 Okay, well let's start. Let me start by welcoming everybody. My name is Wayne Dooling and I'm a year as the chair of the Center for African Studies and my job is purely ceremonial today to welcome all of you to especially welcome our speaker in Gozika Obiani who is visiting us from the University of Nigeria and I won't do introductions because my colleague Amelia will do that and I will, without any further ado, I will hand you over to Amelia who will introduce our speaker and introduce all of our panelists. Thank you Amelia. Thank you very much Wayne. I would also like to add my welcome to everybody. Thank you for joining us. We still have people joining which is good. Today we're welcoming our Leventis Scholar who is in residence with us here in Sours and that is in the person of Dr. Gozika Obiani. Dr. Gozika Obiani is a lecturer at the University of Nigeria in Soka and her research covers questions around surrounding iPod and surrounding the Biafran state and so which is what she's going to be focusing on today. So we would then have, we have two eminent professors who would discuss Gozika's paper when she finishes and we have Professor Murray Last who is more Nigerian than I am. He knows a lot about Nigeria. He's been in various parts of the Nigerian state and very much understands the Biafran War, the agitations and so he's going to be our first discussant and I've put in the chat a little bit about Professor Murray Last, a little bit about Professor Obobo who is also a second discussant. Professor Obobo is at the University of Ibadan that's where he is and so it's great. He's also a historian which is very important for our discussions today. So he would also discuss, give us his views on Gozika's presentation and her paper. We will then take, Gozika is gracious enough to allow some question and some questions. So we will take some questions. What I would suggest is we have, if you look at the bottom of your screen you will see a Q&A. Please type in your questions in the Q&A. I'll pick those up and I would ask Gozika and our two eminent professors the panel to discuss those and provide some suggestions. I'm going to ask Gozika to speak and what she wants to discuss is she wants to look at a hypothetical position of where we have the Biafran state. How would it function? She wants to help us unpack and understand where, how we got to where we are with iPod, with Massob and with the agitations in the southeast. She's also going to touch on the impact of the insecurity, the impact of the current situation in the southeast on citizens of the southeast. And so it will be interesting, which is why we have a huge number of registrations. So please engage with the chat. If you have comments, put them in the chat. If you have questions, please put them in the Q&A box and I will pick up on those. Gozika has a presentation. So I'm going to ask Angelika to please put up Gozika's slides and then Gozika please. The floor is yours. Okay. Good evening everyone. Good morning. Good afternoon from wherever you are connected from. I'm Gozika Obiani. I lecture the department of history and the dimensional studies. My research is focused on conflict studies, gender, and then women. So today we are going to look at the hypothetical state of Biafra. Some thoughts. This is a, is not a, I'm not a, I just want to think about it. Anyone from the southeast of Nigeria will know that there are recent developments in southeast Nigeria. So my thoughts, we've seen works on Biafra, civil war, memory studies on Biafra, and the idea now is that all of us, we want this state of Biafra because of what is happening in southeast today. So my research, my paper is trying to say, how do we discuss, how do we remove emotion in this, our quest for a separate existence from Nigeria and then think deeper on if we should have this Biafra, what and what, what are the possibilities, what are the pros, what are the cons, what are the impossibilities of having this separate existence? Or like I asked, or will they restructured Nigeria, if Igbo will not be better off in a restructured Nigeria? Angelica, please, you can now start sharing the slide. So anyone, the Nigeria Biafra was started in 1967 and ended in 1970. Prior to that, we had tensile issues that led to that war. We had the election crisis, census crisis, TV uprising, and then the hallmark of feet was the January 15 of 1966, where some Igbo army officers masterminded that queue. And in that queue, on the night of long nights, you find that many political and army officers from the northern and the western extractions were murdered. Only one Igbo lost his life. Shortly after the war, at the end of the day, the killings became well known. And again, some quarters mentioned that the attitude of some Igbo people, domiciled in the north within that period, they were so happy about what happened to the Sadoan of Sokoto, who is a kind of a theocratic and a political leader of the northerners. So we there, and some of the internal grievances, more of economic that was prevalent in the northern Nigeria within there, there was a kind of conspiracy on this massacre, and civilians became a victim because of that a bottled up, bottled up grievances or nemesis concerning the Igbo. There was a kind of a window, and that window happened with that January 15 queue. And we saw a lot of Igbo people, Master Khan, and up to today, no one can give account of how many people were killed in the northern Nigeria during that period, or how many people were buried in the mass grave. Nobody have been able to unearth the incidents of that period, because after that event, there was a kind of a silencing. There was a kind of official amnesia. History was removed from the curriculum of Nigeria in the sense that people, some people were not even aware of what happened. However, by July 29, 1966, a revenge queue, what we call a revenge queue in history happened, where many up to 182 army officers were murdered, excluding the civilians. Those who managed to escape came back to the east. People left the northern Nigeria, and then we are back in the east. Because of the killings, the amputations, many atrocities committed, and some of them that were killed along the Benwe Aziz, the people were enraged and they wanted a revenge. But that revenge wasn't well planned, because the people at the helm of a fair of eastern Nigeria, we are not able to look at, to weigh the capability of eastern Nigeria then to wage that war. What happened was that we were plunged into a war that lasted for 30 months, and then the war came with its own issues. In the sense that millions were killed, places were bombed, starvation became right, many children lost their life, many young boys became children, child soldiers, and apart from that, women who were always at the receiving end, many were raped, many became impregnated, which is not the scope of this work. But today, after the end of the war in 1970, we had a long year of military rule. In the sense that the military rule was there, we had queues and counter queues and counter queues until 1999, with the coming of Obasanjo into power, after we had a democratic elected government. Shortly after 1999, we had movement for the actualization of a set of biafra led by Rafe Wazrique. Obasanjo quickly arrested Rafe Wazrique and charged him for treason trial. That was it. We knew that there was something simmering like a splinter group called iPob. This iPob, Nam came from, this iPob was splinter group from Massop. So they were led by Nam de Kano, who formed the radio biafra in London. So this splinter group now became well known in 2015 when Nam de Kano came back from London. And then Buhari, who is always visited with everything about the biafra war because of maybe his participation, what he did was that he quickly arrested Nam de Kano. And then by then Nam de Kano had already followers. He made him a kind of, he elevated Nam de Kano and made him a kind of freedom fighter. And based on what was happening in the country, the issues, there is always a window when there is a kind of crisis. So structural imbalances, when you have economic issues, when you have insecurity issues, when things are not moving the way they should be. Because shortly after the war, there are certain policies that were targeted against the Igbo. It is normally history that the people that always write the history of any war are the victors. The victors are always the historians. Is what they articulate is what we have. Like Professor Murray last mentioned in one of his work, that some of them, when you try to stop these people from discussing, expressing their memory, what it