By: Femi Fani-Kayode<\/p>\n
History teaches us that there is only one thing that is more painful to
\nthe victims of mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide than the act
\nitself and that is the tacit denial by its orchestrators and perpertrators
\nthat it ever took place.<\/p>\n
One of the most wicked and\u00a0 despicable lies that President Muhammadu
\nBuhari has ever told is that the Nigerian Army was “soft” on the Biafrans
\nand “restrained” during the civil war, implying that our soldiers did not
\nindulge in genocide and mass murder.<\/p>\n
This is a lie from the pit of hell and it is insulting and deeply
\noffensive. We must learn from our history and never repeat its mistakes.<\/p>\n
A few questions will suffice. Was the Asaba massacre in which thousands of
\ninnocent and defenceless young boys and old men were slaughtered an act of
\nrestraint?<\/p>\n
Or was the killing of two million innocent and defenceless Biafran
\ncivilians and the premeditated and contrived starving to death of one
\nmillion innocent Biafran children an act of restraint?<\/p>\n
For God sake where is our humanity? Where is our sense of decency, our
\nsensitivity and our sense of remorse?<\/p>\n
Must we lie about our history and must we always deny the truth and
\nattempt to revise it? No wonder they banned the teaching of history in our
\nschools. We simply have too much to hide!<\/p>\n
We forget that without contrition there can be no remorse, wihout remorse
\nthere can be no repentance, without repentance there can be no forgiveness
\nand without forgiveness there can be no truth, reconciliation or progress.<\/p>\n
Justice and decency demands that we must collectively get off our
\nsanctimonious and all-knowing high horse and stop behaving like the
\ninfallible and almighty conquerors that we think we are.<\/p>\n
Whether we are willing to admit it or not, the fact of the matter is that
\nwhat we did to the Biafrans during the civil war was as bad as what
\nHitler’s Nazis and the German people did to the Jews during the Second
\nWorld War. And had the civil war gone on for another three years it would
\nhave been worse!<\/p>\n
The truth is that if not for the fact that the same group of people have
\nbeen calling the shots in our country from behind the scenes since July
\n1966 every single war-front commander in the Nigerian Army during the
\ncivil war, including Muhammadu Buhari, would have been charged with war
\ncrimes and crimes against humanity at the International Court of Justice
\nat the Hague long ago for the atrocities they commited against the Igbo
\nrace and the Biafran people during the civil war.<\/p>\n
I do not need to be an Igbo or a Biafran to say or admit that. I just need
\nto be an honest and objective historian and a God-fearing citizen of the
\nworld.<\/p>\n
We must ask God and the Igbo people to forgive us for what we did to the
\ncivilian population in Biafra and we must NEVER allow such a thing to
\nhappen again. Until that is done Nigeria will neither know peace nor any
\nmeaningful or lasting progress.<\/p>\n
War is one thing but the targetting of innocent and defenceless civilians,
\nincluding women and childen, for ethnic cleansing, genocide and mass
\nmurder is quite another!<\/p>\n
Despite our utter disgust at Buhari’s outrageous lie and our sheer outrage
\nat his perfidy, mendacity and shameful attempt at historical revisionism,
\nit is important that we attempt to get into his head and attempt to
\ndiscover the context in which he claimed that Nigeria was “soft” on the
\nBiafrans and “restrained” during the civil war. That context is as
\nfollows.<\/p>\n
Lt. Colonel Murtala Mohammed, the de facto Head of State during the civil
\nwar, the leader of the July 29th 1966 northern officers “revenge coup” and
\na Hausa Fulani irredentist told Lt. Col. Jack Yakubu Gowon, the Head of
\nState and a Christian Middle Belter, to attack the Eastern Region
\nimmediately after the Igbos started fleeing from the pogroms that they
\nwere subjected to in the north and wipe out every single Igbo man, woman
\nand child.<\/p>\n
This was to be done in retaliation for the murder by the Major Chukwuemeka
\nKaduna Nzeogwu and Major Emmanuel Ifejuana-led Igbo mutineers of key
\nleaders of the northern political and military establishment, including
\nthe Premier of the North, Sir Ahmadu Bello,\u00a0 the Prime Minister of
\nNigeria, Sir Tafawa Balewa and the second in command of the Nigerian Army,
