Thank you SK,
I do not know what/who your sources are but it is preposterous to even think not to say believe, that Azikiwe would have or needed to consulted Ojukwu on constitutional matters when Azikiwe had the benefit of some of the best constitutional lawyers in the first republic. I do not know if you know that Ojukwu was never a lawyer and never pretended to be one. You would expect Azikiwe to know that would you not? Ojukwu is well known not to have gotten along with Azikiwe. One of Ojukwu’s more prominent, some say scandalous decisions, as military Governor of Eastern Nigeria was removing Azikiwe as the Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka- a university Azikiwe founded as Premier of Eastern Region, and replacing him with a Hausa-Fulani Ado Bayero (Emir of Kano). That singular act by Ojukwu had no parallel act by any other Military Governors at the time. That act by Ojukwu was a first. It is tradition today and taken for granted. Ojukwu believed in Nigeria more profoundly than many others including his peers and critics whose Agbada, Baban Riga, and Jumpers were and continue to be cut from the cloth the Nigerian flag.
You claim that Ironsi appointing Ojukwu the Military Governor of Eastern Nigeria was compensation for Ojukwu’s counsel to him. I remind you that Hassan Usman Katsina was a Major promoted Lt. Colonel in January 1966, by Ironsi and appointed Military Governor of Northern Nigeria. Northern Nigeria had Lt. Colonels and superior Majors at the time. What was Usman Katsina being compensated for I ask you? Ditto Fajuyi and Johnson in Western Nigeria and Lagos respectively. Many Northern Nigerian Officers held a grudge against Ironsi on account which grudge, might have led some of them to partake in the plot to assassinate Ironsi- their supreme commander.
Gowon was not the superior Lt. Colonel in the Nigeria Army. Ironsi appointed him Chief of Staff Army. Was that compensation for counsel too? Musa Usman (Army Major) was appointed number two at the Air Force over and above superior Majors. Was that compensation for counsel too? Muritala Mohammed was promoted Lt. Colonel by Ironsi (January 1966) and appointed number two at the Army Signal Corp over and above superior Majors. Was that compensation for counsel too? Obasanjo was not promoted Lt. Colonel by Ironsi in January 1966. Was that because he did not counsel Ironsi on some matter?.
You must be aware that there has been disingenuous and fraudulent misrepresentations and revisions of Nigeria’s history. One does not always need a strainer to separate truth from falsehood in the hogwash that is presented as Nigeria’s history.
oa
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Salimonu Kadiri
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2014 2:12 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Oga Ogugua Anunoby , so what if the APC under whatever leadershwins the next presidential election?
Going back to the controversial Federal Election of December 1964, the President, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, refused to call on Abubakar Tafawa Balewa to form a new government. On the advice of Ojukwu, Azikiwe tried to use his authority as Commander in Chief to obtain military and police backing when he wanted to suspend the government, annul the elections and appoint an interim government to conduct new elections. Unfortunately for Azikiwe and Ojukwu, Major General Welby-Everard was still the General Officer Commanding the Nigerian Army. The Armed Forces sought the advice of the Judiciary and they were told that they were under the operational orders of the Prime Minister and not the President whose power was ceremonial.
The coup d'état of 15 January 1966 was designed to be bloody by the plotting Majors but again the plotters were infiltrated by ethnic supremacists who refused to shed the blood of their own tribesmen. The Majors' coup was eventually stolen by Ironsi through the advice of Ojukwu and others. Thus Ojukwu was compensated with appointment as Governor of Eastern Region by Ironsi ahead of his seniors in the army from Eastern Region in the persons of Lt. Colonels W. U. Bassey and Philip Effiong who were commissioned respectively in 1946 and 1956.
From: AnunobyO@lincolnu.edu
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2014 16:47:16 -0500
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Oga Ogugua Anunoby , so what if the APC under whatever leadershwins the next presidential election?
Thank you CH.
Ojukwu was not coup plotter. He did not overthrow any democratically elected government. He did not lead a military junta. He was a believer in constitutional government. He, in my opinion, is not relevant to our conversation.
I get your intimation though. I suspect that it is based on your concern ( I will be disappointed that it is your conviction) that I view your man through the ethnicity prism. I assure you that I do not. I know that you know that the end rarely justifies the means especially when the means are unlawful/illegal and in your man’s case, criminal and treasonable. Wrong is not right because it is informed by good intentions. Masses of innocent people have suffered because of the so-called good intentions of actors especially.
