NIGERIA'S ON COMING IMMINENT BLOODY CATASTROPHE IN MULLAH OBASANJO’S ISLAMIC NIGERIA

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NIGER DELTA REPUBLIC MOVEMENT Bulletin JAN. 2002

In Mullah (President ) Obasanjo’s Islamic Nigeria ~ Ojukwu will join the fight for Christian separation as Southern Christians reject the North’s forced conversion to Islam following Nigeria’s hidden membership of the O.I.C - Organisation of Islamic Conference. Revealed in October last Year.

In the aftermath of the attack on America on the 11th September last year many horrible facts are being revealed. The most significant of these is the shock by Southern Nigerians in the diaspora as they read with disgust in the European press that their country Nigeria is a member of the O.I.C. ~ Organisation of Islamic Conference. Millions bowled over , some jarred . In temper one young lawyer grabbed the telephone and rang a friend “Hello, John “ And John responded with greetings “I rang you earlier ; but I didn’t leave a message on the answer phone.

Have you heard the latest ? “

“What could it be ? a coup ?”

“ No; not a coup; worse than a coup ~ I cannot believe what I’m reading;

Nigeria is listed as a member of the O.I.C”

“What’s OIC; I‘ve never heard of it before . What is it ?”

“Organisation of Islamic Conference”

“Oh my God. You don’t say; and Nigeria is a member of it ?”

“Yes; that’s what I’m reading in this paper XXX of this morning”

“So we’re all Islam. How ? How can that be ? It can’t be true; I don’t

believe. May be they mean Algeria The newspapers sometimes make mistake.

I don’t think its true. “

“I hope its not true. It can’t be. We’re a hundred percent Christian in our

area - the former Eastern Region. In fact from Benin City right to the

borders with Cameron we’re all Christian and we like it so. I hope it's not

true. It’ll be terrible if it's true.“

And the two discussed other matters. The following day, they both heard more from some other Southern Nigerians but few could come to terms that it's true. John’s friend Sam Gbobo from Tombia in the Niger Delta explained to him.

“ In 1985, General Alhaji Babangida after he had staged his successful coup and set up a military regime, travelled to Morocco where they were having an Islamic Conference. Without much ado, he enrolled Nigeria as a member. He did not tell any one at home. When later people in the South knew of it, there were riots in several parts of Southern Nigeria; but like many other things , it died down. Now with the North planting Obasanjo on us, he supports whatever they do and his government contributes funds to the organisation without warning the people that we are not Islam".

“This Mullah Obasanjo; he’s a dangerous man. No wonder people gossip about him. They say the Northerners traded him for Abiola” John remarked.

“O my God. Do you believe that ?” “Yes; I’ve heard people saying it , but I did not believe it ; now I begin to believe it. I think he knows all the plans to make Nigeria an Islamic country. These Northerners; they did not declare Sharia all these years ; but a few months of Obasanjo’s regime , one by one they declare Sharia and they kill many Southerners and burnt down churches; yet dumb dumb Obasanjo does nothing. Now they’ve enlarged their base and they’ve got Al Qaeda disciples all over the North . Obasanjo is sick; he’s supporting all the plans of the Islamic North. They behave as if Islam has inherited Nigeria. ”

“Yes; They put him there to do their rubbish jobs" “And he’s doing it very well. The Northern Military put him there. In 1998 they made a constitution and limited the number of candidates for the office of President to two. Then they allowed only two political parties to contest. One was their own party, the other was by Southerners. They presented Obasanjo as their candidate and lavishly sponsored him They did not present any candidate from the North. And he won. You think they ‘re foolish to do all that for nothing ? ”

"Really Obasanjo has no strong political base in the Yoruba area? The North first discovered him in 1966 when they found that he knows much about the coup of January 1966, I mean the coup by Southerners; but he was not part of it. He knew the coup leaders very well, but he did not join them. That impressed the North's revenge coup leaders. They began to use him; and he loved the advantages that accrued to him. Gradually he has become their prisoner; he cannot "offend" the North".

