MUST READ: The Aguiyi-Ironsi Tragedy
Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
MUST READ: Aguiyi-Ironsi
 |
| *Major-General Johnson Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi |
Salimonu Kadiri
Thus, Obi Nwakanma lied when in his ethnic glorification essay ranked Arthur Chinyere Unegbe as a Colonel at the time of January 15, 1966 Army coup d'état instead of Lieutenant Colonel that he was. Furthermore, Obi Nwakanma salted his ethno-supremacist history by making Lieutenant Arthur Chinyere Unegbe, Adjutant-General of the Army whereas that position was held by Lieutenant Colonel James Yakubu Pam. The position held by Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Chinyere Unegbe was that of Quartermaster General, Army. It might interest Obi Nwakanma and his fellow history falsifiers that at the time of January 1966 Army coup, there were 24 Lieutenant Colonels in the Nigerian Army of which 12 were senior to Lieutenant Colonel Unegbe following the order of enlistment and dates of promotions. For instance Yakubu Pam was enlisted as a Cadet in 1954 and was Commissioned in 1955 whereas Arthur Unegbe was enlisted as a cadet in 1955 and was Commissioned in 1956. As a Quartermaster General of the Army, he was said to have conspired with the then Minister of Finance, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, to import Army Boots from Pakistan and re-pasted them with made in Nigeria at Omimi-Ejoh shoe factory owned by Okotie-Eboh before delivering them to the Army. Unegbe's luxurious life-style as a result of his business with the Minster of Finance made both of them the target of January 15, 1966 military coup plotters.
Obi Nwakanma wrote, "The lone Igbo casuality of that January coup, Colonel Arthur Chinyere Unegbe, the Nnewi-born Adjutant-General of the Army, is often forgotten in the grand narratives of that coup, because he (Unegbe) does not fit the narrative of 'an Igbo Coup,' ....." Captain Ben Gbulie was with Majors Nzeogwu and Onwuatuegwu in Kaduna to plan and execute the January !966 coup in Kaduna and he knew every detail about the plan of the coup nationally. He was not only detained for participating in the coup but luckily for him, like Nzeogwu, Ifeajuna and others, he was detained in the East where he fought on the side of Biafra. From what he wrote in his book, "NIGERIA'S FIVE MAJORS: COUP D'ÉTAT OF 15TH JANUARY 1966 - FIRST INSIDE ACCOUNT," no sane person can accuse him of peddling hate rumours against his Igbo people. The coup plotters did not plan one-sided killings but they were infiltrated by Igbo ethnic supremacists who refused to kill their own tribesmen and in Lagos, Major Donatus Okafor and Captain Ogbo Oji had taken every possible step against what might embody the killing of Ironsi. That was why when Majors Humphrey Chukwuka and Christian Anuforo were at the residence of Ironsi to kill him, Ironsi had linked up with John Obienu, who was supposed to come with armoured cars from Abeokuta to support the coup in Lagos, at the 2nd Batallion, Ikeja, under the Command of Lieutenant Colonel Hillary Njoku. It was from the 2nd Battalion Ikeja, Ironsi got the troops with which he hijacked and usurped the revolution of the Majors. The tribal patern of the killings caused by ethnic supremacist who refused to kill their own tribesmen as directed by the revolutionary Majors and the way Ironsi captured power was what turned the January 15, 1966 coup to an Igbo coup.
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 04:28:50 -0700
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Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - MUST READ: The Aguiyi-Ironsi Tragedy
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Olabisi Dare
As at January 15, 1966, three Nigerians held substantive rank of Colonel in the Nigerian Army. They were, Colonel Ralph A. Shodeinde (enlisted as NCO in 1948 and a Commissioned officer in 1950) Commandant Nigerian Military Training Centre (NMTC), and Deputy Commandant, Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna; Colonel Adeyinka Adebayo (enlisted as NCO in1951 and Commissioned Officer in 1953) who was on course abroad as at 15 January 1966; and Colonel Kuru Mohammed (enlisted as a Cadet in1952 and a Commissioned Officer in 1954), a General Staff Officer, Army Headquarters, Lagos, in January 1966.
Thus, Obi Nwakanma lied when in his ethnic glorification essay ranked Arthur Chinyere Unegbe as a Colonel at the time of January 15, 1966 Army coup d'état instead of Lieutenant Colonel that he was. Furthermore, Obi Nwakanma salted his ethno-supremacist history by making Lieutenant Arthur Chinyere Unegbe, Adjutant-General of the Army whereas that position was held by Lieutenant Colonel James Yakubu Pam. The position held by Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Chinyere Unegbe was that of Quartermaster General, Army. It might interest Obi Nwakanma and his fellow history falsifiers that at the time of January 1966 Army coup, there were 24 Lieutenant Colonels in the Nigerian Army of which 12 were senior to Lieutenant Colonel Unegbe following the order of enlistment and dates of promotions. For instance Yakubu Pam was enlisted as a Cadet in 1954 and was Commissioned in 1955 whereas Arthur Unegbe was enlisted as a cadet in 1955 and was Commissioned in 1956. As a Quartermaster General of the Army, he was said to have conspired with the then Minister of Finance, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, to import Army Boots from Pakistan and re-pasted them with made in Nigeria at Omimi-Ejoh shoe factory owned by Okotie-Eboh before delivering them to the Army. Unegbe's luxurious life-style as a result of his business with the Minster of Finance made both of them the target of January 15, 1966 military coup plotters.
Obi Nwakanma wrote, "The lone Igbo casuality of that January coup, Colonel Arthur Chinyere Unegbe, the Nnewi-born Adjutant-General of the Army, is often forgotten in the grand narratives of that coup, because he (Unegbe) does not fit the narrative of 'an Igbo Coup,' ....." Captain Ben Gbulie was with Majors Nzeogwu and Onwuatuegwu in Kaduna to plan and execute the January !966 coup in Kaduna and he knew every detail about the plan of the coup nationally. He was not only detained for participating in the coup but luckily for him, like Nzeogwu, Ifeajuna and others, he was detained in the East where he fought on the side of Biafra. From what he wrote in his book, "NIGERIA'S FIVE MAJORS: COUP D'ÉTAT OF 15TH JANUARY 1966 - FIRST INSIDE ACCOUNT," no sane person can accuse him of peddling hate rumours against his Igbo people. The coup plotters did not plan one-sided killings but they were infiltrated by Igbo ethnic supremacists who refused to kill their own tribesmen and in Lagos, Major Donatus Okafor and Captain Ogbo Oji had taken every possible step against what might embody the killing of Ironsi. That was why when Majors Humphrey Chukwuka and Christian Anuforo were at the residence of Ironsi to kill him, Ironsi had linked up with John Obienu, who was supposed to come with armoured cars from Abeokuta to support the coup in Lagos, at the 2nd Batallion, Ikeja, under the Command of Lieutenant Colonel Hillary Njoku. It was from the 2nd Battalion Ikeja, Ironsi got the troops with which he hijacked and usurped the revolution of the Majors. The tribal patern of the killings caused by ethnic supremacist who refused to kill their own tribesmen as directed by the revolutionary Majors and the way Ironsi captured power was what turned the January 15, 1966 coup to an Igbo coup.The historical revisionism continued, "When soldiers under his command sacked the first republic, Ironsi RALLIED THE TROOPS AND ENDED THE COUP. But the acting President of the Federal Republic, Nwafor Orizu, after consultation with the Council of Ministers ceded emergency power to Ironsi to DEFEAT THE MUTINY, restore law and order, and then begin a transition back to a national civil government." Here the historical revisionist is telling his readers that Ironsi rallied the troops and ended the coup and in a strange acrobatic somersault got power ceded to him by the acting President, Nwafor Orizu so as to defeat the mutiny. Was there any mutiny after Ironsi had rallied the troops to end the coup? Obi is engaged in a first-class historical revision and distortion of which he is exposed by two separate broadcasts by Radio Kaduna and Radio Lagos on January 15,1966. At 12:30 noon on Saturday, 15 January 1966, broadcasting in the name of the Supreme Council of the Revolution of the Nigerian Armed Forces, Major Patrick Chukwuma Nzeogwu said, "The Constitution is suspended, and the regional government and elected assembly are hereby dissolved. The aim of the revolutionary Council is to establish a strong, united and prosperous nation free of corruption and internal strife. .......Our enemies are the political profiteers, the swindlers, the men in high and low places that seek bribes and demand ten per cent; those that seek to keep the country divided permanently so that they can remain in office as Ministers and VIPs of waste; the tribalists, the nepotists; .... those that have corrupted our society and put the Nigerian Political calender back by their words and deeds.... We promise that you will no more be ashamed to say that you are a Nigerian." Among the offences that he listed as punishable with death sentences were bribery or corruption and embezzlement.At 14:30 pm, Ironsi caused Lagos Radio to announce thus, "In the early hours of this morning, 15th January 1966, a dissident section of the Nigerian Army kidnapped the Prime Minister and the minister of finance and took them to unknown destination. The General Officer Commanding (Ironsi) and the vast majority of the army remained completely loyal to the Federal government and are already taking appropriate measures to bring the mutiny under control." Here, Ironsi claimed to loyal to the Federal government which Nzeogwu wanted to overthrow because of corruption, tribalism and nepotism. If Ironsi was loyal to the Federal Government of which its head, the Prime Minister's, where about was unknown the constitutional step to take was to provide security so that the Parliament could meet to elect acting Prime Minister. The NNA alliance consisting of 198 members in the Parliament nominated Zana Bukar Dipcharima as the acting Prime minister, while UPGA with 109 members nominated Kingsley Osumba Mbadiwe. Faced with the parliamentary reality that Dipcharima would win, the acting President whose signature was necessary for Dipcharima to become Prime Minister, said that he was not going to assent to the outcome of voting in the Parliament. Instead he gave Mbadiwe and Dipcharima a paper, ceding power to Ironsi,to sign. Thereafter, at 23:50 hours on January 16, 1966, Nwafor Orizu, announced on radio Lagos that politicians had agreed to hand over power to the military, and thereby called on Ironsi to address the Nation. The Republican Constitution of 1963, did not empower the Council of Ministers or the President to cede power to anybody. Those who cry today for decentralisation of power from the centre and restructuring of Nigeria must remember that it was Major General Umunakwe Aguiyi Ironsi, who through Decree No. 34 of May 1966, abolished the regions and introduced unitary government on the recommendation of one-man commission of enquiry on unitary Government, headed by Francis Nwokedi. Unitary form of government had been advocated by Nnamdi Azikiwe and the NCNC since 1940s. Thus when Ironsi decreed a unitary form of government on May 24, 1966, Azikiwe's newspaper, West African Pilot, featured a large cartoon titled, The Dawn of a New Day, portraying Ironsi government as a large cock (the symbol of Azikwe's political party, NCNC) crowing ONE COUNTRY, ONE NATIONALITY.Obi Nwakanma had told readers how Major-General Umunnakwe Aguiyi Ironsi was killed on July 29, 1966, but he failed to balance it up by telling readers about, at least, how one of the eight non-Igbo officers of the Nigerian Army was killed in January 1966. To balance up the story of killings in the Army in 1966, I hereby paraphrase what Captain Ben Gbulie wrote on how Brigadier Samuel Adesujo Ademulegun and his eight months pregnant wife were killed in their bedroom in the middle of the night of January 15, 1966. Major Tim Onwuatuegwu burst into their bedroom with his Sten gun cocked and turned on the light to find a stunned Brigadier Ademulegun lying in bed with his wife. He got out of the bedsheets in his pyjamas asking, "How for Christ's sake did you get in here, Tim?" At that moment Mrs Ademulegun, draped in a silk lingerie, climbed out of their bed and planted herself protectively in front of her husband. Major Onwuatuegwu squeezed the trigger and a bullet caught the Brigadier slap-bang on the chest. A second bullet also meant for the Brigadier hit his eight month pregnant wife, ripping open her abdomen. Then as the couple reeled and slumped down on the floor, Major Tim Onwuatuegwu turned away and left them. So, Obi Nwakanma, we are all human beings and if we love our neighbours as ourselves, this world will just be joyful for all us to dwell in.S. Kadiri
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - MUST READ: The Aguiyi-Ironsi Tragedy
MUST READ: Aguiyi-Ironsi
By Obi NwakanmaFifty years ago, on a Friday night at the Western Nigerian Governor’s lodge in Ibadan, a group of soldiers led by Major Theophilus Danjuma committed a terrible act of treason. They accosted their Commander-in-chief, Major-General Johnson Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and Military Head of State of Nigeria only six months in the making, stripped him of his epaulettes and his swagger stick shaped in the form of the Crocodile, and proceeded to arrest him and his host, the Military Governor of the West, Colonel Francis Adekunle Fajuyi.
