Road not worthy to take

By Nwafor Sunday

Permit me fellow compatriots to say my mind. Permit me also to tell you the bitter truth that will save us all. The road which we seek to take is not worthy to be taken. Going by the words of the former president, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan “Nobody’s ambition is worth the blood of any Nigerian,” “I promised the country free and fair elections. I have kept my word.” On the social media, I deduced via comments of Biafran youths that if the federal government insist of not splitting Nigeria; War will erupt.

However, borrowing Jonathans succulent words I beg for a pause in our actions and recommend a sit at home rethink for all Biafrans. I did mine and came out with an undiluted and unequivocal premise that reads thus, ‘Nigeria’s divide tantamount to war’.

I guess you don’t expect me to tell you everything. But you should know that ‘Igbo enwe eze’ and Igbo Afuro onwefa n’ anya’. In transcription it means that ‘Igbo do not have a king and perhaps do not love themselves.  Remember this antithesis ‘ United we stand, divided we fall’. If Biafra eventually exists which state among the south east will produce the first president? That undoubtedly will bring another higgledy-piggledy amongst us. Igbo are known to be intelligent, hardworking, sensible and makers of right decision. What is holding us back in making a wise decision in this one? This is what I don’t understand.

The northern and southern amalgamation in 1914 stated clearly our firm decision to stay as one. Why do you want us to divide Nigeria, despites Ojukwu’s failed struggle to achieve biafran nation in 1967?  In our dialect we say ‘Abusi gba otule, omulu ako’ which literally means that buttock gets wisdom when ant stings it.

Have you not watched our civil war documentary? The massacre, killings, sufferings, famine, blood flow, displacement of children and deaths, these are passengers of war. Which nation do you think will sponsor and support us if we undress war? History tells me that Ojukwu lost because he had no supporter, no sponsor and no food. But at that the aftermath reads no victor, no vanquish.

I don’t know my grandfather because of war. He was killed in the battle field alongside my two uncles. I don’t wish same to these new born babies. We should stop beating the war drum! War has never been in our favor and I doubt if it will ever be.

Moreover, the senator representing Bayelsa East constituency, Sen Ben Murray Bruce, while trailing down the causes of Biafran war spit the adverse effect of the war on people. According to him “Yes a young generation of people who have never seen bloodshed, people being killed, amputated and families being divided. “ Surely they will welcome war but what have we done as a nation to educate them about the destruction of war ‘absolutely nothing”, he said.

Though we cry and weep for marginalization, but God has kept us going. The threat we received from the Northern Youths Coalition Forum, (NCY), has been doused by the acting president. My candid advice to ‘umunnem’ is that we should trade with caution. Abiding on the true constitutional processes will make us achieve a great nation. Federal government on their part should look inward on the plights of Biafrans and grant their legitimate request so that together we will make Nigeria proud.

Please let Biafra not be like Robert Frost in his poem bellow:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

 

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