Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Moral Burden of Having an Ibo President

Interesting; that period in Nigerian history is always yielding new sources to beef up or subvert the dominant interpretations: Igbo coup versus national Revolution.

On Sep 11, 2020, at 8:55 PM, Ashafa Abdullahi <abashafa@gmail.com> wrote:

Betty Emery, Azikiwe's private secretary arrived at the Nigerian High Commission in London from "Suite of the President of Nigeria, Burford Bridge hotel, Box Hill in Dorking, Surrey" where Azikiwe was recuperating on public finance. She brought a letter stamped Top Secret that Azikiwe wanted transmitted to Lagos. His usual hotel phones and cablegram facilities were avoiding Lagos and so he sent Miss Emery to the Nigerian High Commission in London. But the High Commission too was having problems connecting to Lagos so in company of Mr Dosunmu, the Acting high commissioner and Brigadier Ogundipe his military attaché, Emery proceeded to the Commonwealth Relations Office(CRO) in Downing Street to connect with the British High Commission in Lagos. They arrived there at around 4pm. British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson who left Nigeria three days before the Revolution had given Arthur Bottomley the CRO's secretary of state up to 8pm to submit a report of what happened in Nigeria, how they were caught unawares and what could be done to locate their friend and ally Sir Tafawa Balewa Abubakar. FBC had already forwarded a long preliminary report of what they knew so far and whom was currently steering the affairs of the nation. The DI 4(a), Defence Intelligence under the Ministry of Defence and Col Hunt the military adviser had been tasked to find how an operation of such scale eluded British spies. Nigeria had been extra vetted for security in order that the Queen's cousin, Prince William of Gloucester could serve at the High Commission there. Nigeria held Britain's fourth largest diplomatic outpost in the world.

St John Chadwick an Assistant Under-Secretary at the CRO was the first to notice to whom Azikiwe's letter was addressed. He gently corrected Emery/Azikiwe's ignorance saying when next they wanted to send a letter to the person running the country, they should address it to Zanar Dicharima, c/o Council of Ministers and not to Major General Aguiyi Ironsi. But Azikiwe knew something they did not know.

The letter read:

Dear Major-General Aguiyi-Ironsi,

The news is now wide-spread about the unfortunate events which have occurred in the last two days in our dear country. I am very much perturbed to learn that all lines of communication between Nigeria and the outside world have been temporarily disconnected, so I am obliged to use the good services of a friendly medium because I understand that you are now actively engaged in restoring order in the capital and other parts of the country.

Since this is a Herculean task which must be undertaken by all of us who are interested in the peace and stability of our Federal Republic, I now inform you of my desire to return home immediately in order to be in position to discharge any duty, Constitutional or otherwise, in which my services may be required.

As you appear to be the only means of communication to my Government, I hope that you will be kind enough to give me your considered advice, at you earliest convenience, through the bearer of this letter.

Sincerely yours,

Signed

NNAMDI AZIKIWE

President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The letter was striking more for what it did not contain. The Prime Minister and Finance Minister and some top officers were missing; Akintola and Sardauna had been confirmed dead. Azikiwe offered no word about how the abducted would be found or commiseration with the family of the deceased. He only asked Ironsi to clue him into any decision, "Constitutional or otherwise" and expressed his wish to come home immediately. The CRO diplomats advised him not go. He would later arrive the country on 12 February 1966, two days before Ifeajuna and proceeded straight to Nsukka after the takeover of his State House Mansion by Ironsi on 26th January. At a dinner party held for Sir Kerr Bovell the outgoing Inspector of Police in 1962, Abubakar told Bovell sitting next to him that: "When there is trouble you can always tell it because Zik will not be there – he will be in England, or America, or somewhere. He always thinks he is going to be assassinated, but he won't be." He then told Azikiwe seated on the other side: "Your Excellency, I am Muslim, and if it is the will of God for me to be shot, I'll be shot." Abubakar was so much like Shaihu Umar the hero of his eponymous novella.

