₦airaland Forum

APPOINTMENT OF REGIONAL MILITARY
GOVERNORS
The Federation Military Government further
decrees:
a. that there shall be appointed a Military Governor
in each Region of
the Federation, who shall be directly responsible to
the Federal
Military Government for the good government of
the Region; b. the
appointment as Adviser to the Military Governor of
the Region, of the
last person to hold the office of Governor of the
Region under the
suspended provisions of the Constitution.



This was the state of things as at the time of Ironsi death.
The regions were made up of provinces, and all had governors.
Whatever future changes Ironsi intended to make didn't take effect yet before he was killed.
I sympathize with you for your ostrich attempt to obscure facts. Ironsi made all those changes hence his overthrow and assassination by the Hausa-Fulanis.

Simple questions, and you are spamming the thread with long posts you have no understanding about.
The Igbo disease is to claim an opponent has no understanding about an issue on which he is challenged with questions that expose his guilt and lies. \

If Ironsi dissolved the regions, who they were Ojukwu, Fajuyi, Ejoor, and Hassan Katsina in Ironsi government.

And what were their positions? ;DIf Ironsi dissolved the regions, who they were Ojukwu, Fajuyi, Ejoor, and Hassan Katsina in Ironsi government.

And what were their positions?
Ironsi dissolved the regions four months after these persons joined his regime meaning that they did not know he had the plans to dissolve them as the time they accepted his appointments as regional governors or else they would have rejected it. Don’t forget that immediately Ironsi dissolved the regions they began to plot a coup by which they killed him in a show of their rejection of dissolution of the regions

But one thing is constant, non of the Ijaws are interested in keeping Igbos in Nigeria, because Ijaws are self confident people who believe they can run a successful Ijaw independent nation alone.

Only frustrated Edo and Yorubas, scared of the outcome of Nigeria post Igbo independence, scared of their inability to make it themselves as independent nations outside Nigeria, having failed to use the phantom secession clause as a tool of blackmail, are now resorting to hiding behind the Ijaws. Their desperation is real.
Neither is any Edo, Edoid or Yoruba or even Arewa is interested in keeping Igbos in Nigeria. What they are against is Igbos attempt to drag the SS along by force rather than by their consent which they’ll never give anyway. It is greedy and frustrated Igbos who rather are afraid that without the SS and her oil their Biafra will be a landlocked, barren and all too tiny a country. The other truths are that Igbos contribute the least to the national treasury hence their flooding of every other region for livelihood, and their inability to make it on their own without the South-South is evidenced by their shameless insistence on a joint SS-SE-partly NC Biafra. If Edos and Yorubas were ever scared of a post Igbo independence they wouldn’t have ever proposed the secession clause which Igbos rejected and preached a fraudulent One-Nigeria out of the fear of their non-viable solo country that it might result in. Despite it has been written about by even Igbo scholars you now describe the secession clause as phantom because it remains the greatest evidence that only your Igbo tribe was actually scared of standing alone. This is called cognitive dissonance or the sour grapes syndrome – denying the existence of what deflates your ego and dubious narrative. If you ever believed you could make it alone why did you ever preach One Nigeria when all evidences pointed to the contrary? Even your current exit quest is premised on a drag of the SS along, thus you have never sought a truly independent and self sustaining Igbo nation which can stand on her own without any other part of Nigeria.

The Ijaws are not aversed to pursuing a republic of their own, people like Anna Briggs and co were pioneering lower delta congress, Dokubo has no problem with Biafra, other Ijaws are comfortable with One Nigeria.
More Ijaws are comfortable with One Nigeria than the ones not. What they seek is a return to resource control which Igbos dismantled. Edwin Clarke, the foremost Ijaw leader, recently marked his birthday in Abuja in a summit-like manner with resource control as the theme. He invited a Yoruba man-Tinubu-to speak on restructuring but ignored Igbos obviously in the knowledge that Igbos have no moral authority on such topic given the fact that they dismantled it in the first instance. Neither Annkio Briggs ever reckons with Igbos as she must have read of Ironsi’s Unification Decree and his onslaught on Isaac Boro which brought hardship on Ijaws. Dokubo- a devout Moslem- cannot but have problem with Biafra which is being led by a man who proclaims not even Christianity but Judaism which is intolerant of islam unlike even Christianity. Why did Dokubo never visit Kanu in jail or even protest the stringent bail conditions slammed on him when even the likes of Fayose visited him and defended Biafra’s right to secession? Till now Dokubo has not issued a single statement on Kanu’s travails because his genuine concern is more about resource control and not really a secession that will endanger him according to his faith.

No. You will not bring the Ijaw, because you are not an Ijaw, neither are you a spokes person for Ijaws. Ijaw activists/ people like Dokubo are not speaking of any
Igbo phantom aggression or suppression against them. Neither are they interested in using the said phantom Igbo suppression to blackmail Ndiigbo into one Nigeria.
I can bring Ijaws into it because they are part of Nigeria and whatever affects them affects all other tribes. The currently on-going disproportionate killing Igbos by Ijaws in Bayelsa State In retaliation for the killing of an Epie (not even an Ijaw) girl is an evidence of Ijaws speaking in action of Igbo aggression and suppression against them. Dokubo’s silence over this disproportionate retaliation against Igbos by his kinsmen indicates consent. Remember actions still speak louder than words?

That's the perfect explanation of the East lamentations of marginalization, as neither the North nor Yoruba/ Edo are outperforming the SE in attaining the MDGs.
The MDGs are all indices of measuring economic prosperity all subsumed in GDP per capita the ultimate index. And as long as Edo State, Delta State (a predominantly Edoid state), and Lagos (a Yoruba state) stand atop all Sad East states in the GDP per capita rating then your assertion above is nebulous and fraudulent.

You now went and spammed the thread with junk on cross carpeting, expecting me to comment on it. ofcourse, I ignored it.
I brought up the details of the alleged cross-carpeting to crush your dubious propaganda against Awolowo. You have not been able to counter it and never will you.

