SapeleGuy:

Suggest the way forward? That one go hard, you mean you want people to look forward and not back? or
provide solutions instead of pointing the finger of blame at others. Please lead the way.

@Sapeleguy
Sarcasm would not help your case, so please make your point!  I make bold to state that only Igbos and their Eastern neighbors have ever really questioned Nigeria's unjust and unsustainable set up. Anytime someone comes here to say people are just pointing fingers, it exposes their mischief. People whom you accuse of pointing fingers lost 2 million innocents in an" unjust war" (according to Awolowo). They took a position in 1967 that could have saved the nation from a 42 years in the wilderness. Heck after all these years we are still saying what we said in 1967 and yet people like you are not listening! Anyone who claims Igbos are simply pointing fingers at others is just deliberately provoking Igbos. So, I hope you realize what you are doing. You won't let us leave Nigeria; you (Nigeria) won't accomodate our views (including those that historically would have saved your people from unjust exploitation); you (Nigeria) won't even allow us to choose our leaders and keep disrupting MASSOB and other peaceful Biafran agitators. You want to continue business as usual but we are tired. We've been tired since 1967!
We are NOT POINTING FINGERS! We want progress or we want out! We can't keep lying to our children that the future is bright when Nigeria can't even generate 2000 megawatts of electricity or refine petroleum. The day we get Biafra is the day we (Igbos and Biafrans) will all de-activate our accounts in Nairaland and leave you alone. For now you have to live with us and our "whinning".

Duduknight:

Are you able to have a debate without insults? Have I insulted you. I only put forward my account of how events occurred in the past based on various publications. I am not a LAZY DISCIPLE of Nowa. I have read his literature as I have read other literature about events leading up to the civil war and the civil war in itself. I have also read "why we struck" by Ademoyega, one of the coup plotters of january 66 and under my command by Obasanjo.

It is possible that writers may from time to time embelish but that is why those who are able to correct them should do so. The 'facts' I have mentioned is based on different accounts and not just one.

Now you made mention of certain incidents in your last paragraph; I do not know why you did because they certainly are not relevant to anything I might have said.

Please do your research before coming on the net to expose your ignorance.
Ogundipe did not flee. The northern soldiers started their mutiny and took over the cantonment. Murtala, Adamu, Joe garba were all in Ikeja cantonment; they had no means of escape and had in fact commandeared an airforce plane to move their families out of the west. Ogundipe sent two units to quell the coup; both units were ambushed, one at Mobolaji Bank-Anthony way, Ikeja and the second at Bonny. Ogundipe, realising that there was a stalemate sent Gowon (who was with Ogundipe when making plans to quell the coup) to the coup-plotters at Ikeja to arrange dialogue and peaceful surrender.


Talking about insult, if you look closely to the above statements, I am sure you would agree that they did come from me. Believe me, I did not insult you but stated the obvious.

You were the person who quoted Nowa Omogiue without either crediting the writer or checking the veracity of the statements.

In addition, you audaciously stated that the likes of Obasanjo, Ademoyega and Adekunle had corroborated the crap you lifted from Nowa’s ill-intended scripts. For posterity sake, I should remind you that Obasanjo, Ademoyega and Adekunle were not even 100 miles to Lagos when the incident leading to the fallacy about Ogundipe sending military units to quell the mutiny of July 29, 1966 took place.

Major Obasanjo was in Kaduna as second in command to artillery unit, Major Ademoyega was in prison at Enugu due to his involvement with January 15, 1966 coup and Major Adekunle was stationed Enugu with 1st Battalion. I must say that any statements accredited to these three officers toward Ogundipe’s saga at the Brigade of Guards headquarter were as good a guess as mine.

Hate the man because you hate his idea not hate the idea because you hate the man.

Ojukwu was a power monger fine but his ideas nonetheless would have gotten Nigeria far from where we are now and far from other nations in this world. Even the USA is a decentralized state. If the federal government passes a law, each state can choose to accept it or not. And for the record, the USA is made of different countries which are called states. Decentralization of power wasn't Ojukwu's idea but it was the best for Nigeria. No single doctor can tell you Paracetamol is his or her idea but the best doctor is the one that knows when to prescribe Paracetamol to a patient. It's still what Nigeria is going to do and there is nothing anyone can do about it except die. Either turn it provincial or break up the nation. Hell, it works for Canada even with their level of corrupt and power hungry politicians. I'm sure it's the best idea to rebirth Nigeria. That way, the Igbos won't be screaming Biafra to our ears, the Hausas won't be raising Sharia blades to our necks and the Yorubas? Well let's just say, Yorubas are too mixed to have self determination. The Yoruba tribe is destroyed already because we can't focus on anything without Yoruba Muslims and Yoruba Christians clashing. In Ekiti even as many knows Segun Oni is not as good as Fayemi, many voted him because he is a Muslim. Forget that election rigging shit. It's deeper than that. Same in Kwara. I doubt any Christian can win in that state (I'm not a Christian or Muslim by the way).  Olu-Orun punish those weh kill daramola!

9jaganja:

Hate the man because you hate his idea not hate the idea because you hate the man.

Ojukwu was a power monger fine but his ideas nonetheless would have gotten Nigeria far from where we are now and far from other nations in this world. Even the USA is a decentralized state. If the federal government passes a law, each state can choose to accept it or not. And for the record, the USA is made of different countries which are called states. Decentralization of power wasn't Ojukwu's idea but it was the best for Nigeria. No single doctor can tell you Paracetamol is his or her idea but the best doctor is the one that knows when to prescribe Paracetamol to a patient. It's still what Nigeria is going to do and there is nothing anyone can do about it except die. Either turn it provincial or break up the nation. Hell, it works for Canada even with their level of corrupt and power hungry politicians. I'm sure it's the best idea to rebirth Nigeria. That way, the Igbos won't be screaming Biafra to our ears, the Hausas won't be raising Sharia blades to our necks and the Yorubas? Well let's just say, Yorubas are too mixed to have self determination. The Yoruba tribe is destroyed already because we can't focus on anything without Yoruba Muslims and Yoruba Christians clashing. In Ekiti even as many knows Segun Oni is not as good as Fayemi, many voted him because he is a Muslim. Forget that election rigging shit. It's deeper than that. Same in Kwara. I doubt any Christian can win in that state (I'm not a Christian or Muslim by the way).  Olu-Orun punish those weh kill daramola!

Thanks, I enjoyed reading this piece.

Aburi was a missed opportunity. The whole question of our national corporate existence, and form of co-existence was debated. Should we be together or not? How can we live together? It is a shame that the civil war overtook events and we never got to practice/test the formula of Aburi: confederation.

MEND and the other Niger Delta militants are essentially fighting over the same issues debated at Aburi. Yar'Adua's amnesty is actually aimed at a problem that was exhaustively debated by Nigerian leaders 43 years ago. Imagine how many lives could have been saved. The tape recording of the Aburi debate is still out there. It was released by Ojukwu as a set of long playing gramophone records.

Guys just a few points:

1) Lt-Col Arthur Unegbe was an Igbo officer from Ozubulu in Anambra State. He was murdered by the Jan 1966 coup plotters. This has nothing to do with him refusing to hand over any weapons. At the time of the coup he was the Quartermaster-General of the army and thus did not have control of any weapons stores.

2) Lt-Col Katsina was not in charge of the 1st Recce Squadron when it was used to suppress the Tiv riots. Major Anuforo was in charge of the 1st Recce Squadron at the time and his anger at being ordered to shoot Tiv protesters was one factor that pushed him to take part in the coup.

3) Lt-Col Katsina actually risked his life to save Igbos during the bloody pogroms of 1966. He personally confronted some of the murderous mobs in order to stop them from killing Igbos.

maxsiollun:

2) Lt-Col Katsina was not in charge of the 1st Recce Squadron when it was used to suppress the Tiv riots. Major Anuforo was in charge of the 1st Recce Squadron at the time and his anger at being ordered to shoot Tiv protesters was one factor that pushed him to take part in the coup.

I guess Anuforo was pissed off for the right reasons here.

maxsiollun:

3) Lt-Col Katsina actually risked his life to save Igbos during the bloody pogroms of 1966. He personally confronted some of the murderous mobs in order to stop them from killing Igbos.

