₦airaland Forum

dayokanu:
Discrimination?  Is it not in this same Nigeria that we have Northerners dominating govt appointments? Or are they white people discriminating against blacks?

Is it not in Nigeria that One black group would wakle up and murder a whole village of another black group?.

What pride does an Igbo woman walk on the street of Zamfara?

Nigerians in Europe and America still have the resources to exist, How do you describe a graduate after 6yrs who doesnt have a job. He goes for job interview and was tear gassed by fellow black skinned men

please don't start !!! since when did tribalism equate to racism?  you people have come again with this nonsense!!

no igbo, yoruba or itsekiri  man is treated shabbily when he is in abuja, kano or kaduna  - you better get it right okay

what we have in nigeria is a group of elites who are predominantly from the north who have hijacked the resources of nigeria for their own personal means that is not the same thing as an entire system which has been set up to destroy an entire race of people. please get your analysis and facts right!!!!

hmm i wonder what would make "sir" shina peters attack young, good looking tuface - could it be jealousy

kabukabu50:
I would rather be discriminated against in the US by whites,than by yorubas,Igbos,hausas or any of the 247 other ethnic groups in Nigeria.

thats your choice but i hope you know that the tide is turning fast in the US - foreclosures are on the increase and thousands of americans are loosing their jobs daily, what happens when you cant get a job?

believe it or not there is more to life than making money - although i have to say that most of our people who leave nigeria to come live in the west never really make it big as there are checks within the system which prevent this from happening, but as i  was saying life is not all about making money, its about living, one poster made a very valid point they said most nigerians in europe or america are just existing and they are right!! we are existing- like cogs in a machine we are just components in a large piece of machinery, that is not what being a human being is all about.

Only in our own country can we walk around with pride in ourselves, i have analysed the whole situation and i honestly see nigeria as the last hope for the black race - if we can turn things around and oust those b.astards that have destroyed the country, we will become a beacon of hope to the entire black race.

i can only speak for myself but to some extent i do regret leaving nigeria - there is no place like home, nothing beats being around your own people, nothing beats not being judged by the colour of your skin, nothing beats being respected, here in the  UK no matter what you have acheived as a black person you will be treated shabbily, they smile in your face but they stab you in your back.  The bottom line is they do not want us here, they tolerate us.   But things are changing their economy is on the downward slide and now jobs are being cut. Very soon there will be a backlash against foreigners i am bracing myself for it, when it happens i will leave england finally, but one thing i know is it will definitely come because the UK govt has started implementing austerity measures, their welfare state is being dismantled, very soon the UK will be like america where people on welfare will live in drug and crime ridden ghettoes,

Another thing our people here in the UK fail to appreciate is that the jobs once reserved for foreigners will gradually be taken away from us and given to whites, there is no way that a job will be given to a foreigner in this country where a white person is unemployed, in the past most of the jobs done by foreigners were jobs whites didnt want but now their govt is saying that anyone out of a job will now have to take anything,  this is where we foreigners will find ourselves out of jobs because no british employer will give a job to a foreigner over a white person - the backlash against foreigners is just beginning.

Our people are fake and full of lies, instead of telling the truth about what it  is really like here - many make up stu.pid stories in order to deceive impressionable young ones back home - our only hope is our country we have to make it the paradise we want it to be, here they treat us as if they are doing us a favour by allowing us to live in their country, anyone who says or thinks otherwise is delusional.

yeswecan:
"If we Africans aspire to get developed as Europe we have to look for someplace to milk - this is the fact."

Then we will have to change our mindset, as it is we are content to sit back and imitate europe and america, every nation with exploitative tendencies has also had expansionist tendencies, do we have this kind of outlook? our way of thinking has been destroyed by colonialism and western religion. It has made us weak and directionless, we are simply not yet mentally equipped to think in those terms yet.

amazonia:
@CAP 28

You're right, hindsight is 20/20.
As "a very intelligent and upstanding individual",
Nzeogwu should had weigh the pros and cons
of their intentions in dept.
My criticism of him is not base on the tribalistic
executions of the coup. It is based on their act
of opening or initiating a criminal manner of Govt change.
He or they should have know, that, their own coup certainly
wont be the last. They introduced military criminality to the conscience
to the conscience of the society, certainly, other ambitious officers, or
people were bound to emulate their steps to effect govt change in the future.

You said " Had he succeeded you and i would have been having a totally
different conversations today----"

I disagree with this your above quote. I cannot see anyway he would have
be successful. Though there are chances the coup succeeded, and he had
his ways, by making himself or others the head of govt. But, that certainly
will not be the end of it. Him or whoever he imposed would have be changed
in due course by his inner members or outsider again by violence. So, his
introduction of military criminal intrusion that derailed the young nation is
what i fault him for.
I agree, British colonial elements rigged and manipulated the election to favor
their interest. This their attitude is apparent today in Iraq, Afghan's., Pakistan
and other nations they are working to pacify. However, there are many ways
to tame the shrude. Education of the masses is a better way in my opinion.

