Nigeria's Coming Civil War

Nigeria's Coming Civil War
Guardian, Sunday, 3 June, 1967

Having broken apart, Nigeria is now preparing for civil war. Major-General Gowon, who was promoted from Colonel yesterday, is apparently ready to follow up his blockade of the breakaway east - now called Biafra - with a full-scale invasion. In this he presumably expects the support of Nigeria's partners in the Commonwealth and her fellow members of the UN and the OAU - at least the tacit support of respecting the blockade and not recognising Biafra.

It will be a futile war. It is unlikely to unseat the embattled government of Colonel Ojukwu, and even if it does, it will not achieve the declared aim of restoring a workable federation. For most of the Ibo, who predominate in the east, last year's massacres in the north - and their implied end to the free movement of Nigerians within their country - meant the effective end of the federation. To follow this up by an invasion would merely be to drive a nail in the coffin. Biafia's non-Ibo minority is admittedly divided: some supporting Ojukwu's regime and others opposing it. Also, the presence of more than a million refugees - and the possibility of another million now arriving - has stored up a host of social and perhaps political problems for the self-proclaimed republic. But while the threat from Lagos lasts, support for Ojukwu will remain overwhelming. Invasion can only reinforce it further.

In reality it would not be a federal war as much as a northern one. The Yoruba of the western region are divided. Chief Awolowo, hitherto their most popular leader, has said - and apparently confirmed it after Biafra's secession - that the west would not wish to remain in a truncated federation. This section of the Yoruba, at any rate, would hardly support an invasion of Biafra. Similar reservations have been openly expressed in the midwest region.

In so far as it would be a northerners' war, one of its main objects would be revenge against the easterners for having dared to challenge federal, which is primarily northern, authority. One party in the north, at any rate, appears to want to teach the Ibo a lesson without any corresponding desire to keep them as federal partners. But the easterners are not the first to contemplate secession. The north openly threatened it in 1960 unless it was guaranteed half the seats in the federal parliament. It threatened it again last year unless General Ironsi repealed his "unitary decree". It proposed it once more in July and indeed, secession appeared to be Colonel Gowon's original intention when he assumed office. Now it is the easterners who have departed.

A deeper northern motive would be to secure the landlocked region's outlet to the sea. One of the two routes, through the east, is already blocked and the other, through the west, would be threatened if the west were to break away also. But could it be kept open in a federation maintained by force? The violent disorders in the west in 1965, in protest against the northern-backed regime of Chief Akintola, suggest that it could not. If Nigeria does break up, nothing could ensure the evacuation of northern produce more effectively than a Common Services organisation. This is perhaps the best solution to the Nigerian crisis. It is the kind of arrangement the north itself proposed in July last year - and the east has been proposing since then. Now, no region would benefit more from it than the north. By insisting on war the northerners would risk destroying their own vital interests.

Inevitably, outsiders have been drawn, into the conflict. The big shipping and trading companies, who have larger interests in the north and the west than in the east, are observing the blockade. The oil companies, whose exports all originate in the east, are in a different position and may be anxious for Biafra to be recognised. Britain could hardly do this until Colonel Ojukwu's breakaway regime has proved itself firmly in control. But we should immediately make it clear to General Gowon that our only interest is in a stable solution and that war will bring this no nearer.

Jos, Gaddafi and Nigeria's Federalism

By Okachiukwu Dibia, Daily Independent

I pity those people who are surprised about the recent killings in Jos, the Plateau State capital in Nigeria. Certainly, if they know the cause of the killings, they will not be. The killings are as a result of the refusal of Nigeria to allow the different and diverse ethnic nations that make up the country to gather as equals, discuss and determine WHY and HOW they can live together. The nations of Nigeria must do this discussion in order to correct the mistake and imposition of 1914, strengthen the ethnic nationalities in their quest to develop themselves, recognize themselves as equals, voluntarily agree to become Nigeria and prepare their own constitution. This will reduce the aggressive domination by the big three ethnic groups, reduce suspicion and embrace one another. If this is done, we will discover that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with ethnicity. The nations of Nigeria must gather and do this discussion otherwise the killings may continue.

Today it is Jos, yesteryears it was Aba women’s riot of 1929, Ahmed Bello’s rejection of living together with others in Nigeria, Awolowo’s “tribalism” against Azikiwe in 1952, Tiv riots, the election crisis of Western Nigeria, nine military coups between 1966 and 1993, Kano riots of 1966, Isaac Adaka Boro’s uprising, Nigeria-Biafra civil war of 1967-1970, Maitatsine uprising, Zangon-Kataf killings, Amuleri-Aguleri clashes, Ife-Modakeke killings, Tiv-Jukun-Idoma crisis, Ogoni genocide and the killing of Ken Saro-Wiwa 1995, OPC killings, Urhobo-Itsekiri-Ijaw killings, Choba killings and rapes, Odi genocide, Umuechem killings, Rumuekpe killings, Niger Delta crisis, Boko Haram, etc. These are the manifestations of the problem and they shall continue in different shapes and shades, cloaks and appearances until the discussion of Nigeria by Nigerian nations (not the national or state assembly as constituted today) is given a sincere chance.

Because of the way these manifestations appear, people in error blame ethnic intolerance. Some out of deep ignorance will claim that there is nothing like ethnic nationality; yet they forget that in the literature of the science of leadership (Political Science), Nigeria is a state, not a nation. It is those composite ethnic groups that are correctly called nations. How could these different nations trust themselves when they deeply suspect each other and do not respect or give due recognition to each other? These are things that must be discussed, agreed on and let to evolve; they cannot be by fiat or decree. But the big three (Yoruba, Hausa-Fulani and Igbo) will insist that Nigeria be run as it is today because they are forcefully dominating and are in-charge. They have labelled the rest of Nigeria as minority ethnic groups who must be led, controlled, exploited, dominated and marginalized. To the ordinary natives in these minorities, these must be resisted, no matter how subtle and small. So, it is in the course of the minority native Berom relating with the mighty Hausa-Fulani in Jos that the conflict is automatically ignited and killings follow. This type of resistance by the commoners at the local level does not bring cash into the pockets of the locals; rather it brings destruction of properties and killing of human beings: characteristics of a true clash of two different ideas or interests.

On the other hand, elites from these marginalized minorities resist it by arguing for resource control, one Nigeria, human and women rights, reduction in HIV/AIDS, reproductive healthcare that favours abortion and sex education for infants, nude and indecent behaviours, fiscal federalism, building of infrastructure, even development, fanning the embers of indigene-settler hatred and other pseudo solution that will always put more unholy cash into their pockets. They have insisted on resource control instead of resource development; creation of states and local governments instead of ethnic states; federal character and zoning systems instead of self determination for the ethnic states; building of infrastructure (their easiest and cheapest means to transient dubious wealth) instead of guaranteeing development rights to the nations of Nigeria; RBDA-OMPADEC-NDDC-Ministry of the Niger Delta instead of resources and talents development via free education; state extra-judicial killings( of Ken Saro-Wiwa, Obi Wali, Claude Ake, Boko Haram followers, etc) instead of engaging them in extensive discussions, enlightenment and dialogue through the Sovereign National Conference (SNC). The Sovereign National Conference will not lead to the break-up of Nigeria; rather, it will consolidate it.

