Onlytruth:

Ok, fair enough, but let's play a little game called "Reverse-role".

Here is the situation reversed:

STERN: [/b]What will your troops do when you get to the Yoruba heartland, that is, to the place populated by Yorubas only?

[b]ADEKUNLE: [/b]There we will aim at everything even if it is not moving.

[b]STERN: But you said yourself that most of the refugees in the part you captured are not Yorubas.

ADEKUNLE: But there could be Yorubas among them. I want to avoid feeding a single Yoruba as long as this whole people have not given up yet.

STERN: Do you sometimes feel sympathy for the Yoruba?

ADEKUNLE: I have learned a word from the British, which is “sorry”! That’s how I want to respond to your question. I did not want this war but I want to win this war. Therefore I have to kill the Yorubas. Sorry!



Now, assume that Adekunle were a Biafra commander in the war; do you think there would EVER be peace between Igbo and Yoruba until Igbo distances from this man and even apologize to the Yoruba about his actions?

You see why we laugh at you guys when you talk as if you seriously want to stop Hausa/Fulani in Nigeria.

ALL IS FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR

Who wants peace with those degenerate Ibos to start with.

Next time when you are planning to kill other regional leaders dont spare yours

realchange:

so why pretend to justify the guys actions? why not just say you support mass killers? no be by force to get conscience abeg.

The point is that if Adekunle is "evil" (using whatever definition you have of the term), then all of those I mentioned are "evil."

Which suggests that your own personal definition of "evil" is awry.

Adekunle must have been one bad arse 28 year old to cause so much panic in the hearts of Biafrans. No wonder he was quickly eased out of the military.

All the survivors of Biafra feared Adekunle. Even those who died had his name on their lips

Even till now, when children are misbehaving in Iboland whenever anyone mentions Adekunle they usually behave themselves

Bless Black Scorpion. The man who faces you in war and defeats you not the cowards who went to kill civilian politicians on their bed

Benjamin Adekunle: Ekun Oko Igbo

dayokanu:

All the survivors of Biafra feared Adekunle. Even those who died had his name on their lips

Even till now, when children are misbehaving in Iboland whenever anyone mentions Adekunle they usually behave themselves

Bless Black Scorpion. The man who faces you in war and defeats you not the cowards who went to kill civilian politicians on their bed

Benjamin Adekunle: Ekun Oko Igbo

^^^^
This cracked me up really!! Funny guy. . . .

dayokanu:

All the survivors of Biafra feared Adekunle. Even those who died had his name on their lips

Even till now, when children are misbehaving in Iboland whenever anyone mentions Adekunle they usually behave themselves

Bless Black Scorpion. The man who faces you in war and defeats you not the cowards who went to kill civilian politicians on their bed

Benjamin Adekunle: Ekun Oko Igbo 

adekunle is only popular here in nairaland and in your mind , dont delude yourself, would never have known he existed if not for nairaland.

bashr8:

adekunle is only popular here in nairaland and in your mind , dont delude yourself, would never have known he existed if not for nairaland.

Bruh, don't waste your time with that one. He must have that funny pic of his hero as a wall paper on his PC so he can wan*k over it every evening . If that's his idea of Yoruba bravery i shudder to think of his take on Yoruba cowardice. I find myself feeling sorry for the poor sod: the character he looks up to as an outstanding Yoruba son worthy of praise and emulation; someone that believes women and children are legitimate targets in war. Sad to say these are the people Lugard -in a moment of madness in 1914- decided to lump us together with as 'compatriots' .

ekt_bear:

I'll answer your question with another question.

Why is Adekunle evil, but the Americans who dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan not evil?

Why aren't the British who firebombed Dresden not evil?

Why isn't Lincoln evil, for burning nearly everything in the southern US to the ground (well, doing so through his generals)?

If Adekunle is evil, then all of the above figures/forces were evil too.

My memory of the events surrounding the Vietnam war has faded quite a bit, but I can guarantee that all sides committed more atrocities than likely anything Adekunle did.

Now it would be a different story if one could demonstrate that Adekunle intended to kill whether you surrendered or not.

But condemning a man for what most consider relatively unsurprising actions in the middle of a war is silly.

