My Rejoinder to Persistent Accusation Against the Yoruba by Our Igbo Brothers on a Pan-Nigerian Platform.

The answer to your question was that Igbo in cahoots with the North of the Nigeria country put Awolowo in prison, but Igbo became the greatest beneficiaries. I shall elaborate on that towards the end of this factual account of history.

Proverbially speaking, Igbo people will seldom appreciate you if they enter your house and you welcome them with your food and drinks. Their eyes will be on your wife too, and failing to offer her to them as well, would be seen as your unwillingness to appreciate their handsome selves who had cared to pay you a visit! That describes their attitude towards their best friends on earth: the Yoruba. Yes, Igbo people, sit down and survey your peregrinations across Nigeria and the world and you would find that Yoruba people are your best friends.

The Igbo/Yoruba dichotomy began with the false narrative of Chinua Achebe, which is their favourite account like the Cathecism, that Awolowo orchestrated "a daylight robbery" of Zik's "mandate" to be Premier of the Western Region in 1954.

Achebe said in his book "The Trouble With Nigeria" that he was a student at the University College, Ibadan, when the "daylight robbery" occured.

But what was the fact? It's worth repeating before the Igbo false accusers for the umpteenth time because their hearts seethe in that hatred borne of patent biased reportage of events that Awolowo usurped what was supposed to be an Igbo leadership mandate over Yorubaland and associated ethnic groups of the old Western Region.

Don't forget that the elections of 1954 was conducted by the British and it was six years away from independence. The fact of the matter was that neither Awolowo's Action Group nor Zik's NCNC had enough seats in the Western Region's Parliament in Ibadan to form a Government when the votes were counted and who won which seats became public knowledge. Both parties then had to resort to wooing candidates of the smaller parties like the Ibadan Peoples Party and Mabolaje Grand Alliance to form a coalition with them.

The Action Group, of course, went to work assiduously, promising the candidates cabinet positions. On the day the parliament was opened, the white governor of Western Region asked the parliamentarians to signify their affiliations for the records. That was how most of the smaller parties' candidates openly declared their alliance with the Action Group. That was how Awolowo became the Premier. Go to Federal Archives at the University of Ibadan. The election results and parliamentary hansards of the time are there in original forms.

But backtrack to recall that from 1951 to 1954, Awolowo was already a quasi-premier of the West with the title of "Leader of Government Busines". That's why in his autobiography he has a chapter titled "Eight Years of of Office". That is,1951 -1959. He was already a burgeoning legend among his people as a sterling performer. The Igbo had hoped to truncate our pace-setting advancement in education, rural development, industry etc, with Zik taking over from him. I'm sure most Igbo of this generation don't know Awolowo had led the West for about three years before ZIK sought to upstage him.

The lie that Chinua Achebe swallowed alongside his umunna who had converged around the parliament building in Ibadan wearing their ishiagu for the crowning of an Igbo King over Yoruba people was dished out by Zik. He lamented to the press outside the parliament building at the end of swearing in that he had been betrayed. That all those who teamed up with Awolowo were his political associates whose support he had taken for granted. He claimed they simply defected overnight and blamed it on cultic loyalty. Maybe they were Ogbonis. LOL.

Igbo people had to believe him then hook, line, and sinker. He was their political god just as Awolowo was to most Yoruba people.

But, no sir! Those coalition members won their seats on their own steam just as you, Zik, had won yours with Yoruba votes in Yorubaland. They had the freedom to associate with who they wanted. They opted for Awolowo and his Action Group not so much because they were even playing Yoruba ethnic card but because they had a deal! Politics is a game of interest. Chief Augustus Meredith Akinloye of the Ibadan People's Party, for instance, had been promised a cabinet position. Of course, he couldn't have been deceived because if that had happened he could defect and the Action Group ruling coalition would collapse. He became Minister of Agriculture, Western Region.

Meanwhile, Zik became the Leader of Opposition in the Western Region but he was soon pressed by his Igbo kinsmen to leave a region where he had won an election to represent Yoruba people for the Eastern Region where they went to lay the foundation of hatred and hostility between themselves and their minority compatriots of today's Southsouth zone by removing Prof. Eyo Ita, a NCNC leader in his own right, as Premier. The Igbo had majority seats anyway. Zik then became premier. A surrogate in the Eastern parliament vacated his own seat for him.

I return to my opening line. The real act of provocation, which could have led to attacks on Igbo in Yorubaland, were Yoruba not the hospitable and liberal people they are, and which set the stage for the collapse of the First Republic, was laid by the Igbo in cahoots with the north with which they had a ruling federal coalition in Lagos.

It was the NCNC/NPC coalition that framed up Awolowo in a phantom coup d'etat when they could no longer tolerate him as Leader of the Opposition at the Federal Parliament and, of course, to takeover his sphere of influence.

With Awolowo held in Calabar prison for no just cause, the Igbo quickly pressed for the issue of creation of new regions of which Awolowo was the chief advocate as laid out in his autobiography published in 1960 months to independence in October. But they only wanted the Midwest Region he had proposed. They didn't want the COR (Calabar, Ogoja, Rivers) region, equally in the proposal. That would have split their Eastern empire. And, of course, their senior northern partner wouldn't brook any suggestion of a Middle Belt region, also proposed by Awolowo.

Thus, we had a situation where the smallest region in the country was split, while the bigger ones were kept intact. The Igbo plot worked as planned. In August 1963, a second class Igbo (that's by Igbo standard) from Asaba, in the person of Chief Dennis Osadebey, an old boy of Zik's alma mater, the Hope Waddell Training Institute, Calabar, became Premier of the Midwest Region. Hurray, Igbo now had two premiers!

By that, it was believed Awolowo's sphere of influence had been diminished forever.

Then the Igbo went for the bigger goal. They wanted to upstage their Arewa partners from power. They then formed an alliance with the rump of the traumatised and divided Action Group of Awolowo. Earlier, in 1959, they had rejected the same alliance with Awolowo for Zik to be Prime Minister and Awolowo, Minister of Finance. They belatedly formed an NCNC/Action Group alliance known as the United Progressives Grand Alliance (UPGA) for them to control federal powers in addition to two regions.

