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Tag: history

  • Olumo: Keeping history, culture alive

    Olumo: Keeping history, culture alive

    Olumo Rock is a kind of metaphor for the Egba. It encapsulates the history, strength and resilence of the Egba as a people. With the advent of modernity and western culture, the importance of the Olumo might not be as pervasive as it used to be in the past, but even with the development of ancient Abeokuta town into a modern town, the rock still encapsulates the soul of the of town.

    The last couple of years saw to its development into a modern tourist complex with all facilities needed for relaxation in a modern tourist complex .

    Of course, the clincher, many believe, is the lift added to the complex that has helped in making trips to the top of the rock and down.

    The Olumo Rock tourism complex has also attracted many top tourism events. The latest is the Olumo Festival by the O’odua People’s Congress (OPC) led by Otunba Gani Adams. It has become an annual event that has continued to grow.

    If the happenings at the last Olumo Festival held at the ancient town of Abeokuta were used to measure the success of the efforts of lovers of Yoruba culture, it can then be said that the efforts of groups like the Olokun Festival Foundation headed by the National Coordinator of the OPC is gradually yielding positive results.

    Over the years, many groups and individuals have continued to stress the need to sustain the rich cultural heritage and history of the different ethnic groups that make up Nigeria.

    The foundation, in collaboration with the Gateway Tourism and Development Corporation celebrated the Olumo Festival 2013 at the Olumo Grove with funfare.

    The week-long event, named after the famous Olumo Rock, located in the heart of Abeokuta, was part of the Lisabi Week celebrated by the Egba of Ogun State. The event was attended by thousands of culture afficionados from different walks of life, and it featured cultural dances, traditional displays, games, symposium and visits to traditional heads, among others.

    Speaking at the festival, Otunba Adams noted that it was not a sin to honours one’s deity, promote the heritage or speak one’s language.

    He lamented that these are part of the national treasures that have been taken from us and that they must be got back.

    “Suppose Olumo is movable, it would have been taken away by the white people who now possess some of our artifacts. But not our Olumo”, Adams said.

    Otunba Adams, the chief promoter of the foundation called on Yoruba in particular and Nigerians in general to stand up and protect their heritage, even as he stated that political differences should not be allowed to prevent them from elevating the festival.

    He said: “Olumo is a symbol of protection. In fact, it is the eponym from which Abeokuta derived its name. We should not see Olumo as ritually irrelevant, as derogatorily mentioned and as scornfully treated. In contrast, we must resound that it is our heritage.

    “We must be proud of our relationship with Olumo. All Yoruba towns and cities were not brought from heaven. Some people founded them, and there are historical facts about them.”

    The OPC leader also lamented the challenges facing the present-day youths who are gradually drifting away from their culture.

    “Sometimes, I do not blame the youths for emulating foreign ideas. They are facing a lot of pressure from the world around them. You can see how the Internet broke down the walls, demarcating cultural boundaries of the world”.

    Speaking with The Nation, the General Manager of the Olumo Rock Tourist Complex, Mr. Kola Anidugbe, explained that the Olumo Rock is the ancestral home of the Egba and where their story started from.

    “Olumo Rock provided shelter for the forebears of the Egba people. It was under the rock that they sought refuge, hence the town is known as Abeokuta,”Anidugbe said.

    Anidugbe regretted that the traffic of tourists at the Olumo Rock grove was very low and not encouraging because there were not many attractions, adding that many complained that all they had to do while there was to climb the rock and descend.

    The Olokun Festival Foundation currently has interest in and indeed supports more than ten traditional festivals Yoruba land. They include the Osun Oshogbo Festival, Oodua Festival in Ile-Ife, Olokun Festival in Badagry, Lagos State, Okota Festival in Arigidi Akoko, Ondo State and Okebadan Festival in Ibadan, Oyo State, among others.