*Major-General Johnson Thomas
Aguiyi-IronsiThese soldiers, some of them far too drug-addled, did not stop there. They proceeded to administer brutal beatings and a careless torture of the General, and the Governor, Colonel Fajuyi, supervised by T.Y. Danjuma, and Ironsi’s ADC, William Walbe. They did not stop there: bruised and much bloodied, these two men were later bound hand and feet, as legends would have it, and tied to a military truck driven by Jeremiah Useni, through the streets of Ibadan, and taken to that quiet spot on Iwo road, where they were murdered and buried in mean and shallow graves.Fajuyi was by then, nearly dead in any case, far too brutalized to endure any further humiliation. But Ironsi stood tall to the very end – the image of a great elephant enduring the beatings that accompanied him finally to the dug-spot. Accounts of Ironsi’s stolid, dignified and courageous handling of his brutal end come to us by a number of eye witnesses. He was travelling with then Colonel Hillary Njoku, Commander of the Lagos Garrison, in his entourage. They were upstairs in the Governor’s lodge when they sensed the change in the air, by the rustle of the mainly Northern troop that had been arranged for his guard detail.As soon as they noticed the mutiny afoot on the grounds of the Governor’s lodge in Ibadan, they quickly knew that they had only one shot at getting out there alive. Ironsi ordered Hillary Njoku to find his way out of the grounds and make contacts with his headquarters in Lagos to send some reinforcement. Meanwhile, he got through to Yakubu Gowon on the phone which were still working, to send a Helicopter for him. The Helicopter did not come. Gowon, Ironsi’s Chief of Staff, was busy issuing different orders to Danjuma in Ibadan, and apparently to Murtala Muhammed and Martin Adamu in Lagos, the arrowheads of that July mutiny. Neither did any reinforcement come. Just as he was attempting to sneak out of the Governor’s lodge, the mutineers saw Colonel Hillary Njoku, and fired shots at him. He escaped by scaling the fence of the Government House, but was so seriously injured he had to find his way to the University College Hospital, where he was treated.
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Rex Marinus
Bisi, I'm not quite sure which it is that you're reacting to: my "Orbit" column in the
Vanguard, or Salimonu Kadiri's usually unreadable hogwash. So, it is difficult to really verify what you mean, or what you discern to be the "parochialism" in my tribute to Ironsi, and my reference in that tribute to Fajuyi who was equally murdered in
Ibadan alongside the General. What on earth gives you the impression that I'm not acknowledging Fajuyi's "sacrifice" or that I'm being "condescending" of such sacrifice or that I do not give equal weight to their tragedy? I can't comprehend your anxieties
in this case, except in the statement that Fajuyi was really nearly dead by the time their captors put the final bullet in him, and that indeed was what happened, if we are to believe the eyewitness account of a man who should know. But although you tend to
read that as suggesting that Ironsi was more resilient in death, the more germane fact I wanted to draw out was that each of these men had been thorough brutalized, and that was indeed so. Ironsi was a huge and majestic man by all accounts - elephantine in
his proportions. My reference to his pilgrimage to death is an ironic play, taken straight out of Igbo folklore, on the exact fate of the mighty elephant, who was lured from his great redoubt to a dug grave and to a lonely and tragic death by the small tortoise,
in pursuit of an illusion. The idea was not to suggest a greater heroic dimension over Fajuyi, because there is no dignity to being tortured, shot, and left in a half-dug ditch, as was the fate of those two men. And as a matter of fact, nothing I said was
strictly mine about that final moment: I was basically paraphrasing a key eye witness of those final moments: Andrew Nwankwo, Ironsi's Air Force ADC, who himself was taken alongside to be killed, but who was saved by Lt. Sani Bello, one of Ironsi's military
ADCs, from a pre-arranged pact by both men to save the other, in the event that they found themselves on opposite sides. Bello, who became Colonel Sani Bello and Military Governor of the old Kano state in the 1970s caused the distraction that allowed the
Ethiopia Air Force-trained Lt. Andrew Nwankwo, to jump into the nearby clump of bush and then into the river through which he escaped after witnessing the death of Ironsi and Fajuyi, while his own grave was being dug. Sani Bello himself confirmed this, and
both men were liberally quoted in Chuks Iloegbunam's biography of Ironsi, Ironside, to which I referred.
Sent: Friday, August 12, 2016 9:15 PM
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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - MUST READ: The Aguiyi-Ironsi Tragedy
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Salimonu Kadiri
2. Salimonu Kadiri, as he is often wont, left the substance of the argument in pursuit of rather rudimentary detail - Obi Nwakanma.
To begin with, Obi Nwakanma's article was posted on this forum by one Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye as a *Must Read* on August 1, 2016 which warranted my comments and also that of Bisi Dare. If Bisi Dare's reaction, based on the contents of Ugochukwu's *Must Read,* differs from the contents of Obi's Star and Moon column in the Vanguard, Obi should have no problem in indicating what the differences are. Obviously, Bisi Dare was reacting to the casual and demeaning way with which Obi Nwakanma referred to Lieutenant Francis Adekunle Fajuyi who voluntarily followed Ironsi to death. "He is my guest and my G.O.C., if you take him, you must take me too,"Fajuyi had told the abductors of Ironsi. Bisi Dare quoted from Obi Nwakanma's Star Column in the Vanguard to register his protest against the belittlement of the person of Fajuyi thus, "Fajuyi was by then, nearly dead in any case, far too brutalized to endure any further humiliation. But Ironsi stood tall to the very end - the image of a great elephant enduring the beatings that accompanied him finally to the dug-out." Obi is obliged to justify his comparison of Fajuyi's death to Ironsi's which is as follows: Fajuyi was by then, nearly dead but Ironsi stood tall to the very end- the image of a great elephant enduring the beatings .....
From: rexma...@hotmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - MUST READ: The Aguiyi-Ironsi Tragedy
Okechukwu Ukaga
Salimonu my broda,
Following your logic, it is even more dishonest for you to posthumous demote Fajuyi by 2 ranks from Lt. Col to lieutenant (compared to the promotion of Unegbe by one rank from a Lt Col to a Col.) Don't you think? After all, a Lt Col can be rightly called a Col just like a Lt Gen (or even major general or brigadier general) can be rightly called a general (e.g. Bihari and others); but a Lt Col cannot rightly (and should never) be called a lieutenant. Seriously, though, I think both you and Obi should be excused for not getting the rank etc exactly right. And no one should assume evil intent Hence, I point out your own mistake to illustrate that point.
Regards,
Okey
1. Bisi, I'm not quite sure which it is that you're reacting to: my "Orbit" column in the vanguard, or Salimonu Kadiri's usually unreadable hogwash - Obi Nwakanma.
2. Salimonu Kadiri, as he is often wont, left the substance of the argument in pursuit of rather rudimentary detail - Obi Nwakanma.
To begin with, Obi Nwakanma's article was posted on this forum by one Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye as a *Must Read* on August 1, 2016 which warranted my comments and also that of Bisi Dare. If Bisi Dare's reaction, based on the contents of Ugochukwu's *Must Read,* differs from the contents of Obi's Star and Moon column in the Vanguard, Obi should have no problem in indicating what the differences are. Obviously, Bisi Dare was reacting to the casual and demeaning way with which Obi Nwakanma referred to Lieutenant Francis Adekunle Fajuyi who voluntarily followed Ironsi to death. "He is my guest and my G.O.C., if you take him, you must take me too,"Fajuyi had told the abductors of Ironsi. Bisi Dare quoted from Obi Nwakanma's Star Column in the Vanguard to register his protest against the belittlement of the person of Fajuyi thus, "Fajuyi was by then, nearly dead in any case, far too brutalized to endure any further humiliation. But Ironsi stood tall to the very end - the image of a great elephant enduring the beatings that accompanied him finally to the dug-out." Obi is obliged to justify his comparison of Fajuyi's death to Ironsi's which is as follows: Fajuyi was by then, nearly dead but Ironsi stood tall to the very end- the image of a great elephant enduring the beatings .....With the aforesaid, I congratulate Obi Nwakanma for progressing from regarding my response as unreadable hogwash to rudimentary detail. My point is that it is dishonest of Obi, even if for ethnic glorification, to posthumously promote Arthur Chinyere Unegbe to a Colonel when, in fact and truth, he was a Lieutenant Colonel and then proceed to sugar-coat the lie by making him Adjutant General of the Army instead of his real position of Quartermaster General. No one has ever denied that Arthur Unegbe was Igbo and that he was killed in the January 15, 1966 coup, rather, the question has been why was he the only Igbo officer killed and by extension, why were only Northern and Western politicians killed but none from the East and Midwest? Captain Gbulie revealed that "both Major Don Okafor and Captain Ogbo Oji had taken a stand against any step that might embody the killing of Ironsi. ...//.. It was, to say the least, too much of a coincidence that while the would-be assassins were pointedly making for his (Ironsi) residence, hoping to capture him, he was at the same time heading towards Ikeja to enlist the support of the personnel of the second Battalion.... Moreover, it turned out that at that very crucial stage of the operation,..... Major John Obienu had, for some insane reason, turned traitor; and that he was, in fact, a downright insincere coward. His failure to honour his pledge and turn up that night with his armoured cars was the one deciding act that led ultimately to the collapse of the Lagos operation - a calamitous act of sabotage that, by depriving our colleagues of the much-needed fire-power with which to crush Ironsi's counter-revolution, finally drove a nail into the coffin of our objective." Lieutenant Colonel Hilary Njoku was the Commander of 2nd Battalion Ikeja and both Ironsi and Obienu had linked up there in the morning of 15 January 1966 (p. 125-126, Nigeria's Five Majors by Captain Ben Gbulie)." In the East and Midwest, Major Chude Sokei and Lieutenant Jerome Oguchi of the 1st Infantry Battalion that were assigned the duty of killing the Premier of the respective Region, Okpara and Osadebey, had turned out to be pacifists who would not like to see blood-shed (page 136, Nigeria's Five Majors). Therefore, it was the foreknowledge of the coup through infiltrators and the hijack and usurpation of the coup by Ironsi that turned the coup into Igbo coup.In his so named *Orbit Column in The Nigerian Vanguard Obi wrote, "When soldiers under his (Ironsi) command sacked the first Republic, Ironsi rallied the troops and ended the coup. But the Acting President of the Federal Republic, Nwafor Orizu, after consultation with the council of Ministers ceded emergency power to Ironsi to defeat the mutiny." On the same issue below, Obi wrote, "Fact is that Ironsi contained the coup in Lagos and obtained the mandate of the rump of the Council of Ministers Dipcharima and Mbadiwe leading to two signatures ceding the authority of the government permitted the Acting President to hand emergency powers to Ironsi legitimately." Whether Ironsi ended the coup or contained it, the truth is that soldiers under his command had already sacked (terminated) the first Republic and the head of that government, the Prime Minister was nowhere to be found. Constitutionally, whenever the position of the Prime Minister is vacant, all the Ministers under him/her shall immediately lose their portfolios. The only person who could have ceded power to Ironsi was the Prime Minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, and not any person not recognised by the Constitution. If Ironsi had ended the coup or contained it, his primary duty as a loyal army officer to the government would have led him to provide security so that Parliament could meet to appoint a Prime Minister among its members. What Ironsi did is comparable to the Inspector General of the Police that has sent his men to a house where the landlord had been kidnapped by armed gangs. Later, the IGP secured a paper signed by the wife, sons and brothers of the kidnapped landlord ceding the house to him. That can never be a legitimate way of transferring a property. That is logical reasoning and not conspiracy theory.Bisi Dare exposed Obi Nwaknma's ethnic bias by pointing out how Fajuyi's heroism was diminished as nothing of importance. The likes of Obi consider their ethnic group as Diala, master tribe, while other tribes in Nigeria are OSU, slave tribes, meant to be exploited, abused, used and discarded like one-use only paper handkerchief. To Obi, Fajuyi was an Osu, who naturally was only worthy of dying with Ironsi and that was not a big deal. This attitude of taking other ethnic groups a fools was exhibited by Chinua Achebe in his 'There Was a Country.' He narrated how the police and soldiers were looking for him after July 29, 1966 coup because of his book, 'The Man of the People' which came out a week before January 15, 1966 coup. In the book which was a fiction, Achebe had suggested that young Army Officers had rescued a hypothetical country from the fangs of corrupt politicians. On the basis of that prediction, Achebe was