OPINION

How Igbo betrayed Yoruba

By Prof. Femi Olufunmilade

The answer to your question was that Igbo in cahoots with the North of the Nigeria country put Awolowo in prison, but Igbo became the greatest beneficiaries.

I shall elaborate on that towards the end of this factual account of history.

Proverbially speaking, Igbo people will seldom appreciate you if they enter your house and you welcome them with your food and drinks. Their eyes will be on your wife too, and failing to offer her to them as well, would be seen as your unwillingness to appreciate their handsome selves who had cared to pay you a visit! That describes their attitude towards their best friends on earth: the Yoruba. Yes, Igbo people, sit down and survey your peregrinations across Nigeria and the world and you would find that Yoruba people are your best friends.

The Igbo-Yoruba dichotomy began with the false narrative of Chinua Achebe, which is their favourite account like the Cathecism, that Awolowo orchestrated “a daylight robbery” of Zik’s “mandate” to be Premier of the Western Region in 1954.

Achebe said in his book “The Trouble With Nigeria” that he was a student at the University College, Ibadan, when the “daylight robbery” occured.

But what was the fact?

It’s worth repeating before the Igbo false accusers for the umpteenth time because their hearts seethe in that hatred borne of patent biased reportage of events that Awolowo usurped what was supposed to be an Igbo leadership mandate over Yorubaland and associated ethnic groups of the old Western Region.

Do not forget that the elections of 1954 was conducted by the British and it was six years away from independence. The fact of the matter was that neither Awolowo’s Action Group nor Zik’s NCNC had enough seats in the Western Region’s Parliament in Ibadan to form a Government when the votes were counted and who won which seats became public knowledge. Both parties thfen had to resort to wooing candidates of the smaller parties like the Ibadan Peoples Party and Mabolaje Grand Alliance to form a coalition with them.

The Action Group, of course, went to work assiduously, promising the candidates cabinet positions. On the day the parliament was opened, the white governor of Western Region asked the parliamentarians to signify their affiliations for the records. That was how most of the smaller parties’ candidates openly declared their alliance with the Action Group. That was how Awolowo became the Premier. Go to Federal Archives at the University of Ibadan. The election results and parliamentary hansards of the time are there in original forms.

But backtrack to recall that from 1951 to 1954, Awolowo was already a quasi-premier of the West with the title of “Leader of Government Busines”. That’s why in his autobiography he has a chapter titled “Eight Years of of Office”. That is,1951 -1959. He was already a burgeoning legend among his people as a sterling performer.

The Igbo had hoped to truncate our pace-setting advancement in education, rural development, industry etc, with Zik taking over from him. I’m sure most Igbo of this generation don’t know Awolowo had led the West for about three years before ZIK sought to upstage him.

The lie that Chinua Achebe swallowed alongside his umunna who had converged around the parliament building in Ibadan wearing their ishiagu for the crowning of an Igbo King over Yoruba people was dished out by Zik.

He lamented to the press outside the parliament building at the end of swearing in that he had been betrayed. That all those who teamed up with Awolowo were his political associates whose support he had taken for granted. He claimed they simply defected overnight and blamed it on cultic loyalty. Maybe they were Ogbonis. LOL.

Igbo people had to believe him then hook, line, and sinker. He was their political god just as Awolowo was to most Yoruba people.

But, no sir! Those coalition members won their seats on their own steam just as you, Zik, had won yours with Yoruba votes in Yorubaland. They had the freedom to associate with who they wanted. They opted for Awolowo and his Action Group not so much because they were even playing Yoruba ethnic card but because they had a deal! Politics is a game of interest. Chief Augustus Meredith Akinloye of the Ibadan People’s Party, for instance, had been promised a cabinet position.

Of course, he couldn’t have been deceived because if that had happened, he could defect, and the Action Group ruling coalition would collapse. He became Minister of Agriculture, Western Region.