Now, you imagine, a condition where there were no military intrusions into
our governance. The 1st, 2ND and all successive administrations were changed
without military- force criminal intrusions. We would certainly have grow and prosper
without all the unnecessary pains we had experienced. So i fault Nzeogwu and his gang
for opening that can of worms (coup) into the nation's consciousness.Military intervention
was/is never a legal frame for effecting a govt change in the constitution. They should have
be treated as a common criminals that they were. And the rightful civilian successors sworn in.

I don't think you really appreciate what Nzeogwu was trying to do during that coup, what we call the January 66 coup was really a revolution. 

You described military intervention as a criminal way of changing govt, i beg to differ - the issue is not the manner in which power is seized but the intention of the people seeking to topple the existing govt - if the intention is to remove a corrupt system in order to address corruption, inequality and injustice then it doesnt matter if it is done by way of military intervention, sometimes it may become necessary to use violence particularly if the elements that you are trying to get rid of refuse to go quietly. 

Fidel Castro seized power from the corrupt puppet govt of Batista in Cuba some of the corrupt officials who refused to go quietly had to be executed because they were a threat to the stability and progress of the incoming revolutionary govt.

Despite all of this Castro has remained in power since 1959 and Cuba is a much better place for the ordinary Cuban, no right thinking Cuban (apart from the beneficiaries of Batista's govt) would want Cuba to go back to how it was before the revolution.

Another example is Libya - Gadaffi seized power in 1969 by way of a coup d'etat in order to depose pro west King Idris, Gadaffi's coup was bloodless however it was welcomed by the Libyan people becaue the former regime was simply incapable of addressing the needs of average Libyans.

To blame Nzeogwu for the succession of coups that have occurred post January 66 is simply a failure on your part to see the truth of what he was trying to do.  These successive coups have merely been power tussles over control of the oil resources, Nzeogwu had a vision as to where he felt nigeria should be and where he wanted it to go, he can never and should never be held responsible for the subsequent power tussles that have been going on in Nigeria.

tensor777:
Well the events you narrated are not in contention. However as I said by 1969 the war was  already over as a strategic contest really, so maybe he was  just concerned about the humanitarian situation in Biafra as many others were.

On the other hand as a Pan Africanist and a proponent of African unity he would not have been in favour of splintering or splitting the "Giant of Africa" if indeed Ojukwu would have been able to accomplish that.

tensor you are missing something here, the fact that Fela was a pan africanist does not mean that he was also in support of the artificial borders that had been imposed upon us by the european colonialists - this splitting or splintering that you talk about was merely a desire by a  people who had been forced into an artificial contraption to break away from it and try and build a life in which they could exert control over their own destiny. 

Would you want to live within close proximity to a murderous and hostile people who killed over 50,000 of your kinsmen?

Would you feel comfortable living with a people who regard you as fair game, to be preyed upon and attacked at the slightest whim?

what is wrong with a people desiring to break away from a dangerous and hostile territory in which ones safety or property could not be guaranteed?

Pan africanism is still possible even if africa splits up into thousands of tiny nations, the important thing is our ability to live alongside each other and have mutual respect for each other, as i ve said before these artificial contraptions were not created to foster unity amongst africans they were created purely to aid the colonial administrators in their plunder and pillage of the continent, the creation of these fake countries gave birth to the creation of various comprador cliques whose job was to take over the reigns of power on behalf of the colonialists.

The british (and the northerners for that matter!!) do not want nigeria to split because if nigeria splits that means their northern puppets will have to say good bye to the oil reserves, why do we like to make simple things seem complicated, its so obvious!!!!

tensor777:
Any concrete evidence to support that wild conjecture? In what way could he possibly have supported Biafra anyway?
You are totally wrong there about my extraction. However I do not analyse such matters through an ethnic or sectarian prism. Personally I am wont to view the civil war as a clash of wills between Gowon and Ojukwu with the latter fatally overplaying his hand with his ill-fated declaration and his odd underestimation of Gowon's diplomatic and persuasive skills.

why is it that whenever someone comes up with something that you find difficult to swallow, you dismiss it as "wild conjecture"? okay watch these:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CX1BYQiohg


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8aK9cVg2bU


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oJdocv4fxA


Sandra Isadore met and dated Fela in Los Angeles in 1969 and Fela himself credits her for his reawakening, Sandra Isadore taught Fela a black african man what it meant to be a proud african, can you see the irony there? Here you had a continental african man who was trying to distance himself from his roots and on the other hand you had an african american woman saying -no be proud of who you are, these white people told us that africa is a primitiive and backward place but i know they are lying and im depending on you to prove these liars wrong!!!


I dont analyse nigeria's events through an ethnic prism either, i analyse them through the prism of objectivity and honesty, there is no sane human being that would look at the injustice of the biafran war and dismiss it in the cynical and detached way that you have been doing since this thread started.   How can you look at the atroctities committed in the name of war and simply wave it off as some sort of battle of the wills between Ojukwu and Gowon?

