ON the eve of the declaration of secession by the Eastern Region, Dr. Michael Okpara, the immediate past premier of Eastern Nigeria, reasoned that it would be odd that such a momentous decision would be taken without any input from Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe on the deliberations. Lt Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu had completely shut out Dr. Azikiwe from contributing ideas on his handling of the raging crisis of the period. But Dr. Okpara persuaded Azikiwe to come to a particular scheduled meeting of the Consultative Assembly where Ojukwu was billed to address members on the vital subject matter even though Azikiwe did not have an official invitation to attend. After considering the grave consequences a wrong decision on the matter would inflict on the region, Dr. Azikiwe decided to overlook his non-invitation and accompanied Okpara to the august occasion.

Of course Ojukwu’s address in which he marshalled reasons why the Eastern Region must be pulled out of the Nigeria Federation was well-received by the august gathering. Almost everybody present was in support. His Excellency actually received a standing ovation. But Okpara would not let matters end at that. He pointedly called on Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe to speak on the critical question, arguing that it would be queer that the great Zik would come to such a meeting and leave without uttering a word.

Dr. Azikiwe who had sat through Ojukwu’s speech ruminating over the sad turn of event rose to the occasion. He paid Ojukwu all the compliments due him as the reigning Governor of Eastern Nigeria. He even went ahead to acknowledge and agree with all the grievances adduced by Ojukwu – the 1966 Massacre of Easterners in the North, Gowon’s reneging on the Aburi Accord, etc – that constituted for him the grounds for wanting the East out of Nigeria. But Zik also rationalised that all that notwithstanding, the East must not allow itself to be stampeded or annoyed into a hasty and risky gambit or steps that are unsustainable. He pleaded with the audience to reflect deeply on what option to adopt over the critical questions that confronted the East at the time. He intimated, in fact pledged, that if he, Zik, was given the mandate, he would travel around the globe and persuade world leaders to compel the Gowon regime to pay adequate compensation for all the articles of trade and moveable properties abandoned or lost by Easterners in the North as well as pay reparation for the 30,000 Easterners butchered to death by blood-thirsty hordes in northern Nigeria, who had also previously massacred Ndigbo in Jos (1945) and Kano (1953) without any military coup as excuse. But he pleaded that the East must not embark on secession – ‘at least for now’, because, he said, the action was fraught with danger and grave risk which the East was not equipped at the time to surmount. He was of course talking about the military situation on ground; the fact that virtually all the armaments of the Nigerian Military were stored in the North. Only a negligible portion was located in the Western Region and the Lagos area. There was virtually nothing in the East with which to defend secession. He even warned that if the East took such a wrong step, it could in the final analysis lose its envious position in the then Nigerian scheme of things; that an attempted secession would marginalise and relegate the East to the side-lines.

However, Azikiwe’s fine words fell on deaf ears. Ojukwu hated him the more for uttering them and indeed countering his own position on the issue. And he made sure that Azikiwe’s wise counsel never got to the press. It was never published in the newspapers nor aired on radio and television, for Ojukwu could not be sure how the citizenry would react if they had heard the wise words of their beloved Zik of Africa. In like manner, Ojukwu suppressed the opinion of Brigadier Hillary Njoku, the commander of the “Eastern Command” Nigerian Army, who made similar appeal to him as well as showed his anger towards Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu for making similar observations. In the meantime, Ojukwu gave space to university and secondary school students to run around the Coal city demonstrating and calling for secession. In fact, his agents aided and organised those demonstrations.