Orizu had been using all excuses to deny the ministers their request to swear Dipcharima in. First he told the ministers that he would not be able to oblige their request because the absence of NCNC ministers implied their lack of consent. When eventually some NCNC ministers were produced, Orizu buried himself in a side room and was trying to call Azikiwe on a phone line that was not working. Ironsi then turned up in the sitting room with his menace-looking armed bodyguards. He requested to have a word with Orizu in his side room and for 40 minutes the ministers were patiently waiting for them. The presence of the soldiers terrified them. Was it not their colleagues that had wrecked lives and wreaked havoc on the nation? The fear of being next to be killed or abducted loomed large over them. Ironsi emerged and left without saying a word to the ministers. Afterwards the Senate President emerged to tell them he would not be able to oblige their request; there was a new development. Without going into details, he dismissed the ministers and said they should await further instructions. The ministers were shocked; it was fishy that for six hours, Orizu dragged his feet but the secret meeting with the GOC portended something very, very ominous.

The truth was: Dr Abyssinia Akweke Nwafor Orizu being a crook should never have held any political office had Nigeria been a proper country. In 1946, Orizu presided over a new form of heartless fraud. Families and whole villages in the East sold their possessions to send a single student from their village to university because like Awolowo, they were passionate for the benefit of good education. Orizu a PhD holder, formed an agency, American Council on African Education (ACAE) to find these village students admission into American universities. He collected the maintenance funds from their parents and other sponsors and diverted them partly or totally to other personal and business schemes. In 1947, two prominent African Americans Alain Locke and George Schulyer resigned over Orizu's conduct of affairs. Horace Mann Bond, the African American president of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania who provided Orizu's agency with many tuition-free scholarships complained regularly and bitterly about Orizu's failure to financially support the students whom Orizu had placed in his school.

The 32-year-old Orizu was found out and on 2nd of February 1953 was arrested. Azikiwe, Mbonu Ojike and Kola Balogun went to bail him out. On 9th February, his brother Joseph Onyekusi Orizu was arrested in Gusau and taken to Port Harcourt. On 12th February both brothers were charged in a statement that read: "That you between May 1, 1946 and December 31, 1951 at Port Harcourt, in the Port Harcourt Magisterial District, conspired together with other persons unknown to defraud such person as might be induced to deposit money with you as officers and agents of a body known as the American Council on African Education Incorporated, and you thereby committed an offence punishable under the Criminal code." When their lawyer told the court that Orizu was a honourable man, a PhD holder, a royal Prince in Nnewi, a member of the regional legislature, and also Azikiwe's nominee for Minister of Local Government, Magistrate Dickson retorted: "This court is not a department under the Government and it is not subject to any political party." Orizu was later jailed for 7 years. On Tuesday 22nd September 1953, he arrived Lagos Prison by train under escort to serve his term. At the House of Commons debate of 29 April 1953, James Johnson the MP for Kingston upon Hull West berated Oliver Lyttelton, the secretary of Colonies for taking so long to arrest the Orizu brothers: "Is not it somewhat disgraceful that it has taken so long to investigate this case of defrauding parents and students?" Hence allowing him to cause untold hardship to his own people?

Herbert Macaulay

Herbert Macaulay

The so-called father of Nigerian nationalism and founder of NCNC, Hebert Macaulay was working in the Ministry of Land and Surveys when he was caught twice for diverting public lands for personal benefits. In 1914 he was convicted for forgery and in the second instance he was convicted of perjury. As an ex-convict, he could not hold any elected office despite many pleas for pardon to first Lord Lugard and later to Donald Cameron the colonial governor who enabled elective politics in Nigeria. To Cameron who was then the warmest, friendliest governor with the Lagos high society, there was nothing politically-motivated in Macaulay's conviction, it was pure criminality. Hence no pardon. His son, Oged (Ogedengbe) Macaulay lost his eligibility for elective office when in 1952 as a councillor on Lagos Town Council, he swindled J.M. Jazzar, the Lebanese transport magnate in Lagos by falsely pretending that he was in a position to influence the councillors of the Lagos Town Council to get him a bus route permit. (This was even different from the 1-year sentence handed him in 1950 for sedition and being a member of Zikist movement that promoted violence to achieve anti-colonial agenda). The logic behind the rule was that the government was a sacred job; if crooks were allowed to determine the destiny of the people, the people would suffer indefinitely.

