RETHINKING BIAFRA

Wednesday, 26 December 2012

Violence and Social Change in Nigeria : An Exploration of the Legacy of Major Patrick Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu



                                                                                                                                                 
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                                                     Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
                                                                                                                                                               
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                                       Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems 

                               "Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"


Nigeria's first military coup, the January 15, 1966 coup, of which Major Patrick Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu was the most visible and most dramatic figure, led to tumultuous changes in Nigeria,  the reverberations of which were to shape the country till today.

This debate explores the complex legacy of Nzeogwu, heroised   by some as a nationalistic, self sacrificing visionary,  vilified by others as a short sighted murderer in cold blood,  seen as a  misguided visionary by one view, understood by another  as a visionary in good faith but betrayed  by his fellow coup actors. 

A very good exploration of the story is Max Siollun's Oil, Politics and Violence :  Nigeria's Military Coup Culture 1966 - 1976. Max Siollun also wrote the intriguing "Who Killed Major Nzeogwu?"







Ikhide R. Ikheloa shared Stephen Dieseruvwe's photo.
22 December at 15:36 · 
  • ‎".....Our enemies are the political profiteers, the swindlers, the men in high and low places that seek bribes and demand 10 percent; those that seek to keep the country divided permanently so that they can remain in office as ministers or VIP's at least, the tribalists, the nepotists, those that make the country look big for nothing before international circles, those that have corrupted our society and put the Nigerian political calendar back by their words and deeds."

    ~ Major Patrick Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, January 15, 1966.
    47 YEARS ON, THIS STATEMENT IS STILL VERY ALIVE IN TODAY'S NIGERIA
".....Our enemies are the political profiteers, the swindlers, the Men in high and low places that seek Bribes and demand 10 percent; those that seek to keep the country divided permanently so that they can remain in office as ministers or VIP's at least, the tribalists, the nepotists, those that make the country look big for nothing before international circles, those that have corrupted our society and put the Nigerian political calendar back by their words and deeds." ~ Major Patrick chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, January 15, 1966.
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    47 YEARS ON, THIS STATEMENT IS STILL VERY ALIVE IN TODAY'S NIGERIA
    ".....Our enemies are the political profiteers, the swindlers, the Men in high and low places that seek Bribes and demand 10 percent; those that seek to keep the country divided permanently so that they can remain in office as ministers or VIP's at least, the tribalists, the nepotists, those that make the country look big for nothing before international circles, those that have corrupted our society and put the Nigerian political calendar back by their words and deeds." ~ Major Patrick chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, January 15, 1966.
    19Like ·  ·  · Share
    • Olisakwe Ukamaka Evelyn, Chika Unigwe and 15 others like this.
    • Nky Iweka Wow, and how young he looks
      22 December at 15:38 · Like
    • Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju This guy and his colleagues were cold blooded, vicious murderers of unarmed civilians and fellow military officers,people who set the country on a disastrous path towards the massively horrendous anti-Igbo pogroms, the horrors of the Civil War and the culture of military coups where such noble words as he uttered initiate a cycle of self seeking entrenchment in power. 

      Also, the ethnic cast of their coup that massacred Yoruba and Northern public figures but spared all Igbo figures is consistently understood by a history of analyses of the coup as not accidental.
      22 December at 15:47 · Edited · Like
    • Ikhide R. Ikheloa Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, a very simplistic take on a very complex issue. You should be a bit more reflective. TY Danjuma, who made Nzeogwu look like Mother Teresa is very much alive, an old buffoon wondering what he should do with the proceeds of his oil block. $500 million. You don't know Nigeria, man...
      22 December at 15:44 · Unlike · 6
    • Kene Mezue ...he's a good example of what acting before thinking can do...
      22 December at 15:45 · Like · 1
    • Chika Unigwe Nky Iweka: complete the sentence: young and ....Come on, you know you want to 
      22 December at 15:50 · Like
    • Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju I posted my first comment by mistake and have edited and expanded it.
      22 December at 15:51 · Like
    • Ikhide R. Ikheloa Chika Unigwe and Nky Iweka, smh... I write something intellectual and your reduce it to steaks... Um Nky, that your brother that you were posing with on FB, the man is not bad looking. Almost as handsome as moi. *cycles away slowly*
      22 December at 15:51 · Like
    • Chika Unigwe ah Oga Ikhide: complete package no be bad ting, abi?
      22 December at 15:53 · Like · 1
    • Ikhide R. Ikheloa Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, the coup plotters of 1966 were not all igbo. Several were Midwesterners, first mistake that you make. Names and color confound.
      22 December at 15:53 · Like · 6
    • Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju Oga Ikhide, I know of the Danjuma and Murtala Muhammed horrors in the orchestration of the counter coup and anti-Igbo pogroms and the later massacre by Muhammed of massive nos of Igbos in the Midwest. 

