BIAFRA — Nigeria’s unending war —

By OBINNA EZUGWU

In January 1970, the tragic Nigeria-Biafra war which began 30 months earlier in 1967, came to an end at the cost of an estimated 2.5 million lives, mostly on the Biafran side – and mainly on account of starvation – with the defeat of the short-lived Republic of Biafra which was consequently reabsorbed into the Nigerian federation with a no victor no vanquished verdict.

Fifty year on,  Nigeria, on many accounts, remains at war, haunted by the ghost of Biafra, and beset by several acts of injustice, the country titters on the brink.

On January 13, 2020, prominent Nigerians gathered at the Muson Centre, Onikan Lagos to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the end of the war. And in the end, their verdict was unanimous: Nigeria is still at war.

The event which was organised by Nzuko Umunna and Ndigbo Lagos, witnessed speeches by various individuals, including Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, Yoruba leader, Prof. Banji Akintoye; former presidential candidate, Prof. Pat Utomi; former DG of Nigeria Economic Summit Group, Prof. Anya O. Anya; convener, Congress for Democratic Change, Prof. Yima Sen; ace musician and journalist, Onyeka Onwenu, among others, all of whom agreed that Nigeria has failed to learn any lessons from the sad experience of the war and appear keen to repeat same.

In an opening remark, Gen. Abel Umahi (rtd), president of Ndigbo Lagos, while pointing out that the country was at a cross road, noted that the conference symbolised a national reflection in the civil war which will herald a new chapter in Nigeria’s history.

He said, “This Never Again Conference is geared towards promoting nation-building, forgiveness, healing of wounds, reintegration, stability and national cohesion.”

In his welcome address, Prof. Akintoye, who co-chaired the occasion with Prof. Anya, warned that those who are in charge of the country today are pushing their luck. According to him, the present leaders of the country have returned it to the atmosphere of bitterness that led to the war.

“We have good reasons to fear today that the character of the affairs of our country these days, and the prevailing mood among us Nigerians, are chillingly similar to the character of the affairs of our country in the months leading to our civil war,” he said.

“The government of our country is being managed in ways that make it look like an exclusive preserve of a particular minority. The voices of the majority register protests continually and are continually disrespected and ignored.”

He pointed out that Nigeria is a country made up of many nations, and that it was important that the nations are recognized and given their due in a proper federation as a way of saving the country from what looks like an imminent collapse.

Toeing similar line, Prof. Anya said the country is going through similar temptation that led to the war, while calling on those in authority to draw lessons from the experience and avoid plunging the country into a another crisis.

“Nigerians have never reflected on the past history since the beginning of the good period. This is the first opportunity for us to do so.”

Unity of Nigeria has to negotiated – Soyinka

Delivering a keynote address, Prof. Soyinka argued that it was out of place for those in authority to continue to insist that the sovereignty of Nigeria was not negotiable. Giving the examples of the USSR, Britain, Spain and Sudan, among others, Soyinka argued that it is human nature to indulge in actions that ultimately hurt the body.

“What do we swear when the moment of realization descends? Never Again! Or perhaps – a more literally sobering experience – who still recalls his or her first hangover the morning after a night of over-indulgence? The very first words that emerge in that first flush of sobriety? Again, the two words: Never Again!

“The trouble, of course, is that humanity tends to forget such lessons too soon, and will be found pursuing the same course of action again, all over again and again; we become inured to what we consider our capacity for recovery, even boast of our increasing resistance to the effects of the night before.

“However, we know only too well that, side by side with that seeming capacity for recuperation, there is a steady erosion of the physical constitution that comes from excess. Sooner or later, the liver – among other vital organs – will take its revenge.

“That latter analogy is quite deliberate. Power intoxicates and, in that drunken state, human beings become mere statistics. Some people remain in a drunken stupor for years, alas, intoxicated by the sheer redolence of power and cheap access to the instruments of force.”

