SAN FRANCISCO, June 15, (THEWILL) – The lawmaker representing Bayelsa East senatorial district, Ben Murray-Bruce, has regretted that Nigeria does not address the issues that divide or unite citizens of the country, disclosing that the Bight of Biafra was removed from the Nigerian map because the then military government did not want anything that would call to mind the Biafra war.
Speaking during a debate on the state of the union on Wednesday, he insisted that nobody has the right to erase the bight of Biafra from the map and that it should be put back on the document, maintaining that the government must pay attention to issues causing division in the Nigerian polity.
Bruce stated that the growing ethnic agitations in the country is because the people of Nigeria do not read, watch television nor pay attention to history, even as he said the government does appear to be deaf and dump.
His words, “Let’s go back to history to understand why there was civil war in the first place and fifty years later, same people are agitating for independence. In 1966 we had the first coup which Igbo were alleged to have wiped out the Northern leaders in the military.
“Second coup Gowon took over and there was a lot of bloodshed and killing of Igbos.
“Igbo were killed in the north and they moved back to the Eastern Nigeria were Ojukwu became head of state and declared a nation called ‘Biafra’.
“War started, we fought for three years, the war was over and the South eastern Nigeria was integrated into Nigeria; that is the background.
“When the war was over, I asked the vice president of Nigeria two fundamental questions which are: Why did you erase the bight of Biafrans from the map of Nigeria? He answered that ‘at the supreme military council meeting they felt Biafra would rise again.
“And so the federal government at the time did everything possible not to talk about the war in Nigeria.
“So from 1970 to the present, a generation of Nigerians who were born did not know we had a civil war. And I know a lot of young people who do not know Nigeria fought a civil war.
“This policy of being an ostrich and not addressing issues is counterproductive.
“If you live in America you will know they have Vietnam War which happened at the same time as Nigerian civil war, we have the Korean War, we have the first and Second World War and we have all kinds of wars.
“If you go to the discovery channel you will see all their wars on the wall. And the reason they televise these wars is so that you can learn from the mistakes of others so that you will not become a fool to make the same mistakes and fight again.
“Here we are fifty years later talking about something we could have avoided if the federal government at the time understood the value of history.
“We erase the civil war from our consciousness and so many generations do not know we fought a war or why we fought a war.”
“The Igbos said they were marginalized, while they fought the war, lost and today they are the most industrious people in the country today. They are the richest Nigerians in the country today. They are the most educated people in Nigeria today yet they feel marginalized.
“If you compare the Igboman to other sections of the society, you will say the Igbo are very privileged because of what they have.
“Yet, a generation of Igbo say they are marginalized, they want to secede and they want a nation.
“Yes a young generation of people who have never seen bloodshed, people being killed, amputated and families being divided. Sure they can think like that but what have we done as a nation to educate them about the destruction of war, absolutely nothing.
“We do not teach this in our history books, we do not tell our children what war is all about. How many people have carried a gun?
“Those who talk about war, bloodshed and those creating confusion have never fired a shot, so how would they know how people die.
“Have they seen blood? Yet here we are debating on a subject that we as a nation should understand that the education system does not teach it and our people do not understand it and the federal government of Nigeria do not recognize, he said remorsefully.
“If the federal government could not recognize a fundamental problem in our educational system, a fundamental problem in how television is viewed across the country, then we have a fundamental problem.
“We most address the problem from the source. What is the problem? We are the problem. It could be Biafra today, it could be south- south tomorrow, it could be north-east another day, it doesn’t matter.
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“The problem is: we are not addressing the problem that unite or divide us and this must be addressed. Our educational system is one of the worst system I have ever seen anywhere in the world. It is terrible, our policy of information make no sense of what so ever and here we are talking about an impending crisis.
“How many people remembered December 31, 1983 when there was military coup, a lot of people forget? I was in the office at Punch newspaper Oluwabodinyi; I don’t know he was dying of cancer. Bodinyi said to me ‘Nigeria must change’ and we will do whatever it would took to bring down the Shagari administration.
“He did an editorial three to four days before the military coup, front page, backpage and inside front page. Within three days military struck and democracy ended. For the people of this country, who do not pay attention to history, who do not read and watch television and to the government that pretends to be deaf and dumb, the government should pay attention to the least of us, they should pay attention to history, there is a way out but to pretend like when she erased the bights of Biafran from the map of Nigeria. No one has the right to erase a name, bight of Biafra from the map and if it is the bight of Biafrans put it back. You have no right to take the bight of Biafrans from the map let’s fix our problem.”
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