Recently, the South East geo-political zone held a ceremony for the repose of the fallen heroes of the defunct Biafra Republic in Awka, Anambra State. Senior Correspondent, OKEY MADUFORO, spoke with one of the surviving actors in the January 1966 Coup and a senior military officer during the Nigeria-Biafra war, BEN GBULIE, on the reason for the ceremony and other issues.
A ceremony was held last week in remembrance of fallen Igbo heroes. What informed the exercise?
It was not originated by me, but it was a beautiful idea. It is an idea that must go down in history as laudable, and I really thank Anambra State governor, Willie Obiano, who initiated the programme. Our people believe in the sacrosanctity of human life. But because of people’s loyalty to political parties, they have various views on the matter.
Could it be because some of the people who went to war with Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu were not celebrated as he was?
Ojukwu did not celebrate himself. People are paying Ojukwu compliments because of what he did. By the way, let us get this very clear. We are talking about those who died during the civil war. The civil war came to Igboland. We did not go to another land to fight, except the encroachment in the Mid-West. We never really went anywhere to fight anybody. And this was propelled by a matter of strategy.
During your speech, you referred to the civil war as senseless. Why?
Yes it was a very senseless war. Why should we not discuss and come to terms with our problems? Why must we end up in a war? Our people went to Aburi; that is the Nigerian leaders and military leaders and agreed on a particular part of what to do to ensure that there was peace, so that there would be no question of fighting anybody. But somebody broke it. When they came back from Aburi, people started shouting that they sold out. And so he started doing everything unilaterally. I do not want to dwell on the war. I now want to dwell on peace. What we should do as Igbo people is to stay together as a people, work together and then extend our relationship and friendship to other people. You know that we are not liked in this country. We don’t even like ourselves. Igbo people do not like themselves; otherwise look at what is happening now. They are even confused, and if this country breaks apart, nobody knows what to do next.
As an elder statesman, do you believe that this country cannot break up?
It does not bother me really. Every country deserves the type of government it has. If Nigerians are tired of staying together, they should break up in peace and not in pieces. Let them find a way that they can break up without fighting one another.
The late Professor Chinua Achebe’s book, There was a country, has received several criticisms for some of the positions he took on certain subjects. What are your views on the book?
Achebe is dead and we do not speak against the dead. However, he was not properly informed before he wrote that book. Most parts of the book were filled with sentiments, just like a number of things he put down. I gave him a copy of one of my books, The Five Majors, and in the whole book (There was a Country), he did not mention my name. He mentioned Alexander Madiebo who never took part; who wrote something in an appraisal of the Nigerian situation. But he never mentioned Ben Gbulie. At a stage, in one sentence, he said “the so-called five majors” – and The Five Majors was a title of my own book. He was the first to read my manuscript. And he praised it. But when he was writing his own after the war, he showed that he did not know about the problems on the ground. But he is dead now and you cannot fight the dead.
You talked about the five majors, do you think that their coup was proper?
It was very proper. But this is not the time to discuss it. What we should do is to buy this book. It was more than proper.
The coup was said to have been done in a hurry.
I don’t believe in coups and because I don’t believe in coups, the coup shouldn’t have taken place at all. They claimed that it was a pre-emptive coup. The only one that I consider to be coup that should have been punished was that against General Johnson Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi. This is because Ironsi didn’t come up as a result of the coup by the majors. He came up because of inability of the civilians to continue with the government when the coup was not really perfected. The civilians could not manage the situation and they handed it over to the army. So, Ironsi was not there as a result of coup; he was there as a result of the failure of the civilians who were afraid and handed over to the people they thought would be able to handle the gun.
What do you think is the way out of the current problem of insecurity in the country?
I do not know the way out, but I know the way I can suggest. Number one suggestion is that all Nigerians, irrespective of their political inclinations, should condemn Boko Haram and its activities. Number two is that those people who are relatives of Boko Haram actors on the field should prevail on Boko Haram to stop this nonsense because it is absolute nonsense. The same people that we are talking about had said before that one Nigeria is a task that must be done. Today, they do not want one Nigeria. This is because they are not in power. Give them power and they would want one Nigeria.
What advice do you have for the younger generation who are spoiling for war?
Anybody talking about war now should have his head examined. What we should talk about is peace. What do we do to have peace? What we have to do to have peace is to dialogue. You have to dialogue with your opponents. That was why I said all political parties should come together and in one accord, condemn Boko Haram. What those in the opposition are doing is to condemn the president. Is Goodluck Jonathan Boko Haram? Even some of those who are condemning Boko Haram are part of Boko Haram. Do they think that we are fools? Nobody is a fool in this country. They gave us a pre-condition that if you vote for them, they will stop Boko Haram. So they are waiting for us to vote them into power, so that they can stop Boko Haram.
Let’s talk about your books
First, The Five Majors is about criticisms and indignations in which I took part in the suffering. I was in detention for not less than six years without trial. I took part in the January coup of 1966 and we were detained by (Johnson) Aguyi-Ironsi. Ojukwu released us and put us in his own army; that is the Biafran Army, and we fought the war. I was wounded. I was a Battalion Commander when I was wounded and the Igbo doctors said that they would not amputate my leg, otherwise this leg would have gone. After the war, we were detained again by Yakubu Gowon. Gowon said that Ojukwu had no right to release us, but it was the same Gowon that announced no victor, no vanquished. I also wrote a book titled The Fall of Biafra. I was a Military Administrator in Aba, and towards the end of the civil war, a lot of things happened at Aba that made me write about the fall of Biafra. It was through Aba that Biafra failed. The fall was a combination of many things. They included incompetence and lack of weapons. War is a question of numbers. If you have numbers, a great quantity of arms and you have various types of armaments, you will win the war. But if you do not have anything, how can you win the war?
So Philip Effiong was right by surrendering to the Nigerian side?
We did not surrender to the Nigerian side. At a stage during the war when Ojukwu had left, saying that he was going in search of peace, our people were despondent and the troops were running away and discarding their weapons into bushes. What would you do in that circumstance? Are you to leave the Nigerian troops to come and slaughter our people? So we compelled Effiong to make a broadcast calling for stoppage of hostilities and not fighting. We appealed to Gowon that if he really believed in peace, he should respect Effiong’s broadcast and he made a reply and agreed that there should be no victor, no vanquished. So all that I am telling is that we prevailed on him to stop that war. He did it reluctantly.
With what is happening today, some people appear to be vanquished. Do you agree with this?
No, nobody can claim to be vanquished or victorious. In a winning position, the winner should have collected all the weapons from the losers while at the same time they should have been prisoners of war. In this instance, everyone went home with his weapons and the prisoners were left to go home unarmed. So anybody trying to claim that he is a winner is only falsifying history.