Geopolitical zones in Nigeria serve their purpose, after all, Ekwueme was amongst those who campaigned for it, but tribal allegiances will always trump everything else.
Without prejudice to the fact that these regions were created by IBB one would wonder why Ekweme campaigned for it and got it but ended up watching while the so-called Igboids were being carved away from his own supposed SE into what you yourself call an artificial creation for unrelated tribes. Yet ignore Ekweme and accuse Edo of it. Can’t you see you are sick?

Don't come here to hide behind SS tag and claim to speak for a group you share nothing with. Even geopolitical zones are not recognized by Nigerian constitution, Abacha died before he could do that.
SS has come to stay. You can die in miserable envy. Even though we the SS people actually share a lot in common, our bond is beyond cultural similarities. How truly united are the Middle easterners with all their assumed cultural homeogeneity? Kanu and Uwazurike are fighting the same course yet are at loggerheads. In the 2014 confab the Ebonyi delegates refused to support the recognition of the current regions as federating units due to fear of being dominated by their own supposed brothers in the region. It is indeed a shame!

Yes! Ijaws alone couldn't have made GEJ the president, but they could have done with all the vote they could get, and a supposedly SS state giving 40% of her vote to GEJ bitter rival certainly didn't help their cause, especially when you factor in the fact that REAL SS states were all pulling over 70% of votes for the SS presidential candidate.
Even Ijaws themselves were becoming already disillusioned about GEJ’s presidency. Today the SS state which gave as much as 40℅ is vindicated as the government of the day has taken concrete steps to fundamentally address economic bondage which Ijaws have suffered unlike the son of the soil whose only concern was having his 8 years.

Well, there are many Biafrans of SS origin.

Who are Igbos to talk about GEJ presidency? Well I'd let GEJ answer that question: http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/jonathan-
igbos-remain-pillar-of-my-govt/160312/
Igbos support for GEJ was for their own calculations against future presidency in 2019 and not necessarily for the SS’ interest. Hear what a prominent Igbo man said in that gathering:
“Gary Igariwey, foreclosed the
possibility of an Igbo occupying the
presidency of the country by 2015, saying
Ndigbo could only aspire for the plum job
when President Goodluck Jonathan or any
other South-southerner would have served
out his eight-year unbroken rule.”
Again Jonathan knew that the Igbos are given to flattery hence he deployed it there. Hear a Northerner whose recently flattery Igbos fell for despite having been calling Northerners demons:
https://www.nairaland.com/3684559/azikiwe-nkrumah-hall-oldest-building-lincoln/2#54651221 Check page 2.

Those were Tamuno words and opinions, no matter how much you quote them, they don't turn to facts.
They remain facts no matter how much you reject them.

Post direct quote of interview where Zik threatened to forcefully coerce Western region into Nigeria, it's as simple as that. Stop beating round the Bush!
You have been shown where Zik allowed himself to enjoy British forceful back up against the freedom of other tribes. Why still asking for a quote? Are actions not supposed to be louder than words?

No, many Ijaw elements were not neutral in 1970, it was the height of Nigeria FG induced Igbophobia in Ijawland, following the abandoned property saga in 1970. No Nigerian tribe was neutral towards the Igbos in 1970.
Igbos prevention of Ijaw secession was a background to the Igbophobia. If Ojukwu had not stopped Boro, the FG would not have succeeded in “brainwashing” them. And don’t forget that the Igbophobia of Ijaws predated 1970 and founded on the Igbo oppression they suffered in the old Eastern Region.

So I demand a direct quote from Zik or this Tamuno opinion will be thrown into the trash as his opinion and nothing less or more.

For example, see a direct quote from Zik:

"In 1953 the NPC under the leadership
of my good friend, the late Sardauna, threatened
to secede from the federation unless their 6-point
proposals were adhered to. I had to use personal
diplomacy. We had been personal friends since
1940". ~ Zik.

