How did the Igbo nation, in about 70 years, move from dominating the officer grades of the Nigerian Army to being begged to fill their quotas today? The simple answer is that the Nigerian armed and security forces have been the primary kinetic instrument used by colonial Britain and its willing vassal post-colonial Nigerian state establishment to oppress and deny the Igbo their rightful place of leadership of the nation. The same Army they once bestrode was not only used to wage the Biafra War against them; it has been weaponised, along with the Northern cabals and Deep State elements, to distance them from power. These barefaced machinations came in waves.
The first wave was from 1976 to 1983. When the Generals Murtala Mohammed/Olusegun Obasanjo regime triggered its transition to civil rule programme in 1976, the Northern civilian political class was very open to genuine reconciliation with the Igbo. The National Party of Nigeria (NPN) was essentially more of a reformed and nationalised Northern People’s Congress (NPC). It threw its arms wide open to embrace political leaders from across Nigeria. It offered prominent Igbo leaders like Dr Alex Ekwueme, Dr Ozumba Mbadiwe, Dr J. O. J. Okezie and others cosy positions, with Ekwueme emerging as Vice President of Nigeria under President Shehu Shagari in 1979, barely nine years after the War. The NPN also forged an Accord with Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe’s Nigeria People’s Party (NPP), which enabled the Igbo to produce the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Edwin Ume-Ezeoke, as well as influential ministers. Indeed, the NPN created a zoning formula (North and South) and positioned Vice President Ekwueme to inherit the position of President from Shagari in 1987.
This arrangement has been widely acknowledged as the ultimate dealbreaker for the Northern military officers who felt scandalised that the same people who fought them in the war would now rule them. Most of them were still young – in their 30s and 40s – and could not fancy being retired when all they needed to do was grab power. So, they grabbed power on 31st December 1983. The second coming of the military was politically the resumption of the war against the Igbo and self-reward for their roles at the war front.
The second wave was in 1999. After the annulment of the June 12 election and the truncation of the handover of the military to the civilians, the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) became the umbrella under which the agitation for the revalidation of Moshood Abiola’s mandate was waged. Prominent among the NADECO constituents were the Yoruba Afenifere, groups from the East such as the Council for Unity and Understanding (CUU) led by retired Commodore Okoh Ebitu Ukiwe, Dr Arthur Nwankwo’s Eastern Mandate Union (EMU), Chief Anthony Enahoro’s Movement for National Reformation (MNR), and Northern progressives led by retired Lt-Gen Theophilus Danjuma.
The primary purpose of Igbo involvement in NADECO through the CUU was to end power monopolisation by the North through a “power shift” mechanism, as propounded by Ukiwe, a former second-in-command in General Ibrahim Babangida’s government. The CUU also wanted to use its involvement in NADECO as a springboard for an Igbo bounce-back into the Nigerian political mainstream. On his own part, Ekwueme, along with Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, led the Igbo delegates to the National Constitutional Conference (NCC) in Abuja, also with the purpose of putting Ndi Igbo back into the centre stage of power. At a summit held in Enugu in April 1994, where the Igbo agenda was forged, Ekwueme resurrected the NPN power-sharing and presidency-rotation mechanism, which he fiercely championed at the Conference.
Added to the Igbo agenda was the proposal to create eight geopolitical zones or regions, each closely conforming to the principle of ethno-cultural contiguity and consanguinity, or grouping people of roughly the same ethnic, linguistic and cultural heritage in the regions. At the end of the Conference in 1996, Gen. Sani Abacha showed great leadership. The Provisional Ruling Council (PRC) “approved” power rotation (North and South) and the six geopolitical zones, but declined to enshrine them in the Draft Constitution.
Ekwueme came out of the Conference looking very much like the consequential President after military rule. But Gen. Abacha had other plans. He used civilian politicians to form five political parties, which nominated him as their joint presidential candidate. All he needed was to pull off his uniform and contest unopposed. But Ekwueme, leading the G.34 group of prominent politicians from all over the country, held a series of summits in Lagos and Kano. Many of these leaders were rounded up and thrown into detention. However, on 8th June 1998, Abacha suddenly died, shortly after seeing off Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat at the Abuja Airport. Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar emerged as Head of State and immediately announced an 11-month transition programme.
The G.34 transformed into the People’s Democratic Party, while many pro-Abacha politicians (mostly Northerners) formed the All People’s Party (APP). Later, Chief Bola Ige and his Afenifere group pulled out of the PDP to form the Alliance for Democracy (AD). Ige saw that his presidential ambition had no way forward in the PDP, with Ekwueme poised to take the ticket. It had seemed that the NPN had resurrected in the PDP. But, again, the North-controlled military had other ideas. With the rapid-fire deaths of Abacha and Abiola, the Abdulsalami regime, in cahoots with key international players, decided to appease the Yoruba for the annulment of the June 12 election and Abiola’s murder in detention. Abdulsalami, General Babangida and other top Northern Generals prevailed on Northern politicians to bury their presidential ambitions and support Obasanjo for the 1999 presidential race. The same Obasanjo they had thrown into jail for an alleged coup plot against Abacha was pardoned and given the presidential ticket. Ekwueme and the Igbo nation were again thwarted. Culprit? The Nigerian Army! We end this next Wednesday.
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