Tuesday, 20 August 2013

In Response To Femi Fani Kayode's Brazenly 'True B...

News: In Response To Femi Fani Kayode's Brazenly 'True B...: By Chukwudi OHIRI The polity, in the last couple of weeks has been inundated with a shameful debate, argument and co...

In Response To Femi Fani Kayode's Brazenly 'True Bitterness Against The Igbos'




By Chukwudi OHIRI


The polity, in the last couple of weeks has been inundated with a shameful debate, argument and counter arguments over Femi Fani Kayode’s open hate-infested piece that amounts to nothing but a biased and poorly edited account of the Nigerian History vis-à-vis the Igbo people. It is rather very unfortunate that a man of his calibre can throw out such virulent venom in the name of seeking political relevance among his people at a time the Igbos are trying hard to bury the hatchet and forge ahead under one united Nigeria.
I salute the courage of many well meaning Igbos who, rather than join in a baseless altercation with Fani Kayode who, considering the tone of his piece and other subsequent rejoinders, is evidently an intransigent tribalist, distorting history to suit his whims and caprices. In fact, his last piece titled, ‘A Word For Those That Call Me A Tribalist’ finally betrayed his idiosyncrasy and irresponsible personality when he publicly disclosed his personal private illicit affairs with some of his ex concubines or girl friends just to prove a useless and incoherent point. This alone smacks of gross puerileness in his character and deserves the snub he got on his infantile piece because, silence they say, is the best answer to a fool. The same piece also clearly depicted him as an attention-seeker when he lamented that nobody has put up a reasonable argument to refute or discredit his lies-infested message. However, he raised a very vital point which is that “The message is already out there and the genie is already out of the bottle”. Our children born and yet unborn may stumble into these imprecise and lethal accounts and believe them to be the true history. This is precisely why I think a few of his submissions need to be straightened for posterity sake.
Firstly, it will be very instructive to note that Femi Fani Kayode’s poison came at a time the Igbos and well meaning Nigerians across tribes and cultures were questioning the atrocious act of the Lagos State government who reportedly deported bonafide Nigerians from Lagos State to, be it Anambra, Ibadan, Osun, the North or any other part of the country. The Lagos State government that Fani Kayode is holding brief for has even owned up through its spokes persons that there was a fundamental error in the way and manner the supposed ‘rehabilitation’ was carried out. The blames were left at the doorstep of officials and agents who did not complete the assignment in the right way by dumping these people at an ungodly hour in an ungodly place. The Anambra State government also took a fair share of the blame for not responding responsibly to correspondences from the Lagos State government. In all, the act was roundly condemned by a respectable and more legitimate son of Yoruba land in the person of Femi Falana (SAN), a well revered Human Rights Activist. His condemnation of the act knows no boundary as it was holistic, whether perpetrated by Lagos, Anambra, Abia or any other state for that matter. His words: “Accordingly, the forceful removal of beggars from their chosen abode and repatriation to their states of origin is illegal and unconstitutional as they violate the fundamental rights of such citizens enshrined in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended. In particular, deportation is an affront to the human rights of the beggars to dignity of their persons (Section 34); personal liberty (Section 35); freedom of movement (Section 41); and right of residence in any part of Nigeria (Section 43)”. It still beats the imagination of many, how this simple and straightforward issue degenerated into digging up and distorting history to implant deep seated hatred among tribes. Only an ethnic bigot like Fani Kayode could have done this.
For the records, FFK alleged and I quote: “It is amazing how one or two of the numerous nationalities that make up Nigeria secretly wish that they were Yoruba and consistently  lay  claim  to  Lagos as being partly theirs. This is contradictory to his position that the Igbos have a domineering attitude otherwise how could the same people wish they were other tribes other than theirs. No Igbo man, no matter how long he or she has lived in another land would wish to be of that tribe, let alone being a Yoruba (with a negative toga of hooliganism, covetousness, Saboteur tendency, laziness and other vices hanging around their personality). For clarity and in all modesty, these allegations may be products of over-generalization and should not be considered as factual.
Again, the Igbos have never said they are the owners of the Lagos as maliciously claimed by FFK. Instead, what they tend to say is: “Live and let live. We are equally stakeholders in the land in view of our contribution to the development of the state as well as our personal huge investments that evidently litter every where in Lagos”. It is a deliberate mispresentation to say that Igbos covet the Yoruba land.
