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Pandemonium broke loose. People were running
helter-skelter, wailing. Those who could not wail were shouting. Commentaries
upon commentaries were all over the media. The cyber cafes were flooded.
Everybody wanted first-hand news. General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu is
dead. Nigeria and Nigerians stood still.
He died early hours of Saturday, November 26, 2011, at Hammersfield Hospital
London. His family and close associates confirmed this. He was ill about a
year now and had been receiving treatment. His death has been unfolding many
in the Pandora’s Box. People like Generals Yakubu Gowon and Olusegun Obasanjo
have refused to briddle their tongues since Ojukwu died. They are now
exhuming what was supposed to be left for history. Gowon, like Obasanjo,
because they saw theirselves in positions they never expected all their life,
by their prosecution of Ndi’Igbo in and after the 60s, they would not allow
Ndi’Igbo to wipe away the tears on their (Ndi’Igbo) eyes, before they started
to make derogatory statements against the dead. In his statement on his
master, General Ojukwu, all Obasanjo could recall was that he requested
Ojukwu to apologize to the nation for coming up with the Biafran state, “but
that Ojukwu refused”, while Gowon is blaming Ojukwu for leading Biafrans to
the war. It is a pity that Obasanjo have not realized that he had egocentric
interest; never really cared about anybody, including his Yoruba race. While
Ndi’Igbo are trying to stop taking Gowon serious, Obasanjo is goofing.
Ndi’Igbo will never stop to remember Ojukwu for what he stood for, the
sacrifice he made in the name of freedom for Ndi’Igbo and Nigeria in general.
Gowon and Obasanjo have refused to remember those men and women who
sacrificed so much in the name of Biafra and Nigeria. Maybe, the “the Sword
of Damocles” is now hanging on Gowon and Obasanjo’s heads and they are making
mentally subnormal utterances.
Since Gowon and Obasanjo have refused to allow the sleeping dog to lie, one
issue their statements have made Ndi’Igbo and Ngerians to recall to is the
issue of ‘Abandoned Property.’ This phraseology was given after the
Nigeria/Biafra civil war – 1967-1970. Ndiigbo who are majority Biafrans left
their property in the old Rivers State created in 1967, and fled for safety
of their lives during this war. After the war they came back to Rivers State
to start up a new life, they were deprived of their property. Rivers men and
women claimed Ndiigbo property worth Millions of Pounds unlawfully and
characterized it “Abandoned Property” with the connivance of the Nigerian
state.
The Nigeria/Biafra war didn’t just come up. It was after the Northerners
gruesomely murdered Ndiigbo, in what was called retaliation of some Northern
elites, who were killed during the January 15, 1966 coup. This coup was
adjudged as a pointer that Ndiigbo wanted to “dominate” all spheres of life
in Nigeria. But the fact was that the coupists never consulted any of the
known prominent Igbo leaders. The North characterized it as “Igbo-inspired
Coup.” Hence, they killed Ndiigbo in the North. Ndiigbo mutilated bodies were
ferried down their land amidst tears. Ojukwu was among notable Igbo sons and
daughters who stood up and cried and called the entire world to come and see
the pogrom that was committed against Igbo. The Northerners wanted to break
out of Nigeria. Hence they saw anybody who was not from the North as an
enemy.
The Northerners circulated falsehood as necessary motivation for executing
the civil war. They said that General JTU Aguiyi Ironsi’s military regime was
tending towards unitary form and if not stopped, would be detrimental to the
heterogeneous composition of Nigeria. As a result, some scholars have asked
that if unitary government was against Nigeria’s corporate interest between
January 15, 1966 and July 28, 1966, how come after the July 29, 1966 revenge
coup, unitary system of government was consolidated and perpetuated within
Nigeria even till present-day? What changed after July 29, 1966? They have
asked that could it be that some sections of Nigeria were entitled to impose
and operate a unitary form of government on other sections of Nigeria, while
some other sections are not entitled to do the same. The scholars have further
said that the Hausa-Fulani, while hiding their real intensions for the war,
co-opted the Yoruba in the project. Both these groups set about poisoning the
minds of some Eastern Nigeria minority groups especially the Ijaw with
phantoms of Igbo “oppression” and “domination” so much so that both the Eyo
Ita incident and Udo Udoma’s COR movement issue became ready ‘examples’
adduced as representative of Igbo ‘domination’ of Eastern Region minorities
with the potential to spread to other parts of Nigeria, if not checked by
collective effort. The unsuspecting Ijaw, Efik, Ogoni amongst others,
swallowed the bait hook, line, and sinker.
