Obi Nwakanma deductions on my essay are four-one-nine inclined and his assertion that I infantilized the Igbo victim of the war is a joke that will make lucifer laugh himself to jack. I know that no crook likes to be exposed but where facts exist, it is my duty as a humanist to use them as nails driven deep into the coffins of liars. I love all human beings but I am anti-absurd behaviours perpetrated by humans to humans. It is you, in your Black skin, White Mask toga (Frantz Fanon), that is infantilizing the Igbo victims of the Nigerian Civil War. Igbos, Yorubas, Tivs, Hausa/Fulani did not go to war but Ojukwu and Gowon did as published by the Uganda Daily Times in the Spring of 1968 after its journalist had visited Nsukka which was liberated as far back as 15th July 1967. An Igbo woman told the journalist, "We woke up early in the morning and we were told that Gowon and Ojukwu were fighting. Since they are not from this town, I see no reason why they should come to our town to fight. They, instead, should go to their own towns and fight." But the victims of Ojukwu's war in Igbo caste system were inferior to Ojukwu and his cohorts. According to the culture in Igboland the society consists of two classes of human beings. They are DIALA (free born or master race) and OSU (Slaves). The OSU caste system varies in names in different parts of Igboland. It is referred to as Achi-Ebo in Nzam, in Onitsha, while in Nsukka area, it is known as Oruma. It is called Nwani or Ohua-lusi in Agwu area. OSU, UME, OHU, ORU, OHU UME, OMONI (OKPU AJA) - have the same connotation in Igboland. Those labelled as OSU and its hybrids are regarded as sub-human beings, the unclean class or slaves by DIALAS (the master class or free born). The People of Umuode in Nkanu-East Local Government Area of Enugu State, who are said to be descendants of OSU, up till date, are treated as second class Igbos. In Oruku community made up of three clans, namely, Umuode, Umuchiani and Onuogu, the people of Umuode have limited social interaction with the rest of the community because of their ascribed OSU STATUS. To be an OSU or any of its hybridised names in Igboland implies inequality of movement and choice of residence, inequality in the right of peaceful association, marriage and establishing a family. It is common to hear the Master Class, DIALA, in Igboland say, *NDI ABU NDI OSU ANYI* which means these are our slaves. The MASTER CLASS, DIALA, considers the OSUS as properties that should be owned, exploited and discarded at will. To cut a long story short, the Igbo master class, Diala led by Ojukwu in-compassionately, expended the lives of the OSU Igbos in the Nigerian Civil War. Dialas are sadists and moral destitutes; they are defined by greed, avarice, peep-hole exhibitionism and gradation of perversity.
I have gone this path before, and I'm really reluctant to engage in this debate, writes Rex Manus Obi Nwakanma. You are already inside the river and it is too late to be afraid of getting wet (it is only an alligator that will be afraid of getting wet by hiding inside the river when it is about to rain). You have accused Awolowo and Adekunle of heinous crimes without being able to provide a single evidence to substantiate your accusations. What I have done is to provide evidence that they were not guilty of any war crime and genocide. Instead, it was Ojukwu and his fellow Igbo DIALA that used the OSU Igbos as cannon food during the Nigerian Civil War. If you don't want water to splash on you, don't go near the river bank. Once you and your gangs stop pillorying Awolowo and Adekunle unjustly there will be no need to prove their innocence.
Obi Nwakanma is bitter that someone, whom I am not aware of, has Christened him *ethnic supremacist* and therefore inject that in his response me. What is my concern about that? Although I don't know the reason why you were baptised as *ethnic supremacist*, however, I think the Baptiser must have been a good Liberal. After reading through some of your response to me in this forum, I would rather call you grand Mandarin of Igbo fascism!! Mr. Obi Nwakanma wailed, "Then we will grow silent again until god of crossroads awakens someone again from the deep slumber of reason, who will take a new stage name, perhaps Monusali Dikari, and begin again, this circle of inordinate folly." This sentence reminds of one Dr. Ozodi, an Igbo psychiatrist, who once published a study of Social and Mental Traits of the Igbos relative to other Nigerians in particular. Excerpts: The Igbo is boastful; he is full of braggadocio. He fancies himself superior to other persons. Worse, he wants you, the person he imagines that he is superior to, to accept his deluded self-assessment. ...If you call the bluff and tell him that he is a naked emperor pretending to be in diadem, he feels angry at you. Since his understanding of English is limited, when he is angry he reverts to writing in Engli-Igbo, aka Onitsha English, he throws at you whatever big words (improperly employed) he thinks would hurt your pride. When the Igbo pride is pricked, he experiences narcissistic injury and shows narcissistic rage. He would exhibit such temper tantrum that you would think that he is developmentally arrested (is under ten years old). Doing the right thing for the sake of it is not part of their (Igbo) psychological structure. They are unprincipled and very opportunistic. Igbos are classic Adlerian neurotics compensating with false superiority over their underlying sense of inferiority. Pride makes people vain and narcissistic so that they are blinded to objective reality. Talking about narcissism the Igbo generally falls into three basic personality types: narcissistic personality, antisocial personality and or paranoid personality. Briefly, the paranoid personality denies his real self for he sees it as weak and inadequate and invents a grandiose (big) self and pretends to be it. He wears a mask of existential importance and wants other people to collude with him and see him as important. If he feels belittled and demeaned, he feels angry at the person he thinks is degrading him. He is always fighting with people; he is suspicious and does not trust anyone. The antisocial personality has poor social conscience and often takes what does not belong to him and does not feel guilt or remorse from such anti social behaviour. They are full of excuses for why they do things and they blame others for their behaviours and its outcomes. The narcissistic thinks that he is better than other people, feels superior and wants other people to admire him because he is supposedly superior to them.
Dr Ozodi explained the cause of his study through a PS thus, "Since I am Igbo, the question that comes up is why an Igbo would desecrate his people. I will tell you why. I see Igbos with their heads swollen with false pride and out of that vanity insult folk around them. Folks around them takes it for a while and then feel angry at them, attack and sometimes kill some of them. I don't want Igbos to be attacked and or killed. To prevent Igbos being harmed, their egos must be shrunk to humble levels; Igbos have to behave respective towards their Nigerian neighbours. My motivation is to humble Igbos, make them mature and respectful of their fellow Nigerians. It is in mutual respect that human beings find peace. Arrogance and putting folks down lead to conflict and war." With the extensive reference to the study of Dr. Ozodi, I hope that Adolf-Obi Nwa-Hitler will wake up from his deep slumber of reasons.
All I want to offer in summary will be the following: Salimonu Kadiri's piece is no more than revisionist clap-trap, and it really speaks to the ways that repeated falsehood in a close circle erases every scintilla of truth. For example: the Igbo Union had been formed long before Azikiwe returned from the United States in 1935 - Obi Nwakanma.
If the Igbo ethnic sheriff, Obi Nwakanma, is a honest person he would have told his readers when exactly Ibo Federal Union that later became Ibo State Union was formed and who was the President. Mind you it was after the Civil War that the Ibos discovered that the alphabet *G* was missing in the spelling of the name of their tribe, therefore the new tribal name, Igbo. It is not clear either if Obi Nwakanma is telling us that Azikiwe returned to Nigeria in 1935 or the Ibo Federal Union was formed in 1935. However, whatever any of the two alternatives Obi may choose, Azikiwe did not return from the USA to Nigeria in 1935 but to Gold Coast, now Ghana. He fled from the Gold Coast to Nigeria in 1937 when the Colonial Government of that country jailed him for sedition. In order to really appreciate Azikiwe's role in Nigeria's politics, one needs to be acquainted with the fact that Nigeria's independence struggle began with the 1920s Lagos crowd, organised by such non-Igbo person named, Herbert Macaulay, who was the General Secretary of the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), the oldest political party in Nigeria formed in 1922. A rather conservative party that opposed NNDP was the People's Union organised by Dr. J.K.Randle, Dr Orisadipe Obasa Sir Kuteyi Ajasa, Dr R. Akinwande Savage, Sir Adeyemo Alakija and others. For information purpose, the NNDP won all the three seats for Lagos at the elections to the Legislative Council from 1923 to 1937, and from 1943-1948. Equally, all the seats available by election to the Lagos Town Council, from 1923 to 1953 were won by the NNDP. Awolowo gave the portrait of Herbert Macaulay as follows, "Herbert Macaulay in his time was a political colossus; ...he was not only an uncompromising critic of colonialism and white rule, he was also a ruthless denigrator of any African who associated and was friendly with white officials. To the masses of the people in Lagos and in the Southern parts of Nigeria the 'Wizard of Kirsten Hall' symbolised the irrepressible resistance of the Africans against foreign rule." The political domination of the NNDP nose-dived in 1938, when the Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM) won all the three seats for Lagos to the Legislative Council. The forerunner to NYM was Lagos Youth Movement (LYM) which was founded by Dr James Churchill Vaughan, Ernest Sissei Ikoli, Samuel A. Akinsanya and others. When Hezekiah Oladipo Davies became its General Secretary in 1937, LYM was transformed to NYM with a new constitution stating part of its aims as follows: 1. To unify the different tribes of Nigeria by adopting and encouraging means which would foster better understanding and cooperation between the tribes so that they may come to have a common ideal... 4. To identify itself in a wholehearted and selfless manner with the interest of the people, irrespective of class or any other distinction, and to be always prepared to prosecute their legitimate aspirations with resolution, consistency and firmness. Azikiwe in his Selected Speeches, p. 309 revealed the following, "Among its (NYM) leaders at this time (1938) were Dr Akinola Maja, H.S.A. Thomas, Jubril Martin and Mr (Sir) Kofoworola Abayomi. Prominent among its backbenchers were Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Chief S.L. Akintola, J.A. Tuyo, Hamzat A. Subair, F. Ogugua-Arah, Shonibare and L. Duro Emanuel." AZIKIWE'S POLITICAL CAREER IN NIGERIA ACTUALLY BEGAN IN 1938 AS A BACKBENCHER IN THE NIGERIAN YOUTH MOVEMENT (NYM). It is remarkable that Azikiwe removed the names of Vaughan, Ikoli and Akinsanya from his list of prominent members of NYM.
A split soon developed in the NYM over nomination of a candidate to contest for a bye-election to the Legislative Council following the departure of Kofo Abayomi to London for a specialist course in medicine. Ernest Ikoli had become the President of NYM while Samuel Akinsanya was his deputy and both wanted to contest for the single bye-election. While Azikiwe and his group supported Akinsanya, Awolowo and his group supported Ikoli. Azikiwe for undeclared reason did not want Ikoli, an Ijaw from the Delta area of Eastern Nigeria, to contest but Awolowo on principle taught it was unfair to deny Ikoli, the President, the right to contest the vacant seat left by Kofo Abayomi, his predecessor in office. Both Ikoli and Akinsanya contested the bye-election and Ikoli won. Since the group that supported Akinsanya, including Azikiwe, did not accept the democratic verdict they withdrew from NYM in 1941 and the Movement became weak and thereafter NNDP began to win elections to the Legislative Council again from 1943 onwards.
After destroying the NYM, Azikiwe founded the first tribal organisation, called Ibo federal Union in Nigeria, in 1943 and installed himself as its President. The name of the Union was later changed to Ibo State Union. Nnamdi Azikiwe was immediately imitated by Eyo Ita, who also founded Ibibio Federal Union that also transformed to Ibibio State Union. A year later, on 26 August 1944, Azikiwe claimed the birth of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) at a purported Third Meeting of the Inaugural Session of the party where "provisional officers were elected at a mass meeting assembled in the Glover Memorial Hall." Azikiwe claimed that thirteen officers were elected among which Herbert Macaulay was the President, Louis Philip Ojukwu (as he was known before he adopted Odumegwu when he was knighted by the Queen in the 60s) as the Treasurer and himself , Azikiwe, as the General Secretary. Azikiwe wrote, "Letters were forwarded by the Provisional General Secretary to the above gentlemen, dated 23 September, 1944. Some replied or sent messages giving reasons for their inability to accept office (p. 312, ZIK: Selected Speeches)." It turned out that only six out of the thirteen that were elected at a mass meeting accepted to serve as the official officers of the NCNC. Those who accepted to serve were, "Herbert Macaulay, Nnamdi Azikiwe, L. A. Onojobi, A. Ogedengbe, E. A. Akerele, and Ladipo Odunsi (p. 312)." In 1944, Herbert Macaulay was a fragile old man at 80 and still the General Secretary of the NNDP that was winning elections. He did not need a new party. If there was mass meeting where people stood for elections and won, why was it necessary for Azikiwe to write to the elected officers almost a month after their elections? On what was the election of NCNC provisional officers, 26 August 1944, based when the constitution of the NCNC was not completed for adoption until 1945? In 1945, Azikiwe became a member of NNDP. When Herbert Macaulay died, May 7, 1946, Azikiwe became the President of both the NCNC and NNDP. Apparently Azikiwe had scuttled NYM in 1941 because the leadership he wanted for himself could not be achieved with the calibre of the people in the hierarchy of NYM which were too superior to him. How did he manage to be President of two National Party at the same time? Azikiwe explained thus, "In alliance with the Nigerian National Democratic Party the NCNC won all the three seats for Lagos at the 1947 elections to the Legislative Council. The same alliance won all the five seats for Lagos at the 1951 elections to the Western House of Assembly (ZIK: Selected Speeches, p.314)." The foxy Azikiwe as the President of the NNDP was in alliance with the NCNC where he was also the President. The fact, however, was that all elections in Lagos and the West from 1946 to 1951 in which Azikiwe partook were conducted under the platform of NNDP and not NCNC. It should also be observed that Azikiwe mentioned only the election results for Lagos in the 1951 Western House of Assembly and not the whole West, whereas Igbo ethnic warriors have always claimed that Awolowo prevented Azikiwe from being the leader of government in the West after the latter had won the election. Rather than claiming to have won the elections to the Western House of Assembly in 1951 Azikiwe conceded thus, "...a new constitution confirmed the carving up of the country virtually into three constituents, as originally conceived by Chief Bode Thomas. Not only that; a new political party had arisen on the horizon of Nigerian politics, with the name of Action Group, and carrying this Thomasian banner of extreme regionalization, IT WON MAJORITY SEATS AT THE GENERAL ELECTION TO THE WESTERN HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY TO FORM THE GOVERNMENT OF THE WESTERN REGION (p. 324, ZIK: Selected Speeches).
