₦airaland Forum

Idiko1:
This governor should be given credit. He has the gut to go to the rural areas where the dirt tracks remain the main roads. Does the picture show the village is part of Benin City Capital territory Area? Most governors in Nigeria will not even think of a visit to such village talk less make an attempt.

If the bolded is a criterion for good governance then Edo State people would have been worshipping Lucky Igbinedion forever as the best governor in the history of the state contrary to the real perception that he was a plague that befell the State. Lucky Igbinedion's records of visiting terribly bad rods and heavily flooded areas in Edo State and even getting out of his official car to walk right inside the flood barefooted is not likely to be ever surpassed by any future governor of the state. But once after such visit, that was the end of all you would hear about that road or flooded area.

Indispensable85:
Point of correction, APC flogged PDP at the polls in Bayelsa. The PDP leader in the state did not cross. Hellooo

And again, it's not the Apc members that crossed with Obaseki that are being bruised. It's the old PDP members that are being oppressed, humiliated and beaten up by those that came into the party with Obaseki. They want to take over the structure ahead of 2023 nomination processes. If you know who odion olaye is,you'll know where the bullets are coming from. He's obaseki's right hand man and state chairman of NURTW. And Agberooooo

Don't mind that monicker. The fact that he doesn't know the most glaring fact that those currently at the receiving end are the old original PDP members is enough evidence that he knows absolutely nothing about Edo State which he so much pontificates on. His ignorance on the party that won the last Bayelsa fiber election is another testimonial of his ignorance.

Apst:
if u know Edo and PDP with politics u won't say this. Even delta state are solely controlled by PDP. Oshomole won in Edo because igbinedion was a monumental failure and because of his strides with NLC .
Now I stand to be corrected because am not in Edo or from Edo but if u check those taking the heats are the guys that crossed from APC to PDP. If I must say states like delta Edo bayelsa rivers and akwa ibom can't be taken from PDP unless the leaders crossed and once their tenure is out they loose again to PDP

Thank God you said you are not from Edo State. No Edo State native would argue that Edo State can't be taken from PDP. Edo is not a slave to any party. Even Bayelsa was recently taken away from the PDP if not for the Supreme Court abracadabra judgement.

Abujaexpress:
Even Edo is among, yet they keep telling us 'Edo nor bi Lagos"

They were all hypnotized with IPOBIAN sentiments but now they are so ashamed to voice out because Obaseki has been bullying them and dismantling their structure in Edo PDP.

Dapson73:
And someone would say Edo no be Lagos

Don't mind those crass hypocrites. They are no longer anywhere to be found now since Obaseki began to destroy their party in Edo State by forcefully dissolving their exco and trying to supplant them with his own personal stooges.

AuroraBrls:
Looking at this letter proves how whorish, doublespeak, selfish and deceitful Nigerian politicians have been, both oldband current, believe and follow anyone if them hook line and sinker at your own peril.

Same Awo that drove Zik, Macaulay and co away from their untribalised political stronghold in the West with his statement that NCNC was an Ibo party, that Zik should go to the East from whence he came...one of the first seeds of tribalism sown in Nigerias political history.

Get your facts right. Awolowo's resistance to Zik's attempt to rule the Western Region wasn't based on ethnicity considerations but on the need to protect federalism and get everyone to stick to the objective behind the creation the regions in the first instance. The regions were created by the colonial authorities as a response to the demand for self governance by the natives of each of the three broad geopolitical territories.
Azikiwe'ss attempt to rule the West as a native of the Eastern Region was therefore going to amount to a fraudulent violation of that very objective behind the creation of the regions. Mind you that Awolowo resisted Zik not based on the fact that Zik was not a Yoruba but based on the fact that Zik was not a native of the Western Region. Recall that back then in the Western Region there were native non-Yoruba tribes like the Binis, Urhobos, Esans, Etunos, Isokos, Ijaws, Etsakos, Owans, Okpameris, Ososos, Unemes, and even the Igboid Aniomas but that Awolowo didn't have any problem with anyone from among them ruling the Western Region. Moreover an Urhobo member of the Western Region Assembly back then was among those who moved over to Awolowo's side in the power tussle between him and Azikiwe. Now, if it was a pro-Yoruba tribal call by Awolowo as you would have your readers believe, how an Urhobo man responded positively to it?
Zik was a fraudulent one-Nigerianist and an expansionist who left his own region unchallenged and proceeded to annex other people's regions in the name of seeking national unity. Why wasn't he satisfied with ruling his own region thus commencing his charity from home? What good governance did he think he had in stall for the Western Region people that his own
Eastern Region people weren't more in need of? It Ahmadu Bello had come to seek to be premier of the Eastern Region, would you Igbos have ever welcomed it? Zik read Anthropology from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, USA and going by the tenets of the course, the pace of national integration must be slow and natural in any new nation. But Zik was going around trying to accelerate it artificially. Only a dubious and fraudulent agenda would inspire an anthropologist to pursue an idea which runs contrary to the fundamental principles of his profession. So Awolowo rightly reminded him of the need to stop being a crass and rather be guided by the principles of the course he read from the university.

AuroraBrls:
Anyways Ironsi had already approved his release before he got assassinated. Talking of opportunism and self interest, only for Awo to now align with Gowon after a juicy role. Advising the Gowon government to blockade and starve millions of innocent women and children to death for 30months.

So you were expecting Awolowo to have come out of jail and aligned with Igbos who jailed him in fighting against the Gowon who released him? If you insist Awolowo was released on Ojukwu's orders, then how come the same Ojukwu's order also released Enahoro and a host of others who were jailed alongside with Awolowo but in prisons located outside the Eastern Region where Ojukwu had no power to order any release?
You would also recall that in the early days of Biafra Ojukwu gave to Zik a top hierarchy position in which Zik was practically calling the shots. Now were you expecting Awolowo to have agreed to work in a secession project under the supervision of the same one-Nigerianistic Zik who had earlier on repeatedly sabotaged his (Awolowo's) secession clause motions in the parliament? Put yourself in Awolowo's shoes and see if you could have acted differently in the same circumstances.

