₦airaland Forum

laudate:
Hmmnn....this is enlightening. So Trimnell's in-laws were Yoruba people.

So Yoruba people sheltered Igbos, during the war.

So Ojukwu's men, family and children were well-fed during the war, while the families of ordinary civilians were left to starve.

So Ojukwu' did not go to Ivory Coast in search of peace, like he said. He went to avoid getting caught.

So Ironsi made Effiong a scapegoat, instead of acting on Military Intelligence in a way that could have prevented the first coup.

So Ojukwu's absconded from Biafra, without thinking about those who had fought under his command, until his deputy forced him to carry his (Effiong's) family along;

So Ojukwu stubbornly ignored the wise counsel of elders and professionals in Biafra,

So right from the onset, Ojukwu knew that the Biafran forces were ill-equipped to face the federal forces on the battlefield, but he still went to war and ended up playing ludo, with the lives of 3 million people, in the old Eastern region;

In fact, this historical account about life inside Biafra is one of the best I have ever read.....

Wey my zobo?? God will punish all those spreading propaganda about the war....

kettykin:
i hope all igbos are learning from the stupid blunders committed by ironsi

kettykin:
My father once talked about how he told Ojukwu that Biafran forces needed to protect Ikot Ekpene which leads to the heart of Biafra. He said when he made the proposal, Ojukwu said maybe Biafra needed reinforcement to protect Nnewi, where he, Ojukwu, hailed from. Ojukwu thought my father made the statement because of the assumption that he was from Ikot Ekpene. We are not from Ikot Ekpene but Ibiono. My grandfather only settled in Ikot Ekpene which is Ananland while Ibiono is Ibibio. Some also said there were problems with the Igbo and minorities in Biafra. These minorities didn’t play minor roles in the war. Some problems arose because some had been given states. It contributed to the saboteur narrative in Biafra. Some non-Igbo were killed by Biafran forces for suspicions of being saboteurs.

igbodefender:
Of course, the 1966 coup was not an Igbo coup. The officers who planned it said they wanted to foist Awolowo The Great in power. But they should have retired and campaigned for Awolowo instead of trying to install him through coup.
Ifeanyi Ifeajuna, Wale Ademoyega, Kaduna Nzeogwu.

laudate:
Hmmnn....this is enlightening. So Trimnell's in-laws were Yoruba people.

So Yoruba people sheltered Igbos, during the war.

So Ojukwu's men, family and children were well-fed during the war, while the families of ordinary civilians were left to starve.

So Ojukwu' did not go to Ivory Coast in search of peace, like he said. He went to avoid getting caught.

So Ironsi made Effiong a scapegoat, instead of acting on Military Intelligence in a way that could have prevented the first coup.

So Ojukwu's absconded from Biafra, without thinking about those who had fought under his command, until his deputy forced him to carry his (Effiong's) family along;

So Ojukwu stubbornly ignored the wise counsel of elders and professionals in Biafra,

So right from the onset, Ojukwu knew that the Biafran forces were ill-equipped to face the federal forces on the battlefield, but he still went to war and ended up playing ludo, with the lives of 3 million people, in the old Eastern region;

In fact, this historical account about life inside Biafra is one of the best I have ever read.....

Wey my zobo?? God will punish all those spreading propaganda about the war....

kettykin:
So an ill equipped biafra militia dealt decisively with the Soviet union, Egypt and Britain backed Nigerian military. Without resorting to using hunger to starve children in biafra , i think the biafrans did a lot better than was expected of them

franchasng:
Biafran army passed Ore and was heading towards Shagamu before Banjo and Ifeajuna who were the officers leading the troops stopped their advancement for reason best known to two of them alone, which made Biafran troops to relay the information back to Biafran government that Ifeajuna and Banjo were plotting coup to topple Ojukwu and surrender Biafra back to Nigerian government, and that led to their arrest and court martialing/execution for treasonable offence against the Biafran state.

Gowon who didn't even want to go after seceding Biafra was already making plans to relocate his government office to Kaduna before British government who had huge interest in the newly discovered crude oil mineral resources in Eastern Nigeria then sanctioned Gowon not to back down but go after Biafra and return them back at all cost, pledging their full military support for Gowon.

Also The Soviet Union which is today's Russia that tried negotiating with Ojukwu to sign a crude oil mining contract with Biafra in order to help Biafra with full military support which Ojukwu blatantly rejected despite the pleas of some Biafran political elites for him to agree, backed Gowon, together with Egypt....and Gowon had to declare a full war against seceding Biafra in what he called "Police Action" to return Biafra back to Nigeria.





