•We’re one people regardless of languages – ADF
•Ojukwu, Effiong, Achuzia, others’ll forever be remembered for their great sacrifices – BNYL leader
By Chukwuemeka Chimerue and Ejike Ofoegbu - May 31, 2019
PATANI— FORMER leader of the Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, cum founder of the Ijaw Peoples Movement, IPM, Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, has stated that the pursuit of the Biafra nationhood is feasible within one year if the people of the defunct Eastern region can come together to unite and forge a common front.
Asari who spoke on Thursday at the event commemorating the Biafra Heroes’ Remembrance Day in Patani Local Government Area of Delta State, said the people of Biafra was charged with atomic bomb which can explode any moment if the Nigerian state continued to oppress and take them for granted.
He, however, regretted that “some Biafrans were enjoying their slave status and not willing to breakaway from bondage,” adding that the Fulanisation agenda as revealed by former President Olusegun Obasanjo was real and that he was out to frustrate the move.
According to him, “The only way you can be free is when you know you’re in bondage. Some of us have accepted that we want to be in this condition we find ourselves. Some of us have unconsciously accepted to be slaves; we devalue ourselves, we demarket ourselves.
“As we sit here, all of us, we’re dynamites, we’re nuclear bombs, we’re atomic bombs. If we explode, we’ll destroy a lot of things. We don’t know the capacity that is built inside us and that we can use to gain freedom for ourselves.
“If we start today, we give ourselves a timeline. In one year, we’ll achieve Biafra. It’s possible that within one year, we’ll achieve Biafra and suffering will no longer be there. And if all of us put our heads together and work together Biafra will come within one year.”
He added: “The Fulanisation agenda is real and you’re living in denial it would not happen if you don’t think so. But like I said before, it is very very real. That is what is going on now and by the special grace of God, we’ll stop them. As former president of IYC, now we’ve come out, you’ve seen the faces of those who have come out for this struggle and it will be successful, I assure you.”
Asari further stated that strategic plans are on the pipeline to mobilize his people from the Ijaw ethnic group, saying that though not all presently supports Biafra but with time, the narratives will change.
Also speaking at the event, president of the Alaigbo Development Foundation, ADF, Prof. Uzodinma Nwala, stated that the people of the Eastern region were one people regardless of the different languages they speak.
The ADF President who was being represented by Comrade Chukwuemeka Mbah advised the people of the Eastern region to be reasonable, brave and wise and follow the right leader who would lead in the right direction, while thanking Dokubo-Asari for organizing and hosting the event
He said, “Our people, the entire East, are of one blood, the issue of language notwithstanding. God made different languages for people to communicate in one way or another but we’re all of one fresh. Most of us are beginning to think that we all are Igbos in our original geology.”
The ADF scribe thanked Asari for organizing the event which recorded people from different ethnic nationalities in the defunct Eastern region.
“The man, Asari has stood for justice. When our leader, Prof. Nwala told us about your discussion with him, we were very happy Sir, and we know, just as he said, our people’s eyes has begun to open and we also know that by the grace of the Almighty God who did not create us to become slaves, we must be free in this country.
“How God will do it, we do not know but it’s only that we need to be reasonable, brave and wise now especially when we have people who can give us the right direction. What I see here are people who are determined to see that peace and progress is established in this land, people who believe that our own people will not suffer what we suffered and so shall it be,” he asserted.
Also in his reaction, the nationwide leader of the Biafra Nation Youth League, BNYL, Comrade Princewill Richard, commended Biafrans for honouring the fallen heroes, even as he remembered late General Dim Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu and his second-in-command, Phillip Effiong for triggering the renewed agitation for Biafra’s sovereignty.
“I must commend all Biafrans for a successful remembrance of our heroes, I congratulate the Alaigbo Development Foundation, ADF and Ijaw Peoples Movement for the wonderful event which they organized, it is indeed a great honour to our fallen heroes.
“Ojukwu will forever be remembered for this great fight he started, for his boldness and his legacy, (Phillip) Effiong will be remembered for his courage and risk he took in the face of danger to ending the war which would have consumed us.
“I didn’t know why I first visited Ikot Ekpene on arrival from my one month trip yesterday, it was the spirit of Effiong’s patriotism having remembered the documentary showing him at Ikot Ekpene where he engaged the refugees after Nigeria airlines and artillery bombardment.
“Col. Joe Achuzia is late but even in his grave, Nigeria still fears him. I remember Chief Dozie Ikedife and Debe Ojukwu the first son of Chukwuemeka Ojukwu for their sacrifices in the renewed struggle, although they are dead but their works still speaks till tomorrow.
“Those who have paid the price with their lives in the renewed struggle are now our heroes past,” he submitted.