"As for us in the Niger Delta, we are deeply interested in the plight of our people. We are always the exploited lot. The large tribes feed on us; and because of their majority they will forever defeat our aspiration in any assembly. This is what is happening in the question of resource control. We are perpetually being enslaved. The only solution is to fight for separation so that we can best control our own destiny. Afterall we did not voluntarily become part of Nigeria. It was the force of the colonial power that cobbles all of us together.. Nigeria is not like the U.S where every state voluntarily become a part of the country. On top of all the exploitation, they bring Islamic Sharia to impose Islamic religion upon us.

Why should we submit to all that? Separation is the only answer".

John and Sam now began to understand the situation in Nigeria. Like them, millions of Southern Nigerians are devastated by the news that Nigeria is a member of the O.I.C. This is particular so to the people from the east of Benin City across the river Niger through Igboland to Ogoja and down to Okrika and the rest of the Niger Delta. But Obasanjo does not seem to bother about what the South, particularly the East think of him . Only last month he condemned Ojukwu for supporting the Sovereign National Conference that is in demand by the youths of the 18 million Yorubas , the 16 million Igbos and the 17 million people of the Niger Delta. This means all the ethnic communities in the South.

The conference is demanded in order to discuss separation in all its ramification. The only group that does not support it is the Islamic Northerners who enjoy their own exclusive form of administration that they unilaterally declared. This is mainly in the Sharia Islamic style of government and in civil as well as criminal law. In respect of these Obasanjo cannot act.

In his observation Ojukwu , the erstwhile leader of the unsuccessful Biafra 1967-70 said. “.I have no fear that if what Nigeria comes out with from the National Conference is not exactly what we Ndeigbo want, we may talk about secession even if it means war again. This time the rest of the Christian South will be on our side” BRAVO ~ OJUKWU. The term Indeigbo means Igbo people , like Germans meaning German people; and it is so understood even by illiterates as opposed to Biafra which is of Portuguese sources.

To this statement by Ojukwu, Obasanjo, boiled with anger . He raged shouting amidst some selected Northern troops in Abuja. “ There can be no secession; We will crush any separation movement. Nigeria must remain as the colonial power left it. We ended the civil war well because we fought for the unity of this country, not to divide the nation . It is madness to the extreme to talk of separation or secession; and the import should not be lost to the armed forces.” And he threatens to crush any act of separation.

In this way Obasanjo spoke like a colonial ruler during the colonial days. In 1923 Sir Hugh Clifford who succeeded Lord Lugard as governor of Nigeria shouted down some African elite calling them “ Hot heads from the coasts. “ And he said, “Instead of enjoying Pax Britanica that has created countries for them and has made them civilised and educated in the laws of England , they foolishly talk of self government. “ Also in 1947 Sir Arthur Richards, the colonial governor who introduced the Regional system would not listen to the demand of a conference to discuss the constitution which he introduced without the people's knowledge. Like Obasanjo now, Governor Richard in 1947 wanted the discussion to be limited to regional matters. But his successor Sir John Macpherson allowed representative they wanted; even outside the constitution. When people are satisfied there can be peace. Some leaders like Awolowo took advantage of this and spoke of separation and the inclusion of secession clause in the constitution. But sadly, it was Azikiwe, his fellow Southerner who sided the North and torpedoed the demand .

Obasanjo may not really be as daft as he looks; but being a stooge to the North that created him and enable him to be collecting all these harvests, he tries to do every thing to please them. Also he talks like a person who does not thinks deeply. Even a great man like Zik, ended up being a stooge of the North when they dangled position at him. The problem with stooges is that they know they are stooges ; but they cannot retreat and it is usually impossible to convince them. Many of them are also cowards. The additional problem with Obasanjo is that he seems to know very little or nothing of the problems of Nigeria , a very abnormal country, having regard to the manner of its creation. To him Nigeria is like any other country in the world.

