If anyone tells you that the right to secession or self-determination is bad and intolerable, then, he or she is lying to you. There is no nation, group, or individual that doesn’t desire freedom if it/he/she notices that it/he/she is being oppressed and marginalized. You do not expect such a group or nation that’s experiencing such not to demand freedom, as it would be that they cherish their chains. They have the right to self-determination and the concept of freedom fighting supports that.
Some laws guarantee the right to self-determination. The African Union (AU) Charter on Human and People’s Rights guarantees the right to political self-determination. Under International Laws, the right to self-determination isn’t also disregarded, although the stand of these laws on secession is neutral as it is neither outrightly prohibited nor approved of.
In Nigeria, there is a leading separatist movement in South-East Nigeria, known as the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). This group had for long gotten the support of a majority of Igbos in the region and has clearly stated their reasons for seeking the balkanization of Nigeria. The group has also earned a lot of detractors, who describe its activities, rhetorics, and tactics as idiosyncratic.
However, the South-East seceding from Nigeria is something that will be very difficult to achieve, taking into cognizance the fact that we are operating on a federal system of government, which does not have any clause for secession.
Even though self-determination is a human right, the way and manner in which the group (IPOB) has been agitating for freedom have involved the widespread of misleading information and propaganda, which they believed that by doing, they can sustain the interests of their supporters in the agitation. Its media warriors write whatever content they like to disinform their supporters and put the agitation in good light, and that has been very unhealthy for the agitation.
I have read a lot of misleading content written by its members several times. From the 15 billion dollar bribe offered to Nnamdi Kanu to withdraw from the agitation, after his extradition to Nigeria, to A Secret Airport in the North used by the Fulani Oligarchs to transport their gold and a whole lot of other misleading information, which they cognitively biased emotionally and perceived as the truth in a post-truth society like ours.
The social tension in the south-east has been increasing lately. In a bid to ensure the unconditional release of Nnamdi Kanu from detention by the Nigerian Government and ultimately, achieve the independence of Biafra, the witless and unscrupulous have taken over. People now live with the fear of losing their lives and their loved ones. Businesses can no longer operate smoothly and peacefully. Vital government properties and security units are being burnt down, all because of a desire to have Biafra. How can Biafra be gotten this way? War and bloodshed are never the best way to get independence from a contraption. The actions of the witless and unscrupulous have changed the state of the southeast from good to bad.
Multiple times have people who are of the Igbo extraction been apprehended by security operatives for the mayhem they were causing in the South East but still, some cognitively biased individuals choose to regard it as political propaganda or a subterfuge plot from the Fulanis to sabotage the agitation and drive massive fear and panic down the spine of the Igbo populace, even when it’s glaring that it isn’t.
The forceful enforcement of the sit-at-home activity by some criminals has affected a lot of businesses and has also clamped down on the freedom of movement in the region. Those who fail to comply with the order are considered joking with their lives in the process.
Those who are causing havoc in the southeast in the name of the agitation need a reorientation of their psyche. They have internalized so much of Kanu’s ideologies, and have taken it to the extreme, thus the insalubrious radicalization that has allowed for the violence and bloodshed in the land.
Simon Ekpa, a self-acclaimed disciple of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, a toxic narcissist and an advocate of violence, is encouraging some Igbo youths to carry out violent acts in the southeast.
As long as the people of the south-east do not see the handwriting on the wall and come to the knowledge of the truth that whatever is going on in their land is not the handwork of outsiders but the bad eggs within them who are ideologically imbalanced, it will keep degenerating with these heinous crimes.
