DEBRIEFING GENERAL CI OBIAKOR

By Chigachi Eke chigachieke@yahoo.co.uk

Let me remind retired Lieutenant-General Chikadibia Isaac Obiakor that from 15th December 1971 when he got commissioned into the Nigerian army he became an “Igbo officer” in the eyes of the establishment. His mistakes were Igbos’ mistakes. To punish us he often bore our collective bruises just as our fortune in the Nigerian state, or the lack of it, largely shaped his career. But he was not an exception.

General Murtala Ramat Mohammed was primarily a “Hausa/Fulani officer” than Nigerian officer. When he got knocked off the army compensated his people by giving Shehu Musa Yar’Adua two promotions in one day, promotions he never merited by any military or professional standard except ethnic. Meaning that I have the moral authority to question what happened to Obiakor, what nearly happened to him and, more importantly, what should have happened to him while in the barrack. Things were done to him in my name.

I also remind him that Igbos unable to congratulate him on 28th December 2011 when Awka South people received him following his 11th June 2011 military disengagement do not detest him. Ndigbo couldn’t celebrate because we mourn our loved ones killed this Christmas at Madalla, Jos and Kaduna. These are very sad times for most Igbo families following a sustained campaign of terror by northern Muslims. With wicked men roaring over our heads how can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

To satisfy my conscience that I am fair and unbiased to him I have completely negated my feelings. Instead, I extrapolate my thinking from observable Igbo reality which post-service Obiakor cannot escape. There can be no greater objectivity. I have just three questions for him.

My number one question: How did it feel serving in Nigerian army as an Igbo officer? Was he treated with equity like his Hausa/Fulani/Yoruba counterparts? Often, I believe, he had to die to live. He had to endure injustices and humiliations. My bet remains he was treated with ignominy. There is no way an anti-Igbo establishment could treat Obiakor and other Igbo officers with equity. Or have things changed for the better? Obiakor must give voice to his military experience. That is what Yoruba officers do. They tell young Yoruba journalists their pains. Unless we have the right information the synergy necessary for change will not be there. Before us are competent Igbo officers booted out of the armed forces for their ethnicity.

Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe represented our aspirations one time. Then we woke up one morning to see him publicly humiliated on the Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, much to our shock. When we asked the bombshell was that Igbo officers were treated like Jewish officers serving in pre-World War 1 European armies, best demonstrated by the Alfred Dreyfus incident. We were told how Igbo officers were openly ridiculed as “rebels” by “patriots” in the Ministry of Defence who saw to it that their promotions and privileges were denied them.

Talk of patriots and rebels.

“I did not fight the war to see Nigeria disintegrate” is a well-worn lie put out by the patriots-from Yakubu Gowon who prays to God for mercy having shown none when he was god to Abdulsallami Abubakar. Do your research and prove me wrong: Anytime these patriots repeat their fallacy Nigeria loses billions of dollars in another stolen oil block. But you see, I am not one to let an insult go unchallenged so I set the record straight here.

We lost that war because America and Russia for the third time put aside their differences to defeat a common enemy. The first time was to defeat Germany. The second was to defeat Japan. The third time was to defeat Biafra. No Nigerian maverick defeated Biafra unless the long awaited war literature promised by Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma turns existing ones on their heads, which is highly improbable.

The stark truth, I am the happier, is that the very conditions which made Igbos rebels in Nigeria have turned Biroms, Naruguta and Jarawa outcasts in the lands of their fore-fathers. The Islamist Hausa/Fulani are pushing these autochthones out of the Jos Plateau. What would Colonel John Pam say today seeing what his fellow northerners are doing to Biroms? I am gratified seeing the “One-Nigeria” sloganeer Seyawa turn rebels. The Seyawa originally owned Tafawa Balewa before Fulani settlers reduced them to serfs. During the Biafran/Nigerian war baptized Seyawas were Islam’s fiercest fighters. Their reward for saving the Hausa/Fulani from Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu is the mass slaughter of their wives and children by Islamists.

Rebellious Tarka Youth Association is determined to protect Langtan territories from Fulani encroachment. Other northern minorities like the Tiv, Shendam, Igala, Idoma and Angas are all up in arms today; having realized they were deceived into fighting the civil war to solidify Islam. Colonel Buka Suka Dimka “detected” only too late what a green snake in a green grass northern Christians had nurtured and tried to reverse things by removing Mohammed in 1976. His broadcast talked about the Hausa/Fulani “hypocrisy” to the One-Nigeria project. He failed but another northern Christian in the circumstances of Major Gideon Okar made a second attempt. He also failed and Sharia was rolled over every northerner irrespective of creed. But to maintain the myth of “monolithic North,” Islamists front the benign face of Gowon at the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF. This is the same Gowon they used and dumped in the past.

