Standing history on its head
- Details
- Category: Within the nation
- Written by Kabir Mato
- Hits: 926
It was one of the finest historians in Africa, Bonaventure Suwai of blessed memory, the co author of the famous ‘Historian and Africanist History’ who summarized the meaning of history as simply an unending dialogue between the past, present and the future. Professor Suwai’s summary of this dynamic discipline will in my view continue to remain relevant till the end of time.
When Karl Marx took Hegel up on the conception of dialectics, the idealism which formed the primary kernel of Hegelian dialectics was soon to be unraveled as metaphysical and unscientific Hegelian dialectics according to Marx was not based on the primacy of matter over idea and therefore dialectical idealism was and is since seen as not just erroneous but above all, according to Marx, standing dialectics on the head.This precisely defines the events that have unfolded in Nigeria in last few days which culminated into the final burial of the late Biafran rebel leader, Lt Col. Chukwuemeka, Odumegwu Ojukwu. The late Ojukwu died In a London hospital towards the end of 2011 and the governments in the Eastern part of Nigeria in alliance with the federal government in Abuja took time to prepare an elaborate burial for a rebel who led a section of the country to a three year gruesome civil war between 1967 to 1970.
During the war, it was estimated that about two million Nigerians lost their lives and the history books that we read told us very clearly that the immediate and remote causes of the war were as plural as they were diverse but the fact remains that the January 15th military coup in 1966 which was carried out by predominantly Igbo military officers was targeted at Nigerian leaders from the other sections of the country outside of the South East.
This was clear in the number of political and even military officers that were assassinated. This led to the counter coup of July 1966 which equally was targeted at the major beneficiary of the January 15th coup, General Thompson Aguiyi Ironsi. Ironsi was killed by military officers of Northern extraction which gave rise to the government of General Yakubu Gowon. The Gowon administration no sooner than it settled down decided to abrogate the unification decree promulgated by the Ironsi government and instead created 12 states out of the 4 regions that existed before the January 1966 coup.
Col. Ojukwu was appointed the military Governor of the South Eastern state but wouldn’t simply agree to serve under General Gowon whom he (Ojukwu) saw as inferior for whatever reason. After the January 1966 coup which was carried out almost absolutely by Igbo officers and whose victims were mainly leaders from the North and South West as well Festus Okotie Eboh from the Delta area, tempers were high in the North especially where several Igbos were harassed and in some cases killed.
This wasn’t particular to the North because Northerners in the East were also murdered in large numbers by the Igbos. It is not enough for anybody to try to distort history by making it look as if the killings were mainly done in the North. In fact it was also done with impunity in the East and as such the tension wasn’t just palpable but glaring to the extent that it required more concerted action on both sides if the war was to be avoided.
Nobody in all the literatures that have been written on the Nigerian civil war ever gave any reason why only political and military officers from the North and partly South West were targeted for massacre. Every attempt to justify why the Igbos had to attempt secession was deficient in proffering possible reasons why such a blatant outrage against specific categories by officers from a section of the country.
In any case, the war was fought and the dream of a Biafra was defeated while Ojukwu went on exile in Ivory Coast until in the second republic that the NPN government under Alhaji Shehu Shagari out of its desperation to wrestle power from Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and take control of the South East states of Imo and Anambra States granted pardon to the warlord in the early 1980s.
I am not particularly offended that Chief Ojukwu was given a burial which was said to be befitting. I also have no quarrel with the Igbo nation for rising in unison in praise of Ojukwu. If Biafra had succeeded, it would have been a different kettle of fish altogether. But the fact that it failed and its leader had to be pardoned even if unconditionally shouldn’t be an opportunity to gloss over historical facts just to satisfy the exigencies of the present and distort records for the future.
One of the reasons why Nigeria will continue to grapple with simple problems is the failure to understand and appreciate the centrality of history in the evolution and development of peoples and societies. Falsification of historical facts is responsible for the collapse of major civilizations in the past. It is responsible for the inability of people and nations to actualize their dreams and potentials because things are built on false premises and foundations.