Another dubious solution from some Nigerian elites is that there should be nothing called indigenes in Nigeria because every group migrated here. But who migrated here first? They neglect this question and proceed to argue that single citizenship is the solution to ethnic hatred and suspicions. But Nigerian citizenship must evolve from ethnic Nigeria. This was why Carl Fredrick, one of the key scholars of federalism, said that federalism is a process of disaggregating and aggregating the characters of the societies that make up the federal state. Therefore, it is immoral and unacceptable to dissolve the blood of my ethnicity in me and inject Nigeria into me without my consent. What should be done is to recognize my ethnicity, and allow and guarantee it within one Nigeria. This way the nations of Nigeria will develop themselves based on what they are and have; and they will gather as equals at the centre to celebrate the real beauty of unity in diversity. This is the case in the European Union (EU) today. The EU is an evolution from ethnic Europe. EU cannot be united first before the unity of its component units; rather, the units will unite first and move that unity of the differences to form the unity of the EU. Down the line, the EU may form a true federalism in the future. This unity in diversity is the essence of federalism. We must not force federalism on different peoples and expect less volatile resistance.

The strength and beauty of Nigeria lies in the progress of its different and divers peoples. As long as these different peoples are underdeveloped, Nigeria cannot be developed because all the ingredients of development are located in ethnic Nigeria. For instance, Abuja does not have the needed resources with which to develop the Kanuri in Nigeria. Allocating funds from the federation account breeds laziness and underdevelopment of the ethnic groups. The Kanuri have the resources with which to develop themselves. Such ingredients of development include their environment, resources, talents and occupations. Any development efforts outside these ingredients cannot succeed, despite growth in infrastructure. Nigeria’s strength is and lies in her ethnic nationalities. The health of a system can be seen from the health of its sub-units. For example, if the parts of a human body become dysfunctional, can the body perform effectively?

Uncle Gaddafi should be forgiven because he is ignorant of what the peoples of Nigeria need for their development. For example, my people of Ikwerre do not wish to secede from Nigeria, rather, we want the Nigerian state to be restructured into ethnic states and be allowed self-determination, development rights and recognized not as a minority but as a nation in Nigeria. In that nation, all religions should be allowed to flourish as long as the people need them. Ikwerre do not agree to North-South or any other type of splitting of Nigeria. Those ethnic people that cannot be wholly found in one state should be allowed to live in any state of their choice or be regrouped into states of their own. Living in other states must be on conditions that can guarantee peace and cordial co-existence. For example, in Ikwerre, we have Hausa-Elele who are neither interested in directly ruling Rivers State nor producing the traditional head of Elele. They live in Elele peacefully, happily and enjoying themselves in Rivers State.

The strength of this approach lies in the strong belief that as long as the nations of Nigeria never discussed the why and how they can live together, this should be done. This is needed because we are different peoples with different cultures, resources, attitudes, etc. After that discussion, the nations of Nigeria will voluntarily agree to have Nigeria (the social contract) and quickly, they will organize the constitution of the nations of Nigeria to be called the people’s constitution, according to Chief Gani Fawehinmi. The continued absence of this all important discussion, voluntary agreement to be one Nigeria and the people’s constitution will continue to breed suspicion, hatred and intolerance between indigenes and settlers or minorities and majorities such that Jos will happen again and Gaddafi will continue to advise us wrongly.

First, Do No Harm

By David Rieff, The New Republic

In 1940, as the Wehrmacht marched into Paris, Simone Weil wrote in her journal, “[T]his is a great day for the people of Indochina.” The remark is generally greeted with horror, by respectable opinion in Western Europe and North America, anyway, and mocked as an emblematic instance of the European (and by extension, American) self-hatred that the French writer Pascal Bruckner had in mind in his book, The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism. At first glance, even allowing for the fact that Weil’s observation did not impede her from trying to volunteer to fight for the Free French against the Nazis, the scorn heaped upon her by writers like Bruckner seems warranted. Weil was indeed filled with self-hatred, and like the medieval Christian mystics fetishized suffering, writing in Gravity and Grace that it “saves existence.”

But there is a problem with such dismissals: As a matter of historical fact, Weil was also incontrovertibly right. The collapse of the French empire in Indochina made independence possible. Anyone doubting this need only look at the fact that when the Nazis were defeated one of the first things the French did was re-establish their rule, successfully demanding at the Potsdam Conference in 1945 the return of their possessions in Southeast Asia. This was not India, where to Churchill’s discomfiture, by the end of the 1930s, British elite opinion was increasingly coming to the view that independence was inevitable. To the contrary, when a French army under General Leclerc—the same General Leclerc who had been one of France’s great heroes in the fight against Nazism, and whose 2nd Armored Division had liberated Paris in 1944—arrived in Saigon in October, 1945, it was with the intention of definitively crushing the Vietnamese independence movement. It would take nine years of war, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and tens of thousands of French dead, and General Giap’s victory at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, for Vietnam to secure its independence. Had Simone Weil not starved herself to death (whether intentionally or unintentionally is not clear) in Kent in 1943, refusing the extra food she needed because it was more than the official ration for her fellow-citizens in Nazi-occupied France, she would have been within her rights to say that the victory over Nazism was a black day for the people of Indochina.

The questions raised by Weil’s almost obscene historical dispassion—and surely it is the most extreme argument against interest any philosopher has ever advanced, with the possible exception of Nietzsche’s atheism of the abyss—are anything but matters of historical curiosity. The world does not just look different depending on where you are from, what nation, people or tribe (or in many cases, gender) you belong to, your social class, or your faith or the lack of it, it is different. I have chosen to begin with Weil’s example because of its ferocity and the discomfort and unhappiness it must necessarily evoke (I certainly feel it). But the same could be said of practically every great historical conflict with global implications. If you are a Navajo, you would have to be insane not to feel differently about the establishment of the United States than, say, an Italian-American. If you are a South Asian with any historical memory at all, you are hard-pressed to accept the narrative of the conflict between Britain and Japan in World War II as one between good and evil.

This should be obvious. But when liberal internationalists speak about military interventions on human rights or humanitarian grounds, or even about democracy-building or promotion without any use of military means, it seems to me that they too often lose sight of this, or at least fail to take its implications sufficiently into account. One of the most important points Richard Just made in his recent strong, fair-minded, and passionate response on this site to my opposition to liberal interventionism as a matter of principle (rather than simply whether intervention is wise or warranted in a particular instance), is that opponents of interventions in Darfur, or Sierra Leone, or Kosovo, or Burma—obviously, examples abound in this charnel house we call a world—think they know better than the people who are victims of ethnic cleansing, mass atrocity crimes, or genocide. In a Darfuri refugee camp, he says, rightly in my view, people view military intervention to protect them as something devoutly to be wished for.

How can anti-interventionists pay so little heed to the views of the victims? It is a fair question. I would respond first as an American: I do not want my country to be the world’s policeman, even in the most humane sense of that word. It seems to me that assuming this role has been a disaster for the United States. As W. H. Seward said in his eulogy to John Quincy Adams, “democracies are prone to war, and war consumes them.” For make no mistake, these military interventions on humanitarian or human rights grounds are wars, not armed philanthropy. Sorry, the military-industrial complex is no myth. Our power to intervene in Darfur is inextricably linked to other elements of our hegemony, and to the militarization of our society and our economy. Like it or not, support for the former, no matter how high-minded, idealistic, and compassionate (unlike some, I have never doubted the moral sincerity of the liberal interventionists), entails the perpetuation of the latter.

