The Sacred Federalists and the Sins of the Riverians

Yakubu Gowon

By Chinedu Ohaegbulam
The creation of old Rivers State alongside eleven other states in 1967, by General Yakubu Gowon, retired, and his Supreme Military Council Members – and probably, on the  superior advice of Great Britain and her western allies – was as already known, a ploy to balkanise and weaken the then Biafran secessionist dream. That the 11 other states were added or created, as it were, was a make-believe, just to add some level of credibility to the master war plan of the then military junta, whose sole aim rested on not only putting the secession on a precarious standing through raising stiff oppositions and fueling rabid hatred and animosity among the peoples of the hitherto brotherly, former eastern Nigeria and supposedly non-Biafrans. Based on the flimsy reasons adduced above, the social and economic viability of old Rivers State – which up till now is prospective – was not utmost  in the minds of the so-called all conquering Federalists, who in spite of the fact  that they feigned to have had the social, political and economic well-being of the peoples of old River State as a top priority, but later, turned out to become indeed, the worst oppressors; fanatical and bigoted exploiters than the wickedly maligned and mortally dismembered Secessionist crooks – that they carried out all sorts of demonic propagandas against. The all pervasive and awful stories of misdeeds; divide and rule, greed, heartless exploitations, psychological, emotional, mental, ecological and environmental emasculations, degradations and pollutions that have wedded Rivers State since its birth to the present, need more critical and articulate examinations, assessments with a juxtaposed clarity of thoughtfulness, moral justification and dispassionate analysis devoid of ambivalence. The Federalists, hood-winked the people into believing that they needed liberation from the dreaded, territorially minded Secessionist-illusionists, whose unrivalled global gluttony for the treasure - or, is it now called Black Gold? – of old Rivers State, was aggregated in their naive declaration of a Republic of Biafra, that had neither cogent reason nor fathomable rhyme. So, in order to check-mate the pipe-dream of the infidels, old Rivers State was carved out and coyly, the people swallowed hook line, and sinker, the purported projection and deceptive promises by the brilliant Federalists, that, their highly blessed land was going to be turned into another ‘Lagos’, by every ramification. To further buttress the idea and conviction, the so-called god-sent Federalists, showed their commitment, selflessness, seriousness, sincerity and tenacity of purpose, by moving a step higher, in 1969, they gloatedly, declared ‘abandoned’, all the properties owned by the Secessionist dogs; in their Brotherland, Sisterland, Cousinland, Uncleland, Nephewland, Nieceland, Auntyland!! Why not Motherland or Fatherland? You may ask, dearest sagacious readers: I agree with the erudite literary scholar and the most sought-after African novelist, Professor Chinua Achebe, completely, that, “Our 1960 National Anthem given to us as a parting gift by a British house wife in England, had called Nigeria ‘Our Sovereign motherland’ the Mother image. The current anthem which changed that first one was put together by a committee of Nigerian intellectuals, and in my view is actually worse than the first anthem. This second one invoked the Father image. So Mother image in the first one, Father image in the second one. But it has occurred to me that Nigeria is neither my [our] Mother nor my [our] Father: Nigeria is a child, gifted, enormously talented, prodigiously endowed and incredibly wayward. Being a Nigerian is abysmally frustrating and unbelievably exciting” [The above quotation was lifted from a key note address that Professor Achebe, presented at the silver jubilee lecture of The Guardian Newspapers late last year]. Then, to make it more tragic and more excruciatingly painful for the Secessionist interlopers – probably on the highly knowledgeable advice of Great Britain and her western allies who were properly schooled in war tactics and torture – Obafemi Awolowo, the then federal commissioner for finance and vice chairman of the federal executive council, scored a bull’s eye, by initiating, engineering, executing and commanding the merciful Federalists, to pay a ‘life-line-twenty pounds’, or rather, a mercy-killing or benevolent and magnanimous reparation to each and every one of the vision-less and gutless Secessionist, even when it was both factual and incontrovertible that very many of them had millions upon millions of crispy currencies stacked away in the vaults of banks – where their accounts were frozen - prior to the civil war. I can hear some derisive and raucous laughter of some people saying; it served them right, it is a penalty or penance that one pays for being stupid, foolhardy and by waging a war on the whole country and the Great Britain and her western allies. Really? Let’s once again, drink from the fountain of knowledge of one of the wisest and one of the most learned men from the