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NORTHERN NIGERIAN MUSLIMS AND THE NIGERIAN CIVIL WAR: BETWEEN ACHEBE AND OTHER IGBO INTELLECTUALS
By Ibraheem A. Waziri
iawaziri@yahoo.com
Is it just that ignorance reigns in Nigeria or our public
intellectuals do not have passion for details and deep philosophical
inquiry into the nature and realities of our socio-cultural formation
and its history for the best of their opinions. These can be the only
open and not so stretched explanations to Chinua Achebe’s blatant, below
status and insincere depiction of the Nigerian Civil War of 1967 – 70
in the light of a so called jihadist expansionist goal of Muslims of
northern Nigeria. The opinion summary of his latest book,
There Was a Country, as he published in the UK Guardian, Tuesday, 2nd 2012, make bold this meaningless assertion:
“But if the diabolical disregard for human life seen during the war
was not due to the northern military elite’s jihadist or genocidal
obsession, then why were there more small arms used on Biafran soil than
during the entire second world war? Why were there 100,000 casualties
on the much larger Nigerian side compared with more than 2 million –
mainly children – Biafrans killed?”
Needless to mention that Achebe is not alone in this kind of
portrayal that is typical of*recent Igbo ‘intellectuals’ when it comes
to discussing the civil war. The task of re-educating them and the crop
of their students is therefore necessary if the dream of a greater
Nigeria in fair neighborliness is to be realized.
Yes, northern Nigerians are mainly and majorly proud and faithful
Muslims with unique culture and a record of close interactions with
other world civilizations since time. They have for long known and
understood that not everybody must look like them or believe in what
they believed in, before peace, social cohesion and fair neighborliness
are justifiably established. In fact it can be authoritatively said that
northern Nigeria of the 1960s, formed one the most cosmopolitan and
accommodating social spaces in the whole world. When the Ghanaian
president Kwame Nkrumah wanted to initiate and draft Nigeria’s prime
minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and the premier of the northern region
Ahmadu Bello into his Pan-Africanism, they clearly told him that they
were not racists and believed in the universal nature of truth, justice,
fairness and equality of humankind regardless of race or ethnicity and
that reflected the way they managed northern Nigeria and the country in
general.
Chinua Achebe
It was this world-view with its values and norms guiding intra and
inter-pinning of human relations that saw a northern Nigeria of the
1960s as a home to many Igbos. In*modern history the top one percent of
the most literate and influential Igbo personalities once lived in
northern Nigeria or spoke Hausa, the dominant language in the North. It
was here that Major Chukuma Kaduna Nzeogwu’s parents settled and gave
birth to him in 1937. He grew up with all opportunities unhindered and
got the award of love, justice and trust of the then premier of the
Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello until he finally, easily and safely
got access to him, in the night, in his house, in the privacy of his
bedroom and killed him in front of his wife with no struggle, no any
suspecting guard to check him or even ask him hard questions.*It is
finished. Brutus killed his Caesar in cold blood of treachery, hatred
and breach of trust.
Kaduna Nzeogwu
Describing a similar situation in the same operation kill, where
Major Ifeajuna an Igbo soldier and Major Nzeagwu’s co-kill planner and
partner, shot Brigadier Maimalari, Bernard Odogwu, an Igbo Nigerian
Diplomat at the times of the events, in his book,
No Place to Hide – Crises and Conflicts inside Biafra,
clearly put it, “I am particularly shocked at the news that Major
Ifeajuna personally shot and killed his mentor, Brigadier Maimalari. My
God! That must have been Caesar and Brutus come alive…”
What then could have been the fate of other Igbos in many parts of
the North who enjoyed the same love, trust and protection of the other
northerners who began to see a new streak of arrogance, condescension in
the behavior of the Igbo who were illussioned in the new leadership of
General Ironsi to the extent that, as told by our parents, they used to
mock the northerners, imitating the cries and squeaks of Abubakar Tafawa
Balewa before he died in the hands of Major Ifeajuna. Still Igbo
intellectuals engage in this mockery as the Nigerian military historian
Max Siollun, recently re-told the story of Nzeogwu’s kill, which clearly
portrayed Ahmadu Bello as a coward and a simpleton who hide behind his
wife when he saw that Nzeagwu was certain to get him. These provocations
and the details of stories such as captured by David Muffett, a*British
colonial officer who wrote the account of the 1966 coup in a book
titled,
Let Truth Be Told, outlining the Igbo elite’s detailed
plan to take control of not only the political structures but even the
social structures of the North by killing all the then northern emirs in
the final.