Gowon's so called diplomatic skills of persuasion would have amounted to nothing had britain not armed and backed him - you better wake up to who is really running the show in nigeria.

tensor777:
Yet another piece of rabid claptrap from nairaland's resident revisionist historian .Just shut it with these baseless speculations.
In the one vein you are saying he was a non-political singer in the civil war period, which is true, then you are implying in this same period that he secretly supported Biafra!
It's all rubbish anyway, as he or any other right thinking Nigerian of non Eastern extraction, had no reason whatsoever to support such a doomed project.
As a matter of fact, the war was over as a strategic contest with the fall of Port Harcourt to the 3rd Marine Commando division in May 1968, well before Fela's visit to the United States. The consequent access to the high seas, control of maritime trade, and the lucrative oil fields put Gowon in an unassailable position.
Thereafter it was a matter of for how long Ojukwu would be able to  maintain tactical resistance before the inevitable capitulation.

the only person who is posting rabid claptrap is you my friend, I am in agreement with Katsumoto - Fela DID support Biafra albeit covertly, what you have to understand is that Fela's identity was still evolving at that particular point in time, it was when he spent time in america with sandra isadore a militant black nationalist  that his eyes were opened to the injustice that prevails in this world against the black man.  Prior to Fela's visit to america he was just like any other african man, totally unaware of what was going on around him just driven by materialism.

He actually says it himself that he didnt know what it meant to be an african because he had been taught to aspire to the ways of the white man by everyone around him, his father sent him to europe to train as a doctor because that is what conservative africans beleived african sons should aspire to.  Fortunately for him he found his true calling which was as a musician. 

It is easy with the benefit of hindsight to describe Biafra as a doomed project but pray tell, what would have been your view if your entire family had been massacred by hausa lynch mobs in the north, if you had watched while your pregnant wife's stomach was split open by marauding gangs of hausa thugs how would you view the idea of seceding from such a group of people?

You say no right thinking NON EASTERN person would support such a project - thats a dead give away as to where you come from, i take it you are a yoruba man?  tell me what it is you have benefitted from your alliance with the hausa fulani oligarchy?  The thing that amuses me is that people like you have the guts to talk about pan africanism as if it is some detached ideology that exists in isolation, how is it that you will make the giant leap of being a pan africanist when you display such callous disregard for people whom you live in such close proximity to.

Let me correct your delusional analysis of the civil war - the nigerian army were only able to defeat biafra because they were financed and armed by britain and russia without the support of those two super powers they would have been forced to negotiate with Ojukwu. 

The fall of Port Harcourt occurred because Britain wanted the oil reserves in that regions secured first as a matter of priority, they did not want Ojukwu in contro of that region under any circumstances because of its financial and strategic importance.  the idea was to encircle and cut him off from that region.  Therefore before you start praising and genuflecting before the alter of these genocidal monsters why dont you take the time to understand things in depth.  People like you are the problem we have in nigeria today, people with no sense of morality, you come on here gloating and laughing over a tragedy which resulted in the death of over 3 million people with no sense of shame, are you aware that more people died in biafra than in rwanda?

tragic

amazonia:
@ CAP28

AS much as i agreed with most of your sound
anallysis of Nigeria/Africa Geo-political situations,
i disagree with your assessments of the first coup
led by Nzeogwu. They laid a bad precedence that we
still suffer from today. Granted the election that
presceded the coup was unfair as was alleged.
However, it wasn't the duty of the military to intercede
that is the work and duty of the elections commission
and the judiciary to probe and correct the irregularities.

The only recourse for aggrieved persons like the majors,
should have been to educate the people for any subsequent
elections. So, is obvious that these young officers did not know
their duties.
After their errors of commission, they should have been court-marshalled
and summarily executed to appease the desecrated spirit of unity of the nation.

amazonia thanks for your comments, i think you have to bear in mind the situation of the country at the time that Nzeogwu and the other majors struck.

Its very easy for us to condemn what he did but you must try and place yourself in his shoes at the time of the coup, this man was a very intelligent and upstanding individual, my only criticism of him is that he was a bit idealistic in that he felt that his co conspirators could rise above tribalism in the same way that he did.  Nzeogwu was unique in that he didnt think in terms of  tribe and he underestimated the deep hold that tribalism has on the average nigerian.  Had he succeeded you and i would have been having a totally different conversation today and my belief is that nigeria would not be in the tragic state that it is in today. 

I think it is naive to expect that the electoral commission would have been capable of remaining impartial at that time, the electoral commission would have been answerable to the colonial govt and if we are saying that the colonial govt were the ones responsible for the election rigging then it would make absolutely no sense at all to expect the electoral commission to override the authority of the colonial govt.

please have a listen to this link and you will see that the outcome of the 1959 elections had already been pre determined by the british.  The british were never going to hand over power to a southerner as we were seen as loose canons and difficult to control, the whole idea was to have a pliable puppet in place who would do as he was told.

by the way nigeria has never been a united country, it is forcefully held together by the nigerian govt because of the oil reserves in the south east.  If there were no oil reserves in the south east, the igbos would have been allowed to secede without any challenge, please try and understand that "nigeria" is a fake contraption held together not for the benefit of its indigenous people but for the benefit of the hausa fulani oligarchs and the british and american oil companies, we the nigerian people are merely pawns in the hands of these people.

here is the link alleging britain's possible involvement in the rigging of the 1959 elections, most of the information highlighting their involvement is contained in two files which are being held in the british national archives here in london and remains classified, this information will not be released to the public until 2060 when we will all be dead!!!!