I did not hear General Gowon saying such things as today’s Generals who were not even enrolled into military schools were saying about the late rebel leader. I didn’t hear Generals TY Danjuma, Mamman Shuwa, Benjamin Adekunle and other contemporaries singing falsehood like Dr. Goodluck Jonathan who certainly was, like me, in primary school when the war was executed.
I don’t blame Vice President Namadi Sambo for all that he said on Ojukwu when he received the body in Abuja. May be because the VP is an architect by training and perhaps perception, and their understanding of history is weak or because as a vice, whenever he speaks, it must be in tune with what his principal will either say or will want to hear.
I am worried however that Dr Babangida Aliyu, the Governor of Niger State, a seasoned bureaucrat and above all student of Political Science could say what he said in Zungeru. So, if he were in Ojukwu’s shoes, he would have also gone to war with Nigeria? Meaning what? I share Modibbo Kawu’s anger that all those who made false political comments of eulogizing rebellion have shamelessly and with no conscience urinated on the graves of the tens of thousands of Nigerians who lost their lives in the name of their fatherland.
They fought to keep the nation together and today they are publicly rejected and humiliated by the leaders of the time, what a shame! May God have mercy on the souls of these heroes. As a Nigerian of Northern extraction, I am bothered because about 80% of the soldiers that fought the war and lost their lives were from my home. Southern Kaduna, where I hail from, supplied these great men in thousands.
As a child I still remember that in our household, five young men left for the war and only two returned. Even the two that returned couldn’t live long enough perhaps due to the horrors of the war and the lifestyle they became subjected to as soldiers fighting for the peace of their fatherland. Here we are today. Our president, his vice president and some of our governors are saying that they fought in vain.
What the government is doing today is reminiscent of what Hegel did to dialectics and I shout at the top of my voice that they are standing history on its head. Let the truth be told. The tributes and eulogies were merely to satisfy political aspirations than realities. God save Nigeria.
Articles
Standing history on its head
Category: Within the nation Written by Kabir Mato Hits: 926
It was one of the finest historians in Africa, Bonaventure Suwai of blessed memory, the co author of the famous ‘Historian and Africanist History’ who summarized the meaning of history as simply an unending dialogue between the past, present and the future. Professor Suwai’s summary of this dynamic discipline will in my view continue to remain relevant till the end of time.
When Karl Marx took Hegel up on the conception of dialectics, the idealism which formed the primary kernel of Hegelian dialectics was soon to be unraveled as metaphysical and unscientific Hegelian dialectics according to Marx was not based on the primacy of matter over idea and therefore dialectical idealism was and is since seen as not just erroneous but above all, according to Marx, standing dialectics on the head.This precisely defines the events that have unfolded in Nigeria in last few days which culminated into the final burial of the late Biafran rebel leader, Lt Col. Chukwuemeka, Odumegwu Ojukwu. The late Ojukwu died In a London hospital towards the end of 2011 and the governments in the Eastern part of Nigeria in alliance with the federal government in Abuja took time to prepare an elaborate burial for a rebel who led a section of the country to a three year gruesome civil war between 1967 to 1970.
During the war, it was estimated that about two million Nigerians lost their lives and the history books that we read told us very clearly that the immediate and remote causes of the war were as plural as they were diverse but the fact remains that the January 15th military coup in 1966 which was carried out by predominantly Igbo military officers was targeted at Nigerian leaders from the other sections of the country outside of the South East.
This was clear in the number of political and even military officers that were assassinated. This led to the counter coup of July 1966 which equally was targeted at the major beneficiary of the January 15th coup, General Thompson Aguiyi Ironsi. Ironsi was killed by military officers of Northern extraction which gave rise to the government of General Yakubu Gowon. The Gowon administration no sooner than it settled down decided to abrogate the unification decree promulgated by the Ironsi government and instead created 12 states out of the 4 regions that existed before the January 1966 coup.
