₦airaland Forum

applord:
OPPOSITION FORMATION ATTACK! ATTACK! ATTACK! NO ROOM FOR DEFENDING
-----------------MATIC----------------
BALE --- J.RODRIGEZ --- PEDRO---ROBBEN
A.SANCHEZ ----Y.TOURE --- C.RONALDO
L.MESSI-------L.SUAREZ----E.HAZARD

How many ve they scored?

RAUF AREGBESE

Senate President Bukola Saraki has
started reaching out to the All Peoples
Congress leadership and colleagues
opposed to his emergence as the head of
the National Assembly.

A senator loyal to him, Rafiu Ibrahim,
made this known in Abuja on Sunday
just as The PUNCH learnt that the
APC leadership decided to soft-pedal on
its initial opposition to the outcomes of the
National Assembly leadership elections in
order to stave off rebellion by its
lawmakers.

Ibrahim said, “We are currently meeting
with our colleagues in the Senate. Apart
from the fact that the Senate President
has been meeting with those who are
aggrieved , we, members of the Like
Minds Senators are also engaging them
on one-on-one basis.
“We are also meeting with our party
leadership and I think the peace moves
are achieving good result. It is in the
interest of everybody that we have a
united Senate.”

Some members of the Senate Unity
Forum who are loyalists of Senator
Lawan, also confirmed that Saraki and
some of his supporters were making
overtures to them.
The senators, who spoke with our
correspondent on condition of anonymity
because their leaders had barred them
from granting interviews on the issue
were, however, silent on whether the
Saraki group offered them anything in
return for their support.
A ranking senator from one of the
South-West states said Saraki
personally discussed with him on the
matter.

He said, “It is true that the Like Minds
Senators have been talking with us to
support the leadership of Saraki but we
told them that we are not having any
personal issues with the Senate president
and his deputy, Ekweremadu.
“We are upholding the sanctity of our
political party and its leadership. We
have told them our conditions for mutual
relationship and cooperation. It is left for
them to take appropriate actions.”
Another senator from the South-West
also explained that the SUF members
would meet this week to review the reply
of their party’s leadership to their
conditions.

The group had through its spokesperson,
Senator Kabiru Marafa, said it was
demanding the immediate resignation of
Ekweremadu and the investigation of
the Clerk of the National Assembly,
Salisu Maikasuwa, for his role in the
June 9 Senate inauguration.
Our correspondents however gathered in
Abuja on Sunday that the APC leaders
opted to sheathe their sword after the
Presidency reportedly intervened in the
matter.
The APC had in a statement by its
National Publicity Secretary, Lai
Mohammed, on Tuesday described the
victory of Saraki and Yakubu
Dogara as “unacceptable.”
Saraki, a former Kwara State
governor, beat APC choice, Ahmed
Lawan, to clinch the post while Dogara
defeated Femi Gbajabiamila.

Describing Saraki and Dogara’s
decisions to defy its directive and vie for
the posts as an act of “monumental
indiscipline and betrayal,” the party vowed
to sanction them in accordance with the
provisions of its constitution.
However, after a series of consultations,
the National Chairman of the party,
John Odigie-Oyegun, on Friday
announced that they were ready to work
with Saraki and Dogara.

A prominent member of the APC,who
pleaded for anonymity, explained to one
of our correspondents that what Odigie-
Oyegun said represented the position of
the party’s National Working Committee.
He added that the APC was aware that
if it kept to its hard line on the matter,
the National Assembly members who
backed Saraki and Dogara might rebel
against it (APC).
The party member said, “We have to live
with the reality that Saraki and
Dogara are the new leaders of the
National Assembly. We don’t want a
rebellion from our Senators and House
members.

“However, those who defied us and did
what they did will face a panel which will
give them fair hearing before a
disciplinary action.”
Asked what the disciplinary action would
be, he replied, “Even a warning is a form
of sanction.
“We have no intention to open ourselves
up to what the Peoples Democratic
Party did to itself in the case of
(Aminu)Tambuwal .
“When he (Tambuwal) emerged against
their (PDP) will, instead of finding a
way to manage it, they alienated him until
he left them with a lot of his colleagues to
join us (APC). We will not allow this to
happen to us.”
The party source also revealed that as
part of efforts to further douse tension,
Saraki and Dogara would be prevailed
upon not to sideline their defeated
colleagues.

Towards this end, they are expected to
concede the chairmanship of some of
choice committees in both the Senate and
the House to members of the other camp.
When asked if indeed Saraki had
waved the Olive branch before the
party’s leadership and if indeed it
had accepted to work with Saraki and
Dogara, the APC spokesman,
referred him to Odigie-Oyegun.
But calls to the mobile telephone number
of Odigie-Oyegun were neither picked
nor returned.
However, The PUNCH learnt that the
leadership of the APC had taken a
position that the remaining seats in the
House of Representatives like the
Majority Leader, Chief Whip, Deputy
Leader and Deputy Whip, were party
seats.

