Who is afraid of Radio Biafra? Not me!

[Ikhide]

What is the big deal about Radio Biafra? Buhari has said more inflammatory things against Nigeria, today he is president. 😐

Who is afraid of Radio Biafra? Radio Biafra has not killed a soul, unlike Boko Haram and the greedy militants of the Delta and Oduduwaland.

Nigeria: Radio Biafra is what happens when a nation refuses to confront her gory past, by deleting history and dialogue from her classrooms.

I salute Radio Biafra. I disagree with its methods but Nigerians are now reading and learning about the hell called Biafra.

Radio Biafra has not killed a single soul, unlike Boko Haram, the men of the ravaged delta and the militants of Oduduwaland. Listen to Radio Biafra. They are telling us something.

- Ikhide

[Anunoby, Ogugua]

Thank you Ikhide.
Some may not know this but there is no obligation on anyone to agree with the points of view Radio Biafra expresses.
Radio Biafra does not have a monopoly of misleading or incendiary material. Federal and state government leaders and news and broadcast media do too. The latter media are without question better resourced than Radio Biafra. They should be very capable of challenging every piece of "misinformation" that Radio Biafra broadcasts. What is stopping them from doing so? The prudent do not deal with a challenge by suppressing it; they overcome it.
That Nigeria is tottering work-in-progress is one more reason even discordant views should be encouraged and protected. Conformance and denial of the country's failures, are some of the reasons the country has not made possible progress over the years- she is limping when she should be galloping. True and vibrant democracies that are designed, desired and operated to succeed and endure, need virile opposition. Radio Biafra may in fact be doing Nigeria's democracy some good service- bolstering the opposition ranks and telling unpleasant truth to power.
The larger questions for me are:
i) why Radio Biafra now?
ii) why does it have an audience?
iii) Why do some find it threatening?
iv) why try to silence it when its media challenge can be taken on by government broadcast and other media?
Truthful answer to the above and other consonant questions are necessary and urgent. Working on the answers will more likely make Radio Biafra surplus to requirement sooner than condemning it, wanting its broadcast frequencies jammed, and wishing its operators arrested and prosecuted.
Does Radio Biafra exists because there is a need and role for it? It is seemingly so. Is there anything some do not want others to know? If its messages really addresses the anxieties and disaffections of some Nigerians, it should be no surprise that the messages resonate with them. Its existence seems therefore to be more than a matter of free speech. If it helps to call attention to enduring unpalatable realities of the Nigeria state that have long been denied, and therefore not unaffectedly addressed, its operators may deserve to be commended for standing up to be counted. They are helping to bring preferred-to-be forgotten matters of great moment to the front burner.
Has it ceased to be the case that if there is no disease, there will be no search for its cure?

oa

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[ibdu...@gmail.com]

Ikhide: Stop this ethnic claptrap.

---

Sent from my iPhone

[Ibukunolu A Babajide]

Ogugua Anunoby,

Please give us the definitions of:

1.  SEDITION; and
2.  TREASON.

Thank you.

Cheers.

IBK

[Abolaji Adekeye]

Allow me to borrow liberally from JP Clark and the Saintly Okigbo.

Ikhide and Ogugua have nothing to fear from radio biafra because
they are well out of it; so smug in smoke-rooms they haunt abroad;
outside the scenes of ravage and wreck

Radio biafra is like wandering minstrels who, beating on the drums of
the human hearts, draw the world into a dance with rites it does not
know.

To those who want to start a fire they cannot put out and let
thousands burn that have no say in the matter: We shall find ways to
say NO without THUNDER.

[Ikhide]

Those who wish to shut up Radio Biafra have no idea the unintended consequences of their actions. I have seen war and it is terrifying.

I was a little boy in Benin City when the Biafran army seized the city. You've not seen hell until you've seen war.

My dad's mobile police team was ambushed in Asaba by the Biafran army and his bones broken. Shutting down voices doesn't help.

I say leave Radio Biafra alone and focus on the structural issues spawning such dysfunctions. Nigeria is on the wrong trajectory and we know it.

I was an agitator on Radio Kudirat during the pro democracy days of the 90's. I know what it is to be hunted for one's views.

Lastly, history and critical thinking skills must return to Nigeria's classrooms. Radio Biafra is the least of our problems. We are the problem.

And no, I am not Igbo, my father fought hard against the right of the Igbo to determine their fate. He suffered broken bones for that to his very last breath. As we say on Facebook, it is complicated. Very.

- Ikhide

[Ayo Obe]

While Ikhide thinks Radio Biafra is "telling us something", Farooq Kperogi thinks it is telling us nothing.  It is one of those media outlets - like Fox News - about which I am content to learn at one remove.