suspected of knowing about the coup of January 15, 1966 and as such the security agencies wanted him for interrogation. Many Yoruba people in Lagos, Abeokuta and Ibadan risked their lives to defend, protect and hide their Igbo brethren from the marauding Northern Infantry soldiers that were mostly from the Middle-belt in those horrible months of August and September 1966. The Garrison at Abeokuta as well as 2nd and 4th Battalion at Ikeja and Ibadan were the most horrible in their hunt for any Igbo to kill in their bid to avenge the murder of Lt. Colonels Largema and Pam in the January coup. Achebe too enjoyed the protection of his Yoruba brethren and when he decided to leave Lagos for the East, he was chauffeured by patriotic Yoruba Nigerians to safety in Benin, Mid-West. But in 'There Was a Country' Achebe told a different story about how he left Lagos for the East. He began thus, "As many of us packed our belongings to return east some of the people we have lived with for years, some for decades, jeered and said, 'Let them (Igbo) go; food will be cheaper in Lagos." He continued, "People were hounded in their homes, as we were in Lagos, and returned to the East. We expected to hear something from the intellectuals, from our friends. Rather, what we heard was, Oh, they had it coming to them or words to that effect." On his departure from Lagos, he wrote, "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 Igboland in the Midwest Region, there was distinct atmospheric change (page 68-71)." That was how Achebe took honour out of those who risked their lives to prevent armed soldiers from conducting searches for Igbo in their compounds. And he ended the fable of his Diala mentality by personally driving from Lagos to Benin despite the fact that the security police, according to him on page 67, were looking for him because of his forecast of a military coup that overthrew a corrupt civilian government in 'A Man of the People.'My only request to Obi Nwakanma is that he should purge himself of his Diala mentality towards other ethnic groups in Nigeria by writing on why Lieutenant Colonel Banjo was arrested and detained on January 17, 1966 on the order of Ironsi when he was not among the Majors that planned and executed the coup of 15 January 1966!!S.Kadiri
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - MUST READ: The Aguiyi-Ironsi Tragedy
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2016 01:35:33 +0000
Bisi, I'm not quite sure which it is that you're reacting to: my "Orbit" column in the Vanguard, or Salimonu Kadiri's usually unreadable hogwash. So, it is difficult to really verify what you mean, or what you discern to be the "parochialism" in my tribute to Ironsi, and my reference in that tribute to Fajuyi who was equally murdered in Ibadan alongside the General. What on earth gives you the impression that I'm not acknowledging Fajuyi's "sacrifice" or that I'm being "condescending" of such sacrifice or that I do not give equal weight to their tragedy? I can't comprehend your anxieties in this case, except in the statement that Fajuyi was really nearly dead by the time their captors put the final bullet in him, and that indeed was what happened, if we are to believe the eyewitness account of a man who should know. But although you tend to read that as suggesting that Ironsi was more resilient in death, the more germane fact I wanted to draw out was that each of these men had been thorough brutalized, and that was indeed so. Ironsi was a huge and majestic man by all accounts - elephantine in his proportions. My reference to his pilgrimage to death is an ironic play, taken straight out of Igbo folklore, on the exact fate of the mighty elephant, who was lured from his great redoubt to a dug grave and to a lonely and tragic death by the small tortoise, in pursuit of an illusion. The idea was not to suggest a greater heroic dimension over Fajuyi, because there is no dignity to being tortured, shot, and left in a half-dug ditch, as was the fate of those two men. And as a matter of fact, nothing I said was strictly mine about that final moment: I was basically paraphrasing a key eye witness of those final moments: Andrew Nwankwo, Ironsi's Air Force ADC, who himself was taken alongside to be killed, but who was saved by Lt. Sani Bello, one of Ironsi's military ADCs, from a pre-arranged pact by both men to save the other, in the event that they found themselves on opposite sides. Bello, who became Colonel Sani Bello and Military Governor of the old Kano state in the 1970s caused the distraction that allowed the Ethiopia Air Force-trained Lt. Andrew Nwankwo, to jump into the nearby clump of bush and then into the river through which he escaped after witnessing the death of Ironsi and Fajuyi, while his own grave was being dug. Sani Bello himself confirmed this, and both men were liberally quoted in Chuks Iloegbunam's biography of Ironsi, Ironside, to which I referred.
It would be nice to read a little more, Bisi, and then take a more informed position. And while we are at it, I find it sad that what makes you angry is what you perceive to be my suggestion that Fajuyi was too wasted by his torture to care anymore about his own death. I did not suggest that he tried to avoid it, or that he did not submit heroically to his fate. I never suggested that he betrayed Ironsi, or that he pleaded for his life, or that he was cowardly in death. I said he had been so badly brutalized that by the time they got on the road to Iwo, he was half-dead. This is not what riles you: the fact that Fajuyi could be subjected to such terrible torture and fate, but that you perceive a condescension on my report of the manner of his death! What a terrible logic and mindset! That is the same kind of warped logic in the thinking of Salimonu Kadiri, who has made a career of denying the atrocities against the Igbo, and who is a propagandist for the jihadist impulsion of that campaign of hate against the Igbo. Kadiri calls me a "liar" and a "revisionist" because I called Arthur Chinyere Unegbe a "Colonel" rather than a "Lt. Colonel," the miniscule difference of which makes no material difference, and that I mistakenly designated him "Adjutant-General" rather than his post of "Quarter Master General," the difference of which removes nothing from the fact he was a senior Military officer, and that he was Igbo, and that he was killed in January 15, 1966, alongside others, and that his death is often conveniently forgotten because it further destroys the false claim that the Igbo officers killed everybody except their own. Salimonu Kadiri, as he is often wont, left the substance of the argument in pursuit of rather rudimentary detail. Fact is Unegbe was a very senior Igbo officer in a very senior military position on January 15, 1966, and he as killed in his house at Apapa. Fact is that Arthur Unegbe, Jack Gowon, Mike Okwechime, Alex Madiebo, and Patrick Anwunah were direct course mates at Sandhurst, and Arthur Unegbe and Gowon was on the same rank as at January 15, 1966. Fact is that the January 15 Coup was called an "Igbo coup" as the justification for a "retaliatory coup," and the fact is that Unegbe as not killed because of his "business deals" with Okotie-Eboh; he was killed because he was part of the 2nd group of coup plotters who were to launch the Maimalari-led coup slated for that Monday, January 17, 1966, and forestalled by Ifeajuna, a mole in that coup, by his orders late that night after the "Ops" party at Maimalari's house in Ikoyi where all the final arrangements had been made, for the alternative coup to commence. Fact is that Ironsi contained the coup in Lagos, and obtained the mandate of the rump of the council of ministers Dipcharima and Mbadiwe leading the two partner parties in government whose signatures ceding the authority of the government permitted the Acting President to hand emergency powers to Ironsi legitimately. The document of that signature is possibly still somewhere in the papers of Alhaji A.G.F. Abdulrazaq who was Minister for justice at that time, and who oversaw and recorded that swift and hurried handover as a legal representative of the government that had fallen. These are the facts as I have come to understand them based on strenuous inquiry. It is my business to state these facts and I leave the conspiracies to the likes of you and Salimonu Kadiri, Bisi.Obi Nwakanma
From: usaafr, and bicadi...@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Olabisi Dare <bisi...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, August 12, 2016 9:15 PM
Rex Marinus
Okey, the more amusing part of Salimonu's ignorance is that he imagines himself endowed with the holy facts. He also imagunes that the position of Quartermaster General is any less than the post of the Adjutant General. True, Arthur Unegbe was a Lt. Colonel ( and you're absolutely right, there's not such a great difference between Lt. Colonel and a full Colonel) and he was Quartermaster General at the time he was killed, the more relevant fact is that (a) the Adjutant General was not a more senior or more significant officer to the QMG, and I do not see how an intelligent person would consider the mixed-up reference a promotion for Arthur Unegbe, and (b) Gowon, as the Adjutant-General was himself at the exact rank of Lt. Colonel with Arthur Unegbe. Only Salimonu would consider such a trivial switch a "promotion" aimed at "sugarcoating" or advancing Unegbe's position. The point itself is no more than his usual navel-gazing. It is Salimonu's way of dredging up obscurities and irrelevances because he has to latch-on to something to fuel his phobias and conspiracies, and make a point of it. And only a thoroughly warped and conspiratorial mind would consider the following statements "Fajuyi was by then, nearly dead in any case, far too brutalized to endure any further humiliation. But Ironsi stood tall to the very end - the image of a great elephant enduring the beatings that accompanied him finally to the dug-out" as a reduction of Fajuyi's experience in comparison to Ironsi's, especially since I had emphasized very early in the essay that that both men had been systematically tortured and humiliated by the soldiers starting at the Governor's lodge.
My reference to Fajuyi was actually to emphasize the extent of the brutalization and torture, rather than to compare him with Ironsi who was in any case, his General. Besides, as I have said, I was basically echoing an eyewitness account of those last moments from my reading of Ironside. It is equally odd to me that Salimonu's quarrel is with my report, a misdirected anger indeed given that I did not kill Fajuyi, and that I did not leave him in the ditch, and that ultimately there was no dignity either in the death of Ironsi or Fajuyi. One would think that Salimonu's Kadiri's anger would be directed at his killers, and not be about whether Fajuyi died heroically or not; it should be about the truth that he was humiliated and killed, dragged through the streets of his capital city like a common criminal. No man who goes through that should be expected to stay fully alive to the end, and as a matter of fact, Ironsi was a giant, whose physical proportions probably gave him more strength to endure or absorb the beatings. We are not all built with the same physical fortitude. But his longer endurance in my view does not reduce the heroic dimensions of Fajuyi's own sacrifice, unless Salimonu and his like think that physical strength is the only means by which we construct the heroic character.
I often find it extremely difficult to engage Salimonu Kadiri, because it is usually a futile and exasperating exercise in circularity and misinformation. One who drops words like "Osu" and "Diala" with such careless disrespect for their exact and general meanings, while presuming even to know what he doesn't is ineducable, and I prefer to let him live with his anxieties. And while we are at it, Fajuyi was killed by the putschists of July, not because he chose to stick with Ironsi, as the legend has made us believe. Fajuyi never said, "he is my guest and my GOC, if you take him you must take me too." This is fiction. Fajuyi did not have a chance to leave. Fajuyi was killed because he too was marked for death because many of the Northern soldiers believed he backed the January 15 coup, and that he was a clearly vociferous defender of the January coupists in the Supreme Military Council. There were too many legends created out of these events, and the July coup had to circulate the lie of an "Igbo coup" in order to justify itself. This fact was what I was actually pointing out with my reference to Unegbe whose interests were more with the Maimalari coup billed for Monday, January 17, 1966, the story of which will be for another day.
Obi Nwakanma
Sent: Monday, August 15, 2016 12:41 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - MUST READ: The Aguiyi-Ironsi Tragedy
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Salimonu Kadiri
If you have read my previous writing on this thread, you would find out that the rank of Adekunle Fajuyi was correctly stated as Lieutenant Colonel and your observation below with regards to his rank as a Lieutenant was a typographical error and not a posthumous demotion as you are inclined to believe.
Have a nice day,
S.Kadiri
From: ukag...@umn.edu
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 19:41:33 -0500
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - MUST READ: The Aguiyi-Ironsi Tragedy
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
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Salimonu Kadiri
In the army hierarchy, holding the same rank, for instance Lieutenant Colonel, does not make holders of the same rank equal. Moreover, an officer who claims to be a Colonel instead of Lieutenant Colonel is likely to be court-martialled for impersonation and usurpation of power. Whether Obi likes it or not, there is a big difference between a Lieutenant Colonel and a Colonel.
