider the loss of lives and other challenges facing the country as they marked the 66th Independence Anniversary.