Some
Igbo leaders, yesterday, blasted former Chief of Army Staff, General Theophilus
Danjuma
(retd) over his comments that if former Biafran Leader, late Dim
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, had conceded defeat quickly during the 1967-1970
civil war like President Goodluck Jonathan did after the 2015 presidential
polls, Nigeria would have been saved one year of bloodshed.
Danjuma
spoke on Wednesday shortly after a closed-door meeting with President Jonathan,
who visited him at his Abuja residence. He said the President averted civil war
in the country by timely conceding defeat and congratulating Major-General
Muhammadu Buhari (retd) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), a move he said
Ojukwu failed to make and thereby causing the country avoidable blood shed.
Coming
at a time the Igbo are still seething over Oba of Lagos, HRM Rilwanu Akiolu’s
threat that Igbo living in Lagos would drown within seven days in the Lagos
Lagoon, if they did not vote his governorship candidate in tomorrow’s election,
Danjuma’s comments elicited caustic criticisms.
Reacting
to Danjuma’s comments yesterday, some Igbo leaders accused him of ridiculing
the president, insulting Ojukwu and continuing the genocide against the Igbo by
other means.
Among
those who berated Danjuma are former Secretary-General of Ohaneze Ndigbo
and officer in the Biafran Army, Col Joe Achuzia; Second Republic Politician,
Chief Guy Ikokwu; botched Third Republic Governor of Anambra State, Dr
Chukwuemeka Ezeife and former Deputy National President of the Nigeria Union of
Journalists (NUJ), Chief Abia Onyike.
He
is no longer strong mentally –Ezeife
Piqued
at the comments, Ezeife said: ‘’I know Danjuma is not very well. So I am not
surprised.’’
Igbo
will respond – Ikokwu
Alleging
that Danjuma killed Nigeria’s first military Head of State, General Ajuiyi
Ironsi (an Igbo), Ikokwu said General Danjuma will get a full response after
the elections because by talking about Ojukwu, he is talking about the
South-East and South-South geo-political zones, which constituted most of the
former Eastern Region and later the defunct Biafra.
His
words: ‘’I don’t think we should take issues with Danjuma until after the
elections. Jonathan went to him and not him to Jonathan. We shall respond to
him.’’
Danjuma’s
comments confirm the genocide against Igbo – Achuzia
In
his reaction, Col Joe Achuzia said: ‘’I am happy that my friend Danjuma owned
up that there was bloodshed and pogrom against the people of Biafra. I don’t
understand what he meant by Ojukwu conceding defeat. If the Federal Government
had implemented the Aburi Accord, the bloodshed would have been avoided.
‘’Ojukwu
believed in Aburi as the road map for peace at the time of the crisis but the
Federal Government reneged on the agreement reached in Ghana. One does not
concede defeat half way into a battle. Doing that would have amounted to
cowardice. I don’t know where Danjuma got the idea of Ojukwu not accepting
defeat from. He has little knowledge of the intricacies of the war. He didn’t
even know the terrain of the Enugu that he talked about. If the necessities of
capitulating were there, why did the war last for three years? I fought the war
for three years and I know that the necessities were not there. Sometimes
people talk for talking sake.
‘’The
President’s visit to him was a private one and he should not have used that
opportunity to insult all that Ojukwu stood for. To say publicly that the
President was defeated was even a mockery of the President. It does not portray
the President in good light. Of course what he said was an insult on Ojukwu.
His reference to the fall of Enugu is laughable because the war was just
starting then. Which military officer will surrender in that kind of situation
even before firing a bullet? When some people make wrong comments on the civil
war, I wonder what often inform their judgement. Ojukwu was a General and was
right on all the decisions he took in the interest of the Igbo.’’
His
comments ‘re diversionary – Onyike
In
a chat with newsmen in Abakaliki, Onyike, one-time commissioner for Information
and Orientation in Ebonyi State, said it was most unpatriotic of Danjuma to
make such comments at this point in the country’s political history.
He
alleged that Nigeria’s problem now is not from the Ndigbo but from Danjuma’s
North-Eastern zone occasioned by the Boko Haram and Hausa/Fulani herdsmen
insurgency, insisting that the General’s comments were mere diversionary
tactics deployed to denigrate the integrity of Ojukwu.
Onyike
said: “In the first place, it was Danjuma that backed the spilling of the blood
of the Igbo, with the killing of Aguiyi Ironsi in Ibadan in 1967 and we want to
say that Danjuma belongs to the group of Army Officers who led the gruesome
genocide and massacre of over three million Igbo during the Nigerian civil war.
“We
want to say that the problem with General T. Y. Danjuma is mainly psychological
because at a time when some of them felt that they had become great statesmen
and patriots for presiding over the attempted extermination of the Igbo,
unfortunately for them, the Igbo people survived and have come to assert
themselves and their identity in the Nigerian federation.
“Secondly,
a twist emerged in the Nigerian scene where people like Danjuma and the
minority group where he comes from in the Northern have been subjected to the
same gruesome murders by militant elements of the same northern oligarchy which
they serve, and to that extent Danjuma cannot go to his village.
“So,
let him go and resolve that problem first because when Ojukwu was making them
understand the nature of the Nigerian federation and the dangers inherent in
the politics that was emerging, Danjuma preferred to be a surrogate. So let him
stop using the Igbo to hide his inadequacies.”
Danjuma’s comments confirm genocide against Igbo – Achuzia
Reviewed by Unknown
on
Saturday, April 11, 2015
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