•Ralph Obioha
Chief Ralph Obioha, an elder statesman and former chieftain of the National Democratic Coalition, NADECO, is a prominent figure in Nigeria’s democratic history. In this interview, he revisits the ‘Igbo Coup’ tag that has rubbished the reputation of the Igbo for years in Nigeria, saying that the January 15, 1966 coup was anything but an Igbo coup, reports Vanguard.
Excerpts:
It has been 60 years since the first coup, and a lot of people have lived with the belief that it was an Igbo coup for which the Igbo are suffering in Nigeria. Was the coup of January 15, 1966, plotted by the Igbo?
Definitely not. It is just a language that has been conceived by those who wish to put the Igbo down, to label that coup as an Igbo coup. It was not an Igbo coup.
I was an adult during the civil war, and a lot of people have given different accounts of it, but I’m emphatic that it was not an Igbo coup.
There was nowhere the Igbo gathered to give anybody a license or a warrant to cause a coup. There’s nowhere.
The reality on the ground then was that the Igbo dominated the officers’ corps of the Nigerian Army. And because of that, participation in a coup in Nigeria will not be done by groups.
It has to be done by officers of the Nigerian Army. As there were many prominent Igbo officers in the army, it was wrongly perceived that Igbo people organised the coup.
Having said that I am also emphatically clear that the coup then was just not necessary. There was nothing that was on the ground to warrant it, except, of course, what was sweeping through Africa at that moment. These were young officers who wanted things done faster than they were being done. I can use the word that my behaviour today is different from my behaviour 40 years ago when I was 40 years old.
So, it was just the restlessness of the young men, who wanted to change things in Nigeria their way. If you look at the people who were involved in that coup, they were Igbo, they were Yoruba, and even I was told there were Hausa participants in that coup. That the Igbo predominated only reflected the population of the Igbo officers then.
To label it as an Igbo coup was a confidence for those who want to put Igbo down. It’s a pity that it happened. It’s unfortunate that it happened. But that does not make it an Igbo coup.
But the Igbo are still suffering for it today
There has been a conspiracy of what other Nigerians call the Igbo question and Igbo solution. So, what is happening now is actually a play out of that Igbo question and Igbo solution.
But like all conspiracies in life, it’s going to be for a while. You cannot diminish the spirit of the Igbo. These are people who are very energetic, very industrious, very enterprising. You can’t change them. You can’t cage them, just as you cannot change certain attributes of other tribes in Nigeria.
If you go to look at what happened to Great Britain, the combined population of the Irish that is in Northern Ireland and the Scots and the Welsh there, the English predominates in Great Britain, but they have certain provisions that don’t make that domination draw them back. It doesn’t impede their progress.
But in the case of Nigeria, the way they have been treating the Igbo in Nigeria has hindered the growth of Nigeria. Whether they want to accept it or not, It has hindered Nigeria. And one day, there will be a change of mind to incorporate all Nigerians and give them equal opportunity.
Is the maltreatment of the Igbo not traceable to their defeat during the civil war?
Well, don’t forget that the same people who said they defeated them declared there was no victor, no vanquished. And if you look at the forces that supported Nigeria in that war, Britain, Russia, the whole of the Arab world, it was predictable after a while that the war would go the way it went.
I admit that the treatment of the Igbo may be derived from having lost that war. If we had not lost the war, we would have been another nation. And let nobody deceive you, in the spirit and the core heart of the Igbo, they still want to have their Biafra. Never mind whatever anybody will tell you.
They still want that?
They still want it any day. 90% of the Igbo will tell you, give them Biafra. No matter whatever you tell them it may not be a very viable option they will say let them have it than to go through the indignities they suffer in Nigeria.
There are people spearheading the new Biafra, but the way they are doing it seems to be causing more problems for the Igbo in Nigeria than finding solutions to the Igbo question
I agree totally with that observation. I agree. It can be done differently. But maybe also on the other hand, if you want to balance it, maybe if they didn’t adopt the way they are doing it, maybe the world would not have begun now to change the opinion that these people have demonstrated that they want this.