D-Day was 30 December 1964 when the general elections were held. Meanwhile, the Arewa senior partners in the NPC had wizened up to the Igbo game and also formed an alliance with another faction of the Action Group led by Chief Akintola. They then had what was called the Nigerian National Alliance (NNA). They won! Chief Akintola, without Awolowo's support, had successfully launched a counter-coup on the Igbo splitting of the Western Region by aligning with the north. The ensuing cabinet produced only three Igbo as Federal Ministers as against seven Yoruba. The Igbos were Raymond Njoku, Jaja Wachukwu, and K.O. Mbadiwe. This development, northerners have quietly argued, was the beginning of the coup of 15 January 1966. It is argued that the Igbo political elites, who had lost out, instigated Igbo boys in the military to strike. And that was why no civilian or military casualties were recorded in the whole East during the coup. But Chief Akintola and his newfound northern partners were all eliminated.

I draw you back. You know Yoruba people fight on principles. They launched massive agitations against Akintola for selling out to the northerners. They were not appeased by seven cabinet positions that didn't have the blessings of Awolowo and his progressive lieutenants languishing unjustly in prison. Operation Wetie began in earnest, shaking Balewa in Lagos and Akintola in Ibadan. Somebody had put on the body form of my highly esteemed friend, Prof. Wole Soyinka, to attempt stoppage of the announcement of the election results at gunpoint at Radio House in Ibadan for which the real Soyinka (LOL) was tried and freed by Justice Kayode Eso. Go and read Justice Eso's memoirs titled THE MYSTERY GUN MAN.

Eventually, Aguiyi Ironsi came to power. Awolowo petitioned him for his release. He rebuffed him till northern troops removed him from power. Then Gowon released Awolowo and invited him to join his government and stabilised the country then careening into chaos.

Igbo declared secession. A civil war ensued. They lost. At the end, they picked their favourite scapegoat, Awolowo, for their defeat The accusations traversed the war operations to post-war settlement.

First, he betrayed them, having promised them that if they declared secession, Yoruba would follow. Ask yourself, on what grounds? An old man just out of prison! A civilian! To declare secession in confrontation with Gen. Gowon who had just pitied him and set him free! Something an Ironsi had refused to do! How does that add up? Well, since it's Awolowo who had prevented Igbo premiership of Yorubaland, it must add up.

Second, he starved them during the war. Of course, General Gowon must have been too naive as a British-trained military officer to understand the implications of giving an unimpeded corridor of food supply to enemy territory in war! Awolowo had to teach him that the food was being hijacked by the Biafran troops.

Third, and back to what prompted this recollections ab initio. The accusation of £20. Honest Igbo know the truth. First and foremost, records of Nigerian banks in the East had been destroyed during the war as banks were prime targets of unruly elements among combatants on both sides during the civil war. Hence, apart from their passbooks, most Igbo claiming they had money in the banks had no proof. Many had even lost their passbooks. It was an era when there were no computers to keep soft copies of records or backups. Everything was done manually and in hard copies.

It was a mark of the magnanimity of the Federal Government that it created a fund from which banks were to pay £20 each to any Igbo with some proof of bank account ownership. It was a blanket thing. Even if you had £1 balance in your account you would get it. But those who had proof, especially those in the West - Lagos, Ibadan, Abeokuta etc - where their banking records were intact, had their accounts reactivated.

If anything, the Igbo had, over the years, rendered evil as reward to the only ethnic group in Nigeria that had received them with open arms, including Zik, from the time this country was established till date. If anyone should be held back by the unkindness of old, it should be the Yoruba against the Igbo and not the other way round. It's the Yoruba, among whom Igbo have found accommodation and toleration more than anywhere else they had ever set their foot upon on earth, who should be talking of Igbo betrayal, Igbo unfriendliness, and Igbo selfishness.

But it's one of those ironies of life that the victim is made the accused by his traducers. The Yoruba cosmopolitan outlook and liberal-mindedness is what have kept Nigeria one till date. It's only the Yoruba who have never unleashed violence against other groups. Not that they are contented with their lot in Nigeria or because they're cowards. It's not just in their DNA to spill blood carelessly! The only times they've engaged in any major public disturbances that cost lives (their own lives) were mainly to protest oppression and injustice visited on them and it was limited only to their space. They never went after non-Yoruba as scapegoats. That was during Operation Wetie and Agbekoya Revolt in the 60s and June 12 demonstrations in the 90s.

Let us hope that one day, some sections of Nigeria won't have to look back and regret that they blew their goodwill with the Yoruba.

If you hear of anybody supporting Igbo presidency outside Igboland today, who is not Yoruba, please, tell me. The same thing applied to Igbo sympathisers during the civil war: the Wole Soyinkas, Tai Solarins, the Col. Victor Banjos, the Prof. Sam Alukos of this world etc. They were all Yoruba, and some of them got imprisoned for it like Wole Soyinka. Col. Banjo wasn't as lucky. He was rewarded with bullets!

And recall that Col. Adekunle Fajuyi had died alongside Gen. Ironsi in July 1967 when northern soldiers came for the latter in Ibadan because Fajuyi didn't want the impression to be created, as the northerners wanted it, that Ironsi's death was a Yoruba set up. He chose to be executed with his Igbo commander in-chief who wasn't gracious enough to release Awolowo, his fatherly kinsman, from prison when he had the power to do so! How common is such vicariousness?

The Yoruba are still open to forging a meaningful partnership with the Igbo to safeguard and promote a glorious future. I hope voices of historically false accusations would allow the detente to reach its denouement.



Originally written by

Prof. Femi Olufunmilade

The story is too long

I see Chelsea winning the EPL by 30 points

Hmmm! What do I say?

mabea:
I see Chelsea winning the EPL by 30 points

Who asked you?Is this in anyway related to what the op posted?

MhisTahrah:
Who asked you?Is this in anyway related to what the op posted?

