₦airaland Forum

735i:
I respect the person mopping up diamond bank. The shakeouts are quite intense. I just offloaded at N1.07... see me now..wetin i gain?

I was tempted to run out of diamond at 1.07 too just a while ago but me sef wan try my guts like Agba.

Mcy56:
Well done sir. Nsempa is media and audit reports too ba.
The guy, edwardaigb narrowly escaped skye hammer just the very last day going by his posting here after skye died.
You think he was 100% serious that village people caused his not buying diamond?
If you got your hands burnt before, you'll be extra careful.
Not totally against your online villagers anyway but I think it has both its advantages and disadvantages.
I rest my case.

From my experience the hammer falls on banks not exactly at the time the media first reports bad news about the bank's wobbly financials. It happens much later when all the bad news seem to have subsided completely and the media has forgotten.

You will recall that Skye Bank palaver was first, albeit faintly reported about November 2016 and in 2018 when all somewhat appeared cool the hammer just fell. Same with Afribank, Spring Bank and Bank PHB.

Even if CBN hammer falls on Diamond Bank this Monday just ahead, what I put in at 66k on Thursday last week will not be enough to send me back to the village.

Princkez:
my brother no be village people, nah the fear of Skye bank

The so much talked about village people are all actually NSEMPA members.
Whoever doesn't follow his own mind on NSEMPA easily becomes a victim of online villagers who actually live in the cities.

Mcy56:
Think it should be at least 5k.

I started with Morgan on a zero balance account.

Organs:
Is ozobulu not in igboland? Abeg keep quiet. Nigeria as a whole used to be peaceful, but now churches and mosques everywhere, plenty religiosity and plenty wickedness..... We as a country are guilty of it. Those beheading people and those selling fake drugs and killing people as well as those using people for rituals are all killers and they abound everywhere and in all tribes. Stop claiming superiority and by the way, the igbos introduced military coup and killings into our democracy and we have not been the same ever since!

Thank you for reminding that guy that his tribe introduced military rule into this country thereby creating the militant and violence prone mindset in the average Nigerian.

Mpeace:
Dem dey use Dow threaten us. When dow fell by500points they came here to say world economy don finally crash. One even asked us to "brace for impact" what ever that means.

Very aptly put.

3rdeyeNigeria:
Nnamdi Azikiwe is guilty as charged, same as those half baked educated Igbos on the parliament.

Now my point... My grandfather was alive then, he was a community head. He wasn't educated.

He was more involved in his local domain politics till the counter coup progrom started.

It was the wake up call.

He was never part and parcel of Zik arraingment, Zik grew up in the north, started his political career in Lagos.

Him and his fellow political jobbers from the east never made any popular decision nor decision that would promote the Igbo tribe as you are painting it.

If you say Zik made mistake in insisting on one Nigeria that was not workable out of lust for power , you are right 100%
But if you say "Igbos" made the mistake because the son, their daughter, their adoption son, their kinsman, their legislator Who is an independent Soul, human being made a decision out of personal greed it makes every Igbo man complicit because they share one tribe (perhaps to your philosophy one brain and one conscience) then they is a problem somewhere.

You seem to be of the opinion that Zik elected himself to the parliament.
It was a democratic era, and democracy is all about collective responsibility and law of agency.

3rdeyeNigeria:
Understand this very important fact.
An average Igbo man (both in politics, paliarment or Main market) does not act to promote his tribe. He thinks about himself, his family, then his community rarely about his tribe or tribesmen.
They is no emotional connection.

Someone like Awolowo built schools, gave free education, he always wanted to push the Yoruba race forward... People like Zik actions were for personal gain Igbo race is not in their dictionary.

Same as current South East Governors, they have conveniently endorse Buhari since June which from current indication it is not a near popular decision and they are on their own as usual.

Let me ask a very dangerous.
God forbid, let say one of those governor (like Rocha.. God forbid) , out of personal intrest and greed conspire with some coupist and they murder the president. People like you would say it was Igbos, your son, your governor that kill him.

Then if people like us say that the governor acted on his own and should be treated as an individual murderer, your type would say why did "we" not impeach him.

Like I said, Everyman should be judged for his own sin. That's only when Nigeria can develop.

The example of instance you gave is not really analogous to the case in question. The difference here is that Okorocha's possible conspiracy with soldiers to kill the president would definitely not be known to the public to warrant other tribes asking why didn't Igbos impeach him while he did it. But Zik's advocacy against secession clause and his one Nigeria sloganeering were all out in the open with his fellow Igbos in the parliament cheering him on and terming him a nationalist while helping him hang the 'tribalist' label on the necks of those who chose to face the reality of the non-workability of Nigeria.

3rdeyeNigeria:
However sad and shameful, this your submission appear almost right except for one single error which we Nigerians are always guilty of.