My soulful response to the patriot/rebel schism is very judgmental. I tend to go along with Victor Hugo, Franz Fanon and Dr. Robert Sanda. War is the tyrant’s brute card as evident in the Napoleonic Wars (Hugo: “Les Miserables”), America’s involvement in the Congo’s civil war (Fanon: “Lumumba’s Death: Could We Do Otherwise?”) and the jihad of Usman Dan Fodio (Sanda: Private correspondence with author). The tyrant must find some religious/ideological basis for his crime. Ask what he’s not telling you. Keep your eyes on the ball. Between the patriot/holy man who practices murder and pillage and the rebel/sinner insisting on equity, you be the judge.

My second question: Now that he is retired and can afford to be partisan, what has he to say to Igbo families bombed out of the Islamic North? For the record Obiakor is sixty years, full of life and quick in reflexes. He is very much fit to work for Ndigbo if he wants to make a difference. The temptation is strong for him to look the other way, like many before him, while Igbos are killed.

Obiakor cannot afford to be “contented and happy” in retirement under this pervading climate of “Igbo Haram” (we have just been served notice to vacate Maiduguri January 2012 by Muslims with the Shehu of Borno saying nothing about it). Even if he turns his back on our misery his neutrality is no guarantee for his personal safety. Fully aware of what Muslims are doing to Igbos, the Sultan of Sokoto is right in warning his ACF not to take the silence of notable Igbos for granted. In other words, retired Igbo officers are marked men even in their neutrality. They have nothing to lose by getting involved.

All I’m asking Obiakor, all I’m asking retired Major-General Sebastian Achulike Owuama and serving General Azubike Onyeabor Ihejirika, is their CAPACITY to handle millions of Igbo refugees. Suppose, just suppose, what we’re seeing is the dark side of life. In times of peace you prepare for war. I mean, these gentlemen are military planners. They know where I’m headed. In “Investing in Igbo Economy Overseas” I proposed fortifying Igbo communities outside Nigeria as off shore sanctuaries for our refugees.

I sign off by touching on a curious development which Obiakor himself-fate made him the highest Igbo army general since JTU Aguiyi-Ironsi, must have noticed since retirement. This puzzle constitutes my third question: How come officers from other nationalities are prosperous in retirement while their Igbo counterparts starve? An Itsekiri Brigadier is feted with contracts at Abuja but your Igbo Brigadier is outside the ministry gates making phone calls to be allowed to pass the security, why?

Ndubuisi Kalu, Ukiwe, Owuama and other high ranked retired Igbo officers are all struggling with poverty. They won’t admit their penury though, which makes it the more malignant. The only exception is Alison Madueke whose Ijaw wife, Diezani, is the reason why he looks robust. Why are these officers sidelined whilst their erstwhile comrades are made chairmen of federal parastatals? What’s really going on? I can understand my deprivation today as an Igbo man but not when an Igbo general queues with me at Abuja. Few things are scarier. It shouldn’t be.

Kuru in Plateau State hosts the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS. It was in NIPSS that the Doctrine of Necessity first took root. National security was proffered as enough reason why patriots who once handled classified information in the armed forces must be adequately compensated with oil blocks, political appointments and soft contracts. An indigent patriot could be tempted to sell what he knew to foreign powers for cash. Even Machiavelli said so, they reminded you. Uncompensated Igbo officers must be truly atypical forcing you to ask serious questions.

Why have these generals refused to confront the system? Why are they patient with insults and humiliations? Clearly, their attitude reinforces the dangerous impression that Igbos are a conquered people and that it was okay to snatch the bread from their mouth without fear of being bitten. Igbo youths seeing all these are not impressed. If these generals can live with insults abroad then let them expect no obsequious obeisance at home. It won’t happen as their willingness to turn the other cheek obviously rubs off on Ndigbo as a whole. Their refusal to change things at the highest level influences what happens to Igbos in the street. Perception matters. Let me demonstrate.

When Odumegwu-Ojukwu was young, the Hausa constabulary flogging you at some point lowered their kobokos in fear. Odumegwu-Ojukwu would fight. Ndigbo were feared to the extent where a Nigerian soldier earnestly begged you not to forget he was your friend. You must save him if and when Odumegwu-Ojukwu stormed Nigeria with the army he went into exile with. But what do you have today? A bored Hausa shoe-shiner amuses himself by shooting down five Igbos in a row for failing to recite the Koran. Do you now understand why Governor Peter Obi openly wept when death snatched our only protector from us? His elegy contains words like “When comes another Ikemba?”