\nBrigadier Maimalari on the night of January 15th 1966.<\/p>\n
It was not enough that 300 Igbo officers and an Igbo Head of State,
\nGeneral Aguiyi-Ironsi, had been murdered on July 29th 1966 during the
\nnorthern officers revenge coup.<\/p>\n
Again it was not enough that over 100,000 Igbos had been murdered in the
\nnorth a few months later in a series of horrific and utterly barbaric
\npogroms which were carried out by violent, heartless and crazed civilian
\nmobs throughout major towns and cities in the core north.<\/p>\n
Despite all this Mohammed wanted even more Igbo blood to be shed. His
\ndesire, and those that shared his views, was that Nigeria should be washed
\nwith Igbo blood.<\/p>\n
He also felt that the whole matter of Igbo versus Hausa Fulani dominance
\nand supremacy of and in the Nigerian state had to be settled once and for
\nall before Colonel Emeka Ojukwu, an Igbo officer who was Military Governor
\nof the Eastern Region, and his Igbo people had time to settle down,
\norganise themselves and be in a position to defend themselves and fight
\nback.<\/p>\n
Thankfully Gowon, who was infinately more humane than Mohammed and who had
\nthe full backing of the British, refused to follow that bloody and cruel
\ncourse and instead bided his time and opted to go to Aburi in Ghana for
\npeace talks with Ojukwu which were brokered by Ghana’s military Head of
\nState, General Ankrah.<\/p>\n
The peace talks were succesful and an agreement was reached. Nigeria was
\nto remain one country but was to be a confederation.<\/p>\n
However on Gowon’s arrival back to Nigeria things changed overnight.
\nMurtala Mohammed confronted Gowon, shouted him down, banged his fist on
\nthe table and said that he had conceeded too much to Ojukwu.<\/p>\n
Gowon caved in, Aburi was scuttled and a few weeks later the war began.
\nUnfortunately for Gowon it was the bloodthirsty hawks like Murtala
\nMohammed and others like him that hated the Igbo that were leading the
\ntroops at the war front whilst he was in Lagos dishing out orders that
\nwere hardly ever followed.<\/p>\n
The hawkish Nigerian field commanders prosecuted the war without any
\nrestraint or decency and in a most gruesome and barbaric manner, purposely
\ntargetting civilians including innocent and defenceless women and
\nchildren.<\/p>\n
They literally killed everything and everyone in sight and if they didnt
\nkill them they enslaved them and subjected them to indescribable forms of
\ncruelty and wickedness.<\/p>\n
It ought to be pointed out that though they led it and they were the most
\nvicious and brazen, it was not just the core northern Muslims that
\ncommitted these atrocities against the Igbos.<\/p>\n
The predominantly Christian Middle Belters, the Yoruba, the Mid-
\nWesterners and even some of the minorities of the Eastern Region did so
\ntoo!<\/p>\n
Consider the words of Brigadier Benjamin Adekunle (aka “the Black
\nScorpion”) who was the most formidable and ruthless commander in the
\nNigerian Army during the civil war and whose father was a Yoruba whilst
\nhis mother was a member of the Christian Bachama tribe in present-day
\nAdamawa state.<\/p>\n
On April 14th 1968 he said,<\/p>\n
“I want to see no Red Cross, no Caritas, no World Council of Churches, no
\nPope, no missionary and no United Nations delegation. I want to prevent
\neven one Igbo from having even one piece of food to eat before their
\ncapitulation. We shoot at everything that moves and when our troops march
\ninto the center of Igbo territory we shoot at everything, even at things
\nthat don\u2019t move\u201d.<\/p>\n
Strong words. And believe me that is precisely what the Black Scorpion and
\nevery single commander of the Nigerian Army did at the war front during
\nour civil war!<\/p>\n
Murtala Mohammed did even worse than most: he bombed and shot his own
\ntroops when they hesistated to follow his orders and when they failed to
\ncommit the most heinous crimes and atrocities that he desired.<\/p>\n
It was so bad that once Gowon heard all the stories and saw the evidence
\nhe had to recall him back from the warfront just as he was compelled to do
\nwith Adekunle three months before the end of the civil war and the
\nsurrender of the Igbo.<\/p>\n
How a bloodthirsty and violent man like Murtala Mohammed that was so
\nfilled with hatred could later become our Head of State is a story for
\nanother day.<\/p>\n
Given all this the following question has to be answered: can anyone in