I don't even know why I'm even arguing this point. I don't really care whether you like him or not. It isn't by force to agree.

Dude, the position you've taken on this thread can be likened to a guy stuck in quick-sand: he wants to free himself, but with a rising sense of panic starts to struggle wildly in the mistaken belief that he might free himself. Unfortunately, his actions only succeed in getting him to sink at a much faster rate to keep a certain rendevous with DEATH!!!

Your sense of logic is quite scary and wicked. So b'cos other individuals/countries may have committed crimes against humanity under the guise of fighting a war, b'cos other countries have done so we should see your heros actions as acceptable and normal? The fact that certain individuals/countries have not been called to account for their actions now makes your hero absolved of any blame?

You fool!!! Humanity is supposed to learn from history so we don't repeat mistakes of the past. What you're doing is using past misdeeds to justify present day evils.

Evil can never triumph over good; What goes around comes around; And in life, everybody or group of people are dealt the cards they deserve based on the LAW OF KARMA.

lol

Adekunle after the war

^^^^
Eze Igbo Wuruwuru of Nairaland. You've got the wackiest sense of homour if you really think that is funny!

Adekunle is coming and everyone in Aba, Nnewi, Onitsha , Owerri dissapear

Black Scorpion is coming everyone take cover, Ojuku straight to Abidjan

Adekunle Ekun oko Igbo

@ekt_bear

For someone who claim to have a some empirical background, your thinking here is shockingly daft and deranged.

How dare you compare a PRESIDENT like Abraham Lincoln to a poor weak soldier like Adekunle.  
Anyone with any brains at all would only compare GOWON (not Adekunle who was filling a Nigerian tribal quota position to make the war seem like everyone was against Igbo) with other PRESIDENTS, NOT a soldier who TEMPORARILY commanded just ONE front in a THREE front war.
What school did you attend again? Your intelligence is less than that of a grade 2 kid.

No one cares whether you have morals or not, after all the genocide can come to you next time in Nigeria; just stop comparing great men with weaklings.

BTW I still believe that if Tim Onwuatuegwu knew how loud Adekunle was, he could have assigned the S Brigade the special duty of shutting Adenkule's mouth before Gowon kicked Adekunle out of the 3MCO.

History still records that Adekunle was kicked out like a rabid dog by Gowon.
The Biafrans could have shut his stoopid Ogbomosho mouth with a nice sniper shut.
He was yanked out before he disgraced the Nigerians.

Biafran could have but guess what Biafrans did not.

Adekunle brought all of them to their knees and their warlord found his way to Abidjan

WHat kind of useless war Generals did you have that a 28yr old soldier sacked the whole of Biafra even the bearded one died in fear of Adekunle

Onlytruth:

@ekt_bear

For someone who claim to have a little empirical background, your thinking here is shockingly daft and deranged.

How dare you compare a PRESIDENT like Abraham Lincoln to a poor weak soldier like Adekunle.  
Anyone with any brains at all would only compare GOWON (not Adekunle who was filling a Nigerian tribal quota position to make the war seem like everyone was against Igbo) with other PRESIDENTS, NOT a soldier who TEMPORARILY commanded just ONE front in a THREE front war.
What school did you attend again? Your intelligence is less than that of a grade 2 kid.

No one cares whether you have morals or not, after all the genocide can come to you next time in Nigeria; just stop comparing great men with weaklings.

BTW I still believe that if Tim Onwuatuagwu knew how loud Adekunle was, he could have assigned the S Brigade the special duty of shutting Adenkule's mouth before Gowon kicked Adekunle out of the 3MCO.

Insulting his intelligence will not change the fact that you are lying as usual. Adekunle's 3RD Marine Commando made a mince meat of Biafran defences and made grown Biafran men pee in their pants. It is a known fact, whether he was kicked out or not is not is not the question. Gowon himself got kicked out, it comes with the territory.

^^ DOnt mind them, Let them say whatever.

Even let them convince themselves that Adekunle didnt leave Ibadan. It was a lie he didnt kill one single Biafrans

Ask your grandfather who witnessed the war. Many died with the name Adekunle on their lips, tormented them alive tormented them even in death

@Aigbofa

I'll reply to you ONCE. Dayokanu is now in the same class below my attention here (eko-ile, bluetooth, seanet et al) . 

