Ojukwu not Culpable

Anybody who would apportion any blame to Ojukwu for the Nigeria – Biafra war, is, either ignorant of the facts, inadequately informed of the real causes, deliberately mischievous or only trying to settle personal scores. The person might also be suffering from a form of forgetfulness of the past—an amnesia of sorts.

Fact is that past events right from the inception of Nigeria, through the present time, and even projections into the future, point to the resolve of the Fulani feudal North to covet the whole geographical space called Nigeria, and reduce the Igbo and other ethnic groups to peoples only tolerated as slaves in Nigeria.

Sir Tafawa Balewa, that feudalist Fulani stooge, speaking on the floor of the Central Legislative Assembly in 1947, asserted:

“I should like to make it clear to you that if the British quitted Nigeria at this stage, the Northern people would continue their interrupted conquest to the sea.”

The feudal Fulani had a way of hoodwinking the rest of Northern Nigeria into believing that the utterly selfish, parochial feudal Fulani interests were shared by all northerners. But it has become very glaring today that the problem with Nigeria is the feudal Fulani and their insatiable hunger for political domination and land grabbing. Indeed, the Fulani feudalists have an incurable territorial ambition.

By 1966, Nigeria’s Fulani-instigated quest to exterminate the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, and the Igbo in particular, assumed demonic dimensions. In the stinking, dark, inaccessible depths of their hearts, they contrived all types of horrible death for Biafra and her peoples. Gowon was only acting in accordance with the ‘War Aim and Final solution’ script of his feudal masters—‘…Final Solution’ when they could not achieve their ‘War Aim’ of total annihilation of Biafrans through a genocidal war.

Ojukwu was not one of those politicians who fomented the troubles that engulfed the Middle Belt and Western Region before the Biafra-Nigeria shooting war. Ojukwu, as the Battalion Commander in Kano, was not part of the January 15, 1966 military coup. He even made sure that the coup did not succeed in Kano where he ensured the safety of his friend, the then young Emir of Kano. Despite threats to his life, Ojukwu refused to cooperate with the coup plotters even when the then Major Hassan Usman Katsina, who later became the Military Governor of Northern Region, had pledged loyalty to Nzeogwu and the revolutionary troops.  The resolute stand by Ojukwu against the military revolutionists eventually torpedoed the coup in the North.

It is on reliable record, that in spite of the outrageous May 1966 premeditated first wave of pogroms against Easterners in the North, during which about thirty thousand Easterners were massacred, Ojukwu on receiving assurances from the Federal Government led by Yakubu Gowon, and the Regional Military Governor of North, Hassan Usman Katsina, that they would not allow such acts to reoccur, did all he could to pacify Easterners and deter them from embarking on revenge missions.

Ojukwu still believed that the situation could be remedied, and Nigeria’s unity kept intact. Having succeeded in calming the people down, Ojukwu installed Alhaji Ado Bayero, the Emir of Kano, as the Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Then, he persuaded those who fled the North to go back—an act which he must have rued till death.

The appointment and inauguration of the Emir of Kano, Ado Bayero, as the Chancellor of University of Nigeria, Nsukka, soon after the bloody May atrocities, was indeed Ojukwu’s way of expressing his desire that the Nigerian nation should continue to exist as one. Ojukwu’s passionate speech at the installation of the Chancellor was conciliatory to all parties in the Nigerian conflict:

Sadly, as soon as Easterners heeded Ojukwu’s call and went back to the North, the second wave of killings, more barbaric, and better coordinated, ensued. This time, northern soldiers and civilians joined hands in the mass killings, not only in the North, but also in Western region, resulting in the brutal murder of over a hundred thousand Easterners.

The North chose to respond to Ojukwu’s gesture of rapprochement by unleashing the worst type of savagery on those Easterners who had recently returned to the North. This sad turn of events nearly put a wedge between Ojukwu and the masses of the East, as Ojukwu was blamed for his seeming naivety and gullibility, in believing the treacherous promises of Gowon to stop any further massacre of Easterners in the North and the rest of Nigeria.

Ojukwu nearly paid dearly for that singular slip of his. The Igbo, by their traditional social orientation, do not have the ‘herd mentality’. They do not follow their leaders sheepishly. They are independent minded. Therefore, they would scrutinize and interrogate every speech and act of their leaders.

Although Ojukwu had succeeded earlier in calming down frayed nerves in the East, thus dowsing simmering emotions of retaliation, not a few felt that Ojukwu was too complacent and credulous, and seemed far removed from the real situation on ground, especially in consideration of the continued atrocious extermination of Easterners, in particular the Igbo, in Northern Nigeria.

