Thank you Toyin Falola for your observation. The clause: For those who are not intellectually lazy, is deployed suggestively and not directed to any person as an insult. For anyone who may feel insulted, I withdraw the clause and substitute it with : For those who are intellectually smart. A kì mò gún kí a mõ tè, kí iyán ewùrà má ni kókó. No matter how perfect one may be, one can never pound water yam without having some knots left.
S.Kadiri
Skickat: den 26 oktober 2017 13:05
Till: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: [NIgerianWorldForum] Zik'sUnionGovernment (according to Obi)
Mr. Kadiri:
Is it not possible to make all your points without abusing anyone as intellectually lazy?
People make arguments for and against all the time. And we cannot insist that folks should not do partisanship and interpretations, but this does not mean that two people should insult one another.
TF
From: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Salimonu Kadiri <ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Thursday, October 26, 2017 at 6:59 AM
To: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: SV: SV: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: [NIgerianWorldForum] Zik'sUnionGovernment (according to Obi)
Thank you, my lion-hearted Obi Nwakanma for responding to what you termed as my false historical claims concerning how Nnamdi Azikiwe founded the first tribal union in Nigeria called, Ibo Federal Union in 1943, and in which he installed himself as the President. Obi Nwakannma wrote, ".... the dominant political power in Lagos for decades was Herbert Macaulay's NNDP. Zik joined the NYM, and there was neither 'a back' nor 'a bench' as an active member of the movement. ...//... Zik withdrew from the NYM. This is hardly the situation of a *back bencher.*" In my previous post on this subject, I referred to Nnamdi Azikiwe as a *backbencher* in the NYM in 1938 but that was not intended to demean the person of Azikiwe or the roles he played in the NYM. Luckily for those who are not intellectually lazy, Azikiwe left some written documents about his active political life. On page 307 of his, Zik: Selected Speeches of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, readers are informed, "By 1937, a brilliant Nigerian had returned home from the United Kingdom in the person of Hezekiah Oladipo Davies, who became the General Secretary of the Movement, and the name of the Movement was changed from Lagos to Nigerian Youth Movement."
It was Hezekiah Oladipo Davies as the General Secretary of the Lagos Youth Movement, that transformed LYM to Nigerian Youth Movement after rewriting its Charter and Constitution which, as it is evidently clear in Zik's book that Nnamdi Azikiwe never played any role in writing them. On page 309, Azikiwe wrote, "The NYM tried to put into practice its professed policy. It contested the elections to the Legislative Council in 1938 and defeated the NNDP by winning all the three seats for Lagos." From the foregoing, it is very clear that Nnamdi Azikiwe did not associate himself personally with the NYM until after the 1938 election. Further on page 309, Nnamdi Azikiwe disclosed his rank in the NYM thus, "Among its (NYM) leaders at this time were Dr. Akinola Maja, H.S.A. Thomas, Jubril Martin and Mr. (now Sir) Kofoworola Abayomi. PROMINENT AMONG THE BACK-BENCHERS WERE DR. NNAMDI AZIKIWE, CHIEF OBAFEMI AWOLOWO, CHIEF S.L. AKINTOLA, J.A. TUYO, HAMZAT A. SUBAIR, F. OGUGUA-ARAH, SHONIBARE AND L. DURO EMMANUEL." Here, in his own written words, Nnamdi Azikiwe ranked himself, among others, as a back-bencher, which Obi Nwakanma, the Igbo-phile, is denying. There is nothing wrong in loving ones own tribe but when Obi Nwakanma's Igbophilia drives him into seeing nothing good in other tribes in Nigeria, he becomes dangerous to the very interest of the Igbo he often elevates to imaginary positions in Nigerian politics and history. Azikiwe admitted in writing that he was a back-bencher in the Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM) in 1938, and no amount of wishful historical revisionism by any Igbopile or Obi Nwakanma can change that.
Obi Nwakanma wrote, "Zik pulled away from NYM and joined forces with the NNDP and Herbert Macaulay whom he had helped to defeat not long ago and basically woke Macaulay from political death." Azikiwe precipitated the crisis in the NYM because he could not stomach the obvious fact that Ernest Ikoli, an Ijaw from the then Eastern Region was not only the President of the NYM but also was to become a member of the Legislative Council. Azikiwe left the NYM in 1941 and he was in political wilderness thenceforth until he formed the Ibo Federal Union in 1943 and installed himself as its President. Nnamdi Azikiwe had no political interaction with Herbert Macaulay when his party, Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) won all the three seats for Lagos to the Legislative Council in 1943. Obi Nwakanma's assertion that Azikiwe woke up Herbert Macaulay from political death is a plain political blasphemy.
Nnamdi Azikiwe did not join the NNDP until 1945 after he had formed the NCNC and lured the eighty-year old Herbert Macaulay, to accept the Presidenship of the party. Azikiwe had single-handedly appointed the officials of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) as follows, Herbert Macaulay - President, J.O. Lucas - Vice President, Nnamdi Azikiwe - General Secretary, Rev. A.M. Howells - Financial Secretary, Louis Philip Ojukwu - Treasurer, L.A. Onajobi and A. Ogedengbe - Auditors, E.J. Alex-Taylor, J.E.C. David, E.A. Akerele, O.A.Alakija, Ladipo Odunsi, and J.I.C. Taylor - Legal Advisers. *(Louis Philip Ojukwu became known as Odumegwu Ojukwu when he was Knighted by the Queen). On September 23, 1944, Nnamdi Azikiwe forwarded letters to his self-appointed officials, including self, of the NCNC to confirm acceptance of the offices allocated to them. Herbert Macaulay, Nnamdi Azikiwe, L.A. Onojobi, A.Ogedengbe, E.A. Akerele, and Ladipo Odunsi accepted to be officials of the NCNC. (p.312). It was not until 1945 that Azikiwe succeeded in recruiting more officials into the NCNC and getting its constitution ready. That same year Nnamdi Azikiwe joined the NNDP as a member. Why did he need to join NNDP when he had NCNC? He anticipated that Herbert Macaulay could die anytime and he needed NNDP and the political popularity of Macaulay to establish himself especially at the then centre of political activity in Nigeria, Lagos/Western Province. When Herbert Macaulay died om May 7, 1946, Azikiwe inherited his popularity and his party the NNDP on whose platform he was contesting and winning elections to the Legislative Council in Lagos from December 1946 and later to the Western House of Assembly in 1951. But when he did not win majority to become the leader of government in the Western House of Assembly, in 1951, he resigned and relocated to the East and used the Ibo state Union to drive away from office the Ibibio leader of the government in the Eastern House of Assembly, Eyo Ita, in order to replace him. Contrary to Obi Nwakanma's assertion that Nnamdi Azikiwe woke Macaulay, 80 years old in 1944, from political death, Azikiwe anticipated that he would soon die and therefore planned to capitalise on Macaulay's political popularity and to exploit it for his own (Azikiwe's) political development.
Obi Nwakanma wrongly informed readers that, "Egbe Omo Oduduwa was founded in London in 1945, by a group of Yoruba Students who had been recruited by the British intelligence to undermine the incipient Nationalist movement in Nigeria led by the 'radical' Azikiwe." To begin with, it was Eyo Ita who first imitated Azikiwe by launching Ibibio Union in 1943 and to conform with Azikiwe's Ibo State Union, the name was later changed to Ibibio State Union. Azikiwe never liked the existence of Ibibio State Union despite the fact that he himself was President of Ibo State Union. On Eyo Ita, Azikiwe wrote, "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 Mr Ita's secret antagonism against certain tribes became obvious." (p.307, ZIK: Selected Speeches Of Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe). With respect to Egbe Omo Oduduwa, Chief Obafemi Awolowo admitted to founding it in London, in 1945. (p.168, AWO - The Autobiography of Chief Obafemi Awolowo). Awolowo revealed further, "Before the Egbe was founded in 1945, there was already a two-year old branch of the Ibo federal Union there. Even so the reaction of practically all the students from the Eastern Region and of some from the Western Region to the formation of the Egbe was a hostile one(p.169)." One should not forget that the Igbo speaking Asaba and Agbor were part of Western Region then and that the Easterners referred to by Awolowo were Igbo Easterners. However, if a branch of Ibo Federal Union was already established, in London, in 1943, according to Awolowo, why should the Ibo be hostile to the foundation of Egbe Omo Oduduwa, A Society of the Descendants of Oduduwa? Despite the hostility from the London branch of the Ibo Federal Union to Egbe Omo Oduduwa in London in 1945, Awolowo wrote, "The Executive Committee of the Egbe also decided to hold a joint meeting with the Executive Committee of the London Branch of the Ibo Federal Union, with a view to making to the latter a full explanation of what the Egbe stood for, and to driving the point home that the Egbe was purely and simply the Yoruba counterpart of the Ibo federal Union. I made contact with the Chairman of the Ibo Federal Union, Mr. Chuba Ikpeazu (a law student) through my friend Mr. G. Onyiuke (another law student) and a date for a meeting between the committees was fixed. Somehow, about twenty-four hours before the time of the meeting, Mr. Ikpeazu sent a message to say that he and his officers had another important engagement which made it impossible for them to attend the proposed meeting. He promised to let us have another date. He was unable to fulfil this promise before we all returned home to Nigeria (p.170)." If, according to Obi Nwakanma, the British intelligence had recruited Yoruba Students in London to found Egbe Omo Oduduwa in 1945 for the purpose of undermining Azikiwe's radical Nationalist movement, the question that should follow are, who recruited the London Branch of the Ibo Federal Union that had existed there in 1943, under the chairmanship of Mr. Chuba Ikpeazu? Where was the parent body of Ibo Federal Union? What justified the existence of London Branch of Ibo Federal Union? Obi Nwakanma must be telling a deliberate lie when he stated that Ibo Federal Union was formed in Nigeria on December 28, 1948 when its London Branch existed already in 1943. He, Obi, knows quite well that Egbe Omo Oduduwa was not founded in Nigeria until February, 1948, the same year Dr. A.R.B. Dikko founded Jamiyyar Mutanen Arewa (Northern People's Congress), in the North. Obi tried, though in vain, to make it look as if Egbe Omo Oduduwa was a precursor to Ibo Federal Union which is a white lie. What actually happened when the Ibo Federal Union met in Port Harcourt on December 28, 1948, was that the Union changed its name to IBO STATE UNION and reorganized the Ibo linguistic group into a political unit in accordance with the NCNC Freedom Charter which Azikiwe had plagiarized from NYM Charter. According to West African Pilot of January 4, 1949, the President of the Ibo State Union was Nnamdi Azikiwe, Deputy President was A.C. Nwapa, First Vice President was R.A. Njoku, Second Vice-President was M.O. Ajegbo, Third Vice-President was H.U. Kaine, Principal Secretary was J.A. Wachukwu, Permanent Undersecretary was B.O.N. Eluwa, Treasurer was M.I. Onwuka, Political Adviser was Nwafor Orizu, Economic Adviser was Mbonu Ojike, Cultural Adviser was K.O. Mbadiwe, Medical Adviser was F. Akanu Ibiam and Education Adviser was E.I. Oli. All the above listed names of elected officers of the Ibo State Union, transformed from the Ibo Federal Union, on 28 December 1948, were also officers of the NCNC. Nnamdi Azikiwe, in particular, was President of the Ibo State Union as he was in the Ibo Federal Union, President of NCNC and NNDP. Apart from being an Igbophile extremist, Obi Nwakanma must be gifted with a very poor sense of imagination to identify the President of a tribal organisation in a multi-ethnic Nigeria as a Nationalist.