Obi the story teller wrote, "Okey, the more amusing part of Salimonu's ignorance is that he imagines himself endowed with the holy facts. He also imagines that the position of Quartermaster General is any less than the post of the Adjutant General." Here, Obi spits against the wind and find the sputum landing on his ignorant face. A Quartermaster General is an officer responsible for accommodation, food and equipment in the Army. That was the duty of Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Chinyere Unegbe as at January 15, 1966. On the other hand, an Adjutant General is an officer who is a member of Army Board responsible for personnel and administrative functions. That position was held by Lieutenant Colonel James Yakubu Pam as at 15 January 1966 and not Yakubu Gowon as the fiction writer Obi would like us to believe. In spite of my ignorance as Obi claimed, I am very certain that a member of Army Board responsible for personnel and administrative functions is superior to the one who is responsible for accommodation, food and equipment. When it comes to arranging seniority in the Army, date of enlistment, year of commission and date of promotion are very vital. Although James Yakubu Pam and Arthur Chinyere Unegbe were both Lieutenant Colonels as at 15 January 1966, the former was enlisted as a Sandhurst cadet in 1954 and commissioned in 1955. He was promoted to the rank of a Lieutenant Colonel, in 1963, after seven years and nine months of his being Commissioned. He also underwent a course at the prestigious Joint Services Staff College (JSSC) in UK, where Chukwuemeka Ojukwu was enlisted in 1954 as a Graduate and Commissioned in 1957. Unegbe, on his part, was enlisted as a Sandhurst cadet in 1955 and was commissioned in 1956. He was promoted to a Lieutenant Colonel eight years and seven months in 1965, after his commission. Unegbe also attended Staff College, Quetta, in Pakistan, before his promotion to Lieutenant Colonel but the course in Pakistan was generally considered to be inferior to that of Camberley in UK and not a kilometre near the value of JSSC. Thus, by virtue of the year of enlistment, date of promotion and position held, Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Chinyere Unegbe, the Quartermaster General was junior to Lieutenant Colonel James Yakubu Pam, the Adjutant General. That is nothing but the truth.
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - MUST READ: The Aguiyi-Ironsi Tragedy
Rex Marinus
Salimonu, wrote the following: "Obi's problem is that he is a professional story teller and fable writer. His problem emanates from his inability to differentiate between reality and fable/story telling." Is this intended to be an insult, that I'm a "professional storyteller?" Well, sorry, I wish I could tell stories. They are lovely things to make - stories. Reality itself is, let us just say, where you stand to capture a glance. For instance, Salimonu Kadiri's reality is that Arthur Unegbe, because he was an Igbo officer was "inferior" to James Yakubu Pam, with whom he was on the same rank of "Lt. Colonel." Now, I understand his umbrage: that I dared to address Unegbe as a "Colonel" since he was an "inferior" Lt. Colonel, who was only just a Quartermaster General not even Adjutant General, and corrupt to boot. Well then, this matter is closed. I will leave his interpretation of these two military staff positions to others more proficient in such matters who may wish to enlighten him. But what I know is that the QMG, especially in the British tradition was in charge of Military materials, supplies, and all matters of logistics in combat situations. The operational capability of a combat force in a situation of war depends of the strategic design of the logistics of war, the movement of troops, the appropriation, procurement and distribution of war material for effective warfare. The QMG is one of the most senior military positions on the General Staff, and is a position normally held by a General in the Army. While the QMG of the forces accounts for war material and logistics, Adjutant-General of the forces, accounts for military personnel and their postings. Basically, he is a paper-pusher, the equivalent of the Director of Personnel services in Civilian organizations. That the Adjutant-General does personnel administration, to Salimonu makes him more important to the QMG, the Director of production and Distribution, the civilian equivalent of the QMG? I'm just trying to use recognizable references that he may understand.
Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2016 2:25 PM
Salimonu Kadiri
2. The QMG is one of the most senior military positions on the General Staff, and is a position normally held by a General in the Army - Obi Nwakanma.
3. I've kept mixing up James Yakubu Pam with Jacob Yakubu Gowon for some odd reasons of association -----//.... perhaps because they were both Lt. Colonels, or even because Yakubu Gowon had been Adjutant General of the Army in 1963, before Yakubu Pam, before they were both appointed Battalion Commanders - Obi Nwakanma.
Out of mischief, Obi is mixing up many things. Pam had been Lt. Colonel in 1962 a year before Gowon was promoted to the same rank. Gowon could not have been Adjutant General before Pam since he was yet to go for JSSC training which was absolutely necessary to be Adjutant General. Gowon returned to Nigeria from JSSC training a night before the coup and he was scheduled to take over from Hilary Njoku as Commander of 2nd Battalion, Ikeja. Worth repeating here is that Pam was enlisted in 1954 and Commissioned in 1955 while Gowon was enlisted in 1955 and commissioned in 1956. Colonel Kuru Mohammed was the first Nigerian Adjutant General, from whom Pam took over after the former was promoted to Chief of Staff to replace Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari who was made Commander Southern Command while Brigadier Samuel Adesujo Ademulegun was Commander, Northern Command.
From: rexma...@hotmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - MUST READ: The Aguiyi-Ironsi Tragedy
Rex Marinus
Salimonu Kadiri, you may choose to believe Ahmadu Kurfi over Andrew Nwankwo who was Ironsi's ADC, and whose colleague, Sani Bello, another of Ironsi's ADC, though not part of the coup plot, was a Northern officer on the spot. More discerning and thoughtful
people would choose a direct witness of the event, but you understandably prefer the general, more convenient picture painted by Kurfi, rather than Andrew Nwankwo's witness account. You in fact go so far as to dismiss Nwankwo's experience as possibly made
up, in spite of Sani Bello's validation of their experience of the 29th of July 1966. Because you are the great purveyor of suitable Nigerian truth, Nwankwo is a "liar" in not so many words. That's just fine. It is also just fine that the Secretary to the
Federal Government, the most powerful bureaucrat in the nation, repository of Nigeria National security secrets, foreign and domestic, and Chief administrator of state was not killed because he did not express the wish to be taken with Ironsi, and all he needed
to do was to request his own death, and that wish would have been granted. As for Fajuyi, he was killed only because he really wished to die with Ironsi. In other words, he had a death wish which was cavalierly granted to him as some sort of perverse favour
by Ironsi's captors. These are all your statements, and I'm taking you by your words. They killed Fajuyi, in other words because Colonel Fajuyi insisted on being killed.
Cornelius Hamelberg
“So swiftly the sun
sets in the sky
You rise up and say goodbye to no one
Fools
rush in where angels fear to tread
Both of their futures, so
full of dread, you
don't show one” (Jokerman)
In this era of the weak naira, my two kobos worth:
As to the saying that “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread”, it's surely something most people here are reluctant to do. Since I've known Ogbeni Kadiri (outside of this forum) a few decades now, as one who sets a high premium on truthfulness and punctuality, I have never known him to lose this kind of argument or to be in any factual error about Swedish political history, for that matter. Ogbeni Kadiri has told us that “Colonel Kuru Mohammed was the first Nigerian Adjutant General...” whilst Obi Nwakanma differs: “Gowon, not Kur Muhammed, was the first Nigerian Adjutant-General of the Nigerian Army, appointed in 1963 on his return from Congo where he had been Brigade Major”
How do we settle a dispute when the contending factions could be telling nothing less than the holy truth? Is it a matter of “all is lost” because of a slight error about who was first ? In any case it's not the centre of gravity of this grand exchange, nor is it poetry and I don't think that anyone is telling a deliberate lie, nor has anyone advanced Machiavelli or any of Rousseau’s 13 reasons for telling a permissive lie. Whereas JJC Obi Nwakanma arrived on this earth on December 18, 1966, Ogbeni Kadiri knows the period under our purview, forwards and backwards, inside and out and does not need an encyclopedia of the Nigerian military, to feel confident of his facts. From personal experience we know that no matter what the historians may write, there's a difference between reading about events that occurred half a century ago and actually being in the thick of it, as a witness - and that there is sometimes what's known as a “conflict of interests” when it comes to remembering and that there could be conflicting witness testimonies and even unreliable or prejudiced memories...
So, I asked Professor Google the question: Who was the first person to ever be appointed Adjutant-General of the Nigerian Army? Startling answers, but not conclusive..
Some people are still asking Professor Google whether or not Adam , had a belly button, as if Prof G is The Omniscient.
(Very interesting : Late Arrival on Earth by Gunnar Ekelof
...
Salimonu Kadiri
Obi Nwakanma, the forces that confronted Fajuyi on the morning of 29 July 1966 were greater than him. If he had abandoned Ironsi, he would not have been killed because he was not the target of the coup makers. As a man with self esteem and self-respect, he demanded that if they took his GOC and host they should take him too. He was a courageous and loyal officer, and I would have done the same thing if I were in his position. But when Dialas, the master tribe, now consider Fajuyi as an Osu that only fulfilled his natural role as a slave worthy of dying along with Ironsi, I get pissed off.
Instead of quoting me, Obi Nwakanma engages in malicious interpretation of what I have written thus, "As for Fajuyi, he was killed only because he really wished to die with Ironsi. In other words, he had a death wish which was cavalierly granted to him as some sort of perverse favour by Ironsi's captors. These are all your statements, and I'm taking you by your words. They killed Fajuyi in other words because Colonel Fajuyi insisted on being killed." I have never written anywhere that Fajuyi had death wish, it is only very difficult for Obi Nwakanma to understand that a man like Fajuyi could decide to follow his Commander to death when he could have abandoned him to preserve his own life. Fajuyi was not the target of the coup makers of July 1966 just as the pregnant wife of Brigadier Ademulegun was not the target of Major Tim Onwuatuegwu when he burst into their bedroom in January 1966. However, Mrs Ademulegun with her eight months pregnancy, placed herself protectively in front of her husband. Major Onwuatuegwu, who did not want to risk the revolution because of a pregnant woman ripped open her abdomen with machine-gun fire before killing the Brigadier. If Mrs. Ademulegun had stood by the side wailing and begging Onwuatuegwu, just as Mrs Pam did to Major Chukwuka, she would not have been killed with her unborn child. It is a common saying in Yoruba, IKÚ YÁ JU ÈSÍN AIYÉ, which means better die than to be subjected to world's ridicule or shame. For Fajuyi and Mrs Ademulegun, they would rather die than allow an armed intruder to control their place of abode. Defending one's honour is not wishing to die but to Dialas, it is honourable for a General Officer Commanding the Armed Forces of Biafra to abandon his soldiers in the war front and to flee to safety abroad.
...your writing insists that Arthur Unegbe's was an *inferior death* compared with the deaths of other Lt. Colonels who had been killed on the same night as he - Obi Nwakanma.
... you insist that Lt. Colonel James Pam, although he was on the same rank with Unegbe was a *senior* and *superior* officer, whose death should not be equated with Unegbe's - Obi Nwakanma.
Obi is a pathological liar, since there is no where I have ever written that Unegbe's death was inferior to any other person, military or civilian, killed in January 1966. Obi is crediting me with his own invented writing just as he normally does to invent stories, which he calls history, and credit them to people with whom he supposedly munched groundnuts and drank beer.
Yes, I insisted that although Unegbe and Pam hold the same rank of Lt. Colonels, the latter is senior to the former because Pam was enlisted in 1954, commissioned in 1955, promoted to the rank of Lt. Colonel in 1963 having received JSSC Staff training. Unegbe on the other hand was enlisted in 1955, commissioned in 1956 and promoted to a Lt. Colonel in 1964 after receiving Staff training, PSC, in Pakistan. Mark you that PSC training, even if it were received in London which is valued higher than Quetta, in Pakistan, is inferior to JSSC. It is the combinations of year of enlistment, year of commission date of promotion to Lt. colonel in addition to the type of Staff Training that earned Pam the appointment of Adjutant General which ranked him senior and superior to Unegbe. I am not as cynical as Obi in choosing which death is superior or inferior and there is no time I have written, directly or implied, that Unegbe's death should not be equated to that of Lt. Colonel Pam.
.... in the advise/memo to unify the services was given to Ironsi by the highly respected public servant Simeon Adebo..