means is that they move it out of the public domain and went into the private domain. That was exactly what happened after the civil war. With this idea of not talking about it, not discussing about it, made people to take the memories of that war into their private public spaces. We knew so many of the policies brought out. Number one, shortly after the war, we had that the banking system where the Igbos were given 20 pounds. From my research during my PhD, some of them money changers came and started giving people 18 pounds. No matter the amount of money, the recovery was so much. Do I talk about the military officers, even those that participated, those that headed the Bia Francos, all of them were and the senior public servants, they were all retired immediately after the war. Then all the things we are put in place, quota system, we have educationally disadvantage, quota system, federal character, all these things, boundary adjustment, all of them were the policies, policies that the Nigeria government put in place in order to work to make them structural imbalances. Okay, after the war, the Igbo were defeated and then the older generation, which I will call the primary victims of that war, did what they were, they accepted their faith, they lost the war. But today, the secondary victims who are those people that did not experience the war are no longer comfortable because the people could not understand where they will go for a federal competition, whether it's in the army, whether in the federal universities, and again, they will be etched out of the competition because of the particular place they are from. They will see people that's caught lower than them, but because of quota system, those people will do what will be admitted. So that was why, when Anamdi Kanu came, this frustrated, unemployed Igbo youth saw him as a messiah, and that messiah, he had a string of followers. But the problem is that most of his followers also came from artisans, the army of unemployed youth who had little or no understanding of what is marginalization. And again, what they felt is like, they are just like the Jews that felt that living Egypt would be the best. So they saw Biafra as an El Dorado where they can, everything will be perfect, they will control their resources. But apart from that, the iPod and their strategies sometimes don't go well with some enlightened people. For instance, when you look at it, the sit-at-home order that has been arrived in the East, look, the Anamdi Kanu, each day he will go to court, he's become a national holiday from the East. Every Monday is declared a sit-at-home order. If transporters, even schools, when they open, when they were being threatened, banks were being threatened, government workers, everybody will live in a kind of fear. We live in a kind of fear because of this order, others encounter others. You can just cut your nose, you can just cut your face to spite, your nose to spite your face in the sense that this is a kind of economic violence. I've witnessed not once, not twice, where people were destroyed, to people that end daily were destroyed because of this. What is happening is becoming an economic violence on people that are living on their daily lives. And these people, because of lack of unified history of that period, like one of my opponents told me, that's okay, I don't have any history of the war unless the one that my father told me, how I wish I had a different version, what I would have done is to wait until and see what happens. I carried out a severe, many younger people don't actually wanted the dialogue. But because when you ask them, how did you hear about this evil war, what they would tell you is this, that I heard it through Twitter, I heard it through Facebook, I heard all these things are unverified outlets. Everybody is talking the way anybody can say anything about it. And again, they don't even have the idea of how things work in the international scene. For instance, they don't know how UN will support them, or the international community. All these are the things that should be put into consideration, but none of them have, because we are all frustrated, there is anger, there is hunger. And again, this thing, the government equally, the Bwari's government, unleashed draconian strategy against iPod. Number one, what he did was the unleashing of the oppression, Python dance. He unleashed the state army against the ill-advised youth, massacre them on a daily basis. Today what we see today is work. We see the ravaging of the Fulani armsmen. So the average Igbo man, a young person who did not experience the war, could not understand why would the AK-47 carrier of Fulani armsmen will not, will accord bandits. Why is it that Boko Haram are giving amnesty, and that a very high cost, being integrated into the society, but iPods that are protesting, what do they call it? The prescribed iPod. So all this is, and it is agitating the minds of those that did not experience the war. We also understand them. We understand these grievances. But the problem is, how will this, if we engage it like this, we, and they were erupt, can we handle another war? Are we prepared for another war? Reading the history of war, unfortunate thing is that, it's quite unfortunate that I read the work of Godwin Alabi-Sama on the tragedy of victory. The preface, I was shocked at his preface. What did he say? He said that most of the writers of the Nigeria civil war, and not even telling us the truth, they were all proclaiming their gallantry. And he condemned, most vociferously, the, the, the, Abbasan just said, my command. I was like, wow. So if these people could not tell us the re-story, how do we get the re-story? How then is it, he mentioned that they are the people that caused the war, and they will now allow the youth to fight the war. And we lose that generation of the youth. So we don't have a unified history. And there is an official sanction, official amnesia of the history of the war. And without that, like a professor Kachi mentioned, without knowing that history, the mistake will keep repeating yourself. So what I want us to do is look at his, this hypothetical state of Biafra, how will it work? Number one, let's look at the possibility. We look at the advantage we have. We have the geography. We, the abusive language the, the iPub are using, I know why I'm using the iPub as an example. We have other rules, like Biafra independent movement, Biafra Zionist movement and muscle, but iPub has been at the forefront of it. So the thing is that what the possibility do geography, if we use this abusive language causing every other person as zoo, as this, as that, do we look at the geography? We look at the geography of DC. You see that you will now find that that we need our neighbors. We need to, we can't live on island. We need to transact with them. So if we should go engage in war again, again, how then do we have this kind of diplomatic relations with our neighbors? That is the problem. We look at our geography. You, when I look at the map of Biafra as projected by this thing, you saw them bringing in other groups, other minority group closer to us. Are they really, really interested? Are they really interested in this Biafra project? We also need to cultivate that kind of, cultivate them and then have, if we want to separate, we'll separate peacefully so that we can maintain that diplomatic relation. Okay, in land mass we are small, but we can, if we are managed, we can transform Igoland. We have this human development in this. If we are managed, if we are honest, we can also develop Igoland very well, but at least we need our neighbors in order to do this. If we should go for war again, what happened is that you will not be at peace with your people. Those people that are living outside Igoland, majority of us are living outside Igoland. Those people that are living outside Igoland, they will come back to Igoland. When they come back, we'll still have the same problem we had in 1967. It says that it will be a nightmare as that small land mass will not contain everybody. And again, their property could as well be declared abandoned too. And we are losing on every angle. So that is the thing. If we maximize our land mass, we can leak our waterways and everything. But the problem with Nigeria is because Nigeria is practicing what is called extractive political and economic system. The Biafra should think, is Biafra government going to give us a kind of inclusive political and economic system? Because when you project this inclusive political and economic system, what happens is that everybody will develop at their own