S. Kadiri
Från: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> för Rex Marinus <rexmarinus@hotmail.com>
Skickat: den 24 oktober 2017 22:23
Till: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Ämne: Re: SV: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: [NIgerianWorldForum] Zik'sUnionGovernment (according to Obi)
I'd taken a personal decision not to respond to these scurilous distortions of normally clear historical facts. It frequently degenerates, and takes the color of an ethnic dispute of which I'm actually frankly not interested in. But silence might provide validity to the false claims made here by Salimonu Kadiri. A child might read these revisionist tales, and in the child-like enthusiasm of an Olayinka Agbetuyi, accept them as truth. But Salimonu's pieces are often revisionist frauds, mostly derived from hatcheries of political infamy. Here are a few examples of his willingness to bend and distort truth.
A) The Nigerian Youth Movement began in 1936 (not 1937) with mostly the rump of the former members of the Lagos Youth Movement. Hezekiah O. Davies was instrumental in large part to that move to expand its mission. That much is truth. The NYM was a collection of the political elite of Lagos in the inter war years. We must bear in mind that there was no conception of a pan-Nigerian political movement until Zik arrived in 1937, and normally joined the group that he thought best represented his political views and aspiration at that moment. We must pay attention that until Azikiwe joined the NYM, the dominant political power in Lagos for decades was Hebert Macaulay's NNDP. Zik joined the NYM, and there was neither "a back" nor "a bench" - as an active member of the movement. First, he roused the NYM from its torpor. With his newspapers, he campaigned and circulated the ideas of the NYM, so much that for the first, the movement won the elections in Lagos, basically retiring the old political war horse, Herbert Macaulay. Nnamdi Azikiwe also crafted the NYM charter. Anybody who has studied Zik's style and ideas will immediately note that the NYM charter had the clues of language that suggest Zik's penmanship, and political ideas in that moment. As a matter of fact, that charter became the basic framework on which the NCNC was later founded when Zik withdrew from the NYM. This is hardly the situation of a "back bencher."
B: Zik was instrumental, through the use of his press, in positioning the NYM to win elections in Lagos. Azikiwe's presence in the NYM also did something quite unique: for the first time, a generation of the Igbo - clerks, traders, and other professionals who had circulated across Nigeria became mobilized to political opinion, and also became politically active, and they joined and formed chapters of the NYM nationwide. It became thus possible to organize, for the first time, a pan-Nigerian political group, and to awaken, through these Zikist acts of "dissemination" and the cross-border possibilities of the Igbo, a pan-Nigerian political consciousness. This new presence and force of Igbo political actisvism threatened the long, narrow elite interests that long controlled political opinion in Lagos, who suddenly felt that that this "upstart" Azikiwe was radicalizing the political process too quickly, changing the familiar gradualist, and accommodationist mode of the NYM. It threatened ther fundamental interests, and none was so much more threatened than Awolowo's old political mentor, and doyen of the NYM, Sir Adeyemo Alakija. This was actually the basic source of Azikiwe's disagreement with the NYM: while the key figures, and older interests of the NYM wanted a form of gradualist engagement with the colonial authority, Zik sought an immediate process towards political freedoms. It was a position he had formed and articulated from his activist politics in Ghana in 193, when he actually wrote: "If constitutional reforms must come in dribs and drabs at the pleasure of the colonial ruler and not be regarded as a logical sequence in the historic evolution of any \ people towards statehood. Then such people must agitate militantly within the law to bring about a rapid change in ,heir status. to enable them to formulate and implement policies that would reflect the reforms desired by them and their forefathers. Hence my conviction that only dominion status would enable the Gold Coast to discover its national soul...." In the NYM election that took place, between Sam Akinsanya and Ernest Ikoli, the same issue came to fore, and assumed an ethnic coloration only in the sense that Azikiwe and his followers, increasingly among them, the politically awakened Igbo in Lagos, solidly backed Sam Akinsanya (a Yoruba) who supported Azikiwe's position on (a) the residency rights of all Nigerians in Lagos, and (b) a more activist movement for political independence, against Ernest Ikoli, an Ijaw, Editor of the Daily Service and an old King's boy, who was part of the old Lagos political and cultural establishment. It was almost an exact throw-back to the issues that propelled Azikiwe's active support for Kojo Thompson over Dr. F.W. Nanka Bruce in the Gold Coast municipal elections of 1934, alongside likes of T.A. Wallace Johnson and Kobina Sekyi. Zik pulled away form the NYM and joined forces with the NNPD and Herbert Macaulay whom he had helped to defeat not long ago, and basically woke Macaulay from political death. He founded the NCNC - a coalition of many organizations intent on political freedom from colonialism - made Macaulay President, and was elected Secretary-General of the NCNC. Dr. Olorunimbe was Treasurer and Adeleke Adedoyin was Assistant Secretary. Both these gentlemen would play significant roles later in 1951. But within the year of reviving the NNDP as a coalition partner of the NCNC, their political fortunes changed. But the NYM, which chose to be aloof from the national coalition, could no longer win any elections in Lagos, and became increasingly a narrow, Yoruba-dominated party, and dead in the water. They of course never forgave Zik for literally stealing their thunder. It was just that Zik was that roaring thunder, and simply took what he brought in to NYM over ideological differences.
C: As for Azikiwe introducing "tribalism" in Nigeria. This is the basest lie that anyone could tell about Zik. Nnamdi Azikiwe, whatever flaw he had, was a thoroughly acculturated Nigerian, who (unlike his adversaries) had neither fear, nor disdain for any Nigerian people or culture. As a mater of fact, he went out of his way frequently to embrace a very diverse idea of Nigeria - in his lifestyle, his philosophy, and his political conduct. Now, again, the timeline that Salimonu Kadiri provides for the insertion of "tribalism" in Nigeria needs to be put in perspective, and contained, because it is a lie.
FACT 1: the Egbe Omo Oduduwa was founded in London in 1945, by a group of Yoruba students who had been recruited by the British intelligence to undermine the incipient Nationalist movement in Nigeria led by the "radical" Azikiwe. Among them a brilliant, not too young barrister, who saw Azikiwe and the rise of Igbo political opinion in Lagos and parts of Yoruba land as a "menace" dangerous to what they perceived to be elite Yoruba interest.
FACT 2: Egbe Omo Odudwa was inaugurated in Nigeria on 26 February 1948 to countermand Azikiwe, and the NCNC just as the NCNC was readying to challenge the Macpherson constitution.
FACT 3: the Yoruba members of the NCNC started the Yoruba Federal Union in August 1948 to countermand the obnoxious aims of the Egbe Omo Oduduwa and support the nationalist "freedom charter."
FACT 4: The Ibo Federal Union was inaugurated on December 28 1948, a clear ten months after the inauguration of the "Egbe" in Nigeria and their mission was to pull the Igbo into a support of the "freedom charter" and the NCNC nationalist program. It is also worth knowing that the Ibibio Union had been in existence long before the Ibo state union.
Anybody who reads Azikiwe's address to the Igbo Federal Union would note very clearly the thrust of its appeal: it was a statement against colonialism and imperial imposition, and not about the "Igbo domination" of any ethnic group in Africa. It actually appealed for Igbo ultimate sacrifice in the cause of African freedom. The contest of Azikiwe's speech, which has frequently and routinely been twisted by the likes of Salimonu Kadiri and Aluko, was the summons to the Igbo to actively join the anti-colonial movement. It has since been turned into an Igbo war or battle cry by ventriloquists and revanchists. But let me post here a number of political reports by the British colonial administration on their surveillance and assessment of these events in that period. Here is a memo from F.J. Webber to H.L. Gorsuch, Assistant Secretary of State and Head of the West African Department in the Colonial office on 21 May, 1948 on the inauguration of the Egbe Omo Oduduwa in Nigeria:
Mr. Gorsuch:
I expect you have seen this interesting news item in the "Times." It is obviously impossible to make a true assessment of its implications at thi stage, but we ought to watch this kind of thing carefully. On narrow grounds the launching of this moderate movement may be beneficial to the extent that it discredits the NCNC and brings home the important fact that Zik is not the logical and recognized successor to the British Crown. But in broader grounds this news gives me cause for concern. In the first place I do not like the element of separatism which cuts across what I conceive o be our traditional policy of the unification of Nigeria: if this movement achieves any amount of success there may well be others, e.g., the Northern provinces which I suspect are all too susceptible to this kind of development. In the second place this business of self-help when not inspired by Government is not a thing we should condone. Quite obviously they are taking a leaf from the NCNC book who talk about their own development plans, etc. This attempt at indepdent executive action is bound to confuse public opinion in Nigeria, and impede the Government. It will be a stumbling block to our attempts to canalize public opinion in the accepted constitutional channels, and to provide government of the Nigerians for the benefit of Nigeria as a whole. I do not propose at this stage e should attempt to give any guidance but I feel it would be useful if Cohen wrote to Sir Macpherson as in draft attached."
The nature, context and the aim of the "guidance" later provided to the "Egbe" would become a matter of history. And here is H.M. Foot's summary for L.H. Gosurch of 3 June, 1948 on the formation and "progress" of the Egbe Omo Oduduwa:
"Thank you for your letter No. 30453/3/48 of the 28th of May sending me a cutting from "Times" about the launching of a "great Yoruba national movement." You may now have seen our political summary for March-April on page 13 of which mention was made of the progress of the Egbe Omo Oduduwa which is the organization the "Times" report refers (I attach an extract from the summary). It is true that the Egbe Omo Oduduwa has been rather more active lately and has been raising funds for scholarships (Its leaders have up o now been at pains to explain that it is a non-politica organization). It has also, as the "Times" says, arranged a rally at Ile-Ife to take place early this month. The correspondent who sent the report published in the Times is however obviously a keen supporter of the Egbe and has allowed his party enthusiasm to run away with him. I do not myself think that we can look to the existing Yoruba leaders to start "a great national movement" and I should feel rather enthusiastic about their activities if there was more evidence that they have new and constructive ideas rather than merely a policy of opposition to Ibos and retention of their own influential positions. We shall send you a separate note about the Egbe in a week or two.
These developments generally prompted the Colonial Governor-General, Sir John Macpherson, to note this on his own communication with Arthur Creech Jones, the Secretary of the Colonies of 19th June, 1948: 'While I warmly welcome increased social and political activity in the western provinces, I am very much concerned bout the growth of ill-feelings between the Yorubas and the Ibos, nd I am inclined to think...that the society (Egbe Omo Oduduwa) is mainly concerned with resistance to Zik and the Ibos rather than a constructive program..."
In other words, the very fundamental reason for being, and for forming the Egbe Omo Oduduwa in the first place was to resist Zik and what founders of the Egbe termed the "Igbo menace." The awakening of Igbo political consciousness and activism in Lagos, and its embrace of Azikiwe's nationalist anti-colonial ideology, threatened the settled interests of elite Yoruba politicians, and they mobilized to countermand it - to, as the reports say, "drive Zik out of Lagos." These reports in the British secret cables offer clear context to any discerning and intelligent interlocutor of that history, put to lie, the very claims of right-wing Yoruba politics of which Salimonu Kadiri is a great model. I would not bother to respond to the rest of Salimonu's "mumufication" of the Nigerian story in his posts. But enough said!
