elombah.com/index.php/special-reports/13104-blame-gowon-and-awolowo-for-biafra-genocide-general-madiebo

nationalmirroronline.net/new/interviews/gowon-ceded-bakassi-to-cameroun-to-win-the-civil-war-madiebo/

Many people have been commenting on

Professor Chinua Achebe’s comment on Chief

Obafemi Awolowo in his book, There was a

Country. What Achebe said, as I told some

people, in all aspects, is correct. In fact, I went

further to say that if I am to give my own

account of the war and Awolowo’s role, I

would even have said more.

But that is as far as I can go. I do not want to

draw attention on Achebe’s book to myself.

This is because I haven’t written any book

and I do not want to steal the show or act for

Achebe. Achebe is well qualified to defend

himself but one thing you notice is that, of all

the people who have been criticising Achebe,

no one had said what he said was wrong. If

there is anybody who has said that, then I

have not been able to read or hear it. Nobody

is saying that Awolowo did not give the Igbo

£20 at the end of the war; that he did not

starve the Igbo during the war, and all that

Achebe had to say. This is because what he

(Achebe) said are true. Awolowo’s people

agreed that he had to do them to win the

war. So, what is the bone of contention?

There is no basis for controversy because

one person has given the facts, and the other

person is trying to justify the facts. They are

all entitled to that. Now, I have more. I keep a

lot of documents and materials on the war

and the participants. If I had to write my own,

I might not even mention any of the things

that Achebe said. I mean, he has written as a

civilian and I will write as a soldier. What he

said are all correct and everybody agrees, I

mean all the tribes.

The question now is, is he justified to do

those things just to win a war. That is for

anybody to answer.

[b]One of his followers, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, said

that food supply was stopped because the

soldiers hijacked the food being sent to the

East and didn’t allow it to get to the people.

Obviously, that is a talk of an idle civilian. How

can you be giving food to soldiers? I was

commanding the Army throughout the war.

For the first two months, we had no problem

of food. As far as I know, throughout the war,

Nigeria did not give food to any warfront or

any part under the control of Biafra. This is

common sense. The only thing was that we

had the support from the Caritas (it is a

church organisation) and the Red Cross. I

think Caritas is based in Rome. It is a very big

relief organisation. To get food from them,

their flight only came in the night and

completely under bombardment by the

Nigerian command to prevent the food from

coming in. He said he was giving Biafrans

food. If I were a Nigerian, I won’t give

Biafrans food. We did not have the means to

hijack food coming, with the sophisticated

planes from Nigeria. How could we have

hijacked them with helicopters? The point is

that, officially, unofficially or in any way,

Biafra got no food from Nigeria at all.
[/b]

There was a brief period when we benefitted

from Nigerian food by accident. It was when

Biafran troops cleared Owerri and cut off a lot

of Nigerian soldiers. The Nigerian Army

started dropping food for their soldiers inside

Owerri. Obviously, we discovered that what

they were doing was that they asked their

soldiers to spread white clothes in the areas

where they were and they would drop food

for them. The Biafran soldiers cleared other

areas and spread white clothes and they

were dropping food for them mistakenly.

They soon found out. They didn’t at any time

during the war give Biafrans food. If they

captured any part of the original Biafra, they

had to feed the people there, but not Biafrans.

The agitation for a Biafran nation is still

ongoing in some quarters. Frankly, if one

wants to be realistic, you cannot achieve

Biafra again as we used to know it. First of all,

the old Biafra presently consists of eight or

nine states. There are five in Igboland and

four in the South-South. I am just saying this

off hand. There are about eight states now

made up of the old Biafra. How on earth are

you going to start reuniting all these people

who have enjoyed a lot of progress and have

seen the fruit of local independence? How can

you join them again under one state? It is not

possible. It is not necessarily the political

independence of about eight or nine states.

They cannot lump themselves together again.