pace. But extractive political and economic system, which is being practiced today in Nigeria, is not making room for any progression. We are still stagnated. The problem that led to that war is still prevalent in Nigeria because we have refused to change. So that is another thing. Will Biafra be practiced that kind of thing? What of political instability? Are we going to be like the Somalians? Whereby we will have warlords from different clans? Will Anambara man allow the women to spirit the Biafra nation? All these are the things we will. Because first of all, we have not really projected a united front to the Nigeria nation. When we say, okay, we are now conversing for the projection of producing an Igbo president, are we coming together? You will see some people are lying with the others. We have not even been able to put our house in order, come together. Or are we going to be like Somalia shortly after the war? Every clan, we have their warlords. But if Biafra should come, how will it be administered? Are we going to find ourselves under hyperbiktatorship in the sense that people are so scared to come out on Mondays? Because of what people fear, we are afraid. Business can be destroyed. Anything can happen to you if you venture outside on Monday. Is it what will happen? The only thing is a restructured Nigeria. Igbo people have been at the forefront of pan-Africanism. I think if the Nigerian government should be restructured, the best thing is that all of us will have an inclusive political and economic system in which every group, in which the government, what the government should do is what? The government should allow each state to develop according to their pace. But no, the almighty or many important federal government will not allow that because they are just like for the Christmas. They will come to the state, take what belongs to the state, and then they will be donning it out to the component units the way they like. We are all witnesses during Obersangio's administration. He had issues with the legal state government. What did he do? He seized their their allocation. Despite some of our presidents didn't even listen to cuts and injections. So what happened is that the states are the ones, are the crimes, are the messy of the federal government. So what we need is that what they should do is that things should be done normal. Our forefathers, our nationalists that gave us the independence constitution, they specified all these things in the constitution, allowing each region to grow. I remember that during that period too, Michael Opera was able to get the Israeli motion and they were able to give us the firm settlement we have in Eastern Nigeria and it worked because the regions were able to control what they have. The inverse of Nigeria wasn't built with Nigerian money. It was from revenue accrued from the Eastern government. Each of them they will know. But no, after that, what happened is the coming of military into Nigeria, they destroyed everything. And those who are benefiting from this imbalance, they don't want to do anything about it. And these are the windows, the gaps, they open for irredentist movement from all parts of the Nigeria. So let's look at it now. They said that somebody without a guide, if you are fighting a war and you don't have a guide, it will lead you to the bush. Why is it that Nigerians and the Niger government, they are not interested in state police? We need a state police. How can they follow the headers, invade the particular community? And these governors will be living as the, with this bubble's title of the chief security of their state. And yet what happened? They can't even tell the commissioner of police in their state to act. The police commissioner will have to wring a guard in faraway Abuja. We are lives who have been lost. When the funeral attack in 2016 attacked the Nimbu in Uzuwane, our governor came around and was crying like a baby. Because he was what incapacitated, he couldn't do anything. When it happened in Benway State, our president was bold enough to tell us that he commanded the IGF police to relocate to, and he never knew the man, never took his order. He's the only person that wears the shoes that know where it fits. In the sense that if we have a state police, it will come from the people from that state that knew the terrain very well. They can handle the issue of insecurity in their own, in their own state. But no, the almighty, I mean the potential federal government want to control everything. Why are people afraid of state police? Number one, this army of youth will be employed. Nobody will be frustrated that the person cannot be enlisted in the Nigerian army or in the military because of quota system. All of us will develop and remit whatever they can to defend our government. These are the things that should be considered. And when Nigeria moves, if Nigeria wants to stop this agitation, the only thing is to do the writing. And that writing is where you practice an inclusive political and economic system. All this issue will fizzle away. The issue of marginalization, the issue of unemployment, the issue of insecurity, the steam will just naturally die. But never. Our government is rather afraid to hear about cessation. That was why money that should be used to develop this structure, give good road in the southeast is being used to do what in order to quell the cessationist movement. Killing young boys. And again, what about the issue of this unknown gunman? What is it? What is it all about? There are so many conjectures, conspiracies about this. And our governors, they look at us, the federal government, they don't even know what to do. And then they left that window open again. And I feel the dig up by providing the eastern security network. And the people wants to be protected to move around and they need to be protected to carry out their daily business. So these are the windows that the federal government and the state government, they left one. They left the security of the people. The security of the lives of people and property of the people and then allow non-state actors to take charge. It is said that the beatings of the war is easy. But the readings are very difficult to dance. Are you a protagonist or antagonist of the Biafra agitation, you need war, war, war? Most of the people are interviewed, they want to war, war, war. I was even surprised that people that experience the war, war, war, war, war is now sophisticated. Ask the Ugandans. Ask the Sierra Leons. I am afraid when a child of 12 years will be recruited as a child soldier. When you go to Sierra Leons, during the Sierra Leons issue, young boys are allowed Ugandan issue. They will make you to kill one of your parents. They will make you to eat somebody's flesh. What about the young girls? From nine years age, you will be raped. Who wants another one barely 50 years after the Civil War? So my, my, my, my discourse is how do you think the possibilities and the possibilities of this hypothetical state of Biafra, we need to jettison emotion and to think well. The internal factors from my research, I discovered the internal factor, factors that actually agitating the minds of the people. The economy is so bad. People are graduates and they can't find a job. One of my informants mentioned that the brother graduated and the person we supposed to recruit demanded one million for him to be given a, these are the things that people want a change. When the economy is good, people can feed, people can sleep with their two eyes closed. The irredentist movement like apple will not have a follower. What we need is a restructured Nigeria and I'm sure there is a restructured Nigeria will be a big field where Igbo can thrive. What it means is that you don't go and bring war into your mother's kitchen. If you come with war into your mother's kitchen, so many days will be destroyed. Who is the loser? You are the loser. We need to remove emotion and think about the state of Biafra and then reason that we don't need to bring war to our mother's kitchen again. Thank you for listening. Goseca, thank you so very much for that very powerful discourse and I can see that you're refreshing yourself because that was really, really very powerfully stated and quite engaging. You've raised so many, so many issues. I'm going to turn to Professor Murray last to give us his own thoughts on the paper you have written for us to read in 10 minutes. Murray please. Can you hear me all right? Yes we can, we can hear you. Well certainly it was the Biafran war that actually made me leave northern Nigeria to retrain and become a medical anthropologist. So