Another top APC member said, “The
party has come into these positions
because they are party seats and the party
reserves the power to share it to the
zones.
“What we hear is that, to calm nerves,
Femi Gbajabiamila(the defeated APC
choice candidate for the House
speakership) will be the majority leader,
while a member from Kano State, Mr.
Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, will be his
deputy.
“Monguno will likely be the chief whip
while Pally Iriase from Edo State,
will deputise for him.”
But a former House spokesman and
influential member of the 8th Assembly,
Zakari Mohammed, said that replacing an
elected presiding officer with another
person was not possible.
Mohammed noted that it was likely that
people were making speculations in view
of the outcomes of the elections.
But he parried a question on what role
the House or the party would assign to
Gbajabiamila.
“I don’t know, I can’t comment on that
one,” he said.



Source ; Saraki holds peace talks with aggrieved Senators - http://www.punchng.com/news/saraki-holds-peace-talks-with-aggrieved-senators/

The Osun State Governor, Mr. Rauf
Aregbesola, has promised to pay workers
in the state their salaries before the end of
this month.
The governor made the promise in a
statement issued in Osogbo on Sunday by
his media aide, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon.
Most workers are being owed seven
months’ salaries.

But the statement was silent on whether
the governor would pay the backlog or he
would pay part of the salaries.
The statement read in part, “Before the
end of June, workers would be paid their
salaries.”
The governor stated that he had a great
dream for the state and that was why he
was in a hurry to begin many
programmes which had earned him
applause even outside the country.

He added, “The dream has not gone
awry and it is a clear vision that Osun
must be on its feet, self-reliant and be a
reference point in Nigeria. The race to
ensure development within the first term
of Aregbesola was informed by the fear
of what is happening now.
“Aregbesola wanted an Osun State that
is self-reliant. That Osun State, almost
two decades after its creation, could not
boast of tax-paying companies speak
volume about the magnitude of the works
that awaited the Aregbesola
administration.

“But he did not shy away from this task
of industrialisation. Within his first term,
his government had caused investors to
bring up companies, such as the Omoluabi
Garment Factory, Osogbo and
Adulawo/RLG Technology Company in
Ilesa.
“Just last month, a leading telephone line
company, Airtel, came to establish
partnership with the Adulawo/RLG
Company. These are aside the various
agro-allied companies which have
benefited from the growth schemes of the
Aregbesola administration throughout the
state.

“The government has also commenced
aggressive drive for the development of
the solid mineral sector with the signing of
a Memorandum of Understanding with
an Australian mining firm, Andalusia
Mining Industry.
“It was in the same vein that the idea of
an airport for aircraft maintenance was
conceived.
“Only a lazy administration would accept
the tag of Osun State as a ‘civil servant’
state as excuse for not developing
initiatives for industrialisation.

“To accept that our state must continue to
survive on the meagre inflow through
what goes to the civil servants alone is to
accept that we would continue to depend
on external forces for our survival"




http://www.punchng.com/news/ill-pay-osun-workers-before-june-30-aregbesola/

ooooo

Afolabs101:
1. Mickey mouse 2. Daffy duck 3. Fred flintstone 4. Ren and stimpy 5. Bart simpson 6. Spongebob square pants 7. ?? 8. Road runner 9. Marge Simpson 10. ?? 11. Stuey of family guy 12. Popeye 13. Mr Krab from Spongebob 14. Charlie brown 15. Bugs Bunny 16. Wilma flintsone (fred flintsone’s wife) 17. ?? 18. Bullwinkle from Rocky and Bullwinkle 19. ?? 20. Goofy 21. Squidward from Spongebob 22. Dexter 23. Snoopy 24. ?? 25. Olive Oil (Popeye’s girlfriend) 26. Pink Panther 27. Betty Boop 28. ?? 29. ?? 30. ?? 31. Tazmanian Devil 32. ?? 33. Pinky and the Brain 34. ??

see idle man

I don hear

Buhari do something naa

watching it via 3D

let's see if Barcanista will be right in this one..

I didn't forget he predicted it right concerning Saraki winning Presido of Senate


Barca where u dae

Saraki for Senate presido

Vote for Saraki Vote for real CHANGE

koligs:
If you think it fits PMB and his wife more, click like and if it fits osinbanjo and his wife more, click share

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Remember doing dis @ villa (Ebenebe) and sometimes helping my then babe @ Ugbenu

just for i.kpu

I dae greet ooo

Mr... Boo-haaa-rii

Chelsea's boss Jose muorinho is arguably the most  quotable coach in the world of modern football. He is simple the best when it comes to conparisons some of his funny metaphors/quotes includes:
1• No," Mourinho responded when asked after last weekend's 2-1 defeat to Newcastle if he would defend a slender lead in a similar fashion. "You may as well put a cow in the middle of the pitch. And then stop the game because there was a cow.".......

2•After Barcelona complained about having to take a coach to Milan due to travel disruption caused by an Icelandic volcano eruption in 2010, the then Inter boss said: "The way they are, tomorrow we will probably read I am to blame for the volcano. Maybe I have a friend in the volcano and I am responsible for that."

3•“I am not concerned about how Chelsea are viewed morally,” Mourinho rambled in his first stint at Stamford Bridge. “What does concern me is that we are treated in a different way to other clubs. Some clubs are treated as devils, some are treated as angels. I don’t think we are so ugly that we should be seen as the devil and I don’t think Arsene Wenger [and Co.] are so beautiful that they should be viewed as angels.”