  • A people and their history

    Book: History of Okeagbe (Akoko, Ondo State), 1924 – 1999
    Author: Olusanya Faboyede
    Publishers: Okeagbe Book Company, Yaba, Lagos
    Year of Publication: 2011.
    Reviewer: Dr. Victor Osaro Edo

     

    The 175 – page book is a compendium of the history of a seemingly insignificant community in a frontier zone of Yorubaland, namely, Okeagbe Akoko. It contains six chapters apart from the bibliography and appendices, which makes it a scholarly work. Besides, the book as complemented with the numerous maps, pictures, figures, plates and organogram depicting the author’s interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary approach to scholarship as well as paying attention to details. The book tells the story of four independent and unique communities that coalesced into one. It examines the nature and character of integration of these communities into modern day Okeagbe. One immediately becomes curious to know how these hitherto disparate communities (communities of different languages and cultures) united into one entity. These communities, Faboyede identified as Afa, Oge, Ido and Aje. Thus, the book has succeeded in telling us how communities got formed into a town and being able to co-exist peacefully in an environment not devoid of intra-ethnic crises. It is worthy of note that the coming together of these four groups in 1924 culminated in 1994 into a cultural integration in 1994, with the celebration of their first socio-cultural annual, the Okeagbe Day.

    It is significant, therefore, that this book examines the historical dynamics of the cultural transformation of the Okeagbe Community from inception in 1924 to 1999, when Nigeria began the current nascent democratic journey. The book thus fills a vacuum in Yoruba history and brings to the fore the place of Okeagbe in Yorubaland. The book focuses on the socio-political and economic development and community of Okeagbe. Significantly, it analyses the nature and character of intra-group relations among the four communities as well as Okeagbe’s relations with her immediate neighbours, the Ekiti, Benin, the Okun Yoruba and others.

    Indeed, the author adopts a thematic approach, which he combines with a well knit periodisation. The book is therefore well-structured. The first chapter discusses how the people originated and peopled Okeagbe, along side the nature of settlement pattern. Chapter two deals with the economic activities of the four communities of Okeagbe aided by the socio-political organisation of the groups and their relationship with neighouring communities. In no time, their political cum economic relations brought them in conflict with Nupe who subjugated them during the Ogidi war.

    The focus of the third chapter is the place of Okeagbe under the British Colonial rule, a trend that was not peculiar to Okeagbe alone during this period up to the time of independence in 1960. However, the trend changed with the attainment of independence in 1960, which is the concern of chapter four, noting that between 1960 and 1999, there were major landmarks in the growth and development of Okeagbe. The author, while admitting that colonialism in a way helped in the development of Okeagbe, also notes that the emergence of Development Association in the 1970s and 1980s, Okeagbe continued to witness further development. These developments were in the area of electrification, pipe-borne water, banks, post office, and hospitals et cetera.

    The fifth and the last chapter beside the conclusion focus on Okeagbe personalities, twelve of whom were discussed pointing out their modest contributions to the growth and development of Okeagbe overtime.

    In no mean manner, Olusanya Faboyede has succeeded in arousing our interest in mini-states, and especially a multi-cultural community such as Okeagbe. One hopes that a cue will be taking from his works to develop the study of micro-societies.

    Nevertheless, the history that the author has attempted to write will become imperfect if the author could corroborate his facts with interviews granted by the monarchs of the four communities rather than with the descendants of the late kings.

    On the whole, specialist researchers and students will find this book an invaluable collection of source materials with which to corroborate and expand existing studies on the history of micro and integrated societies.

  • A piece of history at lander museum

    This month is exactly 179 years since the death of Richard Lander, a British maverick traveller and explorer. He was killed on February 6, 1834 during his third exploratory trip on the lower Niger. Ironically, Richard Lander was also born in February.

    In 2004, the Lander brothers marked 200 years of the death of the patriarch of their family, as part of the activities to celebrate the epoch. An expedition trip was organized to follow the same route that Richard Lander took. Richard Lander’s trip took off from Bussa where he presented a medal to the king of Bussa and in return he got the boat he needed to embark on his expedition.

    After the trip, the team decided to donate the boat to the Asaba people. A museum was later built in memory of Richard Lander. The museum chronicles the voyage and activities of Lander. The boat formed the fulcrum of artifact museum.

    The museum is located off the busy Nnebisi Road beside the colonial grave yard. In front of the museum is the imposing sculpted work anchorage. The Richard Lander Museum is appeal is the huge information on display, not just about the Richard Lander, but an insight into the complexion of the area in the 19 century when Europeans became unsatisfied with trading at the coast and became interested in hinterland. These are mostly in form of pictures and text materials.

    The six members of the Lander expedition trip made thier way from Bussa to Asaba just like their forebear. The boat used for the trip was called Goo- will. The team decided to donate the boat to the people of Asaba. This boat and other artifacts that have to do with the expedition and Europeans’ contacts with the people of Asaba are the artifacts one sees, while visiting the Richard Lander Museum.