Notice the use of diplomacy there.
That was the same time he relied on British threats to force AG into submission.
Show me a quote where he explained his use of diplomacy to dissuade the AG proponents of secession clause before I’ll accept that he truly believed in diplomacy.

Another dimension to this discussion. Not that it changes the fact that opposition of the secession clause doesn't equate to prevention of secession. But it's still important to note this angle.

Was NCNC an ethnic party? Were there no non Igbos like Yorubas and Eastern minorities in NCNC as of 1953-54?
I know that Mbu was not Igbo and that NCNC had many Yoruba henchmen those days.
Was the rejection of the secession clause an NCNC policy or an Igbo policy? Were Yoruba and other non Igbo members of NCNC not in support of the party policy on secession clause as articulated and argued by Zik.

Here is a direct quote from Zik:
"I have invited you to attend this caucus because I
would like you to make clear our stand on the
issue of secession. As a party, we would have
preferred Nigeria to remain intact, but lest there be
doubt as to our willingness to concede to any
shade of political opinion the right to determine its
policy, I am obliged to issue a solemn warning to
those who are goading the North towards
secession. If you agree with my views, then I hope
that in course of our deliberations tonight, you will
endorse them, to enable me to publicize them in
the Press.
In my opinion, the Northerners are perfectly
entitled
to consider whether or not they should secede from
the indissoluble union which nature has formed
between it and the South, but it would be
calamitous to the corporate existence of the North
should the clamour for secession prevail. I,
therefore, counsel Northern leaders to weigh the
advantages and disadvantages of secession before
embarking upon this dangerous course". ~ Zik


Notice the words Zik used, "AS A PARTY". He never said AS AN ETHNIC group. seeing as NCNC was a multiethnic group.
Were Yorubas majority in NCNC to have had the numbers to effectively oppose Zik’s and Igbos’ resistance to Secession? Anti-secession stance was an Igbo agenda which the Igbo dominated NCNC was found as a veritable tool to prosecute.

I fail to see how that quote said anything about using force to coerce Yorubas/ Edos into Nigerian project. That quote was talking more about freedom from the colonial powers.
You are simply over reaching again. I'm yet to verify parts of that post as your links are not opening. But it's known in history that Igbos are not expansionists and had never carried out large scale war of expansionism against neighboring groups.
Even despite seeing his use of the word “conquer” and the expression …….”will not shirk in her responsibility”? Ha ha!

More like they went into Coalition with a Military dictator government( let's not forget that), because they are confused treacherous fellows who are power hungry, and hence unstable.
That would explain why they went into Coalition with a Northern dictatorship.

Anyway. This is another myth busted. Before now, the news was that it was Biafran March to Ore that forced Edo and Yorubas to gang up with Gowon. But I had always maintained that Edos and Yorubas were with Gowon from day one,running after misguided vendetta and the lure of outsmarting the Khaki boys in future, and grab the number one power in Nigeria.

Little wonder someone committed suicide when it all fell apart. It must have hurt so bad.
And the Zik who first came into the UPGA, abandoned them again in it for the Arewa controlled NNA was stable and free of treachery? The truth is that Igbos can’t tolerate what they enjoy doing to others. When you pay them back in their own coin they term you a traitor. Which tribe have they not termed traitors in Nigeria? Even Donald Trump who did not enter into agreement with them over Biafra, they later termed a traitor when he appointed a Yoruba man into his cabinet. Igbos don’t know what defines an agreement. They assume that an appearance of similar objectives with others automatically translates to agreement to fight together. It was the same way they supported Akintola and the North when he appeared to share the same Anti-Awolowo sentiments with them only for them to later painfully realize that the objective behind Akintola’s resistance to Awolowo was actually aimed at dislodging Igbos from their alliance with the Arewa.
By the way one keeps wondering who ever went into any accord with them about the war or Aburi Accord to warrant the accusation of betrayal. Igbos are the real traitors in Nigeria and that is why nemesis is against them.
Of course the invasion of Ore was part of the whole thing. Despite having colluded with Arewa to persecute fellow southerners, they again invaded their territories without any negotiation or apology. Who would fold his arms and watch such aggressive and undiplomatic fellows?