AuroraBrls:
As fate would have it the same northerners and military hounded him into suicide when he couldn't take anymore of the litanies of phantom coup accusations and invitations for questionings at Dodan Barracks, at a very frail old age and President he never became.

Don't you think that Awolowo's alleged suicide which took only his own life is less of a pain than the over 3 million innocent Igbo civilians that lost their lives in the avoidable war caused by Ifeajuna and co?

ednut1:
with the region al government. One person premier was powerful, just see what awolowo and akintola turned south west to with fight for supremacy

The 1963 did not give absolute powers to the premier as you would have your readers believe. Despite being premier of the Western Region, Akintola's impeachment process was already going on smoothly and wouldn't have given birth to any supremacy tussle if Balewa had, as prime minister, exercised the lawful restraint not to dabble into the process for political capital. In essence what led to the First Republic crisis was not the constitution itself but Balewa's arrogation to himself the powers which that constitution didn't confer on him

onuman:
By dwelling on revising history to suit your purpose in Nigeria, but not analyzing the present situation of political logjam in Nigeria and how to solve the logjam, you are not a realistic person.
Unless you are among those who pluck Nigeria’s oil money for their private bank accounts, and who would have the political status quo in Nigeria to remain, your talk this time should have centered on how to resolve the logjams of contemporary Nigeria; instead of you talking Azikiwe, Tafawa Balewa, Ikemba Ojukwu etc;.

If truly you are from the north of Nigeria, then the country’s political logjams can never be resolved.

Many people in Nigeria had already seen the situation of Nigeria and they believe that referendum on continuation of Nigeria is the only option left.

But Buhari clan is like it believes that use of Nigeria armed forces to impose continuation of Nigeria is it, starting with military intimidation of the Igbo through another pogrom and genocide. But Buhari clan stands the risk of losing Nigeria completely if it continues with the intimidation of the Igbo it has started. The factors in Nigeria’s civil war against the Igbos have changed.

And you think the Arewa distortion of the constitution you keep alleging falsely all over this thread are events of the present, right? What solutions have you yourself offered to the current challenges if not blame blame and blame with reference to the same past you hypocritically accuse me of? You think you can solve problems without first understanding their origins? Has it ever occured to you that there is no expert doctor who commences treatment of an ailment without first taking comprehensive and detailed records of his patient's medical history?
All before now majority of Nigerians kept on playing the ostrich by arguing that our problem is corruption and bad leadership hence kept on praying for the coming of a massiah whom they hoped would come and kill and bury corruption and then eldorado will follow hence they completely neglected the historical fact that the fraudulent introduction of unitary system is the root of Nigeria's failure which must first be addressed through restructuring or else we would continue in failure regardless of the arrival of a messiah. Wasn't EFCC set up as a supposed solution to the corruption narrative? By how much has EFCC now been able to stem the tide of corruption since 2005 that it was created? How successful has EFCC been in changing the average Nigerian's perception that the shortest cut to financial freedom is through public office? How come Obasanjo is now a convert of restructuring after having argued over the years that our problem is not the structure but corruption for which he set up EFCC? Why is he no longer convinced that EFCC can solve our problems? If you were realistic and have any use for critical analysis, the monumental failure of EFCC alone in curbing corruption should have been instructive enough to you that any attempt to find solutions to Nigeria's problems by bypassing the aetiological history (introduction of unitary system) of the problem is an act of chasing the wind hence an exercise in futility. Keep looking for non-existent short cut solution without going back to find out where the rain started beating you.
I am not a Northerner as you love to assume. Rather I am a native of the South South geopolitical region. I wonder why you Igbos have this deficiency of always being quick to assume that it takes a Northerner or Yoruba to take a stand against your victim card playing as regards the current oppressive and retrogressive system whereas you Igbos are actually the architects of it.

onuman:
You hide in the worlds of Azikiwe and Ironsi in your fraudulent revision of history.
Those two persons acted on their own initiatives, not with any backing of the Igbo in any meetings. Azikiwe wanted to rule a big country. He never did.

And you think that those Arewa leaders harping on Nigeria's fraudulent non-negotiable status have the approval of the Arewa common man in the streets who have suffered the misgovernce like everyone else? In the first place most of them aren't even educated enough to even know what it means for a country's unity to be non-negotiable or otherwise let alone giving approval to their defacto political leaders to mouth it.
On that account they could be pardoned. But Igbos were largely educated and knew the danger of a non-negotiable union yet it is not recorded anywhere in the annals of history that any Igbo individual or group publicly took exception to Zik's antithetical stance on the forced and artificial unity of Nigeria. Look, as long as holding an elective position in democracy is a representative venture then all the position Zik took in the parliaments were on behalf of Igbos who freely elected him there to represent them. If Igbos weren't in support of those his stupid and idiotic positions on the oneness of Nigeria, then how come no motion was ever moved in any part of Igbo land to recall him from the legislature when recall process was far easier back then than presently? Rather you Igbos were hailing him as a detribalised nationalist and Zik of Africa while he killed every motion to place Nigeria's unity in a negotiable status?
You must be kidding yourself.

onuman:
Ironsi did not organize any military coup to become Head of State. Igbos did not bring Ironsi to power.