    Richard Lemon Lander (1804-1834) was an English explorer who made three trips to West Africa. He and his brother, John, were the first Europeans to canoe down the lower Niger River to its delta (where it meets the sea).

    Richard Lander was born in Truro, Cornwall, England on February 8, 1804. He had no formal education, but went on an extended trip to the West Indies as a child.

    As a young man, Lander worked for the Scottish explorer, Hugh Clapperton, and went with him on a trip to West Africa. The expedition (1825-1828) was designed to travel down the Niger River, but it was unsuccessful due to illness and many deaths.

    Clapperton and Lander’s European companions all died early on the trip. Lander and Clapperton both had bouts of illness, and Clapperton died on April 18,1827. African tribesmen later accused Lander of witchcraft, forcing him to drink poison to determine whether or not he was indeed a wizard. Since he survived, the charges of witchcraft were rescinded, and Lander eventually returned to England in July 1828.

    In England, Lander published “Journal of Richard Lander from Kano to the Sea Coast” in 1829 and “Records of Captain Clapperton’s Last Expedition to Africa, with the Subsequent Adventures of the Author”.

    Lander returned to West Africa with his brother, John Lander, in 1830. They followed the lower Niger River from Bussa to the sea, travelling in leaky canoes. Along the way they were kidnapped by some natives,rescued by another king, from Brass, and were reluctantly helped by a British ship. Lander later published “Journal of an Expedition to Explore the Course and Termination of the Niger” in 1832.

    For those who want to know a little more about the period of the scramble and partitioning of West Africa, Asaba and some other places, the Lander Museum is not a bad idea.

  • IBB: 20 years at war with history

    IBB: 20 years at war with history

    It amazes me that Nigerians, particularly the media, still take former head of state, Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB), with all seriousness each time he speaks. Of course, as a man who led the country for eight years, the nation’s history cannot be complete without a mention of the self-styled evil genius. I also appreciate the fact that personalities make the news and the concept of personality could lose its meaning, if a man that ruled the most populous black nation in the world for eight years is not seen as one.

    My grouse is that we still take his utterances so seriously, knowing full well that he is a general whose words are not his bonds. For eight odd years, he led a government whose directive principles were deceit, chicanery and graft. Shortly after he seized power from Gen. Muhammadu Buhari in a palace coup in 1985, he initiated a political transition programme with a promise to hand power over to an elected president in 1990. Nigerians believed he meant well for the country and gave him all the support he needed. But as the promised handover date approached, Babangida began to dissemble. He changed the handover date from 1990 to 1992 and later to 1993. Nigerians kept faith with his promise only for him to annul the freest and fairest election in the nation’s history through which Babangida’s close friend, the late Bashorun MKO Abiola, emerged as the president.

    Yet the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election was only the climax of the numerous acts of deception perpetrated by IBB while he held sway as military president. For instance, he had hardly settled down in office when he turned the nation into one huge debating club, asking Nigerians to express their opinions over a plan by his government to take a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Nigerians were almost unanimous in their resolve that the nation needed not patronise the Shylock organisation so as not to become a puppet on its string. Unknown to the debating public, the IBB government had already taken the loan they were passionately kicking against.

    Of course, Nigeria had to abide by the conditions the IMF had given for granting it the loan, among which was that the nation’s currency whose value at that time was almost twice that of the dollar, had to be devalued. That became the genesis of trouble for the naira. The Babangida government introduced the second-tier foreign exchange market, and, within a few months, the value of the naira against the dollar crashed from about 65 kobo to about N60. Today, a Nigerian in need of one dollar must be willing to sacrifice about N160!

    It will also be recalled that the Babangida government almost stirred a serious religious crisis when it secretly dragged the nation, recognised by the constitution as a secular state, into the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC). It needs not be said that whatever mutual suspicion existed between the practitioners of Christianity and Islam was greatly accentuated by that act. It is, therefore, no surprise that some parts of the country are boiling in the cauldron of religious intolerance today.

    Afraid of his place in history after he had to vacate Aso Rock with his tail between his legs in the height of the religious crisis provoked by the flagrant annulment of the 1993 presidential election, Babangida has persistently been searching for relevance in the nation’s socio-political space. It began with his pronouncement when he was forced to vacate the presidential villa in 1993 that he was only stepping aside. His proteges and bootlickers took that to mean that he would still return to power at one time or the other, and, therefore, sustained their loyalty to him. He became a regular face at public functions, particularly funerals, and made sure he added his voice to every public discourse in order to keep himself in the consciousness of the public. In fact, many believe that he knew he had no chance each time he threw his hat in the ring for presidential contest, but had to keep doing so in order to remain in the consciousness of the Nigerian public.

