₦airaland Forum

He was a great and patriotic leader who is patriotic unlike some who never believe in the unity of these country but see others as inferior and bad....Awo Baba! U will forever be remembered for your good deeds...

Juliusmalema:
Nobody dare releases a traitor....

Awolowo till he died deserves whatever he got......


I wonder why they call a traitor a nationalist.

Just as ojukwu deserved his punishment. God punished him from earth.

So Nigeria's problem no start today! Conspiracy is the foundation this country was build and no wonder peace is elusive. And since peace is not there, development shies away.

The hatred, suppression, betrayal, malignant, and all sort of vices had long been propagated and we are only dealing with the leaves.

It is better and long time we part ways. Awo's letter bares it all

lilytender:
Aguyi Ironsi's reply was FUUUK YOU . By now Aguyi Ironsi knows better. After Gowon finally released Awolowo, Aguyi's brethren wanted Awolowo to support them against Gowon's forces. Nah! impossible.

Mumu, who detained Awo in the first place? Was it not Gowon's brethren? Thinking upside down as usual

mightguy:
he destroyed Nigeria u cone head loyal to the caliphate

, see Igbo oo, those that wrote official letter to caliphate, begging them to accept title dey talk. Shame no dey catch una?

IntrovertedK:
I see no difference between Igbo and the Moslem faith they have so much hatred for. You both are gullible. You get deceived easily, and you believe whatever they (Your Messiah) tell you. Reason Ojukwu wasted you lots and Kanu continue where he stop. Ojukwu doesn't even have power to release himself from Nigeria talk more of releasing a federal prisoner. Is you lots brain paining you?

As I said earlier you are a cantankerous dementee. If you don't show us a copy of the signal from Gowon to Ojukwu to release Awo you remain a bumbling buffoon.

The East never for one day took orders from Gowon while Ojukwu was in power. The East never recognized him while Ojukwu was Military governor. So how could gowon have released Awo in a terroritory where he remained illegitimate. You want to rewrite history? No you can't. Foreign journalists like federick forsyth, Auberon waugh who were experts on nigeria affairs maintain and wrote that Ojukwu released Awo from a prison controlled by Ojukwu himself because that's the trurh.

You can lie a billion times like your average yoruba ancestors it won't change the factoids which are well recorded in foreign history books on the Biafran war.

Someone ask pardon from a weak IGBO desk-clerk head of state like Ironsi!

MrSly:
Whether you believe it or not Ojukwu release Awolowo for a reason which he @Awolowo betrayed.

Just as US army came to buy fighter jet in aba whether we believe it or not. Release ko, relaxation ni

Some Ibo youths killed leaders from North and West, but only the North reacted. I always wonder why Yorubas left the Ibos despite the atrocities they committed. The truth is that Yorubas should have slaughtered those Ibos then for killing our leaders.
Men our ancestors f.ucked up no be small.

HypocriticalMod:
Ojukwu released Awolowo and that's 100% fact!

Yeah, we saw the fact when US army came to aba to buy fighter jet.

i'm Igbo but this man is a sage.

Awo is the best visionary leader in black Africa.

he saw tomorrow. Britain knew it.

Zik would have been really envious of him.

prior to 1960 his motion to include secession in our constitution was turn down.

so Belewa and his co-travelers like Bello and Okpara did not want opposition.

no wonder they created Mid-West in 1963 to reduce AG influence in the West

but left the North and East intact by not creating Middle-Belt and CORE* region.

Calabar Ogoja Rivers provinces of Eastern*

as a federal prisoner, Ojukwu decided not to hold him back.

Awo built OAU at Ife outside of Ibadan

before Zik built UNN at Nsukka outside of Enugu

then Bello built ABU at Zaria outside of Kaduna.

he set the pace, others follow.

though he gave my mom and dad 20 Pounds each after the war,

nevertheless my respect goes to you Sir.

had it been Awolowo ruled Nigeria say from 1979 to 1983 this country would have endured just for 4 years and enjoy forever.

Biafra is a model of Awoism ideology

SirToby:
Based on Radio biafra news right. ?

You know them very well.

TooNoisy:
CONFIDENTIAL

28th March, 1966

The Supreme Commander and Head of the Federal Military Government, Lagos.

Thro: The Director of Prisons,

Prisons Headquarters Office,

Private Mail Bag 12522,

Lagos.

Sir:

PREROGATIVE OF MERCY: SECTION 101 (1) (a) OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE FEDERATION ACT 1963

1. I am writing this petition for FREE PARDON under Section 101 (1) (a) of the Constitution of the Federation Act 1963, on behalf of myself and some of my colleagues whose names are set out in the Annexe hereto.