Well Obi must learn to be truthful and honest. Even if he was not born or too young to remember what happened in 1966, he should not assume what happened because a lot of books have been written both by actors in the crisis and outsiders. On 12 February 1966, Ironsi appointed Francis C. Nwokedi as a one-man commissioner to study and report on the unification of Nigeria's administrative machinery and public and judicial services. John de St Jorre noted in his, The Nigerian Civil War thus, "The key man was now Francis Nwokedi. Since February he had been travelling widely in the Federation studying the question of unifying the regional and federal civil services. .... However, it was becoming clear that Nwokedi, a clever and strong-willed person who was one of Ironsi's most influential advisers, had firm idea of his own. When a group of leading Nsukka University professors presented a detailed paper arguing against swift administrative unification Nwokedi ignored it." Before the end of March !966 Nwokedi had submitted his one-man report on unitary form of government to Ironsi. Thus on the occasion of annual budget on the 31st of March 1966, Ironsi in a national broadcast told Nigerians, "For the first time, fiscal, economic and industrial projects are being considered and being directed by one central authority. I am convinced that the bulk of our people want a united Nigeria and that they want in future one government and not a multitude of governments." When the Supreme Military Council met on 22-23 of May 1966, Ironsi confronted his governors with the unification Decree that would abolish the Regions with stiff opposition from Fajuyi and Hassan Katsina. Ruth First in The Barrel of the Gun wrote, "The Supreme Military Council had been divided, with most of its members opposed. At the meeting immediately before the Decree promulgated, Ironsi heard the governors out, after they had lodged their objections in writing, and then said, 'I'm committed." On page 310 of Ruth First's book, a special note was given, "Lieutenant Colonel Fajuyi had written a five-page memorandum setting out the difficulties and problems he envisaged. He added a concluding paragraph stating that if these objections were taken into account he agreed with the tenor of the document. The governor of the North telephoned Fajuyi. ' Why the last paragraph?' he asked. 'Out of Courtesy,' was Fajuyi's reply."
On Tuesday, 24 May 1966, Ironsi to the chagrins of Fajuyi and Hassan Katsina announced in a national broadcast, Decree No.34 abolishing the Regions which were to be ruled from Lagos. Nigeria was no longer a Federation but simply Republic of Nigeria ruled by National Military Government and not Federal Military Government. Except in the brain of an ethnic Mandarin, the architect of unitary government as promulgated by Ironsi in 1966 was Francis Nwokedi and not Simeon Adebo. Following the promulgation of Unitary form of government, Decree No. 34 of 24 May 1966, Azikiwe's Newspaper, West African Pilot, published a cartoon titled, The Dawn of a New Era, portraying Ironsi government as a large cock (Cock is the symbol of Azikiwe's NCNC political party that had had unitary form of Government in its party programmes since 1950s) crowing 'One Country, One Nationality.' May I add that Azikiwe returned to Nigeria after the coup on 25 February 1966, barely two weeks after Ironsi had appointed Francis Nwokedi to implement Azikiwe's long time dream of unitary government for Nigeria.
You lie against the dead when you wrote that Ironsi refused to release Awolowo, especially given the fact that the minutes of the Supreme Military Council indicate that a decision had been reached to that effect which was part of the announcement that Ironsi was billed to make that evening at the planned dinner with peoples and Chiefs of the Western region - Obi Nwakanma.
I was in Lagos in the evening of 28 July 1966 and I saw Ironsi on TV addressing a congregation of Western Region Obas in the House of Chiefs in the day-time, with Oba of Lagos, Adeyinka Oyekan, in attendance. At the dinner in the evening I saw on the TV how Yoruba Talking Drum musicians were singing in Yoruba in praise of Ironsi thus: ÀKÀNO ÒJÌ, KÓROBÓTÓ BI OKÁ, AGÙN T'ASÓ LÒ, OLÚWA KÒ NI JÉOKÚ. The musicians had renamed Ironsi in Yoruba to Àkàno. A straight translation is as follows: ÀKÀNO THE STORM, ROBUST LIKE A CONSCRIPTOR (A type of snake in Yoruba) TALL TO FIT CLOTHES, MAY GOD NOT ALLOW YOU TO DIE. That was what Nigerians saw on the TV and there was no announcement by Ironsi that evening of 28 July 1966 that Awolowo was to be released. Ironsi took power on January 16, 1966 and Obi claimed that he was to announce the release of Awolowo at Ibadan on July 28, 1966, which did not happen. May be, Obi can tell us what Ironsi was waiting for, between January and July, to release Awolowo, if that was his plan.
In Government Notice No. 1507/1966 titled Instrument of Pardon - Chief Awolowo, 2 August 1966, it was recorded: By His Excellency Lieutenant-Colonel Yakubu Gowon, Head of the National Military Government, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Nigeria.
WHEREAS Chief Obafemi Awolowo, having been duly convicted........ AND WHEREAS the Supreme Military Council after reviewing his case, is pleased to remit the sentence and to grant a full pardon:
NOW THEREFORE, in exercise of the powers conferred by section 101 (1) of the Constitution of the Republic and of all other powers enabling it in that behalf, the Supreme Military Council do hereby remit the unexpired portion of the sentence imposed on the aforesaid Chief Obafemi Awolowo and grant him ful pardon.
GIVEN UNDER my hand and the Public Seal of the Republic of Nigeria at Lagos this second day of August, one thousand nine hundred and sixty-six.
Awolowo was pardoned and released on the 2nd of August 1966 and he was flown from Calabar to Ikeja airport the following day. The Nigerian Daily Times of August 4, 1966 featured Gowon greeting Awolowo at the airport with the remark, '' We need you for the wealth of your experience.''
At the time Awolowo was released, Lieutenant Colonel Ojukwu had fled from Enugu and was hiding at Police Headquarter, Onitsha, because 85% of riffle carriers at Enugu Battalion were Northerners and his chance of survival was small if fighting should break out there. Ojukwu did not return to Enugu until after August 6, when Lieutenant Colonel David Ogunewe succeeded in negotiating with Northern soldiers who agreed to return to the North and armed with their guns. So, Ojukwu played no role in the release of Awolowo.
Obi wrote that Awolowo was a fascist for advocating true federalism where each ethnic group could develop at their own pace. Unlike the Yoruba culture in which I grew up, Obi was brought up in a culture where youths are trained to demonstrate their courage and boldness by urinating on the graves of their dead elders. If Awolowo was a fascist, all those who are now clamouring for restructuring of Nigeria into true federalism based on the current six geo-political zones (North-Central, North-East, North-West, South-East, South-South and South-West) must be fascists. As Obi has admitted in writing, he is a great consumer of groundnuts and beer resulting to his constant emission of historical farting that smells rot.
S.Kadiri
Skickat: den 19 augusti 2016 23:47
Till: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - MUST READ: The Aguiyi-Ironsi Tragedy
Cornelius Hamelberg
One man's papa soup is another man's poison.
Is this not a case of cultural chauvinism : “Unlike the Yoruba culture in which I grew up, Obi was brought up in a culture where youths are trained to demonstrate their courage and boldness by urinating on the graves of their dead elders” (Ogbeni Kadiri) ?
Either Mazi Nwakanma will not dignify anybody with a response or it's just a matter of time before loose cannons and sparks start flying...ojare…
Or as Lakunle would say,
“I rise above taunts and remain unruffled “
...
From: usaafricadialogu
Salimonu Kadiri
Cornelius, I am only emphasizing that it is an abomination in my Yoruba culture to lie and cast aspersion against the dead as I have been accused of by Obi Nwakanma. That is nothing to flex muscle for.
S. Kadiri
Skickat: den 22 augusti 2016 13:52
Till: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Rex Marinus
I could choose indeed not to dignify this drivel with a response because it is casting rubies to a sow. How can a man lie to himself who says, Unegbe trained in Pakistan, therefore he is "inferior" to James Pam's Camberly for instance, and turn around to deny his own statements in the same context as he is making it? If he now denies that he holds Unegbe's death comparatively insignificant to Pam's death, why did it become an issue for him? Why does Unegbe not being a full Colonel, and a mere Quartermaster-General, (no better than a Store keeper), and therefore incomparable to Pam's death, who was the real "Adjutant General" such a landmark statement, that it became a point of such a great departure for Salimonu Kadiri? It is either this Salimonu is bi-polar or he does not understand the language with which he is engaging these discussions. But I think I've cornered him in hos own contradiction, but the problem is that h suffers from the great mental problem called "Igbophobia." It's really a waste of my time continuing to point out his inconsistencies and his prejudices. The more I do it, the more he burrows into the pit. He does not even know the meaning of the Joint Services Staff Course (JSSC). Though they were course mates at Sandhurst, Unegbe made Lt. Col. in 1963 (not 1964), ahead of Gowon by months; and Commanded the 5th Battalion before becoming the QMG. He could not have commanded the 5th Battalion as a Major. Ojukwu took over from him as Commander of the 5th Battalion in Kano, while he took over from Ojukwu as QMG. James Pam took over from Gowon as Adjutant-General in 1965, when Gowon went on his staff course. Military promotion is the gauge of seniority, and not always when you joined. Ojukwu was commissioned in 1957 after attending Eaton Hall Officers Training, with a 1956 Masters degree in History from Oxford, and after a stint as District Officer at Udi and Umuahia, a senior service position, and was promoted Lt. Colonel before Gowon. Bu they were on the same rank eventually. Ojukwu's argument against Gowon was that there was a military hierarchy which ought to be respected if the Nigerian Army was to maintain discipline, and that there was a Brigadier and a whole slew of Colonels before Gowon who should take charge after the coup. Ojukwu moved tactically to Onitsha, while Colonel Ogunewe remained in Enugu. It'd be really useful if we do not fudge these narratives. Even while he was in Onitsha, as military governor, he remained in charge of the East. As at 1 August, 1966, the East no longer took orders from Lagos. No troops could move in or out of the East without Ojukwu's express orders. Ogunewe had disarmed Northern soldiers in Enugu, and the Eastern police under P.C. Okeke was in charge of internal security. How therefore could Gowon give orders to release Awolowo who was in prison in the East, when Ojukwu had secured the East, and did not recognize the authority of Gowon? who would effect the order on behalf of Gowon?
On a different note, although Francis Nwokedi headed the commission on unification, it was an idea muted as far back as February, preceding the appointment and inauguration of the Nwokedi commission in March, and the announcement of the decree in May 1966. One of the central claims of that moment was that "regionalism" had created so much disunity in Nigeria. Among the great proponents of a "National government" and the unification of the services was Simeon Adebo, who was himself a product of that kind of the Civil service, and who had been appointed by Ironsi as head of the Commission on the Economy. Much of Salimonu Kadiri's version of Nigeria's history is taken from street lore and popular rumours. There is actual value in "drinking beer and eating peanuts" with the central figures of that history; those who actually made that history, and who often tell their own stories beyond the street lore. Again, I wish that a man like Dr. Pius Okigbo, who worked very closely both with Ironsi and Adebo had completed his own memoirs. I will leave all that question about the "culture" in which I was raised alone, and rather make one thing clear: only ignorant and unrefined folk talk about another's culture of which they know nothing about, in which they have never lived, and of which they can only conceive abstractly, with such primitive, provincial prejudice not worthy even of middle school thinking! It is the kind of straw pulled by a man gasping for air.
Obi Nwakanma
Sent: Monday, August 22, 2016 11:52 AM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Chidi Anthony Opara
“Unlike the Yoruba culture in which I grew up, Obi was brought up in a culture where youths are trained to demonstrate their courage and boldness by urinating on the graves of their dead elders” (Salimonu Kadiri)
When I wrote that Kadiri and Danjuma are colleagues in The Anti-Igbo Project and that while the likes of Danjuma operated from the military axis, the likes of Kadiri operates from the Intellectual axis, the moderator refused the post. Have the above not justified what I said?
CAO.
I could choose indeed not to dignify this drivel with a response because it is casting rubies to a sow. How can a man lie to himself who says, Unegbe trained in Pakistan, therefore he is "inferior" to James Pam's Camberly for instance, and turn around to deny his own statements in the same context as he is making it? If he now denies that he holds Unegbe's death comparatively insignificant to Pam's death, why did it become an issue for him? Why does Unegbe not being a full Colonel, and a mere Quartermaster-General, (no better than a Store keeper), and therefore incomparable to Pam's death, who was the real "Adjutant General" such a landmark statement, that it became a point of such a great departure for Salimonu Kadiri? It is either this Salimonu is bi-polar or he does not understand the language with which he is engaging these discussions. But I think I've cornered him in hos own contradiction, but the problem is that h suffers from the great mental problem called "Igbophobia." It's really a waste of my time continuing to point out his inconsistencies and his prejudices. The more I do it, the more he burrows into the pit. He does not even know the meaning of the Joint Services Staff Course (JSSC). Though they were course mates at Sandhurst, Unegbe made Lt. Col. in 1963 (not 1964), ahead of Gowon by months; and Commanded the 5th Battalion before becoming the QMG. He could not have commanded the 5th Battalion as a Major. Ojukwu took over from him as Commander of the 5th Battalion in Kano, while he took over from Ojukwu as QMG. James Pam took over from Gowon as Adjutant-General in 1965, when Gowon went on his staff course. Military promotion is the gauge of seniority, and not always when you joined. Ojukwu was commissioned in 1957 after attending Eaton Hall Officers Training, with a 1956 Masters degree in History from Oxford, and after a stint as District Officer at Udi and Umuahia, a senior service position, and was promoted Lt. Colonel before Gowon. Bu they were on the same rank eventually. Ojukwu's argument against Gowon was that there was a military hierarchy which ought to be respected if the Nigerian Army was to maintain discipline, and that there was a Brigadier and a whole slew of Colonels before Gowon who should take charge after the coup. Ojukwu moved tactically to Onitsha, while Colonel Ogunewe remained in Enugu. It'd be really useful if we do not fudge these narratives. Even while he was in Onitsha, as military governor, he remained in charge of the East. As at 1 August, 1966, the East no longer took orders from Lagos. No troops could move in or out of the East without Ojukwu's express orders. Ogunewe had disarmed Northern soldiers in Enugu, and the Eastern police under P.C. Okeke was in charge of internal security. How therefore could Gowon give orders to release Awolowo who was in prison in the East, when Ojukwu had secured the East, and did not recognize the authority of Gowon? who would effect the order on behalf of Gowon?
