₦airaland Forum

demmy: Only that there are no truth to what he said. He didn't like it that Awolowo was part of Gowon administration even though he himself was a Biafra propagandist. He was on Radio Biafra spreading hate toward other Nigerians. Has he apologized for his action during the war? For all the hateful things he said?

AK 48: because they wanted to make awolowo the president,read well Bros

Abagworo: It still baffles me how killing of innocent people is a thing of joy to non-Igbos. Why all these hate and envy? Even if Nzeogwu killed all the Western leaders, they should have killed back Igbo leaders and not Igbo civilians who had nothing in common with Nzeogwu or politics. What an average Igboman believes is in success of his endeavor whether education, sports or business and does not know the next man until he succeeds. Whatever ethnic consciousness an Igbo has stems from discrimination from a combination of other Nigerians. Why are people mad that Igbos are living and investing in their area? Why can't they do same? In Igbo culture, we protect strangers rather than kill them off at the slightest provocation as other people do us.

jennykadry: The way they killed those boys? The massive sticks they hit them with? The way they stripped them naked? Even when ugo tried to move away from the fire, you could still see them pushing him in and a woman's voice saying "that one no wan die"......

lacasa: Ibraheem A. Waziri
NORTHERN NIGERIAN MUSLIMS AND THE NIGERIAN CIVIL WAR: BETWEEN ACHEBE AND OTHER IGBO INTELLECTUALS
By
Ibraheem A. Waziri
iawaziri@yahoo.com

It’s just that ignorance reign in Nigeria or our public intellectuals do not have passion for details and deep philosophical enquiry into the nature and realities of our socio-cultural formation and its history for the best of their opinions. These can be the only open and not so stretched explanations to Chinua Achebe’s blatant, below status and insincere depiction of the Nigerian Civil War of 1967 - 70 in the light of a so called jihadist expansionist goal of Muslims of northern Nigeria. The excerpts of his latest book, There Was a Country, as published by the UK Guardian, Tuesday, 2nd 2012, make bold this meaningless assertion:

“But if the diabolical disregard for human life seen during the war was not due to the northern military elite's jihadist or genocidal obsession, then why were there more small arms used on Biafran soil than during the entire second world war? Why were there 100,000 casualties on the much larger Nigerian side compared with more than 2 million – mainly children – Biafrans killed?”

Needless to mention that Achebe is not alone in this kind of portrayal that is typical of recent Igbo ‘intellectuals’ when it comes to discussing the civil war. The task of re-educating them and the crop of their students is therefore necessary if the dream of a greater Nigeria in fair neighbourliness is to be realized.

Yes, northern Nigerians are mainly and majorly proud and faithful Muslims with unique culture and a record of close interactions with other world civilizations since time. They have for long known and understood that not everybody must look like them or believe in what they believed in, before peace, social cohesion and fair neighbourliness are justifiably established. In fact it can be authoritatively said that northern Nigeria of the 1960s, formed one the most cosmopolitan and accommodating social spaces in the whole world. When the Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah wanted to initiate and draft Nigeria’s prime minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and the premier of the northern region Ahmadu Bello into his Pan-Africanism they clearly told him that they were not racists and believed in the universal nature of truth, justice, fairness and equality of humankind regardless of race or ethnicity and that reflected the way they managed northern Nigeria and the country in general.

[b]It was this world-view with its values and norms guiding intra and inter-pinning of human relations that saw a northern Nigeria of the 1960s as a home to many Igbos. In modern history the top one percent of the most literate and influential Igbo personalities once lived in northern Nigeria or spoke Hausa, the dominant language in the North. It was here that Major Chukuma Kaduna Nzeogwu’s parents settled and gave birth to him in 1937. He grew up with all opportunities unhindered and got the award of love, justice and trust of the then premier of the Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello until he finally, easily and safely got access to him, in the night, in his house, in the privacy of his bedroom and killed him in front of his wife with no struggle, no any suspecting guard to check him or even ask him hard questions. It is finished. Brutus killed his Caesar in cold blood of treachery, hatred and breach of trust. Describing a similar situation in the same operation kill, where Major Ifeajuna an Igbo soldier and Major Nzeagwu’s co-kill planner ad partner, shot Brigadier Maimalari, Bernard Odogwu, an Igbo Nigerian Diplomat at the times of the events, in his book, No Place to Hide - Crises and Conflicts inside Biafra, clearly put it, “I am particularly shocked at the news that Major Ifeajuna personally shot and killed his mentor, Brigadier Maimalari. My God! That must have been Caesar and Brutus come alive...”[/b]

