Commander of the defunct Biafran Army, Col. Joe Achuzia, in this interview with Assistant Editor (South East), CHRISTIAN NWOKOCHA, talks on touchy issues in Nigerian Civil War, including Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s defection to the federal side, futility of ‘no victor, no vanquished’ declaration and the Igbo nation thereafter.
Resort to Igbozurume
After Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu’s appointment as Military Administrator for Eastern Region, the civilians who were ministers were not ready to obey him simply because he was too young for them and this created problems for the Igbo. It was not until the shooting march started that the civilians decided to answer the wake-up call and allow the man to do what he needed to do for the region.
This time, we are not prepared for a situation to occur again; hence they say a stitch in time saves nine. So we decided to create Igbozurume in readiness to welcome Igbo nation because it will eventually come. We must not be cut napping again. It was for this reason that every step is being fast-tracked to see that the Igbo nation comes to be.
Clash between Igbozurume and Ohanaeze
I was the first elected Secretary General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo. Prior to my election, it took 20 years of one man, Professor Ben Nwabueze, holding sway as Secretary General of Ohanaeze before we could get a constitution for the organisation. But after the election, things went awry. Issues were not what we expected of the association. It almost disintegrated. When you want to move forward, there is always need for a fallback. Igbozurume, though on a low scale, has to spring up to address derailed moments of Ohanaeze.
What then has Ohanaeze been doing?
Ohanaeze is an Igbo association, and there are Igbo associations like that; all for the same agenda but struggling to be the apex. There is Aka Ikenga and others. The only thing is that Ohanaeze is more prominent, but everybody and all Igbo associations are heading towards the same direction.
‘No victor, no vanquished’ declaration at the end of hostilities in 1970
When Ojukwu summoned a meeting, the Igbo sorry situation became clear to me. First and foremost, we held a meeting at Ogwa in Mbaitolu Local Government Area of Imo State. Biafran executive committee consisted of 20 administrators within the region. It was these administrators who governed Biafra from beginning to the end. They were responsible for the money and all issues relating to Biafra; hence Biafra had directorates. Each directorate had a director-in-charge. Two things happened, but I wouldn’t mention them now.
Why?
For instance, when Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe told us that they were arranging a meeting with the then President of Liberia to broker peace between Yakubu Gowon and Ojukwu, we took that on the face value and hoped that the arrangement would be better than the Kampala (Uganda) one. But something happened. (Long silence).
What was it?
Anyway, the information is not mine. What happened was that we held another meeting at Irette in Owerri West Local Government of Imo State where we were alerted by Ojukwu that Zik had made an arrangement to defect to Nigeria. But this meeting was called not for the exco but for traditional rulers and a few of us senior military officers. There, we were informed of what Zik was packaging while in England under the guise that he was trying to get his health fixed, and his wife Flora should be made to join him in England. It was reasoned that if such information leaked out, we would have a war within a war. The non-Zikists, it was feared, would pounce on the Zikists and the Zikists would obviously fight back. So we decided that the best thing to do was to ensure that nobody said anything; everybody must pretend as if nothing happened. So, when Zik finally defected, we were not surprised because the matter had been discussed.
Members of the exco wanted a fallback position. Prior to Ojukwu’s meeting abroad, a tape recording was done giving instructions on what I should do, instead of General Philip Effiong. What Ojukwu was afraid of happened the day we had our reunion meeting with the Nigerian Army officers in Owerri at the General Olusegun Obasanjo’s office.
Obasanjo asked me, because I was in-charge of Biafran Army, if he could privately talk to General Effiong as his former colleague, and I said yes. Both of them entered another room.
After a while, Col. Anwuna came in and queried why I allowed Obasanjo and Effiong to hold a private meeting. I replied that I didn’t see anything wrong with that. He said that I didn’t know Obasanjo and Effiong more than they knew the duo; hence certain military attachments were removed from Effiong. I humbly told Anwuna that a senior army officer is entitled to all his compliments. When we left Obasanjo’s office and got back to my base, Effiong didn’t tell us what he discussed with Obasanjo. We got to my base in Ugah and other officers were about to leave for their respective areas of assignment. It was then that Effiong announced to us that everybody should go home, refresh and come back on mufti that Obasanjo was coming with a vehicle to take us to the airport for a trip to Lagos.
I asked him what he was talking about. Effiong said he was sorry that he took us for granted and couldn’t tell us his discussions with Obasanjo. I said nobody was travelling to Lagos with Obasanjo for whatever reason.
It was Col. Ogunewe who said: “Joe you have done so much; don’t let this be an obstacle to every effort we have made. Give me your Biafran suit, let me go in your place.” Anwuna said I should allow them. It was then I went to my house and brought out my suit and he went with them. But I told them: “You may end up war prisoners in Lagos. I will not go with you.” So when the vehicle came to pick them, I followed them with my escort to ensure that nothing happened to them on their way to Lagos.
Why I told you this story is to let you know why Ojukwu was always talking about a fallback position, hence the issues of these associations will not be a problem to Igbozurume. The Igbo didn’t listen to Ojukwu’s advice and that was why Nigeria took them for granted, particularly on the issue of Gowon’s declaration of ‘no victor, no vanquished’.