You guys talk as if we care about all these undue lionization of a failed soldier.
Adekunle was dealt severe losses by the Biafran POORLY equipped Brigades. He was DEFEATED and was costing Nigeria THOUSANDS of soldiers. He wanted to capture Owerri, but FAILED. He never captured a single core Igbo town.
So, he resorted to loud boasts to journalists. He was removed because of those FAILURES, not because of the boasts, or altruistic reasons. If Adekunle was successful with core Igbo areas, he would have been retained afterall he did not kill more innocent Igbos than Murtala Muhammad.
So, stop smoking coward cigar. No one was ever afraid of Adekunle in IGBOLAND. 

Onlytruth:

@Aigbofa

I'll reply to you ONCE.

Thank you, your royal lieness.

18 October Murtala recaptures Ore and thus halts Biafran threat to Ibadan and Lagos.
Murtala recaptures Benin
Shuwa captures Enugu.
Murtala captures Asaba. Subsequent attempts to cross the Niger and capture Onitsha proved abortive.
ADEKUNLE captures Calabar.
1968
January After the abortive attempts to capture Onitsha from Asaba, MurtaJa moves up the Niger, crosses it at Idah and advances down to Awka and Onitsha.
21 March
5 April
Late April
6 May
19 May

26 May Murtala captures Onitsha.
Shuwa captures Abakaliki.
The entire South Eastern state liberated by ADEKUNLE.
ADEKUNLE captures Bonny Oil field in Rivers State.
ADEKUNLE captures Port Harcourt and thus completes the sealing off of Biafra from sea.
Colonel I. B. M. Haruna replaces Murtala as G. O. C. Second Division.
29 July
ADEKUNLE captures Ahoada, last major town in Rivers State.
ADEKUNLE captures Aba.
ADEKUNLE captures Oguta and advances on the Uli airstrip which was Biafra's major link with the outside world.
Biafrans retake Oguta.
ADEKUNLE captures Owerri.
Shuwa captures Okigwe

.

OnlyLIES. I guess Aba and Onitsha are not core Ibo towns

Adekunle Ekun oko Igbo. All those Biafra Generals were running helter skelter at the name of Black Scorpion

http://www.ogbomoso.net/adekunle6.html

^^^^  LOL

@dayo and ektbear, i wish im the moderator i will try as possible and trace your ip if possible know who exactly you guys are. Atimes i wonder if its the same yorubas i see everyday that are saying all this!

Toaskarity:

^^^^  LOL

@dayo and ektbear, i wish im the moderator i will try as possible and trace your ip if possible know who exactly you guys are. Atimes i wonder if its the same yorubas i see everyday that are saying all this!

My brother, one of my friends while at uni was from Ogun state. Some of them have a way of hiding their true feelings inside. Some call it cowardice; some call it treachery. Bottomline is that we Ndigbo need to learn fellow Nigerians. We are too busy pursuing success that we miss sight of these things. That is part of why we lost the war.
There was betrayal EVERYWHERE.
So watch your back bro.

^^
BTW I ignore some of them here these days, because I think they are really cowards.

^^^^^^^^
You spend your day calling those that defeated your army cowards, you then enlarge your commentary to cover an entire ethnic group. And yet you think you are on some sort of higher plane!

If Yorubas bother you that much and make you hide under your bed at night, hiding your manliness then don't post rubbish.

Just because a few people post things about the civil war doesn't give you the right to trash talk.

It would seem that instead of some Igbos to face the specific generals within the Nigerian armed forces that defeated Biafra you come onto an anonymous online forum to trash talk - how brave?

I have more respect for the young boy who threw "pure water" at OBJ than for this clown claiming to be some sort of "eze" on Nairaland! Dude, you are a PUNK!

JamesDoe:

^^^^^^^^
You spend your day calling those that defeated your army cowards, you then enlarge your commentary to cover an entire ethnic group. And yet you think you are on some sort of higher plane!

If Yorubas bother you that much and make you hide under your bed at night, hiding your manliness then don't post rubbish.

Just because a few people post things about the civil war doesn't give you the right to trash talk.

It would seem that instead of some Igbos to face the specific generals within the Nigerian armed forces that defeated Biafra you come onto an anonymous online forum to trash talk - how brave?