What then could have been the fate of other Igbos in many parts of the North who enjoyed the same love, trust and protection of the other northerners who began to see a new streak of arrogance, condescension in the behavior of the Igbo who were illussioned in the new leadership of [b]General Ironsi to the extent that , as told by our parents, they used to mock the northerners, imitating the cries and squeaks of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa before he died in the hands of Major Ifeajuna. Still Igbo intellectuals engage in this mockery as the Nigerian military historian Max Siollun, recently re-told the story of Nzeogwu’s kill which clearly portrayed Ahmadu Bello as a coward and a simpleton who hide behind his wife when he saw that Nzeagwu was certain to get him. These provocations and the details of stories such as captured by David Muffett, a British colonial officer who wrote the account of the 1966 coup in a book titled, Let Truth Be Told, outlining the Igbo elite’s detailed plan to take control of not only the political structures but even the social structures of the North by killing all the then northern emirs in the final.

Some including Achebe are still contesting that the kill was not an Igbo carefully planned affair but rather a coup plotted against all Nigerian leaders of then. Yet all Igbos in prominent positions were missed in the fire and it was said the president, Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe was missed because he was out of the country for a medical checkup. The question is could they have missed Sir Ahmadu Bello or Abubakar Tafawa Balewa if any was on a medical trip or they would have postponed the plans for more appropriate date that would guarantee and ensure an all inclusive kill?[/b]

Yet, the pogroms that followed the events and the civil war were unfortunate (more objective details of which were written by Elechi Amadi in Sunset at Biafra). But the characterization of Northerners as Muslim jihadists who were already prepared and ready to stage a ‘holy jihad’ against Igbo, as a reason for the war is very untrue and intellectually insincere. Just because Igbo intellectuals have to find reasons then it doesn’t mean every reason must be dashed out. Just because they need someone to blame doesn’t mean the 21st century image of fundamentalist Islam must be projected backward into the story of Nigeria to justify a perspective.

No. [size=18pt]The truth of the matter is Igbo betrayed the trust given to them in the then northern Nigeria by the singular act of betrayal of Nzeagwu on Ahmadu Bello and the subsequent poor management of their relationship with their hosts that bred suspicion of complicity in the plans of the kill and a thought of greater conspiracy.[/size]

The way forward is to always tell the truth, accept faults, take responsibilities for errors and constantly preach the gospel of keeping trust, commitments and fair neighbourliness. Let’s make the younger generation and the entire world know that we are one in Nigeria and the top one percent of Igbo most informed political and public intellectuals lived in the North or even spoke Hausa. This ranging from Chinua Achebe himself, Cyprian Ekwensi, Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeagwu, General Emeka Ojukwu or Dr. Nmandi Azikwe. Cyprian Ekwensi even copied and translated the literary work of my uncle, John Tafida Umaru titled, Jiki Magayi, from Hausa to English, titled it African Nights Entertainments, and dubbed it his own without acknowledgement, adding to his literary stock, achievement and fame. The world must know the good contribution their living in the North and speaking its language brought into their skills and perspectives that which won them the accolades they so celebrate and rejoice in, today, a fact which they and their friends always want to hide!

ACM10: Rubbish!

Katsumoto: I wasn't impying that it was justified; merely telling the reality of life. Not everyone is reasonable.

van bonattel: What proportions, or you mean criminality?

van bonattel: Is it a crime for them to be rational and take down the offenders and let the rest of the people be? Oh! I forgot its only humans that can afford the luxury of rationalism and not those................ well WTF!

van bonattel: the example of the WTC, cannot work here because the American masses did not invade muslem communities and started to kill and rappe small muslim girls. Remember the defiance of Saddam and Afghan authorities. Those two scenarios has nothing in common with the blood thirsty crowds who has continued to hold this country down, not because of the coups of 50 years ago, but because they are bloody beastly vampires. Can you compare America with Nigeria today. Please, lets not compare apples with oranges here.

van bonattel: And supposing the person throwing the first punch was a lunatic and very incapable of thinking an action through?, does it justify the killing of 30,000 of his brethrens who knew nothing of the crime?

Would it have been good to gun down the whole of Ondo state for instance, just because MKO committed a treasonable felony against the FG?

van bonattel: I am not ready to curse and scream this night, lets get to the bottom of all these in peace and quiet.

van bonattel: You are avoiding the truth my friend

Ngodigha1: Eku bear na wa for you ooh!. Gradually you have become a tribalist.
The coupist were after civilians whom they felt were corrupt, in that case Ironsi wasn't a civilian.
Osadebe, what has he done wrong in a new state created before the coupist struck?. He wasn't marked out for assasination as he wasn't corrupt.
On Zik, could they have killed him in another man's country?.
Okwara, at the time of the coup was with ministers of other countries, or else, they would have arrested him or killed him if he resists arrest just like the not so smart ones did.