Just simply say you are not a Chelsea fan

mabea:
Just simply say you are not a Chelsea fan

I believe there's a thread in the sports section for that.Learn to do the right thing pls!

This one is still living in 18BC

What is result between PSG VS ATALANTA

Yoruba and lgbo are supposed to be good neighbors and brothers even now is not late, but few of them went and embrace Islam out of fear and have now turn to sabotues, imgine that local professor of MURIC what is his name again

MhisTahrah:
I believe there's a thread in the sports section for that.Learn to do the right thing pls!

is arsenal playing tonight?

May Chinua Achebe soul never find peace in his grave
May his soul continue to rest in hell till eternity

All this wahala because of people that we all know very well.

Are Yoruba more accused than the Fulani today? Do you see writings upon writings trying to prove innocence? Did the accusations stop Buhari from becoming president? did the accusation stop Igbo people from voting Atiku in the last general elections?

Will the accusations stop Igbo people from voting Fulaniman in 2023 if they were presented choice between Yorubaman and Fulaniman?

No amount of writing will stop Igbo people from accusing other people especially if they find it difficult to dominate you.

What Yoruba should be doing now is giving no F---s like buhari has done very well. You don't try to reason with people that their only agenda is domination. F--k it.

I have been around Nigeria and I found out its only Yorubaman that gives a F--k explaining unnecessarily his reasons for doing things.

This is what you get when you try to put everybody tthrough university education. You get educated people but with next to zero local intelligence. I would have blamed Awolowo if he didn't do this as a regional leader. What Yoruba leaders should be doing now is removing all free education programs from secondary schools upwards. It is not a necessity to go to university anymore. If you don't have money or you are not a very brilliant person who can go through scholarships, you don't deserve it. as simple as that.

The Yoruba people today need more agberos and illeterates than all these educated simps.

We should not stop saying the truth no matter how difficult it is before some other people rewrite history for us.

What is the need to explain Awolowo bouncing Azikiwe from being Premier of the west? I don't care if it was called tribalism. Didn't Azikiwe bounce somebody in the east even though he didn't win election there?

People that have committed serious murder against them are not busy explaining themselves. People that seized their properties are not over the place trying to explain themselves. It is only those that didn't take anything from them but rather gave them 20 pounds that are all over the place trying to explain themselves. What manner of weakness is this?

Peacemaker5129:
May Chinua Achebe soul never find peace in his grave
May his soul continue to rest in hell till eternity

Your moniker says Peacemaker. Make peace and love, not war.

Mods, lalasticlala,

This is educative history. This is opening page material over anything else.

Sometimes I just look at you yorubas and shake my head.
Yesterday one of your brother was claiming that Zik said he and Onitsha are Bini but today you wrote a long epistle of how Zik was fighting for Igbo over lordship on yorubas to the extent he planned on putting an Igbo king on yorubas when the Oba of Bini is nearer. According to you, "Zik and his Igbo kinsmen".
Chai I've never seen such dynamic chameleons.

You wrote a fascinating article to prove awolowos innocence and demonize Ndigbo and the great Zik Africa. But what I picked from your article is an Awolowo of a man who introduced ethnocentric politics and nepotism in the name of forming alliance. Why would celebrate appointing sensitive posts to allied politicians with no regards to meritocracy.
There is a popular say amongst the yorubas that "Igbo no Sabi politics" but your article says otherwise, it even portrays the Igbos as master planners in politics. To you people the Igbo man is everything. I don't know why you guys attribute the power of almighty to us because it is only the almighty can be everything at the same time.

Yoruba

Azikwe like other typical easterners love to play tribal and victim card when things that wasn't theirs is beyond their reach, how sensible and intelligent will he leave his eastern region to come and contest elective position in the western region, people of the poverty capital of the south harbour more hate and bitterness than the devil and his demons, so when he couldn't get the position he started sowing the seeds of discord and destruction around, well just like the other product of baby factory, Chinua Achebe also taunting Wole soyinka because of the Nobel laureate price he received, going around to say and write rubbish, where is the devil incarnate now, Ojukwu also left his Biafra territory advancing towards Lagos to take over it when his Biafra ends at now imo state, that one two started crying like goat all around, now these products of baby factories have started threatening and blackmailing Nigerians to hand over Nigeria presidency to them as if it was their father's tobacco pot, the same set of people planned the first coup and military armed robbery in 1966, they are still the one in Alaba, computer village and dugbe scamming and swindling westerners of their hard earn money. bunch of embittered ingrates

Bkayyy:
You wrote a fascinating article to prove awolowos innocence and demonize Ndigbo and the great Zik Africa. But what I picked from your article is an Awolowo of a man who introduced ethnocentric politics and nepotism in the name of forming alliance. Why would celebrate appointing sensitive posts to allied politicians with no regards to meritocracy.
There is a popular say amongst the yorubas that "Igbo no Sabi polotocs" but your article says otherwise, it even portrays the Igbos as master planners in politics. To you people the Igbo man is everything. I don't know why you guys attribute the power of almighty to us because it is only the almighty can be everything at the same time.

The article is more about putting the truth into perspective rather than demonizing one for the other. The write up culminates in a reconciliatory statement which honestly the Yorubas are not bound to do, just as @ Akanbiedu posited, but for posterity sake. But you have again played the victim and blamed the peaceseeker - exactly what the write up pointed out at the beginning of it.

Suffice it to say that Azikiwe's support in the South West had no ethnocentric bias otherwise he would have been stopped from contesting in the first place. Igbos were also not as many in the south west as they are today, so you can't attribute his victory to their voting strength in the South. This non-discrimination against Igbo political appointments still plays out very much today in Lagos owned by Yorubas; this won't likely be allowed if there was reversal of roles. Please educate me on a Yoruba given a political appointment in the South east.

A one time vice chancellor of University of Ibadan of Igbo extraction - Kenneth Onwuka Dike - was alleged to have openly sacrificed meritocracy on the altar of ethnicity by filling most available staff spaces in the university with his Kith and kin.

