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FREEDOMWAYS         THIRD QUARTER 1969
the minorities and autonomy 
The problem of minority ethnic groups seeking a measure of autonomy through the creation of separate states within a unified federation of states forming one united country had been for a long time one of the most pressing political problems in the nation. As has been said before, because of the insidious influence of foreign politics on the political life of the country prior to the military era this was one of the most vocal and visible symbols of the alienation between the masses, who sought this type of unity, and the politicians who sought to subjugate the labor and political forces represented by these demands in order to control the flow of foreign wealth stolen from the nation into their own pockets. The Federal Government under Major General Gowon addressed itself to this problem with remarkable zeal and after a series of pulsating meetings in Lagos it was decided that eight new states should be created in the nation bringing the total to twelve. This had the effect of equalizing the ratio of mass representation on the Councils of Central Government in the Federation and thus ensuring the almost immediate elimination of "domination from the top" which ojukwu professed to fear. But when the minority forces in this own region welcomed the lagos move Ojukwu, prodded openly by foreign backers, refused to heed their demands for a re-thinking of his position in the crisis and instead declared immediate secession from the Federation, thus coercing more than six million of the people under his normal rule into a state of siege. These are the facts of the start of the war and they form the basis of any true understanding of the present state of the crisis that of a benevolent civil war waged from a position of unity by the Federal Military Government of Nigeria, and resisted from a position of division and neo-colonialism support by the secessionists led by Odumegwu Ojukwu. 
All that I have said so far is a prelude to the message that I wish to impart to all black activists on the side of the forces that seek self-sufficiency and consequent self-determination for black men within the non-white community of this world. We cannot, in the light of the true political implications of this war, afford to make decisions or utterances harmful to the cause of unity in this nation or helpful to the forces of division in it. To do so will be to condone the intervention of our emotional and economic enemies in any internal and fraternal quarrel that we might have. As I said at the start of my message, the Nigerian Civil War is one of the most significant symbols of our struggle against such intervention today. The secessionists 

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