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/aug2007/nige-a09.shtml


You can also listen to an audio account in which a former colonial officer sent to work in nigeria is consumed with guilt because of what he claims was his involvement in a tragic injustice meted out to the unwitting nigerian people:

http://maxsiollun./2009/01/21/how-the-british-rigged-nigeria/

Sweetnecta:
Politics, they say is a dirty game. for the most part, the saying is correct, and for that "most part" dirtiness, i do not even vote. i have never voted outside private issues within family and friends and my mosque. i do this, when ever i do it only to rid off a person many others and i consider unworthy of the trust that his/her position demands.

I amvery sure most of us on nairaland were post nigerian civil babies. either we now at east accept that the story that we are being told by our ethnic people, be they the victims, culprits, agitators, hoodwinked group[s] or not, it is at best 99% correct and worst in degree less than that. i am certain that it is 100% and it may not be 0%, either.

since this is the case, and we are still one nigeria, let us find a way to move forward, and allow the wound to heal, though the scar may ever remain. part of this process is to realize and i always advocate it among all the people i have my private dialogue with, is lets relagate the oil to something that is not the nation cake anymore. hence we should develop other aspects of our natural resources, vis a vis creating direct and complex industries and unbreakable relationship[s] through it among one another, therefore creating inroad to get along, look towards the future.

if oil is the reason for the war, the new discoveries of some tangible reserves in the ethnic yoruba part seem to me, at least in the long run a diffusion of that hard claim or assumption that future discoveries may not even happen inland. Oklahoma, Texas, California, inlands do quite well in pumping out oil.

while we, the people of the new generation of nigeria, post 1970 babies are fighting about which single man or people or ethnic did us wrong or we beat up, etc, Jack Gowon and Ojukwu are still christian brothers. neither of them renounced his christianity because the other is a christian, nor declare that he opted for another country, so that the two dont carry the same passport. Jack is married to igbo woman, victoria even right there in the height of the war, spending close to 2 million pounds, but didnt stop and say that most of the igbos are christians like him and from them he has picked a wife. infact, the marriages of the military men to women from other tribes, especially the igbos did not soften their hearts for the most part towards their inlaws.

each one of us should try not to have such stone cold heart towards others, for whatever reason they are different from us. i wonder what our future will be if we marry from the other tribes? will this be a glue that will cement us if we are determined to remain acountry? america has done it, struggling a war fought so long ago. why cant we take from their examples? am sure that iraqi willeven have a better view of the americans than we have of the other ethnics. america in her story book will not paint herself as the aggressor in the iraqi war. why do we expect that our view point is the absolutely correct one?

i knew nigeria before the war. lets get back there, in a better way, meeting and excelling over every obstacle and proving ourselves wrong, as nigeria becomes a better society for all of us, and a platform and legacy that all our future yet to be born nigerians, home and abroad with the nigerian blood flowing in their veins can marshal a better singular society on.

If you had read and understood nigeria's history you would not be making the above statements, the reason that nigeria is in the state it is in today is because the country as a whole has been hijacked by a northern cabal of kleptocrats who have no vision and  no long term plan for nigeria's development.

If it were that we had leaders who had a sense of national pride, dignity and self respect we would be halfway there.  What we have instead are a group of semi illiterate gangsters whose only plan for nigeria is to ra.pe it into the ground, and guess what they are doing a very good job of it.

HOw is it that a human being can feel absolutely no shame about stealing from his own people, even the white man who loves money more than life itself has limits when it comes to stealing, in the west you have politicians who steal but not in the way that these scum steal, where have you heard that one man would go as far as stealing $20 BILLION  USD and not only still have the guts to walk around in that same country with impunity but even go as far as running FOR OFFICE AGAIN!!!!!

Your plea that we should try and move forward is being directed towards the wrong audience, it is not the nigerian populace that you should be directing your pleas towards , you should focus on these animals that have sentenced generations of nigerians unborn to a life of enslavement, Fela once talked about a movement against second slavery, i can tell you now that these animals in power have sentenced all nigerians to the second phase of slavery, as long as they remain in power nigerians in and outside nigeria will continue to live as slaves.   Those of you in nigeria should get ready for the second phase of IBB's plan which is the total annihilation of the nigerian economy in which the average nigerian will be reduced to a pathetic and sorry state of unending poverty, for those of us in the west , our position here becomes more and more vulnerable as the west begins to implement policies designed to exclude foreigners from employment.

[/quote][quote author=Hi_Tek link=topic=546403.msg7095147#msg7095147 date=1289131879]It is true that Fela had sympathy for the plight of Biafra. But while the war was going on, he was actually in support of One Nigeria. In fact, he came out with a song in 1969 titled "Viva Africa" where he specifically called for One Nigeria.

