We Failed To Learn From Biafran War – Senator Ike Ekweremadu

The leadership of the Nigerian Senate has
vowed to intervene in the humanitarian
crisis in the north-eastern part of Nigeria
ravaged by the Boko Haram sect over the
years.

Ike Ekweremadu
Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike
Ekweremadu, has traced the humanitarian
crisis in the North-East to the nation’s
failure to learn lessons from the civil war
to build her internal capacity and
mechanisms for managing such situations.
He also affirmed the National Assembly’s
commitment to bringing succour to parts of
the country facing humanitarian
challenges.
Ekweremadu spoke when he received a
delegation from the Princess Modupe
Ozolua-led Empower 54, which paid him a
courtesy visit in Abuja.
He observed that as a country that had
gone through armed conflict and
humanitarian crises, Nigeria ought to have
learnt from such experiences and
strengthened her capacity to build peace
and manage humanitarian challenges.
He said: “As a young boy in the 1960s, I
experienced firsthand the humanitarian crisis in
the eastern part of Nigeria occasioned by the
Biafran war. Then, we had to depend on
international donors and humanitarian
organisations.
“Unfortunately, from the developments so far in
the North East, it is clear that, like virtually every
other thing in our history, we did not learn from
that experience. We remain heavily dependent on
humanitarian organisations and donors.
“If we had learnt from the experience of the civil
war, Nigeria would have needed little or no
external support. We would have built our internal
capacity and mechanisms to manage the North
East situation”.
Ekweremadu, however, commended the
Empower 54 for its humanitarian outreach,
particularly its efforts to have some of its
supplies manufactured in Nigeria.
In a related development, the leader of the
Movement for the Actualisation of the
Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB,
Comrade Uchenna Madu, yesterday, said
no amount of pressure would make his
group and other pro-Biafra groups quit
their struggle for the actualisation of an
independent state of Biafra.
Madu, in an interview with journalists in
Aba, said the agitation for Biafra had come
a long way such that the groups behind it
would not relent until their dream was
actualised.
Asked whether the group would relent in
its agitation now that it appeared that the
Federal Government had started addressing
infrastructural issues in the South-East, the
MASSOB leader said, “We can’t stop, we have
passed that point. Some people think that the
agitation for the Sovereign State of Biafra was
because of marginalisation or infrastructural
decay in the South-East. No. We have passed that
stage.
“We want Biafra, not because our roads are bad,
not because Igbo man has not become the
President of the country. We want Biafra not
because of negligence of our area, but we want
Biafra because we are Biafrans; we are created
Biafrans and we have to exhibit it in all sense of
responsibility. We want to restore the ancient
kingdom of Biafra as it was before the 1914
amalgamation of Northern and Southern
Protectorate.”
Alabatvnews.