      If you want to catch cold inside your house read Max Siollon's day by day account in his book of the counter coup and the pogroms and whenever you remember the account, you will feel the kind of chill from your head down that I feel now. 

      My argument is that Nzeugwu and his crew began the terrible cycle. The multiplied bloodletting of the counter coup was in response to the horror and selective killing, at that, by the Nzeugwu group. 

      They should have left us alone. As it is, the people they killed are angels compared to the later dispensation they enabled by their actions.
      22 December at 15:59 · Like · 1
    • Ikhide R. Ikheloa Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, I think the kleptocrats of the first republic should have left us alone. And at the rate the present regime is going, 'Toyin, I am afraid, I am really afraid...
      22 December at 16:01 · Like
    • Ikhide R. Ikheloa I just find it interesting that people rarely talk about TY Danjuma's bloody contributions to our failed state...
      22 December at 16:06 · Unlike · 3
    • Chika Unigwe because history is easily revised in Naija
      22 December at 16:08 · Like · 1
    • Ikhide R. Ikheloa The igbo have paid an unusually exhorbitant price for events that they had little to do with. That is part of the paradox of Nigeria.
      22 December at 16:09 · Like · 2
    • Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju Oga Ikhide and Michael, good try but your analysis is old hat. Sorry to tell you. 

      1. The leaders were almost all Igbo. 
      2. They killed Northern and Yoruba military leaders and at times even family members such as their wife/wives.
      3. Not a single Igbo public figure was killed. 

      That is best described as a coup that serves Igbo interests, whatever the full ethnic colour of its leaders. It was this lopsided massacre by a largely Igbo group that began our slide to the eventual horror. 

      Then, for one whole year, Ironsi, the head of the army and Igbo, did not prosecute the coupists. That was the stirring of the trouble pot.

      Add to that Ironsi's concentration of power in his hands through a political process in which Nwokedi, another Igboman, was at the centre, then the outcome was a conflagration waiting to happen.

      I will not add the stories of Igbos mocking Northerners with the death of their leaders and attitudes of supremacy. The Northern response was truly horrible and total and the country has not recovered from it.
      22 December at 16:10 · Like
    • Kene Mezue A series of unfortunate events...and the denial thereof...

      @Chika...revisionist history is everywhere...remember Churchill? "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."
      22 December at 16:12 · Like
    • Chima Ejiofor People talk about TY, Pa Ikhide; people like Sam Nda-Isaiah the publisher of Leadership newspapers who regards him as a saint and a hero.
      22 December at 16:16 via mobile · Like
    • Ikhide R. Ikheloa Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, not true. Have you studied the man, Nzeogwu? Do you know his ancestral land? Do you know his parents' ancestral land? Do you know the languages he speaks? During the war, do you know that the so-called igbo minorities balked at being Biafra? Was Nzeogwi really igbo? Were these young men looking out for Southern interests, rather than igbo interests? I just think we need to be more thoughtful in our analysis. Again, TY Danjuma's slaughter garners little interest. In comparison, the January 1966 coup led to a pogrom in the North and a genocide during the civil war. Today, TY Danjuma has $500 million in the bank that he has no idea what to do with. Guess where that oil bloc came from?
      22 December at 16:17 · Unlike · 2
    • Chika Unigwe Oga Ikhide: the details are there , but many of us have bought into the lies peddled about the coup that we disregard the truth
      22 December at 16:21 · Like
    • Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju They wont mention Danjuma's evils because his coup succeeded. When your coup succeeds you become a power broker. You become a shaper of history rather than just an unfortunate adventurer. 

