Is the BBC biased against Biafra? In the first of a series of articles, author Herbert Ewke-Ekwer argues that the BBC treats activists seeking Scottish independence with far more privilege than Biafran activists, and by doing so, privileges Nigeria as a state.
Biafra and Scotland, different kinds of independence movements?
The British Broadcasting Corporation describes Scottish people in pursuit of independence from the United Kingdom as “Scottish nationalists”.
Any researcher can find this characterisation by examining the BBC’s well-stacked library of broadcasts and publications on the subject.
This is why Alex Salmond, for instance, would be designated as “Scottish nationalist” or “former Scottish nationalist leader,” and Nicola Surgeon is described as “Scottish nationalist” or “Scottish nationalist leader.”
Democratically chose to join with together with England
Scots number 5 million in population and had joined England in 1707 out of their own choice (democratically) to form the UK.
As the latter subsequently conquered most of the world to build the British Empire, Scots played a critical role in the enterprise that belied their much smaller population.
This ensured that they, now a constituent nation of the UK, became crucial beneficiaries of the stupendous harvest returns of global conquests and occupations.
As a result, Scots indeed became the most unlikely candidates in 2014 who would wish to declare their independence from this 300-year-old immensely fruitful union.
The BBC, on the other hand, categorises the 50 million people of Biafra, who have sought their independence from Nigeria since the 29 May 1966 launch date of the Igbo genocide as “secessionists”.
In tune, the BBC describes Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the founding leader of the Biafran independence movement, as a “secessionist leader” – a tag it wouldn’t dare use to refer to either Alex Salmond or Nicola Surgeon!
Similarly, whilst the BBC utilises “secessionist” to refer to hundreds of thousands of Biafran demonstrators across Biafra and elsewhere in the world currently involved in historic peaceful marches for independence.
It wouldn’t dare employ such a term in describing those Scots who voted “Yes” during the September 2014 referendum on Scottish independence.
The latter are cited as “nationalists” or “supporters of Scottish independence”.
Choice: primary vs privilege
Some would probably wonder what differences the BBC’s choice of terminologies makes: aren’t these terms broadly synonymous – indicating the desire of two peoples, Biafrans and Scots, to declare their rights for self-determination or independence from Nigeria and Britain respectively?
No, not totally, except to the cursory observer. In the Scottish example, the BBC is almost straining itself to the hilt to emphasise that the Scots are the primary, actuating agency in deciding to exercise this right for freedom from Britain.
If one is unaware that the United Nations regards this right for all peoples as inalienable, the thrust of the BBC’s coverage on the Scots has surely demonstrated this as such to its listeners, viewers and readers.
In contrast to the Scots, the BBC’s approach to Biafran independence or self-determination couldn’t be starker.
Here, by harping on its worn “secessionist” signature, and the latter’s evidently overarching territorial “decoupling” overtones, the BBC privileges the Nigeria state.
Nigeria is a state the conqueror Britain imposed arbitrarily on scores of subjugated African nations and peoples in the aftermath of the pan-European leaders’ infamous 1884-1885 Berlin-conquest conference on Africa.
Is Nigeria a colonial holdover?
Nigeria is arguably the most notorious of Africa’s “Berlin states”. This is the state that carried out the Igbo genocide, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970, the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest state, murdering 3.1 million Igbo or one-quarter of this nation’s population.
The genocide inaugurated Africa’s current age of pestilence during which 12 million additional Africans have been murdered in further genocide in Rwanda (1994), Zaïre/Democratic Republic of the Congo (variously, since the late 1990s) and Darfur/Nuba Mountains/South Kordofan (all in Sudan since 2003) and in other wars in Africa.
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author of Longest Genocide – Since 29 May 1966
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