I doubt if that much Igbos were in Ibadan as of then. I can't speak for Hausas. Either way, 10% of the vote is too much for a rival to get in the region of his rival, considering the ethno- regional politics of Nigeria. You can now imagine how outrageous that 40% Buhari got from Edo is.
This is once more coming after having earlier said that there were already many Igbos in the West hence their domination of NCNC. However history shows that even before 1900 Igbos were already scattered among other peoples in very large numbers. For example Zik was born in Zungerua, Nger State, Ojukwu too the same Zungeru, Michael Okpara – Keffi in todays Nassarawa; meaning that their parents had moved to settle in the North before amalgamation. On the contrary Awolowo and Enahoro were both born in their home towns of Ikenne and Uromi meaning their parents lived at home. So cut this crap of Igbos.
Considering the allegation that Buhari committed genocide on Igbos during the war, as narrated by the Igbos themelves, the 20% from Imo is more outrageous than Edo’s 40% where he did not kill a fly during the war.
Ojukwu was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but for your sake he chose to be poor and to die poor, he accepted being villified, he stuck his head out to fight for you people, despite being a brilliant Oxford University graduate who, in a Nigeria without a history of war, would have been a powerful political force to reckon with, his intellectual inferiors in the army became military presidents and also later became civilian presidents - a position he deserved more than them, yet he accepted all that humiliation and underachievement as worth the fight to free you people from the grip of one Nigeria. Ironically that man contested an election and right in his own region and among the very people for whom he suffered all these self denials and lost to a Yoruba man who represented the interest of the very Hausa-Fulani who chased him out of Nigeria and would have hanged him to death had they laid their hands on him. Unfortunately a misguided hypocrite here whose brothers gave as much as 20% to one of those who attempted to murder the man who so sacrificed himself for them is here having sleepless nights over Edo's for giving as much 60% and not 100% to a Jonathan who, though was from the SS; made no single sacrifice to fight the SS thus Edo battles, enriched and honoured with awards of Nation Building Accolades the very Hausa-Fulanis who killed his own brothers and other SS peoples and impoverished the SS including Edo lands with oil pollution continuously for decades; voted one-eight of an entire budget to develop a region of those who repeatedly committed Genocides against his own SS brothers of Odi, Ogoni, Gbaramatu and Oporoza, etc while people in Edo's and other SS states's oil producing communities continued schooling under trees, practically drinking crude oil as water, etc.
In fact there is no basis at all for comparison.
The 20% from Imo for Buhari remains far more outrageous than Edo's 40% considering the fact that Buhari has no genocidal records in Edo or any part of the SS while the SE accuses him of war crimes.

Lol! NPP strong holds were the North and East. Picking a Northern VP was a pragmatic approach. Moreover, which Yoruba man was ever going to leave Awolowo their cult hero and vote for Zik?
Are Yorubas like Igbos who in 2003 abandoned their own cult hero for a Yoruba man who had murdered them in thousands 30 years before then? If Igbos choose to be stupid and forgetful how is that supposed to be the fault of Yorubas?
NPP having strongholds in the North was a testimonial to the endurance of the Biafra-Arewa coalition from the first republic.

The coalition between NPP and NPN was formed after elections when NPN failed to capture Kano and Kaduna and so couldn't get the majority needed in the NASS to form the majority. It had to go into coalition with NPP, that finished third. And in the process had to concede the Speaker of house to NPP.
So yes, we had to pick the winner.
Ekweme was given over to Shagari by Zik before the election. It was not like the parliamentary system where alliances had to be made post-election. It was rather the presidential type in which alliances must be pre-election. So your aligning-with-the-winner theory above is bunkum.

