Reno Omokri's Weak Attempt At Revisionism

 By Ejike Anyaduba 

If there is anybody eager to rewrite history just to intone falsehood and malign a group of people, it is the squit called Reno Omokri. 

*Omokri

It is not clear what informs his choice of being an ethnic profiler. But whatever his reason, be it complex(inferiority) or  the need to generate traffic on his X handle (formerly known as Twitter),  or both, one thing is certain he has chosen for himself an unenviable task that offers no good reward. 

There Was A Country…Remembering Chinua Achebe

 By Banji Ojewale

In the distant past, you wouldn’t talk about Chinua Achebe without instant reference to his mountaintop novel, Things Fall Apart. He was inseparable from his literary creature that outstripped its creator. But Achebe was lucky: he was spared the tragedy of bringing forth a monster which would fatally prey on its Frankenstein god. Achebe’s own genie was genial. Upon escape from the bottle-cage, it gave the illustrious novelist a new identity tag: Africa’s foremost storyteller.

*Achebe 

However, 2012 would deliver another lingering literary lease to this great man of letters. He wrote There Was A Country: A Personal History Of Biafra. More than five decades had passed to serve as a hiatus between the book of Achebe’s youth and the new product of his advanced age. Both were mileposts, the one his first published novel (1958), and the other his last huge work before his death in 2013.

But when on November 16, 2022, the world quietly observed the eminent raconteur’s 92nd posthumous birthday, we were all drawn to his latter-day effort rather than to the one that lionized him. Why?

Igbo Independence And Biafran Identity

By Osita Ebiem 

In this essay we will take time to clarify some areas that seem to confuse some people in the on-going Biafra separatist movement in Nigeria. Over the years, as will be expected, the move for the independence of Biafra has undergone some transformations. These changes seem to have created a sort of mixed messages in the minds of both observers and participants. So, at this point it is really important that we try to clarify some of the seemingly ambiguous aspects of the movement.

It is a fact that for some of the participants, those involved in the struggle, many are finding it difficult to come to terms and accept the obvious realities of these changes when they seem to go against some of their assumed or preconceived notions of what the struggle should be about. This is understandable. But in spite of the genuine appreciation of the position of these colleagues it will be foolish if we should ignore the prevailing obvious new realities and facts as they concern the movement. We can only ask that such individuals will be humble enough to find the sincerity and courage to acknowledge these truths and incontestable facts when they are revealed to them. 

Lai Mohammed Says US Non-Recognition Of IPOB As A Terrorist Group Is Unfortunate

Minister of Information, Mr. Lai Mohammed, said in a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) interview in London on Wednesday that the refusal of the United States’ government to classify the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) as a terrorist organization was “very unfortunate”.

*Lai Mohammed 

“That’s very unfortunate because if countries decide to pick and choose which organizations are terrorists and which are not, bearing in mind that terrorism has no boundaries, I think what we should do is, every country should work together to ensure that terrorism does not strive,” Mr. Mohammed told the BBC.

Nigeria: Before Darkness Falls

By Julius Oweh

The one hundred and four days of President  Muhammadu Buhari’s medical sojourn abroad opened the fault lines of the nation and a clear advertisement that ours is pretending to be a nation. For those days, the ship of the nation was clearly adrift with an absentee president and a nominal acting president that could not deliver effective leadership because of some deep rooted cabals and interest group.

*President Buhari and VP Osinbajo

In fact, the nation was on auto pilot and the information managers did a poor job about the president’s health status. As you read this piece, Nigerians are yet to be told the nature of the president’s illness and how much the nation has spent in treating him. Therefore any talk about the buy made- in- Nigeria product campaign of the present administration is shattered by the medical tourism of the president. 

The less than seven minutes broadcast of the president, failed to address the pressing issues of the moment – restructuring and fiscal federalism. 

Furthermore, the hard stance of the president in his words `the unity of the nation is settled` is a clear indication that the president is very far from the reality of the moment. He has to climb down from the high horse and address the needs of the people especially those of the south.

The Insensitivity Of The Nigerian Senate

By Ray Ekpu

The failure of the Senate to approve the devolution of powers from the centre to the federating states is a colossal misreading of the country’s temperature. It sends the wrong message to the agitators campaigning for ethnic self determination, total resource control and confederation. It says to them that the Senate thinks everything is okay in the country; that there is nothing to worry about and that the country as it is, is working just fine. This is a most regrettable decision and if the current tension arising from the dysfunctional state of Nigeria reaches an irreversible crescendo the Senate should hold itself largely responsible.

*Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki

Here are the facts: there has been a massive agitation by some Igbo youths for a Biafra Republic. The numbers are increasing and on May 30, they grounded all the five Igbo states as a show of their strength. Some Arewa Youths have asked the Igbos in the north to go away from their territory before October 1, 2017 otherwise… Some militants in the South South also say that northerners in the South South should also go away from their territory before October 1 otherwise… A group in the South West has already drawn a map of an Oduduwa Republic meaning that they are ready to secede except… The Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, has called a series of fence-mending meetings but no mending has yet taken place. 

The Nnamdi Kanu group which calls itself the Independent Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) has already declared that there will be no governorship election in Anambra State in November except there is a referendum on the idea of Biafra. Anambra is coincidentally the home of Emeka Odumegwu–Ojukwu, the Oxford trained historian – soldier who led the Biafran revolt (1967 – 1970) that ended in a monumental disaster. One million dead persons later, Kanu is embarking on another Biafra misadventure which is catching the attention of the youths who have never been victimised by the horrors of war but are enthused by the prospects of a putative utopia of that ill-fated name.

Will Nigeria Survive Biafra?

By Bob Majiri Oghene Etemiku

In real life, people are told that quitters never win and winners never quit. That aphorism has proven true at the level of individual entrepreneurship and endeavour. Most people have often found out to their chagrin that just after they quit, success arrives. But how far nations can carry on, from what has been perceived as an unholy and uneven matrimony remains to be seen. The same is true with Nigeria, especially after the recent and successful stay-at-home call made on the people of the South East by their de-facto leader and the reactions which followed.

Before we log on to the question for today’s discussion, let me quickly affirm my love for my fatherland. Nigeria is a great country. Foreigners boast that our mangoes are some of the best in the world. Our women are beautiful and our young men strong. Our Jollof rice beats that of the Ghana and the Senegal. I have had the privilege of travelling to the North, South, East and West of this great country. I have met Northerners, Easterners and Westerners, and if they don’t speak their language they don’t look any different from the dudes on the other side. As a matter of fact, when I found myself in the North for my NYSC, I wanted to add a Northern aka to my name because of its phonetic and semantic affinity with my local name. Therefore, today, I manage to find my way with a dash of Hausa, Yoruba and some Ibo, and though I am bothered that this triumvirate do not speak my language, I have carried on nevertheless. 

Nigeria: Living With Two Presidents

By Ochereome Nnanna

Section 145 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, (As Amended) has this to say about the power of the Vice President in the absence of the President:

“Whenever the President transmits to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives a written declaration that he is proceeding on vacation or that he is otherwise unable to discharge the functions of his office, until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary such functions shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President”. 

*President Buhari and VP Osinbajo

Because of the cynical nature of Nigerian politics which is sadly rooted in religion, ethnicity, sectionalism and familial interests (factors that corrupt and debilitate our constitutional democracy), a constitutional enactment as precise and self-explanatory as the Section 145 is still made to seem hard to grapple with.

President Muhammadu Buhari, who has done very well in respecting the Constitution by transmitting such letters to the leaders of the National Assembly on each of the two occasions he went abroad to tend to his health problems, however, introduced confusion into the issue when he said Vice President Osinbajo would “coordinate” the activities of government in his absence. The President was heavily criticised for this strange definition of the status of the Acting President, though it hardly matters since it is the Constitution, not the President that defines roles played by everyone in our democracy.

This is the second regime in which our President had to be taken out of the country for an extended stay out of power. When the case of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua took place late in November 2009 he did not transmit any letter as Buhari does. By February 2010, murmurs over a power vacuum became cacophonous and Yar’ Adua’s handlers caused the British Broadcasting Corporation to air an “interview” he granted to show he was not incapacitated.

Osinbajo And The Troublemakers

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

It is a predictable path that Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has taken in his response to threats that are nibbling away at the nation’s unity. Unfortunately, this path has consistently failed to engender national healing and boost the prospect of fidelity to the vision of a united people. For, what our leaders like Osinbajo are unable to successfully disguise is their insincerity in responding to the overarching challenges of our contemporary society.

*Yemi Osinbajo

His was a response cast in the mould of a warning to those who are fomenting trouble that poses an egregious threat to the peace of the nation. At a meeting with northern leaders over some northern youths who have given an ultimatum to the Igbo in their region to relocate, he vowed to crush troublemakers. Since Osinbajo did not say that the warning was specifically directed at the northern youths, we must not limit it to them in order to appreciate its futility. We must appropriate troublemakers as all those who have grievances against the state since the northern youths only responded to the position of some aggrieved youths in the south-east.

