Chief Ayo Opadokun, elder statesman and Secretary- General of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), in this concluding part of his interview with TEMIDAYO AKINSUYI, speaks on the agitation by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), 2014 National Conference and other issues. Excerpts:

The members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) took their protests to Japan where President Muhammadu Buhari travelled for Seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD7) last month. Do you see this action of this group as embarrassing or should government listen to them?

rubi
To people in government, IPOB members are rebels but to those who are fighting for self-determination, they are doing something that is totally acceptable. Nobody gives you your right anywhere in the world, you must fight for it every day. If that is one of the ways by which they could do so, the Nigerian government should do what is right and respond favourably if they don’t want unnecessary distraction. I may not support the method employed by IPOB because there may be other better means with which they can press home their demands. However, you don’t condemn agitations. To you, they are rebels. For the cause they are fighting, they are icons because if what they are fighting for succeeded, you will not continue to have monopoly on what you currently hold. And I tell you, any state that has been held by sheer force in the world has never lasted. Where in the world map today is USSR? When Lenin was there, everything was perfect. They were so expansive and they dictated space. They were the world power. Where is Yugoslavia when President Josip Broz Tito was the master? It has been broken into several places now. The consequence of the manipulative and destructive imperialism of Great Britain is what they are facing now through Brexit. They forced several ethnic nationalities in Nigeria into force cohabitation by their force of arms that were superior to our own. Our people have been living independently in their different territories, owning their waters, trees, lands, mountains, mineral resources for thousands of years before the foreigners found their way here and subdued our people because of their superior gun power.


Are you in essence saying the consent of Nigerians was never sought before the amalgamation was carried out?

Nigerians have never been given the privilege to decide whether they want to be in Nigeria. That is why all the attempts to make Nigerians out of many of us remained a failure because that decision has not been made voluntarily.

On this note, let me add that the struggle for self-determination is the anthem for this millennium. Any ruler anywhere in the world who imagines that he can continue to use force to hold the people together is deceiving himself. Such a leader is living in fool’s paradise. The problem you have is that some of our people are hypocrites in all manifestations. They want to eat and remain with any government of the day so that they can have contracts, so they don’t want to be heard. Even though they share the same feelings with what those IPOB members are doing but they also want to be in the good books of the government.

As a follower of the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, what role did he play during the civil war? He has been accused of betraying Igbos during the war by not seceding when he promised to do so?

It is the height of mischief to accuse Chief Awolowo of betrayal. Many of them are ignorant but they have been indoctrinated to so think and behave over the years. If there is anybody the Igbos should appreciate, it is Awolowo. How could he have betrayed them? Some of them it is what their so-called elders have told them without finding out the truth of the situation. Are they claiming he betrayed them by not following them when they were seceding? Awolowo took a risk of going to sit down with Ojukwu and discussed intimately with him and that is why he said openly that “ If by act of omission or commission, the East was forced to secede from Nigeria, the West will follow. The language was categorical and Awo was not a flippant talker. What was the act of omission and commission that had been done by the North that forced the East to secede? In spite of all the efforts that Awolowo made, our people in activism like Wole Soyinka ,the first African Nobel Laureate in Literature and the late Prof Sam Aluko all went to the East to go and persuade Ojukwu not to go to war. How can they say Awolowo betrayed Igbos? It is undeserved, unnecessary, unwarranted transferred aggression. They will say Awolowo said he will secede, but he failed to do so. They also claimed that as a Federal Commissioner for Finance, he gave them one pounds and called for a change of the currency. Let them show modicum of decency and intelligence about warfare. How do you bring war to an end and what usually happens to the losing side anywhere in the world? In the American Civil War, for almost 100 years, nobody from the South which lost during the war was able to gain any prominence in political ascendancy. In the Nigerian case, what is it that the Igbos have not gotten here? They have been Vice-Presidents and they were totally in charge under Obasanjo and Jonathan’s government.

I hate to say this because I have respectable, decent friends among the Igbos. The Yorubas are not supposed to be the enemy they created for themselves because Yorubas have done their best for the Igbo race.

How is that so?