I also did mention the role the duplicity of Akintola Awolowo played, seeing as both were two sides of same sword, and so it was impossible for Zik to deal with the west without getting burnt.
How unburnt was Zik in his resultant alliance with the North? His dealing with the North ended up burning him than that with the West could have ever been as all his people still suffer the consequences till today. Penny wise pound foolish. Cutting his nose to spite his face. Dunce! And did Zik not later deal with Akintola in the form of the tripartite NPC-NCNC-NNDP alliance and again with Awolowo in the form of UPGA? Keep rationalizing Zik’s stupidity and enslavement of the South to the North. The fact that Zik always got burnt in whatever alliance he entered into meant he himself was the problem.

I talked about Awolowo introduction of tribalism in the Western region, which decided the elections there. Awolowo insisted that West must be led by Westerners (Yorubas) alone, which is Ok by me. Problem being that it became the landmark of the current indigene/residents dichotomy in Nigerian polity today.

Awolowo’s insistence on Westerners alone ruling the region could not have been in the sense of exclusivity to the Yorubas alone as there were equally non-Yorubas and even Igboids (Aniomas) in the said region at the time in question.
Did any non-Yoruba Westerner vie for Western Premiership and Awolowo kicked against it? His argument was rather that the regions were created in response to the call for self-governance and each region should therefore be governed by her own natives and not persons from another region which Zik obviously was. In his clarion call speech, he is reported to have questioned the rationality of allowing a non-Westerner (not necessarily a non-Yoruba) rule the Western Region. Awolowo, as a consummate federalist, was by that call advocating strict adherence to regionalism which was the basis of the existing federal principle then. It was Zik and his dubious brothers like you that deliberately misinterpreted it as tribalism because their own minds were full of tribalism thus they assumed everyone else was like them. For the fact that federalism is a principle which recognizes the right of each tribe, however small, to decide their own fate and preserve their identity and culture within the polity a dogged advocate of federalism might easily be mistaken for a tribalist. It is just like how Arewa Elders Forum now currently publish articles in the dailies blindly accusing the vocal advocates of restructuring cum genuine and strict federalism (e.g. Edwin Clark, Tinubu, etc) of nursing sectional agenda and narrow tribal interests. Same was the attitude of Igbos towards Awolowo’s federalist stance back then.

And I had told you that he did it because he had soldiers at his command, while Dipcharima and Orizu didn't. How hard is that to understand? Why do men crave for power? Rhetorical question if you ask me.
And I have put it to you that this answer turns logic on its head. Him having soldiers at his command was the more reason he should have even handed over to Dipcharima and then ordered those soldiers at his command to mann the process and put down any possible resistance to that being what the constitution demanded of him at that moment. But as a typical Igbo man his greed for power through the backdoor got the better of him.

Why didn't Gowon hand over to Dipcharima, why didn't Awolowo, Akenzua and Enahoro demand that Gowon hand over to Dipcharima, instead they all legitimized Gowon's government and even constituted themselves into its mouthpiece. You see how you run yourself into irrelevant cul de sacs?
Cul de sacs? You are the one in cul de sacs thus you turn round questions you are asked. Which came first? Ironsi’s refusal to hand over to Dipcharima or Awolowo/Enahoro’s refusal to advise Gowon to do same? It still comes down to the question of every action having an equal and opposite reaction. In your fraudulent reasoning the person who retaliated is as guilty as the one who first attacked? Please which school did you attend? What kind of upbringing did you have? If Ironsi had done so would the need for Awolowo and Enahoro to do same have arisen? Did Gowon take over from a civilian regime to warrant the question of him having to immediately return power to a civilian unlike Ironsi who forced power out of the hands of civilians at gun point? Moreover was there still any democratic structure on ground to transfer power to in Gowon’s time as it was when Ironsi took over? You are obviously sick upstairs.

Haha! You said Ironsi was the one who introduced military rule in Nigeria, you demonize him for that and you claim military coup never progressed any nation.
Then it's only normal for us to know what Edo and Yoruba entities like Awolowo and Enahoro were doing endorsing Gowon's military regime and becoming its mouth piece after Ironsi demise and your answer to this so far is that Ironsi was responsible for Awolowo and Enahoro actions. And when curious minds ask how? You run into a cyclical illogical argument.
What a fool devoid of commonsense and logical reasoning! You don’t understand is that Aguyi introduced military rule when all things were normal and equal while Gowon did not introduce it but only toppled him in the ensuing anarchy caused by ironsi’s introduction of it in the first instance.
Stupid self-reversals all the time. As long as you claim that Awolowo’s alleged cross-carpeting saga justified Zik’s decision to endanger the entire South’s future by teaming up with Arewas in the evil and ill-thought out NPC-NCNC coalition, then you should have also known that Ironsi’s introduction of military rule with the active participation of Igbo civilians also justified Awo’s and Enahoro’s participation in Gowon’s military regime for self defence against Ojukwu the Ironsi’s ghost still lurking around. Military rule is an aberration in the sense of who introduced it and not on the part of those who only utilized its fallout in self-defence. It is like a man starts an abnormality of shooting in a previously peaceful atmosphere and others shoot him back in self defence and then you complain that those others are as guilty as himself of the abnormality. Is that the sense of judgment you learned from your Biafra education?

Awolowo and Enahoro had no problem with Nigerian military using Lagos and Escravos as launch bases to attack Biafra, but they had problem with Biafra moving to nullify threats on her existence emanating from those corners.
You need a brain transplant surgery.
The Nigerian soldiers never attacked Awolowo’s Western region or Enahoro’s Midwestern region unlike the Igbos who attacked both and therefore prompted Awo and Enahoro into retaliation. Mind you that the Federal Forces respected the neutrality declaration of the Midwest ( the region where Forcados was located) and initially avoided the area completely until we ourselves invited them to our aid when Igbos, in defiance of our neutral stance, invaded Benin. You need a total head transplant surgery.

