My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. - Hosea 4:6
The only revolutionary nationalist movement that I am a supporter of presently, or ever for that matter, is the still ongoing Biafra nationalist/separatist movement. One of the main reasons for my support is that they are largely and for the most part non-violent in nature. Igbos are not hijacking aircraft, blowing them up, nor committing civilian atrocities to draw international attention to their truly righteous cause. Igbos, still are, unfortunately, silently dying as they have in the past, only at a slightly slower pace than they have previously.
Wole Soyinka, the eminent well respected Nigerian Noble Laureate, has said Biafra is an idea that can never die. Wole would find that I am in wholehearted agreement with him, as I, myself, believe that they should have the right to self-determination, deciding their own path to nationhood. Yet you may never have heard, or read of their plight? They got no highly funded PR department you see. Christianity it seems has become a castrated religion in America and Europe in my eyes. Unwilling to defend their own co-religionists in any meaningful way, or even speak out on their behalf as they are persecuted for their beliefs.
I see many recent articles supporting "Palestinian" nationalism often from a "Christian" perspective. I see the French government agitating for Israeli concessions. (perhaps an act of appeasement toward their presently hostile Muslim minority)
I firmly believe that there are far too many failed, theocratic fascist Arab states in the world today as it is. Will another one improve the situation in some substantial or even a noticeable way?
If there is to be a new nation finding its seat at the UN, what we need is a new Western-leaning successful African state perhaps. This new state has great opposition, it always has. I have picked a series of videos for those unfamiliar with the conflict to advance my belief that "It's only with knowledge of the truth, that we can make informed decisions. Ignorance is always, in every case, a poor companion to reason".
I can find historic Biafra existing in pre-colonial area maps as a real nation in 1644
http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/maps/websites/africa/maps-continent/1644%20blaeu.jpg
The Igbo, are a real people, deserving of a nation well before any "Palestinian" nation is formed. (in my opinion)
The Igbo youth, 16-40, makes up part of Africa’s most educated and talented grouping. Despite the occupation, Igbo male and female students out-perform the rest of Nigeria across the entire spectrum of the education system. (On this, see particularly Okechukwu Agbor’s excellent study, “Look who is going to school in Nigeria,” [accessed 13 February 2009]; a change of the title of Agbor’s essay to, for instance, “Igbo education during the era of occupation”, underscores, even further, the historic relevance of his study
(sourced by Nigeria world)
Persecuted Igbo should be able to find an open door policy here in America as a "safe space", as they are so much like us culturally, differing only in the color of their skin. Yet such 'safe space" designation is reserved in post-modern America for the elite, the oh so coddled "special snowflakes" of academia. Who are forced by the overriding patriarchal structure of western culture to deal with their oppressive professors and the truly unspeakable horrors found within the halls and classrooms of higher education? BDS movement? (LOL)
BEFORE the civil war, Biafra differed from most developing nations because it had a good supply of food and water, and sound public health policies with many physicians, nurses, hospitals, and clinics. Following the slaughter of 40,000 Ibos in 1966, about two million Ibos and other minority groups left their positions throughout Nigeria and fled to Biafra. Additional refugees continue to pour into Biafra to avoid capture by the Nigerian troops who have gained a reputation for slaughtering whole villages.
From the Ahiara declaration.
The Biafran struggle is, on another plane, a resistance to the Arab-Muslim expansionism which has menaced and ravaged the African continent for twelve centuries. As early as the first quarter of the seventh century, the Arabs, a people from the Near-East, evolved Islam not just as a religion but as a cover for their insatiable territorial ambitions. By the tenth century they had overrun and occupied, among other places, Egypt and North Africa. Had they stopped there, we would not today be faced with the wicked and unholy collusion we are fighting against. On the contrary, they cast their hungry and envious eyes across the Sahara on to the land of the Negroes. Our Biafran ancestors remained immune from the Islamic contagion. From the middle years of the last century Christianity was established in our land. In this way we came to be a predominantly Christian people. We came to stand out as a non-Muslim island in a raging Islamic sea. Throughout the period of the ill-fated Nigerian experiment, the Muslims hoped to infiltrate Biafra by peaceful means and quiet propaganda, but failed. Then the late Ahmadu Bello, the Sarduana of Sokoto
Sarduana is a religious/political title associated with the historic theocratic entity called the Sokoto caliphate.
tried, by political and economic blackmail and terrorism, to convert Biafrans settled in Northern Nigeria to Islam. His hope was that these Biafrans on dispersion would then carry Islam to Biafra, and by so doing give the religion political control of the area.
http://www.biafraland.com/Ahiara_declaration_1969.htm
Deeply troubling statements emanating from Northern leaders well before the Ahiara declaration had caused growing and legitimate concerns among many of the Igbo at the time
Is it any wonder that on October12, 1960, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sadauna of Sokoto and the Premier of the Northern Region, said: "This new nation called Nigeria should be an estate of our great grandfather, Uthman Dan Fodio.
