I hope Ohanaze Ndigbo are reading these.
"This nation called Nigeria shall be an estate to us from our great - grand father, Uthman Dan Fodio. We shall vigorously resist a change of power. We shall manipulate the minorities of the north, and we shall regard the South as a conquered territory."
--- Ahmadu Bello, Sultan of Sokoto,
Parrot Magazine Wednesday October 12, 1960.
"The conquest to the sea is now in sight. When our godsent Ahmadu Bello said some years ago that our conquest will reach the sea shores of Nigeria, some idiots in the South were doubting its possibilities. Today have we not reached the sea? Lagos is reached. It remains Port Harcourt. It must be conquered and taken after December 30,1964."
---- Mallam Bala Garuba West African Pilot December 30, 1964.
"In fact Gowon had already arrived at breakfast time at Ikeja barracks that morning of July 29th and was closeted with the leaders of the coup. By sundown it was plain that seizure and killing of Eastern Officers and soldiers was going on in Army barracks all over the West and the north. This pattern went on for three days; the coup leaders locked up in Ikeja barracks, with only Gowon shuttling between Ikeja and Lagos city; the flag of secession fluttering over the barracks while the awful killing of Eastern soldiers and civilians went on inside; and more killings going on elsewhere as the Army, last bastion of national unity, tore itself apart."
----- Frederick Forsyth, former BBC Correspondent and best selling author of "Emeka", a biography of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, Biafra's heroic leader, page 70, published July 1982.
"A formal declaration of the Northern Region's secession was narrowly averted Monday August 1, (1966) when Col. Gowon was elevated to power in Lagos. Lt. Col. Gowon had prepared a radio address proclaiming the North's intention to break away from Nigeria but was dissuaded by the Yorubas in the army. Appeals to Gowon for restraint from northern secession were also made by several ambassadors from Western nations, especially Britain. Although Gowon was dissuaded from the secession, he did declare that it seemed to him to be "no basis for Nigerian unity, which has been so badly rocked, not only once but several times."
---- New York Times August 3, 1966.
"The creation of the 12-states structure by Col. Gowon on May 27, 1967 was an act of expediency aimed primarily at completing their siege of Ndi-Igbo and frustrating their survival and struggle for Self-determination. It dismembered the Igbos as they were split into fragments and put into different non-Igbo states. Thus, there were
Ndi-Igbo of Portharcourt, Ahoada, Ikwerre/Etche divisions placed into Rivers State, Ndi-Igbo of Asaba, Aboh and Ika placed in the Mid-West, some other Ndi-Igbo from Azumini and Opobo put in Cross-river state. The rest of Ndi-Igbo were isolated and land-locked into East Central State. This act was calculated to paralyze Ndi-Igbo and incite our neighbors against us."
---- Ohaneze at Oputa Panel October 1999.
"The rigged elections of 1959, Federal elections of 1964 and regional elections of 1965; rigged and annulled census figures of 1962, 1963 and workers strike of 1964. The Western Regional crisis in which unpopular Premier Samuel Ladoke Akintola was undemocratically foisted on the Western Region, mainly Yorubas, by NPC-led Federal government with Tafawa Balewa as Prime Minister and Northern Premier Ahmadu Bello as sectional Party head behind this abuse of political power. Awolowo's incarceration in 1962 on treasonable charges and arbitrary use of the army against its constitutional role to slaughter over 3,000 Tiv ethnic minority in a civil agitation for regional autonomy from the Islamic north which was poised to maintain that hegemony; brazen corruption, nepotism and mismanagement etc led to the January 15, 1966 Coup-de-tat.
Yakubu Gowon, in conspiracy with other northern officers, murdered Major-General J.T.U. Aguiyi-Ironsi, his supreme military commander and Nigeria's head of state and government, former Commander of the United Nations Peace-Keeping Mission in Congo and first African to lead such mission, doing so creditably and excellently. Ironsi, a distinguished career military officer appointed Gowon as army chief. He attained his position by merit untainted by what later became Nigeria's endemic ethnic favouritism that spawned mediocrity and gross incompetence in governance. Yakubu Gowon was a conspiratorial partner to the mass killings of Easterners, particularly Igbos and Eastern Officers and military personnel throughout Nigeria,except the Eastern region, prior to and after the ethno-regional counter coup of July 29, 1966.
