I have seen and heard about freedom fighting and fighters throughout history and I have been impressed in no small measure
by his sheer patience, doggedness, guts and sheer commitment to free a
marginalized and oppressed people who have invariably become endangered species
in their own land calling to mind the brutal attack by a band of invading
marauders that occurred yesterday in Enugu State.
Reports have it that a life was lost in the ill-conceived
attack while two others were mortally injured and this leaves me wondering if
we have indeed become a conquered people
in a conquered territory and eventually kept under permanent subjugation. As it
stands, there is no denying the fact that we are being ruled by a tribe of
overlords from the Futa Jalon who are bent on reducing our region made up of
diverse ethnic nationalities in the
south-south and southeast to none other
than a conquered people and a conquered nation.
Events playing out today are a pointer to the facts that
there is more to their plan than meets the eye which we must resist in all
honesty before we all 'find ourselves in dishonorable graves' if I may borrow a
hackneyed quotation from Shakespeare.
There is no denying the fact that the whole of the Niger
Delta states has been militarized and with the inhabitants of the region
reduced to slaves in their own land. These are a people on whose land comes the
oil wealth that has been feeding the country for the past 60 years and a casual
visit to the region today reminds you of poverty and beneath our land are
drained pipes where the oil wealth flows
to the other parts of the country while the inhabitants thrive on dirt and
dirty surroundings.
This is a region hit by a dearth of service infrastructures
and a trip to the southeast leaves one with every compelling need to
renegotiate one's status in the failed contraption, Nigeria and this above all
doubtless informed Kanu's interest and desire to free our people. The
dissenting voices from other sections of the country who remain opposed to the
ongoing struggle under the leadership of the illegally detained leader of the
Indigenous People of Biafra, (IPOB) do not do so for the love for the people of
the region but do so for the oil wealth beneath our land seeing the disaster
that will hang over their heads like the ancient sword of Damocles.
Great minds, they often say, are no nuisance. Kanu's effort
to free our region from the Hausa-Fulani captivity calls for support. The
journey would be rough , no doubt, and
that is the price he is paying under the existing circumstances and it behooves
on our people to lend him the support and encouragement he stands in need.
A little bird once told me that the game plan by the
overlords is to overrun the southeast
mainly the Igbos where they feel there would be a resistance in a bid to
subjugate the south. Once this is achieved the rest of the region would become
a walkover via a sustained military campaign to actualize the advice and dreams
of the late Sarduana.
The illegally detained IPOB leader is doubtless better
informed than anyone in the whole region which informed his interest and desire
to bell the proverbial cat at the expense of his own freedom. There is no
denying the fact that he has remained undeterred, and doggedly committed to the struggle in the
course of this circuitous journey to freedom.
He , I dare say, remains a hero, an undisputed leader
without compare who deserves every encouragement in his bid to free his people
from the ongoing claws and bondages superimposed on a nation and a people by
the Hausa-Fulani hegemonic Muslim north.
*Iyoha John Darlington is a social activist, political
analyst and public commentator on national and global issues.
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