The first two stanza of the song are as follows:

This is brother Fela Ransome-Kuti.
This is one time I will like to say a few things
Men are born, Kings are made, treaties are signed, wars are fought
Every country has it’s own problems.
So as Nigerians, so as Africans
Let us bind our wounds and live together in peace
Nigeria, one nation indivisible
Long Live Nigeria
Viva Africa

The history of mankind is full of obvious turning points and significant events
Though tongue and tribe may differ
We are all Nigerians
We are all Africans
War is not the answer
It has never been the answer
And it will never be the answer

You can listen to the song here:

http://nigeriawiki.com/Fela_VivaAfrica.htm

Im sure you know that individuals are constantly evolving beings, fela despite his musical genius is no exception, he admits himself that his views on africa and his own identity changed drastically upon arriving in america in 69 where he was up close and personal with the injustice that blacks over there were facing, his conversion began upon his encounter with Sandra Isadore an african american black panther so i think its safe to say that at the time he released the above record he had not yet undergone this change.

A society that does not accord women equal rights is a society still set in the stone age, just look at the kind of insults people are heaping on the likes of Onyeka Onwenu a respected artist and journalist  with a prolific career in both fields, i may not agree with her politics and the people she chooses to hob nob with but for christ's sake why are people making cheap shots about her personal life.  This is the problem independent and successful women will continue to have in a country like nigeria, many of the men who attack and condemn these type of women do so because they are extremely inadequate in themselves and in a bid to cover up there inferiority complex they resort to character assassination of women who would not give them a second glance. 

Does Onyeka not have the right to stand up and defend an innocent woman who has been wronged? 

In a civilised society 9ice would have found himself lumbered with a very heavy alimony bill and i can assure you he would be too busy running around to raise money to keep Toni and their son comfortable rather than mouthing off to newspapers about his failed marriage.  These people are so fortunate they are not in the west. 

What is Toni Payne's crime that she met, assisted and married an opportunist who later turned round to bite the fingers that fed him and now she is being blamed for the collapse of her marriage, what kind of warped reasoning would make people arrive at such a conclusion?

tensor777:
You can't get away with making such unguarded statements. He actually was so idealistic as not to have any true conception of what he was doing.

What corruption are we talking about anyway at that time?

The one in high and low places where civil servants take bribes and demand 10%? lol. That would be stopped by killing the likes of Balewa who was a very clean ascetic politician?
No trials or convictions just random shootings of politicians and even apolitical military officers.

A so-called puppet regime that broke away from the Queen in 1963 by declaring a republic and rejected the Anglo Nigerian defence agreement?

self delusion is a coping mechanism but i dont think it should be used by us to distort history.

There was nothing clean about Balewa -he was a british pawn.

Yes the Balewa govt was nigeria's first puppet govt, the 1959 elections were rigged and the british knew the results even before they were released.  

Nigeria did not break away from britain but has remained a client state of britain since 1960, there was no way the british were going to let nigeria walk away with billions of dollars in oil reserves this is why they armed the nigerian govt to prevent the secession of biafra along with the oil wells in the south east.

Some of this information has been declassified and can be found in the british public records archives, however most of it is still classified for one hundred years !!!! i wonder what the british govt is hiding -  listen to this:

http://maxsiollun./2009/01/21/how-the-british-rigged-nigeria/


here is a clip of an interview with Nzeogwu:

http://maxsiollun./2008/02/20/interview-with-major-nzeogwu/

KnowAll:
Fortunately for me and unfrotunately for Nzeogwu, I can benefit from hindsight and have a bird's view eye of the events of the 1960's, which you also can benefit from except if you choose otherwise.

The childish bravado of Nzeogwu and the stubborness of not losing face to a perceived inferior officer in the person of Gowon made Ojukwu to go the long haul to wage a war which was not only suciadal but futile and avoidable. This singular event open the ugly sore's insurgency and counter- insurgency in the Miliatary, I would like to believe this cancer has finally been exorcized from our polity.  

but this  your birds eye view has still not enabled you to see the situation for what it is.  The January 66 coup can hardly be dismissed as an incident borne out of "childish bravado", your selective memory is preventing you from seeing that there were serious problems in nigeria which prompted this reaction from Nzeogwu and the other 4 majors.  Unlike subsequent military coup d'etats in nigeria, this particular one was borne out of a legitimate desire to wipe out a corrupt puppet regime.  Subsequent coups have merely been a succession of kleptocrats struggling to get their paws on nigeria's oil revenue.

tensor777:
Did Nzeogwu really know what he was doing? No
Did he have real understanding of the Nigerian polity? No.
Was he even aware of the deep rooted tribalism of his accomplices? No

At the end of the day he was just another reactionary military officer without the self- knowledge and vision that it would take decades of education, Godliness and enlightenment to turn Nigeria towards the path of development.

However the selected killings did trigger a wave of revulsion and anger that only abated with the the flight of Ojukwu to Abidjan in 1970

Nzeogwu knew exactly what he was doing and he had the courage and resolve to stick to his plan, yes the other accomplices were not as principled but that had nothing to do with Nzeogwu, he executed his own part of the plan and the others lost their nerve, hardly his fault was it?
Nzeogwu was an igbo man born and bred in the north, spoke hausa fluently and was able to transcend tribalism, his desire was a nigeria in which all nigerians could have a fair chance in life not the hellish nightmare situation that we are in today.
The problem with us is that we have a twisted sense of morality, we can not even distinguish between who our  friends or enemies are, Nzeogwu may have been an idealist but he was no fool, was it wrong for him to try and steer nigeria back on to the right path, was it wrong for him to try and halt the plans that had been set in motion by the british to keep southern nigerians in bondage to the northern oligarchs.

