In the last two weeks, Radio Biafra, London, started broadcasting in
Nigeria as a mobile station, on FM frequency 88.2. It’s being received
in Enugu, Onitsha, Port Harcourt, Nnewi and Owerri.
According to the director, Radio Biafra, Mr. Nnamdi Kanu, who visited
Nigeria from his London, United Kingdom base, the broadcast in Nigeria,
on FM frequency, other than the initial short wave frequency from
London, is aimed at giving Igbo and other Nigerians the opportunity to
receive the message from the station without much difficulties.
In the interview, Kanu revealed the role of Radio Biafra and why its
broadcast was brought home. He talked about the struggle for Biafra, the
activities of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State
of Biafra and other pro-Biafran groups, the funding for Radio Biafra
and the crisis in the All Progressives Grand alliance (APGA).
Excerpts:
We discovered that Radio Biafra is now broadcasting in the East other than London. What informed this?
At this point in the country’s history, we believe that it’s
appropriate to bring home Radio Biafra. The last time the radio
broadcast in the East was about 43 years ago, during the war. We have
been broadcasting from London, on short wave frequency. By coming home
now, we want more people to tune to the station. Now we are on the FM
frequency and covering a segment of the Eastern Nigeria. It is not
enough to propagate round the country, but we are working on that.
Sometime in September or October, we will bring in sufficient power, in
terms of transmission, to allow us access to all areas within Nigeria.
What were the challenges you encountered in bring Radio Biafra home, so to say?
The people that gave us some problems are obviously agents of the
Nigerian government. However, we were sufficiently protected because we
are not doing anything illegal. It is free speech situation. We are
basically speaking our minds. That is what is happening, which
incidentally, a lot of people, in and around the country, bought into.
It’s not a question of us saying something that is new. We are
discussing something that every other part of the country would like to
be a part of.
How long have you been running the radio station in Nigeria?
We started running Radio Biafra in Nigeria for the past two weeks, to be precise.
How has the reception been?
It’s been very good, but initially, the estimate we had was for a
25-mile radius range going by the power of the transmitter and antenna
that we have, but what we are recording is 18 miles. What we then need
to do is to take it back to our people and then make some improvements
to it. We have a bigger transmitter coming in around September or
October. We should provide coverage nationally with that. Wherever you
are in Nigeria, you should get Radio Biafra on FM and AM from October
this year.
For now, what is the duration of the broadcast?
It is normally two and three hours. The broadcast from Aba, because
of the location and incessant rain, kept falling. It was curtailed to an
hour and 49 minutes, but we are hoping, as time goes on, to bring Radio
Biafra to people on a daily basis.
Could you tell us how you started Radio Biafra in London?
We started Radio Biafra in 2009 with the help of the then MASSOB
members. They contributed to set up Radio Biafra. When we discovered
that the leadership of MASSOB was doing something entirely different
from what the people actually wanted, we went on air to tell the people
what we discovered and the funding from MASSOB for Radio Biafra was
stopped at that point in time. It was moribund for about two years. We
then revived Radio Biafra ourselves a year ago. It came back online
again on April 13 last year, following the killing of our people, Igbo,
in the North. We decided to revive the radio station to bring hope,
enlightenment and knowledge to our people.
How many of you are involved?
Eight people revived Radio Biafra ostensibly. Within the two years
that Radio Biafra was off air, we were working Monday to Friday, 9-5
everyday, and saving money to start the station again. We neglected our
families. We abandoned our commitments to our families, both in London
and here in Nigeria. The eight of us include myself, Uche Mefor, Dr.
Chukwuma Egemba, Barrister Adolf Emeka Esiri, Barr. Emman Mezu, Amarachi
Okpara and Chukwunebuneze Ikpa. These were the people that got together
and decided to form Radio Biafra again and we succeeded.
How have you been funding and sustaining it?
We work in London and earn a living. After our official duties, we
face Radio Biafra. We know that the media job is a full-time one, but we
can’t afford to run Radio Biafra full time because of funding. We are
the ones funding and we have to work to get money. Nobody has helped us
in funding. Anywhere we go for funding, they always remind us where the
previous support they rendered other groups agitating for Biafra went.
