THE HISTORY OF THE NIERIAN CIVIL WAR SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS
Kayode J. Fakinlede
‘No victor, no vanquished.”
This pronuncement, to me, is the greatest blunder of our civil war. I can almost say that it is at the bottom of the continued aspiration by a segment of our society for secession.
Of course, one could not have blamed the government of young Ganeral Gowon. It was reasoned then that in declaring that neither side won or lost the war, everyone would have learned his lesson and our nation would be at peace forever more.
What we see now is a blantant misplacement of historical facts and grotesque caricatures being made of those whose intentions were noble. But more importantly, we are seeing agitations where none should have arisen and from the side that was vanqished in the war. The factual victors, having remained silent for so long, are now being painted as carnivores and murderers.
Anyone who was an adult during the civil war will definitely not wish another one on Nigeria. Lessons have been learned and honestly, not too many of these people agitate for secession or any form of upheaval, regardless of his tribal origin. It is those who were yet unborn or too young to experience the realities of war that would think it is child’s play.
But the truth is that they do not know better. They receive information, not history, from their parents. In most instances, while the intenions of the older ones may not be for agitation, a vanquished people will always tell a story of their mistreatment and their heroism in the face of all odds.
A factual history of the civil war must be taught in all our schools to all our children. This is not to put any segment of our nation down. It is reasonable because this event marks the singular greatest period when, but for providence sake, Nigeria would have disintegrated. Moreover, people badly informed of the mistreatment of their forebears are bound to react negatively to their perceived malefactors.
This subject needs not be given a name that would be derogatory to any side. It can just be called ‘The Nigerian Civil War’. Therein all our young ones will learn as a subject matter: the events that led to the war; attempts to resolve the issues so war could be averted; who were the initial aggressors; who took part militarily in the war; who were the heroes; the parts played by our own leaders either in preventing or agitating for war; the parts played by others in trying to prevent war; how the war was prosecuted; how the war was brought to an end; life after the war; attempts to rebuild; the lingering issues arising from the war; the effects of the war on our present political life; important dates in the process; etc.
There is so much to teach our children and they should be properly and factually taught. Some smart person once said that whoever forgets the past is bound to repeat it, or something of that nature.
I rest my case
Fakinlede K
Rex Marinus
Here we go again. I do not know what Kayode J. Fakindele knows about the issue, but the declaration of "No victor, no Vanquished" was not made as an act of political charity, in as much as that fiction has been routinely retailed. It came from pragmatic politics, and the result of the series of back channel negotiations from late 1969 leading to the strategic collapse of the fronts in 1970 to allow for the end of conflicts. The Biafrans were not defeated in war, and did not go to Lagos to surrender without precondition as was made clear by the real leader of its delegation, Sir Louis Nwachukwu Mbanefo. The Biafrans had established the mechanism to enter the second stage of the war - the guerrilla phase- should the agreements fail. I should leave the details alone for the moment, but it is important that folks like Fakindele, who may not have all the facts, or may not have taken into account that the narrative of the civil war - the Biafra War - from my own end, is not a single story, to know in truth that the greatest blunder of the post civil war era was to break all the guarantees that assured the former Biafrans of full, unconditional re-integration. No sooner had they dismantled their defences than the Federal government carry out a triumphalist sweeping purge of the Igbo from the top of the civil and military service; impose a quiet containment policy that aimed at the economic strangulation of the Igbo areas of the old East, and create conditions that progressed, and by 1984, with the rise of the alliance of the young field officers of that war from mostly the North and West, led by Buhari, who took over power by a coup, further alienated the Igbo, wiping off whatever political gains they made in the four year break of civilian rule between 1979 and the end of 1983.
The roots of the current agitation for the restoration f Biafra can be traced to the military coup of 1984. From 1984 to 1999, the Igbo were in a political wilderness in Nigeria, and far more than any other era, saw themselves increasingly "marginalized" from nation. When Chuba Okadigbo first used that term in 1990 to describe the Igbo condition in Nigeria, that reality had become routine, and a new generation was paying attention, and living the reality of political and economic exclusion. They could see it all around: they would graduate top of their classes in the universities, and see their classmates get safe corridors to the cushiest jobs, while they either made do with the crumbs or had no crumbs at all. Of all parts of Nigeria, only the East, particularly the Igbo, had what may actually be the presence of "citizen soldiers" in good number: that is a large army of civilians with military training and with combat experience, who had circulated into civil life as teachers, doctors, university professors, traders, and so on. As they were aging out, they were also teaching their children, not only the art of war, but also the story of the last war. So, although the story of the Nigerian/Biafran civil war is not taught in Nigerian schools, Igbo children know their story. Igbo writers have documented the war very elaborately. Igbo have documents of their last meetings about that war. And because that war is, quite remarkably, the first war covered in the modern era on TV, footages exist; documents and accounts by international observers and reporters exist, and it is futile to revise it, or teach lies as history, and I hope J. Fakindele would not teach his children historical lies because that would be terrible.
The Nigerian civil war began thus: the counter coup of July 1966 had started a pogrom from the military barracks that targeted the Igbo, and spilled unto the streets with the killings of Igbo civilians in the North and the West; the Igbo fled Eastwards for protection, and sought guarantees for their own safety from the Nigerian government which was not forthcoming. Odumegwu-Ojukwu sought political solutions, and this culminated in the meetings and the agreements at Aburi to create a confederal union as a means of easing the pressures. The agreements which were reached at Aburi were quickly reneged as soon as Gowon arrived Lagos, and a new set of policies imposed, which isolated the East. The last straw was the break up of the East with no input at all from the leadership of the East, and the subsequent mandate given by the Eastern Consultative Assembly to Ojukwu to declare an independent and sovereign state of Biafra. The result was that on July 6, with a two-pronged attack, Lagos began the war by attacking the East in what the Federal administration termed "a police action." By September 1966, in its own counter measure, Enugu "captured" the Midwest, and was on its way to capturing Lagos and Ibadan, and decisively ending the war, when Brigadier Banjo, the Commander of the Biafran forces leading the campaign subverted the campaign in the Midwest, and the Biafrans thereafter, lost the initiative, and from then engaged in defensive warfare given the limitations of arms. The formal collapse of the "war fronts" was preludes to asymmetrical warfare had the agreements in Lagos brokered largely by Nnamdi Azikiwe's forceful backdoor diplomacy internationally from 1969 failed in Lagos which involved something of a "palace coup" in Biafra that quietly eased Ojukwu "out of the scene" in 1970. It would have moved the Biafran strategy from the Montgomerry methods of formal fronts to Mao's method of shifting frontiers. BOFF and the S Brigade were already prepared, and were the lynchpins of that phase of the war. So, the Biafrans were still at the trigger in 1970, and the mistake of Nigeria was to think that it defeated the Igbo in war, and therefore could isolate and marginalize them as second-lass citizens in Nigeria. One generation could take it, but the next would not. It would be wise for the likes of J. Fakindele to look a bit more closely before they make wild leaps about "No victor, No Vanquished."
Obi Nwakanma
Sent: Friday, March 3, 2017 2:25 AM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - THE HISTORY OF THE NIERIAN CIVIL WAR SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@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 usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Kayode J. Fakinlede
Mr. Nwakanma,
My point exactly. I appreciate that you were able to make it more succintly than I did. If, as an adult during the Nigerian civil war and someone who witnessed some of the horrors of the war, I do not know all these things with which you are educating me, imagine how much our children would know about that momentous period in our nation’s history.
Definitely, you have your own point of view about the war, and with some measure of education you are able to tell a story that is totally devoid of any culpability from your side, others, from the other side probably have stories as thorough as yours, but from a different point of view. As a matter of fact, there may be many more sides to the narrative that are out there.
It is the fusion and critical analyses of these stories that will make for the History of the Nigerian Ciivil War which we can now pass down to ALL our children.
The objective of such an exercise is NOT to castigate or ridicule any side. We all have our own biases about the war which we call facts. If however, we plant these biases into the consciousness of the coming generations, the process of nation building becomes even more difficult. The tendency to become overly suspicious of the intentions of others will be heightened. We easily crawl back into our own little cocoons at the sound of the slightest disagreement. That would mean that we would not have learned much from the war.
When I read on Facebook our other social media about our take on any Nigerian issue, I see constantly that most issues are approached with the flavour of the war. This means that our children do not have the capability to view one another as Nigerians. That is sad.
I can tell you, that having lived in different areas of North America for quite some time, I have seen and withessed the difficulty of Nigerians of different tribes in coming together to discuss Nigerian issues. This means that instead of coming together to highlight our combined strength as Nigerians, we choose to sink as individual tribes of Nigeria.
That again is very sad.
FAKINLEDE
Salimonu Kadiri
Obi Nwakanma is inventing his own history of the Nigerian Civil war to suit his ethnic biased mind. He wrote, "But the declaration of 'No victor, no vanquished' was not made as an act of charity, .... It came from pragmatic politics, and the result of the series of back channel negotiations from late 1969 leading to strategic collapse of the fronts in 1970 to allow for end of conflicts. The Biafrans were not defeated in war..." The Nigerian civil war should have ended in 1968 but for political intrigues in Lagos, against the Commander of Third Marine, Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Adekunle. The second in command to Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, Lieutenant Colonel Philip Effiong, recorded thus, "With the fall of Calabar (17 October 1967), Itu, Uyo, and Ikot Ekpene (29 March 1968) the rest of the mainland (Igbo part of Biafra) was militarily threatened. Before this threat became imminent, I had strongly suggested to Ojukwu that as Ikot Ekpene was vital junction town, it should be strongly defended. All he did was to sarcastically remind me that in fact we should also put a battalion at Nnewi. After I received his sarcastic message, I did not mention the subject again. As it eventually turned out, the fall of Ikot Ekpene hastened the collapse of the Biafran 12th Division and, consequently, of Biafra. By September 1968, all the coastal towns in Ojukwu's Biafra were firmly in the hands of Federal forces through the military prowess of Benjamin Adekunle and in the Igbo mainland, Enugu, the capital of Biafra had been captured on October 4, 1967, Onitsha in March 1968, Aba and Owerri in September 1968. Although, Owerri was recaptured by the Biafrans on the 23rd of April 1969, the Federal forces had captured Umuahia, the new capital of Biafra after the fall of Enugu, a day earlier. Essentially, the enclave around Owerri, remained in the hands of the Biafrans as at the end of April 1969. When the final military push by the federal forces that cleaved the remaining Biafra into two in December 1969, there was no other alternative for the rebels than to surrender. A case of pure military defeat. The victorious Federal Government led by Gowon declared "No victor, no vanquished,'' which internationally was considered overgenerous to the rebel leaders who should have been tried for treason and war crimes.
In his manufactured history of the Nigerian civil war, Obi Nwakanma asserted that the real leader of the delegate that surrendered to the Federal government in Lagos, on 15 January 1970, was Sir Louis Nwachukwu Mbanefo. The document of the surrender, however, reads, "I, Major General Philip Efiong, Officer Administering the Government of the Republic of Biafra, now wish to make the following declaration: (a) that we affirm we are loyal Nigerian citizens and accept the authority of the Federal Military Government of Nigeria. (b) that we accept the existing administrative and political structure of Nigeria. (c) that any future constitutional arrangement will be worked out by representatives of the people of Nigeria. (d) that the Republic of Biafra hereby ceases to exist." It was signed, 15 January 1970, by Philip Effiong and was witnessed by Colonel David Ogunewe (military adviser to General Ojukwu), Brigadier Patrick Amadi (Commander Biafran Army), Colonel Patrick Anwunah (Staff Officer, Biafran Army) and Chief Patrick Okeke (Inspector General of Police, Biafra). This is not a case of commonsense but real sense to know that if Sir Louis Mbanefo had led the delegation of surrender to Lagos, he would have signed the surrender document. Mbanefo and Mathew Mbu were members of the Biafran delegate that surrendered in Lagos but they never signed the document.
Obi Nwakanma blamed the cause of the war on what he termed Gowon's renege on Aburi's accord, yet Decree No. 8 of March 1967 fulfilled all that were agreed upon in Aburi, except an additional clause that empowered the federal Military Government to declare emergency in any region of the country provided it was supported by, at least, two of the four military governors in the country. It is remarkable that three of the four regions were in the South. Ojukwu rejected Decree No.8 and began seizure of Federal Government properties in the then Eastern Region. On May 26, 1967, Ojukwu summoned his so-called Eastern Region Consultative Assembly urging them to grant him power to declare Eastern Region a Sovereign State after assuring them that no power in Africa could subdue the East militarily. On May 27, 1967, Gowon sliced the country into 12 states whereby, Eastern Region that contained other minority ethnic groups than the Igbo became three states. Before then Ojukwu had started recruiting only Igbo into his army because he could not trust the minority ethnic groups in his region. (see p.170, Nigeria and Biafra My Story by Philip Effiong).
Obi Nwakanma wrote, "By September 1966, in its own counter measure, Enugu 'captured' the Midwest, and was on its way to capturing Lagos and Ibadan..." He concluded that "Brigadier Banjo subverted the campaigns in Midwest." Lieutenant Colonel Victor Adebukunola Banjo was an Army Director of Electrical and Mechanical Engineers that had its workshop at Herbert Macaulay Street Yaba, as at 15 January 1966. On Monday, 17 January 1966, he summoned a meeting of officers at his workshop in Yaba to brief them about the military casualties from the Saturday coup and openly declared that all officers from Lieutenant Colonels and above should step aside so that the Majors could complete their revolution. While he was addressing them, Lieutenant Colonel Philip Effiong confirmed that telephone rang and after Banjo had answered the phone, he told them that Ironsi wanted to see him at the Police headquarters, his temporary office. While Banjo was waiting to see Ironsi on January 17, 1966, he was arrested by Lieutenant Colonel George T. Kurubo and Major Patrick A. Anwuna. He was detained in prison by Ironsi without trial. On the 1st of June 1966 and shortly before the second coup, he was transferred to Ikot Ekpene prison in the then Eastern Region. After the July 29, 1966 coup, Ojukwu released all the Majors that were involved in the January 1966 coup as well as Lt. Colonel Banjo. Ideologically, Majors Nzeogwu and Ifeajuna as well as Lt. Colonel Banjo saw the Eastern situation as a great opportunity to fight against feudalism in Nigeria. They were all along against secession.
Truly and factually, Banjo led the invasion of Midwest on August 9, 1967 and not September 1966 as asserted by Obi Nwakanma. In his radio broadcast from Benin, Banjo described himself as the head of the revolutionary forces of the liberation army. He said that his next objective was to liberate Lagos and the West from the Northern feudalistic control. He declared, "I am a Nigerian. I believe in the Nigerian nation and I am fighting for a Nigeria in which no people will be dominated by the other." He mentioned that he was unjustly detained by Ironsi after the Majors' coup of January 1966. Banjo was recalled from the Midwest by Ojukwu who handed him instruction to obtain clearance from Enugu before any future public broadcast or statement. Before Banjo was sent back to Benin, Ojukwu had appointed Major Albert Nwazu Okonkwo, an Igbo, as the Military Governor of the Midwest to replace Lieutenant Colonel David Ejoor, an Uhrobo . However, Banjo continued his military advancement towards Lagos and Ibadan until he was militarily defeated by the Federal forces at Òrè. As the Biafran forces retreated in disarray, the federal army retook Benin City on September 22, 1967.
About the end of the war, Obi Nwakanma wrote, "The formal collapse of the 'war fronts" was preludes to asymmetrical warfare had the agreements in Lagos brokered largely by Nnamdi Azikiwe's forceful backdoor diplomacy internationally from 1969 failed in Lagos which involved something of 'a palace coup' in Biafra that quietly eased Ojukwu 'out of the scene' in 1970." This is how Obi Nwakanma wants the end of the civil war to be but historical facts had it the other way. On the 7th of September 1968, Ojukwu had sent a delegation led by Nnamdi Azikiwe to France to solicit for increased weapon supplies. The French realised that no amount of weapon could change the military misfortune of Biafra and therefore decided to retain the level of support. The Biafran delegate comprising of Azikiwe, Michael Okpara, Kenneth Dike, Francis Nwokedi and joined by the Biafran envoy in Paris, Ralph Uwechue, decided to cable Ojukwu that time was ripe to find a peaceful negotiation and to stop the suffering of the masses in Biafra. Ojukwu branded their request treason and stressed that Biafra's sovereignty was not negotiable. While Nnamdi Azikiwe absconded from the Biafran delegation to Paris and sought asylum in London, the Biafran envoy in Paris resigned with immediate effect. On August 17, 1969, Nnamdi Azikiwe visited Nigeria and when it became known to the Biafrans, there were demonstrations throughout the enclave of Biafra with Azikiwe's effigy being burnt and his mock funeral held. And on his return to London, he told the press on the 28th of August 1969 that Biafrans were being fooled to believe that they would be slaughtered if they surrendered. By December 23, 1969, the federal forces had cleaved the remaining enclave of Biafra into two and by 9 January 1970 the federal forces had liberated Owerri, one of the few remaining towns held by Biafra since April 25, 1969. With Orlu being bombarded by the federal troops from two directions on the 10th of January 1970, Ojukwu hurried to Ulli Ihiala air-strip and was evacuated by the French Red Cross Plane and landed at a military airport in Abidjan at 6 o'clock in the morning of Sunday, 11 January 1970. The war should have ended in 1968, but for intrigues in Lagos against Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Adekunle. Obi's imaginary 'war fronts' were concentrated around Owerri from April 25, 1969 and if Azikiwe's invented backdoor diplomacy were real, his effigy would not have been burnt in Owerri enclave on August 17, 1969 and mock funeral of him would not have been performed throughout Owerri enclave. The Biafran Army was defeated militarily and their military leaders signed a surrender document. That secret negotiations preceded Biafra's surrender is a wishful meny fit only for public consumption on the 1st of April.
Obi Nwakanma wrote about marginalized Igbo in Nigeria and chose 1984 to 1999 as the worst period. Ibrahim Babangida overthrew Mohammadu Buhari in 1985 and he ruled until he stepped aside over June 12, 1993 election controversy. It was not without reason that Ohaneze Ndigbo awarded General Ibrahim Babangida the Igbo traditional title of Ogugua Ndigbo. When Abacha slaughtered Saro Wiwa and the eight Ogoni activists, his Attorney General was an Igbo and the multimillion dollars major contractor for Nigeria's oil refineries was Emeka Offor. When Obasanjo took over in 1999, Emeka Offor continued to play similar role. I checked through all official positions in Nigeria at Federal level after the civil war, the only position a person of an Igbo ethnic group has never held is the President. Each of the five states in the Southeast - Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo states - have received Revenue Allocations from the Federal Government just like all other states in Nigeria. The governors in the Igbo ruled states are millionaires just like their counterparts in other parts of Nigeria, while ordinary people they rule over are living in abject poverty and wants. At this early 21st century, I think it is time to look into the competence of officials and their abilities to deliver on what is expected of their respective offices instead of being concerned with the ethnic origin of the officials. Practically, potable water, constant electricity, modern housing, functional hospitals, good roads and standard schools have no tribal marks. Nigeria is said to have up to 300 ethnic languages and if federal offices and appointments are to be shared on ethnic basis, I think, the Yoruba, the Igbo and Hausa/Fulani have had and are still having more than their ethnic share of the Federal appointments.
