Dear Yakubu Gowon: Nigerians need to hear the truth now, before the country may dies! Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF) pens open letter to Nigerian war criminal

Dear Yakubu Gowon: Nigerians need to hear the truth now, or the country may die! Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF) pens open letter to Nigerian war criminal

July 29, 2016.

His Excellency General Yakubu Gowon,

Your Excellency,

Today is July 29, a day that evokes strong and indelible memories in the mind and psche of

many people in Nigeria, particularly those who are familiar with the horrors of those fateful

days of Jan 6th and July 29th, 1966.

According to Press Report, our brothers in the South-West are organizing some activities in

remembrance of one of the victims of the July 29th, 1966 - Lt-Col Fajuyi who gave gave his life

in defense of his guest- Gen Aguiyi Ironsi. Together with Gen. Ironsi, Fajuyi paid the supreme

sacrifice to ensure the unity and stability of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Ndigbo may not be marking this day like their brothers in the South West, not because they

don’t remember or appreciate the travels of their brother Aguiyi Ironsi or the heroism of his

host – Lt-Col Fajuyi. It is because for those FIFTY (50) years Ndigbo have been struggling to

come to terms with the TRUTH of those critical events for which they not only lost many of

the finest and bravest sons of theirs in the Nigerian military, but also lost millions of their

people in one of the world’s gruesome pogrom in history.

But after 50 years, the world will agree with us that we must begin to ask questions of what

actually happened – THE TRUTH OF THE EVENTS OF 1966. This is all the more important

for Ndigbo because the events of 1966 remain the greatest historical burden that continues

to distort the IDENTITY AND CHARACTER of NDIGBO.

The Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF) considers the occasion of the 50th Anniversary

of the murder of General Aguiyi Ironsi and several other Igbo officers as the appropriate

moment to confront and begin to uncover the TRUTH of the events of 1966 for which Ndigbo

have suffered and continue to suffer physical, economic and psychological deprivations,

constantly butchered and alienated, no matter their goodwill since the end of the Biafra war.

Luckily some of the principal actors are still alive and around, we mean those who actually

were at the helm of affairs during those DARK DAYS in the history of Ndigbo and their

neighbors. Beyond the evidence that now abound in some published and none-published

sources on the events of 1966, none is more authentic than yours as the man who presided

over the affairs of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and prosecuted the war. Hence, this letter

is addressed to you.

The Nation Needs To Hear The Truth Now, Or She May Die!

In Igbo cosmology, Truth is the origin of Life. Eziokwu bu Ndu. Without the TRUTH, Life

falls sick. Eventually it withers and dies.

Your Excellency, Nigeria is dying from suppression of the Truth of the events that took

place in Nigeria from 1966 to 1970. The Almighty (in His ways strange to the logic of Man)

placed you in a position where you were entrusted with the classified and suppressed SACRED

TRUTHS of that very difficult and turbulent period of our History. Falsehood, deception and

propaganda may be understandable contraptions in times of war. But they cannot be, or

allowed to remain, the foundation on which our nation shall forever stand. Indeed no nation

can stand on such foundation. You may owe no one an apology for doing or saying whatever

you considered imperative under very difficult circumstances at that most difficult period of

the nation’s History. But you owe your God the Truth. You owe a confession of the TRUTH

to your Christian soul. And if you really believe in One Nigeria that you preached, and still

pray for, then the love of that Nigeria commands your conscience, honor, dignity and legacy

not to lead her future generations astray by permitting a dangerous situation where they are

denied knowledge of the Truth and thereby primed to propagate and perpetrate Falsehood

and Injustice.

“The War Is Over and there shall be no Nuremburg in Nigeria”. That was your statement of

assurance to a world very nervous and anxious over the fate of the Igbos following the surrender

of Biafra. But, your Excellency, contrary to your noble and well-intended assurance, Igbos

born before and after 1966 are still being stigmatized and collectively hounded and punished

because of your silence on the TRUTHS of January 1966 coup and its aftermath.

