By Jude Ndukwe
When on Saturday, March 24, 2018,Gen T.Y. Danjuma sent out a shrill cry to
Nigerians using the exalted pedestalof the Taraba State Universitys first
convocation ceremony as a medium to sendout his message, one could see
nothing but desperation, frustration andhopelessness all over him as a
result of the incessant killings of Nigerians ofdiverse nationalities by
the marauding Fulani herdsmen terrorists.
Such emotions are expected of aman whose kith and kin are directly in the
line of fire.
There is no doubt that Danjumascall for Nigerians to rise and defend
themselves in the face of the immutablefailure of security agencies to
come to their rescue is germane, it is howevertoo late, too little and too
feeble. This is in addition to the fact thatDanjuma has since lost his
exalted place in the scheme of morality before theordinary Nigerian.
An unrepentant war-monger,Danjuma is not different to the criminal
behavior of those he is attempting tocastigate today. In fact, it is the
tribal antics of narrow-minded people likethe former minister of defence
that brought us all to this unfortunate saga.
No one may like the content ofthis piece, but I am not writing to be
liked, have never written to be likedand does not wish to write to be
liked but to always be as truthful and, ifpossible, brutally truthful and
hurtful to those averse to truth! This is all Iowe my conscience and my
God.
Just like the Fulani herdsmenterrorists of today, Danjuma also led a gang
of armed bandits in uniform toIbadan to murder the then Head-of-State, Gen
JTU Aguiyi Ironsi, executionstyle. He then went further to actively
participate in the near annihilation ofthe Igbo during the civil war where
three million Biafrans were randomly and wantonly wasted, clearly against
the rulesof engagement.
The Asaba massacre is one exampleof the mindless nature of people like
Theophilus Danjuma.
On that morning of October 7,1967, the good people of Asaba had thronged
out in their numbers to showsolidarity to the Nigerian troops who had
earlier pushed the Biafran soldiersfurther back from Ore to the Niger. The
solidarity by Asaba indgenes becamenecessary as a way of abating the
continued and unwarranted massacre of theirpeople by the federal troops
who accused them of being sympathizers of Biafra.
They thought that by expressingsuch solidarity in an all-white attire
signifying peace and surrender wouldappease the federal troops. But that
was their greatest undoing!
It is recorded that about 1,000of them including some as young as 12 were
murdered in cold blood during themassacre. Federal troops separated the
men from the women in the solidaritymarch at the square and randomly
opened fire on all of them: innocent,defenceless, armless, harmless and
helpless civilians.
The gory story of the civil warhas been told time and time again. Both
sides have their faults, no doubt, butthe deployment of extra-war
strategies to prosecute the war against Biafra would remain the sour point
inthe history of that war.
The most heart wrenching of themall are the images of infants and children
who were starved to death as Danjumaand his cohorts deployed starvation as
an instrumentality of war. In thatcircumstance, innocent Igbo children who
should have been spared theconsequences of the war having been too young
to have contributed to the causeswere seen dying slowly and painfully on
the streets, in the bushes and everywhere.Some of them had their severely
malnourished bodies feasted upon by vultureseven while still alive. Not
even their mothers whose breasts had shrunk backinto their chests due to
deprivation could provide milk to save the infantsfrom starvation.
Today, the reasons the late EmekaOjukwu declared secession has come back
to haunt Danjuma who thought he wasdoing humanity a great service by
siding with the Fulani who, today, haveturned the sword against him and
his people under the auspices of herdsmenterrorists. What they could not
see while standing on an Iroko tree, Ojukwu hadsince seen even while
sitting on ute ucheya (his mat of wisdom).
Today, the chicken has come hometo roost. While the southeast remains one
of the most advanced and peacefulregions in the country today, there is
mayhem, fire and brimstone visited uponDanjumas home by the same people
he freely fell into infamy for in the yearsof the war.
Let us even assume withoutaccepting that all those events happened as a
result of war, it is more sickeningthat Danjuma has since carried on like
an unassailable veteran whose evil deedswould automatically turn to good
simply because he fought on the side offederal troops.
It would be good at this point toremind Danjuma that Igbo blood is thick.