The current threat to the nation’s unity is not what could be wished away by threatening fire and brimstone. It requires a more rigorous examination before proposing a solution. As Osinbajo himself rightly observed, disagreements are bound to exist in any union. But what he did not acknowledge is that the Nigerian nation has failed to adopt an enduring mechanism for resolving these conflicts. Again, why should disagreements whose source can easily be located and resolved permanently be allowed to fester as the Nigerian nation is doing ? In this case, what plague the Nigerian nation are not just conflicts that are inevitable in a union. They are rather crises the country and its leaders have refused to resolve because they benefit from them.

Who Exactly Is An Igbo?

By Ozodi Thomas Osuji
This morning I read at Facebook a girl from Agbor, Nkechi Bianze, saying that her tribe is Ika and not Igbo. She fumed from both sides of her mouth saying how angry she is at any Igbo who calls her an Igbo; indeed, she asked why Igbos have the audacity to call those who do not see themselves as Igbos as Igbos. On the issue of her having what seems an Igbo name, Nkechi, she presented an interesting logic that goes like this: you (I am assuming that she is referring to those not from England) have an English sounding name, you speak English so does that make you an Englishman, she asks?

*Onitsha, South East of Nigeria

(This particular logic is interesting; it assumes knowledge of who is an English person; is English a function of biological heritage or language or culture? There are black people born in England who are called English. By the same token, what makes one an American? People from all over the world come to the USA, which is about the size of West Africa, and call themselves Americans. I was born at Lagos, Nigeria and am an American. What makes me an American? Since the USA was begun by the English is it possession of English DNA that makes one an American? Is it the ability to speak the English language? Is it enculturation to American culture? What is American culture? Nkechi, apparently, did not take courses in logic so we shall overlook her illogical and incoherent statements on who is English.)

Nigeria: The Beginning Of The End

By Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo

Clarence Day was a renowned American poet, essayist and philosopher who lived in the 19th century. Clarence Day could have been a prophet because he captured with astonishing accuracy the trajectory of the collapse of human society. Asked how future generations will know that their society is decaying or collapsing, he counseled his students to always look back into mankind’s documented history. According to him, of all the inventions of man, none is as enduring as the documented histories of human existence. Empires rise and fall, he said; civilizations grow old and die. But in the world of books are volumes and volumes that have seen this happen again and again; still as fresh as the day they were written; still telling men’s heart of hearts of men centuries dead. 

*Dr. Arthur Nwankwo 

However, he regretted that many societies have become lax and complacent; so much so that history means nothing to them. His words, no doubt, accurately depict the Nigerian situation and our leaders’ penchant for collective amnesia. A country that could remove history as a subject from her school curricula is doomed to repeat the tragedies of the past. 

Sir John Glubb, a British author and lecturer, has equally argued that most empires, glued together by artificial tendons generally do not last the distance. Citing examples with the Greek, Roman, Ottoman and Romanov Russian Empires, he remarked that such societies do not realize their internal rot even when events indicate that they have entered the Age of Decadence, i.e. the final stage at which such society is marked by delusion, pessimism, materialism, frivolity, and the total collapse of institutions of governance.

I am constrained to remark here that a few years from now, historians would be writing about the total disintegration of Nigeria. Then Chinua Achebe’s prophetic bequeathal of literary ingenuity and foresight, There was a Country would become more meaningful to us. But even now, Nigeria’s history of dissolution is writing itself furiously; accelerated by agents of doom masquerading as religious and pious puritans. In all my life I have never seen a country consumed by the spirit of despondency and forgetfulness as Nigeria; a country on the highway to perdition without knowing it. 

By the time the day is done, there would be no more compatriots to stand in the gap for Nigeria, there will be nobody to obey the clarion call of national defense; the love, strength and faith would have dissipated in Nigerians that they call to service would fall on deaf ears and the labours of our heroes past would factually be in vain. This sounds like a doomsday prophecy but it is not. It does appear that all the prophecies about Nigeria’s demise are being fulfilled in our time today. The signs are indeed ominous and the day is far gone for redemption. 

The crumbling period of Nigeria started in 1966 when the Nigerian State conspired to annihilate the Igbo population for no just cause than Igbos capacity and ingenuity to survive where others have failed. Though, after that genocidal pogrom, the Nigerian state seemed to get along as a united country with patchy mechanisms, the final descent to perdition began on May 29th 2015 when a combination of political forces anchored on treachery, chicanery and other negative thematic ushered in Muhammadu Buhari into office as the President. Since then, a chain of events, so dire, has occurred that it would seem the Nigerian empire has snapped the fuse of self-destruction, going by the series of catastrophes we have had since 2015. 