Meanwhile, Zik became the Leader of Opposition in the Western Region but he was soon pressed by his Igbo kinsmen to leave a region where he had won an election to represent Yoruba people for the Eastern Region where they went to lay the foundation of hatred and hostility between themselves and their minority compatriots of today’s Southsouth zone by removing Prof. Eyo Ita, a NCNC leader in his own right, as Premier. The Igbo had majority seats anyway. Zik then became premier. A surrogate in the Eastern parliament vacated his own seat for him.

I return to my opening line. The real act of provocation, which could have led to attacks on Igbo in Yorubaland, were Yoruba not the hospitable and liberal people they are, and which set the stage for the collapse of the First Republic, was laid by the Igbo in cahoots with the north with which they had a ruling federal coalition in Lagos.

It was the National Council of Nigerian Citizens, NCNC and Northern Peoples Congress, (NPC) coalition that framed up Awolowo in a phantom coup d’etat when they could no longer tolerate him as Leader of the Opposition at the Federal Parliament and, of course, to takeover his sphere of influence.

With Awolowo held in Calabar prison for no just cause, the Igbo quickly pressed for the issue of creation of new regions of which Awolowo was the chief advocate as laid out in his autobiography published in 1960 months to independence in October. But they only wanted the Midwest Region he had proposed. They didn’t want the COR (Calabar, Ogoja, Rivers) region, equally in the proposal. That would have split their Eastern empire. And, of course, their senior northern partner wouldn’t brook any suggestion of a Middle Belt region, also proposed by Awolowo.

Thus, we had a situation where the smallest region in the country was split, while the bigger ones were kept intact. The Igbo plot worked as planned. In August 1963, a second class Igbo (that’s by Igbo standard) from Asaba, in the person of Chief Dennis Osadebey, an old boy of Zik’s alma mater, the Hope Waddell Training Institute, Calabar, became Premier of the Midwest Region. Hurray, Igbo now had two premiers!

By that, it was believed Awolowo’s sphere of influence had been diminished forever.

Then the Igbo went for the bigger goal. They wanted to upstage their Arewa partners from power. They then formed an alliance with the rump of the traumatised and divided Action Group of Awolowo. Earlier, in 1959, they had rejected the same alliance with Awolowo for Zik to be Prime Minister and Awolowo, Minister of Finance. They belatedly formed an NCNC/Action Group alliance known as the United Progressives Grand Alliance (UPGA) for them to control federal powers in addition to two regions.

D-Day was 30 December 1964 when the general elections were held. Meanwhile, the Arewa senior partners in the NPC had wizened up to the Igbo game and also formed an alliance with another faction of the Action Group led by Chief Akintola. They then had what was called the Nigerian National Alliance (NNA). They won! Chief Akintola, without Awolowo’s support, had successfully launched a counter-coup on the Igbo splitting of the Western Region by aligning with the north. The ensuing cabinet produced only three Igbo as Federal Ministers as against seven Yoruba. The Igbos were Raymond Njoku, Jaja Wachukwu, and K.O. Mbadiwe. This development, northerners have quietly argued, was the beginning of the coup of 15 January 1966. It is argued that the Igbo political elites, who had lost out, instigated Igbo boys in the military to strike. And that was why no civilian or military casualties were recorded in the whole East during the coup. But Chief Akintola and his newfound northern partners were all eliminated.

I draw you back. You know Yoruba people fight on principles. They launched massive agitations against Akintola for selling out to the northerners. They were not appeased by seven cabinet positions that didn’t have the blessings of Awolowo and his progressive lieutenants languishing unjustly in prison. Operation Wetie began in earnest, shaking Balewa in Lagos and Akintola in Ibadan. Somebody had put on the body form of my highly esteemed friend, Prof. Wole Soyinka, to attempt stoppage of the announcement of the election results at gunpoint at Radio House in Ibadan for which the real Soyinka (LOL) was tried and freed by Justice Kayode Eso. Go and read Justice Eso’s memoirs titled THE MYSTERY GUN MAN.

Eventually, Aguiyi Ironsi came to power. Awolowo petitioned him for his release. He rebuffed him till northern troops removed him from power. Then Gowon released Awolowo and invited him to join his government and stabilised the country then careening into chaos.

