Showing posts with label Chinua Achebe Foundation Interview Series. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chinua Achebe Foundation Interview Series. Show all posts

Thursday, March 1, 2018

'Abandoned Property' Was Coined By Those Intent On Perpetrating Daylight Robbery' – COL. ACHUZIA

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THE CHINUA ACHEBE FOUNDATION INTERVIEW SERIES 
November 2005
All Rights Reserved ©


Joe Achuzia 
*About Col. Joe Achuzia
Born seventy years ago, in the present day Delta StateCol Joe Achuzia has been involved in the programmes and activities of Ohaneze NdiIgbo, the apex socio-cultural organization in Igboland, for the past fifteen years. Since he assumed office as the Secretary-General of Ohaneze NdiIgbo, he has been distinguished by his frankness in public communications and the passion with which he canvases the Igbo position on matters of national and regional interests. He believes strongly in one, united Nigeria, where equity, justice, fairness and mutual respect for one another are unreservedly operational at all levels of governance and social interactions. He is of the opinion that the deterioration in the country is as old as the country itself and that the only way to ensure harmony and progress in the nation is to convoke a conference of ethnic nationalities where the thorny issues plaguing Nigeria could be properly addressed.
After the Biafra/Nigeria in which he played a prominent role, he was detained by Nigerian authorities. Fearing he might not survive the incarceration, he wrote his book, Requiem Biafra, to articulate his role in the war, and check attempts by later writers to, in his own words, “superimposed falsehood” on him.


Excerpts:

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Col Joe Achuzia in Conversation with Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye


THE CHINUA ACHEBE FOUNDATION INTERVIEW SERIES 
November 2005
All Rights Reserved ©


*Achuzia
*About Col. Joe Achuzia
Born seventy years ago, in the present day Delta StateCol Joe Achuzia has been involved in the programmes and activities of Ohaneze NdiIgbo, the apex socio-cultural organization in Igboland, for the past fifteen years. Since he assumed office as the Secretary-General of Ohaneze NdiIgbo, he has been distinguished by his frankness in public communications and the passion with which he canvases the Igbo position on matters of national and regional interests. He believes strongly in one, united Nigeria, where equity, justice, fairness and mutual respect for one another are unreservedly operational at all levels of governance and social interactions. He is of the opinion that the deterioration in the country is as old as the country itself and that the only way to ensure harmony and progress in the nation is to convoke a conference of ethnic nationalities where the thorny issues plaguing Nigeria could be properly addressed.
After the Biafra/Nigeria in which he played a prominent role, he was detained by Nigerian authorities. Fearing he might not survive the incarceration, he wrote his book, Requiem Biafra, to articulate his role in the war, and check attempts by later writers to, in his own words, “superimposed falsehood” on him.


Excerpts:

WHERE THE RAIN BEGAN TO BEAT US
Do you think it is possible to identify a particular period in Nigeria’s history when the deterioration commenced, or should we assume the downward slide is, perhaps, as old as the nation itself?
Nigeria, in my opinion, started deteriorating from day one. The gladiators who fought for our independence made all the classical mistakes. They failed to understand that those who pitch themselves in mortal combats to gain independence for the people should quit the stage for peaceful gladiators to take over. You cannot be a warrior and a peacemaker at the same time. No. But, they tried to combine the two, and so failed woefully. And we’ve been going down ever since.

Why then does your generation speak nostalgically about the good old days?
The good old days is a cliché used by people reminiscing about their secure lives as adolescents, and referring to the past as “the good old days...”The bad old days then begins when they have to start taking responsibilities. (Laughter)

So, there have been no good old days in Nigeria?
No, there has been nothing like that.