REASON BIAFRA IS NON-NEGOTIABLE

Man has his basic needs; therefore, any attempt by any person or group to deny man of his basic needs may lead to conflict, which ultimately leads to violence in this case, man’s inalienable rights should not be denied him. Such rights as enfranchisement, worship, freedom to express oneself and others ought to be promoted in the life of a man.

This analysis based on the deprivation of individual’s or community’s access to the satisfaction of their basic needs, lack of which exacerbates conflict. According to Maslow, Basic human needs include food, shelter, clothing, security, employment etc. and the non-satisfaction of those needs can generate conflict.

Manfred Max-Neef postulates that the inadequate satisfaction of any of the fundamental needs generate pathology. This pathology can be described both in economic and political terms. Economically, the pathology is expressed as unemployment, hyperinflation and poor quality of life. At the political level, the pathology can be expressed as fear or xenophobia, crime or violence, exile, marginalization. At the heart of the needs theory, according to Max-Need is the tension between deprivation and potential, embedding needs based conflicts.

Basic human needs are physical, psychological, social and spiritual without which survival becomes impossible. Recognition, identity, security, autonomy and bonding, are what John Burton (1979) calls non-negotiable human needs.

Human needs are not transmitted by a particular culture or implanted or thought by a local institutions, they just are and they are universal. Every human being is fully aware of them, the articulation of what they represent to each individual, is what is learned. For example, we all get freedom, but how to say “I am free” both verbally or non-verbally can be learned.

Human need are irrepressible, and demanding satisfaction, no matter how a society’s regime may seek to supress or manipulate them. This point is critical in any conflict situation or in any society. States have proved to fail in their attempts to supress the needs of their citizens.

Basic human needs can be satisfied differently; their satisfier differ from context to context, and from person to person. Lack of access, (not necessarily the unavailability of satisfier of need), is a major catalyst to violent expression of a needs-based conflict; this is also a relative deprivation.