₦airaland Forum

TheSociopath:
The enduring grip of historical falsehoods on Igbo minds continues to poison both Igbo culture and psyche.

BY TOCHUKWU EZUKANMA FEB 06, 2017

My recent article, the messages of Ahiara, an incisive piece buttressed with logic and reason, which refuted some popular but erroneous notions of tribalism and secession in Nigeria, drew a lot of hostile responses from some of my readers. They lobbed curses and hauled invectives at me. However, to me, it was all exhilarating. I relish rejoinders to my writings, be them abusive or appreciative.


One of my milder critics accused me of demonstrated dislike for Biafra and its leadership. Yes, I detest the Biafra leadership because, in its recklessness, arrogance and despotism, it brought about the death of hundreds of thousands at the glory of their youth and the starvation to death of more than one million hapless and blameless men, women and children. It dismantled the Igbo power structure, painstakingly put together over decades by the likes of Nnamdi Azikiwe, Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu, and Michael Okpara, and set the Igbo back by at least 100 years. Why would any Igbo not despise a leadership that brought so much, avoidable, suffering, pain and sorrow to the Igbo?

Some of my detractors argued that secession was a necessary response to the mass-murder of the Igbo in northern Nigeria. Undoubtedly, that orchestrated slaughter of the innocent for no offense of theirs but their ethnicity was unconscionable. However, it would be selective amnesia to forget that the July 29th 1966 coup and the attendant anti-Igbo riots in the North did not sprout out of a void. They were in reprisal for an earlier coup in January 1966 in which an Igbo dominated group of army officers murdered the most important Hausa/Fulani political and military leaders (Ahmadu Bello, Tafawa Belewa and Zakari Miamalari) without killing any Igbo leader. And following the coup, the Igbo in the North became too celebrative; dancing and singing to a Rex Lawson song and telling their Hausa neighbors that the bleating of a goat in the song was Ahmadu Bello (the most important Hausa/Fulani leader) howling like a goat as he was being killed by Major Nzeogwu. It was the discriminatory killings and gratuitous mockery of the memory of their most important leader, amongst other reasons, that set the stage for the July 1966 anti-Igbo coup and the attendant anti-Igbo riots.

After the killings in the January and July coups and that unsurpassed butchery of Igbo civilians in northern Nigeria, there was a desperate need for peace in the country. In search of peace, the regional governors, David Ejoor, Usman Katsina, Robert Adebayo and Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, and the Head of State, Yakubu Gowon, met at Aburi in Ghana, where they agreed on and signed the Aburi Accord. The most significant aspect of the accord was constitutional: the reduction of the powers of the federal government by devolution of additional powers to regional governments. Long ago, an Igbo professor of political science at Howard University in Washington, DC told me that Yakubu Gowon implemented the Aburi Accord. To me, his statement was not only unbelievable but sacrilegious. I lost my temper at what I thought was historical revisionism taken to a nauseating extreme. The elderly professor must have understood my problem. I was suffering from a hangover of the Biafran propaganda. I was under the stupefying hold of the lies we were fed in Biafra. For he stated, “don’t worry, with time, in the course of your reading and research, you will find out that Gowon implemented the Aburi Accord”.

Years later, I found out that Gowon implemented the Aburi Accord. In his book, Power Sharing in Nigerian Federation, Chukwuemeka Nwokedi wrote that, “Apart from minor adjustments to the Aburi Accord, in other to still retain the corporate nature of Nigeria”, Gowon implemented the Aburi Accord with Decree 8; “and the regions acquired more powers than they have ever had”. That was months before the continued wrangling between Ojukwu and Gowon led to the creation of states. But did Ojukwu not declare Biafra and we marched out to war on the mantra, “On Aburi We Stand”. According to other writers, the minor adjustments Gowon made to the accord was the cancelation of two articles of the accord, which stated that any region can secede from Nigeria at will, and that the federal government can, on no account, impose a state of emergency on any region. Ojukwu’s advisers urged him to accept Decree 8 because Gowon had “gone more than far enough”. He refused.