In all fairness to him, Obasanjo of South West extraction openly said that "he is the president of Nigeria and not president of Yoruba nation" so he will be just in his appointments with more recourse to meritocracy. He had no 97 percentile against 5 percentile formula. Up till this day, the only thing Yorubas hold him in contempt for was his inordinate third term agenda - a slight on ALL Nigerians - and an abomination his own son and Yorubas generally made sure did not come to fruition. No one from his extraction blamed him for failing to fill his cabinet with more of Yorubas.

In recent times, a vice chancellor in a Federal University in Ekiti state had to be called to question following an accusation of unbridled nepotism which sparked outrage and prolonged protest amongst staff in the university community. He engaged in seriously obvious lopsided appointments in favour of his Kith and kin in a federal institution thereby violating the code of federal character. Meanwhile there is no South Westerner occupying any such positions as a Vice Chancellor in any Federal university in the East.

No one is infallible. It's usually with that background that peacemakers approach those that begrudge them to forge solutions. Instead of you to accept that both sides have failings which should be appeased in order to ally, you perpetuate the narrative of false accusation while you canonize yourself all in the same breath. You did not refute the truths in the write up but you conveniently accused Awolowo as one who, in your own words, "introduced ethnocentric politics and nepotism in the name of forming alliance". Yet you fail to acknowledge the part of the write up that says Azikiwe went back to the East, leaving behind his leadership position in the south west, to usurp illegally the position of Prof. Eyo Ita of NCNC, a South-Southerner.

How worse can self-deceit get?

Peacemaker5129:
May Chinua Achebe soul never find peace in his grave
May his soul continue to rest in hell till eternity

You are in hell. you just don't know it.

ceaser:
My Rejoinder to Persistent Accusation Against the Yoruba by Our Igbo Brothers on a Pan-Nigerian Platform.

The answer to your question was that Igbo in cahoots with the North of the Nigeria country put Awolowo in prison, but Igbo became the greatest beneficiaries. I shall elaborate on that towards the end of this factual account of history.

Proverbially speaking, Igbo people will seldom appreciate you if they enter your house and you welcome them with your food and drinks. Their eyes will be on your wife too, and failing to offer her to them as well, would be seen as your unwillingness to appreciate their handsome selves who had cared to pay you a visit! That describes their attitude towards their best friends on earth: the Yoruba. Yes, Igbo people, sit down and survey your peregrinations across Nigeria and the world and you would find that Yoruba people are your best friends.

The Igbo/Yoruba dichotomy began with the false narrative of Chinua Achebe, which is their favourite account like the Cathecism, that Awolowo orchestrated "a daylight robbery" of Zik's "mandate" to be Premier of the Western Region in 1954.

Achebe said in his book "The Trouble With Nigeria" that he was a student at the University College, Ibadan, when the "daylight robbery" occured.

But what was the fact? It's worth repeating before the Igbo false accusers for the umpteenth time because their hearts seethe in that hatred borne of patent biased reportage of events that Awolowo usurped what was supposed to be an Igbo leadership mandate over Yorubaland and associated ethnic groups of the old Western Region.

Don't forget that the elections of 1954 was conducted by the British and it was six years away from independence. The fact of the matter was that neither Awolowo's Action Group nor Zik's NCNC had enough seats in the Western Region's Parliament in Ibadan to form a Government when the votes were counted and who won which seats became public knowledge. Both parties then had to resort to wooing candidates of the smaller parties like the Ibadan Peoples Party and Mabolaje Grand Alliance to form a coalition with them.

The Action Group, of course, went to work assiduously, promising the candidates cabinet positions. On the day the parliament was opened, the white governor of Western Region asked the parliamentarians to signify their affiliations for the records. That was how most of the smaller parties' candidates openly declared their alliance with the Action Group. That was how Awolowo became the Premier. Go to Federal Archives at the University of Ibadan. The election results and parliamentary hansards of the time are there in original forms.

But backtrack to recall that from 1951 to 1954, Awolowo was already a quasi-premier of the West with the title of "Leader of Government Busines". That's why in his autobiography he has a chapter titled "Eight Years of of Office". That is,1951 -1959. He was already a burgeoning legend among his people as a sterling performer. The Igbo had hoped to truncate our pace-setting advancement in education, rural development, industry etc, with Zik taking over from him. I'm sure most Igbo of this generation don't know Awolowo had led the West for about three years before ZIK sought to upstage him.

The lie that Chinua Achebe swallowed alongside his umunna who had converged around the parliament building in Ibadan wearing their ishiagu for the crowning of an Igbo King over Yoruba people was dished out by Zik. He lamented to the press outside the parliament building at the end of swearing in that he had been betrayed. That all those who teamed up with Awolowo were his political associates whose support he had taken for granted. He claimed they simply defected overnight and blamed it on cultic loyalty. Maybe they were Ogbonis. LOL.

Igbo people had to believe him then hook, line, and sinker. He was their political god just as Awolowo was to most Yoruba people.

But, no sir! Those coalition members won their seats on their own steam just as you, Zik, had won yours with Yoruba votes in Yorubaland. They had the freedom to associate with who they wanted. They opted for Awolowo and his Action Group not so much because they were even playing Yoruba ethnic card but because they had a deal! Politics is a game of interest. Chief Augustus Meredith Akinloye of the Ibadan People's Party, for instance, had been promised a cabinet position. Of course, he couldn't have been deceived because if that had happened he could defect and the Action Group ruling coalition would collapse. He became Minister of Agriculture, Western Region.

Meanwhile, Zik became the Leader of Opposition in the Western Region but he was soon pressed by his Igbo kinsmen to leave a region where he had won an election to represent Yoruba people for the Eastern Region where they went to lay the foundation of hatred and hostility between themselves and their minority compatriots of today's Southsouth zone by removing Prof. Eyo Ita, a NCNC leader in his own right, as Premier. The Igbo had majority seats anyway. Zik then became premier. A surrogate in the Eastern parliament vacated his own seat for him.

