Danger looms in Nigeria, retired army officer warns 6
BY OUR REPORTER ON FEBRUARY 16, 2015 POLITICS
FROM PETRUS OBI, ENUGU

I fought during the civil war; I went to detention as a result of the 1966 coup; I have seen what it is, to suffer.” These are the words of 72-year old retired army officer, Hon. Juventus Ojukwu. Ojukwu was a Sec­ond Republic member of the National Assembly and represented Idemili Federal Constituency, Anambra State in the House of Representative in 1979. He was re-elected for a second term in 1983 before the military take­over. The then chairman, Army Sub Committee on Defense, who is popu­larly addressed as J.C Ojukwu fought during the Nigeria civil war and was in military detention as a result of the 1966 coup.

In this interview, the retired army of­ficer and school mate of All Progres­sives Congress (APC), Presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Bu­hari, described the recent postpone­ment of the elections as a design of the President Goodluck Jonathan-led Federal Government to cling to power.

Excerpts:

How would you react to the recent postponement of the elections?

It was to be expected. The Federal Govern­ment postponed the elections through the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which was unfortunate. Although, I will not condemn it outrightly because INEC gave good reasons why it should be postponed. I said those reasons are good because if there are security reasons, whether they are genuine or not, INEC had no choice but to accept it. We know it was a ploy by the ruling party because they saw they were losing ground. It was clear; very clear that the opposition was gaining momentum and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had always looked for opportunities to scuttle the election. As a matter of fact, they will like the elections cancelled outrightly if they can.

You have observed the campaigns, the postponement and all that, what is your view concerning the entire political situation?

There is danger in the air and this is very serious. I will like to sound a note of warning to Nigerians. This type of thing happened in 1964/65 and I remember one of the great jour­nalists we have in this country, Peter Enahoro (Peter Pan). He wrote a column I think he entitled it “the gathering storm” or whatever, I have forgotten exactly, I was a young officer at the time. He gave this type of warning based on government impunity; doing things because the person or group in power thought they could do things and get away with them and never reckoned on how the people felt and how people might react. Why I am sounding this warning is that, oftentimes, we condemn violence, which everybody should condemn but nobody really addresses the issue of what causes violence. There is a limit to which you can push somebody to the wall before he turns back. That does not justify violence but the point I am making is that all these people who propagate and shout and so on nobody ever addresses the real cause. And I will just mention something very quickly.

A few weeks ago, His Holiness, Pope Francis in condemning the terrorist attack in France added; “but we must stop provoking people.” Anybody who provokes another to a crime is guilty of that crime also. The Pope couldn’t have been saying that violence is good and he even added, “so don’t ridicule somebody else’s religion.” There are certain things we take for granted; we mock people, we ridicule people, we provoke them. Then when they react we say these are animals, they are brutish, we evoke the parable of Baboon and Monkey and all that. But no one tells you what led to it; nobody gives you the true account of what was said. So, Nigeria is sitting on a tender box and we must be very careful. We are fast driving along a steep hill; slippery and steep and we are pretending nothing will happen.

This is an alarm and it is very serious. I fought during the civil war; I went to deten­tion as a result of the 1966 coup; I have seen what it is, to suffer. At my age, I am 72 and many of these people who are shouting and spreading hate and animosity, they don’t seem to care. So, I want to address this issue first of all to Christians. Many of us claim to be Christians yet there is so much hypocrisy in the land. Some say “my ambition is not worth the spilling of anyone’s blood,” but we go behind to condone, support and ignore things that will cause spilling of blood. Before I am misquoted, nobody sanctions spilling of blood, I can never condone violence.

I am a Catholic and the catholic teaches that there are nine ways you can be party to somebody else’s sin. And one of those ways is silence. If you keep silent when a wrong is being committed, you are a party to it. If you command somebody to do the wrong thing, you have a share. Very importantly if you provoke somebody into a crime you cannot absolve yourself from that crime. And Christians should take note; right now, there is introduction of religious politics and it is very dangerous.

I haven’t heard of any country that comes out of a religious war in one piece; and our people are claiming to be Christians. There is a group that calls itself ‘concerned citizens,’ everyday, for the past four days, they take a full page in the newspapers and they say they are talking for Christians.

The last one they published they were quoting from the Quran, quoting from the Bible, disjointed and disconnected quotations, all, they are spreading hate. Hatred is not an attribute of Christianity; they are promoting hate and people are accepting these things.

Christianity recognizes three religions as great; they are Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These are great religions; there are people who abuse those religions but it doesn’t remove the fact that they are great religions. We are all children of Abraham, we are all children of God and we all preach and practice the unity of one God and people come and tell us all sorts of rubbish. These are ignorant people, Islamic extremists who don’t understand the Quran, who don’t understand what Islam teaches.

The presidential candidate of the APC, Buhari was your classmate, yet people, especially the PDP are asking him to show his certificate, what kind of school did the two of you attend; and what kind of person is he?

Yes, Buhari was my course mate in the army. Buhari and I joined the Nigerian army as Officer Cadet in April 1962 after our WAEC. I attended Kings College Lagos; Buhari attended Provincial Secondary School, Katsina. We were both in the army and this is the Buhari they say he didn’t pass standard six, he didn’t pass school certificate; it is a shame.

