Dim Emeka Ojukwu has hit out at the Nigerian Army for referring to him as Lt. Col instead of his Bifran Army designation of General during the ceremony for the payment of his gratuity and pensions. He however made a decent point by referring to the American example where General Robert Lee was formally referred to by his Confederate title of General by the victorious Nationalists.

What is the best designation for Ojukwu?

Ojukwu is a general with the defunct biafran army but a Lt.Col in the nigerian army. he wasn't a distinguished or smart commander by robert lee.

Lt col Ojukwu can never be a general in the nigerian army. He did not serve nigeria in that Capacity and command.

A bad leader

Ojukwu is a general with the defunct biafran army but a Lt.Col in the nigerian army. he wasn't a distinguished or smart commander by robert lee

this is nonsense. And this is not the issue. The issue was that General robert Lee was a general in the Confederate Army not in the Union army, yet he was still called a General. And did you say Ojukwu was not smart enough? Really? So how "smart" was General Lee?

And was not distinguished? At least he is better than Olusegun Obasanjo!

How can Dim Odumegu Ojukwu be call a general when Biafra republic is not in existence? he is not a general he is a Lt Colonel as far as am concern,so irresponsible.

Dim by name. Dim by . . . . _{oops. dodges igbo expletives}

What ever he was, he is now in the past.

In the spirit of reconciliation and the' No Victor No vanquish' slogan , he should be addressed as a General.

He was a Lt. col prior to the civil war, and made himself a Gen when he declared his own Biafran republic. He did not serve as a General in the Nigerian Army, but in the Biafran Army he was a General.

Idi Amin is still referred to as Field Marshal Idi Amin, though he imposed the rank on himself and many countries refused to recognise him as a Field Marshal; but he is still referred to as Field Marshal Idi Amin if reference is made about him. Ojukwu too should be referred to as General Ojukwu. Countries like France recognised him then as a General during the civil war.

Is Ojukwu a general or Lt. Col? Me thinks he's a soulja boy

doyin13:

Dim by name. Dim by . . . . _{oops. dodges igbo expletives}

there's no igbo expletive to dodge. ojukwu was a lt.col in the naija army and nothing more than that. he is officially a retired lt.col as well as the leader of the defunct republic of biafra.

and was he smart? no. he was power drunk. and he doesnt deny it. here was a guy who knew that biafra had no weapons and yet he challenged a well loaded naigerian army with british, american, russian and even egyptian backing. isn't it foolhardy to engage in such a fight? wasting the lives of a generation of igbo youth. and why? why? why did he run away at the end of the war? why not stay back and face the music? he ran like a coward. he wants to live, yet he sent a generation of young men to their grave knowing fullywell that they will all die.

if he was smart, he could have used the moral advantage the ibos had in I967 to attract world opinion and get the fed govt to some strong commitments. it wont be good enough but it will definitely be better than the millions who died during the war.

i dont admire him at all. I, Darfur Akpukanwa O, I'm far too smart to hero-worship anyone just because others do. i consider a lot before i pick my heros.

Well said Darfur. Nigerians choose strange heroes.

darfur:

there's no igbo expletive to dodge. ojukwu was a lt.col in the naija army and nothing more than that. he is officially a retired lt.col as well as the leader of the defunct republic of biafra.

and was he smart? no. he was power drunk. and he doesnt deny it. here was a guy who knew that biafra had no weapons and yet he challenged a well loaded naigerian army with british, american, russian and even egyptian backing. isn't it foolhardy to engage in such a fight? wasting the lives of a generation of igbo youth. and why? why? why did he run away at the end of the war? why not stay back and face the music? he ran like a coward. he wants to live, yet he sent a generation of young men to their grave knowing fullywell that they will all die.

if he was smart, he could have used the moral advantage the ibos had in I967 to attract world opinion and get the fed govt to some strong commitments. it wont be good enough but it will definitely be better than the millions who died during the war.

i don't admire him at all. I, Darfur Akpukanwa O, I'm far too smart to hero-worship anyone just because others do. i consider a lot before i pick my heros.

well said.

i for say make i talk, but i no fit shout, cos u don talk am finish.
cheers

there's no igbo expletive to dodge. ojukwu was a lt.col in the naija army and nothing more than that. he is officially a retired lt.col as well as the leader of the defunct republic of biafra.

and was he smart? no. he was power drunk. and he doesnt deny it. here was a guy who knew that biafra had no weapons and yet he challenged a well loaded naigerian army with british, american, russian and even egyptian backing. isn't it foolhardy to engage in such a fight? wasting the lives of a generation of igbo youth. and why? why? why did he run away at the end of the war? why not stay back and face the music? he ran like a coward. he wants to live, yet he sent a generation of young men to their grave knowing fullywell that they will all die.

if he was smart, he could have used the moral advantage the ibos had in I967 to attract world opinion and get the fed govt to some strong commitments. it wont be good enough but it will definitely be better than the millions who died during the war.

i don't admire him at all. I, Darfur Akpukanwa O, I'm far too smart to hero-worship anyone just because others do. i consider a lot before i pick my heros.