I guess that was why he told Ojukwu that if he knew what some of them did to save the Igbos in the North that they would be given medals. Good to know that some of these men were not totally bad as earlier implied.

maxsiollun:

Guys just a few points:

1) Lt-Col Arthur Unegbe was an Igbo officer from Ozubulu in Anambra State. He was murdered by the Jan 1966 coup plotters. This has nothing to do with him refusing to hand over any weapons. At the time of the coup he was the Quartermaster-General of the army and thus did not have control of any weapons stores.

2) Lt-Col Katsina was not in charge of the 1st Recce Squadron when it was used to suppress the Tiv riots. Major Anuforo was in charge of the 1st Recce Squadron at the time and his anger at being ordered to shoot Tiv protesters was one factor that pushed him to take part in the coup.

3) Lt-Col Katsina actually risked his life to save Igbos during the bloody pogroms of 1966. He personally confronted some of the murderous mobs in order to stop them from killing Igbos.

@maxsiollun,

Thanks for the points. Good to know that Katsina had some good in him.

maxsiollun:

Guys just a few points:

1) Lt-Col Arthur Unegbe was an Igbo officer from Ozubulu in Anambra State. He was murdered by the Jan 1966 coup plotters. This has nothing to do with him refusing to hand over any weapons. At the time of the coup he was the Quartermaster-General of the army and thus did not have control of any weapons stores.

2) Lt-Col Katsina was not in charge of the 1st Recce Squadron when it was used to suppress the Tiv riots. Major Anuforo was in charge of the 1st Recce Squadron at the time and his anger at being ordered to shoot Tiv protesters was one factor that pushed him to take part in the coup.

3) Lt-Col Katsina actually risked his life to save Igbos during the bloody pogroms of 1966. He personally confronted some of the murderous mobs in order to stop them from killing Igbos.

Major Chris Anuforo was commander of Recce Squadron Jos. The premier of northern region of Nigeria requested that both army and police deal ruthlessly with the rioters, mainly Tiv, who were the supporters of the UMBC. Instead, Major Chris Anuforo ordered the soldiers and police to arrest the supporters of NPC and release all the Tiv rioters arrested.

The premier felt shunned by the young Major and sought the help of the 1st Brigade commander, Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun, to transfer Major Chris Anuforo out of 1st Recce Squadron to 2nd Recce Squadron, Abeokuta then Army HQ, Lagos. In place of Major Anuforo was Major Katsina as commander of 1st Recce Squadron that saw the massacre of Tiv people during riot of 1964.

The link below would corroborate that Major Hassan Katsina was the commander of 1st Recce Squadron, Jos, even though the article indicated Kaduna.

http://www.dawodu.com/katsina1.htm

"Initially a platoon commander in the 2nd Battalion, he was later reposted to the demonstration platoon at the NMTC in Kaduna, as commander. " In 1961, he served in the Congo as an Intelligence officer.  The following year, in 1962, he underwent further advanced infantry training in the United States after which he became company commander in the 5th Battalion of the Nigerian Army in Kano.  When the Recce unit of the Army was created, Hassan was among the earliest Nigerians to be trained in Britain on the use of "Ferrets" in armored reconnaissance warfare, the others being Majors Christian Anuforo and John Obienu.  As of the night of January 14/15 1966, Hassan was commanding the 1 Recce Squadron in Kaduna, while Obienu was commanding the 2 Recce squadron in Abeokuta, and Anuforo was the staff officer representing Recce interests at the Army HQ in Lagos.”

Onlytruth:

@Sapeleguy
Sarcasm would not help your case, so please make your point!  I make bold to state that only Igbos and their Eastern neighbors have ever really questioned Nigeria's unjust and unsustainable set up. Anytime someone comes here to say people are just pointing fingers, it exposes their mischief. People whom you accuse of pointing fingers lost 2 million innocents in an" unjust war" (according to Awolowo). They took a position in 1967 that could have saved the nation from a 42 years in the wilderness. Heck after all these years we are still saying what we said in 1967 and yet people like you are not listening! Anyone who claims Igbos are simply pointing fingers at others is just deliberately provoking Igbos. So, I hope you realize what you are doing. You won't let us leave Nigeria; you (Nigeria) won't accomodate our views (including those that historically would have saved your people from unjust exploitation); you (Nigeria) won't even allow us to choose our leaders and keep disrupting MASSOB and other peaceful Biafran agitators. You want to continue business as usual but we are tired. We've been tired since 1967!
We are NOT POINTING FINGERS! We want progress or we want out! We can't keep lying to our children that the future is bright when Nigeria can't even generate 2000 megawatts of electricity or refine petroleum. The day we get Biafra is the day we (Igbos and Biafrans) will all de-activate our accounts in Nairaland and leave you alone. For now you have to live with us and our "whinning".

The sacking of the 1st republic was a triumph for greed and the naked ambition of a few soldiers. It is most unfortunate that you have decided to turn a blind eye to this and blame ethnicity which was a symptom and not the cause of the problem. 

Your tactics are akin to constantly banging your head against a brick wall in the hope that you will become resilient to the pain. Try something new or you will knock yourself out for good.

Review your tactics and strategy. To hang on to a document that never saw the light of day is sad indictment of your generation. Ask yourself honestly what you can  do differently and then take action.

A world renowned and respected historian posts the following

maxsiollun:

Guys just a few points:

1) Lt-Col Arthur Unegbe was an Igbo officer from Ozubulu in Anambra State. He was murdered by the Jan 1966 coup plotters. This has nothing to do with him refusing to hand over any weapons. At the time of the coup he was the Quartermaster-General of the army and thus did not have control of any weapons stores.

2) Lt-Col Katsina was not in charge of the 1st Recce Squadron when it was used to suppress the Tiv riots. Major Anuforo was in charge of the 1st Recce Squadron at the time and his anger at being ordered to shoot Tiv protesters was one factor that pushed him to take part in the coup.

3) Lt-Col Katsina actually risked his life to save Igbos during the bloody pogroms of 1966. He personally confronted some of the murderous mobs in order to stop them from killing Igbos.

We get the following "rebuttal" :

Dede1:



Major Chris Anuforo was commander of Recce Squadron Jos. The premier of northern region of Nigeria requested that both army and police deal ruthlessly with the rioters, mainly Tiv, who were the supporters of the UMBC. Instead, Major Chris Anuforo ordered the soldiers and police to arrest the supporters of NPC and release all the Tiv rioters arrested.

The premier felt shunned by the young Major and sought the help of the 1st Brigade commander, Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun, to transfer Major Chris Anuforo out of 1st Recce Squadron to 2nd Recce Squadron, Abeokuta then Army HQ, Lagos. In place of Major Anuforo was Major Katsina as commander of 1st Recce Squadron that saw the massacre of Tiv people during riot of 1964.

The link below would corroborate that Major Hassan Katsina was the commander of 1st Recce Squadron, Jos, even though the article indicated Kaduna.

http://www.dawodu.com/katsina1.htm

"Initially a platoon commander in the 2nd Battalion, he was later reposted to the demonstration platoon at the NMTC in Kaduna, as commander. " In 1961, he served in the Congo as an Intelligence officer. The following year, in 1962, he underwent further advanced infantry training in the United States after which he became company commander in the 5th Battalion of the Nigerian Army in Kano. When the Recce unit of the Army was created, Hassan was among the earliest Nigerians to be trained in Britain on the use of "Ferrets" in armored reconnaissance warfare, the others being Majors Christian Anuforo and John Obienu. As of the night of January 14/15 1966, Hassan was commanding the 1 Recce Squadron in Kaduna, while Obienu was commanding the 2 Recce squadron in Abeokuta, and Anuforo was the staff officer representing Recce interests at the Army HQ in Lagos.”

hehehehehe. wonders will never end. some people don become pathological tribalists and dem no fit tink with their heads again. dem no fit accept realities that any good can come out of a northerner. the response to the great historian's points is very pathetic, the responder needs to go bury his head for shame. i don talk am, na akamu dey inside him head.

small time him go give us link wey go show say ojukwu no even attend de aburi conference, despite de fact say de great historian confirm ojukwu's presence. olodo

maxsiollun:

Guys just a few points:

1) Lt-Col Arthur Unegbe was an Igbo officer from Ozubulu in Anambra State. He was murdered by the Jan 1966 coup plotters. This has nothing to do with him refusing to hand over any weapons. At the time of the coup he was the Quartermaster-General of the army and thus did not have control of any weapons stores.