I believe that it is at long last time for us to stand down, and that not to do so is the true existential threat to the American republic. But if we insist on leading, let us lead by example, not by the projection of power, whether hard or soft, just as John Quincy Adams suggested we do in his great Independence Day speech of 1821. In the tradition of Adams, I wish Egyptian, Iranian, Burmese, and, for that matter, Chinese democracy well, but I do not see why the United States has the duty to ‘promote’ it, except, again, by example. It is not so much that I question our good intentions as I do our wisdom. America is a remarkable country in many ways, but I would say that, historically, wisdom has not been our strong suit—and to intervene, above all militarily, without wisdom is a recipe for disaster.

That said, I agree with the liberal interventionists to this extent: There are indeed exceptional cases—limiting cases, to use the old Philosophy 101 term—where an intervention to stop mass killing is practicable and where one should not let a foolish consistency, in Emerson’s famous phrase, trump one’s humanity. Rwanda in 1994 is probably the most clear-cut example of this (I have always been extremely doubtful that the same can be said about Darfur, but that is a debate for another day.) But in my view, the presumption against intervention should be overwhelming, whereas for liberal interventionists, the idea that it is America’s duty to “further the cause of liberalism and human rights,” as Just puts it, inevitably loads the deck in favor of intervention, though not, of course, in every single instance, and by no means necessarily by military means. The liberal interventionists call is a call to the barricades of international justice. Bluntly put, it is a call I think the United States answers at its peril. That peril is called empire.

This time is different, liberal interventionists say. Cecil Rhodes may have said that imperialism was philanthropy plus 5 percent, and we may be citizens of countries with imperial histories (recent ones at that), and our countries may have created and still dominate the current international world order economically, politically, and in the case of the United States, militarily, but imperialism? What has that to do with liberal interventionism? History is bunk, as Henry Ford said, and Cecil Rhodes be damned: This time our intentions really are pure.

Can we really be so sure of our motives? Is the history of humanitarian intervention, which historically has always been justified on human rights and, at times, even public health terms not overwhelmingly one of great powers exerting what at its kindest must be called political hegemony? And is that really so irrelevant? Richard Just has argued in a review in this magazine of Mahmood Mamdani’s recent book on Darfur that the real imperialists are the dictators in Rangoon, Khartoum, or Kigali in the Hutu Power days, not the liberal interventionists. And Just’s point about the true character of these regimes is essential, and, in my view, unarguable.

Where he goes wrong, I think, and badly wrong at that, is in deriving from this the belief that this somehow means the interventionists aren’t also imperialists. The justification for this view is that the victims themselves want us to respond; they want our protection. But which victims? In my earlier column, I tried to make two points: that today’s victims are often yesterday’s or tomorrow’s victimizers; and that, in any case, to speak of victims and victimizers is to leech people of their agency, and their history.

Rwanda, where, in point of fact, I agree with Just that an outside military intervention in 1994 to stop the genocide should have taken place, is a case in point. When I say, with regard to Rwanda, that today’s victims are tomorrow’s victimizers, I am not talking about the fact that when his army defeated and expelled the Hutu power genocidaires, President Kagame established a dictatorship. I imagine most liberal interventionists with any familiarity with the Great Lakes region of Africa would concede the point. What I am talking about is that the new Rwandan government—the government of, yes, the victims—promptly went on to foment a war for resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that has led to the deaths of many more people than perished in Rwanda in the genocide (though these were overwhelmingly due to the destruction of infrastructure—medical first and foremost—rather than deaths in combat or massacre of civilians). About this, when you meet with them, the Rwandan officials who rightly claim the moral credit for having halted the genocide of their own people when the world stood by and watched are either blandly indifferent or frankly contemptuous.

If liberal interventionists were consistent, they would have been demanding an intervention against the Kagame regime as it laid waste to Congo with at least as much fervor as it did when it demanded an intervention to stop the genocide of the Rwandan Tutsis, or as many have been demanding with regard to Sudan. It is true that it would be impossible to intervene everywhere. In some places—Tibet, say, or Chechnya—it is impracticable. By contrast, a Congo intervention in the late-'90s was technically feasible. But unlike Rwanda, or Kosovo, or Darfur, Congo did not engage the liberal interventionists politically. And that is what liberal interventionists never seem willing to face.

Intervention is taking a side. It is a political act. Yes it is important to speak of victims. But it is anything but morally dispositive, and no one should fall for the mainstream humanitarian claptrap (the International Committee of the Red Cross and the French section of Doctors Without Borders are honorable exceptions to this tendency) that we outsiders are just seeking to help the victims, and have no other agendas. Bernard Kouchner and the French doctors in Biafra did humanitarian work, but they supported Biafran secession, not just ‘the victims.’ What the U.S. government today wants the aid agencies to do in Afghanistan is contribute to the defeat of the Taliban; it’s hearts and minds redux, nothing less, nothing more, even if the best American aid workers themselves are privately appalled by the situation in which they find themselves. And many of the Darfur activists—Gerard Prunier and Eric Reeves come to mind—were admirably transparent about their support for regime change in Khartoum.

The liberal internationalists say that, difficult though it may be, it is our duty to try to help the victims, and to further democracy and to stand up for human rights. To do anything else is to turn our backs on those who most need our intervention, which is unconscionable. As Richard Just puts it, we must at least try to respond when “severely oppressed people tell us they want our help,” rather than, as he holds anti-interventionists like me would prefer to do, delivering lectures about their “failure to appreciate the odds of unintended consequences or the possibility that they themselves might become ‘tomorrow’s victimizers.’” But it is not a question of lectures but of limits. After Kosovo, after Iraq, after Afghanistan, and, yes, after Darfur, we should recognize just how faulty is our understanding of these places where we would intervene.

Yes, many people in these places want us to intervene (though many people do not—something interventionists rarely acknowledge when they gild their appeals with the moral authority of local wishes). And yes, it also is important to understand what people want from us. But this understanding should not, in and of itself, make intervention a moral imperative.

To come back to Simone Weil’s point, salvation for one group of people can be damnation for another. Is the de facto Kurdish state we secured by overthrowing Saddam worth the de facto ethnic cleansing of the Christian minority and the Yazidis who enjoyed Saddam’s protection and are now the victims of the Kurds and the Shia government in Baghdad? I am not wise enough to say. It depends on whether you’re a Christian or a Kurd, I suppose. But whatever else it is, despite what liberal interventionists say, the moral calculus in Iraq was not clear-cut, and, as a general matter, absolute distinctions between victims and victimizers rarely reflect realities on the ground. Again, of course there should be limiting cases. To exclude them would indeed be immoral. But in the words of the Hippocratic Oath, “First Do No Harm.”

And what has turned me into an anti-interventionist, beyond the moral and economic carnage I believe the American empire has wreaked on the American Republic, that is, is my sense that the interventions of the past two decades have at the very least done as much harm as good, and probably much more. ‘In dreams begin responsibilities,’ wrote Delmore Schwartz. But in my view, it is our democratic dreams themselves that are irresponsible.

David Rieff is the author of eight books including A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis.

Why Isn't Anyone Pointing Fingers at Hamas?

By Kenneth Bandler, Fox News

Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the Hamas regime ruling Gaza, has admitted to rejecting the humanitarian assistance delivered on the Rachel Corrie and six other ships diverted to the Israeli port of Ashdod for security clearance. “We are not seeking to fill our (bellies), we are looking to break the Israeli siege on Gaza,” he said.

Haniyeh’s admission is proof-positive there was little need for the supplies on board the ships that sought to land in Gaza. International media reports of full shelves in Gaza belie the prevailing myth that this small territory between Egypt and Israel is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis akin to Biafra or Darfur.

