₦airaland Forum

WetinConsignMe:
This one is a no brainer. OF COURSE. Gowon had NOTHING to do with release of Awo from Clabar.

Look at body language. Awo contradicted some things Ojukwu said, not once did he contradict him when he said he released him from prison.

EDITORIAL
Ojukwu Released Awolowo From Calabar Jail. QED

Mr. Okonkwo troubled by multiple argument fort and back, pointedly asked Ojukwu. Ojukwu's response was that, he indeed released Awolowo from Calabar Prison house.

Hear Ojukwu speak for himself:

“We’ve said this over and over again, so many times, and people don’t understand; they don’t want to actually. If you remember, I released Awolowo from jail. Even that, some people are beginning to contest as well. Awo was in jail in Calabar. Gowon knows and the whole of the federal establishment knows that at no point was Gowon in charge of the East. The East took orders from me. Now, how could Gowon have released Awolowo who was in Calabar?"

WetinConsignMe:
So we are now at #5.
Here it is:

5) That Awo promised Ojukwu personally, and later said publicly, that the West would secede if Biafra seceded.


Well, it depends on how u interprete what Awo said publicly and whether u believe what he was said to have said to Ojukwu and to others privately.

My own take is that Awo was in no shape to be leading a secession. He just got out of jail, he needed some rest and probably money, plus he was surrounded by northern soldiers who were closely monitoring him. Plus he was not military with an army at his command like Ojukwu. Plus the few senior Yoruba military officers were one-Nigeria.

As to whether he made the promise at all, here are what were said by various people and by Awo himself:
TO BE CONT'D
------------------------------------------------------

CONTINUING:

On July 2001 Rudolf Okonkwo pointedly asked Ojukwu if there was such agreement. Here is what he said (note the bolded):

RUDOLF OKONKWO: Did the meeting take place, and was there such an agreement?

OJUKWU: We’ve said this over and over again, so many times, and people don’t understand; they don’t want to actually...

Don’t forget that the political purpose of the coup, the Ifeajuna coup that began all this, was to hand power over to Awo. We young men respected him a great deal. He was a hero. I thought he was a hero and certainly I received him when I was governor. We talked and he was very vehement when he saw our complaints and he said that if the Igbos were forced out by Nigeria that he would take the Yorubas out also. I don’t know what anybody makes of that statement but it is simple. Whether he did or didn’t, it is too late. There is nothing you can do about it.

Here is what Sam Aluko, who was at the meeting, said:

"What Ojukwu Told Me, Before, Durring, And After The War" - SAM ALUKO

"Awolowo said, if the East left the federation, the Yoruba would have to leave the federation."

"Really, I was being integrated in the East because, at that time, Obafemi Awolowo was in the Calabar prison and I was the only one allowed to see him. Ojukwu used to give me protection to go and see him."

This interview is the most intimate account of the thoughts and actions of Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu before, during and after the Nigerian civil war. The account is coming from Professor Sam Aluko, the respected Nigerian economist, who has revealed that he was the most trusted friend Ojukwu had. That friendship started immediately the Ikemba Nnewi assumed the governorship position of the Eastern Region. Since then and through the period of the war, Ojukwu’s exile in Cote d’Ivoire and his return to Nigeria, that friendship had sustained.

Excerpts:

How close were you to the late Chief Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu?

I will say that I was very close to him till his death. Immediately, he became governor of the former Eastern Region, when I was a senior lecturer in Economics in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, he called me the third day he became governor. He said he wanted to come and see me in my university. I never met him before. How can the military governor come and see me? I said no. I told him I would come and see him, instead. I told the person he sent that he should tell the governor that I was the one who should come and see him and not him coming to see me. That was on January 20, 1966. So, when I said I was going to see him, my wife said she would go with me. She said we didn’t know the man and therefore she wanted to be present at the meeting. She reasoned that we couldn’t predict a soldier who just came. When we got to the military governor’s house, Ojukwu said: ‘Madam, I know you would come because you thought that I will do something to your husband.’ He said he had never met me before, but those in the military had been reading so much about me and they venerated me. According to him, that was why he wanted to see me. He said he wanted me to help him to run the government of the Eastern Region.

