Humblebloke:


he was a tribal bigot...

geoinvestor:
This question is very complicating because there are so many Nigerians who have done great things for this country and are very successful.

The greatest South-African is unarguably Nelson Mandela and the greatest Indian ever is Mahatma Ghandi. Who do you think is the greatest Nigerian ever?

Notable mention :

* Nnamdi Azikiwe
* Chinua Achebe
*Aliko Dangote
*Fela
*Wole Soyinka
*Olusegun Obasanjo
*Ojukwu
*Oba Esigie
*Obafemi Awolowo e.t.c

CSTR2:

Awolowo was a tribal bigot who ushered in tribalism into Nigerian politics.

Yet his name is on our naira notes and we have a federal university named after him.

CSTR2:

Awolowo was a tribal bigot who ushered in tribalism into Nigerian politics.

Yet his name is on our naira notes and we have a federal university named after him.

Deadlytruth:


That should have been more evidence that he wasn't actually a tribal bigot.
Zik actually introduced tribalism into our politics as far back as 1938 when he resigned his membership of NYM because he felt his preferred Ijebu candidate who lost was hated by the Ijebus who voted in that election.
The same Zik would, after the Western Region Assembly election, read tribal sentiments into his loss of that election with the falsehood that Awolowo used carpet crossing founded on tribal sentiments to change the results of an election which he (Zik) had won. How can an individual change the results officially released by an electoral body without having been to court? In actual fact Zik lost the election by a wide margin which would not have been closed even without carpet crossing. If you want the details of the election I will give you here.

Zik also was the first national figure to utter a tribal slur. That was in 1949 when he said that the god of Igbos had destined them to lead other Nigerians and the entire Africa to Utopia. This was before the Western Region saga.
Another Igbo man had in 1945 declared that it had become obvious that the domination of Nigeria by Igbos was just a question of time.
Again, a football match was once held between a Western Region secondary school and another one from the Eastern Region which ended up winning the match. Azikiwe wrote an article in the papers the next day ascribing the victory of the Eastern Region school to their Igboness rather than skills.
All these were before the Western Region saga.

In addition, while other tribal associations allowed their members to join any political party of their personal choices, Zik as the president of Igbo Union made it compulsory for all Igbos to join NCNC or face ostracism.

He was preaching "One-Nigeria" and asking that we ignore tribalism but at the same time refused to resign his position as national president of Igbo State Union.
Was that a genuine nationalist or a pretentious tribal bigot?

geoinvestor:
This question is very complicating because there are so many Nigerians who have done great things for this country and are very successful.

The greatest South-African is unarguably Nelson Mandela and the greatest Indian ever is Mahatma Ghandi. Who do you think is the greatest Nigerian ever?

Notable mention :

* Nnamdi Azikiwe
* Chinua Achebe
*Aliko Dangote
*Fela
*Wole Soyinka
*Olusegun Obasanjo
*Ojukwu
*Oba Esigie
*Obafemi Awolowo e.t.c

CSTR2:

You are not serious .

I will never take anybody that support a man that made statements like '' Yorubas should vote for yorubas'' serious.

Zik that was reponsible for one divisible Nigeria is who you referred to as a tribalist?. The zik of africa.?

So all the tribalsits were igbo and none were yoruba?


You are a joke and a bigot. To think i was even taking you seriously when you agreed with me that Chinua was not a true Nigerian at heart.

I didn't know you were speaking from a position of bigotry.

Deadlytruth:


There was never a time when Awolowo said Yorubas should vote for Yorubas. The only Yoruba man who pursued a Yoruba agenda was Akintola, and he was Awolowo's enemy but an associate of Zik together with FFK's father - Faani Power.