FFK shot himself in the leg when he, in the concluding paragraph of his ‘barrage of lies’ referred to Lagos State as “a melting pot where equal opportunities are available to all”. If this assertion is taken for its contextual meaning, it then implies that he concedes to himself that Lagos State is not the patrimony of the Yoruba even when nobody is contesting the fact. FFK is also stating the obvious that Lagos was the federal capital developed by federal wealth and individual acquisitions of all Nigerians including, but not limited to Igbos.
Another issue raised by FFK is that “the Yoruba, more than any other nationality in this country in the last 100 years, have been far too accommodating and tolerant when it comes to their relationship with other nationalities in this country and this is often done to their own detriment”. While not questioning the veracity of that contentious claim, it will interest all to know that hospitality is part and parcel of the Igbo customs as it is regarded as a taboo to treat your visitors badly. Non-Igbos who have travelled to the East can attest to this, especially Youth Corpers. The real issue here is that unlike the Igbos, the Yorubas are not the travelling type as not many of them live and work in the Eastern part of the country. It is only when you travel out and you are treated badly that you can actually begin to make comparison. Yet, there is no single reported case of Igbos stopping any Yoruba from doing what they (Igbos) are allowed to do in Yoruba land. The statement”… we have allowed them to do in our land and our territory what they have never allowed us to do in theirs” therefore does not hold water.
FFK in his infamous treatise referred to Igbos as “…those who never had any history at all and who never even had monarchs or structured, properly-organised hierachial societies that placed value on tradition and culture”. Unfortunately, he ended up exposing his ignorance and naivety by this calumnious assertion. It was obvious that he never had a single dose of history in his academic pursuit, yet he may claim to be a (half-baked) Lawyer since lawyers are great Historians.
The Igbos indeed have a history just as rich as the Yorubas. In governance, Pre-colonial Igbo political organization was based on communities, devoid of kings or governing chiefs. The development of a heterarchical society, as opposed to a hetriarchical society, marks Igbo development as sharply divergent from political trends in pre-colonial West Africa. With the exception of Igbo towns such as Onitsha, which had kings called Obis, and places like Nri and Arochukwu, which had priest kings known as Ezes, most Igbo village governments were ruled solely by an assembly of the common people. The Igbos had a more advanced political system and that is why their societies are seen as acephalous, Democratic, Republican and above all, egalitarian. This is far more advanced than monarchy as evidenced by modern political trends. This may still sound controversial, but just believe what you can.
 In his jaundiced judgement, Fani Kayode alleged again that “it is that same (domineering) attitude that they manifested in Lagos and the Western Region in the late ’30s and the early and mid-40s that alienated the Yoruba from them, that led to the establishment of the Action Group in April, 1951 and that resulted in the narrow defeat of Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe in the Western Regional elections of December, 1951”.  As was later revealed by a man of no mean repute in Nigeria’s historiography, Dr. Mbu clearly stated that the September 1951 election was won by NCNC in the western region. His was "Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was betrayed by the Western Region of Nigeria, not by the electorate, but by the leaders. The NCNC won the election against the Action Group (led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo), but the Action Group introduced what was unknown to Nigerian history", namely, "carpet crossing. They Action Group bought members of the NCNC to join the Action Group after these people had won election on the platform of the NCNC. Zik, the leader of a majority party in the Western Region became the Leader of Opposition overnight". In his own account, late Dr. K. O. Mbadiwe disclosed in his autobiography, ‘Rebirth Of A Nation’, that: "But in pursuance of the policy of creating a political climate healthy enough to make one a citizen wherever he lived, Dr. Azikiwe contested and won the general elections in 1951 into the Western House of Assembly. To stultify this policy of one Nigeria in favour of his tribally-based philosophy, Chief Awolowo got some elected members to cross carpet from the NCNC to his AG side. Zik the victor lost. And Awolowo's party was able to form the government of the Western Region." This was the major first case of betrayal and ethnic chauvinism in Nigerian politics. In spite of this, NCNC continued to win substantial number of seats in the West against the AG. In fact, Lagos had five seats in the West Regional Assembly all won by the NCNC in the election of 20 November 1951.
The point being buttressed here is that contrary to FFK’s claim that ethnic politics and Southern disunity was introduced by the Easterners, it was actually the Westerners who started and have maintained this status quo till date and have even gone as far as encouraging the Easterners to adopt the same methodology as a potent panacea to their present political doldrums and frustration in Nigeria.