4•"Look, I’m a coach. I’m not Harry Potter," Mourinho said after drawing 0-0 with Real Mallorca on his competitive Real Madrid debut. "Harry Potter is magical, but in reality there is no magic. Magic is fiction and football is real."

5• "I am prepared," he said after signing Sami Khedira in his first transfer window as Real Madrid coach. "The more pressure there is, the stronger I am. In Portugal, we say the bigger the ship, the stronger the storm. Fortunately for me, I have always been in big ships. FC Porto were a very big ship in Portugal, Chelsea were also a big ship in England and Inter were a great ship in Italy. Now I’m at Real Madrid, which is considered the biggest ship on the planet."

6• Mourinho on squad rotation during his first spell at Chelsea: "If you have at home one Bentley and one Aston Martin, if you go all day everyday in the Bentley and leave the Aston Martin in the garage you are a bit stupid."

7•"It's like having a blanket that is too small for the bed," Mourinho said when Chelsea were in the midst of an injury crisis at the end of the January transfer window in 2007. "You pull the blanket up to keep your chest warm and your feet stick out. I cannot buy a bigger blanket because the supermarket is closed. But the blanket is made of cashmere."

8•"If you have no eggs, you have no omelette," Mourinho's infamously veiled criticism of Roman Abramovich's transfer policy began in 2007. "In the supermarket, you have class one, class two and class three eggs. Some are more expensive than others and some give you better omelettes. So, when the class one eggs are in Waitrose and you cannot get there, you have a problem." He was sacked shortly afterwards.

9•  Referencing his famous egg metaphor, Mourinho described his Chelsea team at the start of last season as: “Beautiful young eggs, eggs that need a mum, in this case a dad, to take care of them, to keep them warm during the winter, to bring the blankets and to work and improve them and one day we'll arrive in a moment when the weather changes, the sun rises, we break the eggs and the eggs are ready to go for life at the top level.”

10•"Claude Makelele is not a football player – Makelele is a slave," Mourinho said in criticism of the midfielder being called up to the France squad despite having announced his international retirement. "He’s played the biggest game you can, the World Cup final, and now wants to retire but the coach told us if he is not playing for France, he is not playing for Chelsea. We know the rules. You are a slave, you have no human rights."

11•"The title race is between two horses and a little horse that needs milk and needs to learn how to jump," Mourinho said after Chelsea defeated Manchester City in February this year. "Maybe next season we can race."

12•"Barcelona is a cultural city with many great theatres," Mourinho started, in reaction to a young Lionel Messi getting Asier del Horno sent off for Chelsea in 2006. "And this boy has learned very well. He’s learned play-acting."

13• "Barcelona is a cultural city with many great theatres," Mourinho started, in reaction to a young Lionel Messi getting Asier del Horno sent off for Chelsea in 2006. "And this boy has learned very well. He’s learned play-acting."

14•"If you go hunting with a good dog, you hunt more. If you go with a cat, you hunt less but you're still hunting," Mourinho responded when asking about Gonzalo Higuain's injury, meaning he would be starting Karim Benzema.

15• "If I wanted to work quietly, I would have stayed at Portugal,” Mourinho said at his first press conference as Chelsea boss – the same one he coined the term 'special one'. “In Portugal we have pretty blue chairs, the Champions League, God and then, right after him, me.”

16•It was a goal that came from the moon - from the Anfield stands,” Mourinho said after Chelsea were defeated by a ghost goal in the 2004-05 Champions League semi-final. “The best team lost. Liverpool scored, if you can say that they scored, because maybe you should say the linesman scored.”

17•Young players are a little bit like melons," Mourinho mused in 2007 towards the end of his first stint at Chelsea. "Only when you open and taste the melon are you 100 per cent sure that the melon is good. Sometimes you have beautiful melons but they don’t taste very good and some other melons are a bit ugly and, when you open them, the taste is fantastic. The bridge is a difficult one to cross and they have to play with us and train with us for us to taste the melon."

18• "The one with 30 years experience has never won anything; the one with three years has won a lot," Mourinho wrote in his newspaper column in February 2005, regarding Porto coach Jesualdo Ferreira. "The one with a 30-year career will be forgotten when he ends it; the one with three could end it right now and he could never be erased from history. This could be the story of a donkey who worked for 30 years but never became a horse."

19• “As we say in Portugal, they brought the bus and they left the bus in front of the goal,” Mourinho said, famously coining the term 'parking the bus' after drawing 0-0 with Tottenham in 2004. “I would have been frustrated if I had been a supporter who paid £50 to watch this game because Spurs came to defend. There was only one team looking to win, they only came not to concede; it’s not fair for the football we played.”

20• "I think he is one of these people who is a Viewer," Mourinho said of Arsene Wenger in 2005. "He likes to watch other people. There are some guys who, when they are at home, have a big telescope to see what happens in other families. He speaks, speaks, speaks about Chelsea. I don't know if he wants my job, I don't know. He loves Chelsea."