Contrary to Ogbuefi Nwakanma assertion that Bode Thomas died in 1951, the man actually died in November 1954. Having corrected that I want to know from Ogbuefi Nwakanma where Azikiwe got his own money to head two political parties NCNC and NNDP simultaneously, if the colonialist Britain was the financier of the Awolowo and the Action Group? It worths remembering that when Awolowo launched Egbe Omo Oduduwa in London, 1945, the London branch of Ibo Federal Union under the Chaimanship of Mr Chuba Ikpeazu had existed for two years. On his return to Nigeria, the Egbe Omo Oduduwa was not formed until 1948 in Lagos, while Awolowo was in far away Ibadan, by Sir Adeyemo Alakija, Dr Akinola Maja, Sir Kofo Abayomi, Chief Bode Thomas, Chief H. Oladipo Davies, Dr Akanni Doherty and others. Although the Egbe Omo Oduduwa was the offshoot of the Action Group Party, not all members of the former was part of the latter. For instance H. Oladipo Davies was a member of Egbe Omo Oduduwa till his death but he was at first a member of NNDP and later NCNC. On the contrary all members of Ibo Federal Union were automatically affiliated to the NCNC. Following the example of Azikiwe's Ibo Federal Union, Jamiyyar Mutanen Arewa (Northern Peoples' Congress was founded in the North by Balewa, Dr Dikko and others in 1948.
The idea of Azikiwe in founding Ibo Federal Union in 1943 was understandable in view of the fact that after Lugard had amalgamated North and South to Nigeria, he discovered that while he could administer North and West through the Emirs and Obas respectively, there was nothing in Igboland because Igbos lived in isolation from one another in small villages and towns. The popular saying was *Igbo Enwe Eze* which means Igbos have no Kings. In order to facilitate his administration of mainly the Igbo part of Eastern Nigeria, Lugard created the *Warrant Chiefs* and dignified them with *Red Cap* that he imported from Morocco. When the *Warrant Chiefs* were eventually transformed to *EZE,* Igbos initially resisted it. Hence the expression, *EZEBUILO* which translates to A - King - Is - An - Enemy. For this reason Igbos have wrongly been regarded as Republicans instead of anarchists that they are in reality. As a result of inferiority complex arising from cultural backwardness of the Igbos compared to the North and the West, Azikiwe began to make hostile and aggressive propaganda against other tribes in Nigeria. Listen to Azikiwe delivering his Presidential address at the Ibo State Assembly, held at Aba on Saturday, June 25, 1949 and reported by the West African Pilot the following day: "... It would appear that the God of Africa has specifically created the Ibo nation to lead the children of Africa from the bondage of ages... The martial power of the Ibo nation at all stages of human history has enabled them TO CONQUER OTHERS BUT ALSO TO ADAPT THEMSELVES TO THE ROLE OF PRESERVER...." Eyo Ita was not an Igbo but he caught the wrath of Azikiwe because he advocated for Calabar - Ogoja - Rivers - State. Hear Azikiwe speaking, "It was not until twenty-five years later, when he came all out to advocate the cause of the Calabar - Ogoja - Rivers - State Movement and to beat the tom-tom drums of alleged Ibo domination that Ita's secret antagonism against certain tribes became obvious (p. 307, ZIK: Selected Speeches)." Azikiwe was a baker that never tolerated the existence of other bakers. He wanted only his tribal Union and the political party led by him to exist in Nigeria.
Towards the approaching 1951 election to the Western Region House of Assembly the Action Group Party was formed. Azikiwe observed,"Then the party with more determination than had ever been shown in Nigerian politics, began to publish policy papers and to gain ground throughout the Western Region. ... When the elections were over it had won a slender majority over the less-organized mass movement of the NCNC.. Comfortably, it established itself as the Government of the West and represented the Region, under the 1951 Constitution... The Action Group believes in a socialist commonwealth but also in the solidarity of the parts and the unity of all (p. 326-327, ZIK: Selected Speeches)." As the Ogbuefi of Igbo fundamentalism, Nwakanma, rightly pointed out, Awolowo was against Unitary form of Government for Nigeria. Awolowo gave reasons for his opposition thus, "As between the various ethnic groups, ... there were differing standards of civilisation as well as uneven stages in the adoption of western education and the emulation of western civilisation. A unitary constitution with only one central government would only result in frustration to the more pushful and more dynamic ethnic groups, whereas the division of the country into regions along ethnic lines would enable each linguistic group not only to develop its own peculiar culture and institutions but to move forward at its own pace, without being unnecessarily pushed or annoyingly slowed down by the others (p. 164-165, AWO: The Autobiography of Chief Obafemi Awolowo)." With the political climate in Nigeria today, no Nigerian, except political cotton-wights who are in need of common sense revolution, will condemn Awolowo for *Pakistanisation* of Nigeria. Awolowo has actually been vindicated. It is also true that Awolowo was against self-rule for Nigeria in 1948, but he also adduced seven reasons for his stand in his book, Path to the Nigerian Freedom published in 1947. The most essential of the seven reasons was the first one in which he averred, "THE EXISTENCE OF A MICROSCOPIC LITERARY CLASS WOULD LEAD TO EXPLOITATION OF THE GREAT MAJORITY OF ILLITERATES BY THE INTELLIGENTSIA." Awolowo's warning was not heeded and today we see the effect in Nigeria as the microscopic educated class share the national patrimony among themselves to the exclusion of the mass majority. The reason for lack of reaction by the masses against the exploiting literary class is that the language of governance (English) is not understood by the exploited. No Nigerian ethnic language has a word for million, billion or trillion. There is no equivalent monetary calculation to million, billion or trillion in any Nigerian ethnic language. The uneducated masses of Nigeria do not have financial understanding of what constitute a million, a billion or a trillion Naira. Since millions, billions and trillions are beyond the arithmetical imagination of the uneducated masses of Nigerians, they never react negatively to rogue leaders stealing money appropriated for national development as they do to ordinary pickpockets who they lynch and roast to death for stealing just twenty Naira.
Obi Nwakanma asserted that when Awolowo failed to lead the federation 1959/60, he (Awo) planned to topple the Federal Government through a coup and as such was tried and jailed by Justice Showemimo. On the contrary, Awolowo respected the democratic result of the December 1959 that gave none of the political parties majority to form the Government. From progressive point of view he suggested that Azikiwe should lead a national government of all the political parties. He was prepared to serve under Azikiwe but not under the feudalist Balewa. For reasons that I have mentioned in my previous submission, Azikiwe ceded the Prime-ministership to Balewa. As for the treasonable felony trial Showemimo was assigned to preside over the trial on cash and carry justice basis. The case was transferred from Justice Onyeama, because he failed to do the biddings of the NPC/NCNC Federal Government in their attempt to institute enquiry into National Bank owned by the Western Region Government controlled by the Action Group Party led by Awolowo. Showemimo in his judgment said his hands were tied because there was no evidence that Awolowo planned any coup but that he had been ordered to convict Awolowo.
Similar to the case presided over by Showemimo, the Coker Commission of enquiry set up by the Federal Government under its Emergency rule of the Western Region was intended to robish the image of Awolowo but the best they could achieve was that he mismanaged the funds of the Region and not that he embezzled even a kobo for himself. That should be compared to Forster Sutton's Commission of enquiry into the African Continental Bank in 1956 which found the then Premier of Eastern Nigeria, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, guilty of loaning millions of pound to Azikiwe's group of companies and deferring repayment to 1970.
The crisis in the Action Group was ideological. Akintola was of the opinion that Awolowo could not be advocating for democratic socialism outside the Federal Government that had excised the Yorubas of the West out of the administration of the country. He advised Awolowo not to behave like a human being in the midst of animals but rather he should find something that resembled a tail to fix to his anus so as to integrate into the society of animals in order to avoid being harmed or killed. (Yórùbá proverb: Tí abá dé ibi tí eranko péjo sí, nsé lâ wáhun tójòrù kí a fi há ìdí). Although the crisis led to the walkout of Akintola at the Jos Congress of the Action Group in 1961, subsequent crisis was fuelled by the NPC/NCNC federal coalition government that overthrew the Action Group Government of the West and installed a puppet coalition government of UPP/NCNC which in 1964, merged to revive NNDP and which accused the NCNC of having exploited its coalition with the NPC to practise what it termed *IGBO-CRACY* through appointments of only Igbos to all positions in the Federal government and its subsidiary corporations. The NNDP government of the West issued a white paper to buttress its accusation of tribalism against the Igbo NCNC.
While it was true that the Midwest Region was created in 1963 when the puppet regime of Akintola was in power in the West, the Federal Government resolution to carve out Midwest out the Western Region was passed on April 4, 1961. If the Igbo/Hausa-Fulani led Federal Coalition Government of NPC/NCNC had not unconstitutionally overthrown the Action Group led government of Western Region, there would not have been peoples' uprising there. Had the Hausa-Fulani/Igbo led Federal Coalition Government of NPC/NCNC respected the verdict of the Privy Council that stated that the Governor of Western Region, Sir Adesoji Aderemi acted constitutionally when he removed Samuel Akintola as Premier and swore in Dauda Adegbenro in his stead, there would not have been political violence in the West.
Ironsi, a target of the January 15 coup, stopped the coup in the South, while Ojukwu staged a defiant holdout in the strategic outpost of Kano, Northwards. Ironsi did not seek power, and was infact reluctant to assume the emergency authority ceded to him by the Acting President - Obi Nwakanma.
Nwakanma is not only trying to wave a tattered and shameful ethnic bandana but also trying to cover nakedness with a fig leaf. Let us simplify his two sentences. A police commissioner, named Ironsi, stopped a thief from stealing and another police assistance, named Ojukwu, blocked the exit root of the thief. The commissioner of Police, Ironsi, did not seek to keep the stolen goods and was in fact reluctant to assume the ownership of the stolen goods ceded to him by the Acting Inspector General of the Police. This would sound intelligent to anyone who is in acute need of common sense revolution. Dishonestly, Nwakanma deliberately refrained from mentioning the name of the Acting President, Nwafor Orizu, in order to hide the tribal configuration of the Coup D'état rogues of January 15, 1966. Nwafor Orizu had no power under the constitution to cede power to an unelected person and once the rebellion of the Majors was said to have been quelled, the next legal action was to provide security so that the Parliament could meet to elect, amongst its members a new Prime Minister and to pass a vote of confidence in him/her. When Lt-Colonel Victor Adebukunola Banjo told Ironsi on the phone, 16 January 1966, that all officers above the rank of Major should resign so that the Majors could finish their revolution, Ironsi invited him for discussion on the 17th of January 1966 at the Lagos police headquarter. On arrival, Banjo was bundled into the guardroom By Lt-Colonels Awuna and Kurubo. Banjo was subsequently detained in the East even though he was not a party to the Major's rebellion. It is possible for a cat to wear the fur of a leopard but for a cat to hunt like a leopard is impossible. Ironsi stole the coup of the Five Majors but as a tribalist he could not rule Nigeria. Reasons for that could be deduced from Captain Ben Gbulie's Book: Nigeria's Five Majors, where he stated on page 53 as follows, "Major-General Johnson Thompson Umunnakwe Aguiyi Ironsi was the General Officer Commanding the Nigerian Army. A hard-drinking, slow-speaking introvert who had risen from the ranks, ....he was, however, considered both inept and inefficient - hardly the calibre of officer to command an army. In fact, the coup planners considered him unfit to command even a funeral detail." If Ironsi was not competent to rule Nigeria who then were the actual or real rulers? His power circle consisted of Francis Nwokedi, Pius Okigbo, G. C. M. Onyiuke and Chukwuemeka Ojukwu. While Ojukwu was Ironsi's military strategist and proxy Minister of Defence, Okigbo and Onyiuke were economic/financial and Attorney General respectively. It is worthwhile to know that Onyiuke was the Attorney General in the Regional government of Okpara that took the Federal government to court over the 1963 Census Figures and Francis Nwokedi was compulsorily retired as the Permanent Secretary of the External Affairs Ministry by Balewa. Ironsi appointed Nwokedi to report as a one-man Commission of Enquiry on the establishment of an administrative machinery for Nigeria and the unification of the five public and judicial services in Nigeria. Nwokedi quickly submitted his report and despite the opposition of, the Governor of Western Region, Fajuyi, who forwarded a five page memo to Ironsi, Hassan Katsina from the North, and David Ejoor from the Midwest, against Unitary form of Government for Nigeria, Ironsi announced Decree No. 34 of 24th of May 1966 abolishing Regions and Federal system of government. Meanwhile the appeal of Joseph Tarka and Aminu Kano to Ironsi to release political prisoners kept by the previous regime was ignored. The retention of Awolowo in prison is understandable because of Awolowo's previous staunch opposition to Unitary Central Government which NCNC under Azikiwe had propagated for since the 50s. Ironsi would not release Awolowo from prison until the Igbo led NCNC manifesto of a strong Unitary government had firmly been established. It is irony of history that when Ojukwu declared his Biafran Republic his closest inner cabinet were Nwokedi, Okigbo, Onyiuke including C.C. Mojekwu.
Awolowo did not serve Northerners when he became vice Chairman and Minister of Finance under General Yakubu Gowon as claimed by Nwakanma because Gowon was from TIV division of the North and also a Christian who married (they are still married till date) to an Igbo woman named Victoria Edith Ike. Achebe was not only a bitter person but a perverted ethnic Mandarin. If Awolowo stated that food should not be given to Biafran soldiers so as to prevent them from fighting harder, he was not unique in history. Otherwise, Achebe and his Apostles of Igbo-philia should tell us which war in this planet Earth has ever been fought with the bellegrant bombarding the beleaguered with bread, butter and gem. It is even more ridiculous to blame Awolowo for starvation in Biafra when Achebe himself confirmed that Ojukwu rejected a supervised land route of relief supply from Nigeria to Biafra in September 1968 (see p. 211, There Was a Country). If Biafrans were starving to death, where did public servants in Biafra get resources to throw huge parties to entertain their friends and kill cows to Christen their babies, according to Ojukwu self in his Ahiara declaration of June 1, 1969?