Obi Nwakanma
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Olayinka Agbetuyi <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2017 10:57 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: SV: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: [NIgerianWorldForum] Zik'sUnionGovernment (according to Obi)
Well researched documented and presented.
I urge EVERY member of the forum to ttake snap shot of this as well as save it for easy access in a strategic part of their computers so we don't have to go down this well beaten acrimonious path again for whatever reason.
Many thanks for a wonderful comorehensive and painstaking job Alagba Kadiri.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------
From: Salimonu Kadiri <ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com>
Date: 23/10/2017 21:15 (GMT+00:00)
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: SV: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: [NIgerianWorldForum] Zik'sUnionGovernment (according to Obi)
This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com) Add cleanup rule | More info
Zik actually introduced tribalism into the body politics of Nigeria when he formed the Ibo Federal Union in 1943 and installed himself as its President. It is interesting to know that when Nnamdi Azikiwe returned to Nigeria in 1937, after a High Court in Ghana had discharged and acquitted of sedition for which he had been convicted at the lower court, he concentrated on establishing his newspaper, West African Pilot, through American financial aid. The two main political parties in Nigeria then were, Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) led by Herbert Macaulay and the Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM) led by Dr. Kofoworola Abayomi. It is noteworthy that it was the Lagos Youth Movement (LYM) founded by Earnest Ikoli and Samuel A. Akinsanya in 1933 that was reorganized and transformed into NYM in 1937 when Hezekiah Oladipo Davies became the General Secretary of the Movement. Since 1923 to 1938, NNDP under Macaulay's leadership, had won all the three seats for Lagos to the Legislative Council. However, in the 1938 election NYM defeated NNDP to capture all the three seats for Lagos to the Legislative Council. It was after NYM's election victory in 1938 that Nnamdi Azikiwe joined the NYM as a back-bencher when Dr. Akinola Maja, Dr. Kofoworola Abayomi, Ernest Ikoli and Samuel Akinsanya were the front leaders.
In 1941, Dr. Kofo' Abayomi's seat at the Legislative Council was declared vacant when he proceeded to London for a specialist course in ophthalmology. Earnest Ikoli and Samuel Akinsanya, respectively, became President and Vice President of the NYM. Conventionally, the President of NYM had automatic nomination to the Legislative Council election whenever he expressed desire to contest, but when Ernest Ikoli expressed his desire to contest in the bye-election to replace the former President, Dr. Kofo' Abayomi, Ikoli was challenged by Akinsanya. Ernest Ikoli, eventually won the bye-election to the Legislative Council on March 5, 1941 against Samuel Akinsanya. Azikiwe, Akinsanya and others did not accept the democratic outcome of the bye-election and, therefore, resigned from the NYM. The crisis weakened the NYM and from 1943 NNDP began to win again all the three seats to the Legislative Council in Lagos.
The same 1943 that the NNDP began to win elections to the Legislative Council, Nnamdi Azikiwe founded the first tribal union in Nigeria called, Ibo Federal Union, which was later renamed Ibo State Union. About a year later, 26 August 1944, Nnamdi Azikiwe single-handedly formed the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) and allotted offices to persons of his own choice without seeking their consent first. Significantly, he made himself the Secretary of the party and Herbert Macaulay who was over eighty years old, the President. Herbert Macaulay did not need any new political party as his NNDP was strong and winning all the three seats in Lagos to the Legislative Council. Those who think that 419 scam is a recent phenomena in Nigeria should take a proper look at how Azikiwe first scuttled the NYM, founded a tribal union and founded the NCNC through the aid of unsuspecting Herbert Macaulay. Nnamdi Azikiwe forwarded letters to his appointed officials of the NCNC on September 23, 1944, asking them to confirm if they accepted the offices allotted to them. Only six out of Azikiwe's thirteen self-appointed officials of the NCNC accepted the offer, including Herbert Macaulay and himself, Nnamdi Azikiwe. When Herbert Macaulay died in 1946, Azikiwe inherited both the President of the NCNC and NNDP. While he featured NNDP to contest elections in the West (including Lagos) he deployed the NCNC to contest election in the East, until 1951 when the newly formed Action Group won majority to the Western House of Assembly and his bid to be leader of government in the West collapsed. It can be discerned from the above narrative that Azikiwe helped to scuttle the NYM because he noticed that the leadership role he desired for himself could not be achieved with the calibres of NYM leaders.
Bolaji Aluko has reproduced the Presidential address delivered by Zik at the Ibo State Assembly held at Aba on Saturday, June 25, 1949, as contained on p. 242 -246, of chapter 13 titled, ZIK ON IBO PEOPLE, in ZIK: Selected Speeches of Dr. NNAMDI AZIKIWE. It is worthty to know that Azikiwe's Selected Speeches was published in 1961, twelve years after his Presidential address to the Ibo State Assembly at Aba. What was published in 1961 was an edited version of Azikiwe's presidential address to his fellow Ibos on 25 June 1949. In Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe's owned newspaper, West African Pilot, of 8 July 1949, part of his Presidential Adress to the Ibo State Assembly at Aba, on June 25, 1949 was reported as follows, "It would appear that the God of Africa has specially created the Ibo nation to lead the children of Africa from the bondage of the ages... THE MARTIAL PROWESS OF THE IBO NATION AT ALL STAGES OF HUMAN HISTORY HAS ENABLED THEM NOT ONLY TO CONQUER OTHERS BUT ALSO TO ADAPT THEMSELVES TO THE ROLE OF PRESERVER... The Ibo nation cannot shirk its responsibility.... Politically, you have seen with your own eyes how you were disfranchised by the British... The Ibo nation has never been represented in the Executive Council... Economically, the Ibo nation has laboured under onerous taxation measures, without sufficient social amenities to justify same. We have been taxed without representation, AND OUR CONTRIBUTIONS IN TAXES HAVE BEEN USED TO DEVELOP OTHER AREAS. IT WOULD SEEM THAT THE IBO NATION IS BECOMING A VICTIM OF ECONOMIC ANIHILATION THROUGH A GRADUAL BUT STUDIED PROCESS." Whether in original form, as it was reported in the West African Pilot of 8 July 1949, or in edited version, as published in the 1961 Selected Speeches, Azikiwe's Presidential Address to the Ibo State Assembly at Aba on June 25, 1949, had nothing to do with African Union government or Nigerian unity. He accused Britain of developing other areas of Nigeria with taxes collected from Ibo-land without corresponding development to the taxed Ibo, just as the present generation of the Igbo cry of marginalisation when, in fact, the whole country is wallowing in abject poverty.
Why did Nnamdi Azikiwe form Ibo State Union when his political base was in Yorubaland where he was not discriminated against because of his Ibo ethnic origin? Why was he telling members of the Ibo State Assembly at Aba on June 25, 1949, that the Ibo were conqueror of others who had adapted themselves to the role of preserver when, already in December 1946, he contested on the platform of NNDP in Lagos and won a seat to the Legislative Council just like his fellow NNDP members of that time, Haruna P. Adebola, T. O. Shobowale Benson, Dr. Ibiyinka Olorunmbe, and Adeleke Adedoyin? Why did Azikiwe not contest on the platform of NCNC, the party he formed in 1944? Answers to the questions about Azikiwe's behaviour could be traced to the level of human development each of ethnic group had reached when the British colonialist arrived in Nigeria. In the North, there were Emirs and in the West there were Kings (Oba) through which the colonialist could rule indirectly. In the East, the ethnic majority Eboe (later known as Ibo) lived in scattered and isolated hamlets from one another. The Eboe had no established authority through which the British colonialist could administer them as it were in the North and West. In his piece titled, IGBO IDENTITY CRISES, in the online Nigerian Vanguard of September 2013, Professor Chidi Osuagwu wrote, "The Igbo identity crisis began in 1929. The British had just introduced the Warrant Chief system to enhance their colonial administration in Eastern Nigeria. In the North and West, the monarchs made the system work. But the East had no monarchy with such overwhelming powers as in the other two (North and West). They (the British), therefore, created Warrant Chiefs for that purpose. This is the root of the presence of many traditional rulers and autonomous communities in Igboland, with their attendant boundary and chieftaincy violence." The Warrant Chief was eventually transformed to Eze thereby giving cause to the saying, Ibo enwe Eze, meaning, Ibos have no King. Pertaining to Ibos' opposition to the introduction of Eze in Ibo land, Chinua Achebe wrote, "The Igbo people expressed a strong antimonarchy sentiment - Ezebuilo - which literally means, a king is an enemy." (p.246, There Was A Country; see also p. 16 of his book, Home And Exile, where he stated categorically that, "In all probability they (the Igbo) would not wish to live under the rule of kings. The Igbo did not wish to, and made no secret of their disinclination."). Although Azikiwe enjoyed total acceptance among his political pears in Yorubaland, he was greatly troubled by the total anarchy reigning among his own Eboe ethnic group (later identified as Ibo ethnic group which has now metamorphosed to Igbo ethnic group). Azikiwe lived, ate, and dressed like a Yoruba and he became role model that every Igbo aspired to become. He wanted to spread Yoruba civilisation among his Ibo people and he resorted to tribal appeal and sentiments. Sooner, the Igbo turned the Yoruba who they saw as their role models into rivals. Chinua Achebe expressed the ethnic rivalry thus, "Although the Yoruba had a huge historical and geographical head start, the Igbo wiped out their handicap in one fantastic burst of energy in the twenty years between 1930 and 1950." (p.74, There Was A Country). In fact, the Yoruba have never regarded the Igbo as rivals, and as such, whenever the demonstrated love and fraternity of the Yoruba towards the Igbo have been reciprocated with tribal superiority, the Yoruba had handled such provocation with diplomacy and superior intelligence, instead of physical and violent attacks as it had always been in the North. There is a lot to be ashamed of in our historical past, but shame should not prompt us into inventing history to whitewash the inglorious past of our Nigerian political forebears.
In his exchange with Ayo Ojutalayo on 16 October 2017, Obi Nwakanma wrote, "Azikiwe did not propose a unitary State, he proposed a 'Union government' such as we still have in India." Obi Nwakanma would appear to be re-writing the political manifesto of Azikiwe's political party, the NCNC which advocated the concentration of power at the centre with weak regions, the so-called unitary government. Thus, when Major General Aguiyi-Ironsi, in his broadcast of 24 May 1966 announced Decree No.34, which abolished the Regions and concentrated all powers at the centre, Nnamdi Azikiwe's newspaper, The West African Pilot of May 25, 1966, published a large cartoon, captioned,The Dawn of a New Day, which depicted the Ironsi Government as a large cock crowing,'One Country, One Nationality.' For the sake of those who do not know, cock was the political symbol of the NCNC, the party of Nnamdi Azikiwe, which for many decades propagated for a unitary form of government in Nigeria as against federalism.
