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Rejoinder to Femi Awoniyi By In the article “Violence Against Igbos in 1966 is Unjustifiable: Charge Rimi, Datti Ahmad to Court for the Kano Mayhem!! “, one Mr. Femi Awoniyi starts out by claiming that he is not responding to my rejoinder to Max Siollun on the July 1966 coup. But he goes on to claim that my article “implied that the conduct of some Igbo politicians, military officers and persons justifies the violence against Igbo people during the pogroms of 1966”. He also describes my comment about the late Lt. Col Fajuyi’s involvement in ‘operation wetie’ as “spurious and absurd” and a “callous attack on the memory of a great man who sacrificed himself for the unity of Nigeria.”
The purpose of this short rejoinder is to correct the mischaracterizations of my piece. I have not concerned myself with the rest of his article.
Let me state from the outset that the thrust of my article was driven by the original article I was responding to. My point was that the conduct of some Igbo politicians and military officers justified the July 29 counter-coup. Thus the January coup, rather than the July coup (as Mr. Siollun suggested), is what set the tone for what Nigeria has become. My focus was on the highly unfortunate military blood feud sparked by the events of January. I did not imply that the civilian pogroms were justified. But I did place on record the fact that such a violent response against civilians was certainly baited by poor judgement and spitefulness on the part of “some Igbo politicians, military officers and persons.” And I emphasized the need to consider both coups together, in order not to place things out of context. I also took exception to the hypothesis that the civil war was somehow inevitable, as a continuation of the July coup.
The only reference I made to the pogroms was indirect. I stated that the anguish of the Igbo people was real. I also said that had a more selfless and less high-handed individual been in leadership position in the Eastern region, concessions could have been extracted from Nigeria at much less than the horrendous human cost of the civil war, which proved to be more than all the pogroms combined. I am absolutely firm in my conviction that Ojukwu mishandled the situation for personal reasons. And I know that many other Igbos and Ibos who may not go public for fear of being branded traitors by extremists share the same view. His pattern of high handedness and immaturity revealed itself again and again during the war as his relationship with many Igbo leaders and patriots took a turn for the worse.
A cursory look at the long list of Igbos whom he detained in prison for spurious reasons or those who simply left Biafra speaks volumes, not to mention the list of those who actually made money from the war by exploiting the right connections. His persecution of Aba people at the tail end of the war on frivolous allegations proved to be a key factor in Biafra’s final collapse. I know what I am talking about, and N. U. Akpan, the Secretary to the Government of Biafra, has alluded to it, but this is a diversion from the matter at hand. The day for that discussion will come.
To address the pogroms properly will require a separate article. Indiscriminate killing is never justifiable, whether carried out in reprisal by Igbo mobs slaughtering northern civilians at Aba train station in early August 1966 (as first reported at that time by radio Cotonou, monitored in Kaduna), or the reprisal killing of Igbo civilians in September in several locations in the North. Nor can the killings during the earlier riots of May that year be justified, except to understand them in the context of political events. The purpose of analysis and understanding is to help prevent mistakes in the future, not to justify murder. I sought in my piece to graphically illustrate the viciousness of the boys of January to the extent that it placed the viciousness of the boys of July (as outlined by Max Siollun) in context. To this day I continue to mourn the unnecessary deaths of all those fine officers and politicians, irrespective of their ethnic origin. And I mourn for all the innocent civilians who got killed.
At this juncture, let me state unambiguously that the late Lt. Col Fajuyi was indeed a great man. He brought honor to Nigeria by being decorated by the UN in the Congo and was a fine infantry officer. However, in violation of his oath as an officer, he was certainly not apolitical as his involvement in ‘operation wetie’ betrayed. I know it may be difficult for many out there who were either too young at the time or who have not been told the whole truth to accept certain facts. I speak from the standpoint of one who was closely involved with the events of that era. It is a fact that the late Colonel helped supply fuel to western region rioters and mentored some of the officers who carried out the January coup. It is also a fact that Lt. Col Adekunle Fajuyi, then Military Governor of the Western region was a target in the July counter-coup. The notion that he sacrificed himself is admirable and inspirational but false. I hope that the surviving executioners themselves will one day set the record straight.
Finally, democracy may or may not have broken down in certain parts of Nigeria at that time. But the responsibility for remedy lay with the democratic and legal process, not the army. _December 2001 |