You will really do well in comedy. As long as a coup is defined as any unconstitutional means of taking power from duly elected government of the people, Ironsi can't be washed off the accusation of coup plotting because records have it that when the parliamentarians chose Balewa's successors in line with the provision of the very independence Constitution which Ironsi himself publicly swore to defend and protect on his inauguration day as Army GOC, Ironsi refused to have him sworn in but threatened that if power was not handed over to him he would not be able to guarantee the safety of the parliamentarians. And that was supposedly the chief security officer of the entire country. What an Irony! So the parliamentarians had no choice but to hand over to him under duress and in clear violation of the constitution. So how wasn't that a coup? Or you think what qualifies an act as a coup is only bloodshed and murder of people?

onuman:
Nigeria armed forces organized a military coup stopped half way by Igbo soldiers, including Ojukwu.

. And that Nigerian Armed forces coup had 80% of Igbo membership with a casualty statistics of 100% other tribes. Funny. Ironsi and Ojukwu stopped the coup but ended up introducing the aberration of military rule which the coup itself was aimed at introducing. So exactly what difference did it make? If they had returned power to the civilians on stopping Nzeogwu and Ifeajuna, then your claim would have been valid.

onuman:
We are talking about contemporary Nigeria which has become a failed state owing to the fraudulent political restructuring of Nigeria by successive northern military dictators and creation of today’s fraudulent democratic institutions, through the backing of the northern political class. The fraudulent political structure, unitary government system and democratic institutions are all favoring only the far north region of Nigeria. Above all, Northern soldiers supervised a fraudulent constitution to legitimize the fraudulent political structure and democratic institutions; no referendum on the constitution.
The whole fraud has been kicked against by people in the southeast and southwest regions, and now joined by the Middle belt region.

Unfortunately you have refused to answer the question of whether the Ironsi who kickstarted the whole process of fraudulent constitution amendment was an Arewa man. In giving a narrative of how an unfortunate situation came to be, you don't start from a point in the middle so as to cut away your own complicity and pioneering of the fraud. You give a complete and full history and blame your people where they deserve it. Anything other than that is a bigger fraud and more dishonorable. Let me ask you this simple question: if Ironsi had simply sworn in Dipcharima as Balewa's replacement, replaced the slain premiers with their deputies, arrested Ifeajuna et al, court-martialed and executed them according to military court-martial laws and then returned to the barracks as a principled honourable and professional soldier, do you in all honesty think that the Arewa and Southern mediocres and opportunists like Gowon, Murtala Mohammed, Obasanjo, Shagari, Buhari, IBB, Abacha, Shonekan, Abacha and Obasanjo again who later succeeded Ironsi and destroyed this country with further constitution alterations would have ever smelled power let alone clinch it?

onuman:
You must be naive to believe that by living in the past as you cite Azikiwe, Ojukwu, employing your old divide and rule tactics;

Don't you think that this advice of yours is better directed at your master Nnamdi Kanu who has been living in the distant past by narrating false histories of how you were allegedly betrayed by the SW, MB and SS during the war when in actual fact it was you who betrayed these regions first by aligning with the same Hausafulanis through the ideologically bankrupt NPC-NCNC governing coalition to hound these other regions' political leaders into jail for unfounded accusations thinking Hausafulanis would reward you with prime minister position at the end of Balewa's tenure? You must be naive not to know that the past shapes the present just like the present will definitely shape the future hence your concern about the present. I have no doubt that you were among those who clapped for Obasanjo when he removed history from our curriculum. The USA which we all admire for their enviable status as an ideal society makes American History courses cumpolsory for international students in their universities regardless of the courses they go there to major in. You think you know better than them right? How do you know whether you are moving forward or backwards without knowing where you initially were?

onuman:
and employing the military might of the armed forces; the 12 sharia states now resisting democratic political restructuring of Nigeria - the sharia states can succeed in keeping Nigeria’s political structure, governance system and constitution any much longer.

Was there any possibility of sharia imposition on the country as at when the regions were fully autonomous and making their own laws before Ironsi came and unified the civil service to the elimination of the rehions' powers?

onuman:
You are a fraudulent revisionist.

You are rather the fraudulent revisionist here. All you've said here are the mixture of truth and lies you have always spread to hoodwink the uninformed and ignorant into believing that you Igbos are mere victims of an oppressive system whereas you actually created that system.

onuman:
1) Regional government system was totally abolished by Arewa military dictators after Ironsi’s Decree which took some powers from the regions but still kept regional governments.

Why would Ironsi introduce military rule in the first instance? Ironsi, in his May 24 1966 National Broadcast, clearly stated it that the regions were abolished and that Nigeria had ceased to be what was called a federation and had rather become just Republic of Nigeria. In that speech he kept on describing the regions as former regions. Again and quite recently Philip Asiodu, an Igbo man was reported by The Sun Newspaper, an Igbo newspaper, to have revealed the discussion between himself and Ojukwu at those times during which Ojukwu informed him of the plan of him and Ironsi to abolish the regions within six months of illegally taking over power.

onuman:
2) Since Arewa military dictators restructured Nigeria politically from 1967-1996; Arewa has never sought to leave Nigeria for a new Arewa country.

and when Igbos were targeting to impose unitary system they never sought to leave Nigeria too. Rather they invented the fraudulent one-Nigeria slogan and repeatedly sabotaged all efforts by other tribes, Arewa inclusive, to dismember Nigeria. Igbos went as far as Promulgating Anti-secession Decree after their brothers Aguiyi Ironsi and Ojukwu successfully crushed Niger Delta Republic declaration and sentenced Isaac Adaka Boro to death for championing the course.

onuman:
Instead, Arewa politicians restate that Nigeria is an indivisible country.