East, in the same Guardian lecture of 2008: “My [Our] feeling towards Nigeria was of profound disappointment. Not because mobs were hunting down and killing in the most savage manner innocent civilians in many parts of Nigeria, but because the Federal Government sat back and let it happen. The final consequence of this failure of the State to fulfill its primary obligation to its citizens was the Secession of the Eastern Nigeria as a Republic of Biafra. The demise of Nigeria at that point was averted by Britain and the Soviet Union, which together crushed the upstart Biafran State. At the end of the 30-month war, Biafra was a vast smoldering rubble, the cost in human lives was a staggering two-million souls, making it, one of the bloodiest Civil Wars in history. I [We] find it difficult to forgive Nigeria and my[our] country men and women for the political non-challance and cruelty that unleashed upon us these terrible events, which set us back a whole generation and robbed us of the chance clearly within our grasps to become a medium range developing nation in the 21st century”. From the above soul-searching pronouncement of Professor Achebe, does the much talked about Rwandan Genocide, which the whole justice-loving world has condemned and War Crime tribunal or International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, set up to try the perpetrators of that dastardly act, not pale into insignificance if juxtaposed with the horrific Biafran experience? The deepest cut and the last straw that broke the back of the roundly disgraced Secessionists, was that paltry or akara money, after the philanthropic Federalists, had used starvation to torment them during the war. It made it extremely difficult for the dishonorable Secessionists to survive or rather, impossible for them to ever rise again as the visionary Federalists projected, for a long, long time, or, even centuries, to the social, political and economic ladder or prominence in Nigeria. It became a herculean task for them to even contest the forceful seizure of their hard earned properties, which to every enlightened, properly educated and civilised person was like stealing from a man at a gun point but here, it was made fashionable by the Government of the well-meaning Federalists. Even if the Secessionist fiends, wanted a redress in the most civilised way, they would have headed to the law courts, but litigations attract enormous war-chest – and the Onunaka Sam Mbakwes of Igboland, were rare at that critical hour of the abandon property imbroglio -  and such legal fees could quadruple when it involved a prejudiced Military Government, who held both the knife and the yam, whatmore when the glorious Federalists, were basking on  the euphoria of the haplessness and helplessness of the Secessionist vampires, who had just met their waterloo in the hands of British and Soviet Union ‘teleguided and telepathied missiles and crushing ideas’, ferreted through their obedient Federalist cronies or proxies; that even the invention of the first modern black Africa’s scientific and technological military might in modern times, that would have been dreaded today, like the bombs and missiles of the so-called advanced countries of the world - that is talking about ‘Ogbunigwe’; that highly feared weapon of mass destruction that would have put black Africa on vantage position to match some of the western world’s military excesses - could not contend. But rather, ‘Ogbunigwe’, attracted invaluable attention of Britain and her western allies, to gang-up, punish by crushing and destroying the nascent inventive genius of the over-ambitious aspirations of the upstart state of Biafra. Maybe, just maybe, if the demented Secessionists had some reasonable financial muscles and headed to the courts to seek justice and fair play, some justiceable judges and magistrates who still had some moral, legal and conscientious persuasions, would have stared the obnoxious law and policy of the victorious and magnanimous Federalists,  in the eyes and delivered some sound judgments – on how unwise it was to strip some bonafide Nigerian citizens of their inalienable fundamental Human Rights; sheepishly to favor some, while leaving others in the cold, believing that by favoring  and satisfying the sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, neighbors etc, of the Secessionist invaders, the all righteous and all knowing Federalists, would have given fillip to the Igbo saying that: ‘the most unforgettable and indelible injury that hurts and that one muses over in life, is the deep cut dealt in the palm by one’s sibling, intentionally’. Did the omniscient Federalists and their omnipotent Britain and her western protégés stop at the aforementioned so far? Mbanu! There were crooked, lopsided and disinheritance-concocted boundary adjustments; one man, a staunch peace-loving Federalist, the justiceable justice Irikefe, came handy and delivered an un-perverted judgment, by ceding some of the juiciest, fertile lands and gifted people of old Imo and Anambra states to the ‘Federalistically’ favored peoples of old River State and even beyond, knowing that, good and fine things were only