Connect with us

Opinion

OPINION: Nigeria, Let The Igbo Go

Published

on

Tunde Odesola

Cleveland, a city in Ohio, USA, was long regarded as the sufferhead among American cities. Bearing on its big head the weight of an unfortunate nickname – The mistake on the lake – Cleveland shares a few similarities with Nigeria. How did Cleveland get its nickname? This is how.

As recently as the late 1960s and 1970s, Cleveland was described as a city where ducks flew upside down because there was nothing worth dumping on. An unforgettable incident happened in June 1969 that made the appellation of a rundown city stick to Cleveland like a mask.

Just as Nigeria has River Niger, Cleveland has Cuyahoga River, where the city’s factories dumped their waste with reckless abandon. The Cuyahoga River, by the way, empties into Lake Erie, which is the 11th largest lake in the world.

On a fateful ‘Ọjọ́ burúkú, èsù gbo’mi mu’ day when the devil was horribly thirsty for evil, a spark from a moving train on a bridge above the river ignited the toxic chemicals floating on the river, resulting in an inferno five storeys high. The fire was quickly put out and nobody died from the incident.

Advertisement

If such an inferno occurred in our beloved Nigeria, your guess is as good as mine; fake pastors would’ve had a field day, the opposition would’ve accused government of arson, government would have said the fire was God’s wish, and Bubu wouldn’t visit the scene; Garba or Adesina would’ve issued a statement silent on casualties, calling on Christians and Muslims to watch and pray. The hopeless country would’ve moved on.

FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: Tinubu, Atiku And Political Obituary (II)

Commerce, industry and life folded up in Cleveland as the former 5th largest city population in the US shrunk to become the 54th largest. The river of tears rolling down the cheeks of the Nigerian masses bearing the brunt of misgovernance such as naira scarcity and poverty is bigger than the fast-shrinking Lake Chad, slowly drying up rivers Niger and Benue, and the polluted rivers in the Niger Delta.

But Cleveland has rebounded and is holding its own as America’s third largest iron and steel producing city, arts and cultural hub, topnotch healthcare destination, champion of environmental protection and progenitor of Rock and Roll.

If Cleveland was a ‘Mistake on the Lake’, Nigeria must be a ‘Disaster on the Niger’. Or a ‘Blight on the Benue’. Nigeria’s socio-political history paints the picture of domination, suspicion, hate and jealousy among her various tribes.

The seed of tribal domination, suspicion and hatred was sown with the nation’s first coup d’etat when Igbo soldiers, Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu and Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna, in the night of January 15, 1966, led other coup plotters, who were mainly of Igbo extraction, to carry out a pogrom on Nigeria’s political elite that included Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa, and more than 20 top politicians, senior army officers including their wives, and junior soldiers on duty, even as another Igbo soldier, General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, seized the reins of power when the country was descending into anarchy.

Advertisement

Apart from Nzeogwu and Ifeajuna, other majors that were the masterminds of the first coup in Nigeria were Timothy Onwuatuegwu, Chris Anuforo, Dan Okafor, Adewale Ademoyega, and Humphrey Chukwuka.

A list of the casualties in the January 15, 1966 coup include Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Premier Ahmadu Bello, Premier Samuel Ladoke Akintola, Finance Minister Festus Okotie-Eboh, Ahmed Musa (Ahmadu Bello’s aide), Hafsatu Bello, Mrs Latifat Ademulegun, Zarumi Sardauna, Ahmed Pategi (Bello’s driver).

FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: Tinubu, Atiku And Political Obituary (1)

Others include Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun, Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari, Colonel Ralph Shodehinde, Colonel Kur Mohammed, Lt Colonel Abogo Largema, Lt Colonel James Pam, Lt Colonel Arthur Unegbe, Sergeant Daramola Oyegoke, Police Constable Yohana Garkawa, Lance Corporal Musa Nimzo, Police Constable Akpan Anduka, Police Constable Hagai Lai, and Philip Lewande. Unegbe was the only Igbo killed during the coup.

Yoruba leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, luckily escaped being killed in the January 1966 coup plot because he had been sentenced to a 10-year jail term for alleged conspiracy to overthrow the Balewa government in 1963.

Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, the President of the country, who was on a cruise to the Caribbean when the coup occurred, had transferred powers to the Senate President, Prince Nwafor Orizu.

Advertisement

Then came the counter-coup of July 1966 aka ‘July Rematch’ which was more senseless and sickening than the January coup as an undisclosed number of Igbo soldiers, including Ironsi, were murdered, setting Nigeria on the path of a civil war that started on July 6, 1967 and ended on January 15, 1970 – lasting exactly 2 years, 6 months, 1 week and 2 days.

It’s true to say that the spine of the fragile unity of Nigeria was broken by the January 1966 coup, it is truer to say that the Igbo have never recovered from the Biafra War. No tribe can ever recover from a war that killed an estimated three million people.

Aborigine Indians never recovered till date in the US, Tibetans, Taiwanese and Uyghurs never fully recovered in Chinese hands, natives never recovered in Canada – in wars wherein genocide, starvation and sterilization were potent weapons for forceful land takeover and imperialism.