S.Kadiri
Skickat: den 3 mars 2017 14:25
Till: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - THE HISTORY OF THE NIERIAN CIVIL WAR SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS
Kayode J. Fakinlede
On Friday, March 3, 2017 at 12:23:42 PM UTC+1, Kayode J. Fakinlede wrote:
Rex Marinus
In his on the spot report to the British government titled, "Appreciation of the Nigerian conflict" on 13 December 1969, just a month to the end of the war, Col. R.E. Scott, the Military Attache to the British High Commission in Lagos, that is, the British chief spy in Nigeria wrote the following: "The Igbo soldier has displayed latent military qualities which caused some surprise. This motivation stems from fear for survival which follows the daily tirade of propaganda pumped out by Ojukwu's information service. In sheer guile he has proved himself adept at infiltration and by doing so, has forced the Federals to use caution in their movements and to expend a disproportionate number of men on purely security and defensive tasks. With the Federal formations acting in isolation and lacking in co-ordination, the rebels tend to turn the traditional disadvantage any force has when operating along interior lines of communication to their advantage. Apparently this fundamental fact has never been fully appreciated by Federal planners, who consistently fail to move their three divisions in concert." As Michael Gould (2012) notes in his book The Struggle for Modern Nigeria (The Biafra War 1967-70) from which I've excerpted the previous, and the following: " "This is fact was borne out by the Federal Forces' inability to join up along the main road connecting Onitsha with Enugu throughout the war. As Achuzia said: "Because my troops found it easy to infiltrate with theirs, and the Federal's inability to co-ordinate divisional attacks, it was relatively easy to keep the divisions along the Enugu to Onitsha road apart." Owerri proved a typical instance. Federal troops had advanced, following the main roads, to Owerri and had successfully secured the town. However, because they made inadequate provision for protecting their flanks over lines f communication, Biafran troops were able to disrupt the supply lines to Owerri and indeed, much of the time, were able to capture armaments. Thus over a period of weeks they literally laid siege to Owerri leading to a final surrender of Federal troops. The Biafrans, however, were not ken on capturing the Federal troops, so they arranged for a safe passage of these troops, having first relieved them of arms and supplies. Pragmatic as ever, Biafra was in no mood, nor was she able, to feed and look after additional captured Federal troops, hence the decision to allow them to escape. The retaking of Owerri was a great victory for Biafra and a serious setback for the Federal side." As a matter of fact, Gould goes even further to say, of Benjamin Adekunle and the 3rd Marine Commando: "As he (Adekunle) admitted when he was given the task of recruiting, staffing, and training his Third Marine Commando Division, he invited prison officers and ex-prisoners to form the basis of his force - not the best people to turn into a competent fighting force. During the early stages of his campaign he enjoyed a considerable number of successful advances, after he overran Calabar. In May 1968 his division finally overran the strategic town of Port-Harcourt, after his capture of Abakiliki. By September he had taken Aba and in mid-September Owerri. It seemed that his advance was unstoppable. "he runs an area the size of Scotland with the authoritarian and arbitrary hand of a medieval king." Gowon announced )given Adekunle's successes) a further 'final offensive' to bring the war to an end. The reality was, however, that the war was not in fact running in Lagos's favour. In April 1968 Biafran troops overran Federal troops at Onne, Arochukwu and Aletu and then proceeded to take back Ikot-Ekpene, Oguta, and Enugu-Aku. In October there was decisive battle at the town of Umuahia, when Adekunle's Third Commando Division lost two-thirds of its forces. By November his lines of communication to Owerri were threatened. The recapture of Owerri was probably the most successful action of the campaign by Biafran troops. Throughout the war, once Biafra had been put into a defensive position, she enjoyed certain strategic advantages. Not only did she know her own topography, she had the support of the local population. Federal troops tended to advance only on the main roads and did little to secure surrounding territories during their advance." (100-101).
I Have chosen to quote these independent and neutral sources to underscore the paucity and falsehood of Salimonu Kadiri's usual establishment bullshit. It is the rehash of the formal narrative created at the end of the war to give foundation to the federal aims. The above gives a fuller picture of the field events. The following are clear: (A) Benjamin Adekunle was an incompetent and second-rate war commander whose brutality was common knowledge. By the end of 1968 he was exhausted and his advances stymied by the Biafran forces. His Third Marine Cmmando was a rag-tag force of prison clerks, ex-cons and other reprobrates from Ibadan, Lagos, and those surroundings, which try as you may you could not turn into a competenet fighting force. As a matter of fact Colonel Scott in his report described them as an army which "in its advance is the best defoliation agent." (B) The Federal forces could never maintain a solid supply line, nor secure wherever they captured. When they chose, if they had enough munition, the Biafran soldiers could always advance and recapture towns held by the federal troops, (C) Nigeria did not have enough troops to secure Biafra. They could not even link the road from Enugu to Onitsha right to the end of the war. Their hold on Biafra was always tenuous given that they held just the main roads and had no interior supply network or presence. Biafran soldiers could always penetrate and slip through Nigerian defences at will, and serious exchanges were taking place, called "Ahia Attack" at the various trans-border locations. Onitsha, for instance, never really, fully fell into federal hands, and there was always exchange going on through the many old pathways only known to the locals who were masters of their topography at the interior. To the very end of the war, Biafrans maintained battalions behind all enemy lines. As a mater of fact, the capture of the Italian oil workers in Kwale in 1969 led by Nwabueze Nwankwo, later more well-known as a formidable Attacking Mid-field for the Rangers FC is one ca in point of Biafrans operating in the Mid west. The conditions for a guerrilla war was fully present, more so because the federal forces did not control the Biafran interior. This fact was made rather clear in the secret reports to the British government as late as the middle of December 1969.
But let me also draw a timeline to paint a little picture for the discerning reader:
August 1968: at the OAU peace talks, Azikiwe secures a guarantee, through his own formidable contacts for a return to the status quo ante based on the Aburi agreements, which in effect agreed to the confederal status an all the demands made by Ojukwu before the war. Ojukwu who was present at this talk in addis, however, consulted with his top advisers - Nwokedi, Eni Njoku, Mojekwu, and Mbanefo. Eni Njoku and Mbanefo convinced him, against Mbanefo's argument, not to accept the guarantees without the pre-condition of Biafran guarantee. It was an argument made in the backdrop of France's hint of a recognition of Biafra's sovereignty. This was possibly Ojukuwu's greatest blunder in that war: to disregard Azikiwe's diplomatc forays, who found his position as Biafra's ambassador for peace significantly untenable. The agreement which were to be ratified at the OAU annual conference that September in Algiers was subverted by this position. Azikiwe's position was further compounded by another important event. Early that September; on September 7 1968 specifically, Azikiwe, Okpara, Kenneth Dike, Francis Nwokedi, and Ralph Uwechue met with Jacques Focart, De Gaulle's Chief Adviser on African Affairs at the Hotel Napoleon on Avenue de Friedland, Paris. Ojukwu had sent these men not only to secure arms for Biafra, but also Frances's diplomatic recognition. It was in that meeting that France laid its cards on the table: France would publicly recognize Biafra sovereignty only if the OAU recognized it. It was classic double-talk, and for an experienced diplomat like Zik, an indication of the unsustainability of Ojukwu's international policies, given his unwillingness at that moment, to accede to the principles of the compromise that Zik had secured at the OAU peace talks in Addis Ababa only two weeks previously. After that meeting with the French, he decided that he was no longer of use to Biafra, and did not return to Biafra. He left from Paris to London. That was also the basis of Ralph Uwechue's decision to leave. To use the word "abscond" for Zik by Salimonu Kadiri is obloquy and intended to mislead. It was a choice made from a strategic standpoint.
That September following Azikiwe's departure, Aba fell and Owerri also fell. 5 months later on 10 February 1969, Zik addressed a press conference in London, advancing his 14-point peace plan. Three weeks later, in March 1969 Harold Wilson, the British Prime Minister visited Lagos. Backroom channels were opened in London to arrange for his visit o Ojukwu in Umuahia, but it was later cancelled when Wilson decided to meet with Ojukwu only in any African capital; a move which Ojukwu rejected and closed down the possibilities of the meeting with the British PM. That May of 1969, Biafrans captured the Italian oil workers in Kwale, and began a concerted air campaign with the Swedish mini trainers that startled the world, and record some really devastating results; including its raid of oil intallations. On December 9, 1969, the British Defence Minister, Lord Carrington visited Biafra and Nigeria. This meeting is very crucial to what was to happen just within three weeks of this visit. On December 13, 1969 Colonel Scott, the British Defence Attache, who accompanied Lord Carrington to Biafra, issued his report. On December 15, a Biafran delegation arrived for the peace talk at Addis Ababa. On 27 December Umuahia fell. On 9th January, Owerri fell a second time. On 10th January, 1970, Ojukwu summoned his Cabinet for a strategy meeting. First, he had received intel from Biafra's rather well organized secret service, which had extensive reaches right up to the highest military and civil authority even on the federal side (as a matter of fact, there have been hints by people who had served at the highest levels of the Biafran intelligence that Dr. Sam Aluko, for instance, was a key Biafran operative for Ojukwu on the federal side; a fact which I have neither fully confirmed nor been convinced by) within hours of its release of a British plan for a "final military onslaught" on Biafra. The formal military option was exhausted, and it fell to two things: surrender his leadership or begin the second phase of the war: while it was agreed that formal Biafran military positions had become largely untenable, Aghanya and Achuzia argued for the activation of the guerrilla phase. Various options were examined: moving the Biafran military and state headquarters to Equatorial Guinea; or even establishing a "Bush Headquarters." Ojukwu knocked down these options. He was persuaded to leave, and events rolled to a conclusion on January 12, when Philip Effiong announced the end of Biafra, and the mandate to seek reconciliation on the terms he outlined when his delegation arrived Lagos on 14 January. But note this, from Michael Gould's account taken from accounts from British intelligence in documents currently available in the British archives in Kews: "immediately Ojukwu fled the country, Effiong simply disappeared, and it was left to others, notably the chief Justice Sir Louis Mbanefo and Col. Achuzia to broker peace"(108). They were the ones to first establish contact with Obasanjo. Effiong actually had to be retrieved from Orlu to meet with Obasanjo and co at Amichi. Achuzia has said much of these in his interviews about those moments, and needs very little further elaboration. However, the point of this timeline is to note the period between Azikiwe's publishing of his peace proposal to the events & processes that culminated in the end of conflicts in 1970, even as the British as late as three weeks to the end of Biafra, were clearly aware of the on the ground strength of Biafra, and the possibility and implications of an extended guerrilla war. As it turns out, the 5 million pounds which the British promised and which she gave towards the rehabilitation of the East never reached the East. The rest, I shall leave for the moment.
Obi Nwakanma
Sent: Saturday, March 4, 2017 4:43 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: SV: USA Africa Dialogue Series - THE HISTORY OF THE NIERIAN CIVIL WAR SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS
Kayode J. Fakinlede
From Mr. Marinus’write-ups, I have garnered the following:
1. The decalration of ‘No victor, no vanquished’made by Gowon to end the Nigerian civil war was made to save the federal side from certain defeat.
2. The Biafrans did not lose the war. They stopped fighting because they were tricked into stopping by certain negotiations to which they and Nigeria agreed, only later for Nigeria to renege upon it after the Biafran side already wrote a letter of surrender. Let us not forget that they were tricked into secession in the first place by ‘Ali Baba’Awolowo. It wasAwolowo who made the pronouncement that if the East were to seceed, the West would certainly follow.
3. In the prosecution of the war, the Biafran soldiers clearly demonstrated more military dexterism than the Nigerian soldiers who were really no more than bumbling idiots and were getting snuffed out like Birthday candles.
4. Benjamin Adekunle’s soldiers were a collection of touts, louts and never-do –wells; a highly indisciplined bunch who could not hold the candle up to Achuzia’s fighting tornadoes.
5. As a matter of fact, the Biafran soldiers were more humane than the federal soldiers. Having captured a copious number of the federal soldiers, the Biafran soldiers let them go becuase the Biafrans were filled with the milk of human kindness.
6. It would seem that it was the Nigerian soldiers who were really dying and not Biafran civilians since the Nigerian soldiers chose to stick to the highways where they were easily snuffed out.
7. Ojukwu did not really flee the country. He was persuaded to leave, leaving Phillip Effiong in charge. Effiong, a non-Ibo simply disappeared, probably due to cowardise, only to reappear to sign the letter of surrender.
8. Zik, of course, did not abscond. He was only convinced that he was of no use to Biafra and decided to say away. Uwechue, Achebe and some other prominent Ibos probably had their own reasons – but not abscondence.
All in all, everyone, except the Ibos, had something unsavory to do with the Nigerian civil war, according to Mr. Marinus. The Ibos were wronged, and wronged and wronged again by all other Nigerians while they maintained their legendary equanimity until they were forced to respond or tricked into responding by others. The Biafrans, according to Mr. Marinus, with guerilla warfare would have overrun Nigeria had it not been that they were persuaded not to do so.
Let me say this, I have dealt with Ibo people from before the war till now. I have always found them to be gregarious, highly intelligent and not given to gulibility. The claims made by Mr. Marinus is only undermining the ability of the Ibos of that period to make independent decisions and the intelligence of present day Ibo’s to use their brains.
It is no wonder those Ibos who actually saw the war are clearly reticent when the drums of secesion and of war are being beat by their youngsters. Certainly many of these have swallowed the hogwash being bandied by the modern day war mongers.
The history
of the Nigerian civil war must be taught to Nigerian children and really, we
Nigerians, the Ibos in particular, should make it a point to point it out to our
young ones exactly what mistakes we made that led to that level of carnage.
FAKINLEDE
On Friday, March 3, 2017 at 12:23:42 PM UTC+1, Kayode J. Fakinlede wrote:
Rex Marinus
Mr. Fakinlede, maybe at this point, I should remind you to call me by my proper name: I am not "Mr. Marinus" - and I am not "Mr. Nwakanma" since I'm not a surgeon. I am Dr. Nwakanma, and I earned my plaudits, not honoris causa. If you prefer, it is simply "Obi Nwakanma" - and that too would be my preference. And I should let you know that part of the test of competence in the use of any language by which knowledge is transmitted is the test of "comprehension." I see, very clearly that you do not comprehend the thrust of my response on this Biafran question. One, I did not infer, suggest, or say that the Biafrans were "tricked" into anything. I said that the Federal authority's decision on the "no victor, no vanquished" declaration was not simply an act of charity, it was a "pragmatic" policy based on the reality of the situation, and the negotiations that had gone on leading to the end of the conflict. Agreements were reached and reneged. If you listen for instance, to Philip Effiong's statement at Dodan barracks in 1970, there was not a single use of the word "surrender" in his speech. He said, "we are returning to Nigeria, after removing the factors that has made reconciliation impossible. We accept the current authority and structure of the federal government, and on the premise that we shall all be part of the move towards the transition to constitutional rule and a new constitution." Not a single word about surrender. Words to that affect. And he addressed himself in his full rank as Major-General.
All the references I made regarding the Biafran soldier, and the possibility of a guerrilla war were not mine, but from neutral sources, including on the spot British intelligence field assessment. I do not know who would have won the war had the Biafrans chosen that option of guerrilla war, but clearly, and I did say this, the option for formal, conventional warfare had become untenable with the Federal Military advantages. Once Biafra began to fight a defensive war after Banjo's treachery in the Midwest campaign, it was only a matter of time for Biafra to be overwhelmed in a formal war. But had they been compelled to launch the guerrilla phase of the war, which had all the infrastructure already designed for it, the civil war may have led to different outcomes: Biafran sovereignty at the most, or a long drawn war that would expand beyond the Eastern frontiers to a Southern Nigerian frontier at the least. Urban warfare is far more complicated. Besides, as the British report indicated, the Federal Army was in no position to hold and secure captured fronts for a long period given the topography and advantage that the Biafrans were in their natural homes, and had proved with arms, to capture and recapture areas often held by the Federal forces. This is simply elementary tactical logic. Finally, I did not say that Biafrans released war prisoners mainly because they were kind - but from pragmatic considerations: they could not carter for war prisoners. By the way, I did not say it. It was from a source that I quoted. It is left or you to verify it.
I think you're far too invested in the idea of a "vanquished" Igbo. That seems to give you some erection. But where were you during the war when 15 year old boys from the East volunteered as soldiers to fight for their freedom? Did you see combat or are you one of those who "saw the war" from the sidelines, but who speak with such pontificatory eloquence and certainty about war and the "vanquished" that you read about in newspapers? Those who did not fight speak of war, and many of us who actually lived through it, either as war babies or child soldiers, or combatants talk with the kind of experience of that war that will not be available to you because you read about war in newspapers. The Igbo were not "vanquished" in war. I don't know if you actually know the exact meaning of that word you use with such gusto. But step back a bit from your sick triumphalism, and look, and listen to words other than that only inside your head, Mr. Fakinlede. As a matter of fact, an old friend and mentor mine just died: Ben Obumselu was Biafra's official war historian and recorder. I am not sure you met him, but it'd have been illuminating for you to have had the privilege of insight that should have given you a far more nuanced sense of the history of the civil war rather than your black-and-white narrative of the "vanquished" Biafrans which you like so much to believe just to stiffen your third leg.
Obi Nwakanma
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Kayode J. Fakinlede
Dear Dr. Nwakanma,
I must apologize exceedingly sir, for addressing you as Mr. Nwakanma instead of Dr. Nwakanma. Many a time, when I think a male person is writing, not having the privilege of deciphering their academic achievements, I try to use the common title reserved for all male persons. That was why I refered to you as Mr. Nwakanma. As a favor, I will implore you to put this title in front of your name always so people like me do not offend your ensibilities. It is a great achievement and really no one should take it lightly.
I must also apologise for insinuating that the Biafra was defeated during the war. I could not have been farther from the truth. They were indeed not vanquished. That being said, I am certain that my libido will find a certain level of normalcy.
However, I still believe that the history of the Nigerian Civil war should be taught to all our children in the schools so they can make informed decisions of their own. That was my initial contention.
Again, I aologise sir.
Regards
FAKINLEDE K
On Friday, March 3, 2017 at 12:23:42 PM UTC+1, Kayode J. Fakinlede wrote:
Salimonu Kadiri
A Yoruba adage says : ÈGÀN KÒ PÉ K'OYIN MÁ DÙN. Literary translated it means, Derision cannot make honey bitter. The 2012 book written by Michael Gould on Lt. Colonel Adekunle's war efforts between 1967 up to May 1969 when he was replaced by a non-infantry Officer, Lt. Colonel Olusegun Obasanjo cannot reduce his military heroism. For non-fiction account of Lt. Colonel Adekunle's military prowess the whole world was caught aghast when he captured Bonny Island in a sea-borne assault that had ever been carried out with amphibious tanks in Africa, on the 25th of July 1967. Bonny Island was the only sea terminal for the export of crude oil in Nigeria in 1967. When the Biafrans invaded Midwest in August 1967, he was recalled to rout out the Biafrans in the Delta area, a task he finished at the speed of light before he returned to Bonny Island. On October 18, 1967, Adekunle in another sea-borne assault captured Calabar and from there he linked up with the 1st Division of the Nigerian Army at Ikom, a border town to Cameroon. In February 1968, he led his troops to capture Afikpo, Ugep, Ediba, Itigidi and Obubra. In March 1968, Adekunle led his troops to capture Ikot Ekpene, Abak and Uyo. In May 1968, Adekunle's led his troops to capture Port Harcourt, the last sea port in the hands of Biafrans. Although the Staff Headquarters in Lagos, ordered Adekunle to pause in the military offensive, he defied the order and captured Aba and Owerri in September 1968. In fact, Chinua Achebe noted in his book, There Was A Country that by raining season of 1968, Biafra was surrounded in a narrow corridor around Umuahia (p. 209). When Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister of Britain visited Lagos in March 1969, he asked specifically to be taken to Port Harcourt to meet Benjamin Adekunle. The strong-willed and fearless Adekunle asked Wilson sarcastically, why he was in Nigeria to poke-nose instead sending troops to fight the then Rhodesian(now Zimbabwe) rebel, Ian Smith. Colonel Scott and Harold Wilson had warned Gowon not to allow Adekunle to finish the war as he might be dangerous to his regime after the war. Thus, Adekunle was starved of weapon supplies from Lagos as a punishment for defying order against military advance after the capture of Port Harcourt. Therefore,Adekunle was forced to withdraw his troops, in orderly manner, from Owerri which the Biafrans reoccupied on the 25th of April 1969. However, Adekunle's troops captured Umuahia on the 22nd of April 1969 contrary to Obi Nwakanma's assertion that Umuahia fell to the Federal forces on 27 December 1969. The re-occupation of Owerri by the Biafran army was used as a pretence by Lagos to change the war front commanders in May 1969, whereby Obasanjo replaced Adekunle. As far as Biafra war was concerned, Olusegun Obasanjo has claimed gallantry for discovering a dead lion, but one should not forget the actual killer of the lion was Benjamin Adekunle.