Sir, your silence on the Truth is tantamount to a conspiracy of silence, fostering hate,

oppression, and relentless outbreaks of wanton massacre of Igbos in Nigeria. Your Excellency’s

silence on the TRUTH mars genuine reconciliation and frustrates our quest for peaceful

coexistence in a nation “Where no Man is oppressed”. Your Excellency must remember that

people who are 50 years old today, and the younger ones behind them, are active in the affairs

of the country, making policies without knowledge of the Truth. Even President Buhari was

only a Captain, a seemingly politically detached very junior Army infantry officer in 1966 and

therefore in no position to have known the classified Truths of the events that placed him in

battle field against his former comrades-in-arm of Igbo descent.

To amplify the need for you to break your silence Sir, recently a very respected younger

Nigerian, the current Emir of Kano, made a statement to the effect that Igbos staged a coup

to murder Northern leaders and take over the country. He innocently believes what he has

been fed. It is worse for those younger and even less informed than him as indeed falsehood

hardens with time. You can see that your silence dooms the nation to live on FALSEHOOD and

primes its present and future leaders to act against Igbos without the restraint of JUSTICE.

You cannot possibly be happy with that. Therefore, you are provided this opportunity to free

your conscience and that of your country by stating the Truths as you know them.

The facts about January 15th 1966 coup and the aborted 1964 coup

Your Excellency, from intelligence and security reports which you were privy to, is it true

or false that prior to 1966, Yoruba military elite, as a reaction to the political tumoil and the

state of siege of Yoruba land, had plotted a coup to be led by Brigadier Ademelegun and Colonel

Victor Banjo, against Sir Tafawa Balewa, in order to release Chief Awolowo from prison but

held off to avoid a situation that would have pitted the Igbo and Hausa-Fulani on one side,

against the Yoruba? Is it true or false that Victor Banjo was therefore assigned to search for,

and induct suitable officers from Eastern Nigeria and the Middle Belt for that coup which was

rescheduled to be staged on January 17th 1966 to remove Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and

General Ironsi, release Awolowo from prison, and hand over the Army Command to Brigadier

Ademelegun? Is it true that Captains Adeleke, Onwuatuegwu, Waribor and others ring leaders

of the January 15th 1966 coup were indeed originally inducted to be part of this (Yoruba)

coup; and that though they agreed on the release of Awolowo from prison, they disagreed

with the overt narrow objective of the plotters and therefore preemptively struck earlier on

January 15th 1966?

Is it true that “the mystery plane at Calabar airport” on January 15th 1966, as widely

reported by all Nigerian newspapers of the time, was to fly Awolowo to Lagos upon being

released from prison? In fact, in his book: “Why We Struck”, Wale Ademoyega, a Yoruba

officer who was one of the ring leaders of the 15th January 1966 coup, expressly stated that

it was a coup planned by politically conscious university graduates in the Army (not Ibos); that

they (politically conscious university graduates in the Army) needed professional soldiers to

execute it, release Chief Awolowo and install him as Prime Minister of Nigeria as Ademoyega

has revealed in his book Why We Struck.

Your Excellency, you were General Ironsi’s trusted right hand man and his Chief of Army

Staff. Why did General Ironsi order the arrest of Colonel Victor Banjo and his friend, Major

Ebenezer Aghanya, immediately after January 15th 1966 coup? From the TRUTH as you know

it in the privacy of your conscience, was January 15th 1966 coup (the consequences of which

more than two million Igbo women and children have been murdered), by intent and design,

an Igbo ethnic plot as it is alleged to be? Are you comfortable, keeping quiet and hiding the

TRUTHS, while a whole ethnic group is being stymied by deliberate public policy of exclusion

due to 15th January 1966 coup?