Hausa Fulanis never went at it alone, from the beginning, they were camped in Yorubaland and used Lagos as launch pad to attack Biafra, with active support of Yoruba populace and leaders who feigned neutrality.
The Hausa-Fulani soldiers in Yorubaland were stationed there in 1965 by Zik and Balewa in their calculation to wallop the West and crush Awolowo’s “Wetie” supporters finally. It was their continued presence there into the next two years that prompted Awolowo’s argument that he could not, without a thorough plan and strategy to get them redeployed to the North first, just declare Oodua Republic. It was a case of Zik’s wicked strategy against Yorubas boomeranging on his own Igbo brothers.

Ojukwu talked with Awolowo well before the Aburi accord took place. Don't understand what you meant by inviting him before it all collapsed. Perhaps you can explain a bit, what you meant by that.
Talking to Awolowo alone before Aburi summit is totally different from having Awolowo at the summit and talking with him and all other political leaders in a roundtable. What I mean in the other line is that after Ojukwu decided to exit Nigeria post Aburi summit, he consulted Awolowo who asked him to give him two weeks to think thoroughly (not compulsorily to acede) about the proposal and Ojukwu agreed only for Ojukwu to take Awolowo unawares by declaring Biafra just three days afterwards, thus breaking the agreement of two weeks he had with Awolowo.

Awolowo and Enahoro needn't be invited to the party, they became the mouth of the party.
Enahoro and Awolowo needed to have been invited if the intent of the meeting was not a dubious one. But that Ojukwu, despite his own superior education over the other officers at Aburi, joined the other officers there in insulting civilians remains the evidence that Aburi was deliberately intended to bypass the intimidating intelligence of the civilians as a short cut to sealing their dubious agreements. If it is that automatic then why are your likes kicking against some of your own Igbo elite currently negotiating with the FG over Biafra without endorsement from IPOB and Kanu their leader? What Kanu presently is to IPOB is what Enahoro and Awolowo were to Edos and Yorubas. So any negotiation on behalf of Edos and Yorubas done without these two figures was null and void.

Aburi Accord was an agreement between Eastern region( Igbos and defunct Eastern region minorities) and the Nigerian state( that had active and total support of Edo/Yoruba populace and did indeed had Edo and Yoruba reps).
Aburi Accord was an agreement between the Hausa-Igbo Oligarchy to the exclusion of all other tribes. As long as the political leaders of Edo (Enahoro and Igenuma) and Yorubas (Awolowo and the rest) were not invited to the summit, then it was a sham. The Edos and Yorubas who attended it were civil servants employed by and working for the Establishment, thus were therefore not endorsed by their people to represent them there unlike Ojukwu for Igbos.

Or you are now remembering that Edo and Yorubas are entitled to their choices, so it had behooved on you that you can nolonger use the secession clause excuse, seeing how I tore that to shreds on this thread?
Whatever you can’t provide logical answers to you claim you tore to shreds. Of course as long as you Igbos, in your dubious quest to lord it over others, refused to accede to the peaceful secession clause proposal then you lost all moral grounds to accuse others of not supporting your violent unconstitutional secession which Edo and all others never believed in.

Then why are Edo/Yoruba folks speaking of a secession clause that never happened as the justification for their purposedly betrayal of Igbos in Biafra.
You are mad! Did Edos enter into any secession agreement with Igbos in the first instance to warrant accusation of betrayal? Flat head mentality! What of the betrayal Igbos did to Edos by teaming up with Balewa and Ahmadu Bello to jail Enahoro? Shameless hypocrites who enjoy persecuting others but when given a dose of their own wickedness they cry betrayal. What of Igbo betrayal of Edos, Yorubas and indeed all other southerners by their(Igbos) decision to pitch tent with Hausa-Fulanis through the ill-fated and ideologically bankrupt NPC-NCNC coalition? Greedy fools!
You have changed the narrative again to the claim that the secession clause never happened. If secession clause was never proposed then why did the Ijaw guy publish it in his journal and what did Zik kick against in his quest to have Igbos lord it over others in a tightly bound Nigeria? Igbos and their victim mentality that always prompts them into accusing others of betrayal.

pazienza:
1. Haha! You said Ironsi was the one who introduced military rule in Nigeria, you demonize him for that and you claim military coup never progressed any nation.
Then it's only normal for us to know what Edo and Yoruba entities like Awolowo and Enahoro were doing endorsing Gowon's military regime and becoming its mouth piece after Ironsi demise and your answer to this so far is that Ironsi was responsible for Awolowo and Enahoro actions. And when curious minds ask how? You run into a cyclical illogical argument.

And I had told you that he did it because he had soldiers at his command, while Dipcharima and Orizu didn't. How hard is that understand? Why do men crave for power?

2. No, I never mentioned carpet crossing. I talked about Awolowo introduction of tribalism in the Western region, which decided the elections there. Awolowo insisted that West must be for Westerners only to lead.
I also did mention the role the duplicity of Akintola-Awolowo played, seeing as both were two sides of same sword, and so it was impossible Zik dealing with the west without getting burnt.
You now went and spammed the thread with junk on cross carpeting, expecting me to comment on it. ofcourse, I ignored it.

3. That's the perfect explanation of the East lamentations of marginalization, as neither the North nor Yoruba/ Edo are outperforming the SE in attaining the MDGs.

4. No. You will not bring the Ijaw, because you are not an Ijaw, neither are you a spokes person for Ijaws. Ijaw activists/ people like Dokubo are not speaking of any
Igbo phantom aggression or suppression against them. Neither are they interested in using the said phantom Igbo suppression to blackmail Ndiigbo into one Nigeria.
The Ijaws are not aversed to pursuing a republic of their own, people like Anna Briggs and co were pioneering lower delta congress, Dokubo has no problem with Biafra, other Ijaws are comfortable with One Nigeria.
But one thing is constant, non of the Ijaws are interested in keeping Igbos in Nigeria, because Ijaws are self confident people who believe they can run a successful Ijaw independent nation alone.