Anytime I hear an educate fellow using the terms "your kinsman", "Your Son" I get disappointed.

They was no time Igbo tribe uniformly made (or agree to make) those decisions Zik, Aguiyi Ironsi, Nzougwu made.

They were individual, independent, humans, power hungry... They made an exclusive decision.

It would be so grossly unfair and stupid to judge your whole tribe for an action you individually took.

And then they was no internet and free flow of information as it is now therefore 98% of Igbos never knew what was really happening.


My point is say No to generalisation and grouping.

Unfortunately you couldn't see that the person I responded to started the generalization and I only gave it back to him in his coin.
However, contrary to your position, Zik was voted into the parliament by Igbos to represent and lead them just like every other political leaders of the time.
If Igbos didn't approve of Zik's myopic position on those issues, then why didn't they recall him despite the process was even easier under colonial era than now?
Please recall as well that Ironsi's Unification Decree was a product of advice from his nearly 100% Igbo advisory committee headed by the Professor Nwabueze now chanting restructuring all over the place.

gidgiddy:
This going back what happend 50 or 60 years won't help anyone in 2018. We all need to join hands and get government to conduct a referendum so that those who still believe in the Nigerian dream can continue, and those of us who are tired of Nigeria can exit

Then you have to first demonstrate sincerity by doing away with this attitude of blaming everyone else for the difficulty and near impossibility of leaving the cesspit. If you must point accusing fingers at all, it must be towards Zik and Ironsi who started it all. If you can do that we will all come together to share ideas on how to join hands and crush this contraption. After all we were the first to move the motion and are always ready to do it again provided we are sure you won't sabotage it again. But once you start pointing accusing fingers wrongly, you will stir unnecessary controversy like the one here which will surely distract everyone from focusing on the more needful.

gidgiddy:
You never had any foundation to begin with. You are just a product of the British enforcement of ethnic groups against their will into A colonial project called Nigeria. Bynthe time the British were preparing to go, you so called 'Nigerians' were already masacaring each other in a clear sign that we are not meant to be together. When the British left in 1960, the killings continued. The census crises, 1964 election crises and operation wetie of 1965. Nigerians were killing themselves in huge numbers and the military stepped in January 1966, but people l8ke keep saying that Nigeria was fine until the first coup when there was already fire on the mountain.

Then this first coup, people like Major Ademoyega, Captain Adeleke, Lt Oyewole and It Egbiko were all Yoruba participants. So what percentage of the coup was Yoruba?South Korea had Military coups, today they are a generation ahead of Nigeria. Ghana had Military coups , today Ghana is a success story in Africa. You people are still moaning and blaming the first coup 52 years later

Even when the Igbos you are complaining about declared their independence and went their way, you Nigerians declared war and fought to bring Igbos back into the fold

The history of Nigeria had finally proved to even a blind man that Lugard made a catastrophic mistake bringing us together in 1914. We are more divided today than in 1960. It is now time to call a spade a spade, conduct a referendum and allow those who have been choking in unholy union to exit and start afresh

First and foremost, I am not Yoruba and it is actually ill-informed to think that whoever is intelligent enough to discern that Ironsi's Unification Decree destroyed Nigeria must be Yoruba. By always so insinuating you Igbos actually unduly credit Yorubas with superiority of mental faculty over those of all other Southern tribes.
Per the bolded, all Nigerian tribes had immediately after the amalgamation realized and admitted that fact. Only you Igbos chose to deny the obvious in preference for living under the illusion of the fraudulent 'one-Nigeria' created in the greedy imagination of your father Azikiwe who colluded with the same British you now so much deride to sabotage all other tribes' calls for a reversal of Lord Luggard's blunder at a time it could have been peacefully and bloodlessly done if you Igbos had cooperated. But in your selfish hidden agenda already foreshadowed by the earlier declarations by your kinsmen Zik and Charles Onyeama that it was just a question of time for some Igbo gods to give the British contraption over to you Igbos dominate and totally own, you did all you could to encourage the sustenance of the colonial enforcement which you never agreed it was despite knowing deep down in your mind that it actually was. who therefore was most guilty of knowing that Nigeria was not fine and could never really become fine but preferred to believe the contrary if not you Igbos?
The pre-independence massacres and disturbances could be ascribed to the fact that Nigerians were yet to produce a constitution by themselves and for themselves. But at independence, we successfully did that and we all mutually consented to it. However, problem started again when you Igbos colluded with the North to produce a coalition government which began to undermine key aspects of that constitution by way of aiding and abetting the anti-constitutional acts of Balewa like the undue interference in the purely internal affairs of the Western Region. At that point you Igbos didn't realize that all was not well. But once your collusion with him eventually emboldened Balewa to rig censuses and elections to such a degree of brazenness that boomeranged againt you Igbos yourselves, you suddenly realized that Nigeria was a colonial contraption and rather than sponsor a motion to restore your earlier rejected secession clause to enable you get out, you rather tried to seize power through a coup with the purview of making your own constitution and imposing it on Nigeria. While that appeared to have been successful under your kinsman Ironsi, your earlier realization that Nigeria was a colonial contraption waned again and gave way to domination agenda inspired patriotism in pursuit of which you almost killed an Ijaw man who dared declare the secession you later hypocriticaly started asking for. You even went as far as quickly and unilaterally adjusting the constitution once more to make the Anti-secession Decree. Ironsi, on your behalf, toyed with the constitution as it pleased you in your dubious pursuit of your domination agenda, and all that while you cheered in him on because Nigeria was still fine in your eyes. But once Ironsi was kicked out by your old friends and allies, the Hausafulanis, beating you to your domination agenda game, Nigeria again began to appear as British enforcement in your eyes.
This is the ever shifting opinion of you Igbos about the legality of Nigeria. So who really takes you seriously?

