Thursday’s 26 August shut down of the South-East region and some other parts of the country on the orders of an amorphous group known as MASSOB (Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra) took most people by surprise. MASSOB led by Chief Ralph Uwazurike had said it was using the day to draw attention of the world to the need for the creation of the Republic of Biafra through peaceful means. Before now, MASSOB had been seen as a bunch of idealist group, pursuing the resuscitation of the Biafran state that collapsed in 1970, at the end of Nigerian civil war.
At the inception of the group some four years ago, not many people took it serious, and furthermore because of its aims, a number of people distanced themselves from it, particularly the Igbo political elite who thought MASSOB posturing constitutes an embarrassment to them, and a danger to their personal and political interest.
In fact Ohanaeze, the apex socio-cultural group of Ndigbo has had cause to issue statements denouncing the group, and had asked it to stop propagating the revival of Biafra. Attempts have also been made to get Chief Emeka Ojukwu, the ex-Biafran head of state to denounce the group, but to no avail. Ojukwu under media scrutiny at the initial stages of the formation of MASSOB, declined, saying he no longer believes in Biafra of the old, but would support the Biafra of the heart.
Till date, MASSOB has not been known to be part of any elite Igbo group activities, whether cultural or political. For instance, every year September, Ohanaeze holds what it calls Igbo Day celebration, MASSOB is never part of it. Indeed, no Igbo personality of public importance has ever identified publicly or show solidarity with the aims of the group; whether they do so in private, cannot easily be ascertained. Because this group was seen as a renegade bunch, it was orphaned earlier in life when powerful people from the zone disowned it, saving their neck as it were and paving the for the Nigerian state to use brute force to suppress them.
The Nigerian police was unleashed on MASSOB. Chief Uwazurike, for leading MASSOB alone has been to detention so many times, and has escaped death a number of times too. A persona non-grata amongst many Igbo elite, Uwazurike has been steadfast in promoting his group cause to the evident discomfort of Igbo leaders.
If Uwazurike has been lucky to survive, many of his comrades have lost their lives due to police brutality. Many times, the police had used heavy handed methods to subdue MASSOB even when they were engaged in nothing more than peaceful rally. By last count, well over 1000 members of MASSOB are languishing in different jails across the country. Denied of their rights, tortured and murdered somehow the group has continued to survive. It has continued to carry on its message about Biafra. It has continued to recruit more people. Last year, MASSOB opened an ‘embassy’ it called Biafra House in the United States. MASSOB has a website from where anyone can read a whole bunch of literature about the activities of the group.
Interestingly, just as the Nigerian state had thought it could use brute force to suppress and end the survival of the group, it has paradoxically turned MASSOB into a hard core revolutionary organisation. An encounter with a member of MASSOB leaves the impression of defiance of what the Nigerian state can do to him.
The earnestness, commitment, zeal, courage and absolute resolve in their objective is impressive. A reminder of their likely fate of death, torture, imprisonment in the hands of police who in most times adopt extra-judicial methods hardly frightens him. A MASSOB member is likely to remind his interlocutor that he has been through all that has been outlined. He would say if he had not died, it is so because his time had not come, but that he has seen colleagues tortured to death in the hands of police.
He would say he has seen comrades shot to death and their bodies hidden, not to be discovered. He would remind you that he has seen comrades after a torture experience in the hands of the police deformed, and not able to use parts of their bodies effectively again. MASSOB member from his body language leaves the impression that death does not frighten him any more. Their experience with the police and other security agencies seem to have hardened them.
They are showing signs of tough revolutionists. Yet, this is a group made up mostly of very young people, many of whom are actively engaged in nothing more than the struggle to actualize the Biafran dream. They do not have the financial resources, but somehow they do not seem overly burdened by that reality. According to a Polish writer, Ryszard Kapuscinski, who wrote in Shah of Shahs his book about the Iranian revolution that eviscerated the Shah State, noted: “... Revolutions precisely begin when the man has stopped being afraid. He gets rid of his fear and feels free, without that there would be no revolution”.
Although MASSOB has laundry list of grievances it has against the Nigerian State, they could say Igbos are marginalized, they could say the Nigerian State is skewed against Ndigbo. They could say there is a glass ceiling that bars the Igbo man in Nigeria. MASSOB can say these and more. At the same time, many other ethnic and interest groups across Nigeria have all sorts of grievances against the Nigerian State.
The Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC); Union of Niger Delta (UND); the Middle Belt Forum (MBF); Ijaw National Congress (INC); Arewa Youth Congress (AYC); Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF); Afenifere; Ohanaeze; Urhobo Progressive Union (UPU); etc. These groups or splinter groups have areas of influence and followership which they can easily mobilize to press home their points.
For the MASSOB strike, it used a tool of civil disobedience that is increasingly becoming fashionable in Nigeria, which is a stay-at-home call. In the last few years, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), has used this weapon to devastating effect in confronting government and its agencies. For Nigerians without a culture of social or political activism, the NLC methods had produced results that left government frustrated, which is why the President is determined to have NLC decentralized and weakened. When NLC engaged government, the Nigerian people showed unflinching support for Labour.
Now MASSOB, taking a cue from NLC has introduced a dimension not thought of before. Because Igbos have a predilection of trading and are largely itinerant, MASSOB had calculated rightly that a one day sit at home order would have a resounding impact on the nation, and it did.
It means OPC can in future, if it decides, call on the Yoruba for civil disobedience and it would be obeyed, same for IJC, and or any other group. It means some other groups if it decides on an area it considers to be its strength, can organise and have a commensurate impact. Thus, it is not strictly speaking an Igbo problem in the sense that MASSOB organised and got the people of the region to support its protest.
The argument can be made that anyone with sufficient grouse against the Nigerian State, and who has cultivated sufficient legitimacy with the people can obtain their acquiescence in pursuit of a given agenda.
In this wise, it is not difficult to recall that some months ago, Dr. Datti Ahmed mobilized in Kano and forced the state government not to proceed with the vaccination programs, because he and his group believed it was anti-Islam, amongst many other reasons they gave. That Ahmed could successfully force a state to abandon a particular policy speaks volumes of the authority he has built up for himself within his locality in Kano.
With the emergent scenario, state managers in Nigeria ought to be worried that increasingly civil society groups have built such well spring of public support that it could get people to obey it. One thing it demonstrates is that despite pretenses to the contrary, the various state institutions no longer command the level of public support that they ordinarily believe they do.
From the elected to the appointed, the present danger is that the Nigerian state put together by Frederick Lugard and handed over to local agents at independence might be at its last leg as an organised entity. If it fails, it is because since its creation about 100 years ago, the Nigerian state has never really bothered to win the allegiance of the people. It has busied itself with exploitation, repression and corruption and paying little attention to the well-being of the people. As MASSOB has demonstrated, any group that puts some work at grassroots mobilization will clearly find enough support to defile the state.
The story about MASSOB protest shows that the group, for months, went from town to town, village to village, association to association, house to house, mobilizing and urging the people to observe the one day of Biafra Day. What they did was never done in secret, it was done very openly. It was a lot of work that members of MASSOB put into this exercise. But not surprisingly, the state managers underestimated the group and the message it was sending out.
Just like they underestimated NLC when it began mobilizing for any showdown, until the last minute, the MASSOB protest was done in similar style. The success of the group underscores how much sympathy it has with the people. It shows the level of moral authority and legitimacy it has secured. Indeed, as one observer noted, the NLC or MASSOB strike are referenda which INEC could not rig, because it shows the true votes of the people.
So, if this reflects the contempt the people have for the state, it explains why despite assurances by the police and state governors of the South-East region using their electronic organs, could not persuade the people to abandon the stay at home order.
With the MASSOB protest coming one year after the general elections, something must therefore be wrong with those who claim to have legitimately secured the mandate of the people and at the same time could not rally them when the need arose. As it stands, one major lesson that this protest has served is that the urgency for a political conference has been further underscored. But as it stands, one major lesson that this protest has served is that the urgency for a national conference has been further underscored. But as it stands, the President has made no bones of his opposition to the convocation of such a conference. If the President’s attitude prevails and so far there is nothing to show it will not, the Nigerian State may soon find itself going the way of USSR, Czechoslovakia, or Iran.
As for Igbo elite, it is certain that a number of things might be wrong: They have alienated themselves from the people, and therefore do not know what the people feel. Or that there are social forces at work which they have ignored either because they did not know or under-estimated, and which would sooner than later make their hold on power unsustainable.