AD was nothing but a regional ( Yoruba) party. So I don't know the ideology you speak of.
AD was a political metamorphosis of the NADECO group which fought military rule to a standstill. It was the only party to present a manifesto. Of course it appered regional in the eyes of Igbos because they never joined the fight against military rule but sided with Abacha in their usual gravitation toward Arewa. However Chukwuemeka Ezeife’s membership and Tanko Yusuf’s chairmanship of the party punctures your regionalism claim.
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/01/acnanppcpc-alliance-the-fear-of-1999/
Below was the AD’s manifesto https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/soc.culture.nigeria/fsr7Asg93zM
Show me PDP’s.

Why exactly should they boycott the election? In protest to what?
I thought it was you that said you had no stake in it since it was an all Yoruba affair?
No! You can't rig elections where there are many vested interests, it's hard to without chaos! You rig elections where you are popular or where the people don't care, as was in Igboland during OBJ vs Falae!
You have as well earlier on claimed that 2003 election was rigged in the Middle East. However, the fact that Ojukwu got rigged out (according to you) despite his popularity and the peoples’ care for him stands as a contradiction to your hypothesis above. Can you see how incoherent you are?
Talking of rigging for OBJ in Igbo land as of then would suggest that Igbos would have preferred to vote Falae ( thus a regional Yoruba party) if not for rigging. But the truth is that Igbos would never have voted for Falae. Rigging or no rigging they preferred OBJ being the face of the North.

It had nothing to do with principled resistance or whatsoever. Tinubu and co delivered SW to PDP in 2011 because of same voters apathy in SW in 2011 as had been in SE in 1999.
You are deluded. SW voted for GEJ in the belief that he, as someone from the region hardest hit by the faulty structure, would have no reason not to restructure. That was still more about principled and genuine issues-based voting as neither GEJ nor Sambo was Yoruba. But for Igbos, no matter the issue at stake, they would not vote if the joint ticket is totally devoid of the Igbo/Arewa component.

Lol! What analysis? You possess no analytical skill. You are incapable of analysis.

None of those people are chanting for the imprisonment of Biafrans and execution of Kanu. Neither are they cursing Biafra or looking for cheap blackmail built on lies to sell their one Nigerian project.
Neither are they condemning the FG for Kanu's detention nor visiting Kanu in prison as Kalu did.
Of course it takes a person with analytical skills to recognize another. Not with your incoherence and inconsistency here.
If those people were truly for Biafra they would not have in the first instance served in the one Nigeria government that has been killing Biafrans all these years.

I see, When Igbos vote themselves, they are questioned on why they didn't vote others and then tagged tribalistic.
And have Igbos ever actually voted themselves? Why others criticize them is that they were the first to allow themselves to be used by Arewa as spoilers against the South. They started this whole problem in 1959 when they aligned with the North against their supposed fellow Southerners. That was the genesis.

When they do vote others, they are tagged politically naive, slavish and incapable of uniting for common goals. Hehe! It's interesting how the rules are constantly being bent to cast the Igbos in the shadow of villains.
Whenever they vote for others then there is must be an Arewa attraction in it. Only GEJ’s time was the exception.

Treachery is claiming to abhor the North, only to embrace not even a democratic Northern government, but a military dictatorship and even went as far as becoming its mouth piece and brainbox. That's. Treachery.

Wrong! In line with their traditional preference of Middle Belt to the Core North they aligned with a Gowon and not a Hausa-Fulani. A military government headed by a Christian Middlebelter was obviously better for them than a democracy headed by A Hausa-Fulani islamist with an Igbo man as a junior slave partner ready to do dirty jobs.
Treachery is a violation of an allegiance established by a formal agreement. Awolowo had no formal agreement with the Igbos as to the war. The only informal agreement he had with Igbos was that against the background that he, unlike Ojukwu, did not have any single soldier under his command let alone a whole army, and coupled with the preponderance of Northern origin soldiers in his region, Ojukwu should give him two weeks to think thoroughly about the bargain. Ojukwu agreed only for him to declare Biafra just three days later without consulting Awolowo again. Who then was actually guilty of treachery?