gidgiddy:
That is lame, stupid excuse. There is no country that did not go through military coup in West Africa, with the exception of Cameroon. Ghana had had a military coup in 1966, just like Nigeria, and several in the 70's and 80's. Today, Ghana has risen above its past and has had over 40 years of democracy. If Nigeria could not rise above its first coup then it all lends to the fact Ojukwu and Kanu have been saying, that the Igbo man should be allowed to exit Nigeria. All the military coups in Africa, the military always suspends the constitution and introduce decrees, that's how they operate.

If Nigeria could not get its act together after the first coup and over 50 years , we should not be together

A South African saying says "If a couple can not get past their first what All, they have no future together"

That is a stupid escapist response in denial of responsibility. Nigeria is far larger, more populated, more diverse and far more complex than Ghana and every other West African country to recover from a destroyed foundation so soon.
That there was military rule in other West African countries doesn't justify its introduction to Nigeria. From Independence we purposed and destined ourselves to be greater than all those countries, so why should we have immitated their retrogressive ways while calling ourselves the Giant of Africa and their big brother who should have set the example of nation building?
Only a very stupid people would rationalize a stupid action of theirs with the claim that everyone else once did it.
Did the US we were hoping to be like ever have military coups?
We are not even really talking about the Jan 15 1966 coup which was just a treasonable offence against the state but that Ironsi destroyed and violated the very first ever mutual agreement we ever all consented to as our terms of coexistence thereby sowing the seeds of the perpetual distrust that has held us back and made it difficult for Igbos to get the exit they so desire as those who are supposed to work with them to get it don't trust them as good potential allies given Ironsi's treacherous dealing with Nigeria on their advice.

The same South Africa which made that saying you quoted also set up Truth and Reconciliation Committee to look into the past with the purview of addressing the mistakes made at the foundational stage before they as a people could get past their first and have a future together. So we must address the Ironsi blunder which Igbos must first admit and apologize for in the spirit of truth before we can either move forward as one country or part ways. Anything short of that will not be tolerated from Igbos.

gidgiddy:
Atiku, this has gone beyond firness, equity and justice. If 100 years since the creation of Nigeria and 58 years since independence, we are still looking for firness, equity and justice within Nigeria, it is time to call it quits. These things should be the minimum expectation of being part of Nigeria.

As an Igbo man, I am highly embarrassed to hear about countries like Gambia- 1.8 million people, Mauritius -1.3 million people, and you want a 45 million strong Igbo nation to stay in Nigeria looking for firness and equity?

That's not good enough! I want my own country! I am tired of fighting with Hausa and Yoruba everyday in an endless quest for nationhood that does not exist

I want independence

But at independence, we had a constitution which guaranteed everyone fairness, equity, justice and sense of belonging only for an Igbo man to introduce military rule with which he subverted that constiution, replaced it with another one that bred all these chaos, oppression, social injustice, winner takes all, repression, etc. that have become our lot ever since then. So whose fault is that we are where we are today?

gidgiddy:
The 1945 Jos massacre
1953 Kano massacre
1964 census crises
1965 operation 'wetie

There was already huge problems long before the January 1966 coup. Only an ignorant person will say that Nigeria's problem started with the first coup that has been mischievous dubbed an 'Igbo coup'

Agreed that all these massacres up North predated the Jan 15 1966 coup. But should the Igbos have tried to avenge those massacres by embarking on a coup which took the lives of fellow southerners whose tribes never at anytime massacred Igbos?
And after those massacres had happened in the North, wasn't it still the Igbos that later invented the 'one-Nigeria' slogan and demonized other tribes for asking that Nigeria be immediately dismembered on account of those very massacres, colluded with the British to sabotage the motion for secession clause, and later sabotaged the very first secession declaration by Ijaws?

