Ironsi: Nigeria, The Army, Power And Politics

BOOK REVIEW

Title: Ironsi: Nigeria, The Army, Power And Politics

Author: Chuks Iloegbunam 

Year Of Publication: 2019

Publishers: Eminent Biographies, Awka, Anambra State

Pagination: 300

Reviewer: DAN AMOR

"Life is terribly deficient in form.

Its catastrophes happen in the wrong way.

There is a grotesque horror about its comedies.

And its tragedies seem to culminate in farce."

– Oscar Wilde (1854-1900).

How do we begin a critical review of a book on a personality such as Major-General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi? Many writers have been devoted to investigations of great events and great leaders. Few have combined that devotion with the ability to write effectively, amusingly, even brilliantly about those events and people – about the great moments and the low moments, the great men and women and those who were only interesting, entertaining or absurd. Chuks Iloegbunam combines devotion to investigations with ability, as all who read this book will testify. 

The Quintessential Soyinka At 85

By DAN AMOR

It was once the fashion to single out four men of letters as the supreme titans of world literature – Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe –  each the embodiment of a great epoch of Western culture – ancient, medieval, Renaissance and modern. These four literary icons of all times remain secure, but idolatry of Professor Wole Soyinka as the prototype of the inquiring spirit and courageous intellect of modern man has been sharply appreciated in our time, especially as we pass beyond the more leisurely issues of the post modernist era.

*Wole Soyinka

The intensely contemporary character of his works has made him the tallest iroko tree in the post-modernist forest of global dramatic literature. Yet, the commencement, two weeks ago, of the Wole Soyinka 85th Birthday Festival, which ultimately climaxed on July 13, his date of birth, unfortunately doesn't seem to wear the official insignia of the Nigerian government especially because he has started telling them the truth about the Nigerian condition. But, it is expected, as Christ Himself says in Matthew 13:57, "A prophet is not without honour, save his own country and his own house."

Nigeria: July 29, 1966 In Retrospect: 52 Years After

By Dan Amor

"Life is terribly deficient in form.
Its catastrophes happen in the wrong way.
There is a grotesque horror about its comedies.
And its tragedies seem to culminate in farce."

– Oscar Wilde

The January 15, 1966 military coup and the concomitant tragic death, fifty-two years ago, of Major-General Johnson Thomas Ummunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi on July 29, 1966 in the hands of young Majors from Northern Nigeria extraction manifest the historical sense that creates a difference between mere politics and constructive statesmanship in Nigeria's turbulent history.

*Gen Aguiyi-Ironsi 

Aguiyi-Ironsi was a victim of our collective failure to appreciate the fact that, in any given society, personality is not a welter of primitive impulses but an achievement of the conscious will. Nigeria began its seemingly long and tenuous political walk towards self-rule and democracy in 1960. Vividly divided between the predominantly Muslim North and substantially Christian South, there is always a marked ethnic and religious tension in the polity with the Muslim in the North often hinting to their right to federal power. 

Our Quintessential Soyinka At 82

By Dan Amor

It was once the fashion to single out four men of letters as the supreme titans of world literature - Homer, Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe - each the embodiment of a great epoch of Western culture - ancient, medieval, Renaissance and modern. These four literary icons of all times remain secure, but acclamation of Professor Wole Soyinka as the prototype of the inquiring spirit and courageous intellect of modern man has been sharply appreciated in our time, especially as we pass beyond the more leisurely issues of the post modernist era.

*Soyinka 

The intensely contemporary character of his works has made him the tallest iroko tree in the post-modernist forest of global dramatic literature. Yet, the commencement, two weeks ago, of the Wole Soyinka 82nd Birthday Festival, which ultimately climaxes today, July 13, his date of birth, unfortunately doesn't seem to wear the official insignia of the Nigerian government especially because he has started telling them the truth about the Nigerian condition. But, it is expected, as Christ Himself says in Matthew 13:57, "A prophet is not without honour, save his own country and his own house." 

In retrospect, in March 1996 when the Nigerian artistic and literary community was agog with the explosion of a series of events to mark the tri-centenary and two score anniversary of the birth of Von Goethe (1749-1832), the German creative genius and great thinker of all times, the Sani Abacha-led military junta, despite its sadistic, base and tyrannical complexion, surpassingly accorded the celebration an official recognition while declaring Soyinka, the custodian of our artistic signature wanted, dead or alive. Given the authoritarian intolerance of the Buhari government and the President's implacable disdain for anything cerebral, no one actually expected less from them especially at a time when Soyinka is telling him to listen to the cries of the Igbo and the minorities in the country, and to heed to the call for the restructuring of this lopsided federation. Oscar Wilde, the great Victorian English epigrammatist, in a state of protracted gloom once observed that: "Formerly we used to canonize our heroes. The modern method is to vulgarize them. Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely detestable." Indeed, the brilliant Wilde cannot be faulted. But there is no more breeding ground for such critical vituperation than our current socio-political climate.