PhysicsMHD:



While it may seem "obvious" at first glance that Zik made the wrong move, one has to consider whether he actually had the political capital left among his own people (Igbos) and with other Nigerians to take Awolowo as VP and actually expect to win.


1. Nnamdi Azikiwe had switched sides from Biafra to Nigeria after a disagreement with Ojukwu's uncompromising stance, losing not a little bit of respect in some areas in the process.

2. Nnamdi Azikiwe, although not in any way involved in the Jan. 1966 coup, had diminished stature amongst other Nigerians after he hid out vacationing in the Carribean after the tip of a possible coup (the same tip Balewa got, but did nothing about) and played no major part (to the best of my knowledge) in attempting to resolve the 1966 crisis.

Not to mention being virtually absent from the national political scene (apart from urging Biafra to surrender to Nigeria when defeat was imminent) for nearly a decade and playing no major part in steering Nigeria back to normalcy,

3. The enormous revulsion people in certain areas felt towards Awolowo, who they saw as some sort of backstabber or double-talker. Note that Dr. Okpara, who was friends with Awolowo (were he and Awolowo on good terms after the war? Don't know. Somebody in the know could answer this though.) at some point, rebuffed Awolowo's offer of the VP slot to him, though Okpara was not not interested in the presidency himself. Zik could have been taking the sensibilities of his own people in account here. He might not have wanted to seem like a "turncoat" who allied with another "turncoat".

4. The impossibility of two giants with different political and social views working together without serious conflict. Also, the VP position is basically powerless and ignorable unless the President decides to empower the VP in some way. Taking Awolowo as VP would be dependent on assuming Awolowo could be quiet and let Zik take the lead and only occasionally offer his views, like most VP's do.



I think he made a reasonable decision.


The fact that Awolowo wrote a letter virtually begging him to serve under him does rubbish the unfounded myth that Awolowo was so desperate to "rule" Nigeria at all costs and the often repeated assertion that he "betrayed" certain people specifically so he could have them out of the way and become president unopposed.

However it might not necessarily have convinced Zik for the fact that he may have had reason to suspect that Awolowo had secretly sent another letter at the same time to someone else, possibly from the North, asking them to be his VP while he runs for president or asking someone else from the North if he could be the VP while they take the presidency.

Ultimately , I feel it should have happened. The future of Nigeria (our present) would have been immensely different.

ndu_chucks:

@Katsumoto, many forumites take pleasure in revisionism as long as it serves their dishonest purposes. PhysicsHMD does not come across as dishonest, I suspect that he is simply ignorant of the events you sighted.

He made this statement:
Thats good enough for me because that is the point I was making from the beginning.

Katsumoto:

Hmmmmm

1. Zik got his tip from Ifeajuna (leader of the 66 coup) months before the coup. Zik left Nigeria in late 1965. Balewa got his tip from Bello who got the tip from Akintola who had driven to see Bello two days before the coup. There is a big difference in the sources of the coup. Did Akintola/Bello/Balewa get their tips from Ifeajuna? If they didn't then it is an attempt at revision to simply suggest that they both got tips. It is a fact that Ifeajuna went to see Okpara right after killing Balewa before escaping to Ghana. Seriously, what was the leader of a coup which had eliminated the PM, the premier's of the North and West as well as other senior political and military leaders discussing with the premier of the East before escaping?

2. Did Awo really send Akintola and Rosiji to Bello or Akintola/Rosiji had their game plan? I find that episode really strange for two reasons.
a) Did Awo really need to make deals with Zik and Bello on the same day? Why did Awo not simply go to Bello on a different day and negotiate himself? Wouldn't Awo have known Bello (considering his god-like status in the North) would have felt slighted that he (Awo) did not come to make the deal himself?
b) Isn't it curious that while Awo was supposedly negotiating with Zik, a call came from Bello to Zik informing him that Awo's people (Akintola and Rosiji) were there with Bello. Why did Bello need to call Zik to inform him about Awo's offer if he didn't know Awo was there? Why did Akintola not refuse to go on the phone to confirm to Zik that he was indeed in Kaduna to negotiate a political alliance with NPC knowing fully well that Awo was with Zik?

