THE major reason why I write is to write sincerely on what I hold as sacred. To be forthright and truthfully venturing into projecting the corporeality, substantiality and materiality of our situation as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them. Unless and except excuses are to be propelled and proposed as ideals, the reality is this, our society is sick. To correct the ills and proffer solutions, I write. I have also come to the full realization that there is a difficulty to writing in a varied, diverse and heterogeneous climate into which this country of ours is situated. So the difficulty is not just to write, but to write what I mean. Not just to affect the reader but precisely as I wish. You have not converted a man because you have attempted to silence him…. Again, you should have known, you do not silence a man totally, who is capable of picking up a pen and writing. To my readers, the habit of being free drives a mind…. Writing enables one to be free, or largely free, from the domination of outward conditions…. Even good writings are worth very little unless we hold them in the broad, intelligent, and spacious way in our spaces – Let us all, friends and foe, walk along with each other, from at least one of us, the rest of us will be able to learn..! I make my writings harsh and hard, for that singular purpose, to not just express my anger but to want everyone to have a prescient mind, not to forget where and how words reign and liberty and freedom reside.
When the mind is thrown out, even the whole universe becomes a farce. I will continue to express myself freely! And will always write to affect my audience precisely as I wish, especially as we approach 2027. Something just must change! On this salient fact, there will be no compromise. Now, back to what matters going forward — For what is close to the end of the 2nd year running for this administration, never has any administration had as many issues, troubles as the Tinubu administration. This treatise has come up unto the forefront of our curry of convictions as facing The Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth.. Down the memory lane of a sonorous proverbial kind… And here again, as another recourse to rolling back the times… And as 2027 approaches, it becomes more important than ever to revisit its salient glimpses of times gone by. Let us therefore enjoy this rare glimpse of an inspiration that is safely relevant now than ever before…! Holding on to deceit as a weapon is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; in the end, you are the one who gets burned…
These are very interesting times… Nothing really might have changed, yet everything is somewhat a replication, recycling if you will, of the way we do things… I often wonder, why is it that anytime we truly try to make an effort at moving forward, we end up substituting a different evil, far more sinister than the one we are trying to run away from. To arrive at this postulate, I am wont to have to take you back, some may not be there then, but can still follow. It may have started sometime in the 60s perhaps the 50s but certainly many will remember the drumming on radio 📻 in the early 70s heralding the reading of the news of the day – Dín Dín Dìn Dìn Dín Dín, Dindíndín Din Dìn! The drumming is repeated, 3 times and variedly interpreted thus: “T’Ólúbàdàn bá kú ta ní ó j’oyè!”/”Kò s’ólòṣì ní bí, lọ sílé Kejì!”;/”Nínú ‘kòkò dúdú láti ń’ se ‘bẹ̀! ”In each of these interpretations, the answers are fairly easy, the statements are however, difficult!: The Ibadan chieftaincy succession plan is fairly sacrosanct as to who becomes the Next Olúbádàn”; ”The Unfortunate person clearly would not be associated as living in any one homestead, one would just have to look elsewhere!”; “The Grandma’s pots were pitch dark from the fires of the stone stoves and firewood flames, but therein lie the sumptuous and tasty stew and soup.!”At the 3rd repetitive drumming, we then gathered around the redifusion boxes, radiogram or any other device where the newscast could be heard from. Those were the days of Glorious journalism, when the news were to be believed and relied upon as representing the Truth! And so we gathered, dateline, January 15th 1970! One could not but notice the tinge to the voice that came over the radio, there was no trivia as the announcement came – “The Nigerian Civil War has now Ended! ”There was an unprecedented jubilation all over Ìbàdàn and yet the not so easy anxiety over those of our relatives, friends and acquaintances who may not be coming back as a result of a 30 month war that led to the death of over a million Nigerians…
Our cook and steward, Jimoh joined the Army, but never came back. Oroyo, our Ìgbò tennant in my maternal granddad’s shop at Àkúrẹ́ never made it back too. It all started from the January 1966 coup d’etat planned by the often misunderstood very well schooled, read, trained and largely patriotic young military officers and the counter coup of July 29, 1966, wherein the Supreme Commander Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi and Brigadier Adekunle Fajuyi were both killed. What followed were reprisal attacks in the North against the Ìgbò and the killings of Northerners in the southeastern part of Nigeria. Subsequent efforts by the OAU and Gen Afriffa of Ghana at finding peace between Gowon and Ojukwu in Aburi, Ghana failed. President Andrew Johnson of America received the surrender of the Rebel armies of the South of America on August 20, 1866 to signal the end of the American Civil War. Curiously, both President Andrew Johnson and General Yakubu Gowon, echoed same sentiments, at such different occasions ending both civil wars, that no country would be able to survive yet another civil war… American History is rich and illuminating… It is the history of a people who have consciously determined that they would rather live together but with the liberties 🗽of all federation units to be of foremost consideration! This singular determining factor has kept the American federation together.
