Being the full text of the lecture delivered by Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Ikemba Nnewi, on the occasion of TSM's 2nd Diamond Lecture to mark the fourth anniversary of the magazine on February 22, 1994
*Odumegwu-OjukwuMonday, July 28, 2025
Ojukwu: Nigeria: The Truths Which Are Self-Evident!
Tuesday, January 23, 2024
Nigeria: The Making Of Supreme Confusion
By Chidi Odinkalu
Most people do not know or remember that, strictly speaking, there were and remain no official results for Nigeria’s 2007 presidential election. Organised by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, the vote itself occurred on April 21, 2007 under Maurice Iwu, a professor whose academic discipline coincidentally was alchemy. His main qualification for the position of Chairman of the INEC was that he was close to President Obasanjo’s fixer, Andy Uba.
The results began trickling in the following day. Under Nigeria’s Constitution, a winner of a presidential election must secure the highest number of votes in addition to winning a minimum of 25% of the votes in at least 24 of the 36 states of the federation. What this means is that it is impossible to declare a lawful result in a presidential election until the results in at least 24 states have been computed.
Tuesday, January 17, 2023
The Collapse Of The Nigerian Tripod
By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
Nigeria today stands on wobbly legs, and what needs to be done to make the country to stand steady and strong is to go back to where the rain started beating the country in the modern day.
At independence in 1960, Nigeria was said to stand on a pivotal
tripod of East, West and North. The 1967-70 Nigeria-Biafra war ensured that the
North in alliance with the West defeated the East.
The oppressed minorities of course took sides with the victors
because nobody would ever want to be in the corner of losers.
That is a simple historical fact, and any other embellishments only exist to
serve expedience.
Wednesday, December 28, 2022
Dangerous Times In The Dear Country
By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
The demons of death are on the loose, arranging mayhem and spreading annihilation all over Nigeria. We walk an ungodly but very familiar Nigerian road littered with shattered bones and broken dreams.
The struggle for political power is all the rage with the ruling party presenting a Muslim-Muslim ticket in a multi-faith country while the main opposition party presents a Northern Fulani Muslim candidate to succeed a Northern Fulani Muslim incumbent after eight years of incumbency. There is the third force rousing the youths into fervid activity such that if the elections are tampered with the EndSARS riots may pale into a child’s play. The dangerous times of Nigeria today cannot but force one to look back in anger at the country’s history on how the land came to this pass.
Monday, November 28, 2022
The Story Of Media Leaders In Nigeria’s Construction And Reconstruction
By Owei Lakemfa
Nigeria was partly built by journalists who fought the British colonialists so ferociously that Frederick John Lugard, their colonial poster boy who amalgamated the country in 1914, was forced out as Governor General within five years. The media campaigns for the soul of the country went on through the colonial period and into the new century.
But the country has been very badly used, so much so that today, it is in urgent need of reconstruction. The media, as one of the main builders of the country, convened a roundtable on Saturday, November 26, 2022, to examine its part in constructing the country and what role it needs to play in reconstructing it.
To do this, the Nigeria Media Merit Award, or NMMA convened a conclave of experts led by Emeritus Professor Michael Abiola Omolewa, an education historian and diplomat who was the 32nd President of the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO.
Monday, February 21, 2022
Biafra, Or An Oasis Of Prosperity?
By Obi Nwakanma
Let me be on the record, and say that I align myself ideologically with those who seek the right to self-determination as a fundamental human right. This right is enshrined in the charter of the United Nations of which Nigeria is a signatory.
*Odumegwu-Ojukwu taking the oath of office as Head of State of BiafraThese facts are so clear that it begs the question, why is the Nigerian government persecuting, and criminally violating the rights of those like Nnamdi Kanu who has devoted his life to the pursuit of what he sees as his right to be free of the Nigerian enterprise? The answer is: the word, “Biafra” gives Buhari and his ideological fellow travellers the excuse to wallop the Igbo.
Monday, February 7, 2022
Soludo And The Made-in-Anambra Work Ethic
By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
There is palpable fear amongst the serious commentariat in addressing relevant issues because most of the viral news attributed to esteemed personages may have been cooked up by the feeble minds of the fake news industry. Anambra State Governor-elect, Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo, has had many words put in his mouth by these fake news manufacturers.
*SoludoIt’s therefore interesting seeing Prof Soludo while interacting
with the members of his transition committee laughing off one of the fibs that
quoted him as saying that he would not spend more than N20 million for his
swearing-in ceremony.