Not that life is comfortable for the estimated 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. But misery in the land called Gaza began shortly after the Arab world, in 1947, rejected the UN Partition Plan, the two-state solution of the time. Egypt seized the territory during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and its 19-year occupation of Gaza was not pleasant, nor were there any proposals to create a Palestinian state.

Israel immediately sought to negotiate, in exchange for permanent peace, the return of territories captured in the 1967 Six Day War. Egypt pointedly did not want Gaza when Anwar Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. Similarly, Jordan abandoned any claims to the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, the territories it had occupied from 1948-67.

When Israel withdrew its civilians and military from Gaza, and transferred the territory to the Palestinian Authority in 2005, the Palestinians had a golden opportunity to create a foundation for an independent state. It was a chance to realize the vision of the 1993 Gaza – Jericho First agreement Israel had signed with the PLO, so quickly doomed as the Palestinians resorted to devastating suicide bombing campaigns in Israeli cities.

Tragically for the Palestinians, the aftermath of Israel’s total withdrawal from Gaza has not fared much better, as their own leaders again squandered the opportunity. After the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, the Quartet -- the United States, European Union, Russia and United Nations -- asked Hamas to recognize Israel, accept all existing Israeli-Palestinian agreements, and renounce terrorism, so the group could join PA President Mahmoud Abbas in peace talks with Israel.

Hamas refused. Its defiance invited the international boycott of Gaza, cemented after Hamas violently seized control in a coup against the PA three years ago. The blockade has been international, not Israel’s alone, and it has been partial. Israel has consistently delivered tons of humanitarian needs, including food, clothing, and medicine.

It is not a siege. “Grocery stores are stocked wall-to-wall” along Gaza City’s main thoroughfare, and “pharmacies look as well-supplied as a typical Rite Aid in the United States,” Janine Zacharia of The Washington Post reported days after the May 31 flotilla incident.

Supplementing the weekly truckloads of humanitarian basics entering Gaza from Israel, enterprising Palestinians have dug hundreds of tunnels under the border with Egypt to smuggle all kinds of household items, as well as arms. The Financial Times reported recently that the tunnels have been so successful that “the prices of many smuggled goods have fallen in recent months, thanks to a supply glut that is on striking display across the Strip.”

If Hamas, after participating in Palestinian elections, had transitioned from a terrorist organization to a bona fide political party, and fulfilled the conditions to join with the PA as a peace process partner, substantial European and American investments in the Gaza economy and infrastructure would have been forthcoming. Today, Gaza could be experiencing economic growth similar to the progress seen in the West Bank under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad.

But, alas, Hamas is not interested in a two-state solution. This non-state actor, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., continues to call for the elimination of a U.N. member-state -- Israel.

Instant universal condemnation of Israel, with no criticism of Hamas, after the flotilla clash with Israel’s navy, has not helped those who truly seek peace. Rather, the world has further emboldened Hamas in its rejectionist stance. “May 31 was and will be a turning point,” Haniyeh declared. “It marks the beginning of the delegitimization of the Zionist project in our country.” The Hamas leader, for sure, was not speaking only of Gaza.

Totally missing amid escalating calls worldwide to end the blockade has been any word of Hamas’s responsibility for the current situation. Even President Obama, who has called the Gaza situation “unsustainable,” and European leaders, have resisted any efforts to make Hamas accountable. Until the international community accepts that Hamas is the primary obstacle to advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace, many nations will be complicit in undermining the efforts of both Israel and the PA in seeking a sustainable peace.

Kenneth Bandler is the American Jewish Committee’s Director of Communications.

Book Launch - Day Okpe's Civil War Memoir Was Launched

By Japhet Alakam/Vanguard/All Africa

Memories of the Nigerian civil war was relived recently as one of the major actors of the war, Captain August Okpe chief pilot of Biafra during the civil war years as well as the chief pilot of the Nigerian Airways and an established poet recounts the story of the war captured in his memoir, The Last Flight which was presented to the public forth night ago at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, (NIIA)Victoria Island.

The reviewer of the book, Uche Chukwumerije took time to reminisce over that war of attrition, describing it as the worse thing that has happened to the country. He therefore called on Nigerians to learn to apply courage and actuality of vision in doing what is right at all times as a way of moving the country forward.

The distinguished senator, and former Minister of Information under General Sani Abacha's military junta muted, "I pray that we do not go to war again." Reminiscing on the lessons of the war, he noted "I very much believe that if we learnt the lessons from the Nigerian civil war, if we learnt to make the Nigerian states more sensitive to the needs of all classes of Nigerians, and if we all know how to cultivate Nigeria and make it a 'Plural Political Community' Nigeria will become the largest ,strongest most powerful black country in the world."he said.

From left; Admiral Ndubusi Kanu, former Governor of Lagos State and old Imo State, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, former Vice President of Nigeria, Air Vice Marshal D. Bello, former Chief of Air Staff, and Captain August Okpe, (Rtd), author of the book.

Senator Chukwumerije said, although the book came out 40years after the war, its ample store of revelations of hitherto unknown events made it one of the most comprehensive and objective accounts of the war so far published.

According to him, the story of The Last Flight is far richer than a tale of war and one service: a gifted story teller, the author uses the vintage point of Biafran Air Force to knit together the essential happenings in virtually all sectors of the war theatre including its political environment. The book is almost a full picture of Biafra seen through the clear lenses of a major actor.

He said that the author also reveals the social environment of the war, the account of how some avoidable acts of omission and commission that could have spared the Republic the destabilizing consequence of fratricidal mistrust and inter ethnic animosity. The political intrigues of both sides of the conflict were also revealed . It also reminded people the example of the self reliant efforts of Biafra and what the black man can be in the world if he has a little more self confidence and self exertion. The book will endure as one of the major documents of the civil war.

In attendance were the cream of society, including the Vice-president during the second republic, Dr Alex Ekweme ,who chaired the occasion, former governor of Lagos and old Imo state Real Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu, Dr Abel Ubeku, Captain Shuaibi Alfa, Chief Alex Akinyele, HRH Prof. Laz Ekwueme, Navy Capt. Alison Madueke rtd. , Chief Mike Adeojo, Mr. ABC Orjiakor amongst others.

The chief launcher Mrs ABC Orjiakor while presenting the book congratulated the author for handing down history to us which is one of the things we are missing. She advised that the book should be made available to schools and library so that the children will read it and know what their parents passed through to bring them to this stage while Mr ABC Orjiakor who later joined the launching described Okpe as an eloquent fellow with clear mastery of English language and somebody that can captivate you with story telling. For Alison Madueke, while commending the author stated that emphasis should be laid on readership than the money because the essence of writing is for people to read.

Willy Murray Bruce, the number 2 man to Captain Okpe recounted how they did the last operational flight in Biafra before the war ended. Speaking with pains he also recalled how 43 cadet officers who trained in Germany and were about to be commissioned before the war broke out were not absolved by the Nigerian government after the war.

The author who could not hold his joy because of the large turnout said it was natural for him to write a book about military aviation as he was the head of Biafra Air force and later head of the Nigerian Airways. According to him the book talks about the activities of the air force in the Nigeria civil war. Stating that no other book has said something about that as previous books about the war concentrated on the army and navy as if there was no air war. The book also talks about the problems of the country and national upheavals. He said that the title was taken from one of the segments of the war, when he took what turned out to be the last flight that had to return to base when he saw the mass of Nigerian soldiers everywhere.