Only frustrated Edo and Yorubas, scared of the outcome of Nigeria post Igbo independence, scared of their inability to make it themselves as independent nations outside Nigeria, having failed to use the phantom secession clause as a tool of blackmail, are now resorting to hiding behind the Ijaws. Their desperation is real.

1. You seem not to understand that in a chaotic and abnormal situation anything goes and all becomes fair as survival tactics. Ironsi's introduction of military rule was alien to the constitution and as such was nothing but a state of anarchy which sparked off a cycle of dog eat dog under which self preservation became everyone' watchword and the end began to justify the means. Awolowo and Enahoro had to play within the context of the unconstitutional situation birthed by Ironsi hence their teaming up with to fight back. All, they say, is fair in war. Why did Ojukwu not look on when Gowon fired the first shot? Self preservation first before anything!

That is reverse logic. With soldiers under his command he was already empowered to implement the installation of Dipcharima, replacement of the slain premiers with their deputies, arresting all the January 15 boys and court martialing them and then returning to the barracks with those soldier under his command. But rather than do all that he occupied himself with taking power from the civilians by duress and proceeding to mutilate the constitution which he was not part of the drafting stage. Well he never lived to tell the story.

2. Of course the regions were created in response to demands for self governance and not for one to govern another under the subterfuge of 'national unity'. It was on that note that Awolowo questioned the propriety of a non-native of the Western Region (whether from the Eastern or Northern Region) seeking to govern the West. Such can't be termed tribalism because by that position he meant he would be comfortable with having as premier any native of the region be he a Bini, Esan, Urhobo, Western Ijaw, Akoko-Edo, Owan, Etsako and even Anoma (the Western Igbo), etc but never with a non native of the region. And that was actually ideal for a fragile nation still at the stage of infancy.
Zik who read anthropology should have known better as to the need to avoid undue cross-cultural and cross-regional interferences which brings about clash of culture and attendant bloodshed as later happened. He had his own region carved out for him to rule over but greed would not let him be.

3. The truth remains that GDP per capital remains the most fundamental index of measuring productivity and economic relevance of a community or society. On that pedestal Edo and Lagos (a Yoruba State) rank ahead of all Sad Beasts states. The day the trend changes you can call me for a discussion on that.

4. Ijaw vs Igbo issue was made a pan-Nigeria issue by Ojukwu and ironsi for litigating him in Lagos and sentencing him there. There is no denial of that. Boro's quest for exit from Nigeria then was predicated on the marginalization the Ijaws were suffering under the Igbo-dominated Eastern Regional Government. With their later extrication from Igbo strange hold by Gowon, their exit drive waned and they've always made themselves clear that their thrust henceforth is no longer for exit but a return to true federalism which Igbos crushed.

5. How can Edo be afraid of making it on their own when without the harnessing of her vast natural gas reserves yet she is already 4th in GDP P/C among 37 competitors? Based on self confidence about survival outside Nigeria Edo never talked of one Nigeria, never prevented others from exiting the union, etc. Only Igbos invented "one-Nigeria" slogan, pursued 'nationalism', preached national unity at every opportunity, kept on convincing others to stay in the ill-fated union, migrated to all other people's lands in search for greener pastures, etc because they needed others more than others needed them. It is the weak that begs for company of the strong and not the other way round. It is simple logic. Igbos don't contribute meaningfully to the national purse in any way. In a strictly federal arrangement Igbos would not compete favourably hence they dismantled federalism. Recall that Zik, on return from the US, was initially an apostle of federalism but later became a hard core centrist with revulsion for federalism on realizing that Igbos had no economic advantage without flooding other regions.

Knowing your diabolical mind, if Zik fought for their inclusion in Southern Nigeria and then Eastern region, you Igbophobic beings would have still accused him of being a land grabber, who was out to expand Igbos territories by proxy.

There is no pleasing Igbophobic beings by an Igbo man. He is condemned for his actions which are misinterpreted and twisted to make him a greedy villain and then by his inactions which are distorted and logic turned on its head to present him as being too weak, docile and disillusioned.[/quote]

Who would have accused Zik of land grabbing if he had fought against the excision of Munchi District from the Eastern Region? Are you Okay at all? Land grabbing means an attempt to take over a land that was not previously yours. But in the case in question Zik's own region's land which his own Igbo brothers were indigenous to was being taken away from him and you suggest he was right to have looked on so as to avoid being termed a land grabber? It is like someone's money is being stolen and he gets advised not to fight back or else he would be called a thief when actually the person taking the money from him is the thief. Are you normal at all?
And in any case if the fear of being called a land grabber informed his indifference to the affairs of his own region then how come he refused to apply the same indifference to the affairs of far away Yoruba land but got himself neck deep in it to the point of seeking to govern them? Hypocrite!

