Everybody is interested in the ongoing Russian military operation in Ukraine as such people from around the globe have been debating and expressing their opinions for and against Russia or Ukraine concerning the conflict.
As should be expected, Nigeria and Nigerians are not left out in the ongoing global conversation on Ukraine. Nigeria’s interest in the Ukrainian war is informed by a number of factors:
Firstly, as a former colony of the Great Britain, Nigeria whether for good or for bad has always allied itself to the West on issues of international politics and since Britain is a major actor in the ongoing conflict, it is not surprising that Nigeria is supporting the West. For instance, Nigeria was among the many nations that voted to condemn Russia in the last United Nation General Assembly session held on the conflict in Ukraine.
Secondly, the war in Ukraine has the potential of affecting and reconfiguring global politics and economy and since Nigeria is a regional superpower and top African oil producer, whatever happens in Ukraine is most likely going to affect Nigeria both politically and economically.
Thirdly, Nigeria has a large population of students studying in Ukraine. The safety of these students and how to evacuate them out of danger has been a major concern for the Nigerian Government. There have been many batches of Nigerian evacuees from Ukraine and the Federal Government of Nigeria has been so generous as to make $100 available to each of the evacuees to cushion the effect of their displacement.
Consequently, the sentiment of Nigeria, both as a government, as a people is with Ukraine and the war has been condemned by many well-meaning Nigerians as a brutal attack on the Ukraine’s sovereignty and a flagrant violation of international law.
However, there is a section of Nigerians who are solidly behind the Russian invasion. The activities of this pro-Moscow group is various obvious on social media especially on Facebook where they have written articles upon articles and made numerous comment on posts both to eulogize Russia’s military might and to justify the morality of the Ukrainian operation.
What has baffles many people, including my humble self is why anybody is his right sense will be supporting the brutal military operation in Ukraine; an operation which has killed thousands including women and children and that has displaced and rendered millions homeless. This worry is what prompted the interest in this write-up and I think, the interest has paid an amazing dividends. Let’s see.
Why Pro-Biafrans are Pro-Moscow on Ukraine
The Russian Narrative
In the months leading up to invasion of Ukraine, Moscow had amassed thousands of Russian special forces and sophisticated military asserts on the Ukrainian border. Thousands of troops were also sent to Belarus to train and hold military drills with their Belarusian counterparts.
In the face of these aggressive and provocative military maneuvers, Western intelligence warned that Moscow has concluded plans to invade Ukraine to topple the government in Kyiv, an allegation Moscow vehemently denied.
However, when President Putin eventually authorizes military action against Ukraine, he coached the authorization in the language of humanitarian intervention. In Putin’s wording, the two breakaway regions in Eastern Ukraine: Donetsk and Luhansk have been subjected to constant war crimes perpetuated by the Ukrainian side for the past several years. The action of the Russian military according to Putin therefore is to disarm and de-Nazify Ukraine to prevent it from committing such war atrocities against its own people. This is also the reason Putin reorganized the two breakaway territories as independent states.
How President Putin Became the Hero of Biafran Agitators
Going by their comments on social media and the number of articles the have written to justify these comments, it is obvious that Biafran agitators see a hero in President Putin of Russia; actually, not their hero but a hero they never had. Let us look at some reasons that inform this way of reasoning.
Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk and the Atrocities of the Nigerian State against Biafra
The first reason is that these agitators are able to identify what they have gone through and what they are still going through in Nigeria with what the people of the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk are going through in the hand of the Ukrainian Government. For the agitators, in their case, no one came to their rescue and the Nigeria Government massacred more than 3 million of their people with weapons supplied by the Great Britain. The people of Donetsk and Luhansk are not as unlucky as Biafrans, they have a hero standing up for them against the war criminals from Ukraine and that hero is President Putin of Russia.
The Great Britain has Biafran Bloods on its Hand
Biafran agitators see what is going on today in Ukraine as a repeat of what happened more than 50 years ago in Biafra. In that event, Biafra was agitating against discrimination and genocide meted to it by the Nigerian state. Like the people of Donetsk and Luhansk, Biafrans were pushed to the point that they had no option than to seek a separate existence from Nigeria. They would have succeeded in that struggle but not for the Great Britain that pumped in offensive weapons used to bomb Biafra into submission.
Today the history of what happened in Biafra would have repeated itself for the people of Donetsk and Luhansk. British and American weapons are pouring into Ukraine to destroy and bomb the people Donetsk and Luhansk into submission. Only one man is standing up to this Western aggression and that man is President Putin.
What this analysis portrays, at least here in Nigeria, is that the side one supports in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine is determined by who one see as the aggressor and the victim.
Many Nigerians who support Ukraine see Russia as the aggressor. However, as this investigation has shown, there is a segment of Nigeria that sees Ukraine as the aggressor and their case also appears cogent.