WHY BUHARI SHOULD LEAVE RADIO BIAFRA ALONE

Published on Saturday, 18 July 2015 05:00. Written by Farooq Kperogi

I wasn’t aware that there was an insurgent radio station called Radio Biafra until the Nigerian government gave it visibility - and legitimacy - by publicly claiming to have jammed it and by responding to its broadcasts after its supposed jam. I imagine that this is the case for most Nigerians.

In an ironic way, the Nigerian government has helped to popularise a previously marginal rebel radio station. Perhaps, the clearest indication of the rising popularity of the radio station in the aftermath of its putative electronic jamming is that when you type ‘radio b’ on Google’s search box, ‘radio Biafra’ appears as the first autocomplete prediction. This shows that, over the past few days, there has been an exponential spike in the number of searches for ‘radio Biafra’ on Google.  According to Google, “The search queries that you see as part of Autocomplete reflect what other people are searching for and the content of web pages.”

There are so many things that are defective in government’s handling of the Radio Biafra issue. First, government overestimated the power and reach of the radio station. This overestimation caused it to overreact and, in the process, lionise an otherwise inconsequential, fringe radio station. The ministry of information grandstanded about having “successfully jammed” Radio Biafra’s signals, but a BBC reporter in Enugu said he could ’receive the radios signals as of July 15.

In any case, jamming a radio station’s signals in this digital age is frankly laughable. There are a thousand and one ways to circumvent jamming. The world is going through what new media enthusiasts like to call creative destruction. The old, familiar ways of gathering and circulating information are exploding and are being replaced by a myriad of experimental digital strategies. Social media platforms, for instance, are now more effective ways to reach and engage with vast swaths of people than legacy media outfits. Jamming radio signals is so 1990s or, to borrow a line from the lyrics of Black Eyed Pea’s ‘Boom Boom Pow’ song, so 2000 late.

What is probably worse than jamming - or claiming to have jammed - the signals of the radio station is the presidency’s issuance of a press statement on July 15 disclaiming an alleged anti-Igbo statement credited to President Buhari by the station. That’s a huge, unearned presidential validation of the station. A multi-billion dollar advertising blitz in all major global media outlets can’t buy the radio station the kind of publicity that the presidency cheaply handed to it. I can bet my bottom dollar that no more than 500 people heard the original libelous Radio Biafra broadcast against the president; now millions of people know about it.

There are at least two reasons why the presidency’s press statement betrays poor judgment. One, the presidency is a primary definer of news. This fact confers visibility on anything that emanates from it. Two, people generally distrust governments and are prepared to believe the worst about them. This sentiment is encapsulated in British journalist Francis Claud Cockburn’s famous cynical quip that you should “Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.” 

Besides, the Buhari government is notorious for its snail-pace response to crucially important national informational needs, leading to the mushrooming and blossoming of online rumour mills. Why did it choose to swiftly respond to a barely known but easily verifiable falsehood from a fringe rebel radio? Why did it lend its enormous symbolic capital to a frivolous insurrectionary radio station whose signals it says it has jammed in Nigeria? I can never know what impulses drive the president’s media team, but it’s singularly ill-advised to legitimise a scarcely known fib by responding to it and thereby giving underserved wings to it.

If I were to advise the Nigerian government on how to deal with Radio Biafra I would say this: starve it of attention by not jamming it or responding to its rants. It was English philosopher John Milton, who in his famous 1644 pamphlet titled Areopagitica, argued that the truth does not need to be protected from falsehood and that after all is said and done, truth always triumphs over “all the winds of doctrine let loose to play upon the earth.”  He said censorship does injury to the truth because it misdoubts its strength. “Let her [i.e. Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter,” he wrote.

The childish propaganda of Radio Biafra is merely one of the winds of doctrines let loose to play upon Nigeria. Let it be allowed to grapple with the truth. Let’s see if it can put the truth to the worse. 

I took some time to listen to the radio station to find out why the Nigerian government is losing sleep over it.  It turns out that it is no more than the vulgar, incoherent, hate-filled but comical rants of some man called Nnamdi Kanu, who calls Nigeria a “zoo” - or the “zoological republic” - and Nigerian citizens “monkeys” or “ill-educated vagabonds.” He labels Igbos who don’t share his insurrectionary and irredentist ideas as “Hausa-born children in Igboland.” His rants are also filled with ignorant, racially self-hating, negro-phobic rhetoric, such as his habitual claims that black people are intellectually inferior and incapable of deep thought.

The station makes no effort to be persuasive. It simply revels in vulgar abuse, intentional prevarications, infantile temper tantrums, and a melodramatic display of rank, comical ignorance. The only people who will listen to the station and be affected by its message are people who already share its twisted, hateful ideals, which makes shutting it down pointless. I can bet that it does not speak for nor reach the majority of Igbo people, and that most Igbo people would snigger when they listen to it.

That is not a station anyone should lose sleep over.