the Biafran war is close to my heart because I didn't, I have close friends on both sides and so it's very nice to be able to hear what Dr. N. Goseca has to say. I have to admit I had hoped that she would spell out or give us a map of the frontiers of this hypothetical Biafra because the old Biafra had to invade, had to conquer its neighbours and of course they didn't want to be under the Biafran world. The Calabar cross rivers world, the Delta even Port Harcourt and the Calabari there or the Neen and Worries happily they didn't actually want Ebo overrule in the old Biafra. So her point that the new Biafra would need neighbours is absolutely true and neighbours who might not always be very pleased to have an overpowering Biafra. So diplomacy would be usual but the reason why of course the old Biafra had to conquer its neighbours militarily was that Biafra itself Ebo land has no oil and therefore no oil revenues. Economically it's a big problem. It also by the way had no salt so it's difficult to cook as nicely as Ebo food is if you have no salt. So there's a very real sense that a new Biafra would need access to the sea as well as to an income stream as good as oil even if in the new system oil may be downplayed but I think we can be sure that oil prices will remain fairly high. But my other big problem with the paper is the focus on what I would regard as tribalized Nigeria where one speaks of Falane or Ebo. She didn't use the word Yoruba and I'm glad she often referred to southeast or east east east easterners. But to be honest if Nigeria is to work one's got to downplay in my view the tribalization to become mixed and moved and to be able to move a round. So her emphasis on Ebo as victims saddens me slightly because of course there are plenty of hungry jobless people in northern Nigeria and in western Nigeria. It's not just a southeastern problem. The other point that worried me was her emphasis in calling not just for the restructuring which I can see it's all part of the debate about states versus federal relationship whether it's in the USA or Nigeria or anywhere else even this land with its Scottish and other nationalisms. But my worry is that she calls for a state police force but she's never actually lived it seems under a world where there were state police forces. It was a radical reform to get rid of the state police forces to create a federal police force. If you do have a state police force in the 10 years that I lived in Nigeria with one there was a basic politicization of that police force of oppression exploitation and violence. It wasn't fun with the NA police and I think to be honest Dr Engosaga needs to look at the history of the police from the grassroots as a state form of political oppression. If you want to see it now just look at the Hisba Incarno which is actually a state police force it's technically an illegal one. It actually has a prism which they aren't supposed to have but they function and with a lot of the Kanawa they are a real problem. So think more carefully about the history of state police and about their lack of accountability. The other point that I wanted to raise is this question of the diversity which she mentioned of factions wanting to create a new new than Biafra and she very wisely said you need to have a single united focus to make any movement work but with so many diverse factions seeking recruits and usually cash they don't want to unite. The same was true during the opposition in western Nigeria to Abacha they simply couldn't unite against him and that is sad. Finally I'd like to raise a more general question that her paper raises though I don't think she raised it in her talk is that there is what I regard as the old academics fallacy that basically only the most academically clever should have political power and I think it raises the question her paper points out how very few of the federal leaders had phd's or even ma's or even ba's but it does raise the question of who should have power does it go to the cleverest as it happens academics tend to think it should or is it more complicated the world. One of the great advantages of president Aziku who handed me my phd in person and I shook his hand and was that he was an elder statesman as well and what I think any new Biafra needs the old elder statesman to be wise and diplomatic leaving the pursuit of strength power whatever you like to the young but you need a central figure of authority and none the Karnu doesn't really represent that in authority he's lived abroad for such a lot of the time anyway thank you Dr Engelsika for a very interesting and as the chairman said passionate talk I think you emphasize the travails of Igbo land without actually realizing quite what the travails of Yoruba land, Houseland, Kanore all and Tiv and Edoma and Igala all these other worlds you aren't the only place that has problems thank you. Thank you very very much Professor Murray thank you for for that candidate view I'm just going to remind us of some of the key points that Professor Murray had raised he talked about the need for the clarity of the frontiers of the new Biafra and that is really important because linked to that point is this whole idea of being landlocked and he talked about access to the sea and income stream and Professor Murray was talking about a couple of decades ago before oil was found in the southeast so right now we have southeastern states that are also designated as oil producing states in Nigeria and somebody had put something in the chat regarding old Biafran the geography space I think it's important to remind colleagues of what Dr Obyani had said in her presentation the need to permit people to be who they are and not to enforce or force people to join a grouping that they do not identify with. Professor Murray then talked about the need the problem of tribalised Nigeria which we've seen and that came strongly across in Professor Obyani's paper and her presentation and then he picked up on the point a point about state police there's a lot more to be unpacked on that suggestion and if we consider how Nigerian politicians at least from what we read in the papers and what we hear in the news they use the make of the wrong use of the make of power that might be something there might be something in there for Dr Obyani to look at again Professor Murray picked up on the diversity the internal diversity of the factions within the Biafran quote and unquote position or state or communities and of course I had a smile on my face when Professor Murray was talking about the fallacy that only academics can can hold or should have political power since I'm from a numberous state and we just finished our elections with with the professor becoming our our governor in waiting I shall not say anymore I think we would turn to Professor Ogogo of the history department of University of Ibrado to give us his own comments on Dr Obyani's presentation and her paper we've had the advantage of reading her paper Professor Ogogo please. Thank you Professor Nyema good evening everyone I'd like to say that the bulk of my reaction is based on her paper and then a few other comments based on her presentation I also like to thank Dr Ogogo Obyani for giving us this chunk of ideas for us to bring some over I'd like to start with the issue of conceptualization of Biafran and I would have expected that she will interrogate how the advocates the agitators of Biafra have conceptualized Biafra. Professor last touched on it would you say that they conceived Biafra as the former eastern region not what you think what they are seeing their own thoughts about it is it the former eastern region if it is not because the former eastern region includes what we now call the south south parts the south south region of Nigeria if it does not include that so is it limited to just Igbo land if the answer is yes then how do you conceptualize Igbo land that is very critical moving forward secondly I'm happy you made the point that historiography of the Nigerian civil war is dominantly the story of the victorious however the narrative you have given of it seemed to be that you two have agreed with that narrative in the University of Fibadon here we have done about four PAD thesis on different aspects of the Nigerian civil war and the findings are really shocking if you even key into Fadakuka's work on power and religion and religion in northern Nigeria he talks about the rejoicing in the north when the sabbana was killed it was much later that the narrative shifted and the issue of ethnicity became dominant I would like to say that yes um Professor Inyema has also touched on the issue