The removal of the two articles of the accord did not in any way imperil the lives and property of the Igbo and other peoples of Eastern Region. Ojukwu’s squabbling, against the advice of his advisers, over the two articles was solely motivated by personal ambition. Following Ojukwu’s declaration of Biafra, the war inevitably started. As it raged on, it was obvious that a negotiated settlement to the war would be most advantageous to the Igbo. Ojukwu’s obsession with maintaining himself in power stalled the peace talks that would have extracted for the Igbo a number of concessions from the federal government. Despite the enormous toll of the war, especially, on human lives, he kept protecting his position and power, until it became untenable. And, as Biafra collapsed, he ran away; Biafra surrendered unconditionally.

A litany of the falsehood we were fed in Biafra is beyond the scope of this article. David Klinghoffer was right when he wrote that, “Widespread misinformation poisons a culture”. The enduring grip of these falsehoods on Igbo minds continues to poison both Igbo culture and psyche. They make us paranoid – we feel surrounded by enemies committed to our destruction, and in our suspicion of these “enemies” we see ulterior motives in every act, no matter how well-intended and benign, by other Nigerians. In addition, they make us feel like innocent victims of the evil devices of an alliance of the other Nigerian ethnic groups. And like perennial victims we refuse to take responsibilities for our actions; we find psychological refuge in blaming others, the Yoruba, Hausa/Fulani, etc, for our problems.

Blaming others for your problems is gratifying but destructive; it reinforces the feeling of victimhood. The mindset that sustains a feeling of victimhood is antithetical to victory. Therefore, a victim remains a loser until he changes his mindset. For our own good, the Igbo need to change their attitude towards Nigeria and the other peoples of Nigeria. This demands rising above the misinformation of the Biafran propaganda by embracing some incontrovertible historical facts. This will enable us to realize that our problems stemmed not from the hatred and wicked machination of the Hausa, Yoruba and other ethnic groups of Nigeria, but from repeated political blunders of Igbo leaders, especially, Chukwuemeka Ojukwu.

Otherwise, our political fortune, clout and relevance will continue to decline. It has declined to a point, where a proud and resourceful people that, in their triumphalism, once boasted of dominating not only Nigeria but the whole of Africa now whimper and snivel over trivialities like a disconsolate old widow.


Source: http://saharareporters.com/2017/02/06/misinformation-continues-poison-our-minds-tochukwu-ezukanma

TheSociopath:
[s]The enduring grip of historical falsehoods on Igbo minds continues to poison both Igbo culture and psyche.

BY TOCHUKWU EZUKANMA FEB 06, 2017

My recent article, the messages of Ahiara, an incisive piece buttressed with logic and reason, which refuted some popular but erroneous notions of tribalism and secession in Nigeria, drew a lot of hostile responses from some of my readers. They lobbed curses and hauled invectives at me. However, to me, it was all exhilarating. I relish rejoinders to my writings, be them abusive or appreciative.


One of my milder critics accused me of demonstrated dislike for Biafra and its leadership. Yes, I detest the Biafra leadership because, in its recklessness, arrogance and despotism, it brought about the death of hundreds of thousands at the glory of their youth and the starvation to death of more than one million hapless and blameless men, women and children. It dismantled the Igbo power structure, painstakingly put together over decades by the likes of Nnamdi Azikiwe, Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu, and Michael Okpara, and set the Igbo back by at least 100 years. Why would any Igbo not despise a leadership that brought so much, avoidable, suffering, pain and sorrow to the Igbo?

Some of my detractors argued that secession was a necessary response to the mass-murder of the Igbo in northern Nigeria. Undoubtedly, that orchestrated slaughter of the innocent for no offense of theirs but their ethnicity was unconscionable. However, it would be selective amnesia to forget that the July 29th 1966 coup and the attendant anti-Igbo riots in the North did not sprout out of a void. They were in reprisal for an earlier coup in January 1966 in which an Igbo dominated group of army officers murdered the most important Hausa/Fulani political and military leaders (Ahmadu Bello, Tafawa Belewa and Zakari Miamalari) without killing any Igbo leader. And following the coup, the Igbo in the North became too celebrative; dancing and singing to a Rex Lawson song and telling their Hausa neighbors that the bleating of a goat in the song was Ahmadu Bello (the most important Hausa/Fulani leader) howling like a goat as he was being killed by Major Nzeogwu. It was the discriminatory killings and gratuitous mockery of the memory of their most important leader, amongst other reasons, that set the stage for the July 1966 anti-Igbo coup and the attendant anti-Igbo riots.