\nhis right mind describe the words and actions of the Adekunle’s and the
\nMohammed’s of this world during the civil war as being “soft” or
\n“restrained”.<\/p>\n
Has Buhari lost his mind or is he the quintessential sociopath and
\npredator that is wholly incapable of having any empathy for his powerless
\nvictims? One wonders whether deep down he even sees the Igbo as human
\nbeings?<\/p>\n
Yet the truth is that he is not alone in this gross mindset. In the matter
\nof the barborous conduct of the civil war and the atrocities that the
\nBiafrans were subjected to no-one was free of blame or guilt. We all did
\nit and in my view it is to our collective shame.<\/p>\n
Many have said that it was war and asked “what do you expect” and “why do
\nyou complain?”<\/p>\n
They forget that even in war there are standard and well-established rules
\nof engagement. There is also a Law of War in International law which makes
\nit clear that genocide, ethnic cleansing and the mass murder of innocent
\ncivilians, including women and children, is specifically forbidden.<\/p>\n
Yet in the Nigerian civil war those rules of engagement and the Law of War
\nwere ignored and regularly violated and the open and premeditated
\nslaughter of Biafran civilians became the norm. Yet it did not stop there.<\/p>\n
To make matters worse the Nigerian Army put together a vicious civilian
\nmilitia made up of evil, cruel, bloodthirsty and ruthless genocidal
\nmaniacs mainly from Niger Republic and Chad that were commonly referred to
\nas “Godogodos”.<\/p>\n
These evil and bloodthirsty men thrived on carnage, spared no-one and were
\nthe precursers of today’s Fulani herdsmen.<\/p>\n
They were drafted into Biafran towns after those towns had been
\n“liberated” and captured by the Federal troops and they would kill, maim,
\nrape and torture every human being in sight, including children.<\/p>\n
They would also steal the chattels and belongings of the civilian
\npopulation and they would slaughter their animals and burn their farms,
\nplaces of worship and homes.<\/p>\n
What the Biafrans were subjected to at the hands of these monsters was
\nunprecedented and the world was horrified by our sheer capacity for
\ninsensitivity, barbarity and ruthlessness. Not even Genghis Khan and his
\nMongol hordes or Atilla the Hun were as callous and heartless as we were.<\/p>\n
The Igbos were treated like animals and they were subjected to nothing
\nless than the worst and most hideous form of mass murder, genocide and
\nethnic cleansing.<\/p>\n
Worse still, had Murtala Mohamned and those that thought like him had
\ntheir way there would have been no policy of “no victor and no vanquished”
\nafter the war and the Biafrans would have been completely wiped out or
\nenslaved.<\/p>\n
Thank goodness that Gowon refused to go down that path and it is to his
\neternal credit that he refused to do so.<\/p>\n
It was terrible for the Biafrans before, during and after the civil war
\nbut it would have been far worse if the hawks and extrermists had had
\ntheir way.<\/p>\n
If they had done so perhaps there would have been no Igbos left in Nigeria
\ntoday.<\/p>\n
It is in that context and with this mindset that Buhari claimed that
\nNigeria was “soft” on the Biafrans during the civil war and that they
\nfought it with “restraint”.<\/p>\n
People like him wanted the Igbo to be wiped out and ethnically cleansed
\nwhilst people like Gowon, playing out the British script, simply wanted to
\nkeep Nigeria one.<\/p>\n
Both courses of action and paths are, in my view, equally reprehensible.
\nThe first presented an existential threat to the Igbo and sought to deny
\nhim the right to life whilst the second sought to deny him\u00a0 the right of
\nself-determination.<\/p>\n
Though all this took place 50 years ago, let us make no mistake about it:
\nwe have learnt nothing from our dark historyand we have refused to change
\nour ways.<\/p>\n
Consequently both schools of thought about the Igbo are still alive and
\nwell in the minds and hearts of many in our country today.<\/p>\n
Despite all pretensions to the contrary, the mindset of President
\nMuhammadu Buhari provides an eloquent testimony to that.<\/p>\n
By: Femi Fani-Kayode History teaches us that there is only one thing that is more painful to the victims of mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide than the act itself…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n