2) Lt-Col Katsina was not in charge of the 1st Recce Squadron when it was used to suppress the Tiv riots. Major Anuforo was in charge of the 1st Recce Squadron at the time and his anger at being ordered to shoot Tiv protesters was one factor that pushed him to take part in the coup.

3) Lt-Col Katsina actually risked his life to save Igbos during the bloody pogroms of 1966. He personally confronted some of the murderous mobs in order to stop them from killing Igbos.

This is one of the ridiculous crap I had to read from this board and more so from a person with Nigerian historical pedigree such as Maxsiollun.

Major Hassan Katsina, as the military governor of northern region, stood steward to one of the heinous act of man’s inhumanity aganist mankind in the annals of Nigeria history. I would want you to furnish us with the instances where Major Hassan Katsina attempted to stop the orgy of massacre of southerners, particularly Ndigbo, during the pogrom of 1966. Katsina was the military governor that was overseeing a region fraught with military installations and yet he looked the other way when the killings were going.


The only instance Lt. Col. Katsina was accredited with such compassion took place when was returning from Lagos afte meeting with Maj. Gen. Ironsi about the decree #34. The rumor had it that Katsina had been detained in Lagos by Ironsi. However, when his touched at Kano airport, the northern region soldiers had surrounded the airport. It was alleged that Lt Chris Ugokwe, ADC to Katsina, was trying exit the plane before his boss. At this juncture, rumor had it the Katsina urged his ADC to step back because he could be shot.

SapeleGuy:

The sacking of the 1st republic was a triumph for greed and the naked ambition of a few soldiers. It is most unfortunate that you have decided to turn a blind eye to this and blame ethnicity which was a symptom and not the cause of the problem.  

Your tactics are akin to constantly banging your head against a brick wall in the hope that you will become resilient to the pain. Try something new or you will knock yourself out for good.

Review your tactics and strategy. To hang on to a document that never saw the light of day is sad indictment of your generation. Ask yourself honestly what you can  do differently and then take action.  

@Sapeleguy
You know, I'm enjoying this conversation with you because Igbos need to know what's up and align accordingly in case of future events. Believe me when I tell you that there is no way we lose in the future because of the abudant lessons of the past (Aburi for instance). So, keep trying to deflect our focus from that past, it won't work. There was a time when a certain Major Gideon Orkar, Umukoro, Chief Great Ogboru and other midwesterners plotted to excise (expel) the northern part of Nigeria from the country. Babangida was lucky to escape, (his house at Dodan barracks was levelled and his ADC killed) but others weren't so lucky. If not for a certain Brigadier Ike Nwachukwu who was the G.O.C of the 1st Mechanised division Kaduna, who knows how many northerners would have died in the ensuing bloodbath. Nobody went on a killing spree of Edo or Delta people because of the failed coup. Ogboru, Mukoro and the rest acted out what they felt was ideal. Ogboru is alive today and even contested for governor in Delta state! Before their coup, they never consulted mid-westerners, but we all understood.
For you and your type to come here trying to blackmail Igbos for what they never plotted, and even helped foil is the height of hate. My message is not for your type. It is for Igbos who are still living in Neverland. Today your people are up in arms fighting for the same thing they were offered free. Out of hate and idiocy, they connived to kill it. You better go and advise your MEND to forget about your resource control. It is too late in the day!

SapeleGuy:

The sacking of the 1st republic was a triumph for greed and the naked ambition of a few soldiers. It is most unfortunate that you have decided to turn a blind eye to this and blame ethnicity which was a symptom and not the cause of the problem. 

Your tactics are akin to constantly banging your head against a brick wall in the hope that you will become resilient to the pain. Try something new or you will knock yourself out for good.

Review your tactics and strategy. To hang on to a document that never saw the light of day is sad indictment of your generation. Ask yourself honestly what you can  do differently and then take action. 

I don't know of any rational human that would plan for the future without thinking about the past. That would be pure lunacy irrationality. So, you want us to simply forget about the past and focus on the future and simply throw or wish away the past 
How can I review my strategy without exhaustively researching and unearthing everything that went wrong with the last strategy? To you it might seem like "banging heads on the wall". To me it is called poking around and testing my hypothesis. When I take a position after that, it would be based on solid grounded set of facts. I suspect Ojukwu did the same in 1967, which is why we are still saddled with the 1967 issues today.
So don't expect me to take your advise anytime soon. Not if I really want to succeed in my next strategy!

I am an Igbo man. Some great points have been made here but I hate it when people use insulting words on others, no matter the provocation. Obama countered every lie peddled against him swiftly and firmly without insulting the racists and bigots that peddled them, even the most vicious lie. That was what made him different from those racists and haters and made him appealing and respected. You can never win a person over with words like “slowpoke, stupid, idiot, etc.” Ask Dale Carnegie (author of How to Win Friends and Influence People.)

T[b]here are a few wrong assumptions in Nigeria that have been ingrained in the system over the years:[/b]

1. [center]That Ojukwu seceded because of ambition. (Following the massacre of Igbos in the north for several months and the failure of Gowon to execute the Aburi agreement, if he had not declared the secession, he would have been killed. Remember that Ojukwu was the son of the richest man in Nigeria then and had so much to lose if a war was fought.)

2. That without petroleum Nigeria would not survive in the world (Before oil was discovered, Nigeria was richer than it is now. Oil has been a curse. Every part of Nig would survive, oil or not)

3. That the Yoruba are cowards and traitors (Yorubas have fought fearlessly against dictatorship and impunity in this country more than any other ethnic region – Gani, Soyinka, Adesanya, Ajasin, Beko, Falana, Fela, etc. They have been content to be in the opposition on several occasions.)

4. That Hausa contribute nothing to the economy. [Before oil, the North had the groundnut pyramids, etc (agriculture), the West cocoa, the East coal and palm oil, the Midwest plywood, etc. Even now the bulk of Nigerian foodstuffs like yam, tomato, onions, groundnuts, cows, goats and rams etc still come from the North.)

5. That the Igbo hate Nigeria. (Igbo love and believe in Nigeria more than any ethnic group. They are the only ethnic group that goes investing in all parts of Nigeria despite how they have been treated. As big as Dangote is, the last time I was in his office, he was in a rented building – the Union Bank Marble House on Awolowo Road Roundabout. [I don’t know if he has his building in Lagos now]. That is the first sign that someone is afraid to invest in a place. No other ethnic group in Nigeria invests in Igboland or areas outside their race except in Abuja. Contrary to what Lagman or someone posted above, the parasite is he makes money in a land and takes the money to his home town without investing anything in that land where he made the money – men who run their multi-million-naira biz from a briefcase. Once there is trouble they run away and lose nothing.)[/center]

There are also a few truths that must be accepted in Nigeria:

1. That the Igbo are loud, noisy and proud. (That is the way they are; you can’t change it. Americans are like that too.)

2. That Igbo are the most hospitable and fair and like to make non-indigenes feel at home. (I once worked in a company where the MD was an Igbo man from the same state. He never spoke Igbo to me all my years in that company, although he always spoke Yoruba to all the Yoruba people in the office. In my hometown the biggest mosque was built by the gate of the central church by the Hausa settlers. Nobody bothered the Moslems for one day. It can’t happen in the North. In my class at UNN, we had one Hausa and one Yoruba. We made sure that both of them got Dept positions when it was the turn of my set to produce the dept officers. There has not been one incident of Igbo killing or burning the property of non-Igbo settlers because of any misunderstanding. The time it happened was a couple of years ago in Aba, Onitsha etc in retaliation to the several Igbo killed in the North without any provocation)

3. The Yoruba are accommodating to a large extent, even when they are not comfortable with the progress the Igbo make in their land. They don’t kill Igbo or burn Igbo property.