Nwafor Orizu: convicted for fraud 

Nwafor Orizu: convicted for fraud

But in the case of Orizu, who was the intellectual proponent of Zikism, Mbonu Ojike, Azikiwe, Mbadiwe started to entrench the false narrative that Orizu was convicted by the British colonial government not for embezzlement but as a revenge for his fiery anti-colonial speech given at the 1947 Enugu Coal riots rally. Never mind that  more important figures such as  H.O. Davies also gave fiery speeches at the rally too but were not fraudsters hence not fated for conviction by the colonial government. But in the case of Orizu, colonialism became the excuse for a crook to be turned into a national hero. Azikiwe made Orizu whole by nominating him unopposed to represent Nnewi in the Federal elections of 1959 that ushered in self-rule.

The existence of colonialism provided Nigeria's moral system the perfect excuse to develop and strengthen the disdain for the objective perception of value on which any civilised society must rest. When colonialism expired in 1960, the disdain remained alive and thriving through the force of habit. In 1961 for instance, Dr Okejukwu Ikejiani, the pro-chancellor of University of Ibadan was caught lying about a certificate he never had. A visiting scholar from University of Toronto who happened to be from the same department which allegedly awarded Ikejiani's certificate was the first to point out that Ikejiani never had that esteemed Doctor of Science degree. Ibadan erupted and there were calls for Ikejiani to resign and be prosecuted. To Azikiwe who was the head of government, the visitor to the university and in charge of such appointments, Ikejiani was being "persecuted" because he, Azikiwe, had dared to appoint an other Igbo after Francis Ibiam as the Pro-chancellor and head of the governing council of a flagship Federal University in a non-Igbo region in particular when the Vice chancellor was already an Igbo. Before departing Toronto University where he rightly earned his undergraduate medical degree, Ikejiani seduced and frequently unhooked the lovely secretary at the Vice Chancellor's office until she embossed a Doctor of Science certificate in his name complete with authentic signatures but with no education behind it. After the Toronto University investigation into the matter, the secretary realised her wrongdoing and quietly accepted her dismissal. But that was Canada. In Nigeria, one of the criteria of eligibility for being considered a national hero was to be a bonafide crook. When Ikejiani was forced to finally resign, being a medical doctor, Azikiwe made him whole like Orizu by appointing him to the State House as one of his personal physicians. He was not done: Azikiwe then reappointed him again to his former unfilled post less than two years later. He still was not done: In 1964, Azikiwe decorated him with the national honour – Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) – pun unintended –   'for his service to the nation.' If anyone is interested in why Nigeria ended up being a pit latrine of implacable corruption where intelligence cannot assert itself in the conduct of public affairs, the Orizu and Ikejiani Affair is where to begin. Azikiwe put into disorder all considerations based on value. And the absence of the objective perception of value produced the will to tribalism which eliminated the prospect of any meaningful progress for the nation.

Had the ministers who came to Orizu for the swearing-in request been from his party NCNC, had the candidate they presented been Ozumba Mbadiwe, Orizu would never foot-dragged or pretended to be calling Azikiwe on a phone that lacked dialling tone. Ironsi too would have looked the other way, gone back to his subordinate officers and inform them that according to their code of conduct, the military must aid civilian power not to take over it. Orizu who claimed he needed Azikiwe's consent before considering swearing in Dipcharima would later publicly hand over the government to Ironsi without the need for Azikiwe's consent. The Northern soldiers saw through all these phonies and they quietly fumed.

Why was the Revolution regarded necessary in the first place? A false analysis of the Nigerian condition grounded in weak data and rapid decadence of the love of truth resulted in a widely believed myth of Northern domination. Whereas the truth was more salient: One, for 50 years since 1912, the North was the richest region in the country with even the highest employment opportunities for anyone willing to work. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Emeka Okujwu, Bola Ige, Sonny Odogwu and Maryam Babangida were born by parents who like millions of Southerners went to seek economic fortunes in the prosperous North. Two, Kaduna and Kano had more than military installations than the whole of South combined. This is because Northerners joined the army's lower ranks than Southerners when Britain needed troops for the colonial and world wars. That was why the colonial government built more military institutions in the North. However, only the 1st Recce Squadron in Kaduna was headed by a Northerner, Major Hassan Katsina. All the other units where headed and administratively staffed by Southern officers and very few expatriates. Three, on 26th January 1953, Awolowo's Western Regional Government published the list of 200 successful candidates for the highly coveted scholarship scheme for teacher training courses and university studies. Western scholarships were also given to Eastern students resident in the West but no Northerner was on the list. On 2nd February 1953, the Eastern Regional Government published the list of its own 121 scholarship awarded. There was no Western or Northern student on the list. On 6th April 1953, Northern Regional Government published the list of 60 successful candidates. There were Easterners and Westerners on the list.