Ayo

I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

This piece by our own Farooq Kperogi encapsulates my thinking on the Radio Biafra phenomenon. I totally agree that by overacting the FG has conferred on Radio Biafra the status of a persecuted mouthpiece of a marginalized people, something that, judging by its content and reception, it never was. I'd like to add that it is possible to stick up for the freedom to disseminate subversive speech, even when it is couched in a vulgar, hateful vernacular, while personally objecting to the hateful language and claims of the said speech. That is a point that some people have a hard time grasping. 

Finally, in my opinion, the Nigerian government's knee jerk reaction instantiates the point that I have been making for a long time, following my mentor, Mamadou Diouf: that the postcolonial African state is an insecure entity with a brittle belief in its own sovereignty, hence its jealous, violently intolerant disposition to discourses and movements that even remotely question that sovereignty or articulate an alternative sovereignty even in aspirational terms. The reaction of the FG says more about this deficit of postcolonial state legitimacy than about the supposed infraction of Radio Biafra.

History has shown that such nervous, paranoid reaction to subversive speech only legitimizes it. Given what Farooq rightly describes as the infinite democratization and intractability of broadcast technology, the demise of Radio Biafra, if this is indeed its demise, is now sure to spawn a successor, which will, unlike Radio Biafra, be more sophisticated and thus pose a greater threat to the sovereignty and legitimacy of the Nigerian state than Radio Biafra ever did.

In the United States where I live, secessionist movements of various regional and idealogical identities openly and freely advocate their cause for secession from the US, holding conferences and detailing their claims about the illegitimacy of the American state and its supposed oppressions. They organize openly and have conferences. Precisely because the American government leaves them alone to express their secessionist aspirations even in language that is subversive and sometimes hateful, these groups are confined to the fringes and edges of American politics and stand no chance of ever gaining mainstream reception. In Nigeria and much of Africa, responses to centrifugal agitations, especially those expressed in acerbic language, have the paradoxical effect of mainstreaming these agitations.

Why Buhari Should Leave Radio Biafra Alone By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D. Twitter: @farooqkperogi

 I wasn’t aware that there was an insurgent radio station called Radio Biafra until the Nigerian government gave it visibility—and legitimacy—by publicly claiming to have jammed it and by responding to its broadcasts after its supposed jam. I imagine that this is the case for most Nigerians. In an ironic way, the Nigerian government has helped to popularize a previously marginal rebel radio station. Perhaps the clearest indication of the rising popularity of the radio station in the aftermath of its putative electronic jamming is that when you type “radio  b” on Google’s search box, “radio Biafra” appears as the first autocomplete prediction. This shows that, over the past few days, there has been an exponential spike in the number of searches for “radio Biafra” on Google.  According to Google, “The search queries that you see as part of Autocomplete reflect what other people are searching for and the content of web pages.” There are so many things that are defective in government’s handling of the Radio Biafra issue. First, government overestimated the power and reach of the radio station. This overestimation caused it to overreact and, in the process, lionize an otherwise inconsequential, fringe radio station. The ministry of information grandstanded about having “successfully jammed” Radio Biafra’s signals, but a BBC reporter in Enugu said he could receive the radio’s signals as of July 15, 2015. In any case, jamming a radio station’s signals in this digital age is frankly laughable. There are a thousand and one ways to circumvent jamming. The world is going through what new media enthusiasts like to call creative destruction. The old, familiar ways of gathering and circulating information are exploding and are being replaced by a myriad of experimental digital strategies. Social media platforms, for instance, are now more effective ways to reach and engage with vast swaths of people than legacy media outfits. Jamming radio signals is so 1990s or, to borrow a line from the lyrics of Black Eyed Pea’s “Boom Boom Pow” song, so 2000 late. What is probably worse than jamming—or claiming to have jammed—the signals of the radio station is the presidency’s issuance of a press statement on July 15, 2015 disclaiming an alleged anti-Igbo statement credited to President Buhari by the station. That’s a huge, unearned presidential validation of the station. A multi-billion-dollar advertising blitz in all major global media outlets can’t buy the radio station the kind of publicity that the presidency cheaply handed to them. I can bet my bottom dollar that no more than 500 people heard the original libelous Radio Biafra broadcast against the president; now millions of people know about it. There are at least two reasons why the presidency’s press statement betrays poor judgment. One, the presidency is a primary definer of news. This fact confers visibility on anything that emanates from it. Two, people generally distrust governments, and are prepared to believe the worst about them. This sentiment is encapsulated in British journalist Francis Claud Cockburn’s famous cynical quip that you should “Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.” Besides, the Buhari government is notorious for its snail-pace response to crucially important national informational needs, leading to the mushrooming and blossoming of online rumor mills. Why did it choose to swiftly respond to a barely known but easily verifiable falsehood from a fringe rebel radio? Why did it lend its enormous symbolic capital to a frivolous insurrectionary radio station whose signals it says it has jammed in Nigeria? I can never know what impulses drive the president’s media team, but it’s singularly ill-advised to legitimize a scarcely known fib by responding to it and thereby giving underserved wings to it. If I were to advise the Nigerian government on how to deal with Radio Biafra I would say this: starve it of attention by not jamming it or responding to its rants. It was English philosopher John Milton who, in his famous 1644 pamphlet titled Areopagitica argued that the truth does not need to be protected from falsehood, and that, after all is said and done, truth always triumphs over “all the winds of doctrine let loose to play upon the earth.”  He said censorship does injury to the truth because it misdoubts its strength. “Let her [i.e., Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter,” he wrote.  The childish propaganda of Radio Biafra is merely one of the winds of doctrines let loose to play upon Nigeria. Let it be allowed to grapple with the truth. Let’s see if it can put the truth to the worse. I took some time to listen to the radio station to find out why the Nigerian government is losing sleep over it.  It turns out that it is no more than the vulgar, incoherent, hate-filled but comical rants of some man called Nnamdi Kanu who calls Nigeria a “zoo”— or the “zoological republic”— and Nigerian citizens “monkeys” or “ill-educated vagabonds.” He labels Igbos who don’t share his insurrectionary and irredentist ideas as “Hausa-born children in Igboland.” His rants are also filled with ignorant, racially self-hating, negrophobic rhetoric, such as his habitual claims that black people are intellectually inferior and incapable of deep thought. The station makes no effort to be persuasive. It simply revels in vulgar abuse, intentional prevarications, infantile temper tantrums, and a melodramatic display of rank, comical ignorance. The only people who will listen to the station and be affected by its message are people who already share its twisted, hateful ideals, which makes shutting it down pointless. I can bet that it does not speak for nor reach the majority of Igbo people, and that most Igbo people would snigger when they listen to it. That’s not a station anyone should lose sleep over.

