PYTHONS DANCE IN THE JUNGLE

By Biko Agozino

The declaration (or ‘proclamation’, according to the Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Buratai) by the DHQ of the Nigerian Army that the ‘Independent’ People of Biafra is a 'militant terrorist organization' and the staging of war against IPOB supporters and their leaders amount to an apparent coup attempt. It is ‘unconstitutional and unlawful’ as the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, stated; it is an extra-judicial overreach of the sort condemned by Amnesty International in 2016. It is not the DHQ that declares war even under a military government. That is the prerogative of the legislative body that makes the law defining what is terrorism and it is up to the courts to follow the due process to determine if any group can be declared terrorist subject to appeals by the group. Nigerian courts ruled in March 2017 that IPOB is not an illegal organization. The executive arm of government has the power to deploy the military to quell an insurrection under Section 217 of the constitution. But the proclamation of the right to self-determination by the masses all over the country, not only in the relatively non-violent Southeast that is singled out for Operation Python Dance II, is not insurrectional unless accompanied by violence. No army is entitled to unilaterally declare as terrorists nor to proscribe, unarmed citizens who are calling for a plebiscite to decide their future relative to imposed colonial boundaries. It is fascistic to attempt to subject citizens to acts of war and threats to wipe them out for exercising free speech or even for throwing stones at military vehicles that tried to 'crush' them as directed by the president in a public speech after his return from over 100 days sick leave in London.

Agwuncha Arthur Nwankwo who won the case that deleted sedition from the Nigerian criminal code in 1983 has consistently warned that the Nigerian ruling classes are playing an ‘end-game’ that he called ‘terminus’ because they operate ‘cimilicy’ through the empowerment of civilianized military officers and militarized civilian politicians to perpetuate unjust political structures and thereby provoke national disintegration. Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, has called for dialogue with leaders of the Southeast to remedy the marginalization of the region instead of adopting the unlawful act of deploying the military against peaceful civil disobedience, contrary to constitutional case law precedents and contrary to the adoption of dialogue and amnesty by ex-PresidentUmaru Yar’adua in response to even more militant crises in the past. Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo also recently cautioned against another war in the Southeast and called for dialogue just like former military president, Ibrahim Babangida, given their leading roles in the genocidal war alongside the incumbent, President Muhammadu Buhari.

Nigeria is not a Zoo republic, contrary to the unexamined njakiri or joke by Nnamdi Kanu and his cantankerous IPOB followers. A zoo is one of the most orderly spaces that human beings structured and continue to restructure to accommodate new specimens, to save endangered species, and to add new attractions. No zoo will allow pythons to dance in triumph over the fee-paying public that have gathered for edutainment about the animal republic or kingdom. If a python escapes from its enclosure as was the case in Harry Porter where little Harry used his psychic powers to free it from a glass cage, the very shy python would slither away into hiding to avoid being caught and beheaded by the zoo keepers or by ordinary moguls. Zoo animals have never declared war against zoo visitors without being put down like the chimpanzee that dragged a child like a doll in a US zoo.

Far from being like a zoo, Nigeria is remarkably zooless because the zoo keepers have since starved the zoo animals to death while probably stealing the meat and food that they were supposed to feed to the captive animals. When the big or even tiny beasts died of hunger, the greedy zoo keepers most likely butchered them and shared the meat among themselves to see what lion, reptile or elephant meat tastes like. When the zoo was emptied of specimens, the politicians swooped and scrambled for the real estate which they cornered for themselves and their families after selling a big chunk to companies with huge kick-backs for themselves.

Nigeria is more like a jungle where might is right and where life is nasty, brutish and short, as Thomas Hobbes would put in Leviathan. The exception is that the jungle is often better than Naija because the jungle animals never have access to weapons of mass destruction with which to kill millions of their own species and or starve them to death while bragging that starvation is a legitimate weapon of war. Jungle animals rarely kill another animal that they would not eat as food but Naija cultists kill and humiliate one another for money medicine, intimidation, or for fun. Jungle animals never issue quit notices nor circulate hate songs nor wage sectarian religious wars. Of course, Nigeria claims to be more civilized than the jungle because they actually have a written constitution, universities, elections, motor cars, mansions and airplanes, they dress fashionably, have many billionaires and they are very religious. But for all of that, Naija is more like a jungle than a zoo and so, maybe, the name should be changed to Naijungle.

Nigeria has cultism enshrined in Schedule 7 of the constitution with reference to the oaths of office that elected officials, judges and political appointees are required to take. They swear or affirm their loyalty to Nigeria and commit themselves to upholding the principles in schedule 5 regarding the code of conduct for public office holders. They also promise to perform their functions ‘without fear or favour, affection or ill-will’. They ask God to help them to perform their official duties. If Nigeria is not a jungle, then the cultist Schedule 7 should have been amended by now to remind elected officials that they are expected to perform their duties with fear for the wrath of the masses if not for the punishment of God; in favour of the long-suffering people and not just to the benefit of their families and cronies; with affection for the innocent masses, not without affection; and with ill-will to the enemies of the people such as poverty, diseases and illiteracy. Do Nigerians even know that this schedule 7 in the constitution sounds like cultism? How can you require elected representatives to swear that they will govern the people without affection? That is a devilish oath crafted with the good intentions of making public officials objective and impartial but it is flawed like the paved road that leads straight to hell.

Governors of the Southeast states erred by proscribing the non-violent Indigenous Peoples of Biafra instead of advocating on their behalf with affection to legalize the flying of the flag of Biafra as free speech in memory of lost ones, by building infrastructures, and by demanding reparations for past wrongs.

IPOB erred by threatening to boycott elections in Anambra andthe rest of the Southeast. The referendum that IPOB is calling for could come in the form of elections through which the people of the Southeast can elect representatives who speak for them rather than against them. IPOB supporters should brave the electoral process and campaign for a party or candidates of their choice. If their supporters turn out to vote in support of their preferred candidates, they may elect officials that will advocate for them and help to negotiate the ‘unnegotiable’ towards the resolution of the crisis of legitimacy facing the country. If they lose or after being elected the officials sell out and turn against the people, they could be recalled or impeached.

After the federal government declared war on the people of the Southeast for proclaiming their rights non-violently, human rights attorneys should bring writs for crimes against humanity to the international courts of justice, for adjudication and for reparations.

The people of the Southeast have suffered unwarranted genocide in the hands of Nigeria. Never again, to echo the press release of Ambassador Bianca Ojukwu. Instead, offer the masses the choice to erase the colonial boundaries and join their African brothers and sisters to build the United States of Africa and terminate the genocidist state structures imposed by colonialism across Africa.

Dr. Agozino is a Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies, Virginia Tech.