Nigeria: A Nation Of Cowards And Docile Citizens

By Nnanna Ijomah

It is said that “a nation of sheep is governed by wolves”. Nigerians have not only become sheepish and docile but also whiners and cowards. Docility has become our middle name and we have come to display it on our chests as badges of honor. I don’t know when we became this way but I’m sure it’s been long in the making. Over the years it has become more evident that we have become a very timid and spineless people, with a high degree of acceptance and tolerance of whatever mistreatment our leaders, both at the local, State, and Federal levels mete out to us. There is a popular saying, “the future belongs to those who change it”.

In Nigeria today, we have as its citizens, though ethnically, linguistically and culturally diverse, a people who are scared or reluctant to effectively bring about real change and not the fake change promised by the APC. A people who continuously elect and re-elect people whose past track records does not show any evidence of any real effort in terms of policies or actions to improve their lives or their standard of living. This is what Aribisala said not long ago about the President on this issue.

“He, Buhari commanded the support of a significant number of the Northern poor, in spite of the fact that there is absolutely nothing in his curriculum Vitae about advancing the interest of the poor.”

Here he, the President is not alone. The same can be said of most of our Governors and national Assembly members. The reality of our situation in Nigeria today is that we wallow in the status quo and seem to be content with it. We whine and complain daily about our leaders and the deplorable state of our existence but fail to acknowledge our role in electing them or the courage to hold them accountable.

The more I read about events in Nigeria or the state of the nation, the alarming scope of corruption despite the war against it, the ineffective or none -existent economic policies and its aftermath, the increasing poverty rate in the country especially in the North, the complicity of INEC and our security officials in rigging elections, the non-payment of worker’s salaries both at the state and federal levels, the religious massacres by herdsmen and the lack of a tough response or arrests by federal government officials and the financial appeasement by a state governor, the instability in the Niger Delta, the agitation for Biafra by the Igbo’s, the unending blame campaign of the President of his predecessor, etc. etc., the more I feel morbidly entranced like a homicide detective gazing into a pool of freshly spilled blood. I use the phrase freshly spilled blood literally because that’s what each new unfortunate event looks like. If I may borrow the words of Pat Utomi in a recent comment he made, “Nigeria is a paradox of progressive degradation, where every Government is worse than the one that preceded it”. As the new year begins this month I have become more apocalyptic about the future of the country and its political stability.

Resolving The Crises Of Nigeria As A Nation State

By Felix N. C. Oragwu

Nigeria’s Post-Colonial Crises and the Civil War of 1967-1970 taught the Nation State of Nigeria the following, namely:

*That progress in socio-economic growth, progress, security and prosperity of nations are driven not necessarily by natural resources endowment but more importantly by the developments in modern science and technology (S&T);

*That a Nation State needs real unity and real peace to develop its economy and to make real economic progress; and

To actualise the foregoing, a nation must have (a) Political Stability (b) Selfless Leadership Elite with vision for modern economic development (c) National Political cohesion and (d) Nationalism, Patriotism, Pride and Love of the Citizens for the Nation.

Most of the above attributes seem to be in short supply in the nation-state of Nigeria, particularly, since the end of the Civil War of 1967-1970.

What conclusions can we as a nation draw from the Civil War and the current endemic  political travails of Nigeria to enable us (Nigerians) build a united nation state? :

These, I believe include the following, namely:

*Understanding that in 1914, Nigeria became a nation state, albeit, by forced amalgamation or cobbling together of various independent and disparate ethnic nationalities and entities (Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Fulani, Kanuri, Ibibio, Tiv, Edo, Nupe, Ijaw, Uhrobo, etc.) numbering well over 200 (some with large, some with small populations) but with different cultures, religions, languages, and in specific geographical areas around the River Niger, by the virtue of British Imperial Power and Colonial diplomacy,

*The Colonial Authorities obviously and deliberately did not develop S&T as domestic instrument for modern economic growth and development, prosperity and security of the Nigerian State, possibly to avoid hurting the British home industry and economy or making Nigeria a prosperous modern competitive industrial and politically united nation, which would have compromised the British main objectives of Nigeria’s colonization;

*From 1914-1960, therefore, Nigeria was sustained as a nation state by virtue of British imperial power and colonial diplomacy but remained in fact a poorly structured and an unstable nation state “on paper, a geographical expression and or an artificial creation” whose political unity and economy was sustained by imported foreign developed (mostly British) industrial, scientific, engineering and technological infrastructure and security apparatus;

Root Causes Of The Biafra Struggle

By Femi Aribisala
In the eight years of Obasanjo’s presidency, there was no headline-grabbing demand for Biafra. Ditto for the eight years of the Yar’Adua/Jonathan presidency. However, within months of Buhari’s presidency, the Igbo demand for Biafra has become deafening. Without a doubt, the blame for this new impetus must be laid firmly at the doorstep of President Buhari. Moreover, rather than attenuate it, the president and the APC have exacerbated separatist tendencies in the country.

