Biafrans ask for support from government
The group marched from King Dinizulu Park to Durban City Hall.
WHILE millions of Biafrans across the world declared 30 May as sit-at-home day, for those in Durban it was an opportunity to celebrate and honour those who died 52 years ago by marching from King Dinizulu Park to Durban City Hall. The group handed over a memorandum to an eThekwini Municipality official outside City Hall, asking the South African government to publicly align with its cause for Biafran independence.
Secretary General of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in Durban, Paul Chiagozie said: “The purpose of today is to remind the world about the atrocities that were committed by the Nigerian government on the people of Biafra. This day is set aside every year to tell the indigenous people of Biafra that we remember those who died during the genocide.”
The civil war, which lasted for 30 months and 9 days, was a war fought between the government of Nigeria and the secessionist state of Biafra. Biafra represented nationalist aspirations of the Biafran people, whose leadership felt they could no longer coexist with the Northern-dominated federal government.
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The conflict resulted from political, economic, ethnic, cultural and religious tensions which preceded Britain’s formal decolonization of Nigeria from 1960 to 1963. Immediate causes of the war in 1966 included ethno-religious riots in Northern Nigeria, a military coup, a counter-coupand persecution of Igbo living in Northern Nigeria. Control over the lucrative oil production in the Niger Delta played a vital strategic role.
Delivering his address, leader of Ipob, Nnamdi Kanu, said: “Today is a day of serious thinking and reasoning on the part of our people and the day the entire Biafraland is locked down, markets are not opened, no schools, no offices are opened, no banks, nothing. Everywhere is at a complete standstill and total, shutdown.”
Ipob coordinator, Gilbert Ezeani said:”Actually, this year makes it 52 years of remembering the courageous Igbo men, women, and children who decided to choose death rather than to remain in a country where they and their unborn generation will live in perpetual bondage.”
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