Biafrans say that a person stung by a bee remains very cautious when seeing a house fly. In recent years, Biafrans, especially the leadershi...
Biafrans say that a person stung by a bee remains very cautious when seeing a house fly. In recent years, Biafrans, especially the leadership of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), have mounted an unrelenting campaign about the compelling and inescapable compulsion for every Biafran to embark on food production program, irrespective of how insignificant the scale may appear.
The leadership does not need to waste time educating anyone on how food security is the highest form of security that any person, community, society, or nation can achieve. The experiences of the Biafran people during the UK-instigated #Biafra_GENOCIDE support this claim. At that time, Harold Wilson used Yakubu Gowon and Obafemi Awolowo to impose a blockade on Biafrans, cutting off all supplies of food and essential goods by air, land and sea. This led to massive deaths and ultimately accelerated the retreat (often referred to as surrender) of the Biafrans.
Let it not be forgotten that Britain enforced this total air, land and sea blockade against #Biafrans under intense bombardment with Russian-made fighter and bomber jets piloted by Arab mercenaries, who already had the animosity of Biafrans being the impediment to their total Islamization of Africa, for political, religious, economic, and social control.
So, clearly, the story or the observation of the devastating impact of that British-enforced food blockade always keeps every Biafran on the edge whenever issues related to food scarcity or security are mentioned.
Again, when the genocide against Biafrans was suspended in 1970, The British government, under the cloak of the Nigerian government, shifted the genocide to another phase and dimension. They moved the concentration of food production to northern Nigeria by channeling all the resources for food production northwards and soon began the fallacious narrative that basic food items could only come from the north.
This false narrative gained roots by seemingly appearing to possess some validity, given that almost all the basic food items, including yams, for which Igbos had always been known, came almost entirely from the northern part of Nigeria.
Even at a time, because of the entrenched false narrative about almost every basic food item coming from the north, the "street urchins and nomads from the Northern part of Nigeria", who knew nothing about food production, began to threaten Biafrans (Igbos) about cutting off their food supply and having them return to the Wilson-Gowon-Awolowo starvation era.
Apart from the aggregation of all the other factors, perhaps it was this threat of bringing back the blockade days that sparked off the imminence of the reality of the glaring jeopardy of remaining on the fence concerning the pursuit of food security, as is being spearheaded by IPOB leadership represented by the Directorate of State, DOS.
What are, therefore, the imperatives or matters arising from this campaign?
First, it must not be forgotten that whoever is surrounded by enemies is ALWAYS cautious or precautionary about his life.
This being the case, it will amount to mere foolhardiness on Biafrans to be dictated to about how food, which is the engine room of existence, should be available to them.
Again, with ardent heed paid to the call to grow food in any scale and form, it has been confirmed that the crops, which we were lied to don't grow in Igbo land, are seen to even appear more prosperous in Igbo land (Biafra land) than anywhere else.
Equally, because Biafrans have heeded the call for expanded food growth, an imperative is the innovative approach to food production. Who could have believed or known that large quantities of yams could have been grown in cement bags, utilizing every insignificant portion of space? Who could have known that research could lead to the discovery of faster and larger yielding cassava?
Would it not ordinarily be baffling, if not unimaginable, for some categories of vegetables and fruits like tomato, cucumber, watermelon, carrot, onions, various categories of pepper, mushrooms, garlic, ginger, beetroot, cabbage, different types of potato, etc, to have been thought about as growing in Biafra land (Igbo land)? But now, all these have been confirmed to yield significantly, if not in greater percentage in Biafraland than anywhere else.
What shall we say about animal rearing or animal husbandry?
This campaign by the leadership of IPOB, that is, DOS, has revived the old tradition of livestock rearing, which was lost as a result of the vicious, malicious and fallacious campaign about these things not prospering in Biafra land. For sure, now, the rearing of native cows (Efi Igbo), native goats (Ewu Igbo), native chicken (ọkụkọ Igbo), and various categories of native animals, including the so-called Agric ones, is preoccupying the agenda of every Biafran.
In conclusion, it must be stated without equivocation, and emphatically too, that one of the inescapable imperatives of the call to return to the farm by DOS, which also happens to be the anchor point of the whole campaign, is that Biafrans can't afford to be at the mercy of the enemy in terms of their food supply. On that basis, Biafrans have taken up the challenge of producing their own food, irrespective of the percentage contribution it makes to their overall food supply.
Incidentally, and positively too, the efforts to produce food and make Biafrans self-reliant are not only phenomenally yielding abundantly, but equally as encouraging as it is inspiring, for which Biafrans are more than grateful for the initiatives through the leadership of IPOB, that is, DOS. This is a wake-up call for Biafrans. Biafrans say that if one knows how to pound, let him pound in the mortar; if he doesn't know how to pound, let him pound on the ground, as one word is enough for the wise.
Written by
Mmadụ Awụchukwu
Edited by
Obiageli Mboma
FOR Lagos State Media Team
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