Arewa politicians were only re-echoing the words of Nnamdi Azikiwe who coined the clause that Nigeria's unity was non-negotiable and perpetual as at a time the foremost Arewa leader, Ahmadu Bello was publicly describing Nigeria as The Mistake of 1914 and another Arewa politician, Tafawa Balewa, in a public speech described Nigeria as a mere British Experiment and Nigeria's unity a British Intention which most Nigerians themselves had no faith in. For these realistic positions of theirs, you Igbos insulted them, labelled them tribal lords, sectionalists, divisive elements and ethnic bigots. Then you went ahead and plotted a coup through which you killed them in cold blood. But now that their political descendants have taken correction and chosen to pursue Igbos' one Nigeria, you condemn and still demonize them. Then what exactly do you Igbos really want? Tell me!

onuman:
3) Without crude oil in the Niger Delta, abs access to sea in the south, extreme Islam synonymous with Arewa would have made Arewa seek to leave Nigeria for a new Arewa country to be governed with Islamic Sharia criminal justice system; but Arewa tactically drew the boundaries of its sovereign country with sharia criminal justice system in the 12 Arewa sharia states, clutched tight to one Nigeria because of lucre.

Unfortunately your likes who peddle this sort of half-truth narrative have never answered the question of why Azikiwe, Ojukwu and Ironsi always resisted Arewa each time they tried to breakaway from Nigeria before and after the discovery of crude oil. Haven't you ever read about Zik's long threatening speech to Arewa in 1953 when the latter officially tabled a demand for an Arewa country in one of the pre-independence parliamentary sessions that year? Haven't you ever heard about Zik's killing of Awolowo's and Enahoro's secession clause motions which even Arewas declared supported for? If anything, Igbos were actually the tribe that first had its eyes on the Niger Delta's crude oil hence Ironsi's crushing of Isaac Adaka Boro's secession declaration in a 12 day war in which he and Ojukwu used federal might to kill over 150 Isaac Boro's foot soldiers. I guess Ironsi was an Arewan, right?

onuman:
The SE and the SW may leave Nigeria for new countries, Arewa can then clutch tight on the oil producing states of the southsouth for a new Nigeria, since Arewa politicians think that crude oil is all there is for a country to survive. Buhari is the Oil minister of Nigeria. His Arewa must not continue to wage undeclared war against the SE because of lust for cheap cash from crude oil in the southsouth.

We all know the tribe that always assumed that Nigeria was theirs to dominate hence never initially believed in secession until their domination agenda hit the rocks. So keep your pontifications to yourself.

kissdabride:
read and comprehend not saying trash here in his time he draw everybody closer not like your futajallon president who only see Fulani has superior to others and that is the bane of problems Nigeria is facing now

He drew everyone close by killing thousands of innocent civilians in Odi and Zakibiam and then looking the other way when the same circumstances for which he ordered genocides in those two places played out in his own home state of Ogun? You obviously think nepotism starts and ends with appointment, right?

Most commentators here are crass hypocrites. How can people who massively voted Obasanjo to power in 1999 and again in 2003 against every common sense now come out to cry blue murder over the fact that Obasanjo became influential enough to assist Buhari ride onto power to fail Nigerians? If you people yourselves had thrown primordial sentiments away and rejected Obasanjo together with his militaristic Northern Oligarchy sponsors in 1999 and voted for Olu Falae who represented a better future and a complete breakaway from the old rotten past, would Obasanjo have ever later acquired the influence and political relevance to have successfully railroaded Buhari to power? Whatever power Obasanjo had to bring Buhari back from political obscurity and irrelevance to power was given to him by those who as well brought he himself (Obasanjo) back from political irrelevance and obscurity to power in 1999 through their bloc votes for him particularly from the SE and my own SS who Ironically now have the loudest crying volume about how not to recycle past failed military men to power.

snowball11:
I'm not holding brief for Obasanjo; however, he did better than this thing presently ruling!

All the problems we face today in this democratic dispensation had their foundations laid by Obasanjo between 1999 and 2007.

onuman:
Obasanjo was not allowed by Arewa to conclude his political structuring exercise.


GEJ’s CONFAB recommendations were kept in a cooler by Arewa led by Buhari.

Arewa clutches tight to the roguish political structure and governance system created by Arewa soldiers, and stamped upon Nigeria by a constitution supervised by Arewa soldiers.

Arewa adopted unconstitutional Islamic Sharia criminal laws thereby rape that 1999 constitution.
Let the southeast and southwest pull out of Nigeria.

If the Southsouth with crude oil and Arewa can remain one country, without the SE and the SW, so be it. Because it’s only crude oil that draws Arewa to one Nigeria after Arewa 12 sharia states adopted unconstitutional Islamic Sharia criminal justice system.

You mean the same Obasanjo who frustrated all attempts by civil society groups to hold a sovereign national conference of their own, repeatedly argued that the present structure is not our problem but that it is only corruption we have to kill to get a better Nigeria, etc had any restructuring agenda which Arewa frustrated?

Why didn't Jonathan implement his own confab report before he left office if he himself was ever really sincerely committed to the issue of restructuring? .

Go back to the annals of history and there you will see it that Arewa originally didn't want to be part of Nigeria in the first instance. This they repeatedly made known publicly even well after crude oil had been discovered in Nigeria. What you see as their lust after the South's crude oil proceeds today is actually the consequence of their being forced into Nigeria against their will by the forbearers and political elite of Biafrans and another Biafran's destruction of our federalism and resource control due to his own desire to have his Kinsmen lord it over other tribes exactly as the Arewas are presently doing.

The level to which some of you seek political correctness freightens me. I just can't phantom it.

FemolasticA:
Baba have contribute alot during his time, the phone you are using today who invented it to Nigeria??

Mobile phone project was initiated by Abacha.

