₦airaland Forum

Awo like Ojukwu was neither a Nationalist or a tribalist.

they played the tribal card to remain relevant.
Only to cosy to the FG whenever the chance availed.

Awo ran for election for Nigerian presidency and served under the military junta of Gowon
He inspired a crisis in western Nigeria after he lost to Akintola
he was neither a Nationalist or believed in democracy
What mattered most to him was his personal ambitions.

OPEN YOUR EYES PEOPLE

Its a sad story but the the events of the civil war was "unfortunate"
Igbos were set up as at the time to pay a heavy price for a nation built on shaky foundations.

If same sitiation re-occurs who is gonna be the biggest casualties this time ,

IGBOS !!!

igbo2011:
This is mine.
‎"My point is that the only authentic identity for the African is the ethnicity, I am Nigerian because a white man created Nigeria and gave me that identity. I am black because the white man constructed black to be as different as possible from his white. But I was Igbo before the white man came."- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

What is yours?

Nice speech but the highlighted is wrong.
U only had Ndi Arochukwu, Onicha, Ngwa, Igbo Ukwu etc
I dont think they all refered to themselves as Ndigbo.

The Igbo tribal group was also an invention on the white man as well which originated probably for Igbo Ukwu

Same with Yoruba, U had Oyo, Ife, Egba, Owo, Ijebu etc
The white man probably came and grouped the 2gether as Yoruba.

alj_harem:
adamawa boy apart from Awolowo, Zik, Bello

who is better than OBJ presently ?

I am waiting

Those two where never head of Head of state or president.
The where never influential outside their tribal regions.
How dare u compare them to OBJ

ak47mann:
In his address,  Okorocha declared that the day the Igbo decided to come together, other groups in Nigeria would bow for them, stressing that disunity had torn the zone apart.

Some truth in the statement but I object to the use of the word "bow for them" , I would rather say "have more respect for them" compared to what they get now.

Okorocha continued that day of the Igbo looking for pity and crying of marginalisation was over because no one can marginalise the Igbo, rather they are the ones marginalising themselves.

100% accurate, as a matter of fact he just marginalised himself from national politics by uttering the bigoted statements he just used.

Obi, observed that whatever progress Nigeria had made today was as a result of the sweat of the Igbo as it were the Igbo that spearheaded the struggle for Nigeria’s independence.

Obi, observed that whatever progress Nigeria had made today was as a result of the sweat of the Igbo Zik as it was the Igbo Zik that spearheaded the struggle for Nigeria’s independence.
Since Zik is an Igbo man ,   
The first part of the statement is just pure bigotry.

Obi noted that the Igbo were ahead of all other groups in Nigeria before and after independence and challenged the Igbo to reinvent themselves and take their rightful position in the scheme of things in Nigeria.

Ahead in terms of what ?Although possible, there no proof of the above
Another bigoted statement.

@Poster are u deranged what has the above got to do with igbo, u even had to alter the original story.

What is wrong with u?

pauloman:
Thank you very much Roadstar,u are very well on point. The issue of the Anioma marginalisation can not be swept under the carpet at all. Its an issue of day light robbery of the highest order. Indeed as pointed out that land mass might not translate to numbers,but what of natural resourses. The Anioma people are a major contributor of natural resourses,not just oil but others. I was travelling via the Anioma route to Asaba and i almost wept at the spate of development and backwardness in that area. I thinks its high time the Anioma land becomes recognised and takes its rightful place in the country. Please does anyone have any recent and upto date information about the situation on the pursuance of the Anioma Statehood in Nigeria. I mean how far it has gone.

Dont know if u have any statistics to support the notion of population but the argumant does not really suffice with regards my argument.
The LGA account means that anioma has the highest number of legislative and senetorial constituents, wards and house of assembly reps.
Asides that, with the creation of delta state, there were 4 major cities, Warri, Sapele, Agbor and Asaba, two of which are in Anioma.

I think the Aniomas so far have accepted their situation of being seen as foreigners in Delta state.

alj_harem:
I find this quote quite disturbing
I wonder why a man that wants to be the president want other groups to bow to Igbos
I think it is high time roachas start keeping his MOUTH SHUT and should stop saying rubbish

U can cry marginalisation etc
U can sack civil servants that are not from your state
The fact that a politician opens his mouth and chats such rubbish is really crass !
What happened to the republican spirit if the Igbos as epithomised by the  Ziks and Ekwuemes,
I am really disappointed in rochas, the fact that he can say this shows that he either has no nationwide ambitions or he is totally inept of how to go about it.
For Obi i'm really not surprised.

