June 16, 2006
All Hail Biafra @ 39!
Ekechukwu Straight Up by James Ekechukwu (United Kingdom) ---
Fellow Biafrans,
We greet you all on this special occasion, the commemoration of the birth of our dear nation, Biafra. In the words of Patrice Lumumba that illustrious son of Congo and Africa;
All of you, my friends, who have fought tirelessly at our sides, I ask you to make this May 30, 1967, an illustrious date that you will keep indelibly engraved in your hearts, a date of significance of which you will teach to your children, so that they will make known to their sons and to their grandchildren the glorious history of our fight for liberty.
We salute BiafraNigeriaWorld for rising to the challenge of countering the malicious and pungent propaganda orchestrated by the tiny cabal that owe their wealth and relevance to the failed Nigerian State. It was Thomas Jefferson who wrote that, :
The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers... [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of news-writers who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers.
It is interesting to note that 
Yoruba born Reuben Abati has yet to publicly apologise to Biafrans for his appalling write up on Biafra where he was shown to have blatantly altered the dates and sequence of events in order to justify the gruesome murder of innocent Biafrans in 1966. Perhaps he needs to be reminded of the Motto of his employer “truth is contant”. Yet in all the anti-Biafra ranting, it is becoming clear even to the most cursory observer that their Nigeria much more than Biafra is the product of a knee jerk reaction; “a mere geographic expression” sustained by an unhealthy fear of an ever present danger of disintegration. The older BiafraNigerians lacking in courage and candour have failed to admit their moronic thoughtlessness is seeing and seizing the opportunity that the painful birth of Biafra presented to Africa. Only two weeks ago the prime minister of Kosovo had this to say about the secession of Montenegro:
The people of Montenegro have expressed their will to live in an independent country, sharing with others in the region the aspiration to join the European Union. Before the end of the year, Kosovo will join Montenegro as a new state and these new countries will be an important factor for the stability of the whole region.
In 1967, one Anthony Eromosele Enahoro arguing against Biafra in London opined that:
In another three and a half decades and after being forced into exile from his integrated BiafraNigeria, Enahoro had seen a flicker of the Biafran light. In a speech at Yoruba Tennis Club, Lagos in July 2, 2002, Enahoro now concurred with Obasanjo: Given our traumatic experience, I suggest that the following question is pertinent: should the constitution allow for the ultimate change of secession? In the past, this issue has been treated as a taboo topic but the absence of thought and debate on the matter is a poor substitute for judgement. Obasanjo has helpfully opened discussion on it in his book This Animal Called Man, wherein he stated that any future constitution of BiafraNigeria must provide for a right of secession. This is but a recognition of the reality that, short of brute force, the only way that different nationalities can be kept together in the long term is by their will to stay together.
For a man who was vehemently opposed to the formation of the old Midwest, this must be the mother of all shifts!
The late Beko Ransome Kuti a Yoruba liberation activist in one of his last interviews with the Chinua Achebe Foundation thought rather very highly of their united BiafraNigeria when he opined thus: …rather than pretend to be chasing “the Nigerian dream” -- which to me does not exist. People just got whatever advantage they could from that notion and nothing more! After all within the Yoruba ethnic group, we can fight among ourselves, we can cheat ourselves, but at least we will not be able to say we are not Yoruba! But anyone can pretend to be ‘Nigerian’ while pursuing his own selfish interests…from what I have already told you! At a point in time, it was eminently clear that there was nothing like “Nigeria,” and that everybody had to find his own salvation the best way he could. It was at this point that we started encouraging people to take their ethnic origin more seriously. Even within the Campaign for Democracy, we were encouraging each group to begin to defend its own area. And I know we encouraged the Yoruba youths to form something. It was at the early stage of that that I was arrested and put in prison….You cannot tell everybody, I am sorry; but you are all Nigerians! Unity! One Nation, One God! I mean, whoever says that is just pretending, because what people are doing is not what is being preached.
The point is that Biafra in concept and practise is light years ahead of Nigeria as a clearly thought and carefully planned alternative to the chaotic mess that is Africa. Believe not those who pretend they have a more workable alternative. If that was the case, they have woefully failed to prove it in about four decades. When last did you hear the now well-worn untruth about Biafrans not being united? We assert that it is nothing but a ruse devised to ascribe importance to the handful of Biafran reprobates cheaply promoted and marketed by the Yoruba and Awusa Fulani press. The fact of the matter is that no entity in the West coast of Africa enjoys as much unity as Biafra.
Some anti Biafran fools are hopeful a fresh referendum on Biafra will throw up a result different from that held on the 26th of August 2004. The day Biafrans voted overwhelmingly against collaboration with Nigeria as a part of the failed entity. Maybe they believe a referendum on Biafra is something they can rig à la the farce that is called general election. In their erroneous thinking a few Ghana must go bags will make Biafrans vote against Biafra. To show how wrong they are one only need to cite the case of Ukpabi Asika, the embodiment of anti-Biafranism. Even the Yoruba press could not help but report that ALL natural rulers of Biafra stock boycotted his “state funeral” in Onicha Biafraland.
We call for three minutes of silence at 1800hrs GMT on the 30th of May 2006 in memory of the noble men and women of Biafra who paid the supreme price in our quest for nationhood. We remember Attorney Ralph Uwazurike and other gallant MASSOBians who are presently being unlawfully incarcerated in BiafraNigeria. You have all made history for in the words of Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favour freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters
We salute Biafra Foundation (BF), 
Biafra Nationalist Union (BIANU), Biafra Liberation Movement (BLM), Biafra committee for Immediate Action (BCIA), the Biafra Justice Committee (BJC), Nsibidi Chronicle and the Ikenga Think Tank (ITT). Following in the famous paths of our forbears you have proved to be the useful kindred abroad (Nwanne di n’mba). Your effort was the reason Buhari the shariarist paid his way to New Jersey in 2004 to lecture his audience on the dangers of Baifra. Buhari is so caring and loves the Igbo that he and his cousin Ike Nwachukwu terminated all the industrial projects Dee Sam had embarked upon for the upliftment of Nde Igbo.
We thank Amnesty international and Human Rights watch who have been keeping a close tab on the persecution of Biafrans by Nigerians.
Hail Biafra, Hail the land of the Rising Sun!
James Ekechukwu
Biafra Memorial League, Europe (BML, Eu)
May 30, 2006
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