Rebuttal: Why Niger Deltans don’t want to be part of Biafra
By Dr Orefo Onochie
……In defense of Professor Pat Utomi- Tinubu bought over Utomi to enable Peter Obi stand up against Atiku Abubakar, so he can win
The long treatise credited to Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ), former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, GCFR, a few days before the end of his successor’s ghastly Presidential tenure, appears very suspicious. Is it possible that GEJ authored the speech, and delivered it, or authorised its publication and dissemination?
The claim is that the speech was delivered in Texas, USA. Was GEJ in USA, was there an event by Nigerians of Ijaw or Niger Delta extraction and nativity, who invited the VIP? Could such a critical write-up, in the current epoch of Nigeria have been disseminated by GEJ? All the above questions can be verified by dedicated Igbo and Ijaw persons who live in USA, and have vast links, resources and networks that can shed more light on that article. The propaganda value of the piece, at this time in the devolution of Nigeria, and coming from such a remarkable personality, qualifies/justifies the attention that it is receiving. Very mild, in the natural spirit and demeanor of the credited writer, it’s release on May 26, 2023, aimed to hurt and reduce the standing of Igbos, west and east of the River Niger, in Nigeria. The vexatious attribute it carries, while it unpretentiously attacks social media activists whose gumption in attacking the ideological and social inclination of their antagonists, is hugely parliamentarian, and is not different from HECKLING: more in UK politics, and less in USA, every politician must expect to be heckled while delivering public speeches. In a Political Science class, you learn to retort if or when heckled…… if the kitchen is too hot for you, do not aim to be a cook. Join some other less hot occupation. The innocent character of GEJ in that Texas speech, if true, is the true character of his personality: it works for him, has it’s downsides, but was not known to Nnamdi Azikiwe, whose pet name GEJ has also been ascribed with. Make no mistake about it, neither the great Zik nor KO Mbadiwe, Waziri Ibrahim, Aminu Kano, Obafemi Awolowo, Micheal Imoudu, Sam Ikouku, or Nduka Eze, in their hay days, were deterred by public heckling, which is akin today to the nuisance insults that social media users heap on themselves…… if the heat is too much for you, exit the kitchen and join another occupation, not politics. Remain fidel to your ideology and defend your positions. Always!
WHAT GEJ DID NOT SAY
While asserting that natives of the Niger Delta, for whom he spoke while disclaiming not to be their Spokesperson, “would rather be SLAVES to the Northerners than be KINGS in Biafra”, it is as though the writer/speaker/GEJ, has accepted that Nigeria as is today, is finitely acceptable. What is wrong with Nigeria today, that the Urohbors-Isokos, the Efiks, the Ibibios…… the Biroms, Jukuns, Ishekiri, the Yorubas, even Igbos, find acceptable? Is it that it is acceptable that the Northern Hausa-Fulanis or the Yorubas, can publicly assail and dominate all other tribes in Nigeria, whether majority or minority tribes? Is it a democracy when election regulations are subverted in a country, bribes given, Conventions delegates bought with millions of Naira or thousands of US Dollars, to buy votes, and voters, rig elections or declare results that favor the Northern elite and the Yoruba elite? At the end of the each Presidential interregnum, trillions of Naira, and billions of US Dollars are stolen from the Nigerian Treasury and stored away by families, cronies and friends of the kleptocrats, getting ready for future elections? Will these facts, eleventh hour public information suit the Niger Deltans, protected by GEJ, and preserve such Nigeria they prefer to remain in as slaves? Can any society of such genre survive as a prosperous corporate entity?
Corruption, whether social, fiscal, monetary or ideological, leads to final decay and extinction. That perhaps are the immediate issues that concern Nigeria which GEJ or whosever wrote to list the reasons why the people of the Niger Delta do not want to be part of Biafra.