War is always terrible and avoidable. It’s like the bullet, once shot, it hurries to wreak havoc. It’s sane to say that the January 1966 coup was a military action, whose consequence shouldn’t be visited on an entire tribe. But warmongers would say that everything is fair in war and that the Igbo got what they deserve. However, is it right to kill an ant with a sledgehammer? Is it right to kill a dog because it barks?

FROM THE AUTHOR: Bat Vs Artiku: The Final Game Of Crooks [OPINION]

The whole concept of Nigeria’s amalgamation is insane, unnatural and pretentious because after the Biafra War, ‘No victor, no vanquished’ became the new song on every lip, whereas suspicion, mistrust and contempt sit in the belly of each tribe.

Advertisement

With the 2023 general elections, the chickens have, again, come home to roost. The elections have, once again, widened the national fissures of ethnicity, religion and hypocrisy accentuated by the headless regime of retired Major General Muhammadu Buhari – a beneficiary of coups. Buhari divided Nigeria so much that when people are killed anywhere in the country nowadays, the first question that comes to mind is, “I hope my tribe isn’t involved’.

Sadly, ethnicity, religion and hypocrisy have been critical factors determining the swing of electoral victory in the 2023 elections, just like past elections. Sadly, this is what the political elite designed for the masses, and it’s bearing bountiful harvests.

If not hypocrisy, what would you call Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who, as the day of election reckoning nears, has gained rapid demotion from being Lagos State foreman to being Lagos State groundsman ready to hug the homeless, lick the vulcaniser arse and stand at church entrance like a stranded sexton.

If not for ethnicity and hypocrisy, why haven’t the Igbo ever been this concerted, assertive and vehement in condemning bad governance in Igbo land especially, and across Nigeria generally, as they’ve now been rooting in Lagos?

Inasmuch as I’m an advocate of giving the job to the best hands, notwithstanding religious consideration, I’ll be remiss and insincere if I claim that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s Muslim-Muslim was altruistic. That political act was in disregard of Christian religion, and could embolden an encore by the political class in future elections. Its unforeseen fallout is what’s making Sanwo-Olu’s heart beat 1,000 times per minute at the mention of Elluu Pee.

For one thousand and one reasons, the All Progressives Congress should’ve been punished at the polls but it exploited the nation’s faultlines, like other parties also did, to garner votes nationwide in confirmation of the weaponization of poverty.

Advertisement

No doubt, the memory of Biafra wracks the Igbo till date, the same way the loss of Ilorin, a Yoruba land, to the Fulani, rankles the Yoruba still. This is why ‘Lagos is no man’s land’ mantra provokes instant disgust in the Yoruba.

If the Labour Party loses Lagos governorship election on Saturday, the Igbo will come to great political pain, and return to the old song, “We want Biafra.” I join in the song; if the Igbo cannot aspire to be what they want in Nigeria, let them go.

Tunde Odesola is a senior journalist, columnist with The PUNCH newspaper and a guest writer in INFO DAILY.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com
Facebook: @tunde odesola
Twitter: @tunde_odesola

Advertisement
Advertisement
Comments

News

OPINION: Can I Tell Our First Lady That Graduates Drive Cabs Here, Too?

Published

on

By

By Suyi Ayodele

My people have different social stratifications. One of them is a group of people they call olórí àpésín. That simply means those who chose destiny that makes people worship them. Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu numbers among that group. And when you are an olórí àpésín, you don’t feel what the common man feels. And olórí àpésín is like the proverbial child strapped to the mother’s back. He will never get to know how long the journey is. This is exactly Mrs. Tinubu’s fate. She has been strapped to her husband’s back for too long to know how long the journey has been for an average Nigerian, especially in these nine months of her husband in power.

Again, our first lady is not just an olórí àpésín. She is a lot more than that. Looking at her political, financial and social trajectories in the last 25 years, we can comfortably call her an obìrin tí a nfi orí è súre fún obìrin (a woman whose destiny we call upon as blessing to other women). When you are in that classification, reality is completely lost on you. No matter how people in that stratification struggle, they remain apathetic. When you see such persons, you don’t blame them when they are in their most insensitive mode. Rather, you pity them. And, in all honesty, Mrs. Tinubu, and everyone in her class among the pitiless Nigeria’s elite class, has my sympathy.

Last week, Mrs. Tinubu played host to three senators from her home state, Lagos. The trio of Senators Adetokunbo Abiru, Wasiu Eshinlokun Sanni and Ranti Idiat Adebule were in Aso Rock Villa on a courtesy visit to the First Lady. Just imagine how many lucky Nigerian women and housewives have the privilege of receiving in audience, three councillors from their wards. But here, three ‘Distinguished’ senators left whatever they were doing to go to the Presidential Villa to pay homage to the woman after the president’s heart. It was during that visit that Mrs. Tinubu spoke about our conditions. While Nigerians would not know what led to it, we all woke up to watch the video of that visit and what Madam Tinubu said. I hate to make guesses. But, here, I am tempted to think that probably, the three wise men asked Madam Excellency to help talk to her husband to do something about the agony in the land. Don’t take that to the bank, anyway. Then Mrs. Tinubu chose to respond by lashing out at Nigerians who travelled overseas to seek greener pastures and derided them for going abroad to do menial jobs they would not touch with a 10-foot pole in Nigeria.

