John Nnia Nwodo: Orator And Apostle Of Restructuring At 70

 By Oseloka Zikora 

His oratorical skill is his spotlight, which catapults him mostly to dizzying heights sometimes not contemplated. Take Ibadan, for instance, where he was an economics student at the then premier university. He was contesting the students’ union presidency and he had a Yoruba student as the leading opponent. How would he, an “alejo,” that is, a stranger, turn the tables against such formidable opposition?

*Nwodo

 Then came the manifesto night: his opponent spoke first and against the rules of the contest concluded his address in Yoruba, appealing to ethnic sentiments and exhorting the predominantly Yoruba student population to vote one of their own. The chant was “tinwan tinwa o, je ka wole (our own, our own, …ours is ours)” and the atmosphere was charged. To make matters worse, the crowd was dispersing in the accompanying commotion. Somehow, confronted by a Yoruba student and chief campaigner of the disadvantaged “Omoigbo”, the electoral officer asked that the hall be locked, insisted that all candidates must be heard.

Ndigbo On Nigeria’s Restructuring

By Okechukwu Anarado

Perhaps, excepting the imprints of the unruly events that started happening and later snowballed into the Nigeria’s Civil War in the late 1960’s, the portraiture of Nigeria today as a drifting democracy in black Africa has not been more appropriate and worrisome.

*Nwodo

Though the times and details of the conflicts might vary, the commonalities in the settings derive largely from the wanton destruction of lives and property by felons who first appear faceless, but whose identification soon exposes the troubling ineptitude of the nation’s authorities to either apprehend them or stem the raging tides of waste of lives, property and values which the culprits willfully unleash on their hapless victims.

Restructuring Nigeria: Decentralisation For National Cohesion

By John Nnia Nwodo

Paper presented by President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief John Nnia Nwodo at Chatham House, London, on Wednesday, September 27, 2017 

Let me begin by extending my deep sense of gratitude to the Royal Institute of International Affairs, for inviting me to participate in this current series of discussions on Next Generation Nigeria: Accountability and National Cohesion. The involvement of this reputable British Institute in discussing and proffering suggestions for extant Nigeria’s problems is not only commendable, but I believe most relieving for the British establishment, who must understandably feel a deep sense of vicarious responsibility for putting together a country confronted with such grim future.

 

*John Nnia Nwodo

Nigeria became a united British colony by the amalgamation of its Northern and Southern Protectorates in 1914. In 1960 it attained independence, fashioned a federal Constitution which had three and subsequently four regions as its federating units. The pre-1960 and the 1963 constitutions of Nigeria were fashioned by the people of Nigeria as represented by the leaders of their ethnic nationalities. The coup of January 1966 and the counter-coup of the same year occasioned by ethnic tensions and disagreements within the military-led our country to disastrous consequences.

Our first Prime Minister, Rt. Hon Tafawa Balewa and the then premier of Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello, as well as the then Minister for Finance Festus Okotie-Eboh, were murdered. A massive pogrom was unleashed on South Eastern Nigerians living in the Northern Nigeria. A sitting Head of State from the South East, Major General Aguiyi Ironsi and a governor from the South West Col. Adekunle Fajuyi were murdered. The military suspended our 1963 constitution and adopted a unitary system of government to fit their command and control structures. Opposition to this move by Southern Nigeria led to constitutional talks in Aburi, Ghana. The agreements reached at Aburi were jettisoned. War broke out and claimed more than three and a half million lives mostly from the South East.

Nigerian Unity Is Negotiable

‘Only Restructuring Will Ensure The Unity, Peace And Development Of Nigeria’ – Southern Leaders Forum (SLF)

“President Buhari expressed dissatisfaction about comments on Nigeria (while he was away) that ‘questioned our collective existence as a nation’ and which he said has crossed the ‘red lines’. Against the background of the threat to treat hate speech as terrorism, we see a veiled threat to bare fangs and commence the criminilisation of dissenting opinions in our national discourse. Experience worldwide has shown that any attempt to deal with dissents by force usually drives it underground, which makes it much more dangerous and difficult to deal with.

“The president deployed the imagery of the late Ikemba Ojukwu to play down the demand for the renegotiation of the structure of Nigeria by saying they both agreed in Daura, in 2013, that we must remain one and united. While we agree with them, the meeting between the two of them could not have been a Sovereign National Conference whose decisions cannot be reviewed. The claim that Nigeria’s unity is settled and not negotiable is untenable. If we are a settled nation, we would not be dealing with the crisis of nation building that are affecting us today.

Prof Osinbajo’s Irresponsible And Irreverent Assertion –An Open Letter To The Acting President

By Femi Fani-Kayode

“Those that are calling for restructuring are looking for appointment. When they say they want restructuring what they mean is that they want an appointment……. some people told us Nigeria is a “geographical expression” although it was not even original to them”- Acting President Yemi Osinbajo.

 

*Osinbajo

Your Excellency,

I trust that you are well despite the fact that your principal is still at large.

Permit me to take this opportunity to respond to your gratuitous insult and your irresponsible and irreverent assertion about those of us that have been at the forefront of the fight for restructuring our nation for many years.

However before doing so I shall make a few observations and assertions of my own.

You have constantly condemned and warned against what you call “hate speech” in our nation yet you indulge in it more than anyone else.

I say this because you constantly call others, particularly members of the opposition, “looters” and you take pleasure on demonising them before the world even before a court of law has pronounced them guilty of any wrongdoing.

You also call them “plunderers”, “liars”, “clueless” and “destroyers”. If this is not hate speech then I really don’t know what is!

You have stigmatised and criminalised every single leading member of the opposition PDP, including our leader President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, over the last three years and you have sought to paint us as reprobates and evil souls that are not fit to hold public office and that have destroyed the very foundation of our country.