    During a face-off he had with IBB last year, former President Olusegun Obasanjo had counselled that silence should be the best answer for the gap-toothed general. But no one seems to have profited from Obasanjo’s counsel. Hence we shouted it on the roof top when the man who, on account of his selfish ambition nearly plunged the nation into war in 1993, turned himself into peace counsellor at the launch of two books written in honour of former external affairs minister, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, in Lagos penultimate Friday. “Nigeria is precious enough to be saved and it deserves an investment of our time and resources to make Project Nigeria a success,” said IBB who, as the sitting head of state, had wondered the magic by which the nation had not collapsed. One cannot but wonder which Nigeria he would be talking about today, if pro-democracy activists had not rescued the country from him in 1993.

    Haunted by his misdeeds, it is understandable that IBB is perpetually searching for relevance among a people that could consign him to the anthill of inglorious history. What cannot be understood is the obligation the media owe him to go to town with a story if he is pressed and needs to visit the gents. Considering that IBB plotted his way to power with aggrandisement as sole motivation, what message are we passing across when we pay such undue attention to a soldier who subverted the constitution to style himself president? That whatever means a man adopts to plot himself to the top is worthwhile?

    It would have been better if he had seized power in order to better the lots of Nigerians, but many of us are living witnesses to the circumstances in which he overthrew the Buhari/Idiagbon regime that had rescued the nation from the thieving NPN government and was steadily returning it to the path of sanity. IBB is at war with history. Unfortunately, he cannot outlive it.

  • Nigeria’s centenary and poor reading of history

    Nigeria’s centenary and poor reading of history

    Like everything else about Nigeria, government policies and programmes are designed usually by a brain trust or snickering policy wonks and either rammed down the throats of the people or railroaded through a squirming but ultimately conniving legislature. Fuel subsidy removal policy, renaming of universities, toll gate erection or destruction, Malian adventure, and now, a most inconceivable centenary project, are just a few bewildering examples. Last year, during his visit to Trinidad and Tobago to attend that Caribbean country’s Emancipation Day celebrations, President Goodluck Jonathan disclosed that Nigeria would be marking its centenary. It is not certain where the idea came from, considering that that anniversary, with its deprecatory Lugardian connotation, had never really been marked with anything resembling pomp and circumstance.

    But having announced it, and even invited his host, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar of Trinidad and Tobago, to the celebration, it became an imperative for Jonathan and his unwilling countrymen to remember Lord Lugard’s amalgamation feat in a grand manner. And with that self-abasing decision, the semantic line between Nigeria’s amalgamation and Trinidad’s emancipation became blurred. After all, they both end in ion, and they are first and foremost objects for national mafficking. That one is pejorative and the other ennobling was inconsequential to the decision.

    Only three days ago, during a church service to mark the Armed Forces Remembrance Day, Jonathan was still bemoaning his countrymen’s misreading of Nigerian history simply because critics spoke pessimistically and derisively of Nigerian leaders. A few days after the president delivered his misplaced homily on age and divorce, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, was in Lagos reiterating the preparedness of the government to inspire the celebration of the 1914 amalgamation, a date when Lugard, without consulting the ‘natives’, forcibly merged the Northern and Southern protectorates. But afraid to be tagged a spendthrift government, especially at a time of mounting economic turmoil and spiraling debts, Anyim says the celebration will be private sector-driven.

    But even if the money can be found at no cost to the country, what of the idea behind the celebration itself? Does it make sense? Is it ennobling to celebrate a colonial idea whose consequences have proved so denigrating and so troubling? If we embrace amalgamation and elevate it unquestioningly as Jonathan’s government is doing with a year-long celebration, why shouldn’t we also celebrate the Berlin Conference (Congo Conference) of 1884-1885? It is truly shocking that the Jonathan government shows a very poor understanding of Nigerian history. Not only does it fail to appreciate great historical events that have shaped the country and its people for ill or for good, it also woefully fails to understand its many nuances, its many subtle but cataclysmic twists and turns. No one has business presiding over the affairs of Nigeria who doesn’t know the country, its past, its cultures, and its hopes.