Regarding the Hitler story, Hitler was only alleged to have committed suicide, nobody was sure....but he first fled Berlin to Frankfurt from where it was suspected that he sneaked out to a smaller nation in either South America or so.....

Read this quote from a popular research work by some top UK & US war historians on the death of Adolf Hitler:

"The 2009 DNA test results thus may simply point to the fact that the Soviets’ inquiries in the days after Hitler’s death were more botched than previously thought. Perhaps, he speculates, soldiers ordered by Stalin to determine Hitler’s whereabouts were too terrified to say they hadn’t been able to recover his body and “picked up whatever mush they could find in front of Hitler’s bunker exit, put it in a box and claimed it was the corpses of Adolf and Eva Hitler, when in reality all that was left was little more than teeth, ash and a garbled mess, barely recognizable as a ‘body.’”


All freedom fighters or warlords do run into exile when the battle becomes tough for them to stand.....even in the Bible, such cases were recorded, that's you do read Bible

Ojukwu did the best thing....if he had stayed and got captured by Nigerian army then, Biafrans would have suffered the more....his sudden unknown disappearance created fear, uncertainty and unpredictability of Biafra's next move for decades, you can ask those in position of authority, and reason they were so scared to allow any Igbo man become Nigeria's Chief of Army staff until Goodluck became President and broke that chain by appointing Gen. Ihejirika as first Igbo COAS since the end of the civil war

Techsunny:
U re a very big fool, am from Nnewi, home town the biafra war lord, Emeka ojukwu was surrender by biafran armies and force to enter aircraft enroute cote du ivoire, last words from ojukwu "let me die here with my enemies".If con.ojukwu refused to board in aircraft, war ll' still countinue, Mind u! my brother did not run becos of ur cowardic nature of Nigeria Troops could not fight biafra without assistance from western world.

Biety:
Did you miss the part that says when Ojukwu was hiding in Lagos, the people that helped him were Yorubas? This submision suports the claim by the yoruba people that they were neutral at the initial stage of the war.

Biety:
My take aways from this long article are:
Most of the people that helped Ojukwu were Yorubas.

Ojukwu actually disguised to escape. Infact he went into hiding and had to be helped by good samarithans.
Before now I used to think people were just saying it to taunt him.

Another one is that Ojukwu' son still trembles whenever he sees lightning or hears thunder blast because of the experience he had about 50yrs ago during the war.
The sumary is that war is never an option to disagrement s. Dialogue is the best option.
We should learn from the past to avoid repeating foolish mistakes.

oyatz:
Bros, are you aware that Biafra's had Foreign support as well?

The war is a most unfortunate part of our National History and very unnecessary .
It could have been avoided if the Military didn't truncate the First Republic.Foreign support when Nigeria goverment has siezed everything and change her currency.Blame this on Prof Cc moujekwu, he's my bro but we disown him for the betrayal.

One of the things the Igbo people have done is that they have excelled tremendously in business and other areas. Before independence, they had excelled in education, sports, military and other sectors of the Nigerian society, They played leading roles everywhere even in the north where they were in the majority of the non-indigenes and were very aggressive commercially before independence. Unfortunately, independence brought rivalry and people became territorial. It was a situation that made the Igbo become very powerful and visible but it created problem because indepence had created new boundaries and rivalries. The prominence of the Igbo became a threat and there was a question of what to do with them. If people are marked for attack or elimination flimsy reasons are always given. Long before the coup, then Premier of Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, who was very powerful spiritually and politically, in an interview, talked about the Igbo in the north. He complained that the Igbo always wanted to be the head and take charge. If he had said the Igbo in the north were committing crimes, I would have agreed with him but he was saying good things about the Igbo, which to him were reasons they were threats to them in the north. That made me realise that even before the pogroms of 1966, there were already plans to attack the Igbo. The first coup and Decree 34 presented themselves as opportunities to attack the Igbo.[/b]

franchasng:
Wow!


And the truth shall continue to prevail

God bless you Philip Effiong II

The only reason they always hate Igbos wherever they are is not because Igbos killed them or stole their properties, no, it is always because Igbos put in their best in whatever they do and succeed faster than others, making them develop unnecessary hatred for Igbos for being successful, nothing else oh.