Obi Nwakanma wrote further, "The 'restless' west or the 'wild west had collapsed. It was the effort to save it that compelled the January 1966 coup." Obi Nwakanma's wild or restless west actually arose when the federal coalition government consisting of Igbo led NCNC and Hausa led NPC overthrew the democratically elected Action Group (AG) government of the Western Region and replaced it with a puppet coalition government of United People's Party (UPP) and NCNC. In addition to that, the Igbo and Hausa led federal coalition government carved Midwest Region out of the Western Region without carving out similar Regions for the minorities in Eastern and Northern Regions. The abuse of federal power angered the people of Western Region who protested violently against the imposition of a puppet regime on them by the Ibo and Hausa controlled federal government. The violent protest against the undemocratic stance of the NPC/NCNC federal coalition government in the Western Region might have been part of the reasons for the January 15, 1966 coup, but not the main reason. Broadcasting on Radio Kaduna at 12:30 noon, on Saturday, 15 January 1966, in the name of the Supreme Council of the Revolution of the Nigerian Armed Forces, Major Patrick Chukwuma Nzeogwu said among other things, "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, swindlers, the men in the high and low places that seek bribes and demand ten per cent ...; the tribalists, the nepotists; .... those that have corrupted our society.." Obviously, reasons for the January 1966 coup were to eradicate corruption in Nigeria, to stop bribe seekers and ten per cent demanders and to stop those who practised tribalism and nepotism. The question then is, who were the corrupt bribe seekers and demanders of ten per cent, the tribalists and nepotists on or before January 15, 1966? That question was indirectly answered by Chinua Achebe when he asserted that after independence in 1960, the Igbo led the nation in virtually every sector - politics, education, commerce and the arts. (see 66-67, There Was A Country). And on page 233 of the book, Chinua Achebe declared the Igbo as the dominant tribe in Nigeria at that time. However, the corrupt bribe seekers, demanders of ten per cent, the tribalists and nepotists, and the dominant tribe that led the nation in virtually every sector staged a counter coup against the Revolutionary Majors on the same day. As the major coup executors had declared, the two coups of January 1966, had nothing to do with saving the Western Region from imaginary political and economic collapse.
Obi Nwakanma speculated further, "The civil war may not have happened had the West asserted the agreement reached in Enugu between Ojukwu and Awo, to establish a common 'Southern Front' and compel the North either to accede to negotiations or secede." Against the expression, may not have happened, one can substitute, could still have happened, if the presumed agreement between Ojukwu and Awo in Enugu had been implemented by the West. From historical records, we know that Awolowo in a speech delivered to the Western Leaders of Thought in Ibadan on 1 May 1967 said among other things, "The Eastern Region must be encouraged to remain part of the Federation. If the Eastern Region is allowed by acts of omission or commission to secede from or opt out of Nigeria, then the Western Region and Lagos must also stay out of the Federation." (see Nigerian Daily Times, 2 May 1967). On 3 May 1967, the Governor of Western Region, Colonel Adeyinka Adebayo, in a radio broadcast clarified Awlowo's statement by saying his Region was not in collusion with the East to secede. However, Awolowo on May 5, 1967 led a four man peace delegation to Enugu. Chinua Achebe recorded thus, "The first part of May 1967 saw the visit of the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) to Enugu, the capital of Eastern Region. It was led by Chief Awolowo and billed as a last-minute effort at peace and as an attempt to encourage Ojukwu and Eastern leaders to attend peace talks at a venue suitable to the Easterners. Despite providing a friendly reception, many Igbo leaders referred to the visit disdainfully as 'chop, chop, talk, talk, commission.' .....//... There were a number of distinguished and well-meaning Nigerians on the National Reconciliation Commission, but they were meeting with leaders of an emotionally and psychologically exhausted and disillusioned Igbo people." (p. 88, There Was A Country). In John de St Jorre's book, the Nigerian Civil War, he recorded that Ojukwu snubbed Awolowo's peace delegation calling it an ill-conceived child and treated Awolowo cavalierly. (see p. 121). There was no such agreement between Awolowo, a civilian for that matter, and Ojukwu, a military man to establish a common Southern Front against the North. Such agreement would have been understandable if it were reached between the military Governors in the South namely, Colonel Adebayo (West), Lieutenant Colonels Ojukwu (East) and Ejoor (Mid-west). This is probably beyond the understanding of a psychotic historian who is incapable of distinguishing between reality and his/her imagination but history is very clear about it that there was no agreement between Ojukwu and Awolowo for a common Southern Front against the North.
On 17 October 2017, Obi Nwakanma in response to Ayo Ojutalayo again wrote, "Awo was a felon, was a fascist and tribalist, and that his faction of the Yoruba were reactionaries and revanchists who practised and propagated the African version of the Nazi national socialism and that the great greed of power spiralled into that lurch of madness called 'the wild, wild west,' which later led to events that destroyed the early foundations of Nigeria as a nation-state." Obi must provide historical evidence to support his claim that Awolowo was a fascist, a tribalist, a reactionary and a revanchist who practised and propagated the African version of the Nazi national socialism. When Awolowo's government of the Western Region introduced free primary education in 1950s, over two million Igbo children resident in the Region enjoyed free primary education. Had Awolowo been a fascist or a Nazi he would have excluded non-Yoruba children in the region from free primary education scheme, but he did not. How could Awolowo have been a fascist or a Nazi when Anthony Eronsile Enahoro was deputy leader of his party, the Action Group, and the Secretary of the Party was Samuel Gomsu Ikoku? No, Obi Nwakanma as a historian must expatiate on his accusation against Awolowo and failure to come with concrete evidence to support his claim would amount to his spitting phlegm against the wind only to find the phlegm landing on his own face.
S. Kadiri
Från: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Skickat: den 17 oktober 2017 22:33
Till: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: [NIgerianWorldForum] Zik's UnionGovernment (according to Obi)
Azikiwe foresaw the need for African Union Government and called for the United States of Africa, not only in the 1949 speech but also in his 1937 treatise, Renascent Africa, in which he blessed the youth of Africa and rained curses on the old Africa that obstructed progress. The title of the address should have been to ndi Africa rather than to ndi Igbo given that he was already including Cameroon in the Union government with Nigeria and was the only Nigerian leader to advocate a union beyond the colonial boundaries that imperialism imposed. Some may quarrel with his specific injunction to the Igbo as a people created to lead the liberation of Africa but the context makes his speech understandable. If you are addressing a group of Boys Scouts, you will be forgiven for telling the Scouts that they have a duty to lead in the service to humanity. This does not mean that only Scouts or the Igbo should be prepared to lead. In fact, Zik made it clear that the task must be done in unity with other African nationalities (and the Zikist Movement was Pan Nigerian in membership), but it is also true that the Igbo answered the call to rally for the restoration of independence more massively than their compatriots and they continue to do so by venturing outside their enclave to serve in every nook and cranny of Africa today. Zik was ahead of his time as the African Union Commission, the African Union Passport, the African Union Parliament, and the coming African Union Government would testify. Nkrumah, the mentee of Zik, harped on the same theme of Union Government. Forward Ever.
Biko
On Tuesday, 17 October 2017, 15:35:33 GMT-4, Olayinka Agbetuyi <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> wrote:
Seconded!
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------
From: "'profoyekanmi@yahoo.com' via USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: 17/10/2017 20:08 (GMT+00:00)
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com, NIgerianWorldForum@yahoogroups.com, africanworldforum@googlegroups.com, alukome@gmail.com, naijaobserver@yahoogroups.com, naijaintellects@googlegroups.com, talknigeria@yahoogroups.com
Cc: naijapolitics@yahoogroups.com, igboevents@yahoogroups.com, igboworldforum@yahoogroups.com, ayoojutalayo@yahoo.com, USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: [NIgerianWorldForum] Zik's UnionGovernment (according to Obi)
This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com) Add cleanup rule | More info
Tunde, I agree with you 100%.
Sent from my HTC
----- Reply message -----
From: "'Ayotunde Bewaji' via USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
To: "NIgerianWorldForum@yahoogroups.com" <NIgerianWorldForum@yahoogroups.com>, "africanworldforum@googlegroups.com" <africanworldforum@googlegroups.com>, "alukome@gmail.com" <alukome@gmail.com>, "naijaobserver@yahoogroups.com" <naijaobserver@yahoogroups.com>, "naijaintellects@googlegroups.com" <naijaintellects@googlegroups.com>, "talknigeria@yahoogroups.com" <talknigeria@yahoogroups.com>
Cc: "naijapolitics@yahoogroups.com" <naijapolitics@yahoogroups.com>, "igboevents@yahoogroups.com" <igboevents@yahoogroups.com>, "igboworldforum@yahoogroups.com" <igboworldforum@yahoogroups.com>, "ayoojutalayo@yahoo.com" <ayoojutalayo@yahoo.com>, "USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com" <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: [NIgerianWorldForum] Zik's Union Government (according to Obi)
Date: Tue, Oct 17, 2017 2:49 PM
Dear all,
Please, when we have discussions on issues, can we leave name-calling out and focus on the issues? I have friends who are Rastafari, Bantu, Zulu, Jews, etc; they are very honorable, decent, responsible individuals, who may be reading some of the exchanges here. Am sure they may be wondering what kind of people Nigerians are, who cannot have civilized discussion without descending to the gutter to totally mess up the good points they urge in civilized conversation.
White people stereotyped us, denigrated and destroyed our achievements, civilizations, cultures, religions, social, political and economic systems, so that they could gain leverage over our collective patrimony; they in the process stole everything good that we have - land, minerals, knowledge systems, etc. It seems that their most important achievement is stealing our brains!
Should we do the same to each other, we who are descendants of the first civilizations in the world? Do we have to be like the primitives with the dementia of greed, and loose sight of our honorable humanity? Do we want to copy the basest and worst in the inhumanity of our conquerors in order to assert our humanity? Am sure we can do better. We should do better, by respecting each other. Is this not the success of the Willie Lynch Syndrome? Make them enemies of each other, so that while they are raping us left, right and center, we are busy quarreling over whose nose is most flat, who is, therefore, the ugliest - as is nose shape prevents breathing?
I had said sometime ago that demonizing your opponent is the first step toward the slippery slope of Rwanda Genocide. Once you opponent is demonized, othered as less than human, chopping off limbs, heads and innards becomes acceptable treatment for the "lesser than human opponent". If primitive Boko Haram, living in the 6th Century AD, wants to live like that, why must the rest of us be dragged down with them? Why would those who want to be Jews think the only favour they can do for the rest of us in the "Animal Kingdom - the Zoo" is to quarter us, limb by limb, member by member?
Human beings make mistakes, but repeating the same mistakes is evidence of some kind of malady beneath the ken of those who wish to attain global respectability. This is not saying that those who are powerful in the world and who can get away with blue murder, do not use their powers to pursue failed agendas: invading Afghanistan, occupying Palestine, venturing out of Biafra to Lagos when you could hardly defend your territory, insisting that an artificial contraption cobbled (Nigeria) together by some foreign power is indivisible, etc!
All societies are helped to survive by those blessed by the accident of opportunity to excel coming together to improve the lots of the general masses. While Africa is struggling to come together in a strong Federation, we should not continue to slur our fellow human beings (Africans, Nigerians, Diaspora Africans) based on inherited prejudices created by barbarians from the norther climes - Europe. We do not necessarily have to like each other, but if we crave respect from others, we should show respect to others.
Please, we should be able to do that, at the least. Walk good, my friends!
