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| Photo of crime scene |
The root cause of violence is often injustice against the weaker section of society. The weaker section perhaps may be poor; maybe linguistic, cultural, or religious minorities; or migrants from other countries. Justice and peace are inseparable. Whenever there's injustice, there must be conflict. Peace can not be achieved by using only mere rhetoric and exhortations. As one can not establish peace in Palestine unless the question of the Palestinian territory captured by Israel in the 1947 War is resolved to their satisfaction, so it is in every other part of the world.
One can not establish peace in Nigeria unless justice is adequately administered to the southeast Igbo question and aspirations for a Nigerian president of their extraction in the 2023 general elections which are around the corner. By design or default, the Nigerian government's denial of the equal right and opportunity of the Igbos to produce the country's president as other regions since independence has contributed in no small measures to generating a resolute and protracted agitation for a separate Biafran State.
India, just like Nigeria, at independence was a country that has diverse groups, and diverse religious beliefs - Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Islam - and yet since independence in 1947 there had never been any serious crisis that shook the very foundation of the Indian nation. Indeed, Nigeria rather than shaping its history is still being shaped by its past.
There is certainly the need for Nigerians in general and the leaders, in particular, to be guided not only by our history but also by the history of troubled states, such as Sudan, Libya, Somalia, Liberia, Syria, Ivory - Coast, and failed states such as Yugoslavia, and the USSR. The latter, a superpower which stood at par with the United States, is now merely a shadow of what it used to be. Understanding the history of such nations would enable us to avoid the fate that befell them.
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The Igbo proverb says: "Nwata tonite amaghi ihe mere nna ya, ihe mere nna ya emee ya" (a child who grows up not knowing what happened to his father, what happened to his father will happen to him) epitomizes the significance of history.
Of course, it may not be quite necessary and expedient to start the story of the civil war from the beginning to the end, but suffice it to say that it was the outcome of envy, avarice and ambition, especially by the Hausa/ Fulani of the north in the 1960s who saw the Igbo as a dominant and arrogant set of human beings.
They accused them of anything and everything politically.
Igbo leaders were accepted but not respected. The Igbo advancement in the socio-economic life of anywhere they found themselves became their albatross. That was why when Lt. Col Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, a Delta Igbo man, led a coup that overthrew the first civilian regime, war crimes and genocide against the Igbos became a terrible reality.
Let's Promote Equality.
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