Ironsi's broadcast to the nation - May 24,
1966.
"The Regions are Abolished': Ironsi's
Broadcast to the Nation banning
Political Parties and introducing Decree No.
34, 24 May 1966.
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. In order to
avoid any major dislocation of the present
administrative machinery,
the grouping of the provinces has been
made to coincide with the
former regional boundaries. This is entirely
a transitional measure
and must be understood as such. The
present grouping of the
provinces is without prejudice to the
Constitutional and
Administrative arrangements to be
embodied in[b] the New Constitution in
accordance with the wishes of the people of
Nigeria.[/b]
The National Military Government assumes
the exercise of all
legislative powers throughout the Republic
subject to such
delegations to Military Governors as are
considered necessary for
purposes of efficient administration.
The public services of the former federation
and regions become
unified into one national public service
under a National Public
Service Commission. There is a provincial
Service Commission for
each group of provinces to which is
delegated functions in respect of
public officers below a given rank. This
rather drastic change will
probably involve a reconstitution of the
existing commissions, and
the National Military Government reserves
the right to do so in the
manner stipulated in the Decree. Until this
is done, the present
Commissioners continue to act in their
posts. Every civil servant is
now called upon to see his function in any
part of Nigeria in which
he is serving in the context of the whole
country. The orientation
should now be towards national unity and
progress. I expect all
civil servants to co-operate and to consult at
all levels, vertically
and horizontally, between groups of
Provinces and between Provinces
and the Centre.
People are aware that Study Groups have
been set up to look into
various aspects of governmental activity.
One of them is concerned
with problem relating to the Constitution.
This Decree is without
prejudice to their activities and their reports
will be given proper
consideration by the National Military
Government in formulating the
proposals for the future civilian
government.
In my nation-wide radio broadcast of
January 28, 1966, I said, among
other things: "We cannot afford to continue
with sterile political
strife and mutual recriminations. I have
therefore ordered that
there shall be no display in party flags or
symbols, and no shouting
of political slogans.'
On March 3, I caused a press release to be
issued calling attention
to the fact that political meetings were, in
spite of my order, being
held in certain parts of the country, and
warned the public and the
press to cooperate with the Federal Military
Government in its tasks
of national reconstruction.
In spite of these warnings, political party
activities still
continue, either directly, or through various
tribal societies and
organizations. The National Military
Government owes it as a duty to
the people of this country to remove the ills
which infested the
former regime, to restore the faith of our
people in their to remove
the ills which infested the former regime, to
restore the faith of
our people in their fatherland and its
institutions, so that when the
time comes for the civilian government to
return, a healthy body
politic would have emerged, and last
vestiges of bitter factionalism
removed.
The National Military Government having
committed itself to this
task is firmly resolved to conclude it, and
will not be diverted from,
or obstructed in, the fulfillment of this
objective by the
activities or political manoeuvres of any
society, party, union or
association. Part of our task is the removal
of politics based on
tribal affiliations which, as everybody
knows, have manifested
political intrigues, or have been used as
bases for party-political
propaganda. This leads me to the removal
of the second obstacle on
the way for which provision has been made
in the Public Order Decree
1966, which I have signed today and which
comes into operation
forthwith, dissolving all organizations of the
type scheduled therein,
and banning any manifestations of their
political purpose. These
organizations have been dissolved and will
be buried along with the
tribal, sectional and regional bitterness
which they engendered.
Certain types of associations and
organizations are unaffected and
will remain so, only for as long as they do
not engage in any
political activity. It is the cardinal aim of my
Government to foster
the growth of town development unions,
membership of which should be
open to all inhabitants of the particular
town irrespective of their
tribal origin. This does not mean for
instance that Efiks residing
outside Calabar should not contribute
towards the development of
Calabar development union but it does
mean that a Tiv or Hausa
residing in Calabar should be eligible for
membership and should be
allowed to participate fully in the
development of that town.
This Decree also prohibits the formation of
new political parties.
I must emphasize however that the ban on
formation of new political
parties is of limited duration and is
designed to enable this
corrective government to get on with its
task especially at this
initial stage. At the appropriate time
provisions will be made
outlining the procedure for the formation
of new political
associations.]
I want however to leave no doubt in the
mind of anybody, that the
provisions of this decree will certainly be
enforced. This is a
Military Regime and soldiers do not allow
themselves to be diverted
from or obstructed in the fulfillment of
their objectives. With us
the objectives will be pursued with supreme
determination and vigor.
In this we need not only the cooperation
but the discipline of every
Nigerian.
I wish to make it clear that the prohibition
of the formation of new
political associations has no sinister motive.
The limitation period
until the 17th of January 1969 may be
reduced if the Military
Government accomplishes its aims before
then.
Malicious rumours designed to mar our
national reconstruction
continue to be carried about by certain
individuals in spite of my
repeated warnings. Cases of impersonation
of officers of the Armed
Forces are still reported. I have to warn
again those who indulge in
these criminal acts to discipline themselves
forthwith and not to
provoke us into taking very drastic
measures which may otherwise
become necessary.
In pursuance of its policy for achieving
national unity, my
Government is setting up a body to review
all the existing Government-
sponsored newspapers in the context of
national unity. This body
will also recommend the most effective
organization for running the
Information, Broadcasting and Television
Services in the country and
the financial implications involved.
I must not end this broadcast without
pointing out a recent
development which, if not checked, will
adversely affect the morale
of the Civil Service and thereby hamper our
national reconstruction.
By this I mean the unnecessary criticism
recently being leveled
against the Civil Service by certain sections
of the Press. It is
common knowledge that civil servants are
expected to tender advice to
Ministers but it was not obligatory on the
part of the former
Ministers to accept advise so tendered. It
will therefore be wrong
to blame civil servants for mistakes made by
their Ministers who in
many cases did not accept the advice given
to them by these officers.
I have to make it abundantly clear to
everyone that my Government
will continue to use the services of the
present civil servants.
However, my government believes in
maintaining the highest standard
of efficiency in the Civil Service and will not
hesitate to do away
with anyone found guilty of inefficiency,
nepotism, tribalism and
corruption.
I therefore wish to appeal to all newspaper
editors and columnists
to look for a more profitable pastime and
desist from criticising
civil servants unnecessarily especially as
they realize that because
of the tradition of their calling, civil servants
are barred from
defending themselves on the pages of
newspapers. Such attacks will
certainly not help the Military Government
and is sure eventually to
demoralizes members of the Public Service
who are rendering such
noble service to this nation under difficult
conditions. If any
member of the public has any genuine case
against any civil servant,
he or she should make a report to the
appropriate quarters.
We are determined to accomplish the main
tasks we have set ourselves.
The various problems involved are being
studied by the various
working parties which I have set up. Whilst
these studies are in
progress my Government cannot remain at
a standstill and must
therefore forge ahead in the meantime. As
a corrective regime we
must ensure that the fatal maladies of the
past are cured before we
relinquish power. We propose as a last act
to give the country an
accurate count as well as a Constitution
which will guarantee unity,
freedom, and true democracy to all
Nigerians everywhere.
Investigations are proceeding in respect of
ex-politicians of the
former regime. Any of them found guilty
will be dealt with according
to Law irrespective of their position in the
community. My
Government will then consider utilizing the
services of those who
have not been found wanting and who are
prepared to serve in the
context of national unity.
Nigerians must understand and respect one
another in the new
national spirit. Those ex-politicians in
different camps who
previously regarded one another as
enemies should now forget the past
and work together for the common good.
With the dissolution of political parties and
tribal unions I want
all Nigerians everywhere in Nigeria to
regard one another not as
strangers but as Nigerians with common
nationalists irrespective of
their tribe or place of origin. From
henceforth no reference to
tribe or place of origin will appear in any
official document. . .
Finally, I appeal to all Nigerians and friends
of Nigeria to
cooperate with the Military Government in
the difficult task of
national reconstruction.
-------------------------------------