I have more respect for the young boy who threw "pure water" at OBJ than for this clown claiming to be some sort of "eze" on Nairaland! Dude, you are a PUNK!

How "holy" of you! I marvel at your sense of righteousness. 
You did not see your brothers singing the praises of a mass murdering coward who targeted innocent women and children in the name of bravery.
My friend move over!

Just keep praying that I win that "Eze" which may gag me more than I may want, else una go hear am from me here!
Hypocrites. 

Onlytruth:

How "holy" of you! I marvel at your sense of righteousness. 
You did not see your brothers singing the praises of a mass murdering coward who targeted innocent women and children in the name of bravery.
My friend move over!

Just keep praying that I win that "Eze" which may gag me more than I may want, else una go hear am from me here!
Hypocrites. 

How can he be a mass murder ?

How many igbos did he actually kill apart from the Ore war of which you tried to invade yorubaland or is Ore baifra ?

Moreover why should he feel bad because he fought to keep Nigeria integrity ? How does one feel bad for that ?

which innocent children and women

which part of Igboland is that particularly ?

•Brig. Gen. Benjamin Adekunle
Photo: Sun News Publishing

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Adekunle had led his Division to clobber the then secessionist forces, but when the war was almost over, the command changed hands. The then Col. Olusegun Obasanjo was named commander, and he was the one, who fortuitously received the instrument of surrender from the Biafran forces. Adekunle and Obasanjo had been course mates, but since then, and up till now, there is no love lost between the duo.

Adekunle, popularly called Black Scorpion, says of the heroic feat usually ascribed to Obasanjo in respect of the civil war:

“After capturing them (the secessionist Igbos) Obasanjo came round to say he did it. I had a good laugh and I’m still laughing…”

Adekunle, before the third term gambit was thrown out by the National Assembly, granted this interview to a television station, details of which are reproduced below:

How did it all begin?

If you remember Kaduna at one time, it was almost the headquarters of the Nigerian Army. Kaduna was the headquarters of some of the biggest units. My father was working in the Government House. My uncle was in the Army, Uncle Alabi. I usually go to him, to go and see what they are doing. So, I took interest in the Army. My father was working as a civilian with the governor, who gave independence to the North. So, I had another opening.

From there, I joined the army. But joining the army at that time was hell because you had to do series of trainings. The first training is to see if you have the qualities of being a soldier. I have already got one. That is my family. My father, my uncle, all of them were in the army. So that gave me a leeway.

We were 25 that wanted to join the Army but 15 were selected and the 15 had to go for further training.

At that time, the Armed forces of the British West Africa were united in training, in thoughts, words and deeds. So we had to go to Teshi in Ghana for some training. It was the only school in the whole of West Africa for English speaking people. It was for three months. But the three months was hell. It was real hell. Then you had to face another board, the board that will select, according to merit, according to age, and educational background, among other considerations.

Luckily, I was selected. My contemporaries then were Chukwuka, Amadi, and Ifeajuna of the 1966 coup fame, Adegoke who was killed in Kaduna, Obasanjo and others who were told that they would go for some other courses.

From the Officer Cadet School in Ghana, you have to go to the UK for another course, like the Ghana course. If you’re able to pass or considered fit to be an officer, then you’re selected. But the irony of the whole thing is that everybody wanted to go to the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst.

Why the preference for Sandhurst?

Sandhurst was a regular officer course. If you’re able to pass, then you can do 22 years service in the Army. So, everyone was struggling to get down to Sandhurst. It’s at Sandhurst that your fate is decided.

Let’s talk about your exploits in the Army, your exalted role during the war

You see, my mother was from the North, from Adamawa State, while my father was from Ogbomoso. During the course of the training, I was told to drop the name Adekunle and use my mother’s maiden name, Hamda. I refused to.

I maintained the Adekunle and that was it. So, we stayed in Ghana. The selection was done. And we were divided into two. Those who were selected to do the Regular Officers Course will have to spend 22 years in service before they’re allowed to go. During the Regular Officers course, you have to get down to Sandhurst, and you also have to do a month as formative period.

Going to Sandhurst, you must have some qualities.

