Cheers Obioma! The history and legacy of Biafra are bigger than any one individual. Biafra in three short years created a transformative, developmental, scientific and technological human capital which Nigeria has been incapable of reproducing more than 40 years after the war, and people are here talking about an inconsequential matter. That’s an equivalent of the owner of a burning house who rather than persevere to put off the fire, prefers, instead, to purse rats in his burning house (Igbo proverb). I haven’t read Achebe’s new book. But the reviews I’ve seen indicate that it contains many issues strategic to understanding Nigeria’s past, present and future, including the ingenuity and creativity of Biafran scientists, as well as the incompetence and cluelessness of Nigerian leaders mentioned by Obioma. What if debaters in this forum eventually conclude that Awolowo was a friend or foe of Igbos? Will that put food on the table for the majority of Nigerians who live under $2.00 a day? Will it repair the lost glories of the educational system, an educational system that created Achebe and many in this forum but has been disfigured beyond recognition in present day Nigeria? Will it accelerate industrialization and reduce the destructive rate of unemployment that has wasted generations of Nigerians? Will it reduce the humongous rate of corruption? Will it bring about a sense of collective consciousness that unites a nation and prevents emergence, escalation and consolidation of militant groups? Will it change all the broken promises about modernizing Nigeria’s infrastructure? Will it engender interethnic trust and the resultant national social capital that have been found to facilitate national development? Will it motivate Nigerian scientists to perform socially relevant science as occurred in Biafra, but impossible to replicate in Nigeria? The list of substantive interrogatories go and on. If the answer to these questions is “NO’ which to my mind is the correct answer, then keep on chasing rats while the house burns.
Speaking from the vantage point of one who has done some work on Biafra, see Ukaegbu, C.C. “Lessons from Biafra: The Structuration of Socially Relevant Science in the Research & Production Directorate” Social Forces, 2005. You will see that debating whether Awolowo was a friend or foe of Igbos is an inconsequential debate relative to the legacy of Biafra and therefore a distraction from the continuing nagging issue of the Nigerian question. Can we therefore examine Achebe’s book holistically bearing in mind his social diagnosis and social prognosis for Nigeria? Of course, in a milieu of academic freedom, people are free to choose to put off the fire and save the house or choose to chase rats while the house burns.
Chikwendu Christian Ukaegbu (Professor, Sociology of Development)
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Nnaemeka, Obioma G
Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2012 9:45 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Awolowo
Frankly, I am outraged by the “discussion” of Professor Achebe’s recent work that is going on here. It is clear to me that some contributors have not read There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra. The book is NOT about Chief Awolowo. Some contributors have gone off on their polemicist high horse sabre rattling and twirling in frenzy because Professor Achebe dared to mention Chief Awolowo’s name. P-L-E-A-S-E. Achebe has written an important work that invites serious engagement with issues that range from the despair and commitment of intellectuals in national crises to the Western provocation of and interventions in African conflicts. The myopic, reductionist reading (‘non reading’) that is going on here is a disservice to Professor Achebe’s illuminating and artful work. The work offers an opportunity for us to engage in a robust debate about the tragedy of a Nigeria that is currently veering off the cliff under an incompetent, clueless leadership.
Obioma Nnaemeka, PhD
Chancellor's Distinguished Professor
President, Association of African Women Scholars (AAWS)
Dept. of World Languages & Cultures Phone: (317) 278-2038
Cavanaugh Hall 543A 317-274-7611/0062 (messages)
Indiana University Fax: (317) 278-7375
425 University Boulevard E-mail: nnaemeka@iupui.edu
Indianapolis, IN 46202 USA
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Segun
Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2012 6:35 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Awolowo
My position is that there was no genocide committed against the Ibos during the civil war. It was an unnecessary war triggered by egoistic Ibo leaders in the army. Wars are fought in order to have peace. We can use any means to win the war insofar as it is just and morally defensible. In the case of Biafra it was a just war because to keep Nigeria one was a task that must be done.
Anyone can hold on to any unfounded truth of what was said or was not said by Pa Awolowo. If an interviewed that was conducted in 1983 which anyone who cares can go to any of our older university achieves to find the records fails to do so only to sit down to write and deny an authentic record and spread falsehood which Achebe did in his book, There was a country is nothing but sensational without any historical fact in it.
Awo was committed to the unity and oneness of this country and he left behind the legacy of quality of leadership that is unparalleled in the history of this country. His education and welfare policies remained indelible in our psyche and today he remains the only leader of a reference point.
