France Is Burn!ng, and Ndị Igbo Must Understand Why Britain Is Silent

France Is Burning, and Ndị Igbo Must Understand Why Britain Is Silent

France is burning because of the high cost of living, and pr0testers are setting things on fi*re. The pr0test in France was inevitable. France survives on the resources it gets from West Africa, and that is why it suppressed the region for many years, until Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali liberated themselves. France has done many things to regain control of these countries and has failed, largely because of Russia’s backing of them.

We must understand that France and Britain have long lived off what they gain from West Africa. Things have become too hard for them, and there is a lot they can no longer maintain because these countries liberated themselves.

I want Ndị Igbo to understand what is going on. It is not ordinary that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is a British citizen, and yet Nigeria has committed crime after crime against him. It began with extraordinary rendition, which is against international law. It continued with the sentencing of the IPOB leader under dead laws, and then with sending him to Sokoto, far from where the case was tried and far from his region. Through all of this, the British government kept quiet.

We must ask ourselves why they kept quiet, and we must pin down not just any answer but the right answer. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu leads a movement that wants to divide Nigeria, and that division is against the British government. Nigeria was a British construct, built in such a way that Britain could control it without Nigeria ever growing. Divide Nigeria and the North will work, the Yorùbá will work, and the East will rise to compete with the world powers. Britain does not want that, because it would lose control of Nigeria. You cannot control a successful people, but you can control a suffering people. So they give Nigeria incompetent leaders who depend on them, which is the easiest way to control a people. They did it with Buhari and they are doing it with Tinubu.

This is why ndị Igbo must be wary of manipulation from the West. They need your resources, but they do not need your growth. Youth growth is against their interest. To save ourselves, we must get a majority of ndị Igbo to understand that our salvation does not lie in one Nigeria. It lies in its division. Nigeria would have worked had an honest regional divide occurred, but even that is anti-British government and anti-Fulani. They have pushed a lot of propaganda to the world that the division of Nigeria will cause unrest in West Africa.

We must keep pushing until the British government realises the impossibility of keeping Nigeria one.

Elochukwu Ohagi, Philosopher, Teacher and Activist, 2026.