We discussed and he asked what role I would like to play and I said I would remain in the university because I didn’t want to leave. I promised to do whatever I could do to help him. The first cabinet that he formed, we both sat down and looked at the names of those from the Eastern Region to be cabinet members. He did not know them because he was not living in the Eastern Region. He was outside, in Kaduna and in Lagos. He spoke Yoruba better than I. So, we were speaking in Yoruba most of the time. That’s how the relationship began and we became very close. It was through him that I knew Adekunle Fajuyi, the governor of the Western Region. We continued until after the counter-coup in July. I was very sad. They killed many Igbo. Many who were not killed had cuts in the head and other parts of the body. He called me and said what could he do? What was going on in his mind was to go to a place in Benue and sack a village there. He wanted to kill as many people as possible. I said no. I said as a Christian, Christianity doesn’t allow for vengeance. As a Christian, I said he should not do that.

Was that when the killings in the North started?
Yes. That was the period the pogrom started. I said he should get in touch with the Head of State, but he said no because it was wrong for Yakubu Gowon to be Head of State because there was Ogundipe, who was a Brigadier and the most senior military officer at the time. He said when the coup happened in January, the most senior officer became the Head of State. So, he argued that when the counter-coup happened, the most senior should also become the Head of State. But the northerners will not take that at that time. Ogundipe himself did not want it because he said there were few Yoruba in the army. He said he will just be there without support and they would kill him. So, they made him High Commissioner in London. When the pogrom continued and the people were coming to the East from the North, Ojukwu said he was afraid that the easterners coming back might attack those who are non-easterners in the East. He then made a statement on the radio that all those who were non-easterners should leave the East.

At the time, there was rumour that Professor Babatunde Fafunwa was killed because he was from the West. But Fafunwa was in Benin Republic attending a conference. Ojukwu said the rumour was a sign of what was to happen. He said they would be attacking the northerners and the westerners and claim easterners did. So, he will ask everybody to go. I went to see him in Enugu and I said: “well, Your Excellency, I will have to go back to the West.” He said no, emphasising that when he talked of westerners, it did not apply to me because I was one of them. Non-easterners in the East were scared. Fafunwa and I were the most senior in the place. Fafunwa was not around and I said: “I will have to take them to the West to make sure that they were safe.” He said it was OK and that he will give me soldiers to make sure that all the students and staff were safe. He said when I got to Benin, I should hand them over to the governor in Benin to take them to the West and I should return to my job in Nsukka.

What of your protection?
He said I needed not worry because I was one of them. [b]Really, I was being integrated in the East because, at that time, Obafemi Awolowo was in the Calabar prison and I was the only one allowed to see him. Ojukwu used to give me protection to go and see him. [/b]So, I was enjoying myself. When I got to Benin, I did not return to the East. I got the people to Ibadan and then called him to say: “Your Excellency, I am here and I am no longer coming back to the East.” He said: “Doctor, don’t call me Your Excellency, call me Emeka. You are older than I and I adore you. Just call me Emeka and I will call you Sam.” I was talking to him every night from Ibadan...

What date was this?
That was January 1967. I said: “Emeka, I don’t think you should think of secession. I said it was the Igbo that were killed in the North and not all easterners.” I said “from my living in the East and going round the East, I know that the Igbo were not very popular in the Rivers area and the Calabar area. I told him that if he declared secession, he would be fighting two wars. I told him he would be fighting internal war against people with him, who didn’t want to be ruled by the Igbo and he would be fighting Nigeria who didn’t want him to succeed. I told him not I didn’t think he could win the war. I think that made a great impression on him. He said: “Doctor, your analysis is perfect.” He said, “after all, why should I secede? “He said: “All my father’s Lagos. I was brought up in Lagos. I came to the East on posting as a military governor. I have discovered that ruling the Igbo is like ruling a pack of wild horses. They are very difficult to rule. I will rather want to be away from here to another place. It is very difficult to persuade the Igbo against their will.”