They always use MASSOB and what Uwazuruike is doing as example and as
reasons they won’t fund us. For us, instead of relying on people, who
are not even ready to fund the project, we are doing it alone. And God
has been helping us. We have spent a lot to sustain the broadcast.
We are not deterred. We hope that in future, people will see the
impact of what we are doing as well as our sincerity of purpose and help
financially. One individual, Chukwudi Oforma, who is based in
Australia, is funding the FM experiment. That tells you that people are
now beginning to come out to put some financial muscle behind what we
are doing.
How is the reception in London?
When Radio Biafra came back on air, there were jubilations, not only
in Nigeria but also in all over the world. People recognise what Radio
Biafra represents. At Radio Biafra, we cannot afford to lie. It is not a
propaganda machine. We tell you things the way they are. If we are
failing, we will tell the people we are failing and why we are failing.
At Radio Biafra, we took an oath and we swore never to misrepresent the
truth. Any day we lie or represent what is not factual, that day, we
will shut down and we will not proceed. That is why we have been able to
accomplish more than when we received sponsorship from members of
MASSOB, who wanted to use it for their selfish end. Having severed
relationship with them, events have shown that it was the best thing we
have done. You can see what the group has become.
What is wrong with MASSOB?
The movement has been flawed because people have started to follow
the path of money. They have forgotten what Biafra realisation is all
about. Mind you, we are not actualising but realising Biafra, because
Biafra already existed.
You cannot actualise what is already in existence. The movement
derailed because of the cult hero worship. When you are in a freedom
fighting movement, the leadership of that movement is not very
important.
What is important is the ideology that underpins the entire movement.
When you then embody and encapsulate the entire thinking of a movement
in one person, that person becomes a target, either for compromise or
for assassination. That is what happens and that is what happened in
this case. As you can see, they have now abandoned the struggle for
Biafra.
They are talking about chieftaincy titles. They are talking about
working with PDP. They are talking about sowing uniform and becoming
peace ambassadors and the rest of it. That was not the original concept
of the struggle. Biafra is puritanical, in the sense that it doesn’t
like contamination with any other thing and that is why we are suffering
today. And because we took our eyes away from what was important, which
was the freedom for our people, we started to look at material things,
like cars, buildings, accolades and wealth. That was how we derailed.
What then is the ideology of Biafra?
The ideology of Biafra is the freedom, the emancipation of all the
Biafran people, which means that all the people bound genetically,
culturally and by the same value system. In other words, I am talking
about those who understand the history of the Biafran people. I am
talking about the Idoma people, the Igbo people, the Efik, Ibibio,
Anang, Ijaw, Itsekiri, the Urhobo and the Anioma people. All these are
Biafran families. If you go to a village or town, for instance, Oturpko,
they have four market days – Eke, Orie, Afor and Nkwo. And when people
say that these people are not Igbo people or that they are not related
to Igbo people, it becomes a thing of wonder. How is it possible that
people that have Eke, Orie, Afor and Nkwo as their market days are not
related to Igbo people?
When you go to Akwa Ibom or Cross River State, what they call God is
Obasi. That is what we call God, where we come from. The highest
fraternity in Igboland, where I come from in Abia State is Okonko.
Okonko was directly derived from the Ibibio and the Efik cultures. The
same thing with Ekpe. When we want to dance Ekpe in my place, we go to
Ibibio land to buy the kits for the Ekpe, which is a masquerade dance.
So, we are all related. We are the same people genetically, in terms of
our complexion, in terms of our attitude. I give all your readers a
challenge. I want you to go to any market in Warri, for instance. Stand
back and take a picture of that market, then, go to any Igbo town or
village, take a picture of the market and tell me if you can tell the
difference. There is no difference.
The dressing is the same. Everything we do is the same. The people we
call Bonny today are people from Nkwerre. We are all the same people.
But due to the difficulties, the hardship, the pain that we have been
subjected to, they think it is now fashionable to jettison where you
come from and try to be something that you are not, which is why we are
suffering till today.