While Nigeria was violently tossed towards the edge, Ojukwu remained sincere in his pursuit after peace. He was persistent in persuading Gowon to see the necessity for all Nigeria’s military leaders to meet and discuss avenues to avert the impending calamity which certainly awaited the country should they fail to put measures in place to checkmate it. His efforts eventually resulted to Gowon agreeing that the peace meeting at Aburi, Ghana, should hold.

Worthy of note is the fact that at the end of the Aburi meeting, Ojukwu had in the presence of General Ankra of Ghana, offered to be the one who would propose Gowon as the Head of the Federal Military Government if the implementation of the Aburi Accord, which they all agreed on, and appended their signatures to, was implemented by Gowon. But Gowon, relying on the advice of the Federal Permanent Secretaries and the British Government, rather chose to unilaterally discard all agreements at Aburi.

The Aburi agreement specified among other things, that the Army should be under the control of the Supreme Military Council as a collegiate leadership body, with the Chairman of the Council as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, as well as the Head of the Federal Military Government. But out of his lust for personal power, Gowon rejected serving as the Head of the Collegiate Council, which was most suited for that strained, precarious period. He went on immediately to proclaim himself the Supreme Commander, arrogating all powers to himself.

Gowon also went ahead to dissolve the Ad hoc Constitutional Conference on which so much hope was hinged upon, to provide a veritable constitutional guideline for the peaceful coexistence of all. That Conference was constituted of civilians from all Regions of Nigeria, a number of them eminently knowledgeable in constitutional Law.

Contrary to the agreed decision contained in the Aburi Accord, Gowon still occupied Western Region and Lagos with Northern military troops.

The refusal of Gowon to waive some Federal taxes for the East, and pay just for a few weeks, the emoluments of federal public servants who had, for their lives, fled other parts of Nigeria back to the East, as detailed in the Accord, worsened the already dire financial pressure on Eastern Nigeria, a situation brought about by the influx of millions of refugees into the East.

Gowon neither made any overt utterance of empathy, nor sent even a private commiserative message to Ojukwu and Easterners. He made no attempts to inquire into what transpired, why, and those accountable. And he, in his private or official capacity, deliberately never offered any form of assistance to the East.

Gowon, against the Aburi spirit, continued with his intentional financial strangulation of the East. He made unilateral changes to the Constitution, and threatened to apply coercive force against the East if he was compelled by ‘circumstances’—circumstances he deliberately created and kept tending.

As Gowon’s insidious intransigence persisted, hope for the much expected Federal revenue relief completely faded. The East was left with no money to pay the salaries of workers. Funds for welfare, health and social services were no longer available.

With the East in such dire straits which Gowon had deliberately driven her into, Ojukwu made a broadcast at the end of February 1967, in which he announced his intention to take necessary measures to implement as much of the Aburi Accord as he could in the East, should Gowon fail to effect in full the decisions arrived at Aburi, by the end of March.

However, when Gowon failed to implement the Aburi Accord in part or in full, Ojukwu, contrary to the expectations of many members of the International Press, rather proclaimed an edict which made recourse to the application of all Federal revenues gathered in the East for the purposes of refugee rehabilitation. Revenues from oil were not included because such were collected in Lagos. He also made no mention of secession in that broadcast.

When the Press enquired of him if, given the prevailing situation, he had the intention of pulling the East out of Nigeria, his calm response was that he would only do so if the East came under a blockade or a military attack. Gowon’s response was to enforce a total blockade on the East in early May, 1967.

It should also be noted that Ojukwu attended every major peace conference which the organizers required his presence. In such international gatherings, he presented Biafra’s cause so well with convincing facts and figures that won him accolades and unusual standing ovations. 

Under such adverse conditions prevailing in the East then, simmering emotions of disgust at Nigeria rose to boiling point. Arising from Gowon’s total rejection of the Aburi Accord, an agreement which Ojukwu had earlier informed Easterners of Gowon’s avowed commitment to its provisions, and bearing in mind that Ojukwu, having consulted with Gowon after the first wave of pogroms in the North, urged Easterners to return to the North—a call which most of those who heeded it never lived to regret, many Easterners felt ‘betrayed’ by Ojukwu. Yet Ojukwu persisted in his rejection of the vociferous demands for secession. As a consequence, between February and April 1967, Ojukwu’s popularity suddenly plummeted. And the vociferous demands for immediate secession resurged, much stronger; more strident, like never before.

Despite the fact that Easterners had expunged all thoughts of vengeance from their collective psyche, they resolved never to have anything to do with the rest of Nigeria again. As Gowon continued with his obnoxious policies which kept strangulating the East, the people had no option but to opt out of Nigeria. In Eastern Region, the clamour for secession from Nigeria became so loud and so obvious that Ojukwu would have been toppled if he failed to declare the East an independent republic.

