₦airaland Forum

Volksfuhrer:
I commend your attempts to suppress any ethnic profiling from your post. But those comments above did a great disservice to these attempts.

He was just being factual. I think it was your mind that did the profiling.

ImperialYoruba:
These guys are in Aburi because Ojukwu refused to attend meeting in Lagos, Benin or anywhere else outside East for fear Murtala was hunting to kill him if the opportunity was given.

So how could an Ojukwu, who refused to go to Benin or Lagos or Kano or Markurdi for fear of threat on his life, be issuing promise of protection to another?

Ojukwu is known to make mouth and give flamboyant commitments that cannot be substantiated, his promise of support to Ogundipe should be viewed along the line of similar guarantees of upper hand given to Biafrans who, depending on his words, ended up massacred in a war their General assured was going to be a walk-over victory for Biafra.

You are terribly prejudiced!!!

Truefederalism:
The worst of it all is being wrong and continually insisting that you are right. Posterity always has the final say.
Gowon, after 48years of the civil war and 4years of Ojukwu's demise, came out in 2015 to say that he was sick and couldnt come back as planned, and that as a result of his illness Ojukwu came back before him and broadcasted the wrong information. To him Ojukwu "misinformed Nigerians".

https://www.thecable.ng/gowon-ojukwu-misinformed-nigerians-aburi-accord#comment-481163

Check this link and follow the comments to the end.

I've already watched the video, General Ankra was actually the one that took both ojukwu and Gowon to the airport with his car...so how comes ojukwu left before Jack Gowon?

ImperialYoruba:
These guys are in Aburi because Ojukwu refused to attend meeting in Lagos, Benin or anywhere else outside East for fear Murtala was hunting to kill him if the opportunity was given.

So how could an Ojukwu, who refused to go to Benin or Lagos or Kano or Markurdi for fear of threat on his life, be issuing promise of protection to another?

Ojukwu is known to make mouth and give flamboyant commitments that cannot be substantiated, his promise of support to Ogundipe should be viewed along the line of similar guarantees of upper hand given to Biafrans who, depending on his words, ended up massacred in a war their General assured was going to be a walk-over victory for Biafra.

How did you expect Ojukwu to leave his domain and go to Bini or Lagos? You are only guaranteed safety and protection in your own house, not another man's house.

When we talk about the civil War, we should always remember that Ojukwu went to Aburi to prevent war. But the truth is that the inordinate ambition of the North to control Nigeria is what caused the war. The same problem plagues Nigeria to this very day. The true federalism that Ojukwu got in Aburi which they later rejected is what causing voices dissent all across Nigeria that manifests today in MASSOB, IPOB, Niger Delta Avengers, MEND, MOSSOP etc. The Ghost of Aburi haunts Nigeria 50 years on and the country is not likely to know peace unless that accord is revisited and implemented.

ImperialYoruba:
Truefederalism,
Im not sure you have good grasp of events leading to the war.

Ojukwu looked down on his peers and even on some of his superiors. He was of mind, as did many other Ibos at that period, that the phrase "Igbo has no king" must be scaled from the little enclave where it is a belief to the general population of Nigeria and supplanted as an article of faith in our political system. Ibo has no king translates to no one can rule over Ibo.

At the time Ojukwu was pushing for Ogundipe to become Head of State, the Army generally had agreed to relocate soldiers to their origins to serve. Ojukwu had knowledge that Yorubas did not have the numbers in the Army. So it is not a genuine and honest interest, the suggestion of magnanimity in his support for Ogundipe is a farce. Ojukwu had the long vision of Ibo becoming surrogates to Yorubas in the Army. What he didn't know is that Yorubas were ahead of him and were determined to frustrate the vision. Go over the transcript again and notice how the Yoruas at that table kept asking him same question over and over, positioned in different light.

Like i said, Ojukwu was book smart but lacked political wisdom.

...and if I may add, he said at the meeting table he confided in Ogundipe that himself and Ejoor were at the ready and disposed to help him against the mutineers. I suspect Ojukwu saw a look of shock and surprise on Ejoor's face because he then turned to Ejoor and said I meant to bring this to your notice that I offered you to die for Ogundipe.

Can you see how Ojukwu's mind work?

You seem to make up conjectures in your head and express them as fact! Read through what you wrote... objectively.

ideykwum:
He was just being factual. I think it was your mind that did the profiling.

I didn't reply him because of self restraint. Besides I didn't want a meaningless back-and-forth with him, for he was quite gentlemanly with his submission. In any case, his assessments of Ogundipe and Katsina were inaccurate: the only flaw in his analysis. That "Katsina stood his ground" and Ogundipe "cooperated with the mutineers" is almost laughable.

In any case, this topic has been discussed many times on this website...

https://www.nairaland.com/304330/northern-nigerian-military-counter-rebellion-july

https://www.nairaland.com/482611/northern-counter-coup-1966-full-story#6420312

Kindest regards.

Mckennedy:
I've already watched the video, General Ankra was actually the one that took both ojukwu and Gowon to the airport with his car...so how comes ojukwu left before Jack Gowon?