deserved by and must belong to the real humans, which embody the superior blooded Federalists, and their gullible Riverians, who were not going to pose any problems, or trouble-shoot when the Federalist lords, come to reap or harvest the seeds that they sowed while fiercely battling the Secessionist animals – who always see themselves as the wisest and most profound gift to Nigeria and even beyond -  to liberate them and their resources rich land and water. Then, there was the Indigenisation degree of 1971/ 72, which was masterminded by the Yoruba god, visionary and anti-cultural chauvinism In-Chief, Federalist Obafemi Awolowo, where he handed Nigeria; lock and key or lock, stock and barrel, to his Yoruba peers, children, grand children, great-grand children etc, economically, so that even if poverty descends on the entire globe, the Yoruba will not feel the excruciating pains or impact so much, like the disinherited and born-to-suffer offspring of the Secessionist morons, whose future had already been bleaked, blighted and castrated from conception by the unholy dalliance of their fathers and mothers with a visionless cause that gave the Yoruba sage and hero and his grinning Federalist collaborators, the latitude to operate. No wonder, Obafemi Awolowo’s progeny, see and worship him as Oduduwa incarnate; only a little while ago, some of his children and grand children, boldly and emphatically voted him Nigeria’s greatest, most pragmatic, unrivalled or unequalled visionary leader – according to an opinion pool conducted by two or more ethnic-friendly, Lagos-Ibadan free press – Did Odimegwu Nwa-Ojukwu, that inordinately ambitious, treasure-hunting Secessionist arrow-head, not buttress the point so many years ago that, Federalist-cum- visionary Obafemi Awolowo, “was the best President that Nigeria never had”. When his children talk passionately about him, it is in appreciation of the numerous goodwill and legacies that he bequeathed to them and future generations, in the economic, social and political milieu; Prosperity and progress un-limited. Now, do you blame the Yoruba for laying claim to being the most educated, most sophisticated Nigerians? It calls for celebration or doesn’t it. These were some of the final burial rites and honors bestowed on the Secessionist revisionists and irredentists by the articulate and intelligent Federalists, who executed one of the bloodiest civil wars, ever known to humanity. But Britain, the Federalists god-father, the country with the enviable records of being the most diplomatic; excellently, romantically and cunningly non-frontal in her old Colonies’ social, political, economic and cultural conflagrations, but firm, rock-stead; eternally exploitative but self-effacingly dangerous, hard and irresistibly ferocious, if determined to devour an enemy when her national prestige, pride and universal-behind-the scene domineering activities were perturbed or challenged, provided her obsequious Federalists, with the incontrovertible timely advice to declare after the Nigerian Civil War; No Victor, No Vanquished, and decoded the meaning of the name of the amiable and British acquiescent, victorious Federalist General Gowon – GO-ON WITH-ONE-NIGERIA, a magisterial and majestic brand, full of compassion and patriotic fervor, which gave birth to the 3RS – Reconciliation, Reconstruction and Rehabilitation. And yet, when the generous Federalists finally routed the cowardly Secessionist bastards, in all ramifications, did they deem it wise and appropriate to keep to their original promises of turning the old Rivers State into the well deserved paradise on earth, like all other richly endowed hydrocarbon milieu in the world or even the one-one hundredth development status of the much hallowed ‘Lagos’ Nigeria? Did the selfless Federalists initiate special social, economic and developmental policies towards the total subduing of the difficult alluvial topography of the old Rivers State, that provided them the most important pedestal to punish and sledge-hammer the insubordinate Biafrans? Did the truthful Federalists remember the Riverians during the handing over of the national patrimony to the offspring of the Yoruba oracle, Obafemi Awolowo, in the days of the indigenisation decree execution? Did the straightforward Federalists command and instruct the oil and gas multi-national companies and their subsidiaries to, as a matter-of-factly, exigency, justice, and fairness, and truth, geographical location of the ‘goose’ or treasure, establish their operational headquarters in old Rivers State? Were these blood-sucking companies, leeches on the natural resources of the people, sternly informed and conditionally allowed assess into the creeks of old Rivers State, by the development conscious Federalists, to devote a great chunk of the resources and profits made from this heaven-cherished Canaanland and the gloriously-resources-lavished people, for the development of the dynamite ever-poking-for exploration and exploitation of the gifted continental shelf and alluvial environments, comparable to any or even surpassing some of the environments that share natural resources affinities with it? Did the