@@@@

All these people shouting BIAFRA, do you realize that rivers, bayelsa, akwa ibom, c rivers won't be part of u when u break away? Do u realize that the east won't be able to contain ur population? That the ibos would lose all their investments outside the east? That you would be a landlocked country? No landlocked country has ever prospered economically.

they got a lot to worry but we the igbo are laughing at cha and they just dnt know: 2pac help me out

I SAID KEEP QUIET HERE
Q... U...... I........ E............. T !!

Hope the whole Nigeria gathered and stopped the dredging of River Niger so that Ibos will not bring in their goods via Ships to their doorstep. Now the same people are suffering from the overflow of the river and now are shouting for River Niger to be dredged.

He who laughs last Laughs best. We are just watching and Laughing. Nema says more floods are coming so they better start dredging River Niger now so that the Ibos will have route for their ships

gurujoe: Nigerians fear d intelligence of IGBOS n was doin evrytin possible 2 stop it. To d extent of Gowon/Awo commitin genocide against IGBOs n was tryin 2 cover up. Bt here is d truth resurfacin again in d person of PROF CHINUA ACHEBE n sm pple ar here spewin rubbisb against it. I knw d truth is better bt we must al close oureyes n accept it d way dey ar if we ar 2 move forward as a nation

The truth mr intelligent man is that your ppl wanted to load it over other nigerians becos you foolishly thought you are more intelligent (greedy). But after killing other ppls leader and assuming power your (intelligence) did not allowed you to see reality and so your now inferiority complex.

Btw hunger did not forced ojukwu to chicken out it was d guns of naija soldiers that did the magic.

E*X*P*L*O*S*I*V*E!
Nigeria will need Another civil war.

**"So I decided to stop sending the food there (Biafra areas) . In the process the civilians would suffer, but the soldiers will suffer most."- Obafemi Awolowo

RE: There was a country by Chinua Achebe. This post is in response from John Okiyi Kalu to attacks by some people on Achebe over his criticising some Nigerians over their role in the Nigeria-Biafra Civil war, that left abot 3million Igbos, mainly children and women dead in less than 30 months.

Earlier today, I posted this on my facebook wall.
"Ultimately, Nigeria will need another civil war to end the first civil war of 1967-70."

Many of my friends made comments but am sure the hard hitters among my friends must have been silently watching my wall knowing that the JOK they know is anti-war and hate blood shed. Naturally, they will be astounded by this "new JOK". One very close female friend of mine summarized the understandable confusion when she wrote "Haba Oga JOK! Diplomacy is not working again abi? It is well oo".

Permit me to start with a question here. Is the Nigerian civil war of 1967-70 over? Two recent unrelated events in Nigeria should guide us in answering that question.

Speaking at a recent Leadership Newspapers Awards event held at Abuja and reported by Thisday Newspaper of September 19th 2012, Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar reportedly stated as follows.

“I want to recall that during the 1994-95 Constitutional Conference, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, the Second Republic vice-president of this federation, introduced and canvassed for the concept of geopolitical zones.

“I was among those who opposed it because I thought that Ekwueme, coming from the defunct Republic of Biafra, wanted to break up the country again.

“Now, I realise that I should have supported him because our current federal structure is clearly not working. Dr. Ekwueme obviously saw what some of us, with our civil war mindset, could not see at the time. There is indeed too much concentration of power and resources at the centre.

“And it is stifling our march to true greatness as a nation and threatening our unity because of all the abuses, inefficiencies, corruption and reactive tensions that it has been generating.

“There is need, therefore, to review the structure of the Nigerian federation, preferably along the basis of the current six geopolitical zones as regions and the states as provinces.

“The existing states structure may not suffice, as the states are too weak materially and politically to provide what is needed for good governance.”

Personally, I support restructuring of Nigeria with the 6 geopolitical zones becoming 6 Regional Governments of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with as many states and LGA as they want to create. Derivation should be 50% to cure the regions of laziness while the Federal Government will share the remaining revenue strictly on the basis of equality of regions. Of course the centre will have a President with 6 Vice Presidents and part time national Assembly that convenes not more than 4 times per annum, to approve Federal Budgets and legislate on critical issues that will be left in the exclusive list. We need not pay them anything more than a fixed sitting allowance that will take care of their transport and accommodation at Abuja.