Ire o.
Tunde.
On Tuesday, 17 October 2017, 7:51, "Nebukadineze Adiele Nebukadineze@aol.com [NIgerianWorldForum]" <NIgerianWorldForum@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Ayo,
I did not follow this debate, but what point were you making through this excerpt from Zik's speech? The only thing I find confusing there was the categorizing of Mbamiri (Mbammili), which is Ikwere and other Igbos of present day Rivers state, in the Northwest -- that had to have been a typographical error sicne he correctly projected Afikpo and Abakiliki in the Northwest.
Did you notice that no Ikwere denied being Igbo then? You Nigerian Bantus are always proven wrong by history.
Nebukadineze Adiele
Organized religion sired irrationality.
-----Original Message-----
From: 'ayoojuts@yahoo.com' ayoojuts@yahoo.com [NIgerianWorldForum] <NIgerianWorldForum@yahoogroups.com>
To: africanworldforum <africanworldforum@googlegroups.com>; Mobolaji Aluko <alukome@gmail.com>
Cc: NIgerianWorldForum <NIgerianWorldForum@yahoogroups.com>; NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com <naijapolitics@yahoogroups.com>; Igbo Events <igboevents@yahoogroups.com>; igboworldforum <igboworldforum@yahoogroups.com>; ayoojutalayo <ayoojutalayo@yahoo.com>; USAAfrica Dialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tue, Oct 17, 2017 3:30 am
Subject: [NIgerianWorldForum] Zik's Union Government (according to Obi)
Zik's Union Government (according to Obi):
"The only worthwhile stand we [Igbo] can make as a nation is to assert our right to self-determination, as a unit of a prospective Federal Commonwealth of Nigeria and the Cameroons, where our rights will be respected and safeguarded. Roughly speaking, there are twenty main dialectal regions in the Igbo nation, which can be conveniently departmentalized as Provinces of an Igbo State, to wit: Mbammili in the northwest, Aniocha in the west, Anidinma and Ukwuani in the southeast, Nsukka and Udi in the north, Awgu, Awka and Onitsha in the center, Ogbaru in the south, Abakaliki and Afikpo in the northwest, Okigwi, Orlu, Owerri and Mbaise in the east, Ngwa, Bende, Abiriba Ohafia and Etche in the southwest. These Provinces can have their territorial boundaries delimited, they can select their capitals, and then can conveniently develop their resources both for their common benefit and for those of the other nationalities who make up this great country called Nigeria and the Cameroons.
"The keynote in this address is self-determination for the Igbo. Let us establish an Igbo State, based on linguistic and ethnic factors, enabling us to take our place side by side with the other linguistic and ethnic groups which make up Nigeria and the Cameroons. With the Hausa, Fulani, Kanuri, Yoruba, Ibibio (Igboku), Angus (Bi-Rom), Tiv, Ijaw, Edo, Urhobo, ltsekiri, Nupe, Igalla, Ogaja, Gwari, Duala, Bali and other nationalities asserting their right to self-determination each as separate as the fingers, but united with others as a part of the same hand, we can reclaim Nigeria and the Cameroons from this degradation which it has pleased the forces of European imperialism to impose upon us."
. . . . . Nnamdi Azikiwe’s “Address to Ndiigbo” at the Igbo State Assembly, Aba in 1949
Ayo Ojutalayo
"When you are too gentlemanly with SOBs and bullies, they grow wings and never change their habits. Ultimately, deep down, they are cowards. . . Nebukadineze Adiele - not his parent-given name; one of the ghosts that pollute our Naija forums and write in pseudonym, as one of their "free speech" exercises - is a prime example." . . . Bolaji Aluko
On Monday, October 16, 2017, 11:10:38 PM EDT, Mobolaji Aluko <alukome@gmail.com> wrote:
My People:
Read the Goebellsian irrendistt Igbo supermenschen exemplar Reginald Marinus Obiefuna Olufemi Nwakanma write:
QUOTE
Until the Igbo return spiritually to Nigeria, it will continue to be a wasteland. That is the real Igbo challenge. We just dey look una as you keep going to the well until you smash all your calabashes. Then you will rise as one, and in a great cry of anguish, plead with the Igbo to right things. That day is coming, Ayo. That's all I should say here.
UNQUOTE
Lord have mercy!
Honestly, you are an ENEMY of your Igbo people when you write like this, to the reading eyes of others. I don't think that that there is ANY other writer, sans a Nazi, who would write so chillingly and boastfully like this, in ANY political entity with so many other ethnic groups, like you have written. If one did not know that you REALLY exist, one would think that you are DELIBERATELY inviting opprobrium to the Igbo people, under the guise of truth-telling. Zik your god was far wiser, even if also a little suspect (See his "Manifest Destiny" speech below.")
But you are probably convinced of what you write - and that is a tragedy - to you and to the Igbo that you say that you word-smith for.
And there you have it.
Bolaji Aluko
Nnamdi Azikiwe’s “Address to Ndiigbo” at the Igbo State Assembly, Aba in 1949
In the following address given eleven years before Nigerian independence, Nnamdi Azikiwe calls for self-determination for the Igbo as they, along with other ethnic groups, march toward an inevitably free Nigeria. This address was delivered at the Igbo State Assembly held at Aba, Nigeria, on Saturday, June 25, 1949.
Harbingers of a new day for the Igbo nation, having selected me to preside over the deliberations of this assembly of the Igbo nation, I am conscious of the fact that you have not done so because of any extraordinary attributes in me. I realize that I am not the oldest among you, nor the wisest, nor the wealthiest, nor the most experienced, nor the most learned. I am, therefore, grateful to you for elevating me to this high pedestal.
The Igbo people have reached a crossroad and it is for us to decide which is the right course to follow. We are confronted with routes leading to diverse goals, but as I see it, there is only one road that I can safely recommend for us to tread, and it is the road to self-determination for the Igbo within the framework of a federated commonwealth of Nigeria and the Cameroons, leading to a United States of Africa. Other roads, in my opinion, are calculated to lead us astray from the path of national self-realization.
It would appear that God has specially created the Igbo people to suffer persecution and be victimized because of their resolute will to live. Since suffering is the label of our tribe, we can afford to be sacrificed for the ultimate redemption of the children of Africa. Is it not fortunate that the Igbo are among the few remnants of indigenous African nations who are still not spoliated by the artificial niceties of Western materialism? Is it not historically significant that throughout the glorious history of Africa, the Igbo is one of the select few to have escaped the humiliation of a conqueror’s sword or to be a victim of a Carthaginian treaty? Search through the records of African history and you will fail to find an occasion when, in any pitched battle, any African nation has either marched across Igbo territory or subjected the Igbo nation to a humiliating conquest. Instead, there is record to show that the martial prowess of the Igbo, at all stages of human history, has rivaled them not only to survive persecution, but also to adapt themselves to the role thus thrust upon them by history, of preserving all that is best and most noble in African culture and tradition. Placed in this high estate, the Igbo cannot shirk the responsibility conferred on it by its manifest destiny. Having undergone a course of suffering, the Igbo must, therefore, enter into its heritage by asserting its birthright, without apologies.
Follow me in a kaleidoscopic study of the Igbo. Four million strong in manpower! Our agricultural resources include economic and food crops which are the bases of modern civilization, not to mention fruits and vegetables which flourish in the tropics! Our mineral resources include coal, lignite, lead, antimony, iron, diatomite, clay, oil, tin! Our forest products include timber of economic value, including iroko and mahogany! Our fauna and flora are marvels of the world! Our land is blessed by waterways of world renown, including the River Niger, Imo River, Cross River! Our ports are among the best known in the continent of Africa. Yet in spite of these natural advantages, which illustrate without doubt the potential wealth of the Igbo, we are among the least developed in Nigeria, economically, and we are so ostracized socially, that we have become extraneous in the political institutions of Nigeria.
I have not come here today in order to catalogue the disabilities which the Igbo suffer, in spite of our potential wealth, in spite of our teeming manpower, in spite of our vitality as an indigenous African people; suffice it to say that it would enable you to appreciate the manifest destiny of the Igbo if I enumerated some of the acts of discrimination against us as a people. Socially, the British Press has not been sparing in describing us as ‘the most hated in Nigeria’. In this unholy crusade, the Daily Mirror, The Times, The Economist, News Review and the Daily Mail have been in the forefront. In the Nigerian Press, you are living witnesses of what has happened in the last eighteen months, when Lagos, Zaria and Calabar sections of the Nigerian Press were virtually encouraged to provoke us to tendentious propaganda. It is needless for me to tell you that today, both in England and in West Africa, the expression ‘Igbo’ has become a word of opprobrium.
Politically, you have seen with your own eyes how four million people were disenfranchised by the British, for decades, because of our alleged backwardness. We have never been represented on the Executive Council, and not one Igbo town has had the franchise, despite the fact that our native political institutions are essentially democratic – in fact, more democratic than any other nation in Africa, in spite of our extreme individualism.
Economically, we have labored under onerous taxation measures, without receiving sufficient social amenities to justify them. We have been taxed without representation, and our contributions in taxes have been used to develop other areas, out of proportion to the incidence of taxation in those areas. It would seem that we are becoming a victim of economic annihilation through a gradual but studied process. What are my reasons for cataloguing these disabilities and interpreting them as calculated to emasculate us, and so render us impotent to assert our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
I shall now state the facts which should be well known to any honest student of Nigerian history. On the social plane, it will be found that outside of Government College at Umuahia, there is no other secondary school run by the British Government in Nigeria in Igboland. There is not one secondary school for girls run by the British Government in our part of the country. In the Northern and Western Provinces, the contrary is the case. If a survey of the hospital facilities in Igboland were made, embarrassing results might show some sort of discrimination. Outside of Port Harcourt, fire protection is not provided in any Igbo town. And yet, we have been under the protection of Great Britain for many decades!
On the economic plane, I cannot sufficiently impress you because you are too familiar with the victimization which is our fate. Look at our roads; how many of them are tarred, compared, for example, with the roads in other parts of the country? Those of you who have travelled to this assembly by road are witnesses of the corrugated and utterly unworthy state of the roads which traverse Igboland, in spite of the fact that four million Igbo people pay taxes in order, among others, to have good roads. With roads, must be considered the system of communications, water and electricity supplies. How many of our towns, for example, have complete postal, telegraph, telephone and wireless services, compared to towns in other areas of Nigeria? How many have pipe-borne water supplies? How many have electricity undertakings? Does not the Igbo taxpayer fulfill his civic duty? Why, then, must he be a victim of studied official victimization?
Today, these disabilities have been intensified. There is a movement to disregard traditional organization in the Igbo nation by the introduction of a specious system of a form of local government. The placing of the Igbo nation in an artificial regionalization scheme has left an unfair impression of attempted domination by minorities of the Igbo people. In the House of Assembly and the Legislative Council, the electoral college system has aided in the complete disenfranchisement of the Igbo. As a climax, spurious leadership is being foisted upon us – a mis-leadership which receives official recognition, thus stultifying the legitimate aspirations of the Igbo. This leadership shows a palpable disloyalty to the Igbo and loyalty to an alien protecting power.