This was part of the reason why people like me did not support Buhari’s election as president of Nigeria. I have written severally in Vanguard that Nigeria must remain a united nation. In my column of 4th March, 2014 entitled: “Re-Inventing Igbo Politics In Nigeria,” I maintained that: “Nigeria cannot survive without the Igbo.” The following week on 11th March 2014, I wrote another article entitled: “Nigeria Cannot Do without the North.”

I remain persuaded by both positions. But if Nigeria is indeed to remain united, there are certain things that must be said and done. The problem with the Buhari administration is that it seems totally impervious to these imperatives.

There is no question that, as one of the major ethnic groups in Nigeria, the Igbo have been hard done by. Since the civil war 45 years ago, they have been treated as if they were a minority ethnic group in Nigeria when in fact they are one of the majorities. No Igbo has been considered worthy of being head-of-state. The South East of Ndigbo is the only one of the six geopolitical zones of the country with five states. All other zones have six or more. Indeed, the number of local governments in the North-East is virtually double that of the South-East. As a result, the Ndigbo receive the smallest amount of revenue allocation among all the zones, in spite of the fact that some of the South-eastern states are among the oil-producing states.

The roads in the South-east are notoriously bad. Government after government have simply ignored them. Inconsequential ministerial positions are usually zoned to Ndigbo. Time was when it seemed the lackluster Ministry of Information was their menial preserve. It is also a known fact that every so often the Igbo are slaughtered in the North under one guise or the other. Many are forced to abandon their homes and businesses and run for dear life. The people who perpetrate these acts never seem to be arrested or prosecuted.

When a major tribe is treated procedurally as second-class in their own country, there will be a demand for self-determination sooner rather than later. When a group of people feel unsafe in their own country, they cannot but be expected to decide to opt out. It is not the responsibility of the government to imprison the Igbo in Nigeria. It is the responsibility of the government to ensure and guarantee that they feel safe and are treated with respect.

Discrimination against the South: While these issues have been brewing under the surface for some time, the lop-sided tendencies of President Buhari have brought them all out to boiling-point. In his first-coming as head-of-state in 1984, Buhari antagonised Ndigbo by locking up Vice-President Alex Ekwueme, an Igbo man, in jail in Kirikiri; while President Shehu Shagari, a Fulani man was only placed under house arrest. In addition, Buhari arrested and jailed Ojukwu, another Igbo icon for no just cause.

Buhari’s Python Christmas Gift To Ndigbo

By Ochereome Nnanna

The Christmas season is here. In no other part of the country is the Yuletide celebrated as much as it is in the South East and South-South (the heart of Nigeria’s Christendom). It is a time when a chunk of the Igbo Diaspora returns home for the annual communal and family reunions.

Even though it has long been predicted that this year’s Christmas is going to be hard on all Nigerians because of the economic recession (depression, some economists now say), something special is in the offing. President Muhammadu Buhari, through the Nigerian Army, has a special Christmas gift for the people of the South East: a military operation code-named: “Operation Python Dance”.

According to a statement signed by Colonel Sagir Musa, the Deputy Director, Army Public Relations, 82 Division of the Nigerian Army, Enugu, this operation has already started on 27th November to end on 27th December, 2016.

According to Musa: “the prevalent security issues such as armed robbery, kidnapping, abduction, herdsmen-farmers clashes, communal clashes and violent secessionist attacks among others will be targeted”.

The statement went on: “Above all, an elaborate Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) Line of Operation has been planned during the Exercise. Interestingly, Nigerian Army Corps and Services would conduct activities such as medical outreach, repairs of roads, schools and other infrastructure across the South East Region”.