4. Igbo are very enterprising. They become successful too fast and this annoys their hosts. (In Yoruba land, the Ijebu are like that, and they are ridiculed by other Yoruba as stingy and too money-conscious)

5. Hausa are the most intolerant of all Nigerians and have created ethnic tension more than any other group – attacking Igbo because of even a carton done in Denmark, raping and killing an NYSC lady because she wore trousers, killing a teacher for seizing a Koran (unknowingly) from which a student was copying in an examination, etc. There have been many of such senseless and unwarranted attacks, which successive govts have not done much against)

6. Igbo are hated most by all other ethnic groups because they are usually the second largest ethnic group after the owners of the land. They are always seen as wanting to take over the place where they settle, even though they do not use force or political power but money to buy property.

7. All ethnic groups in Nig suspect other ethnic groups.
8. Igbo have helped to develop all Nigerian cities.

9. Any land that don’t allow visitors to come in and invest does not progress. That is why Dubai is great. USA is doing the Visa lottery to get in cheaper manpower into their nation and grow their economy and maintain their lead in the world.

10. Nigeria has been retrogressing because merit is always sacrificed on the altar of nepotism and tribalism.

11. The gum that is binding the ethnic groups today is that which comes from OIL. If the oil in Nig dries up today, every region would want to be on its own.

12. We practise more of unitarianism today, where every state is dependent on the FG. The reason why Ahmadu Bello sent Balewa to be the Prime Minister in 1960 was because the Region was stronger than the Centre then, or was very attractive and powerful. A country that has so many ethnic groups that don’t trust each other cannot progress on the type of govt we run today. That is why there is too much laziness and corruption.

13. If after 40 years of war, this level of distrust, hate and acrimony continue, then our future is already decided in the negative.

14. If we pull our human resources together, we should be competing with China today. And we can still do it if we do the right things.

May God bless you all.

JProspero:

I am an Igbo man. Some great points have been made here but I hate it when people use insulting words on others, no matter the provocation. Obama countered every lie peddled against him swiftly and firmly without insulting the racists and bigots that peddled them, even the most vicious lie. That was what made him different from those racists and haters and made him appealing and respected. You can never win a person over with words like “slowpoke, stupid, idiot, etc.” Ask Dale Carnegie (author of How to Win Friends and Influence People.)

Welcome to Nairaland! I see you've only posted a few times. Thanks for your attempts at sanitising the discourse, though I would warn you to brace up! We all started out here with civility. I would advise you to stick around and engage in deep conversations with other members on core issues bedevilling Nigeria. You would soon realize that Nigeria is not America -by a long shot!. Personally, I always try to be civil because doing otherwise derails my point and I hate it. There are professional thread derailers here and their job is to insult, lie, accuse, offend, deviate the point, and completely degrade fellow debaters, all to sow or sustain a lie. I can assure you that even an Obama can't withstand some characters here. Carnegie was not talking about Nigerians!
Americans are open to logic and common sense which is why they have a functioning system of government. Nigerians aren't like that. They care about other things more.
So welcome again, and be fully engaged. Don't be a touch-and-go poster.  Let's see how long you retain your civility!

1) I have read the entire Aburi report word for word, page for page verbatim.  On the transcript, Lt-Col Katsina (as he then was) described in great detail how he overcame his fears and confronted murderous mobs that were killing Igbos in the north. This was after Ironsi had been murdered and all hell had broken loose (months later than the Decree 34 drama you described). Katsina's role in trying to stop the mayhem has also been referenced by other authors, and even Ojukwu himself responded to it at Aburi by saying that he refused to believe that Katsina killed anybody. There is a passage at Aburi where Katsina says that if Ojukwu knew how much he (Katsina) had tried to save Igbos, Ojukwu would give him a medal.  [/b]The entire discussion about this aspect is chronicled in my book which I am not going to reproduce verbatim for you on an internet forum.

2) Katsina (in Oct 1966) also confronted the northern soldiers who mutinied in Kano. Again, consult my book for further details of this incident. Just so you know, things were so serious that the battalion commander in Kano (a northerner) fled and hid from his own troops as he was afraid of getting killed also.

3) [b]There was no "Recce Squadron Jos" as erroneously stated in your post. The 1 Recce Squadron was stationed in KADUNA. That Recce squadron was sent to deal with the Tiv insurgency in Jos because Jos was under the operational command of the 1st brigade (to which the Kaduna Recce squadron belonged).

Military units don't only execute operations in the city they are based in. They can travel too. For example, the army operation against the recent Boko Haram violence in Borno State was under the overall responsibility of Maj-Gen Saleh Maina - the General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 3 Armoured Division, Jos.  Maina was an "overseer" of the operation because it fell within his field of operation as the GOC of 3 division (he is responsible for north eastern Nigeria). The same thing happened several years earlier when Maj-Gen Buhari (as GOC of 3 Div in Jos) moved his troops to the north eastern border with Chad to deal with Chadian rebels.

4) This forum is about the free exchange of ideas and opinions. You are perfectly entitled to disagree with me. But when you do so, please refrain from using invectives and inflammatory language such as referring to my valid points as "ridiculous cr*p". There is no need to speak so rudely. If you disagree, just tell me why your point of view is better than mine without resorting to invectives. It detracts from what might otherwise be valid points that you wish to make.

[/quote][quote author=Dede1 link=topic=334770.msg4749078#msg4749078 date=1255731355]


This is one of the ridiculous crap I had to read from this board and more so from a person with Nigerian historical pedigree such as Maxsiollun.

Major Hassan Katsina, as the military governor of northern region, stood steward to one of the heinous act of man’s inhumanity aganist mankind in the annals of Nigeria history. I would want you to furnish us with the instances where Major Hassan Katsina attempted to stop the orgy of massacre of southerners, particularly Ndigbo, during the pogrom of 1966. Katsina was the military governor that was overseeing a region fraught with military installations and yet he looked the other way when the killings were going.


The only instance Lt. Col. Katsina was accredited with such compassion took place when was returning from Lagos afte meeting with Maj. Gen. Ironsi about the decree #34. The rumor had it that Katsina had been detained in Lagos by Ironsi. However, when his touched at Kano airport, the northern region soldiers had surrounded the airport. It was alleged that Lt Chris Ugokwe, ADC to Katsina, was trying exit the plane before his boss. At this juncture, rumor had it the Katsina urged his ADC to step back because he could be shot.

Onlytruth:

@Sapeleguy
For you and your type to come here trying to blackmail Igbos for what they never plotted, and even helped foil is the height of hate. My message is not for your type. It is for Igbos who are still living in Neverland. Today your people are up in arms fighting for the same thing they were offered free. Out of hate and idiocy, they connived to kill it. You better go and advise your MEND to forget about your resource control. It is too late in the day!

Drop the persecution complex, it makes you come across as vulnerable. I have always maintained that greed and ambition were the reasons for the massive and regrettable loss of life.  
Read between the lines, if i am asking you to restrategise, it is so you should come back stronger. Let me ask you a question from Achebe's Things Fall Apart - Should Okonkwo have killed Ikemefuna? What have you actually learned from these experiences?

Forget these scraps of papers for a second. The failure to cultivate and maintain allies was a key reason the effort failed. That my dear friend is the height of idiocy. Boro started a struggle before biafra why didn't you back it and make him an ally?

The Mid West fought politically to establish a region in 1963, would the Eastern region have allowed Rivers and Calabar to follow suit?

Every struggle needs allies, who were yours then and who are they now?

SapeleGuy:


Drop the persecution complex, it makes you come across as vulnerable. I have always maintained that greed and ambition were the reasons for the massive and regrettable loss of life. 
Read between the lines, if i am asking you to restrategise, it is so you should come back stronger. Let me ask you a question from Achebe's Things Fall Apart - Should Okonkwo have killed Ikemefuna? What have you actually learned from these experiences?

Forget these scraps of papers for a second. The failure to cultivate and maintain allies was a key reason the effort failed. That my dear friend is the height of idiocy. Boro started a struggle before biafra why didn't you back it and make him an ally?

The Mid West fought politically to establish a region in 1963, would the Eastern region have allowed Rivers and Calabar to follow suit?

Every struggle needs allies, who were yours then and who are they now?

Look, I am really only interested in what happened in times of Nigeria's sanity than what happened in times of madness. The times of sanity were times like Aburi. I am interested in them more because I hope that the solution to our problems would come through dialogue (I could be wrong). Some have lied that Nigeria cannot organize a peaceful conference where all would be tabled. History teaches us that we can (albeit on foreign soil). We did it before! So, all I have to do now is to understand every geopolitical interests and decide how best to secure mine. The mistake of my ancestors was to love Nigeria more than Igboland and I'm determined not to repeat that. Nigeria is not yet a country because of lack of shared values. How can I cultivate allies when they are either jealous or suspicious of me even when the real enemy wrecks the would-be allies? How can I ally with someone with feelings that lack rational groundings? So, I am my own ally. All my allies in the past betrayed me!

