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KWENU! Our culture, our future |
You prosper, you perish M. O. Ené egbedaa@aol.com Thursday, May 30, 2002 ============================================== ~Wole
Soyinka, professor, Nobel Laureate ================================================ Today, I wanted to write on "What we did with Biafra." In case you have not noticed, it is the anniversary: May 30. But blatant bashing and recent raving and ranting remind us of some of the reasons why Biafra lives. It lives because we have simply refused to learn the lessons. A careful review of recent rabid postings tells me that there is an uneasy calm before the storm or the darkness before dawn… probably, but some people are reveling in it and telling us it is the full moon. For example, how does a man invited to look at South Africa with a fresh face and to bring personal perspectives turn around and start stereotyping a Nigerian nation as intolerant of his religion, undiplomatic, and betrayers of their brethren? The next week, a self-confessed "diasporan" wobbled in and turned an alleged SUSPENSION of a mosque construction, reported only in one obviously biased press, into a "demolition of a mosque"; and then we read of the coming killing of "non-Hausa" people for a few blocks of concrete -- as if God lives in a church or in a mosque or in a shrine! I have therefore decided to revisit the Pogrom so that those who have eyes and a conscience can refresh their memory, so those who saw it should stop and ask questions and remind the new generation to start marking the modern Hitlers before they grow wicked whiskers. This piece is excerpted from the first Nigeria-Biafra War Memorial Lecture [Beyond Biafra…], which I delivered on Friday, May 30, 1997 -- a lecture series instituted long before Oputa Panel to help the healing process and to galvanize everyone in the process of building a better place for the future. Today, I would have preferred to comment on the good things coming out of the project. Professor Reuben Ogbudinkpa has just turned the fourth lecture on Biafra scientists into a book. Professors MJC Echeruo and Uju Afulezi had their days too in 1998 and 1999 respectively. More on that much later. For now, let's talk about the Pogrom. When writing about Biafra, it is preferred to separate nuts from bolts. One of the nuts is the Pogrom; the bolt is Biafra proper. As in all nut-and-bolt assemblies, these two fit into the darkest era of Nigeria's history like butter on a hot toast. However, because it is easy to fall prey to the domino theory in history, I have since learned to separate the two. The Pogrom and Biafra are interlinked, but one is not the other; rather, the latter is a direct consequence of the former. Therefore, it is necessary to revisit the genocide as one of the reasons why Biafra happened. The Pogrom might not in itself justify the secession of the East, but it sure was enough reason to reconsider being a part of a hostile, sour union. The Jews, caught napping in Hitler's Germany, did not look back after the Holocaust: Israel was born. It did not matter on whose toes the World Jewry stepped. Today the survival of the Hebrew nation is of an understandable and paramount importance. From the blond, blue eyes through the Semites to Nilotic Falashas and Negroids, survival of Israel continues to confound its mighty Arab neighbors. Why? Survival instinct sometimes goes into the "auto" mode. You throw all you have into it and cast worldwide concerns to the winds. Probably borrowing from the Jewish experience, Eastern leaders of thought were all ready to run no more. It was an ad-hoc venture, a reaction to a terrible injustice. Biafra came to be, unplanned and hoisted with a missionary zeal on an ill-prepared populace who thought it would be as easy as friends parting ways or, at worst, as vicious as an acrimonious divorce after the legendary seventh-year marriage itch. Biafra happened the way it did because no one told us about the Armenian Genocide of 1915 or of the evils of Jewish Holocaust -- or a townsman wouldn't have chosen the nickname "Hitler Atilla." No one told us about the barbarity of the Japanese Royal Army: the defilement of poor Korean women used as slave whores, the agony of American POWs, and the deep depravity of a supposedly organized army. When the realities of a pogrom suddenly stared us in the face like a one-eyed monster on a lonely dark highway, we were dumbfounded, disoriented, and dispirited. Like orphaned goslings, we were ready to follow the first lively thing that exhibited a coordinated movement. The rest is history. There are not many scholarly works on the Pogrom, as an event of such proportion deserves. It is not because of lack of materials. It is not because no one wants a different slant to the discussion on the evil that ethnic cleansing is: it is so because Nigerians want to wake up everyday and believe it never happened. The vibrant Nigerian media, when they dig into Biafra once in a long while, shy away from examining the ramifications of this inexcusable, terrible act. Many Nigerian ethnic groups can fault the East until clouds close in on earth, but they cannot truly find a rope with which to hang families who has no part in the coups d'état or in the post-independence political chicanery. No matter which side one leans, Nigerians must never put up with such atrocities. Remembering them