₦airaland Forum

gidgiddy:
That means you dont know Nigerian history. Regions are groups of provinces same as states are nothing but groups of Local governments.

The question is if Ironsi was the one who removed Regionalism, not if he was the one who removed democracy. Ghana had several military coups and military rulers, but Ghana still practices Regionalism today because none of the military rulers ever abolished the Regions and created states, like Gowon.

Had Gowon never abolished the 4 Regions and created states, we would still have Regionalism today. May be more Regions would have been created, may be we would have 6 or 7 Regions by now. Today we have 36 states all because Gowon embarked on state creation

Gowon was the one who removed Regionalism and created states

If Ironsi actually left the regions 100% the way he met them, i.e. without tampering with them at all, then why did Northerners kill him only after he made the Unification Decree which was directed at the regional structure? Why didn't Northern soldiers consider toppling and killing him ever before he promulgated Decree 34?

christistruth01:
What happened to the Western Region's UK Embassy on Great Portland St in London after Gen Ironsi's Unification decree

Didn't it have to be Closed down because of Ironsi's decree and their building taken over by the Federal Government later

An Embassy which had been deliberately set up by Awolowo himself on behalf of his People
that was completely responsible for looking after the Welfare of Western Region Scholarship Students in the UK and bringing new Economic Oppotunities and Advances to the Region

He will tell you that Gowon was the one who closed down that Embassy. Just watch him reply.

gidgiddy:
That means you dont know Nigerian history. Regions are groups of provinces same as states are nothing but groups of Local governments.

The question is if Ironsi was the one who removed Regionalism, not if he was the one who removed democracy. Ghana had several military coups and military rulers, but Ghana still practices Regionalism today because none of the military rulers ever abolished the Regions and created states, like Gowon.

Had Gowon never abolished the 4 Regions and created states, we would still have Regionalism today. May be more Regions would have been created, may be we would have 6 or 7 Regions by now. Today we have 36 states all because Gowon embarked on state creation

Gowon was the one who removed Regionalism and created states

Then you have finally opened up that you don't really know what what differentiates regionalism (i.e. in the context of federalism) from Unitary system.
Federalism is not the mere existence of subnational units but it is about the degree to which they have autonomy. UK has subnational units but it is like a confederacy because England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland enjoy very large autonomy. But within England, for example, the subnational units don't enjoy much autonomy hence it is a unitary system.
In Nigeria currently, we have regions namely NE, NW, NC, SE, SW and SS in existence but does that automatically translate to us practicing regionalism in Nigeria currently? Capital NO! So it is very possible to have regions or a semblance of regions in existence and yet not practise regionalism. Such was the case with Ironsi. He first broke down the regions to provinces, and on a second thought regrouped the provinces but not back to regions because he actually never wanted the regions to be exactly as they were before. He found the forner regions too powerful and he didn't like it so he regrouped the his provinces into groups of provinces so that they would still look like regions in appearance even though he had stripped them of their powers. That was nothing but divide and rule tactics. Ironsi was just a clever manipulator. If he knew he would later regroup the provinces to coincide with the boundaries of the regions to feign the existence of regions, then why did he ever break the regions to provinces in the first instance?
Please answer this question in bold.


What Ironsi did was to weaken the regions by reducing them to provinces which he made totally powerless by not creating any leadership office for the individual provinces but appointing a general ruler over them. Then why create the provinces? It is like not allowing the present 774 LGAs have chairmen but just appointing a general head for them in their state capitals. Does that make any sense in true federalism?

We're the premiers reporting to Balewa when the regions were still actually regions?
It is like asking the present governors in the NW geopolitical region to all vacate their seats and then appointing a sole administrator for all of them with his office in Kaduna and then order that sole administrator to always take instructions from Buhari before he does anything about governance of the NW. Is that how federalism or regionalism works?
Iron's also gave order that all civil servants had become national civil servants meaning that the civil servants previously collecting taxes, generating revenues and remitting it to their regional premiers were now to remit such revenues to the national government at the center hence the groups of provinces (fake regions) no longer in charge of their revenue sources thus the killing of resource control. Is that regionalism in practice?