gidgiddy:
We don't need to do anything. Whenever we Igbos declare our own country and go our way, it will be you Nigerians that will come to fight war to bring us back into 'one Nigeria'

It was you Igbos that invented the 'one-Nigeria' fraud and were also the first to fight war against and bring back to 'one-Nigeria' those who declared their country.

bestman09:
The average igbo man sees every part of the country as a home and is ready to develop it to the best of his ability. The average igbo man do not hate the hausas/fulani or yoruba man.
What the average igbo man hates is bigotry, lying, laziness, religious extremists and fanatics, pretenders like Buhari. Buhari has never managed a successful business, yet feels he is best for Nigeria. Even his cows has continued to be 150 since 1999, no increase whatsoever.

We support Atiku because he doesnt claim to be a saint like Buhari.

Ironically it was an Igbo man who destroyed the initial structure that encourages competition and industriousness, and replaced it with this one that encourages laziness, sense of entitlement, waiting for handouts from the FG, etc.

PrecisionFx:
only page 114 shows on the link. goat

Then you don't know how to search through an e-book. Pig!

PrecisionFx:
Ur useless link only shows one page about how the 3 regions shared the money they saved.

Every other thing u wrote is as meaningless as the previous ones

That is page 114. I asked you to check page 91. Which school did you attend?
Of course every other thing I wrote is useless because they put paid to your attempted revisionism.

PrecisionFx:
Ur post is filled wit the usual blatantly false information flying around the Nigerian space for decades.

"" 4. why did it elicit deadly riots targeted at Ironsi's kinsmen in the North? ""

There was no deadly riots targeted at Ironsi's kinsmen in the north because of the provincial government.



"" Your stories on the wealth of Eastern Region unfortunately stands in contradiction to the mass migration of Igbos to all other regions in search of greener pastures back then and till today""

The Jews are known to travel to every part of the world, does that mean they are poor and searching for greener pastures?

The Chinese are presently found in every part of the world, does that mean that they poor n searching for greener pastures?

Igbos left Enugu n migrated to Chad n Niger n Zamfara n gombe n etc which are very poor places, far poorer than the SE, does it mean that they went to poor countries to look for greener pastures? Pls how old are u?




Igbos were known to be travellers from time immemorial. Ojukwus father who was at a point the richest man in Nigeria lived in Niger state n thus Ojukwu was born there. Anyone sighting migration as being caused by poverty needs to get his head checked.

Attached to this post is a chart of earnings of each region of Nigeria in the past, Eastern Nigeria generates 10 times of what Yoruba land generates n yet igbos kept travelling in the midst of that unprecedented wealth.

There were deadly riots targeted at Igbos sequel to Ironsi's blunders. The book link below authored by an Igbo man chronicles it vividly in page 91. I guess the Igbo author too is guilty of the spread of blatant falsehood for decades, right?
https://books.google.com.ng/books?id=Zm7sWUbDWakC&pg=PA114&lpg=PA114&dq=What+did+Western+Region+export+in+the+Sixties&source=bl&ots=rWxj8KJa41&sig=WzBeOKEJ45TYeU2IXDIV7dVDi84&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjh1o3U0tHeAhVLy6QKHWtSAPoQ6AEwEHoECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=What%20did%20Western%20Region%20export%20in%20the%20Sixties&f=false

The case of Igbos is not really comparable with that of the Jews because the high number of Jews in the diaspora is as a result of their forceful eviction from their fatherland in 70 AD by Arabian Invaders as prophesied to them by Jesus.
Now, who ever invaded Igbo land and forcefully evicted them into the diaspora they find themselves in today? None! Rather, their exit to other regions was spontaneous hence in serach of greener pastures.

Igbos' migration to remote parts of Chad, Zamfara and other Northern states is borne out of the search for markets less saturated hence holding out better patronage for their trades than those back home. This is still a form seeking of higher chances of survival and prosperity.

The Chinese in the diaspora are a negligible fraction of the home based population and are mostly on special technical expertise contract invitation by the government of the host countries. They didn't leave China spontaneously to go and search for greener pastures outside. Same with the nationals of other wealthy countries like the USA, UK, Germany, Canada, France, Russia, etc.
The Nigerians resident in these countries left home due to the lower chances of survival and prosperity which Nigeria held out for them.

It has now become a matter of how old I am? What are books written for if only age confers knowledge of the past on people? You believe Lord Luggard Amalgamated Nigeria in 1914 as you are told. How old are you to have believed that 'tale'? How old are you to have seen with your eyes that the Eastern Region was the richest as you claim here?