You have to get the psyche to become an officer, and the power to command, to pass instruction, to lead. You must have the power to control people. It wasn’t simple then, because you might find that the next person to you is far older and you the young boy are coming to command somebody older than yourself. Oh, oh, there will be another problem. But the irony of the whole thing is that once you’re put in a grade higher than the rest, that is it. They have to respect you.

We were only five selected from Nigeria for the Sandhurst course to do two years, Udeaja, Chukwuka, Amadi and others. You start the course as a junior, then intermediate junior, after passing all the examinations, practical and written, then you are considered an officer. The irony of my own course was that the year I was confirmed as an officer, the year I passed out was the year Nigeria got her independence.

Can you tell us what led to Nigeria’s political problems?

If you go into Nigeria’s political history, the British had very soft spot for the North. In the Army, Air Force, Navy, Police, even in the Prisons Service, the British gave the Northerners more leeway than the Southerners. The idea being that if the North had complete control of the Armed Forces, they’ll control Nigeria. Then, they will have authority to do whatever they wanted. The relationship between the British and the Emirs will still be a live. And that was what they used.

They packed every military institution to the North. Those that were brought to the south were not important. And that was where I used my mother’s side. I’m not a Yoruba man. I’m not a Hausa man. I’m a Nigerian. It was important for one to know how to speak a foreign language other than your mother’s tongue, and be able to write it. I used the advantage of my parents to get into the Army and to Sandhurst. So you do your terms, each term two years. From there, you go and do your own specialist course as either, artillery officer, infantry officer or intelligence officer. I chose to be an infantry officer.

We’re still talking about the issues that led to the Nigerian Civil War

Ha! The first thing was that the British were trying to hand over. Somebody must control the government, somebody must control the armed forces, somebody must control the money, foreign policies, and other developmental infrastructure. The British had a soft spot for the Northerners. All the organizations necessary for the officer cadet, for the officers, for the formations were all situated in the North. It’s only very little formations that were put in the South.

At the time of independence, the highest number of formations including the brigade, the battalions, the artillery, the supply and transport, the intelligence were all based in the North. Anything you find in the south was just a make belief. And that gave the North the opportunity to sit on the throne of Nigeria, and see it as their birthright. The British not only dominated the Armed Forces, they allowed the location of the formations to be mainly in the North. The repercussion would come up later. The North could do anything. They could say anything in the name of Nigeria, if they do any nonsense, they will get away with it.

The police was the same. The police was more in number and they were spread all over the country than the army. And when the Air Force came, they were mainly located in the North. When the Navy was formed, it was located in the south, but then the Navy wasn’t developed as the Army was developed. They didn’t give them adequate equipment.

Even, if you look at it now, look at Jos for example. There are some military establishments there that shouldn’t have been. Look at Kaduna again, the School of Artillery in the North, the Joint Service Staff College is in the North. The factory for the manufacture of the ammunition is in Kaduna.

The British were bringing the knowledge they acquired from Sudan into Nigeria.

You’ll find that Sudan is in trouble now, because the North was made to dominate the South and the south refused. That’s the same thing that happened in this country where the south through Ojukwu was saying the North hasn’t got the brain, they had only got the men, that the North cannot rule Nigeria. But the British had already given the whole of the country to the Northerners, to dominate forces, they only gave them the Army, they gave them also the gumption to say that their population was more, that they were the richest and so they dominate the whole of the country.

Can you recall some of your much-touted exploits during the war? Up till now, people talk of you with great regard and you are held in a kind of awe on account of some of your exploits. Some legend has it that you are able to disappear and reappear.

Hmm! That is a mystery. How can I disappear? Please do not believe all that you hear. I only used my brain and I used the gumption inside it. With all the guns blazing away, I mean if the firing of guns is pointed at a particular place, they’ll get me, but they didn’t. The only place that they nearly got me was when I became a major.

We’ll come back to that, but let’s talk about Nigeria. The arrest of Akintola triggered off a lot of problem. If he had not been arrested, the problem in the Western region would not have been that way. The disagreement between himself and Awolowo would have been settled. If he had not been arrested, the drive in the southern soldiers to say the Northerners were out to dominate would not be there. So the outlook and the behaviour, within the Army and outside the Army changed. People started looking inwards because the North was only out to dominate.