Before we examine the meaning and implications of this exercise, let us reflect briefly on the army’s current operational engagements nationwide, particularly the language in which they are coded. This will offer insight into the psychological mindset of our nation’s elite fighting forces: the Nigerian Army. Have you noticed that the motto of our Army is written in Arabic, then translated into English as: “Victory is from God alone”? I keep wondering how and when Arabic became part of our official lingua franca, such that it is boldly used to write the motto of an Army that supposedly belongs to all Nigerians. I thought English was our sole, official language? For that matter, how did Arabic get mixed up with our national currency, the Naira? What was the rationale for it, and when did we sit down to agree to do it? Could it have been inserted there with the impunity of some vested interests which has been growing wild of late?

Buhari And Remembrance Of Things Past

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

As the first half of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration lurches into the twilight, it is refreshing that he has given us an opportunity to interrogate his intervention in national politics from another perspective. Beyond the well-worn exploration of Buhari as a profile in persistence, having taken him over a decade to chase a return to power, we can now attend to the   relationship between personal tragedies and national glories.

*Buhari

It is now clear from Buhari’s disclosure in Benin during his commissioning of some projects of the outgoing Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole that his tragedy of incarceration after his overthrow in 1985 as military head of state remains a stimulant for his quest for regaining power.  Buhari said that he spent 40 months in a bungalow in Benin after he was overthrown by some corrupt army officers. In fact, he said that the coup was a preemptive strike against his crusade against some corrupt officers.

From that crucible of 1985, through the next 30 years, Buhari might have realised the essence of engendering an equitable society. But as he tells us, such a society is not attainable in so far as it remains a bastion for the proliferation of injustice as evident in the complicity of the judiciary in the denial of his electoral victories on three previous occasions. Of course, Buhari’s quest for an equitable society after suffering injustice is not an isolated case. Before him, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, among others appropriated a sense of injustice inflicted by warped state powers to develop their societies.

Even back at home, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo was prised from prison to cobble together a dismembering nation. But in the case of Buhari, it is unfortunate that while his regaining of power after 30 years might have served a personal cathartic purpose, it is far from playing a significant role in his relationship with the need for the development of the country. For the danger that the nation faces today under the Buhari government is that at the end of his tenure, he would have succeeded in making millions of citizens to feel a sense of injustice and alienation from the society. This is the clear possibility that Buhari would engender through his policies and programmes.

If Buhari had truly learnt the lessons of suffering injustice, he would guard against fostering a sense of injustice. But does Buhari really have consideration for the need to ensure justice for others? Consider his  appointments  since he  became president. How have these ensured justice and the strengthening of the unity of the country?  In those appointments, Buhari brazenly favoured his northern part of the country. It is such nepotism that has thrown up a situation where from the National Assembly, the military, police, Department of State Services,  other security apparatuses, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), to other major government agencies, the heads are northerners.

Defending Anambra’s Light

By Chuks Iloegbunam

 Anambra State marked its silver jubilee on August 27, 2016, emitting rays of brilliant colours that emphasize the uniqueness of its people as wonderfully crafted by God, continuously demonstrating to the entire world that they are endowed with the dominant infrastructures of greatness, unsurpassed pacesetters in all noble walks of life – the arts, entrepreneurship, leadership, scholarship, the sciences, sports, statesmanship, etc. How apposite that this land of a blessed people has as its slogan the revealing title of Light of the Nation! There isn’t any aspect of national life in which Ndi Anambra do not excel.

*Gov Willie Obiano of Anambra State 

Little wonder that Jubilee Governor Willie Obiano waxed prophetically lyrical in, Please, Let’s Do It Together, his speech to mark the anniversary: “Anambra state will be the food basket of Africa in the next 25 years. In the next 25 years, Anambra will not depend on federal allocation. It will be known as a state that transited to become the Taiwan of Africa. We are number one among states that were created 25 years ago. We pay salaries as and when due. We are the safest state, and we have attracted billions of dollars in investment to the state.”

Yet, Anambra State’s great future, and the fact that its affairs are currently under the controls of a pair of capable hands, belies the palpable dangers that lie ahead. The situation evokes the sort of apprehension that informed the late great poet, Christopher Okigbo’s writing of his 1966 poem entitled “Come Thunder”, the first four lines of which go thus:

Now that the triumphant march has entered the last street corners,

Remember, O dancers, the thunder among the clouds…

Now that laughter, broken in two, hangs tremulous between the teeth,

Remember, O dancers, the lightning beyond the earth…

The smell of blood already floats in the lavender-mist of the afternoon.

What seeks Anambra’s negation? What strives to dim its brilliance and turn the people’s joys into one long, dark night of bewitched recrimination and retrogression? The answer is FALSEHOOD. Deliberately manufactured falsehood! Let’s illustrate.