Four, 1st October 1960 only marked the final process of independence from Britain, but the first stage started in January 1952 with the inauguration of indigenous regional governments. Sardauna was the first to appoint non-Northerners to the Northern Regional Assembly. He appointed Felix Okonkwo an Igbo Easterner, as special interests' representative of Kano and Solomon Oke James a Yoruba Westerner resident in Kaduna. Awolowo reciprocated by appointing Alhaji Mukthar, Seriki of Sabo in Ibadan. There were already Easterners in the Western House. The Eastern Regional Assembly never reciprocated the gesture by appointing any Northerner or Westerner. Other Regions opened up to embrace non-natives in their governments. Except the East. It was true then; it is true today. The myth of Northern domination then was an organised distraction from something else.

The origin of "Igbo Coup"

The Revolution was very popular along the length and breadth of the country. It was hailed as freedom from bad luck: "the end of corrupt regime." Daily Times the leading newspaper in the country led the chorus: it called Nigeria since 1960 a sick bay: "Something just had to be done to save the Federation. Something has been done. It is like a surgical operation which must be performed or the patient dies. The operation has been performed. It has proved successful. And it is welcome." The National Union of Nigerian Students welcomed the coup. All the trade unions issued statements supporting the Revolution. The northern party, NPC too not wanting to be left out of the party expressed support. Sultan of Sokoto whose Prince the dead Sardauna was prayed for the success of the new regime. His press statement read: "Both regimes, the old and the new, came to us from God."

 Samuel Ogbemudia(rtd)

Samuel Ogbemudia

Prof Adeyemo Elebute is the biographer of Captain James Pinson Labulo Davies who like Ajayi Crowther and Aina Forbes Bonetta   was one of Nigeria's founding fathers. Elebute was also one of the founding members of LUTH. In an interview with this author, he confirmed he was one of the doctors who treated Nzeogwu's neck injuries when he was brought to LUTH prior to his proposed absorption into the Ironsi government that was used to deceive him into coming over to Lagos. For months, burnt people including children partially turned into carbon were brought to LUTH everyday from Western Region's Operation wetie. The hospital staff, bed spaces and medical resources had been overwhelmed many times over. Yet LUTH was only at the periphery of the Western crisis. UCH and other General hospitals all over the Region were completely swamped by the crisis. According to Elebute, it was the coup that provided the hospitals the much needed relieve. When eventually, Nzeogwu arrived at LUTH, he was feted like a rock star by the staff. The revolutionaries were seen as Igbo Beatles and Nzeogwu was their John Lennon. I Want to Hold Your Hand: The doctors, nurses and other health officials were ecstatically eager to catch a glimpse of him in his heavily guarded ward and shake his hands. To many, the general joy was comparable to the day the Israelites left Egypt and crossed the Red Sea. But to deeper minds, it was comparable to the day Albert Einstein published the theory of general relativity (what was heinous murders to some can be called national liberation to others). Great intelligence specialises in heresies.

The first set of people to call the coup an Igbo coup were Igbos. According to M. Chidi and C. Usonos who were traders in Kano at that time, since the coup was popular and welcomed all over the country, it was a thing of joy and pride that their brothers had 'saved' Nigeria. When Ifeajuna won Gold in 1954 Commonwealth Olympics, because of its immense popularity, it was first regarded as a victory for the black race, then victory for Africa, then Nigeria. Eventually it was rightly and naturally claimed as a victory for Igbos just as Jesse Owen's victory in the presence of Hitler in 1936 Olympics was a victory for all Americans and later narrowed down by black Americans as an exclusive victory for them.