See more @ www.chrisejike..com

----Vodkka

Happy birthday

for more about me....chrisejike..com

4 ur mind author=Zandyslaux post=33291100]Marrying dis kind of lady b like nack me......I go back bag[/quote]

CONCLUSION:


In the case of Nigeria, the events before, during and after the war in itself provides sufficient evidence for the true intentions of the conflict as a war not borne out of patriotism and a genuine desire for Nigerian unity/ nation building but of economic interests, subjugation and colonialism. On his own part, Yakubu Gowon by not following through with the original intent of the North to secede, by his repeated bad faith, by abdicating his most fundamental constitutional responsibility to protect the lives and property of citizens thus allowing and even enabling mass killings of genocidal proportions under his watch, by reneging on an agreement he personally participated in negotiating in Aburi and by usurping a people’s inalienable right to self determination through democratic means (plebiscite or referendum) as enshrined in the United Nations charter amongst other excesses personally and deliberately caused the avoidable and unnecessary Nigeria-Biafra war and the attendant tragedies associated with the conflict just seven years after independence.

Not only did Nigeria by the events before and during the war pioneer genocide in Africa, the first images of starving children which has now become a permanent fixture of Africa also began from Nigeria. The pogrom and the war more than anything else have come to define Nigeria as a land of monumental injustice and impunity. The war itself was an illegal war and a violation of international law which established since 1945 the right of self determination in Chapter 1, Article 1, part 2 which states that the purpose of the UN Charter is: "To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace." As each successive generation discovers the truth and injustice of that needless conflict, the bitterness is sure to remain Nigeria’s deepest enduring divide.

Nigeria continues to suffer severe social, economic and psychological dislocations as a result of the needless conflict. The nation has since become a disharmonious, dysfunctional and strife torn chaotic failed state Nigeria. Courtesy of Yakubu Gowon, crude oil that was hitherto not an issue during the time of Dr Nnamidi Azikiwe is now an obsessive object of national importance and the only mainstay of the economy. Gowon took away all aspects of federalism and consolidated the unproductive parasitic unitary system together with the creation of unviable states/local governments (without plebiscites) that are dependent only on crude oil allocations at the expense of industrialisation and other productive initiatives, which has in turn encouraged corruption and led to the collapse of the economy.

As the truth of the conflict continues to emerge and as the nationwide campaign for a sovereign national conference gathers steam in a nation that has been awakened to the lie of Nigerian unity, Emeka Ojukwu has been vindicated by Nigeria’s increasing strife, failure and impossibility as a nation. Yakubu Gowon was ultimately an unprincipled, incompetent, bigoted and opportunistic leader whose failure of leadership unleashed the pogroms and unnecessary war that spilled enough blood to fill the bowels of the Niger River. He and his cabinet members who so callously plunged the nation into an atrocious bloodletting will have to live and die with their conscience haunted by the millions of lives they took on the premise of a great lie. Their successive generations will also not be spared.


http://nigeriamasterweb.com/blog/index.php/2013/09/06/how-yakubu-gowon-caused-the-nigeria-biafra-war




Cc : lalasticlala

9• THE CONDUCT AND AFTERMATH OF WAR REVEALS THE LIE OF WAR OF UNITY:


7th of July 1967, the Nigerian army attacked Biafra and began the onslaught on an aggrieved and beleaguered people who had in exercising their legitimate and natural right to self defence/preservation opted for self determination in the aftermath of the genocide against innocent Eastern civilians while the head of state refused to act. In prosecuting the war Yakubu Gowon proved his complicity in the genocide by fielding the likes of Murtala Muhammed, Shehu Yar’Adua, Theophilus Danjuma, Mohammed Shuwa and others who ironically are the same cowardly officers who perpetrated the genocide against civilians that created the crisis in the first place. These officers were not just mass murderers they were also rapists who serially committed crimes against humanity in the course of the conflict.

To decipher the true motive for the conflict, certain fundamental questions must be asked; If Yakubu Gowon was genuine about Nigerian unity as the true reason for his war why the North was originally intent on secession until the British authorities advised them not to because of economic interests / crude oil? Why did Gowon as head of state abdicate his constitutional responsibility and stood by when thousands of innocent Eastern civilians were being massacred? Why was Gowon so unwilling to make any sacrifices for the interest of peace and why did he renege on an accord he agreed in Aburi? Why did it take him so long from January to May to issue a decree on the diluted version of Aburi accord? Why was the Nigerian army so invested in massacres, rape and arson as they did in Benin, Asaba, the apostolic church Onitsha and practically all theatres of the war? Why were officers and men of the Nigerian army like Benjamin Adekunle and others making inflammatory statements of their intent on genocide in a supposed war of unity? Why was the notorious radio Kaduna making atrocious statements that urged rape and genocide in a supposed war of unity? Why did balkanisation of Igboland, abandoned property, divide and rule and the seeds of division instead of reconciliation become the policy of Yakubu Gowon’s government before and after the war? Why did Apartheid policies of marginalisation/exclusion become federal government policy after the war if it was genuinely a war of unity as Yakubu Gowon repeatedly lied?

In nations that went through a civil war, driven by a genuine patriotic desire for unity, the end of such conflicts is not followed by policies of balkanisation, abandoned properties, exclusion and marginalisation as has been the case in Nigeria but swift and total reconciliation, reconstruction and re-integration. Vietnam, Angola and post-genocide Rwanda are just some examples of nations that achieved total reconciliation and re-integration in the aftermath of conflict because of a genuine desire for unity.

.