After Owerri was recaptured by the Federal forces on the 9th of January 1970, Obi Nwakanma declared that Ojukwu summoned his Cabinet meeting. Obi Nwakanma wrote further, "The formal military option was exhausted, and it fell to two things; surrender his (Ojukwu's) leadership or begin the second phase of the war: while it was agreed that formal Biafran military positions had become largely untenable, Aghanya and Achuzia argued for the activation of the guerrilla phase. Various options were examined ..//.. Ojukwu knocked down these options. He was persuaded to leave...." If the formal military option for Ojukwu's Biafra was exhausted and the two alternatives left for them were either to surrender or turn into guerrilla fighter, on what historical fact did Obi Nwakanma base the assertion in his post of 3rd March 2017 when he wrote, "The Biafrans were not defeated in war, and did not go to Lagos to surrender without precondition ... The Biafrans had established the mechanism to enter the second state of the war - the guerrilla phase - should the agreements fail?" When was the decision taken to continue the war by guerrilla means after Ojukwu had knocked down that option? How could Ojukwu have been persuaded to leave when he had the power to reject all the options laid down to him? What precondition was given by the Biafrans before going to Lagos to surrender and who received the precondition?
Mr. N. U. Akpan was not only the Chief Secretary to the Biafran government, he followed Ojukwu into exile. In 1971, he wrote a book titled The Struggle For Secession 1966-1970, in which he narrated on p. 165-175 how Ojukwu and himself and others escaped from Nigeria. Here follows excerpts from the book. "The Governor (Ojukwu) had arrived at Owerri on the evening of Thursday, January 8 (1970), in a hurried flight from Madonna, forty miles away, his permanent residence since the fall of Umuahia. It had been a confused and panic ridden day for everybody. The Federal troops had crossed the Imo River at more than two points. And Imo River has always been regarded as the most effective natural barrier against the enemy. Shells were falling in Madonna. Early in the morning of the said January 8, we had been told that the Federal troops were twenty-nine miles from Owerri along Aba Owerri road. By noon they were less than fifteen miles away. I phoned the Commanding Officer, Brigadier Kalu, who told me that the situation was now hopeless and advised that any contingency plans made should be put into immediate effect. Later that afternoon Major-General Philip Effiong (Chief of General Staff, Biafran Armed Forces) called to inform me that Major-General Madiebo, the GOC of the Biafran Army, had told him that the army could no longer hold. It being a 'purely military matter', I advised Effiong to go and tell the Governor. Both of us agreed that the end had come. At seven o'clock that evening I drove from Owerri towards Madonna, but met the Governor and entourage some twenty miles from Owerri and so turned back and followed them. At Owerri I told him what I knew of the situation, particularly what Effiong and Kalu had told me. Although he tried to conceal his feelings I knew that he was worried.
He told me to contact members of the Executive Council resident in Owerri to come for a meeting at midnight. He mentioned in particular, Sir Louis Mbanefo, the Chief Justice, Dr. M.I. Okpara, Political Adviser (who, incidentally had just arrived at Owerri that evening), Dr. Pius Okigbo, Chief Ekukinam Bassey and one or two others I cannot now remember. We met at midnight, and the meeting started with the Governor saying that we had fixed the meeting for eleven o'clock, and suggesting that we move to Ogwa now that we were so late...//.... The Governor opened by describing the military situation and then stressed the need for the 'leadership of Biafra' to leave for safety. After that Dr. Okigbo tried to elaborate. But it was clear that what was being said in tortuous verbiage was that the Governor had decided to leave the country, and I said so, drawing some signs of embarrassment from the Governor. Nobody had any objection to the Governor's leaving immediately. ... It was Sir Louis Mbanefo who suggested that it would be bad taste for the Governor to leave without giving some honorable reason to the people. He then suggested a broadcast saying the Governor was going out in search of peace...//... The Governor was still speaking when his wife suddenly came in from Arondizuogu and the Governor went out to meet her. Those of us who were sitting close to the door overheard the Governor reassuring his wife in a low tone that nothing could stop him from leaving the country. The Governor suggested a body of three persons, comprising of the Chief Justice, Sir Louis Mbanefo, as Chairman, with Major-General Philip Effiong and Mr. Iheanacho as members. It was the Chief Justice who spoke. He reminded the Governor that it was still a military regime, incompatible with the sort of commission or committee he proposed to set up. Sir Louis therefore suggested that one person, a military man, should be given full and personal responsibility, particularly at that critical point when everything hung upon military considerations. Mr. F.O. Iheanacho supported Sir Louis and the Governor then named Majo-General Philip Effiong as the 'Officer Administering the Government of Biafra' during 'my absence abroad in search of peace'.... The journey from Uli to Abidjan took five hours or so. We landed at a military airport at exactly six o'clock in the morning of Sunday, January 11, 1970. ...//... As soon as our plane touched down, Mr. Mojekwu turned to General Ojukwu and said with elation and a broad smile, 'We made it." From the narratives of Mr. Akpan, the Chief Secretary to Ojukwu, it is crystal clear that no one persuaded Ojukwu to leave Biafra, and that he left after his army had been defeated. More so, there was no discussion about any guerrilla warfare at Ojukwu's last meeting with his Cabinet at Ogwa on January 9, 1970, the day Owerri was captured by the Federal troops.
Quoting from a Michael Gould's account that was supposedly extracted from British Intelligence documents, Obi Nwakanma wrote, "...immediately Ojukwu fled the country, Effiong simply disappeared and it was left to others, notably the Chief Justice Sir Louis Mbanefo and Colonel Achuzia to broker peace. They were the ones to first establish contact with Obasanjo. Effiong actually had to be retrieved from Orlu to meet with Obasanjo and Co at Amichi." Once again, Obi Nwakanma has invented his own history of what really happened after Ojukwu had abandoned his soldiers into safety. On Monday, 12 January 1970, at 16:40:00 hours, the Officer Administering the Government of Biafra, Major-General Philip Effiong in a radio broadcast announced the surrender of Biafra. He stated among other things, "I am convinced now that a stop must be put to the blood-shed which is going on as a result of the war. I am also convinced that the suffering of our people must be brought to an immediate end. Our people are now disillusioned and those elements of the old government regime who have made negotiation and reconciliation impossible have voluntarily removed themselves from our midst.
I have, therefore, instructed an orderly disengagement of troops. I am dispatching emissaries to make contacts with Nigeria's field commanders in places like Onitsha, Owerri, Awka, Enugu and Calabar with a view to arrange armistice. ...//... I appeal to all governments to give urgent help for relief and to prevail on the Federal Military Government to order their troops to stop all military operations. May God help us all (p. 121-122, My Command By Olusegun Obasanjo, 1980; and also p.294-295, Nigeria & Biafra: My Story by Philip Effiong, 2007)." Following Effiong's broadcast, Obasanjo sent message to his Brigade Commanders thus, "Philip Effiong today issued what amounts to unconditional surrender. Tactical movement will continue until every inch of 'Biafra' is physically occupied and all rebel soldiers disarmed. Troops will not open fire unless they are fired at. No change on ops order on treatment of POW and refugees (p. 123, My Command)."
What happened next was narrated by Obasanjo thus, ".... on 13 January, I made straight for Owerri, and from Owerri to Orlu. At Orlu I was told that Lt.-Col. Akinrinade and Major Tumoye had made contact with senior rebel officers and had gone to see them but no one knew where exactly they went. ...//... On reaching Uga airfield without seeing my two officers, I turned back. Very near Orlu I met a junior officer who claimed he knew which way the two officers had gone. He led the way while I followed. Soon we met the two officers feeling rather happy and elated and pleased with themselves. They told me they have just met with Effiong and a group of rebel officers and civilians and had arranged a further meeting with me for the following day. I insisted on being taken there and then to where these senior rebel officers were. .... On my insistence we all made for Amichi where we met Effiong in 'Biafran' Army uniform on the first floor of the house of Odogu, the head of 'Biafra's directorate of military intelligence. All the other officers were in mufti. I went unhesitatingly upstairs where all the officers whose colleagues we had been in the Nigerian Army stood gazing at me uncomfortably with fear and surprise. ... But Ben Gbulie, who as a junior officer had served under me in the Corps of Engineers and who had played a significant role in the January 1966 coup, came forward unobtrusively and congratulated me saying, ' Sir, that was high generalship. I feel proud of you.'
To break the ice, I put out my hand to Effiong and we shook hands warmly. I quickly followed this up by complementing him on his good looks in the 'Biafran' Major-General's uniform. ....//... 'Now,' I said to Philip Effiong, 'your broadcast did not go far enough. To talk of negotiated settlement and peace talk in accordance with OAU resolutions at this stage is not only unrealistic but ridiculous to the extreme. We have no time for that.' At that point Effiong suggested that we should talk privately together. We then went into a small room, obviously a bedroom, he with his staff officer Capt. Ben Gbulie and I with Lt.-Col. Akinrinade who had been in Ben Gbulie's intake at Sandhurst. The discussion in that small room turned out to be 'negotiated settlement' and the final 'peace talk'on the Nigerian civil war. ...//... By the time I left Amichi, it was getting dark. I met Lt.-Col. David Ogunewe who had been my senior officer in the 5th Battalion in Kaduna before Independence. He was one of the emissaries sent out earlier by Effiong to contact me (p. 123-127, My Command)." Again the assertion of Obi Nwakanma about Effiong's disappearance after Ojukwu fled from Biafra is totally false. In fact, Sir Louis Mbanefo was not around when Obasanjo and Akinrinade met with Effiong and Gbulie inside a bedroom for negotiated settlement and final peace talk on the Nigerian civil war.
The danger of Obi Nwakanma's Historical revisionism is that it is capable of indoctrinating the younger generation of Igbo youths with the spirit of hate and inciting them to become revengers. It was that type of historical revisionism Hitler did with World War 1 and the treaty of Versailles that paved way for the tragedies of World War II. It is fascism to distort history for the purpose of inciting people for a revenge war.
S.Kadiri
Rex Marinus
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: SV: USA Africa Dialogue Series - THE HISTORY OF THE NIERIAN CIVIL WAR SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS
A Yoruba adage says : ÈGÀN KÒ PÉ K'OYIN MÁ DÙN. Literary translated it means, Derision cannot make honey bitter. The 2012 book written by Michael Gould on Lt. Colonel Adekunle's war efforts between 1967 up to May 1969 when he was replaced by a non-infantry Officer, Lt. Colonel Olusegun Obasanjo cannot reduce his military heroism. For non-fiction account of Lt. Colonel Adekunle's military prowess the whole world was caught aghast when he captured Bonny Island in a sea-borne assault that had ever been carried out with amphibious tanks in Africa, on the 25th of July 1967. Bonny Island was the only sea terminal for the export of crude oil in Nigeria in 1967. When the Biafrans invaded Midwest in August 1967, he was recalled to rout out the Biafrans in the Delta area, a task he finished at the speed of light before he returned to Bonny Island. On October 18, 1967, Adekunle in another sea-borne assault captured Calabar and from there he linked up with the 1st Division of the Nigerian Army at Ikom, a border town to Cameroon. In February 1968, he led his troops to capture Afikpo, Ugep, Ediba, Itigidi and Obubra. In March 1968, Adekunle led his troops to capture Ikot Ekpene, Abak and Uyo. In May 1968, Adekunle's led his troops to capture Port Harcourt, the last sea port in the hands of Biafrans. Although the Staff Headquarters in Lagos, ordered Adekunle to pause in the military offensive, he defied the order and captured Aba and Owerri in September 1968. In fact, Chinua Achebe noted in his book, There Was A Country that by raining season of 1968, Biafra was surrounded in a narrow corridor around Umuahia (p. 209). When Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister of Britain visited Lagos in March 1969, he asked specifically to be taken to Port Harcourt to meet Benjamin Adekunle. The strong-willed and fearless Adekunle asked Wilson sarcastically, why he was in Nigeria to poke-nose instead sending troops to fight the then Rhodesian(now Zimbabwe) rebel, Ian Smith. Colonel Scott and Harold Wilson had warned Gowon not to allow Adekunle to finish the war as he might be dangerous to his regime after the war. Thus, Adekunle was starved of weapon supplies from Lagos as a punishment for defying order against military advance after the capture of Port Harcourt. Therefore,Adekunle was forced to withdraw his troops, in orderly manner, from Owerri which the Biafrans reoccupied on the 25th of April 1969. However, Adekunle's troops captured Umuahia on the 22nd of April 1969 contrary to Obi Nwakanma's assertion that Umuahia fell to the Federal forces on 27 December 1969. The re-occupation of Owerri by the Biafran army was used as a pretence by Lagos to change the war front commanders in May 1969, whereby Obasanjo replaced Adekunle. As far as Biafra war was concerned, Olusegun Obasanjo has claimed gallantry for discovering a dead lion, but one should not forget the actual killer of the lion was Benjamin Adekunle.
After Owerri was recaptured by the Federal forces on the 9th of January 1970, Obi Nwakanma declared that Ojukwu summoned his Cabinet meeting. Obi Nwakanma wrote further, "The formal military option was exhausted, and it fell to two things; surrender his (Ojukwu's) leadership or begin the second phase of the war: while it was agreed that formal Biafran military positions had become largely untenable, Aghanya and Achuzia argued for the activation of the guerrilla phase. Various options were examined ..//.. Ojukwu knocked down these options. He was persuaded to leave...." If the formal military option for Ojukwu's Biafra was exhausted and the two alternatives left for them were either to surrender or turn into guerrilla fighter, on what historical fact did Obi Nwakanma base the assertion in his post of 3rd March 2017 when he wrote, "The Biafrans were not defeated in war, and did not go to Lagos to surrender without precondition ... The Biafrans had established the mechanism to enter the second state of the war - the guerrilla phase - should the agreements fail?" When was the decision taken to continue the war by guerrilla means after Ojukwu had knocked down that option? How could Ojukwu have been persuaded to leave when he had the power to reject all the options laid down to him? What precondition was given by the Biafrans before going to Lagos to surrender and who received the precondition?
Mr. N. U. Akpan was not only the Chief Secretary to the Biafran government, he followed Ojukwu into exile. In 1971, he wrote a book titled The Struggle For Secession 1966-1970, in which he narrated on p. 165-175 how Ojukwu and himself and others escaped from Nigeria. Here follows excerpts from the book. "The Governor (Ojukwu) had arrived at Owerri on the evening of Thursday, January 8 (1970), in a hurried flight from Madonna, forty miles away, his permanent residence since the fall of Umuahia. It had been a confused and panic ridden day for everybody. The Federal troops had crossed the Imo River at more than two points. And Imo River has always been regarded as the most effective natural barrier against the enemy. Shells were falling in Madonna. Early in the morning of the said January 8, we had been told that the Federal troops were twenty-nine miles from Owerri along Aba Owerri road. By noon they were less than fifteen miles away. I phoned the Commanding Officer, Brigadier Kalu, who told me that the situation was now hopeless and advised that any contingency plans made should be put into immediate effect. Later that afternoon Major-General Philip Effiong (Chief of General Staff, Biafran Armed Forces) called to inform me that Major-General Madiebo, the GOC of the Biafran Army, had told him that the army could no longer hold. It being a 'purely military matter', I advised Effiong to go and tell the Governor. Both of us agreed that the end had come. At seven o'clock that evening I drove from Owerri towards Madonna, but met the Governor and entourage some twenty miles from Owerri and so turned back and followed them. At Owerri I told him what I knew of the situation, particularly what Effiong and Kalu had told me. Although he tried to conceal his feelings I knew that he was worried.
He told me to contact members of the Executive Council resident in Owerri to come for a meeting at midnight. He mentioned in particular, Sir Louis Mbanefo, the Chief Justice, Dr. M.I. Okpara, Political Adviser (who, incidentally had just arrived at Owerri that evening), Dr. Pius Okigbo, Chief Ekukinam Bassey and one or two others I cannot now remember. We met at midnight, and the meeting started with the Governor saying that we had fixed the meeting for eleven o'clock, and suggesting that we move to Ogwa now that we were so late...//.... The Governor opened by describing the military situation and then stressed the need for the 'leadership of Biafra' to leave for safety. After that Dr. Okigbo tried to elaborate. But it was clear that what was being said in tortuous verbiage was that the Governor had decided to leave the country, and I said so, drawing some signs of embarrassment from the Governor. Nobody had any objection to the Governor's leaving immediately. ... It was Sir Louis Mbanefo who suggested that it would be bad taste for the Governor to leave without giving some honorable reason to the people. He then suggested a broadcast saying the Governor was going out in search of peace...//... The Governor was still speaking when his wife suddenly came in from Arondizuogu and the Governor went out to meet her. Those of us who were sitting close to the door overheard the Governor reassuring his wife in a low tone that nothing could stop him from leaving the country. The Governor suggested a body of three persons, comprising of the Chief Justice, Sir Louis Mbanefo, as Chairman, with Major-General Philip Effiong and Mr. Iheanacho as members. It was the Chief Justice who spoke. He reminded the Governor that it was still a military regime, incompatible with the sort of commission or committee he proposed to set up. Sir Louis therefore suggested that one person, a military man, should be given full and personal responsibility, particularly at that critical point when everything hung upon military considerations. Mr. F.O. Iheanacho supported Sir Louis and the Governor then named Majo-General Philip Effiong as the 'Officer Administering the Government of Biafra' during 'my absence abroad in search of peace'.... The journey from Uli to Abidjan took five hours or so. We landed at a military airport at exactly six o'clock in the morning of Sunday, January 11, 1970. ...//... As soon as our plane touched down, Mr. Mojekwu turned to General Ojukwu and said with elation and a broad smile, 'We made it." From the narratives of Mr. Akpan, the Chief Secretary to Ojukwu, it is crystal clear that no one persuaded Ojukwu to leave Biafra, and that he left after his army had been defeated. More so, there was no discussion about any guerrilla warfare at Ojukwu's last meeting with his Cabinet at Ogwa on January 9, 1970, the day Owerri was captured by the Federal troops. The discussion in that small room turned out to be 'negotiated settlement' and the final 'peace talk'on the Nigerian civil war. ...//... By the time I left Amichi, it was getting dark.
Cornelius Hamelberg
Salimonu Kadiri
Doctor Obi Nwakanma has doctored the history of the Nigerian civil war and has injected it with 419 virus with which he hopes to infect unsuspecting and gullible Nigerians. I identify his 419 history virus of the Nigerian civil war from his post below as follows : If you listen, for instance, to Philip Effiong's statement at Dodan barracks in 1970, there was not a single use of the word "surrender" in his speech. He said, "we are returning to Nigeria, after removing the factors that has made reconciliation impossible. We accept the current authority and structure of the federal government, and on the promise that we shall all be part of the move towards the transition to constitutional rule and a new constitution." Not a single word about surrender. Words to that effect. And he addressed himself in his full rank as Major-General - so was it asserted in writing by Dr. Obi Nwakanma.
Obi Nwakanma wrote as if to say he was present at Dodan barrack, on the 15th of January 1970, when Philip Effiong made the statement he, Obi, is attributing to him. Obi Nwakanma's pretence to being an eye witness at Dodan barracks when Philip Effiong declared (which Obi called a statement) the death of Biafra, is a 419 ploy aimed at gaining plausibility for his fraudulent history.
