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Some Igbo leaders, yesterday, blasted former Chief of Army Staff, General Theophilus Danjuma (retired) over his comments that if former Biafran Leader, late Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, had conceded defeat quickly during the 1967-1970 civil war like President Goodluck Jonathan did after the 2015 presidential polls, Nigeria would have been saved one year of bloodshed.
Danjuma spoke on Wednesday shortly after a closed-door meeting with President Jonathan, who visited him at his Abuja residence. He said the President averted civil war in the country by timely conceding defeat and congratulating Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (retired) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), a move he said Ojukwu failed to make and thereby causing the country avoidable blood shed.
Coming at a time the Igbo are still seething over Oba of Lagos, HRM Rilwanu Akiolu’s threat that Igbo living in Lagos would drown within seven days in the Lagos Lagoon, if they did not vote his governorship candidate in tomorrow’s election, Danjuma’s comments elicited caustic criticisms.
Reacting to Danjuma’s comments yesterday, some Igbo leaders accused him of ridiculing the president, insulting Ojukwu and continuing the genocide against the Igbo by other means.
Among those who berated Danjuma are former Secretary-General of Ohaneze Ndigbo and officer in the Biafran Army, Col Joe Achuzia; Second Republic Politician, Chief Guy Ikokwu, botched Third Republic Governor of Anambra State, Dr Chukwuemeka Ezeife.
Piqued at the comments, Ezeife said: ‘’I know Danjuma is not very well. So I am not surprised.’’
Alleging that Danjuma killed Nigeria’s first military Head of State, General Ajuiyi Ironsi (an Igbo man), Ikokwu said General Danjuma will get a full response after the elections because by talking about Ojukwu, he is talking about the South-East and South-South geo-political zones, which constituted most of the former Eastern Region and later the defunct Biafra.
His words: ‘’I don’t think we should take issues with Danjuma until after the elections. Jonathan went to him and not him to Jonathan. We shall respond to him.’’
In his reaction, Col Joe Achuzia said: ‘’I am happy that my friend Danjuma owned up that there was bloodshed and pogrom against the people of Biafra. I don’t understand what he meant by Ojukwu conceding defeat. If the Federal Government had implemented the Aburi Accord, the bloodshed would have been avoided.
‘’Ojukwu believed in Aburi as the road map for peace at the time of the crisis but the Federal Government reneged on the agreement reached in Ghana. One does not concede defeat half way into a battle. Doing that would have amounted to cowardice. I don’t know where Danjuma got the idea of Ojukwu not accepting defeat from. He has little knowledge of the intricacies of the war. He didn’t even know the terrain of the Enugu that he talked about. If the necessities of capitulating were there, why did the war last for three years? I fought the war for three years and I know that the necessities were not there. Sometimes people talk for talking sake.
‘’The President’s visit to him was a private one and he should not have used that opportunity to insult all that Ojukwu stood for. To say publicly that the President was defeated was even a mockery of the President. It does not portray the President in good light. Of course what he said was an insult on Ojukwu. His reference to the fall of Enugu is laughable because the war was just starting then. Which military officer will surrender in that kind of situation even before firing a bullet? When some people make wrong comments on the civil war, I wonder what often inform their judgement. Ojukwu was a General and was right on all the decisions he took in the interest of the Igbo.’’
Vanguard
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