PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE.

SELF DETERMINATION NOW FOR BIAFRANS

As Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo arrives the United States on a state visit this week, The Biafra Foundation, an organization of Biafran Americans engaged in peaceful advocacy for the achievement of self determination to ultimately culminate in a Sovereign State for Biafran people ( The Igbo people whose natural territory of habitation is in the present day Southeastern region, Delta and Rivers States of Nigeria), feels constrained to issue this press release.

First of all, it wishes to assure the world that it intends to achieve its goals on behalf of Biafran people in a non-violent manner. The case for Biafran Sovereignty is supported by the following:

(a) Northern and Western Nigerian Muslims have vowed that they will forcibly islamize Biafran (Igbo) and other peoples of Eastern Nigeria, who are overwhelmingly Christian. A well planned and carefully scripted scheme has been put in place and it is succeeding. Across a large swath of Northern Nigeria today, several states have adopted Sharia Muslim Law in violation of the Federal Constitution and have used Sharia Law to trammel the rights of Christian Igbo people exercising their constitutionally protected right to reside anywhere they want in Nigeria, including in Northern Nigeria, and carrying out their federally protected law abiding duties. The harsh consequences of the Sharia Hurricane on Christian Igbo people, such as church burnings and attacks on Igbo businesses by Sharia Fundamentalists, have been shockingly ignored by an indifferent President Obasanjo.

(b) The butchering of 50,000 Biafrans ( Igbo and other Eastern Nigerians) in Northern and Western Nigeria in 1966, the subsequent starving to death of more than 2 million children, old men and women by Nigerians during the Biafra-Nigeria genocidal War and the continuing marginalization of Igbo people in Nigeria has created a deep seated hatred and suspicion between Biafrans and Nigerians. Asking them to live together is like asking Jews and the Nazi perpetrators of the Jewish Holocaust to live together.

(c) Since Biafrans (Igbo people) have been and continue to be rejected by Nigerians in a state that they contributed most in building, it is only fair that they have the right to live under a different arrangement which will guarantee their safety and freedom. Julius Nyerere, one of Africa’s greatest statesmen emphasized this in his speech while recognizing Biafra’s right to exist as an independent nation. The Great Charles De Gaulle of France spoke in favor of Biafra’s right to exist free from religious persecution or dependence upon another ethnic group.

(d) Biafrans (Igbo people) are quite different from Yoruba and Hausa/Fulani. Igbo sociopolitical organization is republican and democratic. Yoruba is monarchical. Hausa/Fulani is feudalistic. How can they co-exist? Notable Nigerians such as Ahmadu Bello, Awolowo, Gowon, Akinjide all acknowledged this fact.

(e) The present Nigerian federation, since its independence from British colonial rule in 1960, has been enormously wasteful and proven time and time again to be unworkable. Other federations that proved unworkable have been dissolved. Examples include the Mali Federation, Egypt and Syria, Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Indian Empire, The Caribbean Federation, Malay and Singapore, and recently the USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia.

(f) All over the world most of the countries which have emerged through the process of self determination have been stable and have grown into powerful economies and military powerhouses eg. Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, most countries of Western Europe.

(g) Biafra has everything it takes to be a nation. Biafra with a population of 35-40 million will be one of the most populous countries in Africa.

(h) Biafra has the manpower to be a great nation. It has the largest concentration of high level manpower in all of Black Africa. We believe that population alone does not make a country. Economic and political power are not necessarily determined by population. In Western Europe, only Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy have populations of more than 50 million people. Yet most European countries with less than 10 million people are great economic powers.

(i) Without Biafra, Nigeria will still be a major economic and military power in Africa. However, it should be noted that the countries that are doing well economically in West Africa and Africa in general are the smaller countries. The big countries are doing very poorly. Compare the GNP per capita of these countries: Nigeria ($250), Sudan ($280), Congo ($110), and Gabon ($4,230), Botswana ($3,260), Swaziland ($1,440).

(j) Individual private entrepreneurs, public servants, private businessmen and women etc want to wake up every morning and go to their jobs believing that they are protected by laws that guarantee them justice, equity, fair-play, freedom and liberty to pursue their legitimate search for livelihood and happiness. Nigeria does not and will never guarantee this as has been evidenced by the impact of Sharia laws on Christian businesses, businessmen and women.

(k) Finally, people have alleged that the motivation for creating the State of Biafra was for Biafrans to run away with the “Oil” in her territory. Nothing could be further from the truth. Biafra was necessitated by the genocidal behavior of Nigeria towards Biafrans, the state sponsored organized murder of thousands of Biafrans and looting of their property as well as the systemic discrimination meted to them on a daily basis in every aspect of national life. Yes Biafra has some oil but oil does not necessarily create powerful economies, as Nigeria’s woeful performance, in spite of being awash in oil money for several decades, has shown. Harnessing available human resources and unleashing the intellectual and creative energies dormant in the human resources creates powerful economic and military might, eg. Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Israel. A Sovereign State of Biafra is capable of being an economic powerhouse on the African Continent. The attributes of the Igbo people, free spirited, highly industrious and democratic, often times equated with those of Americans certainly ensures that a Sovereign Biafra will be a staunch ally of America. The Biafra Foundation, other Biafran Americans and our friends throughout the world will stage a peaceful rally in front of the White House in Washington, DC for the Biafran cause and to highlight religious intolerance in Nigeria. The approved rally shall hold on Friday, May 11,2001 from 11:00AM to 1:00PM.