Soludo cleared the matter thusly: “I have made a wish that not even One Kobo of Anambra people’s money will be spent on the swearing-in ceremony. It is a wish, and I mean it. What are we spending money on? Just a few people coming to the inauguration and witnessing it, then I will open office and get down to work immediately. I do not wish any event, dancers or players and all that. I just want to show up for work, like every first workday. Though it is going to be a Friday, which is the weekend, I’m going to work for over eight hours that day. No ceremony, no event, no party, nothing. Not even 10 Kobo will be spent. So the people who are saying N20million has been budgeted should go and tell us where they will get that money. It is going to be work, work, work, and that is what we epitomize.”
Thursday, February 18, 2021
Let Us End The Nigerian Civil War!
By DAN AMOR
For those who were born during or after the Nigerian Civil War, recent publications, provide an illuminating pathway to the events that led to the war. No nation among the third world countries makes a stronger claim on the interest and sympathy of Africans than Nigeria. What Nigeria has meant to the black continent and to blacks across the world, makes her future a matter of deep concern. Nigeria might be doddering or tottering behind less endowed African countries as a giant with feet of clay, no thanks to the tragedy of irresponsible leadership.
*Displaced South Easterners during the Biafra-Nigeria War
But whatever happens to her usually serves as a huge lesson for other African countries. To view therefore with judgment and comprehension the course of present and future events in Nigerian life and politics, we must possess knowledge and understanding of her past, and to provide such understanding within concise compass, we must consult history. Yet it is an unbiased, disinterested and unprejudiced inquiry into the history of our country that will ensure that we leave a legacy of truth for generations yet unborn.
In fact, the true story of Nigeria must begin with the foundations of the nation-its geographical and economic character; its socio-political and religious influences and the psychology of its peoples.
Besides
the existence of multi-ethnic nationalities before the fusion of the Northern
and Southern Protectorates in 1914 by Lord Fredrick Lugard, a British
imperialist military commander, and the almost 100 years of British colonial
rule, the great period of post-independence crisis – 1960 – 1970 – must be vividly
delineated for posterity.
The death in November 2011 of Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu who has come to symbolise that great epoch of epic struggle brought to the front burner of national discourse, the issues and convergent forces at play in the Nigerian Civil War. But recent developments point to the fact that our leaders who prefer to learn their geology the day after the earthquake would want history to repeat itself.
Unfortunately, rather than telling in bold dramatic relief, the tragic and magnificent story of what brought about the war and its aftermath, some commentators have elected to mislead the reading public on who actually caused the war. Some have even pointedly accused Chief Ojukwu of having masterminded the war in order to divide Nigeria.
What can be more mischievously misleading than the deliberate refusal to allow the historical sense transcend the ephemeral currents of the present and reveal the spirit of a people springing from the deepest traditions of their tragic experience? How could one begin to appreciate a legend who continued to be astonishingly misunderstood even when the realities of the factors that pushed him to rise in defense of his people are damning on the rest of us more than 50 years after his action? Why is it so difficult for us to appreciate the fact that Ojukwu had come to represent, in large and essential measure, not only a signification of heroism but also a courageous attempt to say no to an emerging oligarchy which was bent on annihilating his people from the face of the earth?
No Nigerian in his right senses should support any nebulous
attempt to re-awaken the Biafran experience. But if we believe the time-tested
aphorism that few men are austere or dull-witted enough to scorn the pageantry
and romance of history, then we must ask ourselves why, for God’s sake, would
people become so barren in thought as to hold the view that Ojukwu caused the
Nigerian Civil or what some mischievously call the Biafran War?
Even for those of us who were born during the holocaust that was the war itself, a deep reflection on what brought it about cannot in all sincerity be divorced from the greed and unbridled ambition of Nigerian politicians – the quest to dominate others and the winner-takes-all mentality of the lackeys to whom the colonialists handed over power on a platter of gold.
Why must we forget so soon the blatant rigging of the 1964 Western Region election by the Federal government – controlled Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) in favour of S.A. Akintola at the expense of Chief Obafemi Awolowo of the Action Group who was believed to have won that election in the first place? How can we forget so soon that it was the upheaval that followed that manipulation in the Western Region and the inability of the government at the centre to contain it that orchestrated the January 15, 1996 military coup and its aftermath?
In fact, in all the accounts of the developments that led to the war, both local and international, none particularly mentioned Ojukwu as a key player in either the coup of January 1966 or the July 29, 1966 counter revolutionary coup led by young Hausa/Fulani soldiers. Ojukwu’s response to the wanton killings of Igbo and other nationals of Eastern Nigerian origin was a latter day development which in all practical purposes followed the natural course of history. He was just an uncommon patriot who responded decisively to the issues of the day.
We bow courteously before the mighty personages of other traditions. The appeal of Nigeria’s annals is not that of a success story. The record of our soulless country is strangely somber. Like in France, our earliest heroes might be heroes of defeat. But the story is shot through with episodes of unequaled magnificence. That history is repeating itself just as we recall our ugly past shows that it is the destiny of Nigeria to live dangerously.
