₦airaland Forum

PrecisionFx:
People who aren't Christians or Muslims aren't necessarily pagans.

Paganism is a religion on it's own, It's based on idol worship. Nigerians for decades have been using the word pagan to address people who don't go to church or mosque, that's now what it means.

Nigerians are actually right. But so are u.

Different dictionaries define pagan differently. So do different people.

Some definitions focus on absence of belief in Abrahamic God, others on presence of multiple gods.

But this is the most accepted definition going by its appearance everywhere:

"One who has little or no religion and who delights in sensual pleasures and material goods :an irreligious or hedonistic person."

Now, I know that definition does not accomodate everyone but it is the most prevalent

It is not only in Nigeria that people who don't go to church or mosque are called pagans

In places like the Arab world and Israel non-believers in Abrahamic religions are called pagans

Fela fits that bill perfectly, that's why he is a prototypical pagan

WetinConsignMe:
Nigerians are actually right. But so are u.

Nope.
Nigerians are wrong. Someone who isn't a Christian or Muslim can still be ATR, Hindu or Rasta religion.

PrecisionFx:
Nope.
Nigerians are wrong. Someone who isn't a Christian or Muslim can still be ATR, Hindu or Rasta religion.

But that's exactly who are called pagans in predominantly Christian or Moslim countries.

When discussing beginning of Islam, Arab non-believers in Islam are always referred to as pagans

WetinConsignMe:
But that's exactly who are called pagans in predominantly Christian or Moslim countries.

No. It's not, anyone saying that does so out of ignorance. That u decide to call a mango tree Toyota corolla doesn't make it so.

VillageWinch:
Not only that he actually initiated the whole thing by encouraging ojukwu to seceding with the firm belief the West would automatically become an independet country too

Exactly. On May 1st he was saying Nigeria should never let Biafra secede and should never use force to prevent them from seceding, else the West would follow suit. By May 30th he was beating war drums.

PrecisionFx:
No. It's not, anyone saying that does so out of ignorance. That u decide to call a mango tree Toyota corolla doesn't make it so.

Well your quarrel is with Google. See their definition below

If you type pagan on Google this is what u get:

WetinConsignMe:
Well your quarrel is with Google. See their definition below

Google is not a dictionary

VillageWinch:
How did this girl-child already have a four year old baby??

Actually now I think of think, no amount of starvation can make this girl be more than 16 or 17.
Which means she got pregnant at 11 or 12

So Fela was the perfect definition of pagan

Not only that, he also looked the part

GhanaMustGoo:
(Cont.) (Note the.coloured)
RUDOLF OKONKWO: Your critics think that you came back from exile, fought and recovered your father’s properties but you have not done enough to help other Igbos to recover their so-called abandoned properties. Is that a fair judgment?

OJUKWU: I will always have critics and whatever it is, they have every right to their opinion. I am satisfied in my mind that I have done as much as I can, and I am continuing to try to do more to help as many of my compatriots as I can. What am I expected to have done? What did I do even for my father’s properties, my inheritance? I went to court. If I am going to court for Ndigbo, I think the very first thing that I would have to prove is my locus. I believe that Nigeria’s concept about my locus does not permit me to assume certain national responsibilities. That’s just one thing. There are many others but in any case, I am satisfied that I have led delegations, talked about our people who lost their jobs, retired army officers and so on. Slowly, we are getting a hearing and I shall continue doing what I can. But that wouldn’t stop anybody from criticizing me.

RUDOLF OKONKWO: Until recently, the Biafran veterans and the dead Biafrans have been neglected. The same is being said about those who financed the war. The fear out there is that failure to appreciate those who made sacrifices in the past would not encourage others to help when such a need arises. Have you been able to say thank you? And when will Igbos do the same?

OJUKWU: We do what we can in a circumstance that we are in control of. Even this morning, I thanked Israel for whatever help they had given us. I am constantly thanking other people whenever I meet them. I take it upon myself to maintain the symbolism of Biafra. I thank them. But that is not the issue here. The true issue is that people gave us sympathy. But financing the war? That is an odd concept. Nobody financed any war. What happened was that Nigerians decided that they would like to put a final solution to Igbo problem. They unleashed a massacre. We tried to contain them; they unleashed a second wave more vicious than the previous one. I looked upon the situation, did the best I could for our people who were scattered all over Nigeria. I said okay, this is our boundary. If you can find your way back to within this area, whatever there is within this area would be shared amongst all of us. You have as much right here as anybody who happened to be here. That actually is another way of seeing the declaration of Biafra and they had a goal and aim in their flight. The other thing to bear in mind is that we didn’t really wage a war. What we did was resist Gowon’s coup d’état and I hope that he would enter the Guinness Book of Records as the person who has waged a coup longer than any body else because the whole three years, he was actually trying to legitimize his coup.

RUDOLF OKONKWO: A common trend in Igbo political discourse has been the labeling of those with dissenting opinion as saboteurs. It was prevalent during the war and continued till this day. Does it mean that there will always be Ifeajunas and Banjos in Igbo socio-political life and must they always be killed?