This is what the wife of our president said: “Look at all those people saying they are going to Japa; they go there. What work are you going to do? You know, work that you refused to do at home where you have loved ones, you now end up to go and do there. With all their education, they’re driving cabs, but they won’t drive cabs here”. She called on Nigerians to help the “poor” among them but added that it is difficult to know the real poor as “…you don’t even know who are the poor. If they don’t ride a car, they will say they are poor. If you don’t have your own home, they will say they are poor.” The president’s wife agreed with the Scripture that “…in the Bible, we even talk about Jesus saying the poor you will always have in the land, and it’s for people whom God has blessed to help the poor.” The summary of her speech as relayed on the Arise TV later is a complete mockery of fellow Nigerians who would not be drivers here in Nigeria but would go to the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States of America and other European countries to go and do menial jobs.

Advertisement

READ ALSO: OPINION: Odi, Zaki Biam And Okuama: Beyond Sentiments

Truth be told, Mrs. Tinubu is right. Yes, Nigerian graduates abroad are cab drivers. Many are caregivers, a euphemism for nannies to old people. Quite a huge number of them are into guard duties. We have those who are cleaners, shop attendants; human payloaders and everything else we can imagine! Many of these folks, and their spouses, hold postgraduate degrees from reputable Nigerian universities. Pity! Again, another truth from Mrs. Tinubu is that these Nigerians would never accept those menial crafts they do with all enthusiasm abroad back home in Nigeria. Truth is bitter. But that is where it ends for Mrs. Tinubu and those other elites with similar warped mentality.

I don’t know much about the activities of witches and their act and art – witchcraft. But I know a little bit of their categorisation. I know the female ones called Àjé (witches), and their male counterparts known as Osó (wizards). Àjé and Osó, are the mildest of the group. At times, they can be appeased. Their level of wickedness can also be curtailed and managed. Next to that class is the Olubi (purveyor of evil). This set ranks higher than Àjé or Osó in that you don’t have to offend an Olubi before she attacks you. These ones are simply not at home with their victims’ wellbeing, the generosity or kindness of the victims towards them notwithstanding. In fact, it is better not to show an Olubi any kindness than to seek to please her. The elder sibling of Olubi is Ofíndòdo. Those in this league combine wickedness with fury. They fight their victims without relenting. They are simply temperamental! And they don’t need any reason to strike. They are the sadists of the groupings. The worst of them all is what people in my locality call Ukòtò (Pit). Ukòtò does not fight her victims. She swallows them. She afflicts them with all manner of plagues. Ukòtò ruins her victims to no end. If for instance, a victim is taken to those who should know and they discover that he or she is under the affliction of an Ukòtò, the one consulted to help stylishly backs out. Why? Ukòtò gets angrier the moment an attempt is made to pacify her. Victims of an Ukòtò don’t get help; no antidote works for them. They are simply ruined for life except the cosmic intervenes on its own. Nigerians are at the mercy of Ukòtòs at the moment. Our leaders combine all the peculiarities of the aforementioned esoteric beings to afflict the citizenry. That is why they have no pity on us. They speak to us as if we don’t matter. And, really, we don’t matter to our leaders. Their hearts have been seared with hot iron; they have sold their souls to Hades. They are as cold-hearted, as they are dead to our pains. Nothing moves them. Nothing pricks their conscience.

A woman at the level of Mrs. Tinubu should have been more circumspect. But she can’t be because that is not the nature of people in her caste. Yes, Nigerians go abroad to work as cab drivers; a job they would not do in Nigeria. But, has Madam Tinubu asked herself where the roads for those Diasporan Nigerians to drive cabs in Nigeria are? If they elect to be drivers here, who guarantees their safety from kidnappers, killer-herdsmen, bandits and other criminals that have taken over our highways and local roads? Does it occur to our First Lady that many of those Nigerians driving cabs abroad were frustrated out of this country? The other time, I saw a video of a young lady, who left her banking job in one of the most prominent banks in Nigeria to pick up a cleaning job in the UK while also going to school there. I asked a friend who also left that same bank as a senior manager to take up a less paying job somewhere else in Nigeria, what the problem is with that particular bank. His response was that the problem cuts across the Nigerian banking industry. He explained that our banking industry is a place where you employ a young graduate and you give her unachievable targets. When such a marketer, mostly a beautiful lady, cannot go the “extra mile”, a sort of euphemism for “corporate prostitution”, she gets fired! He added that that is what is responsible for high staff turnover in most banks. What other options do those victims of the wicked corporate environment have other than to Japa (migrate) to go and do cab-driving (for the males), and cleaning or care-giving (for the females). The banks and other exploitative corporate bodies get away with all the inhuman treatments of their employees because the regulatory bodies saddled with the responsibilities of checking those excesses and near-second slavery treatments have been compromised. That in itself is a failure on the part of the government and that is where Mrs. Tinubu should direct her attention to rather than deriding Nigerians who travel out to do jobs that are below their qualifications. At a time in his life, Mrs. Tinubu’s husband also japed to God’s Own country, America, before he became somebody. So, what’s the fuss about?

READ ALSO: OPINION: Where Are Yoruba’s Soldier Ants?