OPPPS:
How Obaseki was able to sell to Edomites that he was fighting godfatherism and they gullibly bought that still beats my imagination

The Nairaland PDP Tax collectors Tonyebacanista and the wailing members Johnessense , Faraiaded the children of confusion are no where to be seen

If you remember how people also fell for the very shallow and simplistic 1999 campaign narrative that Lucky Igbinedion's gifting of his salary to market women while he was Oredo LGA chairman made him a potentially better governor than his rival Lucky Imasuen who was campaigning with germane issues of industrialization of the stste through harnessing her potentials in solid minerals, gas fields, nodal location as regards transportation hub, etc; you would have realized that Obaseki's narrative of fighting godfatherism was even more appealing and would therefore catch more victims in the the same state where majority fell for Lucky Igbinedion's. Then generally as Nigerians we are so gullible that we fall for any emotional message no matter how cheap and senseless. Take for example how people fell for the silly and dumb narrative of 1999 that Obasanjo would govern well since he had become born again on account of having been to prison to feel what Nigerians had been suffering, and that he would become Nigeria's version of Mandela for having the from-prison-to-power experience. Also, the Yaradua narrative that he was a gentle man and was going to be the first university graduate to rule Nigeria. You would observe that in all of these scenarios above including the others, the masses bought these gimmicks without asking what the antecedents or performance records of the candidates were. That is why I have always been of the opinion that Nigeria's problem doesn't really have anything to do with bad leadership but that it is more about unprincipled and gullible followership thoroughly bankrupt of critical thinking.

This is ridiculous. A person who claimed he was on a collision course with Godfathers over his stance on not agreeing to share state resources is now being reported to have confessed to giving out $120,000 and another N7 million to the chairman/godfathers of his new party not for anything that has to do with the pursuit of any developmental project but with pure political gratification. It was indeed a display of high level of gullibility on the part of those who fell for the narrative of not agreeing to share the state's resources for godfathers.

FBIBOT:
Pdp is terrible at playing opposition role.... By 2023 90% of states in Nigeria will have become apc....

The people of the regions currently home to PDP never really played opposition politics from independence until 2015 when the task fell on them unexpectedly.

gidgiddy:
Regions are nothing but a group of provinces same as a state today in Nigeria is nothing but a group of Local governments. So wether you call it a Region, or a group of Provinces, doesnt change what it is.

Your argument above is similar to that of someone who claims that if the presidency today signs into law a bill from the National Assembly seeking to transfer all the remaining items in the concurrent and residual lists to the exclusive list, it won't make Nigeria a full blown unitary state as long as the bill doesn't tamper with the existence of the 36 states. It is also like claiming that as long as the 774 present LGAs are still left in place, the governors' refusal to respect their autonomy doesn't in any way detract from true federalism.
For the umpteenth time, I have to tell you again that federalism is not the mere existence of subnational units but the degree to which they enjoy autonomy. Get it clear and very clear: no one was against Ironsi for creating provinces. After all people were already seeking a breakdown of the regions to smaller regions like it was already done to the Western Region to produce the Midwest, and was being agitated for by the people of the proposed Middle Belt, COR and many more regions. In fact there was just no way the regions were going to remain as the first four. Never! But the issue people had and still have with Ironsi was that after creating those provinces he rendered them powerless by stripping them of their autonomy through his unification of the civil service and his placing of them under the control of a governor rather than allow each of them govern itself completely. After creating them, he didn't allow them to be self governing at individual levels but grouped them again and placed each group under a single governor. Wasn't that a self contradiction? What then was the need creating them in the first instance only to re-enslave them under the regional governors again in the name of groups of provinces?
Ironsi created 35 provinces and they were rejected by the public, but today we have 36 states whose boundaries almost perfectly coincide with Ironsi's provinces yet people are happy and okay with it? What then makes the difference?
Simple Answer: the 36 states of today have their own governors and control their own affairs. They are not grouped together as groups of states with only one governor imposed on each group by the presidency and asked to be reporting to the president like it was with Ironsi's provinces. Do you get the logic now? The present geopolitical regions can best be described as groups of states. Now, haven't you ever noticed that the proposal that each of these present six geopolitical regions should have a single governor or regional vice president ruling over them is always roundly rejected in every confab because it would amount to the abolition of the autonomy of the states and make them powerless thus negate the very essence of creating the states in the first instance? Such was the kind of setting Ironsi put in place hence the inherent self contradiction in it and its rejection by the public.

gidgiddy:
If Ironsi made the Regions powerless as your say, then why was there any need for Gowon to travel to another country to meet Ojukwu? Why would a military ruler meet with a Governor of weak powerles group of provinces in another country?

As at the time of those travellings to meet each other, Gowon had already partly restored the power of the regions hence it was possible for Ojukwu to wield such power to ask for negotiations. In addition, Gowon made himself open to public opinion and suggestions hence his agreement with Ojukwu to go for fresh negotiations about a new constitution even though he knew that Ojukwu lacked the moral right to ask for such negotiation given the fact that he was an accomplice to Ironsi in destroying the very constitution he was seeking a return to. Gowon was unlike Ironsi who was stiff, self-opinionated, arrogant, rigid and unyielding to public opinion. Recall that Northerners twice sent powerful delegations to Ironsi to advise him that nothing was wrong with the 1963 constitution and therefore beg him not to tamper with it at all but focus on punishing the coupists, but Ironsi stuck to his guns and insisted that the 1963 constitution was Nigeria's problem and needed to be amended by decrees to remove regionalism which according to him was promoting tribalism over nationalism spirit. Can you just imagine?!

gidgiddy:
The answer to that is the fact that the Regions were still in control of their resources, and paying for the Federal government to survive. When you control your resources, and contribute to centre, you are federal. But when the centre controls the resources and contribute to you, you are federal in name only, just like Nigeria is today.