2. Before I go further, I would like to stress that the reasons which I advance in support of this petition, in my own behalf, basically hold good for my said colleagues. For they share the same political beliefs with me, and have intense and unquenchable loyalty for the ideals espoused by the Party which I have the honour to lead.

3. There are many grounds which could be submitted for your consideration in support of this petition. But I venture to think that SEVEN of them are enough and it is to these that I confine myself.

(1) In the course of my evidence during my trial, I stated that my Party favoured and was actively working for alliance with the N.C.N.C. as a means, among other things, of solving what I described as ‘the problem of Nigeria’, and strengthening the unity of the Federation. In October 1963 (that is about a month after my conviction and while my appeal to the Supreme Court was still pending), a Peace Committee headed by the Chief Justice of the Federation, Sir Adetokunbo Ademola, made overtures to me through my friend Alhaji W. A. Elias to the effect that if I abandoned my intention to enter into alliance with the N.C.N.C. which, according to the Committee, was an Ibo Organisation, and agreed to dissolve the Action Group and, in co-operation with Chief Akintola (now deceased), form an all-embracing Yoruba political party which I would lead and which would go into alliance with the N.P.C., I would be released from prison before the end of that year. I turned down these terms because I was of the considered opinion that their acceptance would further widen and exacerbate inter-tribal differences, and gravely undermine the unity of the Federation.
TODAY, THE MILITARY GOVERNMENT, OF WHICH YOU ARE THE HEAD, LEAVES NO ONE IN ANY DOUBT THAT IT STANDS FOR NIGERIAN UNITY. BUT IT MUST BE EMPHASISED, IN THIS CONNECTION, THAT IF I HAD PRIZED MY PERSONAL FREEDOM ABOVE THE UNITY OF NIGERIA, I WOULD HAVE BEEN SET FREE IN 1963. IN THAT EVENT, THIS PETITION WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN NECESSARY, AND THE WORK OF CONSOLIDATING THE UNITY OF THE COUNTRY TO WHICH YOU AND YOUR COLLEAGUES NOW SET YOUR HANDS MIGHT HAVE BEEN MADE EXTREMELY MORE INTRACTABLE AND IRKSOME.

As recently as 20th December, 1965, identical peace terms (the only variant being that the alliance with the N.C.N.C. which was now a reality should be broken) were made to me here, in Calabar Prison, by a delegation representing another Peace Committee headed by the self-same Chief Justice of the Federation and purporting to have the blessing of the Prime Minister, with the unequivocal promise that if I accepted the terms my release would follow almost immediately. I rejected the terms for the reasons which I have outlined above.

(2) One of the monsters which menaced the public life of this country up to 14th January, this year is OPPORTUNISM with its attendant evils of jobbery, venality, corruption, and unabashed self-interest. From all accounts, you are inflexibly resolved to destroy this monster. That was precisely what my colleagues and I had tried to do before we were rendered hors de combat since 29th May, 1962.
On two different occasions I was offered, first the post of Deputy Prime Minister (before May 1962), and second that of Deputy Governor-General (in August 1962), if I would agree to fold up the Opposition and join in a National Government. I declined the two offers because they were designed exclusively to gratify my self-interest, with no thought of fostering any political moral principle which could benefit the people of Nigeria. The learned Judge who presided over the Treasonable Felony Trial, commented unfavourably on my non-acceptance of one of these posts and held that my action lent weight to the case of the Prosecution against me. I must say, however, that in all conscience, I felt and still feel that a truly public-spirited person should accept public office not for what he can get for himself — such as the profit and glamour of office — but for the opportunity which it offers him of serving his people to the best of his ability, by promoting their welfare and happiness. To me, the two aforementioned posts were sinecures, and were intended to immobilise my talents and stultify the role of watch-dog which the people of Nigeria looked upon me to play on their behalf, at that juncture in our political evolution.