The mere fact that the boundaries of the groups of provinces still coincided with those of the former regions doesn't still cut it.
We all know that when taken together, the present boundaries of Edo and Delta States coincide exactly with the boundaries of the defunct Bendel State but does that mean that Bendel State is still in existence right now and still being governed as one entity? A big NO. So forget about this theory of boundary coincidence. It makes no meaning at all.

Christistruth00:
Gen Ironsi’s name was on the list to deceive Ademoyega and Nzeogwu into thinking it was a National Coup

When Ademoyega was asked to be responsible for dealing with Ironsi he was not allowed

Instead Col Oji who was from the same Hometown of Umuahia as Ironsi was given the Job of Eliminating Ironsi

Imagine !

Who does that

Would the Coup plotters have asked Muritala Mohammed to Eliminate Sardauna or Balewa except because they deliberately wanted to Sabotage the Elimination of the target ?

I have read an account of how they assigned the targeted figures to one another at the planning stage and I didn't see where they assigned anyone to Adegoyega to kill. I have always said it that Adegoyega was the biggest fool in the whole plot. As if that was not enough he went about writing the book "Why we struck" to mitigate his fall for such cheap play on his intelligence.

Tochi3:
Even if you are the owner of nairaland, don't quote me.

I did not quote you. I don't know why you quoted someone "who wrote a whole lot without answering a simple question". If it doesn't make sense why quoting me even if i never did. Unless you are that creature i am talking about zombie.

I detest zombies . I really do hence i avoid quoting them creatures. Its a painful waste of precious God given time.


Pls don't quote me. Wait for nairalanders who are patient enough to engage creatures like you. And believe me they are getting lesser by the day.

Zombie

You are worse than a zombie. You are simply of a mind below the animal world and I strongly detest your likes. So you too own Nairaland to dictate who can quote you while you yourself are quoting others freely without their permission. Your case is very serious. You need treatment.

gidgiddy:
The issue of Regionalism and who removed it is one of the reasons why they dont teach Nigerian history in schools, they dont want people to know the truth.

Ironsi was in power for 6 months. When Ironsi came to power, there 4 Regions

1. Eastern Region

2. Midwest Region

3. Western Region

4. Northern Region

These 4 Regions existed throughout the 6 months of the Ironsi regime right up to the 29th July 1966, the day Ironsi was killed

So how could Ironsi have removed Regionalism?

After the death of Ironsi, Gowon took over and the 4 Regions kept existing for another 10 months until May 1967 when Gowon issued Decree 14 of 1967, which abolished the 4 Regions and replaced them with 12 new states which were:


1. Northwestern State

2. kaduna State

3. kano Sate

4. Northeastern State

5. Kwara State

6. Benue-Plateau State

7. Western State

8. Bendel State

9. East Central State

10. Cross Rivers State

11. Lagos State

12. Rivers State

So it is clear to even a blind man that it was Gowon who removed Regionalism when he created 12 states. So why people are still arguing this after all these years is what I dont know

It was even Gowons removal of the Regions that made Ojukwu declare Biafra

What was existing as at when Ironsi died were groups of provinces headed by military governors and not regions headed by elected premiers.
He had also put in place a machinery to produce an entirely new constitution which would have wiped away even the provinces and replaced them with only God knows what.
Gowon came and restored the provinces back to regions and was in the process of returning their autonomous status to them just exactly like how it was before Ironsi came. But Ojukwu's intransigence forced Gowon to now halt the process halfway, and then create states in response to the pre-ironsi era demands for minority states or regions with their autonomies as it was with the regions.
So Ironsi never died with the regions still in place. In fact he was killed for killing the regions. Remember Northerners sent him delegations twice to leave the regions alone and face the task of punishing the coup plotters who had murdered their revered leaders in cold blood. In fact they promised to support his government for as long as he would want to stay in power provided he left the constitution 100% untampered with and punished the coup plotters. But he refused and that was the genesis of the revenge coup which swept him off that seat.