“The claim that no nation has ever survived two civil wars may not be historically sustainable but, it belongs to that category of quest that I have referred to as the pursuit of wisdom – in his case, we may equate it with the wisdom of not holding a bank note over a flame just because the Central Bank claims that it is fireproof. Or attempt to hold an exposed electric wire, just because NEPA is notorious for electrical incapacitation.

“Correspondingly, our analogy is sternly directed as a mirror to those contrary voices which boast: “I have fought a war and put my life on the line to keep this nation one, and I am ready to do it all over again.”

“That bravado, by the way, conveniently overlooks the reality that is parallel, often more devastating toll in human lives and lingering trauma is also exacted from untrained, unprepared non-combatants, burdening the future with a more unpredictable, indeed even irreversible hangover.

“Absolutes however remain what they are – glorified sound-bites such as: The sovereignty of this nation is non-negotiable. Yes, what exactly does that mean? We know what it meant for the first-comers at the helm of affairs in the Organization of African Unity.

“It meant: to each of his own as existed at this moment of history. This is a club of leaders; let us keep things the way they are by respecting one another’s turf. No trespassing. No adjustment is given. No agitation. No negotiation.

“Again, I warn against reductionism. I do not belittle the passion, the sincerity, the dedication to the liberation of the continent from external control as diligently pursued by a number of those leaders. I do not belittle the ideological determinism of a handful, the will to transform, to catch up the rest of the world and redress the history of enslavement – both by the Eastern and western worlds, the humiliating racism for which we are on the receiving end, even till today.

“I do not for a moment underestimate the self-sacrifices and `I do not ignore the vision of a few individual leaders.

“I do insist however that the protocol of sacrosanctity of colonial boundaries was a self-serving power mechanism of internal control and domination that had nothing to do with a structured, programmatic concern for the African masses who bore the brunt of effects of colonialism and its later, camouflaged successors – including internal colonialism.

“And thus I continue to ask: Have we been had? Are we still being well and truly had? Do we continue to lay ourselves wide open to be cheaply had? Well then, consider the state of the world, at that very time that the conference in Tanzania was holding, just last October.

“Let us take a look over the continental wall and instruct ourselves. That conference was taking place, sixty years of modernity after the Nigerian civil war, simultaneously with an ongoing upheaval in a distant continent, Europe, in a former colonial power, Spain.

“Yes, that power, Spain, was embroiled in a secessionist move by a province known as Catalonia. The initial, dramatic proclamation took place in Catalonia’s own provincial parliament earlier that year, echoing that other allegedly retrogressive move thousands of miles away on this very continent, in this very nation, in a region abutting the Bay of Biafra – that is, history was being replayed a full sixty years after the precedent that was set in the Bay of Biafra.

“In between of course, need I remind you of the dismantling of the monolith known as the Republic of Soviet Union – with the nearly forgotten acronym of USSR?

“I refer to the attempted breakup of that once colonial power whose policies in the first place certainly contributed to a violent, devastating resolution on the Nigerian testing ground.”

The civil war is the second worst genocide of the 20th century – Utomi

In his keynote speech, Prof. Utomi said the war by human cost, is the second worst genocide of the 20th century, a century he said was the century of genocides. He painted a sad picture of the killings in Asaba, Delta State capital during the hostilities.

“Let me turn to a really emotive thing. The word genocide is a coinage of the 20th century. In fact, it entered the lexicon from reflections on the Armenian experience in Central Europe. But the Nigerian civil war did produce the second worst genocide in numbers of the 20th century, which was a century of genocides. Now, I will tell you the embarrassing personal thing about how I engaged this subject,” Utomi said.

“In 1996 I was writing a book called Managing Uncertainty: Competition and Strategy in Emerging Economies. I took a sabbatical leave, spent it on the Harvard Business School working on this book.

“The more I looked at the environment of business, the more I realized that the government was the most dangerous object in the environment of business. Businesses have failed more because of government in Nigeria than any other country.”