Major Samuel Ogbemudia, a non-Igbo was an instructor at the NMTC; he shared the same office with Nzeogwu but did not know about the imminent Revolution. His other colleague Major Timothy Onwuatuegwu, an Igbo was co-opted as the deputy commandant of the Northern operations of the Revolution. Major Olusegun Obasanjo, another Hausa-speaking non-Igbo was Nzeogwu's best friend. He was serving with 1 Field Squadron (Army Engineers). He arrived the country two days before the coup and slept in the same room with Nzeogwu in the bachelor's quarters at No 13, Kanta Road barracks just as before he left the country. He was not told of the Revolution too but his deputy, Captain Ben Gbulie, an Igbo at the same 1 Field Squadron (Army engineers) was invited and was tasked with securing the Brigade HQ and other key points.

With the public adulation that hailed the execution of the Revolution, Ogbemudia and Obasanjo went to the brigade HQ the morning after and asked Nzeogwu, "Why didn't you tell us?" They saw the Revolution as history in the making and they were jealous. According to Ogbemudia in an interview he had with this author, Nzeogwu's response was, "We couldn't tell everybody." But what criteria did they use to determine who to invite, who to exclude, who to eliminate with extreme prejudice? Why did Nzeogwu after killing Sardauna hastened to the home of Major Hassan Katsina, the only Northerner heading a military unit in the North to demand at gunpoint if he supported the Revolution or not? Had Katsina said he was against it, he would have been shot in front of his wife and children. But why did Nzeogwu not perform the same stunt with Major Alexander Madiebo, another Igbo Easterner heading a combat unit (1st Field Battery(Artillery))? According to Madiebo in his book Nigerian Revolution and Biafra War (pg 16): "Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna, for instance, invited me for lunch (on 12 January 1966), during which he expressed a view that an immediate coup was the only solution to the nation's numerous political problems. In agreeing with him, I expressed doubts on the chances of the success of such an exercise in a country where tribal loyalties were much stronger than the national and ideological ones. He immediately changed the topic of conversation and never mentioned it again." So Nzeogwu knew Madiebo who was already in Kaduna was not for the Revolution yet he never accompanied his gun with gra gra to Madiebo's bedroom to give him the Katsina treatment. Madiebo rightly knew and said that the ethnic loyalties binding the coup plotters would be stronger than any national or ideological ones no matter how they choose to spin it to the contrary. He knew that instead of being hailed as national youth service corps, they would end up damned as ethnic youth service corps.

When the dust of euphoria that greeted the selective assassinations finally settled after 3 months, it became crystal clear to Igbos and non-Igbos alike that the list of those killed and those left un-killed can neither be a fluke nor a coincidence; that the lack of equal opportunity to the assassinations was the result of a lack of equal representation amongst the assassins; that it would be difficult to escape the conclusion that the Revolutionaries had removed a predatory domination of the country by North only to impose another predatory domination by the East.

With the promise of revenge, the Igbos who were proud to say our boys did it began to beat a frightened retreat: "It was not an Igbo coup, a Yoruba man was among… Nzeogwu is Igbo in name only he is actually a Northerner…No, no, the coup plotters wanted to hand over to Awolowo… (This never featured in Nzeogwu's speech) …etc…etc…"

But in the North and all over the barracks, driven by the desire for vengeance and by the conviction that hell was not even half full yet, the first of the many revenge massacres of 1966 started on 29 May in Kaduna and Kano. A war followed the following year. All because of an ill-conceived Revolution.

In 2001, at the age of 65 years, Elizabeth Pam, a Northerner and the widow of James Pam went to see Humphrey Chukwuka in Enugu the former capital of Eastern Region. She was 30 years old in 1966 when Chukwuka took James away and never returned him to her as promised. Elizabeth did not call for justice as an alternative to the loss of her beloved husband neither was she avid for tribal accusations that was common to Chukwuka's people. She just uttered those difficult words: "I forgive you." She died soft on 10th of May 2011 surrounded by her children and her illustrious moral superiority. Amazing Grace.

*Damola Awoyokun, an engineer,  is a writer and historian. This excerpt is from his forthcoming trilogy on Nigerian history from 1700 – 1970. He can be reached on twitter @osoronga or email osoronga@yahoo.com

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