I told him he didn’t have to persuade them against their will, just be loyal to them. I went back to Adebayo. We had a reconciliation meeting. Awolowo, Onyia and myself were sent to meet Ojukwu in Enugu. Ojukwu insisted that if I did not come, he would not receive them. So, we went together. We discussed.

When was this?
That was March 1967. Awolowo was very frank with him. He told him: “Look, governor, you cannot secede. You cannot go alone. Just as you fear the North, the West also fears the North. The soldiers in the North are occupying the West. So, we have the same common interest. But don’t let us secede. Let us do whatever we can do together to unite and confront the North so that we can have a settlement on how we want to run this country.” Awolowo said, if the East left the federation, the Yoruba would have to leave the federation...


Here is a newspaper report of what Awo himself said publicly (note the bolded):

Why Awo did not make West to Secede
VANGUARD
26 SEP 2017
By Eric Teniola
ON May 1, 1967 at a meeting of Leaders of thought of Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo made the following declarations:
“I consider my duty to Yoruba people in particular and to Nigerians in general to place four imperatives, two of them categorical, and two conditional:

(1) Only a peaceful solution must be found to arrest the present worsening stalemate and restore normalcy.

(2) The Eastern Region must be encouraged to remain part of the Federation

(3). If the Eastern Region is allowed by acts of omission or commission to secede from or opt out of Nigeria, then Western Region and Lagos must also stay out of the Federation.

(4) The people of Western Nigeria or Lagos would participate in the Ad hoc Constitutional Committee or any similar body only on the basis of absolute equality with other Region of the Federations”.

It was the gravest statement made by any leader in Nigeria at a crucial time.
...
The question is why did the Western Region not follow the Eastern Region when it seceded on May 30, 1967?

The Daily Sketch which published in full Chief Awolowo’s speech on May 2, 1967 sold in Enugu at two shillings per copy which is more equivalent of today’s six hundred naira. The speech was a hot cake.

Then there was the argument that the fate of the Yorubas in Ilorin and Kabba provinces at that time was not properly addressed in that speech considering the political influence of Chief Josiah Sunday Olawoyin (1935-2000) and later leaders like Chief Cornelius Olatunji Adebayo (76), my friend Chief Ayo Opadokun and Dr. Abubakar Olusola Saraki (1933-2012).

It is a pity that Chief Awolowo did not publish his memoirs before he died in a domestic accident in his hometown of Ikenne in Ogun state in the early hours of May 9, 1987. Maybe he would have shed more light on why he made those declarations.

I personally believe till today that it was that speech that took the Federal Capital from Lagos, although events have proved later that taking the Federal Capital out of Lagos does not equate with taking commerce out of Lagos- thanks to Chief Bola Tinubu and his successors.

Chief Awolowo’s speech stunned the nation. It was a wakeup call on General Yakubu Dan-Yuuma Gowon (83), the Head of State at that time to prepare for war and save Nigeria. If Chief Awolowo had taken Western Region and Lagos out of Nigeria, it would have been suicidal...

If Chief Awolowo had taken Western Region and Lagos out of the Federation at that time definitely Western Region and Lagos would have been the battle ground. And where were the troops and how prepared was he for a major war. At the time he made those declarations, officers of the Western Region in the Nigerian Army were less than 7%. At that time Lagos, Ibadan and Abeokuta garrisons were occupied by ‘northern troops’. Even the then Governor of Western Region, Major General Adeyinka Adebayo was not prepared for war. Chief Awolowo admitted on May 1, 1967 speech, that ‘We have neither the military might, nor the overwhelming advantage of numbers here in Western Nigeria and Lagos...'