You obviously are the one who needs medical check for reasoning against a biological truism. Only a cursed people would entirely on their own free will abandon their homeland supposedly flowing with milk and honey and migrate in droves for other people's lands believed to be ravaged by poverty, squalor, relative barrenness and famine, hunger, filth, etc. Why do you Igbos reason against commonsense and simple logic? No wonder Ironsi decided to further donate more powers to the center in trying to solve a problem caused by the center's abuse of power. What an anomalous people!
It is like Donald Trump trying to reduce incidents of Americans' gun abuse by making a policy which speeds up the process of gun license acquisition.

As you have been told by Diadem, the statistics you posted is not specific on which region produced which commodity and in what amount. It is a lumping up of all the quantity produced by all the regions involved. If your Eastern Region produced most of the palm oil then, then how come the current largest exporter of the commodity is not an Eastern state?

Chemcrown:
Honestly, you took the latter part of your explanation sharply from me.
In addition, while the West was developing structurally, economically, economically, technically... in fact, in all areas, the East were busy drinking their palmoil and cracking the palm kernel to soak garri.
Don't forget that some of their fore fathers even run to the West to enjoy free education the cocoa money fetched.

You know that these folks just make bogus claims without any logical restraint.
It is a principle in Biology that migration naturally happens towards the area where the chances of survival and prosperity are higher.
It is on record that Igbos so much flocked to the Western Region that they alone were the only non-native tribe prominent in enough numbers to be given elective seats in Western Assembly by Yorubas. Meanwhile migrations from the West and North to the East were hardly heard of.
A school of thought is of the opinion that Ironsi's attack on the strictly federal constitution was actually informed by the fact that sustenance of regionalism constituted an obstacle to a full blown Igbo infiltration of the other three regions in search of livelihood which was relatively difficult in their own Eastern Region. It was so bad that even Zik, the overall Igbo leader who owed them the moral obligation to provide their much needed visionary and exemplary leadership, was not as thrilled by the prospect of governing his own Eastern Region as he was with the prospect of governing the Western Region.

PrecisionFx:
"" I asked how a set of coupists desirous of unitary government could have rooted for a federalist to head it.""

And who told u the Hausa, Yoruba n Igbos that exacted the january 1966 coup were desiring a unity government


Key points.


""The former regions are abolished[/b], and Nigeria grouped into a number of territorial areas called provinces. . . .
""

This is a mere change of name. Provincial governance is same as regional governance. It is simply a type of regional government.





""The provisions of the Decree are intended to remove the last vestiges of the intense regionalism of the recent past""

""
he shall exercise executive power".
""

"" Government indicates clearly what it proposes to accomplish before
relinquishing power. ""

This is simple English, Remove the last vestiges of INTENSE regionalism, Not just regionalism....That is reducing the power of the regions n move the nation closer to the centre in order to maintain peace n prevent the bloody happenings that brought about a military takeover at the time.

Executive Power is still allowed for each military provincial governor or leader.

Nigeria back then had very strong regions, In fact it was even closer to confederation of states n such extended powers helped the first coup greatly, back then each regions armed forces were controlled by the region.

He also stated clearly that there were things the supreme military council have set aside to achieve before power goes back to civilian government.





"" As for resource control; recall that he also centralized the civil service ""

Centralizing the civil service does not in anyway mean that each region stopped controlling their resources. Besides back then even before 1966 coup, there was still federal civil servants n regional civil servants.





Eastern Nigeria was by far richer than Yoruba n Hausa regions back in the days so there was absolutely no need for aguiyi to end resource control n thus leading to a situation where eastern nigeria would be sharing 100% of their resources wit other regions.

Back in the olden days before 1960, Palm oil was making around 1.8 million pounds annually for Nigeria n cocoa was making a mere 157,000 pounds annually for Nigeria. just Palm oil alone from the east generates much more money than the whole Western n northern regions combined together.

As recorded by Adegboyega in his "Why we struck" the real architects of the coup plot were just five in number without any Hausa among them. Nzeogwu and Adegboyega were recruited by the original three in about three months to the day of action.
All the others that participated in the execution were junior officers who were merely carrying out orders in an attack they had no prior knowledge of.

For the first bolded, if Ironsi's idea of provincial government was exactly the same as the extant regional system, then the following questions beg for answers:
1. why did he find it necessary to change the name?
2. why did it generate disapproval from every region except his own home Eastern Region?
3. why did Katsina and David Ejoor, who were Ironsi's own appointed Governors of the Northern and Midwestern Regions respectively, kick against it openly?
4. why did it elicit deadly riots targeted at Ironsi's kinsmen in the North?
5. why did Ironsi refuse to revert the nomenclature to 'regions' in defiance to the demand by the public to do so?
6. Did the public complain of the regional system let alone demand a review of the constitution to that end to be championed by an unelected military man in place of the legislators whom they had elected through the 1959 and 1964/65 elections to represent them in all legislative businesses?