8• COLONIALISM AND THE RIGHT TO SELF DETERMINATION:

Colonialism is generally regarded as the total or partial loss of autonomy of indigenous peoples to the coercive or forceful establishment of exploitative/oppressive governing authorities on unequal terms by a people, group or colonial power not ordinarily or historically linked culturally, geographically or linguistically to the colonised. Any group that therefore forcefully subjects another to their authority without democratic consent of the indigenous peoples through a plebiscite or referendum is an act of colonialism. There was nothing like Nigeria until the British in trying to consolidate the commercial interests of Taubman Goldie a British trader whose forays brought him to the region put together a people who mostly never had any cultural, geographic, linguistic or ethnic links with each other. It was from the onset an impossible nation created not for the harmonious existence or interests of the unfortunate subjects who made up the strange and unworkable contraption but for the servicing of British trading interests.

Following strident agitations and the increasing enforcement of the right to self determination as enshrined in the United Nations charter, Nigeria gained independence in 1960 but the subjects within the Nigerian space who had no hitherto cultural, geographic or linguistic links faced their own colonialism within the “geographical expression known as Nigeria” for the many tribes and cultures within Nigeria where just as alien to each other as the British were to them. The manifest injustice of colonialism led to the adoption of the right to self determination in the United Nations Atlantic Charter in 1941 and further consolidated in 1945. It established the right under international law for all indigenous peoples to seek independence through democratic means.

The Nigerian crisis and pogrom/genocide of 1966/67 established beyond all reasonable doubts the incompatibility of Nigeria and opened the opportunity for the application of international law to peacefully determine the status of Biafra through a plebiscite or referendum administered by the United Nations. Nigeria being a nation of alien tribes, Biafra reserved the same right of independence with which Nigeria won independence from Britain on the basis of colonialism. But Yakubu Gowon refused to allow a referendum in line with the dictates of international law as established in the United Nations charter which would have resolved the impasse through a legitimate democratic method that respects the inalienable rights of indigenous peoples to self determination and freedom from internal or external colonialism.

To the extent that the people of Biafra were never allowed to freely and democratically express their choice and right to self determination through a plebiscite, Yakubu Gowon’s war against Biafra and consequent coercive subjugation of the people to the governing authorities of Nigeria was and remains for all practical purposes an act of colonialism.

7•YAKUBU GOWON RENEGES ON ABURI ACCORD:

“My word is my bond” is a famous phrase that underlines the importance of honesty. For a leader the most important test of character is standing by his word. Yakubu Gowon failed this important test of character when he reneged on an agreement he personally participated in reaching in Aburi. On the 4th and 5th of January 1967 a genuine and final opportunity presented itself to resolve the simmering crisis through a conference in Aburi Ghana at the instance of General Ankrah. Notably Aburi was chosen because following the events of 1966 and the practical disintegration of the army, the security of Odimegwu Ojukwu and other Eastern dignitaries could not be guaranteed anywhere in Nigeria.

Yakubu Gowon, together with his advisers, secretaries and the military governors of the North, Midwest and Western regions were in attendance while Colonel Odimegwu Ojukwu being military governor of the East together with his aides also attended. Given the dire situation at that time, the meeting deliberated exhaustively on the structure of Nigeria. The next day the meeting continued and affirmed a final agreement known as the “Aburi Accord.” Thus for two days, Yakubu Gowon and his aides together with all the regional governors constituted the supreme military council which incidentally is the highest ruling body and reached agreement on all the critical issues, but as soon as Yakubu Gowon arrived in Nigeria he began the process of dilly dallying and reneging on an agreement freely negotiated and entered into in Aburi Ghana.

The question of building good faith and confidence was just as important as the conference itself as a bridge building measure given recent events. Unfortunately Yakubu Gowon almost immediately truncated the opportunity of building good faith by not respecting one of the agreements reached in Aburi concerning the temporary payment of salaries and recovery of properties of Eastern civil servants who had been forced to leave their jobs through no fault of theirs. Decree No. 8; later issued in May, a considerably long time for a conference held on the 4th and 5th January, which to a large extent is evidence of Yakubu Gowon’s dilly dallying and subterfuge, went further by ignoring the security sensitivities of the times, particularly for the Easterners by reneging on the most basic fundamental of Aburi accord which requires concurrence of all 4 military governors in all matters affecting the country when he sneaked in the powers to declare a state of emergency in the country with concurrence from only 3 out of the 4 military governors. The implication of this breach means that Yakubu Gowon and his cabinet could suddenly with concurrence from the other 3 military governors declare a state of emergency in the East and subject the region to military invasion.

Given the context of the time with a mutinous and dysfunctional Nigerian army whose officers and men instigated and actively participated in the genocide that killed officers and civilians including women and children of Eastern origin and while none of the officers or men in the Nigerian army or Police who committed such atrocities were either arrested, prosecuted or removed from the army or Police, it was natural that the Governor of the East needed enough safeguards and guarantees even if temporarily through collective concurrence of all four military governors on issues of national importance as agreed in Aburi to avoid suddenly becoming a victim of a state of emergency and other such insidious plots by the mass killers that still abounded in the Nigerian army/ Police until at least such a time that security and confidence is adequately restored.