Another point raised by FFK to prove the magnanimity of the Yorubas towards the Igbos is that Herbert Macaulay “saw no tribe and he happily handed the leadership of the party over to Azikiwe, an Igbo man, in 1945 when he was on his dying bed.” Firstly, the truth is that NCNC was co-founded by Herbert Macaulay and Dr Azikiwe. Every history book has this unbiased fact. It was only natural that as co-founder, the death of one of the principal partners would confer power to the next living partner as anything to the contrary would have been an aberration.
Somebody should educate FFK on the history and culture of the Igbo people (which he for the first time honestly said he does not know of), especially on the aspect that dogmatically explains how guests are treated. Igbos have an unwritten custom which forbids them to give up their guest, for whatever reason to an adversary. Even when the guest is guilty of the crime he is accused of, it is a taboo to hand over a refugee, visitor, guest to even his parents for punishment unless the said person leaves on his or her own. A typical example is that if a little child commits an offence and in the course being punished, he or she runs to even a younger person for refuge, the elder chasing the person must, as a custom, desist from touching the offending child until when the child is no longer in the custody of his little host. This elementary analogy is in response to FFK’s question: “Would Aguiyi-Ironsi, or any other Igbo officer, have stood for Fajuyi, or any other Yoruba officer, and sacrificed his life for him in the same way that Fajuyi did had the roles been reversed”? Unfortunately, there are no known case scenarios (that I can remember) where an Igbo man had to sacrifice his life for the Northerner or Yoruba and he fails. Moreover, if Fajuyi had not been killed before Ironsi, history would have taken another twist. Who knows if the Igbos would not have alleged a Yoruba conspiracy in the death of Ironsi.  
I want to believe that FFK is not expecting any response to his flimsy and unwarranted introduction of certain notable Yorubas as Nigeria’s firsts in their various fields of endeavour. While noting that the issue of Sapara and Nathaniel King introduced by FFK sounds like the submission of someone who suddenly stumbled into a public fact that he never knew of for ages and ignorantly believes he has made a novel discovery. This is quite debasing for someone of his status and so I cannot join him in the foray of listing notable Igbo ‘Firsts’. It might however interest him to here just this: While, as he claims, Yorubas “were (and still are) major industrialists and investors, “Sir Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu (father of Emeka Ojukwu) was the first and founding President of The Nigerian Stock Exchange, the goose that laid the egg of Yoruba investment portfolio.
The claim that Igbos generate 55% of revenue accruing to Lagos State (which FFK feels slighted by) is an empirical claim that hardly requires any scientific proof. It is as clear as crystal and even the government of the day have never downplayed the contribution of the Igbos to the economy of Lagos. FFK may need to drive round major markets and business concerns that pay taxes in Lagos to ascertain for himself, the veracity of Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu’s claims. In some quarters, the 55% claim is often seen as an understatement. The Igbos do show pride in this feat, but are rather humbled that God, the giver of wealth and riches, is with them.
Fani Kayode shamelessly brought up the issue of Igbo abandoned property, lost jobs and accommodation in Lagos State as mark of Yoruba generosity. If they were magnanimous enough as he so claims why did it have to take resilient legal battles and litigations for the like of Chief Emeka Ojukwu to reclaim his father’s property in Lagos almost 30 years after the war? Many other Igbos totally lost their properties till date and if anyone recovered anything, it was just as much as was recovered elsewhere in the country. Note also that at the end of the war, Gowon declared ‘No Victor, no Vanquished’ encouraging the Igbos to return to their bases (though not guaranteeing reinstatement). Lagos, being the federal capital territory and the major commercial centre of Nigeria easily attracted the hardworking Igbos to return to commence their commercial ventures.
FFK failed to educate his gullible audience that it was Awolowo (whom Ojukwu unconditionally released from prison in Calabar) that brought the blueprint that ensured the decimation of the Igbos during the war. He perhaps, also forgot to include in his malicious article that Awolowo was solely instrumental to the starvation policy, 20 Pounds policy and numerous other anti-Igbo policies of the war and post war era. Giving full details of this and many more that are already in public domain will amount to falling victim of creating the same heinous animosity the world has condemned Fani Kayode for. However, attributing Awolowo’s hideous conspiracy to aid and abate the annihilation of Ndigbo will be out rightly an unfair sentencing of the Yoruba tribe as not all agreed with his (Awo’s) conspiracy. Many informed Yorubas have this opinion too.