Pardon my digression.
Those who believe Nigerian Civil War ended in 1970 should read these lines from Atiku Abubakar. "I was among those who opposed it because I thought that Ekwueme, coming from the defunct Republic of Biafra, wanted to break up the country again.
Now, I realize that I should have supported him because our current federal structure is clearly not working. Dr. Ekwueme obviously saw what some of us, with our civil war mindset, could not see at the time." This is coming from a man who ended up being the most powerful Vice President of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007. He is also reputed to be one of the most powerful power brokers from Northern Nigeria.

Obviously the Atiku mind set is the Northern/Western Nigeria mind set. To them the war is not over yet. Ndigbo must be punished further for daring to ask for freedom from a marriage that was killing them in 1966. I recall current CBN governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi pointing out the dangers of this anti-Igbo mind set in one of his presentations titled "The Yoruba are Nigeria's problem" in a Paper Presented At The “National Conference On The 1999 Constitution” Jointly Organised By The Network For Justice And The Vision Trust Foundation, At The Arewa House, Kaduna From 11th –12th September, 1999. (You can read a copy from http://theafricansense..com/2012/02/yorubas-are-problem-with-nigeria-by.html?m=1
). While not agreeing entirely with Sanusi, it is important to note that anti-Igbo sentiments accounts for why Igbo are massacred whenever the gods of the North need blood appeasement. The whole country appears to be involved in this conspiracy and share the Atiku mind set. That explains why even though Dr Ekwueme was a key founder of PDP and the most qualified Nigerian to lead in 1999 the Atikus of this world and their military wing conspired to dash his ambitions. Ekwueme lost PDP primaries because he is "coming from the defunct Republic of Biafra that wanted to break up the country again". That must have been what Atiku and others told the talakawas of the North while bribing them to vote against arguably Nigeria's best hope in 1999. Otherwise, every PDP delegate to Jos convention of 1999 knew Ekwueme was the best of the lot.

Of course we all know the rest of the story, including how a Former military leader was sprung from jail and pardoned of treason convictions and then literally washed, bathed and delivered to Nigerians as our President. That arrangement favored Atiku who knew that an Obasanjo who is just coming out of jail cannot lead and so must depend on his Vice. The arrangement "worked" well till Obasanjo's rehabilitation was concluded and he started thinking for himself. Suffice it to say that Atiku later joined Obasanjo's opponents, even as Obasanjo's VP, because there is no how those involved conspiracy against justice, equity and good conscience will not ultimately disagree and fight each other. But the loser was Nigeria and Nigerian masses who lost an opportunity to have a fit and proper civilian President. We have not recovered from that yet. We will not recover from it until a Nigerian President of Igbo origin is installed. Mark it somewhere and quote me freely, Nigeria will continue to grope about in search of leadership, peace and development until an Igbo man emerges as President. The coming of the Igbo President will signpost the end of Nigerian civil war. For now, the war is still ongoing. By other means.

Recently, renowned Prof of Literature and arguably Nigeria's best writer, Prof Chinua Achebe, released his latest and only book on Nigeria civil war titled "There was a country". This book which was released in UK just thursday and will be released in America on 11th October is not yet in Nigeria. I am not sure that any Nigerian, including those who reacted to excerpts from the book published on wednesday can claim to have read the book as at yesterday. Yet Achebe is being attacked by a whole tribe with the leaders of that tribe already subtly threatening members of the Igbo tribe living in their area because of what Achebe wrote.