And that was why the northerners had to look for a way of getting a southerner with national standing. And who did they get? After they had put Awolowo in treasonable felony, they got Akintola. They used him to make the South to tie up with the North. So, when the soldiers came, Chief Awolowo had already been arrested. The soldiers took it to be, well, these are politicians fighting themselves, we have to solve the problem and solve it quickly. Awolowo has been arrested now, let’s go and pick Akintola, and that was how it started.

The original plan was to arrest Akintola, not to kill him, but he resisted and that was how he got wasted. The killing was a mistake. He wouldn’t have been killed. Life was very precious then. And for a premier to be killed was a taboo. And the differences between Awolowo and Akintola weren’t something that could not be settled. But it was to the advantage of the North because the North had Akintola on their side, fully on their side. Awolowo wasn’t. Awolowo was for complete region, period. Independent region was what he wanted. But Akintola refused. He went with the North at the expense of foregoing our own independence. Awolowo was fighting against the concentration of power in the North. He wanted power to be spread all over.

What do you mean when you said they almost got you?

When the coup started, the Ironsi coup. I was in Enugu. I was Company Commander.

Company Commander?

Yes, in the Army, you have sections; you have platoon, the companies, the brigades, then the corps. The platoon is the lowest, with about eight to 10 people. It is easier to command.

The company is an amalgamation of a lot of sections. We had a section dealing with food, a section for medicine, sections for pay, training, arms, and what have you. You amalgamate these sections. A battalion comes on a much larger scale. Nothing less than four companies form a battalion.

You said they almost got you?

Yes, they almost did during the coup, the first coup. My course mates, Ifeajuna, Amadi, Chikwuka, Adegoke …we were all course mates. So the coup happened. Then Ironsi came round to say he was going to change the future of Nigeria. My contemporaries were the leaders of the coup. Contemporaries that I attended Staff College with, officers that I did exams with, so I was being accused of being a stooge, that’s why I didn’t come out openly to say I was doing a coup with them. I told Ironsi, remember, we don’t agree. And if I’m taking part in the coup, I don’t think you’ll be alive. There and then, I was transferred to Enugu.

I was in Enugu when the counter-coup started. I stopped the counter-coup in Enugu.

How?

Ogunnigwe was the boss. I had to take over the command of the unit, physically taking it over, putting men, arms and ammunition on the field, saying if you want to fight, let’s fight each other. And they were made to stay on the field there for three days. If you want to eat, the food will be brought there. If you want to urinate, you urinate on the side. If you want to pooh pooh, they’ll take you to go and pooh pooh, then, you’ll come out and be searched. It wasn’t easy. After that, Ironsi transferred me to Lagos.

It was in the process of coming to Lagos that the political dialogue we were having on behalf of Nigeria in Ghana divided the whole of the Nigerian Army, to the effect that the Northerners should go to the North, Easterners to the East and Westerners must go to the West. But when it came to that of the West, they were not allowed to go to the West fully. A portion came to Ibadan, another to Lagos. It was in the process of bringing these soldiers from Enugu to Lagos that the northerners attacked me.

And the man who was the commanding officer in Lagos, I went to him, said, Sir, Ogunigwe, you’re the CO, but you can’t command because you’re Igbo, will you move back a bit and hand over the command and operation of the first battalion to me. He agreed. It wasn’t very simple. The Northerners had already positioned their officers. The most notorious among them, Shehu Yar-Adua. He was my adjutant and yet he was undermining me, giving contrary instructions to the soldiers.

What do you mean by adjutant?

That’s a military lingo for administrative officer. He was in charge of administration, discipline and everything. Everything happening in the unit must go to him before the commanding officer. He used the position to bring the Hausa soldiers together against the East, against non-Hausas. I punished him. You will be on the parade ground; you’ll be eating there. You want to urinate, another soldier must follow you. You want to see your wife; she will come to the parade ground with somebody else that understands your language. So, you don’t go along and tell anybody things.

Yar’Adua was a good, slippery, very untrustworthy officer. I had known he was bringing the Northern officers together, plotting how to massacre the non-Hausas. That was the time the Northerners had to go to the North, the easterners to the East and the westerners to the West. But the Yorubas had no soldiers, no fighting troops, all they had were clerks, nurses, intelligence officers. So we had to leave Enugu.