big-hearted Federalists, who caressed the minds of the easily-deceived Riverians initially, with alluring and sweet talks – no, not propaganda – of how the idiotic Secessionists wanted their hydrocarbon so badly, that Odumegwu Nwa-Ojukwu, greedily and plan-lessly went into a war, a war of blame, in order to uplift his wretched immediate family and the rest of the of the famished but overzealous Secessionist urchins, out of the dungeon of biting poverty – decree after winning the war, that the so-called oil and gas fields and wells of the Riverians, be owned by the various families’ on whose terrains that the hydrocarbon had habitat and then, plead with them or persuade them to see reason and logic on a round table, the need or necessity, to accept a law or decree mandating them to pay a certain or specified percentage, as royalties to the central government, as their contribution for the development of the key sectors of the country? Did the holy Federalists, purge themselves of avarice, treasure-hunger, manipulative tendencies and power drunkenness – the same accusations that they lampooned Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Secessionist mammon-worshiping offender In-Chief, his elder and younger brothers in the plot to plunder the wealth of the innocent Riverians – and put the interests of the rescued and liberated people of old River State, for whose treasure that they did not fight for, but only executed patriotic and nationalistic duties – like they are still conscientiously doing today – or empower them from the beginning of the ‘new Nigeria’ that the celebrated with pomp and ceremony, after defeating the Secessionist minnows, so that they would have been able to hold their own, anywhere, in Nigeria, especially in their unfriendly terrain; becoming great achievers in almost every sphere of human endeavor  that they deemed fit to aspire to, that would have later translated into the controlling of all levers and gadgets in educational, academic, scientific, technological, social, economic and political etc, terms, in their geo-locality? Or, did the saintly Federalists, abnitio, set out to reduce the unfortunate Riverians to mere puppets, robots, paupers and beggars, who after being tricked by the wise ones, must wait for the crumbs from their masters and liberators table, like the scum bags and smug Secessionists, that  they aided their defeat? If the Riverians were also going to be treated or are being treated like the Secessionist common criminals that fought the Civil War and lost, would it be right to say their destinies emanate from one placenta or, from one umbilical cord, from an intended and inseparable heavenly union that some jealous and envious outsiders have succeeded in putting asunder? Does it then, prove the Igbo saying right, that, ‘when the eye starts crying, the nose must follow suit, or rather, the wild fowl that saw the way that the domestic fowl was being killed and dissected and went on a raucous laughter, the same fate awaits it the day that it shall be caught’. Did the squeaky clean Federalists, spare Kenule Saro-Wiwa, the fire-brand Riverian writer and environmentalist, who quixotically provided logistics and support for them to extinguish or finish-up the Secessionist beasts? Didn’t the inimitable Federalist geniuses, waste Kenule and his Riverian siblings, either by pitching them against themselves or, because they became sagacious, curious and agitated over the long years of injustices, inequities, rapacious and mindless exploitations of the peoples’ patrimony? Was it not their fundamental human rights to ask questions about their surroundings and the unquantifiable amounts of environmental degradations and pollutions going on there? Just like war-mongering Ojukwu and his kith and kins, asked General Yakubu Gowon and his harmony-loving federalists, about the genocide committed against the Easterners in the North at the wake of the so-called retaliatory military massacre of July 1966!! Is it not stupid and lacking in substantive evidence or argument that blood brothers would allow outsiders to join their heads or provide the guillotine on which siblings would be willingly wasted? Questions, ‘un-finisheable’ questions and more questions!! Welcome onboard the Eastern Liberation Ship; much touted, much maligned, much disgraced, much discredited yet much fought-for and much sang about; former Melford Goodhead, [ex-Baptist High School student, at No5, Moore House Street, PH] the Scripture Unionist and former strident town-crier for Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who switched pavilion and metamorphosed into Alhaji Mujaheed Asari Dokubo, and your co- Riverian travelers on the quest for the freedom of your peoples. Or, is it now called the Niger Delta, as a whole? Your ordeals so far, are just ‘Morning on Liberation Crusade Days’. The agitations have just begun, especially if you and your brothers and sisters in the creeks will have it at the back of your minds that you are dealing with the most merciful, most humane, most gracious and posterity-conscious Federalists, whose generational relay and baton hand-over is meticulously, historically, politically, economically and militarily structured, so that there won’t be a malfunction. Or else, the children of the ‘other fools’ might pick the gauntlet and cause some radical or revolutionary changes in the status quo – by probing and seeking the Truth that will prick the consciences of well-meaning women and men, the world over. The Riverians are often in the habit of chasing rats, while their homes are on fire!  