However, it will be a negligence of hindsight and display of political naiveté to levy accusation of selfishness on Zik without taken into considerations of political treachery of 1951 in Ibadan and the Awolowo’s brazen fiscal policy towards Ndigbo in 1970

T9ksy:

@ Ndu_chuks……….Thanks for the posted materials though I must say that none of the information contained therein is new to me, it nevertheless resuscitated my knowledgebase.

I must add though that zik was not myopic in the least rather he was following  in the footpath of his contemporaries in that he was first and foremost concerned with the elavation of his people within the context of the new nation. This was why he gave up his ambition to be PM with Awo as his finance minister to take up a ceremonial post under TB's govt. By so doing, the igbos arrogated to themselves most of the  federal posts due to the south. An example of this is in 1964, the position was such that of the four higher institutions of learning in Yorubaland - University of Ibadan, University of Lagos, University of Ife and Yaba College of Technology, the Igbo headed three.

T9ksy:

Posted by: Dede1 Today at 06:46:49 PM
you guys and your obsession with yorubaland sef. why does zik an igbo man wants to be premier of yorubaland? was this not the same zik who a few years earlier was trying to seperate Lagos from the then western region, claiming that Lagos is no man's land.Why should the yorubas entrust the future of their young generations into the grasp of an igbo man?

Dede1:


Your postulations in question #1 are tools of joke for an avid crowed of conjecturers and propagandists. 

Dede1:


As for question #2, I have the below submissions to add.

Pointing to the political expeditions of the two figures after the incident, I would unequivocally say Akintola/Rosiji had their game plan.

There are few things which remain impossible under the sun. The mind is very tricky and politics is game of chance where every minute not day is valuable time to strike a deal that will leave political opponents in a position of awkward predicament.

This very assumption had swayed me toward Awolowo's side and compelled me to believe that Akintola and Rosiji had serious plans to truncate the political ambitions of Awo. It must be recall that Awolowo and DS Adegbenro were in Onitsha to meet with Zik.

There should be no iota of curiousness surrounding who was responsible for placing the phone call. It has been alleged that Akintola placed the aforementioned phone call to Zik not Bello.

When Awo was handed the receiver by Zik, it has been alleged that Awo was surprised and queried Akintola about his mission in Kaduna. This instance, among other transgressions, led to the expulsion of Akintola from AG for anti-party activity.

But wouldn't his people have been elevated if he was equally PM? Some argue that he accepted that arrangement because he wanted Nigeria to be a nation at all cost so as to rule over a larger nation.

Some people will never understand this. Your father's friend can never love and mean well for you like your father. Zik had no business being Premier in the West. In any case, that was why he was rejected

T9ksy:

Quote from: Katsumoto on Today at 07:04:48 PM
No doubt, they would but noway would you have a situation like the example i gave earlier. By aligning with the NPC, the igbos were unjustifiably elevated above their status in the south. This was the rationale that instigate the ilk of Akintola and Ayo rosoji to make overtures to the sardunna- there was no gain in being in the opposition.

Katsumoto:

Some people will never understand this. Your father's friend can never love and mean well for you like your father. Zik had no business being Premier in the West. In any case, that was why he was rejected.

Dede1:


Are you insinuating that since Zik was not a Yoruba therefore he, Zik, has no business becoming a Premier in the west? I could not believe my ears that a person who would readily accuse some of tribal bias would consciously write this statement. I thought any candidate voted into the regional House of Assembly from one of the constituencies has every business to become a Premier of the region if his/her colleagues voted as such.

By the way, he was not rejected as you have ridiculously stated. It did not come to vote.

You really disappointed me with this thoughtless, mean-spirited and off-the-wall comment. Let me help your devil’s advocacy by saying that Ndigbo would have also been unjustifiably elevated above their status in the south if Zik had become PM by aligning with AG.

asha 80:

Ermm ndu chuks now that shekarau (ANPP) has joined the race does that mean more problems for ribadu vis a vis splitting of votes inj te north?

dayokanu:

^^ Bros na wa o.

If you were not Igbo, I am sure you would have felt the heat

Obiagu1:

Feel the heat from who? An Igboman? Which Igboman is not feeling the heat already in Nigeria, a situation Zik put us into?