The only worthwhile stand we can make as a nation is to assert our right to self-determination, as a unit of a prospective Federal Commonwealth of Nigeria and the Cameroons, where our rights will be respected and safeguarded. Roughly speaking, there are twenty main dialectal regions in the Igbo nation, which can be conveniently departmentalized as Provinces of an Igbo State, to wit: Mbammili in the northwest, Aniocha in the west, Anidinma and Ukwuani in the southeast, Nsukka and Udi in the north, Awgu, Awka and Onitsha in the center, Ogbaru in the south, Abakaliki and Afikpo in the northwest, Okigwi, Orlu, Owerri and Mbaise in the east, Ngwa, Bende, Abiriba Ohafia and Etche in the southwest. These Provinces can have their territorial boundaries delimited, they can select their capitals, and then can conveniently develop their resources both for their common benefit and for those of the other nationalities who make up this great country called Nigeria and the Cameroons.
The keynote in this address is self-determination for the Igbo. Let us establish an Igbo State, based on linguistic and ethnic factors, enabling us to take our place side by side with the other linguistic and ethnic groups which make up Nigeria and the Cameroons. With the Hausa, Fulani, Kanuri, Yoruba, Ibibio (Igboku), Angus (Bi-Rom), Tiv, Ijaw, Edo, Urhobo, ltsekiri, Nupe, Igalla, Ogaja, Gwari, Duala, Bali and other nationalities asserting their right to self-determination each as separate as the fingers, but united with others as a part of the same hand, we can reclaim Nigeria and the Cameroons from this degradation which it has pleased the forces of European imperialism to impose upon us. Therefore, our meeting today is of momentous importance in the history of the Igbo, in that opportunity has been presented to us to heed the call of a despoiled race, to answer the summons to redeem a ravished continent, to rally forces to the defense of a humiliated country, and to arouse national consciousness in a demoralized but dynamic nation.
On Tue, Oct 17, 2017 at 3:04 AM, Rex Marinus <rexmarinus@hotmail..com> wrote:
Ayo, I'm actually quite no longer in the mood for this discussion because frankly you do not bring anything fresh to it. You do not even know what a "union government" is. A union government is not a "temporary arrangement.." it is about the NATURE of the CENTRAL government in relation to affiliate or federating states. I could go on and on and give you insight into Azikiwe's political philosophy based on his writings and propositions, but it would be like casting rubies to sows. And so Ayo, believe what you want: what is clear is very simple though, and history will bear this witness of Zik and Ironsi: they were the examples of the nobility of the Igbo spirit - they chose to sacrifice themselves for the greater national good. We do hope that Nigeria survives, and as history is often written in the tranche of a hundred years, in spite of the current revisionist agenda of your faction of the Yoruba, history will record that Awo was a felon, was a fascist and tribalist, and that his faction of the Yoruba were reactionaries and revanchists who practiced and propagated the African version of the Nazi national socialism, and that the great greed for power spiraled into that lurch of madness called "the wild, wild west," which later led to events that destroyed the early foundations of Nigeria as a nation-state. You can erect all the statues you want of him today, whitewash AND lionize him all you want, but the children of tomorrow will piss on that image, because the history books of the nation are already open, and try all the revision you can, the voice that would be heard down the ages would be that of the historian Tekena Tamuno, who wrote unambiguously: "the Igbo are the makers of modern Nigeria. When they left Nigeria collapsed... ." Until the Igbo return spiritually to Nigeria, it will continue to be a wasteland. That is the real Igbo challenge. We just dey look una as you keep going to the well until you smash all your calabashes. Then you will rise as one, and in a great cry of anguish, plead with the Igbo to right things. That day is coming, Ayo. That's all I should say here.
Obi Nwakanma
From: Ayo Ojutalayo <ayoojutalayo@yahoo.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2017 12:22 AM
To: rexmarinus@hotmail.com; NIgerianWorldForum@ yahoogroups.com; NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com; Igbo Events; igboworldforum@yahoogroups.com ; africanworldforum@ googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [africanworldforum] Re: Buhari belongs to northerners, S’West regrets voting for him – Adebanjo
Obi,
Stop confusing yourself. "Union government" is not a political system. Google "system of government in India" and you will see federation. Union government is a temporary arrangement put in place for exigency. It is put in place in whatever political system is in place (unitary or federal). Zik, Aguyi Ironsi and Igbo wanted unitary system for selfish reasons. Turning Nigeria unitary was Ironsi's first major act as Head of State. And he did it at the advice/counsel of Igbo politicians. Northerners said the act confirmed Igbo's plan to dominate.
Your long stories in which you repeat falsehood cannot change Nigeria's history. With Igbos like you, Nigerians (especially Southerners) will continue to be suspecious of Igbo because you are not ready to take responsibility for Igbo's role in getting Nigeria to the chaos Nigeria is in: Zik's choice to be a ceremonial President (in Northern People's Congress' majority government) instead of being Prime Minister in his NCNC majority government - with Awo's AG), the Igbo coup and the civil war (which was Igbo taking up arms to settle political disagreement with Northerners).
Zik was the first in Nigeria to voluntarily foist a Northerner on Nigeria as political leader. Zik with PhD preferred working under Prime Minister Balewa with Teachers Training Certificate, to being Prime Minister himself with Barrister Awolowo as one of his Ministers. We know how Zik's choice worked out for Nigeria.
Ayo Ojutalayo
On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 8:35 AM, Rex Marinus
<rexmarinus@hotmail.com> wrote:"No where in the world has unitary system worked in a multi ethnic country like Nigeria. That is why it has not worked in Nigeria."
-Ayo Ojutalayo
Wrong again, Ojutalayo. Please get your historical facts: Azikiwe did not propose a unitary state. He proposed a "Union government" such as we still have in India. There is a material difference, and if you are versed in constitutional law and constitutionalism, you'd understand that difference. Zik was a constitutionalist. He wanted the establishment of Nigeria as a democratic republic. India was as a good a model as any. The descent of Nigeria into chaos began with the unraveling of the Action Group Party. Having campaigned vigorously to form the government of the Nigerian state, and having relied on promises made to him by his British handlers, Awo was sourly dissapointed at the outcome of the 1959 elections. The Nationalist Party, the NCNC polled the highest nation-wide voters; the regionalist NPC polled almost neck to neck with the Action Group Party, which was just beginning, by 1958 to position itself outside of a mostly Western Nigerian regional party in preparations for the December 1959 elections.
The NPC had threatened to secede from Nigeria if the Southern parties were to form the national government, and the North itself had been gerrymandered by British colonial interests to provide half the number of seats in the House of Representatives. During that 1959 election, NCNC coalition partners in the north, the popular NEPU led by Mallam Aminu was suppressed, its candidates refused election forms before deadlines; various parts where they sought to contest declared "unopposed." Had the elections been free in the North, the NCNC which was still the most widely influential party nation-wide and the NEPU would have formed the first national government without needing a coalition partner. But as far back as 1953, it was clear the British despaired of that scenario from declassified empire documents now available, and made their own plans to make certain that the Nationalists did not come to power. The threat of the North to secede was one critical move prompting Azikiwe's famous letter to the Northern leaders warning them against the consequences of secession.
There were three factors that compelled Zik's choice of the NPC: one, was the internal dynamic of his own party. The western Nigerian committee of the NCNC vowed to exit the party should the National committee decide to work with the Action Group. The Eastern Nigerian party committee were all for working with AG, but Awolowo's kinsmen in the NCNC refused to work in a coalition with him. The threat to dismember the party should the NCNC work with AG was a serious enough threat that Zik acceded. Secondly, the internal dynamics within the AG itself was beginning to point towards a serious crisis. Zik and the NCNC had weathered their own crisis in 1958, but the AG at the end of that election was afloat. A section of the party wanted to work with the NPC, or at best, be party to a national unity government as was in existence from 1957, to secure at the very least, Yoruba stake in the new national government.. Awo and a faction were adamant against working with the North, whom they had absolute disregard for. It was Awo's serious disregard and hatred of the North, particularly the Sarduana, that made him decide against even considering a third-party coalition. The result was that, the NCNC, understanding that it would be irresponsible of a nationalist party to leave the power to form the new, critical government of a new nation in the hands of a revanchist and unprepared NPC, chose to enter that coalition as a way of giving Nigeria a small chance of survival. Awo chose to lead opposition from parliament which is alright for a parliamentary democracy. Every good thing that was achieved in that first republic were NCNC programs - from the expansions in public education, to the establishment of the National Provident Fund, the expansion of National Railways network, and the framework of the Ist National Economic Development plan crafted by Okigbo whom Balewa took from the East to be his Economic adviser. It is arguable that Nigeria saw a great momentum in that period, although the political framework collapsed. The third factor was the urging by Nkrumah in his letter to Zik, to make the kind of personal sacrifice that would make Nigeria survive, for the sake of the African continent, and forestall what they anticipated was the British "neocolonial agenda" which was already at play.
In the end, because it was outside of power, the Action Group imploded, and it took with it, the west. First, two factions emerged from the AG fissure. One of those factions, led by Akintola blamed Awo for the decision against joining a national unity government, and attempting rather to ursurp the powers of the elected Premier of the west. They fought to the death. Second, Awo's disdain for Balewa's government moved him and his faction in 1960/61 to begin to make plans for a coup, which was discovered, and they were jailed for it. That was the beginning of the Nigerian chaos. The "restless" west or the "wild west" had collapsed. It was in the effort to save it that compelled the January 1966 coup. We need to be clear on this. The consequences of the January 15 coup, led to the civil war. The Civil war may not have happened had the West asserted the agreement reached in Enugu between Ojukwu and Awo, to establish a common "Southern Front" and compel the North either to accede to negotiations, or secede. Awo and the west betrayed that agreement, and rather, joined in the war against the East for clearly two reasons (a) to secure the then clearly incredible resources of the East for its own use, and (b) to upstage Easterners in the competition for ascendancy in Nigeria. Zik warned seriously about all these moves. And when it came to the crunch, his deft international moves led to the end of the war. That again is the legacy of Zik. Let these facts speak for themselves, and not the colored shebeen narratives that you all are used to from seeping too frequently of the koolaid at Risikatu's Bar by the Ogunpa.
Obi Nwakanma
From: Ayo Ojutalayo <ayoojutalayo@yahoo.com>
Sent: Monday, October 16, 2017 5:44 AM
To: NIgerianWorldForum@ yahoogroups.com; NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com; Igbo Events; igboworldforum@yahoogroups.com ; africanworldforum@ googlegroups.com; Rex Marinus
Subject: Re: [africanworldforum] Re: Buhari belongs to northerners, S’West regrets voting for him – Adebanjo
"If Zik had a greed with Awo, there would have been no Nigeria to speak of!" . . . . . Obi Nwakanma
You cannot eat your cake and have it. Zik's choice of NPC instead of AG, and the Igbo coup of January 15, 1966 are the begining of the "chaos that is Nigeria today". The coup "trashed" the Constitution we now claim is the way out of the chaos. There would have been no need for the January 15 coup but for Zik's choice. And there would not have been no biafra war and all the coups that followed if there was no January 15, 1966 Igbo coup. By the way, your "Zik's idea of nation" was a unitary system instead of a federal system. That was Aguyi Ironsi's idea too. In actual fact, it was Igbo's idea of a nation because unlike Yoruba, Igbo wanted to take advantage of the less educated Northern Nigerian (with shortages of man power). No where in the world has unitary system worked in a multi ethnic country like Nigeria. That is why it has not worked in Nigeria.