Earlier in his remark, Dr Ekwueme recalled how he met the author in 1968 at Urualla as the director of planning of Biafra and the author, a squadron leader who later headed the tactical Airforce Base at Uga in the course of the various efforts they made to establish airports during the war. He said that he was cut up by the author's way of signing his signature from right to left instead of the usual left to right. He described the author as a good story teller, one who accepts criticisms at all times and makes good conversation, stating that it was the combination of the above that led to the writing of the book. Continuing Dr Ekwueme, an architect told the audience that the first major work he did after the war was the redesigning of the Enugu Airport, a job given to him by General Gowon. Finally he advised that it is not good for brothers to take up arms against one another. Stating that millions of lives and properties were destroyed as a result of the war including the socio- psychological and physical dislocations.

In his goodwill message, the chief of Defence staff, Air vice Marshal Paul Dike who wrote the forward of the book represented by AVM J.O.Oshoniyi congratulated Captain Okpe for taking time to put down what happened in the unfortunate civil war especially as it concerns the deployment of Air power.

AVM Nyanayo who represented the Chief of Air Staff said that he was elected to see the man who was a pilot when they were in primary school. He expressed his happiness that somebody like Captain Okpe took it upon himself to put down all that happened during that time. and tasked past aviators to come out and give account of their days.

The chief host AVM Dominic Bello on his part described the book as a unique and incredible book. Unique in the sense that it is the first book to be written on the civil war about the Nigerian air force . He reminded the audience that Biafra introduced the air war long before the Nigerian forces overtook them because of the quality of the aircrafts. He therefore recommended the book to all students of Air power because the book to him contains an incredible source of information.

How I Built Bombs for Biafra - Kaine

Saturday Vanguard last week in Enugu met Engr. Edmund Kaine, who built bombs and other explosives for the defunct Republic of Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War. He later became Chief Executive, Projects Development Institute, PRODA, a parastatal of the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology.

He spoke with BASHIR ADEFAKA on how Nigeria can emerge a technology power.

Excerpts:

How did you start out in life?

I started out in life like anybody else. But in my time, Nigeria was just coming out of what I call the past age and moving slowly tino the modern age. We didn't have tarred roads. We didn't have electric fans. The radios were boxes with wires.

The schools were not many. In Lagos, you had only a few colleges and so many people didn't really have the opportunity. But people were happy.

I went to St. Monica's Catholic School, Lafiaji. I attended St. Gregory's College, Ikoyi both in Lagos. The only luck I had was that my father became a lawyer and could send me abroad.

In those days, it was fashionable to do Engineering because Nigeria didn't really have prospects. It has not changed much today. But I chose to do Engineering because I liked technology: I liked Engineering. I read books about people going to space.

I read books about Stevenson who discovered the Railway and by God's grace, I became an engineer. But I only really got fulfilled as an engineer when I went to the then West Germany. That was where I found the opportunity I was looking for: To go into the factories. Then, I came back to Nigeria and, as I said, the country still had very little for those who really wanted to practise engineering;,mechanical and so on. Not much.

There were a lot of opportunities for civil engineers, that is, structural engineers who could design moderate buildings. But fortunately for me, I was able to work in the Projects Development Institute (PRODA) in Enugu after the Civil War under Ukpabi Asika, Governor of then East Central State, which comprised Onitsha, Enugu, Owerri put together. I retired from PRODA as Chief Executive many years ago and since then, I have been on my own. PRODA is a parastatal of Federal Ministry of Science and Technology.

Why does Nigeria lag behind in technological development despite experts like you in that discipline?

I have tried to make it clear to people that technology is not taught in technical schools and universities. Technology, as it is, is the property of a few multi-nationals. It is where they are; and they only let it out when they are in their own companies. But you can negotiate and buy the part you want.

Technology takes a long time to be acquired. Every technology is the result of intensive work and expenses, stressing over many years and when you acquire it, it becomes a precious property. And you cannot get it free; you cannot get it because you are too clever. So, you acquire it somehow by setting up the modalities for acquiring it.

We have thousands and thousands of engineers in the world and in Nigeria, but they don't have the technology. The technology is the property of those who have it, who have developed and are using it: the companies. We have to be clear about that.

If you worked in a company for a long time, you may see some aspects of the technology and come back with it for your own company. But you may find it difficult to utilize because you still need a lot of other services to complement it before you can get a product into the market.

We are still very much dependent, technologically. Can't we get out of this?

The main problem I think is that we have not defined our objectives. In many places where I worked as head, I'd say to them, what do we want to see in the next 20 years? Let's talk about that and agree, then we know what to do now to get there.

As a people, we must define what our country should look like in the next 30 years and then we must start now to see how we achieve it.

Again, most of the people in Nigeria don't know that the basic goal of a leader is to ensure that every individual in the community is utilized to his best capacity. If a man's talent is for football, he should be given every opportunity to play.

So, we should discover the potential of every individual and make use of it. That will be the focus.

Things like building roads, streets, schools are part of this but the main focus is what is every Nigerian individual capable of doing and is he given the opportunity to do it? That should be the main focus. And that is why a man like Chief Obafemi Awolowo was great! Because his main focus was: What does everyone of my people want? If there is a Yoruba man or woman somewhere there, is he or she happy with what he or she is doing?

That was Awolowo's focus and that was what made him great. And he did so many things; all geared towards that. He started the first television station in Nigeria and by extension in Africa so that every Yoruba man could watch television not because he as a person wanted to see television. But he wanted every Yoruba man to use TV to broaden his knowledge.

That, I think, is the greatest quality of a leader: To concentrate on what the smallest individual wants. We are not doing that. Building roads, building hospitals is fine! But again, that is not the soul of the matter.

So, what is the soul of the matter?

I have told you. It is to make sure that every individual should do that in which God has given him the talent to achieve his best.

How does that translate to the issue at hand? Our interest is in how we too can emerge as part of technology-based society. How do we do it?

You, see there are certain macro areas which are defined at high level like power. In the next 30 years, we should know what type of power Nigeria should be having. Everybody should know that now. We will not be running all thermal power stations any more because the oil resources will be very low, if not exhausted.

Fortunately, there is technology for wind turbines, which is the new one now, and solar energy. Solar energy is only applicable so far to residential areas, offices and so on. But wind turbines have succeeded in producing electricity that can be distributed nationwide. For example, Germany has an installed capacity of 30,000 mega watts.

In 30 years' time, when our oil will have dried up, Nigeria should know by now, that they should have something like 50,000 mega watts from wind alone and they should start working towards it from now.

Now, take the area of transportation; all these big lorries won't be in place because they will not have enough fuel again. Nigeria should know that in the next 30 years, the most effective and surest way to guarantee sure transportation is high speed electric train. And we should now start thinking about how we can have enough of it linking the vital areas of the country. We should, in fact, start working towards it: Not only thinking but implementing it. By now, we have only 30 years.

There are other areas and many of these things. The problem is not only installing it but how are we making some of the things by ourselves? Do we have the technology to make and maintain it? That is government issue but all those things, when they are really in place, will be operated only by the private sector. If government operates them, they will be flop.

We are a technology consumer, not producer. Whose responsibility is it to get these things done?

There are so many questions in one piece. But as I told you, there is nothing wrong in importing. Every country imports. But those things that you need in large quantities, you should make most of them here in your own country.

Those things that you have advantage of over other countries, like fruit juice, you should make them in your own country. Those things that other countries have advantage of over you, like precision instruments, you should import.