If not for the fact that we don't disrespect the dead, I would have called him up from the grave and give him enough slap.

alj harem:



one day the blind shall see with igbo people

some are opening there eys already like you, abagworo, chieneyeN, Inked nerd and me

others will open there eyes soon

fstranger1:

Alhaji why didnt you include me, Alhaji Chukwuemeka, in your list of Igbos that know the truth!

Katsumoto:

I am not insinuating it; I am stating it unequivocally.

Zik was born in the North, why wasn't he aspiring to be the premier there? Was he aspiring to be premier in the west because the Yoruba people are liberal. My point is buttressed by the reverence Yoruba people had for Awo and the indifference Ndigbo had for Zik. An Igbo man had no business being premier in the West in the same way, a yoruba man had no business being premier in the East. A new nation was being formed and each region was still suspicious of the motives of the other regions. If the Yoruba people wanted Zik to be their leader, he would have being.
But they didn't want him, hence the rejection. You can sugar-coat that rejection however way you want it.

Dede1:


I must say your equivocation is an opinion borne out of ignorance. Seriously, I can not fathom what spurred you to form the opinion that Zik had no business becoming the premier of the defunct western region of Nigeria.

You posited Zik was not born in the west but north. However, he found a place of abode in the west, established and contested election in one of the western regional constituencies. When Zik employed indigenes of the western region, tribal irredentist such as you did tell him he has no business employing a Yoruba in his business outfit in Lagos.

[b]There was no single ordinance that stipulated a person has to be born in a particular region in order to become the premier of the region.[/] I guess the criteria include among other things a candidate’s political party has to win majority of the seats.  Again you must agree that during the era in this discussion, the defunct western region was not exclusive domain of the Yoruba. It is unfortunate that such rational deduction does not flash in stream of thoughts of tribal bigots.

T9ksy:

Quote from: Dede1 on Today at 07:37:13 PM
No doubt that the ndigbos would have been elevated had Zik aligned with AG but definately not at the expense of the yorubas who had enough capable and educated leaders at their disposal. At that particular moment in our history, each region was working assiduously to promote the lot of their people within the colonial contraption. No one wants to be ruled by an outsider. What good does Zik have in mind for the yorubas that they can't do (and as it transpired they can and did) for themselves?  Remember, the yorubas did not believe in One nigeria and neither did the north. Only the igbos were for One nigeria.

Zik did not even campaign in the north. can you imagine Zik aspiring to be premier of the north? who born am? even before that the north was already massacring the ndigbos in their region based solely on their perceived fear of ndigbo's neocolonialism. The sardunna refferred to the igbos in the north then, as invaders!

The former executive president of Nigeria, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, a mild mannered man captured it well when he told Zik during the 1979 election campaign: "when you switch husbands one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight times, you are no longer a beautiful bride but a harlot." Zik was a weather vane-go where the favorable wind blows. A "Beautiful Bride" mindset is exactly the opposite of the leadership mindset. In 1954, the Sutton-Foster Inquiry found Zik's conduct below what was expected of an honest and honorable person. He also has Black neocolonial/elitist mentality like many African rulers and political class.

http://nigeriaworld.com/articles/2009/apr/071.html

Specifically on Igbo leadership, the Igbo culture is very clear about what makes one fit or unfit for leadership. A thief or a traitor (sabo) cannot be a leader. Being a thief or traitor is the lowest of the lowest (an abomination or nso ala) among the Igbo. In fact, it automatically makes on an outcast. Whether one likes it or not, the defining moment for the Igbo in Nigeria was the Nigeria-Biafra war (1967-70). It was the litmus test. Zik crossed over to the Nigerian side because of personal difficulties with the Biafra leadership. Biafra or the Igbo was fighting a war of survival and freedom after being massacred in Nigeria and attacked militarily. Zik was in favor of Biafra as long as he called the shots and the going was good. Biafra is a matter of principle not personal feelings about Ojukwu or his leadership style. This pattern of unprincipled behavior and egotism were characteristic of Zik whether it was in Nigeria or Biafra. When things were not favorable to him personally he would decamp. He did not make and keep promises. Space does not allow me to go into full details and explanations but only to say that a leader acts based on principles and collective interests not personal interests or egotism. Making and keeping promises is the cornerstone of leadership or a person.