I am surprised by your sweeping generalization about the Igbo man and his conflation as you allege, of “Hausa man” and “Muslim”. I strongly disagree. Every community/society has both its ignorant/uneducated and educated/informed classes. It is not possible that all Igbo men are not familiar with the population geography and history of Nigeria as you claim.
You state that your man has a better “moral backbone” than his peers and did not amply “line his pockets” in power. What/where is the evidence that verifiably and veritably supports this proposition? An unending campaign for the office of president of Nigeria requires deep pockets. Who is paying for your man’s campaign I humbly ask?
A military coup, is not acceptable in a constitutional democracy, or a less treasonable crime because it was bloodless and/or is motivated by pompous indignation and arrogant self-righteousness. It is a crime because the constitution/law says it is. Has it not been said that “the flag is the last refuge of the scoundrel”? I add that the flag is also a refuge of political opportunists. In a democracy, citizens should choose their leaders. There is still no conclusive evidence that you man is at peace with this value. He has rejected the results of every elections that he has lost. He has challenged the results of every election he lost in court. He lost in court each time. Those are not the ways of a reformed autocrat. He seems to believe that every election he lost was rigged, and only elections he won were free and fair. He will only accept the result of an election if he is declared the winner. Those are the ways of a closet autocrat.
It is unwise and very risky to ignore an autocrat’s past as he seeks new high political office. His past is a known. His future is an unknown. You claim that “he is surely not the same person that he was then- has had time to reflect and as a good Muslim to repent”. That is the hope and expectation but what/where is the evidence that is the case? He may in fact be a worse person. We do not know. He is an angry man.
True repentance is preceded by acknowledgement of wrong doing and contrition. We do not know that this has been the case with your man. As much as you admire your man, it is not for you or indeed anyone else to apologize for him. He can speak for himself but refuses to. His public posture and pronouncements strongly cause many Nigerians to believe that he wants to come back to “finish the job” he started. Your man’s several failures at the polls cause me to believe that a majority of Nigerians do not want that “job” finished. Then again what job if I may ask?
I remind you that your man criticizes President Jonathan and goes home to his family and loved ones. You ask those who criticized your man when he was Head of State what happened to them after they did.
This conversation for me, is not about the President Jonathan and his stewardship. It is roundly about the legitimate concerns, doubts, and suspicions there are about your man as a possible future president of Nigeria, given what is known about his past and present. If he sincerely confronts and erases them, I might even join you as one of the faithful. Why not? I want Nigeria to work better for all Nigerians.
Thank you again and good bye.
oa
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Cornelius Hamelberg
Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2014 9:33 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Oga Ogugua Anunoby , so what if the APC under whatever leadershwins the next presidential election?
Guilty: The long-windedness is mine.
Mine is probably a lone voice in the wilderness. Anyway for the record, in the name of difference or diversity and freedom of opinion, I hope that this one gets through.
I notice that in your review of military governments and their strongmen, General Ojukwu does not come under your purview. Of course that could be a separate issue altogether, if by military governments you mean all military governments including insurrectionist ones.
Here’s a short list . I had feared that you were going to quote Wole Soyinka on Buhari. I’ll tell you this: Alagba Soyinka is not my infallible authority and he too is entitled to all his opinions and even prejudices, if he has any. Having lived so long with Igbos, in Nigeria, I know that when the Igbo man says “Hausa man” he means Muslim. I now that in that regard, he makes no distinction between Hausa and Fulani, for him North is North and Muslim is Muslim, no matter the tribe. Just as with one of my close Yoruba Brethren, as far as he is concerned, I am not Cornelius Adebayo, and that’s why he calls me “ Menahem “. Not Menahem Adebayo, just Menahem (in Bangladesh every male Muslim has Mohammed as their first name - usually abbreviated Md.)
My good Sir, according to the doctors of political science, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. You probably don’t know personally (smile) - lack the experience to know that it takes some discipline to resist the temptation of corruption, when you are in power ( I mean real power). To resist the temptation which leads some to believe that the national treasury is part of their campaign treasure chest and that they can do with it as they please...
I hope that this did not escape your notice: Nigeria: Opting Out of an Insurgency
One thing that you cannot accuse Muhammadu Buhari of is that unlike some democratically elected politicians holding high office, he Muhammad Buhari did not “illegally and generously line his pockets.” Aren’t you happy that for a change, such a son of the soil has that kind of moral backbone? You misplace words when you ascribe a brutal role to those who carried out a bloodless coup. He was no El-Sisi. If only he could have been given the time necessary to arrange and supervise an election!