It is convenient for the First Lady to talk the way she did because she would never be in the position of parents who laboured to train their children and wards in schools and those graduates stay at home for years without any job. Mrs. Tinubu’s children, I believe, have never had any reason to Japa, because they are either Abimbola (born with wealth), or Mobolanle (I met wealth at home). Her children will never think of going abroad to drive cabs because if they are not Iyaloja General of Nigeria, their husbands are chairmen of Boards of big government parastatals. When we talk about children born with silver spoons, Madam Tinubu’s children simply swallowed the silver spoon and the melting machine at birth. How would their mother not reason the way she did? Has it occurred to her that most parents, whose children are the cab drivers she referred to, are at pains seeing their medical doctor-trained children turn mere cab drivers? When was the last time Mrs. Tinubu took a cab in Nigeria? I have come across scores of Bolt cab drivers who are university graduates on the streets of Nigeria. So, I can conveniently tell Her Excellency that it is not true that Nigerian graduates are not cab drivers here. Some of them are dry cleaners, shoemakers, sales girls and boys in malls and other menial jobs. Most kiosks where the business of Point of Sales (POS) is carried out are owned and manned by graduates! Madam first lady should get on the street to know this fact!

Advertisement

Methinks our leaders need to think more deeply before they talk. Nothing is more painful for victims of Ukoto than to see the same people who put them in such terrible conditions laugh at them! Mrs. Tinubu’s husband was once a senator. He later became governor of Lagos State for eight years. For those eight years, Madam was the First Lady of Lagos. She had all the good things in life. At a time, the husband made her a senator and she occupied that position for another 12 years. In the last nine months, Mrs. Tinubu has occupied the unconstitutional office of the First Lady of Nigeria. A few months ago, she had the privilege of having the sum of N1.5 billion ‘voted’ to her office for cars and other sundry items. Everything she has enjoyed in the last 25 years is at the expense of our common patrimony. In the real sene of it, she an omo ijobo (government pikin)! She is the typical ant in a bowl of sugar (eera inu sugar); she can never understand that there is pain in the land. She lives in a fortress, secured by the State. When she ventures out of the Villa, she has a company of soldiers and other security agents attending to her safety. How would she know then that many of us recite Psalm 91 almost seven times before we dare travel from one location to another? She is a typical eni aye ye (the one life has favoured). The tendency for her to look down on others is high. I only hope she knows the full meaning of Atubotan (the hereafter). Vengeance will one day cry on all our leaders! Ise!

It is sad that Nigerians are being shipped daily abroad for second slavery. If our leaders, especially of this ruinous epoch, had done what is right, we would have no reason to travel to be slaves in the UK, Canada, or any other country for that matter. My late parents-in-law studied in the UK in the late 60s. My late mother-in-law told me that they did not wait for the results of their final examinations to be out before they sailed back to Nigeria. Why? Because Nigeria was good then. That was a period we had human beings as leaders; leaders who put the country first before selves. Those were leaders who never boasted of being richer than a state. Our situation became bad when locusts took over our political space. We are worse off now because we have Ukotos at the helm of our affairs. Witches and their siblings don’t normally fly in the daytime. However, the present ones in power hold courts in broad daylight. While the electioneering that brought Mrs. Tinubu and her husband to Aso Rock lasted, she told all of us that her family was too rich to be bothered about our treasury. Mrs. Tinubu knows how far her riches and those of her husband would go in solving the problems of our graduates going abroad to drive cabs! In her last week’s engagement, she referred us back to the Bible. She made a biblical allusion to the presence of the poor in our midst. I love that! Today is Tuesday. As a good Christian, and in the spirit of Bible study, permit me to commend Her Excellency to the injunction of our Lord Jesus Christ, who told one of the ‘righteous’ Pharisees thus: “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasures in heaven; and come and follow me” (Matthew 19-21).

Continue Reading

News

OPINION: Murder And Vengeance In Okuama

Published

on

By

By Lasisi Olagunju

I have a very senior police officer friend whose nickname is Ambush. On the front of my friend’s left shoulder is an ugly scar. At the back of the shoulder is an even bigger scar. I remembered Ambush the day it became known that 17 soldiers were murdered in a community in Delta State. My friend got his scars two decades plus two years ago somewhere in the Niger Delta during a routine police assignment. His team walked into an ambush mounted by militants and a firework ensued. A bullet meant for my friend’s heart missed it by an inch. The bullet whistled into my friend’s shoulder, ripped through flesh and bone and escaped. He was carried off the war field by his colleagues with very little hope of making it. But he did. If he was a Yoruba, he would kneel down and affirm that it was his orí that declined taking that destiny of premature death – his inner head refused to accept fatal ambush.

That near-death experience gave my friend his nickname, Ambush. And he loves being so called.

I spoke with the officer last week. His first daughter was about three years old and his wife heavy with the second child when he suffered that shot. The daughter has left the university now, top of her class. We agreed that if he had died in that incident, his daughter’s destiny may have been fatally altered. She would not have had any serious memory of the father beyond his being a victim of Nigeria and the career he chose. We agreed that only the grace of God would have saved the child, the unborn and their mum from life’s effective abandonment.

We discussed the Federal Government’s promise to give the 17 dead soldiers a befitting burial complete with national honours. We thought that was highly thoughtful and commendable. But I pointed out to my friend that national honours do not pay school fees. We agreed on that truth and on the truth that tributes do not buy love and do not give the warmth which only a father and a husband can give. We agreed that life can be really ice-cold for widows and children without fathers or mothers or both.