Those who are brainwashed do usually suffer from common sense deficiency syndrome and very often they lose their questioning mind; can this be true? Can a normal journalist ask a commander in the war front, what do you do when you enter into Igbo territory? What is the probability that the Commander would answer that I shoot everything that moves including children? In the case of Biafra, the retreating Biafran soldiers used to evacuate every town before its capture by the Federal forces, therefore there were almost no *moving everything*, including children, left to be shot. Was Adekunle or any of his soldiers seen shooting civilians and children during the war? The answer is capital NO. When I referred to the International Observer Team comprising of United Nations, OAU, Britain, Canada, Sweden and Poland that were invited to supervise and report on the conduct of the Nigerian forces at the war front, a nincompoop countered me with a purported report written by one Dr. Mensah on his one-man investigation on behalf of the International Committee for the study of the Crimes of genocide. For those who do not know, this said committee was a Paris-based unofficial organisation of lawyers from different countries interested in the problem of war crime and genocide within the framework of the UN Convention on Genocide. The Committee's meeting at which prima facie evidence of genocide against Biafra was discussed in Paris was held on March 22-23, 1969 under the Chairmanship of a British International jurist, Professor Lopez-Rey. Based on Dr Mensah's one-man's investigation and report, the Committee disapproved the pronouncement of the International Team of Observer's that Nigeria had not committed war crimes or genocide against the Igbos. Dr Mensah claimed that he had interviewed some of the International Observers' Team who told him that the Nigerian Commanders at the war front had prevented them from visiting where war crimes and genocide were committed. However, the International Observer Team had a report titled, REPORT ON ACTIVITIES DURING THE PERIOD 24 SEPTEMBER TO NOVEMBER 1968. It was dated 23 November 1968 which was roughly four months before Dr Mensah's report that the Observer Team were not allowed to visit war crimes and genocide scenes by the Nigerian Commanders at the war front. The Observer Team reported, "THE TEAM HAD UNRESTRICTED FREEDOM TO MOVEMENT DURING ALL INVESTIGATIONS AND VISITS, AND MADE UP ITS OWN PROGRAMME, INCLUDING LAST-MINUTE CHANGES." From the above information anyone accusing Awolowo and Adekunle of war crimes and genocide should go for what in Igbo is called *Ikpu Alu,* cleansing of abomination.
Those who reduce history by retailing trashy versions of it must be answered in order to set the records straight, not only for today, but for posterity. I rest my pen.
S. Kadiri
From: rexmarinus@hotmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2014 16:10:25 +0000
What we can deduct from the reasoning behind this excerpt above from Salimonu Kadiri include: (a) Ojukwu said he caused or declared the war and starved his own people; Awo and Adekunle did not declare war, they fought not to starve, but to save the East, particularly Igbo people; (b) Salimonu does not blame the "Igbo victims of this war" but "Ojukwu and his ilk" - because the "Igbo victims" of the war were mindless, powerless, comatose infants who woke up one day in 1967 and were told 'go to war!' by "Ojukwu and his ilk," and they took up arms and mindlessly went to war in which they became merely innocent "victims." Now, someone should please define the intention of this stance by Mr. Kadiri, because what I sense beyond the infantilization of the "Igbo victims of this war" is left-handed charity that obfuscates on the causes and effects of the Nigerian civil war. It is insult masquerading as charity.
I have gone on this path before, and I'm really reluctant to engage in this debate. I already see its end. We will end up boring people on this forum with Nigeria's petty ethnic narrative, because in the end, it will boil down to that. No matter the wealth of evidence to counter long held positions, we will end up repeating and recycling our positions because they offer us some kind psychological consolation. Then someone or the other will begin to cry and call the other "ethnic supremacist" because they'd have exhausted their argument, and have nothing else to offer as counter but churlish obloquy. Then we will grow silent again until the god of the crossroads awakens someone again from the deep slumber of reason, who will take a new stage name, perhaps Monusali Dikari, and begin again, this cycle of inordinate folly.
All I want to offer in summary will be the following: Salimonu Kadiri's piece is no more than revisionist clap-trap, and it really speaks to the ways that repeated falsehood in a closed circle erases every scintilla of truth. For example: the Igbo union had been formed long before Azikiwe returned from the United States in 1935. Azikiwe led the NCNC as a platform of anti-colonial nationalists intent on freedom from the British colony. Soon after India's independence and the partition, the Action Group and the NPC were both formed and financed with support from the Colonial office; the AG with money, logistical, and organization resources funneled to it through the Yoruba chiefs and businessmen, allies of the British government in 1947, to oppose and undermine the Nationalist movement. Awo, was a card-carrying member of the British Labor party as a student in London in 1945 where he was recruited by the British, offered political prospects, and was introduced to, and inspired by the writings and politics of a Pakistani fascist intellectual and politician, as he makes it known to us in his own biography. His politics was irrendentist, not nationalist. Hugh Foot, who was Awo's minder also brokered the first party alliance between the new AG and the NPC in 1947, the intent being to unite the reactionary factions of the North and South in a coalition that would form Nigeria's independent government against the prospects the nationalist party, the "Socialist NCNC." I will not go into any further details here, but suffice it to say that disagreements by 1951 during the Ibadan conferences between these two interests on who to lead the coalition and the death of Bode Thomas, who was also the lawyer that stood for Ahmadu Rabah when he'd been accused of thievery, and central to it all, led to the eventual collapse of this coalition move.
Awo was not an innocent and scented bystander in Nigerian politics and affairs as most of his later-day acolytes now paint him. When his ambition to lead the federation failed in 1959/60, he organized the first coup to overthrow the elected government of the federation, and was tried and jailed. In his judgment, Justice Sowemimo noted that the weight of evidence before him ties his hands and leaves him no room but to jail Awolowo. All these had come in the wake of his political troubles. His party was enmeshed in an internal crisis. The Coker Commission investigated AG's party finances and malfeasance under Awolowo's leadership; the AG party crisis came from some of the allusions made here by Kadiri, but also from the combustible disagreements between factions of the party which wanted to maintain its original conservative ethos and the "young Turks" like S.G. Ikoku and Bola Ige, who wanted to shift its politics to a more centrist, even socialist ethos. Awo backed the young radicals especially as his agreements with the British had collapsed and yielded not national leadership as was promised him, but opposition which he chose rather than join an all-party national government as was proposed to him in 1960 as Deputy Prime Minister with the Finance Portfolio. Awolowo's inability to manage his party's first real crisis led to the internal divisions and the factionalization of the AG by 1962. With Akintola leading the government of the West and Awolowo suddenly finding himself without a real power base as leader of opposition at the center, he sought to overthrow the government of Nigeria violently. The creation of the Midwest from Western Nigeria all happened in 1963 was while Akintola was premier, but Awoists like Salimonu Kadiri often make it seem as though it was aimed at Awolowo. Yes, the NCNC supported the creation of the Midwest, certainly in part to secure a political advantage. But the Action Group had launched the first "attack" in that direction when it provided aid, campaigned for, and funded Foncha and the Kamerun Independent Party in the plebiscite of 1960/61, to be removed from the Eastern region and be joined to the Cameroons. The loss of the Cameroonian part of the East and the retention in the North of the Adamawa province, gave the Balewa government greater leverage that also led to the crisis of the coalition in the central government. But that central government, was far from an " Igbo and Hausa-Fulani controlled" government. If anyone as much as looks at the structure of the Council of Ministers in Balewa's cabinet from 1957-1965, it will put a pin on the credibility of Salimonu's unfounded claims. That coalition was an NCNC-NPC government which had very solid Yoruba in the national government, but not Yoruba of the AG clique. However, as Akintola increasingly asserted his independence and authority from Awo, and sought to reposition the Yoruba in what was to be the original alliance with the North, and with Awolowo in jail, the politics of the West became even more combustible and anarchic. Salimonu conveniently places all Awo's troubles on the machinations of his Igbo (Zik/Okpara) and "Feudal" Hausa-Fulani adversaries. This is hogwash. From 1961- 1966, Western Nigeria was the most chaotic, most violent, and most unprogressive region of Nigeria, until January 15, 1966 when Ifeajuna's coup put a stop to the slide and its cost in human lives. The West was like the North with its Boko haram today. It had much to do with the combustible politics of the West which has its roots in the historically unresolved issues of the Kiriji wars and the internal dynamics of Yoruba politics which Awo himself addressed in some of his writings.
Ironsi, a target of the January 15 coup, stopped the coup in the South, while Ojukwu staged a defiant holdout in the strategic outpost of Kano, Northwards. Ironsi did not seek power, and was in fact reluctant to assume the emergency authority ceded to him by the Acting President. But it is a strange claim to say that Ironsi "stole" the coup of the Majors and turned it into the "triumph of his ethnic group." There again is the mystifying Salimonuan modishness that blames the Igbo on everything that has gone wrong in Nigeria. But anyone who pays but even a cursory attention to Ironsi's actions and policies and appointments from January to his death in July 1966 will notice that nothing he did favored the Igbo, nor did he run an Igbo government. I therefore challenge Salimonu to show proof of Ironsi's Igbo triumphalism or in the alternative show some decency and retract this hokum, and apologize to the memory of a great General who was sacrificed at the altar of modern Nigeria. As for Awo, by 1966/67 having be granted pardon and released from jail, he suddenly found himself serving under "feudal" northerner, as Vice-President and Minister for finance. Only too happy to serve, and with the Igbo away from Nigeria, Awo put to force his plan for a new Nigeria in which the Igbo would no longer be in the way of his own ambition. Awo was like the dog who was given a morsel to wag his tail, and he did wag that tail. Achebe was clear on Awolowo's politics and his intentions. Anyone who says "starvation is a legitimate instrument of war," speaks from a Nazi rule book. Any war commander who says, "I shoot everything that moves including Children" is a war criminal. It doesn't matter how much or how often the Salimonu Kadiris of this world work to deny it. In fact, it would not matter who caused the war. The conduct of the war remains the issue.
Obi Nwakanma
From: ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 03:48:31 +0200
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From: rexmarinus@hotmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2014 16:10:25 +0000
"In spite of the claim of Obi Nwakanma of being master of English language it is shocking that he could not understand that my conclusions on Ojukwu, Awolowo, Adekunle and others were based on their statements and actions as individuals and not that of their respective tribes. Awolowo and Adekunle did not declare the war but Ojukwu did and when Ojukwu's presumed sugar-coated ethnic war turned to mass starvation and death of my Igbo brothers and sisters, I have to blame Ojukwu and his ilk and not the Igbo victims of his war. I do not belong to Ndi Nzuzu (stupid people) who always attribute the action of any Nigerian official as being that of his/her tribe."
-Salimonu KadiriWhat we can deduct from the reasoning behind this excerpt above from Salimonu Kadiri include: (a) Ojukwu said he caused or declared the war and starved his own people; Awo and Adekunle did not declare war, they fought not to starve, but to save the East, particularly Igbo people; (b) Salimonu does not blame the "Igbo victims of this war" but "Ojukwu and his ilk" - because the "Igbo victims" of the war were mindless, powerless, comatose infants who woke up one day in 1967 and were told 'go to war!' by "Ojukwu and his ilk," and they took up arms and mindlessly went to war in which they became merely innocent "victims." Now, someone should please define the intention of this stance by Mr. Kadiri, because what I sense beyond the infantilization of the "Igbo victims of this war" is left-handed charity that obfuscates on the causes and effects of the Nigerian civil war. It is insult masquerading as charity.
I have gone on this path before, and I'm really reluctant to engage in this debate. I already see its end. We will end up boring people on this forum with Nigeria's petty ethnic narrative, because in the end, it will boil down to that. No matter the wealth of evidence to counter long held positions, we will end up repeating and recycling our positions because they offer us some kind psychological consolation. Then someone or the other will begin to cry and call the other "ethnic supremacist" because they'd have exhausted their argument, and have nothing else to offer as counter but churlish obloquy. Then we will grow silent again until the god of the crossroads awakens someone again from the deep slumber of reason, who will take a new stage name, perhaps Monusali Dikari, and begin again, this cycle of inordinate folly.
All I want to offer in summary will be the following: Salimonu Kadiri's piece is no more than revisionist clap-trap, and it really speaks to the ways that repeated falsehood in a closed circle erases every scintilla of truth. For example: the Igbo union had been formed long before Azikiwe returned from the United States in 1935. Azikiwe led the NCNC as a platform of anti-colonial nationalists intent on freedom from the British colony. Soon after India's independence and the partition, the Action Group and the NPC were both formed and financed with support from the Colonial office; the AG with money, logistical, and organization resources funneled to it through the Yoruba chiefs and businessmen, allies of the British government in 1947, to oppose and undermine the Nationalist movement. Awo, was a card-carrying member of the British Labor party as a student in London in 1945 where he was recruited by the British, offered political prospects, and was introduced to, and inspired by the writings and politics of a Pakistani fascist intellectual and politician, as he makes it known to us in his own biography. His politics was irrendentist, not nationalist. Hugh Foot, who was Awo's minder also brokered the first party alliance between the new AG and the NPC in 1947, the intent being to unite the reactionary factions of the North and South in a coalition that would form Nigeria's independent government against the prospects the nationalist party, the "Socialist NCNC." I will not go into any further details here, but suffice it to say that disagreements by 1951 during the Ibadan conferences between these two interests on who to lead the coalition and the death of Bode Thomas, who was also the lawyer that stood for Ahmadu Rabah when he'd been accused of thievery, and central to it all, led to the eventual collapse of this coalition move.