On a different note, although Francis Nwokedi headed the commission on unification, it was an idea muted as far back as February, preceding the appointment and inauguration of the Nwokedi commission in March, and the announcement of the decree in May 1966. One of the central claims of that moment was that "regionalism" had created so much disunity in Nigeria. Among the great proponents of a "National government" and the unification of the services was Simeon Adebo, who was himself a product of that kind of the Civil service, and who had been appointed by Ironsi as head of the Commission on the Economy. Much of Salimonu Kadiri's version of Nigeria's history is taken from street lore and popular rumours. There is actual value in "drinking beer and eating peanuts" with the central figures of that history; those who actually made that history, and who often tell their own stories beyond the street lore. Again, I wish that a man like Dr. Pius Okigbo, who worked very closely both with Ironsi and Adebo had completed his own memoirs. I will leave all that question about the "culture" in which I was raised alone, and rather make one thing clear: only ignorant and unrefined folk talk about another's culture of which they know nothing about, in which they have never lived, and of which they can only conceive abstractly, with such primitive, provincial prejudice not worthy even of middle school thinking! It is the kind of straw pulled by a man gasping for air.
Obi Nwakanma
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Salimonu Kadiri
Thank you, Obi, for dignifying my drivel with a response. I am sure that we both want a better Nigeria for all our peoples. At the same time we must know what were wrong in our past so that we don't repeat past mistakes. My plea to you is that you should read what I write and not what you think I should write. Unegbe was not inferior in person to Pam but Unegbe's PSC staff Training course and where he received it was inferior to that of Pam. A simple analogy would help to explain the praxis in the Army. One Obi travels to New York from Ibadan and another Obi from Ajegunle travels to Cotonou. In the usual Nigerian common saying, both Obi have travelled abroad but in general understanding, being abroad in New York is valued higher than being abroad in Cotonou. In the Army, Staff Training in Pakistan used to be, and still today is, inferior to Staff Training in UK or US. You may wish that the Nigerian Army Staff Training anywhere in the world is equal in value but it has never been so in practice, in Nigeria
The followings were Lt. Colonels that had Staff trainings abroad as at 15 January 1966 in order of seniority according to their year and date of promotion : Arbogo Largema (psc Camberley), James Yakubu Pam (jssc Camberly), George T. Kurobo (psc Pakistan), Hilary Njoku (psc, Pakistan), Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu (jssc), David Akpode Ejoor (psc, Camberley), Arthur Unegbe (psc, Pakistan), and Yakubu Gowon (psc and jssc, Camberley). As at January 15, 1966, Hilary Njoku was the only Pakistan trained psc that Commanded a Battalion (2nd Battalion Ikeja) and arrangement had been concluded that he should hand over to Yakubu Gowon before the end of January 1966. The position of a Commander of a Battalion being superior to that of Quartermaster General in the Army, Ojukwu, a jssc Staff Trained, was elevated to the Commander of 5th Battalion Kano while Arthur Unegbe, a Pakistan psc Staff Trained was relegated to Quartermaster General.
There was no dispute about Ojukwu being promoted Lt. Colonel before Gowon or not. If you have read what I wrote with open mind, you will see that my point has been that even among Lt. Colonels, there is seniority order based on the year, month and date of promotion of each officer. After the January 1966 coup, Lt. Colonels from the then Eastern Region in order of seniority by promotion dates were as follows : Wellington Umoh Bassey, Ume Ogere Imo, George T. Kurobo, Philip Effiong, Hilary Njoku and Chukwuemeka Ojukwu. Of the list of the Lt. Colonels, you will see that Ojukwu was the last to be promoted to that rank. In fact, Wellington Umoh Bassey was promoted to the rank of Lt. Colonel in 1962 on the same date as Ironsi and Ademulegun. The question now is, if Ironsi had followed military hierarchy after the January Coup, his choice of Governor of Eastern Region, in the first place, should have been Lt. Colonel Umoh Bassey. After July 1966 coup, Ojukwu did not abdicate from office as Governor and handover to any of his senior Lt. Colonels. Thus, when Ojukwu was asking Gowon to respect military hierarchy, he was only being hypocritical and mischievous. Which discipline was Ojukwu trying to maintain in a situation where a Major arrested a Major General and a Lt. Colonel and he himself fled the seat of his government to hide somewhere hundred Kilometers away?
There was nothing tactical in Ojukwu's fleeing Enugu to hide in Onitsha. He knew quite well that the Northern infantry men outnumbered the Igbo by 10 to 1 and that if fighting should break out, there was no way armed Igbo could survive the military confrontation. David Ogunewe was a respected officer by his troops at the Enugu Battalion. He rose from the other rank to be commissioned officer but he kept his relation with them as when he was not commissioned. As a mack of respect his troops addressed him as *Baba.* And when Ogunewe prostrated and wept before the Northern soldiers begging them not to fight, the soldiers wept in return and told Ogunewe not to cry. They assured him that nothing would happen and demanded to take their weapons with them back to the North, to which *Baba* Ogunewe did not and could not object to. Contrary to the imagination of Obi, Ogunewe never disarmed the Northern soldiers, rather they took their arms with them to the North. That did not happen until 6th August 1966.
Ojukwu was still in hiding on August 2, when political prisoners including Awolowo, Enahoro and others were released by Gowon who even welcomed Awolowo personally at Ikeja airport on the 3rd of August 1966. Ojukwu was more concerned about his own personal safety that drove him out of Enugu to Onitsha on July 29, 1966, than to think about Awolowo's release which had never bothered him up till July 29, 1966.
Among the great proponents of a "National government" and unification of the services was Simeon Adebo, who was himself a product of that kind of Civil service, and who had been appointed by Ironsi as head of the Commission on the Economy. Much of Salimonu Kadiri's version of Nigeria's history is taken from the street lore and popular rumours - Obi Nwakanma; ....the advise/memo to unify the services was given to Ironsi by the highly respected public servant, Simeon Adebo.... - Obi Nwakanma.
Depending on the mood he found himself, Obi has chosen to assign a major role to Simeon Adebo with regards to Ironsi's Decree No. 34 of 24 May 1966. Excerpt in bold letters was from his earlier response where he made Simeon Adebo to give advise/memo to Ironsi for unitary government. The current assignment conjured up by Obi for Simeon Adebo is that he was head of Ironsi's Economic Commission and one of the proponents of unitary government. Obi is farting explosively with history since he is unaware that the small circle of Ironsi's friends and advisers up to July 29, 1966, were Lt. Colonel Njoku, Pius Okigbo-Federal government's economic advisors, G.C.M. Onyiuke-Attorney General, Francis Nwokedi- One-man Commission on unitary government, S.O.Wey- Secretary to the National Military Government, and A.A. Ayida, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Economic Development. These names did not originate from folklore or rumour, they existed in action and reality.
In the absence of anything intelligent to say, Dr. Obi Nwakanma diagnosed me of Igbo-phobia affliction. If I have had phobia for Igbo as a people, I would not have loved Chukwuma Nzeogwu, I would not have loved Emanuel Ifeajuna, I would not have loved Henry Chukwuka, I would not have loved Christian Anuforo, I would not have loved Tim Onwuatuegwu, and I would not have Loved Ben Gbulie. They had good intention for Nigeria until tribal supremacists seized their revolution. Perhaps, Ben Gbulie, himself an Igbo, was suffering from Igbo-phobia when he wrote in the Nigeria's Five Majors thus, "Major-General Johnson Thompson Umunnakwe Aguiyi Ironsi was the General Officer Commanding the Nigerian Army. A hard-drinking, slow-speaking introvert who had risen from the ranks, and had been trained at Eaton Hall and Camberley Staff College, he was, however, considered both inept and inefficient - hardly the calibre of officer to command an army. In fact, the coup planners considered him unfit to command even a funeral detail." Truth must always prevail and may Chineke save us from fraudulent psychiatrists!!
S.Kadiri.
Till: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Salimonu Kadiri
Chidi, you may wish to know that when Awolowo promulgated free primary education for all children of school age, 1954/55, in the then Western Region, that coverred the present day Benin, Asaba, Agbor, Warri and Sapele, he did not exclude the children of non-Yoruba speaking part of the Region from enjoying free primary education. In fact, the Children of Igbo from the Eastern Region who were permanently resident in the Western Region enjoyed the free primary education. Had Awolowo been a fascist, he would have excluded and prevented all non-Yoruba children from enjoying free primary education in Western Region. Calling Awolowo a fascist was part of the cause for my highlighting the cultural disparity in question.
Your justification for labelling me anti-Igbo is due to my averment that unlike the Yoruba culture in which I was brought up, Obi, the caller of Awolowo a fascist, was brought up in a culture where youths are trained to demonstrate their courage and boldness by urinating on the graves of their elders. In your reaction, you are not denying the existence and practice of that cultural absurdity. My mentioning it is to you a crime that makes me an anti-Igbo. You are judging me wrongly and that is unfair. Speaking in the Eastern House of Assembly on March 20 , 1956, while seconding the motion for the second reading of the Abolition of the Osu System Bill, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe said, "This Bill seeks to do three things: to abolish the Osu system and its allied practices including the Oru or Ohu System, to prescribe punishment for their continued practice, and to remove certain social disabilities caused by the enforcement of the Osu and its allied system. According to this Bill, the Osu system include any social way of living which implies that any person who is deemed to be an OSU, or ORU or OHU is subject to certain prescribed social disability and social stigma. Mr. Speaker, this Bill offers a challenge to the morality of the Easterners. I submit that it is not morally consistent to condone the OSU or ORU or OHU system. I submit that it is devilish and most uncharitable to brand any human being with a label of inferiority (slave)..." Although Azikiwe did not succeed to abolish the cast system of slavery known as OSU, ORU, and OHU in Igboland and the system is still in operation today, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was never labelled anti-Igbo for his attempt to abolish the cast system. Why should you, Chidi, label me anti-Igbo for referencing cultural abnormality?
S.Kadiri
Skickat: den 24 augusti 2016 12:35
Till: USA African Dialogue Series
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Ogbeni Kadiri,
Those with their hearts and minds in the right place are affronted by the most remote suggestion by any person, miscreant or urchin, that our venerated elder AWO of blessed memory - God forbid – could in any way be associated with fascism.
And there's no use in arguing with lunatics/fanatics, racists, tribalists, since they can say anything. Freedom of speech.
Sometimes, sarcasm / intended sarcasm, irony can be misinterpreted/ wilfully misinterpreted and thus backfire and cause collateral damage, therefore, thanks for the clarification. It's another case of “you know better” versus “ you ought to know better”, but assuming that Citizen Obi ever waded far from the ethical norms of Igbo culture, in my opinion it would still be wrong - even sarcastically speaking - to attribute / blame his perceived failings on an Igbo culture which may be a little different from Yoruba culture when it comes to the degree of respect we show towards elders and of course towards our illustrious ancestors.
I'm not the one who needs to tell you to be more careful about the factual basis for this kind of accreditation : “Obi is a pathological liar,” ; “Obi must learn to be truthful and honest” ; “his own invented writing just as he normally does to invent stories, which he calls history, and credit them to people with whom he supposedly munched groundnuts and drank beer.” (Beer drinkers, not palm wine drinkards, eh?) )
The silence that is likely to follow your latest clarification, especially after quoting ZIK should be less of “silence means consent “ and more of the extended/ sustained silence which usually follows after having been corrected by Ogun's thunder...
