You are Igbo, you are in Nigeria Army or Police, but somehow you don't want to use ear hear Biafra, IPOB, or Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, then you are a full-blown efulefu and a foolish old fool. How can you hate your identity simply because you joined a military that in 1966, just a few years back rounded up your Igbo brothers (soldiers) in all cities of the North, including Lagos, and had them gunned down.
The problem most of us have is a lack of history. The very army you serve has committed mutiny against your kind. More than 300 officers gunned down. Those that removed their military uniforms and wore civilian clothes were hunted down at different checkpoints set up across the North. Some were thrown alive into the Benue River. All these happened, yet they make you hate your own, while they love and protect their heartless terrorist brothers.
They will send their brothers down East with you accompanying them and they will be kïlling Igbo youths and burning down Igbo villages. How many times have the same military you serve deploy soldiers against Fulani herdsmen that are slaughtering your brothers? But do you think it is justified for the military to go down to Igbo villages killing innocent youths in the name of haunting ESN? What has ESN done? They are defending your brothers you left to join the military from Fulani herdsmen terrorists.
You are Igbo, you are in DSS and every day you are made to be tracking an innocent Igbo man down to his shop in Aba, Onitsha and Igweocha simply because he made a post on Facebook or Twitter supporting IPOB. For you, making a post in support of IPOB or putting on a Biafra color is a terrorist act, but Fulani herdsmen attacking a village and slaughtering 50 people in one night is not a terror act. How many times have the agency you work for tracked Fulani herdsmen? How many of them are languishing in your underground cells without trials? You are happy tracking and arresting your fellow Igbo youths for the past 8 years under Fulani APC. You are seeing the injustice and you are not perturbed.
The truth is that no one is patriotic to Nigeria. Nigeria is an amalgamation of different countries into one unworkable country. Fulani is patriotic to their people, but send you to kill and terrorize your people in the name of one Nigeria. If indeed there is anything like one Nigeria, then why is it that Fulani herdsmen go scotfree after killing 300 Nigerians (Agatu is a case study) in one night, only for you to arrest a man for wearing Biafra cap and put him away for two years without trial?
What is wrong with you people. They recruit you, take you to lecture hall and brainwash you. They teach you what they called the ideal. You from the East will carry it on your head. You want to do the right thing and act by the book, yet your counterparts from the North will keep acting off the book and protecting their brothers. They have for years made all of you to suffer injustice in those organizations. They made sure none of you rise to become Oga at the top. They visit you all with forceful retirement, and make illiterates from the north your superiors. They so defeated you to accept this injustice without you complaining. Now they have taken it to the extreme by sending you to slaughter your brothers and rape your sisters. Even on Christmas soldiers were sent to villages in Okigwe, and as usual youths were gunned down. Instead of celebration, your people are now mourning the death of youths cut short by the very military that is supposed to protect them.
If you ask me, I will say that this is a sign of a conquered people. How can you see all these things and still hate the fact that some of your brothers are speaking up? If you are wise, you should be a silent admirer of these your brothers. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu should be written inside your heart as your inspiration and No 1 Hero. I advise every Igbo soldier or police to pick up any Biafra war text and read it. At least the book titled 'Nigeria Revolution and Biafra War' was written by your fellow soldier. There he explained how your fellow Igbo soldiers were killed in 1966. Their offense was that they are Igbo. What made you think that those sending you to kill your brothers, rape your sisters and burn down their houses will spare you when the time comes? Those Igbo Soldiers they killed in 1966 in the North were ones like you. Believers of One Nigeria. But their fellow soldiers cut their lives short not minding that they came from same One Nigeria.
Time to start thinking. If they protect their Fulani terrorist's brothers and allow them move around with AK47, then why are you going down to Ariara Market in Aba to arrest people and disappear them for making a Facebook post in support of IPOB? No country will last under severe injustice like it is happening in Nigeria. It is a matter of time before the worse will start happening. If you don't use your brain, this rain will catch you off guard.
Elochukwu Ohagi Official, Philosopher, Teacher, Activist, 2023.