pazienza:
1. Same redundant argument. Either way you want to put it. Nigeria didn't die. So your Nigerian death premise still does not stand. Nigeria still exists.
Well, it then boggles the mind why civilians like Enahoro, Awolowo, Akenzua and hordes of their Yoruba and hordes of their Yoruba and Edo populace all queued behind a military dictator in Gowon and helped him fail Nigerian by denaturing it's structures permanently, all in bid to milk the country dry.
So you lots knew all those while that military governments were aberrations, yet Enahoro was Gowon minister of information who was globetrotting while disseminating the good news of starvation of Biafrans, Awolowo was Gowon minister of finance. They were all civilians yet legitimized the first long term military regime that set the tone for what Nigeria evolved into today via its many schemes.

Anyway, none of the above helps your dead Nigeria argument now? Do they?

2. Cross carpeting was one of your many irrelevant drivels and distractions, I had no interest in it, seeing as it was irrelevant in the central point of my argument.

Goodluck finding non existing quotes. Hope you don't end up going on your usual irrelevant drivels when you end up not finding it.

3. That's the illogicality of Nigeria. Suffering and smiling, supposedly educated folks supporting a failed Colonial entity despite the advantage of hindsight of over 100yrs.
When a bird is forced to fly low by a group of chickens, it doesn't mean the bird is worst off than the chickens, after all, the chickens are not flying either and never flew in their whole lives. Yet the bird feel marginalized by the chickens, and rightly so, seeing as it had been denied of its high flights by the chickens, the chicken naturally are comfortable in the cage, the bird is not.

This is the position of Ndiigbo in Nigeria.

4. Quit trying to drag Ijaws into this discussion, Opigo an Ijaw man gave the name Biafra to Eastern region during its declaration, many Ijaws fought for Biafra and many fought against it. Defunct Eastern region affairs are beyond your knowledge depth, and you can't analyze them using prevailing prejudices of today.

1. One very pathetic trait about you Igbos is hypocrisy. You focus on Awo and Enahoro's participation in military rule but Ignore the fact that it was introduced by you Igbos in the first instance. If Ironsi had not introduced it would Gowon have later appeared on stage for Awo and Enahoro to hold portfolios in his cabinet? And was it not a shameful thing that Igbos too had earlier on agreed to serve in Ironsi's military cabinet which predated Gowon's? You people's hypocrisy is mind boggling. You throw blows at people but when they retaliate you claim they are wicked. Were you who threw the first blow a kind person? You are actually the most wicked to have first tilted the balance.
The question you have refused to answer is why did Ironsi introduce military rule to Nigeria in the first instance? What stopped him from just allowing Dipcharima to be sworn in and therby saving our democracy?

2. You see yourself again? Was it not you who first mentioned cross-carpeting here as the reason why Zik rejected the proposed all-South alliance in preference for the devilish NPC-NCNC Arewa-Biafra alliance? My details on the cross-carpeting issue was just a response to prove the fallacy of that claim, and you have not been able to come up with superior facts.

3. That is pure rubbish! Is that not a drivel you too are making here? How could birds ever be forced to fly low as the chicken? very senseless logic! What is happening is that Igbos are actually the chicken who fell into the cage they themselves set for to trap the birds.

4. I will not quit bringing in Ijaws because that is you people's Achilles's Ankle. It is the point which weakens and kills all your arguments. It exposes how wicked and irrational you lots are and substantiates you people's hypocritical nature. What you did to Ijaw stands out as a sore thumb in your history of greed and lust after other people's lands and resources.

pazienza:
1. Nigeria didn't fail in 1967! She failed post Gowon's( of course supported by Edos and Yorubas) denaturation of its structures with the creation of dysfunctional entities called states, the entrenchment of the reign of mediocrity called Federal character, the indigenization post war policy that handed Nigerian public and private sector to Awolowo and his Yoruba/Edo associates who ruined them all through chronic incompetence and nepotism.
Even at that, Nigeria never died, it lived on, albeit embarrassingly.
So, no your dead Nigeria premise won't stand.


2. What is the name of the New entities Ironsi used to replace the regions, since you claimed he destroyed them, and what were the place of Ojukwu and Fajuyi in Ironsi government? I await your answers.


3. Stats and data disagree with you. Nigeria denatured states created by Gowon( with active Edo/Yoruba support) had affected the entire colonial entity, but Ndiigbo are not worse off today. We are naturally anti Nigerian, cos we know we can triple our current development rate outside Nigerian liability, other groups just don't feel so confident of making it outside the Nigerian structure.

1. Military rule is an aberration anywhere. It has never led any country to Eldorado but chaos and failed state status. So Nigeria failed when Ironsi introduced military rule into it as against the purely democratic structure we were bequeathed by the British.