And if there was going to be fragmantation of Nigeria, it would have been done by the politicians without war.
Ayo Ojutalayo
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. ” . . . Martin Luther King Jr
On Sunday, October 15, 2017, 8:34:48 PM EDT, Rex Marinus <rexmarinus@hotmail.com> wrote:
If Zik had a greed with Awo, there would have been no Nigeria to speak of! It was the decision of a man who placed nation, above self. That's the true meaning of nobility and patriotism. Zik was not about personal power and agrandizement, he was all about the cohesion of nation in an era of decolonization. His offer remained the most viable: the formation of a tripartite coalition government for a transitional government of "national unity." Awo and a faction of his party refused, and thus the AG party crisis that snowballed into a national crisis. That is Nigerian history.
Obi Nwakanma
From: 'ayoojuts@yahoo.com' via AfricanWorldForum <africanworldforum@ googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 15, 2017 8:11 PM
To: NIgerianWorldForum@ yahoogroups.com; africanworldforum@ googlegroups.com; NIgerianWorldForum@ yahoogroups.com; NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com; Igbo Events; igboworldforum@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [africanworldforum] Re: Buhari belongs to northerners, S’West regrets voting for him – Adebanjo
If Zik had agreed with Awo for a Zik led NCNC-AG government after independence, Nigeria would not be where it is today.
Ayo Ojutalayo
On Sun, Oct 15, 2017 at 2:35 PM, Rex Marinus rexmarinus@hotmail.com [NIgerianWorldForum]
<NIgerianWorldForum@ yahoogroups.com> wrote:
The chaos that is Nigeria today is because the ideas of Awo and the Sarduana became dominant and triumphant as Nigeria's national ethos: it is the heritage of fascism, tribalism, intolerance, extremism, xenophobia, and ethnic irrendentism. Awo and Bello were created by the British to subvert and undermine the nationalist movement. We continue to suffer from that colonial legacy and the fear of the "true Nigerian nationalist" - those who saw every Nigerian from every part as human, as citizens, and as the rightful inheritors of nation. Nigerians suffer today because Zik's idea of nation was defeated. Yes indeed, a man born in the west, could, under Azikiwe's nationalist movement, be the premier of the East, if he lived, grew, and worked in the East. That is why Solomon Akenzua could become Permanent Secretary in the Eastern regional Service in 1954 under Zik's premiership. That is why A.K. Disu, would be the powerful General Manager of the Eastern Nigerian Information Service and principal Adviser to the Premier of Eastern Nigeria (basically one of the most powerful people in the government of the Eastern region), and then longtime Principal Secretary to the President of Nigeria; that is how come Umaru Altine became the Mayor of the city of Enugu; etc. etc. That is why a minority could become the first head of government in the East - the only region in Nigeria where that might be possible. That is in fact why Zik chose to represent Lagos, and that is why from 1951 - 1957, he was the most influential politician in Lagos, and while he remained, Awo never won election in cosmopolitan Lagos.
Nigeria today is the basic product of those who campaigned, and fought Zik and insisted on "the north for the north, the west for the west, and the center for us all." In other words, to keep the primordial boundaries of ethnicity and regionalism, while Zik and his Igbo compatriots were campaigning and sacrificing for an ideal pan-Nigerian nationhood, because, of course, it was in their best interest, this idea of a Nigerian state. Now that Zik's idea has lost out, Nigeria has descended into chaos. The Igbo today blame him for being "more Nigerian than Igbo," and most have now rejected what Azikiwe stood for: a pan-African, pan-Nigerian humanism, for a very narrow Igbo nationalism that has now bought into Awo and Sarduana's message that all must stay and fight in their corner of Nigeria. The Igbo now say, "whatever did Zik's idea and defence of Nigeria gain for us?" The withdrawal of the Igbo from the Nigerian idea is now the basis of the Nigerian crisis because, no one now believes in Nigeria. The only nationality that believed in, and fiercely defended the idea of Nigeria has now said, well, we cannot be the only ones who can be more Nigerian than everybody else, and they have taken the path of difference. That is why Nigeria cannot survive: the idea that you are first an Igbo man before being a Nigeria, and not Zik's idea that you can be Nigerian and Igbo or Yoruba, or Hausa, or Akan, or Saro, or Bachama, without contradiction. The idea of Nigeria as a coherent, single nation no longer has its greatest defenders - the Igbo: they have bought into the mantra of radical difference. So, Nigeria fails because there is no Zik to unify it. There is no visionary impetus of the kind that Zikism gave to Nigeria; that made it seem possible in a particular generation; that gave it the ideological lift, and that shaped the consciousness of the age of Zik in Nigeria; there is no one left with the kind of charismatic energy or force - that super-human capacity to draw people to a single idea - that Zik embodied, and that could calm the current of friction. There is no more Zik to pull Nigeria from the brink. The decline of Zikism is the end of Nigeria, and the rise of fragmentation is the triumph of Awo and Sarduana, and so be it! This is what this bumbkin, Eniola Dumpling cannot comprehend. No sense of history.
The great Yoruba advocates and followers of Zikism - H.O. Davies, T.O.S Bee, Ade Ogunsanya, Coker, Fred Macewen, Odumbaku, "Penklemes," Olu Akinfosile, A.K. Disu, Kola Balogun, M. Otun, Raji Abdallah, and so many more, who always delivered between 48% and 51% of the Yoruba votes to Zik puts a lie to his claims, because that half the great Yoruba people of Nigeria, the enlightened and wise ones, always loved and voted Zik, and actually gave him their mandate. That mandate was stolen in 1951. It is this half of the Yoruba, and the half of the North who also always loved the idea of Zik - liberty, fraternity, equality, progress, freedom and prosperity for Nigerians without boundaries - that the great Igbo people of Nigeria must ally with and restore the nation, and give it the "renascent" promise that Zikism held. Zik's party, the NCNC won the elections nation-wide in 1960, polling more than half a million votes above its closest rival, but was gerrymandered out of power by the British colonial interests who had threatened the survival of Nigeria as a common nation if the nationalists formed a government. As a compromise for the sake of the nation, Zik and his party agreed to enter a coalition government with one of the British Trojan Horses, just simply as to "get the bull out of the China shop." They did not reckon with the immense size of that bull. But whatever else anybody would say, Zik led Nigeria out of colonialism. And that is his true legacy. Whatever else was the shape of the postcolonial state is now to be determined by his followers - all those who understood that Zikism is about freedom, equality, liberty, and a pan-Nigerian humanism.
Obi Nwakanma
From: 'DIPO ENIOLA' via AfricanWorldForum <africanworldforum@ googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 15, 2017 5:07 PM
To: vincent modebelu; africanworldforum@ googlegroups.com; Yahoo! Inc..; The Cable; Rex Gomes; OBSERVE YOURSELF; Dandalin siyasa; ezeana1@yahoo.com; thecableng; TheCitizen; Stevek; thegistnews@ymail.com; thepublicexpress@yahoo.com; AfricanWorldForum@yahoogroups. com; peter opara; thinklillies@gmail.com; thenigerianvoice.com; Thenationonlineng Info; The Eagle Online; The Gazelle News.com; THE NATION NEWSPAPER; the Sun Newspaper; DIPO ENIOLA dipoeniola@yahoo.com [NaijaObserver]
Subject: Re: [africanworldforum] ||NaijaObserver|| Buhari belongs to northerners, S’West regrets voting for him – Adebanjo [2 Attachments]
Vin Modebelu of Ndi Olumbe:
Get real! Azikiwe to become Premier of Western
Region? No way! Could you imagine a situation whereby a Yoruba man would become the premier of Northern or Eastern Nigeria during that time? Almost 50 years later citizens of one state in SE cannot become even an elected official in another.
Part of the problem of Nigerians is that we are not willing to tell the truth. You want a citizen emerging from the yoke of external colonialism to subsumed their interests to internal colonialism? God forbid. More so, when Zik was going around the East saying that “it’s a matter of time before Igbo people dominate the affairs of Nigeria.”
I am grateful today that the tribalist Zik was not allowed to usurp power because of the generosity of the Great Yoruba people of the Southwest. To allow that to happen would have been a political malpractice on the part of Yoruba leaders.
The Oha 1
Ahu Nze Ebie Okwu
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
On Sunday, October 15, 2017, 11:20 AM, vincent modebelu <vin_modebelu@yahoo.com> wrote:
DJ
Chei
You just pick the worst examples you could find ?
Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe
Awowlwo worked against him, Did not want him to be the Premier of west and he ended up as the Presiden..better than the best
to Dr. Ekwueme
It was Abiola who planned and Financed the coup that took out Ekwueme and Shagari to Prevent Ekwueme from being the President.
It was the 1st Babangida buhari coup
to Odimegwu Ojukwu
It was awowlwo who sent the Obas to than the emirs for not killing yoruba. It was also the same Awowlow that took the job from Gowan and bback stabbed IGBo and he was later fired from that job
to Arthur Ezeribe,
It was Abiola who refused to pay Arthur Nzeribe after a Huge loan to Abiola. Abiola died in jail because of that loan. He used the monies to buy arms against Biafra during the war. So Arthur Nzeribe has to get even.
The who is who of Yoruba has consistently acted against IGBo their mentors.
Yoruba has bad records with IGBO in Nigeria
Do not give IGBO a chance in Nigeria politics...Oooni
Shoot Igbo on sight...Adekunle
Starve igbo to death......Bola Ige
Confiscate all their monies....Sam aluko
Sell off the lands and properties...Awolwowo
Fashola tried to deport IGBO from Lagos
With the advent of Fayose, these will soon change.
We are still standing.
Yoruba is now on the receiving end of DanFodio deceits and methods.
We are here to help
vin.....///
On Sunday, October 15, 2017, 10:50:25 AM EDT, DIPO ENIOLA dipoeniola@yahoo.com [NaijaObserver] <NaijaObserver@yahoogroups.com > wrote:
Vin Modebelu of Ndi Olumbe:
You are just being dishonest. Igbo people have cooperated and worked with Hausa and Fulani far more than Yoruba. From Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe to Dr. Ekwueme to Odimegwu Ojukwu to Arthur Ezeribe, etc., they have done it all. It is true that Igbo people have NOT gotten any appreciable rewards for their slave work to Hausa and Fulani. But Yoruba people with far less cooperation appear to have gotten more than the Igbo people.
Does it mean that The Great Yoruba people are much smarter? It seems so.
The Oha 1
Ahu Nze Ebie Okwu
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhoneOn Sunday, October 15, 2017, 10:24 AM, 'vincent modebelu' via AfricanWorldForum <africanworldforum@ googlegroups.com> wrote:
He He heeeeeee
IGBo does not take chances with those people but Yoruba keeps hedging with them.
It has never paid off and will never pay off
they know what they are doing that makes them keep making the same mistakes..Will do it again 2019 ..hoping to collect again without IGBO.
One renegade Yoruba told me it was a smart constructive opposition to checkmate IGBO
Side story to this events
Hausa + Fulani knows that Yoruba wants to collect with out IGBO as they did during the war.
But.....
Hausa + Fulani is handling Yoruba worse that a run away girls looking for a hand out but now wants to make demands on his master and tries to blackmail him.