OJUKWU: During the war, there were saboteurs. I understand that historically. Our people didn’t fully understand the enterprise of saying no to Nigeria. A lot thought, in fact, that it would end much quicker. A lot thought that perhaps, even, it would be less painful. But in the course of our propaganda, they were labeled saboteurs. After the war, I am not aware of dissenters that have been labeled saboteurs. Perhaps, some people with loose sort of language might have, but I am not very much aware of that. Since the end of the war, there have been dissents, but then, that is the essence of democracy. There will always be dissenters. I don’t expect every Igbo man, woman, and child to agree with me. No. If they did, I would probably pull out, wondering what had gone wrong. There would be dissent but my aim is that amongst the Igbos, there should always emerge clearly an Igbo agenda to which the majority of Ndigbo would find adherence. I don’t think Ndigbo would all be in one political party. No. Forgive me if I use this as an example, the Jewish National Congress is an umbrella organization that encompasses all the Jews, but you now go from Likud to Labor and all that. They are different parties. America, for strength, is poised more closely than any other place at 50:50, those who agree and those who don’t. This is the strength of democracy. Therefore, when you say some of these things, I say, look at it less sentimentally. There is no way Igbos would all speak with one voice. But let one be more slightly strident than the others. That is what I look for.

RUDOLF OKONKWO: I overheard two Igbos talking about your marriage to Bianca. They were of the opinion that the marriage of the greatest Igbo man alive to the most beautiful woman ever produced by Igbo land, was a reward for all the sacrifices you made for Igbos. Do you feel adequately compensated?

OJUKWU: I can never be compensated enough on this matter. If, indeed, the question is my wife, she is the greatest thing that has happened to me. I don’t know what I have done to deserve so much compensation, but, if you call it compensation, I dedicate myself much further to the service of Ndigbo who in their wisdom gave me such compensation.

RUDOLF OKONKWO: There is a big debate going on in the Internet over whether Awolowo said to you that if the East should secede, the West would secede. The conversation supposedly took place in Enugu on May 6, 1967 and was pulled from what was titled, Ojukwu and Pa Awo Conversation and Speeches during the War in 1967. The information was claimed to have been classified but now declassified. Is this information authentic?

OJUKWU: Let’s stop fooling ourselves, please. When any Nigerian gets up and say, this is classified information that has recently been declassified, I say, classified by whom? Declassified by whom? Do you think we are in America where you have these things? In Nigeria nobody classifies anything and nobody has declassifies anything. So, once it starts with that you know there is deception.

RUDOLF OKONKWO: They said you were the one that recorded this conversation.

OJUKWU: And then I declassified it recently?

RUDOLF OKONKWO: Prof. Aluko, Prof. Eni Njoku, Dr. Nwakanma, Dr. PNC Okigbo, Lt. Col. Imo, Chief J.I Onyia and many others supposedly attended the meeting.

OJUKWU: I find it quite amusing also that all the Igbo participants are dead.

RUDOLF OKONKWO: That is true.

OJUKWU: How come? Is it the death of Pius Okigbo that declassified the information?

RUDOLF OKONKWO: Did the meeting take place, and was there such an agreement?

OJUKWU: We’ve said this over and over again, so many times, and people don’t understand; they don’t want to actually. If you remember, I released Awolowo from jail. Even that, some people are beginning to contest as well. Awo was in jail in Calabar. Gowon knows and the whole of the federal establishment knows that at no point was Gowon in charge of the East. The East took orders from me. Now, how could Gowon have released Awolowo who was in Calabar? Because of the fact that I released him, it created quite a lot of rapport between Awo and myself and I know that before he went back to Ikenne, I set up a hotline between Ikenne and my bedroom in Enugu. He tried like an elder statesman to find a solution.

Awolowo is a funny one. Don’t forget that the political purpose of the coup, the Ifeajuna coup that began all this, was to hand power over to Awo. We young men respected him a great deal. He was a hero. I thought he was a hero and certainly I received him when I was governor. We talked and he was very vehement when he saw our complaints and he said that if the Igbos were forced out by Nigeria that he would take the Yorubas out also. I don’t know what anybody makes of that statement but it is simple.
Whether he did or didn’t, it is too late. There is nothing you can do about it. So, he said this and I must have made some appropriate responses too. But it didn’t quite work out the way that we both thought. Awolowo, evidently, had a constant review of the Yoruba situation and took different path. That’s it. I don’t blame him for it. I have never done.
(Cont. next post)

I patiently read the whole interview. What a read!
That Ikemba was truly one wise dude. The only part I don't understand is him calling Awo a hero. That part I'll never understand. A hero for starving innocent little children to death

But that doesn't change the fact that he introduced tribalism into Nigerian politics
nor the fact that he said "starvation is a legitimate weapon of war"

Nor change the fact that he suddenly became one-Nigeria at the beginning of the war after saying this all his life:

PrecisionFx:
Google is not a dictionary

You can see where it says dictionary right at the top.
Google don't have their own definitions. They put up the consensus definition of dictionaries

So just because Ojukwu mysteriously called him a hero doesn't change any of those facts

So Fela was a prototypical pagan

But that doesn't change the fact that he was one brave soul

WetinConsignMe:
I think he simply saw an unbelievable opportunity. Zik, Akintola, Ahmadu Bello were all gone plus oil money - why would he not suddenly become one-Nigeria

I think this neatly summarizes the whole thing

PrecisionFx:
The military might was a non issue, stop bringing up these excuses. All Awolowo needed was to meet Yoruba leaders, update them on the new happenings and announce their exit from the contraception.

The north would bulge immediately they see that it's a fight of igbo combining with Yoruba against them.

Na wa o. Forcing someone to associate with u. Never seen anything like that

WetinConsignMe:
But that doesn't change the fact that he was one brave soul

But OBJ show am pepper. Even throw im legendary mama from window to die

9jaDoc:
But OBJ show am pepper. Even throw in legendary mama from window to die

Not OBJ personally of course

VillageWinch:
Not OBJ personally of course

Makes no difference. They were soldiers under him

9jaDoc:
Makes no difference. They were soldiers under him

They had their commanding officers