2. I will find it out and produce it soon. It was just like how I gave you the stats of the cross carpeting accusation and till this moment you have been dumbfounded at the fact that you had hitherto been swimming in Zik's lies.

3. If Igbos aren't worse off today then why are they the ones complaining of being marginalized by everyone else? You can't be better than those you claim are marginalizing you. It is illogical.

4. You are naturally anti-Nigeria yet it was you people who championed the fraudulent "one-Nigeria" sloganeering. What an interesting Irony!
You were confident making it outside Nigeria yet you could not declare your beloved Biafra while Ironsi was in power on your behalf. In fact you even held back the Isaac Boro and Ijaws who declared their own confidence in doing better outside Nigeria. Keep fooling yourself with hypocritical assertions.

Those who deny others freedom don't deserve it themselves...........Abraham Lincoln.

pazienza:
Things don't exist in Isolation. You can't ignore the fact that Yoruba faction under NNDP with big followership and led by Akintola and Kayode were already part of NNA. A chain was only as strong as its weakest point. NNDP had by that action weakened the Southern solidarity already achieved in UPGA coalition. What's the point of a broken coalition, broken by Yorubas! Akintola and his Yoruba supporters never cared about the falsified Census results, Zik realized, why should he care?

Edo is and will always remain an irrelevant group in Nigeria. Even in APC anti Igbo government, Edos remain nore irrelevant than Ndigbo would ever be. You are just a regular bitter Edo being.
I feel your pain, but you will not be allowed to pour it on Ndiigbo without getting destroyed in the process.

Keep running in circles. You are obsessed with Edo and it is a sign that Edo is actually more relevant than your entire Middle East. You dream about Edo, the mention of it gives you high BP. GEJ your hero said only a tree with ripe fruits have missiles hurled at it. You can't ever hear US talking repeatedly in public about a weaker country. But other weaker countries complain against US daily. It is clear which is greater between Edo and Middle East. A person is preoccupied with what he envies or dreads. Edo would not even make statement on whether the Middle east is relevant because the irrelevance of the ME is as clear as sunshine.
And the reason You Ndiigbo hate Edo is that it is the state in the SS that first realized that the joint SS/SE proposal was all about crude oil and nothing else. You know you Igbos hate it when your tricks are discovered and your evil intentions uncovered.

pazienza:
In other words. Other than your schizophrenic verbose misrepresentations which you insist must be accepted as the truth, you have nothing whatsoever to prove that Zik used Force to keep any want away group in Nigeria, neither do you have evidence of Zik serving as the mouthpiece of British in disseminating threats on military action/ starvation or sanctions on would be secessionists.
Good to know.

Enahoro was active in Gowon government and supported the starvation policy.
“Its (mass starvation) is a legitimate aspect
of war (Anthony Enahoro, Nigerian
Commissioner for Information at a press
conference in New York, July 1968)

Show me where Zik made similar threats and carried it on behalf of the British, against any want away Nigerian group, and we have a discussion.

Show me the statement Enahoro made publicly in support of the starvation policy so we have a discussion. Zik kept mute while Britain threatened force to back up his objective of deprecating the secession clause. A man who truly believed in diplomacy would never have thought of declaring another man's land as a "no man's land". For a him to attempt such means he was ready to use force as those on the receiving end would not have let go without a fight.

You need inculcation since you are impervious to logic. I therefore repeat the same thing in different ways to see if it might just stick.

pazienza:
1. Only that Nigeria wasn't killed. She didn't disintegrate, she lived post Ironsi, so the premise of your argument is already standing on a shaky ground.

2. Did Ironsi dissolve the regions? If you say he did, tell us the name of the New entities he created, and then tell us the positions of Fajuiyi and Ojukwu in Ironsi government.
Mind you, the regions always had provinces since 1938.

3. Ironsi was a military man, central chain of command was and remain the military way.
Why Ironsi didn't hand over the Dipcharima? Well, he was a military man with troops at his power, neither Dipcharima nor Nwafor-Orizu had such.
He( Ironsi) was responsible for his actions.
The curiousity is the state in which those who together with Gowon, dissolved the regions, created dysfunctional entities called states and eternally denatured Nigerian structure had refused to take blame for their actions, but are instead insisting that the blame should go to Ironsi, because in their words, he was the one who made them do so. He( Ironsi) from the spirit world pushed them into their actions.

1. Nigeria was killed because she became a failed state which even those who first attempted to steal the vehicle began to get disturbed by its putrid smell of the corpse and so wanted out.
2. Ironsi dissolved the regions and criticized what he called intense regionalism as the problem of Nigeria. He changed the country's official name from "Federal Republic of Nigeria" to just "Republic of Nigeria" meaning the federating units had ceased to exist. If he did not dissolve the regions why then did Gowon promulgate the anti-unification decree which reversed it?
3. And those hardest hit by the dysfunctional state of Nigeria are Ironsi's brothers. Is that not an indication that posterity and nemesis are at work? God's punishment is usually just and it is always directed at the truly guilty who in this case are Ironsi's brothers.

pazienza:
The Burden of proof is on he who said there is and not on he who said there isn't.

You said Zik used threats to keep other groups in Nigeria, show me the proof or forever remain silent.

Zik used Diplomacy to convince the North, not much could be found in written articles from Zik himself on how the West was convinced to fall in line.
But Zik reiterated that he was not going to use any thing beyond diplomacy to keep any group in the union.

The burden is also on you to prove that Zik did not remain silent when Britain backed him up with threat against the AG.

pazienza:
Like I had shown, there were Ijaws who fought for Biafra and even abdicated their thrones rather than denounce Biafra. So, it's a two way thing. FG simply empowered the Igbophobic ones and the Igbophilic ones had to fall in line.
It was a classical divide and conquer strategy.