Biafra stands for justice. People who are

agitating for Biafra are, in fact, agitating for

justice. They are agitating for an end to the

marginalisation of a certain part of Nigeria.

Chief Uwazuruike who is pursuing the

project in a way, is useful to the Igbo. It is not

useful to the extent of getting independence

for the Igbo. He is the only pressure group

now the Igbo have to let the rest of Nigeria

know what our problems are. In fact, there

was a time that I would say he achieved more

than all the South-East (Nigerian)

governments put together. Under these

governments everybody is trying to get

maximum benefit for himself and his family

and not for the Igbo really. After the war, the

Igbo who joined political parties were just the

second fiddle, not hoping to achieve more

than satisfying their families. Under Abacha,

an Igbo man, Kalu, formed ‘ Youths Earnestly

Ask for Abacha, to have Abacha there

permanently, not an Igbo man. Abacha was

not an Igbo man. Nobody has the ambition of

reuniting the Igbo. They just became

nuisance in a way, individually.

But now, people are beginning to realise that

you don’t achieve much by trying to shine in

the midst of poverty. The Igbo are uniting

again.

Why was I not promoted when Gowon and

Unegbu were promoted? I don’t know.

People are asking why Professor Achebe is

reliving the civil war issues after over 40

years. They believe we should not be looking

at what divided us in the past but for

something that will unite us.

That is the point. The issue of the civil war or

Biafra is not coming back. One single person

wrote a book. I haven’t read the book. All I

know about the book is what I have read in

the newspapers or from different journalists.

I am not aware that the issue of Biafra is

coming up again except that Achebe wrote

his memoirs. Nobody talked about many

other things he wrote but only about

Awolowo. As if he wrote about only

Awolowo. Maybe, he did, I don’t know. But I

understand that he wrote a book called ‘There

was a country, Biafra’. Which is true. When

Ojukwu died, he was buried as a General and

Head of State. His coffin was carried by

Generals. In fact, it was the first burial that

looked like a Head of State’s in the history of

Nigeria. Ex-Heads of State came, those who

recognised Biafra. Nigeria was, indeed, trying

to recognise that there was a country.

What are we arguing about? If somebody

says it, he gets into trouble. If he went

beyond it and said that Awolowo did this or

that, he gets into trouble. He just said the

truth but it is left for people to justify if

Awolowo did it because he wanted to win the

war. In fact, there were other things

Awolowo may have done which are part of

his job. This is the way I look at it. I don’t

think there is any need for controversy over

it. If somebody had said that Awolowo never

gave the Igbo £20 after the war or that he

didn’t change currency during the war, then I

would start wondering whether I had

forgotten. But nobody has said that. All they

are saying is that he did this purely to

succeed in his job. He was given a job.

Whether he did it in order to punish the Igbo,

I don’t know. After all, he never consulted the

Yoruba for any decision he took. He was

acting as an individual, not as a Yorubaman,

but as a Minister or Commissioner of Finance.

It has nothing to do with his tribe. Why

should his tribe be angry if he took wrong

decisions or if he showed any

overzealousness in anything he did? After all,

there were other things credited to him. To

start revealing those things now would

obviously try to draw blood. I know that if at

any time that there was anything necessary

to say, that would be in my own memoirs. I

am not going to support somebody else’s

book. Supporting a book that you have not

read, one must be carefully moderated. What I

am saying is that, as far as I am concerned,

everything already credited to him by Achebe

are absolutely correct.

This is interesting. Please can you give us a clickable link.
If I see a yorugbaman and a snake, which one do you think I will kill first?.

I'm posting with my phone. Can someone edit the interview to appear reader friendly?

As a commander during the war, you were

familiar with every section of Biafra and,

perhaps, Nigeria. Was Bakassi within the

geographical zone of Nigeria?
Bakassi is an

example of the evils of inter-tribal politics, evil

of colonialism and of North-South dichotomy.