You see the people at the top who denigrate Buhari, they are not insulting him, they are insulting the Nigerian army, and they are insulting the Nigerian state. To say that a Gen­eral did not have a school certificate or did not go to school is funny. They make mockery of him and they tell lies and they relish in it and they think they are doing a wonderful thing. They are showing such a bad example to the young ones. I know Buhari; you know I have many friends but Buhari is very special. Even as cadets, perhaps unknown to him, we used to call him ‘mounting goat’ because he was such a strong character slim and firm. During cross country, you would think he was going to die but he would be among the first to fin­ish. He is such a resolute person.

Again, we say this of him; he probably doesn’t know, Buhari will not tell you a lie even when joking. As far back as 1962 we knew that of him; Buhari will not lie even when he is joking. When I was in the House of Representatives, I was chairman of the Army sub Committee on defense and we vis­ited Buhari in his unit, 3 Armourd Division in Jos and when he was telling me of the rot in Nigeria then, he was almost shedding tears. He said come and see; he took my committee to show us single officers quarters contracts which was awarded to NPN stalwarts.

The highest of those building had gotten up to window level; most were at DPC level but they had all been paid for. He said J.C, you people are in the House and you are keeping quiet, is this fair?

So, I know this man, he is patterned, he is disciplined and Buhari is not a religious ex­tremist. He is a strong Muslim like me I am a strong Christian. Something happened, I will not go into details; but he told me, he said JC I cannot work with godless people. Somebody reported that he was being hard on Muslims and Christians, Muslims for not attending mosque on Fridays and Christians for not at­tending Church on Sundays and he asked me rhetorically, ‘how many religions do we allow in the army? I said two. He said is it optional? I said no. If you are a Christian you must go to church, if you are a Muslim you must go to mosque, I cannot work with godless people; that is Buhari. Two of Buhari’s domestic staff were Roman Catholics the other two are other Christians. His private secretary was an evan­gelist; he has never discriminated. And in any case, religious fundamentalism is not allowed in the army, so he couldn’t have risen to that rank if he was an extremist, no way.

The man is so straight forward. This is a man who was Minister of Petroleum, he doesn’t have oil block; he doesn’t even have a filing station. Buhari doesn’t have plots in Abuja, former head of State; former governor and Nigerians are not happy to see such a per­son? He has challenged Nigerians, he doesn’t have one kobo foreign account; are we not proud? The argument now is that he has cor­rupt people around him and I ask them; is it better to have a corrupt person with corrupt people around him and a none corrupt person with corrupt people around him?

So, Nigerians must make a decision and take a stand. We have been shouting of cor­ruption for a long time and people will tell you corruption has always been there; but this is the best opportunity we have to change things. And there is an awareness which is currently going round on what Nigeria stands for and needs; and it is growing and the enemies know it and they are challenged and scared stiff. We know so many things that are wrong; inflated contracts, unexecuted contracts, we know it, it’s glaring; and people justify these things. If you talk of the bad roads from Enugu to Onitsha they say it’s your brothers who were given the contracts, so Buhari is somebody who can sanitize this country for now. If he has been upright for so long; he has his personal sins as a human being; he is not perfect, nobody is perfect, but when you look at the larger picture, he is the best among what we have now.



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OUR REPORTER
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6 COMMENTS


MARC on FEBRUARY 16, 2015 2:50 AM
JC, JC I will call you that because of our military
backgroind. I applaud you !!!. You are a rare germ in
a society where hypocricy and godlessness is the order of the day.
The military did not rule Nigeria well. But the
present croup calling themselves democrats are
shamelessly doing worse And they are all christians if that means anything. They better start planning their move overseas because they
must be held to account.
REPLY

DELE ODUGBEMI on FEBRUARY 16, 2015 3:35 AM
Words of elders are words of wisdom, so an elder with solid military background has spoken loud and clear about Gen Muhammadu Buhari as the best candidate for president from May 29, 2015, so all Nigerian voters should vote for this great man on 28/03/2015.
REPLY

AB.CHUKS on FEBRUARY 16, 2015 7:48 AM
Na hunger dey wire you. Mr.JC you and ur imam Buharam will fail woefully come March 28.
REPLY

KOLA AMODU on FEBRUARY 16, 2015 1:58 PM
Hon.jc cos people like u are still alive n still believe in justice n fairness maybe there is future for this country afterall. Have always known that not all Nigerians jews are bad like wise not all Hausa or Yorubas are good people. Pa .JC, ur voice is de final nail for both PDP n ebola gej, cos with this their chicken is coming home for roost. Finally, their lies has been exposed. Come march 28 2015, we shall use our votes to elect a man who will lead Nigeria for all Nigerians . Bye to MR.OTUEKE. sai Buhari, chanji oyoyo n GMB all de way.
REPLY

BONEY LONDON on FEBRUARY 17, 2015 12:28 AM
JC, nobody is questioning Buhar’s character. Nigerians are concerned that Buhari is too old and has never being a democrat. The Buhari you knew cannot make it in today’s world. This is the 21st century for God’s sake and a lot has changed. Look at you and Buhari, neither of you know what the Internet is. It is time to leave leadership to the younger generation and become statesmen. We were told during the time of Buhari/Idiagbon that he was reluctant to lead and that it was the reason he did not fight back when he was been overthrowned by IBB. Why now? What does Buhari want at 73? Buhari is simply on a leash by the Yorubas lead by Tinunbu when are hoping th

hmmmmm

Buhari is upright but has many corrupt people around him. Jonathan said stealing is not corruption. Jonathan is very corrupt and have stinkingly people around him including his wife. Please choose one.

I knew this are the kind of stories that we will see in this 2015,NIGERIA HAS EXPIRED ANYTHING WE DO NOW AS A NATION IS ILLEGAL.