BIAFRA: WHAT IS SLAVERY AND WHAT IS FREEDOM?

Slavery is a state of bondage. It is the complete massacre of self-will and full restriction on self-dependence and achievements. In slavery, the slave is owned as a property and used at will, for anything and he has no say in the matters that concern him or another. Freedom is best explained as being born free without shackles, restrictions and with full rights to living life and enjoying amenities provided by nature and man-made inventions for the purpose of longevity and prosperity.

A circumstance where a people who once lived according to their likes and desires are forcibly made to serve cruel masters and obey only their hideous dictates, is called slavery. Mental torture, psychological and physical tortures are all components of slavery. One loses the right to live his life as desired because dreadful rules and regulations benefiting the master alone supersedes personal needs. A master lords over his subjects and makes his presence felt. His subjects must bow to his yearnings whether favorable or not.

As late as the 19th century, there are records of business transactions between a people called Biafrans and exploring missionaries. Nowhere was ever known as Nigeria. There was the Bight of Biafra but which has remained omitted after the Biafran war. The cunning slave drivers came pretending to trade and help develop the area, they used petty items such as mirrors, whiskeys, etc, to trick our people, thus slavery and slave trade began. It is very factual because many were taken away from their roots, hence the Negros in America. The point is, who were the people residing along these coasts? Who traded slaves there? History will always vindicate the just.

Alternative title: Bight of Bonny, written by the editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, The Bight of Biafra, also called the Bight of Bonny - the bay of the Atlantic Ocean on the western coast of Africa, extending east, then south, for 370 miles (600 km) from the Nun outlet of the Niger River (Nigeria) to Cape Lopez (Gabon). The innermost bay of the Gulf of Guinea, it is bounded by southeastern Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and northwestern Gabon and receives portions of the Niger and Ogooué river discharges and also the Cross, Sanaga, and many other rivers.

Within the Bight of Biafra are several islands, the largest of which is Bioko, belonging to Equatorial Guinea. Major ports on the bay are Malabo (on Bioko), Port Harcourt and Calabar (Nigeria), Douala(Cameroon), Bata (Equatorial Guinea), and Libreville and Port-Gentil (Gabon). Between the 16th and the 19th century, the Bight of Biafra was the scene of extensive slave-dealing operations, based mainly on the ports of Brass, Bonny, Opobo, and Old Calabar (now Calabar) in Nigeria. By the 1830s, the palm oil trade had surpassed slave trading, and it has maintained its importance. Petroleum, discovered in the late 1950s in the Niger River delta, is a major economic resource.

" The coming of the British changed lives, fates and brought about wars and deceit (Jaja of Opobo) Gradually, they crippled opposition and forcefully rearranged boundaries and people of different cultures and beliefs into an ectopic pregnancy that has remained problematic since 1914 (20th century) till date. All through the years, hatred has reigned, disagreements have reoccurred, killings are constant in this undesirable contraption. Past efforts for emancipation were gruesomely crushed by all nooks and crannies. But freedom is worth fighting for and attaining. It has become expedient to rightly rid ourselves of the chains of slavery. Freedom is our fundamental human right. The Nigerian government is applying the ancient method used by the former slave drivers but it will not work as it never did then. This is the Biafran era. A time to find our roots and nothing is stopping us.


By Victoria. O. C. Agangan
Edited by KeneChukwu HalleluYah Okekenta 
Published By Nwosu C.S
For Biafra Writers