Advertisement

We discussed other incidents that ended more tragically for persons we knew: The Ombatse mass murder of May 7, 2013 at Alakyo, Nasarawa State, saw a militia kill 74 security operatives. We knew one promising young man among the fallen. Many of those wasted souls were married with children. The ones that were not married had loved ones. What has happened to those they left behind? Some anti-kidnapping operatives were ambushed, overpowered and murdered by vandals in Ikorodu, Lagos State in September 2015. One of them was personally known to us. He was part of our team when we were in government. He left a family and a fiancée. Whatever anyone may have done or may be doing to mitigate the loss cannot compensate for the broken pot and the spilt water.

So, what eventually happened to those who shot my friend? He didn’t tell me. They don’t tell.

FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: Nigeria: A History Of Scandals

You can’t convince soldiers not to avenge their colleagues’ death. Epe is one of the principal towns in today’s Lagos State. It is a community pockmarked by a fissured history of fights and recriminations. It is a two-in-one town made up of Ijebu Epe and Eko Epe. Thirteen years before Lagos became a colony, there was a case of killing and revenge killing of lead warriors in Epe. Celebrated Epe historian, Theophilus Avoseh (1960) recorded in his ‘A Short History of Epe’ that in about 1848, Epe and one of its neighbours, Makun Omi, had a trade dispute. One of Ijebu Epe’s war chiefs was Balogun Agoro. His counterpart in Makun Omi was a strong man called Nabintan. Nabintan warned Agoro not to come to his side to trade or there would be trouble. But Agoro was like William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar who thinks himself “elder and more terrible” than danger. You remember Caesar’s famous rebuff of warnings about the Ides of March: “Danger knows full well that Caesar is more dangerous than he.” For Agoro, it was ibi tí wón bá ní kí gbégbé má gbé, ibè níí gbé. Ibi tí won ba ni ki tètè má tè, ibè níí tè… Like importunate Caesar, Agoro put his feet where he was warned not to. He went to the other side to trade in palm kernels and there was a fight and Agoro was murdered.

The historian wrote that a violent cry for vengeance rent the air in Epe: “The news of his assassination was soon broken to the Ijebu Epe, who trooping out to retaliate, drove and forbade the Makuns from fishing in their creeks. Makun people became apprehensive and as they were reduced to starvation by the measures taken by the Epes, they quickly appealed to Awujale Anikilaya to use his regal office to pacify the Epes. To engender mutual reconciliation and understanding, a date was fixed by the Awujale for the Epe and Makun people to meet at Epe Oju Alaro, Lagbade. During the settlement, however, Balogun Omini (of Epe) suddenly and without warning shot Nabintan dead with a gun. This resulted in a civil war. Omini praised himself for having revenged the assassination of Agoro and named himself ‘Omìní pa ohùn oba dà’ which interpreted means ‘Omini altered Awujale’s order for reconciliation.’ That was how it became a proverb in the town that ‘Ohun tí ó se Àgòrò tí kò bò ní Makun, òun náà ló se Nabintan tí kò bò ní Epe’ which means ‘the thing that prevented Agoro from coming back home from Makun has also prevented Nabintan from returning from Epe.’ The historian noted that the Awujale, who was initially angry at the killing was later pacified. Oba Anikilaya ‘winked at the offence’ and the fugitive offenders ‘returned to their respective homes.’”

Do not kill the Igúnnugún (vulture) of warriors so that you can live to see the year end. Kill the hornbill (àkàlàmàgbò) of the army and die this month. There is always a price to pay for every enemy action directed at soldiers.

Advertisement

Because we are far removed from the experience, some people are making excuses for the mass murder of soldiers in Okuama, Delta State. It takes very horrendous amounts of destruction for a storm abroad to make news at home. Distance is a factor when we interrogate tragedies. The farther they are, the less empathy we feel for the victims. Should it be like that? In my very long years as a reporter covering governors and governments, and in my short years in public office, I encountered and befriended persons across all professions. And, these included civil servants, doctors, nurses, soldiers, policemen, SSS operatives. Some of them have grown old and have retired. Some are dead. Many have grown tall and big and are still in service. They all dote on me and I monitor their career welfare and their personal wellbeing the way mother-hen casts furtive glances at its eggs. Every news of attack on service men or death in active service gives my heart a skip. Photographs and names of the murdered soldiers were released last week. I scanned the faces and skimmed through the names, holding my breath. None of them was known to me but all of them shared the human space with us. They did not deserve that death.

FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: APC And Lesson From Last Child Of Tortoise

How should we mourn them? Or how are we mourning them? A gush of regional and ethnic emotions flood our common course. Our partisan reactions question the humanness of our existence. The soldiers who fell were some parents’ sons; some ladies’ husbands; some children’s fathers. Their children no longer have a father to hug them; the kids do not again have a father for them to hug. The dead were brothers to some persons. The courses of those streams of life are altered forever – some now flow inexorably to extinction. It will only be in dreams that things will smell nice again for those families. Yet, we ethnicise the mass murder and conditionise condolence for the lost souls. Some pillory their memory because of the cyclone of their colleagues’ anger.