Okay now that Nzeogwu and other progressives are dead how further forward have we moved?

KnowAll:
That cannot be further from the truth, we need to look at the big picture. A country just don't just wake up and go downward spiral overnight. It starts from somewhere. Nzeogwu sowed the seed of discontent, Ojukwu made it a currency by allowing the un-necessary conflagration of a solvable problem, Abacha and IBB turned it into a relay race where they can keep on changing batons at random, whilst promising heaven and earth and delivering nothing.

It seems as if you have a very selective memory, was it Nzeogwu who was responsible for the corruption and decay that was plaguing nigeria prior to the January 66 coup?
How did Ojukwu create what you call an unecessary conflagration? who started the pogroms in northern nigeria ?

Yes Abacha, IBB and the other northern theifs turned nigeria into their personal fiefdom but please explain why you are roping in Ojuwkwu and Nzeogwu.

tensor777:
You are a curious guy.
Oddly enough until this post I had never associated Fela with tribal or sectional politics in Nigeria. He had a much greater vision than that and in any case he was much too clever  to get involved with that kind of dead-end reactionary ideology.

Im curious because i see things that people like you dont see, first of all Fela had a broader vision for Africa which was rooted in Pan africanism, however he was not  oblivious to the many obstacles that stood in the way of pan africanism he appreciated the fact that the europeans had set us up to fail by melding various ethnic groups into one contraption known as nigeria.  This contraption was and remains doomed to fail along as it remains as one, he knew this but he appealed to all africans as one people, he wanted us to overcome our differences and rise above these differences in order to become a formidable force capable of facing our real enemies (the white man) and defeating them as one force.  Sadly we have not been able to overcome this obstacle.  This is why it was so easy for the igbos to be defeated, the hausas were able to easily co opt the yoruba into a temporary alliance in order to acheive their long term objective which was to get their hands on the oil reserves in the south.  The only way out of this mess is a complete split along ethnic lines, we will still come back to this same point no matter how long we go on with this debate.

KnowAll:
[b]I think " Fela" as a phenomenon is above the trivial tribal bickerings of some SEasterners especially Igbo's,   the whole concept of Biafra is totally out of sync with Fela's pan-africanist movement, for anyone to think Fela can be so belittled to support an agitataion and proclamation based on greed and stubborness is a slight on the phenoenon known as " Fela".

I think some of us don't know when to draw the line by dragging the name of one of African's most celeberated pan -Africanist into a none issue, the whole Biafran agitation and conception is marred in greed, envy and out-right insubordination by some officer's who should know better.

I hope the culprit who is still alive who is assumed to have blown the whilstle for the pillaging and theft to commence in the land is a lot happier man today,  obvioulsy seeing his handiwork play to the gallary, his unprecedented  mutiny has  caused the nation enough pains in the last 40 years.

But does the absconding commander have any remouse hell no !!!, what and how about him inviting the chief Pillager of the nation to his backwaters and not only conferring on him an exclusive Igbo name but his unsavoury proclaimations that every Igbo's far and wide should support his candidacy this more than anything is the sorry state of Igboland in 2010.[/b]

you are talking pure trash, first of all to dismiss the tragedy of biafra as an agitation based on greed and stubborness shows you up for the tribalistic bigot that you are.  Would you speak like this if your entire family had been wiped out by hausa soldiers during their murderous rampage? If you have nothing constructive to say keep your mouth shut.  

Are  you unaware of the fact that igbos were being massacred by lynch mobs in the north, how does that equate to tribal bickering in your deranged mind?  

Fela was a phenomenon there is no doubt about that but to state that he was above the tribal bickerings going on between igbos and hausas during that tragic stage in our history is beyond the pale.  Fela was not a tribalist he beleived in Pan africanism but he also understood where nigeria's problem was coming from, he could see that igbos had been victimised and brutalised by a handpicked group of puppets and he condemned the murderous and brutal way in which the nigerian army dealt with the igbos.  

You have the nerve to talk about pan africanism when you have no love for your fellow nigerian, if you cant even love your igbo brothers and sisters is it someone from another african country that you will be capable of loving?

For you to now try and rope Ojukwu into this whole debate shows you up for the complete i.diot that you are, is Ojukwu the architect of nigeria's downward spiral as we know it today?
oh boy go and look for a transformer to hug, rubbish.

tensor777:
Well he did have a negative message, so yes I stand by that description even though he was quite talented.

For God's sake can you please stop with this your ridiculous talk, what was negative about Fela's message?

You really need to listen to yourself, here we have a man who actually martyred himself for his people and here you are talking about his "negative message" can you talk me through the negativity of his message please.

tensor777:
I have no idea what you are talking about there? Can you be more specific? Who are these oligarchs and kleptocrats? What are their objectives?
I want specific names, and a coherent account of their aims,  objectives, and modus operandi and not airy-fairy conspiracy theories.