One can of course accommodate and forgive inexperienced students who knew next to nothing about war for making such foolish demands of their government. But can one say the same thing of a Lt Colonel who also happened to have been a Quartermaster-General of the Nigerian Army and a veteran of United Nations Peace Keeping Force in Congo Leopoldville (Kinshasha) in the early 60s? If Ojukwu had lent credence to Azikiwe’s opinion, the Assembly would have towed the line. The Assemblymen knew Zik as an astute politician, not a military genius. They, therefore, looked towards their starry-eyed, Sandhurst-trained Military Governor for reassurance and direction. Of course Ojukwu did not disappoint! He declared that no power in Black Africa could defeat his army. So the Assemblymen sided with him and he won the argument. Subsequently, every solid avenue that emerged for peaceful settlement of the crisis and that offered concrete dividends to Easterners was dismissed. For instance, when later the Awolowo Peace delegation visited and pleaded with Ojukwu to “relent” and take the cautious road to prevent war and save lives, he retorted: “On the specific question of whether there is a possibility of contact with the North, the answer is at the battlefield.” And you wonder: this at a time the East was militarily ill-equipped for war? This partly makes me surmise that Ojukwu did not exactly see the struggle in terms of safeguarding the life, property and freedom of Ndigbo or Easterners. For him, it appears, it was all about his person, ego and status in the army. He just couldn’t brook the idea of him, the brilliant Oxford graduate serving under Gowon, a less sophisticated rival. Igbo youths or manpower were, for him, just the tool, the ammunition, for the achievement of that object! Ojukwu’s opposition and continuing verbal crusade against Gowon’s headship of the Federal Military Government well after the conclusion of the July 1966 counter-coup was both personal and revealing!! This is the crux of the matter!!! That was why it was impossible to placate Ojukwu all through. It was the reason why the Nigeria-Biafra war happened. Ojukwu couldn’t be bothered if the entire Biafran population perished in that war as long as it kept him out of Gowon’s orbit or satiated his over-bloated ego. Perhaps this explains Ojukwu’s stubbornness or refusal to negotiate peace during the war, squandering numerous opportunities and pledging to fight to the last man standing only to run away at the heat of battle. I listen to one of these Rochas Okorocha’s political jingles on television that talks about Ojukwu’s courage, and I cannot suppress a wry smile. Certainly somebody somewhere does not know where courage stops and foolhardiness begins!

You might think that Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe should have done more to prevent the East from falling into the secessionist trap. But what else could he really have done? Already he had earned Ojukwu’s ire by countering his position at the Consultative Assembly meeting. He knew he could pay with his life if he did anything further. (He practically said this much to Odogwu, the Director-General of Biafra’s Military Intelligence, when the latter came asking him why he had been so silent.) Those who know power and how it is used know when to run and cower from it. They know that he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day; that it is not bravery to attempt pushing back a moving train! They, like Kutuzov, the famed astute Commander-In-Chief of the Russian Army during the Napoleonic wars, are therefore adept at bidding their time. And they usually live to laugh last! That was what saved Zik in Biafra. Had he tried pushing his position any further, he would have been framed, condemned and shot. Even so, Zik nearly got that same treatment in the typical Stalin-versus-Trotsky style even while in self-exile in far-away England in 1969.

Anyway, in the end Ojukwu had his way, declared secession and promptly led the Igbo to the desert and abandoned them. The deluge was so complete it is doubtful whether even the totality of the ikemba statues erected by Peter Obi in Anambra State can alter this reality; the duplicity simply will not wash! Have all that the oracle, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, predicted would result from secession not come to pass? Yet among the Igbo of today, Nnamdi Azikiwe is spoken of as a man without the Igbo heart; a man whose Igboness is suspect, and who did very little or nothing for the Igbo especially during the Nigeria-Biafra war. Such is the lot of men not recognised by the Igbo intelligence as ‘great men’, as heroes; but such is the destiny of those rare and always solitary men who divining the will of Providence submit their personal will to it. In the words of Leo Tolstoy, “The hatred and contempt of the crowd is the punishment of such men for their comprehension of higher laws.” (War & Peace, p.1172)

Strange and terrible to say, those who turned Nigeria into Babel, who never even displayed one trait of human dignity or that subtlety so common with men of higher refinement and candour, are the subject of the admiration and enthusiasm of weird writers, and are lionised by the Igbo crowd and the historians behind them. In their eyes these are the heroes. But Azikiwe who did everything to reconcile the diverse Nigerian ethnicities, to create harmony and peace among the people; who strove to build a great black nation in which everyman could be at home and pursue his happiness; who consistently refrained from adopting schemes to undermine or cheat the non-Igbo sections of the country; and, as premier of Eastern Nigeria, fast-tracked the educational, economic and industrial advancement of the region is to even this Igbo crowd conceived as a pitiful creature, a weakling and compromiser they seem a little ashamed of.
• (Excerpts from Nwankwo’s forthcoming new book)

CULLED FROM GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER

Op. History has shown again and again that more often than not, people follow anyone with persuasive words that seek to elevate their sense of self.