You are shallow in thinking.
Zik actually wanted an indivisible Nigeria in order to fulfill his dream and agenda of Igbo domination.
Zik read Anthropology from a prestigious university in Pennsylvania and lectured in it for some time before returning to Nigeria to resume politics. He learned it in his course content that a multi-ethnic society like Nigeria is best governed by a loose constitution - meaning such constitution should make provision for divisibility in order to instill in all its future leaders the fear of the consequences of misgovernance. But Zik kicked against a loose constitution and favoured a very tight one with a strong centre under which there will be no divisibility. In fact it was he who first used the expression that "the unity of Nigeria is non-negotiable". For an Anthropologist to return to his own home country and start preaching the direct opposite of the structure which the principles of his discipline told him was the only way to Nigeria's greatness means he was not sincerely committed to seeing a truly united and equitable Nigeria but was nursing a hidden agenda for his own tribe, hence a tribal bigot.
If he was sincere why was he preaching One-Nigeria in defiance of what he read in his course of study?

Sure, there were tribalists among all tribes but that doesn't change the fact that Igbos were the first to make and promote tribally divisive utterances before every other tribe followed suit in self defense.
Even till today it is evident that Igbos make the most tribal hate-filled speeches both online and offline.

For Chinua Achebe, he held a ministerial portfolio in the oppressive Balewa-Zik-Okotie Eboh coalition government, and while that government was killing Tivs, Yorubas, Okrikas, etc, he did not resign. It was only when Igbos too started being killed that it suddenly dawned on him that sensible persons should not hold portfolios in a killer government. Can such a person be described as a genuine Nigerian patriot?

RedboneSmith:


So many inaccuracies in one post. So many.

Awolowo had a pro-Yoruba agenda. To deny that is to be dishonest. I don't hate him for that though. Watching out for your own people's interests is not a bad thing.

Chinua Achebe was not a minister in the Balewa Government. Where did you even get that from? He was working with Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation at the time. As a civil servant he couldn't hold or stand for political office at the time.

RedboneSmith:


So many inaccuracies in one post. So many.

Awolowo had a pro-Yoruba agenda. To deny that is to be dishonest. I don't hate him for that though. Watching out for your own people's interests is not a bad thing.

Chinua Achebe was not a minister in the Balewa Government. Where did you even get that from? He was working with Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation at the time. As a civil servant he couldn't hold or stand for political office at the time.

Deadlytruth:


Unfortunately you could not substantiate your claim that Awolowo was a tribal bigot.
The the laws of regional system back then dictated that each region's leader placed utmost priority on the interest and welfare of natives of their regions before others hence. Each region was autonomous and protectionist by law, hence Awolowo did not have a Western Region agenda any more than Zik and Ahmadu Bello had for Eastern and Northern Region respectively. Therefore the "One-Nigeria" philosophy which Zik invented had no basis in the prevailing circumstances and was therefore a dubious quest to pull the wool over others' eyes and then subdue them. But he failed in that bid.

Awolowo and Ahmadu Bello pursued their Yoruba and Hausa-Fulani agenda not at the cost of any other region's peace and stability unlike Zik who did not mind destabilizing the Western Region in the pursuit of his Igbo focused One-Nigeria agenda.

RedboneSmith:


Okay, I have identified one of your major problems. You think looking out for your people's interests = tribal bigot. I said Awo had a pro-Yoruba agenda; I never called him a bigot. It is now become a little clearer to me why you throw the term 'tribal bigot' around a lot. You cannot distinguish between ethnic pride/ethnic awareness and bigotry.

Again, where did you read that Achebe held a ministerial portfolio under Balewa?

RedboneSmith:
And while we are on the topic of substantiating claims, can you substantiate your claim that Azikiwe had a grand plan to foist Igbo dominion on Nigeria through a faux one-Nigeria agenda?

That over-quoted one sentence in a speech delivered while he was briefly president of the Igbo State Union (a position he resigned from when he realised it was clashing with his position as a nationalist) lacks substance and it is funny that people keep using it as 'evidence' of some Machiavellian scheme on his part. Zik was fund of highfalutin and verbose speeches: you should hear him go on about Benin or Mali or even Liberia.