I think Igbo politicians play a big role in marginalising themselves.

KnowAll:
The Aniomas like the Yorubas in Kogi State have no option than to support any Goverment In  Power for lack of numerical strenght, which is a shame.  

It will surprise you to know that this is not the case
Out of the 25 LGAs in delta state, Anioma occupies 9
Urhobo and Isoko [b]combined [/b]have at most 10
Ijaw has 4 and
Itsekiri 2

They are nowhere near a minority, infact they are majority.

You cannot ignore the ethnical dynamics in delta state.
Uduaghan and ethnic Itsekiri has always been disliked by ethnic urhobos and Ijaws.

Ibori was much worse but he got away with it because he had the baking of his urhobo clan an managed to appease the Ijaws (ike clark & co)
My biggest puzzle has been on why the Anioma Igbos continue to be so irrelevant in delta state politics

Looking at Nigeria today, I wonder who is more foolish, Nigeria or Biafra.
Nigeria fought against the split of Nigeria 
Ojukwu fought against the Unity of Nigeria 

So who really won the war ?

cap28:
very tragic - isnt it strange how NATO failed to intervene to protect igbos even after the terrible pogroms in the north

This is y I laughed when I saw people celebrate libya.
Nigeria did not starve Biafran kids.
Neither was it Gowon, Awo or the Nigerian soldiers.
It was the British and their allies in the UN.
Their instiable taste for blood just to satisfy the diplomatic and economic policies.

ndu_chucks:
Mark my words Tinubu will deal with these thugs shortly.  Thug kuku pass thug.  I don't believe[b] mama Awo[/b] has anything to do with this, this one is pure thuggery 

Ileke-IdI:
tsk tsk.
That woman sef. . . . such a contrast to Awolowo. . . .

Sorry i'm a bit lost  What has mama Awo got to do with this ?

Ghadaffi was one of the few leaders who supported ANC during the apartheid ea.
This is when most of the world have abandoned ANC and mandela.
Robert Mugabe is in the same line and is also well respected in the ANC

https://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/56187000/jpg/_56187376_gm.jpg

When Mandela was released, he was one of the first leaders to be visited.

Beaf:
No sea of red zinc roofs my brother.

Why are you being manupulative. Taking close up pictures of the finest buildings and you claiming that there is no sea of red roof.
Let us get an areal view of the city , take pictures of big warri and co, stop bring pictures of bank buildings, hotels, churhes and shell quarters.
U have carefully avoided the city of warri.
U know that that is not a real representation of the city of warri.

nku5:
The truth is I am sorry for zik ,he had the misfortune of wanting to unite people he felt had a lot to gain from things that united them than things that made them different. Unfortunately nigerians are full of shite. I can't stand weak, poorly exposed twits who blame everything on the "forced marriage"

This is exactly what i've been trying to say for ages.
It is characteristic of uncivilised people to restrict their existance and politics to "Tribe", an outdated political structure even before independence.

This is a man who spent all his life in the North and is Igbo from the south. How do u expect him not to believe in Nigeria.
Even though this thread is not about Awo, this is a man who could not keep it together even within his own party AG, not to talk of western Nigeria.
This is a man who shifted his position and sided with the federal military junta and fought against succession of any type. How can you tell me he was pro succession.
Instead you are cooking up reasons to justify his shift in position.
First it was because he was trying to repay Zik, when it was pointed that zik did not support Biafra, you have shifted it to the biafran army incursion into western Nigeria on route to lagos the the seat of government.

Most of the ethnic strife we are seeing in Nigeria, Jos crisis, warri crisis etc are all intra regional issues.
Put on your thinking hats for once.

~Bluetooth:
I keep bringing Awolowo because there was no ojuku until after the military took over and he was made the eastern governor.The scores would have been settled even before independence !

But do u agree that Ojukwu is against this union called Nigeria just the same way u are and should be given credit for trying to break it up irrespective of what Awo, Zik or anyone thinks.

alj_harem:
maybe so, I guess he saw a One Nigeria as the future if it worked

then again, My suggestion is that he just followed orders from the west and not really for One Nigeria.

