The Senate Chief Whip, Orji Uzor Kalu, recently visited leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, at the headquarters of the Department of State Services in Abuja and had a brotherly chat with him. His advice brings to mind a similar one given at the onset of Nigeria’s first military coup in January 1966.
There was no indication of whether Kanu responded and if so, what he said. But for the sake of Nigerians, IPOB activists included, one hopes that Kanu’s response isn’t like Nzeogwu’s. In all likelihood, the Major was speaking in hyperbolic terms. But had he lived to the end of the war that the coup led to, he might have realised that his glib response turned into reality. Alas, he was killed early in the war.
Wars also result in damage to internal organs because of acute stress and deprivation. And there are the lasting psychological consequences: the loss of innocence, the depression, the paranoia and distrust. In the US, soldiers returning from wars are often treated for what they call post-traumatic stress disorders or PSD. It manifests in form of behavioral anomalies, including inability to relate with spouses and children.
Even then it might help if leaders are capable of seeing ahead into the future, so to say. Imagine that Nzeogwu, Ojukwu, General Yakubu Gowon and the rest of the principals were shown the casualties and miseries of the war in advance. Might they have made different choices, might they have tried harder to avert the war? My bet is yes.
In April, Chadian President, Idriss Déby, ventured into his country’s warfront with rebels and was killed there. More recently, Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, decided to abandon his office in Addis Ababa and head to the battlefield to personally lead the war against the Tigray rebels. Ahmed was a lieutenant colonel in the Ethiopian army before transitioning into politics. So, he is by no means a neophyte on the battlefield.
Such misery is not what the rebel leaders had in mind when they began to defy federal authorities in an apparent quest for secession. And the Ethiopian government probably didn’t anticipate that Tigray fighters could possibly threaten his government in Addis Ababa. That is the reality of conflicts: leaders rarely ever reckon with the totality of what they are getting into.
Let me remind everyone here again: Referendum is not war. People deserve the right to choose they path they want.
The irony of life is that those whom we thought that are in the know are completely irresponsibly cowards to stand up for what is right and stupidly shy away from the truth !
War mongering...2021 calls for a civilised democratic approach. USSR wars were more deadly and gory but in the end they opted for a better option. Dialogue and diplomacy. Suppression is not the solution to self-determination question. Nationhood is built by give and take.
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