I recently took a telephone call from an educated friend domiciled in the United States since the 1970s. To my astonishment, he exhibited a rage uncharacteristic of his calm and urbane nature. “Obiano will never have a second term of office,” he bawled, swearing that I had made a fatal mistake by recently accepting appointment as the Anambra State Governor’s Media Director. On and on he railed, his voice rising to a crescendo. When I managed to put in a word edgewise, I reminded him that our friendship mustn’t be confused with the relationship between a cane-wielding village headmaster and a recalcitrant truant. We were basically friends. Could he possibly hold his peace and take a listen? He agreed, having screamed three principal complaints: (1) He had heard that Governor Obiano ordered soldiers to gun down peaceful IPOB demonstrators. (2) He had read from a Nigerian-owned, UK-based online newspaper a July 25, 2016 story entitled How Governor Obiano Embezzled N75b In Two Years. (3) He was despondent at another newspaper report that widows had been “forced from their stalls” and consequently rioted in Onitsha.

I proceeded to provide him with the correct version of things. Although a national daily had so claimed, there never was a women’s riot anywhere in Anambra State including Onitsha. Here are the facts: there is a street market on the main road that issues into Onitsha through the Niger Bridge. It stands on a land owned by Nath Okechukwu, the boss of Interbau, the road construction giant. Chief Okechukwu had ceded the land to a younger sister for temporary business purposes, pending its conversion into his firm’s headquarters. But the sister had leased it to agents who made an instant vegetable market out of the land, collecting “landing” fees and rents without remitting any taxes to government. Every so often vehicles plowed into the market, causing casualties. The place has no toilets, a veritable eyesore.

Remembering Ironsi, Fajuyi

By Amanze Obi

Fifty years after their assassination by north­ern military avengers, the gruesome murder of General JTU Aguiyi Ironsi and Lt. Col. Adekunle Fajuyi has received more than a pass­ing attention in the media. At the time of their death, Ironsi was the Head of State and Com­mander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria while Fajuyi was the military governor of the Western Region.

*Gen. Ironsi

Since their passage, at no time have they been so fondly remembered and elaborately celebrated more than now. Fajuyi, particularly, is being celebrated by his Yoruba kinsmen for his courage and sacrifice. Ironsi is being men­tioned in passing, probably because his Igbo kinsmen did not roll out the drums for him as the Yoruba did for Fajuyi.

Since the celebration began, many have had to wonder why the Yoruba staged such an elab­orate outing for Fajuyi. The perceived impres­sion in some quarters is that there is more to the celebration of Fajuyi than meets the eyes. I am, however, not persuaded by such suspi­cions. What makes sense to me here is that 50 years is a landmark. It is worth celebrating in the life and death of persons or institutions. Perhaps, the Yoruba may be saying through their celebration of the death of Fajuyi that 50 years of his passage is significant enough in underlining the undercurrents that brought down one of their own, who rightly deserves to be recognised as a national hero. No one should begrudge them the right to tell their own story, as it concerns one of their icons.

Perhaps, what we should question is the loud silence of the Igbo about the death of one of their own whose assassination signposts the endangered position of the Igbo in Nigeria. Why are the Igbo not talking about the murder of Ironsi on July 29, 1966, by northern military officers?

The most immediate reason for this is not far-fetched. The Igbo hardly celebrate any­body. They may recognise you for who or what you are, but they are not interested in symbol­isms. They have never celebrated any one of their greats, be it Nnamdi Azikiwe or Chinua Achebe. Whereas the Yoruba place Obafemi Awolowo on the same pedestal as a demigod, the Igbo are hardly bothered about whatever Azikiwe represents or does not represent in the pantheon of the great.

Perhaps, the only Igbo man the people lion­ise is Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the leader of the defunct Republic of Biafra. The reason for this is simple. Biafra means a lot to the Igbo. The passion flows in their blood veins. It matters to the Igbo that Ojukwu was more than committed to the Biafran cause. He never wavered in his belief in and fight for the cause until death. The Igbo revere him for this. He is their war hero for all times.

Apart from the inherent disposition of the Igbo, which does not encourage the celebra­tion of anybody, there are also remote rea­sons for the non-celebration of Ironsi by the Igbo. The Ironsi story is not an isolated one. It carries with it a myriad of sub plots which, when woven together, define the Igbo story and situation in Nigeria. There is no story of Ironsi without the story of the organised mas­sacre of hundreds of Igbo military officers by their northern counterparts. The story of the murder of Ironsi also necessarily dovetails into the story of the pogrom visited on the Igbo in northern Nigeria. One pogrom followed the other. In all of this, there was no whim­per from the federal military government led by General Yakubu Gowon. The government, which was supposed to protect the life and property of its citizens, as a primary responsi­bility, merely aided and abetted the organised massacres. All of this eventuated in the birth of Biafra. The Ironsi story is, therefore, a complex tapestry, which can hardly be unravelled and understood without making Biafra the subject matter.