With inverted komas begin and closed, Obi Nwakanma gave false impression that he was quoting Philip Effiong verbatim. Thus, he credited Effiong with having said, "we are returning to Nigeria, after removing the factors that has made reconciliation impossible." Philip Effiong never made such a statement at Dodan barracks on the 15th of January 1970. Obi Nwakanma has doctored and distorted part of Philip Effiong's broadcast on Radio Biafra at 16:40:00 hours, on January 12, 1970, to the Biafrans. In paragraph 3 of the printed version of that broadcast, Effiong said, "I am also convinced that the people are now disillusioned and those elements of the old government regime who have made negotiations and reconciliation impossible have voluntarily removed themselves from our midst (p. 294-295, Nigeria & Biafra: My Story, by Philip Effiong). Philip Effiong has never at anytime between, January 11 and 15, 1970, said that 'we are returning to Nigeria after removing factors that has made reconciliation impossible' as asserted in writing by Dr. Obi Nwakanma. That, to me, is a historical fraud of the highest order.
Immediately after Philip Effiong's broadcast of 12 January 1970, Nigeria's Commander of the third marine division, Lt. Colonel Olusegun Obasanjo, issued operation order to all his Brigade Commanders thus, "Philip Effiong today issued what amounts to unconditional surrender. Tactical movement will continue until every inch of 'Biafra' is physically occupied and all rebel soldiers disarmed. Troops will not open fire unless they are fired at. No change from ops order on treatment of POW and refugees (p.123, My Command by Olusegun Obasanjo)."
Contrary to Dr. Obi Nwakanma's 419 history, the following was read and signed by Philip Effiong at Dodan barracks on 15 January 1970. I, Major General Philip Effiong, Officer Administering the Government of the Republic of Biafra, now wish to make the following declaration: (a) that we affirm we are loyal Nigerian citizens and accept the authority of the Federal Military Government of Nigeria. (b) that we accept the existing administrative and political structure of the Federation of Nigeria. (c) that any future constitutional arrangement will be worked out by representatives of the people of Nigeria. (d) that the Republic of Biafra hereby ceases to exist. I signed and dated the document "15th January 1970" Philip Effiong wrote on page 306 of his book, Nigeria and Biafra: My Story.
Dr. Obi Nwakanma is arguing that the word 'surrender' was not used by Philip Effiong in his declarations, which Obi called statement. However, Philip Effiong knew what he was at Dodan barracks to do. Thus, on page 303 of his book, Nigeria & Biafra: My Story, the sub-title therein is: SURRENDER INSTRUMENT. It was under that headline that he narrated what he signed at Dodan barracks. And if one may ask, what is the difference between SURRENDER AND THE REPUBLIC OF BIAFRA HEREBY CEASES TO EXIST? For a pettifoger and a 419 historian, half a dozen is not the same as six, and therefore that Biafra ceased to exist is not the same thing as Biafra surrendered.
Dr Obi Nwakanma referred to Banjo's treachery in the Midwest campaign but he failed to tell us what exactly constituted Banjo's treachery. After the invasion of the Midwest, two-pronged attack on Lagos was planned. Lt. Colonel Festus Akagha was to lead Biafra's second battalion through Benin, Ore, and Ijebu-Ode to seize Lagos, while Biafra's third battalion led by Lt. Colonel Humphrey Iwuchukwu Chukwuka was to lead his troops through Sapele, Warri and advance along the coast to attack Lagos. Biafra's first battalion led by Lt. Colonel Mike Ivenso was to move through Owo, Akure and seize Ibadan. Beside those Battalion Commanders, Lt. Colonel Emmanuel Ifeajuna was together with Banjo in the Midwest. Symbolically, Banjo was the leader of Midwest invasion but the real commanders of the invading army were Biafrans (Igbo) and the fighting soldiers were all Igbo Biafrans. That Biafrans met their waterloo at Ore and other fronts in the West was not as a result of treachery by Banjo as being fraudulently touted by 419 historian.
S.Kadiri
Till: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: THE HISTORY OF THE NIERIAN CIVIL WAR SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS
Rex Marinus
Sent: Wednesday, March 8, 2017 5:57 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: THE HISTORY OF THE NIERIAN CIVIL WAR SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS
I'm afraid there's no way out of this Sir
Rex Marinus
I post here a recording of Philip Effiong's statement in Dodan barracks, circa 1970. Pay particular attention that even both Col. Obasanjo and General Gowon bit their tongues - paused - to avoid the use of the word "surrender." It was "acceptance" and it was official. Philip Effiong himself fully reported as a General, and the Officer administering, "the government of the republic of Biafra." And just out of curiosity, would somebody point out the difference? I do not know that there is any significant semantic or material difference between " after removing the factors that has made reconciliation impossible" - my paraphrase of Philip Effiong's statement, and Salimonu Kadiri's full quote of Effiong's "I am also convinced that the people are now disillusioned and those elements of the old government regime who have made negotiations and reconciliation impossible have voluntarily removed themselves from our midst ." It is typical of Kadiri to sweat small and irrelevant stuff, just simply to maintain a hard-headed recrudescence that offers nary a fresh insight.
Obi Nwakanma
Sent: Wednesday, March 8, 2017 10:29 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: SV: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: THE HISTORY OF THE NIERIAN CIVIL WAR SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS
Salimonu Kadiri
Sorry Dr. Obi Nwakanma, I am not going to watch a doctored Youtube recording of Philip Effiong's declaration of immediate cessation of Biafra existence posted on Youtube by stiff-necked Biafrans. Philip Effiong wrote a book of 414 pages titled : NIGERIA & BIAFRA - MY STORY. He gave full accounts of what he did at Dodan Barracks on the 15th of January 1970. Why should we travel to Pocketo town to search for what is inside the pocket of our trousers?
For the sake of those who have never read Philip Effiong's book, I hereby arrange sequentially what he admitted to have done at Dodan Barracks in Lagos, on January 15, 1970.
Under the subtitle, INTRODUCTION on page xvi, It is written about Philip Effiong thus, "he led the team that surrendered to the federal government in 1970.
Under the subtitle, AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION, on page 1, Philip Effiong wrote, "The war ended when I signed the surrender Instrument in Lagos on 15 January 1970."
Under the subtitle, SURRENDER INSTRUMENT on page 303, Philip Effiong wrote on page 304 thus, "At 9:am on January 1970, being the 4th anniversary of the January 1966 coup, my entourage and I were taken from Ikoyi Hotel to Dodan Barracks for the signing of the final Surrender Instrument."
And on page 306, Philip Effiong wrote, "I then shook hands with members of the Supreme Military Council and was shown by an official usher to where I stood and read my formal Surrender Instrument..."
Although the 'surrender' might not have been uttered, even a numskull would understand that what Effiong did was a surrender to the authority of the Federal government.
Dr. Paraphrase has now paraphrased his own writing to read "after removing the factors that has made reconciliation impossible," instead of his original so-termed paraphrased speech he put in the mouth of Philip Effiong at Dodan Barracks that reads, "we are returning to Nigeria, after removing factors that has made reconciliation impossible." Obi Nwakanma paraphrased in his own words, Effiong's speech and gave it a different meaning than what Effiong actually said. Moreover, the said Effiong's speech was culled from his broadcast to Biafrans on January 12, 1970 and not at Dodan Barracks on the 15th of January 1970. Obi has counterfeited, not only, a part of the broadcast of Philip Effiong on 12 January 1970 but has fraudulently placed the occasion where the statement was made at Dodan Barracks. He claimed that Biafra never surrendered but Biafra ceased to exist after the signing of a paper by the Biafran leaders. How could Biafra cease to exist with immediate effect, if Biafran leaders did not surrender?
S. Kadiri
Okechukwu Ukaga
I post here a recording of Philip Effiong's statement in Dodan barracks, circa 1970. Pay particular attention that even both Col. Obasanjo and General Gowon bit their tongues - paused - to avoid the use of the word "surrender." It was "acceptance" and it was official. Philip Effiong himself fully reported as a General, and the Officer administering, "the government of the republic of Biafra." And just out of curiosity, would somebody point out the difference? I do not know that there is any significant semantic or material difference between " after removing the factors that has made reconciliation impossible" - my paraphrase of Philip Effiong's statement, and Salimonu Kadiri's full quote of Effiong's "I am also convinced that the people are now disillusioned and those elements of the old government regime who have made negotiations and reconciliation impossible have voluntarily removed themselves from our midst ." It is typical of Kadiri to sweat small and irrelevant stuff, just simply to maintain a hard-headed recrudescence that offers nary a fresh insight.
Obi Nwakanma
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGSRa6KE_rg
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Salimonu Kadiri <ogunl...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 8, 2017 10:29 PM
Subject: SV: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: THE HISTORY OF THE NIERIAN CIVIL WAR SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS
Doctor Obi Nwakanma has doctored the history of the Nigerian civil war and has injected it with 419 virus with which he hopes to infect unsuspecting and gullible Nigerians. I identify his 419 history virus of the Nigerian civil war from his post below as follows : If you listen, for instance, to Philip Effiong's statement at Dodan barracks in 1970, there was not a single use of the word "surrender" in his speech. He said, "we are returning to Nigeria, after removing the factors that has made reconciliation impossible. We accept the current authority and structure of the federal government, and on the promise that we shall all be part of the move towards the transition to constitutional rule and a new constitution." Not a single word about surrender. Words to that effect. And he addressed himself in his full rank as Major-General - so was it asserted in writing by Dr. Obi Nwakanma.
Obi Nwakanma wrote as if to say he was present at Dodan barrack, on the 15th of January 1970, when Philip Effiong made the statement he, Obi, is attributing to him. Obi Nwakanma's pretence to being an eye witness at Dodan barracks when Philip Effiong declared (which Obi called a statement) the death of Biafra, is a 419 ploy aimed at gaining plausibility for his fraudulent history.
With inverted komas begin and closed, Obi Nwakanma gave false impression that he was quoting Philip Effiong verbatim. Thus, he credited Effiong with having said, "we are returning to Nigeria, after removing the factors that has made reconciliation impossible." Philip Effiong never made such a statement at Dodan barracks on the 15th of January 1970. Obi Nwakanma has doctored and distorted part of Philip Effiong's broadcast on Radio Biafra at 16:40:00 hours, on January 12, 1970, to the Biafrans. In paragraph 3 of the printed version of that broadcast, Effiong said, "I am also convinced that the people are now disillusioned and those elements of the old government regime who have made negotiations and reconciliation impossible have voluntarily removed themselves from our midst (p. 294-295, Nigeria & Biafra: My Story, by Philip Effiong). Philip Effiong has never at anytime between, January 11 and 15, 1970, said that 'we are returning to Nigeria after removing factors that has made reconciliation impossible' as asserted in writing by Dr. Obi Nwakanma. That, to me, is a historical fraud of the highest order.
Immediately after Philip Effiong's broadcast of 12 January 1970, Nigeria's Commander of the third marine division, Lt. Colonel Olusegun Obasanjo, issued operation order to all his Brigade Commanders thus, "Philip Effiong today issued what amounts to unconditional surrender. Tactical movement will continue until every inch of 'Biafra' is physically occupied and all rebel soldiers disarmed. Troops will not open fire unless they are fired at. No change from ops order on treatment of POW and refugees (p.123, My Command by Olusegun Obasanjo)."
Contrary to Dr. Obi Nwakanma's 419 history, the following was read and signed by Philip Effiong at Dodan barracks on 15 January 1970. I, Major General Philip Effiong, Officer Administering the Government of the Republic of Biafra, now wish to make the following declaration: (a) that we affirm we are loyal Nigerian citizens and accept the authority of the Federal Military Government of Nigeria. (b) that we accept the existing administrative and political structure of the Federation of Nigeria. (c) that any future constitutional arrangement will be worked out by representatives of the people of Nigeria. (d) that the Republic of Biafra hereby ceases to exist. I signed and dated the document "15th January 1970" Philip Effiong wrote on page 306 of his book, Nigeria and Biafra: My Story.
Dr. Obi Nwakanma is arguing that the word 'surrender' was not used by Philip Effiong in his declarations, which Obi called statement. However, Philip Effiong knew what he was at Dodan barracks to do. Thus, on page 303 of his book, Nigeria & Biafra: My Story, the sub-title therein is: SURRENDER INSTRUMENT. It was under that headline that he narrated what he signed at Dodan barracks. And if one may ask, what is the difference between SURRENDER AND THE REPUBLIC OF BIAFRA HEREBY CEASES TO EXIST? For a pettifoger and a 419 historian, half a dozen is not the same as six, and therefore that Biafra ceased to exist is not the same thing as Biafra surrendered.
Dr Obi Nwakanma referred to Banjo's treachery in the Midwest campaign but he failed to tell us what exactly constituted Banjo's treachery. After the invasion of the Midwest, two-pronged attack on Lagos was planned. Lt. Colonel Festus Akagha was to lead Biafra's second battalion through Benin, Ore, and Ijebu-Ode to seize Lagos, while Biafra's third battalion led by Lt. Colonel Humphrey Iwuchukwu Chukwuka was to lead his troops through Sapele, Warri and advance along the coast to attack Lagos. Biafra's first battalion led by Lt. Colonel Mike Ivenso was to move through Owo, Akure and seize Ibadan. Beside those Battalion Commanders, Lt. Colonel Emmanuel Ifeajuna was together with Banjo in the Midwest. Symbolically, Banjo was the leader of Midwest invasion but the real commanders of the invading army were Biafrans (Igbo) and the fighting soldiers were all Igbo Biafrans. That Biafrans met their waterloo at Ore and other fronts in the West was not as a result of treachery by Banjo as being fraudulently touted by 419 historian.
S.Kadiri
Från: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> för Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>
Skickat: den 7 mars 2017 13:30
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: THE HISTORY OF THE NIERIAN CIVIL WAR SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS
Mr. Fakinlede, maybe at this point, I should remind you to call me by my proper name: I am not "Mr. Marinus" - and I am not "Mr. Nwakanma" since I'm not a surgeon. I am Dr. Nwakanma, and I earned my plaudits, not honoris causa. If you prefer, it is simply "Obi Nwakanma" - and that too would be my preference. And I should let you know that part of the test of competence in the use of any language by which knowledge is transmitted is the test of "comprehension." I see, very clearly that you do not comprehend the thrust of my response on this Biafran question. One, I did not infer, suggest, or say that the Biafrans were "tricked" into anything. I said that the Federal authority's decision on the "no victor, no vanquished" declaration was not simply an act of charity, it was a "pragmatic" policy based on the reality of the situation, and the negotiations that had gone on leading to the end of the conflict. Agreements were reached and reneged. If you listen for instance, to Philip Effiong's statement at Dodan barracks in 1970, there was not a single use of the word "surrender" in his speech. He said, "we are returning to Nigeria, after removing the factors that has made reconciliation impossible. We accept the current authority and structure of the federal government, and on the premise that we shall all be part of the move towards the transition to constitutional rule and a new constitution." Not a single word about surrender. Words to that affect. And he addressed himself in his full rank as Major-General.
All the references I made regarding the Biafran soldier, and the possibility of a guerrilla war were not mine, but from neutral sources, including on the spot British intelligence field assessment. I do not know who would have won the war had the Biafrans chosen that option of guerrilla war, but clearly, and I did say this, the option for formal, conventional warfare had become untenable with the Federal Military advantages. Once Biafra began to fight a defensive war after Banjo's treachery in the Midwest campaign, it was only a matter of time for Biafra to be overwhelmed in a formal war. But had they been compelled to launch the guerrilla phase of the war, which had all the infrastructure already designed for it, the civil war may have led to different outcomes: Biafran sovereignty at the most, or a long drawn war that would expand beyond the Eastern frontiers to a Southern Nigerian frontier at the least. Urban warfare is far more complicated. Besides, as the British report indicated, the Federal Army was in no position to hold and secure captured fronts for a long period given the topography and advantage that the Biafrans were in their natural homes, and had proved with arms, to capture and recapture areas often held by the Federal forces. This is simply elementary tactical logic. Finally, I did not say that Biafrans released war prisoners mainly because they were kind - but from pragmatic considerations: they could not carter for war prisoners. By the way, I did not say it. It was from a source that I quoted. It is left or you to verify it.
I think you're far too invested in the idea of a "vanquished" Igbo. That seems to give you some erection. But where were you during the war when 15 year old boys from the East volunteered as soldiers to fight for their freedom? Did you see combat or are you one of those who "saw the war" from the sidelines, but who speak with such pontificatory eloquence and certainty about war and the "vanquished" that you read about in newspapers? Those who did not fight speak of war, and many of us who actually lived through it, either as war babies or child soldiers, or combatants talk with the kind of experience of that war that will not be available to you because you read about war in newspapers. The Igbo were not "vanquished" in war. I don't know if you actually know the exact meaning of that word you use with such gusto. But step back a bit from your sick triumphalism, and look, and listen to words other than that only inside your head, Mr. Fakinlede. As a matter of fact, an old friend and mentor mine just died: Ben Obumselu was Biafra's official war historian and recorder. I am not sure you met him, but it'd have been illuminating for you to have had the privilege of insight that should have given you a far more nuanced sense of the history of the civil war rather than your black-and-white narrative of the "vanquished" Biafrans which you like so much to believe just to stiffen your third leg.
Obi Nwakanma
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Kayode J. Fakinlede <jfaki...@gmail.com>
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.
--
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.
--
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.
--
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.
Cornelius Hamelberg
These links got hijacked, so here they are again:
Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto's seminal Mesillat Yesharim / The Path of the Just
Ken Harrow's song , The Cadillacs: Speedo
..........................................................................................................................................
Brothers and sisters and friends - and I see some enemies ( preface to Malcolm X's famous speech The Ballot or the Bullet ) - this we can hear clearly. That's the way we talk. Oral tradition.
To Obi:
One good turn deserves another: You talk to me like that and I talk to you like this. Pray that it doesn't escalate.
What is it that you don't understand, Yeye Man Obi Nwakanma, signifying monkey, tight-arsed little creep who probably still doesn't know the name of his father. Who in the name of Chukwu do you think you're talking to? The poetry pouring out of your ass is not the best way of talking to me, boy.
Take note, I’m not an Igbo man but still I don't complain that I can't or don't understand you. I understand you perfectly.
Again it's cultural - it seems that you can't escape from your ancestral roots. As I said in the posting that you are replying to, "respect begets respect"
Hamelberg sure, same tribe, originally all come from the same place, my ancestry - yes - maternally Yoruba (ultimately Abeokuta) paternally German (begins in Vienna, Austria) but what does that have to do with your Biafra under review?
Landlocked and besieged Biafrans were starving and yet you say that "the S Brigade and BOFF and the Commando Unit created by the Special Forces mercenary, Rolf Steiner were in place should the negotiation in Lagos fail" I understand. They were all set and ready to go. You cannot have your cake and eat it too, Obi.
Maybe you were a little pickaninny,
one of many, starving,
running around half-naked in the streets of Biafra after the Biafra
War which you and the devil started, and still running around naked
and starving your elders were busy negotiating
your peaceful surrender, lest your Biafra annex Lagos, Ibadan,
overrun and maybe exterminate the rest of Nigeria. All that before
your head of state Commander-in-Chief Emeka Ojukwu ran - with his
tail between his legs all the way to Abidjan which is far far away
from Biafra and from Nigeria.
Brother Kadiri has already rebutted all the points that you raised but like a parrot or like a tone deaf illiterate goat you keep on regurgitating /"spewing" ( good Naija English) your mantras, vainglorious bigotry , Igbo chauvinism, you keep on coming back for more, giving more substance to Ogbeni Kadiri's explication of the acronym I.g.b.o. as the selfish, egotistical "I go before others".