helps us all to rewrite our rhetoric of revolution, and tone down our tart-tongued, xenophobic utterances. No group should have to go through that again. In 1996, 30 years after 50,000 people of Eastern extraction were killed in an ethnic genocidal rage, our own Wole Soyinka posted an intellectual indignity in his latest narrative, The Open Sore of a Continent: "Ogoniland is the first Nigerian experimentation with 'ethnic cleansing'...." No, sir: Nigeria had experimented with ethnic cleansing on the Ogoni and the entire East long before many outside Ogoni heard of Ogoni. We know it as the Pogrom. Biafrans called it "The Genocide"; some still call it "The 1966 Civil Disturbances." Gowon would readily say there were no mass graves. True -- so many were not buried. The OAU supported his assertion -- their investigators saw no "telling" signs. Who would tell them the story? The limbless, horrified heads were in the East What happened in 1966 was a systematic and carefully planned extermination of the Igbo people and those who look like them simply because of their ethnicity. If that was not "ethnic cleansing," then there was no Bosnia; Rwanda and Burundi Zaire exist in Hammer's House of Horror; and we might as well all subscribe to revisionist versions of the Holocaust. Or it could be that Herr Hitler was a mirage, and Yakubu Gowon was never at the helm of an out-of-control army in its reign of murderous mutiny directed against a people whose only crime was their accident of birth. Make no mistakes about it, the Pogrom was not a spontaneous reaction to the post January 15, 1966, failed coup and the ascendancy of General J. T. U. Aguiyi-Ironsi to the pinnacle of absolute power. The recipe had been in place for years. Some of the key ingredients were already in place and brewing before someone systematically lit the pyre of perfidy. Ordinary Northerners and Westerners, dispossessed and brutally brainwashed, were waiting as ready tools for the calculated stupidity of supposedly sane souls. The Pogrom is a chilling word on its own before you find out what it actually means. Was it sad? Yes. Was it crass? Yes. Do some Nigerians wish it never happened? Maybe, maybe not. The fact remains that a certain group was set upon by other ethnic groups and butchered like unwholesome Christmas chickens. Why? Simple: ethnicity. Then there was religion and language. In the West and up North, Easterners were so dehumanized it turned stomachs. Why? Anger. Frustration. Hate. Ignorance. How could these atrocities have happened in such a country? Many questions, few answers. But the Pogrom remains a sad chapter in Nigeria's turbulent history, an indelible stain of shame. It will abide with us for as long as there are human beings on earth. It happened; there is no debating it. In his latest literary offering Fractured History, published by NJ-based Sungai, retired General Joseph Garba admitted to "widespread killings of mostly [Ndiigbo] in the North," but then chipped in a baffling, exculpatory statement: "Even so, no one has been able to provide concrete evidence of a planned program directed against the Igbo." Fractured history indeed! The Pogrom had been in the works long before anyone heard of the Dodan Barracks' maharishi. There was absolutely no "possibility that mob syndrome had come into play, and with it the unleashing of such unprecedented mayhem."
As in all traumatic massacres, from ancient ethnic enmities that date back to the first Homo Sapiens, through Euro-driven chattel slavery to 23 centuries of anti-Semitism that culminated in the massacre of European Jewry, there are four basic processes that lead up to such heinous evil. I will review them here. REMOTE REASON: Resentment There was an excitable resentment by the indigenes. The Igbo lived in the so-called sabon gari districts of Northern cities, still existing "strangers' ghettos" they did not create but which they successfully developed to the envy of their hosts. They were civil servants, contractors, educators, entrepreneurs, financiers, officers of the law, publicans, successful shopkeepers, and technicians. As was the case with successful immigrants, the Igbo made their homes in the North. "Where you live, there you thrive," is a popular Igbo dictum. They lived and thrived in the mostly liberal Christian sabon gari, but they were resented by the "natives" of conservative Muslim gari, a walled enclave of mostly medieval mud houses where the Koran was followed with faithful forthrightness. Between the gari and the "immigrant" non-Muslim sabon gari was tudun wada quarters, a hub of Muslims from other parts of the North. In Zaria, the "immigrant" Northern Christians lived in the Wusasa section. Gowon was born here. With this balkanized, social stay-apart setup, it was not long before xenophobia crept up in the late 40s and early 50s. Colin Legum explained in Markovitz (1977): Like all petty traders the world over, they [the Igbo] exploited their customers and ignored their resentment. The hatred that grew around them was dismissed as jealousy fanned by Northern Emirs. They [the Igbo] were the sharpest, shrewdest, most successful, and most pushful element in a slow-moving society.... While the peasants complained of exploitation, the educated Northerners spoke of the [Igbo] as vermin, criminals, money grabbers, and sub-humans without genuine culture. "Their god is money," they [Northern élite] said.