It is ironical that the powers to declare a state of emergency which Yakubu Gowon never exercised when it was most necessary during the genocide to stop the mass killings which would have prevented the crisis in the first place was suddenly sneaked into Decree No. 8 with consent of only 3 out of the 4 military governors required in breach of the Aburi accord that recommended consent of all 4 military governors in such matters. Except Yakubu Gowon and his advisers had some ulterior motive as was suspected in the East, there is no reason why concurrence of all 4 military governors as agreed in Aburi for the declaration of a state of emergency in situations of riots or strife should be a problem for a temporary period until trust, confidence and a measure of reconciliation is achieved.

Indeed, reneging on the Aburi accord over the state of emergency issue by Yakubu Gowon was unnecessary as being a military regime, he still ultimately retained the powers under the “doctrine of necessity” in exceptional circumstances to issue an emergency decree that enables the declaration of a state of emergency in the extreme and very unlikely situation where he is unable to get consent of all 4 military Governors for the declaration of a state of emergency. There was thus no practical or logical reason for Yakubu Gowon to renege on the most sensitive and fundamental aspect of Aburi accord that was designed to be a temporary safeguard given the genocide, disintegration of the army and lack of trust until security and confidence is restored.

By disregarding the morbid fear and trauma which the pogroms/genocide had incited in the East thus reneging on the most fundamental aspect of the Aburi accord which would have given the necessary safeguards and created the environment for reconciliation and a permanent resolution of the crisis Yakubu Gowon proved incapable or unwilling to make any temporary sacrifices for peace. As a leader he failed to keep an agreement which he himself had personally participated in negotiating in Aburi Ghana. This failure of leadership and bad faith finally set the nation on the part of an unnecessary war and bloodletting. As a further demonstration of bad faith and insincerity, it is also important to note Yakubu Gowon’s unusual delay from January to May before he issued the diluted version of Aburi accord. This five month delay more than anything else serves as an undeniable indication of Yakubu Gowon’s insincerity in resolving the crisis and his preference for war.


Source:http://nigeriamasterweb.com/blog/index.php/2013/09/06/how-yakubu-gowon-caused-the-nigeria-biafra-war

6• (ARABA):Intent Of Northern Secession And the British Government Advice That Changed the equation

The propaganda of Nigerian unity for which Yakubu Gowon and his goons premised their war was patently false for the simple reason that the Northern counter-coup christened “Araba” which means separation in Hausa language was a secessionist coup originally intended to finally break the North from Nigeria. Indeed the flag of the new republic had already been hoisted preparatory to the announcement of secession by the North. Yakubu Gowon informed the then British high commissioner Sir Cumming Bruce of the intention of the North to secede and it was the British in line with their imperialist interests that advised against Northern secession and made strident efforts to dissuade the North from seceding.

In his book “The Biafran War” Micheal Gould p.43 stated: “Cumming –Bruce was able to persuade the Emirs that secession would be an economic disaster”. As the British high commissioner Sir Cumming Bruce himself testified p.43 “it wasn’t on the face of it easy to get them (the North) to change, but I managed to do it overnight. I drafted letters to the British Prime Minister, to send to Gowon as Nigerian Head of State, and for my Secretary of State (Micheal Stewart) to send letters to each of the Emirs. I wrote an accompanying letter to each of them because I knew them personally. I drafted all these and they all came back to me duly authorised to push at once. The whole thing was done overnight and it did the trick of stopping them (the North) dividing Nigeria up.” From the testimony of the then British high commissioner Sir Cumming Bruce in regards to the effort he made to persuade the North not to secede, the deceit, propaganda and opportunism of Yakubu Gowon and his crowd as they lied through their teeth in their false claim of fighting for Nigerian unity when in reality they had originally intended to secede and only changed their mind on the prompting of the British government becomes self evident.

For all the false propaganda spewed to prosecute the needless war and the consequent tragic bloodletting, the British high commissioner’s testimony proves that Yakubu Gowon and the North were never genuine or interested in Nigerian unity. They were only opportunists who turned around to claim one Nigeria because of economic interests linked to crude oil which remains the reality of their presence in Nigeria to date. Had Yakubu Gowon and the North spared us the lie and kept their original plan to secede, the nation would have been better for it as more manageable homogenous units would have emerged and the nation would have been spared the needless conflict that was fought on the great lie of Nigerian unity.

5• THE POGROMS/GENOCIDE AND YAKUBU GOWON'S INACTION/COMPLICITY:

A leader must be judged and held accountable for what happens under his watch. Following the injection of tribalism into the January 1966 coup, the North staged a secessionist counter (revenge) coup in July 1966 in which the then Head of state General Aguiyi Ironsi, Colonel Fajuyi the military governor of the Western region and some three hundred Eastern officers were assassinated. Yakubu Gowon who had been the chief of army staff consequently emerged head of state. “The most important constitutional duty of a head of state all over the world is the protection of life and property of the citizenry under all circumstances.” Yakubu Gowon abdicated his most fundamental constitutional responsibility to protect lives and property when he did absolutely nothing while officers and men of the Nigerian army and police who were supposed to protect life and property crossed over from their coup to attack and massacre thousands of Eastern civilians including women and children in the premeditated genocide in the North.