Related: NewsRescue-
Post-Colonial Nigeria: Did Igbo’s Draw First Blood? Another Lekan Explosive!
Some including Achebe are still contesting that the kill was not an
Igbo carefully planned affair but rather a coup plotted against all
Nigerian leaders of then. Yet all Igbos in prominent positions were
missed in the fire and it was said the president, Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe was
missed because he was out of the country for a medical checkup.*The
question is could they have missed Sir Ahmadu Bello or Abubakar Tafawa
Balewa if any was on a medical trip or they would have postponed the
operations for more appropriate date that would guarantee and ensure an
all inclusive kill?
Yet, the pogroms that followed the events and the civil war were
unfortunate (more objective details of which were written by Elechi
Amadi in
Sunset at Biafra). But the characterization of
Northerners as Muslim jihadists who were already prepared and ready to
stage a ‘holy jihad’ against Igbo, as a reason for the war is very
untrue and intellectually insincere. Just because Igbo intellectuals
have to find reasons then it doesn’t mean every reason must be dashed
out. Just because they need someone to blame doesn’t mean the 21st
century image of fundamentalist Islam must be projected backward into
the story of Nigeria to justify a perspective.
Besides
what religion did the major actors of the war on the federal side
professed? General Yakubu Gowon, General Theopilus Danjuma and General
Joseph Garba, were Christians. Chief Awolowo, the intellectual architect
of the War was a Christian. General Olusegun Obasanjo and General
Adekunle were all not Northerners. The prominent name in the commands
that is a core Muslim northerner was only General Murtala Muhammed.*Even
if all the others were Muslims what sense could it have made for the
Muslims to have fought the Igbos only to establish the leadership of
General Yakubu Gowan who was a Christian, the same and only reason they
supposedly could have fought the Igbos? Gowon enjoyed the support of all
Muslim northerners as my good friend Alhaji Yakubu Musa, currently a
media assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan who is from a devout
Muslim family, once mentioned how he was named Yakubu in celebration of
Gowon’s visit to Kano on a day that coincided with his birthday.
No. The truth of the matter is Igbo betrayed the trust given to them
in the then northern Nigeria by the singular act of betrayal of Nzeogwu
on Ahmadu Bello and the subsequent poor management of their relationship
with their hosts that bred suspicion of complicity in the plans of the
kill and a thought of greater conspiracy.
The way forward is not to employ a wider and more efficient
propaganda machinery to score cheap sympathy and sponsor the production
of a sensationalist movie in the Holly Wood,
Tears of the Sun,
starring Bruce Willis and displaying that northern Nigerian Muslim Hausa
will attempt to do the same in the present Nigeria and in the recent
future and can be stopped only by the Americans.
The way forward is to always tell the truth, accept faults, take
responsibilities for errors and constantly preach the gospel of keeping
trust, commitments and fair neighborliness.*Let’s make the younger
generation and the entire world know that we are one in Nigeria and the
top one percent of Igbo most informed political and public intellectuals
lived in the North or even spoke Hausa. This ranging from Chinua Achebe
himself, Cyprian Ekwensi, Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeagwu, General Emeka
Ojukwu or Dr. Nmandi Azikwe. Cyprian Ekwensi even copied and translated
the literary work of my uncle; John Tafida Umaru titled,
Jiki Magayi, from Hausa to English, titled it,
African Nights Entertainment,
and dubbed it his own without acknowledgement, adding to his literary
stock, achievement and fame.*The world must know the good contribution
their living in the North and speaking its language brought into their
skills and perspectives, that, which won them the accolades they so
celebrate and rejoice in, today. A fact which they and their friends
always want to hide!
NewsRescue
The
Police Special Fraud Unit, Ikoyi has arrested oil magnet, Mr Ifeanyi
Uba, the Managing Director of Capital Oil & Gas Industries Ltd over
the involvement of his companies in the fuel subsidy scam.