Before the civil war, when the revenge coup was going to take place on 29th of July, our own governor, Adekunle Fajuyi sacrificed his life that his guest, Aguiyi- Ironsi will not be taken away. He said if they are taking Ironsi away, they should take him as well. He made himself a martyr. I have not seen any Igbo man who really could do a thing like that. That is to show the extent to which the Yoruba man can be loyal. When the civil war took place, all the houses that the Igbos left in Yorubaland, not only in Lagos, people kept the rent and when they returned after the war, they were given. There is no doubt about it, from the statistics of the Igbo leaders and their organisations, over 75 to 80 percent of the assets of the Igbos that are not in their hometown are in Yorubaland. Yorubas are the most accommodating but it is the Yoruba man that they transferred aggression on and accuse of all sorts of things. Even in this era of social media, some comments you read can be very worrisome but amusing. Some of them ignorantly describe Yoruba people as cowards. Since the beginning of politics in Nigeria, the Yoruba people have always been at the forefront. Each time, there were serious agitations for the restoration of democracy in Nigeria and for the sustenance of the rule of law, the Yorubas have always had the highest percentage of those who will bear the brunt of incarceration, violence, intimidation and repression. Go to the police stations and find out those who are arrested during protests, 85 percent of them are Yoruba people. Even during the June 12 struggle, as at that time, apart from my decent friends among the Igbo leaders who are seriously committed like us, the rest will say let the Yorubas go and face the music while they were wining and dining with Abacha throughout. They made a lot of money out of it. Till tomorrow, some of them are still doing that but we have no grudge against them. When you see some of them claiming to be human rights activists here, let them go to their own territory to go and do the agitations and see whether they can bring out critical people out as followers.
https://www.independent.ng/accusing-awolowo-of-betraying-igbo-height-of-mischief-opadokun/

Hypocrite

Not an Igbo. But how about yprubas should stop seeing the Igbo's as their enemy. Ode agba

Ok

Two edged knives

foolish yorubas and foolish igbos keep reflecting on history and learn nothing good but hatred. while reasonable ones put head together in digitalized world

YORUBA SHOULD STOP SEEING IGBOS AS THEIR ENEMY.

Yorubas has done there turn as president now vice president ....every one know according to zonning it the presidency comes south its the turn of igbos

South south are okay with that ..yet yorubas out of greed want to contest

If this is not the act of an enemy then the definition of enemy has changed

tollyboy5:
foolish yorubas and foolish igbos keep reflecting on history and learn nothing good but hatred. while reasonable ones put head together in digitalized world

God bless u sir

Most this hypocrite man always talk? And Allen Onyema-an Igbo man sent his plane to help convey stranded Nigerian that were majorly Yorubas in this recent xenophobic attacks in SA?

Is it not Yorubas that rather see the Igbos as their arch political enemies.But who have their slavemaster betrayed the most?- Benjamin Adekunle Obafemi Awolowo,MKO Abiola etc.

Yorubas are indifferent.

We marry them and do business with them but we don't care beyond the normal relationship one has with his or her neighbors. Don't hate them and don't like them based on their tribe like we do any other tribe including ours. We are just indifferent to the low level tribal affiliation. We are more urbanized than the medieval association.

We see individuals not tribes.

kayfra:
Yorubas are indifferent.

We marry them and do business with them but we don't care beyond the normal relationship one has with his or her neighbors. Don't hate them and don't like them based on their tribe like we do any other tribe including ours. We are just indifferent to the low level tribal affiliation. We are more urbanized than the medieval association.

We see individuals not tribes.

Delude yourself

IF THINGS GO ACCORDING TO PLAN, IGBO AND YORUBA WILL BE TWO FRIENDLY NEIGBOURING COUNTRIES.


THIS WILL GO A LONG WAY TO SOLVE ALOT OF PROBLEMS.

from the point that this afonja opadokun quoted Jeremiah awolowo as saying then that: “If by act of omission or commission, the East was forced to secede from Nigeria, the West will follow.", I stopped taking him serious because he is applying the afonjas best propaganda tool of misinformation by saying that Jeremiah said "if the east was forced to seceed" instead of what was actually said by Jeremiah which is "if the East was allowed to seceed"!

allowed to seceed and forced to seceed don't mean the same thing!!!

this afonja used the words forced to seceed instead of allowed to seceed because he wants to free Jeremiah of his guilt in joining the north to fight their so-called fellow "Southerners" by claiming that the north did not force the east out of zoogeria!!!

he knows that if he uses the words allowed to seceed, then he and Jeremiah would run into the conundrum of having to explain to the world why they joined the north in violating and denying the rights of an indigenous people to self-determination!!!

there is no escaping the fact that Jeremiah and the west acted in bad faith to the east who trusted them to, even if they had no courage to seceed, to, at the very least, remain neutral in the matter!!!

now, before some afonjas begin to say the oft hackneyed story of why did the east invade the west, everybody knows that an afonja commander was given charge of the army of liberation sent to chase out the gambaris from the west and give the west a fighting chance to self-determine their future from a position of strength!!!

the Midwest was liberated and declared as the Midwest republic and not biafra!!!

the goings-on may have been ugly during the invasion but such is the nature of the beast of war!!!

the fact that victor banjo led the campaign to liberate the west shows up the West's propaganda of the east trying to subdue the west as disingenuous and an outright lie!!!

anyways, what's done is done. we, the great easterners, are on our way out of the zoo. Glory be to Chukwu Okike Abiama for the realization of the sovereign confederation of the republic of Biafra!!!