      Danjuma, Murtala Muhammad, Babangida, Buhari, Abacha, have b
      estrode the national landscape, have gained great political power, and, with the exception of Buhari and perhaps Muhammed, amassed immense wealth on the back of successful coups. 

      Vatsa and others whose coups failed, were killed. 

      Sorry to say, but if Ironsi had executed Nzeugwu and his group, the nation's story is likely to have been different. 

      Nzeugwu's coup failed and he died in battle at the Nsukka front, his body being recovered days later by the federal troops and given an honourable burial even as Siollun describes Murtala Muhammad as protecting Nzeugwu's mother in his retaking of the Midwest even as his troops engaged in a systematic massacre of Igbos in the zone. 

      The counter coupists were handsomely rewarded beceause they enabled the North to avenge its leaders and its elite to better position themselves. But that order seems to be falling apart in the Boko Haram contradictions.
      22 December at 16:24 · Like
    • Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju Posted the last one by mistake. Editing it now.
      22 December at 16:31 · Edited · Like
    • Ikhide R. Ikheloa Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju and by your interesting logic, we should not talk about the open looting of our nation because, Obasanjo, Anenih, Igbinedion, etc, succeeded in looting us dry. I expect better, man.
      22 December at 16:31 · Like
    • Ikhide R. Ikheloa Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, there are many things wrong with Nigeria, but my theory is that the perfidy of the intellectual class has been the worst plague (after the new Christianity) to befall her. Help me, why is Murtala Muhammed's name on an airport? Why? Why is IBB alive? Why is TY Danjuma alive? Why is Obasanjo, that enemy of Nigeria, still called a statesman?
      22 December at 16:38 · Like
    • Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju Ikhide, none of the points you make about Nzeogwu invalidates the character of the coup as a coup that served Igbo interests. 

      Was this by chance or design? Was Nzeugwu manipulated as some claim? The operatives who did not kill Ironsi, who might have
       tipped Zik off, claims of logstical problems that made it hard to complete the coup in the South-East, all these are part of the questions that do not invalidate the fact that the eventual outcome was that Igbo leaders were spared while Northern and Yoruba leaders were massacred, and in cold blood. 