PrecisionFx:
A civilian can be court martialed Sir.
I.e a civilian can be arrested n tried in court by soldiers as the judges.

PrecisionFx:
Awolowo said he was taking yoruba out of Nigeria, it's not a hidden or a secret fact, it was on national dailies both at home n in Britain n the western world.



Zik couldn't have given 96 job positions to igbos n 8 to other tribes in nigeria, he couldn't even do it if it were his private university both in the 60s and now. And let me remind u, there wasn't anything like quota back them..... it was a simple case of the best qualified candidates takes all.

A Fulani man during the same period zik won to the premier of the west, a Fulani man was voted in as the first mayor in enugu state.

Little children pls goan read history.

GhanaMustGoo:
I'm coming

Awo.obviously had a thing for plotting coups. Some people are like that. They always thunk they can.get way with it untill they don't

Michael004:
[s][/s]These people has started their lies again. You want zik to be premier of western region but do not allow other tribe to be your own premier. You never talked of how zik gave 96 positions to igbo people out of the available 104 positions in University College then. Your invented lie about him committing suicide makes you more stupid. Great awolowo will continue to torment you. Every time, you cry of how he had agreement with runnaway ojukwu but never for once bring out the agreement evidence signed by awoo and ojukwu. I tire for you people stupidity.

updatechange:
Observing

olowobaba10:
YOU'RE A BLOODY LIAR , GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT OR HOW MUCH ARE THEY PAYING YOU FOR FABRICATING THESE LIES .

Leez:
lol i swear d tin fear me
but he has been put back in his place
#igbo amaka

VillageWinch:
What I don't understand is why Awo didn't just go on exile. I don't think Babangida offered him that option.

Leez:
i tells u

Leez:
lol i swear d tin fear me
but he has been put back in his place
#igbo amaka

Leez:
lol i swear d tin fear me
but he has been put back in his place
#igbo amaka

Leez:

at all bro im nwa afo 100 percent
was a rhetorical question posed to d bigot i quoted

Malawian:
Lie! The first soldier to do a marathon was

Brigadier Ogundipe .. The first of his name, Father of Cowards, breaker of records, The un-livered.

WetinConsignMe:
So did someone hijack your acct to post this:

"we all know d dirty cowardly spineless tribe
cant survive without d gambaris n afonjas yet dy are asking for a referendum
if i were u d silence of igbo leaders on secession will jolt ur brain but then once a slave always a slave"

WetinConsignMe:
So we are now at #5.
Here it is:



Well, it depends on how u interprete what Awo said publicly and whether u believe what he was said to have said to Ojukwu and to others privately.

My own take is that Awo was in no shape to be leading a secession. He just got out of jail, he needed some rest and probably money, plus he was surrounded by northern soldiers who were closely monitoring him. Plus he was not military with an army at his command like Ojukwu. Plus the few senior Yoruba military officers were one-Nigeria.

As to whether he made the promise at all, here are what were said by various people and by Awo himself:
TO BE CONT'D

NwaAmaikpe:


My only interest is Rochas Okorocha


Only students of Cheiro or adherents of Numerology can relate to this;

22/09/1962=
4/9/9=
4

Rochas is a complete opposite of everything the Number 4 stands for.
With that said,


I can authoritatively say that Rochas forged his age.
BECAUSE NUMBERS DON'T LIE

Leez:

we all know d dirty cowardly spineless tribe
cant survive without d gambaris n afonjas yet dy are asking for a referendum
if i were u d silence of igbo leaders on secession will jolt ur brain but then once a slave always a slave

GhanaMustGoo:
Michael004 see how him just shut ya mouth

Ovamboland:
Awo beat Zik in a contest and drove him out of LAGOS with tears streaming down his face and did you stop u b till he arrived Enugu. Chew that for a start

Ofemannnu:


So you want people like this to rule over Yoruba with their chameleon tribalist...


