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A lie recycled and repeated many times may begin to sound like a fact by
A lie recycled and repeated many times may begin to sound like a fact. I asked one Harvard Educated English Literature teacher with a Ph.D in English to tell me exactly what propaganda means --- He thought for a while and said “ A lie repeated many times as a mean to create confusions and mistrusts about a people, or a person with a large following, or sometimes a business etc. I asked this man because I wanted a view point from a person who is a native English speaker, after all I am Engineer by vocation, my use of English is rather limited and to me English is something that I use to explain the validity or lack of it of my data for the general consumption or understanding of my consumers. English to me is like a tool nothing more, I have no desire to speak it like the Queen of England. I have an inherent desire though, to speak and comprehend Yoruba as best as it can be, because it is through Yoruba that I am fully culturally defined. Lately I have read many lies being recycled over time, and now some people who should have known better, like the New Nigerian intellectuals, are shamelessly passing on lies as if it were the truth. The ones whose sources of information are always impeccable, a word so over used in their printings that it nauseates me. A point in question is the recent comments made by one Alhaji Liman Ciroma and highlighted by Gamji for weeks as if it was the truth. The statement “Awolowo was the first Nigerian Coup plotter”. This is not the kind of statement I should be spending my time on in the year 2001. My time is very expensive at least going by the rate which my company pays me. What is at stake here is the total disregard for the truth, an attack on the truth is an attack on everyone. Human being must always endeavor to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. What is clear is this, these New Nigerians, the slow ones, the ones that are just becoming of age, are getting carried away with their late blooming despite that they should have been in step by step with their fellow citizens. Now they have finally arrived they mused to themselves, and they are now so confident of their intellectual capacity that they can boldly recycle lies and pass it on to the public as the truth. It is very dubious for a whole people to hold on to a lie as if it was the truth. I was way too young in 1962 to know what took place at the time let alone understand the dynamics of political events of that era. In any major historical events which occurred any where in the world there are of course those who were the players. Thank God, Alhaji Ciroma claimed that it was the British who uncovered the so called coup. Also thanks to Mr. Harold Smith, whose conscience bothered him so much that he had to set the records straight even at enormous risk to his well being and of course to his life. Harold Smith is not just any English man, Mr. H. Smith worked for the British government during these periods. Mr. Smith, I should say was educated at Oxford University, Oxford, England. Mr. Smith wrote regarding the 1962 coup. “…. One foul deed leads inevitably to another and another. There was not only guilty knowledge, but also the small problem of the next election. There was also the fear of being found out. This is why the Western Region leaders had to be destroyed. Bello and Balewa, firmly controlled and directed by the British, had been acting criminally at least since 1956, and the West was still not at peace under the thumb of the pro-British North. A final solution was called for. “ Human being is consumed with evil against his own, forgetting that what ever is not sanctioned by God, no man or government can bring it to fulfillment. Every time the unjust and the evil one come up with their evil plans, the Grace of God abounds yet upon the innocents. Mr. Smith further wrote: “ The military would take charge and the date of 'Operation No Mercy' was set for 17 January. And the Army rebelled against their political masters. It was not unruly Westerners who were killed, but violent, criminal pro-British Bello and Balewa. Operation Damissa was not quite the operation Bello and Balewa intended, nor did they expect to be operated on with such surgical precision. It seems that they got some of their own medicine at the hands of the very young men they had depended on to eliminate their enemies once and for all. “ “… Another great nationalist leader, Awolowo, was jailed for ten years on trumped-up charges that could have been comic opera, but this was real life. “ “A British puppet regime had taken power in Nigeria on 1 October 1960 and its fraudulent origin became evident in 1962 when the parliamentary opposition and the Action Group were destroyed. “ “With the coup d'état "Operation Damisa" - of 15 January 1966 the old North, Britain's power base in Nigeria, was destroyed and four years to the day exactly on 15 January 1970, the Eastern collaborators in the British fix, the nominal independence of 1960, were also defeated and their rebel state of Biafra destroyed. The strangest irony was that the apparent civilian victors of this tragic civil war were the Western leaders Awolowo and Enahoro, whom the British had robbed of victory in the Independence elections of 1959, and whom their puppet Balewa had jailed for ten and fifteen years in 1962. “ “What had British machinations against democracy in Nigeria achieved? Two million deaths! A generation of young Africans starved and killed. What kind of British foreign policy was this? The product of an alliance between scheming liberals, who sought an end to colonialism at any price, and Tory realists, who feared communist expansion in Africa? This evil and treacherous gerrymandering appealed to the sick minds of Eden and Macmillan and ensured, with a terrifying symmetry, that Britain's empire in Africa, born in bloody slavery, ended with the cruel and bloody slaughter of two million black subjects of the great white Queen. “ Balewa, Darth's man on Earth, is appointed ruler of Nigeria by SuperMac, and everyone is happy. Except, that is, Zik, who is robbed of political power, and Awo, who is jailed for ten years, and their peoples, who are tricked, conned and robbed that the evil empire may thrive. Tough for them, but the good news is that for six years the British are happy. As Balewa had four wives, lots of girl friends and particularly adored fornicating with black Lolitas, there are parts galore for female friends and family of everyone connected with this incredible production. Sadly, just when almost everyone - well, all except the Nigerian populace - is having a ball, some bolshie Army officers shoot Balewa stone cold dead. The British were horrified, and Balewa was not too pleased either, but his feelings got overlooked in the tumult that followed. "Who did it, and who was behind it?" demanded the British. A General who looked as if he might be a possible replacement for Balewa disposed of the young Army officers pretty smartly. Ironsi was ambitious, but not too pushy; bright, but no intellectual; and honest without being too principled. He had promise. Did the beastly British, playing the role of Darth Vader, finger Zik and Awo and execute them horribly? Sadly, this was not possible. Awo had a reasonable alibi. The cunning rogue had forced us to jail him for ten years. And Zik was in England, claiming to need medical attention. He would certainly have needed it if our boys in Nigeria could have got their hands on him. (Were the young Majors not from his tribe?) “ “….Operation Damissa was not quite the operation Bello and Balewa intended, nor did they expect to be operated on with such surgical precision. It seems that they got some of their own medicine at the hands of the very young men they had depended on to eliminate their enemies once and for all.” It is important that even, those who should know (the English), and those who do not know and still want to be ignorant must be reminded that Chief Awolowo lived and died a natural death. He did not die in a hail of bullets like his enemies would have wanted nor died having a heart attack on top of a prostitute, he died in a way that his people can live with and be proud of, he died peacefully in his sleep. I will leave the rest for those who are reasonable people to deduce. However, for those who are still bruising over the past I pray that they will heal and learn from history, ignoble though it may be, it still can lend a lesson or two to us. Please visit: http://www.libertas.demon.co.uk Michael O. Folorunso
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