“Almost 30 years before Rwanda, before Darfur, more than 2 million people-mothers, children, babies, civilians-lost their lives as a result of the blatantly callous and unnecessary policies enacted by the leaders of the federal government of Nigeria.”
Prof Achebe also said "The wartime cabinet of General Gowon, the military ruler, it should also be remembered, was full of intellectuals, like Chief Obafemi Awolowo, among others, who came up with a boatload of infamous and regrettable policies. A statement credited to Awolowo and echoed by his cohorts is the most callous and unfortunate: all is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I don’t see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight harder’. “It is my impression that Awolowo was driven by an overriding ambition for power, for himself and for his Yoruba people. There is, on the surface at least, nothing wrong with those aspirations. However, Awolowo saw the dominant Igbo at the time as the obstacles to that goal, and when the opportunity arose with the Nigeria-Biafra war, his ambition drove him into a frenzy to go to every length to achieve his dreams. In the Biafran case, it meant hatching up a diabolical policy to reduce the numbers of his enemies significantly through starvation eliminating over two million people, mainly members of future generations.”

That was the offensive portion of Achebe's book, at least to my Yoruba brothers. Ever since, they've rolled out the drums of "war" against, note this carefully, Igbo and Chinua Achebe. Please don't ask me why Igbo. Don't ask me if the book was written by the whole of Igbo land and Ndigbo. Don't ask me if Ohaneze Ndigbo authored or published "There was a Country". Just read two prominent Yoruba leaders in their own word.

1. “Let our Igbo brothers be reminded that about three-quarters of their assets not in the eastern Region are in Lagos and we have been very liberal and accommodating. We have allowed them to live undisturbed.” This statement was credited to Mr. Ayo Opadokun who was Assistant Director of Organisation of the late Chief Awolowo’s. He aslo said; “It is a rehearse of the perverted intellectual laziness which he had exhibited in the past in matters related to Chief Obafemi Awolowo. When Achebe described Awo as a Yoruba irredentist, what he expected was that Awo should fold his arms to allow the Igbo race led by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, to preside over the affairs of the Yoruba nation,” Opadokun said.

2. Senator Biyi Durojaiye, another Yoruba shares Opadokun’s view. He said the Igbo should be more charitable, seeing that both sides of the war are now benefiting from its outcome. He enjoined all to join hands in facing the challenges of the moment, insisting that the way to go is for all Nigerians to support a Sovereign National Conference and restructuring of the polity. “My view is that you don’t expect somebody on the receiving end of a war to say something pleasant about the winners. “I don’t share Achebe’s view that Awolowo did all he did for personal political aggrandisement. It was all in the process of keeping Nigeria one. What he and General Gowon did was in the process of preserving the integrity of Nigeria.”

What does such response tell you about the end of Nigerian Civil War of 1967-1970? Personally, it tells me the war is not over yet hence nobody wants the truth about an unfinished war to be exhumed. A whole tribe has been threatened and reminded simply that the war is not over and "we can hurt your properties if you don't stop your son from revealing the truth about the first phase of the civil war".

Taking a cue from Ayo Opadokun and others, many of my online friends went to war against Achebe and Ndigbo. Non even bothered to find out if Achebe lied or not. The most exciting was a full note published by one Festus Akanbi titled "ACHEBE's guided missile on Awo: Awolowo's Account of the Biafran War"(https://m.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10151266120884104) in which he published a 1983 interview by Chief Obafemi Awolowo where he puportedly denied the 5 key accusation against him regarding his civil war activities. Those familiar with the war blame Awolowo for (1) the £20 policy that robbed returning Igbo of billions of money left Nigerian banks before the war. (2) Starvation policy that used hunger as a weapon of war. (3) Change of currency at the beginning/end of the war, (4) abandoned property and (5) indigenization policy almost immediately after the war that allowed Yorubas to buy up UAC, Lever brothers, Cadbury, NBL etc.

Naturally I was interested in reading Awo's defense against those policies for two principal reasons
1. My elder brother, Jona, died of Kwasiokor during the war
2. I learned "tribalism" from Chief Awolowo.

My first instinct when I started reading the interview as published by Festus Akanbi was that Chief Awolowo was speaking as a politician. When he said ordinary Igbo love him I couldn't reconcile that with the fact that as a small boy I watched him and his helicopter being stoned at Etche Road field Aba. My father was living at 119 Etche Road then and I witnessed this stoning by angry Igbo men, boys and girls. Naturally I was attracted to the location by the helicopter hovering to land at the field that is almost opposite my father's house. When I asked my mother why Aba people stoned the man, she told me the man was a wicked man called Awolowo. It was that very day I found out that my only brother then died of Kwasiokor as a result of Awolowo's starvation policy as a weapon of war. I know for a fact that anything named Awolowo in Igbo land is something that reminds Igbo people of civil war wickedness. I challenge my readers to find out about awolowo leaves for wounds and awolowo anti malaria leaves. Ask your parents why they were named after Awolowo and not even Gowon or the butcher of Asaba, Murtala Muhammed.

