Adeshina Afolayan wrote, "I am shocked that Oga Kadiri will even dare hold up the fact that certain ethnic personalities have been holding big positions in the Nigerian State as an evidence of integration. ....... National integration goes far beyond the sometimes stupid dynamics of federal character principle which rotate offices around geo-ethnic/political zones."
Your interpretation, that I am of the opinion that holding of big positions in the Nigerian State by certain ethnic personalities is an evidence of integration, is wrong. I have never believed in Federal Character as stipulated in Section14 (1) and (3) of the 1999 constitution. Nigerians have been indoctrinated to believe that all officials, at Federal level, be it ministries, departments, agencies or parastatals, are holding offices on behalf of their respective ethnic group. Yet, the emoluments, salaries and allowances are personal to the individuals so employed which in usual manner are never submitted to the ethnic group for sharing. A very important fact is that the goods and services expected to be produced in office are never earmarked for the ethnic group of the official but for the whole nation. What we should be concerned about, therefore, is whether the goods and services expected from the ministries, departments and parastatals are produced or not and not what ethnic group the officials belong. For instance, the ethnic group from which the minister of power comes from is not essential, but his ability to generate electric power for all Nigerians. If the minister of power were able to generate power only for his ethnic group, other Nigerians have the right to complain. But in the Nigerian situation where all ethnic groups are enveloped in darkness, it is not the ethnic group of minister of power that should be held responsible but the minister that has not lived up to expectation despite having collected salaries and fringe benefits attached to the expected production and generation of electricity. The governing elites in Nigeria do not care about the language spoken by the makers of their private jets, personal cars, generator sets etc but are very meticulous about ethno-religious belonging in sharing offices. At least, since 1999, all the major ethnic groups have been represented in the federal government and all its institutions. Consequently, when some on this forum claimed that the Igbo were discriminated and marginalised in Nigeria after the civil war, I was obliged to refute that by listing some of the important offices in the Federal Government headed by Igbo. Besides Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba, Ijaw, Tiv, Edo, and Ibibio, Igbo ethnic group has been integral and component in the miss-governance of Nigeria that is a subject of complaint today by Nigerians.
Adeshina Afolayan wrote, "When the pogrom of the pre-war period happened and the Nigerian government was powerless to stop it, the Igbos have a cogent enough reason to demand secession."
We must be honest and sincere while narrating the events that led to riots in the North in 1966. One should not forget that the civilian and military victims of the January 15, 1966 coup were all, but one, Northerners and Westerners. This is because the coup plotters had been infiltrated by ethnic supremacists who did not only refuse to kill their own tribes men but had also leaked the secret of the plot to intended victims from their own ethnic group. Thus, the January 15, 1966, coup was hi-jacked by ethnic supremacists led by Johnson Thompson Umunnakwe Aguiyi Ironsi and the repercussion to that ethnic chance taking began in the North on May 29, 1966 and culminated in the second coup of July 29, 1966. With regards to the riots in the North that affected mostly Igbo, Lieutenant Colonel Philip Efiong, the Second in Command to Ojukwu, gave reasons for the riots thus, "In the course of my duty as Principal Staff Officer at General Ironsi's Supreme Head Quarter (SHQ), I received a number of intelligence reports ABOUT THE ARROGANT AND SOMETIMES ABUSIVE ATTITUDE OF IGBOS IN THE NORTH AND THE SUPPRESSED ANGERS OF MANY NORTHERNERS, INCLUDING OUR NORTHERN ARMY OFFICERS (p. 76, Nigeria & Biafra, My Story, by Philip Efiong)." Further on page 88, Philip Efiong wrote, "It must be added that the attitude of the Igbos in the North, as reported in some papers at the time of the first coup, was particularly provocative and contributed to the violent eruption of emotions, giving some encouragement and reason for action." Finally on page 322, Philip Efiong wrote, "I must also state that the attitude of the Igbos in the North after the first coup of 15 January 1966 was somewhat provocative and contributed to the hardening of the attitude of the Northern leaders when the massacres (of Igbos) began in July 1966." In physics, it is stated that action and reaction must be equal and opposite but in human relations, especially in time of hostility or conflict, reaction is always greater than action. That was what happened between the Hausa and the Igbo between May 29, and October 3, 1966.