Zik did not even propose a unitary government. Zik was in favour of a Nigeria made up tribal blocs, all with a certain level of autonomy. It was his hope that with time a Nigerian national consciousness will develop and the tribal blocs will then fuse into one nation. He never proposed a unitary government. You don't even know the man's politics and are just making things up as you go.

Deadlytruth:



I might have been mistaken on Achebe's place in The Balewa-Azikiwe-Okotie Eboh coalition government but that doesn't change the theme of my argument that Igbos who held a larger chunk of the ministerial portfolios saw nothing wrong with the Balewa-Azikiwe style of governance until things began to fall apart.

Jaymaxxy:
I had this discussion with a friend just yesterday. Our argument was between Fela and Gani Fawehinmi. We both later settled for Gani because you can easily make him a role model. No one prays to have a child who smokes and lives like Fela. But in all, they are the best and greatest Nigerians ever.

That aside, some names should be on the list. Names like

Jaja Wachukwu
Aminu Kano
Funmilayo Ransom-Kuti
Anthony Enahoro
Adegoke Adelabu
And few others

RedboneSmith:


Igbos held the larger chunk of the ministerial portfolios? Okay. Here is a list of the ministers in Balewa's government when it was constituted in 1960. Help me count the number of Igbos there. Me I counted only three o! Out of twenty-two names.

1. Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa: Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. (NPC)
2. Mr TOS Benson: Minister of Information.(NCNC)
3. Mr Olu Akinfosile, Minister of Communications. (NCNC)
4. Malam Zanna Bukar Dipcharima, Minister for Commerce and Industry (NPC)
5. Chief JM Johnson, Minister of Labour and Welfare (NCNC)
6. Mr Raymond Njoku, Minister of Transport and Aviation (NCNC)
7. Mr Aja Nwachukwu, Minister of Education (NCNC)
8. Chief Fests Okotie-Eboh, Minister of Finance (NCNC)
9. Alhaji Muhammadu Ribadu, Minister of Defence (NPC)
10. Malam Usuman Sarki, Minister of Internal Affairs (NPC)
11. Malam Maitama Sule, Minister of Mines and Power (NPC)
12. Malam Musa Yar'Adua, Minister of Lagos Affairs (NPC)
13. Mr Jaja Wachuku, Minister of Economic Development (NCNC)
14. Alhaji Inuwa Wada, Minister of Works and Survey (NPC)
15. Malam Waziri Ibrahim, Minister of Health (NPC)
16. Malam Shehu Shagari, Minister of Pensions (NPC)
17. Dr TO Elias, Attorney-General and Minister of Justice
18. Dr MA Majekodunmi, Minister of State
19. Dr EA Esin, Minister of State (NCNC)
20. Mr Nuhu Bamali, Minister of State (NPC)
21. Chief F Omo-Osagie, Minister of State (NCNC)
22. Mr JC Obande, Minister of State (NPC)

[Source: Nigeria, an Introduction to its History by Michael Crowder and Guda Abdullahi]

In the five + years the government lasted, portfolios were reshuffled, some ministers lost their posts, but at no time did Igbos constitute a significant (talk less of the larger chunk) of the ministers in Balewa's government.

I don't think you have studied the history of the First Republic closely. You still appear confused about a number of issues. Perhaps you should go back and have a closer look.

Deadlytruth:


I am not confused at all. I knew what I was driving at all along, and I am almost arriving at it. Here it is:
In trying to prove that the Jan. 1966 Coup was not an Igbo agenda coup, most Igbos often argue that the actors of the coup could not have been after seizing political power for Igbos because Igbos already occupied most positions in the Federal Cabinet. So who between you as a person and the generality of non-Igbo coup apologists do we believe now? Or what exactly do these apologist mean by the claim that Igbos already had most portfolios hence an Igbo agenda could not have formed the basis of the coup?

RedboneSmith:


You are being disingenuous. You are just shifting goalpost anyhow, rather than admitting that you possess very little knowledge about the issues you are jumping into on this post.