At independence Nigeria was run on the basis of the regions remitting just 25% of the revenues generated within their domains to the FG while retaining the remaining 75% to develop their domains. All mines and oil wells were under the regional premiers. Oil and solid minerals mining licenses were issued by the regional premiers and not by the federal government like it is today. Each region had their own separate ambassadors to different countries, each region made their own laws on security, education, agriculture, health, etc and all was working fine that way.
But Azikiwe was not happy with that arrangement as he kept on calling for one-Nigeria which was a euphemism for unitary system. This inspired the minds of the Nzeogwus and Ifeajunas into believing that federalism was inimical to national unity and on account of that a rather mild and normal political crisis which usually characterizes any young democracy was interpreted by Ironsi to mean the failure of federalism and its main feature of decentralized civil service, so without seeking public opinion or consulting anyone he seized the opportunity to quickly impose his own idea of governance in Nigeria in pursuit of the rather fraudulent idea of national unity which he got from Azikiwe, and that was where things began to go out of hand.

gidgiddy:
Gowon had no choice but to meet Ojukwu in Aburi, the Regions were just too strong, the legacy of Ironsi.

I think I have already clearly explained that the Gowon's open mindedness and positive disposition to public opinion inspired his concession to the Aburi meeting proposal from an Ojukwu who actually lacked both moral and legal right to so propose and demand.

gidgiddy:
So Gowon and his Northern cohorts knew that to control Nigeria, they had to do away with the 4 Regions as well as resource control. So Gowon enacted Decree 14 of 1967 that abolished all 4 Regions, replaced them with 12 states, placed all resources in the hands of the federal government.

Gowon and Northerners weren't the ones who introduced military rule that ended up destroying the regions and their autonomy. It also wasn't them that centralized the civil service in pursuit of a fraudulent one-Nigeria and dubious national unity. If anything, Northerners had always made themselves clear that they never wanted unitary system as it would enslave all other regions and tribes under whichever tribe clinches power at the center. In fact on noticing Ironsi's pro-centralization body language within his first few days in power they sent delegations to advise him to perish any thoughts of tampering with the strictly federal constitution by which they depended on revenues they generated from only their groundnut pyramids and solid minerals in contentment. But Ironsi refused and argued that all that must give way to a non-existent national unity and Azikiwe's fraudulent one-Nigeria.
So in all that scenario who between Northerners and Igbos could truly be said to have first nursed the evil agenda of destroying federalism and resource control? Be honest.

gidgiddy:
Of course, the Eastern Region was not about to be truly stripped of its federal powers and fought back

The Eastern Region was first to nurse the ambition of stripping all other regions of their federal powers back then through the introduction of military rule and their tampering with the independence Constitution to which delegates from all Regions (Eastern Region inclusive) appended their signatures in mutual trust and agreement in the 1958 London Constitutional Conference. Why later go through the backdoor to make alterations in the agreement you made with others openly before the whole world in London if you didn't have a dubious agenda up your sleeves?

gidgiddy:
What is laughable about the whole thing is that the same people who were complaining that Ironsi made the Regions weak by taking power to centre, were the same people who complained that the confederation agreed at Aburi gave the Regions too much powers and made the centre weak lol

The constitution which all Nigerians, through their delegates to the 1957 Lindon Constitutional Conference, agreed to was one in which the center and the regions shared power in a balanced way, i.e. the power sharing structure did not tilt too much in favour of either side, and Nigerians were very okay with that. But on coming to power through the backdoor, Ironsi, without consulting anyone, tilted it in favour of the center and even destroyed the regions, so people complained and fought against him and he lost his life. Then Gowon came in restored the regions and tried to rebalance power. But while on it Ojukwu came with the Aburi proposal to now tilt it totally in favour of the regions. Again Nigerians rejected it and insisted on the balanced structure which they all mutually agreed to at the Independence Constitutional conference in London. So how exactly did that amount to hypocrisy and inconsistency on the part of Nigerians? If anything, the inconsistent people were the Igbos who initially agreed with other Nigerian in London to a balanced structure, then later came through Ironsi to tilt it in favour of the center which they had just got control of though illegally, and once they lost control of the center they came up again with a proposal this time to tilt it in favour of the regions... meaning that they sought three different structures at different times and circumstances while the rest Nigerians kept on insisting on a particular one all through the same circumstances. So who were the shifty and inconsistent ones in all those scenarios? Be the judge.

gidgiddy:
The same people said nothing when Gowon was abolishing the 4 Regions and replacing them with 12 States

I have already explained that no one was against breakdown of regions to as many smaller units as possible. Gowon or no Gowon, there was just no way the regions were going to remain as four. What however made the difference in acceptance between Gowon's and Ironsi's was that Gowon's states were given their governors and allowed to have a sense of detachment from the center. Gowon didn't regroup his new states into groups of states over which he appointed military governors to govern and report to him unlike Ironsi's which re-enslaved his provinces directly under the center by way of placing them in groups over which the center imposed governors on them and asked them to be be reporting to the center. It was like giving someone with one had and taking away from him with two hands. Why didn't Ironsi grant the provinces the status of having their own independent governors chosen by the indegenous peoples of the provinces themselves?

gidgiddy:
The same people ganged up to fight Ojukwu and the Eastern Region in a civil war so as to help Gowon and his Northern cohorts fully implement "divide and rule"

The hypocrisy of Nigeria is alarming

Ironsi was actually the agent of divide and rule by way of dividing the regions into provinces which he again tried to rule by regrouping them into groups of provinces still to be ruled by himself through the same governors he imposed on the regions before he split them into provinces. How on earth do you create new subnational units and rather than let them govern themselves, you again regroup them into provinces to be governed by the same governors whom you imposed on them before you split them? Does that make sense?

gidgiddy:
I wonder why people like you make claims when you obviously dont have basic grasp of Nigerias history

You dont know what the revenue sharing formular was before Ironsi came to power, you dont know about Ironsi's budget of March 31st 1966 and you dont know if Ironsi maintained the fiscal policy agreed at independence. So what do you know? That Ironsi unified the civil service structure?