REFERENDA AND GRABBING OF LAND IN NIGERIA
The Igbos did not create Eastern Nigeria, it was the British. But the Ibibios who are being bribed to accept the Presidency of the 10th Nigerian Senate, fought wars in the 1700s, with the Arochukwu and Efik, the former Igbo and latter not Igbo, and moved further towards the Atlantic Ocean coastline, to save themselves from slavery. Even the Igbos amongst themselves fought, to avoid DOMINATION and slavery. The Ogonis, Okrikas, all Ijaws, must accept DOMINATION of the Hausa-Fulani and Yorubas, in order not to be part of Biafra, or be dominated by the Igbos, and to preserve their territories from being annexed by the Igbos. Only in 1961, a plebiscite, which is the same as REFERENDUM, was conducted in the Sarduana Province of Northern Nigeria, and the people voted and joined the Camerouns: forever excised out of Nigeria. What will be the basis of asking Igbos, and others who “resemble” Igbos not to vote on March 18, 2023, in Governorship and State Assembly Elections, in Lagos State, and subsequently take a Census of them, and collect taxes from them, and then flog them to keep mum? Well, GEJ and perhaps an Akwa Ibom person accepting to be 10th Senate President in Nigeria, based on ZONING, is that Senate Presidency not SLAVERY? It is building bridges and making friends, whilst to be President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Yoruba and Northern political elite reject ZONING but zone the 10th Senate President position to Akwa Ibom, in order to spite the Igbos, and further divide Eastern Nigeria. Has this policy stopped the concept and agitations for Biafra? Is it a ruse that the Fulanis want to DOMINATE and ISLAMISE Nigeria? Land grabbing and map-making: Oduduwa Republic or Yoruba Nation map of 2023, sponsored by Sunday Igboho, and his co-agitators incorporates Ishekiriland in the Niger Delta, and all the Kwara areas, back into Yorubaland, away from the Fulani-Gambari dynasty ( on May 28, 2023, at 2am, Military style, armed Yoruba Nation agitators seized the Federal Community FM 99.1 radio station, and proclaimed for one hour, before 5-persons were arrested by soldiers, and about 15 persons escaped, that the Yoruba Nation is no longer part of the Federal Republic of Nigeria: next day, May 29, 2023, same Yoruba Nation agitators set a Police Station in Lagos, on fire, the day BAT was sworn in as President): Who is land grabbing, the Igbos who buy land from Yoruba Aworis in Lagos, with millions of Naira or the Fulani herdsmen and the RUGA Policies, of the disaster Buhari Government, who use treasury money from Niger Delta oil/gas, to buy land and hand in free of charge to Fulanis? As Obasanjo assisted more Yorubas to become Billionaires, when he was President, Buhari has also ensured that more Northerners presided over NNPC, NPA and the Finance/education/agriculture sectors, the Niger Delta slaves will remember that it was ISAAC ADAKA BORRO, who first fought for Niger Delta freedom using the name BIAFRA, before Emeka Ojukwu latched on and hijacked the name for the entire Eastern Nigeria.
IGBOS WEST OF THE RIVER NIGER IN NIGERIA
The devolution of Nigeria, after 1957, proved to Igbos west of the River Niger, Anioma areas, that our destiny lies in a united Nigeria, devoid of domination. It was the Ishekiri who alerted Nigeria that the Hausa-Fulani, not just the Urohobo and Ijaw were as likely to be harder oppressors and slave masters. Till date, the Ishekiri reject to be part of the Niger Delta of GEJ, and GEJ knows this. They would rather be slaves of the Yoruba, just like GEJ accepts to be slaves in Nigeria dominated by the Yorubas and Northerners, who pillage the oil and gas resources in the Niger Delta. By 2027, the Ijaws will begin again, the Niger Delta agitations that Umaru Yar’Adua deftly stopped in 2009: then it was stopping SLAVERY through Amnesty Program and by 2027, the intensity of the neo-slavery of GEJ would engender more ferocious militancy that the mindless scorch of Odi in GEJ’s Bayelsa would be new child’s play. The Igbos west of the River Niger know that were it not for our son Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, the intensity of the hatred of all Igbos after January 15, 1966, would not be as hard as it is today. Our destiny lies in our Anioma HERITAGE which as Nigeria’s devolution persists in the downward slide, we will remain in an Anioma enclave of our own, heroes who fought the Whiteman in precolonial times, in the Ekumeku wars, and preserved our people from being SLAVES of the British, Fulanis and the Yorubas or Binis.
