Still on the Biafran Nightmares…

31 Jan 2013

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The Verdict according to Olusegun Adeniyi. Email, olusegun.adeniyi@thisdaylive.com

Last week, I failed to heed my own counsel by dabbling into “Biafra”, a hot-potato topic on which reason has taken flight on virtually all sides. But by rendering the account of my meeting with Rev. Moses Iloh, I also brought out some of the suppressed issues that our country may have to deal with if we are to achieve lasting reconciliation via truth, and really move forward. I have heard phrases like “let’s move on”, “let sleeping dogs lie” and other fanciful clichés in our pretence that we do not have truly critical issues. But we do have issues and until we successfully deal with them, sleeping dogs may only be pretending to sleep, and it will be difficult to build a virile and united nation. That much was evident in my conversation with the former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr Olisa Agbakoba, SAN following the publication of my piece last week.

To the extent that we are all products of our backgrounds and cultures, the idea that somebody is a “detribalized Nigerian” is a big fraud as no such human species exists in our country today. But virtually everyone uses this delusionary phrase to describe himself or herself and people who he or she likes. In truth, however, it is a futile attempt to gloss over our diversity which could actually be a source of strength. That national hypocrisy indeed accounts for most of our problems since it is very convenient for a great majority to defend narrow/parochial interests within their various closets, notwithstanding public posturing to the contrary.

With so much bigotry from some Nigerians who cannot get out of the mode of using stereotypes in describing the “other side,” and with nobody or anything considered sacred, it is very obvious that pursuing the Biafran story is not worth the trouble for me. But when Agbakoba called that he felt pained by Rev. Iloh’s account of how his car was seized by the late Justice Agbakoba, I could not but listen to him. My conversation with the younger Agbakoba will therefore serve as my own closure on Biafra.

Agbakoba, who described Rev Iloh as someone for whom he has tremendous respect, felt the old man, who knew him and his family very well, should not have rendered his account in such a manner as to create erroneous impression about the Agbakobas and the Biafran war. “I was also involved in the civil war-- I was a Biafran soldier. I fought in the war so I am very familiar with some of the issues which Rev. Iloh discussed. One day I will write my own memoir as a Biafran soldier,” he said. Agbakoba, however, sees in Iloh’s account (which he said flows from Achebe’s book), within the context of a failure on the part of Nigeria’s leadership to heal the wounds caused by the civil war. He argued that the whole Biafran tragedy, for which his family also suffered, started “from a distorted account of a failed coup d’etat which was definitely not caused by the Igbo man. Because as far as I am concerned, the only connection that we had in relation to Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu being an Igbo man, was his name. His accent, his domicile and idiosyncrasies were totally northern. So, for reasons best known to him and his colleagues, they staged a coup d’ etat and it did not succeed. But what Igbos got for that was massive killings. We were in the North then and were actually part of the last people to cross the River Benue in Makurdi. I was on the last train.”

I am sure not many people, especially in the North, will agree with Agbakoba’s interpretation, which is also Achebe's thesis, that the 1966 coup d’etat was not an ethnic conspiracy. The fact that a section of the country saw it differently led to a pogrom against the Igbos in the North and ultimately a civil war. For Agbakoba, however, what is important in all these disputations is to find a leader who would have the courage to bring all the issues to the table, so that the nation could have a closure. “If we do not have a closure, the Achebe story, whether it is true or not, will continue be told and retold by people like Rev. Iloh. He is now in his 80s and he feels embittered. I, as a younger Igbo man, do not have that kind of bitterness but I understand the issues that he has raised. Anyone who has read Chimamanda’s ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ will see all the account of the civil war and the atrocities that were committed therein. They are not things that can easily be forgiven by the older generation of Igbos.”
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Most of the national upheavals in our polity, according to Agbakoba, stem from the failure to successfully close the Biafran chapter in our history. And the only way to do that “is to recognise that Nigeria suffers a major structural defect;[/size] which was one of the main issues that came out of the Aburi Accord--that we are too diverse to build a very centrifugal type of federation. We need to recognize our differences, manage them and give ourselves the necessary space to stay in our corner. Since that has not happened, you will continue to have these occasional challenges and schisms that we saw in the story of your encounter with Rev. Moses Iloh.” I suspect that advocates of Sovereign National Conference will agree with the SAN on this score.

PointB:



http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/still-on-the-biafran-nightmares-8230-/137911/

USarmy: All these arigba butt hole journalists , one day the Biafran dream will consume you guys

Prof Corruption: Segun has finally realized there are two sides to a coin. Iloh's story has now been put in proper context thus exposing the underpinning guile and artifice. Since the credibility of the story is now in question, I am not surprised he is backing out of the biafran nonsense.

nku5:

At no point did segun even suggest any guile in Iloh's story. He is calling for a balanced view from both sides. Highlight this assertion if you can because I can see it

Prof Corruption: Segun has finally realized there are two sides to a coin. Iloh's story has now been put in proper context thus exposing the underpinning guile and artifice. Since the credibility of the story is now in question, I am not surprised he is backing out of the biafran nonsense.

Prof Corruption:

If you can see it, what is there to highlight again?

He was called to listen to and appreciate a supposedly "detribalised" Nigerian personal history of Biafra. A brief article was written on what supposed to be truly authentic and factual but a factual rebuttal demonstrated that Iloh's actually chose to remember selectively and in substantial terms falsely. Iloh demonstrated a convenient volitional case of amnesia. The so called "detribalised" Nigerian ended up being a fraud and the prospect of exploring a memoir from his story is no longer exciting. Simple

In any case, there could not have been a "detribalised" Nigerian because the word itself does not exist.

vedaxcool: 1966 coup wasn't an igbo coup but was done by igbos and literally handed power to the igbos and targeted mainly non igbos, in fact igbos actually boasted to northerners then of how they killed their father, the igbos can continue to play the victim card but they were many non ibgo victims in the war, and pretending that there isn't won't earn you anybody's sympathy!

Abagworo:

Is Delta State Igboland?

vedaxcool: 1966 coup wasn't an igbo coup but was done by igbos and literally handed power to the igbos and targeted mainly non igbos, in fact igbos actually boasted to northerners then of how they killed their father, the igbos can continue to play the victim card but they were many non ibgo victims in the war, and pretending that there isn't won't earn you anybody's sympathy!

Prof Corruption:

If you can see it, what is there to highlight again?

He was called to listen to and appreciate a supposedly "detribalised" Nigerian personal history of Biafra. A brief article was written on what supposed to be truly authentic and factual but a factual rebuttal demonstrated that Iloh's actually chose to remember selectively and in substantial terms falsely. Iloh demonstrated a convenient volitional case of amnesia. The so called "detribalised" Nigerian ended up being a fraud and the prospect of exploring a memoir from his story is no longer exciting. Simple

In any case, there could not have been a "detribalised" Nigerian because the word itself does not exist.

Prof Corruption:

If you can see it, what is there to highlight again?

He was called to listen to and appreciate a supposedly "detribalised" Nigerian personal history of Biafra. A brief article was written on what supposed to be truly authentic and factual but a factual rebuttal demonstrated that Iloh's actually chose to remember selectively and in substantial terms falsely. Iloh demonstrated a convenient volitional case of amnesia. The so called "detribalised" Nigerian ended up being a fraud and the prospect of exploring a memoir from his story is no longer exciting. Simple

In any case, there could not have been a "detribalised" Nigerian because the word itself does not exist.