Utomi who gave detailed account of his experiences during the war, noted that if it were to happen today, there would have been no Nigeria.

“If Biafra war was fought today, there would be no Nigeria because the mood in the international community now accepts self-determination as a doctrine. But thank God we have a chance to build Nigeria. There is a lot more that can come from Nigeria if we are honest to one another,” he said.

“So, how did my civil war story begin? It’s a very intimate personal story. My father worked for British Petroleum (BP) in a town in the current capital of Zamfara State, Gusau. My father worked there and I was returning to Gusau by train, arriving one Sunday morning, the last Sunday in May 1966,” he narrated.

“As the train pulled in, the station was completely deserted. I thought: this is strange. I got out of the train. Across the track I could see my father’s blue Peugeot 404. I looked closely, away from the car, somewhere by the corner was my father. He was carrying a double barrel gun. And he had his bullets. He waved me across, I got in the car and he drove off.

“Then he started telling me what had happened. Earlier that morning, rioting had started. My mother and my siblings were in the church, Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church in Gusau. Rioters had invaded the church; my mother’s arms had been broken.

“The hospitals were too dangerous to have anybody. So, he had taken the family to the home of a family friend who was the manager of the Barclays Bank there at the time. His name was Garba Wushishi. He would become Minister of Information under (Shehu) Shagari.

“In Garba Wushishi’s place, we got a doctor to treat my mother and all of that. Then it got worse. Okonkwo Ofiadulu, his father was the leader of the Igbo community in Gusau. He was killed that night. We all ran to the airport, my father made contacts and BP sent an aircraft to come and take us, it was a 10-seater aircraft. When the aircraft came in and we were leaving, you can imagine hundreds of people desperate to leave and this one family was going. People were running after the aeroplane. That was my first vivid image of the nature of that kind of crisis.”

Utomi said he was in Onitsha when the war started, later went to Asaba by canoe at night only to find out that it was a theatre of war.

“When the civil war started, I was in Christ the King College Onitsha and went through those early days in Biafra. And at some point crossed the Niger in a canoe at night into the Midwest, which was war theatre.

“Few weeks before, soldiers entered Asaba and people were being killed for exercise. And the people of Asaba got together and said OK; let’s show that we are warmly welcoming these troops. So, in their finest white clothes, they came out to dance to welcome the troops. And the women were ordered to this side, the men to the other side and they opened fire on the men,” he narrated.

“A friend of mine survived that by playing dead under the weight of the bodies of his father and his brother. Thousands were killed. These stories are not meant to make anybody get upset. But to say that if you don’t deal with those kinds of things, it is dangerous.

“In a chat with General Gowon, I speak very frequently with him, he was in Asaba a few weeks ago and the issue was raised again. It was the third time he was in Asaba that the issue was raised. He really didn’t know what happened in Asaba.

“At this time, my people were all living inside the bush, nobody lived in the town. And my grandfather chose not to run into the bush. He was a World War II veteran, what was he running for? And one young soldier saw him in the house and said, “What are you doing there?” My father said what can I be doing here? And the young soldier used him for target practice. And his body was left in front of his front porch.

“The interesting thing is that as we were coming out of the bush, we were captured by some soldiers. Again, men to this side: women to that side. Then another group of federal soldiers arrived and said to the ones that captured us, “what are you trying to do?” And they started fighting. We ended up in St. Patrick’s College Asaba as refugees.

“As it turned out, the battalion commander, Colonel Daniel Nasamu was a friend of my father’s. And a couple of weeks later, I was in Lagos. After I got to Lagos, life was so good, nothing was happening. That is the kind of feeling I have when I see people talking about the Northeast today in Lagos.”

He regretted that Nigeria appears to have learned nothing from the war, noting that there is presently another war going on in the country.