This genocide led by Gowon and cohorts totally employed the military might of the nation in personnel and equipment, in violation of the protective constitutional role of Nigerian citizens, in the gruesome slaughter of about 100,000 Nigerians of Eastern region extraction. Gowon usurped the powers and position of Commander in Chief of the armed forces and head of state devoid of consensus of regional military leaders, respectively that of Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu of the Eastern Region. He appointed himself over and above his superiors in utter disregard of military command structure and hierarchical order.
He dismantled the regional governments for a unitary structure for Ironsi's unitary system which unified only the civil service for efficient military command structure and effective administration. Yet Gowon and his group falsely claimed the reason for ousting Ironsi was because he promulgated decree 34 which unified the Nigerian government. In fact he went further to name the structure as federal even as the supposedly federating units were created by Gowon and his military cabal and the old regional units which retained some autonomy, lost them totally.
Gowon and partner in what later transformed into Africa's worst 20th century war crime of genocide, Obafemi Awolowo, finance and prime minister of war cabinet, usurped ownership and control of Oil resources of South-East and Mid-West Regions to prosecute the genocidal war that cost untold African lives by enforcing blockade against humanitarian aid, a violation of the Geneva Convention, and its consequent starvation of mainly women and children. Churches, schools, refugee centers, hospitals quartering internally displaced persons with aid agencies that risked flights into Biafra were indiscriminately strafed and bombed.
Gowon's slogan was: "To keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done" but Gowon in the course of what became a war of attrition, had given away a part of the South-East region, Bakassi, to neighboring Cameroun to hedge the Biafrans who only defended themselves from a cruel and wicked aggression fueled by sheer ethnic and unjustified hatred.
"the International Committee on the investigation of Crimes of genocide whose investigation included interview of 1,082 people representing the two sides of the conflict concluded thus through its investigator (Dr. Mensah of Ghana); "Finally, I am of the opinion that in many of the cases cited to me, hatred of the Biafrans and a wish to exterminate them was a foremost motivational factor." ---- Ohaneze's deposition at Oputa Panel --- Guardian Newspapers Thursday July 26, 2006.
",,,More than 150 Eastern Ibos slain in rioting in the Northern Region this week. More than 70 Ibos lost their lives in the tin-mining town of Jos when a mob of soldiers and civilians marched from one end of the town to the other looting burning and killing. Twenty five Ibos were killed in Bauchi, 30 in Kaduna and 500 were wounded this week alone. Work has halted at the giant Kainji dam site on the Niger river, where Italian construction workers report 13 Ibos slain and more than 40 hospitalized. There were no parades or public speeches today. Lt. Col. Gowon has proclaimed today a "day of national prayer." ..."Lieut. Col Ojukwu, the East's military governor, proclaimed that no political settlement "will be acceptable to the east without stoppage of these atrocious inhuman acts followed by reparations and compensation to those who have lost their families." ------- New York Times October 1, 1966.
"The Killings of civilians have not been confined to Iboland; the Efiks, Calabars, Ibibios and Ogonis have suffered heavily as the reports of their emissaries to Colonel Ojukwu describe. Nor was the killing process a flash in the pan, the first reaction of an army in grip of the heady elation of victory or vengeful bloom off defeat. The practice has been too standardized, too methodical for that." --- Frederick Forsyth, Former BBC Correspondent and Best-Seller in his book "The Biafra Story" pages 259 - 260. Published June 26, 1969. "At this time Biafra was already sheltering some four million refugees from other occupied areas, about one and a half million Ibos and two and a half million minorities."
---- Frederick Forsyth in "The Biafra Story" page 131 published June 26, 1969. " Hundreds of angry military pensioners in the country Monday besieged the Oyo State Secretariat saying they regretted fighting against Biafran soldiers to ensure the unity of the country. They said if they had known that the country would repay them in this wicked manner, they would have fought for the survival and sovereignty of Biafra. The retired soldiers who spoke through their chairman, Mr. Gabriel Oiakhena said, "we have been pushed to the wall. The families of over 500,000 soldiers who lost their lives in Biafra are suffering".
Written by
P. Oscar Iwuama,
Studied international Relations and diplomacy
At Anglo-American University Prague Czech Republic.
C. E. O, B & Arsco Ltd.
Websit: www.b-arsco.com
Twitter; @kas_cafe
No comments:
Post a Comment