(3) This leads me to the third ground. From newspaper reports, it would appear that you and your colleagues — like all well-meaning Nigerians — are anxious that on the termination of the present military rule, Nigeria should become a flourishing democracy. Now, democracy is a political doctrine which is very intimately dear to my heart. It was to the end that it might be accepted as a way of life in all parts of the Federation that I campaigned most vigorously and relentlessly in the Northern Provinces of Nigeria, from 1957 to 1962, to the implacable annoyance of some of my political adversaries. It was to the end that this doctrine might survive the severe onslaught of opportunist and mercenary politics that I refused to succumb to the temptation of the National Government. Many views — some of them well-considered and respectable — have been expressed about the value or disvalue of opposition as a feature of public life in a newly emergent African State. Speaking for my party, I submit that the Opposition which I led did, to all intents and purposes, justify its existence and was acclaimed by the masses of our people as essential and indispensable to rapid- national growth. This was so, because it was unexceptionably constructive. The abrogation of the Anglo-Nigeria Defence Pact was one of the feathers in its cap. Some of the policies which the Government of the day later adopted — such as the creation of a Federal Ministry of Agriculture and the introduction of drastic measures to correct our balance of payments deficit — were among those persistently and constructively urged by the Opposition inside and outside Parliament.
The point I wish to emphasise here is that it was not out of spite or hatred for any one that I chose to remain in Opposition instead of joining the much-talked-of National Government. I did so in order to serve our people to the best of my ability in the position in which their votes had placed my Party, and to ensure that the young plant of democracy grows into a sturdy flourishing tree in Nigeria.

(4) Since the declaration of emergency in the Western Region on 29th May, 1962, political tension has existed in Western Nigeria. My conviction on 11th September, 1963, together with the surrounding bizarre circumstances, has led not only to the heightening of that tension in Western Nigeria but also to its profuse and irrepressible percolation to the other parts of the Federation. The result is that it can be said, without much fear of contradiction, that today the majority of our people are passionately concerned about and fervently solicitous for the release of myself and my colleagues.
The work of reconstruction on which you and your colleagues have embarked demands that all the citizens of Nigeria in their respective callings should give of their maximum best. A state of psychological tension, however much it may be brought under control or repressed, does not and cannot conduce to maximum efficiency. In spite of themselves, people labouring under emotions which this kind of tension automatically generates are bound to make avoidable mistakes which in their turn have adverse effects on national progress.

It is, therefore, in the national interest that this tension should be relaxed, if possible, without further delay.

(5) A petition of this kind is, by its very nature, bound to be replete with self-adulation. I hope and trust that, in the circumstances, this is excusable. It is in this hope and trust that I assert that my colleagues and I have the qualifications and capacity to render invaluable services to our people and fatherland. Every day that we spend in prison, therefore, must be regarded as TWENTY-FOUR UNFORGIVING HOURS OF TRULY VALUABLE SERVICES LOST TO OUR YOUNG COUNTRY. Even my most inveterate enemies have given the following testimony about me: ‘AWOLOWO HAS STILL A GREAT DEAL TO GIVE TO THIS COUNTRY.’
No country however advanced and civilised can afford to waste any of its talents, be they ever so small. Nigeria is too young to bury some of her talents as she was compelled to do under the old regime.

It is within your power to restore my colleagues and me to a position where our fatherland can again rejoice at the contributions which we are capable of making to its progress, welfare and happiness.

(6) Nigeria is now SIXTY-SIX MONTHS old as an independent State. The final phase in the struggle for Nigeria’s independence was initiated by my Party in the historic Self-Government motion moved by Chief Anthony Enahoro and supported by me on 31st March, 1953. IT SHOULD BE REGARDED AS MORE THAN IRONICAL, AND AS PALPABLY TRAGIC, THAT TWO OF THE ARCHITECTS OF THAT INDEPENDENCE AND, INDEED, THE PACE-SETTERS AND ACCELERATORS OF ITS FINAL PHASE SHOULD BE UNFREE IN A FREE NIGERIA.
In precise terms, I have spent FORTY-SIX out of the SIXTY-SIX MONTHS of independence in one form of confinement or another. I happened to know that the leaders of the old civilian regime, in spite of themselves, did not feel quite easy in their conscience about the plight into which they had manoeuvred me in the scheme of things; and I dare to express the hope and belief that you, personally view my present confinement with concern and disapproval.

(7) It is usual — almost invariably the case — on the accession of a revolutionary regime, for political prisoners and, indeed, other prisoners of some note, to be released as a mark of disapproval of some of the doings of the old regime, or in token of the new dawn of freedom which comes in the wake of the new regime.
It would be invidious to quote unspecific instances. But in the case of my colleagues and myself, by courageously and adamantly opposing the evils which your regime now denounces in the former civilian administration, I think we are perfectly justified if we expect you to regard us as being in tune with your yearnings and aspirations for Nigeria, and therefore entitled to our personal freedoms under your dispensation.

