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| Brig Victor Banjo |
August 14, 1967 20:00 GMT
Excerpts From Brig Victor Banjo Broadcast on Benin
Home Service As Biafran Troops Storm Into
Mid-West
“… The 29th July 1966 Federal Military Government, came into being as a
result of a mutiny in which the primary action was directed at the elimination
of a particular ethnic group and the supremacy of another ethnic group in
Nigeria. This has had the effect of destroying the basic mutual trust and
confidence among the people of Nigeria and has created the (decentralization)
of the Nigerian people into tribal groups. This
action, more than any other event that has occurred throughout the history of
Nigeria has had the greatest effect on the dismemberment of Nigeria.
The Federal Military Government
cannot claim to represent the government of the people of Nigeria and to fight
for the unity of Nigeria while constantly rejecting fundamental human rights
for all people forming part of Nigeria. The Federal Military Government cannot
claim to be seeking a peaceful solution to the problems for achieving Nigerian
unity, while at the same time contemptuously ignoring the wishes of the people
of the Mid-West and the West in their previous demands for the removal of the
unruly troops of the North from their territories in order to allow the
unfettered decision of the present political crisis.
The Federal Military Government
cannot claim to be genuinely interested in the progress and welfare of the
Nigerian people while at the same time inflicting the most bloody warfare on
the people of Nigeria and employing unscrupulous foreign mercenaries in a total
war that really destroys hundreds of our people and the economy of our nation.
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| Victor Banjo and David Ejoor - First Day In The Army |
The people of Biafra have right to fight a government that has
constantly treated its people to the most savage forms of brutality and
persists in denying this people its fundamental human rights while (words
indistinct) to represent other interest. It is my view that the people of
Biafra were prepared to remain part of the nation into which they have for so
many years invested their resources of manpower and material and with which
they had the closed social ties. Provided the people of Biafra could live
within such a nation under a government that truly represents all sections of
its people and truly tries to pursue such measures as are designed to promote
the welfare of all Nigerians irrespective of tribe or religion (sentence as
broadcast).
It is the remnant of the old
Nigerian Army that broke away in July that now threatens the Nigerian nation. This
Northern Army is now under the power and control of a group of Northern
feudalists who have as their aim the total conquest of Nigeria. The Federal
Military Government, having been brought to power and control by that army, is
playing to that end. Hence policies are inevitably directed towards achieving
the objectives of the Northern feudalists who control that army.
Biafra has (words indistinct) against
the ambition of the Northern feudalists who expected to inflict their despotic
dictatorship on the rest of Nigeria. While Biafra’s resistance (succeeds) the
rest of Nigeria appears to enjoy some form of participation in the Federal
Government. If Biafra were to be subdued
the ambition of the Northern feudalists would have been achieved and the people
of Nigeria will be (brought) too late into the realization that they have been
living under the shadow of a dictatorship that is being imposed by the least enlightened
of its people. It is ironical that
the other sections of Nigeria are assisting the Northern feudalists to crush
Biafra and to impose on themselves a dictatorship that will be devoid of the
rule of law and of normal human standard of conduct.
It is even more astonishing that
the great democracies of the world, whose people have over the years fought for
freedom and representative government, should actively be supporting the
imposition of feudal dictators on the rest of Nigeria.
Fellow Nigerian citizens, I am a
Nigerian, I believe in the Nigerian nation and I am fighting for a Nigeria in
which no group will be dominated by another: in which the rule of law shall be
entrenched; and in which the various peoples of Nigeria can live together in
mutual trust under a government that truly represent and truly strives for the
progress of all its people.
I have fought for Biafra in the struggle of its people to sustain their
right to live a life of peace in their own way and at their own pace …”
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