Willink report is there to prove that no such oppression was meted on any minority group in Eastern region by Ndiigbo.
NCNC minority henchmen like Mbu, Imoke, Nwuche and co would have spoken of it, if it existed.

https://www.nairaland.com/3669459/how-igbo-marginalised-minorities-delta

Either way, the point is that Tamuno account of events remain his personal opinions and cannot be said to be a neutral opinion, seeing as the mainstream Ijaws were hardly neutral towards the Igbos in immediate post 1970, the FG made sure of that with their divide and conquer tactics.

I no longer bother reading your links because they end up negating your own very claims. Tamuno has written it as an Ijaw man. If Igbos were really nice to them but could only rally to the side of Nigeria because of duress they would have long apologized to Igbos after the war. But alas!

pazienza:
You are yet to show any thing remotely close to that.

All you did was assign your usual schizophrenic interpretations to Zik words.
No where did Zik threaten any group that wanted to leave Nigeria, instead those groups were the ones issuing threats and Zik was the diplomat that calmed them down and used superior wit to convince them to play his game.

A diplomat that kept silent when Britain deployed threats to back him up in his quest to hold Nigeria together at all cost. So much for a diplomat! The

pazienza:
Igbos support for GEJ was for their own
calculations against future presidency in 2019 and
not necessarily for the SS’ interest. Hear what a
prominent Igbo man said in that gathering:
“Gary Igariwey, foreclosed the
possibility of an Igbo occupying the
presidency of the country by 2015, saying
Ndigbo could only aspire for the plum job
when President Goodluck Jonathan or any
other South-southerner would have served
out his eight-year unbroken rule.”
Again Jonathan knew that the Igbos are given to
flattery

Lol! Igbos support for GEJ was a rational one.

1. He was a better candidate than Buhari by whatever parameter one would want to use. Without using the shade of tribalism. GEJ was a better candidate.

2. He is from a community that was part of defunct Eastern region, He was and remain closer to Ndiigbo than a Northerner would ever be.

Of course, Ndiigbo reasoned that GEJ deserved a return ticket and decided to shelve our own ambitions to support him. We felt it was a pragmatic approach that we don't divide Southern votes by floating an Igbo candidate and allowing the North easy victory. That way, we hoped the true SS will return us the same favour when we present an Igbo candidate in the future.

Ndiigbo given to flattery? Haha! I wonder why such flattery never won Awolowo Igbo votes in 1979 or why it didn't win Buhari Igbo votes in 2003. and 2007 when he floated Igbo VPs.
GEJ is a good man, an intellectual, not an ex tyrant or an illiterate, he was a builder who gave fair playing ground for all, not a destroyer that divided the country into 5% and 95% , what's not to love?

Well if anyone say good things about Ndiigbo, what are we supposed to do? Fight them for saying good things about us? Ofcourse, we just let them be. We would always welcome those who have respect for us and our achievements as a people, while we would concentrate the hate of Igbophobic beings and throw back at them until they are consumed thereof.

GEJ showed Ndiigbo respect and equity, and that's exactly what he got back from us in return.

1. GEJ was of course better to Igbos because he acted like Zik throughout his tenure by abandoning his own SS and Pursuing the Biafra-Arewa Oligarchy's interest.

2. Boro who was part of the defunct Eastern Region and was equally supposedly closer to Ndiigbo than Northerners. But because he was genuinely fighting for Ijaw interests Igbos who were serving the interests of Northerners tried to kill him. GEJ on the other hand appeals to Ndiigbo because he abandoned his Ijaws and the entire SS but pandered to the interest of the Arewas who are bossom friends of Igbos.

3. It is interesting that Ndigbo so badly want to leave Nigeria for Biafra yet still wanting to become president of Nigeria and therefore strategizing to court support of the SS. Which do we believe now? A very freak people! Never stable. Unreliable, treacherous, unpredictable! It means all these Biafra agitation is pure rubbish! That was still how, in 1967, you wanted Biafra and at the same time grabbing Nigeria's lands. By the time this current double speak of Biafra desire and Presidency drive lead to disaster again you''l blame Edo and Yoruba once more. Very inconsistent fellows!

Did Awlowo flatter Igbos in 1979? Was Awolowo ever a flatterer? A flatterer would not declare uncomfortable truths about Nigeria's geographical expression status and the incompatibilities of the tribes at the risk of being termed a tribal bigot. He was also hated by the North for being very blunt in derision of their feudalist system. A flatterer would not speak like that. Even Ojukwu, in his memo, later described Awolowo as a hard headed realist. I guess you'll say Ojukwu was lying.

Buhari too is very poor at flattery so he could not get Ndiigbo votes unlike OBJ who was a better flatterer and hence won in the Middle East in 2003. Ojukwu himself was a very poor flatterer but a blunt orator hence he failed to get Ndiigbo votes in 2003 and again in 2007.

GEJ showed Ndigbo respect and equity but he never constructed the second Niger Bridge which Ndiigbo needed so badly, he never released Uwazurike for dialogue, the Biafran fighters who attacked Enugu house trying to take over were arrested at his order and detained till he left power, he kicked a seasoned Igbo intellect and high flyer -Festus Odimegwu- out of NPC in subservience to Kwankwaso an Arewa, etc. What was Festus Odimegwu's offence? He spoke a very bitter truth about how Arewas have always manipulated census figures. And Jonathan got eternally crossed with him. Even his own Igbo brothers vilified him for speaking this truth which is an important component of the injustice and oppression in Nigeria. Yet the same Igbos complain of oppression. How ironical. When Odimegwu spoke that truth he was celebrated by Edos, Yorubas, Urhobos, Ijwas, Efiks, etc except his own very Ndiigbo. Hear the Igbo intellect called Festus Odimegwu speak here:
www.premiumtimesng.com/.../176823-ex-npc-chair-and-president-jonathans-ally-fest...

Unfortunately Igbos don't respect these types. If he contests an election he will lose woefully in the Middle East.

May God not let one be so blinded by sentiments as to lose sight of what true respect and equity entail.