wordcat:
Ohhhh!!!!
I never knew you're one of them; the sophisticated boiling frogs in the frog in water theory. No more reply

Bursts into laughter.
Don't you think your avoidance of simply stating what exactly Ironsi meant with those expressions and your shifting of goalpost to who said what versus who did what makes you the frog inside boiling water? I asked about the meaning of Ironsi's words and you changed the topic to what Ironsi "actually" did and the same you turned around to talk of frog and water? Yawns!!!!!!

Tochi3:
,I don't like been quoted especially by creatures of your type. There is nothing to exchange between us

Make your opinion without quoting me and move on like i did. I did not and will never in my whole or next life ever quote you.

Pls desist from ever quoting me. I don't ever want to discuss anything with your type.

Make ur opinion and don't ever quote me. Do that with others that have the patience to endure creatures of your type.

Thank you

See hypocrite! So you hate me quoting you yet you came into my thread? Are you sure you are okay at all?

wordcat:
Who removed Regional governors?
Ironsi?

In years to come you will blame Igbos for Buhari's second mission as a civilian president.

Going by common sense, the person who broke down the regions into provinces automatically removed the regional governors.
Now, who removed the deputies of the regional premiers who should have replaced the slain premiers? Gowon?
Who removed Michael Okpara the Eastern Region premier and replaced him with Ojukwu? Gowon?

flokii:
Another proof the whole coup thing was planned for Igbos to take over power in Nigeria.

Ahmadu Bello described them so well in one of his interviews in the 60s' where he alleged that the Igbos always want to dominate everybody wherever they go or in any position they find themselves, reason he introduced the Northernization policy of North first.. and truly it worked, till date Igbos have been kept at arms length in North's affairs and even Nigeria presidency.

Image a clandestine tribal bigot like Azikiwe claiming nationalist when all his policies were geared towards putting Igbos ahead of others in Nigeria.

Ironsi actually knew about the coup ahead of time else what explains why he was reluctant about killing the plotters who purportedly had him name in their hit list? It is natural that a person who survives an assassination plot would waste no time in killings the assassin especially if he is in a position of power and authority.
When, as Biafran soldiers commander, Ojukwu uncovered an assassination plot against him by Ifeajuna, he wasted no time in wasting Ifeajuna through firing squad. Even the allegedly gentle Jonathan who is said not to have the mind to hurt a fly made sure that the Okar Brothers are still languishing onto death in South African prisons today for attempting to assassinate him with a bomb on October 1 2010 at Eagle Square in Abuja.
All that IBB needed to kill you as an army officer back then was to see you in his dream plotting not even to kill him but to sack him from power. Yet Ironsi whom we are told was a target of the coupists was, after surviving their assassination plot, comfortable seeing them alive, well fed and having good fun for six good months. Who would believe that tale with his thinking cap right on his head?

Tochi3:
You are blessed.

Look at them zombies {grown dead ass zombies} looking for who to pass the bulk of a failure called nigeria.

This zombies are the major problem we have in nigeria. They are bunch of pathetic evils whose mission is to keep Nigeria in darkness while they continue to loot and rape the resources of nigeria for their unborn generations.

At the end of the day they look for an Igboman to blame for their miserable failures because they know their slaves down south who hates anything Igbo will swallow the propaganda hook line and sinker.

For crying out loud these man died 60years ago. 60 fucking years ago. But to zombies it must be an Igbo person who must be held accountable for what Nigeria has become after failing woefully in all this years andd still failing to run a modern society.

To be a Zombie for crumbs is really pathetic especially if the zombie skull is worth 25k only.