In any case, Igbos have never been treated fairly since after the war as already alluded to by FFK so saying that the Yoruba treated the Igbos better is fallacious. Again, I need not prove, to avoid unnecessary arousal of negative sentiments.
The twelfth point raised by FFK which appears true to the point of political propaganda is that “people of the old Mid-West and the Eastern minorities (who make up the zone that is collectively known as the ‘’South-south’ today) have always viewed them with suspicion, have always feared them and have always resented them deeply”. My question is: “who is not suspicious of the Igbos in Nigeria?” The fact that Igbos are very enterprising people just like the Jews, United States and other advancement-conscious people is enough reason for anyone to fear domination. That they feared domination does not mean that they did not and cannot trust the Igbos.
The ‘minority’ question predates Nigeria’s independence and it was not peculiar to the Igbos alone. In fact, it was prevalent in all the three major regions leading to the agitation for the creation of more regions or states such as Rivers State, Midwest State, and Calabar, Ogoja, Rivers (COR) State. Just as the Eastern minorities feared the Igbo majority, the Midwestern minorities also had the same resentment and fear of domination against the Yoruba majority in the Western region despite having very strong cultural affinities with them. Which one is worse? Whereas these fears were only natural in any dealing between two heterogeneous groups, it remains to be proven that the Igbos actually maltreated the minorities. In fact, Ojukwus second in command was Philip Effiong, a minority.
FFK in his 13th point deliberately distorted History by listing names of those who led the January 15, 1966 coup and edited the names of non-Igbos. Any naïve person reading this portion of the article will go home with a ferocious mindset about the Igbos. For the sake of straightening the mispresentated records, apart from those names mentioned in the piece, Captain Adeleke, Lt. Fola Oyewole, Brig. Victor Banjo, Lt Fola Olafimiha, Col. Ejoor, Maj. Alale and of course, Maj. Ademoyega were among the leaders. These names may not be at the highest echelon of the coup plot but are part and parcel of core plotters. Any account that omits these names has an underlying ulterior motive of inciting hatred and misleading the readers and the future generation by terming the coup, an Igbo coup. This allegation had been long debated and even well meaning northerners and Yorubas know the truth. It was a mere coincidence that Igbos, by virtue of their military positions in the army and of course their common affiliations that Igbos were more prominent and at the top.   
FFK cannot claim he is ignorant of a certain document popularly called ‘Ifeajuna’s manuscript’ that was stumbled into by the federal forces during the capture of Enugu which explicitly revealed the intentions of the January 15, 1966 coup plotters to hand over power to Chief Awolowo, one of the politicians trusted by the ‘boys’. If it were an Igbo coup, could they have thought of handing over to a ‘respectable’ Yoruba man afterwards? If it were an Igbo coup, why did Ojukwu refuse to and personally aided the foiling of the coup with Ironsi another Igbo man who was the GOC? Historians, political scientists and well meaning Nigerians have in later years adjudged the Nzeogwu/Ifeajuna coup as well intended, though a monumental miscalculation based on the final coincidental colouration it took.
Another point, which might be inimical to the growing synergy between the core Igbos and the Delta/Anioma Igbos is that the so called Igbos in the picture were mostly from the minority Igbos of the former Eastern Region. Col Animam Keshi, one of senior officers who was on ground at the January 1966 coup, but allegedly did not participate expounded on this based on his personal encounter with Nzeogwu. The piece titled ‘Stop Blaming Igbos Of The South East Nigeria For The 1966 Coup And Civil War. Anioma Igbos And Their Yoruba Coup Plotters Friends Started The War’ drew a line between the so called Igbos who were part of the plot and the core Igbos giving further insight on those who actually led the plot. In the piece, he inferred that the Igbos were drawn into the war in defense of their minority brothers whom they, till today regard as pure Igbos. Nzeogwu, Ifeajuna, Chukwuka, Nwawo, Iweze, Okwechime, Okonkwo, Igboba, Trimnell, Nzefili who were at the top echelon of the coup plot were all Anioma Igbos. For Keshi, the Core Igbos suffered brutally and are still suffering for the crimes of the non-core Igbos. In spite of this, core Igbos still see these people as Igbos all the same and have no regrets whatsoever calling them Igbos even when some of them tend to dissociate themselves the Igbo people and the Yoruba seem to claim them.