in her comments I have noted it here for correction of course there are parts of Igbo land where oil is produced in the Himo State area the Oguta axis and then even though Igbo even though it's a river stick now it's clear that the area produces oil and by any stretch of definition can be categorized as part of Igbo land let me go to other issues I expected when I saw your topic that you would derive your analysis from the views of Nandekano and other officials about of IPOB concerning how they want to govern what are their views with regards to the state of Biafra that they are proposing yes I did not know about Nandekano until the present government came into power but what I did was take some time go to YouTube try to find out what exactly is this young man seeing because you can only critique the Biafra they are proposing when you have directly information about what they are proposing how do they intend to govern one of the things they put on the board is to say the bulk of the infelicities the inadequacies of the Nigerian states will not be repeated in Biafra so you want to take on those and see whether they are leaving what they are saying how will the Biafra state of Nandekano's dreams for instance will differ from the Nigerian states again clearly IPOB is not calling for war what they started with is a call for a referendum there's an assumption by the Nigerian state perhaps that if that referendum takes place it will ultimately result in Biafra pulling out that may not be true but they have not called for war in carrying hands much later in their engagement it is more of a situation where they have almost been forced into that corner you mentioned the ESM and the need to defend the defenseless women children and so on as a result of the invasion of headsmen on their land I would also have expected you to contextualize your discussion within the larger Nigerian framework what do I mean the injustices yes it may be more towards the Igbo but there are a lot of other groups who are heavily discontented with the present Nigerian state that's why you find the likes of Sunday Google emerging even from some other minority groups I'm aware that there's a Midwest movement and their position is look if Biafra goes and Nigeria is getting dismembered they also want to be together as a group so it must not be assumed that if Biafra goes what is now Nigeria will remain intact so hypothetically speaking other groups that may break away may also be willing to go into discussions harmonious friendly relations with Biafra I am not not supporting that Biafra should pull out but you are talking about a hypothetical situation and so you need to interrogate all these the cry for insurgency it's across the country Boko Haram what is it about it's insurgency Sunday boohoo in the southwest it's about insurgency so it is not peculiar that means the Nigerian state is sick and needs to urgently be attended to and that is where I have issues with your paper because your paper is heavy on restructuring as a panacea to the crisis in Nigeria yes but the managers of the state you have not told us what should happen if and when they refuse to restructure it's now take don't forget that the good lot Jonathan administration called for a constitutional conference that documents that was produced was about restructuring now it is set aside injustices are taking place people are calling for those injustices to be addressed we are calling for restructuring and the state is not engaging them at all in that circumstance what do you propose beyond the call for referendum beyond cessation you are saying yes if Nigerians they go the path of restructuring but the Nigerians that is not doing that so what should happen and I think you a bit in your paper not presentation now to look cited about the inviability of the biafra state let me play the devil's advocate I am not for the dismemberment of Nigeria however supposing Nigeria says we don't want biafra biafra be on your own are you telling me biafra will not survive in fact I could argue that all the points you have raised the contrary is the case in terms of human power the threat to their property the bulk of ebos today yes stay outside their homeland but a substantial percentage stay outside Nigeria if biafra pulls out who says that it means a return back to Ebola it may mean a further dispersal to other parts of the world and they have excelled very well in today's world we are talking about human capital what is the size of Japan as a country and yet look at its economic capabilities so all I'm saying is if you put on the scale you can just dismiss it with the wave of hands Nigeria is better and ebos are better off in a united trust and progressive Nigeria in in Nigeria you have advocated to be properly restructured but if that is not happening then what will you advocate for with the threat about properties that has been winging in the media for some time and once IPOB issues come up I partly broke in protocols I knew about the abandoned property issues but it did not take the ebos more than two and a half decades to bounce back as the most formidable group within the context of the economy of Nigeria and so it is easy to say you want to appropriate someone's property can you manage it if you can produce it you cannot manage it I am not godding them on to break but I am saying that because of that should they then just like the example you gave the children of Israel oh because they have properties in Egypt they must not they must remain in Egypt they are two sides to the coin that's the point I'm making for me their strongest case is the unwillingness of the Nigerian state to reform I mean if you're holding me down and I'm saying release me and you are saying no and yet you don't expect me to fight back then something must be wrong with me you properly said it that the generation that fought the war they are now in the minority in Igbo land children or young men and women of today are asking fundamental questions which the Nigerian state is not able to respond to and so long as you are not responding to it you must expect a reaction again with regards to the policies of Nigerian states that are antithetical to Igbo interests I want to make the point that yes there may be one or two targeted at them after the war and so on but the chunk of it take the issue of quota and so on it's not targeted at any particular group it's just that if you belong to a group where a lot of people excel you may then find yourself being disadvantaged and so that impression needs to be corrected that they are basically anti Igbo policies and with regards to the point still on correction history was not removed from the school curriculum in order to suppress information with regards to the Nigerian civil war I can tell you are someone who has been in the saddle championing and championed the return of history that the basic reason was the introduction of social studies and savings in the curriculum the first nine years of the school curriculum and then they tried to persuade history and the education policy makers history and geography will be part of social studies when the curriculum was now drawn up there was little or no history in that curriculum of social studies so for 33 to 34 years history was not taught at those levels and that has produced the kind of young men now who are agitating and demanding for the breakup of the country not just in the start what is the age of Sunday boohoo for instance did you study any history in the middle belt area there quite a number of voices showing discomfort I'm also interested in breaking away the truth is this Nigeria is better together however it must be in Nigeria that is just unfair to all I thank you very much for the opportunity to express my thank you so very much Professor Ogobu thank you for for those comments so I'm just going to try and summarize what the core points that Professor Ogobu raised and he goes back to that idea of how Biafra is conceptualized for this time from the perspective of the agitators for Biafra and how do we constitute the geographical limitations or mappings of Biafra because of course then that will feed into some of the issues we've already raised he talked about us not maybe we need clarity and understanding of Namdeekano's vision of how they will govern if they take over the reins of power and can I just add there that it shouldn't just be Namdeekano the view it must be the views of all those who actually reside in Igbo land it's not enough for those of us who are not necessarily directly impacted by the actions taken in the southeast to dictate and say what it is for those as