Copy and WIN : http://ow.ly/KNICZ

There is enough in the world for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed.


---Mohandas Gandhi

[Bode]

Correction:

To add to this: if the state does not permit any freedom that calls its
sovereignty into question, we can predict from that cold logic how this
might end if at all it gains momentum. We have seen Boko Haram attempt to
set up an Islamic Caliphate to the North and how it has led to an all out
war between BH and the Nigerian state. If the agenda of RB is to similarly
challenge the sovereignty of the Nigerian state, then another flank is
opened to the East that will lead to the collision of the state and those
who set up and are inspired by the Radio to challenge the state. What we
are witnessing may well be the fraying of the Nigerian state! We should
not dwell only at the level of freedom of speech but as intellectuals be
alert to the widest possible implications.

Bode

On Sat, Jul 18, 2015 at 3:01 PM, Bode <omi...@gmail.com> wrote:

To add to this: if the state does not permit any freedom that calls its
sovereignty into question, we can predict from that cold logic how this
might end if at all it gains momentum. We have seen Boko Haram attempt to
set up an Islamic Caliphate to the North and how it has lead to an all out
war between BH and the Nigerian state. If the agenda of RB is to similarly
challenge the sovereignty of the Nigerian state, then another flank is
opened to the East that will lead to the collision of the state and those
who set up and are inspired by the Radio to challenge the state. What we
are witnessing may well be the fraying of the Nigerian state! We should
not duel only at the level of freedom of speech but as intellectuals be
alert to the widest possible implications.

Bode

On 7/18/15, 1:18 PM, "Abolaji Adekeye" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com

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[Anunoby, Ogugua]

There are usually two sets of solutions to a problem- short-term solutions and long-term solutions. If Radio Biafra is a problem, muscling it out of existence now will be a misguided short-term solution. Another Radio Biafra will sooner or later take its place. Addressing the issues Radio Biafra raises will be the responsible long-term solution. It will make the current Radio Biafra or any future one unnecessary.
The recourse to JP Clark and the "Saintly" Okigbo on this subject is interesting. Does anyone remember who they were speaking to? It was not Radio Biafra. Has the Nigerian State really paid heeded to their admonition?
I do not remember any of those clamoring for Radio Biafra to be shut down now, doing the same with Radio Kudirat. Therein lies one of Nigeria's problems- hypocritical characterization and reaction to dissent. Those who know, deal with causes not consequences.
Why it is difficult for some to understand why Radio Biafra broadcasts resonates with some Nigerians for good reason is mind boggling.
People and countries must be concerned about precedents- dangerous precedents. One of the enduring criticism of Nigeria's military dictators was their suppression by decrees of free speech including the freedom of the press. Buhari was much criticized for it each time he ran for the office of president.as Is anyone asking him to travel on that road again? What if he does, likes it, and decides to stay on that road?