You are a very big fool. Close to 30,000 igbo died in the riots of 1966 (including my close relatives) in the northern part of the country and you are saying that it is a stupid act for the igbos including Dim OJukwu to opt for succession citing threat of lives and property in Nigeria. YOU MUST BE A BIG FOOL.

Ojukwu is a Igbo people and he will contoinue to be.

The only regret is that this country did not break up as it should be. Dim Ojukwu is one one the greatest Nigerian dead or Alive.

and 2.5 million people died from the war, Oga wisdom.
i believe you did mathematics in school. 30,000 vs 2.5 million. even if you didnt go to school at least you have common sense.

i'm ibo, it may have been a good idea to break up that time. but at what cost? if we had the weaponry and their was some parity in military strength, then it may be worth the risk. but how can you send kids with "sticks and stones" to face tankers and bombers? that is not war. that is suicide. infact, the nigerian army in I967 must have been made up of dumb generals b/c they could have won that war in 2 weeks. Nnamdi asikiwe knew this. that was why he was somehow apprehensive about the war. he had his reservations. ojukwu was just plain mad.

not only did 2.5 million people die, also there was total infrastructural destruction from which ibos are yet to recover. . . 38yrs after the war.
B4 u act, check your chances and the cost. do a risk assessment and take professional decisions and not necessarily popular decisions. did ojukwu do that? no. the result? 2.5 million dead.

did he have options? he could have manipulated the moral advantage. he wont achieve much, i agree, but surely the fed govt would have been under some pressure to at least rehabilitate the area. at least, if nothing else, 2.5 million people would not have died. one life saved, is a great achievement. ask the surgeons.

and 2.5 million people died from the war, Oga wisdom.
i believe you did mathematics in school. 30,000 vs 2.5 million. even if you didnt go to school at least you have common sense.

i'm ibo, it may have been a good idea to break up that time. but at what cost? if we had the weaponry and their was some parity in military strength, then it may be worth the risk. but how can you send kids with "sticks and stones" to face tankers and bombers? that is not war. that is suicide. infact, the nigerian army in I967 must have been made up of dumb generals b/c they could have won that war in 2 weeks. Nnamdi asikiwe knew this. that was why he was somehow apprehensive about the war. he had his reservations. ojukwu was

just plain mad.

not only did 2.5 million people die, also there was total infrastructural destruction from which ibos are yet to recover. . . 38yrs after the war.
B4 u act, check your chances and the cost. do a risk assessment and take professional decisions and not necessarily popular decisions. did ojukwu do that? no. the result? 2.5 million dead.

did he have options? he could have manipulated the moral advantage. he wont achieve much, i agree, but surely the fed govt would have been under some pressure to at least rehabilitate the area. at least, if nothing else, 2.5 million people would not have died. one life saved, is a great achievement. ask the surgeons.

You cannot an igbo man and be writing such nonsense. If you are, then you are one of those that beneficted immesnely form the suffering of the igbo people like Arthur Nzeribe.

Dafur you are fool as i have repeated.

you made no point mr. say the truth. you are saying nothing. the greatest beneficiary of the war was Ojukwu. he appeared to be a messiahto the ibos. ojukwu himself says it the power is non negotiable. once you taste it, you want it over and over again and again. he sent young men to their early graves in the name of a revolution.

did you realise that he declared biafra after gowon split the east into three states cutting out the rivers and cross river areas? he felt threatened. he had an excuse to declare a war but he was not outrightly altruistic. he didnt use wisdom and because of that, the igbos lost a generation of young men and women. and when the war came to his door steps, he did what all war leaders do . . . . . . escape.
he can't be my hero

i'll rather admire major nzeogwu, ifeajuna, ademola ademoyega, gideon orkar, etc. these were real men. they don't run from war, but face war.
unlike war leaders like hitler(who prefered to kill himself than face the russians, a big coward)
saddam hussein(who surrendered to american soldiers and could not fight even when with a gun)
ossama bin laden(who preaches death by suicide but has refused to lead by example as if he doesnt want the same paradise he promised those who die will get)
idi amin(who ran away when the tanzanian troops came to his door step)
Ojukwu( who fled to cote'divoire when the nigerian troops marched into biafran heartland and lived to marry beauty gueen and contest elections after preaching that biafra shall fight to the last man in great oratory skills sending millions to their unfortunate early graves)

i'm too wise to be fooled. at least not by these guys. don't tell me he is ibo i don't care. he did not help the ibos in any way other than mere rhetorics.

so my friend, get educated and be informed. appraise issues before opening your mouth. 