    Trinidad and Tobago quite sensibly celebrates Emancipation Day. If we go ahead to celebrate amalgamation, we would be incontestably foolish. If the Jonathan government needs a national celebratory distraction, it should ask historians to fetch one or even a dozen for it. Surely, our historians can find a great, noble, uniting and inspiring event in our history around which our pride could coalesce. We hope this obstinate government is not too proud to back down from subjecting us to international ridicule, ridicule so deep and profound that it gives the unsavoury impression Nigerians never went to school, and didn’t study history; or that if they did, they were too dimwitted to gain profitable knowledge.

     

     

     

  • Ameobi makes another EPL history

    Ameobi makes another EPL history

    SUPER EAGLES striker Shola Ameobi has acheived another Landmark as he became the second Nigerian player in the history of he English Premier League with the highest number of substitute appearances.

    The Nigerian player came in as a substitutes at the 79th minute of the week 17 encounter involving his English Premier League side Newcastle United and Champions Manchester City to make it his 115th substitute appearance.

    Ameobi could not savour the history as he would have loved to as he could not get a goal for Newcastle United as they were defeated right in front of their home fans at the Sport direct Arena.

    The record for the Super Eagles player with record of making the highest substitute appearance happens to be the former two time Afrcan player of the year and Portmouth striker Kanu Nwankwo with 118 substitute appearances.

    Papilo as he is popularly referred to has played for top fight Premier League teams such as the former English champions Arsenal, former FA Cup champions Portsmouth, and West Bromwich Albion.

    Kanu is also acclaimed to be the second most decorated player in Africa as he had won a couple of trophies and personal award such as the 1996 Atalanta Olympic gold amongst all a whole lot of other awards.

    Papilo has since retired from international football and the Super Eagles debutant Shola Ameobi will be looking to break the record and become the first Nigerian to make the highest number of substitute appearances as he is just three games away from doing so.

  • History! What history?

    History is often written by victors but losers could also have their own version, but then who listens to them. Wrong? I doubt if there is or there will ever be a universal agreement of the account of a particular event especially where there were winners and losers or merely a truce (no victor no vanquished) as in the case of a war or ordinary (armed) conflict.

    History is more complicated where there was no clear cut winner as in the case of a war or where a truce was imposed by a superior but interested power. The warring but subdued parties tend to maintain their different positions, lie low and wait for the next available opportunity to restate their claim or strike again. And God helps such a society if there are recalcitrant elements who strongly believe in the cause.

    Even where there were clear cut winners but the losers were not vanquished, the tendency is there for the die-hards on the losers’ side to either reject the history as presented by the victors and write their own version or see the majority account from a jaundiced perspective. Whichever side the historian was coming from, I am of the strong view that when history is written by a participant observer or an active participant facts are often presented from a subjective point of view. Don’t you think so? But then is it possible to have an unbiased observer present the story of an event as divisive as a war without compromising the truth/facts and fairness/justice?

    I can not claim to know the rules of writing history as I am just a professional journalist, but then even as journalists, we are historians, only that we write history in a hurry. In our everyday reports we write about and document events of the day as they happen in the most objective manner prescribed by the ethics of journalism. In journalism facts are sacred just as objectivity and fairness are paramount. When facts are being presented as in the case of a news story, there is no room for personal opinion and the writer must be fair to all concerned and objective in his/her presentation. Even in interpreting the facts and commenting on the event, the writer has to be objective and fair taking in all the parameters and the circumstances.

    Because whatever we write as journalists form part of the raw materials ‘real’ historians will use in future while reporting and analyzing the events of the present, care is always taken to include all the above stated elements in our everyday reports. I believe no less is expected of an historian, who, with the benefit of hindsight, time and access to other sources apart from media reports should be able to present a more balanced and objective view of history.

    So when renowned Professor of Literature and world acclaimed novelist Professor Chinua Achebe decided to put pen to paper recently and write on his recollections of events as they happened between 1967 and 1970 when Nigeria fought a bitter 30-month civil war to remain one, one would have expected the literary giant to be fair to history, the participants in that unfortunate episode in the life of our country and the future generation of Nigerians by presenting events as they happened not just from his point of view but THE WAY THEY WERE without bias, especially as he was a participant observer (active participant?) in the failed project called Biafra.