And the lack of such has led to the breakup of the Soviet Union, arguably.
Only the deceived will not agree to the grave and precarious situation of the Nigerian federation as it is presently manifesting – 55 years after the Nigerian Civil War, fresh agitations are springing up from the same land of The Rising Sun and setting grimly through the nationalistic reverie of the Yorùbá toward an Oduduwa Republic. Nigeria, we have a problem!! To dismiss these clear and present agitations as mere expressions of a disgruntled few in both lands of the Rising and Setting of the Sun is to continue to sit on a seemingly dormant Volcano. Sadly, the last election was fought with great emotions and divisiveness that pitched tribe against tribe, religion against religion and Nigeria is the loser. One would have thought that a systematic engineering of great balancing would have been brought into governance by this administration, Alas, a clear winner takes it all disposition, is clearly the modus operandi.
Can the glaring inequalities, the lack of the sense of belonging, the seemingly oppressive tendencies being wrought through the judiciary, simply continue, without reprisals of some sort? We have the Realities of Boko Haram and other Terror groups in sophistication of military operation against the State.
The Nigerian Delta armour may not have been completely sheathed and the Ìgbò once showed serious capabilities of what they can do with technology during the Civil War and are still today in the forefront of those equipped and having great potential in technology, either for peace or for war.
These are clear realities that befall my country Nigeria.
Unfortunately, we are the very best in dismissals and playing the Ostrich.
But for those that have regard for Truth, History and Reality, it is time to find a way to calm nerves and restore Trust.
Unfortunately, the National Conference of 2014, which might have helped some, is Now Dead!
I have read many books on the Nigerian Civil War.
The one that has ingrained a lot into my consciousness is the book 📖 by Frederick Forsythe, “The Biafra Story”, in which he concluded that the federating unit that lost the most in terms of enlisted soldiers who died during the war, was the Yorùbá! How true is this?
Allmi know is that Yorùbá officers were the very ones with history repeating their exploits, bravery and Intellection that finally secured victory for the Federal side.
On what may continue to be the story, history and opinions about the unfortunate Civil War, one thing stands as the wish of all—May we Never Again experience another civil war in Nigeria. Easy to say, easy to pray, but those who prey on Nigeria, seeking her and trolling her path toward a war of sorts are unrelenting. One just has to look back on the recent events regarding how history is repeating itself in the handling of matters between Wike and Fubara in Rivers State with Wike clearly being backed, supported, by both the Executive arm and the judiciary, more like what Premier Akintola enjoyed to remember the situation in Western Nigeria that eventually led to the first coup, the second coup and eventually to the Civil War.
And, no amount of denial can ever remove or erase the Truth. By celebrating the longest span of Democratic experience yet, the about getting to the 26th year is nothing is we don’t put our acts together. The suspensions here and there are still reversible unless we are that obdurate and hell bent in Nigeria seeking for Nous yet ended up finding the Noose!
- Mogaji Adejumo writes in from Ibadan
READ ALSO: How civil war scuttled my ambition to study at University of Ibadan —Okwara
and then