If I tell the story of Bakassi, it may take too

long but we started losing Bakassi in 1959.

That was when we lost South -West

Cameroun. You know South-West Cameroun is

Adamawa in the North and Barmanda in the

South. They were part of Nigeria because the

League of Nations after the Second World War

shared Cameroun into two. It belonged to

Germany. It gave the East to France and the

West to Britain. Britain then shared its own

into two, administered the North as Adamawa

Province with the Northern Nigeria and the

South with Eastern Nigeria. In 1959, most

colonies were to get independence and the

British thought of what to do with this

Western Cameroun being administered by

Britain under Nigeria. Britain decided to give

the Southern Cameroun back to France and

the Northern one, Adamawa to Nigeria. Do

you know why? Britain was adjusting

population so that the North should have

overall majority in Lagos. I took part in the

United Nations plebiscite which was to decide

who goes where. I was the only Nigerian

indigenous officer that took part in that

exercise. The British realised that South-West

Cameroun under Hendeley was NCNC. That

was why they called it National Council for

Nigeria and Cameroun (NCNC). They had 14

seats in Nigeria in the Eastern Region and one

seat at the centre. That seat at the centre was

won by Hendeley and he became Minister of

Labour. Hendeley won 13 of the14 seats in

Enugu. Funcher was being used by the British

to remove Cameroun from Nigeria. Funcher

won only one seat, yet when the plebiscite

came, he defeated Hendeley who had 13

seats. It was possible because Sardauna and

Awolowo saw it as an opportunity to reduce

the representation of the NCNC both in Lagos

and in the East. You know this is

shortsightedness. I won’t dwell much on that,

so eventually we lost that. Having lost that

part of Cameroun, Britain and Nigeria were

rejoicing that NCNC’s wing had been clipped.

They didn’t realise that after losing it they had

given the North over 52 per cent

representation over the South. They didn’t

need anybody in the South to rule Nigeria.

That was the beginning of the end. When the

civil war came, having taken that part of the

Cameroun, they were too happy to bother

about demarcating the area. We decided to

bring all our weapons from the Cameroun.

Ahidjo, the president of Cameroun said he

didn’t know where the boundary was, so we

should carry on. He was blackmailing Nigeria.

If that place had remained open, Nigeria

would have defeated Biafra, but it would

have taken about 10 to 15 years.

Gowon told Ahidjo to select the boundary and

close it after the war, ‘we shall discuss’. Ahidjo

said, okay thank you sir. Ahidjo then went

and told Biafra enough is enough. He marked

the boundary and policed it. Eventually, we

lost the war. At the end, Nigeria went back

and said that was not the boundary. Ahidjo

reminded Gowon that he told them to mark

the boundary. ‘‘We marked the boundary, you

won the war forget it’’. Ahidjo, being a Fulani,

each time he wanted to discuss the Nigerian

border with Cameroun, he might even go to

Sokoto and speak in vernacular. Journalists

wouldn’t even know what they were saying.

That was how they took Bakassi. We tried

from 1972, they started enforcing it with

soldiers. People would say you can’t eat your

cake and have it; you sacrificed Bakassi for

Biafra. If you say take what you want, we

want Biafra, you have got Biafra, so you have

lost Bakassi. It is unfortunate that they are

our brothers. My troops were there and, if we

are to be truthful, that place is Nigeria. But if

you have in anyway given it to them, let

them have it.