    To refresh our memory, Biafra was an attempt by the then South east region of Nigeria to secede from the country following wide spread killings of mainly Igbos and other South easterners in northern Nigeria by some elements in the north in the mid/late 60s, partly in retaliation for the murder of the mainstream political leadership in the north in the first military coup, believed to have been spear headed by military officers of Igbo extraction and which in execution, deliberately or inadvertently spared main stream Igbo political leaders including then Nigeria’s president Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe.

    Following the failure of the Igbos under their charismatic leader late Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu to break away from Nigeria, Ndigbo, both young and old, dead or alive have been made to believe that the failure of that project was due largely to Yoruba betrayal and in particular Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s refusal to make true his purported promise to Ojukwu that once the south east secedes Yoruba would also pull out western Nigeria. This is not only not true but Ojukwu also admitted before his death that there was no such pact between Awolowo and himself, but some mischief makers among Ndigbo would rather sustain this for whatever reason.

    And as if this anti-Yoruba feeling among Nidigbo was not enough, some of the policies of the then Federal Military Government of General Yakubu Gowon that brought the war to an end and which were unpalatable to Biafra and Ndigbo both during and after the war were blamed on Chief Awolowo who served in that administration as vice chairman, Federal Executive Council and Federal Commissioner for Finance.

    Two of such policies, stopping food delivery to Biafra and currency change/pegging the amount payable to bank depositors from the south east after the war affected Ndigbo badly both during and after the war. Awolowo being at the centre of implementation of the policies had been blamed severally for this setback by Ndigbo leaders then and even now, but we know that the man couldn’t have done it alone, at least not without the knowledge and support of Gowon as Head of State and Commader-In-Chief. But nobody is blaming Gowon.

    And following the furore generated by the implementation of these policies and its adverse effect on his political career/fortune, especially in the run up to the second republic, Awolowo had repeatedly explained his role during the war and the government policies of that time as far as he was concerned both in one of his books as well as in media interviews. His position on this matter as well as other issues are well documented in different forms for any well meaning historian interested in truth, justice and fairness and most importantly in the unity and well being of this country to consult before putting pen to paper to write on such a sensitive topic as the Nigerian civil war.

    Professor Achebe the great writer decided to follow the trend by blaming Chief Awolowo in his new book on the civil war, for the so called starvation policy of the Gowon administration that prevented food aid delivery to Biafra and thus ‘starved’ millions of Ndigbo to death during the war, without looking at the overall picture of the main objective of the Nigerian government then and most importantly Awolowo’s explanation.

    Whether Awolowo was right or wrong is not even my position here, I am worried that as a writer/historian, Achebe had conveniently ignored some facts which he could have access to if he wanted or in fact had access to but chose not to use, to present history the way he wanted it and not necessarily the way it is. This is unfortunate and could end up creating more problems for us as a people and a nation than solve.

    In a country with intense ethnic rivalry, reopening old wounds in the name of history or putting the record straight will do more damage than good. For the children of that period on both sides of the war who are now in their 40s and 50s trying to extend handshakes across the Niger, Achebe’s memoir will make such an effort difficult and if we ( I am in that generation) can’t do it then how do we convince our children to see Nigeria as one and be their brother’s keeper irrespective of where they found themselves.

    If we continue to write this kind of history there would be no end to such and the division and bitterness will continue. There are serious questions that could be asked on both sides, especially Biafra even on this so called starvation policy. It is convenient to blame the other side always for our failure or problem without looking inward first. Why were the initial food convoys to Biafra hijacked and diverted by Ojukwu to feed his soldiers at the expense of the ordinary Biafrans? Why did Ojukwu and in general, Biafra go to war when they were either not ready or prepared for the consequences of failure. The atrocities of Biafra on Nigeria have been documented and nobody is talking about that. Shouldn’t Achebe spare a thought also for those who suffered under Biafra both in Nigeria and even inside Biafra? There are so many whys, ifs and whats that could be asked but they will lead us to no where and they are better forgotten.

    History as I said here last week is good to the extent that it will serve as a useful guide to a better future. If the history will divide or destroy us why remind us? See what history has done and is doing to Israelis and Palestinians and other Arabs in the Middle East. The history of imperialist Japan is still causing trouble with China and the Koreans north and south. So as fathers of our nation Achebe and co should sow seeds of a united and prosperous Nigeria before they leave us. We wish them long live and prosperity. Awolowo is gone, let him rest in perfect peace. Enough of this kind of history.