By BASHIR ADEFAKA
When I refused to be part of your hate as Southerners against Northerners, I knew and still know why.
I stumbled over an extract from a piece of history by John B. Macintosh about the circumstances surrounding the death of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, I became motivated to reopen the talk about “speaking to them in the language they understand”, those that never wanted Independence of Nigeria unless they were the ones made to rule. Their failure to get what they want from day one led to why they plunged Nigeria in serious danger of incoherence and up till today they still continue the evil way.
On a platform, the extract was posted as follows:
FLASH BACK ON THE DEATH OF TAFAWA BALEWA:
They arrested him, abducted him and took him to a number of places in Lagos before finally taking him to the bush. Once there they tortured him, beat him and humiliated him. They even forced him to drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes – things that he had never done before in his life because he was a good muslim.
When they finished having their way with him and having their fun, he gently asked them for permission to pray which they mockingly granted. After he finished praying he said “Igbos, Igbos, Igbos” (3 times) and then he made the following pronouncements on them, in very strong terms. He said: “the Igbos would never rule Nigeria, they would be scattered, they would be hated, they would suffer tragedy after tragedy and they would suffer scorn and disdain from their compatriots forever”.
After that The Prime Minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, courageously raised his head and looked straight in the eyes of the Igbo mutineers and said: …”now you can kill your Prime Minister. ”
It was under these unfortunate circumstances that Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Nigeria’s first Prime Minister, died in the hands of a group of very ruthless Igbo Army mutineers led by Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna and Captain Okafor in Lagos on the night of Jan 15th 1966 “.
– (John B. Macintosh).
My heart bleeds
I repeat: Sad! When I refused to join any hypocrisy of either Yoruba or Igbo of Southern Nigeria against Hausa-Fulani of Northern Nigeria, I knew and still know why. I have always said my generation, in Yoruba Land, was born into the mentality to hate them and see them as animals. We forget that even animals have their rights under the Constitution of our country, so these people hate to support any move that would make the Nigerian Fulani succeed in their husbandry business, although they can stage and sponsor week-long protests to secure government’s bail-out for other Nigerians in business so long they have no connection with Northern Nigeria. It is sad.
Unfortunately, they do not know that those cows and “perishable” tomatoes with which they only rate the North are the backbones of their existence. I repeat without fear of contradictions that the North feed the rest of Nigerians. Our inability to understand our diversity as strength for growth and development is a serious problem for Nigeria. Too bad religious organization is involved.
I am in my 40s, my people still haven’t stopped their evil mindedness against these Northerners. I am not concerned about your talk of me not supporting my tribe against another such tribe. I am only concerned with efforts that will lead me to earning the forgiveness of my sins by my Lord and survive all plots of evil ones of which you are partakers.
To my Igbo friends, males and females, see the circumstances that surrounded the death of Nigeria’s first and only Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, and see why those that used their advantage of being in control of power to remove the study of History as Subject in our Education Curriculum.
More saddening, they should have been done and gotten quiet with that unpardonable evil but no, they don’t. Today, they continue to threaten war as if they they see their removal of History from school in Nigeria as removal of same from school all over the world. John B. Macintosh did well still talking about it, either alive or in death. He is not a Nigerian but White.
It is the reason I think some Igbo declaring themselves as Northern Igbo possibly made some sense. It is also the reason I think my Igbo friends, who saw what happened and have decided to be, possitively, with Nigeria since the resurgence in 2015 of rebellion by those children and grandchildren of the likes of Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna and Captain Okafor.
Those are the likes of George Obiazor, leader of a group that parades itself as Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Nnamdi Kanu, the terrorist Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Saintly Jewish backed by Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), who has led some brainless fellow Igbo youths to battle where he is not present but only directs from the comfort of his room in United Kingdom forgetting that the President of Nigeria is neither Olusegun Obasanjo nor Goodluck Azikiwe Ebele Jonathan. He is Muhammadu Buhari, the quiet but tough spirit against corrupt and unpatriotic elements in the fountry.
They also include the likes of Eyinnaya Abaribe, a major promoter of the IPOB terrorists, who has continued to earn Nigeria’s money in billions and sitting in Senate of the same Nigeria he and his “warriors” believe and call Zoo, as Minority Leader.
WAKE UP is opinion article column of Lagos-based media practitioner, Prince Bashir Adefaka. Reach him via his email: omope72@gmail.com