[Compare with the recent bizarre bazookas from South Africa, the denigration in past and present postings, and you will understand how the cookies crumble.] An Igbo trader must have wondered in 1965: What was "genuine" about the Hausa culture if within a century it could be phased out by the jihading Fulani Islamists? They did not ignore the resentment. They knew it existed. They had experienced rehearsals. There was little they could do to bridge the gulf. They thrived in a world apart. What could be safer than ply your trade, raise a family, and stay out of trouble? Everything. It takes no Ph.D. to know that the most effective way to provoke people to hate, and propel fringe fanatics to commit unspeakable subhuman acts, is to demonize your rival. The hatred of the hardworking Igbo in the West and North was not mere envy and resentment. Undeniably, religious bigotry was an underlying factor, as in the Hebrew Holocaust, the Bosnian bestiality, the Sudanese slaughters, the Sri Lanka civil war, and the Irish fraternal fracas.
ETHNIC TENSION: A state of tension existed and further fanned the embers of enmity between the groups. The perceived partiality in the execution of the military coup of January 15, 1966, especially the killing of Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, left an ethnoreligious bitterness in the mouth of now resentful Northerners. By arresting Bello, Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu could have made him a man. Instead, Nzeogwu made the larger-than-life pillar of politics an ethnoreligious martyr. This singular situation provided more fuel for the fomenters of ethnic hatred. The fact that the principal putschists were of mostly of Igbo ethnic extraction supported the misconception of a plot to subjugate others. As unfounded as this fear was, it was a factor. The killings were unnecessary. Those who truly believe in the sanctity of life agree. Why they had to happen is another story. The important fact here is that the Igbo as a group had never wished to lord it over other groups. It occurred to no one that it took such top Igbo officers as General Aguiyi-Ironsi and Lt. Col. Odumegwu-Ojukwu to foil the coup. In a normal society, the actors being predominantly of one group should have been a pure product of the post-independence army arrangement. Coups of obvious ethnic bias took place after the war, especially the bloody coups of Colonel Dimka of Friday, February 13, 1976, and Colonel Orkar of April 22, 1992. Why weren't their ethnic Benue-Plateau people ran out of town? Simple: they were not Igbo.
JAUNDICED JUNTA: The fact that Odumegwu-Ojukwu, then
commander of the 5th battalion, Kano, singlehandedly stopped Major Nzeogwu's
popular revolution in the North meant little to a group bent on extracting a
pound of flesh. The fact that Major Hassan Usman Katsina was in Nzeogwu's camp
was of little interest. With the ascendancy of Aguiyi-Ironsi, the ingredients
were complete. The meat was there: the unsuspecting ordinary Igbo families. They
knew it could happen. The Igbo State Union had shouted itself hoarse with
peaceful protests and documented appeals to the powers that be, including Igbo
sons in authority. Even after the initial killings, Igbo families who fled were
encouraged to return… alas, for the final slaughter.
