What would you say to the Founding Fathers who gathered in Philadelphia to craft the Declaration of Independence knowing that it would mean war with England? Would you have told them to wait, to keep trying diplomacy, or to wait for England to leave them alone? Would you support their taking up arms to protect their people and their rights? Thank God, they justified and supported the war for independence that made America free.
While the West is primarily focused on ISIS securing a beachhead in Syria and Iraq for their self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate united under Sharia Law, Africa has been a target of the extremists’ dream of a unified Africa under Islamic control.Nnamdi Kanu, the Director of Radio Biafra, is the world-wide voice for the indigenous people of Biafra (IPOB) in the south and southeast of Nigeria.
They remember the 1967-1970 Biafra-Nigeria Civil War that resulted in the genocide of over 3 million IPOB Christians. Once again, they’re weary of seeing their women raped, their churches burned, and their villages terrorized by buses of Muslim terrorists/cattle herdsmen vandalizing their farms.
The IPOB are ready to defend themselves. To the largely Christian population in Biafra, the concept of a Holy War is not a theoretical discussion; it is a matter of survival and freedom from the Islamic Caliphate that is sweeping the Middle East and Africa.
While the West is primarily focused on ISIS securing a beachhead in Syria and Iraq for their self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate united under Sharia Law, Africa has been a target of the extremists’ dream of a unified Africa under Islamic control.
The brazen attacks on Christians and moderate Muslims by Boko Haram have been happening for years. Only the reported abduction 200 young Nigerian women has awakened the western media. The comments of Boko Haram’s leader, Imam Abubakar Shekau, speaks of their frightening mission:
“You infidels of the world, you have met a trouble, we must follow Allah, and you should die with bitterness. Brethren cut out infidels from their necks, brothers you should capture slaves; just because I took girls in western school they are worried. I said they should even desert the school, they should go and marry. Nonsense, I am the one that captured your girls and I will sell them in the market. I have my own market of selling people; it is the owner that instructed me to sell. Yes, I will sell the girls people, I am selling the girls like Allah said until we soak the ground of Nigeria with infidels blood and so called Muslims contradicting Islam. After we have killed, killed, killed and get fatigue and wondering on what to do with smelling of their corpses, smelling of Obama, Bush, Putin and Jonathan worried us then we will open prison and be imprisoned the rest. Infidels have no value. It is Jonathan’s daughter that I will imprison; nothing will stop this until you convert. If you turn to Islam then you will be saved.”
When Britain laid out the borders in Africa for the breakup of its empire, countries were not formed to help build viable nations. Nigeria was formed as a dysfunctional colony that combined naturally competing peoples in a way that would sow perpetual discord and allow Western companies to take advantage of the natural resources they treasured.
The demand for the independence of Biafra is far from new. In March 2008, 145 countries voted to support the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. President Obama endorsed UNDRIP in 2010.
The people of Biafra want independence and are asking for help around the world. The IPOB can trace their roots in Judeo-Christian heritage to the lineage of Jacob, one of the founding patriarchs of both faith communities.
The fight for Biafra independence provides a tangible way to thwart the drive for an Islamic caliphate in Africa. It’s time once again to support a people whose time for independence has come. It’s not our fight, but, with UN justification, it’s a fight we should support.
http://www.vcstar.com/opinion/columnists/terry-paulson/paulson-fighting-for-biafra-independence_55683149