I didnt expect you to have any idea of what i was talking about.  Only a nigerian completely removed from reality would openly admit that they are unaware that nigeria has been run by a group of northern oligarchs since 1960.

Perhaps some of these names might jog your foggy memory  - Gowon, Murtala Muhammed(although he was executed later for his pan africanist u turn)
IBB,

Buhari - who went as far as saying that the idea of an igbo man becoming president of nigeria would BE TOO MUCH FOR MOST NORTHERNERS TO STOMACH.

Yaradua - (1 & 2)

plus numerous retired generals and other hangers on and cronies on the hausa fulani oligarchy payroll.

You want a coherent account of thier aims objectives and modus operandi - well first of all these scum have two main aims and  objectives - the first one is  to line their pockets with stolen money from the nigerian treasury.

The second one is  to perpetuate themselves in power and they do this with the help of their friends in the west who supply them with state of the art weaponry  and military training.  This way they use fear to keep the populace in check.  

Their modus operandi is simple - they use violence, repression and brutality to deny generations of nigerians a decent standard of living, thereby condemning generation after generation of nigerians to  a life of misery and grinding poverty.  They are a plague and a scourge on our nation and until they are wiped out we will remain a nation of slaves.

tensor777:
There is no evidence that Fela actually supported Biafra. Although he was indeed notorious for his "whining lyrics" in the latter part of his life I have to be fair to him in this matter.
Ideologically he was more of a Pan-Africanist and would be unlikely to support a reactionary splitting of the Giant of Africa. He has never advocated for that and what's more at the time of the civil war and its aftermath he was very much a non-political pop musician.

I dont know what part of nigeria you are from but honestly you should be ashamed of yourself for describing Fela's lyrics as "whining" honestly.

Fela hated any form of oppression and injustice and this is what propelled him.  His awakening came during his brief sojourn in america where he was introduced to the ideology of the black panther movement and Malcolm X.  Please stop trying to trivialise this great man because he is actually one of the best things that ever happened to Nigeria.

tensor777:
And what physical military adversary does Nigeria face? I am not aware that a state of war exists in Nigeria?
However the weapons of our(children of God) warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge God.
In that wise Nigeria has been lucky to have very great men of God like Adeboye Idahosa and Olukoya whose prayers have pulled down evil strongholds and transformed  lives.,
That is certainly not the case for the likes of Fela who has always been associated with negativism and pessimism.

The fact that bombs are not raining down on the heads of the igbo, yoruba and other southerners does not mean that we are not in a state of war with the hausa fulani oligarchy.    If you have been condemned to life as a second class citizen in your own country, are you not at war with your oppressor? ?

The real war we face in nigeria is actually a war between the hausa fulani oligarchs and some southern traitors who have been co opted into this kleptocracy versus the ordinary nigerian man on the street irrespective of ethnicity.  

Despite the fact that we are not yet hearing the sounds of RPG's, helicopter gunships and surface to air missiles does not mean that we are not at war.  

These so called great men of god you mentioned above will never stand up to be counted when the chips are down, they are very good at praying but not good at openly criticisng these tyrants in power in the way that Fela did, therefore im really not interested in listening to their prayers.

tensor777:
And what economic model do you propose that would enable Nigeria to be "developed" if that matters at the end of the day.
Communism? No way because even if you are soft on Castro you should be able to see that it is a moribund, hopelessly inefficient way of organizing an economy.
So yes, the free market system is here to stay which implies free trade and foreign direct investment and certainly not protectionism or government run enterprises.

we need an economic model which is reflective of our various cultures and communities, it doesnt necessarily have to be communism it has to be something which fits with us a people not an alien concept which condemns us to a life of penury.

the current so called free market model that we are now following has done nothign for us but serve the needs of nigeria's elite and the  imperialist western nations like britain and america.

you have been conditioned to beleive that the western free market model is the only model that can work, but you have never stopped to ask yourself who the winners are under this system, how can you even think that you can benefit from an economic model which dictates to you how much you should sell your natural resources, discourages you from becoming an industrialised economy, advises you to cut public spending, advises you to devalue your currency, encourages you to lay off millions of your people in employment, encourages you to cut spending on health and education of your people - is that the type of economic model that you think can ever be beneficial to nigeria and its people?  but those are all the conditions which nigeria agreed to sign up to when it decided to adopt this so called free market economic model that washington and london advised us to adopt during IBB's tenure in office.

tensor777:
But it is a mark of insanity to keep up with these one size fits all conspiracy theories especially as in this case Nigeria has had 50 years of independence and is a recognized, respected player on the world stage.
As for your figures again you are talking nonsense. After all the current federal budget is just $30 billion with $5 billion for capital development. So how did you  come about the $10 billion per annum figure?

Your naivite is beyond embarrassing!!!!
Nigeria is a recognised respected player according to who are you blind??

Nigeria is a laughing stock, if you dont know, who respects Nigeria, the west just use us as a source of cheap oil, nothing has changed since the days of colonialism, we provide them with cheap raw materials and they dump their cheap manufactured goods on our vast populace.  

Why has nigeria not thought about developing its own manufacturing industry, isnt it about time we learned to manufacture our own products instead of relying on foreign imports, isnt that how every industrialised nation operates.  What happens when the oil gravy train runs out?  what contingency plans do we have in place?