IMMEDIATE REASON: Pretext to Light the Pyre The fourth element IS the pretext with which to deal the first blow, a flame to light the fireworks. A false radio news item from Togo said Northerners were being killed in the East in retaliation for the assassination of General Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Igbo. [SIDEBAR: Compare with the brazen cock-and-bull story that a state governor has ordered the "demolition of a mosque" in the center Owerri which, even if remotely true, is a child's play besides what a Sokoto governor would do to a plan of a church anywhere near the palace of the Sultan. Where were these people when Imo MILAD and non-Igbo born-again Colonel "Crusader" Zubairu -- a Northerner, desecrated the Igbo sacred symbol of spirituality, strength, and individual uniqueness -- the Ikenga? Where were they when he erected a white cross in its place? Who has tried to stop the touching of churches in the North or the state-supported sidelining of African Traditional Religion throughout Nigeria, including the desecration of the statue of Moremi in Kwara State?] The bogus incident in Onitsha was an unimaginable scenario that never happened, not even at the height of hostilities. Before anyone could dispel the story, the heat was on. The federalists dithered. All hell was let loose. The Igbo or those who looked like them, were set upon. From the North, the West picked up the mantle of massacre. Families fled with the clothes on their back. Those who escaped the core criminals up north were robbed, humiliated, or butchered by bullies along middle-belt section of the rail of human hardship. By the time it was over, over 50,000 people of Eastern Nigerian origin had been hacked to death in a senseless orgy of murder madness. It was a senseless slaughter. Ironically, some of those who actively encouraged this mayhem had warned their Igbo friends that something was cooking. Many would take care of their friends' properties! This makes one wonder: What where the butchers killing: Igboness or the Igbo person? In Lagos and in the West, stories abound of people who actually tried to hide Igbo friends but pointed out who was Igbo out in the streets, or looked the other way while someone they knew was being kidnapped to return no more. [SIDEBAR: So, buyer: when next some hater flaunts "I have Igbo friends" or "An Igbo lives in my house," beware! You cannot be my friend and hate my Igboness. You cannot REALLY be married to an Igbo and hate her people for being Igbo. Tufiakwa!] The media flamed the street butchers with rotten reports. Everyone felt sanctified at night after letting blood during the day. No one protested. There were no known student demonstrations. No worker protested. Nothing. Events moved very quickly in 1966. It was a nightmare, but it happened to Easterners. Within months of systematic and periodic mass massacres, the Igbo were back to the East, from whence they had gone north and west since the 1800s. The Igbo reeled with restrained anger, restrained because Odumegwu-Ojukwu believed he could pull the palmnut of peace out of the inferno of hostilities. His friend, the Emir of Kano, even visited Enugu. Officials sent to peace talks were assaulted in Lagos. He tried his best in Aburi. All in vain. He could not pull it off. It took all thirty months of bloodbath and three million lives, including one million to the vile use of basic nutrients as a weapon of war. As in all gruesome events the world over, decent human beings must revisit these events and say loud and clear: We shall never walk that path again. Though the lessons are ignored, the Pogrom still sticks out like a sore thumb, a bleeding scare in Nigeria's nation-building journey. It is a sad chapter indeed, forgivable but unforgettable. No one must forget this indelible stain of blood. Whatever claim those who let it happen had on history is damned by this singular action - or, more likely, lack of it - in the presence of perversion. Their equivocation in the face of evil chills the bone. This shame will abide with Nigeria. Could it happen again? Aren't the ingredients used in empowering present political processes the same lethal recipe that blew up the house Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe built? It is with a scary sense of déjà vu that I personally think that Nigeria is walking that walk all over again. The sordid sixties situation is being replayed to this day. Same stage. Similar actors… sometimes, same souls. Different times. Nigerians must pause and ponder as we waltz into 2003, or we will watch the same scenes all over again. If the present level of negative energies overcomes us, we will wonder why no one saw it coming, but it will be too late. Too late because a replay will most definitely spell the end of this eerie and expensive experiment with a colonial contraption called Nigeria, a name that has come to mean so many things to different people, to no two people is it today the same. Question: Is it too hard to dwell on issues or on particular public persons without blanket castigation of a people, any people? Could we not comment on crude corruption, the Niger-Delta nightmare, our perfidious politics, etc. -- serious issues threatening the serenity of our cemetery? A horde of almajeri or a gang of looting generals and pillaging politicians does not make a certain part of Nigeria beggars and thieves. The abject poverty or outlandish revelry of a people does not make them parasites, and the affluence of a mafia does not make its people bandits. The bandits, crooks, and 419ners are our society's creations. As my mother would say: Destitution breeds contempt. Consequently, in prosperity, we perish; we pauperize our people, our culture, and our future, showing dirty hands while standing in a spotless spring. The sort of careless, crude commentaries and unguarded, unnecessary, and unsubstantiated utterances one reads these days is just one of the many reasons why Biafra lives. "And," Lewis Obi writes in African Concord, July 7, 1997, "the power of Biafra remains that, as an idea against political oppression, it can never die." Biafra lives because it is not just a physical phenomenon. It is spiritual. You cannot kill a spirit, the resolve of humanity to exist; you pacify it by abiding by the rules of engagement. We can embellish this all we want, the fact remains that we must make amends, atone for our sins and the sins of our fathers, and make sacrifices so that never again shall mere mortals anger the forces of nature and the Supreme Force at the same time. The alternative should not be anticipated.
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