RESTRUCTURE NIGERIA NOW
Had horses been easy ride for the poor, GEJ would have saved Nigeria from the scourge of Buhari. In 2014, GEJ failed to RESTRUCTURE NIGERIA though he received the authority to do so by an Assembly he set up. That would have ensured a Nigeria in which SLAVERY of the Niger Delta would have been forgotten forever. He wanted another mandate, allowed an INEC Chairman whose tenure expired well enough for him to leave office (which Buhari never did, even for once), gave everything to the North and only got betrayed by the elite of the same North when it mattered most, and to whom he would rather again Can the Niger Delta forget Ken Sarowiwa, be enslaved to the North again, than be part of Biafra? Why not devolve on your own, and forsake their betrayal twice? If the British did not fuse the Ijaws, Ibibio, Efik and Ogojas with the Igbos, in Eastern Nigeria, does GEJ believe that the Igbos will beg the Ijaws to fuse with them, or assist them to create an entity of their own, whether called by any other name, including Biafra? Were the Ijaws spared in the North in the pogroms of 1966, or the Ijaws spared from the Governorship profiling of Igbos or those who resemble Igbos on March 18, 2023, in Lagos, where all of them were stopped from voting? Were Yorubas in Delta State profiled on that date, and stopped from voting on that election date? Is that the Nigeria GEJ or anyone else for that matter want? How long more does anyone think that such a NIGERIA would survive? See where the Islamic Republic of Sudan is headed in May 2023, and compare all Muslim Sudan, with multiple religion Nigeria, and RESTRUCTURE NIGERIA NOW, that it may not die! See how through ethnic ZONING and ROTATION of the Swiss Presidency, Switzerland is blessed with neutrality, peace, harmony and prosperity! The earlier we restructure the better our country will be: the triumph of elections 2023 is a deceit of very high tragic proportions.
IMBALANCES IN NIGERIA
The number of States in Nigeria, created by the Military, from 1967-1991, and all the appurtenances and opportunities in Nigeria now, favor the Northerners most, followed by the Yorubas, and has totally out classed the Igbos, before other minorities.
These injustices will destroy the country, because a social and political Class has emerged which will be destroyed by the oppressed: the reverse cannot be the case, because of easy stolen wealth, bribery and nepotism: the Military in Nigeria has not defeated Boko Haram, and patriotism is hard to come by due to nepotism, cronyism and ethnicism. The economic hardships of ordinary citizens living in Nigeria today, and lack of patriotism call for an ideological re-engineering of the economic and monetary structures of the country. The radical galvanization of the youths is real, just as #END SARS of October 19-21, 2020 proved: as well as the Presidential polls of February 25, 2023 proved. The longer the delay, the more grave will be the awakening. If Ken Sarowiwa were to reawaken today, would he applaud GEJ on the principle “that the people of the Niger Delta would rather be slaves in Nigeria, than to be Kings with the Igbos in Biafra”. Who will control the oil and gas resources in the Niger Delta from 2024-2027, is it the people of the Niger Delta? Who is controlling the VAT in Lagos State today where the cosmopolitan population is less than half Yoruba? The right response is the Yorubas, followed by the Hausa-Fulani. Ask the same questions about the Niger Delta, and the response will be the same, in abject exclusion of the Ijaws,Urhobos, Efiks, Ibibios etc.
In conclusion, the treatise credited to GEJ, is suspect and ill timed. Nigeria is on a very bad bend, and the future is ominous. The chances of an exit into prosperity, stability and homogeneity is getting more dim. Voices of dissent, criticism or redirection will, judging from the March 18, 2023 incidences in Lagos State, be debased and trampled. All the signs and signals are wrong, and those who sing praises of those now in power will soon again take-over. But as always, God will deliver Nigeria, especially for the sake of our children, and the sweat and efforts we have all put in and used to build up Nigeria in the last 70-years.