Uthman was the first commander of the faithful, or Caliph in Nigeria.
We must RUTHLESSLY prevent a change of power. We must use the minorities in the North as willing tools and the South as conquered territory. We must never allow them to rule over us and never allow them to have control over the future?" .
Is it any wonder that in 1990, Sheik Abubakar Gumi, the leader of the most powerful Muslim sect in northern Nigeria said ''no Christian will be allowed to rule over Nigeria unless it is over his dead body?"
Is it any wonder that my friend and brother Governor Nasir El Rufai, once warned the Nigerian military against what he considered to be their excesses in the fight against Boko Haram and told them that "anyone, whether soldier or otherwise, that kills a Fulani must consider it as a debt that, no matter how long, will be repaid?"
Is it any wonder that in 2001 some unscrupulous and irresponsible leaders in the core North invoked ''political Sharia" as a secret weapon in their attempt to discredit, destabilize and destroy President Olusegun Obasanjo, a southern Christian President?
Is it any wonder that in 2001, President Muhammadu Buhari, a core northern Muslim, said ''what is the business of Christians if we Muslims chop off our limbs in the name of Sharia'' and went further by saying that it is his intention and desire ''to spread Sharia all over the federation''. Is it any wonder that the same man said in 2014 that "an attack on Boko Haram is an attack on the North?"
Is it any wonder that Governor Bello Masari of Katsina State said that there was a link between Boko Haram and the Fulani militants/ herdsmen and that they both "kill people and rob them of their property".
Alhaji Sa'adu Abubakar is the present Sultan of Sokoto
As the Sultan of Sokoto, Abubakar is the leader of the Qadiriyya sufi order, historically the most important Muslim position in Nigeria and senior to the Emir of Kano, the leader of the less populous Tijaniyya sufi order.
http://www.authorityngr.com/2015/10/SULTAN-MUHAMMADU-SA-AD-ABUBAKAR-IV.html/
Direct from Usmanu Dan Fodo University, Sokoto Nigeria, an interesting examination of the relationship between Qadiriya Sufism and Jihad in founding the first theocratic state in West Africa.
http://www.nmnonline.net/caliphate200/J.Kaura_RelevanceOfQadiriyaSufismInSokotoJihad_ENGLISH_.pdf
It seems logical that the Sultan himself might be among those who most want real power restored to the Sultanate.
THE most respected Sultan of Sokoto; His Eminence, Alhaji Sa'ad Abubakar 111, is also the President of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs. He fits into that office appropriately and deservingly too. The office of the Sultan of Sokoto, being the Head and ruler of the Caliphate, bestows on the occupant the privilege of "first among equals" within the world comity of Islamic brotherhood. When he speaks, the gods have spoken. And he is actually a "god" both to the Muslim community and Islamic matters, even beyond Nigeria. The Sultan is even larger than life if you add the reality of his military back-ground to the fact that before he ascended his ancestors' throne, he was the Defence Attaché to Pakistan
I've always wondered if he read, or studied the book by Brigadier General S. K. Malik The Quranic concept of war while he visited Pakistan.
As Boko Haram uses the same tactics as the Taliban. They have been called the African Taliban as a matter of fact.
See more at http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/06/islam-boko-haram-sultan-sokoto-voyage-discovery/#sthash.zqhP7xPo.dpuf
Evidence of this connection to the strategy proposed by general Malik may manifest itself in Nigeria by showing up in a deep infiltration of the military with sympathizers to the jihadist cause of a reconstituted caliphate helping the insurgents of Boko Haram to achieve their shared goal.
No fewer than 15 senior military officers including 10 generals have been tried before a court-martial and found guilty of giving information and ammunition to Boko Haram terrorists.
In the recent past, the Army and the Defence headquarters have raised the alarm that some of their officers and men are leaking official information to the terrorists and that some of them have been arrested and arraigned before some court-martials in some army divisions in the north.
http://leadership.ng/news/373136/aiding-boko-haram-army-court-martials-10-generals-5-others
President Muhammadu Buhari has been accused (sort of admitted) of personally participating in the killing of several hundred Igbos in the Biafran war. They were not all soldiers however, it's alleged some were students, intellectuals and politicians in his murderous mix as well.
The former dictator speaking today on BBC Hausa services monitored in kaduna, said with regrets that, “the igbos hate him for what happened during the Biafran war”. “I don’t have any regret, and at such do not owe any apology to them, infact if there is a repeat of the civil war again, I will kill more Igbos to save the country”.
Forgetting, perhaps momentarily, that it was the large scale killings of Igbos that directly lead to the call for independence in Biafra in the first place.
http://scannewsnigeria.com/featured-post/igbos-hate-me-because-of-the-civil-war-says-buhari/
kpr37 with a pagan's perspective.