On getting to Kaduna, Hassan Usman Katsina came round and congratulated everybody and myself, saying that I’ve done very well that there had been no killing. Unknown to me, he had already given instructions to the Hausas that I should be killed. Because they said that I did not allow the North to capture the East. Because all the non-easterners were sent to the East, those from the Midwest were sent to the Midwest; those from the North were sent to the North. Some of them refused to go to the North and followed m e to Lagos, although we stopped for some few days in Ibadan.

Before we got to Minna, there was a bit of fracas, the soldiers had been indoctrinated to say that I did not allow the Hausas to kill the Easterners; which was true. When we got to Ibadan, I thought we were going to stop there, but the Yoruba officers agitated that we will not stop in Ibadan that we’d better get down to Lagos. But before coming to Lagos, that was the time they gave me all these wounds on my body in Minna.

We got round to Lagos here and we went round to Ikeja and put the troops together. There was too much trouble in Lagos, so they mixed up the whole of Lagos and said that is your command. I started commanding. From then onward, no Hausa soldier was to move about alone, no arms was to be given to any Hausa soldier, any Hausa soldier moving about must have somebody with him, who is not from his own tribe, so we had a bit of peace.

From there, we were at Aburi. Aburi was just mediating in the fracas in Nigeria, to bring peace, by Ghana. It was the Ghanaian Head of state who brokered the peace. Then Gowon was brought in as Head of state, we accepted. And that was how the Easterners in the west, in Lagos and all over Nigeria packed their things and went back home. Then Ojukwu declared: “No peace, except the regions were given autonomy.” He directed that his people should not take any instructions from the centre. The East were depending more on the oil. The West had no oil. The North had no oil. The North didn’t like that and they took it upon themselves that there must be a war to fight and get money, money to run the government.

And that was how the whole thing went. Up till today, the armed forces is not the same because the truth is no more there; the comradeship is no more there, the love of the armed forces and not speaking your own language is no more there. Parochialism has taken over. The Northerners had used the fracas to increase the number of soldiers they had, to locate the ammunition depot, artillery depot, and armoured depot all in the North.

All the military institutions that mattered very much, go to Jos, Bauchi, Kaduna, Kano, you’ll see them. It’s a sort of domination of the country. Up till today, that domination is still there.

To make matters worse, the number of soldiers who were enlisted from the time of Gowon became more in the North, because they say they have highest population, the largest land area and the largest area must be defended and the population must reflect in the army.

Can we ever have accurate census figure?

Never. If you want to have an accurate census, then you must start from birth and death. Is it the North that has got land mass that is uncultivated, that it takes miles getting from one village to another. We have been manipulating the system and we’ll keep on manipulating it.

Census is a big joke. It’s like a ritual that must be conducted. If you want to go from one village to the other in the North, you can go miles without seeing anybody. If you want water, you will go miles before you get water. Agriculture doesn’t go with them, so how then did they get the population, the money that they say they are contributing more to the revenue of this country. It’s the same lie that has been told to the Rivers people, that we are going to save you from the headache, from the oppression of the East, come along.

Look, let’s take one factor. There are some states in the North, the amount of money they get from Federal allocation, and they shouldn’t. Yes, they have the land, but the land is not populated, it’s not cultivated. It’s not yielding anything. Then come to the south, especially, the riverine areas, they haven’t got extensive land, but they have got small land, which is productive.

The only way they could say their land was so useful to the country was to tell them, “We’ll free you from the Igbos. We’ll make your government independent; you will be administering yourself.” Administering yourself, but the resources from the land is being taken somewhere else. So what justice are you talking about? Which type of government is that?

Lagos alone is up to some of the provinces or states in the North. How do you co-ordinate that. If you had followed honesty, to say when you’ve got this product, we’ll mine it, you will have a higher percentage, but it’s not. You’ll have the least percentage as if the Federal Government is killing those in the south or poisoning them.

Even when we have our own man in government?

Oh, my God. Our own man in government can be a stooge. He is planted there. Let me give you one instance. When the war was coming to an end, we had OAU to do. Do you know OAU?