On the issue of selective killings that spared the lives of Igbos, especially Dr. Azikiwe and M. I Okpara, the history books written by unbiased authors have it that for yet inexplicable reasons, Zik was not in the country. There was a, though laughable myth around the person of Zik of Africa that he was invincible. This is a well known legend among the Igbos to the point that he was believed (until recently) to have the ‘keys to the River Niger’ and could unlock it at the slightest provocation. Ironsi had this type of myth about his personal crocodile staff around him too. Like I said, this is preposterous, but the point is that those insisting that Zik ought to have been killed forget that the Yoruba equivalent of Zik was Awolowo who had treason charges hanging on him at that time  and was supposed to be equally killed. Perhaps, because of the integrity of these 3 people mentioned amidst the overarching allegation of a corrupt political class, their lives were (overtly or covertly spared). Hassan Katsina and M.I. Okpara were both arrested but freely released because, like Zik, Balewa (who was only killed as an afterthought when the coup apparently headed for failure), no serious allegations of corruption were leveled against them. Ironsi was actually penciled down for killing, but he was tipped off by Adjutant General James Pam (who had to pay for it with his life), yet he did not run away, but faced the coupists and subdued them. His name appearing in the list of those to be killed was not for corruption charges, but his strategic position in the military. In fact, it is on record that despite serving in the military for 25 years, holding strategic office in the United Nations Peace mission in Congo, being the GOC and then Head of State with unfettered access to national coffers, 18, 500 Pounds debt overhang was on him at death depicting his as a less corrupt officer.
Having said this much, it is not controvertible that the Nzeogwu Coup (not Igbo Coup) was a generally welcomed revolution among the ranks of the Nigerian army. Both Northerners and the Southerners were actively involved in the killings (at least this much has never been denied), but the South, nay Igbos provided the requisite leadership by dint of their position and especially, the burning passion for a greater Nigeria. Every unfortunate coincidence that tended to change the real motive being capitalized on by tribal extremists who do not want the country to move forward were never premeditated. Later revelations have proved this to be true. 
Fani Kayode alleged that the Igbos were the first to stage a foiled coup in the country, but he forgot that the first coup ever in the history of Nigeria was that plotted by Awolowo for which he was jailed as early as 1962. Rather than seeing this as power-seeking, he cleverly pushed that to the Igbos as seeking to dominate Nigeria. In any case, even if the Igbos were and or are seeking to dominate the political landscape of Nigeria, it is evidently not for selfish reasons, but to turn the tides of years of maladministration deliberately unleashed on the country by the British  overlords (post independence era) in other to guarantee the continued servicing of their interests in Nigeria. FFK cannot deny the knowledge of this as our History books are replete with this assertion that the British were never comfortable with handing over power to the more enlightened South apparently to forestall early (if at all) liberation from their imperialist clouts. Suffice it to say more bluntly and with pride at this point that the Igbos have not given up on feeling the leadership lacuna that is still eluding this ‘great’ country since over 50 years of independence. If this is seen as a domineering attitude, then so be it because, more than any other tribe, the Igbos indubitably have sacrificed so much for this country and it is really painful to continue to watch it snowball into extinction.
“At Gun Point”, that was how Fani Kayode described the ascension to power of Gen. Aguiyi Ironsi after the botched coup, but he forgot that had Ironsi not acceded to power, there was an concluded arrangement to invite both the British and the American military to intervene as the country was in total chaos. Perhaps the history of Nigeria would have taken another twist if that had happened. Interestingly, FFK mentioned the names of 3 prominent Nigerians who were privy to the meeting that led to the emergence of Ironsi to power. He deliberately refused to inform Nigerians that Alhaji Shehu Shagari had long dispelled this erroneous insinuation that Ironsi forced them to hand over to him in an interview with a national daily years back. Ex-President in the interview was quoted to have said; “indeed he (Ironsi) confessed his personal reluctance to take over because of his ignorance of government, but insisted the boys were adamant” which implies that he was clearly doing the bidding of ‘the boys’ who, not only believed in his neutrality, but expected him to rescue the country from chaos as the GOC rather than invite foreigners who left barely few years ago. The language of the military has always been ‘force’ even when milk of human kindness is flowing under their sleeves. Perhaps, this accounted for why Ironsi, after being pressured had to say (in military language) that they (the remnants of Balewa’s cabine) “either hand over as gentlemen or hand over by force”.  It would have been foolhardiness to hand over to civilians when the polity was still very hot with lots of apprehensions in the air. Indeed, as FFK had put it, he could not guarantee their safety as the boys were on rampage and ready to revolt again if he rejected the political power. Everyone knows that the (ironsi’s) delay in decisively dealing with the coup plotters finally led to mistrust and subsequent counter coup. Ironsi meant well for the country. His search for the elusive unity cost him his life. Zik lost his pride of place among the Igbos because he cherished the unity of this country and Africa as a whole to the detriment of his people.