It is now over 40 years since the civil war
ended, have the Igbo have been reintegrated
into the polity?
I'd say reintegration of the
Igbo has been a slow process. You can never
reintegrate the Igbo fully as it used to be
before the war. Now the Army was
completely against the reintegration of the
Igbo into the Nigerian society because of
selfishness. The soldiers thought that if Igbo
officers came back, they (Nigerian soldiers)
would be relegated to the background
because Igbo officers were, on the whole,
senior to all of them. This is because after
independence, most of the senior officers
were Igbo. So, reintegration did not start at all
until the military regime stopped, probably
with the exit of Obasanjo. Now, since then,
we have had some progress. For instance, for
the first time, we are having Chief of Army
Staff as an Igbo man. The Igbo are getting
attention in various senses, both in politics
and in other ways, but there is a long way to
go. There are people who are determined that
the more you draw the Igbo into the society,
the more they are threatened. I have the
details of the reintegration of the Igbo but I
can’t give you all. What I am merely trying to
tell you as briefly as possible is that the Igbo
have not been fully reintegrated into Nigeria.


Major General Alexander Madiebo was a war
commander of the Biafran Army during the
civil war otherwise known as the Biafran War.

Excerpts from his interview with National
Mirror

Interesting. So south cameroun was lost all in the name of trimming eastern region and NCNC influence.

I wonder what our general katsumoto has to say about this. Hehe!

Lamentations everywhere!

Prof Corruption: Lamentations everywhere!

lol.

Iboz come to cry Nigeria another ocean! Pathetic lice! Cry until you are dead but when you try your madness of war again, you will beg for Chief Awolowo but you will NEVER find! To say that rebellious iboz will be annihilated would be an understatement. All this caritas, red cross, food corridor nonsense will never happen. There will be no time to capture ibo POWs. Every inch of iboland will be removed from the earth and bombed into craters!!

Lies can only succeed for a limited time. Truth is universal.

pazienza: Interesting. So south cameroun was lost all in the name of trimming eastern region and NCNC influence.

I wonder what our general katsumoto has to say about this. Hehe!

This is the first time I'm hearing it. Our leaders should all open up and speak now before we lose the truth forever.
For sometime, I even blamed Zik for losing SW Cameroun. Apparently our Eastern leaders did their best to keep them.

You guys always forget that BIAFRA was an independent country at the time we never ask nigeria for anything that will be the last thing in our mind then taking food from the enemy within, Egyptians pilot use to fly to biafran air space at night and drop bombs in the market and farms even civilian houses no one knew that awolowo have put his sick evil mind in order to blockade civilians from receiving aid from red cross. Tommorrow they will say awolowa the devil,is not a war criminal....

CyberG: Iboz come to cry Nigeria another ocean! Pathetic lice! Cry until you are dead but when you try your madness of war again, you will beg for Chief Awolowo but you will NEVER find! To say that rebellious iboz will be annihilated would be an understatement. All this caritas, red cross, food corridor nonsense will never happen. There will be no time to capture ibo POWs. Every inch of iboland will be removed from the earth and bombed into craters!!

how old are you? are u sure ur mother brreastfeed you at all..

Onlytruth:

This is the first time I'm hearing it. Our leaders should all open up and speak now before we lose the truth forever.
For sometime, I even blamed Zik for losing SW Cameroun. Apparently our Eastern leaders did their best to keep them.

You shall live long, bro. At least, you admitted your political follies.
I remembered in one thread you thought Zik and eastern region lost southern Cameroon led by Dr. Endeley. I kept lamenting it was not true. All the bad press against Ndigbo and Azikiwe, the riots in northern region primarily targeted against Ndigbo and the rigging of census and election in favor of the north were orchestrated by British.

From the moment British came in connect with Ndigbo and the sudden fortune discovered in the backyard of Ndigbo, British realized Igbo person is a hard nut to crack. Every ploy was applied by the British to check the progress of Ndigbo in Nigeria.

It was the British that alerted Bello and Tafewa about the rapid rise of Igbo peeps in the officer’s cadre of Nigerian armed forces and urged them to do something about it, hence the introduction of quota system and nepotistic mechanism that saw moronic northerners in the officer’s uniform.

Nigeria can never develop until this conspiracy is solved. I have every feeling that the oil found in Igbo area played a key role in all the pre-war and post-war politics. Why I feel so is because I noticed that my hometown which was producing oil before the war has never been mentioned anywhere. Same with Egbema and Owaza. Nigeria most likely massacred Igbos because of oil.

