- an excerpt from an interview granted to DAPO AKINREFON -
CHIEF Tola Adeniyi, is a foremost journalist and former Managing Director of Daily Times. In this interview, he stressed the need for restructuring of the polity into a confederal system as agreed at the Aburi, Ghana meeting of 1966 between Gen Gowon and Ojukwu, and other military leaders. Gen Gowon came bacl to Lagos and reneged on the Accord, thus plunging the nation into a 3-year Civil War. Chief Adeniyi suggests that the Aburi Accord is the only way out of the myriad of problems facing the country. Below is the excerpt:
Adeniyi: “To prevent us from becoming another Somalia, the president must send a bill to the National Assembly to start a process of confederation. Let every region be semi-autonomous and develop at its own level. That was the Aburi agreement.
“What was agreed on then was that there should be confederation. I am proposing that Nigeria should immediately go to six regions which Abacha created in 1995 and these regions should be semi autonomous. What will only bind us together will be defence, foreign policy and currency.
“What I am saying is that there is need for restructuring of the polity. We were forced into a marriage, the terms of which were never made known. They never consulted anybody and because we don’t have a nation, it also contributed a deal to the problems of Nigeria.
“We must have a confederation, we must have a nation and that is why we need to talk. We must have a national conference, people must come together to talk. We cannot run away from it. We must sit down and decide how to live togther as a nation”.
Ukachukwu where do you belong
Ukachukwu where do you belong? are one of those who are ashamed to identify with their igbo tribe or are you just using the name to cover up.
Ojukwu sensed that the coherence of the internal structure and fragment of the Igbo turned nation could become a global threat.He may have been afraid that in the process of this,the Igbo tribe could become the subject of a universal accord for ethnic cleansing.Thanks to the THORN( in the Igbo flesh),he also saw the runaway monster he was about to create.I suspect for this same reason,Ojukwu could have let the Biafra concept go.Because,let me surprise you,he didn’t love his people per say.He loved HUMANITY….everybody.A weak federal government he must have regreted would have meant a strong counter productive self destructive Igbo entity.Ojukwu let go Biafra because he saw that there was no forward or backward Biafra for the Igbos
Before a confederacy can work for others,the Igbos must remove the THORN in their flesh if to prevent what Nneka said about>not efik ijaw ogoni rebelion,the internal conflict among the Igbos themselves.But another problem is that if the Igbos become united in spirit,they become a domineering threat if not for Nigeria,for Africa.Ojukwu,a lover of humanity realized regretably and that’s why he(believe it or not)emotionally lost interest in the Biafra concept,that the unity of the Igbos would be a global nuisance.Actually there is no way for the Igbos forward or backward Biafra.Let the THORN be left alone.It is a firing pin of a huge nuclear warhead
are you an Igbo hater? afraid to identify with your kingsmen?
I could not agree more! Regional goverment is the way forward for this country.
Tola, were you in space when Gowon renege and refused to impliment an aggrement he freely entered into? If we must go back to Aburi, let those who waged senseless war against Biafrans admit their gult and compensation paid to those whose loved ones were murdered.
Na lie. Naija is not returning to any Aburi bull crap. We all had the golden opportunity and for only once and lost it. Those who made sure to kill are the ones calling for a return to Aburi and pouring all the praises on late Ojukwu because they feel guilty. Guilt is not enough to give anybody any Aburi, it takes uncommon commitment, guts, vision, etc that only Ojukwu possessed of all the cowards that have pretended to Nigeria’s leadership. Those I call guilty know themselves, so let them just go and invent their own Aburi, carve out a territory, declare it independent, then I will be in the front lines to show them pepper. It’s called retribution
If Yorubas want Aburi or secede, they should do so and break away. And maybe join Benin republic. After what happened during biafra, I as igbo will play caution and allow others to begin the next move first, then we decide whether, like Yoruba and Ogonis, we will play tricks or support them. Nigerian politics na so so cunny. But cunny man die, cunny man go bury am. Countryman una don hear?
My grandfather and my father’s generations heard this in 1967…from the yorubas. And before they knew it, they had a 30 cm knife deeply STUCK in their collective back by…the SAME crooked ngbati yorubas.
Never ever again. Once bitten…
Come to think of it, what is the name of that blood-thirsty CRIMINAL who theorized and FIRST practiced the iniquitous concept that Nigeria was a mere geographical expression. ? obaFamine awolowowo ! The wett ie engineer.