A musical tribute to Chief Obafemi Awolowo
Peacefully,
Cornelius
On Thursday, 25 August 2016 23:25:14 UTC+2, ogunlakaiye wrote:
Chidi, you may wish to know that when Awolowo promulgated free primary education for all children of school age, 1954/55, in the then Western Region, that coverred the present day Benin, Asaba, Agbor, Warri and Sapele, he did not exclude the children of non-Yoruba speaking part of the Region from enjoying free primary education. In fact, the Children of Igbo from the Eastern Region who were permanently resident in the Western Region enjoyed the free primary education. Had Awolowo been a fascist, he would have excluded and prevented all non-Yoruba children from enjoying free primary education in Western Region. Calling Awolowo a fascist was part of the cause for my highlighting the cultural disparity in question.
Your justification for labelling me anti-Igbo is due to my averment that unlike the Yoruba culture in which I was brought up, Obi, the caller of Awolowo a fascist, was brought up in a culture where youths are trained to demonstrate their courage and boldness by urinating on the graves of their elders. In your reaction, you are not denying the existence and practice of that cultural absurdity. My mentioning it is to you a crime that makes me an anti-Igbo. You are judging me wrongly and that is unfair. Speaking in the Eastern House of Assembly on March 20 , 1956, while seconding the motion for the second reading of the Abolition of the Osu System Bill, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe said, "This Bill seeks to do three things: to abolish the Osu system and its allied practices including the Oru or Ohu System, to prescribe punishment for their continued practice, and to remove certain social disabilities caused by the enforcement of the Osu and its allied system. According to this Bill, the Osu system include any social way of living which implies that any person who is deemed to be an OSU, or ORU or OHU is subject to certain prescribed social disability and social stigma. Mr. Speaker, this Bill offers a challenge to the morality of the Easterners. I submit that it is not morally consistent to condone the OSU or ORU or OHU system. I submit that it is devilish and most uncharitable to brand any human being with a label of inferiority (slave)..." Although Azikiwe did not succeed to abolish the cast system of slavery known as OSU, ORU, and OHU in Igboland and the system is still in operation today, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was never labelled anti-Igbo for his attempt to abolish the cast system. Why should you, Chidi, label me anti-Igbo for referencing cultural abnormality?
S.Kadiri
Från: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> för Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi...@gmail.com>
Skickat: den 24 augusti 2016 12:35
Till: USA African Dialogue Series
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - MUST READ: The Aguiyi-Ironsi Tragedy
“Unlike the Yoruba culture in which I grew up, Obi was brought up in a culture where youths are trained to demonstrate their courage and boldness by urinating on the graves of their dead elders” (Salimonu Kadiri)
When I wrote that Kadiri and Danjuma are colleagues in The Anti-Igbo Project and that while the likes of Danjuma operated from the military axis, the likes of Kadiri operates from the Intellectual axis, the moderator refused the post. Have the above not justified what I said?
CAO.
On Tue, Aug 23, 2016 at 8:33 PM, Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com> wrote:
I could choose indeed not to dignify this drivel with a response because it is casting rubies to a sow. How can a man lie to himself who says, Unegbe trained in Pakistan, therefore he is "inferior" to James Pam's Camberly for instance, and turn around to deny his own statements in the same context as he is making it? If he now denies that he holds Unegbe's death comparatively insignificant to Pam's death, why did it become an issue for him? Why does Unegbe not being a full Colonel, and a mere Quartermaster-General, (no better than a Store keeper), and therefore incomparable to Pam's death, who was the real "Adjutant General" such a landmark statement, that it became a point of such a great departure for Salimonu Kadiri? It is either this Salimonu is bi-polar or he does not understand the language with which he is engaging these discussions. But I think I've cornered him in hos own contradiction, but the problem is that h suffers from the great mental problem called "Igbophobia." It's really a waste of my time continuing to point out his inconsistencies and his prejudices. The more I do it, the more he burrows into the pit. He does not even know the meaning of the Joint Services Staff Course (JSSC). Though they were course mates at Sandhurst, Unegbe made Lt. Col. in 1963 (not 1964), ahead of Gowon by months; and Commanded the 5th Battalion before becoming the QMG. He could not have commanded the 5th Battalion as a Major. Ojukwu took over from him as Commander of the 5th Battalion in Kano, while he took over from Ojukwu as QMG. James Pam took over from Gowon as Adjutant-General in 1965, when Gowon went on his staff course. Military promotion is the gauge of seniority, and not always when you joined. Ojukwu was commissioned in 1957 after attending Eaton Hall Officers Training, with a 1956 Masters degree in History from Oxford, and after a stint as District Officer at Udi and Umuahia, a senior service position, and was promoted Lt. Colonel before Gowon. Bu they were on the same rank eventually. Ojukwu's argument against Gowon was that there was a military hierarchy which ought to be respected if the Nigerian Army was to maintain discipline, and that there was a Brigadier and a whole slew of Colonels before Gowon who should take charge after the coup. Ojukwu moved tactically to Onitsha, while Colonel Ogunewe remained in Enugu. It'd be really useful if we do not fudge these narratives. Even while he was in Onitsha, as military governor, he remained in charge of the East. As at 1 August, 1966, the East no longer took orders from Lagos. No troops could move in or out of the East without Ojukwu's express orders. Ogunewe had disarmed Northern soldiers in Enugu, and the Eastern police under P.C. Okeke was in charge of internal security. How therefore could Gowon give orders to release Awolowo who was in prison in the East, when Ojukwu had secured the East, and did not recognize the authority of Gowon? who would effect the order on behalf of Gowon?
On a different note, although Francis Nwokedi headed the commission on unification, it was an idea muted as far back as February, preceding the appointment and inauguration of the Nwokedi commission in March, and the announcement of the decree in May 1966. One of the central claims of that moment was that "regionalism" had created so much disunity in Nigeria. Among the great proponents of a "National government" and the unification of the services was Simeon Adebo, who was himself a product of that kind of the Civil service, and who had been appointed by Ironsi as head of the Commission on the Economy. Much of Salimonu Kadiri's version of Nigeria's history is taken from street lore and popular rumours. There is actual value in "drinking beer and eating peanuts" with the central figures of that history; those who actually made that history, and who often tell their own stories beyond the street lore. Again, I wish that a man like Dr. Pius Okigbo, who worked very closely both with Ironsi and Adebo had completed his own memoirs. I will leave all that question about the "culture" in which I was raised alone, and rather make one thing clear: only ignorant and unrefined folk talk about another's culture of which they know nothing about, in which they have never lived, and of which they can only conceive abstractly, with such primitive, provincial prejudice not worthy even of middle school thinking! It is the kind of straw pulled by a man gasping for air.
Obi Nwakanma
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
...
Rex Marinus
Dear Cornelius:
I'm not sure that you have read any of the writings of Mr. Obafemi Awolowo, or read his political programs. But if you have, I'm afraid, you have not borne true witness to his ideas. At this stage of our lives and awareness, it is crucial to tell ourselves some truths. The interpretation of Awo's life and work will, beyond this generation, be done based on his (a) political writings (b) the ideological basis of his foundational party the Action Group, and (c) the political program he ran as political leader. I want you to read the description below of "Fascism" and tell me whether it does not describe Awolowo's stated political philosophy. I did not call Awo a fascist without grounds. Awo himself described himself, his work, and recorded in his writings the nature of his political ideas and praxis. All you need to do is consult the political ideas that founded the Action Group. In fact, read Awo himself, and note where he himself acknowledged his ideological debt to a famous Pakistani fascist, and one of the key ideologues of the partition as well as the goals f National Socialism. One of the stated central goals of the Awolowo and his Action Group was also the protection of the monarchy, as the symbol of the volksgemeinschaft. I do not know what you call that. Meanwhile follow this link for its interesting conclusions http://www.governmentvs.com/en/fascism-vs-social-democracy-history/comparison-10-50-1. I am not the one who called Awo a fascist. His work speaks for him. Printed words survive us all. And all these your attempts to dress Awo in a different robe comes, I daresay, from the emotionalism of a great admirer of Awo, rather than a from the rational examination of his work and his writings. It is there that you must situate him.
Obi Nwakanma
________________________
Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.
Fascism is to be distinguished from interventionism, or the mixed economy. Interventionism seeks to guide the market process, not eliminate it, as fascism did. Minimum-wage and antitrust laws, though they regulate the free market, are a far cry from multiyear plans from the Ministry of Economics.
Under fascism, the state, through official cartels, controlled all aspects of manufacturing, commerce, finance, and agriculture. Planning boards set product lines, production levels, prices, wages, working conditions, and the size of firms. Licensing was ubiquitous; no economic activity could be undertaken without government permission. Levels of consumption were dictated by the state, and “excess” incomes had to be surrendered as taxes or “loans.” The consequent burdening of manufacturers gave advantages to foreign firms wishing to export. But since government policy aimed at autarky, or national self-sufficiency, protectionism was necessary: imports were barred or strictly controlled, leaving foreign conquest as the only avenue for access to resources unavailable domestically. Fascism was thus incompatible with peace and the international division of labor—hallmarks of liberalism.
Fascism embodied corporatism, in which political representation was based on trade and industry rather than on geography. In this, fascism revealed its roots in syndicalism, a form of socialism originating on the left. The government cartelized firms of the same industry, with representatives of labor and management serving on myriad local, regional, and national boards—subject always to the final authority of the dictator’s economic plan. Corporatism was intended to avert unsettling divisions within the nation, such as lockouts and union strikes. The price of such forced “harmony” was the loss of the ability to bargain and move about freely.
To maintain high employment and minimize popular discontent, fascist governments also undertook massive public-works projects financed by steep taxes, borrowing, and fiat money creation. While many of these projects were domestic—roads, buildings, stadiums—the largest project of all was militarism, with huge armies and arms production.
The fascist leaders’ antagonism to communism has been misinterpreted as an affinity for capitalism. In fact, fascists’ anticommunism was motivated by a belief that in the collectivist milieu of early-twentieth-century Europe, communism was its closest rival for people’s allegiance. As with communism, under fascism, every citizen was regarded as an employee and tenant of the totalitarian, party-dominated state. Consequently, it was the state’s prerogative to use force, or the threat of it, to suppress even peaceful opposition.
If a formal architect of fascism can be identified, it is Benito Mussolini, the onetime Marxist editor who, caught up in nationalist fervor, broke with the left as World War I approached and became Italy’s leader in 1922. Mussolini distinguished fascism from liberal capitalism in his 1928 autobiography:
The citizen in the Fascist State is no longer a selfish individual who has the anti-social right of rebelling against any law of the Collectivity. The Fascist State with its corporative conception puts men and their possibilities into productive work and interprets for them the duties they have to fulfill. (p. 280)
Before his foray into imperialism in 1935, Mussolini was often praised by prominent Americans and Britons, including Winston Churchill, for his economic program.
Similarly, Adolf Hitler, whose National Socialist (Nazi) Party adapted fascism to Germany beginning in 1933, said:
The state should retain supervision and each property owner should consider himself appointed by the state. It is his duty not to use his property against the interests of others among his own people. This is the crucial matter. The Third Reich will always retain its right to control the owners of property. (Barkai 1990, pp. 26–27)
Both nations exhibited elaborate planning schemes for their economies in order to carry out the state’s objectives. Mussolini’s corporate state “consider[ed] private initiative in production the most effective instrument to protect national interests” (Basch 1937, p. 97). But the meaning of “initiative” differed significantly from its meaning in a market economy. Labor and management were organized into twenty-two industry and trade “corporations,” each with Fascist Party members as senior participants. The corporations were consolidated into a National Council of Corporations; however, the real decisions were made by state agencies such as the Instituto per la Ricosstruzione Industriale, which held shares in industrial, agricultural, and real estate enterprises, and the Instituto Mobiliare, which controlled the nation’s credit.
Hitler’s regime eliminated small corporations and made membership in cartels mandatory.1 The Reich Economic Chamber was at the top of a complicated bureaucracy comprising nearly two hundred organizations organized along industry, commercial, and craft lines, as well as several national councils. The Labor Front, an extension of the Nazi Party, directed all labor matters, including wages and assignment of workers to particular jobs. Labor conscription was inaugurated in 1938. Two years earlier, Hitler had imposed a four-year plan to shift the nation’s economy to a war footing. In Europe during this era, Spain, Portugal, and Greece also instituted fascist economies.