Organization of African Unity?

No! Owerri, Aba, Umuahia –OAU. It was a code of operation. After capturing the Southeast and the rest of them, all these villages in Igboland remained. So the only thing to do was OAU. If I tell you we are doing OAU, you will laugh. You will not understand the military implication. And you will not have the time to give it a thought. But to the military chap who was on the scene during the war, Owerri, Aba, Umuahia connotes back bone.

What were you trying to achieve?

Capture them! Get the Ibo land. That’s the root of the secession. Military? Well, I thank the Yorubas, because they fought in those areas. Owerri, Aba, Umuahia was the back bone and the war went on. We were capturing them, breaking the back bone of the Ibos. After capturing them, Obasanjo came round to say he did it. I had a good laugh and I’m still laughing. OAU was very bloody. It was very, very bloody. And that made the Igbos to give up quickly.

Obasanjo came round and Hassan Usman Katsina and all of them said if you allow Adekunle to finish the war, then he’ll become the Head of State. The best thing is, let’s find a way of undoing him. So they brought Obasanjo, my own course mate, a fellow Yoruba man, saying that he captured Owerri, Aba, and Umuahia. It has given him a lot of arrogance. It has made him to think otherwise, the way to administer this country. Something different. Something that will cause untold agony to the people.

A country producing crude oil is paying more for crude oil, for kerosene, for petrol, for engine oil than other countries that get their supplies from Nigeria. Those countries don’t pay one third of what we pay locally. Maybe it’s because he comes from a poor family and he wants people to suffer the way he has suffered.

Else, how can a man at the helms, who’s got a constitution in the country, yet he went ahead to set up another political forum to discuss and readjust the Constitution of the country. Where has that taken us now? Was the initial Constitutional Conference necessary? He just wanted to say I did this. Oh, I did that.

We are in trouble. To pay school fees now is very difficult. To have three square meal has become a very difficult thing indeed. To have a house, ah! You are thinking of going to the moon! You go to buy drugs; you’re given fake drugs. Now he has changed everything but people are suffering. Nigerians are saying they’ve had enough.

Why does he want to continue?

Your guess is as good as mine. People are hungry. Transportation is expensive. Kerosene is expensive. To get admitted into an hospital, some people will prefer to die so as to allow the money that would be used in curing them to go to their children to enable them have better education than going to their death in the hospital. They’ve increased the cost of everything, even the cost of death. A lot of people die because they don’t have the money to live. What is the value of the oil we have got? What’s the value to the population if the rudimentary essentials of life, shelter, food, mobility, and health are beyond the means of the people.

What do you have to say about corruption?

Corruption could be in thought, words and deeds. Whichever way, the government is fighting it now, let us see how far he would go and then we can assess his performance level vis-à-vis the relevance on the social psyche and the society.

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-19409.0.html

@Onlytruth (or is it utter lies)

I really don't spend my day agonising over a person or an ethnic group. I do have better things to do.


Feel free to insult public figures but what I don't want to hear from your mouth are racial insults and ethnic slurs. You seem obsessed with Yorubas and this obsession is disconcerting and quite strange. It is a weird "philia" of some sort.

he shaved an english journalist and had him do 1000 pushups and whatnot.

They were unable to kill the Biafran soldiers and out of frustration they targeted and killed the civilians and you all are proud. lol
Watch this video for your digest! Nigerian military have more men but had no common sense while Biafran men were few but dealt with the men from Nigeria.


[flash=400,400]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_siGk_C01Qg[/flash]

Relax101:

They were unable to kill the Biafran soldiers and out of frustration they targeted and killed the civilians and you all are proud. lol
Watch this video for your digest! Nigerian military have more men but had no common sense while Biafran men were few but dealt with the men from Nigeria.

When did Nigeria army ever ever target civilians ? Or it is the propaganda You people are spreading around

Well Even your oga Ojukwu (God Bless his soul) Said and I quote

"After the war, the propaganda war started for Biafra"

Is (then) Lt. Col. David Ogunewe still alive? What did Ogunewe have to say about Adekunle's strange claim from years back about Adekunle stopping the July coup's success in Enugu?

I don't think his role was as major as he was trying to make it out to be:

books.google.com/books?id=qA44AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA75