THE JANUARY 1966 COUP WAS A PATRIOTIC EFFORT TO REIN IN A JIHAD ADVANCING TO FINALITY

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
(James Madison, Jr.1751 – 1836) the 4th President of the U. S. (1809–17) and the "Father of the U.S. Constitution" for his pivotal role in drafting and promoting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights)

PREAMBLE
Recently some prominent Igbo leaders have joined the Fulani oligarchy in denigrating the heroic participation of Igbo officers and men in the Jan. 15, 1966 revolution. Chief Mbazulike Amaechi, First Republic Minister of Aviation, started this campaign which had no basis whatsoever in Nigeria's checkered history of the end of the first Republic. Chief Amaechi was a very young handsome Minister in the 1960s; and now in his early 90s, has probably forgotten the various incidents that engineered the coup or is perhaps merely chewing the cud of the ministerial office he lost since 1966.
This derogation of the altruistic heroism of Igbo Army officer participants in the Jan. 1966 coup d'état seems to have gathered steam when 81- year old Prof. Anya O. Anya, zoologist and more importantly, the President of Igbo elitist group, "Ndigbo Lagos," joined in spreading this obvious falsehood. The following extract from Anya's round-about castigation of the heroism of coup was published in the Vanguard newspaper of 27th March, 2017, page 41 as per following extract:
"In 1964, Eastern Nigeria was the fastest growing and industrializing economy in the world. . . In other words, in 1964, Eastern Nigeria was in advantaged position in Nigeria. In 1964, there was a problem between the North and the West. There was no problem between the North and the East and also there was no problem between the West and the East. How come that by the time the circle went round the Igbo were now at the centre of the Nigerian problem to the extent that there was program? Out of that program came the war."
First of all, the source of the information on Eastern Nigeria being the “the fastest growing and industrializing economy in the world” is from an article written by columnist, Ugo Harris Ukandu, and published by the on-line medium, igbonews.co.uk on 14th Jan. 2014. More correctly stated, what Mr. Ukandu wrote is as follows: “. . .by 1964, the Eastern Region was already touted as the fastest growing economy in the world by research reports commissioned by the World Bank and by Harvard University in the United States.”It has not been possible to verify this touted assertion from the World Bank or Harvard University, but the word “touted” meaning “shown off” must be noted. However, even if it is true that an economy is the fastest growing one, it does not necessarily entail political stability and peace. For example, Western Nigeria and Lagos precincts were the richest part of Nigeria by 1965/66 yet the “operation wetie” transformed the region into the “wild wild West” and was the last straw that precipitated the end of the First Republic.  
The impression Prof. Anya created in his assertion is that all was well between the Igbo and the North. But this opinion is not supported by the facts of history. Everything about Nigeria was headed in the wrong direction. Major Adewale Ademoyega, the initiator and brain box of the revolution, summed up the explosive situation in the 1959/60 NPC/NCNC contraption (an alliance of incompatibles) in his 1981 book as follows, “Actually a time bomb had been buried deep into the foundation of the political edifice. So, with the passing of time, the bomb was bound to blow up the whole edifice . . .” (p.8).
Luckily, I had devoted a whole Chapter on “The Rationale for the January 15, 1966 Revolt” in my forth-coming 550-page title, “The Defeat of Biafra, the Conquest of Nigeria” and need not conduct any further research to deflate this false propaganda.
I had thought that my answer to Prof. Anya’s uninformed position on the 1966 coup would wait till the release of the book, but the joining in this misinformation by a friend of mine, a graduate of Economics and Law, Lawyer, politician, and more recently, a prominent leader in Igbo apex socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, makes it mandatory that I release these abstractions from my book to stem the tide of what now looks like a deliberate effort to tarnish the memory of our heroes. I am withholding my friend’s identity since his views on the issue has not, to the best of my knowledge, been published. I regard this as a warning to all Igbos to stop disparaging the only surviving memorial of these heroes of all times. After all, the Nigerian Army fully recognized Nzeogwu’s heroism by according him full military honours at his internment in Kaduna in 1967.  
 False Assertions by an Ohanaeze Leader:
On Friday, 3rd August 2018, at a symposium/book presentation organised by De Mobin Initiative (DMI – Political educators) in Royal Palace Hotel, Enugu, in which I was the symposium lead speaker, invited to comments after my presentation on “The Right to Self Determination, “a well known Ohanaeze leader veered off the topic and went into an endorsement of Prof. Anya’s polemics on the January 1966 coup. I was tempted to strike down his untenable declarations with the hard facts which I could readily have done but was restrained by my respect for my age vis-à-vis what he is supposed to represent.
However, on Sunday 5th August, we met again in a meeting of a sub-group of the Enugu Sports Club and I took an opportunity of making a closing remark, to advise this Ohanaeze chieftain to check the history of Nigeria, 1960 to 1966, which exposes inexorably the falsehood of his and Prof. Anya’s position on the coup.

The above advice was not heeded and on Wednesday, 8th Aug. in a meeting of Select Igbo Leaders summoned by the erudite Constitutional lawyer and former Secretary-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Prof. Ben. Nwabueze, to reconcile Ohanaeze and various Igbo youths Civil Society Organizations, this same chieftain again left the topic of the day, and pursued further the belittlement of the makers of the Jan. 15, 1966 coup d’état. In my speech in that same occasion, I was compelled to remind the Ohanaeze chieftain that his misinformed position on the coup would alienate him from patriotic Igbo youths, who are generally well informed on such topic.
However driven by James Madison’s ‘knowledge quote’ above and the persistence in the attacks on the heroes of the January 15, 1966 revolution by some members of the Igbo elite who ought to know, I am compelled to release the following abstractions from my coming book.

NIGERIA UNDER JIDADIST ATTACK FROM 1960 TO DATE
Jihad Defined:
The ultimate purpose of Islam is the establishment by force of a worldwide Islamic state where Sharia law is enforced on all. (Remember Gen. Buhari’s 2001 Sharia declaration in Kaduna - “I will continue to show openly and inside me the total commitment to the Sharia movement that is sweeping all over Nigeria . . . God willing, we will not stop the agitation for the total implementation of the Sharia in the country.) Your guess is as good as mine, what ASO Rock is doing today doing about Sharia. To achieve the goal of subjugation and forcible conversion of all people to Islam and world domination is the ultimate goal of all the 8 forms of Jihad, namely Words, Deception, Sword (violence), Taxation, Financial Reward, Slavery, Sharia Law, Polygamy (population growth) and Spirits. Sharia Law is therefore incompatible with Common Law; and thus anti-civilizational. It is inconsistent with secular democracy and wherever they mix, there is crisis resulting in violence of a permanent nature. Fundamentalist Islam, which is at the core of Sharia, is therefore responsible for 90% of violence, the world-over, Nigeria being an example.
The Islamic fundamentalists’ attitude to secular democratic institutions is further exposed in their war cry “Allahu Akbar,” which is generally misinterpreted by the international media and Nigerians as “God is great,” but actually means “Allah is greater than your God, Constitution or Government.”It is the aggressive declaration that Allah and Islam are dominant over every other form of government, religion, law or ethic, which is why Islamic Jihadists in the midst of killing infidels, so often shout it, primarily in order to 'strike terror in the hearts of the enemies of Allah.” (Onyesoh, TO THE RESCUE, 2017, p.515)

2. Jihadist Declarations by Northern Nigerian Leaders, 1940s to the 1960s
2.1. 1942: Northern Emirs’ Reaction to the West African Students Union (WASU) London Appeal for Cooperation with the South for Peaceful Coexistence: "Security operatives Holding this country (Nigeria) together is (meaning peace and unity)  not possible except by means of the religion of the Prophet [Mohammed]. … If they [the South (Nigeria)] want political unity let them follow our religion" (Awolowo Obafemi: Path to Nigerian Freedom, 1947). In other words, for peace and unity to reign in Nigeria, Southerners must become Moslems and come under the Sokoto Caliphate. Chief Awolowo learnt to be more cautious in relationships with northern leaders from then on. Easterner Nigerian leaders never seemed to have bothered to have taken any note of this 1942 event.
2.2. 1947. Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa: “If the British quitted Nigeria now at this stage, the northern people would continue their uninterrupted conquest to the sea." Extract from Abubakar’s address AT the first session of Nigeria’s new Legislative Council in Lagos. (Trevor Clark, Abubakar' Biographer in 'A Right Honorable Gentleman . .,' 1991, p.99)
2.3. 1954.Alhaji Ahmadu Bello: "When the British leave, we shall sweep the Ibos into the sea"(Daily Times newspaper and Birch Geoffrey et.al: BIAFRA – The Case for Biafra Independence, London, 1968, p. 4).
      1960. Declaration of Jihad on Newly Independent Nigeria: "The new nation called Nigeria should be an estate from our great grandfather, Othman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We must use the minorities in the North as willing tools, and the South as conquered territories and never allow them to have control over their future" (Parrot Newspaper, Lagos, Oct. 12, 1960).
“Speech is the mirror of the soul” so declared Publilius Syrus as long ago as 85-43 BC.
3. Jihadist Actions and Activities that Forced the 1966, Jan. 15 Coup d’état

 3.1. Tiv Riots (1960-1964): There was a crisis of resistance of Tiv people, the major ethnic nationality in the Middle Belt of Nigeria, against the despotic rule and the misuse of Native Administration (NA) Police Force and NA Courts by the Northern People’s Congress (NPC), dominated by the Hausa-Fulani and led by Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, in subduing and using middle Belters as willing tools. Mainly Christians, the Tivs largely belonged to a northern opposition party, the United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC). Ahmadu Bello, using all kinds of brutalities including detentions and imprisonments in unsavory environments of NA Police and Alkali Courts, including the burning of property, beatings and torture, murders, and forced population movement, was hell bent on compelling the Tivs to switch from their UMBC to his own regional party, the NPC. (Gbulie: Nigeria’s Five Majors, 1981, p.31)
3.2. 1945 Jos Riot and 1953 Kano Riot: In 1945, for no cogent reasons Northern politicians organised riots and killed 200 Igbo persons living in Jos. The same for 150 Igbos killed in the Kano riot of 1953. No arrests and no prosecutions.
3.3. The 1962/63 Census: In the 1962 Census, Nigeria’s total population after enumeration was confirmed by the Census Board as 60.5 million. The South numbered slightly more than the North. Abubakar, the Prime Minister, out-rightly rejected the figures; sacked the British Chairman, Mr. J. J. Warren, a demographer, and repatriated him back to Britain, out of reach for any court proceedings. He furthermore confiscated the Census Board into the PM’s (his) office and ordered a recount. The1963 recount gave a total figure of 65.66 million, after awarding the North extra 8.5 million and decreasing the South from 31 million to 28.8 million. After a protest, the West, whose premier had started a new romance with Ahmadu Bello, was awarded extra 2.5 million, thus increasing its population from 7.8 million to 10.3 million. The East & the Midwest regions reportedly decreased to 15.56 million. Jihad of Population in action! Dr. M. I. Okpara, Eastern regional premier, voiced the betrayal by denouncing the NCNC-NPC alliance as a huge mistake (M.I. Okpara – a Biography, by Chris Offodile, 1980, p.50).
Azikiwe felt so humiliated and hoping for hopes’ sake, uttered his disgust in his popular post–1963 census declaration, referring to the NPC-NCNC alliance which he enabled:“History will judge if I erred on the side of optimism” 10 (Ojiako James O.: NIGERIA: Yesterday, Today, And . . ., Africana Educational Publishers, Onitsha, Nigeria, 1981, p. 176)
(I participated in the 1963 Census as a supervisor in Takakume, a remote village on Nigeria’s boundary with Niger, in Goronyo district of Sokoto province; sent from the Ministry of Internal Affairs Lagos where I was a clerk).  
3.4. The Western Nigeria Crisis: After the Census imbroglio, it became obvious to any active observer of political developments in Nigeria that the NPC did not need the NCNC in any alliance any more. The Western Nigeria crisis was fabricated to weaken the West using the Western Premier, Chief S L Akintola, who having lost his Action Group popularity in the Western House, desperately sought NPC support at whatever cost or condition. The result was the Western Nigeria crisis which sent Chief Awolowo to jail and foisted the sacked Premier back on the Western Region.
It was obvious that it was only a matter of time before the NPC returned to finish off the East. “Oru fulu ka eji mbazu eni ibe ya malu na mbosi nke ya ogabu otua,” goes an Igbo wise crack (A slave who helped in digging the grave of a fellow slave with forbidden spear, should note that similar future awaits him).
3.5. Corruption of the Judiciary by the Executive at the Highest Level: Corruption was rife with public servants, including Ministers, who commonly extracted 10% from government contractors; but the worst was political corruption indulged in by the Prime Minister (PM). Chief Awolowo revealed one of the worst of it in the judiciary. Awo’s letter of 28th March1966 to Gen. Ironsi from Calabar prison pleading for the prerogative of Mercy and free pardon exposed Sir Abubakar, the PM, as a masquerade of democratic governance under the Rule of Law. The letter revealed how Sir Abubakar, recruited Sir Adetokunbo Ademola, KBE, GCON, PC, SAN, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) to serve as his political negotiator and black-mailer of Chief Awolowo whilst the latter’s appeal on his 10-years prison sentence for treasonable felony, was pending before the CJN. The CJN had sent Chief Awolowo’s friend, Chief W. A. Elias, to cut a deal on the judgment the Supreme Court would give in the appeal. Awo was required to break the UPGA alliance with the NCNC (which the PM branded an Igbo party) and join the NPC/NNDP alliance; OR, refuse and remain in jail. He refused and his jail term was merely reduced to 7 years by the Supreme Court (Awolowo: Adventures in Power, Book One, “My March through Prison,” 1985, pp.296-302).
3.6. Mis-governance –
3.6.1. Messing with the Army High Command: The PM was messing with the Armed Forces in obvious northernisation in the name of Nigerianisation. Drastic lowering of standards for recruitment and promotions of Northerners critically affected performance and discipline in the Armed Forces. Northern Regional Premier assumed command of units deployed in the North and officers who resisted that interference were openly punished."
Even Gen. Obasanjo acknowledged this as follows:
“Tribalism, favouritism, double standards and general indiscipline had set in as a result of over-politicisation” of the armed services (Obasanjo: “NZEOGWU, An intimate Portrait of Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, 1987, p.78). Major Gbulie confirmed this in pages 10-11 of his 1980 epic, NIGERIA’S FIVE MAJORS; and in pages 10-13 of his 1980 book, The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafra War, Madiebo also identified and exposed the several abuses in the Nigerian Armed Forces.  
In recruitment and promotions, the Federal Civil Service was as abusive of Southern officers’ rights as in the Armed Forces. Efforts for total control of the Army by the NPC, is, like what is presently happening under President Buhari, in efforts to convert the armed forces of Nigeria into a Jihadist war machine.
90% of Nigerian Armed Forces units were located in the North, just as major federal industrial projects were located in the North regardless of expert opinion. Ajiokuta Steel mill remains stunted dogged with complications in the disregard of expert advice of Onitsha as its preferred location.
3.6.2. The 1964 General Election Campaigns: The massive irregularities that took place, particularly in the North, during the 1964 general elections campaign can be appreciated from the expressions and activities of Rt. Hon. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the ceremonial President of Nigeria in the following extracts from my coming book on the Biafra War - recorded broadcasts and newspaper interviews in the months of Nov. & Dec., just before the 1964 elections.
“From Broad-cast to the nation of Dec. 10, 1964:
‘. . . There have been complaints about denial of the most elementary courtesies to political leaders campaigning in Regions other than their own. It is said that accommodation was refused them in public hotels and rest houses, food and victuals denied them in restaurants, shelter refused them in public buildings during rain storms, and road barriers used to blockade the entrance to towns where they intended to campaign.’ 27 (Ojiako O. James: NIGERIA: YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND. . ., Africana Educational Publishers (Nig.) Ltd. Onitsha, Nigeria, 1981,p. 190).
Dr. Azikiwe concluded the broadcast by advising the politicians to summon a round-table conference to decide how Nigeria’s national assets should be shared if they had decided to destroy Nigeria’s national unity, for, according to him,  it would be better to disintegrate in peace and not in pieces.31” (Ojiako,1981, p.190)
“In Oct. 1, 1964, independence anniversary broad-cast, again Ojiako recorded Dr. Azikiwe’s out-pouring of rage in following extract:
 ‘The atmosphere of the nation reeks with mutual antagonism, bitter recriminations and tribal discrimination. The causes are the enemies of Nigeria. They are tribalism, nepotism, perfidy, bribery and corruption. With tribalism on the ascendance, the personality of our nation becomes decomposed and stinks. With nepotism influencing their judgments the will of the nation becomes stifled and immolated. With perfidy as the vogue among some of our politicians, the morals of our nation vanish to zero as no faith can be placed on the words of a crooked, double-faced, double-tongued scourge of the human race. With bribery and corruption permeating their way of life, the prestige of our nation dwindles to vanishing point, defacing our national image, and bringing shame and contumely to those who wear the “agbada” of Nigerian citizenship.’ 33 (Ojiako, p.190-191)
Referring directly to election campaign infractions, the President continued: “Some leaders had carried hate to the point when private armies are said to be organized in order to liquidate political opponents.’(Ibid)
Again in President Azikiwe’s 60th birth day interview of 16th Nov. 1964, granted to Peter Enahoro (Peter Pan), the editor of Daily Times, he painted gloomier pictures of politics in Nigeria.
 ‘What is happening in Nigeria today does not inspire me to be optimistic that we shall survive as one nation. It is possible that Nigeria will disintegrate because I cannot conceive of a united country where the citizens of one region always regard their compatriots as interlopers. 35   (Ibid pp194-195)
 Rounding off the interview he despairingly declared:
 ‘. . .  In Nigeria, where it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for some opposing political parties to campaign and have the right of audience in the territories of the opponents during a crucial election that is supposedly democratic, the existence of a Federation rests on creaky props 36 (Ibid).
  It is remarkable that President Azikiwe who had been the most outstanding enthusiast of united Nigeria, ended his broad-cast to the nation of Dec. 10, 1964 on this following very sad, sour and disillusioned note:
 ‘If this embryo republic (Nigeria) must disintegrate, then in the name of God, let the operation be a short and painless one. . . Let it not be featured by violence which we shunned during the dark days of our national humiliation. . . If the nation’s politicians had decided to destroy our national unity, then they should summon a round-table conference to decide how our national assets should be divided before they seal their doom by satisfying their lust for office. . .  I make this suggestion because it is better for us and for our admirers abroad that we should disintegrate in peace and not in pieces.’38”
(Trevor Clark: A RIGHT HONOURABLE GENTLEMAN, Biography of Alhaji Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, 1991, p.688)
Furthermore, it is unimaginable that Dr. Azikiwe who asserted that he coined the “One Nigeria” slogan during the independence struggle and was in an interview to New Nigerian newspapers in 1979, unapologetic for fighting for the unity of Nigeria, was so pushed during the 1964 campaigns, that he called for a peaceful dissolution of Nigeria.”
“As reported by Ojiako and Trevor Clark, he was driven to a break down before the election and was confined to bed by State House Doctors several days before the election.”

3.6.3.The 1964 Election Results:  “What resulted from his warnings and the wrangling before the 1964 general election, was what a daily newspaper termed “the drama of the unopposed candidates” - 64 candidates of NNA were declared returned unopposed in the North at the close of nominations on 20th Dec. 2014; and that number tallied with the 64 opposition (UPGA) candidates declared by UPGA lawyers, who conducted a fact-finding tour of the North, as unable to file their nomination papers on account of contrived obstacles imposed in their way – disappearance of election officers meant to receive the nominations papers or detention of the would-be candidates until after the close of nominations.
The Chairman of the Federal Electoral Commission, Mr. E. E. Esua, admitted the lapses of ‘unopposed candidates’ in an emergency broadcast he made on the 22nd Dec, confirming the mystery lapses.51 (Ojiako, p.203)
  The UPGA alliance which included the NCNC, Action Group, NEPU and UMBC had called for the postponement of the election on account of these glaring irregularities, but NNA which controlled the federal government, went on with it, regardless of UPGA boycott. Thereafter UPGA rejected the result of the election and ‘called on the President to summon a conference of all political leaders to ‘break up the Federation peacefully’ (Ojiako, p.205).  It further insisted that to accept the authority of any government formed from the warped polls “would be to compromise with evil and to sentence millions of Nigerians to servitude.’ 53 (Ibid)
 3.6.4. Five-Day Stand-off: “President Azikiwe on 1st Jan. 1965 rejected the results of the elections and called for a repeat nation-wide, as against the Prime Minister Abubakar’s position that he, Abubakar and his party, NPC had won and therefore should form the new government based on the announced results.  Furthermore, the PM insisted that bye-elections should be conducted later in places that boycotted the elections. A stand-off between the President and Prime minister lasted for 5 days with the President refusing to swear-in the PM and threatening to resign instead. The NPC was declared to have won 162 out of 312 seats in the parliament with additional 57 seats from the West declared for its ally – NNDP.
The Nigerian Army, still under the command of a colonial officer – Major-General Christopher B. Welby-Everard - called out a motorized column of 400 troops, in full fighting kit with fixed bayonets in the streets of Lagos, on a show of force in support of the Prime Minister’s position”54 (Clark Trevor, 1991 pp.692-3).
On the 5th day of the standoff, however, non-executive President, Azikiwe, now blackmailed and intimidated, got the message and capitulated. He swore in the Prime Minister and a so-called “broadly-based government” whose only goal was to share offices, was formed in spite of the obvious cleavages between the parties. Later, bye elections were held in the East and other places where there were total boycott of the general elections. The nation came back from the brink, but the fire stoked by that stand-off, left Nigeria on a permanent edge.”  (Clark Trevor, 1991, pp.698 – 703)
3.6.5. All of the Above Information in the Public Domain: From September 1964, I was in my first of a 3-year direct entry degree program in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and had followed these developments closely. Our Students Union led by Adaka Boro as President, had sued the Federal Government in a High Court in Lagos, after the election. I was one of 15 students who journeyed by road with the Union President from Nsukka to Lagos to witness the Court proceedings. Besides, on the date Sir Abubakar was eventually sworn in, we demonstrated from Nsukka to Enugu, the East regional capital. The Police had blocked all the roads to Enugu and we had to find our way through the bushes and eventually were able to make an audience with the regional Premier, Dr. M.I. Okpara, in his official residence – the current Governor’s lodge.
It is surprising that Prof. Anya could forget all these events that took place when he was at least 27 years old.

4. Igbos must be expelled from the North

The other major issue that drove the revolution, was The “Igbo must go” campaign, which raged in the northern media, streets and the Northern House of Assembly throughout 1964-5, for what the northern politicians regarded as an affront of Dr. Michael I. Okpara (premier of Eastern region and leader of the UPGA alliance and Igbos generally for daring to lead campaigns into what  NPC regarded as its exclusive enclave -  the North – before, during and after the 1964 elections (Gbulie, 1981, pages 14 & 15).
Major Nzeogwu, Nigerian Army first indigenous commander of Army Intelligence, confirmed the Igbos-must-go resolution to Capt. Gbulie, who operated under Major Nzeogwu that eventful Jan. 15, 1966 night:
“. . . the NPC planned “no-mercy” operation had tripartite objectives. . . ”first, to eliminate all the powerful Southern politicians opposed to the NNA; second, to enforce the present “Igbos-must-go” hue and cry in the North; and third, to impose Islam on the Christian south – and subsequently to establish Nigeria as a theocratic Muslim country…Sir Ahmadu Bello is behind it all  . . . and he will be calling the shots” 18 (Gbulie Ben: NIGERIA’S FIVE MAJORS –1981, p. 39).
The vituperations of northern legislators against Igbos, in debates in the Northern House of Assembly between February and March, 1964, clearly attest to the decision on Igbo expulsion in violation of the clear provisions of the 1963 Constitution on freedom of movement and settlement in its Chapter III, Section 27.-(1). (Excerpts of relevant Hansard, see Obumselu Ben: Report of Onyiuke Tribunal on Massacre of Ndigbo in 1966, pages18 & 19; and also the Northern House of Assembly Proceedings, February-March 1964 – OBLONG MEDIA - www.oblong media.net>2017/06/05>n…)

5.1965 Western Elections

 The blatant rigging of the Western Nigeria elections of 1965, which enabled the NNA to re-instal Chief SL Akintola, who was known to have lost the election badly, as Premier of Western Region was the limit, hence the revolt in the West and consequent operation” wetie.” The Eastern premier, Dr. Michael O. Okpara campaigned in the West as vigorously as he did in the North.

For Igbo Army officers and men to have excluded themselves from the Jan. revolution of 1966 as their critics suggest, would have been as foolish as the Nazis whom Martin Niemoller (1892-1984), the Protestant pastor, ridiculed in his figurative poem, “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a socialist . . .”

6. The Jan. 15, 1966 Coup was Preemptive

There was evidence that the Balewa/Sarduana Federal government planned to subdue the South, starting from the West, with a ruthless military operation which was scheduled to commence on 17th Jan.1966 or any time in the 2nd half of that January. Major Wale Ademoyega (1933-2007), one of Nigeria’s genuine but unsung heroes, expatiated on this plot in his 1981 book, “Why We Struck – The story of the first Nigerian Coup, 1981, p.67):
   “. . . the Balewa Government had a terrible plan to bring the Army fully to operate in the West for the purpose of eliminating the elites of that region, especially the intellectuals who were believed to be behind the intransigence of the people against Akintola Government. . . It was also intended that if the plan succeeded in the West, the next target would be the East.” 14

Lieutenant-Col. Hilary Njoku was commanding officer of the2nd Battalion, NA, Ikeja and Lt-Col. Gowon who returned to Nigeria on 13th January from a 6-month's overseas course, was to take over from Njoku on 16/17th Jan. 1966.15
Command of the Army and the Police were scheduled to be transferred to officers loyal to NPC’s objectives. Louis Orok Edet, an Efik from the East, who was Nigeria’s first indigenous Inspector-General of Police, was sent on retirement leave at the unripe age of 52, and  third - ranked Kam Salem, a northerner, was appointed Acting Inspector General, after terminating the contract of a 2nd ranked expatriate officer and repatriating him back to UK. Brigadier Zakariya Maimalarin, a Kanuri from the North, was to take over from Ironsi, as GOC of the Nigerian Army, over and above his senior, Brigadier Samuel L. Ademulegun – a Yoruba, from the West, in readiness for the “no mercy” operation. 16 Gen. Ironsi, an Igbo and GOC, Nigerian Army, was to be promoted out of command in the Army. Obasanjo confirmed Ironsi’s out-of-command promotion in his NZEOGWU biography, as revealed to him in Kaduna by Brigadier Ademulegun, who thought he would succeed Ironsi as GOC. 17
(NZEOGWU - An Intimate Portrait of Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, 1987, p. 85)
Finally, Gbulie further confirmed Major Nzeogwu’s revelation of smuggled arms from across the northern porous border, which arms were stored in the Kaduna Brigade Armoury for Ahmadu Bello by Ademulegun, the Brigade Commander and an Akintola’s collaborator. The finding that Arab soldiers had already infiltrated Nigeria in mufti positioned for the Jihad by Gbulie confirmed the Jihadist content of the operation. The content and attendance of recurring nocturnal meetings in Ahmadu Bello’s Kaduna official residence determined that the coup was brought back to Jan. 15, in order to preempt the Ahmadu Bello Jihadist coup scheduled for 17th January 1966 or thereabouts. (Gbulie 1981 pp. 39-40)

7. Conclusion

 Ademoyega, Nzeogwu, Ifeajuna, Okafor, Anuforo, Chukwuka, Onwuatuegwu and Captains Gbulie, Nwobosi, Adeleke, Ude and their other associates, were indeed the only known altruistic heroes Nigeria has ever had, having staked their lives on the altar of patriotism – to save Nigeria from an impending Jihadist over run.
All other Nigerian Army coups Nigeria have been for one personal or group selfish interest or another. That Igbo officers were in the majority among the coup makers, decided to spring Chief Awolowo (a Yoruba) out of Calabar prison and enthrone him as head of their new government, confirms the nationalistic patriotic intentions of the coup.
The suggestion that Ndigbo were having a good time in Nigeria and therefore ought not to have participated in the Jan. 15, 1966 coup is Caliphate propaganda and any Igbo man who joins in that campaign is serving the best interest of the Caliphate.
As Mahatma Gandhi did say “When a slave begins to take pride in his fetters and hugs them like precious ornaments, the triumph of the slave-owner is complete.”

Chukwuemeka Onyesoh @ www.emekaonyesoh.blogspot.com.ng
Enugu.
22nd August 2018.

QUEST FOR SELF DETERMINATION BY ETHNIC NATIONALITIES: THE WAY FORWARD FOR PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE IN NIGERIA

Presentation of Prince Chukwuemeka I. Onyesoh, as Symposium Speaker at DEMOBIN INITIATIVE (DMI) SYMPOSIUM/BOOK PRESENTATION/LAUNCH ON AUGUST 3, 2018 AT ROYAL PALACE HOTEL, AGBANI RD, GARKI, ENUGU

Introduction
Nigeria presently exists as a unitary despotism created by a military decree, but branded a federation. The mischievous intensions are clear – to allow the federating units, the North, in whose favour the Constitution was intentionally skewed power, to effectively and permanently dominate the rest. The 1999 Constitution of Nigeria was never designed to give effect to the inherent principles of federalism, equality and mutual respect among the federating peoples of Nigeria. This is the background of the existential crises which permanently rocks the foundation of the Nigerian structure persistently. The result is the colossal state failure by Nigeria– extreme poverty of over 82 million, which currently ranks Nigeria as the capital of poverty world-wide, monumental corruption, gargantuan youth unemployment, one of world’s lowest human development and life expectancy- at-birth, very high rate of maternal deaths and infantile mortality; and gargantuan level of insecurity of lives and property.

2. Federation Defined

To understand how far Nigeria has derailed, it is important to review what a federation is supposed to mean, not in Nigeria’s demented home-grown sense, but in internationally accepted norms, as proposed by the conceivers and practised by society.
A federation . . . is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing states or regions under a central (federal) government. In a federation, the self-governing status of the component states, as well as the division of power between them and the central government, are typically constitutionally entrenched and may not be altered by a unilateral decision of either party, the states or the federal polity. Each of the political unit, central or regional has its own charter of existence (TO THE RESCUE, pp. 83-90).
The most essential and inherent principles of federation are therefore federalism which guarantees the self-governing status of the federating units; equality and mutual respect between the peoples comprising it; unrestricted movement throughout its territories, with the right to set up home or business anywhere within its boundaries, together with provisions for all the other fundamental human rights.
In present day Nigeria these are exclusive privileges of an oligarchy which brutalizes the rest.
The contracting parties in a federation, whether cantons, provinces, states, regions or zones, not only undertake bilateral and commutative obligations, but in making the pact, reserve for themselves more rights, more liberty, more authority, more property than they abandon to the centre.
There should be neither a mix up of the federating units; or a multi-tier of federating units - states and local governments, as in the Nigerian strange mix. In Nigeria, the over 378 ethnic nationalities, which unfortunately share little or no values, except perhaps similar skin pigmentation, are the natural units. Unfortunately, they found themselves compounded into a federation without any consultation or consent and with little or no regard to individual group values, particularly those on life, as an inviolate gift of God to man.
Central in the relationship between the federal authority and federating units, is an emphasis in the self-governing status or autonomy of the federating units.
At the heart or centre of the autonomy of federating units is the concept of the right to self determination. This right therefore needs to be very well studied and understood, for there lies the multiplicity of Nigeria’s festering sores.

3. Self Determination Defined

3.1. Definition: Applied to a person, the English Collins Dictionary definition of self determination is the power or ability to make a decision for oneself without influence from outside. By extension the term has come to mean the free choice of one's own acts without external compulsion. But in Government, Politics or Diplomacy, it transcends to the right of a nation or people, to determine its own form of government without influence from outside.
3.2.In International Law: Self-determination is a core principle of international law, recognized as a general principle of law. It denotes the legal right of a people, derived from customary international law, to decide their own destiny in the international order; and this right is enshrined in a number of international treaties.  For instance, self-determination is protected in the United Nations Charter and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (UN ICCPR) as a right of all peoples of the world. (Cornell University Law School view - (CULS).
The concept of self determination for nationalities in the engineering of political units had, as far back as the end of World War I, been promoted as an instrument of peace. During the 1920s and 1930s there were some successful movements for self-determination in the beginnings of the process of decolonization. Canada, New Zealand, Newfoundland, the Irish Free State, Australia, South Africa, Egypt, Afghanistan Iraq, Lebanon and India achieved independence from this concept from Britain and France from the 1920s to the 40s.
3.3 .In the United Nations: After World War II, promotion of self-determination among subject peoples became one of the chief goals of the United Nations. The UN’s predecessor, the League of Nations, had, after World War I, recognized the principle; but it was in the UN that the idea received its clearest statement and affirmation.
The UN Charter clarifies two meanings of the term: First, a state is said to have the right of self-determination in the sense of having the right to choose freely its political, economic, social, and cultural systems. Secondly, the right to self-determination is defined as the right of a people to constitute itself in a state; or otherwise freely determine the form of its association with an existing state. Both meanings have their basis in the UN Charter (Article 1, paragraph 2; and Article 55, paragraph 1).
The right of nations to self-determination is therefore a cardinal principle in modern international law, binding, as such, on the United Nations (UN) as authoritative interpretation of the UN Charter’s norms. It states that
“. . . nations, based on respect for the principle of equal rights and fair equality of opportunity, have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no interference.”
The determination of the “people” referred to in the UN Charter, UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) (both multi-lateral treaties amongst consenting UN member states) when the covenants declare, “All peoples have the right of self determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development,” is limited by the UN Charter in Article 2:
The Organisation and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following principles articulated in Articles 1 and 2. Article 2 therefore limits the power of UN as stipulated in sub-sections (1) and (7) as follows:
(1) The Organisation is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.
And (7) Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII.
Experience, however, has shown that UN does not promote or defend individual or group rights to self determination until a major crisis of genocide, involving loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, with IDPs/refugees counted in millions, like in Rwanda, Sudan, Serbia or Yugoslavia, before its Security Council rouses from its diplomatic slumber and authorizes intervention, trials and convictions of perpetrators of such crimes against humanity. In spite of the present degradation of Nigeria its leaders still junket round the world, as if nothing is happening.

4.The African Charter on Human and Political Rights (ACHPR) on Self Determination
Finding the UN ICCPR as a veritable instrument for stabilizing unions in Federations, but not sufficiently promoting/protecting individual and/or group rights, the Organization of African Unity (OAU), now African Union (AU), on 27th June 1981, adopted its on charter to regulate civil and political rights in the African continent. This is what is now known as the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) (also called Banjul Charter on account of the summit’s location). Other world’s continental unions like European Union, Organisation of American States, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, East Asian Community, have their own versions of UN ICCPR.
4.1.Self Determination Provision in the African Charter on Human and Political Rights (ACHPR)
The ACHPR Article 20 is intended to promote and protect the Right to Self Determination of constituents of member states, and provides as follows in its sub-sections:
(1)”All peoples shall have the right to existence. They shall have the unquestionable and inalienable right to self-determination. They shall freely determine their political status and shall pursue their economic and social development according to the policy they have freely chosen.”
(2)”Colonised or oppressed peoples shall have the right to free themselves from the bonds of domination by resorting to any means recognized by the international community.”
(3)”All peoples shall have the right to the assistance of the State Parties to the present Charter in their liberation struggle against foreign domination, be it political, economic or cultural.”
Nigeria signed the ACHPR instrument on 31st August 1982, ratified it on 22nd June 1983 and deposited it with the Charter Commission headquarters in Banjul, Gambia on 22nd July 1983.

4.2. Domestication and Non- Inclusion of AFCHR in the Constitution: The Federal Government of Nigeria, in apparent pretence of meeting the demands  of Article 1  of the Charter, which stipulates that parties to the Charter “shall recognise the rights, duties and freedoms enshrined in the Charter and shall undertake to adopt legislative or other measures to give effect to them,” enacted the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act, Chapter A 9 (Chapter 10 LFN1990) (No.2 of 1983) 10 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1990 and labeled the law as an Act to enable effect to be given in the Federal Republic of Nigeria to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights made in Banjul on the 19th day of January, 1981 and for purposes connected therewith.  The Ratification and Enforcement Act in itself is deficient in conferring such social and political rights on citizens of Nigeria unless the relevant Section 20 dwelling on the Right to Self Determination is entrenched, as an article or section, in the Nigerian Constitution. This is, perhaps, why the Nigerian oligarchy incorporated almost all the fundamental rights articles of ACHPR in various sections of the 1999 Constitution, namely, ACHPR Articles - Rights in Sections 2-Freedom from Discrimination, 3-Equality before the Law and Equal Protection of the Law, 4-Right to Life, 5-Prohibition of Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment, 6-Right to Personal Liberty and Protection from Arbitrary Arrest, 7-Fair Trial, 8-freedom of Conscience, 9-Receive Information and Free Expression, 10-Freedom of Association, 11-Freedom of Assembly, 12-Freedom of Movement, 14-Property, 18-Protection of the Family and Vulnerable Groups, were respectively reflected in Sections 42, 45, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 40, 41, 43, 44 and 37 (excluding in Section 37 the vulnerable groups – women, the aged and the disabled) but deliberately failed to include in the Constitution the ACHPR Articles on Social and Political Rights as set out in its Articles 13, 15 to17 & 20 to 24 and the Protection of Vulnerable Groups set out in Article 18 of the Charter.                                                           Therefore to make the peoples’ right to self determination inviolable, it is required that ACHPR Article 20-Right to Self Determination should be entrenched in the Nigerian Constitution. That would elevate those social and political rights to constitutional and justiciable rights. It is no accident that the Nigerian oligarchy who decreed the 1999 Constitution into being, neglected and/or omitted the incorporation of social and political rights of its citizens into the Nigerian Constitution. In feudalism, which is normal and customary among Fulani societies, their oligarchy concedes very little or no social and political rights to their serfs/slaves. The exclusion in the 1999 Nigerian Constitution is therefore devised to serve the interest of the northern feudal oligarchs who dominate Nigerian politics. Without our knowing it, we are all enslaved by the oligarchy, since the right to secede from a union emanates from the right to self determination, whether such right to secede is expressly stated or not. The right to secede is typically implicit in the right to self determination.
The non-inclusion of the right to self determination in the Nigerian Constitution therefore subordinates such right to provisions in the 1999 Constitution since it is not a constitutional right. The oligarchy and their collaborators in the South and Central Nigeria, basking in the euphoria of having won the Civil War, though they had clipped only the wings of defeated ex-Biafrans by entrenching fetter-like provisions in the opening Chapter and Section of the Constitution, apparently to ensure no escape from whatever they might wish to do with defeated ex-Biafrans in Chapter 1, Part 1, Sections- (1) and (3), without realizing that it is the undoing of everybody outside the oligarchy. By excluding the Self–Determination Article of the ACHPR from the 1999 Constitution, it became obvious that the oligarchy which decreed the Constitution into being wished to ensure the denial to the rest of Nigerians, the rights to self determination granted them by Article 20 of the Charter.
Chapter 1, Part 1, Section 1.-(1) of the Constitution unequivocally declares that:
        This Constitution is supreme and its provisions shall have binding force on all authorities and persons throughout the Federation of Nigeria.
And 1.-(3) dismisses all Laws as subordinate to the Constitution, including the ACHPR Ratification and Enforcement Act, tersely as follows:
      If any other law is inconsistent with the provisions of this Constitution, this Constitution shall prevail, and that other law shall to the extent of the inconsistency be void.
4.3. The Indivisibility and Indissolubility of Nigeria: In Section.-(1) of the Constitution, the oligarchy appeared to have shackled all agitations for separation and/or meaningful restructuring of Nigeria.
    “Nigeria is one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign state to be known as the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

5. The Falsity of the Nigerian 1999 Constitution

5.1. The preamble to Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution tells a lie when it sets out with the following opening statement:
“We the People of the Federal Republic of Nigeria:                                                                          Having firmly resolved: . . . DO HEREBY MAKE, ENACT AND GIVE OURSELVES the following Constitution.”
The truth is that the 378 ethnic nationalities of Nigeria, never met to consider and adopt any Constitution as free peoples. The Hausa-Fulani Army Generals foisted the Constitution on the rest of Nigeria without subjecting it to any democratic process of approval and ratification by the 378 peoples or their duly elected representatives. General Abdulsalam Alhaji Abubakar, Head of State & Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, signed Decree 24 of 1999 and attached the Constitution as a schedule of that Decree. He merely represented the oligarchy; certainly not the 378 peoples of Nigeria who neither participated in the drafting or approval of same.
5.2. The Federation of Nigeria was no longer in existence, the Army Generals having abolished it in 1966. The Generals created the 36 states which they named as the federating units. In a federation the units create the federation and not the other way round. That is artificial and has resulted in a mere concoction of a federation and the mix-up with local government areas, which are typically creations of federating units, and not federating units in any way.
5.3. Nigeria dissolved and divided parts of the Nigerian federation in various acts of impunity – (a) The convoluted and complicit donation of Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon. Nigeria was by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Statute in its Articles neither bound to submit to ICJ jurisdiction nor accept its judgment, and therefore merely used ICJ judgment as a mere ruse to conceal its fulfillment of Gen. Gowon’s wartime undertaking to trade the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula for Cameroon’s cooperation in effectively blockading Biafra throughout the war. (b) The condonation of the proclamation of 12 Sharia Republics in Northern Nigeria violates the indivisibility and the indissolubility of Nigeria. Sharia law disregards both any other law including even democratic constitutions and government (To the Rescue pp.290-298).
By allowing Nigeria to be so divided and/or dissolved as in (a) & (b), Nigeria violated Section 2(1) of its Constitution and by the legal maxim, Quod approbo non reprobo, cannot accept and reject divisibility/dissolubility the same time (TO THE RESCUE, pp.83 – 93).
5.4. Delegitimization of Liberation Struggle: Regional political parties are typically the bedrock of liberation struggles world-wide. In most countries in which self determination agitators have achieved meaningful autonomy with or without violence, regional political parties usually led the agitations for separation, which led to regional autonomy. For example, it has been in Canada - Parti Quebec; in Scotland – Scottish National Party; in Northern Island - Sinn Fein and Ulster Unionist Party of Northern Ireland; and in Spain – the Convergence and Union party.
But in Nigeria regional parties are proscribed by the combined effects of sub-sections of Sections 221, 222, 223 and 228 of the Constitution which deny regional parties registration and consequently, fielding candidates for any election.
The oligarchy therefore thought they completely shut the door on freedom-seeking Biafrans after awarding to themselves disproportionate shares of numbers of States and Local Government Areas. The South West, the Middle Belt and northern minorities, who won the Civil War for Nigeria, basking in the euphoria of having done that, deluded themselves into believing that by so doing, and by having obtained separate states for their own people, to the exclusion of ex-Biafrans (now defeated), they have achieved most of the major principles of a federation - equality and mutual respect between the peoples comprising it. The present stress being undergone by Nigeria - the killings, genocide, ethnic cleansing and the wide-spread clamour for restructuring - tells the rest of the story.

6. The Salutary Effects of the Right to Self Determination (Abstractions from pp. 137-168 of TO THE RESCUE):

Entrenching the right to Self Determination in national Constitutions is incomplete without the right to secede. The essence of including the right to self-determination in national Constitutions is not necessarily to cause the disintegration of any polity. On the contrary, such a provision, including the right to secession, invariably helps to foster genuine unity and strengthen longer lasting and peaceful unions by curbing the excesses of the majority, thus ensuring minority rights.
Thus, instead of encouraging separation, the provision for self-determination compels mutual respect among the various peoples of a union, thereby inspiring the different peoples to work harder on strengthening it. Equality and mutual respect between the federating units of a political entity are two of the inherent principles that sustain most successful federations. Failure to acknowledge the two, in any such union, results in the kind of acrimony pervading the relationships between the federating units in countries like Nigeria.
Self-determination and secession provisions in the Nigerian Constitution would have humbled the excessive arrogance of the Hausa/Fulani who regard Nigeria as Jihad booty or their great grand father's estate. That would have enhanced genuine and long-lasting unity as a federation of free peoples. Nigeria's often-mouthed unity is restive and suspicious, being merely compelled by anachronistic provisions in the 1999 Constitution. The North’s insistence on a united Nigeria is therefore fake and merely based on the need for revenue from and use of the crude petroleum in the South, free access to southern sea ports, a bigger market for their agricultural products and more territory over which they can wedge their Jihad and thereby compel more converts to their religion as the Emirs disclosed to the West African Students Union as far back as in 1942.
The present overbearing attitude of the Upper North compares precisely with the over-bearing influence which the Russians exerted on the affairs of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) which, in part, precipitated the break-up of the former Soviet Federation. Similarly, in Sudan, the northern Sudanese Arabs who controlled the country drove the minority Southern Sudanese into two civil wars, altogether for 39-years, at the end of which South Sudan achieved independence. Prior to the 2011 independence of South Sudan, the Sudanese Arabs had declared Sharia over all of Sudan including the non-Moslem South. This is just like northern Nigerian fundamentalist Moslems have, from the very beginning of Nigeria in 1914, surreptitiously worked at implementing Sharia all over Nigeria, even though gullible Southern political elite have, in the past and present, failed to see through the smoke screen.
The right to self determination and secession therefore promotes and protects minority rights in federations.
6.1. Minority Rights:
6.1.1.Canada: The Canadian example of the central government bending backwards to accommodate the fears of the French Canadian Catholic minority of Quebec province, who constitute less than 25% of the Canadian 35 million population (the rest being English-speaking Protestant-Pentecostals), illustrates that agitation for and granting of the right to self determination and secession, does not necessarily lead to secession. The Canadian Constitution provides for the right to secession; but twice, 1980 and 1995, Quebec province, voted down secession after the rest of the country had sweetened the terms of their remaining Canadians. That included their French language as a parallel official language with English.   The present Prime Minister (PM) of Canada, Justin Pierre James Trudeau, son of former PM, Pierre Trudeau, is 12th Quebecer PM out of 23 PMs of Canada since 1867, the Canadian Dominion was formed - a far cry from the monopolization of the presidency of Nigeria by the oligarchy.
6.1.2. The United Kingdom Leadership: The Scottish Independence agitation and vote, is yet another testimony of the salutary effect of the Right to Self Determination, including secession.
The reactions of the dominant British political leaders and the central government in Great Britain are unlike in Nigeria, where the oligarchs would have used their controversial population figures to insist on their fatuous “indivisibility and indissolubility” and, perhaps, threaten another Jihad, otherwise genocide, against any separatist group, as they did to Ndigbo in 2017 in the Kaduna Declaration 'Quit Notice to Igbos.' Furthermore, President Buhari’s soldiers extra-judicially murdered over 150 unarmed youths in 2017 (in addition to 270 previously executed in 2016) agitating for self determination rights before the President put on a terrorist tag on the pacifist agitators and proscribing them. The same Presidency has been defending the cattle rights of terrorist Fulani herdsmen who annually cost Nigeria thousands of casualties in massacres and perhaps trillions of Naira in property destroyed.
Unlike AREWA and Northern Nigerian political leaders, the governments of  United Kingdom and Scotland, when they found that there was no legal framework in the British legal system for such the Scottish independence vote, went out of their way to initiate and establish an Order-in-Council to enable the vote.
6.1.3. The Ethiopian Example on the Right to Secession:
The Ethiopian example on the right to self determination is yet another good case-study. Ethiopia included the right to self determination, specifying the right to secede, in section 39(1) of its 1995 Constitution; in these unmistakable and clearly spelt out terms:
“Every Nation, Nationality and People in Ethiopia, has an unconditional right to self-determination, including the right to secession.”
That proviso has however not encouraged any attempt or talk, by any group, to invoke that right since 1995 when the new Constitution was adopted. That Constitution was negotiated; realistically agreed upon by the various ethnic nationalities in the country. That was after a fractious 17-year civil war that lasted from 1974 to 1991; unlike in Nigeria, where the victorious northern generals, in 1979 (carried over to the 1999), imposed a unitary Constitution on the country and perversely branded it otherwise.
There has been relative peace among the ethnic and diverse groups in Ethiopia obviously on account of the inclusiveness of the Constitution given to Ethiopia by Ethiopians; not contrived by a section pretending to act for all the peoples.
There are 80 officially recognized ethnic groups in Ethiopia's diverse population of 73.750 million (2007 census). The four major ethnic groups are Oromo, 34.49% of the population, followed by Amhara - 26.89%, Somali - 6.20% and Tigray - 6.07%. The common ground between the four, including the Sidama - the 5th largest ethnic nationality with 6.02% of the population, is that all belong to the Afro-Asiatic language family. Thus the language of close to 80% of Ethiopian people therefore derives from the Afro-Asiatic language family with varying branches, probably dialects. Ethiopia therefore has one thing Nigeria lacks - a unifying national identity - the Afro-Asiatic language family.
6.1.4. The Nigerian scenario: Nigeria has a chance to survive in peace by renegotiating its charter of existence, but it needs to work harder than Ethiopia since it completely lacks a unifying national identity.

7. Perception Mistakes of the Past and Present Igbo Leaders:

Igbo leaders from as far back as the early 1940s never stopped to bother about the major tendencies at play in the Nigeria they were very enthusiastic on uniting as the biggest country in Africa so as to, perhaps, enable them lead Africa. They never bothered to master the idea that Islamic fundamentalism is a dominant influence in northern Nigeria and that Igbo people would have fared better on their own or in a very loosely federated Nigeria in which the right to self determination with the right to secede, is entrenched in the Constitution.
Northern leaders never hid their preference for such an arrangement. Chief Awolowo’s 1947 book, “Path to Nigerian Freedom” revealed that at a conference of Northern emirs in 1942, a letter written to them by the West African Students Union, WASU, in London came up for discussion. The letter, Chief Awolowo disclosed, touched on many problems affecting Nigeria as a whole; and the WASU appealed to the Northern emirs and their peoples for cooperation with leaders and peoples of Southern Nigeria in tackling them in order to ensure peaceful coexistence between the two sections of the country. According to Chief Awolowo, the emirs’ comment on this appeal for cooperation, as contained in the official report of the conference, is as follows:                                                 "Security operatives holding this country together is not possible except by means of the religion of the Prophet [Mohammed]. … If they [the South] want political unity let them follow our religion." (Awolowo, Obafemi, Path to Nigerian Freedom, p. 51)                                                                                                         In other words, the condition given by the emirs for peace and unity in Nigeria was that Southerners must become Moslems and all come under the Sokoto Caliphate. As a consequence of these and other cogent observable factors, Chief Awolowo then warned that if Northern and Southern Nigeria must continue to live in one country, post-independence, special provisions must be made in the Nigerian constitutional framework to contain the huge cleavages between the two sections of the country. Dr. Azikiwe, Igbo foremost politician of the time, seems to have paid no hid to this development.                                                                                                             Sometime in the early 1950s this same issue resurfaced in a conversation between the one-Nigeria enthusiast and pan-Africanist, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe (Igbo) and Alhaji Sir Ahmadu Bello (Fulani religious cum political leader). Azikiwe had urged Ahmadu Bello to forget their differences and join him in building a united Nigeria. In his famous riposte, Ahmadu wasted no time in reminding Azikiwe that he had no values to share with him:
      “No, we cannot forget our differences. We will rather recognize them. I am a Moslem. You are a Christian. I am Fulani. You are Igbo. It is only in recognizing these differences that we can manage being together.”
Ahmadu Bello, as the premier of the Northern Region and leader of the NPC, the party that led the Federal Government of Nigeria, was the most influential politician in Nigeria from 1959 till his death in 1966. The Prime Minister of Nigeria (1959-1966), Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, was his party deputy and merely toed his party leader’s line.
Furthermore in 1947 Dr. Azikiwe led his party’s (N.C.N.C.) delegation to London to protest against the Richard’s Constitution in which he saw too much powers ceded to the regions as a device for causing the disintegration of Nigeria.  The Constitution came into effect in January 1946. Zik preferred unitary Nigeria and therefore opposed federation. In other words, Dr. Azikiwe was opposed to the concept of the right of the ethnic nationalities of Nigeria having a right to reasonable autonomy to mind their affairs.
In the 1954 Constitutional Conference, Azikiwe again, single-handedly opposed the inclusion of the right to secede for the federating units in Nigeria’s 1959 independence Constitution. According to him the country was “not a league of forced nations and it would be ruinous to include that right.
Despite all that had happened around the world from 1918 to 1979 on the right to self determination Dr. Azikiwe confirmed his opposition to the right to self determination as lately as 1979, in an interview he granted to Mohammed Haruna, political correspondent of the New Nigerian newspaper and published in three editions of the paper between March 8 and 10, 1979. Zik spoke as follows to the newspaper, as the presidential candidate of the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP), one of five registered by the military regime of Murtala/Obasanjo, which contested the elections that ushered in the Second Republic in October 1979.
“ In 1945, the Richards Constitution was promulgated. I opposed the division of Nigeria into three parts. I felt that regionalism was not in the interest of Nigeria and that it would lead to provincialism.
It means that we began to think in terms of our region and not one Nigeria. Then, I coined the concept of one Nigeria and the slogan ‘One Nigeria’. But is that not what we fought for in the civil war and is it not the basis of our new constitution? Well, if in 1945 my contemporaries felt that I was wrong and in 1949 conference at Ibadan, this Richard’s Constitution was endorsed and my party submitted a minority report which was brushed aside and 30 years later, the concept is found to be correct, don’t you think it is unfair to judge those of us who fought 30 years ago for one Nigeria with those who oppose One Nigeria?”
Yet, the concept of the right to self determination for nationalities in the political engineering of federations was not a new concept, even by then. As far back as 11th February 1918 Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of U. S. A. in an address to US Congress in Joint Session, whilst analyzing German and Austrian Peace Utterances towards the end of World War 1 (July 28, 1914-November 11, 1918), made his famous self determination speech after he announced his Fourteen Points on 8th January 1918, as follows:
“National aspirations must be respected; people may now be dominated and governed only by their own consent. Self determination is not a mere phrase; it is an imperative principle of actions which statesmen will henceforth ignore at their own peril.
Azikiwe confirmed he ignored the concept of the right to self determination to his own peril and that of his people.
Furthermore, in the Atlantic Charter, signed on 14th August 1941, by Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of United States of America, and Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, pledged The Eight Principal points of the Charter and defined the 8 points to include “restoration of self government to those deprived of it; no territorial aggrandisement; no territorial changes made against the wishes of the people . . .”
As already stated in 3.2 above, most of the decolonization that took place in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s and 50s flowed from the recognition given to the right to self determination as fundamental principle in nation building.
At independence in 1960, Sir Ahmadu Bello had articulated the Fulani world view of their intension to dominate Nigeria in his famous declaration reported in the now extinct Lagos newspaper, The Parrot of 12th Oct. 1960.
“The new nation called Nigeria should be an estate from our great grandfather, Othman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We must use the minorities in the North as willing tools, and the South as conquered territories and never allow them to have control over their future.”
Ahmadu Bello’s Deputy party Leader and Prime Minister of Nigeria was implementing that program to the letter until he was interrupted by the Jan. 1966 coup. The oligarchy countered; mobilized the rest of Nigeria, went to war and resumed the program. Today Nigeria is over 70% Islamized, with the rebellion of 12 Islamic Republics in the Upper North under Sharia and Nigeria being full-fledged membership of most world Moslem organizations, while Nigerian non-Moslem leaders, including even Church leaders of the rank of Cardinal of a major denomination, live in denial, deluding themselves that Islamisation of Nigeria is not possible.
Most Igbo leaders of today are so pathetically ill-informed on critical issues on Nigeria that whenever I interact with them, I weep for our people
Can someone tell me what Cattle Fulani herdsmen Islamic militants are doing to Nigeria unimpeded by any authority? Or explain to me what the Inspector General of Police is doing to the Senate leadership; in Benue State, in Taraba state, in Plateau state, in Ekiti state, even here in Enugu, where the herdsmen are fully deployed waiting for orders? 54 communities captured and occupied in Plateau State with their ancestral indigenous natives living as IDPs in refugee camps and the 54 communities renamed in Fulbe? Abduction, rape, forced conversion to Islam and marriage without parental consent of Christian under-aged girls everywhere in Nigeria, is no news since it happens daily! Killing all over Nigeria, even Christian priests in Churches and burning of thousands of Churches, over 500 in Benue state, next door to Enugu state, what is the meaning?

8. CONCLUSION - THE WAY FORWARD FOR PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE IN NIGERIA:

Be Informed: Nigeria must first study and understand what is going on. It is simply put, efforts to Sharianize Nigeria. To throw more light on the subject matter I am merely reproducing extracts from pp.290 and 291 of my book, ‘TO THE RESCUE:”
8.1.1. Sharia Defined: Sharia is the moral code and religious law of Islam which guides all aspects of Muslim life including daily routines, familial and religious obligations, and financial dealings. Sharia deals with many topics addressed by secular law, including crime, politics, and economics, as well as sexual intercourse, hygiene, diet, prayer, every day etiquette and fasting. Sharia Law is derived primarily from precepts set forth in the Quranic verses (ayahs) and the examples set by the Islamic prophet in the Sunnah (Hadith – the sayings, practices, and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad). Where it has official status, Sharia is interpreted by Islamic judges (qadis) with varying responsibilities for the religious leaders (imams). For questions not directly addressed in the primary sources, the application of Sharia is extended through consensus of the religious scholars (ulama) thought to embody the consensus of the Muslim community (ijma). Islamic jurisprudence will also sometimes incorporate analogies from the Quran and Sunnah through qiyas, though many scholars also prefer reasoning ('aql) analogy.
Differences in opinions over “questions not sufficiently addressed by primary sources” between different groups of ulamas (religious scholars) quite often, result in sharp differences/cleavages and frequently lead to violence between the sects led by different ulamas. The introduction of Sharia is the long-standing goal for Islamic movements globally, but attempts to impose Sharia have been accompanied by controversy, violence, and even warfare.”19
The contradiction between secular law and Sharia Law is further emphasised in the declaration that “The concept of crime, judicial process, justice and punishment embodied in the Sharia is different from that of secular law. The differences between Sharia and Secular Laws have led to on-going controversy as to whether Sharia is compatible with secular democracy, freedom of thought, and women's rights.”20
8.1.2. Sharia antithetical to Common Law & a Threat to Secular Democracy: Sharia Law, deriving from fundamentalist religious laws, quite often imprecise and leaving a lot of discretions to ulamas that are quite often not so well grounded in Civil and Common Laws (or if they are, put Quranic injunctions over and above any other Law), is antithetical to Civil and Common Laws and therefore inconsistent with secular democracy. In most secular democracies of the world, Sharia has proved unmanageable with Common Law. Controversies in managing the two have resulted in Muslims being involved in over 90% of all the wars/violence in the world.” Nigeria is a living example. In Ghana they constitute a clear minority of 25% and as usual, cause not as much problems. Most of Ghana’s Moslems are not fundamentalists, as in Southwest of Nigeria. Moderate Moslems are a lot more peaceful.
The Islamic fundamentalists’ attitude to secular democratic institutions is further exposed in their war cry “Allahu Akbar.”
8.1.3. Allahu Akbar: The war-cry, “Allahu Akbar” is invariably mistranslated in the Western media, including Nigeria, as “God is great.” But the actual meaning is “Allah is Greater Than Your God or Government.”It is the aggressive declaration that Allah and Islam are dominant over every other form of government, religion, law or ethic, which is why Islamic Jihadists in the midst of killing infidels, so often shout it. One primary purpose of this war cry is to 'strike terror in the hearts of the enemies of Allah.” (TO THE RESCUE – P.515)
8.1.4. Nigeria is therefore a mere slave camp in which the slaves do not even realize or accept what they are; but deceive themselves that they are free citizens in a constitutional secular democracy.

8.2. Peacefully Demand Liberation:
Oppressors have no conscience; neither do they listen to appeals. They therefore show no mercy, particularly when oppression is flavored with religious fundamentalism. Therefore the only road to freedom is to peacefully insist on liberation. Organize thoroughly and never give up until liberation is fully accomplished.
The late American Civil Rights Leader and Nobel laureate - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. elaborated extensively on this unconscionable disposition of oppressors in his 1963 letter from Birmingham jail to his fellow clergy-men from Alabama, in the heat of civil rights agitation in USA, in following words:
“Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. It must be demanded by the oppressed." 10
Rev. King was writing on American whites with whom the Blacks had no ideological divide. Both instead, were fellow Christians. In Nigeria, between Islamic fundamentalists/Jihadists; and non-Moslems, the fundamentalist Islamic doctrine is a dividing line - indeed a very wide and unbridgeable gulf, in spite of all pretences to the contrary (TO THE RESCUE, pp. 527-8).
The present demand for restructuring by Southern and North-Central Nigerian leaders is like putting the cart before the horse and is historically contradicted by Canadian, Scottish, Ulster, South Sudanese, South African and all known experiences in agitation for the right to self determination. It is either there is war or very serious agitation for independence, for meaningful restructuring to take place, like it happened in the countries referred to above.
I vehemently oppose war as much as Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower did express in his popular quote below:
“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” (TO THE RESCUE, p.429)
Eisenhower was the five-star General of the US Army, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe which defeated Germany during the World War II; first Supreme Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) (1951-1952); and between 1953 and 1961 was elected and re-elected the 34th President of U.S.A.
I lived through war for 30 months in Biafra and would not wish it, even to my worst enemy.
With Jihadists who are ready to obliterate everything - lives and property – war is out of the equation, leaving only pacifist agitation for independence as the only option left in other to achieve meaningful restructuring for all those who desire liberation from the present slave camp – Nigeria. Docility is the bane of the Nigerian elite, who in their comfort zones, are so afraid of their skins to take any chances. As it is generally known, to make an omelet, egg must be broken one way or the other.
Considering the past and current violent experiences of Nigeria and Hausa-Fulani proclivity for violence with no value attached to life, I stand with the resolutions passed on Friday July 28, 2018 in Enugu by Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF) that either Nigeria is restructured into six autonomous regions, which ‘shall freely determine their political status and shall pursue their economic and social development according to the policy they have freely chosen;” and also be completely responsible for its inviolable internal security; OR each ethnic nationality or identifiable groups, should be allowed to go its separate way and form their own independent nation-states.

Let us be guided by the sayings of sages who liberated their peoples:           Mahatma Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi of India:                                                              
"The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. He frees himself and shows the way to others. Freedom and slavery are mental states.”

Nelson Mandela of South Africa:
"An oppressive system cannot be reformed. It must be cast away."

The Southern and North-Central leaders are therefore advised to mind in their position of entrapping themselves in such half- free and half-in-chains proposals which Mahatma Gandhi dismissed as wearing enslavement as ornament for the oppressors, in another of his popular liberation quotes:

"When a slave begins to take pride in his fetters and hugs them like precious ornaments, the triumph of the slave-owner is complete."




BIBLIOGRAPHY
Onyesoh Chukwuemeka I. Prince: TO THE RESCUE – The Right to Self Determination, the Pathway to a Genuine Federation of Peoples with no Shared Values, Forum for the Promotion of National Ethos and Values (FPNEV), Enugu, Nigeria, 2017, pp. 116-203, 228-237, 289-365, 430-484, 490-540, 581-585 & 590 – 599.


All of the above presentation available in my blog: www.emekaonyesoh.blogspot.com.ng

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