As the cliche goes, those who fail to learn from their history are bound to repeat their mistakes. I wonder why some who have been so insensitive and very vocal in denying the atrocities and blaming the victims of that civil war, have been noticeably missing in action when it comes to condemning the recurring series of senseless killings that -God forbid- may prove to be precursors to another wahala.
Okechukwu Ukaga
I expect that Okechukwu Ukaga is referring to me in the post above..
That response from Ukaga is another inadequate understanding of the significance of the 1966 crisis. It is also a response that is not sensitive to my purpose in placing the events of Nigeria of 1966 to 1970 in context and moving away from uncritical interpretations.
As it is, the very questions I tried to draw attention to retain a degree of relevance in the current historical context.
The failure to place history in context or the resolve to selectively remember history leads to its lessons not being learnt.
I also tried to argue that Ikhide's perspectives on Nigerian education are extremist. I will develop that further in another post. Part of that extremism is using the absence of a detailed knowledge of Biafra, important as that is in the context of the Nigerian Civil War, as a measure to dismiss the value of Nigerian education.
The Difference Between the Crises in Nigeria in 1966 and the Crises in Nigeria in 2012
I thank Ukaga, though, for inspiring me to place the current Nigerian crises in relation to those of 1966. I will try to place my perspectives on Biafra in relation to the present context beceause the relevant issues remain germane and are better appreciated in terms of their conjunction within the present historical situation.
To uncritically equate Nigeria of 1966, the killings in Northern Nigeria in 1966, and the killings in Northern Nigeria in 2011- 2012 is very inaccurate. .
Why is it very inaccurate?
It is inaccurate beceause it misreads the causes, scope, actors and goals of the both crises, thereby running the risk of playing into the hands of those who want to ignite ethic and religious strife at all costs.
The 1966 Northern Nigeria massacres were organised at a scale not replicated in the present instance. They were openly executed, with those who killed Southern and Igbo army officers, for example, being well known in the historical records.
The writings of Nowa Omuigui (online) and others describe these carefully.
Secondly, the January 1966 coup and its succeeding events that provoked that reprisal attack from Northern Nigerians represented an issue that was able to galvanise large numbers of people in Northern Nigeria. There has been no such cause galvanising a significant number of Northern Nigerians in the actions of Boko Haram,.
In that coup, the Prime Minister Abubakar Tafewa Balewa and the Sarduana of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, two of the most important of the political elite of Northern Nigeria were slaughtered, the Sarduana with his wife. Members of the Yoruba political elite were also killed. High ranking Yoruba and Northern military officers were also killed. The fact that no member of the Igbo political elite was killed, and except Lt-Col Arthur Unegbe, no other person was killed among the Igbo military elite, in a coup carried out by Igbo, Yoruba and Northern officers and other ranks from the North and beyond, but in which Igbo officers dominated in number and public visibility, raised suspicions. These suspicions were exacerbated by reports that Southerners in the North not only celebrated the coup, at times in parties hosted by army officers, but sold pictures of the dead body of the Sarduana, making particularly painful the killing the Sarduana and his wife his by Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, along with making up a song publicly mocking the Hausa/Fulani, .
The assumption of power by Aguiyi-Ironsi, who was the highest ranking army officer, an Igbo officer at the head of an officer cadre in which Igbos were the most in number, along with promulgation of a decree that concentrated power at the political centre, while he did not try the coup executors with the speed anticipated in relation to the outrage they had performed, is described as precipitating the anti-Southern counter coup, in which Igbos suffered particularly badly, to sum up a horrific pogrom.
The records indicate that some of the Northern army officers acted to stem the tide of murder but without much success.
In the current instance, the religious leadership in the North, and some of the political elite, mindful of the history which people like Ukaga are reading as literally as possible, have moved to stem the claims of religious and ethnic conflict and denounced Boko Haram as a faceless outlaw sect.
Some leaders in the South East have taken similar steps.. Those in the West have urged Northerners in the West to pay no attention to Boko Haram.
That level of cooperation did not exist in 1966.
Boko Haram's Effort to Invoke 1966
As for my response to the current crises, I did post widely, on this and other groups, on January 2, an essay "Boko Haram: Part 1: the Beginning of the End for Boko Haram" arguing that we are seeing the beginning of the end of Boko Haram. So I was not silent on the current killings.
I stated that we are witnessing the beginning of the end of Boko Haram.Their tactics have become predictable. At the level of trying to create rupture in Nigeria, they are not succeeding. They will not succeed. They wont succeed beceause of the self defeating character of faceless terror and beceause they do not have a support base anywhere.
