A recent photo of Colonel
Utuk of the Owerri siege fame (circa 1969) Those who
saw real action in the Nigeria-Biafra War are not rolling out the drums...
not yet.
Obasanjo: A drooling buffoon & his warlike idioms (II)
Mz.
Kevin Ani
March 18, 2001
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A recent photo of Colonel
Utuk of the Owerri siege fame (circa 1969) Those who |
“...there are
questions about that war which are crying to be answered... Obasanjo is the only
one involved...who still stomps around proclaiming victory. Others...who
implemented policies that verged on war crimes have wisely shown great remorse
and allowed the subject to rest. If Obasanjo is now claiming responsibility for
the war, let him say so openly and take full responsibility for the entire
processes that to led to the much-vaunted victory. Obasanjo cannot claim victory
and simultaneously absolve himself from the moral, ethical and legal
responsibilities arising from the conflict. The case of Augostino Pinochet of
Chile should serve as a reminder to Mr. Obasanjo that, head of state or no head
of state, the people he is constantly baiting have the capacity, knowledge and
wherewithal to re-enact the Pinochet scenario on the Biafran issue..."
“...we put the Obasanjo ogre in perspective with brutal robustness and hard
hitting finality and we do so whether or not the subject of our essay controls
the repressive apparatus of the Nigerian state...”
Mz. Ani
___________________________________________________________
Obasanjo: A Drooling Buffoon & His Warlike Idioms (II)
Journal of Igbo Affairs (Occasional Discussion).
One of the greatest tragedies of the Nigerian rentier state is the deranged
antics of Mr. olusegun obasanjo, a faded and dingy geriatric rag and twice failed
soldier-politician. He has been going round Nigeria of recent talking about war,
totally and utterly immersed in the juvenile language of war. Obasanjo’s
recent assertion in Bayelsa State about the Biafran war is grossly
irresponsible, infantile and silly ( “…that the civil war (sic)…was
caused by resource control. If Biafra had won … your governor would not have
been in the position he is today…" Guardian-NG, March 17 2001).
The tragedy of Obasanjo is that he parades an odd and bizarre combination of
personal cowardice, self-delusion and bloated ego, a perfect recipe for
self-ruin. Twice in less than two weeks, Obasanjo has talked about nothing but
war as if war was a dinner party. This rubbish has gone on long enough and to
fail to decisively confront Obasanjo and his obsolete idioms of war is to
abandon an important area of inquiry about the Nigerian state to an uncouth and
half-literate old rag. It is to allow this vile man to continue to pollute the
air and tear apart whatever inter-group relations that will exist long after the
failed rentier state has disappeared from the face of the earth and Obasanjo
himself dispatched six feet below the ground. In this short essay, we put
the Obasanjo ogre in perspective with brutal and hard hitting finality whether
or not the subject of our essay controls the repressive apparatus of the state.
Obasanjo
Never Fought the Biafran War.
Just to set the records straight, Mr. Obasanjo never fought the Biafran war
despite all the hype. First, the war itself was a fight between the Igbo
and the Hausa-Fulani who were the main protagonists. The Igbo and Hausa
who fought that war have long used that opportunity to assess each other’s
capabilities and have drawn their own conclusions about issues of war and peace.
To their credit, the Hausa and their northern allies who saw real action in that
war have resisted the juvenile and babyish triumphalism of Obasanjo and
his ilk. For example Babangida as a major was nearly fatally injured at the
Uzuakoli sector (he still bears the scar) but he never went about making a song
and dance about it the way Obasanjo is doing with such infantile relish.
Similarly, those Yoruba soldiers who were in the thick of that war have also
drawn their own conclusions about the war, its prosecution and outcome. These
include Alani, Akinrinade , Benjamin Adekunle etc. whose views on the war are
well reported. Obasanjo's involvement in the Biafran war and his role
were equivalent to that of a hired gun. As far as the actual fighting was
concerned, Obasanjo was a wretched opportunist who walked in and claimed credit
for a job he did not do. Long before the emergence of Obasanjo, field
soldiers like Akinrinade, Adekunle had sweated it out at the battles of Onitsha
and Port Harcourt and the southern Biafran fronts.
Finally, Mr. obasanjo was way off the frontline nursing his bloated stomach for
most of the war and by the time he, obasanjo appeared to play any major role in
the frontline, all the major campaigns of the war had been fought, won and lost.