Awo was not an innocent and scented bystander in Nigerian politics and affairs as most of his later-day acolytes now paint him. When his ambition to lead the federation failed in 1959/60, he organized the first coup to overthrow the elected government of the federation, and was tried and jailed. In his judgment, Justice Sowemimo noted that the weight of evidence before him ties his hands and leaves him no room but to jail Awolowo. All these had come in the wake of his political troubles. His party was enmeshed in an internal crisis. The Coker Commission investigated AG's party finances and malfeasance under Awolowo's leadership; the AG party crisis came from some of the allusions made here by Kadiri, but also from the combustible disagreements between factions of the party which wanted to maintain its original conservative ethos and the "young Turks" like S.G. Ikoku and Bola Ige, who wanted to shift its politics to a more centrist, even socialist ethos. Awo backed the young radicals especially as his agreements with the British had collapsed and yielded not national leadership as was promised him, but opposition which he chose rather than join an all-party national government as was proposed to him in 1960 as Deputy Prime Minister with the Finance Portfolio. Awolowo's inability to manage his party's first real crisis led to the internal divisions and the factionalization of the AG by 1962. With Akintola leading the government of the West and Awolowo suddenly finding himself without a real power base as leader of opposition at the center, he sought to overthrow the government of Nigeria violently. The creation of the Midwest from Western Nigeria all happened in 1963 was while Akintola was premier, but Awoists like Salimonu Kadiri often make it seem as though it was aimed at Awolowo. Yes, the NCNC supported the creation of the Midwest, certainly in part to secure a political advantage. But the Action Group had launched the first "attack" in that direction when it provided aid, campaigned for, and funded Foncha and the Kamerun Independent Party in the plebiscite of 1960/61, to be removed from the Eastern region and be joined to the Cameroons. The loss of the Cameroonian part of the East and the retention in the North of the Adamawa province, gave the Balewa government greater leverage that also led to the crisis of the coalition in the central government. But that central government, was far from an " Igbo and Hausa-Fulani controlled" government. If anyone as much as looks at the structure of the Council of Ministers in Balewa's cabinet from 1957-1965, it will put a pin on the credibility of Salimonu's unfounded claims. That coalition was an NCNC-NPC government which had very solid Yoruba in the national government, but not Yoruba of the AG clique. However, as Akintola increasingly asserted his independence and authority from Awo, and sought to reposition the Yoruba in what was to be the original alliance with the North, and with Awolowo in jail, the politics of the West became even more combustible and anarchic. Salimonu conveniently places all Awo's troubles on the machinations of his Igbo (Zik/Okpara) and "Feudal" Hausa-Fulani adversaries. This is hogwash. From 1961- 1966, Western Nigeria was the most chaotic, most violent, and most unprogressive region of Nigeria, until January 15, 1966 when Ifeajuna's coup put a stop to the slide and its cost in human lives. The West was like the North with its Boko haram today. It had much to do with the combustible politics of the West which has its roots in the historically unresolved issues of the Kiriji wars and the internal dynamics of Yoruba politics which Awo himself addressed in some of his writings.
Ironsi, a target of the January 15 coup, stopped the coup in the South, while Ojukwu staged a defiant holdout in the strategic outpost of Kano, Northwards. Ironsi did not seek power, and was in fact reluctant to assume the emergency authority ceded to him by the Acting President. But it is a strange claim to say that Ironsi "stole" the coup of the Majors and turned it into the "triumph of his ethnic group." There again is the mystifying Salimonuan modishness that blames the Igbo on everything that has gone wrong in Nigeria. But anyone who pays but even a cursory attention to Ironsi's actions and policies and appointments from January to his death in July 1966 will notice that nothing he did favored the Igbo, nor did he run an Igbo government. I therefore challenge Salimonu to show proof of Ironsi's Igbo triumphalism or in the alternative show some decency and retract this hokum, and apologize to the memory of a great General who was sacrificed at the altar of modern Nigeria. As for Awo, by 1966/67 having be granted pardon and released from jail, he suddenly found himself serving under "feudal" northerner, as Vice-President and Minister for finance. Only too happy to serve, and with the Igbo away from Nigeria, Awo put to force his plan for a new Nigeria in which the Igbo would no longer be in the way of his own ambition. Awo was like the dog who was given a morsel to wag his tail, and he did wag that tail. Achebe was clear on Awolowo's politics and his intentions. Anyone who says "starvation is a legitimate instrument of war," speaks from a Nazi rule book. Any war commander who says, "I shoot everything that moves including Children" is a war criminal. It doesn't matter how much or how often the Salimonu Kadiris of this world work to deny it. In fact, it would not matter who caused the war. The conduct of the war remains the issue.
Obi Nwakanma
From: ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 03:48:31 +0200
The greatest fraud ever perpetrated on Nigerians is the imposition of English language as the official language of the country. Although fluency in oral and written English is what depicts being educated in Nigeria, 98% of Nigerians are deprived that education and the 2% educated are using their fluency in spoken English to dominate and exploit the masses of Nigeria. Globally viewed, the Nigerian Government contains more academics than any other government on the planet earth. Yet Nigerians have a Professor of electricity as Minister of Power that constantly genrates megawatts of darkness for all Nigerians; we have a Professor of Medicine as Minister of Health but the medical journals of the Nigerian ruling elites are in foreign countries such as Britain, France, Germany, USA, Saudi Arabia, Dubai and India, because there are no functional hospitals worth its name in the country. The ruling elites with their illegitimate wealth are even proud to announce their medical treatments abroad and it has now become a matter of prestige and fashion for the educated and illegitimate Nigerian millionaires to die in foreign hospitals. We have a Minister of Finance and co-ordinating Minister of Economy touted as World's Bank guru that is verse in producing the growth of Gross Domestic Poverty contrary to Gross Domestic Products that obtains in other parts of the world. From our daily experience, educated Nigerians in power are fictional academics delivering imaginary developments. Having said that, I am very proud of my parents who sponsored my schooling so that today I can express myself in colonial language. I doubt if any Caucasian, especially British, can express him/herself in any of the Nigerian major languages, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba as I do in English.
In spite of the claim of Obi Nwakanma of being master of English language it is shocking that he could not understand that my conclusions on Ojukwu, Awolowo, Adekunle and others were based on their statements and actions as individuals and not that of their respective tribes. Awolowo and Adekunle did not declare the war but Ojukwu did and when Ojukwu's presumed sugar-coated ethnic war turned to mass starvation and death of my Igbo brothers and sisters, I have to blame Ojukwu and his ilk and not the Igbo victims of his war. I do not belong to Ndi Nzuzu (stupid people) who always attribute the action of any Nigerian official as being that of his/her tribe.
Obi Nwakanma wrote, "In Eastern Nigeria however, unlike the Federal end, there was at least a Consultative Assembly that ratified Ojukwu's mandate." In my mother tongue it is believed that fact is sacrosanct but fiction is a practical joke. In the Lagos newspaper, Morning Post of 24 February 1970, Dr. Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe said the followings about the dubious Consultative Assembly, "Because legislative and executive powers were vested in one person, Ojukwu, the impression created that decisions of the Eastern Region's Consultative Assembly had mandatory effect was a colossal deception." Those are the words of Nnamdi Azikiwe on Ojukwu's so called *Consultative Assembly* and the funny thing about deception is that it ends up deceiving the deceiver self. When Ojukwu deserted his troops and fled to Ivory Coast on 11 January 1970, he did not seek the approval of *Eastern Consultative Assembly* an indication that he was the Eastern Consultative Assembly in practice and the Assembly was him in person. That was a fact not a fiction!!
In response to my reference to Ironsi as a *Coup Rogue* Obi Nwakanma wrote, "Why not put it this way: the civil war in Nigeria would not have happened if there was peace in Western Nigeria, if there was no sustained incendiary politics in the West, the escalation of which was one of the central reasons for the January 15 Coup led by Emmanuel Ifeajuna." Despite wise counsel from our ancestors that one should begin a bite on a cake from the edge and not from the middle, Obi Nwakanma acted to the contrary with the history of what led to the five Majors Coup of January 15, 1966, which was hijacked and stolen by tribalists led by Ironsi.
The seed of the Nigerian civil war was actually sown in 1943, when Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe founded the first Tribal Union in Nigeria, called *IBO FEDERAL UNION* but changed later to IBO STATE UNION. As the seed of tribalism germinated and grew, it was finally nourished to fruition in 1959. This is how it happened. The December Federal election of 1959 was intended to choose the government that was to usher Nigeria into Independence in 1960. The election was contested by the Northern Peoples' Congress (NPC) under the leadership of Ahmadu Bello and his deputy, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) under the leadership of Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and his deputy, Dr Michael Okpara, Action Group (AG) led by Obafemi Awolowo with his deputy, Samuel Akintola. While the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) under the leadership of Aminu Kano was in alliance with the NCNC, the United Middle-Belt Congress (UMBC) led by Joseph Tarka was in alliance with the AG. In the 312 seats federal Parliament, the NPC won 148 seats, NCNC/NEPU won 89 seats and AG/UMBC won 75 seats. None of the political parties had enough majority in the legislature to form a government. Awolowo declared that he could serve under a national federal government led by Azikiwe but not by the feudalist, an indirect reference to the NPC leaders. The NCNC/NEPU and AG/UMBC together had 164 seats as against 148 for NPC. But on Sunday, 20th December 1959 the NCNC signed a coalition agreement with the NPC inspite of protest from the NEPU who had been persecuted by the Northern Region led government of the NPC. While the Yoruba led AG under Awolowo went into opposition, the Igbo led NCNC and Hausa/Fulani led NPC formed the Federal coalition government. The Igbo led NCNC had gone into coalition with the Hausa/Fulani led NPC with the belief that even though the Prime Minister's position was ceded to the Hausa/Fulani the entire administration of the country would still be controlled by the Igbos because of their superior education over their Hausa/Fulani partner. Thus, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa became the Prime Minister while Azikiwe initially was President of the Senate and subsequently Governor General when Sir James Robertson vacated the office in November 1961.
By 1961, the Hausa/Igbo controlled Federal government was aggressively hostile to the Yoruba controlled AG government of Western Region. As the colonial administrators were departing, their positions were filled by the Igbos. Then the Federal Government decided to set up a commission of enquiry into the National Bank of Nigeria owned by the Western Region Government. The AG government in the West went to court and the action of FG was declared unconstitutional. Thereafter the Hausa/Igbo controlled Parliament passed a motion to carve out Mid-West Region out of Western Region. Speaking in the Federal House Awolowo, the leader of opposition said that he supported the creation of Middle-Belt, Calabar/Ogoja/River and MidWest Regions simultaneously from the existing three Regions. The Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa replied thus, "I will not subscribe to the idea of breaking the Federation into pieces, but if any Region is so foolish as to ask us to break them into pieces, we shall help them to do so." Once again, the AG controlled Government of the West went to court to challenge the one sided decision to carve out an extra Region only in the West. Towards the end of 1961, the Deputy leader of AG and Premier of the West, Samuel Akintola drew the attention of Awolowo to the neglect and exclusion of Yorubas from Federal appointments and institutions. He therefore urged him to join the Federal government so as to obtain the share of the Yorubas in the administration of Nigeria. Awolowo told Akintola that appointed officials were meant to serve the whole country and not their tribes alone. He further observed that the Federal officials were equally deficient in providing amenities to their own tribes as well as it was in Western Region in spite of their senior service emoluments and fringe benefits. The disagreement between Awolowo and Akintola broke open at the AG party congress in Jos, February 2, 1962. In his leadership address Awolowo implored the Party to embrace democratic socialism, the new political ideology; he counselled the party against joining the NPC/NCNC coalition government; he wanted the party to work vigorously for the creation of three new regions out of the existing three and he wanted to sustain the Action Group as the main opposition party in Northern and Eastern Region. Akintola, Ayo Rosiji (the Secretary of the AG), and six others including five regional government ministers worked out of the Congress on February 3, 1962. The Congress voted out Ayo Rosiji as the Secretary of the Party and replaced him with the Action Group Leader of opposition in the Eastern House of Assembly, S. G. Ikoku.
On Saturday, 19 May 1962, Awolowo addressed a joint meeting of the Western and Midwestern executive committees of the Action Group at which he accused Akintola of anti-party activities. That was followed by a resolution demanding Akintola's immediate resignation as Premier of the West and Deputy Leader of the party by 81 votes to 29 against. The following day, the party's Federal Executive Council voted unanimously to endorse the previous day resolution by the Western and Midwestern executive committee of the AG. Thereafter, the parliamentary council of the Action Group met jointly with the Federal Executive Council to depose Akintola from office as Deputy Leader of the party and , in view of his refusal to resign, the Regional Governor was implored to sack him from office. In Akintola's stead, Dauda Soroye Adegbenro was designated as the Party Parliamentary Leader in the Western House of Assembly. Akintola reacted by asking the Governor, Adesoji Aderemi, to dissolve the Western House of Assembly. On Monday, 21 May 1962, sixty-six members of the Western House of Assembly, out of a total membership of one-hundred and seventeen, signed a petition to the Governor of Western Region to remove Akintola from office on the constitutional ground that he no longer commanded the support of a majority of the Assemblymen. Premised on that petition, the Governor removed Akintola and swore in Adegbenro as the new Premier. Akintola filed a lawsuit at Ibadan High Court to invalidate the Governor's action in addition to petitioning the Prime Minister, Balewa, and the Queen of Britain to remove the Governor from office. On May 24, 1962, the leader of the NCNC, Michael Okpara, declared that his government would not recognise the government of Adegbenro in the West. On 25 May 1962, the Western House of Assembly met at the request of Adegbenro to debate a vote of confidence in his new government. About ten Akintola's supporters disrupted the session and the Federal Police stepped in to clear the chamber and put it under lock. In the evening of the same day, the Prime Minister of the Federation, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, spoke in a nation-wide broadcast about the scuffle in the Western House of Assembly and announced that the Federal House of Representatives and the Senate would hold emergency sessions on May 29, 1962. On May 28, 1962, the central executive Council of AG expelled Akintola and Rosiji from the party. On the 29th of May 1962, the Igbo and Hausa/Fulani controlled Federal government declared a six-month emergency rule in Western Region after the House of Representatives and the Senate had voted for it. The thirteen Emergency Acts were signed into law by the Igbo Governor General Nnamdi Azikiwe. Awolowo and many of his supporters were restricted to isolated islands around Lagos and Ijebu as soon as the emergency rules were signed into law.
