Former Aviation Minister said
this in a new article titled "The Lion of the East" which he shared
on his Facebook page this morning. Read the article below and tell us what you
think.
"Let me make this abundantly
clear right from the outset. I love and respect Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the supreme
leader of the Biafran movement, the founder and convener of the Indigenous
People Of Biafra (IPOB) and the man that I have appropriately dubbed as the Lion
of the East.
I do not however agree with him
on EVERYTHING and neither do I share his views about President Goodluck
Jonathan.
I do not believe that Jonathan
was weak or that he was incompetent. As a matter of fact I believe that the
contrary is the case.
I believe that he exhibited
immense strength and courage by letting go of power even though he did NOT lose
the 2015 presidential election but was rather rigged out of it and even though
he did NOT need to do so.
If Jonathan had been a lesser man
and if he had wanted to do so he could have knuckled down, called the bluff of
the then opposition and held on to power even if it meant that the bloodthirsty
sociopath that threatened to soak the nation in the "blood of dogs and
baboons" if he was not declared winner of that election went ahead and
carried out his threat.
Instead of calling the bullying
beasts bluff and thereby endanger the lives of millions of Nigerian people,
Jonathan said "my being President is not worth the drop of blood of one
Nigerian" and he let go.
Only a strong and disciplined man
who is not in the grip and under the power of satan and who is not driven by a
primitive, bestial and compelling lust for power can do that.
Jonathan was not weak: he was strong.
Jonathan was not weak: he was strong.
Secondly I believe that his
record of infrastructural development throughout the nation is second to none.
Most importantly in this context
I believe that Jonathan, more than ANY other President in the history of
Nigeria, did more to rehabilitate and empower the Igbo whilst he was President.
Having said this I must confess
that, other than his past remarks about the Yoruba people which he made a
number of years ago and which he has told me privately and said publicly that
he no longer holds, I am on all fours with Nnamdi Kanu on virtually everything
else.
The truth is that I have a soft
spot for him and no matter what he says or does I will always love him like a
brother because he has managed to do, in a very short space of time, what most
cannot do in a lifetime: he has won my respect and rekindled my hope in Africa
and African leaders.
I believe that he is a
courageous, strong and dynamic young man and indeed the greatest thing that has
happened to the Igbos in the last 103 years.
As I alluded to in an earlier
essay which I wrote after meeting him for the first time in Kuje prison in
2016, he is an Ojukwu, an Nzeogwu and an Azikiwe all rolled into one.
Despite the contrived and
sponsored disinformation and rubbish that his many detractors are saying and
writing about him, today he remains focused on his objectives and clear about
his mission: nothing appears to move him and or distract him from his calling.
He has a date with history and
destiny and no matter what his enemies do to him or say about him he shall keep
that date.
Most important of all is the fact
that I understand what drives him and kindles his extreeme passion for the
cause that he serves.
I understand his burning yet
clearly repressed anger at the shoddy and inexcusable plight of his Igbo people
in the contraption called Nigeria.
I can feel his pain and when you
sit with him for a long period of time, to the discerning and the sensitive in
the spirit, that pain is not only contagious but also literally tangible.
Rarely have I met a man that has
so much genuine love and concern for his people. My admiration and respect for
him remains intact and it cannot easily be diminished.
And frankly if I had been born an
Igbo person, given the history and what they have been through in the hands of
Nigeria over the last 57 years, I would have been far more radical and
uncompromising than even he is.
The truth is that Nigeria should
count herself lucky that he is a pacifist who has not called for and neither is
he interested in an armed struggle.
If that had been the case and if
he had made his battle-cry "blood for blood", things would have been
very different today and our country would have been in the terrible vice-like
grip of another civil war.
Yet despite his pacifist and
non-violent approach in this struggle there are still so many that simply hate
this rising young star for no just cause.
And there are thousands within
the intelligensia and ranks of the Nigerian ruling elite both from the north
and the south who oppose what he stands for and despise the very idea of the establishment
a new, sovereign and independent Biafran nation.
As a matter of fact they find
such an idea and notion deeply offensive. They believe in freedom, the rule of
law, the right of self-determination, the concept of restructuring and the
cause of freedom for themselves and their own but they do not believe that the
Igbo people deserve the right to have such freedoms or to make such choices.