I return to my opening line. The real act of provocation, which could have led to attacks on Igbo in Yorubaland, were Yoruba not the hospitable and liberal people they are, and which set the stage for the collapse of the First Republic, was laid by the Igbo in cahoots with the north with which they had a ruling federal coalition in Lagos.

It was the NCNC/NPC coalition that framed up Awolowo in a phantom coup d'etat when they could no longer tolerate him as Leader of the Opposition at the Federal Parliament and, of course, to takeover his sphere of influence.

With Awolowo held in Calabar prison for no just cause, the Igbo quickly pressed for the issue of creation of new regions of which Awolowo was the chief advocate as laid out in his autobiography published in 1960 months to independence in October. But they only wanted the Midwest Region he had proposed. They didn't want the COR (Calabar, Ogoja, Rivers) region, equally in the proposal. That would have split their Eastern empire. And, of course, their senior northern partner wouldn't brook any suggestion of a Middle Belt region, also proposed by Awolowo.

Thus, we had a situation where the smallest region in the country was split, while the bigger ones were kept intact. The Igbo plot worked as planned. In August 1963, a second class Igbo (that's by Igbo standard) from Asaba, in the person of Chief Dennis Osadebey, an old boy of Zik's alma mater, the Hope Waddell Training Institute, Calabar, became Premier of the Midwest Region. Hurray, Igbo now had two premiers!

By that, it was believed Awolowo's sphere of influence had been diminished forever.

Then the Igbo went for the bigger goal. They wanted to upstage their Arewa partners from power. They then formed an alliance with the rump of the traumatised and divided Action Group of Awolowo. Earlier, in 1959, they had rejected the same alliance with Awolowo for Zik to be Prime Minister and Awolowo, Minister of Finance. They belatedly formed an NCNC/Action Group alliance known as the United Progressives Grand Alliance (UPGA) for them to control federal powers in addition to two regions.

D-Day was 30 December 1964 when the general elections were held. Meanwhile, the Arewa senior partners in the NPC had wizened up to the Igbo game and also formed an alliance with another faction of the Action Group led by Chief Akintola. They then had what was called the Nigerian National Alliance (NNA). They won! Chief Akintola, without Awolowo's support, had successfully launched a counter-coup on the Igbo splitting of the Western Region by aligning with the north. The ensuing cabinet produced only three Igbo as Federal Ministers as against seven Yoruba. The Igbos were Raymond Njoku, Jaja Wachukwu, and K.O. Mbadiwe. This development, northerners have quietly argued, was the beginning of the coup of 15 January 1966. It is argued that the Igbo political elites, who had lost out, instigated Igbo boys in the military to strike. And that was why no civilian or military casualties were recorded in the whole East during the coup. But Chief Akintola and his newfound northern partners were all eliminated.

I draw you back. You know Yoruba people fight on principles. They launched massive agitations against Akintola for selling out to the northerners. They were not appeased by seven cabinet positions that didn't have the blessings of Awolowo and his progressive lieutenants languishing unjustly in prison. Operation Wetie began in earnest, shaking Balewa in Lagos and Akintola in Ibadan. Somebody had put on the body form of my highly esteemed friend, Prof. Wole Soyinka, to attempt stoppage of the announcement of the election results at gunpoint at Radio House in Ibadan for which the real Soyinka (LOL) was tried and freed by Justice Kayode Eso. Go and read Justice Eso's memoirs titled THE MYSTERY GUN MAN.

Eventually, Aguiyi Ironsi came to power. Awolowo petitioned him for his release. He rebuffed him till northern troops removed him from power. Then Gowon released Awolowo and invited him to join his government and stabilised the country then careening into chaos.

Igbo declared secession. A civil war ensued. They lost. At the end, they picked their favourite scapegoat, Awolowo, for their defeat The accusations traversed the war operations to post-war settlement.

First, he betrayed them, having promised them that if they declared secession, Yoruba would follow. Ask yourself, on what grounds? An old man just out of prison! A civilian! To declare secession in confrontation with Gen. Gowon who had just pitied him and set him free! Something an Ironsi had refused to do! How does that add up? Well, since it's Awolowo who had prevented Igbo premiership of Yorubaland, it must add up.

Second, he starved them during the war. Of course, General Gowon must have been too naive as a British-trained military officer to understand the implications of giving an unimpeded corridor of food supply to enemy territory in war! Awolowo had to teach him that the food was being hijacked by the Biafran troops.

Third, and back to what prompted this recollections ab initio. The accusation of £20. Honest Igbo know the truth. First and foremost, records of Nigerian banks in the East had been destroyed during the war as banks were prime targets of unruly elements among combatants on both sides during the civil war. Hence, apart from their passbooks, most Igbo claiming they had money in the banks had no proof. Many had even lost their passbooks. It was an era when there were no computers to keep soft copies of records or backups. Everything was done manually and in hard copies.

It was a mark of the magnanimity of the Federal Government that it created a fund from which banks were to pay £20 each to any Igbo with some proof of bank account ownership. It was a blanket thing. Even if you had £1 balance in your account you would get it. But those who had proof, especially those in the West - Lagos, Ibadan, Abeokuta etc - where their banking records were intact, had their accounts reactivated.

If anything, the Igbo had, over the years, rendered evil as reward to the only ethnic group in Nigeria that had received them with open arms, including Zik, from the time this country was established till date. If anyone should be held back by the unkindness of old, it should be the Yoruba against the Igbo and not the other way round. It's the Yoruba, among whom Igbo have found accommodation and toleration more than anywhere else they had ever set their foot upon on earth, who should be talking of Igbo betrayal, Igbo unfriendliness, and Igbo selfishness.

But it's one of those ironies of life that the victim is made the accused by his traducers. The Yoruba cosmopolitan outlook and liberal-mindedness is what have kept Nigeria one till date. It's only the Yoruba who have never unleashed violence against other groups. Not that they are contented with their lot in Nigeria or because they're cowards. It's not just in their DNA to spill blood carelessly! The only times they've engaged in any major public disturbances that cost lives (their own lives) were mainly to protest oppression and injustice visited on them and it was limited only to their space. They never went after non-Yoruba as scapegoats. That was during Operation Wetie and Agbekoya Revolt in the 60s and June 12 demonstrations in the 90s.