well who reside there who are heavily impacted whose livelihoods are impacted who should also have a say on how that should be governed and so it goes back to what Dr Obyani had mentioned about inclusivity about proper engagement and identifying what sort of state the Biafra should become and then Professor Ogobu then talks about the core problem and he talks about the need for us to have a country that is united just and progressive ultimately the sense that is coming through being that well if Nigeria as a state was functioning I don't think anybody in this webinar would would contest the fact that Nigeria is not functioning if it was functioning as a state for the benefit of all its citizens maybe the the discourse might not arise but clearly that seems appears to be the vision it's how do we articulate that vision to be sure that it's it encompasses and includes the points that we our discussants have raised and Ngozi has also raised in her paper so I'm now going to turn to Ngozi to to respond take another maximum 10 minutes to respond because you do have lots of questions in the Q&A that I hope you've been looking at so that we can quickly head on to the Q&A please can you respond to the discussants their views okay thank you Professor Mure and Professor Ogobu I've taken note of the issues raised in order to strengthen my paper so Professor Mure mentioned about maybe state police and inherent problems and I understand that but we really need to start from somewhere because if we are not interested in state police we won't the the euro bus the south westerner won't come up with maybe a motorcycle and the Evo distance security network although the elites left that to the ipal and again we model the american style so american they still have the state police maybe Eden just starts one day and they got it right today we ought to start somewhere because the way the the police functions in Nigeria is is that's the thing that led to the ensas movement some of these shoes that actually led to ensas movement I think we really need to start from somewhere to protect ourselves people should find a way of protecting themselves and then that maybe I may not have gotten it right but that's maybe the only solution now to some of the security problem we are having today there is a way that it should be handled in order to secure the people instead of leaving the security of people of the people into the hands of the non-state actors that is why it's creating more problem Professor Bob I took note of all you mentioned but as I mentioned earlier I discuss about the the land mass and the human development in this and again I had only issue with where you mentioned that how the abandon property issue profile can confidently tell you as a student of the of biafran question that many people actually lost their life as a result of that loss many could not recover many went back to the villages as a result of that and you claim we bounce back into the decade in in two decades do we expect to rebuild again and then bounce back again because we have the capacity it's not like that we don't need to to build and then we it's we'll be taken away from us my problem is that when you mentioned about the quota system you found that that when it comes that uh educational disadvantage I know the cut off mark of a new state an umbrella state emo state you can't compare it with others it's always very high and this adjectives the minds of the people and when we discuss about the heating what I'm talking my problem is not that the history issue is peculiar to the people of Igbo of Igbo Ecnigo but the problem is that the history of the war should be known because if they had known what happened or what transpired it could prevent a lot of things by those my research interest my focus on biafran has been on those that did not experience the war that was why in my phd I try to understand the people's experiences during that period and that's why I went into the thing to understand the perspectives of these people that were born and you found that their problem is mainly on the economic issues and social and political issues in the country is more of contemporary and what is a place put in place in my survey I had over 500 people that uh that uh responded to my survey and most the majority of people from 18 to 25 more than 90 percent of them said they want to watch a dialogue and then you are it's true that I agree with you when we mentioned about that the Nigerian state has placed the iPod to the dark corner of struggling to defend themselves but the the the the the thing whatever the draconian measures the the Niger government adopted is back to the east political assassinations killings everywhere the activities of the unknown government the people businesses are relocating out of the eastern state if you are living is on if you are in east maybe you understand the pain mother that was why I'm trying to say let's remove emotion how we this state of Biafra work that thing was one of my the editor the person that looked at my paper initially removed the aspect of where I mentioned about how they think this thing will work they say they will have different polyamids we are every dialect every language can now uh they can now interact uh make uh do um they work with their language and then maybe later they have a kind of one single language but the only thing is that if we don't you speak a door language if you are this evil will function with evil language they just have a way we are not talking about utopian we are not talking about this kind of you know young people always want something that is this utopian something that is uh perfect perfect but there are things you need to consider maybe if go on and or juku we are maybe in their fifties they may not have advocated for that civil war they may have the last back if if um uh and the rest maybe we are in their fifties they may look at things differently and this is exactly the same thing we are we want to look at it I was born after the civil war a decade after the civil war but at the historian I don't want a repeat of history that's why I say we should remove emotion and think about it aside from that I will look into take uh cognizance of uh all your observations and incorporate them in my paper thank you professor Murray thank you professor I'm really grateful thank you so very very much for that for your response and for for that gracious comment to look into the the comments that our discussants have given and want us to quickly move over to the questions so that there are some questions basically repeat themselves so what I'm going to start with um the the questions on restructuring and if you can just tell us a little bit what you think how you propose that the restructuring would move this whole agitation forward so that the restructuring would effectively be a solution and you know again there are a number of questions on restructuring but I think that would capture all the various questions on restructuring okay what I mean by restructuring is that a place whereby there will be a kind of devolution of power in the sense that the the the power will not be concentrated at the the the the the the central government all those states constitutional units should have that power to move at their own when you devolve power the the the the constitutional units will now employ there are certain things that the the central government should not intervene they can only manage the foreign policy they can manage the about the production of a of a currency they can now there are things that are in the exclusive legislative list foreign policy defense immigration custom and the power to coin money and the rest others should be allowed to be with the the state government when you do that every state will work hard in order to do to progress in order to develop when they do it is not dependent on them whether they will leave their youth to roam about there will be opportunities to employ people what we need is that the federal government should not just come into a state a constitutional unit and take the lion's share of what resources the people have in there and then take it to abuja you come back and start dishing it out to them as for the christmas as i mentioned earlier so what we need is what is where the power should be devolved the central government should not have the ultimate power rather power should be devolved to constitutional units to allow them to develop and when you allow them to develop that way what you have in essence is what is an inclusive political and economic system allowing everybody to develop at its own pace and then