“War is a horrible experience. I have experienced it, I watch it in movies and I have read about it in books. But not all wars involve guns and bombs. Some deploy only words. Yet, they can be as dangerous devastating. Our country is embroiled in one right now.

“We are at war in public conversation. The theft of identity of others is so pervasive. And few people, unfortunately, are so much the targets as me and Professor Wole Soyinka. In recent months, I have seen conjectures credited to me. Then generating ad-hominem barbs and tirades from the agents of those who think those created stories affect their interests.

“In fact, what I have found out that is tragic for our country is that many times they come from officials. They come because people anticipate that you will take a position on something that is coming. And they are afraid that your voice will mean something”.
Utomi noted that the tragedy of modern Nigeria is the dearth of leaders with virtue.

“One of the most important conversations I think, in political thought, is offered by Baron Montesquieu. We often remember him for the points about separation of powers and how he influenced the making of the American constitution. But his biggest contribution for me is to say that virtue is a requirement to play in public life.

“One of the finest political scientists to ever come out of Nigeria in my opinion, is Professor Peter Ekeh who headed the Department of Political Science at the University of Ibadan several years ago, but sadly, has been living outside of Nigeria for more than 30 years now, wrote one of the most important essays in Nigerian political science: The Two Publics, in 1975. Peter Ekeh’s conversation is focused essentially on morality as a necessary ingredient of playing in the public sphere. In my own words, I have referred to values.

“When a nation is generally headed in a direction by people who are lacking in those, that nation is in crisis. And we must not allow our country to go that way. Let me begin by proceeding along the track we set for ourselves. When Professor Soyinka expressed frustrations on these matters, I said to myself, well, how do we go about throwing light in the face of darkness struggling to encompass us?

“I remember eyes of pain and gratitude in Surulere, Lagos where I was when the war ended as I got ready to return to school in Ibadan. People returning after fleeing Lagos nearly four years earlier, realizing that their Yoruba neighbour had rented out their house and dutifully saved the rent and paid them that money as they returned, changing the 20 pounds narrative as a tribute to the human spirit. And that is what my Nigeria is about: Gratitude in all things to the creator and human solidarity, which allowed foreigners from far, French doctors like Bernard Kouchner who would become foreign minister of France.

“I’m almost certain that I met Bernard Kouchner as a doctor in Biafra. Not on any level, I was a young person and there was a sick relative who was treated by a group of French doctors. The particular one that was treating this relative was a black French doctor from Martinique who must have been Bernard Kouchner.

After the experience, Kouchner would of course, start Médecins Sans Frontières, Doctors without Borders, to deal with these matters. They were also global charities like Caritas. There were neighbours far and near who helped ameliorate miseries almost unprecedented in human experience. But that was the war. Why does it matter to reflect on that experience 50 years on?

“I think the imitative value because war is horrible and anything that can make people learn enough from its experience, to make them not to repeat it does humanity a great favour. Applied to this is the management of the cessation of hostilities which determine how people heal, and whether it is easy to capitalize on old wounds or not.

“War creates a psychosis and it can affect culture in a way that people may not even begin to think about. But it’s real.

“We all need to reflect to determine why war has brought scientific and allied commercial material progress to many societies, because of the scientific gains of war. We saw how the Americans appropriated German scientists and German science after the war, in addition to its own, to lead to America’s post war commercial expansion. But we look at Nigeria and see how little we gained from the science of our civil war. And we have to ask ourselves questions. These are the kinds of matters that we should be interrogating.

“I say frequently that the most primitive public sphere is one which instead of focusing on issues, focuses on ad-hominem trading of insults, something that has continued, unfortunately, to dominate our space. But I think that we have to face the reality that one of the lessons is that we don’t seem to have learnt from the war is how to manage publicly conversation.

“If you go on social media today, you would know that Nigeria is at war. The young people who were not anywhere around the war, hate so much. And you wonder why. For me this is a failure of leadership in Nigeria.”