Onlytruth:

The mistake of my ancestors was to love Nigeria more than Igboland and I'm determined not to repeat that. Nigeria is not yet a country because of lack of shared values.

oh boy, you mention igboland for ya comment there. I hope say de igboland wey dey ya mind no be de same eastern region of old. additionally, i hope say you no dey include niger delta inside dat ya igboland. you sabi say una no help these people fight: isaac boro, wiwa, mend, and others wey dey fight for niger delta.

abeg tell us, niger delta dey included in dis ya igboland at all? no try run from my question, na very important one. people like me and Sapeleguy go like to hear ya answer.

@JProspero
Ok bros, here comes your first lesson on politics 101 Nairaland style. Read the quote below and tell me whether the author is Igbo, Hausa or Yoruba:

ndu_chucks:

oh boy, you mention igboland for ya comment there. I hope say de igboland wey dey ya mind no be de same eastern region of old. additionally, i hope say you no dey include niger delta inside dat ya igboland. you sabi say una no help these people fight: isaac boro, wiwa, mend, and others wey dey fight for niger delta.

abeg tell us, niger delta dey included in dis ya igboland at all? no try run from my question, na very important one. people like me and Sapeleguy go like to hear ya answer.

I know you guessed something like -he is a "detribalised Igbo"- but WRONG! He is infact Hausa! He admitted much himself in an earlier exchange.He claimed he reserved the right to go by any username! He didn't see anything wrong with being Hausa but going by Igbo name here on political forum of NL. Pray did Carnegie think of folks like that? An Average American would tell you his real racial or ethnic background and still make his point. A Nigerian feels he must always cheat to gain the upper hand, it doesn't matter that his "upper hand" could ruin the nation. It happened at Aburi where Nigerians signed an internationally supervised agreement when in fact some signatories had no intention of honoring it.
I wouldn't discuss Igbo territories with a fellow Igbo would you? He should know, right? Since he is Hausa, why should I discuss my territory with him

@JProspero

Again his real intention is to derail the thread from Aburi minutes to Igbo territory(or to whatever his devious intents are), but don't fall for that! He is one of the thread derailers. Let's stay on Aburi and what it meant for the nations within Nigeria.

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2009/oct/17/national-17-10-2009-001.htm

I don't know how true the above interview with Mobolaji Johnson is. But I think there is indeed more to the Aburi conference than most of us know. And except we ''read'', ''hear'' and probably ''view'' a recording of the events at that conference (both the one done with the outside world and the one done in the closet), I will henceforth take Eziachi's original post with some level of reservation - except I'm convinced to the contrary.

Can you briefly recount the process that led to the creation of states, including Lagos?
If you remember, we were having a civil war when Odumegwu Ojukwu created the state of Biafra and the military didn’t believe in the division of this country. We believed that there should be one country, no matter the difference. So, when he heard that Ojukwu wanted to create Biafra and that the whole of the East, including Rivers State and Cross River State would be included in it, we acted. We felt that Ojukwu should be used as a catalyst.

We just used the opportunity to create more states. That is how we thought of creating states and we drew the carpet off Ojukwu’s feet. It was a masterstroke. By the time he announced the state of Biafra, the other states and parts of Biafra were no more with him. South East and Rivers states were created out of that area. They became autonomous states and we gave them money from the centre to organise their states, though they couldn’t operate as states in time, because of the civil war. Ojukwu was just a catalyst in the creation of states.

In the creation of state, I said Lagos should not be left out. Administration began from Lagos. There was a time Lagos belonged to the West and there was a time it belonged to the Federal Government. By the time I came on board, Lagos was a federal capital.

Lies will always fall like a pack of cards any day.

Was Nigeria fighting a civil war when the states were created on May 27th 1967? No.

Did Ojukwu declare any republic of Biafra before the states were created? No.

Biafra was declared on May 30th 1967, 3 days after the new states were created by Gowon as the agreement reached at Aburi was discarded.

These things are facts and I am shocked that someone that was there at Aburi could mislead people here.

His statement that Ojukwu accepted Gowon as head of state was stated in the original post when the where about of Ironsi and Fajuyi were finally revealed as demanded by Ojukwu.

The original thread made it clear that Ojukwu stated he was going to work under Gowon at the meeting and amongst other demands by Ojukwu the Head of State title was adopted as against the title of Supreme Commander.

Is it really difficult for people to stand by the truth all the time?

Onlytruth:

@JProspero
Ok bros, here comes your first lesson on politics 101 Nairaland style. Read the quote below and tell me whether the author is Igbo, Hausa or Yoruba:

I know you guessed something like -he is a "detribalised Igbo"- but WRONG! He is infact Hausa! He admitted much himself in an earlier exchange.He claimed he reserved the right to go by any username! He didn't see anything wrong with being Hausa but going by Igbo name here on political forum of NL. Pray did Carnegie think of folks like that? An Average American would tell you his real racial or ethnic background and still make his point. A Nigerian feels he must always cheat to gain the upper hand, it doesn't matter that his "upper hand" could ruin the nation. It happened at Aburi where Nigerians signed an internationally supervised agreement when in fact some signatories had no intention of honoring it.
I wouldn't discuss Igbo territories with a fellow Igbo would you? He should know, right? Since he is Hausa, why should I discuss my territory with him

I predicted that you will cowardly avoid answering my question, didn't I?

why you no dey bold like other seccesionists here? dem dey declare their imaginary territories with pride, but in ya own case, you wan claim other people land as igboland. dat ya intention no go work.

oil dey for niger delta area now, if una try come claim dat land by force, de repercusions go worse pass civil war own.

in case you no know, USA for example get independence for 1776 and in 2009, some fringe groups still dey publicly call for seccession. dem even predict de brake up of USA by de year 2012, just like some of una dey wish say our dear country nigeria, go brake up soon.

people fit dey for diaspora dey call for seccession, but if una try am with any seriousness for naija, you will be crushed again. dis time, no be federal troops go do de crushing, na una own governors and leaders like ojukwu, ngige, soludo, and others go put una for de appropriate place.

na for only internet una be warriors, coward warriors at that! to simply tell us where igboland dey, na big burden.

stop hiding under de pretext say i be hausa, or Yoruba, or ogoni, da no be de issue. just answer de simple question so dat your stance and position go dey clear.

but if fear fit catch you because of simple question, na where you go find de courage to come fight a second war na? or you tink say niger delta people go just hand you territories peacefully?

ndu_chucks:

oh boy, you mention igboland for ya comment there. I hope say de igboland wey dey ya mind no be de same eastern region of old. additionally, i hope say you no dey include niger delta inside dat ya igboland. you sabi say una no help these people fight: isaac boro, wiwa, mend, and others wey dey fight for niger delta.

abeg tell us, niger delta dey included in dis ya igboland at all?  no try run from my question, na very important one. people like me and Sapeleguy go like to hear ya answer.

Ode,
Now you are Friend to South-South people as Usual
We knew already the works of Chameleons, almighty God will set you people fire with tyre, Dirty Stinking Parasites, Corrupt People. Only a fool will listen to u Idiots again.

Ode,
Adekunle your Brother Murdered Issac for doing him nothing,
Tell me the Sin of Ken why your Yoruba brother Diya and Hausa Fulani Abacha  hanged him,
The Massacring of women and Children at Odi were carried out and commanded by your Yoruba Brothers and their partners Dirty Stinking Fulani/Hausa Soldiers. The Atrocities committed by your people against us goes on and on.

Cockroach,
M.E.N.D, is Movement for the liberation of entire N-Delta people from the Hands of Dirty Stinking Hausa/Fulani and your Corrupt Chameleon two face tribe Western Nigerians.

Mumu,  Your dirty Stinking Armed Robber brothers that call themselves Soldiers will soon be returning to you people in Body Bags. Wicked People.