These include the battles of Ore, Onitsha, Enugu, Obollo Eke, Ehamufu, Abagna,
Bonny, Port Harcourt, Ikot Ekpene, Aba, Owerri, Umuahia, Ohobu, Owaza etc.
So Obasanjo talks pure rubbish when he puffs around like a pregnant squaw
claiming that he fought Biafra. He did not. The real Nigerian heroes of that war
like Col. Etuk, who saved over 4000 of his troops from annihilation in Owerri in
the winter of 1968 have since been relegated to the dustbin of history. The last
time Col. Etuk was heard of was in 1996. He bemoaned his fate in the rural
backwaters of Akwa Ibom State where he was vegetating unrecognised by the
country he fought for. Meanwhile, loudmouthed charlatans and circus
showmen like Mr. Obasanjo continue to stomp around, claiming credits for a job they did not do except in their self-delude dreams.
Obasanjo
& the End of the Biafran War.
For over three decades now, Obasanjo, a born coward and dastard has been
stomping around with his fat, distended stomach, claiming that
he defeated Biafra and all that crap. Nothing can be further from the truth.
Someone ought to tell the drooling buffoon that the plot that ended on Biafran
war was hatched in places well beyond the reach of Obasanjo and his likes.
Here is a brief recap. By the beginning of 1969, the military situation in
Biafra had stabilised, with the Nigerian and Biafran armies locked in a
stalemated combat. At the international level, the coalition of forces
that supported Nigeria was falling apart. In 1969, the eyewitness accounts
of Prof. Jean Mayer of Harvard University and Senator Charles Goodell of New
York predicted mass starvation in Biafra. The British government came under
increasing pressure globally to change its policies and recognise Biafra.
British leaders were pelted with eggs and tomatoes across the world by
protesters who demanded an end to British support of Nigeria. As general
election approached in Britain, Biafra became the main electoral issue. This
caused the British and their allies to throw in everything they had to stop the
war. Therefore, an emergency session of the British parliament on the
Biafran issue, the visit of the British Prime Minister to Nigeria and the
military plans even op!
enly discussed by the BBC heralded the final offensives. Obasanjo and his ilk,
clearly small-time players in this grand scheme can swank to their hearts’
content about their military prowess, but they were small timers in the grand
scheme all the same.
There was nothing in Obasanjo’s decrepit background or actions that marked him
out as an outstanding commander. So his sudden elevation to replace far more
skilful operators in the field at the tail end of the war is still a mystery. It
is conceivable that once victory was within their grasp, the Hausa-Fulani and
their foreign mentors may have positioned themselves to outfox their Yoruba
allies in the post-war Nigeria. They therefore brought in a drooling
buffoon in the person of Mr Obasanjo, a clueless, bumbling and vengeful
psychopath to replace the more capable Yoruba field commanders such as Adekunle
and Akinrinade. The role of Obasanjo in the consolidation of Hausa-Fulani
hegemony in Nigeria ever since seems to confirm this disturbing conclusion.
Every time the northern power bloc wishes to execute a complex and daring plot
in their quest for hegemony be it over sharia, resource control etc, they would
wheel in Obasanjo as their dependable ally. If this is the case, such a
manoeuvre is not new in northern thinking. Readers will recall that during the
Abacha years and as Ogoni activists stepped up their noisy campaign for resource
control, Tanko Yakassai, a Hausa-Fulani warned them to shut up. According
Yakkassai, the Ogoni was only one LGA and if they talked too much “we
will go to Ogun State invite… Adekunle et al* to deal with them. A
couple of years later, they actually got Obasanjo to deal with Odi the way
Yakkassai had threatened.
Returning to the
Biafran War, we insist that Obasanjo never won it either. Even at the tail end, Obasanjo
and his so-called army, by now numbering over 500,000, were prevented
from setting their leprous feet at Uli International Airport. The military
balance that was established was robustly maintained on land and air until
after an orderly transfer of power in Biafra had been completed, a broadcast
made to the Biafran people by the Head of State and the Biafran leadership
evacuated to safety. The rest is history.
Obasanjo’s War
Mongering & Igbo Taunting: A Cautionary Note.