      Clearly, even those active in combating the fallout of the coup, Obasanjo in his book on Nzeugwu, the federal govt giving Nzeogwu an honorable burial, and in wartime, and Muhammed described by Siollun as protecting Nzeogwu mother in the Midwest, suggest that even the other side sees something transcending the unfortunate situation in the person of Nzeugwu-possibly seeing him as a misguided visionary.
      22 December at 16:38 · Like
    • Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju Puzzled that you read me as honouring the culture of celebrating coups and of silence about the misdeeds of coup plotters. I was simply describing how the system of national memory as shaped by the Nigerian military and political elite works. That does not mean I endorse it.
      22 December at 16:40 · Like
    • Abiola Muka Abdul There was "no" corruption then. I wish he was still alive to witness Nigeria of today. He would be speechless, his gun would be shootless, and he would end up fainting. Why? Because corruption in today's Nigeria is a bulletproof. So rocky and sophisticated.
      22 December at 16:43 via mobile · Unlike · 1
    • Ikhide R. Ikheloa Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, puzzled and frustrated that a mind like yours is dedicated to describing what is, not where we should be. In January 1966, a bunch of young men, yes, many of igbo ancestry, many with igbo names had an idealistic, quixotic vi...See More
      22 December at 16:44 · Unlike · 2
    • Nasiru Suwaid It is very funny how some question the authenticity of Nzeugwu Igboness, as I am not one, I cannot call him such, but to call him a hausa man, just because he was born & bred in Kaduna, is ignorant of social character of the communal living in Northern Nigeria. And to kill a Sardauna & Balewa, by a person bearing the name Chukwuma & to expect such as an ideological coup, is too simplistic an argument, of course we chew goro but are not as foolish, as some Nigerians have taken us to be. Indeed there was a pogrom, but it happened because of the ethnic motivated cold blooded murder of our ilk....
      22 December at 16:48 via mobile · Edited · Unlike · 1
    • Ikhide R. Ikheloa I mean, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, give me a goddamn break, not even the kleptomaniac of the first republic Okotie Eboh could imagine the looting of today. We have the president's aides commandeering Navy aircraft to ferrry crooks to a private funeral.
      22 December at 16:46 · Unlike · 1
    • Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju Murtala Muhammed's name is on the airport because he is being honoured as a head of state understood by one school of thought as demonstrating a revisionst vision and being killed while carrying out his reforms. Along with the points I mentioned earlier, Muhammed, Danjuma and Obasanjo were central to the winning of the civil war for Nigeria. I will not quarrel with anybody honouring war heroes, even if they are guilty of war crimes as Murtala Muhammed is. Can I know why you think Obasanjo is an enemy of Nigeria?
      22 December at 16:49 · Like
    • Ikhide R. Ikheloa Nasiru Suwaid, I hear you, but identity is complex. My children bear Edo names, they do not really know squat about living in my ancestral land, Nigeria. However, they have yet to meet a Northern Nigerian. They are surrounded here in the US by offspring of Southerners. If they were to organize a coup, what would that make them?
      22 December at 16:50 · Unlike · 1
    • Kene Mezue Good question by Oga Ikhide !!! 

      I think Nasiru is playing the tribal card again...funny thing is that it is unraveling before their very eyes - Jos, Maiduguri, etc. The evil that men do...come back to bite them in the ass...
      22 December at 16:52 · Unlike · 2
    • Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju As for claim for the unvarnished idealism of the first coup, that is controversial. The counter coup was worse. But in all, we were better off without the first coup. Our problems began in earnest with that coup. For example, has the North been able to get leaders as committed to its interests as the Sarduana? With all its control of the centre for decades, the story does not seem to have been one of general empowerment.
      22 December at 16:56 · Like
    • Ikhide R. Ikheloa Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, I have been active in Nigerian politics for over three decades, I can count on the fingers of one hand how many Northern intellectual activists I have come across. The notion that I should wait for a diverse team before doing something about the Nigeria of my dreams seems ludicrous. The 1966 coup, I have studied ro death, these guys did not come out to execute an igbo coup. We know the result. You are surprisingly lenient to the notion that Murtala Muhammed, a known kleptomaniac and ethnic cleanser should be honored as a Nigerian hero. I find that telling.
      22 December at 17:01 · Unlike · 1
    • Nasiru Suwaid Perhaps, a lot of the enlightened would see their coup as pan Nigerian effort, unfortunately for them, the argument within Nigeria is still ethnic, right from the constitution, to the ordinary man on the street. Had Nzeugwu conscripted other Nigerians in his coup & killed from his own ethnic group leadership, then he will have a legitimate claim, about a patriotic revolution....
      22 December at 17:01 via mobile · Unlike · 1
    • Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju Please, Nasiru has presented a staple point of a school of thought on the coup. To describe the Jan 1966 coup as clearly detribalised in its implications is pure fiction. I repeat- it was a coup that served Igbo interests. This places its pure national idealism in question. 

      Now, lets go to Ikhide's question. If his children organise a coup that kills members of all other ethnic groups but spares those of Ikhide’s ethnic group, that would make it a coup that served the interests of Ikhide's ethnic group. All other considerations would be secondary. The question of their ideological orientation in relation to their upbringing would be almost irrelevant. That is thestory of the Jan 1965 coup.
      22 December at 17:23 · Edited · Like · 1
    • Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju On the Muhammed story. His history has multiple layers. 