In July 1962, the Federal Supreme Court in a decision that was not unanimous, declared as unconstitutional the removal of Akintola from the office of Premier by the Governor without formal resolution on the floor of the House of Assembly. Adegbenro appealed against the judgment to the Privy Council in London which was the highest Court of Appeal in Nigeria then. In November 1962, Awolowo and thirty members of his Party, Action Group, were charged to court for treasonable felony for an alleged plan to overthrow by force the Igbo and Hausa (NCNC/NPC) Federal Coalition government. Therefore, after the emergency rule, 31st December 1962, the Federal Government reinstated Akintola as Premier of the West, 1st January 1963, while Awolowo and his supporters were remanded in prison awaiting treasonable felony trial. Akintola formed the United People's Party (UPP) with a small splinter group from AG and entered into alliance with the NCNC members of the House of Assembly. In May 1963, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ruled that Governor Adesoji Aderemi acted constitutionally when he removed Akintola as the Premier of the West on May 21, 1962. The UPP/NCNC controlled Western Region legislature quickly enacted a constitutional amendment with retroactive effect that the Premier could not be removed without formal vote of no confidence in the House of Assembly. The resolution was endorsed by the NPC/NCNC federal controlled parliament and signed into law by the Igbo Governor General of the Federation, Nnamdi Azikiwe. The Hausa/Fulani and Igbo control Federal government did not only overthrow the Action Group elected government of Western Region, it also carved out Midwest Region from Western Region while leaving Eastern and Northern regions intact. By September 1963, Awolowo and his comrades were found guilty of treasonable felony and while he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment, his seventeen associates were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment between two and seven years. With Awolowo in prison the Igbo-led Party of NCNC had hoped to gain control of the Western Region but that hope was soon dashed.
Barely five months after Awolowo was imprisoned the Federal Government released a preliminary figure for 1963 census resulting in total population of 55.7 Nigerians. The distribution of the figures gave the North 29.7 million; East 12.3 million; West 10.2 million; Midwest 2.5 million and Federal territory of Lagos 675,000. Since allocation of seats in the Federal parliament to each region depended on population, it implied that the NPC could control the centre by winning most of the seats in the North only. The approaching December 1964 Federal Election was to be based on the census figures. The Igbo controlled Eastern and Midwestern Regions, Michael Okpara and Dennis Osadebay, respectively rejected the census results and expected the UPP/NCNC puppet regime in the Western Region to kotow. In a surprise move the NCNC parliamentary leader in the Western House of Assembly and Deputy Premier, Remi A. Fani-Kayode had colluded with the Premier, Akintola, to re-incarnate the oldest political party in Nigeria formed in 1922 by Herbert Macaulay, named NNDP but liquidated by Nnamdi Azikiwe after 1951 regional elections in Nigeria. To the chagrin of the Igbo leader of the NCNC, Michael Okpara, the new government of the NNDP, Western Region, accepted the released census figures. However, the Igbo controlled government of Eastern Region challenged the census figures at the Supreme court to no avail.
In preparation for the December 30, 1964, Federal Elections, the Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) allocated seats to be contested to the Federal House of Representatives to each region. Thus, North got 167 seats, East 70 seats, West 57 seats, Midwest 14 seats and Lagos 4 seats. As a result of the dispute over the census figures, the relationship within the Igbo/hausa-Fulani federal coalition government had become strained and very hostile. This led to re-alignments amongst political parties in August 1964 in anticipation of 30th December 1964 Federal Election. The Nigerian National Alliance (NNA) contained NPC, NNDP, MDF and Niger Delta Congress of Eastern Nigeria, Dynamic Party and Republican Party (the last three parties were from Eastern Nigeria). The United Progressive Grand Alliance, UPGA, was composed of NCNC, AG, NEPU, and UMBC. Finally the NNA was declared winner of the election with 198 seats out of 312 seats. Disputes over the election was eventually resolved with Balewa promising to form a broad based national government. The Igbo NCNC as usual behaved like sewage rats, always ready to partake in cheesy feasts, and abandoned its alliance partners in UPGA to join the NNA led Federal government. The final rod that broke the Camel's back was the rigging of Elections to the Western House of Assembly on October 11, 1965 by the NNDP. The people of the West rose to defend their votes. That is the history of how the Igbo led NCNC collaborated with the Hausa/Fulani led NPC in the Federal Government of Nigeria to overthrow the elected government of Action Group in Western Region and installed a puppet regime that turned against the NCNC at the end.
You said that the cause of the Majors coup was the Western Region political upheaval and I am afraid that you are substituting irrational frenzy for knowledge. This is what Major Patrick Chukwuma Nzeogwu said in his Radio broadcast on Radio Kaduna at 12:30 noon on Saturday January 1966: In the name of supreme Council of the Nigerian Armed forces .... The constitution is suspended, and the regional government and elected assembly are hereby dissolved. The aim of the Revolutionary Council is to establish a strong, united and prosperous nation free from corruption and internal strife. ... Our enemies are the political profiteers, the swindlers, the men in the high and low places that seek bribes and demand ten per cent; those that seek to keep the country divided permanently so that they remain in office as Ministers and VIPs of waste; the tribalists; the nepotists; those that make the country look big-for-nothing before the international circles; those that have corrupted our society and put the Nigerian political calendar back by their words and deeds... We promise that you will no more be ashamed to say you are a Nigerian. Among the crimes listed for death sentence were embezzlement,bribery and corruption. When Major Nzeogwu spoke about swindlers, profiteers, bribery and corruption in the country he was speaking about the Igbo led NCNC and Hausa/Fulani led NPC Federal government that had ruled Nigeria from 1960 to January 15 , 1966. Chinua Achebe pointed out in his There was a Country, page 66-67, that between 1960 and 1966, the Igbo led the nation in virtually everything - politics, education commerce and the arts. Further on page 233, Chinua Achebe declared the Igbo as the dominant tribe in Nigeria during the NPC/NCNC coalition government. Therefore, the coup of January 15, 1966 was not about political disturbances in Western Nigeria.
At 14:30:00 hours on Saturday, 15 January 1966, Aguiyi Ironsi caused the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation to announce the following: In the early hours of this morning, 15th January 1966, a dissident section of the Nigerian Army kidnapped the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance and took them to an unknown destination. The General Officer Commanding the Nigerian Army (Ironsi) and the vast majority of the army remained completely loyal to the Federal Government and are already taking appropriate measures to bring the situation under control. If Ironsi was loyal to the Federal government, why did he refuse the appointment of Zanar Buka Dipcharima to succeed the kidnapped Balewa? The truth, Obi Nwakanma, is that Ironsi did not quell any coup, rather he and his tribal clique stole the coup of the five Majors and we are still suffering the consequence till date. No more no less.
From: rexmarinus@hotmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 22:42:22 +0000
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S.Kadiri
From: rexmarinus@hotmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 22:42:22 +0000
We should read the history of the Nigerian Civil War as it was and not how we wish to be, was my admonition to all Nigerians including myself. Having quoted me correctly, Mr. Marinus began his criticism of my essay thus, "The story of Nigerian Civil war as this writer wishes to see it..." You have reframed my sentence to convey a message that I have never intended.That is dishonest and by extension an outright fraud. You can behold your story (fiction) about the Nigerian Civil War while I hold steadily to the historical account of that war as recorded in books and other documents.
- Salimonu Kadiri
Regarding what you claim above to be a misrepresentation of your intentions in my response, it is either you do not understand the English language well enough to register and recognize your own intentions, or you do not know exactly the nature of your intentions. So, I'll put it plainly again: your intention is to put the responsibility of the suffering in Biafra squarely on Ojukwu and Igbo leadership and to absolve Awo and Adekunle of the responsibilities for war crimes. In doing that, you've taken an extreme view that suggests that the Igbo got what they deserve because they fought a war in which Gowon and his Federal side was blameless. This is how you want to read your own history of the war.
Now, Salimonu Kadiri, I do not know which books you have read, but I do know from your argument that your reading is narrow and fraught with "ill intentions." So, I'll suggest you broaden your readings a little bit more on the Nigerian crisis, and just for starters, I will recommend three books: J.R. Sullivan's Breadless Biafra (1969), Michael Mok's Biafra Journals (1969), and Waugh and Cronje's Biafra: Britain's Shame. When you're done with these three preliminary texts, I'll point you to some more. It'll be a worthwhile project to re-educate you beyond your narrow and pedestrian reading on Biafra, and point you to a vast archive of writings, journalism, and so much more on that war other than familiar party-line narrative you call history. The Biafra war is a very well-documented war.
Ojukwu rightly refused to attend any Council meetings outside the East where his personal security was not guaranteed. He was not averse to meetings; after all he met in Aburi. But with the Federal government already distorting, dismantling, and reneging on the agreements reached in Aburi, there was clearly no good faith on either side. It is also not true that the Federal government was about ratifying all the agreements, when it had in fact refused for example to pay Federal Civil servants of Eastern Nigerian origin who had fled to the East in the pogrom as was agreed in Aburi thus putting significant fiscal pressures on the Eastern government. The Federal government's refusal to remit Eastern Nigeria's tax, particularly the oil tax, was another infraction. The tinkering with emergency powers was also very clearly, a trap for Ojukwu who was undisputably the target of the emergency power clause. So, in fact, talking about the fictionalizing history, I think you need to look steadily in the mirror.
By the way you wrote the following: "Both Ojukwu and Gowon derived their powers from the barrel of the gun and not out of election or plebiscite by Northerners and Easterners respectively. Therefore Ojukwu had no mandate from Easterners to boycott Supreme Military Council meeting especially when his salary was being paid by the Nigerian Army. No matter how we may twist our words, the fact remains that if Ironsi had not stolen the coup of the five revolutionary Majors on January 15, 1966, and converted it to the triumph of his ethnic group over others, the July 29, 1966 coup could not have occurred as well as subsequent civil war."
True, neither Gowon nor Ojukwu derived their powers from the ballot box. In Eastern Nigeria however, unlike the Federal end, there was at least a Consultative Assembly that ratified Ojukwu's mandate. Gowon did not conduct a plebiscite either in Western Nigeria or Midwestern Nigeria, which with the North became the tripartite bastion of his power base and war with the East. It is interesting that you exclude those two regional entities in your assertions. But finally to put this rather pointedly: it amounts to churlish disregard for truth to suggest that the civil war would not have happened if 'Ironsi had not stolen the coup of the five revolutionary Majors... and converted it to the triumph of his ethnic group... ." And there is the simple sum of your intentions. Why not put it this way: the Civil war in Nigeria would not have happened if there was peace in Western Nigeria; if there was no sustained incendiary politics in the West, the escalation of which was one of the central reasons for the January 15 Coup led by Emmanuel Ifeajuna. It is irresponsible to suggest that "Ironsi stole" a coup when, as the General of the Nigerian Army, he was sworn to defend the nation with his life. Ironsi at great personal risk mobilized and quashed the coup of young men who were still wet behind their ears. The excuse for murdering Ironsi was that he wanted to create a "unitary state" and "unify" the Nigerian services. How ironic! Ironsi did his patriotic duty to Nigeria, and so did Ojukwu, and for an alternative, more balanced and sophisticated view of the facts of that history, I will urge you to read Akin Osuntokun's essay on Benjamin Adekunle published in Thisday. That should teach you both the felicity of language and of intentions.
Obi Nwakanma
From: ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 22:59:04 +0200
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- Salimonu Kadiri
Regarding what you claim above to be a misrepresentation of your intentions in my response, it is either you do not understand the English language well enough to register and recognize your own intentions, or you do not know exactly the nature of your intentions. So, I'll put it plainly again: your intention is to put the responsibility of the suffering in Biafra squarely on Ojukwu and Igbo leadership and to absolve Awo and Adekunle of the responsibilities for war crimes. In doing that, you've taken an extreme view that suggests that the Igbo got what they deserve because they fought a war in which Gowon and his Federal side was blameless. This is how you want to read your own history of the war.
Now, Salimonu Kadiri, I do not know which books you have read, but I do know from your argument that your reading is narrow and fraught with "ill intentions." So, I'll suggest you broaden your readings a little bit more on the Nigerian crisis, and just for starters, I will recommend three books: J.R. Sullivan's Breadless Biafra (1969), Michael Mok's Biafra Journals (1969), and Waugh and Cronje's Biafra: Britain's Shame. When you're done with these three preliminary texts, I'll point you to some more. It'll be a worthwhile project to re-educate you beyond your narrow and pedestrian reading on Biafra, and point you to a vast archive of writings, journalism, and so much more on that war other than familiar party-line narrative you call history. The Biafra war is a very well-documented war.
Ojukwu rightly refused to attend any Council meetings outside the East where his personal security was not guaranteed. He was not averse to meetings; after all he met in Aburi. But with the Federal government already distorting, dismantling, and reneging on the agreements reached in Aburi, there was clearly no good faith on either side. It is also not true that the Federal government was about ratifying all the agreements, when it had in fact refused for example to pay Federal Civil servants of Eastern Nigerian origin who had fled to the East in the pogrom as was agreed in Aburi thus putting significant fiscal pressures on the Eastern government. The Federal government's refusal to remit Eastern Nigeria's tax, particularly the oil tax, was another infraction. The tinkering with emergency powers was also very clearly, a trap for Ojukwu who was undisputably the target of the emergency power clause. So, in fact, talking about the fictionalizing history, I think you need to look steadily in the mirror.
By the way you wrote the following: "Both Ojukwu and Gowon derived their powers from the barrel of the gun and not out of election or plebiscite by Northerners and Easterners respectively. Therefore Ojukwu had no mandate from Easterners to boycott Supreme Military Council meeting especially when his salary was being paid by the Nigerian Army. No matter how we may twist our words, the fact remains that if Ironsi had not stolen the coup of the five revolutionary Majors on January 15, 1966, and converted it to the triumph of his ethnic group over others, the July 29, 1966 coup could not have occurred as well as subsequent civil war."