It is sickening today that Obasanjo is stomping around like a pregnant squaw
with his bumpy, ballooned stomach and elongated mouth proclaiming himself the
Napoleon who won a war he never fought. Obasanjo should be reminded that
there are murky, unanswered questions about that war he is attempting to
rake up, questions that are crying to be answered. Those (including Yakubu Gowon
himself) who implemented policies that verged on war crimes have wisely shown
great remorse and allowed the subject to rest. The remorseful mindset of
international key players in that war has also become clearer as secret papers
relating to the war are declassified in Britain and elsewhere. Obasanjo is the
only one involved in the Biafran war who still stomps around proclaiming pyrrhic
victory. If Obasanjo is claiming responsibility for the war, let him say so
openly and let the music begin. He cannot claim victory and simultaneously
absolve himself from the moral, ethical and legal responsibilities!
arising from the conflict. The case of Augostino Pinochet of Chile should serve
as a reminder to Mr Obasanjo about the scope and weight of the charges that can
still be brought against him, head of state or no head of state. Obasanjo deceives himself if he thinks that the people he is constantly baiting have not
the capacity, knowledge and wherewithal to re-enact the Pinochet scenario
on the Biafran issue.
Obasanjo is reminded that inexplicable and terrible atrocities were committed in
Biafra. The well-recorded massacre of 800 Igbo males at Asaba in 1967 remains
unaccounted for. This is a war crime. The deliberate shooting down of marked Red
Cross planes and the murder of Red Cross personnel in Biafra is a war crime. The
murder of the elderly British missionary, couple Mr and Mrs Savory, and
two Swedish Red Cross workers on October 1 1968 at Obilagu Airport
is a war crime. The starving of non-combatants is
a war crime. The bombing of Awgu and Aguleri markets on February and
October 1968 are war crimes. The bombing of a hospital at Umuahia on Christmas
Day of 1968 is a war crime. All these and more are gross violations of the
Geneva Convention of 1948 of which Nigeria was a signatory at the time of the
conflict. Whoever takes responsibility for the war will have to explain
the entire processes that to led to the much -vaunted victory to the War Crimes
Tribunal at the Hague.
In that war, the USSR and the Warsaw Pact, Britain and NATO the Arab League and
a coalition of various domestic groups were ranged against Biafrans whose hands
were tied behind their back by air and sea blockade. Egyptians and
East Germans flew the Russian MIG and Ilyushin planes and officers of the
British navy led the amphibious landings in Bonny. Kicking a man who is on
the ground does not exactly constitute heroism, except in the wretched ,
decrepit world of Mr Obasanjo. To that extent, Obasanjo is a drooling buffoon
and a despicable one at that. In the same way as the goofy remark
“ starvation is a legitimate instrument of war” was made by those who were
power drunk and seemed invincible at the time, Obasanjo is riding the crest of a
wave, making crude and thoughtless utterances and chalking up liabilities
for himself and his descendants which are capable of soiling inter-group
relations in Nigeria for a long time after he is long gone. Obasnjo’s
Yoruba kinsmen ought to restrain him and rein in his mad impulses before he damages them further
and solidifies the stereotypical imagery of the childlike blackman’s mind.
Postscript: Ezer
Weizman*
While Obasanjo the childish war-monger and leader of a failed rentier state
continues to play the fool and make a dog’s dinner of the image of the black
state of Nigeria, consider the contrasting dignified peaceful carriage of
President Ezer Weizman of Israel. Weizman played a key role in both the 6-Day
War and the Camp David Accords. As early as 1956 he was appointed
Commander in Chief of the Israeli air Force (IAF) at the age of 32 years. By
1966 Weizman's military reputation had grown large enough for him to be chosen
as the Head of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Operations Branch and Deputy
Chief of Staff responsible for the IAF. In 1969 he retired from the IDF.
In old age, Ezer Weizman is a believer in peace, and feels it can occur through
the peace process. Like many of his age he was involved early in the military
aspect of the Arab-Israeli disputes, but now believes in reaching peace with his
Arab neighbours. This is part of his philosophy of not forgetting the past!
, but understanding things must go forward and peace being the answer. An
accomplishment for him was being the first Israeli President to speak at the
German Bunestag and Budesrat. Here is a man who fought and won numerous wars
with large, well-armed neighbours. Yet when a reporter prodded him to take a
hawkish posturing on war Weizman retorted “Have you fought a war before?”,
thereby confirming the dignifying philosophy of peace. It is this calm, refined
and dignified approach to state leadership that Obasanjo lacks to his eternal
shame. The philosophy of peace is apparently alien to Obasanjo and his
child-like mind.
** thanks to Scott
Michael Skokna
Mz Kevin Ogbonnaya Ani
Journal of Igbo Affairs.