Igbo declared secession. A civil war ensued. They lost. At the end, they picked their favourite scapegoat, Awolowo, for their defeat The accusations traversed the war operations to post-war settlement.

First, he betrayed them, having promised them that if they declared secession, Yoruba would follow. Ask yourself, on what grounds? An old man just out of prison! A civilian! To declare secession in confrontation with Gen. Gowon who had just pitied him and set him free! Something an Ironsi had refused to do! How does that add up? Well, since it’s Awolowo who had prevented Igbo premiership of Yorubaland, it must add up.

Second, he starved them during the war. Of course, General Gowon must have been too naive as a British-trained military officer to understand the implications of giving an unimpeded corridor of food supply to enemy territory in war! Awolowo had to teach him that the food was being hijacked by the Biafran troops.

Third, and back to what prompted this recollections ab initio. The accusation of £20. Honest Igbo know the truth. First and foremost, records of Nigerian banks in the East had been destroyed during the war as banks were prime targets of unruly elements among combatants on both sides during the civil war. Hence, apart from their passbooks, most Igbo claiming they had money in the banks had no proof. Many had even lost their passbooks. It was an era when there were no computers to keep soft copies of records or backups. Everything was done manually and in hard copies.

It was a mark of the magnanimity of the Federal Government that it created a fund from which banks were to pay £20 each to any Igbo with some proof of bank account ownership. It was a blanket thing. Even if you had £1 balance in your account you would get it. But those who had proof, especially those in the West – Lagos, Ibadan, Abeokuta etc – where their banking records were intact, had their accounts reactivated.

If anything, the Igbo had, over the years, rendered evil as reward to the only ethnic group in Nigeria that had received them with open arms, including Zik, from the time this country was established till date. If anyone should be held back by the unkindness of old, it should be the Yoruba against the Igbo and not the other way round. It’s the Yoruba, among whom Igbo have found accommodation and toleration more than anywhere else they had ever set their foot upon on earth, who should be talking of Igbo betrayal, Igbo unfriendliness, and Igbo selfishness.

But it’s one of those ironies of life that the victim is made the accused by his traducers. The Yoruba cosmopolitan outlook and liberal-mindedness is what have kept Nigeria one till date. It’s only the Yoruba who have never unleashed violence against other groups. Not that they are contented with their lot in Nigeria or because they are cowards. It is not just in their DNA to spill blood carelessly! The only times they’ve engaged in any major public disturbances that cost lives (their own lives) were mainly to protest oppression and injustice visited on them and it was limited only to their space. They never went after non-Yoruba as scapegoats. That was during Operation Wetie and Agbekoya Revolt in the 60s and June 12 demonstrations in the 90s.

Let us hope that one day, some sections of Nigeria won’t have to look back and regret that they blew their goodwill with the Yoruba.

If you hear of anybody supporting Igbo presidency outside Igboland today, who is not Yoruba, please, tell me. The same thing applied to Igbo sympathisers during the civil war: the Wole Soyinkas, Tai Solarins, the Col. Victor Banjos, the Prof. Sam Alukos of this world etc. They were all Yoruba, and some of them got imprisoned for it like Wole Soyinka. Col. Banjo wasn’t as lucky. He was rewarded with bullets!

And recall that Col. Adekunle Fajuyi had died alongside Gen. Ironsi in July 1967 when northern soldiers came for the latter in Ibadan because Fajuyi didn’t want the impression to be created, as the northerners wanted it, that Ironsi’s death was a Yoruba set up. He chose to be executed with his Igbo commander in-chief who wasn’t gracious enough to release Awolowo, his fatherly kinsman, from prison when he had the power to do so! How common is such vicariousness?

The Yoruba are still open to forging a meaningful partnership with the Igbo to safeguard and promote a glorious future. I hope voices of historically false accusations would allow the detente to reach its denouement.

opinion expressed here do no represent the position of Irohonoodua