Aguiyi-Ironsi: Danjuma's Terrible Act Of Treason

By Obi Nwakanma

Fifty years ago, on a Friday night at the Western Nigerian Governor’s lodge in Ibadan, a group of soldiers led by Major Theophilus Danjuma committed a terrible act of treason. They accosted their Commander-in-chief, Major-General Johnson Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and Military Head of State of Nigeria only six months in the making, stripped him of his epaulettes and his swagger stick shaped in the form of the Crocodile, and proceeded to arrest him and his host, the Military Governor of the West, Colonel Francis Adekunle Fajuyi.

*Major-General Johnson Thomas
Aguiyi-Ironsi

These soldiers, some of them far too drug-addled, did not stop there. They proceeded to administer brutal beatings and a careless torture of the General, and the Governor, Colonel Fajuyi, supervised by T.Y. Danjuma, and Ironsi’s ADC, William Walbe. They did not stop there: bruised and much bloodied, these two men were later bound hand and feet, as legends would have it, and tied to a military truck driven by Jeremiah Useni, through the streets of Ibadan, and taken to that quiet spot on Iwo road, where they were murdered and buried in mean and shallow graves.

Fajuyi was by then, nearly dead in any case, far too brutalized to endure any further humiliation. But Ironsi stood tall to the very end – the image of a great elephant enduring the beatings that accompanied him finally to the dug-spot. Accounts of Ironsi’s stolid, dignified and courageous handling of his brutal end come to us by a number of eye witnesses. He was travelling with then Colonel Hillary Njoku, Commander of the Lagos Garrison, in his entourage. They were upstairs in the Governor’s lodge when they sensed the change in the air, by the rustle of the mainly Northern troop that had been arranged for his guard detail.

As soon as they noticed the mutiny afoot on the grounds of the Governor’s lodge in Ibadan, they quickly knew that they had only one shot at getting out there alive. Ironsi ordered Hillary Njoku to find his way out of the grounds and make contacts with his headquarters in Lagos to send some reinforcement. Meanwhile, he got through to Yakubu Gowon on the phone which were still working, to send a Helicopter for him. The Helicopter did not come. Gowon, Ironsi’s Chief of Staff, was busy issuing different orders to Danjuma in Ibadan, and apparently to Murtala Muhammed and Martin Adamu in Lagos, the arrowheads of that July mutiny. Neither did any reinforcement come. Just as he was attempting to sneak out of the Governor’s lodge, the mutineers saw Colonel Hillary Njoku, and fired shots at him. He escaped by scaling the fence of the Government House, but was so seriously injured he had to find his way to the University College Hospital, where he was treated.

The Restructuring Nigeria Needs

By Arthur Agwuncaha Nwankwo

It is indeed interesting to see so many Nigerians today talking about restructuring the Nigerian state. This is heart warning on account of the fact that today we have come to appreciate restructuring as a necessity for Nigeria’s continued existence. This is a crusade I began almost two decades ago; a crusade that has taken me to prison and back.

*Dr. Nwankwo

In the course of this crusade, I have had my younger brother brutally murdered in cold blood by agents of the state; I have had my residence turned inside-out by security agents brooding over my massive library like maggots rummaging the remains of decaying carcass. I have been cursed and discussed; scandalized and analysed. The leeches of the Nigerian state are mad; and I am happy. The struggle rages on and that’s just the way I love it. My happiness is that my crusade has put Nigeria on notice and today we are all talking about it.

Even though it is a welcome development that we have been caught by the bug of restructuring, I am afraid not so many of us understand the true essence of restructuring. I say this because in recent times I have heard people talk about merging of states as a form of restructuring. I am afraid this is not restructuring by any stretch of the imagination.
The question is: What type of restructuring does Nigeria need? For the avoidance of doubt, Nigeria needs both structural and fiscal restructuring. Structurally, Nigeria must constitutionally define the federating units.

 For now there are six geo-political zones in the country. These geo-political zones should be constituted into the federating units with equal constitutional rights. The states as presently existing make up the zones. 
Each zone will have its own constitution, which must not be in conflict with the federal constitution. The federating units should be in-charge of the zones and LGS. The States’ Houses of Assembly will remain as they are but there will be Regional Houses of Assembly that will function as the highest legislative organ of the region.