Ojukwu’s death has refreshed the memories of Ndiigbo on the evil of
‘Abandoned Property.” General Yakubu Gowon was it who led the Nigerian
soldiers against the Biafrans. The war took millions of lives of Ndiigbo and
impoverished them during and after the war. It was Chief Obafemi Awolowo who
advised Gowon in 1967 to diminish the powers of Ndiigbo. His heinous advise
was that Gowon should divide the old Eastern region by creating two states
out from it. But this was Awolowo who was released from the Calabar prisons
and taken to his Ikene home by Ojukwu’s aids. Awolowo gave this ill advise
shortly after his release from the prison. It was his advise that born Rivers
and south eastern states. These states were used as an easy access by the
Nigerian state to humiliate Biafrans.
Shortly Rivers State was carved out from the old eastern region, Biafra’s
main base in Calabar and Port Harcourt fell to the capture of the Nigerian
soldiers with the aid of some people characterized as saboteurs. The Igbo
victims fled Port Harcourt when the city was captured by the Third Marine
Commando Division in May 1968. Olusegun Obasanjo was the General Officer
Commanding Third Commando Division in 1969, with headquarters in Port
Harcourt, and was seen as one of the hands guiding the then Rivers State
governor, Lt-Commander Alfred Diete-Spiff. When this was achieved by the
Nigerian soldiers, historians would say that Ken Saro Wiwa was allegedly
among the Rivers State indigenes who led other like minds from the state to
Gowon. The outcome of their meeting was an accord with the Gowon-led
government that should the war end in favour of Nigeria, the state would take
over all that Ndiigbo left behind in River State.
In 1970 the war ended, Gowon pronounced his Kangaroo statement: “No victor,
No vanquished”. While this lasted, because an agreement is an agreement,
Ndiigbo property they worked hard to institute in Rivers State was sharply
coveted by the Rivers indigenes and was immediately given the name –
Abandoned Property. Ndiigbo were hand-twisted over their property. However,
Awolowo, while the war was going on was given the Federal Commissioner for
Finance, a gift from Gowon for denouncing his earlier stand to declare the
Odu-Dua Republic. His stand on this republic was hinged on the prospect,
should the easterners declare the Biafra republic.
While the Yoruba people respected Awolowo, Ndiigbo venerated the commands and
the wishes of Ojukwu for their undying patriotism to their different regions.
Ndiigbo were fighting to live, while Awolowo had announced a total
naturalization of all the companies Ndiigbo had so much interests in,
especially on the Nigerian side. His International Monetary Fund (IMF)
negotiation of fund was to fund the war in favour of Nigeria – his pay
master. He didn’t stop there, he channeled some of the percentage of this
fund into the National Bank. This bank was solely owned by the westerners. As
a result of this, Yoruba people had direct access to loans for the purchase
of the share interests taken away from Ndiigbo till date. Conversely, through
these rigorous adventures orchestrated against Ndiigbo by Awolowo, Ndiigbo
did not lose even a pin in the entire Yoruba land after the war, but they did
in Rivers State that was supposed to be their brothers and sisters.
Although Ndiigbo didn’t lose property in the Yoruba-land after the war, but
one of their own, who took the helm-of-affairs as the military president of
Nigeria in 1976 took Ndiigbo less than a beast. This person was Chief
Obasanjo. It happened after the death of Murtala Mohammed. The
representations of Ndiigbo in the federal level were next to nothing.
Courtesy of Obasanjo. A lot of people said that it was the hatred culminating
from the Yoruba-race since during the war that made Obasanjo to hand power
over to Alhaji Shehu Shagari in 1979, even when Shagari, it was clear in many
quarters, did not win the election with the two-third(2/3) majority, as
stipulated in the Nigerian electoral rules. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe – Igbo – was
allegedly robbed in that election.