Nobody will use us the Tiv to fight another war – Prof Yima Sen

One of the panelists, Prof Yima Sen in his own remarks, said anyone who wants to start another war in the country in the hope that Tiv people will help to fight is wasting his time, as according to him, his people will not be used to fight another war. Prof. Sen said the war was regrettable, and called on all Nigerians to work towards evolving a workable federation.

“I never knew that as a 16-year-old young man at the beginning of the civil war, that I would come to a gathering like this, 50 years later, to discuss the civil war,” he noted.

“Whoever went and created that problem for Nigerian that time, please next time you do it, go to Cameroon and find your fighters because Tiv people are not going to provide any fighters for anybody again.

“60 percent of the fighting forces in Biafra were Tiv, where I come from. Why did you drag us into that unreasonable war? Do you know that almost every Tiv family lost someone in that war? The question is, for what?”

Sen who was one of the panelists at the event, argued it would be in the interest of everyone that Nigeria is made to work.

“I’m a nationalist. My father was a member of parliament, those people that were removed in 1966 by the coup that some people say precipitated the civil war. My family suffered from it. My father as a member of parliament was a big man and I was a big man’s child.

“But he was reduced to nothing. And which party did he belong to? The United Middle Belt Congress! The political historians here know what the party stood for. It stood for the restructuring of Nigeria.

“I’m here speaking as an intellectual. I know what is happening in the 19 Northern states. And I have very good memories. When I saw Professor George Obiozor, I was very excited. We were in the Shagari government together. And we were very serious about building a Nigerian nation after that civil war. We were not joking.

“We are here today because we want to end this Biafra war. If it never ended, we must end it. If the Rwandans can learn the lesson from their experience, why can’t we?”

War is a terrible experience that affects everyone – Senator Abaribe

In his own remarks at the event, Senate Minority leader, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe noted that war was a terrible experience which affects everyone, warning that those who appear not to have learnt anything from the last war should be mindful of the way they handle the country.

“We thank God for this gathering. On behalf of my good friend, who was supposed to be here, Shehu Sani, but is being held for allegedly collecting money for a case that is not in the Supreme Court and he is supposed to have collected money on behalf of the Chief Justice of the Federation,” Abaribe said.

“Let me say that just like, Pat Utomi had said, I was twelve years and had just entered secondary school when a relative, a 15-year-old boy, who was living with us, was conscripted into the army.

“We went into the bush and as we came out, he was conscripted into the army. His name was Okerenta, his father’s name was Okere; so they called him Okerenta.

“The last time I saw him, he was marching along with some other people who were also conscripted and the next thing we heard was that all of them were taken to Igirinta and they died,” he recalled.

“A lot of people don’t know that war affects everybody. It affects us, so that’s why I came to listen and see what I can do when I get back to the Red Chamber. So that when those who sit down there and think that they can tell everybody what they ought to do, I can remind them that war can destroy everything you have.”

Ndigbo fought a war of self-defence, we owe nobody an apology – Onwenu

Also speaking, foremost musician, actress and journalist, Onyeka Onwenu said Igbo people will make no apologies for going to war with Nigeria, as according to her, the Biafra was a war brought on them and they had to fight in self defence.

Onwenu who was also one of the panelists, recalled how her widowed mother’s property was seized in Port Harcourt, Rivers State after the war in the name of abandoned property, and when she tried to reclaim it, she was beaten to coma by people she had helped train in schools.

“This is a subject matter that is very close to our hearts. It’s very personal to very many of us, very sensitive matter; very painful matter indeed. And yes, some of us have lived with some bitterness. And we make no apologies about that. We were a people in war, led into war, not by our own wishes or design, but in self defence. No apologies Nigeria, no apologies to the world,” she said.