If this world is to have a good economic stability, then all the countries in the world should know that there is the need to distribute the production facilities equitably among countries. Some countries cannot just be making raw materials, mining and some others are making all the finished goods. That is one of the main reasons why the economy of the world is in .... affecting those of other countries.

If you want to acquire technology, the government itself must know what to put in place so that the technology will flow in. It is deliberate government policy and it must be implemented.

When China went out to acquire technology, they made a simple rule that no foreigner must touch a screw driver in their industries. If a foreigner touches a screw driver in China, he goes to jail. If it didn't make that rule, it wouldn't have acquired any technology. All those things imported would have just been useless now awaiting to be repaired.

As for India, they used to pick bodies of people who starved to death from various homes in the country. But when they realised the way out and wanted to really develop, they did not stop any foreigner from touching a screw driver but they made their own rule that for every product that would be imported into India, the makers, the foreigners, should bring the drawings showing the details of how that product was made.

Through that, India got technology and their status changed. The Chinese system opted for citizenship training about the working of those technologies and when the multi-nationals and the foreign companies realised that, they insisted that China must bear the cost of training the Chinese people. And the cost was enormous, which they agreed upon.

You see, it is one of these things that Nigerians don't know here. The cost of training your individual is enormous. Even in advanced countryies, people are being trained and re-trained. When your graduates come out, to be able to function, they will have to keep on going through training and training. But not just train them and at the end, they are looking for work.

No. It is part of the general plan of making sure that everybody is being utilised to his fullest. A lot of things are needed.

All those things must be put in place. Everybody has to think very hard. You have to have managers, people who can manage. Even if it means importing managers. Without a manager, a good one, anything you put in place will just fizzle out to nothing. If any manager fumbles, you sack him and bring another one on board. It is not easy, but we need a crop of good managers, even if it means getting them from abroad. Without that, anything you put in place will die. The rate at which enterprises collapse in the world is colossal.

What happens if we fail, consciously or unconsciously, to plan ahead of these realities?

I am afraid that the earthquake in Haiti will be child-play compared to what Nigeria will look like in the next 30 years if we don't have some of these alternative facilities in place.

What we need to really do this is a leader. Only the person to be held responsible for it, is the President. I had been in the service, on a national assignment under President Ibrahim Babangida. I went with Chief MKO Abiola on tours of Indonesia for purposes of trying to see how they developed and use the idea for our country.

It is the President alone that can begin to galvanise the ministers and the people if he wants to get these things in place, especially the private sector, the police force, the security forces.

In Indonesia, before they attracted these investors and all these capitals to do those things, they did a lot of things and they showed us what they did to make the country beautiful and convenient for multi-nationals to come and set up industries there.

They made the place a haven for industries to come and set up. They made it their job to make sure that those industries came and were given every possible facility. It is only the President that can tell his ministers and his people: This is what I want and this is my focus and how we will work towards it. Everybody will have to work based on its vision and directive. It is not one man's responsibility now to get the many wrongs in this regard corrected.

Everybody, the journalists, all of you will focus on it, design programme of development and let the government and the people begin to change their thinking for the better.

What if the people the President galvanised fail or sabotage him?

Every football manager will give you the answer to that question. If the President cannot do it, he should go and get advice from a football team manager. Only him, I repeat, only the President has the power; the ministers don't.

Highest, he will deposed and another person is brought in, but he alone has the power to galvanise. If the President doesn't do it, nobody else can do it. That is why the Constitution gives him so much powers and so he has no excuses for not doing what he is empowered by the law to do.

Sectionalism has been Nigeria's albatross.

Throughout history, human beings have always been deceived in thinking that they, as a section, are better than the other. But God in His wisdom had created the universe and human beings with expectation that they would come together.

Because God has distributed these talents and unless you harmonise them, you cannot grow. It is like a forest, every small plant in a forest has its job.

Nigeria is blessed with so many diverse qualities: The Igbo, the Efik, the Hausas, the Fulanis, the Yorubas. A wise man will now look at these qualities by bringing them together. It is like a harmony. No matter how good a note is, if you keep sounding that note, you don't have music. But if you go to the next note and to the next note and put about 10 different notes together, then you have your melody and the harmony.

You cannot improve by using the quality of one tribe alone. You can't. You have to bring in various qualities. The problems are so complex because the problem of development is enormous. Many countries suddenly fall, many companies lose markets and die out.

During the Biafran time, why did you think, like many others, that the only way the Igbo could develop was by seceding?

Many countries in the world are often deluded. The Germans were deluded to fight Second World War. Now, they have everything; economic power and political power. The Japanese the same thing. A lot of nations and thinkers think erroneously.

In those days, we felt that we had to secede but we now know that it was wrong. It doesn't help anybody. I don't any longer believe that an individual can have so much. What we need is to think and focus on one problem so that we can find a solution to it. Let every individual focus, therefore, especially the journalists. You must increase the level of knowledge and awareness of the public so that they are aware that these problems are there and it takes cooperation, good thinking to do.

Along this line, I must say that the only mistake I ever made in my life was to believe that we could succeed by seceding out of Nigeria as Biafra. But it was also not our fault. The heavy attacks on the Igbo following the first military coup that killed prominent Nigerian leaders pushed us to the wall.

That coup was erroneously believed to be an Igbo agenda and so, every Igbo man living outside the Eastern part of the country was made to suffer for it. Left, right, back and front, the attacks were too much that all the Igbo returned home, banished, losing all their properties and other valuables. Those who could change tongues however stayed behind.

How did you meet Ojukwu and how did you come about making the bombs that were used in Biafra?

I met Ojukwu through Ukpabi Asika, the Administrator of East Central State. That is just about that.

At first, I gave the proposal for making those bombs to some military officers but they didn't take it seriously until when they had two weeks to the war and suddenly discovered that they needed so much. By the time Ojukwu saw the proposal and approved it, time had already caved in. But we tried our best and ensured that so much was done for the soldiers to have regular supplies.

But I made sure that those fighting around the area where I was producing were getting more of those bombs and explosives so that I did not need to start running around.

I must say that the fire brigade approach to setting up the bomb-making facility at that time was due to the general attitude of our people. I must also say that for the little we were to do, the Biafran government encouraged it and Dim Odumegwu Emeka Ojukwu was superior.

Can't Nigerian system improve on this technology for the military?

What we made in those days will fetch a price of zero naira today. We used the bombs we made locally in those days because we had no alternative. If you want to manufacture any product of that nature today, the quality, the standard, the level of the production, the price must be correct: You must source your materials, source management, everything. It is not just the technical know-how, they are there.

The technology we used in making those bombs and other explosives was fundamental. The technology of making bombs today is very high. We have to get that one and if we don't have it, we have to acquire it.

Also, look at some of these unmanned planes. From the satellite, they target spots on the ground and so it is.

Igbo Losses Counted at Oputa Panel

By Emmanuel Onwubiko, The Guardian/Hartford

Abuja—Dark memories of the Nigerian civil war echoed at the Justice Chukwudifu Oputa panel yesterday as Ohanaeze Ndigbo and the Arewa Consultative Forum engaged each other in a fierce dispute over the cause of the 1967-70 war.

Ohanaeze's presentation, which was articulated by Uche Chukwumerije, a former information minister, was hinged on a thesis that the North, working in concert with some other parts of the country, embarked on a deliberate programme to marginalise and exterminate the Igbo.

Ohanaeze said the 1966 coup was an expression of the anti-Igbo sentiment, explaining that the Igbo drew the ire of their persecutors because of their enterprise in all spheres human endeavour which led them to all areas of Nigeria.

