--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tokunbo Ogunbiyi Tuesday, March 6, 2012

toksalpha@gmail.com
London, UK

ANNOUNCE THIS ARTICLE
TO YOUR FRIENDS

OJUKWU (III): THE ULTIMATE NIGERIAN TRUTH



n the history of European nations the second world war is used to mark a divide in history; a watershed if you choose. The post war period is to European leaders the new renaissance. In other words, the post war period is assumed or supposed to mark a coming of age. The conduct of European affairs since then has been based on a dialogue intended to remove war as a means of settling European disputes. That dialogue was variously the Iron and Steel Federation and later the European Economic Community and most recently the European Union.







Aside from the physical and infrastructural reconstruction masterminded by the US through the Marshall Plan, agro-industrial rejuvenation with attendant food security has been one of the key policy thrusts of the European Union's post war efforts.

I have gone on this rather long introduction to draw attention to the sharp contrast with the post-war situation of Nigeria. According Professor Francis Idachaba, agricultural economist and former vice chancellor of the University of Agriculture, Makurdi and more recently of Kogi State University, Nigeria is blessed with unparalleled agro-ecological attributes that would make us competitors with Brazil at least and ahead of South Africa in terms of food production let alone other agro-industrial endeavours.

The not so subtle point to make is that the pattern of Nigeria-Biafra war and the consequent post war settlement meant that Nigeria won the war and lost much else beside! In the annals of our nation we are at best an underdeveloped nation far behind other medium-sized countries like Indonesia, Argentina and Brazil etc and even relatively small in size and resource-poor countries like Singapore. The Nigeria-Biafra war was fought on the premise that the side favoured by external powers must 'win'. But having won, the creditors who engineered that victory have come to collect on their investment and having collected they have left Nigeria bereft!

INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT FOR NIGERIA'S WAR
In prosecuting the war, Nigeria relied on British military and diplomatic support coupled with copious amounts of Soviet armour and the aviation skills of Egyptian pilots. The manner in which the war was prosecuted and its ultimate abrupt ending with Ojukwu's sudden departure and Biafra's capitulation ensured a Nigerian Federal victory which though declared as 'no victor, no vanquished' was in practice interpreted as the north of Nigeria had won the war. In the absence of a post-war roundtable and with the people of the Calabar, Ogoja and Rivers Provinces now comfortably ensconced in their two states, South East and Rivers, the Igbo were isolated and emasculated in the East-Central State. There was a presumption of rehabilitation, reconciliation and reconstruction but these were exclusively on the terms and according to an agenda set by the victor, the Federal Government. The contrast with how post-war Europe organised itself is evident so that even the Japanese, not a European power and also on the losing side of World War II very quickly became a global economic power rising from the ruins of war.

In Nigeria, only Igbo did not have a military presence on the Supreme Military Council being represented by the university teacher who was also the 'administrator' of the East-Central State, Mr (later Dr) Ukpabi Asika. In Germany even though most of the German intelligentsia had sided with Hitler and the Nazis, the post-war Allied agreement managed to find a lowly municipal official to whom political power could be entrusted in West Germany. It was Dr Konrad Adenauer as post-war Chancellor along with his economics minister, Ludwig Erhard who laid the foundations for the modern unified German state but also engineered the German economic miracle which endures even till today. [b]In Nigeria the talent pool of Biafran intellectuals and engineers and scientists would not be used and no gains accruing from the war would be harnessed for the wider Nigerian state.

[/b]HOSTAGE TO FOREIGN INTERESTS
[b]In time Nigeria became first a client state dependent on the western nations that had sponsored her ultimately pyrrhic victory and eventually beholden to ancillary interests that had supported her war effort. In his speech at Ahiara on 1 June 1969, General Odumegwu-Ojukwu said amongst other things "Our struggle has far-reaching significance. It is the latest recrudescence in our time of the age-old struggle of the black man for his full stature as man. We are the latest victims of a wicked collusion between the three traditional scourges of the black man - racism, Arab-Muslim expansionism and white economic imperialism. Playing a subsidiary role is Bolshevik Russia seeking for a place in the African sun. Our struggle is a total and vehement rejection of all those evils which blighted Nigeria, evils which were bound to lead to the disintegration of that ill-fated federation. Our struggle is not a mere resistance - that would be purely negative. It is a positive commitment to build a healthy, dynamic and progressive state, such as would be the pride of black men the world over ". [/b]

I shall identify three points that concur with Ojukwu's observation.


In the period 1970 - 1975 no serious attempt was made to establish a new constitutional arrangement with transfer of power to a democratically elected civil democratic ruler. Ojukwu foreshadowed this at Ahiara as follows: "Since in the thinking of many white powers a good, progressive and efficient government is good only for whites, our view was considered dangerous and pernicious: a point of view which explains but does not justify the blind support which these powers have given to uphold the Nigerian ideal of a corrupt, decadent and putrefying society". To the western nations and especially Britain, a suitable African ally had been found and the status quo was suitable for their interest even though it implied instability for Africa's largest nation.