All those who participated in themassacres and starvation of even children
in the 1967 1970 imbroglio wouldpay for them, not because Ndigbo would
wage another war but because the God ofjustice hears the cry of the blood
of the innocent and would set our traducersone against another unless such
participants humble themselves, apologise and makegenuine efforts at
reconciliation, even if it is on individual basis, with theIgbo nation and
all those who constituted the former Eastern Region.
The blood of those malnourished, innocentand extremely weak children whose
condition were the result of a deliberatepolicy of starvation the Danjumas
deployed during the war, and who looked onhelplessly while their bodies
were picked by birds of prey, rodents andreptiles, still speaks till
tomorrow. No matter how far Danjuma and his gangrun, the unmitigated
divine law of vengeance would catch up with them.
In an interview with The Guardian in February of 2008,Danjuma insolently
referred to Aguiyi Ironsi as a useless, desk-clerkHead-of-State. That
was 40 years after the war. As recently as April of 2015, duringa private
visit of former president Goodluck Jonathan to his residence shortlyafter
Jonathan lost the election, Danjuma ridiculously said if Ojukwu
hadconceded defeat early during the civil war, one year of bloodshed would
havebeen avoided.
It is instructive to note that atno time did any matter relating to Ojukwu
or the Biafra war came up duringJonathans visit to Danjuma. He was just
showing how obsessed he was and stillis with the Igbo, spitting on our
people at every opportunity. Fifty yearsafter the war, Danjuma would not
let sleeping dogs lie.
Instead of making efforts athealing wounds, Danjuma has continued to open
healed wounds with misplacedpride. He does not need to look too far to
know that Ndigbo have since arisenfrom the ashes of that war to become one
of the fastest developing regions in Nigeriain spite of the deprivations
suffered during and after the war; deprivationsthat have continued till
tomorrow.
So when one saw him on TV theother day calling on Nigerians to defend
themselves against armed bandits whohe said the military is colluding with
and giving cover, one can only laugh andremind him that what goes around
comes around. It was exactly how he colludedwith men in uniform to commit
the worst atrocities against humanity. He shouldstop lamenting but start
reflecting.
A more reasonable man, instead ofcontinuing to ridicule the Igbo at every
given opportunity, lamenting andmaking lame calls, would have visited the
Obi of Onitsha, for example, with theleader of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Nnia
Nwodo, present, to say Your Majesty, weall made mistakes during the civil
war. It should never have happened but itdid. All sides made mistakes but
I am here in your palace in my personalcapacity to express my apologies
for parts of my role during the war which causedthe Igbo great grief. I am
here to appeal that we should all let bygones bebygones, forgive one
another, close ranks and live in peace. God has given methe grace to live
up to this moment and I want to make the best use of it reconcilingwith
all those who I might have offended in the cause of carrying out my
dutiesas a soldier of the federal republic. I acknowledge we went too far
in somecases. I want to meet my creator in peace whenever He decides to
call me,hence, my decision to do this.
He has the opportunity to do thisespecially now that the wife of late JTU
Aguiyi Ironsi is still alive andaround.
But Danjuma would rather live onlike an eternal colossus lacking empathy
except when the people of Taraba Stateare under attack.
Ndigbo have had their rights asmajor stakeholders in the scheme of things
constantly denied and aredeliberately deprived; they are marginalized in
all areas of the nations life andhave continued to suffer humiliation
from a system deliberately skewed againstthem as punishment from the civil
war. However, they have endured all and shouldbe commended for their
steadfastness and revival owing to Gods grace and thepeoples
determination and hardwork.
Let me conclude this piece bymaking it categorically clear that I am
totally against the killings by Fulaniherdsmen terrorists particularly as
it is happening in the north right now. I havestated this position quite
eloquently in both my writings and speeches, and I stillstand by them.
It is an act of grossincompetence and wickedness for terrorists to be
allowed to run roughshod overour nation without any visible concrete
action by government and securityagents to stem the tide. It is total
failure on the part of governmentespecially one that came to power on the
promise of ensuring the safety of Nigerians.
However, such clarion calls asthe one that came from Danjuma should not
have come from someone like him. His handsare too stained with blood of
innocent children from the East to be able to stirthe people to
self-defence as he attempted to do. Let him seek peace andforgiveness from
necessary quarters and he shall know peace!
jrndukwe@yahoo.co.uk; Twitter:@stjudendukwe