₦airaland Forum

People Deceiving Party r at it again..

#OnlyinNigeria

thelastPope: I have never seen anywhere in the world where a sitting president visits an insurgency zone! Not even sitting military generals do that. I don't know what you are yapping about

Bush went to Iraq

Obama has gone to Afghanistan & Iraq ​ so​ many times

Only GEJ thαt cnt go cos of, as he said " a bad airport". Which is a blatant lie cos, dat same airport is airlifting pilgrims.

Besides, He can land in a close-by state then move through the road.

He is just a coward!!!

justsayemma: D Nuc shd also investigate GEJ n his lovely wife's own

Lol

afam4eva: This is good. While the other ESUT graduates are donating murderous English, this one is donating borehole and other social amenities to a community.

LwkmDead

Noisemakers from the North
Dreamers from the East
Agberos from the West
Savages from the South/South

Mtcheeu!!!

Ɣ hasn't he visited crisis areas esp Jos, Yobe & Borno

The Biggest Joke of a Leader

Retarded Mofo

Abeg, What is ESUT?

mu2sa2: Bukar Ibrahim hit d nail on the head. We hav seen how poverty & injustice led to violence in d Niger Delta. D violence in the north east is largely a product of poverty & injustice and cannot be stopped by more violence. JTF is now becoming a problem than a solution - the same way that NATO has only brought misery rather than succour to Afghanistan. D insecurity in the north east requires imaginative and concerted effort to ameliorate the dehumanising poverty there by all govts - FG,states and LGs. Bukar Ibrahim may hav put it bluntly but he is saying the truth- abusing him on nairaland doesnt alter the truth.

^^
U've made a gud Point, well done.

(Unlike, Most people On this Site who can't make a single argument. Mostly empty heads, thαt throw empty insults)

Fresh Air

Mtcheeeu!!

May Allah(swt) rest the souls of the innocent deceased in eternal paradise.

May He expose and exterminate the instigators, supporters, and financiers of this heinous crimes and conflicts in Nigeria.

Irrespective of their religious affiliations, position, tribe & region

AMEN

acidtalk: They WON'T announce it because the news didn't say "gunmen kill 20 Christian worshippers".

They think muslims are less human and need to die.

Isn't thαt the double standard & Hypocrisy ravaging through the Mass-media and On-line forums of which "Nairaland" is also amongst

okosodo: Terrorists now turning the gun on themselves

i pray this same thing happens to someone in µя family or µя family as a whole, then we'll see whether u'll ave the effrontry to spew such words then

Eediot

It's tiring to hear the name Nigeria

Dream on

It's Fashola anyday anytime

Even Rochas himself кnoω say "Shoe get Size" naa

Some people in Nigeria ηo get work i swear

Na wa 4 some people in thαt region

what has happened has happened.

@ Op

Ɣou are ​ so​ On-point

vicoloni: @stallion77, am sure you are one of the 40 laptop musketeers. Shes working indeed and we can see the signs a la indiscriminate increase in pump price of PMS across the nation.

God bless u my Brother

Some people r like sheep i swear

IGBOS! IGBOS!! IGBOS!!!


Ђδω many times did i call u

kulyie: If she is not engaged in corruption or unclean deals/buisnesses,she will not be afraid of d cameras,she obviously has somtin shes hiding,up on all her forming classy and posh,she can behave like a rogue.smh

Frog-eyed Madam is worse than a rogue

ACF and Ohaneze, dats nice.

Only those who have never been to Arewa will question the cordial relationship btw Northerners and Igbos.

There are over a million Igbos in Kano state alone not to talk of the large igbos residing in Northern Nigeria.

The thing is, Igbos n Hausas ave similarities in their distinct ways of life, and they are both a people who hold their culture, values and traditional beliefs in high esteem.

Certain Igbos past & present like Rochas okorocha, kaduna Nzoegwu, Efeanu, Pat Utomi etc are all products of Northern upbringing and orientation, education.

I, as a Proud Hausa man, hav ηo issues with an Igbo-man esp one who resides in the North.

@Op

Not with this generation of Naija girls

Brazilian hair tinz naa

Who gives a 4k

Wen most Nigerians cannot afford common bread, not to talk of Cake

GEJ, did u hear him??

Forget all those forged insinuations by your praise-singing advicers & self proclaimed "God-fathers".

Thee likes of Abati, Okupe, Maku, Usman, Iwaela, Maduekwe, Alameseigha, Gana, EDWIN CLARK, ASARI, Tompolo & co

Who keep whispering into Ūя̲̅ ears & stroking Ūя̲̅ ego on the purported assumptions & startling innuendos thαt a section of Nigerians, the "Opposition" is always to Blame & the cause of bad situations in this country.

Mr President, God destined u to be there & by-God i dnt think u went there to tag urself a Failure in the History books.

Ɣou are the Head, Please start acting Like One.

When the Head is Bad the body can't function

God rest the souls of the innocent

Whether she Come back or ηo come back, will it stop PdP,boko, or Jtf from killing Nigerians.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Besides what religion did the major actors of the war on the federal side professed? General Yakubu Gowon, General Theopilus Danjuma and General Joseph Garba, were Christians. Chief Awolowo, the intellectual architect of the War was a Christian. General Olusegun Obasanjo and General Adekunle were all not Northerners. The prominent name in the commands that is a core Muslim northerner was only General Murtala Muhammed. Even if all the others were Muslims what sense could it have made for the Muslims to have fought the Igbos only to establish the leadership of General Yakubu Gowan who was a Christian, the same and only reason they supposedly could have fought the Igbos? Gowon enjoyed the support of all Muslim northerners as my good friend Alhaji Yakubu Musa, currently a media assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan who is from a devout Muslim family, once mentioned how he was named Yakubu in celebration of Gowon’s visit to Kano on a day that coincided with his birthday.

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

The way forward is not to employ a wider and more efficient propaganda machinery to score cheap sympathy and sponsor the production of a sensationalist movie in the Holly Wood, Secret of the Sun, starring Bruce Willis and displaying that northern Nigerian Muslim Hausa will attempt to do the same in the present Nigeria and in the recent future and can be stopped only by the Americans.

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