To him and his kind, corruption riddled Nigeria is normal for a country. And in his position he knows more corrupt and fraudulent people in the country than the average Nigerian yet he is never seen to be in a hurry to eradicate corruption. Obasanjo plays on the timid nature of the Nigerian people, particularly Southerners. He always frightens them with the threat of war in order to intimidate them out of the demand for separation. It is therefore not surprising that he is ready to fight a war in order to keep it united by force. He likes to talk with those who beat about the bush wanting to discuss resource control, marginalization, minority issue, true federation, human rights, environmental and those sorts of banal demands that have no spirit. But it is typical of the Nigerian elite.

This reminds one of colonial politics in early days. In 1948 when Nkrumah of Ghana was demanding “Independence Now” as he spoke in the streets and everywhere Nigerians were beating about the bush asking for “End of racial discrimination in Bristol Hotel Lagos,” “Equality of pay for Expatriates and Nigerians” and “Accommodation for Africans in Ikoyi.” Later, after Nkrumah had got his independence for Ghana , some in Nigeria began to talk about introducing a formal Motion in the House of Representatives to demand Independence ~ not NOW ~ as Nkrumah did; but in future. The remnants of these people are still playing soppy politics up to this day.

And many Africans say “The relics of colonialism abound in Nigeria.” The governor continues to be happily styled “His Excellency “ like a colonial governor; and he abodes miles away from the natives in areas befitting imperialism; but inconsistent with the ordinariness in the life style of a politician in democracies. This accounts for the accusation of haughtiness in many of them.

Obasanjo does not seem to realise that Nigeria was not created by God, nor by his own ancestors. It was created by a colonial power for its own absolute and entire purposes by forcibly cobbling the unknown number of different ethnic communities to become one country. It is similar to the way other countries in Africa, south of the Arabs were created; but in the case of Nigeria and the Sudan and the Congo, more than 200 different tribes were cobbled to form the country. Elsewhere in Africa the average is only about forty different tribes in each country. In the case of Nigeria, in addition to the abnormally large number of different tribes, we are cursed with warring fundamental religions of Arabic oriented Islam that is very aggressive towards the South which is a hundred percent Christian in the centre and the east and also in the Niger Delta.

Now that the North have enlarged their Islamic base by the inclusion of active Al Qaeda disciples and adherents and with Sharia, form of government, the South has become more frightened, feeling helpless. True federation and resource control can never come because they are detrimental to the North. They might as well go for separation instead of accepting resource control and true federation. The difference is that, while separation can be forced on them, true federation and resource control requires their consent , and cannot be forced on them, so long as you are still circled by the unworkable Nigeria. Those who want to remain in Nigeria because, it is the name they love can adopt it.

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Obasanjo also said “I wonder why in the beginning of the 21st century , 31 years after the civil war , people are still talking of secession. Anybody talking about that should have his head examined.” This is strange coming from one who himself fought in the civil war, albeit at the tail end and probably ignorant of the purpose of the war. He also said that the war was fought to unite Nigeria.

Everyone but Obasanjo knows that the war was fought because of the ascendancy of the North and its military after they had revenged the killing of their leaders Ahmadu Bello and Balewa by Southern troops. The Northern troops killed Generals Ironsi and Fajuyi in July 1966 in revenge. Ironsi was the highest Igbo military officer and Fajuyi was the highest Yoruba military officer. Having killed the two big men from the South, so easily, they imagined themselves on top. They were in the position of ascendancy in the country. They therefore felt that they had subdued the South. It was the young soldier Ojukwu who bravely stood against them refusing to recognise their authority over the part of the country he controlled. It is this stand by Ojukwu that began the conflicts for which he decided to secede the part of the country he controlled. It was a war created by undisciplined military adventurers. It was not really a war to unite Nigeria such as Garibaldi fought to unite Italy by snatching Northern Italy from Austria and southern Italy from Napoleon in order to form one nation of Italian speaking people.