Treachery is claiming to be a proponent of secession clause to make future secession easier, only to help a military dictator Marshall plans on how to entrench Unitarian government, dissolve the regional settings and create dysfunctional entities.
Treachery had already come from Ojukwu’s side through the invasion of the Midwestern and Western Regions against the earlier agreement that the leaders of the regions would be the ones to declare their own secession. Ojukwu’s invasion was preemptive and was itself treacherous of the earlier agreement. And forget not that the centralization of power started with Igbos through Ironsi’s military fiat against what was agreed in the 1957 London constitutional conference. That was itself another treachery on the part of Igbos. Ironsi centralized the civil service against the decentralized format earlier on agreed to by every region.

But he subscribed to use of violence in preserving his geographical entity. What is worst? Or is this still part of his vendetta against Zik?
Of course yes, because Zik was on the side of Biafra at the beginning. More importantly, however, that was the only option left for Awo to use in protecting his people. Thirdly he could not have sided with the Igbos (who jailed him and wished him dead) to fight against the Gowon who released him. That would have been ingratitude an an absurdity. Can you explain what yourself would have done differently if you were in his shoes at that moment?

Exactly, I was in no position to dictate for him. But I'm well in position to dissect, expose, analyze and judge his actions and character. And that is exactly what I'm doing.
You can expose and judge his character but you are not in a position to say whether Zik’s one-Nigeria thrust was motivated by an ulterior motive, right?
Mind you that Zik made that 1964 speech as member of the UPGA which was already calling for a break up due to the badly rigged censuses and elections by the NNA, but later abandoned the UPGA for the same NNA. If that was not treachery then what was it? And you think the other UPGA guys would have let a later opportunity to teach him a lesson in betrayal slip by? You wanted them to identify with Biafara project at a time they saw the same unstable Zik calling the shots in it? Why did Ojukwu allow Zik’s presence and even leadership role in the project despite knowing that those whom he was courting for support had suffered numerous betrayals in the hands of that very Zik?

There are many Professors today in many fields of human endeavour in Nigeria who despite the knowledge of hindsight still believes that Nigeria will work in the future.

Zik was not infallible.
Yu missed it totally. The focus here is not just on degree but the very course which Zik read – Anthropology- which deals with cultures and their evolutions. A core tenet of the course upholds that seeking to govern a highly diverse country with a strong centre and weak regions is unworkable and leads to bloodshed, and that holding together a diverse people against their will definitely lead to a clash of cultures and its attendant blood letting, yet Zik made himself an advocate of unitary system disguised as calls for “One-Nigeria”. He advocated for disregard of cultural differences and artificial and overnight breaking of cultural barriers against the very slow natural pace it ought to take. Is there any anthropologist you know today who, like Zik, believes that an overwhelmingly strong centre is better for Nigeria?

Not until you show me the part of Decree 8 that made mention of Gowon relinquishing power to the civilians.
Gowon did not really come to make new decrees but to repeal ironsi’s. He actually promised to return the country to democracy, and that does not need being said through any decree.
Aburi Accord contents were not decrees but resolutions supposedly discussed and analysed. So why should such be devoid of a concrete agreement on return to democracy?

Really? Yet Awolowo and Enahoro were willing to serve under a military dictator that ruled by decrees and not constitutions. How Ironic.
I don't remember Awolowo or Enahoro asking Gowon to resign before the war and hand over power to the civilians.
That is irrelevant. Gowon promised Awolowo and Enahoro a return to democracy but Ojukwu had already started grandstanding with “On Aburi ALONE we stand” meaning he was no longer open to review of the Accord which was obviously highly flawed in the eyes of Enahoro, Awolowo and a host of other stakeholders who were never consulted. Had he allowed for review and input by the politicians who were not initially carried along, there would have been a common ground acceptable to everyone.

