By Douglas Anele

Read Truth, reason and nation building (2)

In fact, the delegates went further: they wanted a secession clause inserted in the new constitution that might be generated from the conference. But something remarkable happened after the governor of the region, Hassan Usman Katsina, came around: the delegates left hurriedly for the North their home base, and the conference was adjourned.

Confab Closes— From left: President Goodluck Jonathan receiving Report of 2014 National Conference from Chairman of the Confab, Justice Idris Kutigi at the closing ceremony of conference in Abuja. Photo: Gbemiga Olamikan.

Upon their return after consultations, they put forward a new proposal that contradicted the well-known position of Ahmadu Bello, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and others, which favoured a political arrangement based on the separateness of Northern and Southern Nigeria. This time around, the Northern representatives wanted a strong and effective central government, complemented by reduced regional autonomy. In addition, they advocated creation of new states (an idea which Northern leaders had repeatedly turned down before), and agreed that secession need not be included in the constitution.

Why did the North shift from its previous dislike of centralised governance and threats of secession to become its staunch advocate? In my view, there are two main reasons for the paradigm shift. The first and most important reason is economic: if each region became highly autonomous, then it had to depend largely on its own revenue, which, in effect, meant that the North would have to pay back the huge loans used in constructing Kainji dam and Bornu railway extension.

As a corollary, since virtually all the oil-bearing communities were domiciled in the Eastern region and crude oil export was gradually displacing agriculture as the major source of foreign revenue for the country, regional autonomy would further widen the economic gap between the North and the South, to the detriment of the former. Secondly, Northern leaders felt secure that due to the North’s numerical superiority in the lower cadres of the military, its political interests will not be jeopardised by any type of unitary government comprising a strong central administration and weak federating states. Moreover, as usual British diplomats used their conspicuous influence in the North to convince its prominent political leaders that Britain did not support confederation for Nigeria.

Of course, the constitutional conference failed, principally because of renewed mass killings of Easterners in the North, which created intense animosity between Northerners and Ndigbo, who were by far the biggest victims in the mayhem. It was obvious once again, that the idea of “One Nigeria” was probably an illusion based on a simplistic understanding of the entailments of nationhood and lack of appreciation by political and military leaders that extraordinary measures were needed to stop the slide into disintegration.

A last ditch effort was made to save Nigeria from disaster in Aburi, Ghana, between January 4 and 5, 1967. Given his undoubted superior intellectual grasp of the thorny issues at stake, Ojukwu was able to secure an agreement, The Aburi Accord, that, if implemented, could have lessened the trauma and bad feelings of his compatriots in the East. The most important decision from the Aburi summit was that Nigeria should be governed as a confederation of regions for an indefinite interim period until tempers cooled down and a modicum of peace was restored. Unfortunately, Gowon and his cohorts did not implement the Aburi Accord due to their overarching egoism and survivalist instincts. That said, irrespective of gross distortions by revisionist historians, it is clear that Gowon’s inability or plain refusal to implement the Accord gave credence to the conviction among the Igbo and other Easterners that Nigeria was no longer habitable for them.

It is tempting to believe that Gowon and some leaders of the Northern establishment deliberately scuttled the Aburi rapprochement to compel Ojukwu to “do something.” More specifically, Gowon probably suspected that Ojukwu was an ambitious man who would not miss an opportunity to lead a country. Therefore, at a press conference in January 26, 1967, Gowon presented a mutilated version of the Aburi Accord, which seemed to confirm the belief that his administration was not interested in establishing lasting peace between Easterners and their Northern compatriots based on the agreement hammered out in Ghana. A significant event that took place after the press conference was promulgation of decree 8 of March 17, 1967, which, according to Ojukwu and prominent leaders of Eastern region, did not reflect key decisions of the Aburi meeting.

Ojukwu could not understand why Gowon was foot-dragging on the agreement reached, unless he (Gowon) had a hidden agenda. As we suggested a moment ago, it appears Gowon’s actions indicated that he and some of his closest advisers were really hoping that Ojukwu would take a drastic decision, such as declaration of secession, which the federal government could then use as a pretext for military action against the East. Certainly, in their calculus, declaration of war against the secessionists would halt or possibly reverse the dominant role of Easterners in critical sectors of the Nigerian federation, especially in education, the economy and top echelons of the military. On the other hand, leaders of the Eastern region, including Ojukwu, misjudged the jihadist ambitions of key members of the Northern establishment, and overestimated the capacity of the region to withstand an all-out military confrontation with Gowon’s government.

Focusing now on the Biafran war itself and all the suffering, destruction and death associated with it, there is no doubt in my mind that both Gowon and Ojukwu bear the heaviest burden of blame for the tragedy. In the first place, Gowon was an illegitimate leader, for at the time of Ironsi’s murder, there were senior military officers above him in the chain of military command that ought to be head of state in keeping with military tradition. In addition, non-implementation of the Aburi Accord sincerely and faithfully created a strong suspicion in leaders of the Eastern region that Gowon and his top advisers were not committed to peace and justice for the East anyway.

However, Ojukwu seemed to have made up his mind that pulling the Eastern region out of Nigeria was the best option for his people. The emotional trauma and disillusionment of Ndigbo due to the pogroms provided fertile psychological soil for secessionist agitation among the people. Many of them felt that since the federal military government headed by Gowon was unwilling to punish the criminals and compensate victims of what amounted to ethnic cleansing, it was better to create an independent country where they could live in peace and dignity. Now, the decision to secede was not Ojukwu’s alone: it was informed by hyperbolic idealism of the people and authorised by a group which comprised some of the most distinguished citizens in Nigerian history, including Nnamdi Azikiwe, Michael Okpara, N.U. Akpan, Margaret Ekpo, Akanu Ibiam, Sam Mbakwe etc.

But it must be remarked that Ojukwu, as governor of the Eastern region and preeminent leader of the Igbo, made some decisions that played into the hands of Gowon and his warmongering advisers. One of such bad decisions was his rejection of proposals for peace made by the National Conciliation Committee, led by Adetokumbo Ademola, which included Obafemi Awolowo and Sam Aluko. Again, Ojukwu declared the Republic of Biafra too quickly. Consider this: the Consultative Assembly of Chiefs and Elders, which met on 29 May 1967, publicly endorsed the clamour for secession. The assembly mandated Ojukwu to pull the East out of what they considered a defunct federation of Nigeria “at an early practicable date.” Thus, the time line given by Eastern leaders of thought to the governor to declare independence for their region was flexible, and could have been appropriately interpreted by Ojukwu to mean “the next day,” “in a week’s time, ” “one month from now,” “one year from today” and so on. To be continued.