Nigeria was like a rubbish heap of tribes collected by Great Britain in some cases with the consent of France. It is this monster of a country that Obasanjo will fight to keep alive. The war he boasts of was fought by the whole of the North plus their forced allies in the Yoruba area and it lasted three years. The people in the Niger Delta were divided. However Obasanjo and his other Northern friends including the murderers of Ironsi , Fajuyi and others have reaped a good size harvest and should hands off the South.

Anyway, before Obasanjo begins to fight the South or the Igbos and their neighbours in the Niger Delta, he should know that no country in which the peoples are united by force of war ever succeeds. The United Kingdom which is also called Great Britain is a good example. Here the various ethnic communities of England and , Scotland and later Wales voluntarily agree to be together as one country. And they have shown sufficient evidence that if any community desires to separate, there will be no force used against it. The United States of America is the voluntary union of the original 13 states which met and agreed to form a nation. They gave it its name and then a constitution. Then they chose a language for it. Every other states that joined them to enlarge the United states did so by its people voluntarily agreeing to be part of the United States. In the Republic of Germany every state agrees without force to be part of the country. The situation is the same in every democracy. There is no other country in the world where its people discuss, agitate, argue and fight over the issue of separation year in year out for so long like in Nigeria. This time we make it the last fight.

Sixty two years ago Hitler fought a war to unite Germany by including Austria and part of France and Poland. And he boasted like Obasanjo now does that he had “fought and united the country. “ In the end he failed because the unwilling ethnic communities detached themselves from his enforced German. In the same way, the unwilling ethnic groups will leave unloved Nigeria. It is natural. Then again the Soviet Union created by military force ( as Obasanjo boasts) confounded and disintegrated decades ago. So also did Tito’s Yugoslavia. It ended up with so great a terrible calamity. No sensible head of state ever boasts of creating a country by force of war in this modern age. It is Obasanjo whose head needs to be examined for being idiotic, not that of Ojukwu’s.

In 1941 during the Second World War the American President Roosevelt and the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met on board the USS Augusta and made a firm declaration to the effect that all peoples in the world have the right to chose the form of government under which they would live. This declaration was the beginning of the United Nations. It is interpreted to assure every ethnic community however weak that it has the right to govern itself in the form it chooses.. For example the Islamic communities in the Northern Nigeria have the right to govern themselves under Sharia law and practice if that is what they like. In the same way, the Igbos too must be allowed to govern themselves in the manner they like. The same applies to the Yorubas and to the ethnic communities in the Niger Delta.

Imperialism is old fashioned . Now the whole world frowns on different communities being forced under one government that is not of their own choice as in Nigeria. This was applied to support the freedom of the less than one million people of East Timor from powerful Indonesia of 200 million.

Obasanjo must do some home work before he decides to fights a determined Igbo or Niger Delta. As soon as these two groups of neighbours, become wise enough to cooperate in their struggle, they will be free even with one million Obasanjos plus the Northern Sharia people. If Obasanjo turns Nigeria into Yugoslavia, it is the North that will suffer, unless the communities in the South have foolish leaders.....

It is necessary to remind every one that during the civil war , Gowon tried to convince the world that he was fighting a just war that was to prevent the non Igbos ( that Ojukwu included in Biafra), from being included by force. That was his justifiable excuse to fight the seceding Igbos that tried to include other people. Sensible people ought to understand this. The only difficulty with the Igbos at the time was that if they seceded alone, they would have been surrounded by what would have been left of monster Nigeria; and this was not proper.

Unfortunately, they did not work hard enough to assure their long standing neighbours in the former provinces of Calabar, Ogoja and Rivers to secede separately along as well (with them). Two or three brothers however well intended and fondly, cannot live in the same house with their respective families. They become most friendly when they live separately - each in his own home, with his own family. This is the lesson for the Igbos and their God created neighbours in the Niger Delta.