@darfur
nice argument you got there.

@Planner
At least TRY and avoid sounding dumb. reply to ONE of the issues darfur raises instead of reverting to the same tired insults

you made no point mr. say the truth. you are saying nothing. the greatest beneficiary of the war was Ojukwu. he appeared to be a messiahto the ibos. ojukwu himself says it the power is non negotiable. once you taste it, you want it over and over again and again. he sent young men to their early graves in the name of a revolution.

did you realise that he declared biafra after gowon split the east into three states cutting out the rivers and cross river areas? he felt threatened. he had an excuse to declare a war but he was not outrightly altruistic. he didnt use wisdom and because of that, the igbos lost a generation of young men and women. and when the war came to his door steps, he did what all war leaders do . . . . . . escape.
he can't be my hero

i'll rather admire major nzeogwu, ifeajuna, ademola ademoyega, gideon orkar, etc. these were real men. they don't run from war, but face war.
unlike war leaders like hitler(who prefered to kill himself than face the russians, a big coward)
saddam hussein(who surrendered to american soldiers and could not fight even when with a gun)
ossama bin laden(who preaches death by suicide but has refused to lead by example as if he doesnt want the same paradise he promised those who die will get)
idi amin(who ran away when the tanzanian troops came to his door step)
Ojukwu( who fled to cote'divoire when the nigerian troops marched into biafran heartland and lived to marry beauty gueen and contest elections after preaching that biafra shall fight to the last man in great oratory skills sending millions to their unfortunate early graves)

i'm too wise to be fooled. at least not by these guys. don't tell me he is ibo i don't care. he did not help the ibos in any way other than mere rhetorics.

so my friend, get educated and be informed. appraise issues before opening your mouth.

Dafur or genocide,
Your  "points" have be made known. You are "smart". However we igbos know that people like you are mere jackals and scum of the earth.  Certianly you have formed your own opinion and i will not argue with you.

you can abuse me, no wahala. perhaps that is the way you abuse anyone who disagrees with you. you cant argue. you have no point to make. but pls learn how to debate.

He had a good reason to go into war with Gowon; that's my own.

Darfurs comments have prompted a rethink( at least on my part) of the civil war while Planner's just brand him as a fanatic.

Darfur, you have made some excellent posts on this thread which I have also made elsewhere. There is no doubt that Igbos were wronged in 1966 and had a just and righteous cause. However moral righteousness does not win wars. Bombs, fighter jets and tanks do. Biafra didn't have these. Nigeria had lots of these.

Ojukwu was an intelligent man. He should have delayed secession until his people were militarily ready to engage Nigeria in a sustained conflict. Look at Israel, they were promised Independence in the early part of the last century but had to wait till 1948 to get it. Even then they delayed independence till they had an army that could fight the Arabs. They were also pragmatic, settling for less land than they really wanted, in the knowledge that they could build up their army over several years then capture the remaining land from the Arabs when they were strong enough.

Ojukwu should have called Nigeria'sbluff by accepting Decree 8. It would have made him seem remarkably reasonable and would have turned Nigeria into a confederation. Meanwhile he could have stockpiled arms for 5 years, then seceded around 1971. But he went with emotion. The whole secession idea was pure fantasy and was doomed from the start.

darfur:

you can abuse me, no wahala. perhaps that is the way you abuse anyone who disagrees with you. you can't argue. you have no point to make. but please learn how to debate.

@ Planner

Don't even waste your time with that fool. Any Igbo man in 2008 still calling himself an "ibo" man and spells Nnamdi Azikiwa as Nnamdi asikiwa is either some Yoruba or awusa fool faking Igbo or some little kid that don't deserve the time or attention.

dafur

You have an excellent command of English language and appear to also know how to present and express your views. Armed with these skills, how so easy it is to deceive gullible minds reading your apostacy.

The issue of what lead to the war in 1967 have been thoroughly dealt with in other threads, and you knew very well that it is not the topic of this thread. But in your desperate  but failed effort to distort and twist facts and records to discredit Ikemba you cleverly like every saboteur does chose to run when nothing is chasing you.

Whatever your new-informed views in 2008 of what happened in 1967 cannot change the facts and history.

Though like Ogidiboy said, I think you are an impostor

People let's stay on the topic of this thread.