As the mass killings of innocent civilians went on by cowardly Soldiers who crossed over from a political coup to target and kill defenceless civilians, Yakubu Gowon did nothing. He didn’t send in troops or the police to try to calm the situation, he neither imposed a state of emergency nor a dusk to dawn curfew, he also never set-up any investigative panel to probe the killings. To make matters worse, even though the officers and men who were carrying out such heinous crimes against humanity were well known, Yakubu Gowon never reprimanded, arrested, court marshalled or punished any of them, rather the officers were all promoted. It became obvious by his inaction and promotion of the implicated officers that Yakubu Gowon was complicit in both the coup and genocide.

There is no circumstance that can justify the mass murder of innocent civilians while Yakubu Gowon who has a duty to protect life and property under all circumstances refused to act. It is unthinkable to imagine that at the height of the provocation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed more than 3000 Americans by Islamic terrorists; President George Bush would allow the massacre of innocent Muslims in the US. An estimated 50,000 innocent civilians were brutally murdered while Yakubu Gowon as head of state did nothing and indeed tacitly supported the mass killings. It is exactly for those types of crimes that the international criminal court in the Hague and Geneva Convention were established to bring to justice those who commit acts of genocide and other human rights violations. The killings only stopped when there was no one left to kill. Yakubu Gowon failed in his most fundamental duty to protect life and property and this failing created the self preservation scenario that necessitated self determination and consequently Biafra by the East. Since Yakubu Gowon as head of state could do nothing while thousands of innocent civilians were being hacked to death by Soldiers and Police officers who were supposed to protect life and property, the very idea of Nigeria died from that point and the East like any group had no choice but to undertake the natural right of self preservation and thus self determination.

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4• POST INDEPENDENCE CRISIS:


Perhaps; because the duo of Tafawa Balewa and Ahmadu Bello harboured so much disdain for Nigeria, they had no incentive to invest in nation building or to make the necessary sacrifices to consolidate the fledgling republic in her most critical foundational years. They demonstrably advanced only narrow regional and sectional interests at the expense of the rule of law and good governance, thus by 1962 there was already a crisis of rigged census results and infighting in the West that led to the declaration of a state of emergency in the Western region. By 1963, Chief Obafemi Awolowo was arrested and convicted for alleged coup plotting. By 1964, a coalition between Ladoke Akintola the premier of the Western region and Tafawa Balewa resulted in massively rigged elections in the Western region which sparked off violent riots and disturbances (wetie).

In the Tiv Division riots had also been violently put down by Tafawa Balewa’s government using the military, however in the Western region the violence continued unabated until 1966 when the military reacting to the corruption, election rigging, thuggery, tribalism and the sustained violence in the Western region unfortunately struck at dawn in January 1966.


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3• HISTORICAL NORTHERN REJECTION OF NIGERIA:

Historically, the North and her leadership were the greatest opponents of the very idea of Nigeria and Nigerian unity. Northern leaders such as Ahmadu Bello, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa amongst others never hid their disdain for Nigeria. The rejection of Nigerian unity at a point became the political ideology of Northern leaders which they variously expressed in public declarations and in the exclusionist policies formulated in the Northern region. In 1948 while addressing the legislative council, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa declared that “Since 1914 the British Government has been trying to make Nigeria into one country, but the Nigerian people themselves are historically different in their backgrounds, in their religious beliefs and customs and do not show themselves any sign of willingness to unite. Nigerian unity is only a British intention for the country.” Undisguised disdain and rejection of the very idea of Nigerian unity is aptly demonstrated by this speech as presented by Tafawa Balewa.

The foremost Northern leader, Sir Ahmadu Bello was even more resentful of Nigeria. In his book and autobiography “My Life” published a year after independence in 1961, he famously castigated the amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria as “the mistake of 1914.” Being the premier of the Northern region Ahmadu Bello further demonstrated his opposition to Nigeria by using his administrative powers to create an “Apartheid Northernization policy” which decreed that all available jobs in the North must go to a Northerner and in the event that there is no qualified Northerner should go to Europeans/ Arabs rather than Nigerians from the South. Nothing better demonstrates Ahmadu Bello’s hatred and rejection of Nigeria than his Apartheid Northenization policy that gave preference to Europeans, Arabs and other foreigners than to fellow Nigerians from the South. Segregation of southerners into areas known as “Sabon gari” was also a segregationist policy of Ahmadu Bello designed to keep Northerners separate from Southerners that endures to this day. The whole strata of the North and her leadership was thus never historically interested or invested in the idea of a United Nigeria from the dawn of colonial Nigeria.

The hostility and rejection of Nigeria by the North is also noted in the first riots directed at southerners in Jos in 1945 and subsequently in 1953 in Kano when an anti-independence riot was sponsored by the Northern leadership against Southerners living in Kano. Both of these riots resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Southerners and set the precedent for future riots that later became routine. Most importantly, the riots underscore the historical context of the hostility of the North to the very idea of Nigeria.


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2• HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS:

Eastern Leadership And The Historical Championing of One Nigeria

One of the ironies of the Nigeria-Biafra war is how the East and her leadership under Dr Nnamidi Azikiwe who relentlessly championed the very idea of a united Nigeria as against the Northern leadership that harboured deep anti-Nigeria sentiments were forced by circumstances resulting from the pogrom/genocide to exercise the fundamental right of self preservation and opt for secession.