Throw the girl out into the street in Mushin.
Yoruba cannot come to IGBo to complain...
Yoruba cannot blackmail Hausa + Fulani.
What are they going to do now/
Go back to the master and be a good girls and take it ?
remember..this is the Awoist talking...it is now hurting to the bones
The greatest mistake made was for Yoruba to vote for Buhari. The South-West is regretting voting for Buhari. Tinubu is regretting now – he and his supporters are now regretting helping Buhari to become the president
vin.....///
Buhari belongs to northerners, S’West regrets voting for him – Adebanjo
A close associate of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and an elder statesman, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, in this interview with BAYO AKINLOYE talks about what President Muhammadu Buhari needs to do to save the country from collapse and the role of Chief Bola Tinubu in the current state of the economy
What’s your reaction to the revelation by the World Bank Group boss that President Muhammadu Buhari directed the financial institution to carry out more of its developmental projects in northern Nigeria?
The disclosure of the President of the World Bank Group only confirmed what I have been saying that President Muhammadu Buhari is president of the North and not president of Nigeria. It is unfortunate that even the international community is also aware of this nepotism – of Buhari’s unbridled desire to favour a section of the country to the detriment of the others. Is it only the North that is devastated? What about the Niger Delta region? What exactly has been done to salvage the area? He should focus on productive areas to engender development in the country. Buhari’s body language, words and actions show he is president of the North. Only those who are gullible will accept what his mouthpieces are saying – it’s mere damage control.
You will notice of late that while the world is doing the best they can to shift their economic focus away from crude oil, the current administration of Buhari is doing the opposite. Despite repeated calls by economic experts, both local and foreign experts, that Nigeria should diversify its economy and be less dependent on oil, Buhari has continued to spend the country’s meager money in our treasury for oil exploration in the North – he is wasting our money. Everything that Buhari has done so far since he assumed office as president shows where he belongs to. It is apparent he belongs to nobody but the northerners – he does not belong to everybody in this country. He turns a blind eye to everything happening outside the northern region.
He has confirmed all the fears I had expressed about him. He has presided over a country that is insecure and has demonstrated intolerance. He claimed to be a born-again democrat when he was contesting the presidency. Buhari will not bother to restructure the country because his people are the beneficiaries of the lopsidedness in the country. Buhari only sent the 2014 National Conference report to the National Assembly because he was pressured to do so. He has no interest to restructure. The confusion Buhari and APC are creating about restructuring shows that they are taking the people for granted. How can they be asking what restructuring is? It was made as part of their manifesto. The APC is doing all it can to confuse the people.
They shouldn’t tell us Nigeria’s unity isn’t negotiable. The unity is negotiable and we negotiated it in 1954 and that happened when there was a crisis in the House when (Anthony) Enahoro moved the motion and the Western Region withdrew its cabinet and the federal cabinet was disrupted, leading to the colonial rulers to send for the leaders of the party. We went to London, Lancanster House, and there, the unity of the country was negotiated and the principle of federalism was agreed upon and confirmed in the constitution that came up thereafter – when each of the regions back then had its own constitution. It is that constitution we had in 1962/93 when the country became a republic. Our problem began with the constitution foisted on us in 1966 by the military. Then in 1999, the military gave us another constitution that does not represent the will of the people. We protested against it. Nnamdi Kanu is called a terrorist today because he wants justice for his people. The military put us where we are today. I am a Kanu man; where I don’t agree with him is the use of force.
Are you saying Buhari is part of the country’s problem?
Yes, he is. Anybody opposed to restructuring is the greatest enemy of Nigeria’s unity. All the South-West governors are in support of restructuring but they are afraid of the dictatorial tendency of this present administration. We had a conference in Ibadan recently; all the governors contributed morally and financially. They couldn’t come but they sent their deputies. If Buhari is honest and interested in the unity of this country, why didn’t he have a dialogue with Nnamdi Kanu? Buhari will not listen to the voice of reason because he has an element of force in him. If Buhari is honest, why didn’t he call for a dialogue? Why are people agitating for a secession? It is because the government has refused to restructure.
Do you think APC national leader, Bola Tinubu, made a mistake helping Buhari to become the president?
It is not a question of a mistake. I warned Tinubu against supporting Buhari ahead of the 2015 presidential election. What is for Tinubu in this government? He has been sidelined. This government is all about Buhari. The greatest mistake made was for Yoruba to vote for Buhari. The South-West is regretting voting for Buhari. Tinubu is regretting now – he and his supporters are now regretting helping Buhari to become the president. It is Tinubu and all his supporters you should be asking: ‘Are you regretting you helped to bring Buhari to power or you’re happy with his administration?’ The problem that Yoruba and Nigerians have today was caused by Tinubu. If Tinubu had not gone into an alliance with Buhari, would we be in this position? Tinubu is the cause of Yoruba’s suffering now. He is the cause of Nigerians’ suffering now. He helped a dictator to come to power in the person of Buhari, knowing that he’s a born dictator; an unrepentant conservative and an irredeemable religious jingoist. What has he done in his life that does not show he’s a dictator? By birth and by training, he’s a dictator – go and check his past records as a military head of state.
When I campaigned against him before the election, people accused me of collecting money from (ex-President Goodluck) Jonathan. I am one of those who fought for Nigeria’s independence and I am not a happy man with the way this country is being run. If Buhari does not restructure Nigeria, this country will break (up) and I am not afraid to be prosecuted if they regard that as hate speech. Buhari wants to shut down the opposition completely; that’s why he branded Kanu a terrorist. Buhari is running the country the way he likes because he has all the instruments of force in his hand. All the military top brass are northern Muslims – I said ‘northern Muslims’; I didn’t say ‘northerners’.
Does that have anything to do with the current military operations in the three southern regions of the country?
The ongoing military operations – Operation Crocodile Smile and Operation Python Dance – are designed to militarise the country. In every civilian situation, the military is there. Question: when did the military take over the police’s job in a civilian regime? Similarly, where the military is absent, the Fulani armed militia are present – they are all over the country committing all sorts of crimes like raping, kidnapping and killing. What has Buhari said about the violent acts of those people? Another question: since when did rearing cattle with AK-47 become fashionable? I want Buhari and his co-travellers to answer these questions. Why is he hesitating to ban the herdsmen from carrying arms? Is he honest? The same Buhari was quick to label Kanu and other members of the Indigenous People of Biafra terrorists. Is this the country whose unity they are saying is not negotiable, where criminals are allowed to roam the country and agitators are being crucified? The Buhari government wants us to keep quiet as if nothing is happening. I want to tell Buhari that this is not the state we were in when we got independence in 1960. We will neither abandon this country nor succumb to any Fulani domination.
How should the restructuring of the country be done?
Who is in this country that has not supported the restructuring of Nigeria? It is only Buhari. Many responsible and credible Nigerians have expressed their support for the restructuring of Nigeria.
What about former President Olusegun Obasanjo?
Obasanjo is the only exception. The restructuring we are clamouring for is not a strange word at all. It is another way of saying, ‘Let us go back to where we came from – to the 1960 and 1963 constitutions.’ Why should it be a problem to resist the constitution foisted on us by the military? Nobody is talking about unity; we are already united. It is this government that is putting in a condition of disunity – this is what the Soviet Union did and failed and it is the same thing that Czechoslovakia did and failed. You can’t keep people forcefully together under a unitary government; they will break (apart) eventually. To save the country, we came together in 2014 by means of the national conference, but Buhari said he has thrown the report of that confab somewhere and he is not going to look at it. Buhari believes he has all the forces of enslavement. But I want to assure him that the South and the Middle Belt will rely on God to destroy the forces of Buhari. Buhari is confusing Nigerians; he and his party, the APC, are confusing the country. They are doing things that are unacceptable to the majority of the people. Buhari should be told that he is the president of Nigeria and not the president of Katsina. If he is the president of Nigeria and not the president of Katsina, he should embark on the restructuring of the country immediately.
He must let the country be restructured before any election if he is sincere. If a marriage is successful, will anybody seek divorce in that marriage? But when you have serious disaffection in a marriage, things will no longer be at ease. We know what we fought for to attain independence. Our togetherness was settled upon attaining independence. What we have now was forced on us by the military. If Buhari truly loves this country and is sincere about keeping it together, he will make a name for himself by going back to the 1960 constitution – then, I can heartily tell him, ‘Welcome to the democratic fold.’ The Buhari administration should stop the fake news they are spreading around that those calling for the restructuring of Nigeria want the country to break up – that is an evil propaganda. On the contrary, those against the restructuring of the country are the people who really want the country to break up.
Buhari belongs to northerners, S’West regrets voting for him – Adebanjo
Buhari belongs to northerners, S’West regrets voting for him – Adebanjo
A close associate of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and an elder statesman, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, in this interview with BA...
”....Born to tell the truth....
Observe and see
On Sunday, October 15, 2017, 10:50:25 AM EDT, DIPO ENIOLA dipoeniola@yahoo.com [NaijaObserver] <NaijaObserver@yahoogroups.com > wrote:
Vin Modebelu of Ndi Olumbe:
You are just being dishonest. Igbo people have cooperated and worked with Hausa and Fulani far more than Yoruba. From Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe to Dr. Ekwueme to Odimegwu Ojukwu to Arthur Ezeribe, etc., they have done it all. It is true that Igbo people have NOT gotten any appreciable rewards for their slave work to Hausa and Fulani. But Yoruba people with far less cooperation appear to have gotten more than the Igbo people.
Does it mean that The Great Yoruba people are much smarter? It seems so.
The Oha 1
Ahu Nze Ebie Okwu
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhoneOn Sunday, October 15, 2017, 10:24 AM, 'vincent modebelu' via AfricanWorldForum <africanworldforum@ googlegroups.com> wrote:
He He heeeeeee
IGBo does not take chances with those people but Yoruba keeps hedging with them.
It has never paid off and will never pay off
they know what they are doing that makes them keep making the same mistakes..Will do it again 2019 ..hoping to collect again without IGBO.
One renegade Yoruba told me it was a smart constructive opposition to checkmate IGBO
Side story to this events
Hausa + Fulani knows that Yoruba wants to collect with out IGBO as they did during the war.
But.....
Hausa + Fulani is handling Yoruba worse that a run away girls looking for a hand out but now wants to make demands on his master and tries to blackmail him.
Throw the girl out into the street in Mushin.
Yoruba cannot come to IGBo to complain...
Yoruba cannot blackmail Hausa + Fulani.
What are they going to do now/
Go back to the master and be a good girls and take it ?
remember..this is the Awoist talking...it is now hurting to the bones
The greatest mistake made was for Yoruba to vote for Buhari. The South-West is regretting voting for Buhari. Tinubu is regretting now – he and his supporters are now regretting helping Buhari to become the president
vin.....///
__._,_.___
Posted by: Nebukadineze Adiele <nebukadineze@aol.com>
| • | • | • | • |
Have you tried the highest rated email app?
With 4.5 stars in iTunes, the Yahoo Mail app is the highest rated email app on the market. What are you waiting for? Now you can access all your inboxes (Gmail, Outlook, AOL and more) in one place. Never delete an email again with 1000GB of free cloud storage.
• Privacy • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use
.
__,_._,___
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
No comments:
Post a Comment