Going down memory lane of how Ndiigbo have been unjustly humiliated in the
Nigerian state since forty years the war ended is a crying shame. In 1999,
Dr. Alex Ekwueme emerged as the most preferred candidate in the Peoples
Democratic Party’s (PDP) primaries, but the same machinery that have been in
use against Ndiigbo was used to float him out of the race in favour of the
same Obasanjo. It was this same skimming out anything Igbo that converted
Igbo businessmen into street hustlers, following “The harsh post-war economic
policy” that was meted out against Ndiigbo. The distinguished President of
the Senate, David Bonaventure Mark, allegedly chaired and rationalized the
properties of Ndiigbo in the Old Rivers State. A “Statesman” like Chief Edwin
Clarke has been manipulated severally as a major beneficiary of the abandoned
property, no matter how he has tried to exonerate himself from this
situation.
Anytime Chief Clarke was brought into this issue of Abandoned Property, he
sings lullaby to Ndiigbo, claiming that the statement is a blatant falsehood
deliberately calculated to tarnish his reputation and to incite his very
‘good Ndiigbo’ friends to hate him. He would categorically state that he did
not acquire any abandoned property in Port Harcourt and that he does not own
even a kitchen or any property in Port Harcourt at anytime before or after
the Civil War to this day. “It is indeed, a deliberate falsehood and
malicious assassination of my character,” he would say. But what Clarke has
refused to tell the world was that he moved to re-install Ijaw hegemony in
Rivers State, even though that he comes from Delta State, in what many Nigerians
have described as, “by all means necessary.” This followed his full support
of Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State since 2007 the later was clamoured to
have been imposed on Rivers people as governor, a man many have said was
declared winner of an election in the court of law and installed as governor
in an election, he did not contest.
One phenomenon that has kept the Nigerian state aghast about Ndiigbo is their
skyrocketing socio-economic status, even when deprived much of Nigeria’s
political positions. Ndiigbo are surmounting all odds in the Nigerian state
without rehabilitative assistance from any quarters, locally and
internationally. Upon their hard earned property seize in Rivers State, they
are not leaving anything to weigh their entrepreneurial spirit down. The
memory of the roles Awolowo played against Ndiigbo during the war has only
deterred a progressive and prosperous Southern Nigeria and Nigeria, but
people are just pretending.
In the later months of 2007, Ojukwu visited Rivers State. The issue of
abandoned property unofficially characterized his visit. Many Nigerians were
of the view that the Rivers State government might re-open the issue. From
virtually all quarters indications were prominent that Ojukwu’s visit was to
impress on Amaechi the need for a retroactive abrogation of the Abandoned
Property Edict. There were also feelers that the federal government might be
uncomfortable with the alleged move. This information was hinged on the fact
that it could further heat-up the already militantly over-heated Rivers
State. The issue was that Ojukwu seldom visits a serving state governor, so
why Amaechi?
A lot of people feared that Amaechi, Ikwerre, may not move fast enough to
repeal the land grabbed by the indigenes in Rivers State, because “… abandoned
property was to prevent Igbo people from participating in the buying of
indigenized companies in the 1970s. Remember that part of the abandoned
property “law” was that Igbo landed assets in Port Harcourt could not be used
as collaterals for bank loans. That was a master stroke after confiscating
Igbo bank accounts and giving everyone N20…The fiction of abandoned property
was embellished and maintained until 1996 when Abacha skillfully carved out
Ijaw die-hards and the most ardent enforcers of abandoned property into
Bayelsa State. It soon dawned on these Ijaws that actually, they owned
nothing… my view is that this should have been called “Stolen Properties”
instead of “Abandoned properties,” said an observer.
Not even Spiff helped Ndiigbo to attain their “stolen property” back by the
indigenous Rivers people. He was even alleged to have plotted with Obasanjo
and the Federal Government to further hold unto the decision against Ndiigbo
takeover of their property back. There has been doubt by many Nigerians over
the speculation that absolutely nothing is to be gained from the purported
review of the Abandoned Property. They allay their claims that the point was
that the Rivers people kicked the Igbo nation in the stomach, while it laid
prostrate on the ground, adding that such a review would have made sense in
the 1970s, when Spiff was in office.