It is regrettable. It smacks of childlike naivety on the part of Ojukwu, that even after the massacre of Easterners in their hundreds of thousands, and the treacherous betrayals perpetrated by Gowon before, and during the pogroms, Ojukwu never in his heart of hearts believed that the North and Gowon would wage war—such an acrimonious war of attrition and annihilation against the East. Ojukwu seemed not to have totally grasped the fact that he was dealing with those whose thirst for human blood was utterly insatiable—beyond imagination.

Sadly, Ojukwu seemed to have ignored, or taken for granted, the dark depths of depravity and callousness which the feudal Fulani led Northern Nigeria was steeped in. He took lightly, the natural propensity of Gowon for gross insincerity, despite the catalogue of perfidious experiences he received from ‘Jolly’ Jack Gowon.

While Ojukwu was preoccupied with finding peaceful means of resolving the conflict, Gowon and the North were seriously getting ready for war—a war of conquest which the feudal Fulani North had purposed against the Igbo ever since Usman Dan Fodio, the Fulani jihadist defeated the Hausa, in 1806, and took over the city and empire of Sokoto.  

It is only on this note that I have a grouse against Ojukwu, and may be, also with the fact that throughout the land of Biafra, we have immense quantities of the black gold—the liquid treasure in copious measures, lying beneath our soil, right under our feet; yet he allowed outsiders to out-bargain us with it.

Indeed the East was not prepared for war. The East was not really preparing for any war at all. Ojukwu, who, unfortunately, was still an ardent believer in ‘one Nigeria’, was engrossed in the handling of the enormous refugee problems in which the East was embroiled. He was occupied with seeking out ways and means of preventing the crisis from escalating into a conflagration.

 

And, lest I forget, I assert that it is outright ludicrous to defend Gowon’s unilateral repudiation of the Aburi Accord on the basis that Gowon saw the Aburi talks as a casual meeting of old allies and therefore went there unprepared with only the Military Governors and a handful of other persons. The implication of towing this line of defence is that it is indicative of a screaming lack of seriousness and inability to appreciate the enormity of the problem confronting Nigeria then, on the part of Gowon and the rest members of his team. Gowon was trifling with the dire situation which Nigeria was mired in. Gowon and his feudal Fulani masters were not in the least bothered, neither did they care a hoot about the devastating impact of the pogroms they unleashed on Easterners and the Igbo in particular. After all, it was and still is, their objective to decimate the Igbo.

It is only that person who has not carried out an all-round review of the issues worthy of consideration that would blame Ojukwu for the Nigeria – Biafra war and the consequent loss of lives on the Biafran side. The reality is that it has always been the avowed resolve of the Fulani feudalists to permanently incapacitate and totally decimate Easterners, particularly the Igbo. In pursuit of that intent, they embarked on the1966 pogroms and genocidal massacre of easterners—a bloody program of which they did the test runs in 1945 and 1953.

The feudal North had indeed purposed in their dark heart, the complete annihilation of the Igbo nation. The reality of this cruel intent for us Biafrans became manifest with the horrendous mass slaughter of Easterners all over Nigeria, coupled with Nigeria’s proclaimed ‘Final Solution’, and the brazen genocidal acts against Biafrans as the war raged. Therefore, we preferred to die slowly by starvation which they imposed on us while we resisted the much we could, in the hope that there would come a redeeming intervention, than to surrender and be subjected to such violent, gruesome mass slaughter through their savage ‘swords’, of which the Asaba massacre would have been a mere dress rehearsal.

 

As regards the role of Ojukwu in the crisis that engulfed Nigeria, no less a person than General John Shagaya of the Nigerian Army, speaking many years after the Nigeria-Biafra war, was unequivocal in his justification of Ojukwu’s stance. He said:

Given Ojukwu’s position and disposition during the troubled days of the first republic, anyone would have done what he did. Any soldier worth his salt would have acted the same way as the Ikemba did in 1966 when he ceded Biafra from Nigeria.

Shagaya went on further to say that:

Most of the young officers who fought the war did not actually understand why they were fighting, especially on the Federal side. They were made to believe that they were quashing a rebellion. And they fought with that impression.

General John Shagaya, finally had come to understand that really the war which the Fulani feudal oligarchs hoodwinked the rest Nigerians into waging against the Igbo, was not fought to ‘keep Nigeria one’, but to ensure the total subjugation of all the indigenous ethnicities of Nigeria and the total control of the vast crude oil and gas deposits in the East by the feudal Fulani Northern oligarchy. The war against Biafra was in truth an outright expression of the unquenchable flagrant territorial ambition of the Fulani feudalists. To the feudal Fulani, Nigeria is their exclusive property; the rest Nigerians are only meant to serve them.

Copyright: Chike Nwaka