For the second bolded; the constitution in place did not describe the structure as "intense regionalism". Ironsi smuggled the word "intense" into the description as a basis to justify his illegal unilateral alteration of a key provision of a genuinely people's constitution. Intensity is a relative term, so how exactly did he determine the dividing line between the 'intense' and 'non-intense' realms? In other words, what convinced him that the extent to which he reduced the so called intensity was not still too intense for the phantom national unity he was seeking?
Your claim that Ironsi's centripetal adjustments were aimed at preventing a repeat of the bloody happenings that brought about a military coup is at best an attempt by you to stand logic on its head. As I had earlier explained, the bloody happenings in question were brought about by gross abuses of power by the central government in the forms of unconstitutional interference in the purely internal affairs of the Western Region, disobedience of the Privy Council's order that Akintola be removed, the use and abuse of federal police to disrupt an impeachment process in the Western Assembly, the central government's reinstatement of Akintola without election hence in open violation of the Western Region constitution, the central government's decision to hurriedly sponsor a bill and get it signed into law to be applied retroactively against the Privy Council's order, the rigging of censuses and re-rigging of the rerun and the creation of more legislative seats in the North based on the false figures gotten from the rigged exercise, the rigging of elections in broad daylight, etc.
So why should anyone who sincerely wanted to prevent a repeat of all these make constitutional adjustments that would move the nation closer to the center? Does that make commonsense at all?

Your claim also that the higly decentralized structure back then helped the Ifeajuna coup greatly is another dishonest one. Did Ironsi's centralization of power not eventually lead to a succession of coups that kept Nigeria in military rule for another 33 years?
The only way to discourage coups is not to illegally tamper with a people's sovereign constitution but for the Supreme Commander of the Army to swiftly charge the culprits for treason and execute them according to courtmartial laws. That was what Ironsi failed to do and all other potential coup plotters were emboldened.

Unfortunately you couldn't explain how the civil service centralization did not automatically strip the regions of their powers over their resources. Imagine you as the governor of Anambra State with all your state's civil servants answerable to and reporting not to you but to Abuja. How do you collect taxes, and generate other revenues? In fact what kind of government would you even be able to run? If there was federal civil service along the regional ones as you mentioned, then why wasn't Ironsi satisfied with just using the federal one to carry out his business as HoS till the end of his purpotedly short tenure hence not requiring a broad based and gigantic bureaucratic assistance?

Your stories on the wealth of Eastern Region unfortunately stands in contradiction to the mass migration of Igbos to all other regions in search of greener pastures back then and till today. Mind you that the newly discovered oil wealth in the Eastern Region was located in the parts seeking the COR region which was sure to exclude Ironsi's Umuahia home town and residual region if granted. So why wouldn't Ironsi seek to pre-empt that by further doing away with any constitutional provisions which made the creation of new regions easy?

That Ironsi himself declared in the speech above that by his decree the federal military government (i.e a decentralized military government) had become converted to the national military government (a centralized military government) meant that he himself acknowledged that he had successfully operated a federal (i.e. a decentralized) military government from the day he took over (January 17) to the day he made the broadcast (May 24), thus for nearly four months.

So the argument that Ironsi's military junta couldn't have operated as a decentralized government is a ruse and contradicts Ironsi's own words in that broadcast.
Secondly, the political crisis that provoked Ifeajuna's coup all stemmed from the gross abuse of power by the Balewa-Zik controlled central government in the sense of election rigging in broad daylight, census rigging and re-rigging of the rerun, disobedience to court orders, etc.
Therefore whoever really claimed he was sincerely on a mission to correct the problem should have even weakened the powers of the central government. But Ironsi ironically further strengthened the centre. It all showed that he didn't really intend to address the problem but to finally execute a long planned selfish agenda in favour of his Igbo tribe.

PrecisionFx:
Deadly Truth, Ur speaking outta gross ignorance.

This lie has expired, all sane people (especially we the youths) in Nigeria now knows the truth n have long accepted it.

Federalism was not ended by General Aguiyi Ironsi, Rather it was ended by General Yakubu Gowon wen he created states. From the day Ironsi became the head of states until he died, We still had 3 regions n each region semt 30% of their generated revenue to the Centre n kept back 70% to develop their region.

Aguiyi Ironsi brought all military n police sectors to the full control of the central military government in order to be able to maintain peace in the country for the time being. Aguiyi Ironsi never touched resource control until he died.

Aguiyi is well educated unlike Gowon, Abacha, Buhari, Babangida etc that are on the other side so he will never be idiotic like them n end regional government n resource control.