What a contradiction and what a
tragedy. You are comfortable in your chains but when your Igbo brothers say they
wish to break theirs and become free you seek to deny them that right and you
join forces with the slave-masters and tell them that you will help them to
keep the igbo in chains by force.
Can this be considered as being
fair and just? Can it be right before God? Can it be sustained? Can it be
justified and defended?
Is it not an intellectually
dishonest, spiritually jaundiced and utterly flawed position?
Should we not bow our heads in
shame when we think and talk like this? Are the Igbo not human beings too? Do
they not share the same rights that we do and that we cherish?
You believe that the people of
Scotland have the right of self-determination but you don't believe that the
people of Biafra have that right as well.
You believe that the people of
Hong Kong have the right of self-determination but you don't believe that the
Biafrans have that right as well.
You believe that the Palestinians
have the right of self-determination but you don't believe that the Biafrans
have that right as well.
You believe that the people of
Northern Ireland have the right of self-determination but you don't believe the
Biafrans have that right as well.
You believe that the Basques and
the people of Catalan in Spain have the right of self-determination but you
don't believe the Biafrans have that right as well.
You believe that the people of
the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Israel,
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Africa, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Australia,
Ghana, Kenya, Benin, East Timor, Ireland, Europe, the former Yugoslavia, the
former Soviet Union, the former Czechoslovakia, the former Malaya, Taiwan, the
Sudan, the countries of South America and South East Asia and hundreds of other
nation states throughout the world and over the years have the right of
self-determination but you don't believe that the people of Biafra have that
right as well.
O Nigerians, who has bewitched
you? And who, like Apostle Paul's Galatians in the Holy Bible, has put you
under a spell?
You scream "restructuring"
when you know very well that the owners of your nation and the "born to
rule" will never allow it and that it is an idea and concept that ought to
have been accepted, established and implemented many years ago.
What burns in the hearts and
souls of most young Nigerians today, and this is especially and understanderbly
so with the young people of the east, is total liberation and independence from
Nigeria. That is what they want and not just restructuring. (TO BE CONTINUED)
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FFK, CAN YOU JUST RESTRICT YOURSELF TO THOSE LONG ESSAYS ON NIGERIA AND DON'T DABBLE INTO ISSUES BEYOND YOU, YOUR ANCESTORS AND EVEN FUTURE GENERATIONS. DON'T EVER DO THAT COMPARISON AGAIN. CAN ANY ONE COMPARE GANIYU ADAMS AND AWO? OR EL-RUFAI AND AHMADU BELLO? YOU JUST EXBITED YOUR IGNORANCE , POOR SENSE/KNOWLEDGE OF HISTORY AND DISREGARD FOR THE IGBOS TO HAVE DONE THIS COMPARISON. ALL OF THOSE MENTIONED ABOVE CAN NEVER BE COMPARED IN ANY WAY. Jay 2, Abuja.
ReplyDeleteFemi fani kayode, you have been a liar from the pit of hell and will never change. There is no audio tape and you know it. Did you not say you have evidence of T B Joshua church being bombed but did you tender such before the inquest panel? You are a blatant liar and i advise you to stop heating the polity.
ReplyDeleteFFK is the most educated moron i've ever seen. He doesnt have political appointment where he can squander tax payers' money, so there is enough time to write senseless things. Keep it up mumu
ReplyDeleteAll this loud supports by non ndigbo is full of deceits knowing very well that the agitation for separate biafra is not a tea party but struggles that could take scores of years. In those years of struggling foreign investors will avoid the indigbo terrain and the federal government of the day will slack in providing needed infrastructures citing tensions. And à t the end ndigbo losses at all directions no foreign investments no local investments no biafra. And my worst fear is for kanu because those power that kill abacha and abiola are still strong and potent and could strike at anytime
ReplyDeleteForeign investors? They can go to hell. We at Nnewi have started indiginization of foreign projects. Entrepreneurship and self survival has been our watchword. Check out yourself and count foreign investments in the east as compared against the rest before now. They'll never like to invest because they know we are more capitalist than them. We build and employ them. That is a typical Easterner.
DeleteMa etere ugba ma etere ose ihe gabu gabu.oburu na chineke echeghi Obodo na efu ka onye na eche Obodo na eche..CHIDERA NA ODEGOO.
ReplyDeleteMany are mad but few are roaming. A case of FFK
ReplyDelete