But, Secretary to Arewa Forum, Col. Hammeed Ali disagreed when he hinted that the war was spurred by the 1966 coup which he said was an “Igbo coup.” He also tried to exonerate the North, saying “Buhari's coup of December, 1983 was not a Northern coup.”

Earlier, the Ohanaeze listed its major grouse as marginalisation.

According to the group, “To help us understand our case on marginalisation and disempowerment, the petition defines this key concept. Marginalisation is purposeful denial of rights of some members of a given unit by some other members of the group who control the power of allocation of resources. Marginalisation must be understood as fundamentally different from marginality, which means loss of rights through self-inflicted under-development.”

“In all the realms of public endeavour, Ndi Ibgo have the requisite manpower and natural resources. But their rights to a fair share of Nigeria's resources have been consistently denied them by Federal authorities.”

Continuing, the group stated that: “It is necessary to emphasise the fundamental difference between Ndi Igbo's case of disempowerment and the new noisy national orchestra of marginalisation slogans most of which are raised to mock and trivialise our case. The distinctive difference is deliberate exclusion: ours is a case of deliberate exclusion of Ndi Igbo from common resources by a combination of ethnic groups which control the centre.”

“Indeed, the observed consistent pattern of discriminary and exclusionary responses of the Nigerian system to Ndi Igbo in the commanding heights of the polity suggests that our exclusion is not only deliberate but also malicious.”

Ohaneze described marginalisation of the Igbo to mean the denial of right to life, right to means of livelihood, right to human dignity, right to freedom of movement, right to freedom from discrimination, right to acquire and own immovable property anywhere in Nigeria and other rights enshrined in the Constitution.

Tracing the alleged injustices against the Igbo before the civil war, he said “The republican spirit of Ndi Igbo and their individual drive, expressing itself in a flair for fair competition in all spheres, encouraged them to exercise their citizenship rights all over Nigeria. The endeavours of Ndi Igbo, like those of other Nigerian citizens, were taking place in an atmosphere (so we thought) of brotherly debates and differences in our fledgling multi-ethnic democracy.
“But Ndi Igbo soon began to notice sinister stains in the responses of some national leaders to their differences with Ndi Igbo. Public statements of leaders of ruling political groups in Northern and Western Nigeria began to betray a disposition to extermination or total expulsion of Ndi Igbo as their acceptable solution of what they now saw as Igbo problem. Speeches of Northern Nigeria Ministers, as recorded in Hansard of March, 1964, and the anti-Igbo incitements in a booklet, UPGAISM, published by Western Government (1965) portrayed the new mood.”

The anti-Igbo mood, he further alleged, found a ready platform for “explosion and used as a rallying cry to mobilise Northern Nigeria and some parts of the rest of the Federation to advance genocidal plot against Ndi Igbo. The fiction and falsehood of Igbo coup has long been admitted by some of the major actors in that episodes (example, Lt. Gen. T.Y Danjuma in Nigerian Civil War 1967-1970 edited by Major-General H.B. Momoh P.373).”

According to Chukwumerije, the brewing “genocidal mood” “served” and “in response to anti-Igbo incitements, Igbo citizens in Northern Nigeria were massacred in three waves of pogrom in most sadistic and inhuman methods that made Jewish holocaust appear like mercy killings. 50,000 Igbos were slaughtered. Some of the inhuman methods of slaughter were recorded in affidavits of eye witness.”

He added: “The massacres which evidently were well planned and co-ordinated by ruling authorities had the character of genocidal attacks on Ndi Igbo. The acquiescence of other ethnic groups in the rest of Nigeria emphasised the isolation and helplessness of Ndi Igbo. The insensitivity of the Federal Government and its failure to implement a peace agreement (the Aburi Accord) compounded the sense in security of Ndi Igbo. When the Federal Government proceeded with an economic blockage and ill-motivated balkanisation of Eastern Region, Ndi Igbo were left in no doubt that the genocidal plot had thickened. Eastern Nigeria was forced to declare the Republic of Biafra on May 29, 1967.”

Ohanaeze continued: “The petition offers a little, just little, glimpse into the enormity of the holocaust that forced us out of Nigeria - the masacre of Igbo women and children who were deceived into flocking to railway stations in search of passenger trains to take them home, forcible collection of Igbo female students from schools and herding of them into leper colonies, to be defiled by lepers; the slaughtering in the transit zone of Middle-Belt of Igbo refugees who managed to escape the wrath of far North; the refusal virtually all Nigerians to give protection to any Easterner; the active involvement of law-enforcement agencies in the pogroms; and the exodus of 2 million people in flight from a country that has rejected them and that has offered them nothing but a mass grave. Indeed the future of no future confronting Ndi Igbo at this time was symbolised by the fate of Igbo babies in the Kano railway holocaust.”

On the atrocities during civil war (1967-1970), the Pan-Igbo group said:

“A 30-month civil war ensued as a result of Nigeria's attempt to quell what she described as a civil war. The civil war..gave Nigeria a perfect excuse to cast Ndi Igbo in the role of treasonable felons and wreckers of the nation.”

“Nigeria's prosecution of the war violated all aspects of the Geneva Convention and all code of civilized behaviour. Indeed, the violations were carried out with so much glee and abandon that it was clear that the war was an earnest pursuit of the programme of ethnic cleansing begun in 1966.”

“The committee of International Jurists, foreign press and other Independent observers have also testified to this fact. Indeed, the international Committee on The Investigation of Crimes of Genocide whose investigation included interview of 1,082 people representing the two sides of the conflict concluded thus through its investigator (Dr. Mensah of Ghana); 'Finally, I am of the opinion that tin many of the cases cited to me hatred of the Biafrans (mainly Igbos) and a wish to exterminate them was a foremost motivational factor.'”

Listed in the petition as methods through which the violations took place are:

the genocidal content of Nigeria's war slogans;

the use of starvation as an instrument of war;

the massacre of civilians in conquered areas;

the target of air attacks on concentrated civilian habitations;

rape, torture and dehumanization of Igbo women;

destruction of properties; animals and everything as in a scorched earth policy, and

torture and murder of war prisoners and civilians who surrendered. Over one million people, the petition added, died during the war through these atrocities.

On the atrocities and disempowerment immediately after the war (1970-1975), the apex Igbo group stated thus:

Nigeria's proclamation of a peace formula of three Rs (Reconciliation, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction) turned out in practice to be a smokescreen behind which she continued the war against Ndi Igbo by other means. Besides the continuation of killings in the first three months after the end of the war, the new method was the strategy of disempowerment and strangulation in all areas of public endeavour.

The policy of economic disempowerment of the Igbo, alleged the group were:

federal government's vindictive enactment of the abandoned property law, and the consequent dispossession of Igbo property owners of their houses and plots in Rivers State as “abandoned property,” in a ploy to incite the Easterners against one another.

the impoverishment of all Ndi Igbo through payment of a flat paltry sum of £20 irrespective of individual savings at the end of the war,

the intentional timing of the enactment of the “indigenisation decree” at the height of total destruction of the purchasing power of Ndi Igbo;

the denial of the reconstruction of utilities, structures and infrastructure damaged during the war;

excision of oil petroleum-rich areas of Igbo land, and exclusion of other mineral deposits found in Igbo land from the benefits of operations of umbrella organisations like OMPADEC or its successor, NDDC;

mass dismissal of Igbo public servants;

continuation of starvation policy and rejection of aids from foreign aid/donors;

treatment of Igbos as social pariahs in all the states of Nigeria;

the exclusion of Ndi Igbo from the higher echelons of policy-making;

manipulation of census figures to reduce Igbo ethnic group to a minority status; and

Igbophobia as the basis of creating states. Categorising what it called atrocities and disempowerment between 1975 to date, Ohanaeze stated:

“What would have been dismissed as unfortunate excesses of revengeful excitement in the flush of victory soon settled into a policy of marginalisation and disempowerment of Ndi Igbo. Successive governments maintained a disturbing continuity of a policy of strangulation of Ndi Igbo in spite of all rhetorics to the contrary. Public policy and practice since the mid-seventies to date have followed the same pattern.”