      The first layer is his role in the counter coup. The second layer is his massacre of Igbos in the Midwest. The third layer is his role in contributing to prosecuting the civil war for Nigeria. 
      The fourth layer is his role as head of state through a coup. 

      My point is that such a complex history makes it difficult to label and dismiss him. Its easy to do that, but its not sensitive to the complexity of values that person hold for the national history and various groups within that nation. 

      It is such sensitivity that led Obasanjo, a federal army officer central to the final push that brought Biafra down, to write a book on Nzeugwu which I understand is sensitive to what is understood as Nzeugwu's idealism and which led the govt to bury him with honour even as they were fighting a war initiated through the chain of responses to Nzeugwu's actions and Murtala being described as caring for Nzeugwu's mother while massacring other Igbos. 

      I am trying to be a balanced historian, not only a social critic.

      I also don’t want to conflate Nzeugwu and Murtala Muhammed. 

      I also want to know how Muhammed can be described as a kleptomaniac.
      22 December at 17:21 · Like
    • Black Technocrat @Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, did the Northerners not celebrate the killing of the Sardauna and Tafawa Balewa at the beginning of the coup?
      22 December at 17:23 · Unlike · 2
    • Black Technocrat Nasiru Suwaid, what was the ethnicity of Lieutenant Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi? Was he Igbo? Who murdered him and for what reason?
      22 December at 17:28 · Like · 2
    • Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju Thanks for the question, Black. It helps put in perspective the complexity of the coup’s effects.

      First, the impression I've got so far is that not only did some Northern non-officers take part in the coup but Southern army officers were sufficientl
      y convinced of the national vision of the coup to invite Northern officers to parties where the coup was celebrated. 

      It is also possible that there was a general sense in the country that the corrupt politicians were now gone. 

      But the complete picture seems to have emerged with time and led to serious rifts. 

      This larger picture revealed the contradictions of the killing scope of the coup in which Northern and Yoruba high ranking figures were murdered and no Igbo public figure was killed. 

      Secondly, the Northern military elite grew increasingly suspicious of Ironsi’s- an Igbo and head of state- failure to prosecute the coupists( a Nigerian English word it seems). 

      Thirdly, the Northern political elite and press began to draw attention to the structural displacement of the North the coup had created, reinforced by Ironsi’s unification decree. 

      Finally, and this point is presented by an eyewitness account to me personally and presented by literature on the period and reflected in other contexts, the Southern and particularly Igbo people in the North are described as being unwise enough to flaunt the success of the coup, and at times, as as an ethnic advantage.

      It is said that songs were made parodying the murdered Northern politicians, that behavior suggestive of being in control in the North is described as being demonstrated by some Southerners and particularly Igbos. 

      That is the powder keg that exploded in the counter coup and pogroms.

      Northern Nigeria has been volatile before the coup but this volatility was sparked in this instance by this complex of factors.

      I strongly recommend reading Max Siollun’s book on Nigeria on this period ( he is also on Facebook and has a website where people discuss these issues] and Nowa Omuigi whose writing is free online has done a good job. 

      For anyone who is interested, I can send you for privately for free scholarly articles from the pre-war , war and post-war periods by Nigerians and non-Nigerians, Igbos and other Nigerian ethnicities.
      22 December at 17:54 · Edited · Like
    • Nasiru Suwaid @Black: Did Adekunle Fajuyi participate in the coup on behalf of the Yoruba race, thus, it is purely newfangled a concept, to trumpet the name of Fajuyi, as giving a national character to a hidden tribally motivated take over. The sad aspect is people celebrating anti-democratic actors, in an era of the global glorification of representative governance, Nzeugwu was a fool, not to know that executing a revolution in a multi-ethnic state, entails a patient resolve in reaching a consensus of involving officers from other ethnic groups, while ensuring that cold blooded murder, is not part of the profile of a genuine revolutionary. More so, hiding your kins, while killing leaders of others & cowardly gloating about it, can never be a recipe for creating an ideal egalitarian state....
      22 December at 18:50 via mobile · Edited · Unlike · 1
    • Black Technocrat Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, you wrote, and I quote: "First, the impression I've got so far is that not only did some Northern non-officers take part in the coup but Southern army officers were sufficiently convinced of the national vision of the coup to invite Northern officers to parties where the coup was celebrated."