Hillel the Elder asks, "But if I am only for myself, who am I?"
If you continue to go on the way to perdition that you are going, then the answer is in one word : I-gbo
And that's why you still can't even speak English - just look at you - why can’t you talk like a man? It's pitiful and difficult to hear what you're saying to your audience when you're just mumbling to yourself, in vain, with your fake attempts at putting right some half-audible uncorrected Nigerian English accent in drag disguise. Cheers! Hopefully, sometime you'll even be proud to be living in your own country, "under another name" oppressed, suppressed , repressed, just as you are now and that's why you forget decent Igbo manners and talk like that to "Rabbi Hamelberg". And yes there was one - a long time ago - just check some older versions of the encyclopedia judaica - but I assure you, that just like Jesus, I'm not him, although I too lost him and later, a lot of people in the Holocaust.
You talk to me like that and my reply is like this - being quite poetic - speaking in my mother tongue, now in a state of lower consciousness behind my egungun mask which you can't see from the level where you now standing but let me assure you that I'm not from any gutter and so I hope that you fully understand what I'm saying now and know that a rabbi doesn’t talk like that. Talking about masks, just in case you don't know - and I don't expect you to know everything - after the Prophet Moses came down from conversing with the Almighty at Mt. Sinai , his face was so shining, so luminous that his people, the children of Israel were afraid to go near him. From that time onwards he had to wear a mask and it was from behind that mask that he spoke to the children of Israel for forty years in the wilderness.
You have already described me. But who am I for you to understand? If you understand Dylan Thomas that's good enough for me and there's nothing to forgive or argue about - as the man said, I don't get angry, I get even.
You are going to hear from me exactly one more time in this forum ( the last time) when I'm gonna take your sorry ass to task for what you said about Chief Obafemi Awolowo. You should be extra careful if you think that you are talking out of your gnash on your own behalf or on behalf of the Igbo
Lenny Henry - Live & Unleashed (Full Show)
Rex Marinus
Rabbi:
With all due respect, I still don't understand you. I'm lost! Your metaphors coruscate, and only initiates in the secrets of the "Egungun" can tell what you say. I do not have that privilege. You might be right, you know: it might just be that your English is too refined for me, because, yes, mine is unapologetically, undisguisedly, Nigerian. Whatever the elders of Hillel say, salute them for me. Although sometimes, when I apply my prismatic glass, I do not know who hides behind the mask: "Ogbeni Kadiri" or some Rabbi acting for Esu or the elders of Hillel. And why in the world should I escape from my ancestral roots? I drink piss? And yes, "I" as subject is always "before others." Ask Fanon. And that is why, try as you may to violate my person, I am Igbo without complaint, or anxiety, or regrets. I am not in your club of those who want to "escape their ancestral roots." My ancestors have done nothing evil o me.
Obi Nwakanma
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Cornelius Hamelberg
Salimonu Kadiri
There are still Igbo professors alive today that attended Awolowo's free primary school education in the then Western Region that extended to Asaba and Agbor. In fact, many Igbo that leaved in Western Region then attended Awolowo's free primary schools. If Awolowo was a fascist, he would have prevented Igbo leaving in the Western Region from attending free primary schools in Western Region. Not even when Azikiwe and the NCNC accused Awolowo of depriving parents of their children's assistance in the farms by compelling children to go to school, did he retaliate. He simply reversed the compulsory attendance to voluntary attendance for every child of school age. He was a true democratic socialist.
In 1962, Ayo Rosiji was removed as Secretary of the Action Group, under Awolowo's leadership, and replaced with Samuel G. Ikoku. A fascist would not have done that. Incidentally, Awolowo and Ikoku were persecuted by Azikiwe and Balewa led Federal Government. Released from prison after July coup 1966 by Gowon, Awolowo was made Commissioner of Finance to the Federal Military Government during the civil war. The two and a half year war was fought without the Federal Government incurring foreign debt to prosecute the war. After the end of the war, the Commissioner for Economic Development in the East Central State, Samuel G. Ikoku, stated in the Nigerian Daily Times of 22nd May 1971, that the Federal Government had made available 21.505 million pounds grant and 10.620 million pounds as advances and loans to the East Central State. It was part of the accumulated amounts saved for the East Central State during the war by Awo. During the Presidential election of 1979, Awolowo picked an Igbo person as his Vice Presidential candidate and when his opponents criticized him for picking a southerner as his vice presidential candidate, he told them that both of them were Nigerians. The President and the Vice President could come from the same village, he told Nigerians, and stressed that what mattered was their competence in office. The manifesto of the Unity Party of Nigeria led by Awo in the 1979 Presidential election contained the following: (1) Free Education at all levels. (2) Free medical services to all Nigerians (both curative and preventive). (3) Integrated rural development and (4) Full employment for all Nigerians. Awo lost the election but the supposed marginalized tribe became Nigeria's Vice President and the Speaker of the House.
My main interest in arguing for the veracity of a "negotiated end" or compromise based on pragmatic considerations is precisely to undermine the kind of hateful triumphalism that attends the false narrative of a conquest of the Igbo as the basis of Nigeria's contemporary political action - Obi Nwakanma.
Biafra of 1967 did not contain only Igbo ethnic group but several ethnic groups that fought on the side of Biafra. When shooting started in the Northern borders of the then Eastern State on July 6, 1967, the Federal Military Government declared it as Police Action to arrest Ojukwu and his rebel gangs. It was after Biafra's invasion of Midwest that the Federal Military Government declared total war on Biafra. All along, the war was against Biafra and their rebellious leaders and not against the Igbo as an ethnic group. There were Igbo who fought on the side of Nigeria against Biafra and even in Biafra, Dr. Chike Obi and Mokwugo Okoye were detained in Biafra throughout the war for opposing secession. Immediately after the liberation of Enugu, Anthony Ukpabi Asika was appointed the Administrator of East Central State. If the East Central State as it was then known was regarded as a conquered territory, a non-Igbo would have been appointed as the administrator. No Nigerian, official or private, has ever regarded the Igbo in Nigeria as a conquered people because of the outcome of the civil war, except in the imagination of a vocal small ethnic sheriffs like Obi Nwakanma. The claim of marginalization of the Igbo people as a result of the civil war is a fiction because beside the Presidency, there is no important office in Nigeria that an Igbo person has never held in Nigeria after the war. Moreover, there are as many illegitimate millionaires in Igboland as in other ethnic groups in Nigeria.
Dr. Obi Nwakanma seriously thinks that my excerpt from Obasanjo's book, My Command, that reads, "The discussion in that small room turned out to be 'negotiated settlement' and final 'peace talk' on the Nigerian civil war. ...//... By the time I left Amichi, it was getting dark," confirms his stand that there was negotiated settlement of the civil war and Biafra never surrendered. Since Obi Nwakanma lifted this excerpt out of context, I will quote the entire process that led to the expression, 'negotiated settlement' and 'peace talk' so that sobre minds can form their own opinions.
'Now,' I said to Philip Effong, your broadcast did not go enough. To talk of negotiated settlement and peace talk in accordance with OAU resolution at this stage is not only unrealistic but ridiculous to the extreme. We have no time for that.' At that point Effiong suggested that we should talk privately together. We then went into a small room, obviously a bedroom, he with his staff officer Capt. Ben Gbulie and I with Lt.-Col Akinrinade who had been in Ben Gbulie's intake at Sandhurst. The discussion in that small room turned out to be the 'negotiated settlement' and the final 'peace talk' on the Nigerian civil war.
In the room Philip said to me almost tearfully, 'We are defeated people, what do you want us to do?' I assured him of his personal safety and that of his colleagues. I told him that the two conditions which were essential to the declaration of the end of the civil war as laid down by the Federal Military Government were - renunciation of secession and acceptance of the twelve-state structure within the context of one Nigeria (p. 125-126, My Command by Olusegun Obasanjo).
The worth of 'negotiated settlement' and 'peace talk' is determined by the inverted koma begins and close. It was not a negotiation and, in fact, Olusegun Obasanjo had no mandate to negotiate any peace talk with the rebels. And Dr. Obi Nwakanma cannot seriously mean that four people, Olusegun Obasanjo, Alani Akinrinade, Philip Effiong and Ben Gbulie negotiated settlement and final peace talk of the Nigerian civil war. Philip Effiong himself wrote on page 299 of his book thus, "It was at this Owerri meeting that Obasanjo asked if I would like to go to Lagos to finalise the surrender agreement and I said, without hesitation, that I would." Militarily viewed, the federal government was very generous to the rebels by not humiliating them after defeat. As for the castle in the air guerrilla warfare that Dr. Nwakanma said would have been unleashed by Colonel Joe Achuzia, the following account was given by Philip Effiong on page 296 of his book about Dr. Nwakanma's guerrilla fighter, Colonel Joe Achuzia.
"Colonel Joe Achuzia called with Bernard Odogwu of former Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) and told me the story of how he, on his initiative, had made contact with the federal troops at Orlu following my broadcast. In view of the importance attached to rank by the Nigerians, he wanted me to allow him put on a brigadier's rank so as to command more respect and be more effective in his talks with field commanders he was meeting. It was a pure blackmail, but I agreed.
On Achuzia's contact story I was later given the correct version of what transpired by Dr. Ifegwu Eke, former Information Commissioner for Biafra. Achuzia, apparently, had run into an ambush laid by Nigerian troops and was caught by them and by a flash of quick thinking he told them who he was and that I had sent him to establish contact with them. He was then happily received and taken to their commander. It was at this stage that Achuzia appeared and Ifegwu identified him as one of his emissaries. Colonel Joe Achuzia who was going to extend guerrilla warfare throughout Southern Nigeria, according to Dr. Obi Nwakanma, was caught in an ambush laid by the Nigerian troops. Since Obi Nwakanma is a doctor we must believe him when he says mice are going to dig a pit in which an elephant will fall.
S. Kadiri
Ofure Aito
After reading Obi Nwakanma's response I copied of an area that always almost never fail to intrigue me because it will always be a part of the Biafran argument and I paste below:
"The roots of the current agitation for the restoration f Biafra can be traced to the military coup of 1984. From 1984 to 1999, the Igbo were in a political wilderness in Nigeria, and far more than any other era, saw themselves increasingly "marginalized" from nation. When Chuba Okadigbo first used that term in 1990 to describe the Igbo condition in Nigeria, that reality had become routine, and a new generation was paying attention, and living the reality of political and economic exclusion. They could see it all around: they would graduate top of their classes in the universities, and see their classmates get safe corridors to the cushiest jobs, while they either made do with the crumbs or had no crumbs at all. Of all parts of Nigeria, only the East, particularly the Igbo, had what may actually be the presence of "citizen soldiers" in good number: that is a large army of civilians with military training and with combat experience, who had circulated into civil life as teachers, doctors, university professors, traders, and so on."
...Igbos are marginalised. I think it is unfair for the Igbos to continue to play the victim role at this stage of their success and achievements from politics to leadership to education, economic and even literary successes. If for nothing the war made that Igbo group more determined to succeed. There is no arm of government or even government that does not have the Igbos as either number two or three. Every government parastatal has Igbos as DG or ministers or directors... And in every ministry if you have a staff strength of 100, 60 of it is from Igbo ethnic. The Yoruba and Hausa have never clamor about this imbalance in scale of employment and appointments. The 1999 civilian regime had Igbos as number three throughout and Governor of CBN. Predident JEG had Igbos flocking and strutting around with public positions. Even the present regime has Igbo as CBN governor, NNPC.
My question is if the Igbos feel this way, then the minority groups which I incidentally belong to and on whose land tth Nigeria/Biafra war was fought should also begin their process of secession. Since Nigeria gained independence, how many public and private positions have be KINDLY thrown the way of the minorities. Are they all not Nigerians? Is Nigeria made of only three ethnic groups? Did the minorities not suffer the war, even more than the players of the war. Shouldn't the minories also cry oppression and discrimination? Or is their fate not a part of history of the nation?
Going back to the beginning of the conversation, the history of the Nigeria civil war, my question is what version of the story do we teach our children? Who will do the writing of the story and who will be teaching it? My position is to take the lessons of the war: no victor, no vanquished and use it to secure a great future for our children instead of unwarranted bitterness.
Ofure Aito
Kenneth Harrow
Or, in an African context, wa kagame the savior of the tutsis in Rwanda? Did he end a genocidal regime? Was he a hero? Or was he responsible, in large measure, for the almost 6 million dead in east congo?
Having read detailed reports in the aftermath of the genocide on what was happening the congo, I can say there is a lot of truth in all these assertions.
We agree, the biafran war occurred. How to understand it, not so easy, and maybe we can accept that there will be different opinions for a long time. Nigeria is no different in that regard than anywhere where conflict occurred. The south African whites won’t say it out loud, but their view of the change to a black majority state (i.e. democracy) was no doubt different from the afrikaaners.
ken
Kenneth Harrow
Dept of English and Film Studies
Michigan State University
619 Red Cedar Rd
East Lansing, MI 48824
517-803-8839
har...@msu.edu
http://www.english.msu.edu/people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/
Salimonu Kadiri
Dear Okechukwu Ukaga,
The subject under discussion is not whether General Yakubu Gowon declared no victor, no vanquished after the end of the civil war or not, but if the declaration had had desired effect or results. Kayode J. Fakinlede in his post of 3rd March 2017 had titled his topic : The History Of The Nigerian Civil War Should Be Taught In Our Schools. He motivated his request thus : No Victor, No Vanquished. This pronouncement, to me, is the greatest blunder of our civil war. I can almost say that it is at the bottom of the continued aspiration by a segment of our society for secession. Of course, one could not have blamed the government of young General Gowon. It was reasoned then that in declaring that neither side won or lost the war, everyone would have learned his lesson and our nation would be at peace forever more.
What we see now is a blatant misplacement of historical facts and grotesque caricatures being made of those whose intentions were noble. But more importantly, we are seeing agitations where none should have arisen and from the side that was vanquished in the war. The factual victors, having remained silent for so long are now being painted as carnivores and murderers etc.
On reading the above, Mr. Obi Nwakanma flared up in his response and claimed that the declaration of no victor, no vanquished by the Federal government was not an act of charity but as a result of behind the scene diplomatic negotiations at which the federal government was exposed to a gigantic and informed-able guerrilla army of Biafra. The fear of Biafra's guerrilla fighters of Mao Tse-Sung calibre forced the Federal government to enter no victor, no vanquished with Biafra that never surrendered to the federal army. He proceeded further to claim that after the Biafrans had accepted the negotiated settlement and disbanded their guerrilla fighters, the federal side reneged on the agreement and has since the end of the war marginalized the Igbo, mark you not Biafrans, and treated them as second class citizens of Nigeria. It is for this reason that younger generations of Igbo, not Biafrans, now want to return to the trenches to liberate them from the clutches of their Nigerian oppressors.
Kayode J. Fakinlede actually gave voice to what many of us from Western Nigeria think about the blame game that some of our brothers from South Eastern Nigeria have been peddling against the Yoruba ethnic group despite the fact that many of them risked their lives in defending and protecting their Igbo brothers and sisters during the terrible days of July 29 and August 1966. Although, there were some high ranking Yoruba officers in the army at the time of the second coup, the number of Yoruba infantry men were negligible. The gun carriers were mainly from the Middle Belt and mostly from TIV land. The scenes of military operations on July 29, 1966, were Lagos, Abeokuta and Ibadan.
Beginning at Ibadan, Middle-belters constituted 95% of the 4th Battalion infantry situated there. Their Commander, Lt. Colonel Arbogo Largema, was killed in the January 15, 1966 coup. After the coup, Ironsi appointed Major Macaulay Nzefilli to take the Command of the 4th Battalion, but the infantry men refused to take order from him. They asked him about the where-about of Largema and why he, Nzefili an Igbo, was there to take over. The military officers that were killed in the first coup were never made public by Ironsi. In order to calm the nerves of the aggrieved soldiers in Ibadan, Ironsi posted a Middle-belter, Major Joe Akahan to take over the command of the 4th Battalion from Nzefili. It was from the 4th Battalion, Ibadan that the then Captain Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma recruited sub-Lieutenant Jeremiah Useni and others to arrest Ironsi and Adekunle Fajuyi at the government state house, Ibadan, on July 29, 1966. While the government lodge at Ibadan was surrounded, Ironsi sent Lieutenant Colonel Hillary Njoku, who accompanied him to Ibadan, to return to Ikeja 2nd Infantry Battalion and resume control of the Command. On his way out, Njoku was shot but he escaped wounded. Yoruba people of Ibadan took care of him until he was well enough for them to smuggle him out of Ibadan and guide him safely to the East. The 4th Battalion did not limit their actions to the Barracks, they went on rampage in the city of Ibadan hunting for persons of Igbo ethnic group to be killed. With bare hands, Ibadan people rose to defend and protect their Igbo brethren against marauding Middle-belt soldiers. Amadu Kurfi, the Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Defence at that time, confirmed in a book written by him that the then Military Governor of Western State, Francis Adekunle Fajuyi, had insisted that if they took his guest and GOC, they should take him too. Thus, Fajuyi voluntarily followed his General Officer Commanding the Nigerian Armed Forces, Johnson Thompson Umunnakwe Aguiyi Ironsi, to death. Some Igbo revisionist has belittled Fajuyi's heroic stand which they termed suicide wish. At Abeokuta Garrison all available Igbo soldiers, especially officers, were killed and as usual the overzealous Middle-belt soldiers invaded civil communities to hunt down the Igbo but the Egba people heroically defended and protected their Igbo brethren bare-handed.
In Lagos, the 2nd Infantry Battalion contained over 90% Middle-belter. After Ironsi had been adopted in Ibadan, the next high ranking officer in the Army hierarchy was Brigadier Babafemi Ogundipe and when he tried to take control over the Army in Lagos, a Middle Belt Sergeant told him that he would only take instruction from his Captain. Brigadier Ogundipe was shoved aside and so was Colonel Adeyinka Adebayo, which paved the way for Yakubu Gowon, a Middle-belter, to take over the reign of office as GOC of the Nigerian Army and Head of State. In Lagos and its suburbs, the Middle-belt soldiers rampaged outside the Barracks as they hunted for Igbo to kill. Many Yoruba lost their lives while protecting and defending their Igbo brethren's rights to life. Those of us who resisted gun-touting Middle-belt soldiers who invaded our homes in Lagos in search of Igbo to kill knew what pain we went through. At Enugu, Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, ran away to hide at the Police headquarters in Onitsha. The respected Lieutenant Colonel David Ogunewe, the Commander of the 1st Battalion, prostrated before his Northern dominated Battalion and begged them not to fight. And when it was finally agreed that soldiers should be repatriated to their region of origin, the Northern soldiers in the Enugu 1st Battalion insisted on leaving with their arms and weapons. Ojukwu did not return to Enugu until the middle of August 1966 after the Northern soldiers had left. The pogrom in the Northern Region against the Igbo in what the Northerners called revenge for the Northerners killed in the first coup began in May 1966, after Ironsi had promulgated Decree No. 34 which abolished federal system and replaced it with unitary government. Although, Yakubu Gowon took over in Lagos, he had no control over the troops in the North. At the same time, Ojukwu undermined Gowon's position by not accepting his leadership of the Army because as he put it, he was not the most senior officer after Ironsi. Regrettably, Igbo were massacred in thousands in the North between May 28, 1966 and 1st October 1966.
In the West and Lagos everything possible was done by the Yoruba to defend and protect their igbo brethren, especially civilian Igbo in their midst. Sadly, after the war, some Igbo began to churn out false stories about how Yoruba killed Igbo in their midst as from July 29, 1966. In spite of the fact that Chinua Achebe was helped by the Yoruba to escape arrest by the coup makers of 29 July 1966, he manufactured an anti Yoruba faction of his escape from Lagos.