After the killings in the January and July coups and that unsurpassed butchery of Igbo civilians in northern Nigeria, there was a desperate need for peace in the country. In search of peace, the regional governors, David Ejoor, Usman Katsina, Robert Adebayo and Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, and the Head of State, Yakubu Gowon, met at Aburi in Ghana, where they agreed on and signed the Aburi Accord. The most significant aspect of the accord was constitutional: the reduction of the powers of the federal government by devolution of additional powers to regional governments. Long ago, an Igbo professor of political science at Howard University in Washington, DC told me that Yakubu Gowon implemented the Aburi Accord. To me, his statement was not only unbelievable but sacrilegious. I lost my temper at what I thought was historical revisionism taken to a nauseating extreme. The elderly professor must have understood my problem. I was suffering from a hangover of the Biafran propaganda. I was under the stupefying hold of the lies we were fed in Biafra. For he stated, “don’t worry, with time, in the course of your reading and research, you will find out that Gowon implemented the Aburi Accord”.

Years later, I found out that Gowon implemented the Aburi Accord. In his book, Power Sharing in Nigerian Federation, Chukwuemeka Nwokedi wrote that, “Apart from minor adjustments to the Aburi Accord, in other to still retain the corporate nature of Nigeria”, Gowon implemented the Aburi Accord with Decree 8; “and the regions acquired more powers than they have ever had”. That was months before the continued wrangling between Ojukwu and Gowon led to the creation of states. But did Ojukwu not declare Biafra and we marched out to war on the mantra, “On Aburi We Stand”. According to other writers, the minor adjustments Gowon made to the accord was the cancelation of two articles of the accord, which stated that any region can secede from Nigeria at will, and that the federal government can, on no account, impose a state of emergency on any region. Ojukwu’s advisers urged him to accept Decree 8 because Gowon had “gone more than far enough”. He refused.

The removal of the two articles of the accord did not in any way imperil the lives and property of the Igbo and other peoples of Eastern Region. Ojukwu’s squabbling, against the advice of his advisers, over the two articles was solely motivated by personal ambition. Following Ojukwu’s declaration of Biafra, the war inevitably started. As it raged on, it was obvious that a negotiated settlement to the war would be most advantageous to the Igbo. Ojukwu’s obsession with maintaining himself in power stalled the peace talks that would have extracted for the Igbo a number of concessions from the federal government. Despite the enormous toll of the war, especially, on human lives, he kept protecting his position and power, until it became untenable. And, as Biafra collapsed, he ran away; Biafra surrendered unconditionally.

A litany of the falsehood we were fed in Biafra is beyond the scope of this article. David Klinghoffer was right when he wrote that, “Widespread misinformation poisons a culture”. The enduring grip of these falsehoods on Igbo minds continues to poison both Igbo culture and psyche. They make us paranoid – we feel surrounded by enemies committed to our destruction, and in our suspicion of these “enemies” we see ulterior motives in every act, no matter how well-intended and benign, by other Nigerians. In addition, they make us feel like innocent victims of the evil devices of an alliance of the other Nigerian ethnic groups. And like perennial victims we refuse to take responsibilities for our actions; we find psychological refuge in blaming others, the Yoruba, Hausa/Fulani, etc, for our problems.

Blaming others for your problems is gratifying but destructive; it reinforces the feeling of victimhood. The mindset that sustains a feeling of victimhood is antithetical to victory. Therefore, a victim remains a loser until he changes his mindset. For our own good, the Igbo need to change their attitude towards Nigeria and the other peoples of Nigeria. This demands rising above the misinformation of the Biafran propaganda by embracing some incontrovertible historical facts. This will enable us to realize that our problems stemmed not from the hatred and wicked machination of the Hausa, Yoruba and other ethnic groups of Nigeria, but from repeated political blunders of Igbo leaders, especially, Chukwuemeka Ojukwu.