While going through that interview, I stumbled upon the truth from Awo's own lips. Read this line and take a minute to digest it.

"So I decided to stop sending the food there. In the process the civilians would suffer, but the soldiers will suffer most."-Obafemi Awolowo

Like a Facebook friend of mine wrote recently, English language is not my strong area. Of course I was among those who started primary education under a big tree at the end of the civil war. My 6 year old daughter is more of my English teacher because she is receiving better quality education. But even as an "olodo" I can see that Chief Awolowo used personal singular in describing that policy. Instead of saying "we" or "the govt" he said "I decided..." That means he takes personal responsibility for that policy and it's execution. He expects to be given credit for that "brilliant" starvation policy. What Achebe did in his book was simply to give Obafemi Awolowo credit for the hunger policy of the Federal Govt that led to the death of of my brother Jona and about 2m children.

So why was Achebe and Igbo attacked if Awolowo accepted authoring the hunger policy? My answer is simple, the civil war is not yet over. Our brothers are reminding Achebe and Ndigbo that the winners must be allowed to decide what is true, when the truth can be revealed and also choose who will reveal it.

In conclusion, I think Nigeria needs another war to end the civil war of 1967-1970. This war will be fought with truth and forgiveness as our major weapons. The role played by living and dead Nigeria leaders must be revealed and examined to aid the healing process and those found culpable punished or vilified appropriately.

Today, 7th of October, is the anniversary of the Asaba massacre. Nobody is talking about Murtala Muhammed lining up defenseless Igbo men, women and Children at Asaba and shooting them to death at point blank range. People are making excuses for that crime against humanity and telling us how "all is fair in war" as if there is nothing called war conventions. The articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) extensively defined the basic, wartime rights of prisoners (civil and military); established protections for the wounded; and established protections for the civilians in and around a war zone. The treaties of 1949 were ratified, in whole or with reservations, by 194 countries, including Nigeria of 1967-70 and the present. Massacre of unarmed civilians and even prisoners of war is a crime against humanity. Yet Murtala Muhammed's face is on our currency notes and the biggest airport in Nigeria is named after him. Nobody is complaining thereby legalizing that act of wickedness for the next generation to copy. And copy they have, in Madalla, Kano, Mubi, Bauchi etc.

Let every Nigerian with a conscience join this war to free Nigeria of the evils of our "heroes" past and present. Let us honor men like Prof Wole Soyinka and Late Chief Adeniran Ogunsanya who vehemently condemned Awolowo and Nigeria's war time policies and actions even when it was unpopular to do so. Let us borrow a leaf from Prof Chinua Achebe and expose the evil policies and contradictions that have conspired to keep Nigeria down and under after 52 years of independence.

Unless we fight this war, the civil war of 1967-1970 will not end. And might just end Nigeria as we know it. OR WELL CELEBRATED NATIONAL APOLOGY TO THE IGBOS

Well said. Gowon and Obasanjo could be made to account for the genocide against Igbo civilians at The Hague if details of these atrocities can be gathered together.