Who knows, Only him

Exactly, and we cannot base our opinions on unknowns when we have well documented speeches like the above.

~Bluetooth:
Maybe because i'm not a fan of wars but anyday anytime,i will choose the man that ask for a secession through peaceful means than the one that pushed for war and in the end,ran away and the secession dream died a natural death.

Ok Ojukwus motive was right but his methods was wrong. Is that what ur saying.
Not because Zik was his brother.

You keep trying to put Awo into this but I dont see y.
His stand on this issue is not clearly defined.

alj_harem:
Ok roadstar, who do you consider as a hero aka a nigerian hero or your hero in terms of Nigeria.

I don't want this discussion to be biased at least for once

I dont want to get into the discussion of who was right and who was wrong.
The issue on ground is the speech above.
I am saying that in the world of right thinking people, there was nothing wrong in the comments he made.
We might want to blame our failures on him but we are jut being evasive.

In Jos Notherners are killing Northerners.
In 1963 Awo and Akintola were on each others throats.
In Warri Urhobos, Ijaws an Itsekiris kill each other.

Zik, having spent most of his life in the north and being Igbo had the rare ability to see thing from everyones view.
As he asserted in the speech.
As at the time or at least from this speech u can see that his political ideology was void of ethnic-religious sentiments.

~Bluetooth:
Prior to 1953 when Zik was pushing for one Naija,Awo saw the antics of the north and was displeased with it.he told zik to let the north secede when they were pushing for it but zik won't let them leave because the north was wealthy with agricultural resources nd zik wanted to be president by all means.However when oil was discovered,Zik still maintained his one naija dream until 1966 when ojuku couldn't withstand the continued annihilation of ibos by the nigerian state led by the north.by that time,[b]Awo also repayed zik by insisting on one naija.[/b]The right time to have freed the hausa/fulanis was in 1953 when they called for it but Azikwe killed their dream !

Forget Awo he is the best bla bla bla. He repayed Zik at the expense of his people and all Nigerians 
His friend Akintola was Ziks junior brother and a closet Igbo man.
I'm sure everything he did had a concrete reason , he did no wrong and was selfless,  lets leave that talk for another day.

Zik is a villian and Ojukwu is Nigeria's biggest visionary/ hero for being bold enough to push for the breakup of Nigeria.
The both of them cannot be villians  as the where on opposite sides of the issue
Either agree of refute the claim simple.

~Bluetooth:
Awolowo pleaded with that iddiot to let the north have their way but his selfish interest to rule Nigeria by force won't let him listen to Awo.So why should Awo now support biafra 13 years later ?

You see how you mix up things ?
who is talking about Awo supporting Biafra.
All I am saying is that Ojukwu should be the foremost Nigerian hero for being the foremost secessionist and Zik being the biggest villain for pushing for one Nigeria.

For Awo he was against one Nigeria one minute and the next minute he was fighting for one Nigeria so I really don't know his political philosophy on the issue.

alj_harem:
Ijaws are not in Warri, when last have u been to warri ?

warri is an itsekiri and urhobo town

Complete and total lack of information , do u know what lead to the ijaw-itsekiri fracas ?
Do u know it was over a fight local govt HQ ?
Do know that warri is made up of various LGAs .

secondly, Zik was a tribalist in fact the worse of them all, why you ask ?

He was the only tribalist in Nigerian history who called for one Nigeria

Nigeria was operating on regionalism back then, insisted of Zik to leave each region to control there own affairs No ZIK Of ONITSHA locked his friend up and his friend vice up in his region,

Zik did not end regional structure the military did.

went to that region his friend ruled in and divided it using his presidential power of which there was NO VOTER.

then few years down the line traveled out of the country only for his cousin and kinman OJukwu to invade to separated region of which his friend ruled over.

If that is not tribalism and hate, then I do not know what else to call it .

So are u saying that what Ojukwu did was right but as Ziks kinsman, he was the wrong man to do the job ?

R u saying that the quarrel between Ladoke Akintola and Awo was Ziks fault ?
Are you saying that the fracas that ensued in the western region was Ziks fault.
r u sure that such fracas will not happen again even after the country has been split ?