Otherwise, our political fortune, clout and relevance will continue to decline. It has declined to a point, where a proud and resourceful people that, in their triumphalism, once boasted of dominating not only Nigeria but the whole of Africa now whimper and snivel over trivialities like a disconsolate old widow.


Source: http://saharareporters.com/2017/02/06/misinformation-continues-poison-our-minds-tochukwu-ezukanma[/s]

The enduring grip of historical falsehoods on Igbo minds continues to poison both Igbo culture and psyche.

BY TOCHUKWU EZUKANMA FEB 06, 2017

laudate:
Wey my zobo, kunu and groundnut? Make I perch for dis corner. I wan read the OP's article well-well. I must not miss out anything. It promises to be thought-provoking.

Dhugal:
Why did I just know you'd be here?.
Tis as if you have no other job than to masturbate on any thread Igbo, Biafra,Ojukwu and the like.
And you offer no thought provoking insight,no intelligent position,nothing positive at all.
I get the Nigerian situation renders youngsters and graduates jobless and near-useless,but dude,yours about takes the get.
Do yourself a favour,get up off that couch and get a life.A meaningful life.

vanbonattel:
Utter trash, absolute bunkum, arrant nonsense, puerile rubbish!

Only an afonja is capable of this idiocy by the OP. The whole Igbos love biafra, anyone who hates biafra and claims to be igbo should ask his mother about the truth of his paternity.

omenkaLives:
Will [s]they ever listen when all they feed an is igberetv, radiobiafra and trentonline?

Lalasticlala, mynd44, this article would make for good intellectual royal rumble. What y[/s]all say?

cheruv:
For Igbos... Its time to upp the momentum and forge a new country. Nigeria is dead!

Nowenuse:
If not stupidity, why do many Ipobs lack cognizance of the fact that almost all Igbo politicians, elites, powerful business men, religious and traditional leaders do not give a rat's ass about Biafra?
They seldom talk about it in the open let alone chamioning it, when they are the ones who are supposed to be at the forefront of the struggle in order to make it plausible..
We only see scoundrels, societal misfits, derelicts and all manners of low-life igbos killing themselves on Biafran issues. Is Biafran agitation only for the poor and faceless Igbos?

laudate:
Why is my presence on this board paining you so much, you chameleon with multiple identities? Don't develop high-blood pressure, o!

Dhugal:
You really are a nodcock,raised to the nth power.
Stupidity it is,mistaking me for another.But then,it's your factory set mode.
Let me make it clear,since you're yet too dense to grab,you're constituting a rather noticeable nuisance on this board and it's high time you're called to order.
Contribute meaningfully or shut the hell up.
Better still,go get a job.Any job,and contribute meaningfully to the society.Not the layabout that you currently are.

laudate:
Chai!! This matter don pain you enter bone, o! Eeyah, oya take my advice. Take the next turn on your left, and then go straight on. You will get to a market. At the gate of the market is a huge transformer. Quickly hug it with wet hands. Then come back in here, to share your experience. It should cure you of your obsession with me, you chameleon with multiple identities.

From the mouth of infants and nursing babes you have established strength because of your adversaries, to make the enemy and the revengeful cease. - NASB

Nowenuse:
Tell that to your political, religious and traditional rulers and your business magnates, who hardly give a Bleep about Biafra and never show support for it's cause.
The are the only set of people anyone can take seriously because they are the voice of your people.

Dhugal:
Ko ni da f'eni fi kini yi se o

Nowenuse:
Tell that to your political, religious and traditional rulers and your business magnates, who hardly give a Bleep about Biafra and never show support for it's cause.
The are the only set of people anyone can take seriously because they are the voice of your people.

cheruv:
Am not talking about Biāfra but about Igboland
Here's the difference btwm the two
While Biāfra incorporates the southern minorities and excludes the Anioma, Igboland incorporates both SE and SS Igboid tribes and excludes non Igboid tribes.
The later is what am angling about

TheSociopath:
The enduring grip of historical falsehoods on Igbo minds continues to poison both Igbo culture and psyche.