Are you guys for real? How many threads are you going to create about the civil war? Really and truly, I'm tired of reading about this story everyday damn day, it's same thing over and over again. Grow some balls and move on, for crying out loud.

To be honest, I don't think Igbos are Africans because, since the beginning of ni.ggerdom, I have never seen black people moan the way you guys do. Are you sure you guys aren't related to the Jews? Nigeria needs to do DNA testing on all Igbo men to find out if you guys are Jews or Africans. Only Jews moan the way you lot do, Africans don't do that ish lol.

I ashamed of the Igbos on nl, you lot whine too much.

We need to start a thread about the connection between Igbos-Eboes-Hebrews and the Jews. The greatest black Briton, Olaudah Equiano, said he was 'Eboe'. However, I doubt he was referring to you lot because the guy wasn't a slouch nor a whiner. The name sounds Yoruba, anyway.

bittyend: Are you guys for real? How many threads are you going to create about the civil war? Really and truly, I'm tired of reading about this story everyday damn day, it's same thing over and over again. Grow some balls and move on, for crying out loud.

To be honest, I don't think Igbos are Africans because, since the beginning of ni.ggerdom, I have never seen black people moan the way you guys do. Are you sure you guys aren't related to the Jews? Nigeria needs to do DNA testing on all Igbo men to find out if you guys are Jews or Africans. Only Jews moan the way you lot do, Africans don't do that ish lol.

I ashamed of the Igbos on nl, you lot whine too much.

and what do you contribute to nairaland ? shut up let those that want to learn continue to do so , olodo. when intelligent people are trying to uncover a mystery dumb people like you should stay by the side and learn.

bashr8: and what do you contribute to nairaland ? shut up let those that want to learn continue to do so , olodo. when intelligent people are trying to uncover a mystery dumb people like you should stay by the side and learn.

And who are these "intelligent people?" I beg you, don't mention your handle and let me die of laughter lol.

You and the word; "Intelligent" shouldn't be in the same sentence. Neither should all these sabre-rattling clowns with midget IQ. The average IQ of Nigerians is 68, anyway.

bittyend:

And who are these "intelligent people?" I beg you, don't mention your handle and let men die of laughter lol.

You and the word; "Intelligent" shouldn't be in the same sentence. Neither should all these sabre-rattling clowns with midget IQ. The average IQ of Nigerians is 68, anyway.

i have asked you what you contribute to nairaland, call them whinners or whatever but a lot of us are learning from them , most of the stuffs they post if not for nairaland you would have been ignorant about those issues so shut up if you have nothing to contribute.

by bittyend(m): 4:00am
We need to start a thread about the connection between Igbos-Eboes-Hebrews and the Jews. The greatest black Briton, Olaudah Equiano, said he was 'Eboe'. However, I doubt he was referring to you lot because the guy wasn't a slouch nor a whiner. The name sounds Yoruba, anyway.

Olaudah's bones will be turning in his grave just by mentioning his name close to the word yoruba which is more like a curse.


we igbos we hate lies and we always like to put history straight no mater how bitter it is.
we know too well that yorubas hate truth and never stand on the side of truth for once in their life.
but if falsehood is truly in the yoruba mans blood, we igbos will not allow it to affect us.

we are igbos,ibos,ebos,Igbos no matter how you call it, that is who we are, we hate been associating with anything yoruba.

Madiebo, WHo do we blame for Ojuku legging it to Abidjan

www.nairaland.com/attachments/789775_Ojukwu_getting_ready_to_run_jpg967aeb75e390ca75377ad019b3c9fae5

There Was A Country, had the Awoist camp up in arms. The Awoists - followers and defenders of the legacy of Chief Awolowo- have expended a lot of verbal grapes on the person of Chinua Achebe. It felt like a dangerous mob unleashed on one of the world's most important cultural icons. All Achebe did was tell the truth about Awo.