WilyWily,

e be like say you dey challenged a bit and are incapable of public communication or civilized debate.

why is it so difficult for you people to tell us where this igboland is located and what areas it encompasses? is the niger delta area part of this igboland?

de question dey simple enough. calling people names and reigning abuses no change any ting. my question is still open for de courageous person wey go answer am.

if una dey fear to answer simple question, then nobody go take una seriously. dan tselewa.

Hmnn. . . . we have BIG problems in this country.

Ono -well done for posting the Mobolaji Interview. I agree with you the story is not complete.

Onlytruth:

Look, I am really only interested in what happened in times of Nigeria's sanity than what happened in times of madness. The times of sanity were times like Aburi. I am interested in them more because I hope that the solution to our problems would come through dialogue (I could be wrong). Some have lied that Nigeria cannot organize a peaceful conference where all would be tabled. History teaches us that we can (albeit on foreign soil). We did it before! So, all I have to do now is to understand every geopolitical interests and decide how best to secure mine. The mistake of my ancestors was to love Nigeria more than Igboland and I'm determined not to repeat that. Nigeria is not yet a country because of lack of shared values. How can I cultivate allies when they are either jealous or suspicious of me even when the real enemy wrecks the would-be allies? How can I ally with someone with feelings that lack rational groundings? So, I am my own ally. All my allies in the past betrayed me!

'No man is an island' -
Which people are you referring to, is it the ones (mid westerners and water people as you called them then or traitors as you now choose to call them) that fought side by side with you that were later executed as 'sabo' or is it the ones that wanted to remain neutral because they believed democracy was a better option to achieve their goal.

There is a saying that goes 'if you go to a knife fight carry a gun' - How many of you have asked about the legal status or weight of this aburi document. Was it ever a legally enforceable contract or was it a memorandum of understanding?

Give Mobolaji Johnson credit for being largely honest with this interview. His recollection is spot on in almost all parts. He has a good memory after all these years.
[b]
He is right that Ojukwu did agree to endorse Gowon as leader IF:

(a) the federal government kept to the decisions reached at Aburi.
(b) Gowon's title was changed from "Supreme Commander" to "Commander-in-Chief". [/b]It was Ojukwu that introduced the phrase "Commander-in-Chief" into the Nigerian lexicon.

The full interview is reproduced below.

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2009/oct/17/national-17-10-2009-001.htm
Civil war expose
Aburi meeting secret
• Ojukwu endorsed Gowon as head of state – Gen Mobolaji Johnson
By DURO ADESEKO
Saturday, October 17, 2009
General Mobolaji Johnson
Photo: Sun News Publishing
More Stories on This Section

Ever since the civil war ended, much have been said about the things that led to it and the roles played by the actors, especially as regards the meeting the then Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon and leader of the secessionist Biafra, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, held at Aburi, Ghana. However, one of the military chief, who attended the Aburi, General Mobolaji Johnson, has sensationally revealed some of the things that transpired.

[B]He revealed that Ojukwu actually endorsed Gowon as head of state[/B], before making a volte-face to declare the Republic of Biafra.
In an exclusive interview with Saturday Sun, General Johnson, who was the first military governor of Lagos State, revealed that Gowon told the Aburi meeting that the late General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi was picked up at Ibadan and killed, [B]Ojukwu rose from his seat to shake his hands.
[/B]
He said: [B]“We went inside the inner room. That was when Gowon briefed us as to what happened to Ironsi at Ibadan; how the boys picked him up and killed him. That was when Ojukwu now got up and shook the hands of Gowon.”[/B]

[B]According to General Johnson, Ojukwu also agreed that Gowon should be head of state, revealing that the only request Ojukwu made was that Gowon should not be addressed as the Supreme Commander, as Ironsi was.[/B] Instead, he revealed, Ojukwu wanted Gowon to be addressed as head of state, adding that he also requested that the meeting give him something with which he could go back to his people, who were aggrieved.

General Johnson also spoke on why Brigadier Ogundipe, who was next to Ironsi in rank, could not succeed him as head of state. According to Johnson, Ogundipe sacrificed his career and his status to restore peace to Nigeria.

General Johnson spoke on these and many other issues.

As one of the first set of rulers of Nigeria, what is your assessment of the development of the nation at 49?
Yoruba says: Oba mewa, Igba mewa (Ten kings, ten different times). We had a different type of set-up when we were in government. It was a military set-up. It was a set-up that people, like me, could operate. Then I could just talk to my colleagues and do things the way I knew it. So, I believe that many things done in our time were possible because we never thought of politics. In my time, they investigated all the governors after we left office.

During the Murtala Muhammed regime, the military investigated itself. [B]General Rotimi of the West and I were the only two who were found to be clean. What did my fellow governors do? They bought one government property or the other.[/B] But what we are hearing today makes a different kind of corruption. There is no accountability. We talked of millions of naira in my time, but it is billions and trillions they are talking about now. So, to compare is not easy. We had different circumstances. But the nation must still go on. It seems as if Nigerians are being shortchanged by the type of administration they get. The system is different. Our own was military; we ruled by decree. But now, they have to combine the American presidential system before they take decisions.

As the first military governor of Lagos, what legacy did you leave behind?
Well, I think I can talk about different legacies in the state that was created. I was not just the first military governor; I was the first governor of Lagos. When people talk of military governor and civilian governor, you are giving prominence to confusion. I was the first governor of the state. I had my priorities then and they are there to be seen today. We believed in getting people outside closer to the centre. I opened roads to achieve this. The road network that I put up became the first expressway in Nigeria. I told them it was taxpayers’ money at work and if they paid their tax, more would be achieved. So, that is one of the things we did in those days. We did the Apapa-Oshodi Express road without which you wouldn’t have had Festac Town.
There was a lot of armed robbery at the end of the civil war. Many guns were flying around and we had to hold the bull by the horns. We set up tribunals to try armed robbers and they were shot publicly and I think that arrested the problem of armed robbery at the time.

On health, we did a lot. We had the first doctors’ strike on our hands and we arrested that by building quarters for resident doctors in Marina, Lagos. In education, we did a lot. Adeniran Ogunsanya built schools so as to accommodate the students who were interested in furthering their education.
In agriculture, we did a lot too. We produced eggs. We had farms in places near Badagry and Epe areas.

Can you briefly recount the process that led to the creation of states, including Lagos?
If you remember, we were having a civil war when Odumegwu Ojukwu created the state of Biafra and the military didn’t believe in the division of this country. We believed that there should be one country, no matter the difference. So, when he heard that Ojukwu wanted to create Biafra and that the whole of the East, including Rivers State and Cross River State would be included in it, we acted. We felt that Ojukwu should be used as a catalyst.

We just used the opportunity to create more states. That is how we thought of creating states and we drew the carpet off Ojukwu’s feet. It was a masterstroke. By the time he announced the state of Biafra, the other states and parts of Biafra were no more with him. South East and Rivers states were created out of that area. They became autonomous states and we gave them money from the centre to organise their states, though they couldn’t operate as states in time, because of the civil war. Ojukwu was just a catalyst in the creation of states.

In the creation of state, I said Lagos should not be left out. Administration began from Lagos. There was a time Lagos belonged to the West and there was a time it belonged to the Federal Government. By the time I came on board, Lagos was a federal capital.

So, you pushed for the creation of Lagos?
I didn’t push for it. The people of Lagos have been agitating for their own state before I came (as governor). So, we saw it as an opportunity to create Lagos State along with others and then have a balance. There had been agitation in other areas, like Ogoja State. People like Joseph Tarka agitated in Benue. Middle Belt people agitated for their states too. So, we just took it as an opportunity to satisfy or at least make attempt to satisfy the yearnings of the people from various parts of the nation.

What informed the decision by the military to take over government from the civilians in 1960?
Well, if you go back to the first coup, which was on January 15, 1966, you find out that I was not part of the coup. But I was in a strategic position to know just a bit of what happened. I didn’t know the minds of the coup plotters, but I knew enough of what was going on. Kaduna Nzeogu and Emmanuel Ifeajuna were there. Ifeajuna and I were in the same brigade headquarters. He was what we called Staff Officer Grade I and I was grade II. I didn’t know what was going on. I was just doing my job. With hindsight, I found he was trying to drag me into the coup.