True, neither Gowon nor Ojukwu derived their powers from the ballot box. In Eastern Nigeria however, unlike the Federal end, there was at least a Consultative Assembly that ratified Ojukwu's mandate. Gowon did not conduct a plebiscite either in Western Nigeria or Midwestern Nigeria, which with the North became the tripartite bastion of his power base and war with the East. It is interesting that you exclude those two regional entities in your assertions. But finally to put this rather pointedly: it amounts to churlish disregard for truth to suggest that the civil war would not have happened if 'Ironsi had not stolen the coup of the five revolutionary Majors... and converted it to the triumph of his ethnic group... ." And there is the simple sum of your intentions. Why not put it this way: the Civil war in Nigeria would not have happened if there was peace in Western Nigeria; if there was no sustained incendiary politics in the West, the escalation of which was one of the central reasons for the January 15 Coup led by Emmanuel Ifeajuna. It is irresponsible to suggest that "Ironsi stole" a coup when, as the General of the Nigerian Army, he was sworn to defend the nation with his life. Ironsi at great personal risk mobilized and quashed the coup of young men who were still wet behind their ears. The excuse for murdering Ironsi was that he wanted to create a "unitary state" and "unify" the Nigerian services. How ironic! Ironsi did his patriotic duty to Nigeria, and so did Ojukwu, and for an alternative, more balanced and sophisticated view of the facts of that history, I will urge you to read Akin Osuntokun's essay on Benjamin Adekunle published in Thisday. That should teach you both the felicity of language and of intentions.
Obi Nwakanma
From: ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 22:59:04 +0200
Mr. Rex Marinus logic of alligator is beyond my comprehension. Those who are conversant with the behaviour of alligators would know that when it is about to rain, alligators will run to the nearest water stream to hide so as to avoid being wet by the rain. Running away from the rainfall and hiding under water so as not to be wet sounds illogical to us human beings but to alligators it is logical. We should read the history of the Nigerian Civil War as it was and not how we wish to be, was my admonition to all Nigerians including myself. Having quoted me correctly, Mr. Marinus began his criticism of my essay thus, "The story of Nigerian Civil war as this writer wishes to see it..." You have reframed my sentence to convey a message that I have never intended.That is dishonest and by extension an outright fraud. You can behold your story (fiction) about the Nigerian Civil War while I hold steadily to the historical account of that war as recorded in books and other documents.
Mr. Marinus asserted, "...to use the excuse of war to justify mass murder or genocide is intolerable. Which mass murder or genocide am I justifying? In the history of warfare, Nigeria is the only country in the world that has ever invited international observer team - from United Nations, Organisation of African Unity (present day African Union), Britain, Canada, Poland and Sweden - to supervise and report on the conduct of its soldiers at the war front. The observer team wrote volumes of reports that completely exonerated the Nigerian Army from any war crime and much less genocide.
The Supreme Military Council's Meeting of 10 March 1967 which was scheduled to take place in Benin, then capital of Midwest Region, was to ratify Decree No.8, 1967 which contained everything agreed upon at Aburi, except that the Decree authorised the Supreme Military Council to declare a state of emergency anywhere in the country, if the situation demanded it, and provided three out of the four military Governors consented to it. Ojukwu refused to attend that meeting because he did not recognise Gowon as the Supreme Commander after Ironsi had been killed. Both Ojukwu and Gowon derived their powers from the barrel of the gun and not out of election or plebiscite by Northerners and Easterners respectively. Therefore Ojukwu had no mandate from Easterners to boycott Supreme Military Council meeting especially when his salary was being paid by the Nigerian Army. No matter how we may twist our words, the fact remains that if Ironsi had not stolen the coup of the five revolutionary Majors on January 15, 1966, and converted it to the triumph of his ethnic group over others, the July 29, 1966 coup could not have occurred as well as subsequent civil war.
When it comes to food supplies to Biafra, Chinua Achebe testified in his, There Was a Country thus, "The diplomatic battles had reached a fever pitch by the middle of 1968. Gowon, under immense international pressure ... decided to open up land routes for a supervised transport of relief( to Biafra). To the consternation of Gowon, Ojukwu opted out of land routes in favour of increased airlifts of food from São Tomé by international relief agencies (p. 211)." Thus, whatever Adekunle or Awolowo might have said about not giving food to the Biafran soldiers so that they would not fight harder became inconsequential as a result of Gowon's offer of land routes of relief supplies to Biafra. By rejecting relief supplies through land routes Ojukwu actually committed war crime. International Committee of Red Cross mondial responsibilities and its mandate emanates from governments' voluntarily signing the Geneva Convention and demands a strict adherence to legality no matter how pressing the humanitarian considerations might be. The Nigerian government signed the Geneva Convention but not Ojukwu or Biafra who had no right to dictate conditions to accept humanitarian relief supplies for civilians in his concentration camps. That Adekunle was irritated by the behaviours of the so called international humanitarian organisations, who disregarded the request of the Federal government to inspect all their relief flights to Biafra, was quite understandable. That is history and not story my dear Rex Marinus.
From: rexmarinus@hotmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 23:04:52 +0000
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From: rexmarinus@hotmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 23:04:52 +0000
"We should read the history of the Nigerian Civil War as it was and not as how we wish it be."
-Salimonu Kadiri
The story of Nigerian Civil war as this writers wishes to see it is not only fraught with contradictions, but it also flows from deep unresolved antipathy against Ojukwu and the Igbo. I can tolerate this writer's personal and very subjective view of Ojukwu; it is his prerogative; but to use the excuse of war to justify mass murder or genocide is intolerable. So, Ojukwu caused a war with Nigeria? This is ridiculous revisionism: (a) The East of Nigeria did not broach secession until the Lagos regime began to violate the agreements at Aburi and went a step further to take decisions affecting the East of which the Easterners were not part or privy; (b) the East did not launch war against any part of Nigeria until July 6 1967, when the Gowon regime in Lagos opened a three-front attack on the East from Gakem, Nsukka and from the sea in Bonny. The East and its leadership were forced to take both precautionary and defensive positions. As the federal forces invaded and killed the Eastern population, refugees from these minority "liberated areas" escaped and poured into the Eastern heartland in search of refuge from the federal onslaught, until the population of the displaced overwhelmed the food supply and extended family networks of the East. Ojukwu did not drive over 1 million Easterners to leave the rest of the federation to return to the East by September 1967, thereby complicating the refugee situation of the East even before the first shots were fired. Ojukwu did not force families fleeing from war to relocate into the Igbo heartland in search of refuge. It is therefore mischievous revision to suggest that Ojukwu "forced" Easterners into concentration camps. Displaced refugees in the East who had nowhere else to go were accommodated in Primary school buildings; secondary school halls; church buildings, etc. The federal army routinely bombed these civilian targets, including open markets and hospitals. All these are well documented in incident reports by the Red Cross, Caritas, and even by foreign journalists who were present and were witnesses to some of these war crimes and drew international attention to them. Pursued right into the heart of the land, with a food blockade was enforced to force the Biafra to surrender, the Biafran regime, yes, was overwhelmed by 1968. But rather than allow a food corridor as was agreed in many international negotiations, the Federal government enforced a bloackade to prevent Ojukwu's government from getting food supplies to feed mostly the civilian population at risk. As Chief Awolowo openly said in one of his interviews as justification for the food embargo on a Biafra which he authored, "I knew civilians would suffer, but the soldiers would suffer more." That was the logic behind a very inhuman policy that starved young children, the old, and the sickly to death. Where Benjamin Adekunle's homidal campaign drove people to seek refuge inside Biafra held positions, the strafing of civilian targets from the air, and the food blockade killed off more people from disease and hunger.
Now, should Ojukwu have surrendered in the face of a federal onslaught that, from July 29 1966 made it clear that its aim was to selectively annihilate the Igbo, and did not do anything in the period to reassure the Igbo of their safety in the federation? People do not fight to the death if they glimpsed life at the other end f the conflict. The Igbo are also not people you simply lead by the nose. Ojukwu resisted the call to declare secession and worked to dissuade the agitators. But every step of the way, the federal side, from the very beginning made it clear that the only peace it sought was the peace of the graveyard; a compliant peace; or as Ojukwu once aptly put it, the kind of peace between Jonah and the belly of the whale. You mention Peter Enahoro, I think you should read his two essays on that period, one particularly, "Why I Left Nigeria," published in the Transition magazine of 1968. The excuse that by defending themselves, the Igbo therefore must take responsibility for the war, and the denial of the clear crimes of war perpetrated against them is soulless and wicked. The writer of this piece is the product of a mindset that has continued to circulate self-regarding fiction. But it is all water under the bridge? No. The contradictions of the Biafran war continues to haunt Nigeria. Today, however, my generation of Igbo are resolved about Biafra: it was a war misfought because the Biafran leadership was schooled far more in diplomacy than in warfare. Biafra was surprised by war because it did not prepare for war; and it did not fully realize in those years the depth of the anti-Igbo animosity that is at the core of contemporary Nigerian imagination. The Igbo is the Nigerian unheimlich , because they reflect the visible terror of "otherness" as a result of their pervasive migrancy, boundary-crossing, and resettlement of the new nation. Perhaps it is true, there are many Igbo who are afflicted with the neurosis of unresolved trauma; but there many on the other side of this narrative who are afflicted with the neurosis of unresolved fear and guilt.
Obi Nwakanma
From: ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 20:44:16 +0200
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-Salimonu Kadiri
The story of Nigerian Civil war as this writers wishes to see it is not only fraught with contradictions, but it also flows from deep unresolved antipathy against Ojukwu and the Igbo. I can tolerate this writer's personal and very subjective view of Ojukwu; it is his prerogative; but to use the excuse of war to justify mass murder or genocide is intolerable. So, Ojukwu caused a war with Nigeria? This is ridiculous revisionism: (a) The East of Nigeria did not broach secession until the Lagos regime began to violate the agreements at Aburi and went a step further to take decisions affecting the East of which the Easterners were not part or privy; (b) the East did not launch war against any part of Nigeria until July 6 1967, when the Gowon regime in Lagos opened a three-front attack on the East from Gakem, Nsukka and from the sea in Bonny. The East and its leadership were forced to take both precautionary and defensive positions. As the federal forces invaded and killed the Eastern population, refugees from these minority "liberated areas" escaped and poured into the Eastern heartland in search of refuge from the federal onslaught, until the population of the displaced overwhelmed the food supply and extended family networks of the East. Ojukwu did not drive over 1 million Easterners to leave the rest of the federation to return to the East by September 1967, thereby complicating the refugee situation of the East even before the first shots were fired. Ojukwu did not force families fleeing from war to relocate into the Igbo heartland in search of refuge. It is therefore mischievous revision to suggest that Ojukwu "forced" Easterners into concentration camps. Displaced refugees in the East who had nowhere else to go were accommodated in Primary school buildings; secondary school halls; church buildings, etc. The federal army routinely bombed these civilian targets, including open markets and hospitals. All these are well documented in incident reports by the Red Cross, Caritas, and even by foreign journalists who were present and were witnesses to some of these war crimes and drew international attention to them. Pursued right into the heart of the land, with a food blockade was enforced to force the Biafra to surrender, the Biafran regime, yes, was overwhelmed by 1968. But rather than allow a food corridor as was agreed in many international negotiations, the Federal government enforced a bloackade to prevent Ojukwu's government from getting food supplies to feed mostly the civilian population at risk. As Chief Awolowo openly said in one of his interviews as justification for the food embargo on a Biafra which he authored, "I knew civilians would suffer, but the soldiers would suffer more." That was the logic behind a very inhuman policy that starved young children, the old, and the sickly to death. Where Benjamin Adekunle's homidal campaign drove people to seek refuge inside Biafra held positions, the strafing of civilian targets from the air, and the food blockade killed off more people from disease and hunger.
Now, should Ojukwu have surrendered in the face of a federal onslaught that, from July 29 1966 made it clear that its aim was to selectively annihilate the Igbo, and did not do anything in the period to reassure the Igbo of their safety in the federation? People do not fight to the death if they glimpsed life at the other end f the conflict. The Igbo are also not people you simply lead by the nose. Ojukwu resisted the call to declare secession and worked to dissuade the agitators. But every step of the way, the federal side, from the very beginning made it clear that the only peace it sought was the peace of the graveyard; a compliant peace; or as Ojukwu once aptly put it, the kind of peace between Jonah and the belly of the whale. You mention Peter Enahoro, I think you should read his two essays on that period, one particularly, "Why I Left Nigeria," published in the Transition magazine of 1968. The excuse that by defending themselves, the Igbo therefore must take responsibility for the war, and the denial of the clear crimes of war perpetrated against them is soulless and wicked. The writer of this piece is the product of a mindset that has continued to circulate self-regarding fiction. But it is all water under the bridge? No. The contradictions of the Biafran war continues to haunt Nigeria. Today, however, my generation of Igbo are resolved about Biafra: it was a war misfought because the Biafran leadership was schooled far more in diplomacy than in warfare. Biafra was surprised by war because it did not prepare for war; and it did not fully realize in those years the depth of the anti-Igbo animosity that is at the core of contemporary Nigerian imagination. The Igbo is the Nigerian unheimlich , because they reflect the visible terror of "otherness" as a result of their pervasive migrancy, boundary-crossing, and resettlement of the new nation. Perhaps it is true, there are many Igbo who are afflicted with the neurosis of unresolved trauma; but there many on the other side of this narrative who are afflicted with the neurosis of unresolved fear and guilt.
Obi Nwakanma
From: ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 20:44:16 +0200
Those who are afflicted with neurosis or character disorder will never accept responsibility for the consequence of their attacks on other people but when their attacks are countered and repelled, they will automatically blame the repellants for their defeat. We should read the history of the Nigerian Civil War as it was and not as how we wish it be.