I did state in that essay that the Boko Haram order for Southerrn Nigerians in the North to move back to the South and for the Northerners in the South to move back to the North in 3 days would not work, in spite of Boko Haram's fearsome reputation. I was significantly right. I have not read or heard of Southerners moving from the North in significant numbers. The one Southern region where a significant number of Northerners have made themselves invisible is the East and that might be due more to the actions of an Igbo organisation that demanded that all Muslims should leave the East, than to obedience to Boko Haram. No other region has had such calls coming from its borders, as far as I know.
Whoever Boko Haram are, they will not survive beyond June 2012. I make this statement out of both observation and faith. I see them as already having lost momentum. That 3 day ultimatum was their trump card. No one is taking them seriously as policy changers. Their image has not transcended that of bullies. The best they can do now is sporadic violence. That is horrible enough but that is not the same as making a country obey you.
I have great faith in Nigeria. The country is much more united than people give it credit for.
Moving Towards Biafra in 1966 and Moving Towards Biafra in 2012
Some are calling for the breakup of Nigeria and in that context, the establishment of Biafra.
What is Biafra?
The inability to resolve this question can be described as being behind the fall of Biafra in 1967 to 1970.
It also relates to my conviction that the Biafrans were betrayed by their leadership.
They were betrayed beceause the leadership sold to the followership a vision of Biafra that was different from that which the leadership held. They betrayed the followers beceause they pursued an unsustainable vision of Biafra that proved disastrous for the followership.They, and particularly the Biafran leader, Ojukwu, it seems, then sustained that vision through outright lies, fuelling the vision through the horrendous suffering of Biafrans.
I will elaborate on this grand deception in another post beceause the issue needs to be explained in detail.
I urged Chjidi to outline his Biafra vision because the discrepancy between the Biafra of the followership, the Biafra of the leaders, the Biafra of various factions among the leaders, the Biafra of the various Igbo groups, the Biafra of the various non-Igbo groups and the Biafra of the Nigerian government is at the centre of the failure of Biafra of 1966 to 1970 as a geo-political entity.
Is the Biafra of 2012 a Biafra that stretches from Enugu in the North to Port Harcourt, and the Niger Delta in the South, as in the Biafra map of 1967, an aspiration described by Tony Abolo as a 'geographical contradiction'? Not to talk of the effort to add the Midwest to Biafra through conquest?
If so, such a Biafra will not come to be beceause the Port Harcourt, Niger Delta peoples and the Calabar peoples further inland were divided in their allegiance to Biafra. As far as I I know, there was never a united front among them to belong to Biafra. To the best of my knowedge, all who joined Biafra from their ranks represented only their individual selves.
Since 1970, these people have become increasingly politicised and outspoken.
A strategy used by the Biafran leadership in the 1960s was murder, rape and burning of villages to try to compel these peoples to join Biafra. I dont expect such atrocities this time.
For those, like Nwakamma, who seem not to know of these Biafran atrocities, I am preparing a careful list, with meticulously listed sources, to contribute to providing information that could help us not to repeat or misread history.
If Biafra of 2012 will not include the Port-Harcourt, Calabar and Niger-Delta peoples, what kinds of ageements are to be reached to enable them provide access for Biafra outside the landlocked borders of the Igbo heartland?
What is to be the understanding about Igbo migration, on account of the claim of the compulsion to migrate emerging from inadequate space in Igboland?
Will the Biafra of 2012 be a Biafra that tries to restructure Nigeria in its own image as the Biafran leadership did, early in the war in their capture of the Midwest and the establishment there of a Republic of Benin, followed by a push towards Ibadan and Lagos till the Biafrans were stopped at the decisive battle of Ore? If that move had succeeded, it would have meant that Biafra would have controlled the South-East, the Midwest and had a stronghold in or also controlled the West, having 2/3 of Nigeria in its hands, and isolating the North.
I dont expect such ambitions are on the table this time beceause everyone is alert and most people have become less ambitious.
I am still working on my response to Nwakamma.