Nigeria joined the Arab League inspired boycott of Israel in 1973 with a break in diplomatic relations. In this situation Nigeria which ought to have been the leader of the Black African states was a mere follower. But Nigeria was in no position to resist the Arab countries after it had accepted so much support in form of technical aid from Egypt?

Since the postwar period Arab-Muslim expansionism has targeted Nigeria as fertile ground for the establishment of a Wahabi style Islamic state with persistent recurrent crises, whose perpetual and consistent recrudescence is with us till today!
The late General Murtala Muhammed was once reported to say that when the war ended, General Gowon would be like a conquering emperor who would listen to no other views but his own and dictate terms to all and sundry including those who made his victory possible. The truth that Nigeria has had to face is that in winning the war they way it did, its political, economic and cultural evolution has been set back so far that Africa has been described as the third world of the third world. That Douglas Hurd (now Lord Hurd of Westwell), then British Foreign Secretary exposes the putrid truth that Africa is so far behind other developing countries in South -East Asia and Latin America that it is best simply to refer to Africa as 'underdeveloped'. The key cause of Africa's continued underdevelopment is Nigeria's inability to prove itself a worthy leader!

FACING THE FUTURE
Nigeria has not been able to get a measure of its own self so how could it possibly lead Africa and the black race? The Nigerian public space has been conducted as though it were a contest between the major ethnic nationalities - Hausa - Fulani, Igbo, Yoruba and the ethnic minorities. This script which is essentially a colonial script designed to make the natives easy to manipulate and govern, has remained largely unchanged so Nigeria's political evolution has stuttered and been stifled. In the process a globalising world evolved and Nigeria was caught napping; and being such a dominant African state the entire sub-Saharan African region was in a state between moribund paralysis and nacroleptic stupor by the time this new economic order was being forged. Chief Ernest Shonekan Head of State and Head of the ill-fated Interim National Government from 26 August 1993 to November 17 1993 said thatthough Nigeria was regarded as the natural leader of Africa, yet after 33 years our dreams, hopes and aspirations have not been fully realised. I found Ojukwu's speech at Ahiara quite persuasive as he trained his vision on Nigeria's problems and concluded that "We in Biafra are convinced that the Black man can never come into his own until he is able to build modern states based on indigenous African ideologies, to enjoy true independence, to be able to make his mark in the arts and sciences and to engage in meaningful dialogue with the white man on a basis of equality. When he achieves this, he will have brought a new dimension into international affairs."

Other Nigerian leaders have also trained their vision goggles on Nigeria's problems. In his speech at Jaji on 12th September, 1977, General Obasanjo in his first incarnation as Head of the Nigerian state also wrestled in his mind with the philosophical question of what Nigeria should be and then concluded that Nigeria should be a just and humane African society . General Gowon sought how to build a just and egalitarian society full of opportunities for its citizens. Before him , General JTU Aguiyi-Ironsi was concerned with how the restore and then maintain law and order, whilst after Gowon, the late General Murtala Muhammed concluded that 'Nigeria had been left to drift'!

Alhaji Shehu Shagari seemed to sum it moost correctly when he said that 'there is a need for dedicated leadership and citizenry imbued with faith to cultivate a widespread feeling for one Nigeria' But Nigerians do not on the whole feel a commitment to the idea of one Nigeria. It was General Abacha who described Nigeria as a 'cannibalised contraption'. Indeed today Nigerians see Nigeria in terms of a fallen elephant with everyone hustling to get their own cut. The main anchor on which national misrule has been anchored is 'tribalism'. Closely allied with tribalism is corruption. The late General Shehu Musa Yar'Adua said of Nigerian government officials, "it isn't that the officials are corrupt but that corruption is official". Of all the Nigerian leaders past and present, one is seen as having enthroned corruption as a doctrine of state and made graft an elegant instrument of state policy. Many Nigerians feel that Nigeria has never recovered from General Ibrahim Babangida's rule from August 27, 1985 until his departure from office on August 27, 1993 after his annulment of elections held on June 12 that year.

With such a plethora of morass and decay Nigeria may appear beyond redemption? But that would be a defeatist approach as I in common with so many other patriots believe that Nigeria has sych spectacular potentialities that it can only be a success story. The incumbent, President Goodluck Jonathan has a challenge the scientific galvanisation of the energies, talents and skills of the teeming millions of our people and the effective and efficient utilisation of these for the construction of a new national paradigm. Can Dr Jonathan do it? I believe that with goodwill and national support he can. Afterall look at what the Biafrans, a part of Nigeria achieved, as recalled by Dim Chukwuemeka Ojukwu at a lecture he gave during the TSM Diamond Lecture on February 22, 1994, "In the three years of war necessity gave birth to invention. During those three years of historic bound we leapt across a great chasm that separates knowledge from know-how. We built rockets, and we designed and built our own delivery systems. We guided our rockets. We guided them far; we guided them accurately. For three years, blockaded without hope of imports, we maintained all our vehicles. The state extracted and refined petrol, individuals refined petrol in their back gardens. We built and maintained our airports; maintained them under heavy bombardment.