One thing that nigeria need is its history.we need history as a part of General study in University.any attempt to stifle truth will fail and will continue to steal us Peace,Unity and Progress.Firstly,i will want to restate here that Igbo people are not and will never regret 1967-1970 war.it was a war of survival.secondly,the Eastern Nigeria didnt wage war against Nigeria instead,Nigeria waged war against East while East defended themselves. But then,what we are trying to put straight is the fact that war has ethics and the ethics should be followed. Even in 2nd world war,women and children were not blockaded and bombarded deliberatly.Equally,in any war scenario where ethics is adhered to,refugees including women and children were not starved purposely.to a common Yoruba/Hausa-Fulanis,anything is fair in a war.that was why Murtala Mohammed shot dead armless women/men/children at Asaba and Obasanjo killed thousands at Oguta.these were people that were not armed.ofcourse,with that same mentality,Obasanjo destroyed the wholed of Odi in Bayelsa while hallucinating that he will stop militancy/justice-seekers.And thats the same reason why they(Yorubas) are calling President Goodluck Jonathan/Gen.Azubike Ihejirika many names because he refused to destroy northern civilians just because of BHs.let it be known that everything is not fair in war-time situation.And equally,the aftermath of the war was a clear indication of hatred from the Nigeria side. Ofcourse,nigeria will only be united when it put straight its history and remove lies from it. After the war,the nigeria govt tried to sow seed of discord between the Old eastern neighbour and it worked but unfortunately,its not working again.all these were attempt to destroy the east. Obasanjo Likewise categorised Ikwerres as separate ethnic group in 1979 constitution simply to destroy igbo.dats still no longer obtain..all these happened but the reason for going back to history is to understand where you started having problems so that you will know how to deal with it.Nigeria have got to treat its disease instead of symptoms.Awolowo/Gowon/Murtala/Obasanjo/Adekunle Murdered women/children in 1967-1970 for hatred sake.

^^^^ pretender

u still dnt get it!

the only option that will set u free is the truth

MEGA-WATCH:

In conclusion, I think Nigeria needs another war to end the civil war of 1967-1970. This war will be fought with truth and forgiveness as our major weapons. The role played by living and dead Nigeria leaders must be revealed and examined to aid the healing process and those found culpable punished or vilified appropriately.

Let every Nigerian with a conscience join this war to free Nigeria of the evils of our "heroes" past and present. Let us honor men like Prof Wole Soyinka and Late Chief Adeniran Ogunsanya who vehemently condemned Awolowo and Nigeria's war time policies and actions even when it was unpopular to do so. Let us borrow a leaf from Prof Chinua Achebe and expose the evil policies and contradictions that have conspired to keep Nigeria down and under after 52 years of independence.

Unless we fight this war, the civil war of 1967-1970 will not end.

.

Nice epistle but sincerely speaking, do u really believe that this would end the war? If we name and shame the bad eggs/war criminals and make a public spectacle of them, will the ibo people stop crying 4 their own pound of flesh from yoruba people? - I very much doubt it.

Alongside Pa Adeniran Ogunsanya my late grandpa amongst some other top voices also condemned openly the acts against ibos then, but today even the igbos we aided attack us and d entire Yoruba peoples calling them traitors, forgetting that many were not happy with the issues then and even spoke against it. Ibos are desperate for a blood revenge because of their loss. I believe Nigeria should just give them their Biafra and let them leave, even yorubas should just 4kin leave and set up their own countries leaving Naija for the Abokis abeg!

MEGA-WATCH:
E*X*P*L*O*S*I*V*E!

Speaking at a recent Leadership Newspapers Awards event held at Abuja and reported by Thisday Newspaper of September 19th 2012, Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar reportedly stated as follows.

[b]“I want to recall that during the 1994-95 Constitutional Conference, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, the Second Republic vice-president of this federation, introduced and canvassed for the concept of geopolitical zones.

“I was among those who opposed it because I thought that Ekwueme, coming from the defunct Republic of Biafra, wanted to break up the country again.

“Now, I realise that I should have supported him because our current federal structure is clearly not working. Dr. Ekwueme obviously saw what some of us, with our civil war mindset, could not see at the time. There is indeed too much concentration of power and resources at the centre.

“And it is stifling our march to true greatness as a nation and threatening our unity because of all the abuses, inefficiencies, corruption and reactive tensions that it has been generating.

“There is need, therefore, to review the structure of the Nigerian federation, preferably along the basis of the current six geopolitical zones as regions and the states as provinces.