Sometimes one gets easily convinced if the one looks at himself with the eyes of other people who are sincere. Here we remind you of what some observers say of unfortunate Nigeria the fastest regressing country in the world.

First : In her book The Downing Street Years Lady Thatcher wrote “It is never easy to govern a country like Nigeria: it is somewhat artificially created divided between Muslim North and Christian and Pagan South.”

Second: Michael Crowder a former professor of History in Cambridge wrote in his book The Story of Nigeria published by Faber and Faber 1965 “ When Lugard amalgamated Northern Nigeria and Southern Nigeria, it must have seemed to him that he was lumping under one single administration groups of mutually incompatible peoples.”

Third: Sir Peter Smithson, a former cabinet Minister in the British Government at the time when the independence of Nigeria was discussed wrote to the London Times of 15th July 1998 the following. ”During the negotiation for the independence of Nigeria the view of the Secretary of State at the time, with which I agreed, was that in Nigeria we should attempt to put together a large and powerful state with ample material resources , which would play a leading part in the affairs of the continent and the world. This was attractive but it involved forcing several different ethnic and cultural groups into a single political structure. In retrospect of 40 years, it is clear that this was a grave mistake which has cost many lives and will probably continue to do so. It would have been better to establish several smaller states in a free trade area. In exculpation it must be said that we did not then have the examples of the collapse of Yugoslavia and of the Soviet Union before our eyes. It should be clear for all but the wilfully blind to see that it is extremely dangerous to force diverse racial and social entities into a single rigid political structure.”

The author of this observation unlike Obasanjo, was a member of the British government under Mr Harold MacMillan who was famous for reminding Europeans in Africa of “The Wind Of Change.” His immediate ancestors created Nigeria in its original form. He later took part in the final destination of Nigeria. He is so Godly that he feels he should express his knowledge and feeling in this way.

Fourth In 1999 the London based Economist wrote “Nigerians have no common vision of a nation state called Nigeria, no sense of citizenship. The name and the football team are about the only thing that unites them. Even the footballers however brilliant individual players thought they are, do not work as a team. It's the same with the country. … The hierarchies and structures that help hold most modern states together do not exist in Nigeria…” The Economist 25th July 1999.

Do you know of any other country that has been described in these uncomplimentary ways ? It is not that we do not know that the country is so bad. We all know. And that is why during the past fifty years or so, there have been more than a hundred conferences, meetings, conventions, seminars held in order to find a way that would make it possible for the more than two hundred tribes to form a peaceful nation. Many of these were held in Nigeria , but others were held in different parts of the world including Great Britain, Ghana, Ethiopia, Uganda and Congo and they discussed revenue allocation, resource control, true federation, human rights and the lots of other matters except SEPARATION.

Obasanjo and people like him love so shambolic places like Nigeria because, it is only in such deeply corrupt, fraudulent and unacceptable communities that they can prosper by owing more land and properties than the average person without inheriting such lands. The country on account of its natural composition of deeply tribal and warring religion as described above can never have really understanding rulers. It can only have self seeking rulers or tribal rulers who themselves benefit from the shambolic condition of the country.

But there are some good men who are never tired making the efforts to improve the conditions. We pray that these good men and women abandon their banal demand for resource control, true federation, human rights, environmental, democracy and other cosmetic types of remedies and join the large and sure wagon of separatists. In this wagon we want separation as the only permanent solution.

When we separate in the South there will be a Yoruba nation, an Indeigbo nation which sounds better than the Portuguese name Biafra and the rest to be one nation - Niger Delta; always provided that no ethnic community will be forced into a nation against the will of its people. Those who do not fear drastic changes will easily accept this as the solution that will enable each section to develop meaningfully into the 21st century; particularly if we are sensible enough to follow the system of European Union and make these the nucleus of it in West Africa.