All through military history, those whose hens break soldiers’ pot of medicine always suffer mass loss of eggs. You heard that young soldier who went online to vow a revenge of the killings? I heard him and felt a chill at the cadence in his carefully chosen words: “We take good things to good people, bad things to bad people. Since you don price, you must collect.” That does not sound like a hollow boast from a lone wolf. If you think it is, scroll back to August last year when bandits killed scores of soldiers in Niger State. The Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, uttered these words in August 2023: “When you have to bury your own, you feel very pained. I call on all commanders and troops all over Nigeria that we must avenge this. Those who did this and those who continue to kill our men wherever they are, we will smoke them out.” The young soldier issued his promise of revenge in poetry; the CDS’s pledge of vengeance was in plain prose. Those who wreaked the latest havoc in Delta should have listened to Musa’s unleavened words of last year. If they had taken heed and followed the word and the law, there would not have been this hackneyed talk about another deathly journey to Odi and a deadly detour to Zaki-Biam.

‘Revenge in Warfare’ is the title of an editorial comment published on May 27, 1861, by the defunct American newspaper, Springfield Daily Republican. It was in the early weeks of the American Civil War. A unit of soldiers from Massachusetts going to Washington was attacked by a pro-secession mob in Baltimore. The mob killed four soldiers. The newspaper said the Massachusetts troops “were proceeding so peaceably upon their patriotic errand, they had responded so promptly to the president’s call, the attack upon them and its fatal results thrilled the country’s heart, and men could hardly be restrained from taking the task of vengeance into their own hands.” There was a response from the troops, and the walls of Baltimore itself bore testimony to that day of murder and vengeance.

Vengeance and payback are ready companions to incidents of murder. In Yoruba, we say Akóda oró, kò dàbí àdágbèhìn – vengeance is always meaner than the original act of wickedness. You may call it retribution or reprisal or payback. If you like call it anything. All the wounded desires is to smash the thick walls of the enemy. A Second World War Soviet writer for the army wrote about why Germany must suffer fire. “When you walk through streets in the smoke of a conflagration, there is no pity in your heart. Let it burn – it is not a pity! I do not feel sorry for houses, I do not feel sorry for things. I do not feel sorry for the city. We have no pity left for Germans. Payback has come to Germany. May the robber’s nest become ashes and decay. Let them! Not a pity!” Whether in Russia or in America or in Nigeria, soldiers think that thought for whoever is the enemy that has visited them with death. It didn’t start with modern armies.

Advertisement

FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: Our President’s Love Affair With The IMF

The Warrior Ethos governs the conduct of soldiers. It has done so from Achilles to today, coast to coast. Americans have formalized the Ethos into four pledges: “I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade.” Not leaving a fallen comrade is at the heart of the present ‘war’ in the Niger Delta. And, if the military are not yielding the space to our pleadings for kindness and forgiveness, it is because the officers and men know as Prussian General, Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) observed in his ‘Vom Kriege’ that in the dangerous business of war, “the mistakes which come from kindness are the very worst.” So, if the air is presently heavy from Delta to Bayelsa in pursuit of the killers of our soldiers, the forces expect us to understand.

But, I join in pleading with the military. If they stay too long in that space, grass may start growing under their feet. More importantly, the innocent should be spared from sharing in the fate of the sinner. Indiscriminate recriminatory operations won’t prevent the sinner from committing the next sin. If they could, there would not have been Zaki-Biam soon after Odi; there would not have been Okuama after Zaki-Biam. How many officers and men have we lost in this democracy to killings such as the latest in Delta State? Even the authorities may have lost count. It is obviously rain that is yet falling. We do not know who will be next. And there will be another one unless we say enough.

How to say enough should be the present conversation. If Nigerians won’t stop killing Nigerian troops in Nigeria how about another look at the architecture of our forces, the structure of their formations and the social texture of their operational deployments? I have read low-toned social media whispers on the ethnic configuration of the Okuama casualties. More than 90 percent of those names sound northern. Why? From comments and commentaries on the tragedy, I could glean some sounds of fear and lack of trust in the fairness and justice of the forces. Martha Nussbaum, American philosopher and professor of Law and Ethics, said “a fearful people never trust the other side.”

We send policemen and soldiers to the north east, they get killed by terrorists bred locally; we send them to Zamfara and Niger states, they get killed by homegrown bandits; we deploy them to the Niger Delta, wanton militants give them the grasshopper treatment – they kill them “for their sport.” Why don’t we start sending children of death to death? If we, henceforth, send the children of fire to fire, will they still get charred? Send Yoruba soldiers and policemen to Yorubaland; send children of the creek to the creeks. If they misbehave, their misbehaviour will be to their people; if they are attacked, their attackers would know they are attacking their brothers. Everyone would know the compounds of who killed whom.

A word for the Niger Delta. It should rethink its ways. Every feud should not draw the sword. Tomorrow always eludes the land that allows every disagreement to end in war and bloodshed. Why do you think some lands are deserts and some are oases? Ask myths and legends. They have lessons to tell on how some soil sucked forbidden blood and suffered the eternal curse of aridity; nothing grows there again. Modern warfare would call it scotched-earth effect. Yet, some tragedies could be avoided if only patience is offered a seat in the heart of anger. That is why our elders warn that even when you are right, if you don’t fight right, you lose all rights. They say if you must fight, fight with sense:

Advertisement

E má bínúkínú

Kí e má baà j’ìjà k’ijà;

E má j’ìjà k’ijà

Kí e má baà j’èbi k’ébi.