My friend I really don't understand you. your reply is riddled with assumptions and comments that don't add up.
A typical Nigerian way of reasoning.

codeworks:
greatest fool? but his face appeared on Naira Note

Obiagu1:
Zik was the greatest FOOL Nigeria ever had.

Yeah is it Ziks fault or is it your incompetence as a people.
I think Zik over-estimated Nigerians.

A man that lived above ethno-religious sentiments lived far ahead of his time.
2011 and we are all still talking tribe, region and religion.

What saddens me most is that most of u are the future Nigeria has.
Can u imagine what will happen if the Niger-delta where 2 be a separate country ?
The Urhobos, ijaws, itsekiris have so much mistrust and cannot live in peace in Warri alone.

Look at what is going on in Jos today, doest it tell u that some parts of the speech was a prophesy?
I look at Nigeria and I can only blame our relative low IQ, Our lack of class, myopia, selfishness and low level of civilisation.

Sometimes I wonder if we are a cursed people or are we just confused.
Since you do not want to live together , then
Ojukwu should be well respected as he is the only leader in Nigeria who has actively pushed for succession post independence.

I just dont get it ,
U dislike Zik for calling for one Nigeria and dislike Ojukwu for trying to split Nigeria.

Are some of u mad or r u just being Nigerians !

Obiagu1:
When will the SW let go of Awo and move on
Soon, they will be compared alongside North in backwardness and all they have to shout is Awo and Lagos.

While the SS and SE hold meetings on how to further their economies and society, in the SW is all Awo this, Awo that
While the whole region is going down the drains un-noticed.

aloy/emeka:
Igbo people and their myopia. Shouldn't you be claiming marginalization here?. All the Northern states claiming to be on life support are doing so because they need more money from FG. The sooner you claim yours, the better for you.

What is myopic is the fact that some people inluding Igbos are still calling for the creation of more states because of politics even when most of the states in Nigeria cannot sustain themselves not to talk of fostering any form of development.

Even more myopic are the Yorubas who still talking about Awo of western region from 50 years ago when the present states are struggling.
At the slightest conversation, all we hear is awo, awo, awo
Ok let me see how the states can afford awos free education when they cannot even pay minimum wage. Ode !

Onlytruth:
Ileke-Idi,

Eastern Nigeria is a friendly region. We protect residents no matter where they come from. All is free to do legitimate business, from Enugu to PH to Calabar to Yenagoa to Owerri and Onitsha. And when they complete the deep port at Ibaka, it will get really busy.
We are about to boom. ALL IS WELCOME. 

Please can u find some decent pics from Anambra, preferably Awka, Onitsha or Nnewi. Just like u done for Enugu, Owerri and PH etc
If u cant can u please delete Anambra from your list of progressive states.
And stop deceiving people.

kasiem:
and i can tell u that your state and region can never near anambra and SE in development and good governance. I dont want to haggle with u, rather, an invitation to anambra will solve the imbroglio. The only place obi has failed is in onitsha and nnewi. If the greedy civil servants are not satisfied with our meagre resources, they can go to hell.

The embolded shows that you are both selfish and have not been anywhere near Anambra of late.
Why are you lying ?

"Mr. Obi’s undoing – apart from the aforementioned paucity of imagination – lies in his increasing confidence that propaganda is a substitute for solid governance and verifiable achievements.
With little to show for his years so far in office, the governor has taken to trumpeting and advertising hollow accomplishments. His signature “accomplishment” is the tarring of 500 kilometers of roads. Missing in that claim – assuming the accuracy of the figure – is the poor quality of the roads. Last June, I traveled on Ifite road in Awka, one of the most recently tarred roads, and an important traffic artery that leads to the state-owned university. Despite the recentness of its construction, the road was already filled with potholes.
In fact the state capital, Awka, is so rundown and wretched that it would do war-ravaged Mogadishu no credit at all. What’s clear is that the governor believes his image to constitute aesthetic asset. Wherever you turn in the state capital, you’re bound to see some billboard, always with an image of Mr. Obi’s face. Some billboards  , "

Read on at http://www.usafricaonline.com/2011/08/16/anambra-gov-peter-obi-advertising-hollow-accomplishments-by-okey-ndibe/
The author of this except, (Dr Okey Ndibe) apart from his well known reputation, hails from Amawbia in Awka.

Stop utilising lies to suffice your argument.