In the European Union every country is equal in all respect and every citizen of one country has the right to work, to live and to do whatever is lawful in any of the other countries as if they were his own. If the three nations in the South begin the type of union, others with liberal attitude may join. Those who want to see the observance of human rights should support separation so that it would be possible to elect good and patriotic leaders that can make good laws to impose observance and respect for human rights upon individuals and companies, particularly foreign companies.

As it is, it is impossible to have good leaders for 200 different tribes and religiously warring groups. You will always end up having horrible leaders such as Abacha and Obasanjo that are not patriotic. Their interest is only to exploit other ethnic groups; and they can use foreign companies for the purposes. Human rights are not charitable matters. They are observed only when national laws impose obligation on people and companies to observe and respect them. Only good and patriotic leaders of peaceful countries in which the people cherish common values can make such laws.

We must stop recrimination and learn from the more civilised peoples of Europe and America who do not make permanent enemies and hark bark on past events; but instead, they move forward in cooperation with former enemies.

However, to us in the Niger Delta Ojukwu is still objectionable . Besides atrocities his regime committed on us in the civil war, he still supports Abacha killing of our Ogoni leaders in a most inhuman and brutal way. Unlike many Igbos, he has not grown up in maturity that considers reconciliation and the need for good neighbourliness. Though we will not forgive Ojukwu for his ungodly behaviour, we will cooperate with the Igbos in the fight for separation because they are our valuable neighbours with whom we like to live in peace and move forward at all times. They should get their Biafra or Indeigbo nation and we our own Niger Delta nation in a way that two adult brothers, each in which his own family live separately but cooperating always.

The Southern Nigerian elite must be more serious over the problems of the country and support separation. They must ignore Obasanjo’s bulling pretences. Anyway millions now wonder if he is intelligent enough to realise that the world of 1967( when the civil war began ), is not the same as the world of today 2002 ; and that accordingly , today, concern for the disintegration of, unworkable Nigeria is very negligible indeed; except among those who profit from its corruption based economy and shambolic condition.

Nigeria is fast sliding in the progression of the early 1960s that culminated in the bloody civil war. The North, particularly the Islamic North, seems to know this. Always boasting of support from the Islamic world, they are solidly united under the umbrella of Sharia; and the threat of jihad. And they have an agenda which they follow quite religiously. They are the only group quite ready even now to form a nation without much problem. These and all other factors that can produce catastrophe are ripe and ready to fall by force of the mildest wind.

Suddenly the imminent serious bloody conflict may erupt and engulf the country. In the confusion, many, ethnic communities, particularly of the smaller tribes, in the South, may not readily find a group to join. In other words ~ Be Prepared; as the Igbos are rightly doing. Like an approaching hurricane in the West Indies, you can't stop it, but you too can get yourself prepared to move. No one can redeem Nigeria from disintegration. May the Almighty God help its peoples to separate in peace like Czechoslovakia.

It is ungodly and unacceptable to let the Niger Delta continue to remain the goose that lays the golden eggs, producing revenue allocation to those idle areas of Nigeria where its own people make unsuitable for investment. Like Abacha and his predecessors, Obasanjo tries to subdue the people of the Niger Delta by force as well as by deception. In some cases he even expects the youths to spy for him in a joint security arrangement with his military that kill and rape their people. He pretends not to know of their struggle for separation as the solution to their status of semi slavery; except when in 2001 he told them that "If it's independence you want, then you should ask the British Queen, for it is her people that put us together".

Why must every buffoon ride on the back of the people of the Niger Delta?

In concluding, We N.D.R.M concede to the Islamic Northern Nigeria the absolute right to rule themselves and live under their cherished Islamic Sharia, laws and practices and to promote same unfettered ; and, we ask them in return to concede to us in the Christian Southern Nigeria, the right to rule ourselves and under our own cherished Christian values and way of life and to promote same unfettered. That being so ,~ and, as Nigeria was not created by God; but forcibly by a colonial power for its own purposes that have ended, ~ separation now is the answer.

Aliyi Ekineh - Patron NDRM.

Godfrey Arumoh - International Coordinator NDRM.

 January 2002