One of your most prominent and vocal sympathisers, supporters and leaders even called President Jonathan’s wife, our former First Lady, Mrs. Patience Jonathan, an ugly and illiterate hippopotamus! Are these sentiments not motivated by pure hate?

Yet you know very well that all that you and your associates have said about the PDP and our leaders is not only a lie from the pit of hell but also a carefully crafted, purposely contrived and premeditated false narrative.

Worse still you are fully aware of the fact that over sixty percent of your party elders and APC governors, ministers, legislators and public office holders were, up until three or four years ago, all elders, leaders and members of the PDP, including President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

Biafra At Fifty

By Ray Ekpu

It was on May 30, 1967 that Col. Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the military governor of Eastern Nigeria, declared that region the Republic of Biafra. A few weeks later, Col. Yakubu Gowon, Nigeria’s head of state, declared war on the secessionist territory. The war dragged on for 30 horror-filled months until the Biafrans threw in the towel in January 1970. Gowon announced a three-point programme of Reconciliation, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction. A few days ago, Biafra became 50 and was marked with a solemn seminar titled “Memory and Nation-building: Biafra 50 Years After.” It was well attended: Olusegun Obasanjo who commanded troops in that war and later on became head of state and President of Nigeria; Prof. Yemi Osinbajo who was in primary school then but is now the Acting President of Nigeria; Ahmed Joda who was one of Gowon’s super permanent secretaries at the time. He headed the Muhammadu Buhari transition committee in 2015. John Nnia Nwodo, the President of Ohaneze Ndigbo, a former minister of Information and a scion of the famous Nwodo family; Professor Ebere Onwudiwe, a well-known political scientist and public intellectual.

There were several others, most of them young Igbo intellectuals who were probably not born during the war. There was nothing substantial or divergent to be expected from a group like that. It was largely a gathering to do some introspection on the lessons of the war and why Biafra as an idea has not gone away. It was an exercise in admonition and not quite a forum for soul searching. But it was worth it because since the end of the war things have not moved swimmingly either for the Igbos or for Nigeria. There have been renewed agitations for the actualisation of Biafra as a republic. The agitators have been harassed and detained by security agencies but there is no let-up in the agitation.

Today’s Biafra is a lingering echo of the Biafra of 1967 and of the fact that many years down the road many Nigerians feel excluded from Nigeria’s dinner table which means that we have not been able to build an inclusive, consensual union that caters for all interests fairly, equitably, and in a fashion that is not perceived as discriminatory and sectional. When the Federal Government sites amenities and makes appointments in a manner that is nakedly discriminatory then that is the real spelling of exclusionism. Exclusionism is a reflection of bias and lack of trust which leads in turn to reciprocal bias and lack of trust. That is not bridge building, not nation-building.

When Gideon Orkar did his coup some years ago against the Ibrahim Babangida government he said he was carving some states out of Nigeria. Such an attempt at fissure was a product of accumulated frustration with the state of the union. Since then not much has been done by elected politicians at the Centre to give a new and sincere approach to nation-building and inclusiveness as articles of faith.

50 Years After Biafra: Reflections And Hopes

By John Nnia Nwodo

1. I am grateful to Shehu Musa Yar Adua Foundation, Ford Foundation and OSIWA – the co-sponsors of this event for your kind invitation. I commend your foresight in convening this conference, the first major conference discussing Biafra outside of Igboland. Nigeria. In hosting this conference the Yar’Adua Centre, which is best known for promoting national cohesion, honours the legacy of a great patriot: Shehu Musa Yar Adua. He died building bridges of understanding across our nation. I salute his family and associates for sustaining the legacy of Shehu through the works of this Foundation.

*New Biafran Leader, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, taking the oath of  office as the Head of State of the Republic of Biafra (May 1967)

2. It is significant that you have chosen to harvest sober memories of Biafra. By so doing, you help us to wisely situate today’s talks of Biafra in the proper context: namely, as an opportunity for nation building; and not – as an invitation for invectives or recrimination.

3. 50 years ago, Nigeria faced disintegration by the declaration of the Republic of Biafra. Biafra was born out of the political crisis which engulfed Nigeria at that time. The crisis began with the struggle for leadership in the Western Region of Nigeria, the declaration of state of emergency in the West, the coup of January 1966, the counter coup of July 1966, the pogroms, the declaration of Biafra and the commencement of a police action that turned into a three years civil war.

4. I hope that our gathering today may contribute to the body of knowledge or body of lessons from the war. Lest we forget, there is wisdom in the words of George Santayana that: those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. That is why I thank you for the chance for us to collectively remember, reflect, hope and seek ways to build anew.

5.My most heartfelt reflection is that in the Nigeria-Biafra conflict, we can and should acknowledge the sacrifice – in blood, suffering and toil – by millions of citizens on both sides of that divide. They shared a common hope for their sacrifice: namely, that out of that war, we shall build a nation where no man is oppressed. The only difference was that for one side, Nigeria was that nation. For the other it was Biafra.

6. Let us spare a thought for every victim of that conflict and the crises before that: the leaders and the soldiers, ordinary men, women and children. Each one loved life; had hopes and dreamt dreams. They died prematurely and often, painfully.

7. For those of us that survived the war and others who came afterwards, we are both heirs to the sacrifices of fallen brethren. Let us commit ourselves today and always to their hopes for peace and justice. Anytime that we are violent, anytime that we are unjust in the exercise of our public trust, anytime we lower the ideals of this nation, we betray them; and we act as if they died in vain. As we honour their memory, today my worry is not only about the rising feeling of marginalization of Igbos or any other group but that our nation may emerge from this conflict a more united and prosperous country.