4. In view of the foregoing reasons which clearly demonstrate

(i) that I have always and, under trying circumstances, steadfastly and unyieldingly

(a) stood for the UNITY OF NIGERIA,

(b) been opposed to POLITICAL OPPORTUNISM with its attendant evils,

(c) fostered the growth of DEMOCRACY in Nigeria;

(ii) that my incarceration

(a) has led to the heightening of political tension among Nigerians, which tension can only be relaxed by my release,

(b) has deprived our fatherland of invaluable services such as we have rendered before, and can still render now and in future, in greater measure; and

(iii) that the evils which my colleagues and I condemned and valiantly refused to compromise with in the old civilian government are what you now quite rightly denounce, and are taking active steps to remove in order to pave the way for national and beneficial reconstruction,

I most sincerely appeal to you to be good enough to exercise, in favour of myself and my colleagues, the prerogative of mercy vested in you by Section 10 (I) (i) (a) of the Constitution of the Federation Act 1963, by granting me as well as each of my colleagues A FREE PARDON. If you do, your action will be most warmly, heartily, and popularly applauded at home and abroad, and you will go down to history as soldier, statesmen, and humanitarian.

Yours truly,

OBAFEMI AWOLOWO

A. THOSE CONVICTED FOR TREASONABLE FELONY

1. THOSE STILL SERVING THEIR TERMS

1. Chief Obafemi Awolowo

2. Chief Anthony Enahoro

3. Mr. Lateef K. Jakande

4. Mr. Dapo Omisade

5. Mr. S.A. Onitiri

6. Mr. Gabby Sasore

7. Mr. Sunday Ebietoma

8. Mr. U.I. Nwaobiala

2. THOSE WHO HAVE ALREADY SERVED THEIR TERMS

1. Mr. S.A. Otubanjo

2. Mr. S.J. Umoren

3. Mr. S. Oyesile

B. THOSE WHO HAVE NOT YET BEEN TRIED

1. Mr. S.G. Ikoku

2. Mr. Ayo Adebanjo

3. Mr. James Aluko

— with Dr.Chukwuma Christopher Osaji, Taiwo Osunsanya, Bello Isiaka and 59 others.


https://ihuanedo.ning.com/m/group/discussion?id=2971192%3ATopic%3A65391

coupist writing from jail.

EazyMoh:
Really? I can deduce from the letter he was sounding so cocky even when he was practically begging.

d coup plotters actually intended install Awo but Ironsi truncated the coup.
it's a general knowledge that coup was not a success

EazyMoh:
Chai e pain am o!
But the letter sounded like Awo was actually glad Tafawa Balewa and co were murdered he didn't make any attempt to condemn it no toppling of our young democracy. Or does it mean the first coup plotters and Ironsi were in cohorts?
Anyway I'd like to know why despite this romantic letter Ironsi never released him, till Gowon did.

Gowon didn't release Awolowo from prison, General Odimegwu Ojukwu did.

the plan was to install Awolowo as president, that's why Yoruba soldiers were part of the coup.

IntrovertedK:
are you sure the most important part of your brain is not on strike? Brits don't want your people to get to whatever you called it in Nigeria politics buh still, Nigeria was handed over to the combination of Hausa/Igbo. So how was that possible? Blame your forefathers that has always bn filled with bitterness and hatred, if not Igbos would never be an underdog like they are now. I know you people will forever remain like that till the second coming anyway. Well, maybe someday the coming generations might be blessed with brain on that their flat heads. Cuz the past and the presents lacks that major part of the head.

Your yoruba skull is filled with clumpy palm oil. The British were not prepared to give independence to nigeria without the 'good boy' conformist, indirectly ruled north being ready. They made it clear it was going to be handed to the north (who gave them lesser colonial problems) from the word go. If the north had backed down from the 1960 date, the rest of the country had to wait till whatever date they deemed fit. Hotblooded Zik, Enahoro and co. were not ready to wait. 1960 it was and they took the opportunity with both hands and legs.

You are not well lettered and brushing you up on history lessons will be definitely exhilarating if you don't do a brain transplant with at least that of a monkey, the brain in your skull is definitely inferior to the I.Q of a rotten amala plate.

oooduancalmdown:
Some Ibo youths killed leaders from North and West, but only the North reacted. I always wonder why Yorubas left the Ibos despite the atrocities they committed. The truth is that Yorubas should have slaughtered those Ibos then for killing our leaders.
Men our ancestors f.ucked up no be small.

we did that is why our generation especially those in the army need to build a militia

SirToby:
The residue of lagatin injection in your system is already manifesting.

What is this cowardly backstabber saying?

Strikethem:
Just as ojukwu deserved his punishment. God punished him from earth.

I thought I plainly told u I don't discuss with those who knew nothing about the war?

jyz200:
great man
I see reason y yoruba never allign with d igbos
but where dis man fk
is not allowing naija to split
but wait oo
igbos are cause of Nigeria probs
very over ambitious pple
they introduced tribalism,unitary system
now they are shouting marginalization

Pass JAMB first before learning to insult people online.

By the way, your grammar is atrocious. Do you attend Ile kewu Arabic school in Oshogbo?

isnovic:
What Ojukwu said...excerpts from Interview:

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. angry angry angry angry angry angry angry angryWe 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."

Bookmarked!

santino09:
Actually it was Ojukwu that released Awo not Gowon. Try not to re write history to suit your beliefs next time.

Please stop polluting the air with this arrant nonsensical lies.

CROWNWEALTH019:
And he died of poison ... Great men don't commit suicide

But great men run away, dress in skirt abi.

phase1:
Pass JAMB first before learning to insult people online.

By the way, your grammar is atrocious. Do you attend Ile kewu Arabic school in Oshogbo?

Yours isn't anyway better.

IslamicRebel01:
What is this cowardly backstabber saying?

Common go and beg your Fulani master.

BlakKluKluxKlan:
Please stop polluting the air with this arrant nonsensical lies.

Don't mind these mind prisoners jare, Ojukwu released a federal prisoner and he travelled to Ikene, a federal area without being rearrested.

Logic is far from these people.

Juliusmalema:
I thought I plainly told u I don't discuss with those who knew nothing about the war?

That is why I said you were in front of the war in that time. I will keep pegging you back until your malfunction brain is corrected.

GreenCap:
i'm Igbo but this man is a sage.

Awo is the best visionary leader in black Africa.

he saw tomorrow. Britain knew it.

Zik would have been really envious of him.

prior to 1960 his motion to include secession in our constitution was turn down.

so Belewa and his co-travelers like Bello and Okpara did not want opposition.

no wonder they created Mid-West in 1963 to reduce AG influence in the West

but left the North and East intact by not creating Middle-Belt and CORE* region.

Calabar Ogoja Rivers provinces of Eastern*

as a federal prisoner, Ojukwu decided not to hold him back.

Awo built OAU at Ife outside of Ibadan

before Zik built UNN at Nsukka outside of Enugu

then Bello built ABU at Zaria outside of Kaduna.

he set the pace, others follow.

though he gave my mom and dad 20 Pounds each after the war,

nevertheless my respect goes to you Sir.

had it been Awolowo ruled Nigeria say from 1979 to 1983 this country would have endured just for 4 years and enjoy forever.

Biafra is a model of Awoism ideology

Go and pick Awolowo's autobiography. The title is Awo. He wrote it himself and published it before independence. I have a copy.
As evident in that book it was Awo who was envious of Igbos and their progressive lifestyle. From the nice hairstyle of his Igbo classmates to the Dr Zik oratory skills and flamboyancy when he addressed university students at Ibadan (Awo was an unknown journalist then), he never tried for a moment to rein in his envy and jealousy of Zik and Igbos. It's all in the book.

Go grab it and see through the heart of Awo on what he thought about the Ibos pre-independence.

Chief Awolowo was truly an educated and brilliant Lawyer.

No wonder, His memory is blessed.

santino09:
Actually it was Ojukwu that released Awo not Gowon. Try not to re write history to suit your beliefs next time.

Stop this stuff and nonsence..
It is a historically settled issue that Gowon released Awolowo.
If Ojukwu released him while the face-off between him and Gowon was tense, why would he be taken straight to Gowon rather than Ojukwu ? As a matter of fact, Ojukwu had no power to release him without Gowon's authority.

Anyway, Gowon has since laid the issue to rest by stating the already known fact that he released Awolowo from prison.

Strikethem:
That is why I said you were in front of the war in that time. I will keep pegging you back until your malfunction brain is corrected.

I done tell u finish......just mind ur business as I mind mine.

Juliusmalema:
[s]You called this letter( trash) a history material.......so u want our schools to educate our children that one certain man who died by rat poison (committing suicide) wrote a letter to be released.....Imagine....

Please my children will not undertake such a history and whichever curriculum that will bear such......


Teaching innocents minds what suicide means....and that awolowo drank rat poison and died....

No one will put the future of his/her child in jeopardy with such history. [/s]

I don't argue with numbskulls.