Many times the people they follow blindly are wrong and even questionable. But instead, the more intelligent assessors of situations are the ones questioned.

Man's pursuit of happiness and personal dignity has many foolish lows.

Brb...make I read am first

What Igbo call bravery is termed cowardice in yorubaland. Lol

Obasanjo was right, Ojukwu was moved by greed.

Old fool. Shut up

OrlandoOwoh: Obasanjo was right, Ojukwu was moved by greed.

peppyluv02: Old fool. Shut up

We may joke, I do that because I feel there is something about you I like. Why should you resort to calling me names? It's unfair. Think about it.
Anambra Adigo Mma.

Dr Martins Uchenna Nwankwo,the AMADIOHA of Imo State Uni. my former HOD has said it all! need we to say more? a word they say, is enough for the wise....

What Great Zik saw while siting, Ojukwu was unable to see. Wisdom is profitable to direct. A man of wisdom will preserve a city while a proud and haughty king will bring it to ruin. Between Zik and Ojukwu who is the hero?

Tht is all history, anyway is good we hv a good knowledge of our history. nize write up.

Mean while

VOTE GEJ 4 2015

The secession and the war that followed were pointless and ill thought of. All those who go on celebrating those who conceived and executed it are just as bad as the perpetrators. #NoToWar

OrlandoOwoh:
We may joke, I do that because I feel there is something about you I like. Why should you resort to calling me names? It's unfair. Think about it.
Anambra Adigo Mma.

You awure p_imp, castration is what you deserve.

Is superstar1 back from Germany?

iconize:

You awure p_imp, castration is what you deserve.

Is superstar1 back from Germany?

Are you Musiwa, you sound like him? Go find out from Superstar himself. I guess he is among some forumites like Katsumoto, ACM10, eguerrill, etc, that are drawing back because of the deteriorating state of the politics section.
Anambra Adigo Mma.

Insightful story.

OrlandoOwoh:
[s]Are you Musiwa, you sound like him? Go find out from Superstar himself. I guess he is among some forumites like Katsumoto, ACM10, eguerrill, etc, that are drawing back because of the deteriorating state of the politics section.
[/s]
Anambra Adigo Mma.

Trash.
Is superstar not odinma?

Well, well, well......

iconize:

Trash.
Is superstar not odinma?

Ask him. I thought you guys said I'm Odinma1?
Anambra Adigo Mma.

OrlandoOwoh:
Ask him. I thought you guys said I'm Odinma1?
Anambra Adigo Mma.

You're a dunce. Is my name "you guys"?

iconize:

You're a dunce. Is my name "you guys"?

Be civil.

the East
must not allow itself to be stampeded or annoyed into a
hasty and risky gambit or steps that are unsustainable.

Zik was a great and rational leader, if someone of us talk now, they will open matter on my head.

OrlandoOwoh:
Be civil.

Okay.

You've abandoned disqus, why?

Aljharam why not go and take your meds!

OrlandoOwoh:
Ask him. I thought you guys said I'm Odinma1?
Anambra Adigo Mma.

There was a pogrom in the North and hundreds of Ibos were killed no doubt but the coup was successful and the Ibos were no longer running things. This was difficult for Ojukwu to swallow. He went to war out of hubris and the only possible outcome was what ensued.It was a foolish egotistic decision but to the Ibo that is "BRAVERY"

e be like say this thread go make sense oooooooo

make I park my guragura for here.

VAQAXY: Aljharam why not go and take your meds!

Chino, ke ije?

iwonbaoko: There was a pogrom in the North and hundreds of Ibos were killed no doubt but the coup was successful and the Ibos were no longer running things. This was difficult for Ojukwu to swallow. He went to war out of hubris and the only possible outcome was what ensued.It was a foolish egotistic decision but to the Ibo that is "BRAVERY"

And Yoloba remains being COWARDS