He went to my wife and said: ‘Look, this one is just a Jacky, working, not even looking if anything is going on. He is just a British trained, a Yes Sir type of man. He takes orders without blinking.’ I never knew what was in their minds, but I know there was Operation Wet e in the West; there was insecurity in the West and they believed that it couldn’t continue. The country was very unstable and they wanted to bring stability to the country. It was a turning point in Nigeria’s history. Blood was shed; it led to a civil war and led Ojukwu to want to pull out the country to form Biafra.

How did you hear about the first coup and how was it foiled?
I didn’t foil the coup. Before the coup, I was agitating for a posting. I said I was being short- changed. You have to pass exams to go up in the military. I passed my Captain to Major exams and I said that I should be sent abroad to Staff College. But then, I was shortchanged and I was very bitter about that. So, I was asking for a posting. One of the things they said was that I was not commanding troops. David Bamigboye and Ogbeya were under me then as my staff captain. Ogbeya was Captain A and Bamigboye Captain Q. Because I was agitating for a posting, Ifeajuna tried to use that to get me. He said my posting was changed from Enugu to Ibadan. There were rumours then that they were trying to plan a coup. So, I was going to be posted out of second brigade. [B]The party Brigadier Mamailari had that night was to welcome new officers and send off the other ones who were leaving. That was the party we had before the coup.[/B] I won’t go into all those details now. But I didn’t know about the coup.

How did you hear about the coup?
I didn’t know about the coup.

Sir, how did you hear about it? Where were you?
In the morning, when I was going home after the party, Ifeajuna took my wife home because she just had a baby on December 15 and the coup was January 15. She had to come home and breastfeed the baby. Ifeajuna brought her home. When I was coming home I passed through Iyala Road, where Ifeajuna was leaving. I saw cars in his house and I thought since it was a Friday night, maybe they were having suya night. So, I didn’t branch. I went home. When I got home, my wife told me that she didn’t like what happened in her dream. She said she saw a picture of Julius Caesar the day he was killed, how the plotters came together and then killed Julius Caesar.

She said we were in a car from Kaduna to Lagos and how the car ran into a house and nobody came out except Ademoyega. She said there was no light in the house and that it was like a plot and she didn’t like it. I just thought she was talking about Ifeajuna going after a woman or something. I didn’t take it seriously until about 6am. They came and told me that something had happened and some people were killed in Lagos.
I went to the brigade headquarters, where I was the second in command to Ifeajuna at Apapa. [B]The gate was opened for me and Murtala Muhammed told me what had happened. [/B]The Minister of Finance, Okoti Eboh and the Brigade Commander could not be seen. So that was how I got to know about it.

Was there any directive from the headquarters to you?
No directive. We were just to make sure that we stabilised things. Then the army headquarters told us to look out for those they believed were part of the coup. We were to make sure we stabilised our various units.

You were close to the first military head of state, Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi. Was he the one that appointed you as governor?
Ironsi appointed me as administrator of Lagos in 1966. Don’t forget that he became head of state in January and I was brought back from Benin in February. He appointed me administrator of the Federal Capital. There used to be Minister for Lagos Affairs. [B]The last Minister of the Federal Capital before my appointment was Musa Yar’Adua, the father of the incumbent President of Nigeria. [/B]So, Ironsi appointed me and I learnt that he had too much pressure in Lagos. They didn’t allow him to look at the whole country. So, he said there should be somebody who could take over the problem of Lagos. That is how he brought me from Benin. I was always a trouble-shooter. I was sent to Ibadan and I stopped the shooting that was going on and I collected all the weapons. I diverted the thinking of the soldiers from wreaking havoc to sports. David Ejoor was crying, asking how he could be military governor without having military presence in the mid-west. I was again sent there to establish the first military formation. I was second to Ejoor. That was when I had my first experience with public administration. Ironsi brought me back to Lagos to be military administrator.

What kind of person was the late Aguiyi Ironsi?
[B]Ironsi was the old type of soldier. [/B]He was one of those who rose from the rank, not those just commissioned straight from school. I served with him at the Brigade headquarters when he came back from the Congo. He was the head of the United Nations operation in Congo and he took care of the UN troops. After the expiration of his tenure, he came back to Nigeria and that was when there was agitation for who should be the head of the Nigerian army. He was chosen and I was his staff officer. [B]I found him to be knowledgeable. He had the background of the army in him. You may say that he was not too academically sound, like people who got commissioned. But, he was very effective and very sound. I found my time with him to be very pleasant.[/B]

How did Ironsi emerge as head of state? Was his emergence controversial within the army hierarchy?
No. Don’t forget we didn’t have many generals then. He was the head of the army. He had become the General Officer Commanding (GOC) the Nigerian Army. He was in charge of the whole army. When the coup happened, he told the parliament that the only way they could control the situation is to transfer power to the military. That is how the parliament called an emergency meeting.

Was he acceptable to the military top brass?
I don’t know what you mean by being acceptable.

There was open rebellion that resulted in his killing within six months…
If you look at the January coup, it was against the people of the North and the Yoruba. The Igbo were left out and people now felt that it shouldn’t just go on like that. You find that Ironsi, being an Igbo man, had a problem in his hands on how to contain the boys who did the first coup and then to keep the country going. So, it wasn’t easy for him. It wasn’t easy for him to punish most of the boys who did the first coup and majority of them were Igbo.

The North felt that they should not sit down and watch the development like that. The cream of the elite of their officers was killed. Yoruba lost Shodeinde and Ademulegun, who were killed. So, it was in retaliation that the people carried out the second round of the coup. Before the second coup there was a rumour about it. There was so much distrust. You don’t know who was who. It was in that atmosphere that the second coup happened. That was what brought Gowon to power. He was the only senior northern army officer available. [B]Martins Adamu and Danjuma said he was the only one they could take orders from.[/B] So, they struck.

[B]There is the story that one Brigadier Ogundipe was next in rank to Ironsi and Ojukwu insisted he should be the next head of state after Ironsi, but that he ran away.
Well, he did not run away. That man sacrificed his career for the unity of Nigeria. He sacrificed his rank and status for peace in this country.[/B] I say this because I was present that day at Obalende police headquarters when Ogundipe opened the window and asked us to look outside. He told us to look at the killings going on, saying that it must stop. He talked to a few of us because the boys were at Ikeja cantonment. We were just talking by telephone. Ojukwu was talking from the East, saying that he (Ogundipe) shouldn’t allow it and that by status he should be the next head of state since they could not find Ironsi. Ogundipe said they must stop the killing and that there must be peace in the country. [B]He said if he were going to be an impediment to peace, he would leave the country. He said he would sacrifice his career and leave the country, so that there would be peace. He said if that was the sacrifice he had to make, he would. He didn’t run away.[/B]

So, it is true Ojukwu insisted he should be the next head of state?
[B]Ojukwu said that he should be the next head of state if Ironsi was not found. [/B][B]He was sitting down there in the East not knowing what was going on in Lagos. Ogundipe said that he had to sacrifice his career and Ojukwu was saying that he should be head of state and not Gowon. Ojukwu and Gowon were of the same rank. So, Ojukwu said it shouldn’t be anybody from the North. But the northern boys, who staged the counter coup, said that is the only man they could take orders from was Gowon. That was it.
[/B]
When the Federal Government met Ojukwu at Aburi, Ghana, why did Nigeria renege on the agreement reached with Gowon?
We went to Aburi on the invitation of the then head of state in Ghana, General Akran. As a senior man in the military, he invited all of us to come to Aburi, in Ghana to talk and that we should not allow the bloodshed to continue. We went as colleagues, not seeing each other for a long time. Ojukwu came with the press and everything. He had made up his mind to secede.

Did he tell you that?
He didn’t say so in many words. You could see that from the action. I told them that when we moved apart we would never be friends again. I told them that we should have one nation and keep the nation going. During the discussion, it came to a point when Ojukwu said that since we were talking about head of state, what happened to the other head of state, Ironsi. I think Gowon then told General Akran that we should not talk before the press. We went inside the inner room. That was when Gowon briefed us as to what happened to Ironsi at Ibadan; how the boys picked him up and killed him.

Gowon briefed you?
He briefed all of us. [B]That was when Ojukwu now got up and shook the hands of Gowon. Gowon told Ojukwu that he believed in the continuation of the country as one and that we should not divide the country. Ojukwu then said well, we should let him go back with something to his people who were aggrieved. Ironsi was addressed as the supreme commander of the Nigerian Armed Forces. He said we should change from supreme commander to head of state. He wanted the word supreme removed. Gowon became head of state. I think it was Babangida who changed it to President later on. [/B]That was what happened then.