Let us hope that one day, some sections of Nigeria won't have to look back and regret that they blew their goodwill with the Yoruba.

If you hear of anybody supporting Igbo presidency outside Igboland today, who is not Yoruba, please, tell me. The same thing applied to Igbo sympathisers during the civil war: the Wole Soyinkas, Tai Solarins, the Col. Victor Banjos, the Prof. Sam Alukos of this world etc. They were all Yoruba, and some of them got imprisoned for it like Wole Soyinka. Col. Banjo wasn't as lucky. He was rewarded with bullets!

And recall that Col. Adekunle Fajuyi had died alongside Gen. Ironsi in July 1967 when northern soldiers came for the latter in Ibadan because Fajuyi didn't want the impression to be created, as the northerners wanted it, that Ironsi's death was a Yoruba set up. He chose to be executed with his Igbo commander in-chief who wasn't gracious enough to release Awolowo, his fatherly kinsman, from prison when he had the power to do so! How common is such vicariousness?

The Yoruba are still open to forging a meaningful partnership with the Igbo to safeguard and promote a glorious future. I hope voices of historically false accusations would allow the detente to reach its denouement.



Originally written by

Prof. Femi Olufunmilade

The writer of above crap is typical Yari.ba with bigmouth and empty brain. In addition, the fool did not even try to embark on little research as how the military operates or even consult few factual recorded events before making fool of him\her self with the above junk. The most ignorant of the whole piece is bolded in red color. By the way, Banjo and Fajuiyi were Lt Cols not Col. In formal mode such as in a written piece, soldiers are addressed properly according to their ranks.

ceaser:
My [s]Rejoinder to Persistent Accusation Against the Yoruba by Our Igbo Brothers on a Pan-Nigerian Platform.

The answer to your question was that Igbo in cahoots with the North of the Nigeria country put Awolowo in prison, but Igbo became the greatest beneficiaries. I shall elaborate on that towards the end of this factual account of history.

Proverbially speaking, Igbo people will seldom appreciate you if they enter your house and you welcome them with your food and drinks. Their eyes will be on your wife too, and failing to offer her to them as well, would be seen as your unwillingness to appreciate their handsome selves who had cared to pay you a visit! That describes their attitude towards their best friends on earth: the Yoruba. Yes, Igbo people, sit down and survey your peregrinations across Nigeria and the world and you would find that Yoruba people are your best friends.

The Igbo/Yoruba dichotomy began with the false narrative of Chinua Achebe, which is their favourite account like the Cathecism, that Awolowo orchestrated "a daylight robbery" of Zik's "mandate" to be Premier of the Western Region in 1954.

Achebe said in his book "The Trouble With Nigeria" that he was a student at the University College, Ibadan, when the "daylight robbery" occured.

But what was the fact? It's worth repeating before the Igbo false accusers for the umpteenth time because their hearts seethe in that hatred borne of patent biased reportage of events that Awolowo usurped what was supposed to be an Igbo leadership mandate over Yorubaland and associated ethnic groups of the old Western Region.

Don't forget that the elections of 1954 was conducted by the British and it was six years away from independence. The fact of the matter was that neither Awolowo's Action Group nor Zik's NCNC had enough seats in the Western Region's Parliament in Ibadan to form a Government when the votes were counted and who won which seats became public knowledge. Both parties then had to resort to wooing candidates of the smaller parties like the Ibadan Peoples Party and Mabolaje Grand Alliance to form a coalition with them.

The Action Group, of course, went to work assiduously, promising the candidates cabinet positions. On the day the parliament was opened, the white governor of Western Region asked the parliamentarians to signify their affiliations for the records. That was how most of the smaller parties' candidates openly declared their alliance with the Action Group. That was how Awolowo became the Premier. Go to Federal Archives at the University of Ibadan. The election results and parliamentary hansards of the time are there in original forms.

But backtrack to recall that from 1951 to 1954, Awolowo was already a quasi-premier of the West with the title of "Leader of Government Busines". That's why in his autobiography he has a chapter titled "Eight Years of of Office". That is,1951 -1959. He was already a burgeoning legend among his people as a sterling performer. The Igbo had hoped to truncate our pace-setting advancement in education, rural development, industry etc, with Zik taking over from him. I'm sure most Igbo of this generation don't know Awolowo had led the West for about three years before ZIK sought to upstage him.

The lie that Chinua Achebe swallowed alongside his umunna who had converged around the parliament building in Ibadan wearing their ishiagu for the crowning of an Igbo King over Yoruba people was dished out by Zik. He lamented to the press outside the parliament building at the end of swearing in that he had been betrayed. That all those who teamed up with Awolowo were his political associates whose support he had taken for granted. He claimed they simply defected overnight and blamed it on cultic loyalty. Maybe they were Ogbonis. LOL.

Igbo people had to believe him then hook, line, and sinker. He was their political god just as Awolowo was to most Yoruba people.

But, no sir! Those coalition members won their seats on their own steam just as you, Zik, had won yours with Yoruba votes in Yorubaland. They had the freedom to associate with who they wanted. They opted for Awolowo and his Action Group not so much because they were even playing Yoruba ethnic card but because they had a deal! Politics is a game of interest. Chief Augustus Meredith Akinloye of the Ibadan People's Party, for instance, had been promised a cabinet position. Of course, he couldn't have been deceived because if that had happened he could defect and the Action Group ruling coalition would collapse. He became Minister of Agriculture, Western Region.

Meanwhile, Zik became the Leader of Opposition in the Western Region but he was soon pressed by his Igbo kinsmen to leave a region where he had won an election to represent Yoruba people for the Eastern Region where they went to lay the foundation of hatred and hostility between themselves and their minority compatriots of today's Southsouth zone by removing Prof. Eyo Ita, a NCNC leader in his own right, as Premier. The Igbo had majority seats anyway. Zik then became premier. A surrogate in the Eastern parliament vacated his own seat for him.