[Bode]

To add to this: if the state does not permit any freedom that calls its
sovereignty into question, we can predict from that cold logic how this
might end if at all it gains momentum. We have seen Boko Haram attempt to
set up an Islamic Caliphate to the North and how it has lead to an all out
war between BH and the Nigerian state. If the agenda of RB is to similarly
challenge the sovereignty of the Nigerian state, then another flank is
opened to the East that will lead to the collision of the state and those
who set up and are inspired by the Radio to challenge the state. What we
are witnessing may well be the fraying of the Nigerian state! We should
not duel only at the level of freedom of speech but as intellectuals be
alert to the widest possible implications.

Bode

On 7/18/15, 1:18 PM, "Abolaji Adekeye" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com
on behalf of blargeo...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Bode]

I don’t get this. I have thought about the arguments for freedom of speech
that many of our elders have advanced and I still don’t get the point.
There is a difference between Radio Kudirat which was anti-military, and
had the overthrow of dictatorship and realization of democracy as its goal
and Radio Biafra which appears from all indication not to be a cultural or
political media but a secessionist media. Who is making this investment?
There is also a difference between a point of view, which you can debate,
and an irredentist political agenda which asks us to take sides. It is as
if these factor alone do not complicate our immutable ideas of freedom of
speech. As Adekeye states, those who put themselves on record today as
supporting Radio Biafra should be ready to share the responsibility for
whatever comes out of all of this. We can champion freedom of speech
without being enablers of chaos and anarchy. Scotland just had a
referendum in which the NO vote won over separatists. I would support a
ten-year scheduled vote for a referendum on Biafra if that is an
acceptable political solution. It would give the federal government the
opportunity to convince the East and also allow the East the opportunity
to thoroughly consider its options. We can then democratically take this
off the table for another century!

Bode

On 7/18/15, 12:10 PM, "'Ikhide' via USA Africa Dialogue Series"

[Anunoby, Ogugua]

IAB,

 

What I believe you need to do is take some time to diligently read, digest, and understand my post below with an open, not closed mind. A closed mind can be a unproductive and wasted  mind.

The purpose of meaningful conversation for the likes of me, is the edification of participants through facts and perspectives’ sharing that intended to result in the rejection of predisposed bias and prejudice, and improvement in understanding and appreciation of other persons’ points of view even when we disagree with them.

You seem to me to be more interested in meaningless posturing than in enriching a serious conversation. If you wish to serve Forum members well, and yourself better, you may want to try to upgrade not degrade the quality of this and other conversations by addressing some or all the issues raised even if you disagree with them. My post raises a number of issues. Please address them. I do not mind that you do. I might even agree with you. Surprise, surprise?

 

oa

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

The sum total of Professor Kperogi’s article is that thanks to the Nigerian authorities the cat is now out of the bag,  haram gogoro is now pouring out of the bottle like never before and there’s precious little that the authorities can do to reverse the flow – or can they if it becomes necessary to by a legal process get the Radio to terminate its broadcasts if it becomes a national security issue (at this stage it’s up to you to imagine the various ways in which it can do that)

 I once phoned and arranged a meeting with Ahmed Rami the proprietor of Radio Islam which was dedicated to "the liberation struggle of the Palestinian people against Israel".  I had met him a couple of times before, at parties / meet-ings organised by the Iranian Embassy in Stockholm - in fact he had given me a lift to town on the last occasion –prior to my phone call but he did not (how could he?) recognise my voice on the phone after such very brief encounters - so when he answered the phone and I greeted him “Asalamalaakum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatu” and asked him “What do you do?”  ( I was doing an inventory of Islamic organisations in Stockholm ) his surprising reply was “ I don’t talk to Zionists” and I kindly remonstrated with  him, “ Aki, I’m not a Zionist” as a result of which we were shaking hands heartily about fifteen minutes later by  the Central Post Office  ( I lived  five minutes’ walk from there in Central Stockholm) … the  rest of the story is irrelevant  but I should just like to point out that  Radio Biafra  seems to have an intention similar to the avowed intention of Radio Islam  - Radio Biafra’s dedication being  “ to the defense of rights of the indigenous people of Biafra and ultimately the actualization of the Republic of Biafra.”

 That Radio Station could become more serious and more problematic in the future and then Nigeria may experience difficulties shutting down those frequencies, especially if the Radio frequently changes location – and as for prosecuting or otherwise (military strong arm tactics) bringing the proprietor to heel, he may well be located far outside the Nigerian government’s jurisdiction and – as in the case of Radio Islam , Radio Biafra might change proprietors. If what the authorities deem to be extreme provocations such as incitements to violence, thus threatening national security and stability (a crime by any yardstick) the proprietor can be prosecuted. I hope that it doesn’t soon get to the point at which some Radio Biafra personnel or sympathisers are not taken into Federal Government custody as hostages or “prisoners of War” or meted some jungle justice since that kind of additional publicity could only make matters worse

 A matter of idle curiosity:  Ghost Radio, Pirate Radio  what’s the difference – Boko Haram used to be releasing videos and that why I’m asking, does Boko Haram have any Radio Stations yet (dedicated to creating a Caliphate over the carcass of Northern Nigeria)?