You mentioned that the Igbo had cogent reason to demand secession because of the riots and massacre of the Igbo in the North. That was not true. If the secession had occurred in October 1966 you would have been telling the truth but it is on record that the secession was proclaimed on May 30, 1967 when the violence had subsided and several meetings had been held for peaceful solution, among others the Aburi meeting in Ghana, 4 January 1967. Decree No. 8 of March 1967 incorporated all the agreements reached at Aburi with additional clause granting the Supreme Military Council power to declare emergency in any part of the Federation, if the situation demanded it, and provided three out of the four Regional governors consented to it. Decree No. 8 converted Nigeria to a loose Federation delegating more powers to the Regions with a weak centre. Ojukwu rejected it and subsequently declared his Republic of Biafra on May 30, 1967. You said that *Igbos had cogent reason to demand secession*but interestingly his Biafra did not contain only Igbos but, Ijaws, Ibibios, Kalabaris, Ogonis, and other non-Igbo ethnic groups. Do you have any cogent reason for incorporating those non-Igbo ethnic groups into Ojukwu's Biafra? As I have said in my previous post, Biafra was buried the day its progenitor, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, submitted his nomination papers to the then FEDECO in 1979, on Form E.C. 4D and declared himself a Nigerian wishing to contest for election to the Nigerian House of Representatives on the platform of Great Nigeria Peoples' Party led by Alhaji Ibrahim Waziri. I have always believed that whatever is good for the Igbos is good for other ethnic groups in Nigeria and whatever is good for other ethnic groups in Nigeria is good for the Igbos. We must learn to love one another as encapsulated in 1st Corinthians Chapter 13 verses 4-7 that reads: Love is patient and kind. Love envies no one, is never boastful, never conceited, never rude; love is never selfish, never quick to take offence. Love keeps no score of wrongs, takes no pleasure in the sins of others, but delights in the truth. There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, its hope, and its endurance. There are three things that last forever: faith, hope and love; and the greatest of the three is love.
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2015 08:06:46 -0700
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com; usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
| "Biafra is a part of the tragic history of Nigeria and it shall remain as part of our history forever. However, the idea of Biafra died on 15 January 1970 and was finally buried in 1979, when the person who attempted to de-Nigerianised the Igbo through the declaration of Republic of Biafra in 1967, declared himself a Nigerian."--Salimonu Kadiri From the perspective both of history and political complexities involved in nation building, I think this is a disappointing summation, especially from the erudite and historically sensitive Oga Kadiri. It is the kind of ostrich melodrama that will never achieve unity for us in Nigeria. When I read this statement, I shivered for fear. The idea of Biafra dead and buried? What? Initially, I thought I read "Biafra died...and was finally buried...". With that, we will just be restating a historical fact. In fact, that is the direction that Oga Kadiri's opening statement would seem to lead. But I had to double check the second statement. For Oga Kadiri, it wasn't Biafra--a specific region of Nigeria which attempted a secession that resulted in the civil war and was defeated--that died. Rather, it was the idea of Biafra that died and had since been buried. What is Oga Kadiri's conception of the idea of Biafra? From whay he wrote, the historical trajectory of the "reintegration" of Ojukwu, it seems to me that Oga Kadiri actually meant Biafra as a near national entity whose life was snuffed out before its first enabling breath, and its instigators were thereby forced to return to the national space they initially rejected. This is a national space of abject political immorality and underdevelopment. It is a national space that has consistently failed to answer the social question of how to make life better for its citizens. But then, the idea of Biafra is more than Biafra itself. As an idea, Biafra is a metaphor for the abiding failure of the Nigerian state to evolve into nationhood deriving from the harnessed loyalities and willing cooperation of the ethnic constituents (never mind the illusion of the national anthem--"one nation bound in freedom"). I am shocked that Oga Kadiri will even dare hold up the fact that certain ethnic personalities have been holding big positions in the Nigerian state as an evidence of integration. When the pogrom of the pre-war period happened and the Nigerian government was powerless to stop it, the Igbos have a cogent enough reason to demand secession. Countless other "Nigerians" have died since the Boko haram insurgency began. The Nigerian state has consistently failed in living up to its original responsibility of providing security for its citizens. Now if the state fails as such, and its sovereign imperative requires it to suppress all agitations for betterment, what should the constituents do? Adaka Boro/Saro Wiwa and the Niger Delta agitation was brutally suppressed; Biafra lost the secession bid. But we are still not far from those moral and national issues that led to those agitations in the first place. National integration goes far beyond the sometimes stupid dynamics of federal character principle which rotate offices around geo-ethnic/political zones. This is the idea of Biafra within the Nigerian state. As long as we continue playing the ostrich as if the idea doesn't exist (like we did at the national conference when the question of our coexistence became a non-issue), to that extent will "Nigeria" as a viable nation remain a pipedream devoid of any moral force. The national space that Ojukwu, Boro and Saro Wiwa and others have been challenging remains what it is--a space of disjointed and disparate ethnic nationals forced into continued mechanical unity by the violence of coercion. Nothing more. Such a national space lacks any just and moral force to compel obedience and loyalty in conscience. That for me is the idea of Biafra. And it is far from being dead. It lurks in all the disaffection we hold against the Nigerian state. Adeshina Afolayaan Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
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