Col. Ojukwu was appointed the military Governor of the South Eastern state but wouldn’t simply agree to serve under General Gowon whom he (Ojukwu) saw as inferior for whatever reason. After the January 1966 coup which was carried out almost absolutely by Igbo officers and whose victims were mainly leaders from the North and South West as well Festus Okotie Eboh from the Delta area, tempers were high in the North especially where several Igbos were harassed and in some cases killed.
This wasn’t particular to the North because Northerners in the East were also murdered in large numbers by the Igbos. It is not enough for anybody to try to distort history by making it look as if the killings were mainly done in the North. In fact it was also done with impunity in the East and as such the tension wasn’t just palpable but glaring to the extent that it required more concerted action on both sides if the war was to be avoided.
Nobody in all the literatures that have been written on the Nigerian civil war ever gave any reason why only political and military officers from the North and partly South West were targeted for massacre. Every attempt to justify why the Igbos had to attempt secession was deficient in proffering possible reasons why such a blatant outrage against specific categories by officers from a section of the country.
In any case, the war was fought and the dream of a Biafra was defeated while Ojukwu went on exile in Ivory Coast until in the second republic that the NPN government under Alhaji Shehu Shagari out of its desperation to wrestle power from Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and take control of the South East states of Imo and Anambra States granted pardon to the warlord in the early 1980s.
I am not particularly offended that Chief Ojukwu was given a burial which was said to be befitting. I also have no quarrel with the Igbo nation for rising in unison in praise of Ojukwu. If Biafra had succeeded, it would have been a different kettle of fish altogether. But the fact that it failed and its leader had to be pardoned even if unconditionally shouldn’t be an opportunity to gloss over historical facts just to satisfy the exigencies of the present and distort records for the future.
One of the reasons why Nigeria will continue to grapple with simple problems is the failure to understand and appreciate the centrality of history in the evolution and development of peoples and societies. Falsification of historical facts is responsible for the collapse of major civilizations in the past. It is responsible for the inability of people and nations to actualize their dreams and potentials because things are built on false premises and foundations.
I did not hear General Gowon saying such things as today’s Generals who were not even enrolled into military schools were saying about the late rebel leader. I didn’t hear Generals TY Danjuma, Mamman Shuwa, Benjamin Adekunle and other contemporaries singing falsehood like Dr. Goodluck Jonathan who certainly was, like me, in primary school when the war was executed.
I don’t blame Vice President Namadi Sambo for all that he said on Ojukwu when he received the body in Abuja. May be because the VP is an architect by training and perhaps perception, and their understanding of history is weak or because as a vice, whenever he speaks, it must be in tune with what his principal will either say or will want to hear.
I am worried however that Dr Babangida Aliyu, the Governor of Niger State, a seasoned bureaucrat and above all student of Political Science could say what he said in Zungeru. So, if he were in Ojukwu’s shoes, he would have also gone to war with Nigeria? Meaning what? I share Modibbo Kawu’s anger that all those who made false political comments of eulogizing rebellion have shamelessly and with no conscience urinated on the graves of the tens of thousands of Nigerians who lost their lives in the name of their fatherland.
They fought to keep the nation together and today they are publicly rejected and humiliated by the leaders of the time, what a shame! May God have mercy on the souls of these heroes. As a Nigerian of Northern extraction, I am bothered because about 80% of the soldiers that fought the war and lost their lives were from my home. Southern Kaduna, where I hail from, supplied these great men in thousands.
As a child I still remember that in our household, five young men left for the war and only two returned. Even the two that returned couldn’t live long enough perhaps due to the horrors of the war and the lifestyle they became subjected to as soldiers fighting for the peace of their fatherland. Here we are today. Our president, his vice president and some of our governors are saying that they fought in vain.
What the government is doing today is reminiscent of what Hegel did to dialectics and I shout at the top of my voice that they are standing history on its head. Let the truth be told. The tributes and eulogies were merely to satisfy political aspirations than realities. God save Nigeria.