While many of us are still saddened by the unnecessary waste of lives of our brethrens in the Nigerian civil war the cause and the fault of that huge lost of lives should be blamed on Ojukwu and his inner circle of carbinent. It was Ojukwu who rejected Decree No. 8 of 17th March 1967 that contained all the agreements reached at Aburi except that it authorised the Supreme Military Council to declare a state of emergency anywhere in the country, if the situation demanded it, and provided three out of the four Regional Governors consented to it. At the end of March 1967, Ojukwu issued his so called *survival edicts* whereby he seized Federal Government properties in the East. The first air piracy in Africa was committed in April 1967, when a Nigerian Airways Fokker Friendship aircraft was hijacked in Benin and flown to Enugu. After treating Awolowo contemptuously on May 7, 1967, Ojukwu, on the 26th of May 1967, convened what he called Eastern Consultative Assembly to approve Eastern Region's autonomy from Nigeria. To the Consultative Assembly, Ojukwu boasted that, "there is no power in this country or in Black Africa to subdue us by force." On the 27th of May 1967, Gowon abrogated Decree No. 8, declared a State of Emergency throughout the Federation, and split the country into 12 States of which the Eastern Region became East Central State, Rivers State and South East State. On the same day, Ojukwu's Consultative Assembly mandated him to declare a Sovereign State of Biafra as early as possible. On May 30, 1967, Ojukwu declared his Republic of Biafra. It is noteworthy that the killing of Igbos in the North began in May 1966 when Ironsi was in power but Ojukwu did not secede. When his tribesman was no longer in power he wanted to secede. Ojukwu himself had joined hands with Ironsi to crush the rebellion of Isaac Adaka Boro when he declared the minority part of Eastern Region as Niger Delta Republic in February 1966. The Niger Delta People that were killed while quelling the rebellion of Isaac Adaka Boro were not Igbos but still they were human beings. So on July 6, 1967 Gowon commenced a *police Action* to arrest Ojukwu which to the views of observers all over the world was so mild in comparison with what the duos of Ironsi and Ojukwu did to Isaac Adaka Boro, a non Igbo rebellion.
Early in 1967, Peter Enahoro who had gone into exile in London in protest against the continued killings of Igbos in September 1966 long after Gowon had ascended power, wrote in the Eastern Nigerian Outlook thus, "Eastern Nigeria must not surrender. Ojukwu must not capitulate. Let us for the first time in the History of Nigeria have a force powerful enough to challenge the feudal North." Enahoro expressed the view of many Nigerians, including majority of Northerners, at that time. But Ojukwu was a damn reactionary. He grew Che Guevara's beards but acted like Moise Tshombe, the Katangese rebel leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ojukwu did not want to fight feudalism and he killed those around him who wanted to fight against feudalism, such as Victor Banjo, Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Sam Agbamuche and Philip Alale while some, like Chike Obi, Mukwugo Okoye and others were detained throughout the war.
I have previously stated in this forum that Nigerian civil war, practically, finished in September 1968 and no one has been able to challenge me. September 1968 was exactly the time when hunger and starvation began to take its toll among Igbos, forced into concentration camps by Ojukwu who never considered mass deaths in his concentration camps as genocide or war crime perpetrated either by Awolowo, Adekunle or the federal government of Nigeria. Therefore, Ojukwu addressed his Consultative Assembly at the end of September 1968 as follows, "Our real victory lies in our ability to prevent the extermination of our people by a heartless enemy. In so far as these aims are concerned, we have not failed (see Biafra: Ojukwu's Selected Speeches; Volume1. p. 353)." Until his death Ojukwu never accused anyone of genocide or war crimes, may be due to the fact that he knew that he was responsible for hunger and starvation to death in his Republic of Biafra. Further on p. 357 of the same volume of his Selected Speeches, and in the same forum, Ojukwu said, "Those governments motivated by humanitarian considerations have a responsibility to ensure that Biafrans are enabled to defend themselves by providing them the wherewithal so to do." In clear terms, Ojukwu was demanding for weapons from foreign governments and not food as humanitarian supplies for his starving citizens of his Republic.
After wasting millions of human lives, Ojukwu with his inner cabinet fled from Biafra into asylum in the Ivory Coast. But in 1979 when Nigeria was on the verge to civilian rule, Ojukwu submitted his nomination papers, duly signed from Ivory Coast, to Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) on form E. C. 4D in which Ojukwu declared that he was a citizen of Nigeria and therefore qualified for election to the Nigerian House of Representatives on the ticket of the Great Nigeria People's Party (GNPP), led by Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim and in Nnewi Federal Constituency. FEDECO rejected his application on the ground that he was dismissed from the Nigerian Army and in accordance with section 73 sub-section (1), (9) (ii) of the Electoral Decree, a dismissed official was not qualified to contest elections. Ojukwu's lawyers took FEDECO to court in vain. Ojukwu, who denigerianized himself and imposed the same on all Igbos in 1967 because of his hatred for Northerners was now seeking election into the Nigerian House of Representatives on the platform of a party led by a Northerner. What a shameless villain?
Ojukwu returned to Nigeria in 1982, having been pardoned by President Shehu Shagari and Ojukwu quickly joined the ruling NPN whose power was terminated by a military coup in 1983. However, in 1993 the properties of his father in Lagos, Ojukwu Transport Limited, was released to him together with accumulated rents of twelve million Naira collected and saved by each succeeding governments since 1967. The collection of that huge amount was not made public until one of his half-brothers, Lotanna Ojukwu, filed a lawsuit against him in 1998 to demand his part of their father's heritage. Contrary to propaganda, the N 12 million was not reduced to £20!!
If the Igbos have voted massively for Ojukwu when he contested the Presidential Election of 2007, under the platform of APGA, he could justifiably be referred to as a hero for the Igbo. In that election, Presidential Candidate Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, got only 155, 947 votes in the whole country. While Buhari and Atiku challenged the result of the election in court, Ojukwu and his APGA rushed to submit names of likely ministers to Umaru Musa Yar'Adua who had promised to form a national government of all political parties. Ojukwu was not a Hero for the Igbos not to talk of the whole Nigeria. It is a hidden fact to many Nigerians that while Ojukwu's Biafra war veterans, under the scorch of the sun and pouring rain, beg for alms to make a living, Ojukwu crawled at the feet of those he had sworn not to touch even with a pincet to beg for pension as a Lieutenant Colonel, the rank he held before the war in the Nigerian Army. He was granted the pension which he was receiving every month until his last breath on this earth. A hero or an opportunist, I leave that to all normal people to judge.
From: rexmarinus@hotmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 19:09:22 +0000
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From: rexmarinus@hotmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 19:09:22 +0000
The simple truth is that Benjamin Adekunle should have been brought before a civilized court, and charged under the Geneva convention for war crimes, and he should have spent the rest of his wretched life in a prison. Chief Awolowo also abetted the use of hunger in the blockade that starved civilian populations in a war which the federal government declared and waged against the East. He too stands guilty of war crimes. Achebe merely pointed out the facts. Those invested in erasing and revising the truths of that war are wrestling with time and the long memory of a violated people. It is impossible to silence people who can still point to mass graves that hold the bleached bones of their women, their children and young men who were victims of the war tactics of Benjamin Adekunle, and the policies that backed him. One or two conferences may not resolve these questions, but it will open up the pus-filled wound of history covered with bandaid, and allow the different sides of the narrative to confront the other, and perhaps ultimately find peace.
Obi Nwakanma
From: ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 13:45:20 +0200
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Obi Nwakanma
From: ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 13:45:20 +0200
I doubt if such a conference would ever achieve anything good because some Nigerians have been narcotized with false ethnic love. Those ethnic warriors dwell in social environment where gossips and ordinary speculations work better than deep-rooted thinking and ideological philosophy. In their narcotized condition, the ethnic fascists are addicted to interpreting speeches of their opponents in the Nigerian civil war to convey meanings that were not intended by the speakers. I will corroborate my assertion with some examples.
At the meeting of Western Leaders of Thought in Ibadan, May 1, 1967, Obafemi Awolowo said, "If the Eastern Region is allowed, by acts of omission, or commission, to secede from or opt out of Nigeria, then the Federation should be considered to be at an end and the Western Region should also opt out of it." Not only did that statement indicate clear opposition to disintegration of Nigeria, Awolowo took anti-secession step when on the 7th of May 1967, he led a four-man reconciliation delegation to Enugu to meet Lieutenant Colonel Ojukwu and to persuade him not to cut the head as a solution to migraine. Ojukwu disdainfully treated Awolowo and his National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) and told them that their mission was an ill-conceived child. In spite of the self-explained statement of Awolowo on the 1st of May 1967, the grand Mandarin of ethno-fascism went on to interpret his statement as having agreed with Ojukwu that the Western Region would simultaneously secede from Nigeria and that Awolowo betrayed Ojukwu by not making West to secede.
In Chinua Achebe's There was a Country (p. 233), he wrote, "A statement credited to Chief Obafemi Awolowo and echoed by his cohorts is the most callous and unfortunate: All is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I don't see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight harder." Since Igbo civilians were unarmed and not fighting against the Federal forces, the objection to *feeding our enemies fat in order for them to fight harder* as credited to Awolowo could reasonably not have implied Igbo civilians but Biafran soldiers. However, the cause of Awolowo remarks in that regard was completely detached and expunged from public knowledge. Indeed Awolowo was reacting to reports that relief supplies sent to Biafra for civilians were being hijacked by the Biafran soldiers and did not reach the needy. Clearly, Awolowo did not object to sending food to civilian Biafrans but their soldiers. Yet, narcotized ethnic fascists continue till date to accuse Awolowo of refusing food to civilians in Biafra and thereby had committed genocide when Igbos starved to death in Ojukwu's concentration camps. These ethnic fascists should have read page 22 of Ojukwu's Ahiara Declaration of June 1, 1969, where he stated thus, "....even while we are engaged in a war of a national survival, even while the life of our nation hangs in the balance, we see some public servants, who throw huge parties to entertain their friends; who kill cows to christen their babies. We have members of the Armed Forces who carry on attack trade instead of fighting the enemy. We have traders who hoard essential goods and inflate prices thereby increasing the people's hardship." That was the situation in Biafra as observed By Ojukwu himself, 1 June 1969 when his country was afflicted with mass starvation.
As for Adekunle's reaction to the international humanitarian organisations at that time, one must bear in mind that those organisations violated the international rules that regulated their activities. Nigeria had insisted according to international law that all humanitarian flights to Biafra should first land in Nigeria (Port-Harcourt) for inspection so as to guarantee that weapons were not being ferried to the rebels, but the humanitarian organisations ignored Federal government's request by flying direct to the rebel enclave. A month after Adekunle was relieved of his Command of the third Marine, a Red Cross marked aircraft that refused to land at Port-Harcourt for inspection on the order of the Nigerian Air Force was shot down and exposed for carrying arms and ammunitions and not civilian relief supplies in June 1969. Thus Adekunle was vindicated. The war finished 44 years ago and war propaganda must have ended then as well. That is what ethno-fascists have to understand!!
From: rexmarinus@hotmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 19:56:51 +0000
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From: rexmarinus@hotmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 19:56:51 +0000
God thinking Abdul Salau. Its long overdue.
Obi Nwakanma
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 14:30:15 -0500
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
From: salauabdul@gmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Igbo Studies Conference and Historical Society of Nigeria, and Professor Falola can organize such a conference. Professor Falola has experience organizing conferences in Africa this conference is needed. It must be open and must include scholars and writers with different point of view.
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Obi Nwakanma
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 14:30:15 -0500
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
From: salauabdul@gmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 12:21 PM, John Mbaku <jmbaku@weber.edu> wrote:
Perhaps, some university in Nigeria or other academic institution, can organize an academic conference on either the civil war (1967-1970) generally and provide a panel to rigorously look into the matters raised here, or actually have the entire conference devoted to an examination of the man and the role he played in the civil war, in particular, and the political economy of Nigeria, in general. I doubt that all this name-calling would sufficiently advance the discuss on General Benjamin Adesanya Maja Adekunle or any other Nigerian from history.--On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 1:37 PM, Anunoby, Ogugua <AnunobyO@lincolnu.edu> wrote:If verifiable evidence is available and the request is for “authentic” evidence, the suspicion, respectfully, must be that the seeker of the latter evidence might be in some state of self-denial which by the way is the free available choice of the denier.
Many people all over the world do not believe that all is fair, proper, and right in war. There are also many who do. Everyone is free to believe as they please or choose. International law however is clear on the subject hence “war crimes” and war crime trials that follow.
“The truth is that Major Chude Sokei and Lieutenant Oguchi became pacifists only because the person they were supposed to kill, Dr Michael Ihenokura Okpara, was their tribesman.”
Why anyone based on only blunt supposition will be categorically sure that what they claim to be the truth is, and nothing but the truth is beyond me.
It is a historical fact that Archbishop Makarios, Primate of the autocephalous Church of Cyprus and the first President of the Republic of Cyprus was officially visiting Premier Okpara in Enugu after the January 1966 Commonwealth Leaders Conference in Lagos that had just ended. The coup plotters broke into the Premier’s Lodge (Okpara’s official residence as premier) in Enugu as planned on the night of the coup. They found Okpara and Makarios at a meeting. The coup plotters’ break-in at that time of the night in full military assault gear struck terror into Okpara and his honored guest. They left without Okpara because they knew that the Archbishop and President would be a credible witness to Okpara’s abduction and planned assassination except of course they assassinated the Archbishop and President too. This is the late Archbishop and President’s account of the event, at a formal, public, press conference that he addressed in Lagos, before his departure home.
One needs neither inspiration nor education to recognize that the above Sokei and Oguchi claim is most likely an invented narrative that falsely explains Okpara’s escape from Igbo coup plotters given the assassinations in Ibadan, Kaduna and Lagos on the same night. It was most likely masterfully invented to justify the brutal murders of innocent Eastern Nigerians in military barracks, and in homes and streets of the then Northern and western Regions, in the months and years that followed
The events that led to the Nigeria-Biafra war were tragic but avoidable. The war was even more so. Dispassionate and honest conversations must continue to take place so that the events’ lessons are learned and the events are not repeated.
oa
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Salimonu Kadiri
Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2014 8:42 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
I have requested the traducers of General Adekunle to provide authentic evidence to prove their claims that General Adekunle committed war crimes or genocide during the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970). Instead of acceding to my request, General Adekunle's traducers have been engaged in publishing innuendoes, outright lies and even forgeries just to smear the image of the revered General who advocated that the best way to stop unnecessary sufferings and deaths of our Igbo brethrens was a quick defeat of the rebel forces. Nigeria is a country where ineptitude and mediocrity are always rewarded while the truly talented, honest and patriots, like General Adekunle, are always disdained and disesteemed. Nevertheless, it is indecent and indecorum to fabricate stories out of ones imagination just because of the desire to discredit General Adekunle. General Adekunle did not cause or declare the civil war but as fate would have it he happened to one the three Divisional Commanders. In a war you have to kill and maim or be killed or be maimed. In war there is nothing like equilibrium where reactions is equal to action. This is best illustrated with what Okonkwo tells us in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart that if a man comes and defecates in your compound, the only manly thing to do is to take a stick and break his head. Breaking the head of a compound defecator is out of proportion with defecating. That is how it is in war. I hate war(s) and that is why I can never be a sympathiser of war crimes.