Does Radio Biafra have any link with the campaign for Biafra republic?
Yes, we do. Radio Biafra is the most listened to indigenous broadcast
out of sub-Saharan Africa. We have every evening nothing less than two
million people tuned in all around the world. We have on average of
nothing less than 100,000 people visit Radio Biafra website; so the
message we propagate is getting through or else people will not be
coming.
Our message is resonating with the people and we are working with a
lot of groups, ostensibly Bilie Human Rights Initiatives, Biafra
Liberation Council. We are also working with other groups across the
Niger Delta areas to make sure we bring about Biafra, of justice and
equality, not Biafra of domination because a lot of people are afraid
that if we have Biafra, there is going to be domination by the Igbo
people and our question to them is very simple: before Nigeria, before
the white man came, did the Igbo conquer anybody? The answer is no. We
are larger than the Ibibio, Efik, Ijaw. Did we go to the Ijaw and say
you must speak Igbo language or else we kill you? Or you must adopt our
culture or else we kill you?
The ironic thing is that we ended up absorbing these other cultures
to the Igbo way of life. That goes to show how versatile we are. We are
not a domineering people. The fact that if you open up your shop to
trade and you are blessed and become wealthy means that you are
domineering? That is a slightly false perception of what dominance is.
It is not dominance. It is people actually doing well. And you will know
even in Igboland today, there is a traditional ruler that has converted
to Islam – Eze Dumuna of Mbaitoli. He is now Musa Dimuna, a traditional
titled ruler in Igboland! He has not been killed. He will not be
killed. He’s not being chased out or bombed because we believe in
tolerance.
What’s your take about groups agitating for Biafra?
We welcome every group agitating for Biafra as long as you are doing
it in truth and honesty. If you look at the programme of some elements
of movement within Biafra land, you would know that they have derailed
from that cardinal principal. They are not pursuing Biafra in truth and
honesty anymore. What they are doing does not represent freedom fighting
anymore. That is why we say to people, there are groups you can join.
You can join Bilie Human Rights Initiative, which took Nigeria to court,
which a lot of people don’t know about.
A court in Nigeria recognised the word ‘Biafra’ for the very first
time without throwing everybody in jail. The case is coming up on April
30 and we are asking everybody to be in court in Owerri to witness this
landmark occasion. It’s been going on since last year. A lot of people
don’t know this.
Again, we are saying join Bilie Human Rights Initiatives, listen to
Radio Biafra broadcasting, both from London and Biafra land; you can
also join Biafra Liberation Council. It is a legitimate group.
You can
join Lower Niger Congress. These are groups that are legitimate. Any
other group you join is involved in criminality and in violence,
detrimental to what we are pursuing. There are people with MASSOB, for
instance, who are going about arresting people and handing over to
Nigerian police. People agitating for Biafra are being arrested and
being handed over to the Nigerian police and these are people claiming
to be fighting for the struggle. You have to be consistent. There is no
relationship between fighting for the freedom of your people and
accumulation of wealth. That is what we are against.
Is it right to assume that your relationship with MASSSOB is sour?
Our relationship with genuine people within MASSOB pursuing Biafra in
truth and honesty is sound. What we abhor is the leadership of MASSOB
because the leadership of MASSOB is corrupt. Intrinsically corrupt. They
were campaigning for PDP during the last elections; everybody knows
that. They are running all over the place looking for chieftaincy
titles. We asked them: have you seen anywhere in the history of modern
freedom fighters where you jettison freedom fighting and start looking
for chieftaincy titles? You abandon freedom fighting to start pricing
the cost of cement and sand to go and build a house.
The right thing to do is to wait until you get what you are looking for. At that point, the people will honour you.
Nelson Mandela doesn’t live in a mansion. Mahatma Ghandi never lived
in a mansion. Martin Luther King Junior never lived in a mansion. Che
Guevara never lived in a mansion. What are you doing with landed
property? What are you doing with wealth if you are a freedom fighter?