BY TOCHUKWU EZUKANMA FEB 06, 2017

My recent article, the messages of Ahiara, an incisive piece buttressed with logic and reason, which refuted some popular but erroneous notions of tribalism and secession in Nigeria, drew a lot of hostile responses from some of my readers. They lobbed curses and hauled invectives at me. However, to me, it was all exhilarating. I relish rejoinders to my writings, be them abusive or appreciative.....

.....In search of peace, the regional governors, David Ejoor, Usman Katsina, Robert Adebayo and Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, and the Head of State, Yakubu Gowon, met at Aburi in Ghana, where they agreed on and signed the Aburi Accord. The most significant aspect of the accord was constitutional: the reduction of the powers of the federal government by devolution of additional powers to regional governments. Long ago, an Igbo professor of political science at Howard University in Washington, DC told me that Yakubu Gowon implemented the Aburi Accord. To me, his statement was not only unbelievable but sacrilegious. I lost my temper at what I thought was historical revisionism taken to a nauseating extreme. The elderly professor must have understood my problem. I was suffering from a hangover of the Biafran propaganda. I was under the stupefying hold of the lies we were fed in Biafra. For he stated, “don’t worry, with time, in the course of your reading and research, you will find out that Gowon implemented the Aburi Accord”.

Years later, I found out that Gowon implemented the Aburi Accord. In his book, Power Sharing in Nigerian Federation, Chukwuemeka Nwokedi wrote that, “Apart from minor adjustments to the Aburi Accord, in other to still retain the corporate nature of Nigeria”, Gowon implemented the Aburi Accord with Decree 8; “and the regions acquired more powers than they have ever had”. That was months before the continued wrangling between Ojukwu and Gowon led to the creation of states. But did Ojukwu not declare Biafra and we marched out to war on the mantra, “On Aburi We Stand”. According to other writers, the minor adjustments Gowon made to the accord was the cancelation of two articles of the accord, which stated that any region can secede from Nigeria at will, and that the federal government can, on no account, impose a state of emergency on any region. Ojukwu’s advisers urged him to accept Decree 8 because Gowon had “gone more than far enough”. He refused.

The removal of the two articles of the accord did not in any way imperil the lives and property of the Igbo and other peoples of Eastern Region. Ojukwu’s squabbling, against the advice of his advisers, over the two articles was solely motivated by personal ambition. Following Ojukwu’s declaration of Biafra, the war inevitably started. As it raged on, it was obvious that a negotiated settlement to the war would be most advantageous to the Igbo. Ojukwu’s obsession with maintaining himself in power stalled the peace talks that would have extracted for the Igbo a number of concessions from the federal government. Despite the enormous toll of the war, especially, on human lives, he kept protecting his position and power, until it became untenable. And, as Biafra collapsed, he ran away; Biafra surrendered unconditionally.

A litany of the falsehood we were fed in Biafra is beyond the scope of this article. David Klinghoffer was right when he wrote that, “Widespread misinformation poisons a culture”. The enduring grip of these falsehoods on Igbo minds continues to poison both Igbo culture and psyche. They make us paranoid – we feel surrounded by enemies committed to our destruction, and in our suspicion of these “enemies” we see ulterior motives in every act, no matter how well-intended and benign, by other Nigerians. In addition, they make us feel like innocent victims of the evil devices of an alliance of the other Nigerian ethnic groups. And like perennial victims we refuse to take responsibilities for our actions; we find psychological refuge in blaming others, the Yoruba, Hausa/Fulani, etc, for our problems.