 Na wah oh! Was only asking.

We Sweden

[Ikhide]

Ayo,

I doubt that a fair reading of Farooq Kperogi's essay would conclude that Radio Biafra is telling us "nothing." He would not have spent hours on an essay if the actors of Radio Biafra were merely telling us nothing. But let's move on. I am more frightened by what the poet Obi Nwakanma would call a stifled sneeze, a frightening rehashing of George Orwell's Animal Farm by Buhari and his crooked sponsors. Out on social media, the word #Change has become a farcical pejorative. Buhari is stuck in the 80's. Did you see his delegation to the U.S.? Thirty three delegates, no woman. Not even one. 

As for his appointments to date. I come to the sad conclusion that Northern Nigeria is in Aso Rock and the Southwest is in the Boys' Quarters. Sai Buhari! 

Na wa. 

- Ikhide

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

An aside in the Farm Drama:

 "his delegation to the U.S.? Thirty three delegates, no woman. Not even one” could suggest the nature of the beast, to Brother Obama vis-à-vis more pressure on the exclusively  bone-to-bone delegation to accommodate or at least  to tolerate same- sex marriage ( men only) when they get back home. If I were president it would be at least one woman, one man, no only the lonely

It’s impossible to imagine and I can’t believe that not even a (one) female secretary will accompany the ogas. In the part of the woods where I’m from its traditionally a golden opportunity to include at least a few concubines in any high-powered delegation worth its name, those that thy right hand possess (eh, I mean a couple of interns for the stenography and to keep the coffee percolating in the evenings, after all we are not talking about the monastery of Mt. Athos where even “female dogs are not allowed”

[Abolaji Adekeye]

I have not implied from my writing that you are Igbo and not being
Igbo does not absolve you from my saying you guys are out of it. Yes
you fulminate from a comfortable remove, away from the loop. If the
present climate of suspicion being wet nursed by hate propaganda
spirals into violence, your heads would remain nestled on the great
American boob job. Yet you want to tell us who stand guard by the dyke
that the tiny fissures should be left to widen into major cracks
because there are bigger fishes to fry. Brotha please!

What is the unintended consequence of shutting down a rogue radio
station? (You must know what lesser mortals like us don't know).
Maybe like the case of BH, the government should fiddle and wait a
few years to see if the cubs would grow fangs or not. Damned if you do
and damned if you don't more like.


Since GEJ lost, your cynicism has attained olympian heights, eclipsing
whatever remaining goodwill you may have had for this poorly imagined
country that is the only piece of earth that belongs to some of us.
And reclaim it we shall from rent seekers and revanchists.


Speaking of Critical Thinking: Most Nigerians and their parrots that
followed keenly the recently unfurled and yet unfolding history are
living witnesses to the strength of your world acclaimed critical
thinking and the world of good it did the ex presidente, GoodJo. Now
pray tell me, good Sir, what have you learnt from history?

On 7/19/15, 'Ikhide' via USA Africa Dialogue Series

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

More discussion on the subject from my Facebook wall.

• Philip Adekunle I cannot agree more. The government appeared to have panicked. Those folks have been making similar noise for years on NVS and elsewhere. The only difference now is that the loss of SE in recent elections may be attracting disillusioned sympathizers. The Govt should just ignore and forge ahead. Id they need to block them, do it without fanfare - no announcements, no press conference - just unplug them.

  22 hrs · Like · 1
• 

  ManOf Hope Prof have u really listened to these guys? Perhaps that may change ur opinion about govt action.

  22 hrs · Like
• 

  Moses Ochonu ManOf Hope, yes, I have. And that, precisely, is why I never thought the station posed any threat to the FG. The kind of propaganda disseminated on Radio Biafra is the type that offends and repulses more than it wins people over. And if a piece of propaganda is so fringy and so offensive as at stand no chance of gaining mainstream reception then it does not pose a threat and should be ignored.

  22 hrs · Like
• 

  ManOf Hope To the point of raising and training army in the name of biafran cessation? Well, I believe small fire like this, if not checked, tend to lead to the kind like Boko Haram

  22 hrs · Like
• 

  Moses Ochonu There are two things here and they should not be conflated. I saw photos of the "army." It's not much of an army--more like a rag tag group of Biafra supporters in the mold of MASSOB. However, our intelligence services should investigate the authenticity of the photo and close the "training camp " if indeed it exists as a training camp for insurrectionary fighters. That is completely different from a radio station broadcasting fringy incendiary speech in support of secession from Nigeria.

  22 hrs · Like · 1
• 

  Yunusa Abubakar The truth is most Igbos are unwittingly buying the idea propagated by this infantile group. Ignoring them is tantamount to accepting that anything goes in our polity. A stitch in time saves nine.