More were yet to crop-up from this issue, as many Nigerians were saying that
the next aim of abandoned property was to award Port Harcourt to Ijaw
henchmen as war booty and edge the Igbo people into the fictionalized enclave
called East Central State with no access to the sea. The Ijaws accepted their
task with unbridled zeal and this had two consequences (a) destruction of the
port in Port Harcourt and the migration of Igbo import-export business to
Lagos, Cotonou and other ports in West Africa (b) the destruction of the real
estate sector in Port Harcourt and the flight of capital to elsewhere.
Nigerians have gone further to say that the Igbo nation has learned a
valuable lesson from the abandoned property saga and moved on. Despite the
suffering of individual property owners, the overall outcome has been
positive. Ndiigbo have learnt to think home always. Alternative growth points
have been created everywhere in Igboland – Asaba, Onitsha, Nnewi, Aba, Awka,
Owerri, Umuahia etc. Igbo trading network in West and central Africa has
diversified away from Port Harcourt, as its focus and has been strengthened
rather than weakened. Abandoned property has also enabled the Igbo to be more
realistic about the distribution of infrastructure in their country. Today,
Owerri with its 5-star hotels, universities, wide streets, housing estates
and Airport exists side-by-side with Port Harcourt. And Akanu Ibiam
International Airport (AKIA) Enugu, will complement Port Harcourt
international airport and Owerri, to give people more choice in the region.
Abandoned property has thankfully re-oriented young Igbo away from unhealthy
fixation with Port Harcourt and diversified development thinking in Igbo
region.
There is a school of thought that says that those who owned abandoned
property are mostly dead or have moved on. Any so-called review now is not
for their benefit- more to sooth the conscience of those reviewing it that is
apparently haunted by their treachery. Review or no review, Igbo people have
moved on. This is one piece of theater that should be pointedly ignored by
every worthwhile Igbo. But other people are of the opinion that even though
that the owners of the abandoned property may have died, their wards can
inherit the property. The late elder statesman Sam Mbakwe, former Governor of
the old Imo State, is praised to have tried to handle the collective cases of
the Igbo landlords in Port Harcourt, even though that there was rare
significant outcome. The question now is why majority of the abandoned
property on the Ikwerre land went not to the Ikwerre people but to those from
the Riverine areas of Rivers State.
Majority of the people are asking for curtail of degrees of mutual suspicion
and antagonism amongst all the groups involved in the war in one way or the
other. According to them, the issues from the war have so poisoned the
political atmosphere in Nigeria, corroding any traces of future political
unity between and amongst the ethnic nationalities, which constitute Southern
Nigeria. They are asking for the abrogation of the over past decades Igbo and
Yoruba, for selfish and self-serving considerations, refused to bury their
differences and chart a mutually beneficial political and economic course for
Nigeria. They pray and believe that the death of Ojukwu will bring about the
long sought peace.
Nigerians in many quarters have confirmed that Ojukwu is a General of the
Peoples Army of The Republic of Biafra & General of the Army of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria, son of the Richest Black Man of his time and
also an Oxford Graduate, he was never and will never be a tribal warlord as
Biafra is not a tribe, like Gowon and Obasanjo have painted her to to be.
Gowon and Obasanjo should remember that Ojukwu joined NPN
(Hausa/Fulani/Yoruba party), not NPP (Igbo party), when he contested for the
senate. He was born in Zungeru, Northern Nigeria in November 4, 1933. He
started his early life as a hero and died a hero. The Old Boys of CMS Grammar
School, Lagos, King’s College, Lagos, Epsom College, Surrey, England, and
Lincoln College, Oxford University, England where he earned a Bachelor of
Arts degree and a Masters degree in History, would be crying more than. He
joined the civil service in the then Eastern Nigeria, upon his return to
Nigeria in 1956; he enlisted in the Nigeria in 1957, and was posted to
Nigerian Army depot, Zaria, as one of the graduates that joined the military
during that period, though as a recruit. He had been promoted to the rank of
Lieutenant Colonel and appointed Quartermaster General, Nigeria Army, by
1964. He was everything good until his death at 78. While Nigerians would be
morning him greatly, he would be deeply missed by the All Progressive Grand
Alliance (APGA), a political party he was its national leader. His death to
Ndiigbo is like they are now abandoned property. But what can they say other
than “Ojukwu farewell”.
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