We work ourselves to put our money in Biafra. We don’t expect anything
from Biafra. We don’t have anything to with money. That is the cardinal
rule in Radio Biafra. You can never be rich. You don’t need money for
anything at all as long as you can feed and clothe and transport
yourself; that is enough. The glory of your people being free is your
gain. Nothing more, nothing less. If you are lucky the people might give
you a three-bedroom bungalow to live when you retire, but we have role
models in the like of Mandela, among others, who never amassed any
personal wealth. These are genuine freedom fighters and this is what
Radio Biafra is modelled on.
You may have been following the political imbroglio between Victor Umeh and Gov. Peter Obi. What is your take?
It is nemesis. It was Chekwas Okorie that single-handed formed APGA
and handed it to the Igbo people through the leadership of His
Excellency, the late Dim Chukwuemeke Odumegwu-Ojukwu. I have been at the
centre of many things happening. As I would say to Chekwas and the rest
of them, there is, so to speak, no prominent Igbo person I have not
served in one capacity or the other. We were in a room at Millennium
Hotel, in Kensington, London, which, incidentally, I paid for. The
deposit of that I still have the receipt. I paid for the suit where
Ojukwu stayed at the hotel. Ojukwu was there, so also were Chekwas
Okorie, Victor Umeh, Ukwa Akwu, Tim Menakaya, Gov. Peter Obi. And I told
Peter Obi to his face that the problem we have today in Igboland is the
Anambra people and I said it jokingly. Of course, he said if that is
the problem, that is also the solution. There and then, Ojukwu said, in
front of everybody, that if he were to die today that he had a successor
beside him. He said it was Chekwas Okorie.
Umeh was there. Andy Emenife was there. I was there. Ifeanyi Iregbu
was there. Dr. Chukwuma Egemba was there. Chinedu Nwosu was there. They
witnessed what I am telling you right now. Who has ever organised Ojukwu
to appear before BBC’s Hard Talk? We did it. Nobody has done that for
him before. We in London did it. The fact that we don’t shout and come
to newspaper all the time doesn’t mean we don’t know what we are doing.
Chekwas Okorie should be given the honour that is due to him. Victor
Umeh, as much as I like and respect him, the way he emerged as the APGA
chairman wasn’t proper. When this whole thing started happening, we
wrote to them to reconcile. We suggested that Chekwas be brought back
and made chairman of the board of trustees of APGA, while Victor Umeh
can remain as the chairman, but they said no. Look at where Victor Umeh
is today? Everybody has lost and we are seeing the collapse of APGA. We
now have UPP, floated by Chekwas Okorie.
We are now starting afresh
again. Every time we run a race as a people, we start all over again.
And do you know why it so? It is because we hold our meetings outside.
If we hold these meetings in Igboland and you do something bad, you will
die. That was how our land was structured before they brought in these
new age churches to ruin everything. In the olden days, if you agree and
share kolanut, if you go against it, you will die. We have all wronged
Chekwas Okorie, one way or the other. We need to seriously apologise to
him. What happened to APGA shouldn’t have happened.
2015 is around the corner. Should Jonathan run?
Nigeria can do anything it likes, I am interested in Biafra alone;
but one thing is for sure; some us live abroad. I live in London, but
the truth is the truth everywhere. Jonathan should not run for the third
time because one thing I find difficult in a country that claimed they
have learned people is that most Nigerians are not educated enough to
understand that a presidential system of government is a joint ticket
concept. If I am running as your vice president, I am running on the
same ticket as you because if something happens to you, I take over. You
cannot be sworn in three times into an office; it is impossible. If you
claim you are somebody’s vice presidential candidate, you have accepted
that should anything happen to that person, you will assume power to
finish serving for that person on your joint ticket because it is two of
you that people voted for.
They said Jonathan and Sambo. It was Yar’Adua and Jonathan. Two
people running together on a ticket. What the judges did, in pronouncing
the idea that Jonathan could run again is called following the letter
of the law, but not the spirit of the law because the spirit and the
letter of the law must merge for a law to be sound, for a ruling or a
judgment to be seen to be just. Jonathan cannot run again.