A times, I have to choose words to describe what I see and experience. Therefore, my deployment of the word hallucination was just a description of the charge of genocide being levelled against General Adekunle. It is never in my character to insult anyone. In fact the most appropriate word I should have used was *Schizophrenia*. As it is known, hallucination - hearing or seeing things that do not exist, and delusion - believing in things that are untrue are subsets of schizophrenia. Hallucination and delusion are often referred to as symptom of psychosis which is defined as when somebody is unable to distinguish between reality and his/her imagination. Simply expressed, I am tired of hearing and reading about Adekunle's imaginary war crimes and genocide.
When an individual Nigerian wants to emotionalize issues or escape from moral predicaments and burdens, he/she mischievously turns to religion or tribe. By embellishing any issue with religious or tribal flavour, at least, two or more people might care to taste. For instance, an individual Nigerian who is arrested for stealing billions of Naira appropriated for Universal Primary Education throughout Nigeria would claim that his arrest is due his tribe and give the impression that he is representing his/her tribe in office. Yet, both his/her legitimate and illegitimate incomes in office are for his/her family alone and are never shared amongst the tribal group. A criticism of an individual bad behaviour is not a criticism of his/her entire tribe. In the same vein, my criticism of General Adekunle's traducers is not a criticism of the whole Ndi Igbo and does not amount to a dislike of all Igbos.
There appears to be resentments over my expression,*Ojukwu and his gangs* and some countered me by referring to him as a hero. Although, no one has bordered to ask me why I used the expression, *Ojukwu and his gang* I hereby endeavour to give you my reasons. At 12:30 pm on 15 January 1966, Major Patrick Chukwuma Nzeogwu, had a broadcast in the name of the Supreme Council of the Revolution of the Nigerian Armed Forces, on Radio Nigeria, Kaduna. He said among others, "The constitution is suspended and the regional government and elected assembly are hereby dissolved. The aim of the Revolutionary Council is to establish a strong, united and prosperous nation free from corruption and internal strife... Our enemies are the political profiteers, the swindlers, the men in high and low places that seek bribes and demand ten per cent, those that seek to keep the country divided permanently.... the tribalists, the nepotists.." Among the offences he listed that carried death sentence were embezzlement, bribery and corruption. By 2:30 PM the Nigerian Radio Broadcasting Corporation, Lagos, announced "In the early hours of this morning, 15th January 1966, a dissident section of the Nigerian Army kidnapped the Prime minister and the minister of finance and took them to unknown destination. The General Officer Commanding (Aguiyi Ironsi) and the vast majority of the army remained completely loyal to the Federal government and are already taking appropriate measures to bring the situation under control." Immediately after that the Commander of the 5th Battalion in Kano, Lt. Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, promptly invited the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero, to broadcast a message of appeal for peace and calm on Radio Kano. Ojukwu connived with Ironsi and others to ambush the Majors and hijack their revolution. Captain Ben Gbulie in his book, Nigeria's Five Majors,revealed the infiltration and betrayal of the Majors thus, "... both Major Don Okafor and Captain Ogbo Oji had taken a stand against any step that might embody the killing of Ironsi. ... while the would be assassins were pointedly making for his (Irosi) residence, hoping to capture him, he was at the same time heading towards Ikeja to enlist the support of ... 2nd Battalion. Major John Obienu had for some insane reason turned traitor; and that he was in fact a downright insincere cowards. His failure to honour his pledge and turn up that night with his armoured cars was the one deciding factors that led ultimately to the collapse of the Lagos operation - a calamitous act of sabotage that, by depriving our colleagues of the much-needed fire-power with which to crush Ironsi's counter revolution, finally drove a nail into the coffin of our objective (p. 125 - 126)." Further on page 136, Captain Gbulie wrote, "...Major Chude Sokei and Lieutenant Oguchi of the first Infantry Battalion, Enugu, had ranked very high on the list of the strong advocates of a bloodless coup. And these were none other than the two young men upon whose shoulders squarely rested the onerous task of prosecuting the coup in the hill-clad coal city. They had indeed been so dogmatic in their stand that they could scarcely hide that they totally abhorred bloodshed - bloodshed in any shape or form." The truth is that Major Chude Sokei and Lieutenant Oguchi became pacifists only because the person they were supposed to kill, Dr Michael Ihenokura Okpara, was their tribesman. Because, of tribal infiltrators, the killings in the January 15, 1966 coup, except one, only affected non Igbos. However, on Sunday night at 23:50 hours, 16 January 1966, Ironsi reneged on his loyalty to the Federal government and announced on Lagos radio that he had taken over power.
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 15:17:37 -0700
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
From: okeyiheduru@gmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.comThanks, OA for taking words out of my mouth, so to speak, regarding Salimonu Kadri's unfortunate sympathies for war crimes. I did not accuse General Adekunle; he did it himself and his eternal words have convicted him. Kadri and many others on this forum and elsewhere are so blinded by his/their distaste for Ndi Igbo (cf. his "Ojukwu and his gang", etc.) that they are willing to rationalize and express sympathies for war crimes. The Nigerian Armed Forces have a serious problem with war crimes and other human rights violations, but we've always rationalized these crimes because they inflicted them on "them", not "us." Guess what? That nightmarish film is now showing--or will soon show-- in a village near almost all of us.
Finally, despite my being really nice to Salimonu, he still went ahead to insult me by saying I was "hallucinated." When he's tired of reading his one-sided history, he should try and lay his hands on the submissions of Ohaneze to the Oputa Truth Commission to get an idea of the genocide and war crimes committed by the likes of the late General Adekunle.
On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 10:40 AM, Anunoby, Ogugua <AnunobyO@lincolnu.edu> wrote:
Our conversation is on Adekunle, the military commander in the Nigeria-Biafra war. It is not on anyone else. No one should confuse chicken for beef.
Adekunle’s war crimes are still not justifiable. There was no need for them. That other military commanders did the same do not redeem him. One war crime does not justify another in the same or different war. Wrong is wrong even in war.
Adekunle testified against himself on many occasions. He convicted himself in the public square. He was triumphalist as he did so. Those must be some measures of the arrogance, indiscipline, thoughtlessness, perhaps unsoundness of mind, and entitlement sense of the man.
War is mostly evil. War brings out the worst in evil people. War has its imperatives. Mistakes are made in war. Adekunle’s crimes against children, women, the innocent, and many soldiers under his command, are not and should be any of them. Adekunle never came round to acknowledging that he should have fought the war differently if he knew then, what he knew later. He seemed incapable of a judicious audit of his merciless command role in the war. That alone is a sad testament to the spirit of bitterness, hatred, and rancor in which he participated as a commander in the war. He rejected every opportunity to redeem himself.
Should it surprise anyone that he was for most of his post military life, shunned by his military peers? He became a virtual outcast in public affairs? Is there any more to say? There is no more to say. May he have the mercy that he did not have on others.
oa
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Salimonu Kadiri
Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2014 4:53 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle--
Just as Adolf Hitler was against the Treaty of Versailles the outcome of World War 1 and therefore planned World War II to reverse the Versailles' Treaty, some Nigerians are planning to reverse the outcome of the Nigerian civil war that officially ended in January 1970. Therefore, these elements still talk about their presumed genocide during the Nigerian civil war that occurred between July 6, 1967, and January 15 1970. I don't know which GENOCIDE these elements are talking about.
In the history of warfare, the Federal Military Government led by General Yakubu Gowon at the time in question has been highly commended for inviting International Observer Team to the war fronts to follow and report on the conducts of the Federal troops. The International Observer Team were from the United Nations, the Organization of African Unity (present day African Union), Britain, Canada, Sweden and Poland. The International Observer Team issued its first interim report on October 3, 1968, in which it established that there was "no evidence of any intent by the Federal troops to destroy the Ibo people (as they were then known) or their property, and the use of the term genocide is in no way justified." The Polish representative in the Observer Team, Colonel Alfons Olkiewiez, at a press conference said that the Team had spoken to 'thousands and thousands of Ibos, soldiers, missionaries and relief workers but had found no trace of mass-killings of Ibos.' The Swedish member of the Observer Team, Major-General Arthur Raab, was quoted by Carl Gustav von Rosen, a Biafran sympathiser as having said that after seven months of observations, 'we have still not seen any signs of the mass anihilation which Ojukwu claims is threatened by the Federal side. Ojukwu is deliberately transferring military headquarters to schools, hospitals, churches and so on. In which case, can one call these civilian targets?' Conversion of civilian establishments into military base was confirmed by Chinua Achebe in his Swan song - There Was a Country - when he wrote on page 172 that his ancestral house was forcibly converted into a military base by the Biafran Army and the residents woke up in the middle of the night by artillery exchanges between the Biafran and Nigerian forces.
General Benjamin Adesanya Maja Adekunle was tremendously a hard-working, deligent and proud professional soldier. He understood that the best way to end the suffering of the people in Biafra was a quick military defeat of Ojukwu and his gang. Thus, on the 25th of July 1967, he captured Bonny Island, the only sea terminal for crude oil then, in a sea-borne assault. When the Biafrans invaded the then Mid-West State in August 1967, General Adekunle was recalled from Bonny Island to flush out the Biafrans from the Delta area of the State. The indefatigble General Adekunle soon returned to launch amphibious attack on Calabar and capturing it on October 18, 1967 and from there his troops linked up with the first Division at Ikom near the Cameroon border, thereby surrounding Biafra. In a quick succession after the fall of Calabar, he captured Itu, Uyo and Ikot Ekpene which according to Phillip Effiong hastened the collapse of the Biafran 12th Division and consequently of Biafra. In February 1968 General Adekunle led his troops to capture Afikpo, Ugep, Ediba, Itigidi and Obubra. On May 18, 1968, he demonstrated his military prowess by capturing Port-Harcourt. Thus, he singlehandedly liberated the entire, Rivers State and South East State, thereby paving way for the appointment of Governors with administative headquarters in Uyo and Port-Harcourt. In September 1968 he captured Aba and in defiance of order from Lagos, he attacked and captured Owerri. When the British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson visited Nigeria in March 1969 he requested for a visit to Adekunle's headquarter in PortHarcourt. True to his nature, General Adekunle asked Harold Wilson why he was pokenosing in Nigeria when he should have sent British troops to crush Ian Smith's rebellion in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)? General Adekunle was regarded as Malcolm X or Black power advocate who should not be allowed to finish the war. Barely, two months after Wilson's visit, Adekunle was replaced by Obasanjo in May 1969.
In order to know who actually committed genocide during the Nigerian Civil War, let us consider the millitary situation as at the time General Adekunle was removed in May 1969. Ogoja was liberated on July 11, 1967, followed by the fall of Nsukka on the 15th of July 1967. Enugu the capital of Biafra was captured on October 4, 1967 and by April 1969 all the major towns in Biafra were under the control of Federal forces. But all the Igbo towns captured by the Federal forces were forcibly evacuated so that Ojukwu had a large concentration camps of men, women and children he could not feed. When Aba, Owerri and Okigwi fell in the summer of 1968, the military situation demanded that Ojukwu and his gang should capitulate and surrender. Instead, Ojukwu sent a delegate of Biafrans to France to solicit for more arms and econocic aid. Since the French refused to increase their military and economic support for Biafra, the delegate led by Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe contacted Ojukwu that time was ripe for negotiated settlement with Nigeria. Angry Ojukwu asked the delegates to return to Biafra immediately and the leader of the delegate, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, absconded to London. At the same time pictures of starving and dying Biafrans began to emerge in the outside world. Yet, while addresing the so called Consultative Assembly at the end of September 1968, Ojukwu said,"Our real victory lies in our ability to prevent the extermination of our people by a heraless enemy. In so far as these aims are concerned, we have not failed (Biafra: Ojukwu's selected Speeches; Vol. 1, p. 353)." General Benjamin Adekunle did not commit any genocide against the Igbo people rather he tried to prevent Ojukwu's suicidal war against the Igbo.
S. KadiriDate: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 22:40:30 -0700
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Tribute: General Benjamin Adekunle
From: okeyiheduru@gmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com"A no nonsense warrior of his time. A man of great honor to the Black race."---PROFESSOR Segun Ogungbemi, 15 September 2014.
Yes, indeed! What better way to honor the Black race than genocide, including shooting at the corpses of dead children and women and proudly admitting it? As long as it's my co-ethnic who did it, it's o.k..On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 7:40 PM, Segun Ogungbemi <seguno2013@gmail.com> wrote:Benjamin Adesanya Maja Adekunle, a hero, a man who loved his country and gave his life for unity and peace of Nigeria. The "Black Scorpion" as he was popularly called who put smiles on our faces at the end of the civil war. A no nonsense warrior of his time. A man of great honor to the Black race.A man who stood to challenge racists because he believed in equality of all races because all human beings are created equal by God.The country owes him a great honor and it should be given to immortalize him.
May his soul rest in perfect peace as he has joined his ancestors and may the family and friends receive the most generous hands of comfort from the ancestors and that Olodumare grants them the fortitude to bear the irreparable loss of this great hero. Aase.
Segun Ogungbemi Ph.DProfessor of PhilosophyAdekunle Ajasin UniversityAkungba-Akoko, Ondo StateNigeriaCellphone: 0803304137108024670952
On Sep 16, 2014, at 3:15 AM, Mail Delivery Subsystem <mailer-daemon@google.com> wrote:
Benjamin Adesanya Maja Adekunle, a hero, a man who loved his country and gave his life for unity and peace of Nigeria. The "Black Scorpion" as he was popularly called who put smiles on our faces at the end of the civil war. A no nonsense warrior of his time.A man who stood to challenge racists because he believed in equality of all races because all human beings are created equal by God.The country owes him a great honor and it should be given to immortalize him.
May his soul rest in perfect peace as he has joined his ancestors and may the family and friends receive the most generous hands of comfort from the ancestors and that Olodumare grants them the fortitude to bear the irreparable loss of this great hero. Aase.
Segun Ogungbemi Ph.D
Professor of Philosophy
Adekunle Ajasin University
Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State
Nigeria
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