Categories: Op-Ed

Biafra: Open Letter To Reuben Abati, By Elochukwu Ohagi

Dear Reuben Abati,

Just as you have never met Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, I have never met you. I only started hearing your name during the government of Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan. I have really not taken much notice of you until your recent open letter to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). I am hopeful this letter will get to you wherever you are.

As the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to Ex president Goodluck Jonathan, I never really wrote anything ill about you. Even when EFCC arrested you for alleged mismanagement of the nation’s funds during former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, I didn’t border myself much to shout ‘LOOTER’ because I know what EFCC stands for under APC government led by President Muhammadu Buhari. Sir, I am not here to talk about your corruption charges, neither am I here to talk about how you failed your President and made him look like he performed very low in the eyes of Nigerians, until he left office. I am only here to give justice to the tiring and boring letter you wrote to the courageous and uncompromising leader of the Indigenous People Of Biafra, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. My leader, our leader.

After reading your long letter to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, I came face to face with a man who is eager to side with the oppressor against the oppressed. A man who could not come out straight in mocking the oppressed, but chose to but hide behind the play of words to serve his masters well. But fortunately enough, we Biafrans are smarter than you. We were able to decode your words and whom you are working for. We know you are standing with every other person but not IPOB nor Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. We know that since Ex-President Jonathan lost 2015 election, you have been nichodemously fighting tooth and nail to find yourself in this APC led government. You were the first to openly abandon the one that made you who you are today. We Biafrans were able to point out the intent of your letter to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. You tried to force gullible Nigerians to accept that President Buhari has decimated IPOB and Nnamdi Kanu. You wanted to sell the lie that Nnamdi Kanu’s supporters and his trusted IPOB followers have deserted him. This you did by saying that since Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was attacked, Igbo land have remained as if nothing happened. You made it sound as if Igbos have rejected Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and referendum for Biafra. Sir, I can see that Igbos really disappointed you. The bloodbath you saw wasn’t enough for you. I know, you really wanted all Igbos to go to war immediately so that the support we enjoy from international community will be punctured. The truth is that this is 2017, and not 1967. We are not going to answer rebels this time around, and no one, not even you will make us answer that.

Sir, if you must work for Buhari against the oppressed, at least you should do that openly and be proud of it. Take responsibility and stop being a hypocrite. You see, in as much as I have no single respect for the five governors of South Eastern States, I still respect them more than you. You know why? These governors made their stand known. They were not hypocrites like you. They were very open in their support for President Buhari over their own people, people they swore to protect, people that gave them their votes. Their proscribing of IPOB, without condemning the Nigerian military’s Python dance that led to the inhuman torture and killing of their youths like mosquitoes and their support for the senseless tagging of IPOB as terrorist group by President Buhari’s APC government differentiates them from you. As bad as their actions were against their own people, they were not hypocritical about it. But you hid under useless words of praises to mock a man that have stood against all odds to question how bad things are done in Nigeria. Something you had the opportunity of doing for a whooping five years, but lacked the courage and political will to do.
Reading the replies from your Facebook page I can’t but marvel at the gullibility of Nigerians. Some were actually praising you. This group of Nigerians were not able to see what you came for. They were blinded by the subtle praises you showered on Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, without seeing the damage your letter did to the person of Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB in general. I am proud of those that were able to see that you only came to mock and not to praise.

“Some people said you were called the lion, but when trouble came, you were the first to run away from the zoo”. Who and who is saying this to you if not yourself? “You had boasted that you will deal with any invading force from Abuja. You also said it would be Biafra or Death. But when death came calling in the shape of operation Python dance II, your enemies insisted that you should have waited”. Who is the enemy here if not you Sir? You have shown how good you are at twisting words. I give it to you Sir. You are supper intelligent. But we caught you red handed here.

We know that you are disappointed that up till now the Nigerian government has not brought out Nnamdi Kanu’s lifeless body. Nnamdi Kanu has been a terror to people like you that have held Nigeria down. Nothing have shaken Nigeria like the fearless and courageous Nnamdi Kanu. That’s why all of you want him dead. His death will be the greatest good news leaders like you crave. A good man with conscience should be mocking Nigerian government who unleashed terror on armless youths and not on a man that sought to change the status quo. A man that have the interest of the common man at heart.

That you even tried to use your letter to create division and suspicion among the leadership of IPOB shows how desperate you are to impress your masters. That you now tell Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to fear people who have given their lives, taken bullets for him and to now fear them is very pathetic and mischievous. Unless you are indirectly telling us that Nigerian military who are currently holding Mazi Nnamdi Kanu wants to poison him.

You said that Biafra Security Service are nowhere to be seen, that Igbos have deserted Kanu. That we have thrown away our Biafra flags. What an insult to all of us. Who can throw away his country’s flag? Who? Sir, the unfortunate thing is that people like you always think that everybody is like them. That is why mad people are always quick to call others mad, and a snitch thinks everybody snitches. It is known to everybody that more than 95% of Igbos are still behind Nnamdi Kanu. When next you want to know what IPOB is saying and the events concerning Biafra, go to Family Writers Press (FWP) and stop forming your opinion out of people like you, who can sell even their boss, for political relevance. The only gold digger I see here is you Sir.

Let it be known that since the genocidal invasion of South East by Nigerian military as ordered by President Muhammadu Buhari, IPOB supporters and sympathizers have tripled, both local and international. So for somebody to say that IPOB supporters have dwindled is just no other thing than being mischievous. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu remains our leader, we listen to no senator, no king and no governors except Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. You have no right to speak on whether IPOB have deserted Mazi Nnamdi Kanu because you are not a Biafran nor IPOB member.

Biafrans have not been going about their businesses like nothing happened, just like you projected. Biafrans have felt the pain and have remained strong. Our children goes to school bearing in mind that their lives stands on a precipice. They go to school with every alertness, knowing that a fighter jet can cross their path at any given time. Their fathers have given them lectures about bunkers, and they now know what to do, just like their grandfathers did in 1967. We are preparing burial ceremonies and burying our many youths that died prematurely in the hands of Nigerian soldiers. You can not stay in Abeokuta, Abuja or Lagos and claim to know how we in the South East go about our business. We actually go out these days hating Nigeria more, with greater determination to exit Nigeria.

We have a smart leader whose actions and inactions rattles the Nigerian government. A leader that have refused to be bought and controlled by the Fulani controlled Federal government of Nigeria. We now have a leader who God himself sent to us just like Moses and Joshua. We will courageously walk in line with his instructions until we walk into Biafra the Land of the Rising Sun.

The best thing will be for your race to discover it’s own Moses and Joshua, otherwise your lowly slave status and the suffering of your people will become worse because Biafra will not be there to share the burden of slavery with you. Continue serving Hausa-Fulani interest out of morbid fear and cowardice, no one is begrudging you but please don’t expect we Biafrans to join you. We are republicans and will always prefer death over servitude.

Mr. Elochukwu Nicholas Ohagi, Political Analyst