IN DEFENSE OF PROF. PAT UTOMI – TINUBU BOUGHT OVER PAT. UTOMI TO ENABLE PETER OBI STAND UP AGAINST ATIKU ABUBAKAR SO THAT TINUBU WILL WIN THE 2023 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN NIGERIA
Politics is a mightily thankless occupation, and it also can be mind-bending for those who do not have a stout heart: the accusations that Pat Utomi had received payments from Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to enable Peter Obi to rise and stop Atiku Abubakar is unfounded, vile and shamefully false. Pat Utomi does not have such character, for the following reasons:
1. His family hailed from Ibusa, Delta State, Nigeria, and they have not been known for fraud, yahoo-yahoo, or backstabbing, but for solid upbringing of their wards
2. As an individual Pat Utomi has trained and raised himself farther than where his Parents and family placed him, to much higher heights and reputation, and has never tarnished or disgraced himself and his own new family comprising his devoted wife and humble children and inlaws
3. Even before Bola Ahmed Tinubu or even Peter Obi himself, contemplated and publicly informed Nigerians or remembered that either would run or wish to be President of Nigeria, Pat Utomi had nominated himself, funded himself and began running to be President of Nigeria, based on very sound political, ideological and economic principles, more sound than those of the two persons in reference: Pat Utomi’s time is yet to come, though he is well into his 60s: if in doubt, ask Michael Ajasin, Zik, Awo, Buhari, Winston Churchill, Conrad Adeneur, Joe Biden or Mahatiar Mohammed
4. Pat Utomi has been known to some of us for more than 50-years, educated at Loyola College Ibadan, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, UNN, where he was student Director of Socials from 1975-1976, a member of the Alphites Club; served Dr. Alex Ekwueme, former Vice President of Nigeria, and Igbo denizen, as Special Assistant, earned a Doctorate degree at an early age and pursued a career in Public Policy, Politics, Economic Management and Leadership
5. In 2022-2023, Pat Utomi was a Presidential Aspirant in the Labour Party and contested against Peter Obi, who joined their Party very late, having been frustrated out of the decaying PDP: on what basis would Pat Utomi accept Peter Obi as a contemporary and then take bribe money from an ideological differentiate and inchoate, as a sellout of an ideological compatible? Pat Utomi is a very rich and comfortable person, based on any global wealth index
The taste of the pudding is when or if you eat it. Proof of the allegations against Pat Utomi that he took monies from Tinubu, to create advantages to defeat Atiku Abubakar is senseless: Atiku, Tinubu and Peter Obi, were headed, either to a Presidential run-off, or cliff -hanger defeat of the other two, by Peter Obi, until Mahmoud Yakubu and a few of his INEC cronies and associates, cashed in on becoming Billionaires, from being university teachers and public servants: money or wealth do not buy contentment or happiness. Only the truth can save or heal a disjointed personality, and sooner, the evils of the Presidential election of 2022-2023 will be fully out.
Pat Utomi will not be tainted by that TRUTH. His age and long standing character will be and is sufficient bond to guarantee his free conscience. Having personally myself, been educated at both Loyola College, Ibadan, and UNN where Pat Utomi was my senior, of the same Faculty in the Russwurn Building, by a class in 1974, where Peter Obi became an Alumni after 5-years, Pat Utomi would not accept N1 Billion Naira to sell Peter Obi out, or even sell out anyone else for that matter. Lions, as alumnus of UNN are known, ethnic origins not withstanding, are too conservative in character and conscience, to be bought over with money, gifts or friendships. If in doubt ask Ikenna Nzimiro or Peter Obi himself.
On Pat Utomi, and Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s bribe money, I am waiting to be proven wrong!
Signed:
Dr. Orefo Nnamdi Onochie
Convener/Chairman
NACOPPIN NIGERIA 2023