A week before January 15, 1966 coup, Chinua Achebe had published a small book titled, A Man of the People. It was a fictional book on a hypothetical African country that was rottenly corrupt to the extent that, as Achebe concluded in the book, our young army officers overthrew the government. It was on account of this book and its conclusion, which coincided with the 15 January 1966 coup, that made the coup makers of 29 July 1966 to suspect that Achebe had foreknowledge of the January coup and as such they wanted to arrest him for questioning. Had Achebe fallen into the hands of the soldiers at that time, it would have meant only one thing, death. The Yoruba in Lagos protected Achebe and his family. His wife and children were smuggled out of Lagos by boat while he was being shifted from one place of abode to the other around Lagos, with the hope that tension in the country would subside and normal life would emerge. When it was clear that the crisis was not going to end soon, Chinua Achebe decided to return to the East and the Yoruba drove him in a zigzag route, from Lagos to avoid detection by his military traducers, to Benin. But in his book, There Was A Country, Achebe painted a very different picture of how he left Lagos. Hear him, "As many of us packed our belongings to return to the east some of the people we had lived with for years, some for decades jeered and said,'Let them (Igbo) go; food will be cheaper in Lagos.' ...//... There were more and more reports of massacres, and not only in the North, but also in the West and Lagos. People were hounded out of their homes, as we were in Lagos, and returned to the East (p.68)" He continued,"In any case, I set out on my own, wondering what would come up at any point. The highway was full of police roadblocks along the way. I was stopped once or twice and had to show my papers - what Nigerians call my 'particulars.' I was one of the last to flee Lagos. ...//... When I finally got to Benin City, which is located roughly halfway from Lagos to Igbo land in the Mid-West Region there was distinct atmospheric change. ...//... Crowds of policemen recognized me when I got to Benin City and cheered, saying, 'Oga, thank you,' and let me through to continue my journey without incident to Onitsha Bridge, and over the Niger River to the East (p. 70-71)." Achebe who was being searched for by the Army and the security police claimed that he was at a motor pack in Lagos to witness how people jeered at fleeing Igbo without being arrested. Thereafter, he decided to flee Lagos by sitting in his personal car, to drive from Lagos en-route East. On his way, he was stopped once or twice to show his driving license, vehicle ownership and road worthiness documents to non-Igbo policemen at the roadblocks. He, a wanted Igbo man was not arrested, harmed or killed in a Yoruba territory where he claimed Igbo were being massacred by the Yoruba. At Benin City, the Policemen cheered him and said, "Oga thank you" and let him through to continue his journey to the East. It was plain that the Benin police did not direct their Oga thank you to Chinua Achebe, but to the Yoruba personality that escorted him to Benin after the Yoruba man had transmitted some pounds through a hand shake with bribe to them. A Nigerian policeman don't usually say Oga, thank you, if you don't give them something. Chinua Achebe took glory and honour out of the Yoruba who, out of being humane, took risk to whisk him and his family into safety during the terrible events that led to the Nigerian civil war.
The traditional belief in Nigeria is that any official or public servant, whether elected, selected, appointed or employed is deemed to be representing and acting on behalf of his ethnic group. Although Awolowo was a Yoruba by tribe, his political, social and economic ideology was national. That was why he refused to serve in a national government led by a feudalist after December 1959 Federal elections. He was not only leader of the opposition in the Federal Parliament but his party, the Action Group produced the opposition party in the Northern and Eastern Regions' House of Assembly. By 1962, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa's led Federal Coalition government, overthrew the Action Group Government of Western Region and jailed Awolowo. After the coup of July 29, 1966, General Gowon pardoned and released Awolowo from prison through Government Notice No. 1507/1966. Awolowo came out of prison to meet a destroyed people and a chaotic Nigeria on the cliff to precipice. In his speech to the Western Leaders of Thought at Ibadan, 1st May 1967, Awlowo 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. ...//... We have neither military might nor the overwhelming advantage of numbers here in Western Nigeria and Lagos," he admitted. Awolowo's statement was obviously directed to the Federal Military Government led by Yakubu Gowon but some mischief makers among our Igbo brethren had touted Awolowo's speech as an agreement with Ojukwu that both East and West were to secede simultaneously, on which Awolowo later reneged. Since Awolowo is Yoruba, some Igbo historian blamed all the Yoruba for betrayal of what they thought Awolowo agreed with them to secede on behalf of the Yoruba people but did not fulfil. In fact, on 3rd May 1967, the Military Governor of Western Region, Colonel Adeyinka Adebayo, in a broadcast to the people said that his Western Region was not in collusion with the East to secede.
On May 5, 1967, Obafemi Awolowo led a delegation of what was called National Reconciliation and Peace Commission to Enugu to convince Ojukwu to give peace a chance. Ojukwu was said to have told Awolowo that their mission was a still-born. Achebe put it succinctly in his book, There Was a Country, thus, "many Igbo leaders referred to the visit disdainfully as the 'chop, chop, talk, talk commission (p. 88)." If there was an agreement between Awolowo and Ojukwu for a simultaneous secession of the West and East at that meeting Ojukwu would have released it before his death. And how could Awolowo have entered such agreement when he was not the Military Governor of Western Region and he possessed no army of his own?
Obafemi Awolowo has been accused, by some Igbo falsifier of history, of advocating and employing starvation as a weapon of war against (Biafra) the Igbo. A version of that accusation was presented by Achebe thus, "A statement credited to Chief Obafemi Awolowo and echoed by his cohorts is the most callous and unfortunate: All is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I don't see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight harder (p. 233)." This statement was culled from Awolowo's interview in the Financial Times of 26 June 1969. It was not a policy statement but his reaction to the information that Biafran soldiers were hijacking food supplies sent to civilians in Biafra. Even if he were to say so, in which war has it ever happened that a beleaguered troop has been supplied food by the beleaguer-ant. Obviously, Awolowo was not saying civilians should be starved but soldiers. A year before that statement, Achebe recorded on page 211 of There Was a Country thus, "The diplomatic battles had reached a fever pitch by the middle of 1968. Gowon, under immense international pressure .... decided to open up land routes for a 'supervised transport' of relief. To the consternation of Gowon, Ojukwu opted out of land routes in favour of increased airlifts of food from São Tomé by international relief agencies." Geneva convention permits relief supplies to civilians in a war affected areas but signatories to Geneva Conventions are allowed to supervise the transport of such relief assistance to its destination. Nigeria was a signatory to the Geneva Conventions but Biafra was not. Thus, any airlift of relief supply by international agencies to Biafra must first land in Nigeria for inspection before flying further to Biafra. So, it was not Awolowo's statement in June 1969 that starved millions of Biafrans to death, but Ojukwu's rejection of food supply by land routes in June 1968 as testified to by Chinua Achebe. Had there not been no victor, no vanquish declaration after the war, Ojukwu would have been tried for war crimes. Amusingly, Obi Nwakanma's beloved authority on Nigerian forces inability to hold captured towns in Biafra, Colonel Robert Scott, wrote in the London Sunday Telegraph of 11 January 1970 thus, "It is perhaps ironic that this is the first time in the history of warfare that one beleaguer-ant has permitted outside agencies to succour its opponent." Biafrans in 1968 were effectively and actually beleaguered by the Nigerian Army.
Despite Ojukwu's rejection of offer of foods to civilians in Biafra enclave by land routes, Gowon turned blind eyes to the illegal night flights into the Biafran enclave. At the same time the ground forces of, the 2nd infantry division led by Col. Murtala Mohammed and the 3rd Marine Commando led by Col. Benjamin Adekunle were prevented from marching into the Biafran enclave as strict orders were issued to them not to shoot at illegal planes flying into Biafra. But towards the end of May 1969, Von Rosen bombed Port Harcourt, Benin, Enugu and Ughelli Electric power station in Nigeria, with his MINICOIN planes. Von Rosen's bombing of Nigeria's positions woke Lagos up to action. By the 5th of June 1969, a DC-7 plane marked Swedish Red Cross was heading towards Uli-Ihiala air strip in Biafra before the midnight. Captain Gbadamosi King of the Nigerian Air Force piloting his MIG 17 ordered the DC-7 plane, marked Swedish Red Cross to land either in Port Harcourt or Calabar for inspection but the Red Cross marked plane ignored Captain King's order. Captain King repeated his order several times but the Red Cross marked plane flew unperturbed. Thus, Captain Gbadamosi King fired at the Red Cross plane and brought it down near Eket. The plane exploded and the wreckage was spread over a large area. The plane was exposed for not ferrying relief supplies but weapons. Consequently, on 14 June 1969, the Director of International Committee of Red Cross in Lagos, Dr. August Lindt, was declared persona non grata by the Federal Government, after admitting that the shot down plane carrying weapons belonged to the ICRC.
Telling a lie with cosmetic beauty, Obi Nwakanma said that the renewed demand by some Igbo youths is as a result of marginalization of the Igbo in the governing of Nigeria. In the first civilian regime after the military coup of 1966, Alex Ekwueme, an Igbo, became the Vice President in the NPN controlled Federal government. At the same time, Edwin Ume-Ezeoke was speaker of the House of Reps. When the military government of General Babangida surfaced in 1985, most of his civilian administrators and supporters were Igbo. His commissioner of Finance was Dr. Idika Kalu Idika. When Babangida scuttled the Presidential Election of June 1993, his backbone was Arthur Eze who obtained mid-night court injunctions against the election performed by the then Federal Electoral Commission headed by an Igbo, Professor Humphrey Nwosu. General Babangida was married to an Igbo woman, born Mary Ndidi Okogwu, who adopted the Muslim name Maryam after marriage with Babangida. The Ohanaeze Ndigbo honoured Babangida with the traditional title, Ogugua Ndigbo, in appreciation of what Babangida's regime did for the Igbo. In the sixteen years of PDP government (29 May 1999 to 29 May 2015) the only position an Igbo ethnic person never held is the Presidency. The Igbo has had five Senate Presidents, Deputy Senate President, Deputy Speaker, Minister of Defence, Chief of Army Staff, Director General of Immigration, Director General of Prison, Director General of Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, Central Bank Governor and Deputy Governor, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Ministers in key Ministries such as Power, Education, Petroleum, Health, Labour and Productivity, Aviation and Finance. Up to May 29, 2015, the Minister of Finance was Igbo and all other Agencies related to the Ministry of Finance such as Director General- Budget Office, DG of PENCOM, DG of RFMAC, DG of SEC, CEO of NSE, DG of AMCON, Chairman of Sovereign Wealth Fund and Governor of Central Bank were headed by Igbo. In spite of the afore-listed key positions that were held, and in some cases are still being held, by persons of ethnic Igbo in Nigeria, perverted ethnic mandarins are still claiming that Igbo people are marginalized in Nigeria. It is very sad to observe that Obi Nwakanma has chosen to have no respect and value for history simply because the facts of history are opposed to his wishes. He has been engaged in the destruction evidential facts of history by twisting facts and propounding unfounded lies and fallacies about the Nigerian civil war. Victims of past tragedies should be less gung-ho about future ones. The Biafran Major-General, Philip Effiong, who signed the surrender document that ended the civil war remarked thus, "Until the end of the war on 12 January 1970, the Biafran soldier fought an impossible war under conditions that were totally inhuman and uncalled for. It was the result of one man turning what was the people's will to fight a war of survival into a desperate and reckless attempt to achieve a personal ambition - even if it meant destroying the very people he purportedly was fighting to preserve (p. 237, Nigeria & Biafra: My Story by Philip Effiong)." At this stage of our development, I don't think the ethnic origin of any Nigerian office holder should be of concern to any normal and intelligent person but the capability of the official to produce what the office is designed for. I stand to be corrected by you if I am wrong.
S. Kadiri
Skickat: den 9 mars 2017 21:14
Till: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com
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.
Rex Marinus
Okey,
I'd made up my mind to stop further response on this issue because it began to rapidly degenerate into a strange, surreal threat in which the Igbo "and the devil" started the war, and the true light of animosity against those who are "culturally" "I before Others" and who were deservedly worsted in war came to fore. Because I'm temperamentally unsuited for that line of talk and its strange provenances, I'm going to make this my last take on this issue. It is impossible for the likes of Salimonu Kadiri, who are used to parroting official lines of history to comprehend, that the story is a living thing. Besides, because Salimonu Kadiri is invested in the story of the "vanquished Igbo" which is the only thing that can make him sleep well in the night, he is unwilling to step out of his prejudices. Just note the hints and twists of his description of the event: while Fajuyi suffered heroic martyrdom, Ojukwu "ran away" from Enugu to hide in Onitsha; the "respected" David Ogunewe "prostrated" before his junior Northern officers. David Ogunewe was a friend of my family, and he was not a man that would do such a thing. No description of the strategic disarming of the troops in Enugu in July/August 1966 ever mentioned Ogunewe "prostrating" to his troops. Igbo do not prostrate. As a matter of fact, the only recorded incident in Nigerian military history in which a senior officer prostrated to a junior officer was in the incident between the profusely weeping General Diya and Major Al-Mustapha. But it is interesting how Salimonu recalibrates this story, and yet he says I'm the one twisting history and "telling lies." I have cited authorities to back every statement I've made on this issue. When he challenged me on Philip Effiong, I posted the recorded video of Philip Effiong's statement in Dodan barracks in January 1970. Because he had no better argument, he said it was a distorted video. Now, I'm posting excerpts of two of General Joe Achuzia's interviews, one in the Nigerian Compass in 2010, and the other almost very recently in the Sun, in May 2016 about Biafra. They speak for themselves. Readers should also note that not Gowon, or Obasanjo, or Danjuma, or Babangida, or Buhari, or even the now late Adeyinka Adebayo has challenged or refuted Achuzia's statement, published publicly. I should rest my case here. But read below.
-Obi Nwakanma
_______________
_____________________________________________
"I handed Biafra over to Obasanjo" - Achuzia
What will you say about the recent statement credited to General T.Y. Danjuma that late General Aguiyi Ironsi, who was killed as a military Head of State, was a useless man. What is your reaction?
You see, when I read Danjuma’s statement, I felt very sad about it. First, go and do your research and you will realise that what I am going to tell you is the truth. In the 2 Division, [b]it was this Danjuma, then a Captain in the then Nigeria Army, who was
responsible for organising the security of General Ironsi. It was his job. So, if Danjuma turns today and tells the world that he did not know about how Ironsi and Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi were killed in Ibadan, it will be a very big lie. If you want me to
put it straight, it was because of the opposition of the unitary system declared by Ironsi that Danjuma organised his elimination along with Colonel Fajuyi in Ibadan. So, Danjuma cannot in all honesty deny that he was not the chief instigator of the killing.
[/b]We were all living witness. I was in Lagos when the incident happened. So, I am not telling you a myth or what I did not know. It is this same group who killed Ironsi and Fajuyi in Ibadan that up till today are benefiting from the unitary system that Ironsi
set up. Can you imagine. It is out of this same cabal too that the so-called Kaduna Mafia sprang up. I am not saying that it is all Northerners that wanted the total elimination of the Igbo during civil war period. But when we talk in terms of what Danjuma
did, I know what I am saying. That is his character. It was just the way he killed Ironsi and Fajuyi that he betrayed the late General I.D. Bisala. He denied Bisala when Bisala needed him the most during the coup that killed Genral Murtala Mohammed. If he
is a soldier, he should have stood his ground as the GOC of the 3 Division. But instead, he did not. Let me say that when we talk in terms of military courage and bravery, rank does not bestow courage on people. I like Danjuma. But he cannot deny the fact
that he was the chief instigator of the murder of Ironsi and Fajuyi. History will continue to hold him responsible for that. When the war ended, he was the go between me and Bisala, especially in Enugu, when I was handing over Biafra to the federal side.
Yes.
That is why we have today the Civil War Veteran, East West Command Association. The purpose is to look after the welfare of those comrades who survived the civil war. But as I am talking to you, up till today, none of them is less than 56 years and nothing has been done to help them. We are taking steps to bring their problem to the attention of the present government. I have written to President Umaru Yar’Adua. I have also written to the Ministry of Defence and to the President of the Senate, David Mark, that on the basis of “no winner no vanquished,” Nigeria owes it a duty to rehabilitate those veterans across the country as done in other parts of the world. The situation can be dangerous in the future if the government continues to exhibit lack of concern. Many people today may not know that those militants in the Niger Delta are all children of the war veterans. The members of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) are children of the veterans. We don’t want a divided Nigeria again. We as veterans of the war gave a lot for the Nigeria we have today. All we are asking is that the government should look into the welfare of these veterans. If you look at the present military command in the country, none of them saw the civil war. War is not good. And that is why we have been calling on the government to also take a census of the war veterans on both sides of the war and create a programme in the interest of reconciliation as the Army that fought the war is the Nigerian Army divided against itself based on the side one was standing at the time of the political logjam.
Is Nigeria indivisible as some people are wont to say?
No country is indivisible. If a country like Britain with four component parts –English, Welsh, Scottish and the Irish – can split after so many years, then that argument can’t stand. The Irish pulled away and fought for self determination for so many years. The Scottish have been using diplomacy all along and we aware that a few years ago they were almost on the verge of going. The Welsh are just waiting to go, if Scotland goes, they will go.Who packaged Nigeria? Was it done by a Nigerian? This is a legacy of colonialism, and because of that it is a cloak that can be thrown off anytime. When Ghandi was fighting for the independence of India, he chose passive resistance, like what we in IPOB have chosen. After independence India became divided. Pakistan went its own way. Bangladesh went its own way, and so on. That of Nigeria, it is only a fool- hardy person with a colonial mentality, and who wishes to replace the colonial master that will be working under the mantle of an indivisible Nigeria.
But northern elders recently urged the president to crush any resuscitation of Biafra like was done before. Do you have that defeatist psychology?
It is only a fool who did not understand the history of the Nigeria- Biafra civil war, and how it ended that can say such a thing. The fellow you are talking about how old is he? What role did he play during the civil war? Those who partook in the civil war, none of them will go out of their way to use such a language. Even the younger officers like Babangida, and Buhari will not say, we won the war. Where was he at the time.?
So was Biafra defeated?
Of course, not. Biafra was never defeated. If anybody…
(Cuts in) But you surrendered.
We didn’t surrender. If there was a surrender, there must be a surrender terms of agreement. There must be a paper to that effect. Let them publish the terms of surrender, so that the country will know. It has been so many years since the war ended. Any document that is being kept should now come out of the archives, so that we should be able to know exactly what took place.
Are you still bitter about how the war ended?
If I was bitter, I wouldn’t have taken the steps that I took that brought about the end of the war.
What were the steps?
The steps that I took were first being told by the members of our exco to bring the war to an end. I could have said no, that I will not, because to bring a war to an end requires certain amount of knowhow and techniques. And if you don’t put it right, it will escalate the battle. But if you handle it properly the way we handled it, everything dies down. The federal troops picked up their guns, went back to their camps. Our troops picked up their weapons and went home. That was why there was no exchange of prisoners of war, no exchange of weapons seized. Is that how a war of such magnitude should end? And some people are saying that they won? If they won, there would be prisoners of war.
From Joe Achuzia's Interview with Chidi Obineche, Sun Newspapers, 22 May, 2016
Sent: Sunday, March 12, 2017 6:14 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Kayode J. Fakinlede
On my arrival in Lagos, late 1966, the support of Lagosians
was definitely with the Ibos despite the fact that the bombings of the Cassino
Cinema and some other places were fresh on their minds. Cassino Cinema was, of
course, in Lagos which is occupied mainly by the Yorubas.
By the time Ojukwu declared that no power in black Africa could defeat Biafra, we
in Lagos, were sitting ducks for Ojukwu’s airplanes. His planes came in at will
an threw incendiaries anywhere they wanted. They even targeted the oil depot at
Marine beach in Apapa for their bombings - I was there. If they had been
successful, they would have set a lot of Yoruba people on fire.
