By Ameh Comrade Godwin Biafran warlord and Secretary-General of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, world-wide, Col Joe Achuzia, ...
By Ameh Comrade Godwin
Biafran warlord and Secretary-General of the Indigenous
People of Biafra, IPOB, world-wide, Col Joe Achuzia, has revealed where the
word ‘Biafra’ orgininated from.
The civil war hero said he was proud to be addressed as “a
Biafran” as that reflected his true identity.
According to him, “You see people tend to forget the paradox
about the Igbo. The word Igbo is not a tribal identity, it is linguistic
identity. It is a language of a people collectively residing in the eastern
region that used to be known as Southern Sudan. From the 14th, 15th, 16th
century, the area was known as Southern Sudan. That is where the people known
as Biafrans lived, hence the Bight of Biafra.
“There would never have been a Bight of Biafra if there were
no inhabitants occupying the mainland. I’m not here pleading a cause for
Biafra. No, I’m only taking you to historical antecedents.”
Asked why he joined the fight for the secession of Biafra
from Nigeria between 1967 to 1970, the elder statesman said, “No, we fought for
survival. Biafra never fought or did not attempt to break away from the Lugardian
set up known as Nigeria. No! We, from the south east fought to prevent us from
being exterminated in an effort to push us out of the federation. That we
remembered out past, the thought came to our succour because when a people are
under pressure of extermination, history comes to their assistance.”
“How did our forefathers survive under the pressure that we
had at the time from colonial masters? How did they survive? They survived by
recollecting who they were and pulled together, hence the mark on our faces.
Those marks differentiate the people who are Biafrans. Each community has a
peculiar mark even though nowadays, we don’t do it anymore but it is engraved
in our heart.
“And that is why we resolved that we cannot fight
individually as Nigeria wanted us then. We had to fight collectively as
Biafrans. Biafra wasn’t coined to break up Nigeria, no”, he told Vanguard.
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