Had it been the reverse was the case that ibos were the ones killing thousands of northerners in the east, and Gowon decided to create an arewa republic leaving the ibos to be on their own and a civil war eventually starts, would anybody or anyone be saying that Gowon was wrong to have gone into war with the east??

You people don't know what happened to the ibos living in the north then thats why you are blaming Ojukwu. Ibos were killed and slaughtered like chicken, goat and ram in all part of the north. And you expect their leader not to protect them by fighting against their enemies??

OgidiBoy:

@ Planner

Don't even waste your time with that fool. Any Igbo man in 2008 still calling himself an "ibo" man and spells Nnamdi Azikiwa as Nnamdi asikiwa is either some Yoruba or awusa fool faking Igbo or some little kid that don't deserve the time or attention.

yeah right bro you got the spelling correctly huh?
have you ever heard of the word "typo"? it's just an error.

ok, the spelling is Nnamdi Azikiwe .igbo, ibo all na the same thing. we igbos use igbo more often than not. but sometimes ibo is used too and most non igbos find it easier to use ibo and there are many non igbos in nairaland. but anyway, igbo is the right one so thanx for the correction. but this issue is not about wether i'm igbo or not

@youngies,
i'm not trying to twart history. i know of all that happened in the 60s and i can summarise it this way. 30,000 igbos were killed in the north. that was horrible. but i find it hard to understand why people cry about 30,000 igbos killed in the north but seem comfortable with 2.5 million people killed in an avoidable war. or is it because I just say 2.5 million. ok, let me spell it out
I966/67 . . . . .30,000 igbos killed in the north
I967-70. . . 2,500,000 igbos killed in their own backyard . . i.e 80 x more than the people killed in the pre-war pogrom. jesus

we could do nothing about the 30,000 killed in the north. they attacked us suddenly and killed. but the war, we could have stayed home and refused to fight. they wont come to complete the "interrupted march to the sea".

ishmael:

Had it been the reverse was the case that ibos were the ones killing thousands of northerners in the east, and Gowon decided to create an arewa republic leaving the ibos to be on their own and a civil war eventually starts, would anybody or anyone be saying that Gowon was wrong to have gone into war with the east??

You people don't know what happened to the ibos living in the north then thats why you are blaming Ojukwu. Ibos were killed and slaughtered like chicken, goat and ram in all part of the north. And you expect their leader not to protect them by fighting against their enemies??

we expected our leader to tell us the truth at least. he said we shall win the war when he knew fully well that it was impossible. this guy was trained in the best military school at the time(sandhurst). he went to oxford (arguably the best at the time), he was in the nigerian army(so he knew their strenght) he was intelligent(very very intelligent) so there is no way he wont know that Biafra was no match for nigeria, how much more a nigeria that was backed by all the super powers.

yet he sent gullible people to go and fight the nigerians. mba ooooo he's no hero at all. he cannot be exonerated from those deaths.

Dim Ojukwu did not act alone as some people will want us to believe. There were council of elders in existence then. You can read the book "Ojukwu" by Federick Forsythe. It story is told in details at least from an impartial observer.

darfur and maxsiollun have actually analysed this issue completely. Yes the Ibos were wronged. Yes the Ibos were provoked. Profoundly so. Yes at that time (1967) seccesion seemed like the best option.However, time has told us Ojukwu (and his cabinet) were wronged. There was no way he could have won the war. A leader would have unemotionally looked at the situation and bidded his time. War was not the ebst option. He should nahe played the international politics better. He could have forced Nigeria into a loose federation that would have favoured everybody. There would have been no need for all this Niger Delta agitations and militants. He would have gained the respect of all Nigerians and not just some Ibo people (and Frederick Forsyth)
This doesnt take away from the man. He was a brilliant soldier. A charismatic leader.
And (back to the topic) diplomacy demands he be addressed as General whether he was a general in the Nigerian Army or not. The General Lee Example suffices. Lee was not a General in the Union (United States of America) army but Everybody addresses him as General Lee. Ojukwu should be addressed as General.

I find it very strange for someone 2 abuse another who is intelligently expressing his views. Darfur's statements won my heart. If those against him lack sufficient vocabularies to defend Lt.Col Ojukwu, let them go and develop instead of taking refuge in repeating worn out abuses.

ok, the spelling is Nnamdi Azikiwe .igbo, ibo all na the same thing. we igbos use igbo more often than not. but sometimes ibo is used too and most non igbos find it easier to use ibo and there are many non igbos in nairaland. but anyway, igbo is the right one so thanx for the correction. but this issue is not about wether i'm igbo or not

Bloody impostor. AS i have repeated before no Igbo person will write the kind of nonsense you are writing and As expected non igbos are the once giving you kudos. You know what? It does not bother us becuase we know where we are going- to the promised land.