I guess Philip Asiodu your brother was a zombie for saying it as it is in this interview:
https://www.sunnewsonline.com/impunity-killing-nigeria-phillip-asiodu/

Note where the report reads:

Emeka Ojukwu and myself were very good friends in school, Kings College, Lagos, and Oxford University. In fact when the coup happened, he wanted me to join him in Enugu and I told him that I was not a regional man. And Ojukwu told me ‘we shall abolish the regions within 6 months’.

Here is a narration from Philip Asiodu an Igbo man who was part and parcel of the events of those times. The account here is was also published by an Igbo man owned newspaper, The Sun:

Let's see if they will call Philip Asiodu an Afonja again.
https://www.sunnewsonline.com/impunity-killing-nigeria-phillip-asiodu/

Note where the report reads:

Emeka Ojukwu and myself were very good friends in school, Kings College, Lagos, and Oxford University. In fact when the coup happened, he wanted me to join him in Enugu and I told him that I was not a regional man. And Ojukwu told me ‘we shall abolish the regions within 6 months’.

Tochi3:
You are blessed.

Look at them zombies looking for who to pass the bulk of a failure called nigeria.

This zombies are the major problem we have in nigeria. They are bunch of pathetic evils whose mission is to keep Nigeria in darkness while they continue to loot and rape the resources of nigeria for their unborn generations.

At the end of the day they look for an Igboman to blame for their miserable failures because they know their slaves down south who hates anything Igbo will swallow the propaganda hook line and sinker.

For crying out loud these man died 60years ago. 60 fucking years ago. But to zombies it must be an Igbo person who must be held accountable for what Nigeria has become after failed woefully in all this years andd still failing to run a modern society.

To be a Zombie for crumbs is really pathetic especially if the zombie skull is worth 25k only.

I can't believe you took your time to type all these just to avoid answering a simple question. Now let me ask you this: when exactly do you think Nigeria failed? Today or the day military forced their way into democracy in 1966 January 15? Have you ever seen a prosperous country with a history of military intervention in their politics? Does any of the present economic and military world powers like USA, Germany, UK, Japan, France, China, Italy have their democratic evolution punctuated by military intervention at any point in time?

wordcat:
What Ironsi meant and what Ironsi did were two different thing.

Who abolished the Regional government?

So you mean at such a critical and defining moment with a lot of existential crisis in the whole country, Ironsi was saying what he neither really meant nor intended to do in an important national broadcast as number 1 citizen of his country?

wordcat:
The question is not what Ironsi meant but Who abolished the Regional Government

Who broke the regions into provinces! Who unified the regional pubic services into one national public service? Gowon?

flokii:
Are you minding them?.. a man sat down, thought of and drafted a decree to end regional government which he pronounced on national tv and radio yet they want to absolve him of the blame.

Ironsi and the other Igbo elites at the time had a grand plan to dominate Nigeria and rule permanently.. reason they acted the way they did not knowing the Northerners would orchestrate a counter-coup to wipe out Igbos.

Look at them today, crying and wailing like sore losers when infact their forebearers laid the foundation of Nigeria's problems.

Ahhhh. They say he only drafted the decree, called Gowon, handed him the decree documents and advised Gowon to plot a coup to topple him and then implement the decree on getting to power.
Very laughable people.

juman:
Today they are crying to go back to the region thing.

The thing nor tire you? They are asking for a return to what they destroyed without first explaining why they destroyed it in the first instance.

flokii:
You dey mind them?.. a man sat down, thought of and drafted a decree to end regional government which he pronounced on national tv and radio yet they want to absolve him of the blame.

Ironsi and the other Igbo elites at the time had a grand plan to dominate Nigeria and rule permanently.. reason they acted the way they did not knowing the Northerners would orchestrate a counter-coup to wipe out Igbos.

Look at them today, crying and wailing like sore losers when infact their forebearers laid the foundation of Nigeria's problems.