  20 hrs · Like
• 

  Moses Ochonu Yunusa, most Igbos? That is inaccurate and it is insulting to the Igbo. First of all, MOST Igbos were not even listening to the station and perhaps didn't even know about it until the FG announced gleefully that it had jammed its signals. Secondly, very very few Igbo or anyone for that matter would take those folks seriously, given their juvenile, vile, and quite frankly comical approach to propaganda. The station was never going to persuade many people or receive favorable reception. In fact if you listened to its broadcast you'd know that even the "broadcasters" were pretty frustrated at their failure to persuade or blackmail the many Igbo into "buying the idea propagated" by what you yourself described as an infantile group. This frustration caused them to increasingly ratchet up their abusive incendiary language. They were increasingly getting unhinged because of their failure to reach or persuade Igbo people and resorted as Farooq said to insulting Igbo people who did not share their views, which is the majority of Igbo people.

[Bode]

"the American government leaves them alone to express their secessionist aspirations”

If by leave alone we mean perpetual NSA and FBI surveillance. We can be sure that there is no secessionist group in the US that is not under surveillance. If you don’t have the Big Brother watchfulness of the American state you will surely feel more vulnerable. 

[Bode]

"The only people who will listen to the station and be affected by its message are people who already share its twisted, hateful ideals, which makes shutting it down pointless. I can bet that it does not speak for nor reach the majority of Igbo people, and that most Igbo people would snigger when they listen to it.” ---Farooq Kperogi

This is the heart of Farooq’s essay. But it is precisely what we don’t know. The Federal Government was wise by immediately denying anti Igbo statements attributed to Buhari. It tells me they know Nigeria very well to know tat allegation will become a legend they will not be able to ignore.

Bode   

[Bode]

Hi Moses,

There are two people I expect to know what you are suggesting: Radio Biafra and the Federal Government. The rest of us are merely speculating. There is no way we can know the strength or following of the group. Your guess may be better than most, but it is still a guess nonetheless.

Bode  

[Salimonu Kadiri]

In his 'Who is Afraid of Radio Biafra? Not me,'  Ikhide asked rhetorically, "What is the big deal about Radio Biafra?" Thereafter, he compared Radio Biafra with President Muhammadu Buhari thus, "Buhari has said more inflammatory things against Nigeria, today he is President."
 
In the name of truth and justice, Ikhide should have given examples of inflammatory things said by Radio Biafra and Mohammadu Buhari so that readers could judge the true worth of his comparisons.

 
Who is afraid of Radio Biafra, Ikhide asked? Without answering the question, he went on to assert, "Radio Biafra has not killed a single soul..."  As if Ikhide is in a confused state of mind, he wrote, "I salute Radio Biafra. I disagree with its methods... Listen to Radio Biafra. They are telling us something."
 
Here again, Ikhide failed to tell readers which Radio Biafra's methods he disagreed with and why. While propagating that we should listen to Radio Biafra because it is telling us something, Ikhide did not state as an example what it is telling us.
The assertion of Ikhide that Radio Biafra has not killed a single soul is false because it is a propaganda organ of the Biafra Zionist Federation (BZF) led by Benjamin Igwe Onwuka. BZF broke away from the less militant Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) led by Ralph Uwazuruike. While Benjamin Igwe Onwuka's BZF is based in Enugu, Uwazuruike's MASSOB is based in Owerri, Imo State. In June 2012, Benjamin Igwe Onwuka announced that a Republic of Biafra would be declared on 15th November 2012 and application for Biafra's membership of United Nations (UN) had been filed. However, in the morning of January 19, 2013, some indigenes of Amasea in Anambra State were at Ezu river to fetch water for their household use but were confronted with 19 floating human corpses. Both BZF and MASSOB claimed that the corpses were members of their organisations arrested in December 2012 after illegal demonstration and distribution of Biafra's currency. On March 7, 2014, Benjamin Igwe Onwuka, led his gang to invade Enugu State House, but after fire exchanges with the Police, the gang withdrew and escaped arrest.

Later on the 5th of June 2014, Biafra Zionist Federation (BZF) stormed Enugu State Broadcasting Service with the intention to announce the declaration of sovereign state of Biafra. A police sergeant and a civilian were killed by BZF invaders before police could arrest Onwuka and 12 of his gangs. Radio Biafra lauded the bloody assault by BZF that took two innocent lives. One cannot separate the actions of BZF from its propaganda organ, Radio Biafra.

 
On the 18th of July 2015, Ikhide wrote, "Those who wish to shut up Radio Biafra have no idea the intended consequences of their actions. I have seen war and it is terrifying."
 