And what military dictator ruled by another's decrees? of course he naturally had to repeal Ironsi decrees so as to to promulgate his. Only in your delusional mind do such translate to wanting to hand over to civilians.

Gowon Decree 8 was not about re democratization, it was about gaining total power, unshared, the like every dictator naturally wants.

Aburi ensured the power was shared and made future secession easier for all regions.
And if Gowon’s decrees were meant to unilaterally gain power just like every other military dictator, then what gives you the conviction that Aburi Accord, a new set of rules equally made by even more military dictators, could not also have been meant to place power unilaterally in the hands of the military establishment? Only in your hallucination was such an all-soldiers affair going to be in the interest of the democratic populace.

Trash! Neither Edo nor Yorubas had secession plans in the past, present or are they likely to have one in the nearest future.
Igbos never even believed there could ever be a reason for them to seek secession as they imagined that they would always be in charge of the British fraud. It was only when they lost hope of control of the fraud that secession occurred to them.

Boro- Ojukwu issue was a strictly Eastern region affair that had nothing to do with Edos or Yorubas. Ojukwu was the governor of Eastern region and was never going to allow any part of the region breakaway overnight without due consultations and probably a referendum.
And similarly Ojukwu-Gowon issue was a strictly Nigerian affair and therefore had everything to do with all other parts of Nigeria hence Gowon would rightly never allow any part of Nigeria to break away without a referendum which the Aburi Accord did not represent.

It was an Eastern region affair, it was into Eastern region he dragged Boro back and not into Nigeria it just so happened that Eastern region was part of Nigeria.
This is illogicality and madness of the highest order. You are becoming due for psychiatric hospital. Was the Eastern Region an independent country of its own?
Boro announced that he was breaking away from Nigeria and not from the Eastern Region. Ojukwu and Ironsi accused Boro of treason against the Nigerian Government and not against the Eastern Region, then they sent him to Lagos, Nigeria’s capital, for trial and not to the Eastern Region’s capital of Enugu. They had him sentenced to death by the Nigerian Supreme Court and not an Eastern Region’s court. So it was a wholly Nigeria’s affair.

Nowenuse:


It's really funny seeing Igbos accusing Yorubas and Edos on partnering with the north, when everyone knew they started romance with the core-north first.

they are hypocrites. Pure and simple! They are now crying blue murder over the game they started.
The most stupid aspect of this Igbos' pioneering role of partnering with the North in 1959 is that in the election proper only the Eastern Region made the record of rejecting the Hausa-Fulani party 100℅ as NPC scored zero there, i.e no single person voted for the party at all in Igbo land as against other regions where they managed to get just a few votes, yet Zik took them into into an alliance with NPC the party they had completely rejected at the polls and rather than condemn Zik's decision to align with NPC as non representative of their statement at the polls they sheepishly applauded him and began to rationalize it with theories of Zik's vengeance for Awolowo's cross carpeting game which was itself a big fat lie.
Very pathetic tribe!

pazienza:
5. Without prejudice to the fact that Igbos are
actually more unrelated to any SS ethnic group, I
can tell that you exude ignorance of the existence
of Edoid tribes like the Egenni, Epie etc in Rivers
and Bayelsa States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Engenni_people. https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/
weekly/index.php/notes-from-atlanta/13466-what-
s-really-president-goodluck-jonathan-s-ethnic-
group

Lol! What do you know? Those languages are classified Edoid, it doesn't mean they have anything to do with Edo. The language is not mutually intelligible to Edo, neither do the people consider themselves Edoid. Igala is also classified Yoruboid, so what?
Even Igbanke in Edo is fighting to leave you lots and join Anioma, who wants to be associated with expansionists? Ehkwa! Lol

Why then do they agree that they all originated from Benin and moved outwards over the years?
If you understood Igalla you would have known that the language captures a lot of Yoruba words.