muykem:
FFK is a useless kid that refused to grow up at age of about 60years. Whenever we are preaching against war and IPOB is beating drum, this is what we are saying. Nobody save any arsenal during the war, in fact, the stronger the opposition, the deadly the arsenal needed. God himself need to killed all the first born in Egypt before they allowed Israel to go.

This man is an idiot jare ! he never asked w the Igbo killed the the Yoruba leader including banjo that fought on the side of Biafra.

Faeton:

Yes , true... Brigadier Ogundipe was the next most senior military officer...But British and American ambassadors advocating a resolution by voting amongst the Supreme Military Council.. Gowon emerged. Even Muritala felt he should have been the head. The reason I'm guessing was Gowon was a middle belt/North indigene and a Christian. So to balance polarity. I may be wrong.

thanks...that is what some don't know and will arguing

now the question is on what ground should the Igbos apologize when ojukwu was simply arguing that ogundipe must be head of state??

and he was the next in line after ogundipe just that he was far from the seat of power then.
happy someone is looking at things from both sides

King2019:


thanks...that is what some don't know and will arguing

now the question is on what ground should the Igbos apologize when ojukwu was simply arguing that ogundipe must be head of state??

and he was the next in line after ogundipe just that he was far from the seat of power then.
happy someone is looking at things from both sides

Absolute rubbish. In military tradition, when the most senior officer is not on the ground, the next most senior officer takes over. A junior officer cannot command a senior military officer. Ogundipe was a Brigadier and was far senior to Gowon who was just a Lt Colonel.

gidgiddy:


Absolute rubbish. In military tradition, when the most senior officer is not on the ground, the next most senior officer takes over. A junior officer cannot command a senior military officer. Ogundipe was a Brigadier and was far senior to Gowon who was just a Lt Colonel.

that is what I am saying that Gowon Should never have being greedy for power...when ojukwu was still there only that he was far from the seat of power (I mean FCT)

Gowon is actually a Hero Full Stop.

I see some already rushed to post the letter of the British turncoat, Goldstein Robert.
It's time I reposted Nwakanma beautiful rebuttal to it again.

Re:Robert S. Goldstein (Biafra Public Relations Rep in the USA) - Letter of Resignation to Odumegwu Ojukwu (1968) Dr. Aluko: It is obfuscation at its most blatant to read Goldstein letter outside of the rationale for action taken by Ojukwu and the Biafran leadership. I'll attempt to answer your earlier questions posed to me alonsgide this, because they are related. - The first question was why Ojukwu did not, given that Biafra had shrunk dramatically, not surrender to save starving Biafrans.

- The second is, to link it to the substance of Goldstein's letter, why Ojukwu insisted on ceasefire and the airlift of relief to Biafrans as the only grounds or conditions for accepting relief. First, Ojukwu knew that an internationally observed ceasefire was the only guarantee for the security and safety of the Biafran. Second, the atrocities recorded wherever the federal forces liberated lent credence to that demand. In fact, it made it imperative, particularly because the Lagos regime was not prepared to negotiate in true faith for the amicable end of the conflict.

The war strategy of the Gowon administration was hell-bent on Biafra's complete surrender without guarantees. No political and military leader will agree to that kind of suicide. I'll return to this point. But let me quote from Susan Cronje's quite illuminating book, The World and Nigeria: The Diplomatic History of the Biafran war 1967-1970 ( I'd also recommend that you read the other, Biafra: Britain's Shame). Cronje writes this about the meeting in Niamey referenced by Goldstein: "The Nigerian delegation was led by Chief Awolowo, but General Gowon arrived in Niamey on 16 July and addressed the meeting as an 'observer.'

The main theme of his speech was a warning that if the 'rebels persist in their contemptuous attitude to the conference table the federal government will have no choice but to take over the remaining rebel-held areas...In military terms the rebellion is virtually suppressed already.' But the atmosphere had suibtly changed. hamani diori had altrady suggested that the committee's consultative role should be changed to a mediatory one, and after Gowon's address the committee went into closed session. Eventually it was announced that that Ojukwu had been asked to attend, and Gowon who had already returned to Lagos flew back to Niamey the following day, cancelling all engagements. His presence in Niamey was required not for a meeting with Ojukwu but to reply to a truce proposal put forward among others by General Ankrah. This called for a ten-mile wide demilitarized zone patrolled by neutral troops to allow relief supplies to pass to Biafran refugees. According to one account of the debate, Gowon is said to have turned to General Ankrah, saying, 'You are a military man: you know what it is with commanders.'

The suggestion that he might be unable to restrain his army was reinforced when he warned the committee that if it did not see things his way they would have to have 'a Nigeria without me.' According to a Niamey radio report the following day, General Gowon rejected the resolution put to him by the O.A.U. committee; the main points of this resolution were the establishment of a demilitarized zone and 'an international force which would include neutral observers acceptable to both sides.' Ghana and Cameroun, the broadcast said, had offered shipping facilities for moving relief supplies. Ojukwu arrived in Niamey on 19 July in President Houphet-Boigny's private jet.