Is Ikhide telling us that shutting up a pirate radio station, Radio Biafra, is a declaration of war? If yes, against who is war being declared? If Ikhide has seen war and it is terrifying for him, that should be the very reason to support shutting down Radio Biafra that is propagating for war. Nnamdi Kenny Okwu Kanu has personally announced the list of fellow Igbo, whom he has branded saboteurs, to be massacred with their families and their homes burnt immediately after Biafra is won!!

 
I was an agitator on Radio Kudirat during the pro-democracy days of the 90's, Ikhide told readers. Radio Kudirat was propagating against Sani Abacha, the usurper of government power whose constituency was military barracks and his electorates were tanks and machine guns. You were surely not inciting people to kill Northerners because Abacha was a Northerner and you were not inciting people for war of secession. The aim of Radio Kudirat was to campaign for the installation of democratically elected President in Nigeria. On that ground Radio Kudirat is not comparable to Radio Biafra. As Ikhide wanted to justify his support for Radio Biafra to churn out its anti-human terror campaign he told readers, "And no, I am not Igbo, my father fought hard against the right of the Igbo to determine their fate." We are all born somewhere by someone and no one has ever chosen his/her parents or place of birth. It must be wrong for any normal human being to base his/her judgment of another person on paternal origin or place of birth. Whether you are an Igbo or not you should always tell the truth. Since, you claimed that your father fought hard against the right of the Igbo to determine their fate, may I ask you if you are suggesting that Biafra was an Igbo Country? If your answer is yes, then the declaration of a sovereign state of Biafra on May 30, 1967 must be a fraud simply because non Igbo ethnic groups as Efik, Ibibio, Ijaw, Kalabari and Ogoni constituted 35% of the then Eastern Region. And if your father fought against the right of Igbo to declare their Republic of Biafra, he was not a pioneer in that regard. On the 23rd of February 1966, Isaac Adaka Boro and his Niger Delta Volunteer Force declared a sovereign state of Niger Delta Peoples' Republic and it took the Igbo Head of State, General Johnson Thompson Umunnakwe Aguiyi Ironsi, 12 days to crush the Niger Delta Peoples' Republic. Geographically viewed, those who are clamouring for Igbo nation to become a sovereign state of Biafra should take into account the delineation of Biafra's boundaries from the current Nigeria. In reality, the Igbo nation is bounded in the South by the Ogoni, Kalabari and Ijaw people; in the East by Ibibio and Cross River People; in the West by Edo people; and in the North by the Igala and Idoma people. Certainly a Biafra war that is being propagated by Radio Biafra and their supportive intellectual mercenaries is an invitation to a disaster far greater than that of 1967 to January 15, 1970.

 
Farooq Kperogi intervened in the discussion and blamed the federal government for overreacting to Radio Biafra's hateful messages. He counselled that Radio Biafra should have been left in obscurity instead of giving it visibility and legitimacy. Farooq regaled readers with the view of an English Philosopher, John Milton who argued that "the truth does not need to be protected from falsehood and that after all is said and done, truth always triumphs over all the winds of doctrine lets loose to play upon the earth." Well, Hitler's Mein Kampf was composed in two volumes. The first, Eine Abrechnung (A Reckoning) was published on July 19, 1925 and the second, Die Nationalsoziaistische Bewegung (The Nazi Movement) was published on December 11, 1926. The two volumes were bound to one in 1930 that later became Nazi Germany's Bible. When the book was published the rest of the world never paid attention to it and Hitler. As Kperogi's John Milton had argued the truth subsequently caught up with Hitler but before then 26 million Russian lives had been consumed, 18 million black people had been expended as mine sweepers by Anglo-French-American allies, and six million Jews had been exterminated. Contrary to John Milton's postulation the Yoruba counsel that the stem of Ìrókò tree must be pruned when it is still small otherwise it will be difficult to handle when it has grown big. When Radio Biafra in its broadcast claimed that Buhari had sent Boko Haram detainees to Anambra to kill Igbo people, traders closed their shops and markets for two days in protest because they believed the Broadcast. Luckily people did not pour out into the streets to protest with possible encounter with armed police forces and eventual casualties. An avoided calamity is never appraised or valued since it is never allowed to happen. Normally, it is not Buhari who allocates prisoners to different federal prisons in Nigeria but, the Nigerian Prison Services, headed by Controller General, Mr Peter Ekpendu, from Ibeku Okwuato in Mbaise Local Government area of Imo state. No, Radio Biafra should be shut down and the Director General of the National Broadcasting Commission, Mr Emeka  Mba, was right when he expressed concern over the seditious activities of the illegal Biafra Radio, transmitting hate messages that are unfortunately designed to create disunity among Nigerians and mislead young people in a deliberate act of subversion.

 

---

Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2015 16:52:15 -0400
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Who is afraid of Radio Biafra? Not me!
From: omi...@gmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

What is the big deal about Radio Biafra? Buhari has said more inflammatory things against Nigeria, today he is president.