I tell you just like the Titanic , nigeria will capsize and sink without a trace along with these kleptocrats - like i said if we want to progress the nation has to split along ethnic lines, if we dont have the guts to fight for freedom then we should knuckle down and continue living under the heel of the hausa fulani oligarchy, its not that complicated

DapoBear:
I don't give a damn about these other developed countries, I want one for my people, the Yoruba. They are to whom my loyalty lies, and who I want to see succeeding.
You are probably right. But I'm hoping that there is a way to break up the country without war.Lol, nonsense posted by another guy with his head in the clouds. "Emerging market economy", "fastest growing economies",  whose belly does those empty words fill? Get that garbage out of here, the country is a disaster. 20 years ago no light in the country, same today. 20 years ago, no progress, same today.

can you imagine this tensor777!!!!!
this is why we will continue to suffer, if we want freedom we have to fight for it, as i have said in the past no people become free through prayer, every nation that is free today fought for it, why didnt the russians get down on their knees and pray for freedom when the nazis started annexing their territory, why didnt the vietnamese sit down and pray for freedom when the americans started bombing vietnamese men women and children with napalm and white phosphorous.

emerging economies my arse - emerging for whom, who are the beneficiaries of the capitalist free market model - africans or europeans??

tensor777:
I was hoping that you would not derail this thread with your maniacal conspiracy theories. However Nigeria is already progressing being a recognized emerging market economy and having one of the world's fastest growing economies.
Even if it is not progressing, for the sake of argument, how does that affect you personally? After all there are so many countries to live in that are already fully developed if you are thus minded.

are you insane
which maniacal conspiracy theories
are you so dumb that you cant see nigeria is in a downward spiral, are you so delusional that you cant see that we have been in a downward economic spiral since the early 70s, are you aware that  nigeria's kleptocrats squandered THREE HUNDRED BILLION USD from nigeria's treasury IN LESS THAN 3 DECADES ?? IS THAT YOUR IDEA OF PROGRESS

My only criticism of Fela is that the people he died for were not worth the trouble, 13 years after his death we are still in the same shi.t state that we have been in and yet there are some dummies still delusional enough to think that things will actually get better with these kleptocrats in charge, words fail me here honestly

i thought this thread was supposed to be about Fela - why has it derailed

There is no point hoping for the progress of nigeria as one entity because it will never happen, nigeria was set up to fail by the british, they put their houseboys the hausa fulani oligarchy in charge and they are still calling the shots, the only way out of this mess is for the nation to split up along ethnic lines, but that cannot happen without war, the igbos tried it and were massacred - there is no solution in sight other than stay together and continue under the heel of hausa fulani domination or break up and war - those are the only options on the table as far as i can see.

EzeUche0:
cap28,

I agree with you whole-heartedly. The whole world recognizes Fela as a great man. He had his shortcomings, but his music transcended it all! It is a shame that many Nigerians could not learn from his songs.

I heard that there was a play on Broadway about Fela.

The New York Times did a wonderful article on the play.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/theater/22fela.html

That man was ahead of his time.

yes there is indeed a broadway play which has been running since last year i think, the performance is coming to london and i shall be going to see it in december.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/oct/31/fela-kuti-musical-neil-spencer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/oct/26/fela-kuti-stage-show

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2010/oct/27/fela-kuti-national-theatre-london

Ezeuche thanks for posting this very uplifting post. Knowledge is essential to the evolution of mankind, i have always loved Fela and his message, just like Carlos Moore i too was electrified by Fela's music when i first heard it many years ago. To date there has never been any african artiste greater than Fela and going by the current crop of fake talentless imbeciles masquerading as musicians on the nigerian music scene it will be a long time before another star with the same originality, genius and outstanding talent as Fela will arise, even his sons Femi and Seun whom i love and respect can not hold a candle to Fela's gargantuan genius.

What i find really tragic though is that Fela seems to be revered and respected more by foreigners rather than his own people, this is the problem we will continue to have as a people, Fela used his music to enlighten and educate the nigerian masses about the tyranny that we remain under to date. In one of his songs "look and laugh" he got to a point where he was so disillusioned with the nigerian masses and our unwillingness to change our situation that he became resigned to the situation himself. Even when soldiers stormed his house killing and maiming innocent people, noone stood up to protest against such a heinous act, if such a thing had occurred in a latin american country or even south africa the people would have risen up to challenge the brutality of this action but instead what we got was cowed silence from a population of over 150 million people, a people who have the nerve to describe nigeria as the giant of africa without even a hint of irony!!!

Fela was one of the greatest things that ever happened to nigeria and he will go down in history as one of our greatest heroes, i am so grateful for people like Carlos Moore who recognised the genius of this man and took it upon themselves to place the need for truth, honesty and justice above personal gain. You can see that even a co opted member of the nigerian establishment - the inspector general of police at the time had to respect Carlos Moore for his principled conduct, how many nigerian journalists would opt for truth and justice over personal gain?

I am really looking forward to reading this book and i shall be trawling amazon to see if i can find it, again thanks for this Ezeuche.