      Out of curiosity, I have a number of questions, not so much to you but anyone on this thread who can answer them.

      (i) You say you had the impression that the Nzeogwu Coup was nationalist in its scope and outlook. That was the impression but, if I may ask, what was the reality?

      (ii) You confirm the Northerner's celebration of the coup, am I correct?

      (iii) Not only were ordinary Hausa celebrating the removal of the inept and corrupt civilian government of the First Republic but, by your admission, Northern officers were also participants in the coup. If so, at what point did the coup turn into an Igbo-oriented grab for power?

      (iv) Is it not true that in the North, there was a general reluctance for the acceptance of Nigeria as a unitary state, the result of which was the long delay of the granting of independence, with Tafawa Balewa as one of the Northern leaders who kept on foot-dragging because of the fear of domination by the comparatively more educated southerners? If true, can it not be conjectured that the Northern ruling elite may have been perceived to have some residual anti-Nigerian sentiments?

      (v) Who actually foiled the Nweogwu Coup? Was it Northern officers?

      (vi) What was Adekunle Fajuyi's ethnicity? Was he Igbo and who murdered him?

      (vi) What was the role of the British Government in changing the initial nationalistic impression of the motive of the coup to that of an ethnocentric power grab?
      22 December at 18:50 · Like
    • Black Technocrat Nasiru Suwaid, here is what has been shared on this thread thus far:

      (i) Nzeogwu was Igbo.

      (ii) Adekunle Fajuyi was, by your own admission, a Yoruba.


      (iii) Northern officers participated in the Nzeogwu Coup, a point noted by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju.

      (iv) Northerners celebrated the coup, at the beginning.