From 1914 till now, The eastern region was at least 2 - 3 times wealthier than North n SW combined together, Mo sane IGBO man would sacrifice regional government n bring together resources of the igbos to share wit Hausa n Yoruba who were making very little money (only Palm oil gotten from eastern nigeria made more cash than ALL the revenue Yoruba region were utilizing at the time.


Wake up from this stupid sleep, General Aguiyi Ironsi never ended regional gov't n resource control, Gowon did.

First and foremost, your reply above deviates totally from the content of the post of mine which you quoted.
I asked how a set of coupists desirous of unitary government could have rooted for a federalist to head it. You left this and went into Ironsi controversy.

However, if you insist Ironsi did not abolish the regions, then could you kindly explain what exactly the man meant with each of the bolded in his May 24 1966 national broadcast which goes verbatim as follows:

"Fellow Nigerians:
During the past two weeks I presided over meetings of the Supreme
Military council and the Central Executive Council at which many
important state matters were considered. . .
It is now three months since the Government of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria was handed over to the Armed Forces. Now that peace has
been restored in the troubled areas it is time that the Military
Government indicates clearly what it proposes to accomplish before
relinquishing power. The removal of one of the obstacles on the way
is provided for in the Constitution (Suspension and Modification)
Decree (No. 5) 1966 which was promulgated by me today and comes into
effect at once.
The provisions of the Decree are intended to remove the last vestiges of the intense regionalism of the recent past, and to produce that cohesion in the governmental structure which is so
necessary in achieving, and maintaining the paramount objective of
the National Military government, and indeed of every true Nigerian,
namely, national unity.
The highlights of this Decree are as follows:
The former regions are abolished, and Nigeria grouped into a number of territorial areas called provinces. . . .
Nigeria ceases to be what has been described as a federation. It now becomes simply the Republic of Nigeria.
The former Federal Military government and the Central Executive
Council become respectively the National Military Government and the
executive Council. All the Military Governors are members of the
Executive Council.
A Military Governor is assigned to a group of provinces over which
and subject to the direction and control of the Head of the National
Military Government, he shall exercise executive power".

As for resource control; recall that he also centralized the civil service which is the institution the regional governments used as tool to generated their revenues from the resources within their respective domains. How could a region whose civil servants were now answerable to the centralized national government be said to have still remained in control of her resources and revenues generation from those resources?

LBanks:
At least he fought before he ran.

That history is better than the history of Brigadier Ogundipe who even peed on his pants for fear of his life when Ojukwu was advocating for him to succeed the assassinated Aguiyi-Ironsi, being the second highest ranking military officer then after Ironsi

Ogundipe is the biggest coward in the history of mankind, I wonder how such a person even got into the military in the first place with such cowardly tendencies

Ojukwu so much believed in army seniority sanctity but could not impress it upon Ironsi his brother to punish young army officers who had carried out very cold blooded murder of officers far senior to them.
Ogundipe probably avoided taking over because Ironsi and Ojukwu had before then made nonsense of seniority as already explained above.

emmanuelex1:
Please can a president of a federal republic release a prisoner in a region he has no control at a particular time? I may not be Igbo but I think Ojukwu could have killed Awo if he wanted to.

Neither am I Yoruba. But what exactly would have been Ojukwu's reson to kill Awolowo at that point in time? Or do people just kill people for the fun of it?
And you think Ojukwu would have been foolish enough to kill Awolowo in Calabar prison for no reason hence reinforcing the public hatred Igbos were already exposed to courtesy of the cold blooded killings of leaders of all other regions by Igbo majors in the Army just shortly before then?
You think the killing of Awolowo by Ojukwu wouldn't have generated deadly reprisals against Igbos living in the West?
That the killing of Akintola went down well with Yorubas did not mean Awolowo's murder by Ojukwu would have been taken lightly by Yorubas as Akintola was more or less an outcast in their eyes. Ojukwu knew quite well that the killing of Awolowo would have generated anti-Igbo backlash among Yorubas to the same or greater magnitude than that which the killing of Ahmadu Bello generated against Igbos in the North.

As at when Awolowo was released, Ojukwu was not yet antagonistic to Gowon to warrant the argument that he could have resisted Gowon's order.
The same order which released Awolowo also released Enahoro and the rest who were not in Eastern prisons. So who could have given such an order between Gowon and Ojukwu?

phase1:
Your yoruba skull is filled with clumpy palm oil. The British were not prepared to give independence to nigeria without the 'good boy' conformist, indirectly ruled north being ready. They made it clear it was going to be handed to the north (who gave them lesser colonial problems) from the word go. If the north had backed down from the 1960 date, the rest of the country had to wait till whatever date they deemed fit. [b]Hotblooded Zik[/], Enahoro and co. were not ready to wait. 1960 it was and they took the opportunity with both hands and legs.