Meaning:

Do not be unduly angry

Advertisement

So that you won’t fight undue fight;

Do not fight undue fight

So that you won’t be unduly guilty.

Continue Reading

News

OPINION: Odi, Zaki Biam And Okuama: Beyond Sentiments

Published

on

By

By Suyi Ayodele

Soldiers voluntarily elected to die the very day they signed up for Military work. They signed up to die at the hands of the enemies. It is a grave abnormality therefore, for soldiers to die in the hands of those they set out to defend. Every society treats its soldiers with respect. In our African traditional settings, we venerate those we engage to guard our towns and villages. We call them Asode, or Olode Oru. While we sleep, caressing our wives, the night guards are in the cold night, watching over our safety and those of our property. That is also the life of an average soldier. Soldiers trade off their comfort for the rest of us to sleep peacefully in our homes. This is how Richard Grenier, a film critic and essayist, obviously quoting George Orwell, describes soldiers in his April 6, 1993 article in The Washington Times: “People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” The “rough men” referred to here are members of security forces including soldiers and policemen., They risk their lives to defend ours. They deserve our respect and love. So, when soldiers are killed by civilians, like it happened last week in Okuama town of Delta State, such an act stands condemnable. Do we forget history easily in this country?

Dateline was Thursday, November 4, 1999. This democratic dispensation was barely a month old. A retired Army General, Olusegun Obasanjo was the president. Twelve policemen were on an official assignment to Odi, a small community in Bayelsa State. It was at the heat of the agitation by the Niger Delta ‘militants’ for control of the oil in the region. The 12 policemen were ambushed by some gunmen who took them into captivity. Negotiations started. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, who later became President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, was the one assigned to negotiate with the militants. He was then the deputy governor of Bayelsa State. Obasanjo fumed from Abuja. He gave a marching order to the Bayelsa State Government to “produce the policemen ALIVE.” There was tension everywhere. Then the news broke. Seven of the policemen had been killed by their captors, the news was relayed. Wahala! The following day, Friday, November 5, 1999, the remaining five policemen were also murdered by their captors. Twelve lives wasted just like that. The Odi community was on edge. Permutations were on as to what the Federal Government would do or would not do. Many believed that Obasanjo would not want to put Nigeria on the wrong side of the world map, more so when his administration was fledging then. They were mistaken.

The man called Ebora Owu (the Deity of Owu) bided his time. The vulture, we are told, is a patient bird. Days passed, and there was no response from Abuja, the seat of power. Then life returned to normalcy in Odi. Exactly 16 days after the first killing of the seven policemen, tragedy visited Odi. In the early hours of Saturday, November 20, 1999. Odi residents woke up to discover that their community had been surrounded by the Military. Land, air and sea, all covered. No escape route. The Military opened fire on Odi. Nobody was spared; not even animals. Houses were burnt. Only three buildings; a bank, a church and the community’s health centre were spared. While the Human Rights watch and other Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) claimed that more than 900 civilians were killed after the encounter, the Nigerian Military said just about 34 people, including soldiers, died. Later, the Federal Government under the watch of President Jonathan paid the sum of N15 billion as compensation to Odi. But the damage caused by that incident remains unquantifiable till date. That should have been a huge lesson to Nigerians. It never was!

FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: Where Are Yoruba’s Soldier Ants?

Advertisement

Barely two years after Odi, another set of felons ambushed some soldiers sent on a peace mission to Zaki Biam town in Benue State, October 10, 2001. The soldiers, 19 of them, were said to be fully armed. However, leaders of the community were said to have persuaded the soldiers to drop their arms such that their presence would not provoke the already charged youths who were at war with their counterparts from Jukun in Taraba State. The soldiers complied. That was their mistake. Hardly had they dropped their arms when boys swooped on them. The 19 of them were murdered and their bodies mutilated! Before killing them, the felons posed with the soldiers, displaying them like trophies won at various competitions. At the funeral rites for the soldiers on October 22, 2001, Obasanjo gave the Military marching order to “track and bring to book”, those responsible for the killing of the 19 soldiers. That is a directive any responsible Commander-in-Chief would give to his troops in such a circumstance. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu gave the same order in almost, if not exactly the same words, on Sunday to the Military high command over the killing of soldiers in Okuama village. Incidentally, the late General Victor Malu, who was the Chief of Army Staff (CoS), when the Odi incident happened, hailed from Zaki Biam. Indeed, the Military went after “those responsible.” By the time the roll call was made, over 100 people were said to have paid the supreme price in Zaki Biam and the adjoining towns of Tse Adoor, Vaase, Sankera, Anyiin, and Kyado. The exercise lasted between October 22 and 24, 2001. Ever since, there has been no report of civilians, under any guise, killing members of the Nigerian Armed forces in their number. We thought we had passed that age of barbarism. Again, we are all wrong!