“But here we are. I was born and raised in Port Harcourt. My father, Dike Onwenu was the first Arondizuogu man in the federal house, and he was representing Port Harcourt constituency. He was the principal of Enitonna High School. He was a brilliant man. But he died too early. I’m from Abia State since I’m an Aro daughter. I’m from Imo State, Arondizuogu and I’m also from Anambra where my mother comes from. I can go there and live and nobody can stop me. I am also from Lagos State. I married a Yoruba man. I have two Yoruba children.”

Onwenu noted that she fought the Biafra war and recalled many children and aged people dying in her care. She regretted that the war has not yet ended, and warned those still fighting the Igbo to be careful.

“I fought the war as a young girl between 14 and 17 years, and I lost many relatives. I carried babies who died in my arms. I treated old people who took days to die. People were dying of hunger, even our soldiers were dying out of hunger. But thank God we survived.

“When my father died at 40, he was a politician and also a principal. But he didn’t have much money. In those days, you had to keep your day job, even if you were a member of the House of Representatives. Yes, my mother, an Anambra woman, was a trader. She was richer than my dad, so my dad would borrow money from her to buy land and he never paid back. You know how it is with husband and wife.

“At the end of the war, I couldn’t go back to Port Harcourt. My home was abandoned property. Those of you who come from Port Harcourt know the story. The home that a widow, my father had only laid the foundation when he died in an accident; the building that a widow built was seized as an abandoned property.

“Living just adjacent to us on Hospital Road were the Ikokus. In fact, I thought we were related because every family in Port Harcourt was together. You didn’t care were anyone came from or who they were, whether you were from Port Harcourt or not. Every parent had the right to reprimand a child he/she saw misbehaving. Port Harcourt was a beautiful town, but we couldn’t get back to it.

“So, for me, the civil war never ended, it is still going on. My poor mother went back to Port Harcourt to claim her property and she was beaten into a coma by people whom she had helped all her life; people she had helped to send to school, because she is an Igbo woman and now Port Harcourt belonged to another group of people.

“They forgot the sacrifices that the Igbo made. It is still going on; no apologies have ever been made about that. The road that is now referred to as Harold Wilson Road used to be Dike Onwenu Road. That’s on account of the sacrifices that the Onwenus, the Ikokus, and the rest, made in building up Port Harcourt.

“Here I am. I travelled outside, thanks to my sister who was at Harvard at the time. But we all came back to develop Nigeria. I have tried with the little talent that God has given me, to use it to the betterment of my society and my country. But if I were a Yoruba or a Hausa woman, I would probably have had more patronage, more help and more support than I have got by my self-help effort to raise this country up.

“But I’m not asking anybody for anything. I put myself through school; my widowed mother did her best. I was working two jobs in America to put myself through school. I didn’t want to take the Nigerian scholarship because they were giving it to everybody, those who deserved it and those who didn’t. And many of them were not even in school.

“I’m angry at Nigeria, I’m angry at this government which seems to be letting us down. I’m angry at us as a people, I’m angry at my people, Ndigbo because he who is rejected doesn’t reject himself. Stop complaining and do it yourself. We have always been able to do that. How did we build Imo Airport?” she queried.
“Nobody built for us. We spent many years raising money. I was travelling all over the country to do free concerts to raise money for Imo Airport. That’s who we have been. And I remember that in those days, if the Igbo State Union decided, that’s it, everybody follows the line and gets it done.”

Biafra is reason we can’t write history – Osuntokun

Another panelist, political scientist and former adviser to ex president, Olusegun Obasanjo, Mr. Akin Osuntokun said the main reason Nigeria is unable to write its history is because of the Biafra civil war.

He said it was inappropriate, for instance, to think that the January 15, 1966 military coup led by Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, was an Igbo coup.

“I don’t need to impress you by saying that Biafra is the central issue of Nigeria’s political history. And the attitude of Nigeria to Biafra will indicate the kind of nation we are, whether we have improved or become worse,” he said.