Our Nigerian military were probably equipped with dane guns since all shootings coming from Apapa base had no effect besides making a lot of noise. The planes also came in on evenings to terrorize us.
Indeed, no power in black Africa could defeat Ojukkwu’s military at that point. They clearly had the upper hand in preparing for the coming war.
When the MIG’s came, Lagos was able to breathe a sigh of relief. Thanks to Russia. I say to myself, if there is one thing we must continuously thank Communist Russia for, it was the psychological booster it gave us in Lagos.
Still many Ibos continued to work in Lagos. However, the patience of the Yorubas was already wearing thin. However, it was clearly evident to Lagosians that the people who performed these attrocities were not those who worked with us.
By the time the Ibos were shipping out of Lagos and all parts of Nigeria for ‘safety’, there were no smiles on the faces of many people in Lagos. Although there was truly some measure of animus against the behavior of the Biafrans, many in Lagos still felt that the Ibos had been handed a raw deal in the North. Thus, many companies in Lagos, including the one in which I worked held their positions, including managment positions, for them till after the war. They resumed in these positions immediately after the war and they could find their way back to Lagos.
The attempt of the Ibos to want to ‘liberate’ the Yorubas ultimately turned the Yorubas completely against the Ibos. And, to me, that was Ojukwu’s greatest miscalculation for which the Ibos should have removed him or even excecuted him. What gave Ojukwu the idea that we, Yorubas, needed liberation is still beyond my imagination. But the Ibo’s blamed the Yorubas for refusing to get ‘liberated’ and not Ojukwu whose mad ambition opened up a new and unwinnable front in the battle.
But then there were thousands of Ibos who, throughout the war, did not make the journey back home, from Lagos and all parts of Yoruba land. Admittedly there were some of these who were rough handled while tensions were very high, quite a few of these claimed they were not real Ibos but Ibos from the MidWest, or sought refuge WITH THE YORUBAS. What else could have been the alternative?
Now, concerning this historical calisthenics that Doc. Nwakanma is engaged in, I should think responding to his tirades and fake history is really not worth the time and effort. Let us tell the story from our different perspectives for the simple reason that we do not want to inflame the passions of those who do not know better. This we must do, mainly for the fact that we do not need a repeat of the war.
A few years ago, Netanyahu was attempting to convince the Germans that it was the a Paletinian mufti who was to blame for the Holocaust, almost completely absolving Adolf Hitler of the genocide. A German historian immediately corrected him by declaring that whatever happened “does not provide us with new scapegoats.” Germany is the fourth biggest economy in the world today.
FAKINLEDE K
On Friday, March 3, 2017 at 12:23:42 PM UTC+1, Kayode J. Fakinlede wrote:
Godwin Okeke
GSM
--------------------------------------------
Subject: SV: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: THE HISTORY OF THE NIERIAN CIVIL WAR SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS
Date: Sunday, March 12, 2017, 7:14 PM
Dear Okechukwu Ukaga,
The subject under discussion is not whether General
Yakubu Gowon declared no victor, no vanquished after the end
of the civil war or not, but if the declaration had had
desired effect or results. Kayode J. Fakinlede in his post
of 3rd March 2017 had titled
his topic : The History Of The Nigerian Civil War Should
Be Taught In Our Schools. He motivated his request thus
say that it is at the bottom
of the continued aspiration by a segment of our society for
secession. Of course, one could not have blamed the
would have learned his
lesson and our nation would be at peace forever
more.
those whose intentions were noble. But more importantly, we
are seeing agitations where none should have arisen and from
Salimonu Kadiri
For the sake of posterity, I am forced to spend my valuable time to respond to Mr. Obi Nwakanma's historical fallacies about the Nigerian civil war. Simply because I rejected his posted Nollywood acted film about Biafra's Major General Philip Effiong's declaration of surrender at Dodan Barracks on 15 January 1970, he is accusing me of parroting official lines of history. In his own non-official lines of history, which is the same as Biafra's lines of history, he wrote on the 3rd of March 2017 thus, "Biafrans were not defeated in war, and did not go to Lagos to surrender, without precondition as was made clear by the real leader of its delegation, Sir Louis Nwachukwu Mbanefo." Not done with that, on the 6th of March 2017, he quoted from Michael Gould's book thus, "Immediately Ojukwu fled the country, Effiong simply disappeared, and it was left to others, notably the Chief Justice Sir Louis Mbanefo and Col. Achuia to broker peace(108)." The Nollywood film producer, Dr. Obi Nwakanma, regaled readers further on the 8th of March 2017 by maintaining that the end of the war was negotiated and added, "Two plans were at play: The S-Brigade and BOFF and the Commando Unit created by the Special Forces mercenary, Rolf Steiner were in place should the negotiation in Lagos fail. Those who love to think about 'vanquished' Igbo do so because they love to imagine a world without a visible Igbo..." Obi Nwakanma must read me for the umpteenth time that, had the Igbo been considered a vanquished people as a result of the civil war, they would not have been able to occupy all the official positions they have had, and are still having today, in Nigeria. Contrary to what Nollywood doctor of film production would like readers to believe, the Biafrans and the progenitors of Biafra were defeated in war. Being an Igbophile, Obi Nwakanma took glory and honour out of Biafra's Major-General Philip Effiong by tacitly replacing him with Sir Louis Nwachukwu Mbanefo as the real leader that led Biafran representatives to Lagos. Obi Nwakanma found solace in Michael Gould's book, written in 2012, to clothe Philip Effiong as a deserter after Ojukwu abandoned his army and fled the country, and thereby elevated Chief Justice Sir Louis Mbanefo and Colonel Achuzia to the position of real brokers of peace. Philip Effiong was an Ibibio while Mbanefo and Achuzia were Igbo. As I have established in my previous postings, the narrative of Philip Effiong on p. 296 of his book, Nigeria & Biafra: My Story about how he met Obasanjo on 13 January 1970 was corroborated by Obasanjo on p. 124-125 of his book, My Command. The following day in Owerri, after embracing Lieutenant Colonel E.A. Utuk, Philip Effiong wrote on p. 299, "It was at this Owerri meeting that Obasanjo asked that if I would like to go to Lagos to finalise THE SURRENDER AGREEMENT AND I SAID, WITHOUT HESITATION, THAT I WOULD." On page 1, 304, 306 and 356 of his book, Philip Effiong admitted that he signed a surrender document on behalf of Biafra at Dodan Barracks on 15 January 1970, but our Nollywood doctor, who was in diaper when the war ended is denying that Biafra surrendered. To Obi Nwakanma, THE DECLARATION BY EFFIONG "THAT THE REPUBLIC OF BIAFRA HEREBY CEASES TO EXIST" IS A NEGOTIATED CLAUSE AND NOT A SURRENDER.
Now, I'm posting excerpts of two of General Joe Achuzia's interviews, one in the Nigerian Compass in 2010 and .... the Sun, in May 2016 about Biafra - Obi Nwakanma.
Suddenly, the ethnic supremacist, Obi Nwakanma has promoted Joe Achuzia to a General from his rank of Colonel in the Biafran Army at the end of the war in January 1970. What a historical fraud? If Obi Nwakanma can falsify the rank of Joe Achuzia in the Biafran Army so as to increase his credibility among younger generations of Igbo, what else can the leader of master tribe, herrefolk, not falsify? And who is this Joe Achuzia, Obi Nwakanma's self-made General? In the book, Nigerian Civil War by John de St Jorre, he presented Joe Achuzia thus, "Colonel Joe 'Hannibal' Achuzia is a more mysterious figure since he never served in the Nigerian Army. He claimed that he had fought in the British Army in Korea and Suez but this has never been confirmed. BEFORE THE WAR HE RAN AN ELECTRICAL BUSINESS IN PORT HARCOURT AND BEFORE THAT HE HAD LIVED IN BRITAIN WHERE HE MARRIED HIS ENGLISH WIFE, ETHEL (P.277)." Ojukwu took Joe Achuzia from his street shop in Port Harcourt and stamped Colonel on his forehead.
On Thursday,1 January 1970, Major General Philip Effiong noted, "I received a letter of complaints from General Officer Commanding (GOC) the Biafran Army, Major General Madiebo, about Colonel Joe Achuzia. He said that Achuzia was indoctrinating and training troops against former officers of the Nigerian Army (now of Biafran Army). I later spoke to Colonel Azuchia about this plot. He denied it in the presence of Mr. Guy Ikoku, wondering what was amiss between him and the GOC. He was rather preoccupied with trying to find food for troops under his command. .... According to him, he was not plotting anything against anybody." "On Friday, 2 January 1970, I received another personal note from the GOC in which Colonel Achuzia was alleged to have gone to our Camp 2 Training Depot at Ugiri and taken charge of the Depot. ....//... Nevertheless, I went to Ugiri Training Depot on 7 January to ensure that Colonel Achuzia had not taken charge of the place. He did go there a few days earlier to obtain reinforcements but had not appropriated the depot for his use as alleged (p. 284)." On January 13, 1970, Colonel Joe Achuzia was captured in an ambush by the Nigerian forces. He played smart on his captives that he was sent by Philip Effiong to establish contact with the Nigerian Field Commanders. He later called on Philip Effiong to allow him wear a Brigadier's uniform in order to command respect with Nigerian Field Commanders he was meeting. Philip remarked, "It was pure blackmail, but I agreed. (p. 296)." "For instance, when I pointed out the strategic importance and need for a strong defence of Ikot Ekpene, which I saw as a direct gateway into the heartland of Biafra, Ojukwu was quick to point out the need for a strong defence of Nnewi, his hometown. Yet, it was the collapse of Ikot Ekpene (and not Nnewi) that led to the collapse of Biafra. And it seemed the officer (field commander) who could exhibit greater bravado than most, LIKE OUR FLAMBYANT COLONEL JOE ACHUZIA, and mercenary Rolf Steiner got the Governor's (Ojukwu's) accolade for bravery (p. 335 - 336)." On page 367, Philip Effiong wrote that the Federal government detained Joe Achuzia for SADISTIC BEHAVIOUR DURING THE WAR. He was referred to as Mr. Joe Achuzia because his recruitment into the Biafran Army was not recognized by the Federal military government. With the above information it is clear that Joe Achuzia did not only wear fake Biafran Army rank of General when he presented himself to be interviewed by the newspapers, but also assigned to himself rolls that he never played towards the end of the war. The noisy cricket, Achuzia, should crawl back into his hole. Dr. Obi Nwakanma and Mr. (Colonel) Joe Achuzia of Biafra, seem to believe that everyday of the year is first of April on which they can fool people through their Nollywood produced films portraying lions as being thumbed on the nose by dogs and bleaching white clothes with red palm oil. Biafra was not defeated and did not surrender but it ceased to exist at the dictate of the Federal Military government.
S.Kadiri
Kayode J. Fakinlede
‘No victor, no vanquished.”is comforti
Olayinka Agbetuyi
Olayinka Agbetuyi
Salimonu Kadiri
Godwin Okeke, when people talk about marginalization in Nigeria, they mean exclusion from important positions in the Federal Government. Provide us with the list of all Nigerians that draw their salaries from the Federal Government of Nigeria, since you sound like knowing it, so that we can compare Igbo's share with other ethnic groups.
S. Kadiri
Skickat: den 13 mars 2017 09:20
Till: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Ämne: Re: SV: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: THE HISTORY OF THE NIERIAN CIVIL WAR SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS
--
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@go oglegroups.com
Current archives at
http://groups.google.com/group /USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at
http://www.utexas.edu/conferen
ces/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/op tout.
--
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@go oglegroups.com
Current archives at
http://groups.google.com/group /USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at
http://www.utexas.edu/conferen
ces/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/op tout.
--
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@go oglegroups.com
Current archives at
http://groups.google.com/group /USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at
http://www.utexas.edu/conferen
ces/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/op tout.
Ibukunolu A Babajide
Thank you Alagba Kadiri for your usual meticulous attention to details on this 'recurring decimal.'
Let me ask this rhetorical question: Why does it have to take a non- Igbo to take such lengthy steps to set the records straight? Are the archives from which you find your facts inaccesible to the level- headed industrious Igbo intellectuals part of which are on this forum who I once asked to call Igbo "dogs of war' to order?
Should they not be in the vanguard of those calling the bluff of Igbo soiling the reputation of the Igbo nation, if in fact they are not covertly hand in glove with such sensibilities but choosing the sit- on- fence approach?
Im writing with the knowledge of recent interventions such as FKKs which has seemingly caved in to the secessionist club with the relish of ' If you cant beat them...why not join them! With the scenario portrayed by the former aviation minister half of Nigeria from the Middle Belt down is now ready for secession: If this is the case only the pall bearers for the nation need be appointed. But it needs be stated that the yearnings for ethnic determinism not be cloaked under falsehood and distorted history.
In a democratic polity as opposed to a military dictatorship as I once observed in an earlier episode of this debate no one can be brought bound hand and foot to nationhood.
As was done in similar circumstances in other climes a referendum must be held on the continuity of the country as an indivisible entity without delay.
Depending on the outcome, the modalities of resource reallocatiom formula to the new independent nations alongside divorce settlement models must be debated and adopted. After all the newly formed nations will still share boundaries with each other.
In view of the acrimony of the debates on continuity of the status quo and a new start of late, the result of this referendums must be fully binding and irrevocable.
If the result is for the continuity of the nation as an indiviisble entity canvasing for its dismemberment must be written into the statute as treason punishable with treasonable penalty (never mind what American statute states on freedom of expression when it comes to this provision- Nigeria is not America and it must be allowed to develop along its own lines).
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------
From: Salimonu Kadiri <ogunl...@hotmail.com>Date: 14/03/2017 13:10 (GMT+00:00)Subject: SV: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: THE HISTORY OF THE NIERIAN CIVIL WAR SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS
For the sake of posterity, I am forced to spend my valuable time to respond to Mr. Obi Nwakanma's historical fallacies about the Nigerian civil war. Simply because I rejected his posted Nollywood acted film about Biafra's Major General Philip Effiong's declaration of surrender at Dodan Barracks on 15 January 1970, he is accusing me of parroting official lines of history. In his own non-official lines of history, which is the same as Biafra's lines of history, he wrote on the 3rd of March 2017 thus, "Biafrans were not defeated in war, and did not go to Lagos to surrender, without precondition as was made clear by the real leader of its delegation, Sir Louis Nwachukwu Mbanefo." Not done with that, on the 6th of March 2017, he quoted from Michael Gould's book thus, "Immediately Ojukwu fled the country, Effiong simply disappeared, and it was left to others, notably the Chief Justice Sir Louis Mbanefo and Col. Achuia to broker peace(108)." The Nollywood film producer, Dr. Obi Nwakanma, regaled readers further on the 8th of March 2017 by maintaining that the end of the war was negotiated and added, "Two plans were at play: The S-Brigade and BOFF and the Commando Unit created by the Special Forces mercenary, Rolf Steiner were in place should the negotiation in Lagos fail. Those who love to think about 'vanquished' Igbo do so because they love to imagine a world without a visible Igbo..." Obi Nwakanma must read me for the umpteenth time that, had the Igbo been considered a vanquished people as a result of the civil war, they would not have been able to occupy all the official positions they have had, and are still having today, in Nigeria. Contrary to what Nollywood doctor of film production would like readers to believe, the Biafrans and the progenitors of Biafra were defeated in war. Being an Igbophile, Obi Nwakanma took glory and honour out of Biafra's Major-General Philip Effiong by tacitly replacing him with Sir Louis Nwachukwu Mbanefo as the real leader that led Biafran representatives to Lagos. Obi Nwakanma found solace in Michael Gould's book, written in 2012, to clothe Philip Effiong as a deserter after Ojukwu abandoned his army and fled the country, and thereby elevated Chief Justice Sir Louis Mbanefo and Colonel Achuzia to the position of real brokers of peace. Philip Effiong was an Ibibio while Mbanefo and Achuzia were Igbo. As I have established in my previous postings, the narrative of Philip Effiong on p. 296 of his book, Nigeria & Biafra: My Story about how he met Obasanjo on 13 January 1970 was corroborated by Obasanjo on p. 124-125 of his book, My Command. The following day in Owerri, after embracing Lieutenant Colonel E.A. Utuk, Philip Effiong wrote on p. 299, "It was at this Owerri meeting that Obasanjo asked that if I would like to go to Lagos to finalise THE SURRENDER AGREEMENT AND I SAID, WITHOUT HESITATION, THAT I WOULD." On page 1, 304, 306 and 356 of his book, Philip Effiong admitted that he signed a surrender document on behalf of Biafra at Dodan Barracks on 15 January 1970, but our Nollywood doctor, who was in diaper when the war ended is denying that Biafra surrendered. To Obi Nwakanma, THE DECLARATION BY EFFIONG "THAT THE REPUBLIC OF BIAFRA HEREBY CEASES TO EXIST" IS A NEGOTIATED CLAUSE AND NOT A SURRENDER.
Now, I'm posting excerpts of two of General Joe Achuzia's interviews, one in the Nigerian Compass in 2010 and .... the Sun, in May 2016 about Biafra - Obi Nwakanma.
Suddenly, the ethnic supremacist, Obi Nwakanma has promoted Joe Achuzia to a General from his rank of Colonel in the Biafran Army at the end of the war in January 1970. What a historical fraud? If Obi Nwakanma can falsify the rank of Joe Achuzia in the Biafran Army so as to increase his credibility among younger generations of Igbo, what else can the leader of master tribe, herrefolk, not falsify? And who is this Joe Achuzia, Obi Nwakanma's self-made General? In the book, Nigerian Civil War by John de St Jorre, he presented Joe Achuzia thus, "Colonel Joe 'Hannibal' Achuzia is a more mysterious figure since he never served in the Nigerian Army. He claimed that he had fought in the British Army in Korea and Suez but this has never been confirmed. BEFORE THE WAR HE RAN AN ELECTRICAL BUSINESS IN PORT HARCOURT AND BEFORE THAT HE HAD LIVED IN BRITAIN WHERE HE MARRIED HIS ENGLISH WIFE, ETHEL (P.277)." Ojukwu took Joe Achuzia from his street shop in Port Harcourt and stamped Colonel on his forehead.
On Thursday,1 January 1970, Major General Philip Effiong noted, "I received a letter of complaints from General Officer Commanding (GOC) the Biafran Army, Major General Madiebo, about Colonel Joe Achuzia. He said that Achuzia was indoctrinating and training troops against former officers of the Nigerian Army (now of Biafran Army). I later spoke to Colonel Azuchia about this plot. He denied it in the presence of Mr. Guy Ikoku, wondering what was amiss between him and the GOC. He was rather preoccupied with trying to find food for troops under his command. .... According to him, he was not plotting anything against anybody." "On Friday, 2 January 1970, I received another personal note from the GOC in which Colonel Achuzia was alleged to have gone to our Camp 2 Training Depot at Ugiri and taken charge of the Depot. ....//... Nevertheless, I went to Ugiri Training Depot on 7 January to ensure that Colonel Achuzia had not taken charge of the place. He did go there a few days earlier to obtain reinforcements but had not appropriated the depot for his use as alleged (p. 284)." On January 13, 1970, Colonel Joe Achuzia was captured in an ambush by the Nigerian forces. He played smart on his captives that he was sent by Philip Effiong to establish contact with the Nigerian Field Commanders. He later called on Philip Effiong to allow him wear a Brigadier's uniform in order to command respect with Nigerian Field Commanders he was meeting. Philip remarked, "It was pure blackmail, but I agreed. (p. 296)." "For instance, when I pointed out the strategic importance and need for a strong defence of Ikot Ekpene, which I saw as a direct gateway into the heartland of Biafra, Ojukwu was quick to point out the need for a strong defence of Nnewi, his hometown. Yet, it was the collapse of Ikot Ekpene (and not Nnewi) that led to the collapse of Biafra. And it seemed the officer (field commander) who could exhibit greater bravado than most, LIKE OUR FLAMBYANT COLONEL JOE ACHUZIA, and mercenary Rolf Steiner got the Governor's (Ojukwu's) accolade for bravery (p. 335 - 336)." On page 367, Philip Effiong wrote that the Federal government detained Joe Achuzia for SADISTIC BEHAVIOUR DURING THE WAR. He was referred to as Mr. Joe Achuzia because his recruitment into the Biafran Army was not recognized by the Federal military government. With the above information it is clear that Joe Achuzia did not only wear fake Biafran Army rank of General when he presented himself to be interviewed by the newspapers, but also assigned to himself rolls that he never played towards the end of the war. The noisy cricket, Achuzia, should crawl back into his hole. Dr. Obi Nwakanma and Mr. (Colonel) Joe Achuzia of Biafra, seem to believe that everyday of the year is first of April on which they can fool people through their Nollywood produced films portraying lions as being thumbed on the nose by dogs and bleaching white clothes with red palm oil. Biafra was not defeated and did not surrender but it ceased to exist at the dictate of the Federal Military government.