Last month, January 15, 2021, Nigerian leaders pretended to have marked the 51st anniversary of the end of the Nigerian Civil War. All of them, including the victims of the war itself who pretend not to know, went to the graves of the "unknown soldiers" to lay wreaths in remembrance of the supreme price they paid for Nigeria to be one. Yet, in the minds of most notoriously undemocratic Nigerians, the war has not yet ended and the country is not yet one. The last administration made an Igboman Chief of Army Staff and brought the Civil War to its knees. He prosecuted the Boko Haram war almost to its logical conclusion.
*Ojukwu, Ankrah and Gowon at Aburi, Ghana, 1966
But another man came and reversed what the last administration did by insisting that an Igbo cannot be Chief of Army Staff; cannot be Chief of Air Staff; cannot be Chief of Naval Staff; cannot be Chief of Defense Staff and cannot even be Inspector General of Police. The current one is saying that the civil war has not ended; that the vice presidency which the South East attained seven years after the war was an error. No. It is not true. The Civil War which ended on January 15, 1970 must be laid to rest. No victor, no vanquished.
Between 1800 and 1945, there have been pockets of civil wars across the world before the Nigerian Civil War which was fought between 1967 and 1970. There was the Castle Hill convict rebellion, 1804; the Gutierrez-Magee Expedition (Texas) 1812-1813; Argentine Civil Wars, 1814-1880; Zulu Civil War, 1817-1819. There was also the Long Expedition (Texas), 1818, 1821; the Greek Civil War, 1824-1825; the Freedom Rebellion (Texas), 1826-1827; Liberal Wars (Portugal), 1828-1834. The American Civil War was fought between April 12, 1861 and May 9, 1865 and the Spanish Civil War was prosecuted between July 17, 1936 and April 1, 1939. All these civil wars ended and the respective countries became more united than before.
If
the Nigerian Civil War has been fought and won or declared "no victor, no
vanquished" by Gen. Yakubu Gowon, then it must have meaning and the end
taken to its logical conclusion. The South East must produce the next Inspector
General of Police and the Service Chiefs, for Nigeria to move forward. God has
endowed this country with all that is needed for it to blossom into one of the
best countries in the world. We must end sectional greed and domineering
postures for Nigeria to get there. The Nigerian Civil War must end without much
ado. Let this country be great again.
*Amor,
a public affairs analyst resides in Abuja
Saturday, August 1, 2020
Ironsi: Nigeria, The Army, Power And Politics
Friday, September 21, 2018
I’m Embarrassed For The Ojukwus
Any true Igbo son who held, and still holds Ikemba Nnewi, Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, of the blessed memory, in reverence, should be embarrassed by the turn of events in his nuclear family. They must be embarrassed by the gutter behaviour of a couple of the children he sired! And for women, especially Igbo women, they should rise in anger against these Ojukwu children, specifically, Dr. Ike Ojukwu and Emeka Ojukwu Jnr. Both men deserve no respect from any woman who has any self-esteem.
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Anambra: Why Gov Obiano Was Re-elected
![]() |
*Gov Obiano |
Monday, November 6, 2017
The Slaves Of Nigeria
![]() |
*Femi Fani-Kayode |
Thursday, November 2, 2017
No Cure For Yakubu Gowon Fever
![]() |
*Gowon |
Friday, October 27, 2017
Gowon's Aimless Cut On Odumegwu-Ojukwu
![]() |
*Gowon and Ojukwu eating from the same plate in Aburi |
Monday, October 23, 2017
The PDP Rallies For APGA
![]() |
*Gov Obiano |
Thursday, August 24, 2017
Nigerian Unity Is Negotiable
“The president deployed the imagery of the late Ikemba Ojukwu to play down the demand for the renegotiation of the structure of
President Buhari’s Illusion Versus Reality
![]() |
*President Buhari in Zamfra (March 2017) |
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
Will Nigeria Survive Biafra?
Monday, July 10, 2017
End The Bad Blood Between The Yoruba And Ndigbo Now!
The Nigerian civil war ended in 1970. Nevertheless, it continues to rage today on social media mostly by people who were not even alive during the civil war. In blog after blog, the Yorubas and the Igbos go out of their way to abuse one another for the most inconsequential of reasons. This hatred is becoming so deep-seated, it needs to be addressed before it gets completely out of hand. It is time to call a truce. A conscious effort needs to be made by opinion-leaders on both sides of the ethnic divide to put a stop to this nonsense.
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Open Letter To Arewa Youths
![]() |
*pix: guardian |
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