I return to my opening line. The real act of provocation, which could have led to attacks on Igbo in Yorubaland, were Yoruba not the hospitable and liberal people they are, and which set the stage for the collapse of the First Republic, was laid by the Igbo in cahoots with the north with which they had a ruling federal coalition in Lagos.

It was the NCNC/NPC coalition that framed up Awolowo in a phantom coup d'etat when they could no longer tolerate him as Leader of the Opposition at the Federal Parliament and, of course, to takeover his sphere of influence.

With Awolowo held in Calabar prison for no just cause, the Igbo quickly pressed for the issue of creation of new regions of which Awolowo was the chief advocate as laid out in his autobiography published in 1960 months to independence in October. But they only wanted the Midwest Region he had proposed. They didn't want the COR (Calabar, Ogoja, Rivers) region, equally in the proposal. That would have split their Eastern empire. And, of course, their senior northern partner wouldn't brook any suggestion of a Middle Belt region, also proposed by Awolowo.

Thus, we had a situation where the smallest region in the country was split, while the bigger ones were kept intact. The Igbo plot worked as planned. In August 1963, a second class Igbo (that's by Igbo standard) from Asaba, in the person of Chief Dennis Osadebey, an old boy of Zik's alma mater, the Hope Waddell Training Institute, Calabar, became Premier of the Midwest Region. Hurray, Igbo now had two premiers!

By that, it was believed Awolowo's sphere of influence had been diminished forever.

Then the Igbo went for the bigger goal. They wanted to upstage their Arewa partners from power. They then formed an alliance with the rump of the traumatised and divided Action Group of Awolowo. Earlier, in 1959, they had rejected the same alliance with Awolowo for Zik to be Prime Minister and Awolowo, Minister of Finance. They belatedly formed an NCNC/Action Group alliance known as the United Progressives Grand Alliance (UPGA) for them to control federal powers in addition to two regions.

D-Day was 30 December 1964 when the general elections were held. Meanwhile, the Arewa senior partners in the NPC had wizened up to the Igbo game and also formed an alliance with another faction of the Action Group led by Chief Akintola. They then had what was called the Nigerian National Alliance (NNA). They won! Chief Akintola, without Awolowo's support, had successfully launched a counter-coup on the Igbo splitting of the Western Region by aligning with the north. The ensuing cabinet produced only three Igbo as Federal Ministers as against seven Yoruba. The Igbos were Raymond Njoku, Jaja Wachukwu, and K.O. Mbadiwe. This development, northerners have quietly argued, was the beginning of the coup of 15 January 1966. It is argued that the Igbo political elites, who had lost out, instigated Igbo boys in the military to strike. And that was why no civilian or military casualties were recorded in the whole East during the coup. But Chief Akintola and his newfound northern partners were all eliminated.

I draw you back. You know Yoruba people fight on principles. They launched massive agitations against Akintola for selling out to the northerners. They were not appeased by seven cabinet positions that didn't have the blessings of Awolowo and his progressive lieutenants languishing unjustly in prison. Operation Wetie began in earnest, shaking Balewa in Lagos and Akintola in Ibadan. Somebody had put on the body form of my highly esteemed friend, Prof. Wole Soyinka, to attempt stoppage of the announcement of the election results at gunpoint at Radio House in Ibadan for which the real Soyinka (LOL) was tried and freed by Justice Kayode Eso. Go and read Justice Eso's memoirs titled THE MYSTERY GUN MAN.

Eventually, Aguiyi Ironsi came to power. Awolowo petitioned him for his release. He rebuffed him till northern troops removed him from power. Then Gowon released Awolowo and invited him to join his government and stabilised the country then careening into chaos.

Igbo declared secession. A civil war ensued. They lost. At the end, they picked their favourite scapegoat, Awolowo, for their defeat The accusations traversed the war operations to post-war settlement.

First, he betrayed them, having promised them that if they declared secession, Yoruba would follow. Ask yourself, on what grounds? An old man just out of prison! A civilian! To declare secession in confrontation with Gen. Gowon who had just pitied him and set him free! Something an Ironsi had refused to do! How does that add up? Well, since it's Awolowo who had prevented Igbo premiership of Yorubaland, it must add up.

Second, he starved them during the war. Of course, General Gowon must have been too naive as a British-trained military officer to understand the implications of giving an unimpeded corridor of food supply to enemy territory in war! Awolowo had to teach him that the food was being hijacked by the Biafran troops.

Third, and back to what prompted this recollections ab initio. The accusation of £20. Honest Igbo know the truth. First and foremost, records of Nigerian banks in the East had been destroyed during the war as banks were prime targets of unruly elements among combatants on both sides during the civil war. Hence, apart from their passbooks, most Igbo claiming they had money in the banks had no proof. Many had even lost their passbooks. It was an era when there were no computers to keep soft copies of records or backups. Everything was done manually and in hard copies.

It was a mark of the magnanimity of the Federal Government that it created a fund from which banks were to pay £20 each to any Igbo with some proof of bank account ownership. It was a blanket thing. Even if you had £1 balance in your account you would get it. But those who had proof, especially those in the West - Lagos, Ibadan, Abeokuta etc - where their banking records were intact, had their accounts reactivated.

If anything, the Igbo had, over the years, rendered evil as reward to the only ethnic group in Nigeria that had received them with open arms, including Zik, from the time this country was established till date. If anyone should be held back by the unkindness of old, it should be the Yoruba against the Igbo and not the other way round. It's the Yoruba, among whom Igbo have found accommodation and toleration more than anywhere else they had ever set their foot upon on earth, who should be talking of Igbo betrayal, Igbo unfriendliness, and Igbo selfishness.

But it's one of those ironies of life that the victim is made the accused by his traducers. The Yoruba cosmopolitan outlook and liberal-mindedness is what have kept Nigeria one till date. It's only the Yoruba who have never unleashed violence against other groups. Not that they are contented with their lot in Nigeria or because they're cowards. It's not just in their DNA to spill blood carelessly! The only times they've engaged in any major public disturbances that cost lives (their own lives) were mainly to protest oppression and injustice visited on them and it was limited only to their space. They never went after non-Yoruba as scapegoats. That was during Operation Wetie and Agbekoya Revolt in the 60s and June 12 demonstrations in the 90s.