Igboka
hassan rigasa, he was defeated by whom? The combined population and army of the entire nigeria, the moslem world, soviet union, Britain and the whole of Africa. Don’t you people have any shame in you? Well, you will soon be run over by the sahara desert. boko haram is only adding petrol to your fire. No investors after nigeria must have been broken up.
nongeria, no sympathy for you. See how frustrated you are, with the same message all over the place. What a people.
Nneka of Igbo quenu fame, so you haven’t changed to your Itsekiri name.
THUNDER FIRE YOU!!!!
…too bad,the mistake o 1914 cannot be remedied now. It’s too late for that. All we need do now is to endure the force-marriage.It’s all.
President Odumegwu Ojukwu is shaking his head in biafran Paradise and saying, “I told you so” . Rest in peace the great patriot
Okey,
You see, people like you should go back and live in the past. What I trying to tell you is that even if Ojukwu had succeeded, there was going to be another war within the “BIAFRA” that was created vis a vis IGBO territory. The Rivers, Bendel, and other ethnic groups were going to rebel.
Ojukwu was going to include the oil producing region in the BIAFRAN territory. These people did not consider themselves IGBO. How were you going to reconcile that? Okey, you have to think before you speak sometimes.
Nneka for your information, Aburi is different from Biafra. You probably need a little lesson on what Mr. Adeniyi was saying.
Nneka
From your response in the web you are a known Yoruba apologist like most Igbo women. Some make Yoruba kids while married to Igbo man, I think you are one. We read your contest with Chike. It is unfortunate that you guys took such a stand. This writer went to Kwenu and saw what Onyibo said about Zik while running to Awo. Even Dora an opportunist ran to APGA after she terrorize Igbo traders. She did not invoke Ikemba’s name whose party she was about to rid. Fortunately she lost and continue to loose. Your men are asking for more genocide against Ndi Igbo. From Awo, Obj, Adekunle and many more, it is all over the net. Most of the observers of Igbo women with Yoruba men is like people that are intoxicated with voodoo. Ask your men while they hate Igbo men with passion. Any way we do not care. A lot of guys are believing the study on Igbo women. We hope that you did not have an Igbo man for husband maybe you just used him to come over. He could have done better. No single Igbo women’s group said anything about Madalla because they are all in bed with the killers and are scared to say something against them. Did you ponder why the west was not invited to south-south, Middle Belt and South East. The campaign is on against people like you who are at every point against Igbo progress. Yoruba women or Hausa women could have fought with their men but Igbo women were said to be waving flags to welcome the enemies. Some Nigerian women were asking why is it that Igbo women did not raise hell or demonstrate during Madalla, after all it is their children that were being massacred, my answer was they are in bed with murderers.
Bioseh,
Nneka is deep in anti-Igbo mentality. A case study.
He was never a president but rebel leader eventhough he was defeated and later pardoned.
Chief Tola Adeniyi,please be advised that “ON ABURI WE STAND” would have been of no significance if those crying for it now had listened to Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Chief Eronsile Enahoro, and Mallam Aminu Kano; that Nigeria would not survive as a Nation; Chief Enahoro(as the Chief Editor of African Pilot, owned by Nnamdi Azikwe) wrote series of editorial articles attacking Fredrick Luggard atrocities on Nigeria. Path to Freedom (circa 1956, 1957) by Chief Obafemi Awolowo Western Nigeria Press Ibadan). Tola Adeniyi, please look for these epistles, and re_educate yourself. Those who called Chief Awolowo, and Papa Enahoro Viz: TRIBALISTS, SEGREGATIONISTS, and PROPHETS of DOOM, are now embracing “On Aburi we Stand”. Mind you Chief Tola, Awolowo and Chief Enahoro were imprisoned 10 and 15 years respectively for engineering a breakaway from so_called ramshackled Nigeria. You see, as Jesus said, that the stone that the builder rejected finally became the “CORNER STONE” of the house. More for you to read Chief Tola; 1. The Treasonable Felony
(Trial) of Chief Obafemi Awolowo; 2: The Fugitive Offender (trial) of Chief Anthony Eronsile Enahoro. Aburi Accord would have been of no signifcance if people like Nnamdi Azikwe, Micheal Opara, Adegoke Adelabu, Tos Benson, Akinloye, Beyioku, Akinjide, and Onabule have LISTENED, and learned. Chief Tola Adeniyi,please for God’s sake, re_educate yourself, before passing on halfbaked historical facts to our children and children to come.
Ejire Omo Jegede@organization writes.
What are you talking about? Why do you want to live in the past? What good will that bring your so-called posterity? Should “the past address its present”? Yes. Nevertheless, it should not hinder the future. You have to move forward in your thinking.
No, not when some are still shouting murder and genocide. You have to go back to history. Solve the problem and then move on. Nneka.