      So, if I may ask you, at what point and based on what evidence did the coup become "a hidden tribally motivated take over," as you emotively put it?
      22 December at 19:04 · Like
    • Nasiru Suwaid @Black: if only you had checked your earlier post to Oluwatoyin, you mentioned non commisioned Northern officers, who as we all know, only obey the last order, thus could not have willingly participated. Indeed the NEPU and NPC politics of the time, made some to celebrate a change over, but nobody expressed joy, for cold blooded removal of Sardauna, to give Zik an advantage of mere presence on the political stage. Indeed I as a young disciple of Aminu Kano, could not have wished him power, at the alter of a political opponent, after all, we are not democrats for nothing, political battles are are fought with ballot boxes, thus it is highly counter productive, to be celebrating anti-democratic characters as heroes, yet claiming to be true democrats....
      22 December at 19:31 via mobile · Edited · Unlike · 1
    • Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju Black technocrat, I never wrote that Northern officers took part in the coup. Secondly, please read carefully my last post and all others by Nasiru and myself. They more than annswer your question.
      22 December at 19:30 · Like
    • Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju Superb- 'It is highly counter productive, to be celebrating anti-democratic characters as heroes, yet claiming to be true democrats....'
      22 December at 19:31 · Like
    • Ikhide R. Ikheloa We are playing with words, what is democratic about the farce that is playing out in Nigeria today?
      22 December at 19:33 via mobile · Like
    • Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju We dey struggle.....dat is de democracy. At least, there is a degree of choice and we can criticise openly. Not like Saudi or China where these is no iota of choice in deciding who is at the centre and where you know better than to criticise the govt and where, as in China, they block Facebook, I gather
      22 December at 19:52 · Edited · Like
    • Ikhide R. Ikheloa I do think there is a legitimate debate about the relevance of Nigerian styled democracy in our destiny. I am deeply concerned...
      22 December at 19:46 via mobile · Unlike · 1
    • Nasiru Suwaid An African revolutionary in the mould of an Nzeugwu, would never have allowed a free press, nor would allow for an election, no matter his ideological rantings before he engineered a mutiny. A President Nzeugwu would have executed law breakers, for he never trusted the law with Sardauna. Indeed ours is a questionable democracy, but is surely better than an Nzeugwu's utopia, governed by whims of men, rather an institutional rule of law republic.
      22 December at 19:51 via mobile · Edited · Unlike · 2
    • Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju Sorry, I made a mistake earlier. The Nzeugwu coup was January 15, 1966 and the counter coup was July 29, 1966. Not up to the one year time span I claimed earlier.
      22 December at 19:51 · Like · 1
    • Ikhide R. Ikheloa Nasiru Suwaid. fair enough, but we must also reflect on the darwinism going on right now in the name of democracy. For my parents cowering in our village, it is hard if not impossible to convince them that this era beats Abacha's.
      22 December at 20:00 · Unlike · 1
    • Black Technocrat Nasiru Suwaid, we can only conjecture as to what a Nzeogwu Regime might have turned out to be. For all we know, it might have turned out to be as hopelessly corrupt as any of the Nigerian military regimes that have ruined Nigeria. Nzeogwu might have turned out to be either a Thomas Sankara or a Sani Abacha. I am not one to draw up charges based on emotive suppositions and make a condemnation in the particular. You seem quite comfortable otherwise.
      22 December at 20:02 · Like · 2
    • Nasiru Suwaid I fully concur with you sir, but as your activist ilk have drummed it into our heads, the way of the gun is never a route to democracy. Perhaps, we need a revolution, but an evolution is less costly & effective, a people's revolt that demand a national conference is better than a martial music, organised by some Khaki boys of questionable motive. Indeed Occupy Nigeria nearly created such reality. In fact, Lagos, Kano, Bauchi and the South West revolted sometime through the ballot, by rejecting a failed ruling party. Which is hoping that it becomes a habit of holding leaders accountable and the culture of democracy and good governance is institutionalised.
      22 December at 20:22 via mobile · Edited · Unlike · 3
    • Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju Nasiru,you have a poetic writing style. Ikhide, please give my goodwill to your parents. You may tell them that Nigerians are working on the problem in their various ways, as in this debate.
      22 December at 20:37 · Like · 2
    • Ikhide R. Ikheloa Thanks, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, I shall surely share your goodwill with Mamalolo and Papalolo. Great thread here, I enjoyed myself. Be well.
      22 December at 20:39 · Unlike · 1
    • Nasiru Suwaid Thank you sir,
      22 December at 21:18 via mobile · Like
    • Ikhide R. Ikheloa Nasiru Suwaid, thanks for the enlightening and respectful engagement. I appreciated it. Happy holidays, man.
      22 December at 21:25 via mobile · Like · 1
    • Nasiru Suwaid Same to you sir,
      22 December at 21:59 via mobile · Like
    • Okwy Okeke What lies behind us and what lies behind us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us
      Sunday at 12:26 · Unlike · 2
    • Okwy Okeke my error, proper rendition should read - what lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us
      Sunday at 12:29 · Unlike · 1
    • Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju Okwy, where did yo get that wonderful summation from? is it yours?
      17 hours ago · Like
    • Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju would any participant on this thread object to its being distributed as a dialogical essay, exactly as it appears here?
      17 hours ago · Like · 1
    • Ikhide R. Ikheloa Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, these are in reality public documents... so knock yourself out. 
      17 hours ago via mobile · Unlike · 1
    • Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju Excellent. Thanks. I have copied and pasted the dialogue. I will edit it for neatness. Its good for participants to be alerted though, of what one has in mind, so they are not taken by surprise.I am not sure if the high information value and scholarly potential of Facebook dialogue is much taken advantage of.
      17 hours ago · Like
    • Adelakun Adunni Abimbola This is the first time in a long time I have seen a discourse on the civil war that is devoid of the usual shouting matches and name-callings. Good job, guys!
      16 hours ago · Unlike · 2


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