Blaming others for your problems is gratifying, but destructive; it reinforces the feeling of victimhood. The mindset that sustains a feeling of victimhood is antithetical to victory. Therefore, a victim remains a loser until he changes his mindset. For our own good, the Igbo need to change their attitude towards Nigeria and the other peoples of Nigeria. This demands rising above the misinformation of the Biafran propaganda by embracing some incontrovertible historical facts.....
Source: http://saharareporters.com/2017/02/06/misinformation-continues-poison-our-minds-tochukwu-ezukanma

WHY ABURI ACCORD FAILED, BY ASIODU |tnv | THE NIGERIAN VOICE |

Asiodu: But coming back from what I was saying. Go and read decree 8, if we had implemented it - in three months, we would have had four independent states.

Q: Why was it not implemented?

Asiodu: "Because, it didn't satisfy the Easterners. The decree had been promulgated by Gowon. It was to be implemented then. But it was seen by Ojukwu as not being sufficient. I am saying that politics is something which has to be played with some tact. Sometimes my brothers there see black and white where there is immediately green in between. Sometimes, there is really no finesse in politics. They will think the reality is not important as how you get there. The reality was that Nigeria was finished under decree number 8. The reality is that although it was finished, they didn't proclaim 'we hereby dissolve Nigeria'. But that was of no effect. You go and read it. But it was rejected...." https://www.thenigerianvoice.com/thread/12170/87243/1

Asiodu: "Then few of us- Alison Ayida, late Aliu Martins, myself, Abdulaziz, who served in the East, 'we went to ask Ojukwu what is it you want so that we could prepare the ground for a meaningful conference, where every side would know what they are saying.' Eventually, just as Ojukwu was warming up to tell us what he wanted , so that we could have come back to Lagos, sell those ideas to Gowon, and see if we can reach agreement, C. C. Mojekwu came and broke up the meeting.

He destroyed that last chance, and we flew back empty handed. Before they started cooking up the Aburi, they went to with unequal preparation. But before then, General Gowon was only communicating with him as an officer. He did know that behind Ojukwu, people were working. So, we didn't want Ojukwu to get the wrong impression. In anyway, we then agreed that a letter be prepared, addressed from my house, signed by Alison Ayida,who was in Oxford (cuts in, he was in Oxford too?) at the same time? Two of us signed this letter trying to spell out to him the consequences of what will happen if secession was declared. That there would be war and if there is war, until you vanquished federal authority, you will not get recognition which will give you access to the sea, and so on.

I can be embittered. I can feel for my people. But I have a duty to make sure that every step I take, I have calculated all the scenarios and make sure that in the worst scenario , I am not taking them to a worst decision. https://www.thenigerianvoice.com/thread/12170/87243/1

Asiodu:"When they subjected this Aburi accord to simple analysis, it was simply saying Nigeria is no more practically. And as far as was concerned, the civil war or no civil war, then chaos would have started later. All the same, we said look, … if we still want to be a country….authority which deals with customs, currency, federal trunk roads, foreign and external defences, that is more than enough for a government. But it must be able to act.

You can not say that in the Ministry of Defence, you can not promote somebody a Lt Col, except you have a unanimity. You cannot move one plane to another place except through unanimity. Even when you have those limited powers, they must be able to function. And you cannot function in the context of those things they said. And then what you have is four countries.

Q:And the permanent secretaries vetoed it?
Asiodu: "No. The permanent secretary made analysis and said look, if you are really serious, if you say you are having Nigeria, you must have central function which must be fulfilled. There is no need saying this is central function and you cannot fulfill it. So, we analysed and said these were based on incorrect premises. People came with proper papers, well formulated. The other side just went thinking they were going to do initial breaking of the ice. Therefore, please try to reconcile this to ensure that we still have a country.

Gowon in fairness, vetoed that approach, and still proceeded to have decree number 8 of 1967. If you go and read that decree, and if the East had accepted that decree, there would have been no need for secession. Nigeria would have disintegrated within three months. And you can not move anybody without unanimity. You collect revenue, you cannot transfer it…"

Q: Decree 8 was an affirmation of Aburi accord?
Asiodu: It was an affirmation of the Aburi accord which gave the East under Ojukwu, more than 95 per cent of what Aburi meant. But because there were maybe one or two phrases which they didn't like, if they read that thing and it is still there, they'd have got what they wanted. But it was such that, hostilities would have broken out among four independent countries. Not one on one.