“The existing states structure may not suffice, as the states are too weak materially and politically to provide what is needed for good governance.”[/b]

Personally, I support restructuring of Nigeria with the 6 geopolitical zones becoming 6 Regional Governments of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with as many states and LGA as they want to create. Derivation should be 50% to cure the regions of laziness while the Federal Government will share the remaining revenue strictly on the basis of equality of regions. Of course the centre will have a President with 6 Vice Presidents and part time national Assembly that convenes not more than 4 times per annum, to approve Federal Budgets and legislate on critical issues that will be left in the exclusive list. We need not pay them anything more than a fixed sitting allowance that will take care of their transport and accommodation at Abuja.

If Atiku Abubakar really made such statements, I am willing to listen to what HE supports as a replacement, and if he signs such a proposal as a promise to citizens, then I would be willing to listen to his proposal and consider him as a viable candidate. And i really do mean this.

We need to start getting smart and putting in people based on certain promises they make. His implementation might be questionable at best and it might all be political trickery, but Jonathan creates the impression that he at least listens. If not I don't know why people expect him passionately to review the structure of Nigeria when that was not what he campaigned on (change is a VERY vague term)? The only politician I know in Nigeria that had an extensive manifesto was Atiku, wether he had much input in its creation is a different matter.

We need to start sourcing candidates that we can hold to their word based on signed contracts. I just hope that if that candidate is found Nigerians don't reject him based on where he is from.

now the cat is out of the bag! Achebe has spoken the truth! Ibos should go to war!

When Igbos are young they are like fast moving menacing cocroaches. When they are old, not only are they senile and want for wisdom, but they are society misfits. Achebe's actions have proved it all.

baysol: When Igbos are young they are like fast moving menacing cocroaches. When they are old, not only are they senile and want for wisdom, but they are society misfits. Achebe's actions have proved it all.

but the are not like this your yoruba kid here. What a cursed race from birth to adulthood.

Nigerians should understand that even though they wish igbos to be all wiped out doing the war,that is why foreign powers was invited to help you out on genocide killings but GOD is not sleeping, by now, you people will not see any igbo person on NL to chat with because we will be all wiped out.So you have to understand your atrocities and cold blooded massacre committed and still committing by you people till date better go and ask GOD for cleansing and forgiveness for the country to progress,stop playing GOD...

[size=30pt]with this party everything must lead to war.[/size]

kettykin:


The civil war came when a lot of easterners where murdered by rampaging mobs in the North and the Federal Government led by Gowon could not guarantee the Safety of easteners in the country.
A conference was eventually organised by a neutral and friendly country in Aburi ghana where an agreement was reached to allow for peace to prevail and for the country to stabilise between Gowon ,Ojukwu and the Head of state of Ghana.
Gowon came back to Nigeria and refused to implement the agreement reached in Ghana ; that meant igbos were no longer safe and acoomodated in Nigeria.

The igbos had to take their destiny in their hands .

The same scenario played out in Jos some few months back when Fulanis were busy raiding Jos/Birom villages and the Jos people could not even do much but cry to the FG, even Middle belt civil war heroes remained aloof whil fulani butchered their people.

A lot more igbos would have been killed by the northerners had the Ojukwu not declared the Biafra .Biafra failed because of the Soviets , Britain and The Arabs and not necessarily the fighting skills of Nigerian who could not even defend the Bakassi peninsula .i have proof

Thanks for the response.So Biafra was essentially a safe haven for Igbos been murdered by the Northerners and the prevailing super powers refused to offer help because they wanted the North to manage the resources ie oil which were just discovered in the south east,south south and south west for their selfish interests.
But Ojukwu's claim that he declared secession out of a need to create a safe haven looks extremely dishonest since there was no advance of federal troops towards the south or Igbo territory in the months leading up to the declaration. The political dispute was on the alleged failure of the Nigerian government to bring to justice the perpetrators of the northern massacres of Igbos in 1966.

The immediate political event preceding the secession declaration was the announcement of the 12 state creation in May 1967. This meant Ojukwu's powers became territorially limited to the much smaller East-Central State Igbo heartland, as opposed to the entire East, which he ruled in his former capacity as military governor of the Eastern Region. The day after the 12 state creation, Ojukwu declared secession. Why should we continue to be fed the line that he seceded in order to protect Igbo lives while the facts seems not to support this argument?