When in 1957 the British colonial authorities offered independence individually to the regions provided two out of the three regions accepted the offer, the Northern region declared they were not ready for that level of political and economic independence, the Western region declared their readiness for independence, the East became the tie to make or break Nigeria; Dr Nnamidi Azikiwe in a historic move, rejected the offer by declaring that “although the Eastern region was ready to assume the responsibilities of regional independence, its attainment without the North would lead to the balkanization of the Nigerian nation and conceivably a break-up of the country. The Eastern region would rather suppress its appetite for independence and the obvious gains it would entail until the Northern region was ready.” By this momentous and in my own opinion mistaken decision, Dr Nnamidi Azikiwe prevented the break-up of Nigeria as offered by the then colonial authorities in 1957. He also stridently opposed the Northern proposal for a right of self determination in the constitution in subsequent constitutional conferences.

These feats alongside the emergence of a Northerner “Mallam Umaru Altine” as the first mayor of Enugu in 1956, amongst so many other sacrifices made by Dr Azikiwe and other Eastern leaders in the course of the evolution of the nation to accommodate the historically “secessionist” North underscores the role the East played in being the biggest champions of a united Nigeria. Dr Nnamidi Azikiwe was not only an advocate of Nigerian unity; he was also highly invested in Pan-Africanism and the campaign for a United States of Africa. It is also noteworthy that in spite of the fact that crude oil was discovered in the then Eastern region in 1956 which gave overwhelming advantages to the East, not a single Eastern leader ever mentioned crude oil in any of their political narratives or sought to take undue advantage of it. Indeed Dr Nnamidi Azikiwe and even the short-lived military administration of General Aguiyi Ironsi demonstrated a diehard commitment to a united Nigeria for which the later ironically paid with his life; killed by the same Northern hypocrites who after accusing him of introducing the unitary system (which he did in his genuine desire to unify the country) ended up consolidating, sustaining and defending to date, the same unitary system for which they killed General Aguiyi Ironsi.


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1• INTRODUCTION:

One of the greatest enduring myths in Nigeria is the lie that Yakubu Gowon fought the Nigeria-Biafra war to keep Nigeria united, whereas in reality not only did Yakubu Gowon whose Northern region had originally intended to secede (Araba) after the July 1966 counter-coup cause the unnecessary war through his failure of leadership, his aim for fighting the war was never in the least a genuine desire to keep Nigeria united but purely because of Northern economic interests. The economic interests of the hitherto secessionist North became the principal reason for the volte face from secession to “one Nigeria” after the British government advised the Northern leadership of the economic disadvantages of secession. Thus unlike most civil wars where there is a genuine desire to keep the nation united for patriotic reasons, the Nigeria-Biafra war was an opportunistic war instigated by Yakubu Gowon and the North; not out of a genuine desire for a united Nigeria but for the selfish aims of British imperialism and Northern economic interests which remains the reason and reality of their presence in Nigeria to date.

Every conflict is dogged by lies and propaganda, but history always waits out the intrigues of war in the knowledge, that the truth; no matter how suppressed and how long it waits, will eventually prevail. In the midst of the historical lies and propaganda that trailed the conflict the long suppressed truth is beginning to find life. One emerging fact is the true causes/ intentions of the conflict and the fact that the conflict has by all accounts been considered a needless war. It is already deemed by some to be the most avoidable war of the 20th century. Unlike many unavoidable conflicts, there were many opportunities to avoid the Nigeria-Biafra war which needlessly consumed the lives of some 3 million people, entrenched an un-healing generational bitterness and caused severe social, political and economic dislocation from which the nation is yet to recover. Wars carry with them the worst of human tragedies and scars that endure for all time. It is an evil that must be avoided except it is absolutely necessary.



In the case of Nigeria-Biafra; there was nothing that made the war in the least necessary. Nigeria as a nation never existed until the British colonialists patched up the contraption of disparate ethnic and religious groups into an unworkable nation to service her imperial interests. From the onset it was obvious Nigeria would be inhibited by her contradictions and consequently doomed to failure. Thus when the pogrom/genocide of 1966-67 demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubts the impossibility of Nigeria, the legal route under international law as enshrined in the United Nations charter was to hold a plebiscite or referendum to determine by democratic means the choice of the majority as it concerns self determination for Biafra.

That route would have solved the problem in a legal and civilised manner as “no war no matter how desirable for the purpose of keeping a nation together is justifiable.” It defies all logic and natural justice to kill people in other to keep them in a nation. It is like killing a woman’s children in order to forcefully keep her in a marriage from which she seeks to exit. Freedom and self determination are inalienable God given rights and nations must be constructed and preserved through democratic consent and not through the barrel of a gun. Any act otherwise, to forcefully create or preserve a nation without the democratic consent of the indigenous peoples is an act of colonialism. Every ethnic group within the Nigerian geographical expression ordinarily retains the same right for which we struggled for independence from the British colonial government. It is thus a usurpation of the right to self determination and independence for any group or groups within Nigeria to wage war or forcefully coerce another into the nation against their will. To that extent the war against Biafra must be understood for what it really was; a war of aggression and colonialism.

Thus for the purposes of history and for generations yet unborn, I have decided to put on record for all time; the truth and injustice of the needless war of colonialism Yakubu Gowon and his allies instigated against Biafra on the lie of a war of unity.

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