Among the provocative truths that Achebe tells in his book is Obafemi Awolowo's war crime of genocide by the "diabolical policy" of starvation against Biafrans. I should say here, that it is a bit sad that out of the very many important issues that Achebe raises and explores in his new book, the one that has gained so much attention is his comment on Awolowo because Awoists do not want such dirty linens aired. It makes them nervous and uncomfortable. It drives them to tears and to rage.Achebe calls out other important members of the Gowon administration like Anthony Enahoro and Allison Ayida, including Gowon himself, on the same issue of genocide against Biafrans. The clear evidence of Achebe's allegation is based on Awo's own statement: "All is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war..." But we do know that all is not fair in war.
There is something called the "Geneva Convention" and Awo's war policy violated it. You do not starve civilian populations in war. It is called a war crime. Awo's storm troopers and Brownshirts have nonetheless trooped out in great strength and have come only short of calling for Chinua Achebe's head for his exposure of Awolowo. Calls ranging from a ban of all his books to a "Nuremberg trial" of him and all the Biafrans have been made in response.

Meanwhile, the Igbo do not seek his permission or anybody's permission for that matter to live and thrive in Lagos. Igbo who came to Lagos, and who reside everywhere in Nigeria do so because they can. They are Nigerians and have a right to live and prosper anywhere in Nigeria and be protected under the laws of Nigeria.

They do not need the magnanimity or permission of Ayo Opadokun who himself is a settler in Lagos much like the Igbo residents. Ayo Adebanjo, Femi Fani-Kayode, Biyi Durojaiye, and Ebenezer Babatope all threw their hats in the ring in challenge of Chinua Achebe's view of their idol.
But it seems as though against Achebe's articulate and textured views, these are Calibans learning their first curse-words against their master! They "cuss out" the writer, Achebe, but they are yet to contradict him. It is not just enough to defend Awolowo. It is important to defend him with facts; to show that Achebe has lied against him. But the evidence is too compelling. Achebe has not lied against Awo.

I want to pay General Madiebo a visit. Can anyone link me to the general? I would want to discuss a whole range of issues with him. Our elders knows a lot, but chose to keep mum. Now, they are dying with the truth. Since information abhors vacuum; other tribes are cashing in to fill the information gap with their revisionist version.

I learnt last week that Awolowo was secretly negotiating with NPC while he was in active negotiation to form a coalition government with NCNC. Can you imagine that depraved character?! Yorubas including Katsumoto were telling us that Awo offered Zik the position of Prime minister but he chose to align with NPC. Now we've seen that Awo was a split personality and bold-faced liar who cannot be trusted.

Dede1 recently exposed Katsumoto by quoting a British document on 1957 constitutional conference which negates their claim that Zik threw away the seccession clause and chose to wait for the north to be ready before the independence.

I'm bewildered on why Ndigbo chose to sit on top of the truth and allow Yorubas to assign us many damaging roles in the historical events. I'm disappointed with our elders.

Great interview...FOLLOWING

...reading in HD

CyberG: Iboz come to cry Nigeria another ocean! Pathetic lice! Cry until you are dead but when you try your madness of war again, you will beg for Chief Awolowo but you will NEVER find! To say that rebellious iboz will be annihilated would be an understatement. All this caritas, red cross, food corridor nonsense will never happen. There will be no time to capture ibo POWs. Every inch of iboland will be removed from the earth and bombed into craters!!

honestly , u are being clueless and irascible ! Make logical contributions that will unite and enhance our co-existence as a people.
Don't ignite hatred amongst various ethnic groups by your unreasonable comments , this will fuel an intense animosity that might lead to our disintegration. We need patriotic minded Citizens to move our country forward ,and not inept antagonists like u.

The wars has ended a longtime ago u "mumus" come to NL to trade blames