Let us hope that one day, some sections of Nigeria won't have to look back and regret that they blew their goodwill with the Yoruba.

If you hear of anybody supporting Igbo presidency outside Igboland today, who is not Yoruba, please, tell me. The same thing applied to Igbo sympathisers during the civil war: the Wole Soyinkas, Tai Solarins, the Col. Victor Banjos, the Prof. Sam Alukos of this world etc. They were all Yoruba, and some of them got imprisoned for it like Wole Soyinka. Col. Banjo wasn't as lucky. He was rewarded with bullets!

And recall that Col. Adekunle Fajuyi had died alongside Gen. Ironsi in July 1967 when northern soldiers came for the latter in Ibadan because Fajuyi didn't want the impression to be created, as the northerners wanted it, that Ironsi's death was a Yoruba set up. He chose to be executed with his Igbo commander in-chief who wasn't gracious enough to release Awolowo, his fatherly kinsman, from prison when he had the power to do so! How common is such vicariousness?

The Yoruba are still open to forging a meaningful partnership with the Igbo to safeguard and promote a glorious future. I hope voices of historically false accusations would allow the detente to reach its denouement.



Originally written by[/s]

Prof. Femi Olufunmilade

All these effusive lamentations just because the East have woken up and resolved that a yoruba will not take another turn in aso rock till the South East rightfully do their own turn?

Are you tired of shouting 'Ibo will never be president again'? Are you yoruba tired of insulting Ibos and calling them illiterate spare parts dealers, a myth you held strongly till the internet cleared your doubts?

Are you tired of mocking them because they lost a British-sponsored war in their quest for freedom and self-determination? Mr yoruba man, are the cries of Ndigbo still music to your ears?

You prolly thought that the East will prefer yoruba in Aso rock against Fulani since according to you 'the Ibos can never be elected president and don't like Hausas', so they'll vote we yorubas'. You want to continue to hearing the East cry for the little that is accruable to them while you mock them. No be so?

I've got news for you, it is no longer business as usual, you'll will now be served your own dose of medicine. Your tribe will not be president in 2023 since you don't believe in equity, while your fake activists only pay lip service to ethnic justice but glorify injustice in their closets.

If the East cannot be president in 2023 by whichever way, then you will also be barred from that position, let the Fulanis keep it. No story.

Madness will now match madness in One naijeriyya. That's how to survive in nigeria.

ceaser:


The article is more about putting the truth into perspective rather than demonizing one for the other. The write up culminates in a reconciliatory statement which honestly the Yorubas are not bound to do, just as @ Akanbiedu posited, but for posterity sake. But you have again played the victim and blamed the peaceseeker - exactly what the write up pointed out at the beginning of it.

Suffice it to say that Azikiwe's support in the South West had no ethnocentric bias otherwise he would have been stopped from contesting in the first place. Igbos were also not as many in the south west as they are today, so you can't attribute his victory to their voting strength in the South. This non-discrimination against Igbo political appointments still plays out very much today in Lagos owned by Yorubas; this won't likely be allowed if there was reversal of roles. Please educate me on a Yoruba given a political appointment in the South east.

A one time vice chancellor of University of Ibadan of Igbo extraction - Kenneth Onwuka Dike - was alleged to have openly sacrificed meritocracy on the altar of ethnicity by filling most available staff spaces in the university with his Kith and kin.

In all fairness to him, Obasanjo of South West extraction openly said that "he is the president of Nigeria and not president of Yoruba nation" so he will be just in his appointments with more recourse to meritocracy. He had no 97 percentile against 5 percentile formula. Up till this day, the only thing Yorubas hold him in contempt for was his inordinate third term agenda - a slight on ALL Nigerians - and an abomination his own son and Yorubas generally made sure did not come to fruition. No one from his extraction blamed him for failing to fill his cabinet with more of Yorubas.

In recent times, a vice chancellor in a Federal University in Ekiti state had to be called to question following an accusation of unbridled nepotism which sparked outrage and prolonged protest amongst staff in the university community. He engaged in seriously obvious lopsided appointments in favour of his Kith and kin in a federal institution thereby violating the code of federal character. Meanwhile there is no South Westerner occupying any such positions as a Vice Chancellor in any Federal university in the East.

No one is infallible. It's usually with that background that peacemakers approach those that begrudge them to forge solutions. Instead of you to accept that both sides have failings which should be appeased in order to ally, you perpetuate the narrative of false accusation while you canonize yourself all in the same breath. You did not refute the truths in the write up but you conveniently accused Awolowo as one who, in your own words, "introduced ethnocentric politics and nepotism in the name of forming alliance". Yet you fail to acknowledge the part of the write up that says Azikiwe went back to the East, leaving behind his leadership position in the south west, to usurp illegally the position of Prof. Eyo Ita of NCNC, a South-Southerner.

How worse can self-deceit get?

Shove your useless propagandist analysis into ur asz.

The write-up is more like telling the tales of a dead nation while ignoring the reason for the ills which is rooted deep beneath it's foundation.

Nigeria is not a people.
Nigeria is not a nation.
Nigeria just a circus .
Nigeria was built to fall.
Nigeria's only solution is disintegration.


Even the Brits will be surprised you are still preaching Nigeria in 2020.

Peacemaker5129:
May Chinua Achebe soul never find peace in his grave
May his soul continue to rest in hell till eternity

. Chaiii as Awolowo soul is already turned upside down in grave and unrested soul?

The author is clearly writing with a slant. To call an Asaba Man "2nd Class" Igbo is a bold faced lie. It tarnishes anything he has to offer. Trust is hard to earn and doubt is even harder to shake. Understanding this man is an alleged educated professor molded the minds of the young gives me little to no hope for our future. He's a disappointment a man. People like him should be condemned.