Come to think of it, all before then their overall leader Nnamdi Azikiwe had been hypocritically singing one-Nigeria all over the Western and Northern Regions while he secured his own Eastern Region for himself and his people. He didn't even want the regions to have been created in the first instance hence attempted to dissuade the colonial overlords from it but failed. He wanted to rule an undivided Nigeria where he would place his people ahead of others without any meritocratic basis. He started an opportunistic nationalism campaign because his home was seriously disadvantaged in terms of landmass coupled with the fact that his kinsman were most scattered in other regions. Then in a grand design they plotted a coup through which they wasted leaders of other regions citing corruption but left to walk free their own leaders who were part and parcel of that allegedly corruption ridden government. Then with the coast now clear they introduced military rule to bring down the federalist constitution which they couldn't do in the previous democratic environment. But today they blame Gowon and Hausafulanis for all these as if it was Gowon or Hausafulanis that first argued against federalism and invented the fraudulent one-Nigeria philosophy.

gidgiddy:
The problem with the person that started this thread is that they are more interested in what Ironsi said than what Ironsi did

Forget what was said, concentrate on what was done

Did Ironsi abolish the Regions or Regionalism? No he did not, the same 4 Regions that were existing when he came to power was still there when he left power

Do you know what a decree is? I mean a decree? Or are you suggesting that Ironsi was such a weakling that he, as GOC of the almighty Nigerian Army, made decrees and went to sleep without implementing them?

On the contrary, Ironsi arrested Isaac Adaka Boro and secured death by hanging for him within two months even before he made his Anti-secession Decree. A person who could enforce a yet non-existent decree is whom you are suggesting later made decrees and couldn't enforce them?
Why not look the way of comedy?

flokii:
What is unanswered there? Ironsi who I believe masterminded the first coup all along using Nzeogwu and some of his other boys made the decree that took powers away from regions to the centre. Why were the attacks only in Kaduna, Ibadan, Lagos and none in the Eastern region if not well-planned ethnic cleansing.

Why didn't he execute the coup plotters but instead left them to continue living large like heroes while himself (Ironsi) and Oukwu went after Adaka Boro's life, killed Niger Delta soldiers for declaring their own republic.. same thing Ojukwu later did and was expecting a pat on the head from Nigeria.

Igbos have destroyed so many things in this country right from the first republic and are still doing so till date.

That is the very essence of the post. You can see how they are all circumventing the poser with conjectures and theories manufactured from their imaginations. One even argued that he made those decrees but never implemented them till he died. Just imagine that kind of talk. Then you wonder what the word "decree" means to him.

nku5:
Lol

When you have the balls to address Gowon's legacy let the world know

Gowon's legacy is a subset of Ironsi's so addressing it outside the context of Ironsi's will be at best dubious!

Investigative:
Afonja are coming with their propaganda

You clearly read where your brother Ironsi refered to the regions as former regions and added that Nigeria ceased to become a federation yet you are still playing the ostrich with Afonja self delusion.
You people are simply pathetic!

Investigative:
Am not that jobless

Your being on this thread spewing inconsistent thrash is enough evidence that you are jobless. If an intellectual task amounts to joblessness for you, then I am vindicated that you attended a bush school.

nku5:
Don't waste your time with this half baked thread. This topic is extinct and buried like Tinubu's presidential ambition A biased person will always see what they want to see regardless of what is in plain sight.

All these sorts of threads always start brewing in the build up to elections

The topic is never buried. That will only happen the day you Ironsi's brothers explain what exactly he meant with those expressions. It has nothing whatsoever to do with electioneering season. It is all about how Nigeria was derailed into this unworkable structure which even the election of a saint into Aso Rock will not address.

Investigative:
Save this for your fellow gullibles

You are the gullible one here. If you want to know people' s ethnicities you read their history of posts to many years back. Coconut head!