[B]Did Ojukwu agree that Gowon should be head of state?
Yes. He agreed. Gowon and Ojukwu embraced each other. [/B]We said nobody should do anything about the communiqué until we met again. That was what happened in Aburi. That is what happened there. Coming from Aburi, Gowon emphasised that he would make sure that we kept the country as one irrespective of anything.

If that was the situation, why did you create states in order to draw the carpet from Ojukwu’s feet, as you said earlier?
The states were created after the meeting, when we were informed that Ojukwu was going to create the state of Biafra. Gowon moved quickly to create states.

You said that when Gowon narrated how Ironsi was killed, Ojukwu shook his hands. Why was that?
Until then, nobody knew what happened to the past head of state. Gowon, for the first time, explained how he was killed. The announcement before then was that the head of state was missing. That was what the media said.

If Ojukwu only requested that Gowon should not be addressed as the supreme commander, how was this supposed to benefit his people?
The mentality was that supreme appendage was somebody who is supreme. So, for him it was let Ironsi go with supreme and call the next person head of state.

What was actually discussed at Aburi?
We discussed issues concerning the country. [B]Ojukwu said we should move apart for a while to let things cool down. We said that once we pulled apart, it was not going to be easy to come back together. [/B]That was it. Ojukwu also talked about troops not being loyal; that there were killings of the Igbo. He asked how we could live together in such circumstance. We told him that we should try and forget those things and continue living together.

Did he agree with you?
Yes, he agreed.

Why did Ojukwu and his people later make the famous declaration: On Aburi we stand?
He said we agreed to move apart and we didn’t agree to that one. The meeting didn’t believe all he said and we said nobody should issue communiqué until after the second meeting. That was the way they saw it. They wanted to push the situation so that we would separate. We believed in one country. Admiral Wey said and Gowon too said it. The consensus was that whatever we did, we must remain one.

There was no agreement to pull apart?
No. The Aburi meeting was to forestall that.

Why did Ojukwu then declare a state of Biafra when you granted him his request not to call Gowon supreme commander?
Well, that is left to him. He made up his mind before he came to Aburi that the country should be divided. He wanted the oil area and the Igbo enclave to be state of Biafra. We didn’t believe in that.

Was Ironsi concerned about federal or unitary government?
I was close to Ironsi when he brought me back to Lagos to make me administrator of the federal territory. I can even remember what happened when my name was announced as administrator. It was a time they were doing a lot of enquiries into some of the parastatal corporations. I think they were dealing with the Nigeria Railways. They were making a list of people to pick for the board. I found out that all the names they put there were from one part of the country. Ironsi always wanted me to comment when situation was like that. So, he asked me to comment. I told them I was not trying to be a tribalist but that I knew that one wanted to suggest names, the names that would come to one first were the names of the people one knew. I told them that by coincidence, names of the people that would be on the board were from one part of the country. I said we might have to revisit the list and suggest other names.

Ironsi looked at them and said: ‘I told you that Bolaji is sound.’ He said they should go and look at the list again and correct it. I think it was the following morning that my father said: ‘Congratulations, your name has been announced as the administrator.’ That was the last thing I did to convince Ironsi, who I worked with as staff officer when he was Brigade Commander.

Was he committed to central or unitary government?
The regional governors were there. When we talked, he was talking about centralising administration and that there was too much powers for the regions. I think Nwokedi’s report said that. So, he made that decree that centralised the public service and that authority would be from Lagos. That was the mistake Ironsi made.

He did not consult regional governors and the supreme military council?
There was no supreme military council. But he used to meet with governors and the administrators.

Did he just make the decree without consultation?
Well, I think it was the report he announced. The North said it couldn’t work.

What was your own attitude and what did you tell him?
I wasn’t called to comment. I just know that it happened at the time and there were reactions.

Was the Nigerian civil war avoidable?
I don’t think the civil war was avoidable. The alternative was to allow Ojukwu to go with the East. We could see he had made up his mind to secede.

Is it true you married at age of 24 and stopped child bearing at 30?
I married at the age of 26 and my wife was about 23 then. In two years time, I would mark 50 years of marriage.

Did you stop child bearing at the age of 30?
I had my last boy when I was about 30 or 31.

[B]You married at 26 and stopped child bearing at 31, that is five years. How many children do you have, sir?
I have three boys by my wife and I have one away game. The away game would be 40 this year.[/B]

How did you meet your wife and what do you like about her?
My wife is a lovely woman. In her, I found a companion and confidant. The courtship was for five years. It is marriage arranged from heaven. She is a mother, a housekeeper and everything to me.

[B]How did she take the child you had by another woman?
She didn’t make too much fuss about it. She asked what we were going do. She related with the boy. This boy is getting married this year. The first marriage he had didn’t work.[/B] We were at Warri to do the introduction with the family.

[B]Did you marry the mother?
I didn’t marry the mother.
[/B]
How did you adjust to civilian life after retirement? How are you fairing as a bloody civilian?
You can say bloody civilian, indeed. We were not prepared for retirement. Retirement came overnight. We were lost. I didn’t know what to do with myself. But thank goodness for the grace of God. I followed a friend of mine to a golf course one day and there was an argument on who was taking a shot and who was not taking a shot. The argument got so heated up; we went back to the golf course. One of them said to me: ‘You always said sportsman, sportsman and you laugh at us. Now put the ball down and give it a shot.’ I swung at the ball and they all burst out laughing. The ball was at the same spot. That was the day I asked myself how this small thing could beat me. That is how I got into golf. In the mornings when I took my children to school, I would go to the golf course at Ikeja. I used it to while away time and kept my mind off all problems.

[B]Is it true that you brought Julius Berger to Nigeria and that you are the chairman?
I was the chairman of the board up till August last year.[/B] I didn’t bring Julius Berger to Nigeria. It came to Nigeria through international tender to build the Eko Bridge.

Was this during your administration?
It wasn’t during my administration. But they were completing the Eko Bridge when I became administrator of Lagos. I saw the lovely job they were doing and I said these are the people I like to work with. The states were created and they too wanted to stay in Nigeria and we worked together.

What year was this?
I am talking of 1966/67.

At 73, do you still attend social functions like social parties?
It depends on the type of person celebrating. I am not a socialite. I attend functions of people whom I know.

Who is your hero?
My father has always been my hero. He was the man I took after. I joined the military because of him. His name is Joshua Omotola Johnson. He lived up to the age of 96. I wanted to be like him. The military uniform was so good on him and I thought, one day I would wear the uniform myself. He was a strict and friendly father. We were lucky to have the kind of parents we had.

You introduced house rent edict and specified how much landlords could take from tenants. What informed your decision at the time?
Landlords over charged the tenants. In Lagos, there were different types of houses. I sent people out to categorise the houses, to know which ones were mud, bricks and flats. We categorised them. We fixed the rent per room. We set up a tribunal to try disputes between landlords and tenants. In praise of this, Ayinla Omowura, the ace Apala musician, waxed a record, Aiye e ma ta pa sijoba, e fara mo Mobolaji (Do not kick against government, support Mobolaji).

[B]Is General Mobolaji Johnson a rich man?
By Nigerian standard or what?

By any standard
I am not a rich man. I have enough to eat and look after my family and myself. I am not a businessman. God gave me the talent to plan ahead. I own property and I collect my rent. I don’t receive two years rent. I collect every year and I plan my life according to what I have.

What do you do as chairman of the board of Julius Berger?
I supervise the company as chairman of the board.

Did they pay you?
We had sitting allowance. They don’t pay salary to board chairman.[/B]

Ndu chuks
Igboland is a composition of the five south east states. Secondly it comprises delta north and upland Rivers state. Third, it consist five ndoki villages in Etim Ekpo Lga Akwa Ibom, Izzi people in Okpoku Lga Benue state and finally, the seven Ika Igbo villages in Edo state.
Biafra is the old eastern Nigeria and Igbo speaking areas across the great River.
Now that your question is answered, can we now concentrate on the topic, especially here we have Max and (Dede) who are authorities in Nigerian History.