“In the political arena, observed pattern of appointments suggest that the Federal Government is decided that no Igbo man should be trusted with a key sensitive command position for a long while. In the public service, our share of federal employments is far below the constitutional stipulations of the constitution and the quota chart of the Federal Character Commission.”

“The history of the creation of states clearly suggests a policy of containment and siege, a policy designed to reduce the demographic leverage and financial strength of Ndi Igbo. Lastly, a new height in political disempowerment has been reached in the most blatant marginalisation by the present regime of President Obasanjo of South-East zone which gave it the second largest electoral support in the presidential democratic election of 1999.”

“In the social realm, the racial discrimination against Ndi Igbo continues to rage, unabated. The blood-chilling consistency in which Igbo citizens have always been scape goats of all bloody riots in Nigeria confirms that they enjoy less protection of the law than any other ethnic nationality in the republic.‘

Commending President Obasanjo, the group said “there have been some positive developments since then, May 29, 1999.”

Commenting on their prayers the group stated that it asked the panel to order payment “of reparations and appropriate restitution as a healing balm not just to Ndi Igbo but to the nation.”

Ohanaeze said “the remedies sought include financial compensations for bereaved and humiliated families in respect of the murdered, the maimed, the raped and the dehumanised; financial compensation for wrong dismissals; financial compensations for the havoc of scorched earth policy; reversals of economic marginalisation policy, and restitutions where possible.”

“But financial and economic redresses can never adequately compensate psychological wounds. The deepest wound of Ndi Igbo is a haunting spectre of insecurity, hanging like a dark cloud over a persistent ugly objective reality that continues to feed on traditional prejudice. Periodic anti-Igbo riots continue to warn Ndi Igbo that Nigeria has learnt nothing and has forgotten nothing.”

“Our prayer therefore emphasises two requests as the key reliefs. One is a national apology. The other is an assurance of Ozoemena! - a national vow that violations of our human rights will never occur again. Indeed, the essence of all our prayers is summed in our relief.”

Making suggestions on how to move the nation forward, the group asserted: “Our Constitution must address more explicitly and unequivocally than it has done hitherto the foundation question of the character of our Federal union. Should Nigeria be a mosaic of self-reinforcing ethnic mini-sovereignties barely interacting horizontally but intensively engaged vertically in a cockpit fight for the largest loot from the centre? Or, a dynamic multi-ethnic community purposefully evolving towards the end state of healthy national integration? It is surprising that our utterances and actions have shown that this basic choice has not been made after 40 years of togetherness.”

“If our choice is a multi-ethnic nation, as forward-looking patriots should prefer, then the constitution should be supported with necessary institutional arrangements which should invest more energy and resources on three areas:”

•A people-oriented economic development plan based on social justice and equity;
•A political system that protects the sovereignty of the people from the disorientation of free market forces;
•A genuinely progressive national ideology that replaces the cent and hypocrisy of primordial irredentism with the civic values of a modern or purposefully modernising nation-state;
•The Constitution should strengthen residency and citizenship rights vis- %Gˆ %@-vis aboriginal rights; and
•Our criminal code must be revised to establish responsibility for instigated mob, arsons and pogroms in the guise of spontaneous communal riots. There must no longer be a hiding place for unknown soldiers and anonymous thugs. The law should devise a way of laying collective responsibility, especially in reparation and restitution, for arsons and massacres, on the host communities and organisations.
Besides, the group advised that Nigeria should settle for a system that encourages production, in place of consumption through a flat rule-of-the thumb approach that shares all sharable federal resources equally among the six zones only.

Ohanaeze dismissed insinuations that their petition was basically complaining of marginalisation saying: “We conclude our Petition by emphasising once again the point that our case is fundamental to the growth of political democracy and civil society in Nigeria. It is deeper than 'marginalisation' as currently misused. We tender this Petition with faith and trepidation.”

Earlier, Oputa had summoned a former Comptroller of Prisons in River State, E.E Nkang to appear on September 23 to tell the commission where the remains of the Ogoni nine executed alongside Ken-Saro-Wiwa on November 10, 1995 were kept. This summons was at the instance of Femi Falana who represented MOSOP.

The panel will today continue hearing the Ohanaeze petition.

A journalist with Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Yusuf Jibo was summoned by the panel to explain why he produced and showed a programme considered unsavoury by Ohanaeze.

A spectacular scenario that was created yesterday was the physical presence of an array of the nation's choicest dignitaries like Prof. Ben Nwabueze (SAN), Alhaji Gambo Jimeta, Gen. Haruna, Alhaji Isah Funtua, Dr. Joe Nwaorgu, even as a galaxy of Senior Advocates like Chief Tony Mogbo (SAN); Joe Gadzama (SAN) and Chief O. J. J Okocha (SAN) was present.

Diverse groups that were colourfully decked also created a carnival - like atmosphere, during and after the emotionally charged session during which Colonel Ali was jeered and booed at.

Col. Ali, also a former military administrator of Kaduna State during the Abacha regime and a member of the Ogoni Special Military Tribunal which tried and convicted the Ogoni nine led by Dr. Ken Saro-Wiwa faulted the response he filed in to the commission challenging the position of the Ohanaeze because, in his words, “I did not read most of the authorities cited in the written submission of the Arewa Forum.”

Amid jeering, Ali stated that the military men plotted coups in the past with loyal officers from the same background.

But when the Ohanaeze legal representative, Chief Tony Mogbo (SAN) sought to know his opinion on the 1966, 1990, and 1983 coups, Ali said: “my lord the 1966 coup was an Igbo coup, that of 1990 led by Orkah was a Delta coup while that of 11983 was basically a Buhari coup and not a northern coup.”

A major dramatic scenario was played up when Col. Ali (rtd) admitted that; “my lord, in making our submission, we cited some quotations from some authors, but we only took what we wanted from them and considered the rest of the same quotation factitious.”

Some other lawyers who appeared in the session were Mr. R. F. Godwin for the River State government summoned as a witness in the Ohanaeze petition even as Mr. Yahaya Mohammed and Prof. Auwalu Yadudu appeared for Arewa Consultative Forum whose chairman M. D. Yusuf was present at yesterday's session.

Other lawyers included Mr. Sebastine Hon for the Joint Action Committee on the Middle Belt, Nuhu Ribadu, for the Commissioner of Police Kano State and Yisa A. N for General Wushishi and General I. B. Babangida.

Chukwumerije and Col. Ben Gbulie, two witnesses for Ohanaeze will also finish their cross examination session to be conducted by lawyers representing the respondents in the matter today. Chukwumerije was partly cross examined by counsel to Arewa yesterday.

Meanwhile, barring unforeseen impediments, the seemingly intractable feud between Shell Petroleum Development Company and the Ogoni would be resolved on September 12 at a tripartite meeting between the feuding parties, Federal and River State government.

This reconciliatory tone was struck at a peace parley initiated yesterday in Abuja by the Oputa panel.