But before we treat the latest madness in Okuama in Delta State, it is pertinent for us to point out that irrespective of our emotions over the responses of the Nigerian Military to the killing of their personnel, we also need to understand that when soldiers, or any other law enforcement agent is killed cold-bloodedly, the damage is monumental. We need to realise that for every soldier killed by those they keep watch over; someone’s husband is involved. For every killed soldier, there is a widow. Every soldier killed leaves behind some orphans. Many of them also have parents who are made to bury their children, and those who depend on them. We also need to know the mentality of the Military to these wanton killings of their personnel. What about the psychological effect on the soldier-victims, who at the point of death realised that they were being killed by the very patriots they signed to protect with their lives? As I saw the pictures of the soldiers killed in Okuama, the very mutilated bodies of the armed men, my heart sank. I visualised how they died. I recall here, the graphic image of the young lad, Ikemefuna, as depicted by the master story teller, Chinua Achebe, in his epic novel, “Things Fall Apart.” Ikemefuna, when he received the first blow of the machete, ran to Okonkwo, shouting ‘father’. He was seeking refuge. He thought, given his position in the community, Okonkwo would rise to his defense. But alas, it was the same Okonkwo, who dealt the last blow that sent the lad to the land of no return. Ikemefuna was already a psychological wreck before he hit the ground after Okonkwo dealt him the blow. Nothing can be more tragic than to die at the hands of those who should show one affection and love. That is exactly what happened to the 12 soldiers killed by some untrained children in Okuama. Their killing is as tragic as it is inhuman!

FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: What Is Killing Our Obas?

And we should not forget. The Military has a different mentality. Iselin Sija Kasperen, a military sociologist, with preference for identity, moral dilemmas, gender and the use of force, published an online article titled: “New societies, new soldiers? A soldier typology”, on June 28, 2020. In the abstract to the article, here is what she says of a soldier: “The term ‘soldier’ is frequently conceptualized as a warrior, a peacekeeper, or a hybrid of both. However, recent changes in the utilization of soldiers in societies have moved the repertoire of possible ways to think, act, and behave beyond these notions. As such, there exists an undertheorized gap between different expectations of soldiers and actual soldier roles. This presents a need for more nuanced and analytically useful conceptualizations of soldier roles. This article provides a more thorough understanding of the soldier role by identifying seven ideal types of soldiers: the warrior, nation-defender, law-enforcer, humanitarian, state-builder, and the ideological, and contractor soldiers. The typology offers an analytical tool with the capacity to maneuver the empirical reality, which is important because how soldier roles are constructed affect how military personnel understand their role in the postmodern world, where identity is multifaceted and negotiable. Ultimately, identity influences how soldiers interact with societies and how societies respond to war, conflicts, and crises.” Concluding the piece, Kaspeten states: “The soldier typology presented in this article improves our understanding of the soldier role. …This is a serious undertaking, as the way soldiers understand their role in today’s postmodern world, where identity is multifaceted and negotiable, influences how they will perform their role. How society and soldiers construct the soldier roles are critical as it affects soldierly conduct; particularly, how soldiers interact with society and how societies respond to war, conflicts, and crises.”

Come to think of it. In a conventional war, before an officer in the rank of a Lieutenant Colonel would be killed, only God knows how many other rank and file would have died. The Commanding Officer, a Lieutenant Colonel, two Majors and nine soldiers were all wasted for doing their job! How else would the Military have responded? Agreed, many innocent people were made to pay the price. That in itself is bad. I saw the video of the burning of houses in Okuama. Many of the buildings were built by average ‘strugglers’; the poor of the poor. I pity those families who will never recover after this ugly incident. My heart goes to those parents who will never see their children again. What about the toddlers, children and wards, who have suddenly become orphans and homeless because of the madness of a few misguided youths? What sort of barbarism would make a set of people to murder soldiers and mutilate their bodies? I saw soldiers without arms, legs and private parts; all cut off by their killers! Some were decapitated! Imagine the agony the soldiers passed through. Think about the pains; picture the gruesomeness of their death. Now think about your pity for the residents of Okuama town. Which do you consider justifiable? Who does that what the Okuama’s youths did? How else do you define barbarism? To prove what point? Which Military would allow such madness go unpunished? These are the issues at the base of the criminality that took place in Delta State.

FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: Restructure Nigeria Before We All Die

Advertisement

Yes, nobody should justify the reaction of the Military in this case. Heavens know that I am not by any means justifying that. Two wrongs would not make a right. It was bad for bandits to kill innocent soldiers. It was equally bad for retaliating soldiers to level innocent villagers and their villages. However, my mind agrees with the saying of my people that he who sells sand as goods will be paid back in pebbles – eni ba ta oja yepe; dandan ni ko gbowo okuta. Our elders warn that if your neighbour is feasting on poisonous insects, raise the alarm quickly otherwise, you will not sleep at all again at night. The Okuama youths should have learnt from history. If those felons were too young to witness Odi and Zaki Biam, their parents should have told them the stories. This is a lesson for all community leaders, especially in those towns, where the youths have taken over the ladder of leadership from their fathers. Sentiments apart, no one of us will be safe again if boys can just round up soldiers, kill them and thereafter go to relax with a bottle of gin and grasscutter venison. When you kill a soldier, you should expect grave repercussions. It is like what Achebe, again, says about a woman who comes home with ants-infested fire woods. Her compound must surely play host to a lounge of lizards. While I grieve at the calamity the Okuama badly-brought up youths brought upon their town, my heart goes to the families of those slain officers and men of the Nigerian Army. May their services to their fatherland not be in vain. Rest in peace, gallant soldiers.

Continue Reading

Trending