these problems this infrastructure development all this is put to rest okay thank you i want to pick up on another group of questions and that is to do with the state police and i'm going to formulate this as a question which is whether do you think that the state governors would hijack using the word of the techno come on whether the state the state governors will hijack state police for use for political purposes that have presented a paper somewhere a lecture somewhere on the state police and these exactly the questions i accounted on that day the state police is about fear we are afraid before you go into state police certain things should be in place there are certain things that we are it's because of the kind of uh policies we play in our part of the world that people are afraid of this abuse but if they are supposed to uh if they are supposed to put in place this state police there will be structures there will be uh constructions guiding this thing these are there are ways you put in place certain things that will now curtail abuse of power by the state governors or by the same okay now that they don't even have we don't use a state police what's happened we have the security the police are even polypaid most of them are even when you divide the police you find that that major half of them are busy protecting one big man in abuja or one business man leaving the majority of the people with little police to handle them so there are fears i know that my my what i know is that it's not something that could easily be uh that can work immediately but i take with time and then if we are able to change our mindset on how we handle policies and the and the policies of money or stomach infrastructure maybe with time we may get it uh one way or the other but us leaving the the the state governors being incapacitated cannot act in the face of danger to protect the citizen is not also a good option so this thing has not worked since uh this thing what nailed the idea of state police remember during independence the the independence the the the power was given to the regional government to have their own police employ their own police it's equally even the the republican constitution of 1963 did same but it is the 1999 constitution that nailed the idea of each region having its police it is that they say that there's been no we have only npf uh nigeria police force that no others on other unit can have that and again that was the problem we have the governors are now the the chief security officer but they can't even give order to the commission of police in their state and most of all the commissioners are not even members of the state so once somebody is not your is not from your own area how will the person respond when you are in danger it takes someone with the a good heart to do that if the person may not the person may not act well okay i think just to a quick uh detour to to one of the points that professor moray made and again that's a question around tribalism and the whether nigeria can ever become detribalized and i think that's also coming through one of and that might be something that you may want to also take on board and properly look at uh when you do you redo the paper and the second point uh is on the state police and whether uh these whole secessionist movements are actually an indication that the country is not ready for state police and it might also be a security question for for the the the nigerian federal government but those are things to consider i want to move on to another group of questions around language and whether you know the role that language can play whether it's going to say help we've already mentioned the fact that the way the iphone conceptualizes their their their leadership would be for uh people to operate in their different languages and so we have a question here whether that would be a help or a stumbling block for the development of the region can i ask you to give very short answers so i can take as many more questions as possible what do you think on the the language point uh i'll say the the language is not when i saw that thing from the iphone whatsapp and then the map i i was like i don't really know we end up having a common language in which we can interact there are all the our neighbors we can i can't even hear their dialects they may not even hear my own so the the issue of language i think we will end up at the end of the day having a common language and that common language will be in english language because we can't interact in ibu and we can't interact with any other dialect that is in existence in the entire south south eastern nigeria for my south eastern nigeria okay so so that then takes me maybe i was anticipating that that would be your answer because the very first question we have queries whether biafra is synonymous with ibo what do you think bia for now for now those in southeast biafra is synonymous with ibu now for those in southeast because from my survey over 500 people i incorporated people from south south and north central because of the how the iphone they've been projecting this so-called biafra in the center the north central apart they are part of the south south apart of so one of the question here i asked are you a biafra and then people from that region said no they are not so for now biafra is synonymous with ibu okay okay so um another question is um whether you think uh that's the strongest argument for why we need a biafra state is that it will be the first african state that emerges through the will of the people to answer this question i think you should also engage with how do we know what the will of the people is the will of the for me the how we know that is the will of the people maybe from my own interaction you can say that people is their will in the sense that not all in the sense that they because of the hardship frustration and anger that is the thing leading that was why i mentioned in my presentation that when you remove those things you will see that this team will just fizzle away fizzle away because what people fail to understand is this when it comes to dialogue the people that that are in that meeting are the big men on suits not me and you they will definitely exclude us in that dialogue that was exactly what happened with the Sudan issue the men on suits did the dialogue and what the ordinary people did was what the work continued from the bottom that was why we are thinking that if this thing should come let it come from the bottom not from the men on suit again we are tired of the men on suit so the will of the people is based on the problems inherent in the nigerian politics minus that thing nobody would talk of secession okay so um the next set of questions it's on gender because of course you work in that field as well and so this is a question that asks whether you considered whether you have considered the gendered aspect of the imagined biafran state what role and how women would thrive I think for now for the purposes of this question let's disregard Namdekano's rhetorics and the radio biafra rhetorics but how would where would how would the females fit within the imagined biafran state this is a really a very interesting and question and maybe a hard one at that so the the the idea of women the only thing I'll tell you is that we are in a patriarchal system women we are projecting but not that we've gotten there so I think that if the biafra should emerge it will not be different from other African states that practice patriarchy women will still face certain marginalization somehow somehow so biafra even those projecting it they've not said okay that women will be equal with men patriarchy will still rear its ugly head okay let me push you a little bit uh on on this gender question because I am a very very strong uh I wouldn't describe myself as you know whichever put myself in a camp but I'm a very very strong believer in the equality of human beings whether you are whether it's a question of race gender whatever I'm a femme believer in that I want to push you a little bit on on on this question of gender how would you reimagine what is it if you're speaking for the women Igbo women the women you know folk that are Igbo's what what do you think what would you want to see within the reimagined biafran state what I want to see is simple I want them to remove some cultural practices that have subordinated women from the beginning all the cultural practices that are against women in every locality in every community those practices whether they claim is from their ancestors or whether they claim they got it from somewhere once they know what