S.Kadiri
Från: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> för Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>
Skickat: den 12 mars 2017 21:43
Till: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: THE HISTORY OF THE NIERIAN CIVIL WAR SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Salimonu Kadiri <ogunl...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 12, 2017 6:14 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: SV: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: THE HISTORY OF THE NIERIAN CIVIL WAR SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS
Dear Okechukwu Ukaga,
The subject under discussion is not whether General Yakubu Gowon declared no victor, no vanquished after the end of the civil war or not, but if the declaration had had desired effect or results. Kayode J. Fakinlede in his post of 3rd March 2017 had titled his topic : The History Of The Nigerian Civil War Should Be Taught In Our Schools. He motivated his request thus : No Victor, No Vanquished. This pronouncement, to me, is the greatest blunder of our civil war. I can almost say that it is at the bottom of the continued aspiration by a segment of our society for secession. Of course, one could not have blamed the government of young General Gowon. It was reasoned then that in declaring that neither side won or lost the war, everyone would have learned his lesson and our nation would be at peace forever more.
What we see now is a blatant misplacement of historical facts and grotesque caricatures being made of those whose intentions were noble. But more importantly, we are seeing agitations where none should have arisen and from the side that was vanquished in the war. The factual victors, having remained silent for so long are now being painted as carnivores and murderers etc.
On reading the above, Mr. Obi Nwakanma flared up in his response and claimed that the declaration of no victor, no vanquished by the Federal government was not an act of charity but as a result of behind the scene diplomatic negotiations at which the federal government was exposed to a gigantic and informed-able guerrilla army of Biafra. The fear of Biafra's guerrilla fighters of Mao Tse-Sung calibre forced the Federal government to enter no victor, no vanquished with Biafra that never surrendered to the federal army. He proceeded further to claim that after the Biafrans had accepted the negotiated settlement and disbanded their guerrilla fighters, the federal side reneged on the agreement and has since the end of the war marginalized the Igbo, mark you not Biafrans, and treated them as second class citizens of Nigeria. It is for this reason that younger generations of Igbo, not Biafrans, now want to return to the trenches to liberate them from the clutches of their Nigerian oppressors.
Kayode J. Fakinlede actually gave voice to what many of us from Western Nigeria think about the blame game that some of our brothers from South Eastern Nigeria have been peddling against the Yoruba ethnic group despite the fact that many of them risked their lives in defending and protecting their Igbo brothers and sisters during the terrible days of July 29 and August 1966. Although, there were some high ranking Yoruba officers in the army at the time of the second coup, the number of Yoruba infantry men were negligible. The gun carriers were mainly from the Middle Belt and mostly from TIV land. The scenes of military operations on July 29, 1966, were Lagos, Abeokuta and Ibadan.
Beginning at Ibadan, Middle-belters constituted 95% of the 4th Battalion infantry situated there. Their Commander, Lt. Colonel Arbogo Largema, was killed in the January 15, 1966 coup. After the coup, Ironsi appointed Major Macaulay Nzefilli to take the Command of the 4th Battalion, but the infantry men refused to take order from him. They asked him about the where-about of Largema and why he, Nzefili an Igbo, was there to take over. The military officers that were killed in the first coup were never made public by Ironsi. In order to calm the nerves of the aggrieved soldiers in Ibadan, Ironsi posted a Middle-belter, Major Joe Akahan to take over the command of the 4th Battalion from Nzefili. It was from the 4th Battalion, Ibadan that the then Captain Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma recruited sub-Lieutenant Jeremiah Useni and others to arrest Ironsi and Adekunle Fajuyi at the government state house, Ibadan, on July 29, 1966. While the government lodge at Ibadan was surrounded, Ironsi sent Lieutenant Colonel Hillary Njoku, who accompanied him to Ibadan, to return to Ikeja 2nd Infantry Battalion and resume control of the Command. On his way out, Njoku was shot but he escaped wounded. Yoruba people of Ibadan took care of him until he was well enough for them to smuggle him out of Ibadan and guide him safely to the East. The 4th Battalion did not limit their actions to the Barracks, they went on rampage in the city of Ibadan hunting for persons of Igbo ethnic group to be killed. With bare hands, Ibadan people rose to defend and protect their Igbo brethren against marauding Middle-belt soldiers. Amadu Kurfi, the Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Defence at that time, confirmed in a book written by him that the then Military Governor of Western State, Francis Adekunle Fajuyi, had insisted that if they took his guest and GOC, they should take him too. Thus, Fajuyi voluntarily followed his General Officer Commanding the Nigerian Armed Forces, Johnson Thompson Umunnakwe Aguiyi Ironsi, to death. Some Igbo revisionist has belittled Fajuyi's heroic stand which they termed suicide wish. At Abeokuta Garrison all available Igbo soldiers, especially officers, were killed and as usual the overzealous Middle-belt soldiers invaded civil communities to hunt down the Igbo but the Egba people heroically defended and protected their Igbo brethren bare-handed.
In Lagos, the 2nd Infantry Battalion contained over 90% Middle-belter. After Ironsi had been adopted in Ibadan, the next high ranking officer in the Army hierarchy was Brigadier Babafemi Ogundipe and when he tried to take control over the Army in Lagos, a Middle Belt Sergeant told him that he would only take instruction from his Captain. Brigadier Ogundipe was shoved aside and so was Colonel Adeyinka Adebayo, which paved the way for Yakubu Gowon, a Middle-belter, to take over the reign of office as GOC of the Nigerian Army and Head of State. In Lagos and its suburbs, the Middle-belt soldiers rampaged outside the Barracks as they hunted for Igbo to kill. Many Yoruba lost their lives while protecting and defending their Igbo brethren's rights to life. Those of us who resisted gun-touting Middle-belt soldiers who invaded our homes in Lagos in search of Igbo to kill knew what pain we went through. At Enugu, Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, ran away to hide at the Police headquarters in Onitsha. The respected Lieutenant Colonel David Ogunewe, the Commander of the 1st Battalion, prostrated before his Northern dominated Battalion and begged them not to fight. And when it was finally agreed that soldiers should be repatriated to their region of origin, the Northern soldiers in the Enugu 1st Battalion insisted on leaving with their arms and weapons. Ojukwu did not return to Enugu until the middle of August 1966 after the Northern soldiers had left. The pogrom in the Northern Region against the Igbo in what the Northerners called revenge for the Northerners killed in the first coup began in May 1966, after Ironsi had promulgated Decree No. 34 which abolished federal system and replaced it with unitary government. Although, Yakubu Gowon took over in Lagos, he had no control over the troops in the North. At the same time, Ojukwu undermined Gowon's position by not accepting his leadership of the Army because as he put it, he was not the most senior officer after Ironsi. Regrettably, Igbo were massacred in thousands in the North between May 28, 1966 and 1st October 1966.
In the West and Lagos everything possible was done by the Yoruba to defend and protect their igbo brethren, especially civilian Igbo in their midst. Sadly, after the war, some Igbo began to churn out false stories about how Yoruba killed Igbo in their midst as from July 29, 1966. In spite of the fact that Chinua Achebe was helped by the Yoruba to escape arrest by the coup makers of 29 July 1966, he manufactured an anti Yoruba faction of his escape from Lagos.
A week before January 15, 1966 coup, Chinua Achebe had published a small book titled, A Man of the People. It was a fictional book on a hypothetical African country that was rottenly corrupt to the extent that, as Achebe concluded in the book, our young army officers overthrew the government. It was on account of this book and its conclusion, which coincided with the 15 January 1966 coup, that made the coup makers of 29 July 1966 to suspect that Achebe had foreknowledge of the January coup and as such they wanted to arrest him for questioning. Had Achebe fallen into the hands of the soldiers at that time, it would have meant only one thing, death. The Yoruba in Lagos protected Achebe and his family. His wife and children were smuggled out of Lagos by boat while he was being shifted from one place of abode to the other around Lagos, with the hope that tension in the country would subside and normal life would emerge. When it was clear that the crisis was not going to end soon, Chinua Achebe decided to return to the East and the Yoruba drove him in a zigzag route, from Lagos to avoid detection by his military traducers, to Benin. But in his book, There Was A Country, Achebe painted a very different picture of how he left Lagos. Hear him, "As many of us packed our belongings to return to the east some of the people we had lived with for years, some for decades jeered and said,'Let them (Igbo) go; food will be cheaper in Lagos.' ...//... There were more and more reports of massacres, and not only in the North, but also in the West and Lagos. People were hounded out of their homes, as we were in Lagos, and returned to the East (p.68)" He continued,"In any case, I set out on my own, wondering what would come up at any point. The highway was full of police roadblocks along the way. I was stopped once or twice and had to show my papers - what Nigerians call my 'particulars.' I was one of the last to flee Lagos. ...//... When I finally got to Benin City, which is located roughly halfway from Lagos to Igbo land in the Mid-West Region there was distinct atmospheric change. ...//... Crowds of policemen recognized me when I got to Benin City and cheered, saying, 'Oga, thank you,' and let me through to continue my journey without incident to Onitsha Bridge, and over the Niger River to the East (p. 70-71)." Achebe who was being searched for by the Army and the security police claimed that he was at a motor pack in Lagos to witness how people jeered at fleeing Igbo without being arrested. Thereafter, he decided to flee Lagos by sitting in his personal car, to drive from Lagos en-route East. On his way, he was stopped once or twice to show his driving license, vehicle ownership and road worthiness documents to non-Igbo policemen at the roadblocks. He, a wanted Igbo man was not arrested, harmed or killed in a Yoruba territory where he claimed Igbo were being massacred by the Yoruba. At Benin City, the Policemen cheered him and said, "Oga thank you" and let him through to continue his journey to the East. It was plain that the Benin police did not direct their Oga thank you to Chinua Achebe, but to the Yoruba personality that escorted him to Benin after the Yoruba man had transmitted some pounds through a hand shake with bribe to them. A Nigerian policeman don't usually say Oga, thank you, if you don't give them something. Chinua Achebe took glory and honour out of the Yoruba who, out of being humane, took risk to whisk him and his family into safety during the terrible events that led to the Nigerian civil war.
The traditional belief in Nigeria is that any official or public servant, whether elected, selected, appointed or employed is deemed to be representing and acting on behalf of his ethnic group. Although Awolowo was a Yoruba by tribe, his political, social and economic ideology was national. That was why he refused to serve in a national government led by a feudalist after December 1959 Federal elections. He was not only leader of the opposition in the Federal Parliament but his party, the Action Group produced the opposition party in the Northern and Eastern Regions' House of Assembly. By 1962, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa's led Federal Coalition government, overthrew the Action Group Government of Western Region and jailed Awolowo. After the coup of July 29, 1966, General Gowon pardoned and released Awolowo from prison through Government Notice No. 1507/1966. Awolowo came out of prison to meet a destroyed people and a chaotic Nigeria on the cliff to precipice. In his speech to the Western Leaders of Thought at Ibadan, 1st May 1967, Awlowo 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. ...//... We have neither military might nor the overwhelming advantage of numbers here in Western Nigeria and Lagos," he admitted. Awolowo's statement was obviously directed to the Federal Military Government led by Yakubu Gowon but some mischief makers among our Igbo brethren had touted Awolowo's speech as an agreement with Ojukwu that both East and West were to secede simultaneously, on which Awolowo later reneged. Since Awolowo is Yoruba, some Igbo historian blamed all the Yoruba for betrayal of what they thought Awolowo agreed with them to secede on behalf of the Yoruba people but did not fulfil. In fact, on 3rd May 1967, the Military Governor of Western Region, Colonel Adeyinka Adebayo, in a broadcast to the people said that his Western Region was not in collusion with the East to secede.
On May 5, 1967, Obafemi Awolowo led a delegation of what was called National Reconciliation and Peace Commission to Enugu to convince Ojukwu to give peace a chance. Ojukwu was said to have told Awolowo that their mission was a still-born. Achebe put it succinctly in his book, There Was a Country, thus, "many Igbo leaders referred to the visit disdainfully as the 'chop, chop, talk, talk commission (p. 88)." If there was an agreement between Awolowo and Ojukwu for a simultaneous secession of the West and East at that meeting Ojukwu would have released it before his death. And how could Awolowo have entered such agreement when he was not the Military Governor of Western Region and he possessed no army of his own?
Obafemi Awolowo has been accused, by some Igbo falsifier of history, of advocating and employing starvation as a weapon of war against (Biafra) the Igbo. A version of that accusation was presented by Achebe thus, "A statement credited to Chief Obafemi Awolowo and echoed by his cohorts is the most callous and unfortunate: All is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I don't see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight harder (p. 233)." This statement was culled from Awolowo's interview in the Financial Times of 26 June 1969. It was not a policy statement but his reaction to the information that Biafran soldiers were hijacking food supplies sent to civilians in Biafra. Even if he were to say so, in which war has it ever happened that a beleaguered troop has been supplied food by the beleaguer-ant. Obviously, Awolowo was not saying civilians should be starved but soldiers. A year before that statement, Achebe recorded on page 211 of There Was a Country thus, "The diplomatic battles had reached a fever pitch by the middle of 1968. Gowon, under immense international pressure .... decided to open up land routes for a 'supervised transport' of relief. To the consternation of Gowon, Ojukwu opted out of land routes in favour of increased airlifts of food from São Tomé by international relief agencies." Geneva convention permits relief supplies to civilians in a war affected areas but signatories to Geneva Conventions are allowed to supervise the transport of such relief assistance to its destination. Nigeria was a signatory to the Geneva Conventions but Biafra was not. Thus, any airlift of relief supply by international agencies to Biafra must first land in Nigeria for inspection before flying further to Biafra. So, it was not Awolowo's statement in June 1969 that starved millions of Biafrans to death, but Ojukwu's rejection of food supply by land routes in June 1968 as testified to by Chinua Achebe. Had there not been no victor, no vanquish declaration after the war, Ojukwu would have been tried for war crimes. Amusingly, Obi Nwakanma's beloved authority on Nigerian forces inability to hold captured towns in Biafra, Colonel Robert Scott, wrote in the London Sunday Telegraph of 11 January 1970 thus, "It is perhaps ironic that this is the first time in the history of warfare that one beleaguer-ant has permitted outside agencies to succour its opponent." Biafrans in 1968 were effectively and actually beleaguered by the Nigerian Army.
Despite Ojukwu's rejection of offer of foods to civilians in Biafra enclave by land routes, Gowon turned blind eyes to the illegal night flights into the Biafran enclave. At the same time the ground forces of, the 2nd infantry division led by Col. Murtala Mohammed and the 3rd Marine Commando led by Col. Benjamin Adekunle were prevented from marching into the Biafran enclave as strict orders were issued to them not to shoot at illegal planes flying into Biafra. But towards the end of May 1969, Von Rosen bombed Port Harcourt, Benin, Enugu and Ughelli Electric power station in Nigeria, with his MINICOIN planes. Von Rosen's bombing of Nigeria's positions woke Lagos up to action. By the 5th of June 1969, a DC-7 plane marked Swedish Red Cross was heading towards Uli-Ihiala air strip in Biafra before the midnight. Captain Gbadamosi King of the Nigerian Air Force piloting his MIG 17 ordered the DC-7 plane, marked Swedish Red Cross to land either in Port Harcourt or Calabar for inspection but the Red Cross marked plane ignored Captain King's order. Captain King repeated his order several times but the Red Cross marked plane flew unperturbed. Thus, Captain Gbadamosi King fired at the Red Cross plane and brought it down near Eket. The plane exploded and the wreckage was spread over a large area. The plane was exposed for not ferrying relief supplies but weapons. Consequently, on 14 June 1969, the Director of International Committee of Red Cross in Lagos, Dr. August Lindt, was declared persona non grata by the Federal Government, after admitting that the shot down plane carrying weapons belonged to the ICRC.
Telling a lie with cosmetic beauty, Obi Nwakanma said that the renewed demand by some Igbo youths is as a result of marginalization of the Igbo in the governing of Nigeria. In the first civilian regime after the military coup of 1966, Alex Ekwueme, an Igbo, became the Vice President in the NPN controlled Federal government. At the same time, Edwin Ume-Ezeoke was speaker of the House of Reps. When the military government of General Babangida surfaced in 1985, most of his civilian administrators and supporters were Igbo. His commissioner of Finance was Dr. Idika Kalu Idika. When Babangida scuttled the Presidential Election of June 1993, his backbone was Arthur Eze who obtained mid-night court injunctions against the election performed by the then Federal Electoral Commission headed by an Igbo, Professor Humphrey Nwosu. General Babangida was married to an Igbo woman, born Mary Ndidi Okogwu, who adopted the Muslim name Maryam after marriage with Babangida. The Ohanaeze Ndigbo honoured Babangida with the traditional title, Ogugua Ndigbo, in appreciation of what Babangida's regime did for the Igbo. In the sixteen years of PDP government (29 May 1999 to 29 May 2015) the only position an Igbo ethnic person never held is the Presidency. The Igbo has had five Senate Presidents, Deputy Senate President, Deputy Speaker, Minister of Defence, Chief of Army Staff, Director General of Immigration, Director General of Prison, Director General of Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, Central Bank Governor and Deputy Governor, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Ministers in key Ministries such as Power, Education, Petroleum, Health, Labour and Productivity, Aviation and Finance. Up to May 29, 2015, the Minister of Finance was Igbo and all other Agencies related to the Ministry of Finance such as Director General- Budget Office, DG of PENCOM, DG of RFMAC, DG of SEC, CEO of NSE, DG of AMCON, Chairman of Sovereign Wealth Fund and Governor of Central Bank were headed by Igbo. In spite of the afore-listed key positions that were held, and in some cases are still being held, by persons of ethnic Igbo in Nigeria, perverted ethnic mandarins are still claiming that Igbo people are marginalized in Nigeria. It is very sad to observe that Obi Nwakanma has chosen to have no respect and value for history simply because the facts of history are opposed to his wishes. He has been engaged in the destruction evidential facts of history by twisting facts and propounding unfounded lies and fallacies about the Nigerian civil war. Victims of past tragedies should be less gung-ho about future ones. The Biafran Major-General, Philip Effiong, who signed the surrender document that ended the civil war remarked thus, "Until the end of the war on 12 January 1970, the Biafran soldier fought an impossible war under conditions that were totally inhuman and uncalled for. It was the result of one man turning what was the people's will to fight a war of survival into a desperate and reckless attempt to achieve a personal ambition - even if it meant destroying the very people he purportedly was fighting to preserve (p. 237, Nigeria & Biafra: My Story by Philip Effiong)." At this stage of our development, I don't think the ethnic origin of any Nigerian office holder should be of concern to any normal and intelligent person but the capability of the official to produce what the office is designed for. I stand to be corrected by you if I am wrong.
S. Kadiri
Från: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> för Okechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu>
Skickat: den 9 mars 2017 21:14