"Despite the heavy bombardment, we recovered so quickly after each raid that we were able to maintain the record for the busiest airport in the continent of Africa. We spoke to the world through telecommunication systems engineered by local ingenuity; the world heard us and spoke back to us! We built armoured cars and tanks. We modified aircraft from trainers to fighters, from passenger aircraft to bombers".

If the Biafrans could do it then why not the Nigerians now


Source:http://nigeriaworld.com/feature/publication/ogunbiyi/031912.html

First of all, this thread is STRICKLY intended for those who have human brains and not maggot brains. It gives me joy to know that somebody of SW extraction had actually taken time out to read and UNDERSTAND the Ahiara declaration and how such philosophy (if implemented) could propel any African state unto greater heights. In the philosophy of Ahiara declaration, there is "NO BORN TO RULE" mentality, everything is based on MERIT.

Again, I will encourage any would-be-reader to pay extra attention @ the bolded, before making coment(s). I do not want this to be another "Biafran-circus" debate. This thread is intended for smart and discerning minds who are capable of interpreting events objectively, devoid of any form of tribalism.

This thread will also help in exposing those who could not attain 5 O'Level credits in their GCE/SSCE .

@POST

A well thought out essay with good criticisms. Despite the efforts of people such as the author of essay, Tokunbo Ogunbiyi, to educate Nigerians about the civil war, many morons are calling for a rematch on this forum. The question I put forward to them is “a rematch of civil war against whom”. Ndigbo or Biafra can fight and defeat each of the ethnic groups that teamed up to fight Biafra without help from Britain, USSR, Egypt, UAL and Australia. I would want the loudmouthed punks on the forum to read this essay.

Thank God this article is from a Yoruba Stock.
Tribalists would have labelled this 'another Igbo thread'

Truth always stand the test of time.

I found Ojukwu's speech at Ahiara quite persuasive as he trained his vision on Nigeria's problems and concluded that "We in Biafra are convinced that the Black man can never come into his own until he is able to build modern states based on indigenous African ideologies, to enjoy true independence, to be able to make his mark in the arts and sciences and to engage in meaningful dialogue with the white man on a basis of equality. When he achieves this, he will have brought a new dimension into international affairs."



The above is why I detest one-nigerianists. Africa shall remain underdeveloped if it fails to fashion out its own means of reaching greater heights. If African states continue to rely on western powers, it shall everly remained doomed. I fervetly believe that the "economic, socio-political, modernisation and scientific" liberation of Africa and the black man at large is heavily dependent on the disintegration of the dungeon called nigeria. It is only then that one of the nations that will rise from the rubbles of nigeria can prosper,,,,,even put a man on the moon . Nigeria shall everly remain a dungeon for the "spirit is not and will never be one". A closer look at nigeria will tell you that it's a country without a foundation.

How can one explain continued marginalization of a region that tries against ALL ODDS to produce some form of goods? In a Biafran country, this will NEVER happen


TO DISINTEGRATE THE NIGERIAN DUNGEON IS A TASK THAT MUST BE DONE IN THE INTEREST OF ALL BLACK MEN!

alex_101: I found Ojukwu's speech at Ahiara quite persuasive as he trained his vision on Nigeria's problems and concluded that "We in Biafra are convinced that the Black man can never come into his own until he is able to build modern states based on indigenous African ideologies, to enjoy true independence, to be able to make his mark in the arts and sciences and to engage in meaningful dialogue with the white man on a basis of equality. When he achieves this, he will have brought a new dimension into international affairs."



The above is why I detest one-nigerianists. Africa shall remain underdeveloped if it fails to fashion out its own means of reaching greater heights. If African states continue to rely on western powers, it shall everly remained doomed. I fervetly believe that the "economic, socio-political, modernisation and scientific" liberation of Africa and the black man at large is heavily dependent on the disintegration of the dungeon called nigeria. It is only then that one of the nations that will rise from the rubbles of nigeria can prosper,,,,,even put a man on the moon . Nigeria shall everly remain a dungeon for the "spirit is not and will never be one". A closer look at nigeria will tell you that it's a country without a foundation.

How can one explain continued marginalization of a region that tries against ALL ODDS to produce some form of goods? In a Biafran country, this will NEVER happen


TO DISINTEGRATE THE NIGERIAN DUNGEON IS A TASK THAT MUST BE DONE IN THE INTEREST OF ALL BLACK MEN!

I support your analysis very well and LOL @ interest of Black men.