In the United States, beginning in 1933, the constellation of government interventions known as the New Deal had features suggestive of the corporate state. The National Industrial Recovery Act created code authorities and codes of practice that governed all aspects of manufacturing and commerce. The National Labor Relations Act made the federal government the final arbiter in labor issues. The Agricultural Adjustment Act introduced central planning to farming. The object was to reduce competition and output in order to keep prices and incomes of particular groups from falling during the Great Depression.
It is a matter of controversy whether President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was directly influenced by fascist economic policies. Mussolini praised the New Deal as “boldly . . . interventionist in the field of economics,” and Roosevelt complimented Mussolini for his “honest purpose of restoring Italy” and acknowledged that he kept “in fairly close touch with that admirable Italian gentleman.” Also, Hugh Johnson, head of the National Recovery Administration, was known to carry a copy of Raffaello Viglione’s pro-Mussolini book, The Corporate State, with him, presented a copy to Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, and, on retirement, paid tribute to the Italian dictator.
About the Author
Sheldon Richman is the editor of The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty at the Foundation for Economic Education in Irvingtonon-Hudson, N.Y.
Further Reading
Footnotes
“Laws decreed in October 1937 simply dissolved all corporations with a capital under $40,000 and forbade the establishment of new ones with a capital less than $20,000” (Shirer 1959, p. 262).
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Obi,
I followed both UPN and NPP activities in Rivers State and Imo State, 1981-84.
Everybody praises AWO's universal primary school education where his vision had jurisdiction – and Nigeria is reaping some of the benefits which we see today..
I am familiar with some of the speeches of Chief Obafemi Awolowo in Dawodu.com
So, you lodge me in something of a quandary, somewhere between your proverbial rock and a very hard place, because I'm still waiting for all the AWO materials that I ordered through Sunshine Booksellers - after reading which - and after some consultations with Ogbeni Kadiri , I should be in a better position to understand this matter further.
In the meantime, I should just like to say this : The meaning of labels such as Nazi and Nazism are very specifically clear whereas the terms “ fascist “ (Mussolini in mind with his ethnic fascism) and “psychopath“ are all-purpose expletives specially reserved for the ethnic enemy, and tend to be inflicted more indiscriminately.
And when it comes to AWO's proposed political economy in post-colonial Africa would “fascism” be your most convenient term with which to embrace his vision?
Chinua Achebe is the second African writer that I read in this life (the first was Alan Paton). Mr. Achebe was vociferously opposed to the idea of a state funeral for Chief Obafemi Awolowo, because according to Mr. Achebe - his exact words - our great chief “was not an Igbo god” - implying of course that Igbo gods cannot be blasphemed.
The reasons for the Igbo's intense hatred (“he was/ is not an Igbo God” indeed ) is adduced to the following that was consistently drummed into my ears by my Igbo brethren and sistren during my sojourn in Nigeria :
(1) That Awo had promised to declare Oduduwa when Ojukwu declared Biafra and
(2) That he used starvation as a weapon of war against Biafra's civilian population – an issue that has fuelled enough debate and outrage in this series, the bottom line being argued by Awoists that should Nigeria have continue to feed enemy combatants then the war and suffering would have been prolonged - and most tellingly – that it was Biafra's leader who refused to allow food convoys into the besieged Biafra.
So, please bear with me.
In the meantime, I'm trying to get hold of the transcript of Chief Emeka Anyaoku's speech at UNILAG on the UN's Youth Day
Pray for us
Cornelius
...
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Obi,
I followed both UPN and NPP activities in Rivers State and Imo State, 1981-84.
Everybody praises AWO's universal primary school education where his vision had jurisdiction – and Nigeria is reaping some of the benefits which we see today..
I am familiar with some of the speeches of Chief Obafemi Awolowo in Dawodu.com
So, you lodge me in something of a quandary, somewhere between your proverbial rock and a very hard place, because I'm still waiting for all the AWO materials that I ordered through Sunshine Booksellers - after reading which - and after some consultations with Ogbeni Kadiri , I should be in a better position to understand this matter further.
In the meantime, I should just like to say this : The meaning of labels such as Nazi and Nazism are very specifically clear whereas the terms “ fascist “ (Mussolini in mind with his ethnic fascism) and “psychopath“ are all-purpose expletives specially reserved for the ethnic enemy, and tend to be inflicted more indiscriminately.
And when it comes to AWO's proposed political economy in post-colonial Africa would “fascism” be your most convenient term with which to embrace his vision?
Chinua Achebe is the second African writer that I read in this life (the first was Alan Paton). Mr. Achebe was vociferously opposed to the idea of a state funeral for Chief Obafemi Awolowo, because according to Mr. Achebe - his exact words - our great chief “was not an Igbo god” - implying of course that Igbo gods cannot be blasphemed.
The reasons for the Igbo's intense hatred (“he was/ is not an Igbo God” indeed ) is adduced to the following that was consistently drummed into my ears by my Igbo brethren and sistren during my sojourn in Nigeria :
(1) That Awo had promised to declare Oduduwa when Ojukwu declared Biafra and
(2) That he used starvation as a weapon of war against Biafra's civilian population – an issue that has fuelled enough debate and outrage in this series, the bottom line being argued by Awoists that should Nigeria have continued to feed enemy combatants then the war and suffering would have been prolonged - and most tellingly – that it was Biafra's leader who refused to allow food convoys into the besieged Biafra.
...
Godwin Okeke
There was no political party activities in Nigeria from the night of 31st December, 1983, even beyond the period you're referring to (1984) when Buhari and his gang overthrew the Shagari administration.
Please take note.
GSM
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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - MUST READ: The Aguiyi-Ironsi Tragedy
Date: Friday, August 26, 2016, 6:11 AM
Amended:
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Sheldon Richman is the editor of The Freeman: Ideas on
Liberty at the Foundation for Economic Education in
Irvingtonon-Hudson, N.Y.
Cornelius Hamelberg
I would not characterise the bloodless coup of 31/12/1983 as conducted by “Buhari and his gang “ A great many people saw the coup leaders as liberators, purifiers (yes, I understand that the guy ( a family friend) who volunteered to break the early morning news to Shagari came to a bad end...
An act of submission:
I submit to the first part of your correction that all political party activities ceased forthwith, by decree - after which the biggest losers in the officially rigged 1983 elections , the UPN and the NPP of course could only grumble and whine clandestinely at home, at the market place, in the office, at the drinking parlours whilst the old NPN magicians, in the hope of some kind of retributive justice are probably still fuming “God dae !” or what Nigerians in that part of Nigeria usually say when they are angry or believe themselves to have been unfairly treated or cheated : “God punish you!”
As you can imagine that's what Shagari's corrupt elite wanted for Brothers Buhari and Idiagbon : divine chastisement ! After all, V-P Alex Ekwueme had previously brought his friend, His Holiness the Pope to Nigeria to pray for the government ) and now the long-shuffering civil servants, workers, teachers were showering blessings on Brothers Muhammadu and Tunde - especially after we all got paid something like five months arrears in salary - also by decree , within three weeks !
Why do I call them NPN magicians? Well, I observed the 1983 elections first hand and at close range, in Bakana. I knew everybody on the island - was introduced to Royalty by Mr. Sogules the pharmacist) and I can tell you this : on the morning of the election, the NPP contestant was dragged from his abode and at the bottom of the stairs, was given the hiding of his life.
You must understand that Bakana's Levy Braide was the minister of agriculture at the time ( he was a resident) and that some of his followers must have thought that it was an affront for an NPP man to oppose him (Mind you many Kalabari men in Buguma for example, have Igbo mothers)
The voting was over by two O'clock that afternoon and the people erupted into a spontaneous victory celebration, dancing and singing “ NPN Magic!” - We are made to understand that when the counting was over (and there were more votes cast that there are people on that island) the extra ballots were thrown into the river…
Godwin Okeke
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On Fri, 8/26/16, Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com> wrote:
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - MUST READ: The Aguiyi-Ironsi Tragedy
To: "USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
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Salimonu Kadiri
Cornelius, What our learned historian ought to have done in an intellectual forum of this nature is to give you excerpts from Awolowo's books or works that qualified him to be labelled a fascist. You will remember that the precursor to the outburst of the Igbo-centric historian against Awolowo and calling him a fascist was the excerpt from page 164 of Awolowo's autobiography which is as follows, "As between the ethnic groups, I argued, there were differing standards of civilisation as well as uneven stages in the adoption of western education and the emulation of Western civilisation. A unitary constitution with only one central government would only result in frustration to the much push-ful and more dynamic ethnic groups, whereas the division of the country into regions along ethnic lines would enable each linguistic group not only to develop its own peculiar culture and institutions but to move forward at its own pace, without being unnecessary pushed or annoyingly slowed down by the others." Nnamdi Azikiwe's view on the same issue was expressed in his speech advocating for the regionalization of Nigeria on ethnic and linguistic grounds in the Legislative Council at Enugu on April 3, 1950. He said, "I am opposed to the division of a great country like Nigeria with an area of 372,674 square miles and a population of about 25 million into three regions, because it is an artificial system and must inevitably tends towards Balkanization and the existence of chronic minority problems. I suggest instead the division of the country along the main ethnic and /or linguistic groups in order to enable each group to exercise local and cultural autonomy within its territorial jurisdiction." (p. 108, ZIK: Selected Speeches of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe). Delivering a Presidential address at the IBO State Union at Aba on June 26, 1949, Azikiwe roared, "Compatriots of the Ibo nation, we have deliberated over affairs of vital importance to the Ibo nations for two days; ..... Go back to the folks at home, and tell them that the sons and daughters of the Ibo nation are alive to their great heritage. Tell them that the Ibo giant is waking from its stupor and is asserting his inalienable rights.... Tell them that the Ibo stands solidly behind the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons... (p.246-247, ZIK: Selected Speeches of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe). Nnamdi Azikiwe founded the first tribal Union in Nigeria, in 1943, named Ibo Federal Union and installed himself as the President. The name was later changed to IBO State Union of which Azikiwe continued to be President until he became Governor General in 1961. Take note that the ethnic name IBO changed spelling after the civil war to IGBO. If Awolowo was a fascist according to our pseudo-historian, then comparing the above excerpts from Awolowo and Azikiwe, will expose us to the uncomfortable truth that Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was a super fascist of the highest order.
S.Kadiri
Till: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Mobolaji Aluko
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Chidi Anthony Opara
Chidi, you may wish to know that when Awolowo promulgated free primary education for all children of school age, 1954/55, in the then Western Region, that coverred the present day Benin, Asaba, Agbor, Warri and Sapele, he did not exclude the children of non-Yoruba speaking part of the Region from enjoying free primary education. In fact, the Children of Igbo from the Eastern Region who were permanently resident in the Western Region enjoyed the free primary education. Had Awolowo been a fascist, he would have excluded and prevented all non-Yoruba children from enjoying free primary education in Western Region. Calling Awolowo a fascist was part of the cause for my highlighting the cultural disparity in question.
Your justification for labelling me anti-Igbo is due to my averment that unlike the Yoruba culture in which I was brought up, Obi, the caller of Awolowo a fascist, was brought up in a culture where youths are trained to demonstrate their courage and boldness by urinating on the graves of their elders. In your reaction, you are not denying the existence and practice of that cultural absurdity. My mentioning it is to you a crime that makes me an anti-Igbo. You are judging me wrongly and that is unfair. Speaking in the Eastern House of Assembly on March 20 , 1956, while seconding the motion for the second reading of the Abolition of the Osu System Bill, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe said, "This Bill seeks to do three things: to abolish the Osu system and its allied practices including the Oru or Ohu System, to prescribe punishment for their continued practice, and to remove certain social disabilities caused by the enforcement of the Osu and its allied system. According to this Bill, the Osu system include any social way of living which implies that any person who is deemed to be an OSU, or ORU or OHU is subject to certain prescribed social disability and social stigma. Mr. Speaker, this Bill offers a challenge to the morality of the Easterners. I submit that it is not morally consistent to condone the OSU or ORU or OHU system. I submit that it is devilish and most uncharitable to brand any human being with a label of inferiority (slave)..." Although Azikiwe did not succeed to abolish the cast system of slavery known as OSU, ORU, and OHU in Igboland and the system is still in operation today, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was never labelled anti-Igbo for his attempt to abolish the cast system. Why should you, Chidi, label me anti-Igbo for referencing cultural abnormality?
S.Kadiri
Från: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> för Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi...@gmail.com>
Ibukunolu A Babajide
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