“I’m sure that people noted that recently, (T.Y) Danjuma was getting almost apologetic about his role in the civil war. He said he directed his junior officers not to kill those people. This attitude is different from what it used to be. He used to be celebratory about it. But there is nothing to celebrate about the war.

“If anybody is advocating for remedial actions about Biafra, it is not the Southeast you are helping, you are helping Nigeria. It is contradictory to think for instance, that in saying that the next Nigerian president should be an Igbo, you are doing the Igbo a favour. You are not.

“Today, the handshake across the Niger; in the relationship between the Southeast and Southwest, there is no trait that binds that relationship more meaningfully than the action of Adekunle Fajuyi. It shows you the meaning of powerful symbols.

“The defeat of Biafra is not to be celebrated or criminalised. And this is one of the reasons we are incapable of writing our history. Everybody can write about the American civil war today because the issues are clear. You could see the demarcation between right and wrong. How can anyone do wrong by fighting slavery? So it ended on a moral victory for Abraham Lincoln and his army, unlike our own. Our own is embedded on the philosophy of might is right, the law of the jungle.

“We can do things about it. We don’t need to be apportioning blames when we seek to improve ourselves. Again, let me tell you something, and I’m not pandering to you. People seem to miss one very crucial element about the coup of January 15, 1966. There is no way you can have a cast of those coup leaders and not presume they were acting on behalf of Nigeria, not on behalf of the Igbo. It is otherwise illogical. This idea of saying that it was an Igbo coup is wrong, it was not. It’s just that it was badly managed,” he said.

Osuntokun called for reconciliation, noting that the first step would be for everyone to own up to their mistakes so as to make it easy for the country to move forward. He pointed out that although the story of the civil war is that of tragedy and deaths, there were still some acts of courage and solidarity which could be built upon.

“There are many issues about Nigeria’s history. Professor Pat Utomi has mentioned some of the things that will help the process of healing. The greatest statement made by General Yakubu Gowon was that there was no victor, no vanquished. But they didn’t follow through. If he did, we wouldn’t have been having this conference.
The problem we have with this kind of conference is that we are clapping with one hand. As I said, I want to look at things less from the perspective of a portioning blames. Everyone has the elements of good and bad,” he said.

“Professor Utomi told us about Garba Wushishi who saved him from being killed in Gusau during the hostilities. There was a Yoruba man who was flogged in Surulere for shielding an Igbo person during the war. We should look for more of this. Nigeria needs to write its history. And the reason we cannot write it so far is the conflicting perspectives and the inability to accept the truth.

“Let those of us who are free give ourselves that task. In what ways can we write Nigeria’s history? What is militating against it is the civil war and the perceptions of it. It was not a glorious war, it should be condemned through and through. Look at the series of events from 1966 to 1970, there is something insensitive about calling some people rebels. It is not a history of rebellion.

“We need to confront the ghost of this country. But I know you can’t convince people who have made up their minds. You can only try to say, I don’t see what you did as bad, you only made a mistake.

“Obviously, if the July 1966 coup was in response to the January coup, then it was a mistaken reaction. They did what they did because they believed that the January 15 coup was a conspiracy of the Igbo against them. But that’s a mistake. Now, if you now know that it was not Igbo conspiracy, you would not have done it. That’s the only meaningful way to proceed for Nigeria. We have to reach common grounds.”

“But we don’t trust one another; we are always suspicious, almost paranoid. Restructuring is not for me to cheat the north, it’s not because I hate anybody. There has been no set of Nigerian actors, better in any sense, than those who gave Nigeria the federalism of the independence constitution, Azikiwe, Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello and the British colonialists that gave birth to Nigeria in the first place. It took them years to thrash it out.

“And they know Nigeria more than any of us. They had they legitimacy of their people more than anybody after them. We had a template that was predicated on logic, on tolerance, on recognition of diversities and things like that. Then, you had an accident, because the military coup of 1966 was an accident, then you chose that accident to be the norm. How will that work?”