Comfortably sitting on your high horse, your polemical response is merely a long indictment of military coups. I sympathise with some of your general critique. I too have witnessed and lived through a few, including the one that took place in Nigeria on 31.12.1983. Commissioner of Police Mr. Efebo politely declined the offer of being military governor of Rivers State after that coup. (I should have known that something was cooking when mastermind coordinator Sani Abacha turned up in Port Harcourt a few weeks before that, and a week before the coup all the international telephone lines were cut, apart from the only one I had access to at Scanastra – I had thought that it was because of the Christmas traffic.) Yes, there are tomes of critiques of military coups in Africa and other parts of the world. Flight-Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings too has left a controversial legacy (just ask Kwabena Akurang-Parry) - but sometimes, in the life of a nation, a man has to do what a man has to do.
“There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries”
Nearly all that you say about our Muhammadu Buhari is about his past, some thirty years ago. He is surely not the same person that he was then- has had time to reflect and as a good Muslim to repent, regularly. It’s called “Tauba”. You seem to be less obsessive, less judgemental about the present political dispensation and that too is understandable since “absence never lets the heart grow fonder “this is true of many of us and you too, as you live and breathe not in Nigeria but in far away North America. I suppose that you are one of Dr. Chika Onyeani’s good fellows who made the Goodluck Jonathan Appreciation Day such a resounding a success over there in the United States of America. A similar manifestation in Nigeria would probably be a little less successful even if there would be more local sycophants who can see no evil, hear no evil or do no evil when it comes to praising their Goodluck Jonathan and his good government. So, if you are going to write about what’s happening in Nigeria today please don’t make my man the sole target of your wrath – even if what’s beginning to look like a witch-hunt all the anti-Goodluck Jonathan governors are impeached for whatever real or trumped up charges.
Talking about WAI - six months of arrears in salaries were paid to Rivers States Civil servants a week after Buhari-Idiagbon took over the reins of government; the mountains of garbage from which mango trees had taken root and were reaching for the sky, those mountains were cleared away in no time at all so that we could all breathe some fresh air again in the environs of Mile One Market in Port Harcourt. The formerly unpaid civil servants started turning up for work on time – this too was achieved without the threat of “brutal force”, corporal punishment, imprisonment or threats of sending anyone to Jahannam.
As yester day slips into becoming the past, I wonder whether or not you are as obsessive about forgiving of all that has occurred since Dr. Jonathan took office. My man, Muhammadu Buhari is criticising what he and many including me, see as some shortcomings and you say that he doesn’t have a right to say anything - because he too is not Jesus Christ, is not the Messiah perhaps, oh son of man, could it be that your attitude is induced by the scripture which says, “Let him that is without sin, throw the first stone”?
The Nigerian constitution may be holy - it may even be made holier by those who would like to amend some parts of it , maybe create a few more states, and thereby bring a few more powerful governors into being - governors who preferably should support the powers that be and not bite the hand that feeds them (like that Shakespeare line
“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child”
You lament the Nigerian Military overthrowing the democratically elected Shagari government, “as bad as the Shagari government might have been”. Gaza’s Hamas government was democratically elected too – bad as they can be - and it looks to me that the IDF would like to overthrow that government, right there in Gaza, it what increasingly looks like a bloody coup...
So, ( back to Nigeria) what is so holy about a government that is “democratically elected “– if it evolves into a government of looters and a government that rigs what you call ”democratic elections” – as indeed the NPN rigged the 1983 elections, called it “NPN Magic”. I was there. They were already dancing outside the Rivers State minister of agriculture Levy Braide’s house, by 3 pm on election day , by which time everybody had finished voting in Bakana – when it was time for counting the ballots they threw away the surplus votes that had been cast ( in excess of the registered voters) , into the river. You see, since the criminals could not be overthrown through the ballot box, the army came to the rescue. The same kind of criminals surely rigged future elections in Nigeria as a result of which my man fared less successfully than he would have if those elections had been completely free and fair - free, and without blackouts or the disappearance of ballot boxes en route to the counting houses or during the counting. Goodluck Jonathan’s predecessor, Umaru Yaradua confessed to the extent of the rigging in the election which brought him to power.
Talking about treason, what do you think about this Palestinian MP in the Israel Knesset? We are talking about a real democracy aren’t we? Not a make belief one.
As Always,
Wishing the best for all Nigerians,
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