Why the Igbo do not hate...but may not trust Buhari!
Posted by Igbonekwu Ogazimorah | 8 years ago | 2,782 times
I read a post in the inverse of the first tranche of this title this morning. My response appears to disappear into thin air.
But I have a view quite different from that of the poster.
General Muhammadu Buhari cannot actually be said to be hated by the Igbo. Mere fact of difference in political considerations cannot translate to hatred. This is a democracy and opinions ought to be free. In my professsion, we say, "facts are sacred, comment free."
Fact is that Buhari belongs to the gang of retired national military cabal that sprang from the spoils of the the wholesale massacre of the Igbo and the subsequent Nigeria-Biafra war.
Yes, Buhari was just a middle level commander in some theatres of the war without any strong trace of such bestial conducts of some other brutal officers who took pleasure innthe killing of even innocent Biafrans. Indeed, August Okpe, one of the great Biafran pilots says of Buhari in his book, "last flight" from Biafra. "My neighbour in the Apapa Barracks, Muhammadu Buhari, told me that those who were making the troubles leading to the massacre of the Igbo were Sani Abacha, Murtala Muhammed and TY Danjuma." This suggests that Buhari was personally offended by the unbecoming killings as planned out by these men who worked for Yakubu Gowon.
In the Owerri Theatre of the war, leading up to Okigwe, Buhari was present and not much of attrocities were reported. He was in the first set of land rovers, that successfully passed through before the deadly Abagana bang that claimed men and armour in the quintessential Ogbunigwe top performance of the era.
Then after, he was Brigade Major at Awka up till the end of the war.
Though strong suspicions still abound, there is no evidence that Buhari took part, or was present during the massacre of over 300 refugees who were rounded up in the Apostolic Church in Onitsha, bound hands and feet, and executed in cold blood by Nigerian soldiers. The Irish missionary report of that incident revealed a level of bestial depravity never known in history of modern wars.
As Military Head of State, Buhari was not known to ever ask a single question about the plight of the Igbo, especially over the abandoned property in Port Harcourt, of which it is suspected that his undeclared building in that city was a part. He also did not appear to have had time to consider the magnitude of damage done to the Igbo by the Howon government over the issues or seizure of people's bank savings, even as disguised reparation against the Igbo.
Today, as president of democratic Nigeria, so to say, he has not appeared to proof IBB wrong in the 1985 statement that he, Buhari, did not have sufficient latitude for accommodation of varied views for a diverse polity as Nigeria. One stunning case in point now is the composition of his service human infrastructure, which is clearly skewed against all except a section of the North, but worse for the Igbo, who by any of the prevailing national faiths, are not represented at all.
But let us leave that.
I personally joined, uninvited, to campaign for Buhari, praying he would defeat Jonathan, if only to prove the point that an emerging Nigeria political hegemon can be ousted. I was also disgusted by Jonathan's style of letting thieves take over the national coffers as if there would be no future for us and our children.
Yes, since the emergence of Buhari, there is this robust engagement of his handlers by all, very vehement among them being Igbo, who I think erroneously think they lost a thing in the defeat of President Jonathan. To me, they lost nothing other than the repeated deceit made in promises of goodies and some promotions of individuals, who have been in the corridors of power only for themselves and by their stomachs.
But in all, the Igbo, especially the youth cannot be faulted in their loud protestations, not necessarily about the person of General Buhari, but more about what is feared he represents. Mind you, not a few, especially among those who are just getting tne details of the Yakubu Gowon pogrom against the Igbo can actually situate such development where the actions of about five young army majors, who planned their coup in secrecy, killing political leaders of other ethnic groups could arouse the entirety of the North to descend on defenceless Igbo, military and civilian - not just nudged on by the complicit silence of the State - but actually with full deployment of national muscle of violent destruction, to exterminate a whole race. Further ascent of the State was given in the 30-month war, in which Gowon handed down the limit of the brutality of the State in his bid to get the old East to accept his suzereignty. The whole world witnessed it.
To worsen matters, stronger facts of the war are emerging today as various governments, agencies and families declassify the erstwhile secret reports of the pofrom and the war. These reports are gory. It is just dawning on all that things far more terrible than were reported, than were known, actually happened.
In one of the recent clips released by an Irish family whose head was in the war all through as Mercy worker, it was established that the pattern of targeting and slaughtering of the vulnerable as the sick, old, children, sleeping, etc, as carried out these days by the Herdsmen on rampage, are a mere well practiced tradition of revenge against despised people.
The pattern of sword-strokes, the chant of battle, the numb-response or bare-faced lies of the leading elements, the pretension it was only a flash which would not be repeated, have always been tthere.
These youths who are far more exposed to these new releases are usually ICT-savvy, and are bound to get more, even as the government has made efforts in decades to erase such facts of history.
It is not as if it is too incorrect to try to control the information dished to the young public. The real mistake was in Gowon's perfidy, and subsequent pretensions of other administrations since the ugly development. My former boss, Uche Ezechukwu, once wrote in an article, "...it is not unexpected that Nigeria would be getting it all wrong until all the so called generals who fought in Nigeria-Biafra war get phased out....they are burdened by a certain superiority complex...."
Was he wrong? Let him be wrong but he was not unprophetic. In 2008, a tussle ensued between Ojo Maduekwe, then Minister of Foregin Affairs and his Ambassador in the United States, General Oluwole Rotimi. The General, reosrting to the usual grandstanding of old soldiers suffering the same superiority complex penned a memo to his boss: "...blah...blah...blah...I was the Adjutant General of the Nigeria Army which defeated your rag-tag Biafra forces...blah. ..blah. ..blah". Of course, President Yar'Adua approved his instant removal and recall. Ojo Maduekwe, law students in the University of Nigeria at the outbreak of the war rose to the rank of Captain in Biafran army, and the colourful General Rotimi could not bear the political ascendance leading to a mere captain in a rag-tag army being his boss.
The Igbo youth cannot be said to be daft to miss these. But if you insist on their hating General Buhari, why not ask if they hated President Yar'Adua, same Fulani, from same State as Buhari. Why didn't they hate Shehu Shgari, same Fulani, who even became President a few years after the war that led to the destruction of the Igbo race.
And for God's sake, would the Igbo hate Buhari for Jonathan whose Ijaw people seized Igbo property in Port Harcourt in the course and after the war.
In a way, something is emerging, which is making this vociferous push more ronust. Buhari has not helped matters. If his friend, fellow coupists and power-glutton, IBB, declared to the whole nation that Buhari was provincial in his views and actions, even as Nigeria's variety demanded otherwise, it is a shocker that he, Buhari would load and loop the entire national defence and security command in the hands of one section covering just about a radius of 400 square kilometres, in a State of over 200,000 square kilometres.
I am yet to find anything more clannish, insensitive and show of disdain for others.
Yet, there is still time. These can be righted, and every section will have a sense of belonging, then Nigeria may be on its way to being great again.
Ndigbo do not hate...but they can rightly be distrustful!
Igbonekwu Ogazimorah
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