BIAFRANS PERSISTENCE TO SIT AT HOME FORCES BIANCA OJUKWU TO SPEAK, DEMANDING MAZI NNAMDI KANU’S RELEASE
SIT AT HOME MONDAY….
By Iyom Bianca Ojukwu
It was Calvin Coolidge who once said….’A nation that forgets it’s own defenders will itself be forgotten…’
God forbid that this should be the fate of the Igbo Nation. This is why today, on yet another Monday, we sit at home. Not that we are unaware or unmindful of the devastating effects on our own economy, but it is unconscionable that armed bandits, self declared terrorist leaders and murderous herdsmen are allowed to roam free while our own son remains in captivity, and our own leaders appear powerless and afraid to intervene. It is downright dehumanizing and provocative.
My own prayer is this…
May it Never be said of us, the Igbo Race, that ‘There once lived..a thankless and ungrateful people….’
I thought it appropriate to share some random thoughts of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu as stated below on this ‘Sit at Home’ Monday. This piece is quite touching. Kindly spare the time and effort to read to the very end.
NNAMDI KANU, Leader Of IPOB.
‘Last night I kept pondering what our eternal leader, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, must have gone through in his young brilliant mind when over 50 years ago he had to confront not only the might of a British Government intent on the extermination of the Igbo race but also a global conspiracy against the emergence of Biafra led by turncoat, weak minded Igbo, Ijaw and Ibibio men.
These traitors were to all intent and purposes recruited and groomed as agents of British neo-colonialism to subdue, oppress and subjugate their own people. Something that still obtains till this very day, only this time, via the mindset of a developmentally regressive Fulani hegemonic tendency.
As if confronting the very formidable British neo-colonial machinery and global diplomatic clout wasn’t enough trouble for the Biafran leader, he also had to contend with enemies within his own ranks. Local backstabbers, envious traitors, sell-outs and Efulefus .
Dr Azikiwe (Zik), Ukpabi Asika, Ifeajuna et al, ganged up against him for no reason. Ojukwu’s only crime was trying to free them and the rest of the Easterners from the doom Nigeria had unleashed on them having witnessed over 300,000 men, women and children of Igbo extraction slaughtered in cold blood in Fulani controlled territories of Northern Nigeria.
Do you know some Igbo Efulefus then and their children now still blame Ojukwu for the 1966 Hausa‐Fulani slaughter of 300,000 Igbos in the north that precipitated the Biafran War? Instead of blaming those that carried out the mass slaughter of their own people, they were busy blaming the only man who was courageous enough to try and save them. Incredible isn’t it?
Zik called his own people fighting for survival rebels. He went as far encouraging the world to starve his children to death by denying them aid.
When you sit down to consider, as I have done, what Ojukwu endured, your love for him will increase a million fold and only then will you understand that trying to lead an ungrateful set of people is the most difficult job on this earth. If in doubt ask Moses and Ojukwu what they endured at the hands of Isrealites and Biafrans respectively.’
And Today, I, Iyom Bianca Odumegwu Ojukwu, wife of our eternal leader, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu beg of you , UMUIGBO…Let us never forget that today our son remains in captivity. His incarceration also remains an invisible and symbolic chain on the wrist of every Igbo man. Those of our people who remain less concerned must stop hiding in spineless shadows and apply some heat to their cold feet. IT IS YOUR FUTURE AND THAT OF YOUR CHILDREN THAT IS AT STAKE. Hide in those cringing corners today by your silence, your children will become the slaves of tomorrow….and will surely weep by the proverbial Rivers of Babylon right in their own homeland. Taa bu gboo. Our Igbo leaders must come together and deliberate on diplomatic ways to secure Nnamdi Kanu’s freedom or at the very least, intensify efforts to ensure that he gets a FAIR and swift trial. It is not enough merely to harp on the devastating effects of the sit at home on the Igbo economy or dish out instructions to our people to normalize Monday day to day activities . Igbo Leaders must come up with alternative constructive solutions that keep Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s captivity and the unjust incarceration of so many other pro Biafra activists on the National front burner otherwise they will continue to rot away in unmarked cells, abandoned and forgotten . Failing this, Umuigbo will continue to demonstrate our revulsion against this oppression using the only options available to us.
No….May we never be known as a timid and ungrateful people.
We all together with one voice say it loud and clear:
#Echefula.
#Echezona.
Iyom Bianca Odumegwu Ojukwu
Monday 30 August 2021.
