Ahiara Declaration
Encyclopedia
Biafra
Biafra, officially the Republic of Biafra, was a secessionist state in south-eastern Nigeria that existed from 30 May 1967 to 15 January 1970, taking its name from the Bight of Biafra . The inhabitants were mostly the Igbo people who led the secession due to economic, ethnic, cultural and religious...
and delivered as a speech by Biafran President Emeka Ojukwu
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu was a Nigerian military officer and politician.Ojukwu served as the military governor of the Eastern Region of Nigeria in 1966, the leader of the breakaway Republic of Biafra from 1967 to 1970 and a leading Nigerian politician from 1983 to 2011, when he died, aged...
in the Biafra town of Ahiara
Ahiara
Ahiara is an Igbo city located in Mbaise, Imo State, Nigeria. The people are respected for their ingenuity and diplomacy. The city stands about 16 miles from Owere and Umuahia in either directions...
on June 1, 1969.
Background
After a series of pogroms in which people from the former Eastern Region of Nigeria living in other parts of that country were massacred between 1966 and 1967, the region seceded in 1967 and proclaimed an independent Republic of BiafraBiafra
Biafra, officially the Republic of Biafra, was a secessionist state in south-eastern Nigeria that existed from 30 May 1967 to 15 January 1970, taking its name from the Bight of Biafra . The inhabitants were mostly the Igbo people who led the secession due to economic, ethnic, cultural and religious...
. A bitter war ensued as Nigeria fought to foil the secession of the oil-rich region. After three years of war and the loss of more than two million lives, the nascent republic lost its struggle for independence and was reabsorbed into Nigeria in January 1970. The leader of the republic, Oxford-trained General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu was a Nigerian military officer and politician.Ojukwu served as the military governor of the Eastern Region of Nigeria in 1966, the leader of the breakaway Republic of Biafra from 1967 to 1970 and a leading Nigerian politician from 1983 to 2011, when he died, aged...
, went into exile, but later returned to Nigeria in 1983 under special pardon. In 1969 Biafra adopted one of the most progressive national constitutions in Africa at the time. The Constitution or "Principles" drew heavily from traditional communal modes of governance but was also informed by progressive political developments in other parts of the world in the 1960s, and the ideology of "Non-alignment" adopted by several postcolonial states during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. It also provided a platform for the country to criticise the West for its role in the plight of the rest of the world and to set out the ideals of the young nation.
Document
Modeled on TanzaniaTanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
n President Julius Nyerere
Julius Nyerere
Julius Kambarage Nyerere was a Tanzanian politician who served as the first President of Tanzania and previously Tanganyika, from the country's founding in 1961 until his retirement in 1985....
's 1967 Arusha Declaration
Arusha Declaration
The Arusha Declaration was made by Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere on 5 February 1967, outlining the principles of Ujamaa to develop the nation's economy...
, it was one of multiple documents drafted by Biafra's National Guidance Committee, a body including renowned author Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe
Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe popularly known as Chinua Achebe is a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic...
. The declaration criticized corruption in both Nigeria and Biafra, as well as imperialism on the part of outside countries, and encouraged patriotism among the Biafrans.
According to Alexis Heraclides in her book The Self-Determination of Minorities in International Politics, the declaration signaled a shift to a more politically radical phase in Biafra's short history. General Ojukwu lambasted Britain, and in particular the "Anglo-Saxon
Anglosphere
Anglosphere is a neologism which refers to those nations with English as the most common language. The term can be used more specifically to refer to those nations which share certain characteristics within their cultures based on a linguistic heritage, through being former British colonies...
branch of [the white] race", for having repeatedly "sinned against the world" in the form of numerous genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
s, including that of the Biafran people:
For two years we have been subjected to a total blockade. We all know how bitter, bloody and protracted the First and Second World Wars were. At no stage in those wars did the white belligerents carry out a total blockade of their fellow whites. In each case where a blockade was imposed, allowance was made for certain basic necessities of life in the interest of women, children and other non-combatants. Ours is the only example in recent history where a whole people have been so treated. What is it that makes our case different? Do we not have women, children and other non-combatants? Does the fact that they are black women, black children and black non-combatants make such a world of difference?
The tract encourages the Biafran people to persist in their efforts, assuring them of the moral value of their sacrifices. Ojukwu emphasizes the difference between this revolution and other revolutions, in that the world seems to be unified against their cause; economic and political interests, as well as racist indifference to the suffering of black-skinned noncombatants, are the especial challenges of the Biafran movement. The "Nigerianism" against which they were struggling was merely a system of opportunism and exploitation:
Our struggle has far-reaching significance. It is the latest recrudescence in our time of the age-old struggle of the black man for his full stature as man. We are the latest victims of a wicked collusion between the three traditional scourges of the black man - racism, Arab-Muslim expansionism and white economic imperialismEconomic imperialismEconomic imperialism in contemporary economics refers to economic analysis of seemingly non-economic aspects of life, such as crime, law, the family, prejudice, tastes, irrational behavior, politics, sociology,culture, religion, war, and science and research.Its emergence has been attributed...
. Playing a subsidiary role is Bolshevik Russia seeking for a place in the African sun. Our struggle is a total and vehement rejection of all those evils which blighted Nigeria, evils which were bound to lead to the disintegration of that ill-fated federation. Our struggle is not a mere resistance - that would be purely negative. It is a positive commitment to build a healthy, dynamic and progressive state, such as would be the pride of black men the world over...
...Since in the thinking of many white powers a good, progressive and efficient government is good only for whites, our view was considered dangerous and pernicious: a point of view which explains but does not justify the blind support which these powers have given to uphold the Nigerian ideal of a corrupt, decadent and putrefying society. To them genocide is an appropriate answer to any group of black people who have the temerity to attempt to evolve their own social system.
When the Nigerians violated our basic human rights and liberties, we decided reluctantly but bravely to found our own state, to exercise our inalienable right to self-determination as our only remaining hope for survival as a people. Yet, because we are black, we are denied by the white powers the exercise of this right which they themselves have proclaimed inalienable. In our struggle we have learnt that the right of self-determination is inalienable, but only to the white man.