And I think, we don't have much time now. With the present challenges in the country and the lack of serious effort to address the issue, we may even be in worse position if we are not careful. Because, this time, it will not be federal versus Biafra, but among 110 million people. So we are going to end up with warlords, if authorities should finally break down and I appeal to God that we avoid that, by stopping all these jokes as if we can continue milking this country forever.

What we are doing is not sustainable. And the sooner we address, try to create a new national austerity programme, discipline ourselves, decide that we cannot be millionaires, billionaires in little islands with a whole ocean of poor wretched people, there would be this tsunami which will overwhelm all of us.https://www.thenigerianvoice.com/thread/12170/87243/1

“True federalism” and all that… By Mohammed Haruna | Publish Date: May 25 2016 5:00 AM |
In rejecting the decree, Ojukwu stood alone among his colleagues. And his rejection, along with other decisions he had taken like his seizure of some national assets in his region, led to the conclusion among the federal authorities that the man had made up his mind to curve his region into a sovereign nation.

Gowon’s state creation was partly his preemptive strike aimed at isolating Ojukwu. Contrary to the revisionism we have been subjected to all these decades, that move was widely acclaimed as wise. For, up until then giving minorities in each region their sub-regions was widely considered a solution to their agitations that had started even before Independence in 1960. Read more at http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/columns/-true-federalism-and-all-that/148320.html#LyoiumQLala1kXfq.99

Ojukwu: Hero or Villain? | By Max Siollun on December 16, 2007

The federal government attempted to implement the Aburi agreement in diluted form by enacting a modified Constitution (Suspension and Modification) Decree which turned Nigeria into a de facto confederation. Ojukwu declined to accept the initial draft and insisted on a full and complete implementation of the accords reached at Aburi.

Nonetheless as the weaker party he could still have showed greater pragmatism to spare further suffering for his people. At this point Ojukwu’s decision making must be questioned. Ojukwu would have saved many lives had he shown a greater degree of flexibility by accepting the Decree as it gave him 90% of what he wanted. In the “winner takes all” mentality that is so symptomatic of Nigerian politics, Ojukwu unrealistically held out for 100% of his demands and in the end, received 0%.

His intransigence placed him and his people in a worse position than they started in. Rather than turning Nigeria into a confederation (which is what Decree 8 did), Ojukwu ’s intransigence gave the federal government an opportunity to overrun the Eastern Region, carve the country into several states and concentrate massive powers in the central government. Forty years later many Nigerians now call for the restructuring of Nigeria, and for devolution of power to its regions.

Ojukwu had a golden opportunity to achieve this over 40 years ago but squandered it. Had he shown some patience he may have achieved his objectives – albeit at a later date. The old adage is that “the best comes to those who wait.”

Ojukwu could have taken a leaf from the book of another infant country named Israel. For several decades Jews fought to be given their own state in what was then British Mandate Palestine. In 1947, they were granted their state but only on half the land that they wanted.

Realizing that it is best to accept what is achievable today, rather than risk holding out for 100% and getting nothing, Israel’s first leader David Ben-Gurion accepted a state but cleverly did not enunciate the borders of this state – this leaving the door open to agitate for more land at a later date. Today the “green line” borders of Israel encompass more land than it originally had at independence. [/color] https://maxsiollun./tag/ojukwu/

MidolsStudent:
[i][/i]
My friend plz keep mute
We d Yoruba Muslims must continue to impersonate Igbo so DAT our propaganda and senseless opinions against ipob will seem relevant

In fact, my name is Alladeen Jafaru Mayowa from Abeokuta...but because of Biafra, I change my name to Chimezie Anthony Ume from anambara and I've been using this name to spread false news about ipob , den I will turn bak to my Yoruba name and call biafrans liars and propagandists
I must crush ipob..u pple must stay back with our Yoruba Muslim gas inflated skulls so DAT ur oil will keep flowin into our Ibadan IDP camps ...shalom!!