The Biafran delegation, when it was fully assembled, included Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the former Nigerian president, Dr. Okpara, former Eastern Nigerian premier, Sir Louis Mbanefo, Dr. Eni Njoku and several other notables; Lagos was not far off in suggesting that the 'entire rebel leadership' had assembled in Niger. At the end of the meeting between Ojukwu and the consltative committee - Gowon had returned to Lagos two days previously - a communique was issued. Two versions appear to be in existence; the one broadcast by Niamey radio read:

(1) the Nigerian Federal Military Government and Colonel Ojukwu have agreed to meet immediately in Niamey under the chairmanship of President Diori Hamani in order to begin preliminary talks on a speedy resumption of Nigerian peace negotiations;

(2) the Nigerian Federal Military Government and Colonel Ojukwu have agreed to resume as soon as possible peace negotiations in Addis Ababa under the auspices of the O.A.U Consultative Committee on Nigeria.' The version as broadcast by Lagos - and which does not pretend to be a verbatim report - said that the committee had called on both parties to resume peace talks as soon as possible, '... with the objecvtive of preserving Nigeria's territiorial integrity and guaranteeing the security of all its inhabitants.' The committee said, according to this broadcast, that 'it will be in contact with the federal military government, and Ojukwu or his representativs may at any time contact any member government of the committee.' The Lagos version went on to cite two further point of which ther was no mention in the Niamey version, both dealing with relief, and appealing to the two sides to undertake various mesures to alleviate the suffering among war victims.

In view of the strong criticism that has been levelled at the Biafran leadership for its intrasigence, and the high praise heaped o General Gowon and his Government for humanitarian concern and magnanimity, it should be stressed that in Niamey Gowon rejected the O.A.U proposals for a partial truce and international policing of relief routes, while Ojukwu was prepared to accept both these proposals. When Ojukwu returned to Biafra, he gave a press conference at which he was asked whether his invitation to the OAU had meant any form of recognition of him. For once Ojukwu was cautious in his reply: 'Let's put it this way. My presence in Niamey for once represents the O.A.U's acceptance that there are two sides to a conflict.' He would not reveal any further details about the forthcoming Addis Ababa peace talk, but said, 'I find myself in a rather simillar situation as after Aburi.' He did not want to say anything in case Lagos started 'interpreting it, and go back to square one..." (302-303)

The foregoing provides the clear context of the situation, that it was not Ojukwu, but Gowon who rejected the proposals by which Ojukwu and the Biafran leadership was prepared to abide.The context is clearly established and makes nonsense of Golsdstein's ground for resignation.

While the Biafran government was prepared to act without precondition, the Nigerian authorities persistenly insisted on Biafran surrender. It was a deliberate and determined argument made to make certain that the only solution was by a military solution because Lagos knew that the basic grounds on which it made its offer of relief was conditional and unconscionable.

It was to disavow the very basic reason why Biafra defended itself in the first place: its sovereignty as a means to the safety, security and dignity of its population. Now, were the Gowon administration acting in good faith, that would be a differet matter. What guaratees could Biafrans have, had Ojukwu surrendered as a condition for food? None. Here is the evidence narrated by John Stremlau in his The International Politics of the Nigerian Civil War how Gowon's cable upturned the agreements reached in May 1968 in kampala between Eni Njoku and Enahoro in which Eni Njoku had in fact "conceded the evntuality of one-Nigeria."

As Stremalau notes, "Whereas Enahoro had left acceptance of the twelve-state structure implicit in his propsals, Gowon insisted that before any agreement was reached the rebels must explictly embrace the twelve states. In addition, Gowon stipulated that there would be no question of an interim commission for the rebel-held areas, there would be no recruitment and formation of Ibo units into the federal armed forces, and no elements of the rebel troops or police would be allowed to retain their arms. Gowon's instruction, which did not reach Kampala until shortly after Enahoro had made his presentation, clearly reflected the views of the more hawkish elements in the federal government" (172-173).

To put these in summary: (a) Ojukwu did not reject relief, he wanted the security and guarantee of safety for Biafrans. He was in fact willing to accept the O.A.U's proposals

(b) Gowon and the Lagos administration manipulated international propaganda, as testified in the versions of the broadcasts of the Niamey agreement to further its own goals of the liquidation of Biafra

(c) The federal government was not, in spite of all the efforts made by the Biafrans willing to negotiate peace, they were hell-bent on "surrender" as the only condition for the survival of the Biafran population.

If anybody must bear responsbility, it must be those who kept using the talks to elongate the suffering of the civilian population, and clearly this are the 'hawks" who placed the only condition for peace on Biafra's surrender and liquidation. And there, you have it.

~Obi Nwakanma

almarthins:
Na international guard of justice dem go carry am go. Who will try ojukwu for the killing of our tribes men in owan?

Hmmn..... for many years there was a Red Devil armoured tank on the Ikpoba hill, that reminded Edo people daily of the attempt to overrun their ancestral land....

Agree