Investigative:
Have you have your own party

See who was acting lexicographer over the meaning of the word 'intended' doesn't even know the usage of simple auxillary verbs. Shame!

Investigative:
Have you have your own party

I have never seen a people so shallow in thinking that to them whoever takes exception to their misdeeds is autonomically a Yoruba person. So in your rotten brain you think I am Yoruba? You people's obsession and preoccupation with Yorubas is simply idiotic.

Investigative:
You get time to respond to this media rats
That always feed on propaganda

Pig. Answer the simple question. What did Ironsi mean by those expressions? Dubious folks avoiding the question like a plague because it exposes their guilt of the social injustice they complain of daily about their Azikiwe's fraudulent one-Nigeria.

Uchek:
You said it all!

He said it all without simply answering the question asked? Was that how you answered questions in the university and your lecturers passed you and you graduated?
What exactly did Iron's mean with those expressions? Simple question!

wordcat:
This matter again? Well, let me repeat what I said before,,,

Re: Aguiyi-ironsi Did Not Dissolve Regionalism Nor Did He Introduce Unitary

wordcat(m): 12:32pm On May 02
Fundamentalist:
Very lame argument. You think you can rewrite history .

No one can rewrite history.
After the death of Ironsi, the regional governors according to HISTORY were;

Eastern region- Lt. Colonel Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu

Western region- Lt. Colonel Robert Adeyinka Adebayo

Mid Western region- Lt. Colonel David Ejoor

Northern region- Lt. Colonel Hassan Usman Kastina

Go and celebrate your holiday. Regional government was intact during and after the death of Ironsi.

You mean, with all your education, you can't just simply explain what Ironsi meant by those bolded lines in his national broadcast? Or is it that you don't understand the simple demand I made?

Rugaria:
This is the height of mental laziness! Some of you are pathetic beyond belief. Ironsi was in power for just 6 months! 6 months!!! Because of the tribal politics of The Sarduana and Awolowo and Akintola, he suggested centralized system of administration. The north was against that. So Ironsi decided to travel around the country to explain his position to the different regions! He was killed while still doing this. As at the time he was killed, the regions were still functioning in full force, headed ofcourse by indigenes from these areas. Revenue generation and utilization were still following the principles of regionalism... Every practice associated with regionalism was still effective! He was killed for his suggestion by those who ostensibly opposed his ideas.

How come that almost a century after his murder, the same people that killed him and took over the reigns of governance, are still blaming him for all the evil maladministrative hiccups that they have bequeathed to Nigeria? I mean how can you blame a man you killed 60 years ago for your present failures, when you killed him to stop him? Why can't you Yorubas and fulanis accept that with over a trillion dollars oil income, you guys have failed abysmally at the simple task of running a modern society? Why pass the buck? This country is the way it's today not because Ironsi suggested a unitary system that he never lived to practice, but because from the day he was killed, two tribal groups with their retrogressive cultures hyjacked officialdom but failed woefully at running a modern state. Simple.

Are you saying you can't just simply explain what Ironsi meant by those bolded lines in his broadcast hence you went into this conjectural merry-go-round? I just don't understand you Easterners at all. This is how people fail exams. Imagine yourself a teacher and you give this as an exam question and your student gives as answer exactly the response you have given above, will you pass him? Be honest!

letu:
For your information it is very easy as ABC to understand meaning of a word/words also easy to do simple research, for the Word (Intended) used by Ironsi if you had known the meaning you won't be here asking this stupid question.

It is clear you attended a bush school in your AfghanEASTern Region where you were not taught contextual meaning of words.
For the idiot you are you failed to see that in the preceding sentence to the one you referenced, Ironsi already said that his decree takes effect at once. What does the phrase "at once" mean to you in that sentence?

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.

Intention can translate into reality immediately. Moreover go and check for the meaning of Decree and see if there is any time lag between its promulgation and its taking of effect. Coconut head AfghanEASTern pig!