For a change I am now finally able to offer to society what I claim to be a truly original idea or observation. I am referring to the widely unappreciated power of the microphone. Unknown to many, the microphone in the hands of a journalist makes the most reticent of the Nigerian political class to open up to the point of singing like a bird. This is the case even when he has absolutely nothing to offer. Is it any wonder then that when confronted with a question for which he has no answer the Nigerian politician endeavours to recover his composure with "Thank you for that question." It may be needless to point out that this drives me nuts.
The picture I have painted above will probably explain what has now developed into a habitual problem with the otherwise respected former Nigerian military head of state General Yakubu Gowon. Since he left office, the amiable general is not known to have delivered any landmark speech, meticulously prepared by himself or his speech writers or more memorably off the cuff, like in the manner of a Winston Churchill.
Why then is it that any time he is confronted with a simple microphone he feel an irresistible compulsion to verbally deliver one more chapter or paragraph of his long ignored memoirs? His diatribe on Odumegwu Ojukwu and the Aburi Accord immediately comes to mind. This writer has already taken on the General on this very issue albeit on a rather limited media platform. I had wanted to let the sleeping dog lie, but gerontocrats have refused to give peace a chance. They would want to revise our common history when most of us the participants are still very much alive.
As most Nigerians were trying to come to terms with Gen Gowon's uncharitable outburst on Ojukwu and Aburi, General Theophilus Danjuma, his right hand man, joined the fray. Hear him. Like President Jonathan, Ojukwu should have simply conceded defeat thus saving the fractured nation and Biafra the horrors of the 30month civil war. I wonder if Gen Danjuma has spoken to his erstwhile colleague David Ejoor over the past 20years? In a series of verbatim reports published by The Vanguard Newspapers, Ejoor rightly summed up that the whole war effort to defeat Biafra was but a long drawn out completion of the anti-Ironsi coup of July 1966, no more no less. This becomes clearer when we juxtapose the latest unsolicited statement of Gen Gowon to the effect that the Biafran leader Ojukwu underrated his resolve to go to war. So much for the reluctant warrior and Christian gentleman. "Christ afujugo anya." The things that people do in his name. People think only about Asaba when the issue of genocide is discussed. How wrong they are.
At this point, I must share some ideas from a contribution I made years ago in a private forum discussion on just one aspect of the role of Chief Obafemi Awolowo in the civil war. I refused to pick up the typical Ndigbo mantra on starvation during the war or £20 after. My thesis was that most Igbo gave too much credence to the ability of Chief Awolowo to stop or even resist the invasion of Biafra by federal troops. How was he supposed to do that? With his bare hands or the power of persuasion? Lagos and the entire West was meanwhile garrisoned by northern troops.
Awolowo correctly read the sign of the times and joined the winning side. As history goes he could jolly well have been wrong. However I refuse to believe that with the momentum gained with the decapitation of General Ironsi's military government, followed by the mass murder of the mainly Igbo officer class, that any logic, not even an Awolowo, was going to stop the rampaging horde from trying to conclude what it had earlier started. And we were supposed to fold our hands? Perhaps only the UK could have exerted enough pressure to prevent the invasion. But then why should it do that?
Will someone remind Danjuma that the first shot at Gakem was fired INTO Biafra or Eastern Nigeria? Take your pick.
Because I regard General Danjuma's comment about conceding defeat as a farce, I will like to throw the following back at him.
Although the conflict is still on, and despite the latest turn of events, the US high command had essentially declared victory in Iraq and Afghanistan and pulled back its troops. In our own case, if there was no insatiable blood lust, (and there was), Gowon's federal troops could and, (according to Danjuma), should have marched into Nsukka and the outskirts of Enugu then promptly declared victory. They would then have headed back home confident that they have taught Ojukwu a lesson! With this announcement, the wild jubilation in Lagos, Enugu, Ibadan, Kaduna, Port Harcourt, etc would have known no bounds. Three million lives would have been spared!
Does the above sound farcical? That is the idea. This is exactly the kind of response that Danjuma's comment rightly deserves.
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