Again, FFK deliberately lied when he said Igbos drew the first blood during the January 1966 coup. In fact he made his preys believe that the reprisals by the Northerners marked the beginning of the wanton killing of Igbos in the North. He forgot that ever before the 1966 events, over 200 Igbos were killed in Kano in 1945. In 1953, anti-Ibo riots broke out in the north in protest of Ibo domination of social, political, business and military institutions. Ibos were hunted down and attacked in Kano, 245 were injured and more than 152 were killed. There was also another round of killings in Jos in 1945 and Kano genocide of 1953. By 1966, the figure jumped to an estimated 50,000 and continued until after the war.
Prior to the war, Igbos never considered any form of revenge even when provocative words were used by notable Northerners to malign the Igbos. Some authors have written this and are quoted copiously here. In 1953, when Independence loomed, Ahmadu Bello, the founder of Gamji said: "We cannot fight to dispense of white masters only to be ruled by new black masters called Ibo. Even here in the North, they run the post offices, railways, civil service and they have taken up all the shops we create. Call them Ibo, but you can also call them Zionists, but we shall not relinquish the estate of our fathers to such wretched people who have never had an administration before." Source: 1968: the year that shook the world, by Walter Schultz.
In 1964, Major Gibson Jalo, after downing a bottle or two at the Kachia Barracks mess, moaned: "we are captives to these Ibos. We can never enjoy our new nation until we chase every single Ibo man out the North." Source: The five majors. In 1967, Inuwa Wada, addressing Northern leaders in Luggard Hall, Kaduna, cried: "For long, we had cried that these vermins, Ibo, must be removed from our soil. Now we have seen the result of our negligence. A new opportunity of reducing the population is here (the war)." Source: Last days of Biafra, by A. Madiebo. Please, note that these quotes copied verbatim from another article on the subject matter si not in any way meant to incite any bitterness, but to straighten the records satanically tilted by FFK.
The anti Igbo sentiments that followed the first foiled coup, according to former President Ibrahim Babangida, IBB in an interview with a national daily was strictly a Northern elitist propaganda deployed at that time to win the sentiments of the northerners as a prelude to the counter coup, and it really worked. IBB himself confessed to this: Twenty-four years later, Babangida speaking to Newswatch on January 8, 1990 Interview said that January 15 (so called Igbo coup) “was not an Igbo based thing as far as I could imagine but the execution of the coup was poorly done and made people to think that it was one sided. I could recall Nzeogwu saying that some chaps in the south let him down because they had not been able to carry out the instruction the way he wanted them."
Quoting verbatim from ‘The inside Story of Nigeria’s First Military coup’ by Max Siollun, 2005, “Nzeogwu later described the detachment of troops accompanying him to (Ahmadu) Bello’s house as “a truly Nigerian gathering” (new Nigerian—18th January, 1966). Nzeogwu pointed out that the northern soldiers accompanying him “had the chance to drop out. More than that, they had bullets. They had been issued with bullets, but I was unarmed. It they disagreed, they could have shot me…most of the other ranks were northerners, but they followed”. Atom Kpera, who later became the military governor of Benue State, was among the soldiers who executed Bello with Nzeogwu. In Lagos, a larger chunk of those who helped Ifeajuna abduct Tafawa Balewa were northerners who sincerely believed in the revolution. Why would FFK resurrect this long resolved issue at a time the nation is seriously in search of an elusive and most desired peace in the country and the powers that be are not reprimanding him officially?
In conclusion, it may sound fallacious, but with an embedded truth: Ojukwu revolted because of perceived injustice against the Yoruba when he refused to recognize Gowon as Head Of State, insisting that Brig Gen Ogundipe (a Yoruba) should take over since he was the highest ranking officer as at that time. In essence, he fought for the Yoruba, secession bid was simply an aftermath. Again, the first so called “Igbo Coup” was a fight for the Yoruba since Awolowo was to be the direct beneficiary if it had succeeded. I am sure FFK knows more than these before his venomous vituperations ever went to press, but deliberately chose to hide it for self-glory that he will never get, even from his fellow Yoruba.

(Chukwudi Ohiri is Public affairs analyst, a social critic and non-violent social crusader based in Lagos).
Contact: 07052415807)