Thank you. That question should be for Gowon. I've not watched it. I just read Gowon's interview. Do well to share a link please.

Volksfuhrer:
I didn't reply him because of self restraint. Besides I didn't want a meaningless back-and-forth with him, for he was quite gentlemanly with his submission. In any case, his assessments of Ogundipe and Katsina were inaccurate: the only flaw in his analysis. That "Katsina stood his ground" and Ogundipe "cooperated with the mutineers" is almost laughable.

In any case, this topic has been discussed many times on this website...

https://www.nairaland.com/304330/northern-nigerian-military-counter-rebellion-july

https://www.nairaland.com/482611/northern-counter-coup-1966-full-story#6420312

Kindest regards.

Thank you for your approach too, brother. No arguments intended, just statement of facts. Thank you also for rating me "gentlemanly". It takes one to know and regard another.
I have edited that post, I did that almost immediately I saw your reply to it, not that I did not have reasons for using it in the first place but because I don't intend to instigate tribal bashings. I will follow the links and learn too. For now thats all we do, learn.

We all need to do the same. Keep an open mind, read, learn. For tomorrow.
Be blessed.

Truefederalism:
Thank you. That question should be for Gowon. I've not watched it. I just read Gowon's interview. Do well to share a link please.

Here's the video link, listen to both sides of the stories. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1131036906955577&id=100001478347236

Bump. All, come and educate yourselves.

It’s really a shame.

Almost 10 years since this was posted, far worse tribalistic issues which can be traced down to the formational years of Nigeria.

I’m now a young adult in England, in a sane and functional environment, wondering how my home country couldn’t get it right. My resort on long nights like this has been to comb through old archives and records that should have been taught in the foundation years at elementary.

Sad.

All these men were all bunch of over ambitious young heads with inflated egos except for Mr. Wey none of them talked about returning power to the civilian. Their major preoccupation was who we will command the military and rule or how military power is implemented. Especially Gowon, all his concern was how to remain the supreme commander. And Ojukwu was proposing "military demoncracy" nothing about returning power back to the civilians. Such a wasted generation whose actions brought this country to the terrible state it is in today.

Someone mentioned repealing all army decrees amd revert back to federalism but Gowon and Hassan were talking about review instead that never happened.

ImperialYoruba:
After reading everything in this revelation it left me with some ponderings:

1. The first usage of "Supreme Military Commander" was suggested and adopted by Easterners as a befitting title for Aguiyi Ironsi. This came about in two successive waves.

First, young Ibo Army officers carried out a coup and wiped out the top political and military class of Yoruba and Hausa groups.

Second, Ibos in Federal Cabinet assisted by trigger happy Ibo military officers toppled the statutory chain of command and installed Aguiyi Ironsi forcefully against complaint from Northerners.

This was the marker point for misuse of power, authority, command, title and betrayal.

Ojukwu had no moral ground pushing for Ogundipe or Adebayo to succeed Ironsi ahead of Gowon. Neither does he have the credibility to argue against centralization or the use of Supreme Military Commander as a title for Gowon, when he had served contented for six months under a centralized power commanded unilaterally by Ironsi, the now dead Supreme Military Commander.

Ojukwu had no sincerity in his demands.

When told trust between the regions must be restored by not separating top echelon of command he agreed wholeheartedly. When faced with the position of taking orders from Lagos he refused and deferred back to the claim that Easterners had no trust in anything outside the East. No one is talking about Easterners, the point is centered on command.

He was not bold enough to admit that he, the Governor of East had lost faith in the center and wanted full autonomy, he instead kept using Easterners, repeatedly, as shield.

I believe the July 67 mutiny was our first war. This excerpts reveal a lot, to include events that were not documented here but are nonetheless incidental to the decisions of relocation of Northern officers from West.

It is informative to learn that Hassan Katsina, a Northern officer, Governor and prince of the Katsina emirate was ordered insurbordinately and at gun point by a Sergeant of Northern origin to step out of his way. What chance, really, does Ogundipe or Johnson has bringing the Northern soldiers under control? None! Yorubas were sending their children to London to study Law, Business, Medicine, when Hausa and Ibo children were going to Zaria to enlist in Army, hence the imbalance in Yoruba headcount in the Army. When it became very important to stand guard on our frontiers we were lacking in numbers.

Yoruba had a good reason to be afraid. In hindsight one can give great credits to Awolowo for his restraints and cautions against hostilities in Yorubaland.

While Ojukwu had a somewhat good understanding of the dynamics, he greatly lacked in leadership skills. He had the Federal side by their balls but he was not a good politician, otherwise Biafra would have actualized with far less in losses.

In another dimension, after the war had started, he successfully got Biafra and should have contained the territories and positioned Federal government as adversaries of the multi national oil interests and investments in the Delta. Instead he left the oil companies freedom to negotiate rights of access with Nigeria. This miscalculation, amongst many others were contributory to the fierce assault launched from the coast to displace and demolish anything Biafra floating or sailing on water and riverines.

So sad!

We can always forge a new direction. The past must remain the past