to do in order to remove those impediments to women progress so what I what I want is number one is it's culturally uh hinge it's culturally infused once those cultural practices are removed subjugation of women all this is uh is what I want and what I want is for the women to equally stand up and say no and not allow the men to mobilize these cultures imputing fears in them in order to do what to continue subjugating them that's what I will tell the women thank you so very very much um dr obiani it's been an amazing uh an hour and a half of discussions um and so I would want to uh ask professor moray and professor obogo if they want to come back for maximum two minutes each max to if you have any finishing words last words before I go back to to our our main presenter uh let's start with professor obogo then we'll come tomorrow we started with moray the last time professor obogo please yeah who can hear you now yes um again let me say that it's been a robust discussion I've read some of the questions it seems that there's a misconception of some of the things I have reached not from mgozika but some of the um participants when I talk about ebus bouncing back I am therefore not um after the civil war economically I'm therefore not advocating that their properties be sequestrated if for instance biafra goods soon away all I'm saying is that it cannot be held as a caudal over ebus each time you hear the discourse about if you go what happens to your properties rather than address the issues that they are raising those issues are fundamental issues of justice and faith play and it is not just to the ebus it should spread across to all other groups in Nigeria because even the ebus need others in Nigeria needs fairness and justice wherever they are for them to drive adequately with regards to um ipub I also want to make this point um often the elite class seem to always dismiss their membership as refrabs the downtrodden it is not quite true they have a number of persons well educated well positioned they may not be very visible in coming out because the modus operandi of ipop for instance in organizing protest marches and so on such persons may not participate but when you engage them intellectually you will get to know that they are for rent not because they want the dismemberment dismemberment of Nigeria but just because of the magnitude of injustice going on in the Nigerian state thank you very much thank you thank you so very much uh professor Bobo professor Moray two minutes okay well basically the issue of decentralization of the federal government it occurs in every federation but the central point was try to have fairness for all quotas are all easy to say how unfair they are but they were designed to ensure an even development it doesn't work I would agree but I think your paper is not looking more carefully at that the second point would be that if Biafra were to split the process might not be as nice and peaceful as you might think may I just remind you that one of the troubles with ebos in the northern towns is that they tend to have shops Yoruba tend to have jobs like electricians or taxi drivers so when a riot takes place it's the ebo shops that get looted because of course you pay looters by the loot they take you pay rioters I mean by the loot they take I'd be terrified if we saw in the split up of the country there wasn't an enormous amount of bloodshed so I'm very glad that you are very conscious and aware of the bloodshed but I do admit I hope Nigeria does stay one and does work out how to overcome tribalism and economic failures of varying sorts and I hope above all that it survives climate change because when say the north gets even hotter than it is now we may well see real problems of the economy and migration so in the long run I think Nigeria faces even more problems than I think you even have thought of for this seminar anyway but thank you very much I enjoyed it it took me back to my old student days in 1966 and 67 when we argued about Biafra and Biafran independence and of course my friend Afibu the late lamented Afibu was very much in favor of Biafra he struggled for it anyway thank you thank you thank you very much it's it's lovely to go down memory lane thank you before I asked Ngozi to to give her last words on this webinar of course it might be useful for while we're waiting for now to begin to appreciate and understand and engage with the participation of the southeast or the Ibo's or the you know the agitators whoever for participation in the current democratic process that we have I would for me I want I would like to leave attendees with something just to to to think about can IPOP or you know their group and people who support them can they form a political party can they engage in the political process that we have are the southeastern governors are they getting their allocations what do they do with it are we asking them to account what exactly is going on currently for some form of engagement of the citizenry I'm from a number of states and a very very proud a number of persons at that but the last election we had maximum I hear less than 15 percent of the population who are eligible to vote voted again has IPOP stepped back to understand the impact of of their their regime and their hold over the those southeastern states on where we are at now there has to be some form of transition and how what can we do to get to that's El Dorado that we are all desiring and let me remind us what that's El Dorado is the words from Professor Ogobo he says that what we want is a united just and progressive Nigeria and so I'm going to ask Tunguzi to to give us her concluding remarks in two minutes Tunguzi. Thank you Professor Emilia for being a good host I thank all the participants I thank Professor Murray and Professor Ogobo I thank my colleagues from Alliance for Historical Dialogue and Accountability that participated and then my colleagues from Conflict West African Network I can see some of you here and then I thank my students that joined my family everyone I can see some of them here and Angelica you've been so wonderful you're an angel you made my stay here very very I can't I can't explain you are just that big sister the big sister playing the big sister role here and then you made me feel welcome and then feel I thought at home actually and for all the stress I gave you I hope you can manage them and then Dr Emilia she has been there she's my sister and everyone I really appreciate you Professor Wei I thank you for sharing this and Professor Emilia for being a good host I can see my eldest brother here Professor Michael Uyebji from Netherland thank you my brother Adopizjuku from my land I saw you too and oh my god this is all of you they all participated to my students everyone and we saw your husband as well hey I did see him he said something about his amazing wife okay and then I talked about husband he was here he has been so wonderful and then he has supported my career manning the home front each time I'm out of the country he has been so wonderful everybody thank him because he's not easy being raised in a patriarchal system and he's still giving the wife go ahead go ahead so he's the kind of man everybody should have let's thank you thank you thank you thank you thank everyone thank you for your participation thank you so very much I also add my own thanks the the Center for African Studies here in Sours is the wonderful work they do is thank down to Angelica and she gives amazing support and we never say thank you enough we very much appreciate you Angelica and Professor Mori you are a Soursian so that is we're all together in this thank you professor will be great for us to to host you whenever you are in this part of the world we'll be happy to to give you some lunch or something to just sort of engage a little bit more with these questions and we hope that people have enjoyed it and we hope that we have raised more questions for you to think about what we're hoping to achieve is for us to begin to set out and concretely engage with some of these issues and see whether is that the right track for us or is there a different track and Professor Angelica Obyani has said that for her for now she thinks that a restructured Nigeria might be the way forward we've given her some feedback she will take that feedback into account she will think about it again and she will write and publish her paper so thank you very very much and have a very lovely evening morning afternoon wherever you are and if for for those of you in the US happy Thanksgiving day we celebrate with you as well this brings our webinar to an end thank you