MONIKERREVEALER:
from the point that this afonja opadokun quoted Jeremiah awolowo as saying then that: “If by act of omission or commission, the East was forced to secede from Nigeria, the West will follow.", I stopped taking him serious because he is applying the afonjas best propaganda tool of misinformation by saying that Jeremiah said "if the east was forced to seceed" instead of what was actually said by Jeremiah which is "if the East was allowed to seceed"!

allowed to seceed and forced to seceed don't mean the same thing!!!

this afonja used the words forced to seceed instead of allowed to seceed because he wants to free Jeremiah of his guilt in joining the north to fight their so-called fellow "Southerners" by claiming that the north did not force the east out of zoogeria!!!

he knows that if he uses the words allowed to seceed, then he and Jeremiah would run into the conundrum of having to explain to the world why they joined the north in violating and denying the rights of an indigenous people to self-determination!!!

there is no escaping the fact that Jeremiah and the west acted in bad faith to the east who trusted them to, even if they had no courage to seceed, to, at the very least, remain neutral in the matter!!!

now, before some afonjas begin to say the oft hackneyed story of why did the east invade the west, everybody knows that an afonja commander was given charge of the army of liberation sent to chase out the gambaris from the west and give the west a fighting chance to self-determine their future from a position of strength!!!

the Midwest was liberated and declared as the Midwest republic and not biafra!!!

the goings-on may have been ugly during the invasion but such is the nature of the beast of war!!!

the fact that victor banjo led the campaign to liberate the west shows up the West's propaganda of the east trying to subdue the west as disingenuous and an outright lie!!!

anyways, what's done is done. we, the great easterners, are on our way out of the zoo. Glory be to Chukwu Okike Abiama for the realization of the sovereign confederation of the republic of Biafra!!!

Welcome back bro, how was your vacation?
I just know say them go give u small vacation, you too get mouth.

michaelkaroh:


Welcome back bro, how was your vacation?
I just know say them go give u small vacation, you too get mouth.

nwanne m kedu ka i mee?

why you no ask after me ALL the while I was incommunicado!!!

you suppose been raise guys begin a "free monikerrevealer" protest for this biased forum nah!!!

anyways, they can NEVER stop the realization of the sovereign confederation of the republic of Biafra!!!

thanks again for your support!!!

if you no see me after more than one week, just know say that them don ban me again!!!

I am not a law breaker to start creating alternative monikers but it seems like that is how these biased folks intend it to be!!!

MONIKERREVEALER:


nwanne m kedu ka i mee?

why you no ask after me ALL the while I was incommunicado!!!

you suppose been raise guys begin a "free monikerrevealer" protest for this biased forum nah!!!

anyways, they can NEVER stop the realization of the sovereign confederation of the republic of Biafra!!!

thanks again for your support!!!

if you no see me after more than one week, just know say that them don ban me again!!!

I am not a law breaker to start creating alternative monikers but it seems like that is how these biased folks intend it to be!!!

I initially wanted to write you via email but I thought it might not go through because of the ban.
@ emboldened, true that.
Well I'm glad you're back as you're one of the best pro-biafra(s) on here.
Welcome again.

michaelkaroh:

I initially wanted to write you via email but I thought it might not go through because of the ban.
@ emboldened, true that.
Well I'm glad you're back as you're one of the best pro-biafra(s) on here.
Welcome again.

thanks again brother!!!

Yorubas are the ones that are challenged by the Ibos. The Ibos don't even look at the Yorubas as Rivals. They are the ones scared of us that is why they always team up with the Northerners. Thats why some people look at them as "bootlickers" or "cowards" or "Fulani Slaves" . But the Yorubas themselves are no challenge to Ibos. We love their peacefulness and hospitality. Their class. Their academic institutions and most of all their music.

kayfra:
Yorubas are indifferent.

We marry them and do business with them but we don't care beyond the normal relationship one has with his or her neighbors. Don't hate them and don't like them based on their tribe like we do any other tribe including ours. We are just indifferent to the low level tribal affiliation. We are more urbanized than the medieval association.

We see individuals not tribes.

A liar spotted!

Time will tell for the two tribes to know who are their friends or foes.

Trust a yoruba man at your own peril.





And I hate this lies from yorubas claiming that Adekunle
Fajuyi sacrificed his life to
his guest Aguiyi- Ironsi.

Fajuyi was killed together with Ironsi by the northern army,but because they dont want to confront their master for killing one of their own,they turn around to change the narrative that he decided to die with his guest.

A case study is when the daughter of the leader of afenifere group was killed by herdsmen.
Instead of yoruba leader called Tinubu to speak against fulanis herdsmen kill.he was asking where is their cow because he dont want to provoke north.




ask these yorubas that are propagating lies about Adekunle
Fajuyi and Aguiyi- Ironsi death,
how did they know he decided to die?
Who was there to confirm their lies?

Bleep the Yorubas.. I will never have anything to do with you people..... Hate filled, diabolic, satanic and tribal bigots .