You are not well lettered and brushing you up on history lessons will be definitely exhilarating if you don't do a brain transplant with at least that of a monkey, the brain in your skull is definitely inferior to the I.Q of a rotten amala plate.

Your inclusion of Zik among those not ready to wait for Northerners is the single most powerful evidence here that all your accounts of history are flawed.
Zik was rather the only Southern who, with his kinsmen's support, decided to wait till the Northerners became ready to join the South for Independence.
If the British had wanted to hand over power to the North by all means as you seem to suggest, then why did they conduct an election which they knew the South was poised to win if their MPs were combined? All this theory about the British's predetermined plan to hand over to the North is a fabrication aimed at covering up for Zik's and Okpara's naivety and poor discretion of going into alliance with Jihadists in rejection of the proposed all-south coalition that would have either broken the North away from the South or led to the quick attainment of Nigeria of our dream.

PrecisionFx:
Gowon didn't release Awolowo from prison, General Odimegwu Ojukwu did.

the plan was to install Awolowo as president, that's why Yoruba soldiers were part of the coup.

How could a set of coupists planning to replace a federal arrangement with a unitary government have rooted for the most committed apostle of federalism to head the unitary government?

chikarism:
d coup plotters actually intended install Awo but Ironsi truncated the coup.
it's a general knowledge that coup was not a success

Nzeogwu the only honest and frank member of the plot didn't insinuate let alone say so in any of the several interviews he granted to the press before his abrupt death the following year.

Secondly, Awolowo was known all over as the most consummate and an unrepentant federalist. So how could a set of coup plotters whose self confessed mission was to replace the existing federal arrangement with a unitary one have rooted for a federalist like Awolowo to head their unitary government? Were those coupists, some of whom were even university graduates, so daft not to see the ideological contradiction in such plan?
This story of "the plan to make Awolowo the Prime Minister" was an afterthought fabrication aimed at mitigating the openly tribal execution pattern of the coup.

Djinja:
Mumu, who detained Awo in the first place? Was it not Gowon's brethren? Thinking upside down as usual

Awolowo was detained by Zik's political associates from the core islamic Hausafulani North as against Gowon's Christian Middle Belt.

phase1:
You are demented, there is nobody who 'terrorized' the british government for independence like Igboa like Dr Zik with his pen. Educated in the USA, he was a non-conformist to british colonial ideals.

It's the reason the British ensured the Igbos never got to the crux of political power when they finally handed over. Which Awo fought for independence? You yoromuslimz and your funny revisionism are dead on arrival.

For the first bolded, are you referring to the same Zik who publicly declared he was more than ready and willing to pay the ultimate price to see the sustenance of 'One-Nigeria' which was clearly a British intention? The same Zik who also sought and got the help of the British to threaten with treasonable felony charges the likes of Awolowo and Enahoro for seeking to have secession clause in our constitution? You must be very naive.

For the second bolded, it wasn't the British that shut you Igbos out of power. Zik who occupied the second position in the first ever power structure we had in this country was an Igbo man. But if you are referring to the position of Prime Minister, it was still the fault of Zik who rejected the proposed all-south coalition that would have made him Prime Minister in exchange for the Hausafulani-Igbo alliance which turned him to a figurehead ceremonial president whose only lawful duty was to commission incinerators and public toilets and also to acknowledge cheers from school children matching on independence day anniversary celebrations.

phase1:
He didn't address it to Col. Ojukwu then because Gowon and his gang of usurpers have not taken power illegitimately.

We'll keep saying it for 500th time. Ojukwu was Governor of the Eastern region including calabar where Awo was held, he never recognized gowon and therefore could not have taken orders from Gowon. Stop being ungrateful, Ojukwu RELEASED Awo. Even Governors today in less federated nigeria have the power to give clemency to prisoners talkless of powerful regional governors of those days.

And you believe Ironsi took power legitimately?
For your info, as at the time Awolowo was released (August 2 1966 - just three days into Gowon's tenure), the idea of Biafra had not crossed Ojukwu's mind hence relationship between Ojukwu and Gowon had not deteriorated to the point where Ojukwu would antagonize Gowon hence disobey his order. Biafra controversy between Ojukwu and Gowon started in May 1967 i.e. nine months later.
The same order which released Enahoro and others jailed in non-Eastern prisons also released Awolowo. Now, who between Awolowo and Gowon could have given an order that would be carried out in all regions back then?

tishbite41:
afonja hypocrites, ojukwu ,not gowon, released awo

Enahoro and some others were not in Eastern prisons, but the same order released all of them together with Awolowo. Now, who between Gowon and Ojukwu could have given an order that would be carried out in all regions of the country?