thanks
toyin
On 8 January 2012 16:11, Toyin Falola <toyin.falola@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
--Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 10:07:16 -0600Subject:From: Okechukwu Ukaga <ukaga001@umn.edu>Dear Toyin Falola:For some reason I am no longer able to post to the USAAfricaDialogue. So here is one more article about the continuing senseless killing of Christians/Igbos/southerners in Northern Nigeria that you may want to post on the listerve. It is pertinent to note that this is the kind of senseless killing of Igbos in the 60s that eventually led to the first civil war. So Ikhide and others are absolutely correct in suggesting that the Nigerian/Biafra should be part of formal and non-formal education in the country.As the cliche goes, those who fail to learn from their history are bound to repeat their mistakes. I wonder why some who have been so insensitive and very vocal in denying the atrocities and blaming the victims of that civil war, have been noticeably missing in action when it comes to condemning the recurring series of senseless killings that -God forbid- may prove to be precursors to another wahala.Happy New Year!-Okey-------------------------Again, gunmen kill 11 in Adamawa *Atiku, Marwa condemn act *Govt imposes 24-hour curfewWritten by Wale Akintunde, YolaSunday, 08 January 2012It was rain of blood and carnage in Yola, the Adamawa State capital, as about six gunmen around 8pm shot eleven people and unleashed terror on innocent worshippers at the Christ Apostolic Church in Demsawo area of Yola metropolis.Eyewitness account had it that about eleven people, including a pastor, were shot dead by the rampaging gunmen.A relative of one of the victims, Mr. David Molomo confirmed to Sunday Tribune that he lost a brother, one Emmanuel Sunday who was a member of staff of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN). The gunmen also went to a nearby barber's saloon where three others were shot dead.The Friday massacre was the first of its kind in Yola after that of Mubi, the second largest town in Adamawa State where 20 persons were killed by unidentified gunmen.While speaking to newsmen, Pastor Joshua of the Christ Apostolic Church Worldwide, in a reaction to the killing of twelve members of the church on Friday evening at Jimeta-Yola, during an evening worship, said that they were in Yola to see their chairman who was shortly leaving Yola for Jos before the incident took place."We had arrived barely 30 minutes and were having a meeting with our chairman when we heard gunshots and we thought it was the vigilante group. But unknown to us, it was in the church compound," he stated.Pastor Joshua lamented that the church service ended in confusion as the presiding pastor was shot dead while on the pulpit."At the last count, eleven people laid dead and several others were injured", he moaned.When Sunday Tribune visited the Yola Specialist Hospital, a member of staff at the emergency ward said that eleven dead bodies were brought while five others were battling to stay alive.Sunday Tribune also spoke to the Reverend in charge of ECWA Bishara One Demsawo, Reverend Michael Hamman, who said there was need for the government to take immediate steps towards the security of the nation.Contacted for comments, the Police Public Relations Officer in charge of Adamawa Police Command, ASP Altine Daniel confirmed the incident, adding that the police were investigating the matter.It would be recalled that on the same day, many people were killed while organising the funeral of two of their relations who were killed on the previous day in Mubi.Reports had it that the mourners were taken by surprise when three men on a motorcycle opened fire on them, killing and wounding many.Already the state government has imposed a 24-hour curfew on the whole state to calm frayed nerves and also forestall further killings.In a statewide broadcast, the governor of the state,Murtala Nyako, expressed regret over the killings in the state in the past few days. The governor said the state had placed a N25m reward for whoever provides any useful information about the killers.He urged non-indigenes resident in the state not to contemplate leaving the state. He assured them that security agents were on top of the situation.Meanwhile, the governorship candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), General Buba Marwa (rtd), while condemning the act, disclosed that the killings were politically motivated by the ruling government in the state so as to remain in power beyond 2012.Addressing the media on the killings, Marwa who wondered why killings were occurring, with only a few days to the state elections, said "the aim of the ruling government is to further divide the state according to religious lines, between Muslims and Christians, and our great party CPC, and to claim that it is the handiwork of Boko Haram. Unfortunately for the ruling party, Boko Haram which always claims responsibility for its actions did not claim responsibility for this action. This is not a Boko Haram action."Swiftly reacting, the Chief Press Secretary to the Adamawa State government, Alhaji Maija'ma Adamu condemned Marwa's statement, saying that he was only hiding away from being culpable over the crisis in the state.Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has condemned in the strongest terms the latest round of ethnic and religious terrorist attacks in Jigawa, Gombe and in Mubi and Jimeta, Adamawa State, by yet-to-be-identified gunmen.Speaking to newsmen on Saturday evening, shortly on arrival at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, the former Vice President said the killing of 30 innocent Nigerians by bandits was not only criminal and barbaric, but also a dangerous threat to the unity of this country, especially coming two weeks after the terrorist attack on Christian worshippers at the St. Theresa Catholic Church at Madalla on Christmas Day.According to Atiku , the attack on defenceless citizens anywhere carries the risk of polarising the nation and weakening the efforts to take a united stand against terrorists and their evil agenda.He said at a time leaders were making united efforts to find solutions to this mindless and cruel incidents of terrorist violence, some bandits with hideous motives appeared determined to set Nigerians against one another.While Boko Haram had not claimed responsibility for the action, major markets in the state have remained closed follwoing the incidents.Hits: 9600--Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222 (fax)
http://www.toyinfalola.com/
www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa
http://groups.google.com/group/yorubaaffairs
http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
No comments:
Post a Comment