These selfish super power interests still exist today so how will the south prevail if they decide to leave Nigeria as the north once again is killing Igbos and non Muslims using boko haram(direct response to losing the presidency and thus control of southern resources)?
Is the south west and especially the south south interested in helping the entire south continue to maintain control of this resource found in the south at least till it runs out?

The Biafra war has ended long ago but the war of deceit is still on. An average igbo man believes the Biafran war was for self defence while the rest of Nigeria apart from the present south south knew it was an oil/economic war. The people of the present day south south were deceived into believing that they were been freed from domination of the Igbos. The simple truth is that the war was prosecuted out of greed to starve people of their resources and use it to develop other parts of Nigeria excluding the owners of the resources. Look at Lagos and Abuja in Nigeria today then Porthacourt or Calabar, it is evident that the deceit is still on. For the Igbos they realised very late that it was all about oil otherwise the war would have not ended the way it did.

aduboy: The Biafra war has ended long ago but the war of deceit is still on. An average igbo man believes the Biafran war was for self defence while the rest of Nigeria apart from the present south south knew it was an oil/economic war. The people of the present day south south were deceived into believing that they were been freed from domination of the Igbos. The simple truth is that the war was prosecuted out of greed to starve people of their resources and use it to develop other parts of Nigeria excluding the owners of the resources. Look at Lagos and Abuja in Nigeria today then Port hacourt or Calabar, it is evident that the deceit is still on. For the Igbos they realised very late that it was all about oil otherwise the war would have not ended the way it did.

A lot of Igbos especially those born after the war have come to grasp the fact that Biafra in essence was an unsuccessful grab for control of oil deposits in the south by Ojukwu. As pointed out in previous posts on this forum the concept of safe haven(reason for the war which many in my home town in Abia state and other Igbo areas believe to be true ) does not hold as there is no record anywhere of federal troops advancing towards the Igbo regions before the declaration of Biafra so people that moved down to the South east areas to avoid the pogroms were safe.
So why would you want to secede with 99.9% of the oil deposits and your area is not been attacked by federal troops?

It has always been about the oil and at the very least this point was very clear to Ojukwu but how do you keep fighting when neither USA nor then Soviet Union will supply us arms and the south south felt it was all about Igbo domination? In that scenario the conflict was doomed and pushing it further would have been Ojukwu directly causing unnecessary deaths.

P.S:Anyone with a record of Federal troop movements towards the south east region BEFORE the declaration of Biafra should provide it to invalidate the above premise.

confusion247:
I am so sure a fool is more valued than you. How come you failed to realise that this thread is about Awolowo and his actions during the war and not about yorubas as a tribe. Achebe never said yorubas did this, rather he said Awolowo did. Please continue with your excess consumption of amala, i know it will be of good help to your useless brain.

When will this reptile pack his baggage and useless life back to alaibo? Too much Yoruba and ofensala + akpu has destroyed every brain cell in your coconut flat head. The next war will be cataclysmic. The flanking manoeuvres will be so deadly iboz will be droppin dead at the combination of land, air, guerrilla, cyber, nuclear warfare pounds the boastful ibo idiots to a pulp. Better withdraw all your money now because the gracious man and leader who gave you a HUGE unearned #20 pounds will not be around. You will NOT even remember dollars or pounds because your ibo army will NEVER be allowed to surrender. All ibo boasts and posts here will be distilled into a continuous and sets of writings which will be read to you before you are evaporated. You can apologize in the life after!

ABSOLUTE TRUTH!

the north and south are always scared whenever the hidden truth about the genocide against the igbos is mentioned.

that controversial and shameful issues of the war that Nigeria wants to hide is actually the reason why Nigeria will never, ever move forward. an igbo proverb say that "if an abominable act is concealed, it will continue to hunt and create havoc on the conscience of the perpetrators - the perpetrators always go on defense mode whenever the issue is mentioned!"

the first step towards placing Nigeria on the part of progress is by tendering unreserved apology to the igbos - unless that is done, Nigeria will continue to retrogress!

Accusing Prof Achebe of eliciting war based on his memoir is like trying to cover pregnancy wit a blanket!