The truth can never be hidden forever, thank you Philip Effiong II for revealing this long hidden truth why they hate Igbos till today

I used to think that it was only Azikiwe that knew about the coup, but the truth is, all the ruling politicians knew about the coup but refused to act.

Akintola Williams the Western Premier got information about the coup from Zik and Akintola told Sir Ahmadu Bello, but Bello waved it aside, saying nothing will happen.

Azikiwe warned Akintola again and then took a medical leave with his Yoruba doctor. Then Akintola angrily went to Kaduna to warn Ahmadu Bello the Northern Premier, but Ahmadu Bello again refused to listen, so Akintola went and bought a rifle to arm himself at his Ibadan official residence.

When the coupist arrived Akintola's official residence, they didn't plan to kill him instantly, they came to arrest him, but as soon as Akintola sighted them, he rushed and grabbed his rifle and started shooting at them and injured some of the coupist, which made them kill him during exchange of fire, though he was on their list of those to be killed.

Also, the coupist didn't plan to kill Tafawa Belewa the Prime Minister, but when they heard the coup has foiled, they killed all the politicians they took on house arrest, including Belewa.

The people they had their names for killing were:

1.) Ahmadu Bello because he was a tribal bigot like Buhari of today

2.) Akintola Williams for his alignment with Bello and his political tuzzle with Awolowo (the coupist loved Awolowo who was serving a jail term for treason at Enugu Prison)

3.) Azikiwe for his love for Northern Nigeria against the south but he used his wisdom and ran away in disguise of going for medical trip.

4.) Aguiyi Ironsi was also on their list of those to be killed

One Yoruba Major that got killed with his wife was killed because he tried to pull out his rifle from his drawer, and they shot him.

Biety:
My take aways from this long article are:
Most of the people that helped Ojukwu were Yorubas.

Ojukwu actually disguised to escape. Infact he went into hiding and had to be helped by good samarithans.
Before now I used to think people were just saying it to taunt him.

Another one is that Ojukwu' son still trembles whenever he sees lightning or hears thunder blast because of the experience he had about 50yrs ago during the war.
The sumary is that war is never an option to disagrement s. Dialogue is the best option.
We should learn from the past to avoid repeating foolish mistakes.

Biety:
My take aways from this long article are:
Most of the people that helped Ojukwu were Yorubas.

Ojukwu actually disguised to escape. Infact he went into hiding and had to be helped by good samarithans.
Before now I used to think people were just saying it to taunt him.

Another one is that Ojukwu' son still trembles whenever he sees lightning or hears thunder blast because of the experience he had about 50yrs ago during the war.
The sumary is that war is never an option to disagrement s. Dialogue is the best option.
We should learn from the past to avoid repeating foolish mistakes.

Guestlander:
Unfair in the sense that ibos in general did not have a meeting where they decided to forcefully change the government. But based on the same logic we can conclude that all the other subsequent coups were not Northern or Hausa/Fulani coups, but we know that is not true.

ogbonti:
...they knew no other process will work except overthrowing Balewa

Corrosiveman:
Up till today it's still called an Igbo Coup
Though all tribes participated in it
The only mistake made was that
The Coup failed in the Eastern Region.

But Coming to think of it The main reason
For the Coup can still be seen today.

If Gowon Accepted Aburi Accord there
Would have been peace.
But he and his cohorts refused due to Oil
Was found in the Eastern region

And that's why the North
Won't Accept Restructuring

MetaPhysical:
If the topic was about Dimka's coup Id do that but its not...this is about Igbo coup of Jan 66.

buchilino:
IRONSI BELIEVED IN ONE NIGERIA, DAT WAS HIS BIGGEST MISTAKE.

kettykin:
So an ill equipped biafra militia dealt decisively with the Soviet union, Egypt and Britain backed Nigerian military. Without resorting to using hunger to starve children in biafra , i think the biafrans did a lot better than was expected of them

MetaPhysical:
If the topic was about Dimka's coup Id do that but its not...this is about Igbo coup of Jan 66.

kettykin:
i hope all igbos are learning from the stupid blunders committed by ironsi

kettykin:
i hope all igbos are learning from the stupid blunders committed by ironsi

igbodefender:
...to install Awolowo by the bullet instead of the Action Group way of the ballot. The Igbos have been punished for a military coup that they did not gather to plan.

Ojiofor:
I know for certain you won't give Dimka's cuop ethnic colouration as you did January 66 coup.