One of the worst tragedies that befell Nigeria was when Dr.Nnamdi Azikiwe, was robbed in broad day light, in 1951, the chance at luminously placing the Nigerian Citizenship on a higher ground, from the political pedestal of western Nigeria. Did the visionaries and anti-cultural chauvinists of western Nigerian politics not cross carpet? Dr. Azikiwe, after all, was cunning, not to be trusted, unscrupulous cultural chauvinist with questionable patriotic, nationalistic, scholastic, intellectual and ideological credentials. His claims to national prominence did not come through hard work, vision, resilience, doggedness, sacrifices etc, so why wont the Federalist champions of One Nigeria, not deny Azikiwe the most conspicuous opportunity that would have taken the Nigerian citizenship to the next level, far above indigenship or the rabid tribal or ethnic tendencies and loyalties that have held it hostage for a long time? Dr. Azikiwe’s hypocritical and selfish cry of “let us wait for the North” was the typical call of a deceptive Secessionist. Today, the Nigerian Citizenship is worth nothing or rather, it is only attractive to the Federalist messiahs who have used it without let. There is no place in the present day Nigeria that the lopsided ideology of Citizenship has been more jeopardised, more weather-beaten, concussive and mindless, like the Federalistically indoctrinated Riverianland, which took its root from the period of the liberation struggle. The Riverians are held captive, obsessed and possessive of this dehumanizing and self-immolative belief. And the prime targets of this cultural hara-kiri, are the mammon-glorifying Secessionist Omu-isoma – the pun or infamous name that their Ikwerre kith and kins derisively and ignorantly call their brothers, sisters, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, aunties etc. Take a walk through the nooks and crannies of the Riverianland; ask the Kalabari, Okrika, Ogba, Ogoni, Eleme, Abua, Opobo, Bonny, Ndoni, Andoni, Ikwerre, Etche, Oyibo etc, which ethnic group that they would like to leave their land with immediate effect? In fact, ask them who they think from the bottom of their souls are the architects of their underdevelopment? Who should the adverse and obnoxious government policies be directed and enforced upon with reckless abandon among all the non-Riverians plying their trade in their wealth-magneting and honey abundant land? Who should first be dislocated, disinherited, violated, tortured, harassed and embarrassed if the government decided to carry out any kind of progrramme that is not people-friendly? Who should pay more taxes, levies and other sundry things, both legally and illegally; the unanimous answers will be; Omu-isom! Omu-isom! Omu-isoma! In a place like Omoku, there is a standing law by the people, that no Secessionist impostor should own a piece of land, or rather, no native should sell a space or plot of land to any Secessionist developer, for fear of God-knows-what! Incredible! This pariah status that the stupidly development- conscious Secessionists are placed in their so-called fatherland, is not only subjugating and disgraceful but also, a bold statement that informs them that the Nigerian Citizenship is a misnomer and anachronistic. Check this out: Do the Riverians know that one of the first – if not the first – native Africans to become a Mayor in Cleveland, in far away United States of America - who dreamed the American dream and realised through a dint of hard work, dedication, focus and sacrifices – was Reverend Onunwor; an illustrious Igbo son of Ikwerre extraction, from Oropotoma in Rumuomasi, Obio\Akpor axis of Rivers State, Nigeria. Yes, this Oropotoma son, this Ikwerre man, this Rivers man and this Nigerian citizen, an African gift to the United States of America, was provided the pedestal, conducive environment, even as a non-Caucasian, to dream dreams and accomplish his goals; facing life’s challenges that were daunting but not insurmountable. There are also some other Diasporan Riverians, who have achieved greatness, without being demonized, dislocated, having their means of livelihood demolished or bundled out of their host countries, without a just cause, because they are Kalabari, Okrika, Omoku, Ikwerre, Ijaw, Epe etc. An Ogoni son, who was on the campaign blazing trail of ‘Obama-Risma’; that African-American aura that has amazed and enveloped the entire globe, recently won an election into the New Hampshire State Assembly! What do you have to say about that, my dearest patient and sagacious readers? All hail the Nigerian State and the sacred Federalists that is full of wisdom, judiciousness and all the perfection of liberators!

Ohaegbulam is a Port-Harcourt, River State-based writer and social thinker