The Ibos who are busy bodies who have been reeling under the psychological defeat of the civil war are bad losers. They are blaming someone who saved them rather than accept blame for the cause of the death of about 2 million Ibos. They should also accept the blame for killing over 300,000 Nigerian soldiers. Their parents and the loved ones cannot explain the pain and agony of the losses.
We must put the Biafra war behind us and move on because it was a dark spot on our collective history.
Prof. Segun Ogungbemi.
Sent from my iPhone
On Oct 8, 2012, at 9:06 PM, Biko Agozino <bikozino@yahoo.com> wrote:
Brother Kole,
Thanks for asking. Awo does not bear the sole responsibility for what happened before the war (the killing of Yoruba by Yoruba during operation wetie and the jailing of Awo for treason), the coup by young majors who adored him who planned to impose him as president, the genocidal war over which he presided as the finance minister, or the aftermath that saw the economic liquidation of Igbo assets under his direction.
The responsibility is for all Nigerians, including you and I. We must strive to learn the correct lessons or we will continue to see such barbaric acts as the massacre of students over who knows what, the endless bombing of churches and public places as deliberate acts of terror, the lynching of university students over cell phones, kidnapping for ransom and the reckless looting of the economy by politicians who lack any sense of patriotism.
I expressed doubts as to whether Awo actually said what he was reported to have said at a Townhall meeting in Abeokuta in 1983 during the election of that year that ended with operation Owoboriomo in which the supporters of Akin Omoboriowo were attacked and killed by his Yoruba brothers for not supporting Awo.
Even if Awo said all that in his old age, the younger generation should still see the folly in the policy of 'starvation as a legitimate weapon of war' and condemn it as a war crime. Genocide is never justifiable under any circumstances and so all Nigerians should condemn the Igbo genocide in order to avoid another fratricidal war in which friends will kill friends and brothers will kill brothers again. We must unreservedly condemn genocide even if those killed were not our friends or family for we are all part of the human family and any wrongs to some will inevitably rub off on others.
The important question you are asking may be answered by Achebe's book. However, you should send similar questions to all the intellectuals who kept quiet all along despite their roles cheering the genocidal army along. Ask them what they did during the war.
Biko
--- On Mon, 8/10/12, Oluwatoyin Ade-Odutola <kole2@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Oluwatoyin Ade-Odutola <kole2@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Awolowo
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Date: Monday, 8 October, 2012, 14:58
Hello all,
Please can I ask a question about the civil war I know very little about BUT I feel the full impact of the war on my life and that of my friends. I have lived in fear that should there be another war, the deepest pain I would feel on my way out of the world is to be shot (and killed) by one of my friends.
In any case, my question is: Was the war about Awolowo, what he said or did not say? Can a war narrative still stand without Awo's contribution to it?
Who else made mistakes before the war, during the war and after the war
Did I hear Awo's name before the war? Awo's name during the war, and Awo's name after the war.
I ask these questions from a TOTALLY ignorant position. Be gentle on my lack of knowledge. I want to be better educated
Kole
--- On Mon, 10/8/12, Biko Agozino <bikozino@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Biko Agozino <bikozino@yahoo.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Awolowo Was No 'Friend of Ours'
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Date: Monday, October 8, 2012, 2:17 PM
Awolowo Was No 'Friend' of Ours
By Biko Agozino
I eagerly await the arrival of my copy of Achebe’s personal historiography of Biafra with my mouth salivating in anticipation, given the spoilers already raising storms of debates. The charged debate over Achebe’s book gives Nigeria enough reason to reverse the dumb policy of Obasanjo who banned the teaching of history in Nigerian schools under the excuse that history is a yeye subject that does not lead to employment. Dalu (thank you), Nna anyi (our father) Achebe, you will live life until the endless time! I will wait until I have read every word and reflected on it before I comment on your magnum opus.
Meanwhile ... In response to this welcome addition to the cleansing of the historical conscience of Nigeria by Chinua Achebe, some misguided and misinformed miscreants have dredged up what looks like a fabrication, claiming that Awolowo regarded himself as a friend of the Igbo. The strange document lacks any of the clarity of the sage and digresses from a serious discussion of the haunting responsibility for genocide to the trivial mythology of fish as an astrological sign. That apparent forgery smell foul like a dead fish all right for the following reasons (follow link to read on):
http://massliteracy.blogspot.com/2012/10/awolowo-was-no-friend-of-ours.html--
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