Let me tell you the truth, it’s only a matter of time when there is a consensus in the world to say, let Biafra be. I believe that. And we may not be very far away from that time.
Do you believe it will be possible?
I believe that it will come.
During the first coup, the name Col Nzeogwu was prominent, but some people from Nzeogwu’s side in today’s Nigeria don’t see themselves as Igbo. Even then, they were called the Midwest. They are South-South now, and some Igbo people from the South-South will tell you they are not Igbo
I had tried to describe the unfortunate lot of the Igbo in the way that you have just put it. But not all people from the area where Nzeogwo hailed from refuse to identify as Igbo.
A majority of them know they are, but it’s laughable when some say they are not. Even the name, Chukwuma Nzeogwu, was Igbo at least. Many of them speak Igbo as their language and bear Igbo names, but will quickly jump to say they are not. It’s laughable.
But a man like Philip Effiong was not implicated in the coup. This is a fact, but he fought in the war on the Biafran side.
He was the number two man in the Biafran war to the very end. As a matter of fact, history has it that he was the one who formally surrendered the Biafran sovereignty to the federal government. But these sides of the South-South are just innocent bystanders. They were not happy with the way Nigeria was going. But then, there’s always a tendency for people to play it safe. I would say that they were playing it safe. And if Biafra materialises tomorrow and there’s a plebiscite in all those regions, the majority of them will say they would rather go with Biafra than go with the present Nigeria.
Is the situation that was prevalent at the time the first coup happened still prevalent now?
This is talking about El Dorado and hell. That was like an El Dorado in Nigeria then. But today, you know, it’s hell. It’s a place where about 80% of the population is poor. There are no comparisons. I happen to have lived through the two times. I was a full adult then, and I’m very old now but I saw the condition of things then, and I’m also looking at the condition of things now. Now is hell.
Will Nigeria get out of this hell someday?
Yes. Let’s take China. China in about 1945 was a time of drug addicts. Heroin addiction was so prevalent in China. As a matter of fact, the British that was imposing it on them then, knew the danger, but they still did it. But today, nobody can compare with China’s progress. They were able to get out of poverty in a record cycle of less than 25 years.
Maybe there was no tribalism, nepotism, and all those things that are happening in Nigeria and China.
Those things were in China, too. China has over 50 tribes. And when you talk about cultism, that’s the word. Cultism is a perfect word for China, then, but look at China today.
You believe Nigeria can be better, will be better?
Definitely, that is why I have advocated for the president to call for a conference of all Nigerians to really sit down and say, let us have another start. And if there is a meeting of like minds, then things will be done the way it should be done, equal rights for everybody, irrespective of where they come from, and eliminate all this entitlement of a superior group or privileged group. Nigeria will kick off very quickly because we have resourceful people. And the truth of the matter in Nigeria is that everybody contributes to and has the ability to contribute to Nigerian greatness.
Look at the food basket of Nigeria. It’s not in Igbo land. Neither is it in Yoruba land. It is the middle belt of Nigeria. The Middle Belt is the place feeding Nigeria. There are more mineral resources in the north than in any other part of Nigeria, but those resources are not being put into the national basket for equal distribution of such resources. But the resources from the south are called national resources. Now, that is the language of marginalisation.
That’s what marginalisation really means, not what people are saying. Nobody marginalises you over what you wear or what you eat. The marginalisation is in some people keeping their own natural resources and taking those of another region to be exploited for the national cake. That’s what marginalisation means.
There have been many coups since the first coup. Many failed. Many succeeded, but can Nigeria say it can never happen again?
I can’t come to that conclusion. Never say never. What all of us should be asking is, let there be a meeting of minds where we eliminate the marginalisation syndrome, the enlightenment, the entitlement complex, and all those things will probably find a permanent solution one way or the other.
Well, to dismiss the idea that nothing can happen is not living in reality.