NEARLY 50 years ago, it is
said, that people in Enugu,
Nsukka, Ngwo, and
Abakalike had little clothes to cover
themselves. In 1947, the District Officer
prohibited nude people coming to the
Ogbete Market in Enugu. Yet, in 20 short
years, the Igbos were the number one
traders in textile.


The Bonny (Igbani Ijaws) sold slaves and
even had a most lucrative empire. One
Bonny Chief went to England and bought a
steamship fully outfitted with an English
captain, officers, and sailors to bring him
back to Nigeria. Such business needed trust
worthy lieutenants. These the Bonny Chiefs
found among the Igbo slaves who became
their trusted employees. The “Civil Servant
Employees” became trustees.
The Igbani Chiefs, however, were not over
trusting. They did not want the Igbos to
learn their language for fear of being
overthrown or appealing directly to their
gods. The Igbanis, therefore, decided to
learn Igbo to better communicate with their
trustees; while keeping Igbani as the royal
language to be used only by the Chiefs
among themselves.
Guardian..source.
http://jimidisu.com/the-igbos-and-their-unifying-factors-1-by-patrick-dele-cole/



So you want people like this to rule over Yoruba with their chameleon tribalist...


NEARLY 50 years ago, it is
said, that people in Enugu,
Nsukka, Ngwo, and
Abakalike had little clothes to cover
themselves. In 1947, the District Officer
prohibited nude people coming to the
Ogbete Market in Enugu. Yet, in 20 short
years, the Igbos were the number one
traders in textile.


The Bonny (Igbani Ijaws) sold slaves and
even had a most lucrative empire. One
Bonny Chief went to England and bought a
steamship fully outfitted with an English
captain, officers, and sailors to bring him
back to Nigeria. Such business needed trust
worthy lieutenants. These the Bonny Chiefs
found among the Igbo slaves who became
their trusted employees. The “Civil Servant
Employees” became trustees.
The Igbani Chiefs, however, were not over
trusting. They did not want the Igbos to
learn their language for fear of being
overthrown or appealing directly to their
gods. The Igbanis, therefore, decided to
learn Igbo to better communicate with their
trustees; while keeping Igbani as the royal
language to be used only by the Chiefs
among themselves.
Guardian..source.
http://jimidisu.com/the-igbos-and-their-unifying-factors-1-by-patrick-dele-cole/

WetinConsignMe:
Not true. Great does not necessarily mean good. And I'm not saying Awo was bad. Hitler was a great man. Yet he was corrupt and he commuted suicide.

WetinConsignMe:
Good sir, as the moderator, I am obliged to inform u that Chief Awolowo was a great man. He was not "nigga".

WetinConsignMe:
Say what u will about Awolowo, love him or hate him, one thing u can never say is that the topic of Awo is borrring.
So my brother, it's just that there is so much there. He is a treasure trove for controversy buffs. Tell me what other Nigerian, including those who fought wars, even comes close. Even his death is controversial.
Take Zik for instance. All that's in the PUBLIC CONSCIOUSNESS is that he led Nigeria to independence. Beyond that the average man will be looking at u like u crazy.

Origamist:
hehe.Yet he was the pioneering President of the Union? ,Abeeegi!
If there was no Igbo Fed. Union,there would not have been Egbe Omo Oduduwa.
*ChiefObafemi Awolowo along with Dr.Oni Akerele, ChiefAkintola Williams, Professor Saburi Biobaku, ChiefAbiodun Akinrele, Chief D.O. A Oguntoye, ChiefAyo Rosijiand others, met inLondon.[1]Their stated aim in setting up the organisation was to unite theYorùbá in a manner similar to the tenets of the Ibibio State Unionand theIbo Federal Union; which were political action committees of the Ibibioand the Igbo respectively.*
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egbe_Omo_Oduduwa?_e_pi_=7%2CPAGE_ID10%2C3361683956