Use Google and update your lack of knowledge

I knew it was going to get to this ..."You don't know history, you don't have accurate knowledge of that, use Google, blah blah blah...." That has always been your stock in trade when cornered in a debate. Are you suggesting that I help you find evidence for a claim you made? He who alleges bears the burden of proof.

gidgiddy:
If Ojukwu went to Aburi as the Military Governor of the Eastern Region, then what Eastern Region was he going to Aburi to restore?

Ojukwu went as the head of Eastern Group of weak and powerless provinces created by Ironsi which was, likewise other groups of provinces, in the process of being converted back to full autonomous regions at that moment hence the agreement that all previous regions be restored to their full status quo at Aburi.
If the regions were in place and resource control and other things in the 1963 constitution hadn't been tampered with, then what was the need going to Aburi in the first instance?

dumiel:
I don't even need to argue with you. I've told you the actual coloration of Nzeogwu's coup. If we had a blend of other tribes in that coup, probably today, we won't have as much of the problem that arose after that act! It was what it was! It was that coup that distorted the balance of the Military till today as those northern bigots couldn't trust anything south anymore.. And any other coup afterwards deep down was more of greed than any other thing.

All the subsequent coups had a blend of other tribes but didn't give us a better country. The truth remains that coups are an aberration to any democratic society. None of the prosperous countries with world power status ever had their democratic journey punctuated by military intervention.

gidgiddy:
Then that means you lying about what Ironsi did. Ironsi at no time siezed the resouces of the Regions. He at no time changed the revenue allocation formular agreed at independence between the federal government and the Regions. Infact, Ironsi's first and only budget was calculated at what the federal government expected the Regions to remit in taxes.

So it does not really matter how much Ironsi unified the civil service, what mattered was that the 4 Region's of the time still kept the majority of what accrued in their Region, and paid the federal government the 25% tax that was agreed at independence.

If all Ironsi did was to unify the civil service, then he did not do 1% of what Gowon who took over from him did

How could Ironsi have drafted a budget when he got to power after the 1966 budget has been drafted and died before the time for the next budget drafting? Can you upload any documents here to substantiate your argument that the regional governors he appointed ever remitted taxes to him?
Your mention of revenue allocation formula lays it bare that you are the one lying. In true federalism there is nothing like revenue allocation let alone a formula for it. It is only in unitary system such happens hence the existence of revenue sharing formula under Ironsi means he ran a unitary government and destroyed federalism.
Was there revenue sharing formula during the time the regions were being headed by Ahmadu Bello, Awolowo and Azikiwe?

gidgiddy:
Next time ask Philip Asiodu how Ironsi managed abolish all 4 Regions of the time if all 4 Regions were existing the day Ironsi died. Unless he is saying Ironsi later came back from the dead to do that

If the regions were still in existence as at when Ironsi died, then how come the item number one in the Aburi meeting agenda was the restoration of the regions and abrogation of all Ironsi's decrees?

dumiel:
Even though I want to agree with your first sentence, please don't ever compare what Kaduna did with that of Jerry. Never! One was a tribal gang up while the other was a single decision, at least as far as is obvious. Jerry never called his kinsmen and decided with them to kill certain people from some particular part of Ghana. Until that day we start calling a spade a spade without any iota of sentiment to it, this country will not know peace.

Have you ever wondered why even the non-tribal coups that subsequently followed Nzeogwu's didn't eradicate corruption as the plotters always promised but worsened it with the military HOS being the biggest beneficiary? How many tribes do you have in Ghana and what is the population of Ghana compared with Nigeria's?

gidgiddy:
First they said Ironsi abolished the Regions, now they say he only made them weak. I still wonder how Ironsi made the Regions weak when he allowed resource control? The greatest thing any Region can control is its resources. How does a unified civil service affect Resource control if the Regions are controlling their resources, paying the agreed tax to centre and keeping the bulk of what accrues on their land? What makes you federal is when you control your resources and pay the centre. When the centre controls your resources and pays you, you are only federal in name only. I laugh when people say that Ironsi took out 'federal' and Gowon brought it back. Nigeria is still answering 'federal' but nobody is controlling their resources. So whats the point? Its better that Ironsi took out Federal but allowed resource control, than Gowon who bought it back but took away resource control

What Province did Ironsi create? He met 4 Regions, he left 4 Regions.

Gowon came in, abolished all 4 Regions he inherited from Ironsi, created 12 states(6 of which he gave his Northern Region), took away resource control and abrogated the revenue sharing formular agreed at independence. Gowon was the person who kept Nigeria where it is today for had he not abolished the 4 Regions and resource control, Nigeria would have have been able to go back to the 1963 constitution after military rule

Ironsi did not do 1% of what Gowon did. The only problem Ironsi had was that he was Igbo man while Gowon was a Northerner. When your a Northerner, you can get away with daylight robbery.

Per the bolded, find below the interview granted by Philip Asiodu, an Igbo man, in which he laid it bare that Ironsi and Ojukwu were the architects of the abolition of the regions.


https://www.sunnewsonline.com/impunity-killing-nigeria-phillip-asiodu/


Please carefully note where the report reads:

"As for May 30, I am not for division. 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’

gidgiddy:
First they said Ironsi abolished the Regions, now they say he only made them weak. I still wonder how Ironsi made the Regions weak when he allowed resource control? The greatest thing any Region can control is its resources. How does a unified civil service affect Resource control if the Regions are controlling their resources paying the agreed tax to centre and keeping the bulk of what accrues on their land? What makes you federal is when you control your resources and pay the centre. When the centre controls your resources and pays you, you are only federal in name only. I laugh when people say that Ironsi took out 'federal' and Gowon brought it back. Nigeria is still answering 'federal' but nobody is controlling their resources. So whats the point? Its better that Ironsi took out Federal but allowed resource control, than Gowon who bought it back but took away resource control

What Province did Ironsi create? He met 4 Regions, he left 4 Regions.