Was General Ironsi pursuing any ethnic agenda known to you? To the best of your knowledge,

was General Ironsi in any way implicated in the January 15th 1966 coup? Is it true to your

knowledge that indeed a road block was setup by the coupists at Cater Bridge Iddo Lagos (the

only bridge linking Mainland to the Island at the time) and that one Captain Ogbonna, who

was responsible for arresting General Ironsi at that road block, failed to do so thereby enabling

Ironsi to escape to Ikeja cantonment which was under your command?

Why was a senior Igbo officer, Colonel Arthur Unegbe, who was Quarter-Master- General

of the Army at the time, killed by the coupists? Is it true that the coup failed because Major

Obienu, an Igbo officer who was Commander of the Recce Squadron Abeokuta at the time,

refused to bring up the armored cars needed by the coupists to hold Lagos against General

Ironsi who had escaped to Ikeja cantonment to counter attack the coupists; and you were

one of those loyal to him (Ironsi) in his effort to stop the coup and restore order? Thus is it

not correct to assert Igbo military officers foiled the coup of 1966? Refer to the role of the

then Col Emeka Ojukwu in aborting the total success of the January 1966 coup in the North

Aburi Accord

Why did your Excellency renege on Aburi Accord? Who were the forces that persuaded

you to dishonor agreement you reached as an officer gentleman? What role did the British

Government under Harold Wilson play in the crisis through Sir Francis Cummings-Bruce, the

British High Commissioner in Lagos? Drawing on this experience and the cost of the Civil

War, which would have been avoided had Aburi Accord been respected, what advice do you

have for future generation on taking advice from foreign interests on critical national issues?

Bearing in mind that today, 50 years after, Aburi Accord remains the reference framework

which almost every section of this country wants for renegotiating the Nigerian State, with six

regions as the federating units, what modifications to the Aburi structure would you advice?

Biafran incursion into the Midwest Region of Nigeria:

Is it true or false that Prof Wole Soyinka and Prof Ogunsele (two Yoruba intellectuals) were

used as conduits by Chief Awolowo and Yoruba political leaders to maintain contact with

Brigadier Victor Banjo and Ojukwu while Banjo was with the Biafran Army following his release

from prison by Ojukwu? To the best of your knowledge, is it true or false that Chief Awolowo

requested Ojukwu to provide Victor Banjo with Biafran troops to liberate Yorubaland (the

then Western Nigeria) from Northern soldiers that occupied it and refused to leave, contrary

to Aburi Agreement? Is it true or false that you initially put Awolowo under house arrest

for insisting that the Northern soldiers must leave the West in line with Aburi Accord and

therefore seemingly supporting Ojukwu? Is it true or false that Ojukwu only obliged Awolowo’s

request by giving Brigadier Banjo Biafran Army troops to liberate the West, though the wartime

propaganda was that Igbos invaded the Midwest in quest of territorial expansion? Is it true or

false that upon Biafran Army crossing Ore junction and getting to the outskirts of Okitipupa,

you quickly struck a deal with Awolowo and granted all he demanded as Yoruba conditions for

joining you to fight the Igbos; and he consequently asked Victor Banjo to stop the match? Or,

was the entire Awolowo house arrest a feint you contrived with your Yoruba allies to deceive

and trick Ojukwu into compromising the defence of Nsukka in the northern front by pulling

out the troops Biafra desperately needed there, and sending them in aid of Chief Awolowo? Of

course you know that following the incursion of Biafran troops into the then Midwest Region,

there was an unrestrained massacre and liquidation of Igbos in the Midwest, climaxed in the

Asaba Genocide for which you have apologized.

Your MANTRA of One Nigeria or Nigerian Unity

We shall reserve for another day questions regarding Excellency’s famous maiden broadcast

on 1st August 1966 after taking over the Government of Nigeria.

It is our hope that your Excellency would will seize this opportunity and free the conscience

of this nation by lubricating it with the balm of eternal Truth so that it may heal from the

events following January 16th 1966 coup. We desperately so hope your Excellency.

May God guide your Excellency.

PROF. UZODINMA NWALA 

PROF. NATH ANIEKWU ADF President Secretary