Fate of Igbo fallen heroes
They wouldn’t be happy with us because we are still begging the issue. Immediately Nsukka-Enugu fell to Nigerian troops, all Igbo leaders were fully engaged in war activities except Azikiwe who was then living at Ekwulobia. He refused to assist us, saying that the army and Ojukwu were responsible for his losing all he had worked for since he took over Nigeria as governor-general and subsequently, president. When I went back into operation in Nsukka and chased the Nigerian Army out of the area, we slept in a storey building where all Zik’s documents were packed and I got them recovered. When I got in touch with Ojukwu over the recovered documents, he said we should use any available means to bring them back and it was handed over to Zik. Fallen Igbo heroes wouldn’t be happy with where we are now because we should have gone beyond where we are today. We are out to chart a new way to success because we have crawled enough.
Ndigbo 100 years after Nigeria’s amalgamation
In fact, if I had suspected that I would be detained for a day, I wouldn’t have done what I did to end the war. So to have taken all the risk we took to bring Nigeria together and the same Nigeria is not keeping to promises on decisions we took on January 12, 1970 made me disbelieve that anything good can come out of this Nigerian arrangement. The decisions taken against Igbo after the war should be reversed. Someone sold the idea that if the Igbo nation is carved out to make room for the creation of Rivers and Cross River states, it would not only reduce the numerical strength of the Eastern Region, but would also reduce the support, particularly finance, we were looking forward to.
Peterside and Bonny was not sufficient to be created into a state. It would require taking a larger portion of Owerri land and its people, Ikwerre land and its people who were part of the old Owerri Province into the new state being created for them to have a meaningful state. Having done that, and seeing the advantage, it became the only option open to the North to cripple the Igbo nation. None of the states created could have been so numerical in number that can make up a state without taking a part of Igbo people and their land to make it sizeable enough to be called a state. Despite the Civil War, Igbo population and land remain large. There are Igbo in Edo, Delta, Rivers, Bayelsa, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Benue and Kogi states. So you can see that Igbo nation put together will be more than 12 states, if the Nigeria project must be addressed the way it should be.
How would you think that Igbo people will be happy with Nigeria begging for just one more state over the years? Half of the land and the people of the South South zone are Igbo. The attempt to continue to reduce them to five states does not remove the fact that they are much in population and land mass. Prior to the Civil War, the Eastern Region was more in numerical strength than the Western Region. But today, the Western Region is by far twice the size of the present day Igbo enclave. We are all witnesses on the reason for the decline. As it is today, any Igbo man who believes he is making more money by erecting better structures outside Igbo land is acting under the influence of inferiority complex.
Issues with Jonathan over confab
It will not come to me as a surprise, if Nigeria fails to keep faith with the outcome of the conference. The situation is that the final decision must be a Northern agenda. Until the outcome of the conference becomes law, nobody will be too sure of anything. Let’s see how it goes.
Prominent Easterners working against Nigerian president of Igbo extraction in 2003
I remember the incident you are talking about. A meeting was held in Ebonyi. Before the meeting, I was with the then Governor Sam Egwu. Joe Irukwu (then Ohanaeze president) was also there. Some of the governors came in while we articulated our position. Part of the position was that we were not prepared; that Obasanjo should go for second tenure. When Chinweoke Mbadinuju (then Anambra governor) arrived, we agreed on the same issue with the governors then. We all got into the Conference Hall to be confronted with a situation not of our own making. Our governors presented a different position against Obasanjo. At this, I told Irukwu to get up and present our position, since we, Ohanaeze, represented over 50 million Igbo people nationwide. He got up, presented our stand, but our stand was not accepted by the people.
We believed that Orji Uzor Kalu (then Abia governor) was responsible for the problem because, two weeks before the event, Kalu had invited us to Abia State where he presented to us a wall clock he prepared with his name as presidential aspirant. He pleaded with us to package him as the only candidate and we refused. That was why he got Dozie Ikedife to come to Umuahia where he orchestrated an election and made him the purported president of Ohanaeze. It was then we restricted Ikedife from entering Ohanaeze headquarters while he paraded himself as President General of Ohanaeze.
Kalu spoke for the governors first, wanting a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction. By the time we could finish our own genuine presentation originally with the same governors, we were no longer speaking for the Igbo people. But in the end, what we agreed before they made a volte face eventually happened. During Obasanjo’s third term bid, the governors supported him while we opposed it. It has not been very easy managing our people.
2003 debacle working against the Igbo for a long time
I don’t think so. You see, we have been playing this issue of Igbo nation quietly, trying to erase all perceived bad image created in the past. We are not going to continue that way. We are ready to be judged by our two sides, having presented only one side of our goodness a long time without commensurate cooperation on the side of Nigeria.
Option for the Igbo
Our stand now is, if we must remain in Nigeria after Jonathan, the Igbo man must be the next president.
Exciting moments during the war
No exciting moment because you are under pressure. Merriment under pressure is no merriment. Instead, I saw that period as paradise lost because at the early age of 32, I found myself shouldering problems of a people I am not familiar with, though they are my people. I tried to cope as much as I could. I wouldn’t wish that period again for any Igbo man.
, CHRISTIAN NWOKOCHA, talks on touchy issues in Nigerian Civil War, including Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s defection to the federal side, futility of ‘no victor, no vanquished’ declaration and the Igbo nation thereafter.){kind=link}