Gowon came in, abolished all 4 Regions he inherited from Ironsi, created 12 states(6 of which he gave his Northern Region), took away resource control and abrogated the revenue sharing formular agreed at independence. Gowon was the person who kept Nigeria where it is today for had he not abolished the 4 Regions and resource control, Nigeria would have have been able to go back to the 1963 constitution after military rule

Ironsi did not do 1% of what Gowon did. The only problem Ironsi had was that he was Igbo man while Gowon was a Northerner. When your a Northerner, you can get away with daylight robbery.

The civil service is the institution through which a government carries out its duties of revenue generation from the natural and human resources found within its domain, and the application of the generated revenue to embark on projects, payment of salaries and other functions. In essence the civil service is the engine room of government hence stripping the regions of their civil services and transfering same to the center was tantamount to taking away from them their powers to generate revenues from their domains and use same for their duties. A centralized civil service can't generate revenue and remit it to the regions. Can the current civil servants of the federal government generate revenue and remit it to the state government? Imagine a federal government civil servant working in Enugu State and remitting the revenue generated in his office to Enugu State government rather than to the federal government which employed him. Is it possible? Once the civil service became centralized by Ironsi all the civil servants became bound by law to remit revenues to the center and that was how resource control died. This is simple logic and law.

gidgiddy:
Elections and democratic governance? Those things dont exist in military rule

Aburi Accord was supposed to be a new constitution on how Nigeria was going to be governed post military intervention in the scheme of things. Recall that its major objective was to go and undo Ironsi's offensive decrees and thereby return the country to status quo ante of decentralized democratic rule. So why should the final agreement therefore be silent on the issue of return to democracy?

gidgiddy:
With military rule, the existing constitution is always suspended. What is important however is that Ironsi was the only military ruler who kept Nigeria as close to the 1963 constitution as possible

Ironsi met 4 Regions, he kept 4 Regions

Ironsi met resource control, he kept resource control

Ironsi met fiscal federalism, he kept it

Gowon came in and met the same 4 Regions, he abolished all 4 Regions and created 12 states

Gowon met resource control, but resource control disappeared under Gowon

Gowon met fiscal federalism, he used decree 14 to reverse it


Ironsi did not even do 1% of what Gowon and other Northern military leaders did

Ironsi met autonomous regions but broke them into powerless provinces over which he appointed military governors whom he asked to be reporting to him at the center. Such a centripetal arrangement was unitary system and a negation of federalism which is a centrifugal arrangement in practice. On getting to power Gowon started the process of abolition of Ironsi's centripetal decrees and restored the adjective 'federal' to the country's official name, abolished Ironsi's provinces and more before Ojukwu began to insist on confederalism which was all together strange to Nigerians and that was what made Gowon halt his refederalization of the country to treat Ojukwu's war threat. Mind you that Ironsi killed resource control by unifying the civil service into one.
The states Gowon created were far more autonomous than the provinces Ironsi created hence the creation of states by Gowon didn't detract from federalism. In fact federalism is not the existence of more or fewer subnational units but the degree to which they are autonomous. Under Ironsi autonomy was zero hence he killed federalism.

Lazynigerian1:
We were already disregarding the constitution self...long before then (Ten percenters....)

The problem with Nigeria is not the constitution, or the laws, but the fact that we don't follow them...and not following them has been the issue long before 1963.

We have an imperfect constitution now...and the means to amend it. But many of us don't want to amend it...because it means hard work.

Besides...1963 is not the same as 2021. Nigeria is a different country , with a lot of different challenges. Going back to the old won't solve our problems

.
The ten percenters narrative was more of a camouflage for an ethnic cleansing agenda which the coupists had up their sleeve. If not how come a lot of innocent army officers who were never involved in bidding for contracts talkless of demanding 10 percent kickback got killed in that coup purportedly aimed at ridding the country of the so-called 10 percenters? Mind you that that constitution had clearly spelt out punishment for official crimes unlike the present one that is ambiguous as regards that and encourages something worse than 10 percent.

OfoIgbo:
Awolowo also helped to institute the unitary governance structure. When Ojukwu arranged for a confederation,. Gowon along with Awolowo were on the side opposed to confederation.

Thank God Ojukwu saw these things, many decades before a lot of people who are now wailing

Here we go again with revisionism and victim card playing. What Nigerians were expecting from Aburi Accord wasn't Confederacy but federalism which they all mutually consented to at the London Constitutional conference of 1957 and which Ironsi dismantled with the assistance of the same Ojukwu you claim saw something. When Awolowo, Enahoro, Balewa and Ahmadu Bello stood firmly for a confederal arrangement by making a case for secession clause Ojukwu was aware of the fact that it was his brother Azikiwe that sabotaged their efforts repeatedly in his own preference for a tightly bound and fraudulent one-Nigeria like we have today but Ojukwu never questioned Zik rather he even gave him a very important position in Biafra secession project and was expecting Awolowo and the rest whose earlier motions were sabotaged by the same Azikiwe to support Biafra and therefore work under the supervision of Zik the one-Nigerianist. How does that make sense? You have also forgotten that when Ironsi made the unification decree which introduced unitary system to Nigeria Ojukwu approved of it and gleefully announced over the radio the next day that Southern civil servants would start getting posted th to the North to take up headship positions courtesy of the now unified civil service. Again you forgot to add that the same Ojukwu was the one who attacked Isaac Adaka Boro for declaration Niger Delta secession from Nigeria, arrested him, stripped him naked and sent him to Lagos where Ironsi secured a death sentence on him for trying to seceded from Azikiwe's fraudulent one-Nigeria.

Lazynigerian1:
Our problems started from our refusal to follow due process...and from treating our economy as a national cake to be shared.

No country has a perfect constitution. And the regions were no better than the states.

Due process was killed when the 1963 constitution was abolished by the military in the sense that the military instituted the culture of disregard for a Sovereign constitution and the due process stipulated in it