This is a part of Pa Col Joe Achuzie's Interview about the cause of Nigeria / Biafra War, the original transcript of the event that took place during this Pogrom committed against the Biafran's.
Col Joe Achuzie was a Battle field commander who fought till the end of the war and he is still ALIVE today telling the true story of the of the war.
Its a pitty that 95% of Biafran youth were not allowed to read about the history of that GENOCIDE committed against their people at school.
Here on Radio Biafra Face book page we bring it to you LIVE and Direct, On Radio Biafra live interactive program , when you tune in and listen to Radio Biafra , you will always expect to receive an undiluted Gospel Truth about Biafra and the devilish contraption called Nigeria. Radio Biafra is second to non in the world of first class Broadcaster,
its the most listened Radio station in the world.
READ bellow..
Excerpt...............................
I went with my troops to Owerri and we met and greeted. So, he said to me, was there any need for me to come with my troops?. And I said no. it was necessary for me because it was the cream of my men that you collected. Then we saluted and they escorted me across the Imo River at Owerri Nta. From there, I proceeded back to my home. Now, is that the position of a defeated army? If they want us to tell the truth about what happened, we’ll tell the truth. But for a group of people trying to make it look as if Biafra looked like a lily-livered army or a rag-tag army, no. No rag-tag army at all could hold a well-equipped army like Nigerian army to ransom for three years.
The only thing, I repeat, is that the ground strategy adopted by Biafra made it possible for Nigeria to remain till today.
In the face of all this, how did you warm your way into Ojukwu’s heart to become his favourite among other officers from the Mid-west?
I don’t know about being anybody’s favourite. All I know is that each time Ojukwu gave me order I obeyed it. That people consider me his favourite, well why should a commander-in-chief, have a favourite? All his officers were his favourites. For anybody to consider himself not to be a favourite of the commander-in-chief he must have been harbouring some disloyalty attitude in his mind towards the commander-in-chief.
But why did you call for an end to the war when you did?
We did so because of the situation we found ourselves. Certain things were happening at the time which up till now we haven’t told our people. For instance, they said Ojukwu left because the war was closing in on him and the entire Biafra. That also is not true. We had several options then. One of the options was to break out of the Biafra enclave to cause confusion. But we had studiously maintained that we were not trying to create a civil war but we were still being attacked based on the perceived situation that brought about the pogrom.
Good enough, it was the pogrom that chased people out of the North. And when our people left the North, the pogrom continued and this made it impossible for our people to find relief in the West. There was no other alternative than to say, ‘to your tents oh Israel.’ So, our people left and came home. And even when organizing the military defensive activity we still had it in mind that we couldn’t abandon a country we helped to build.
But we couldn’t in trying to maintain the status quo we helped to build allowed ourselves to be exterminated. No. Consequently, we retreated. By retreating, regrouping, we said we will not carry our military exploits beyond our shores. Otherwise, as it were, we had several options. Take a brigade and break into Nigeria and cause havoc. That would have made the war total, but instead under the counsel of our commander-in-chief and our elders, we maintained an operational balance.
It was for us to defend ourselves within our soil so that nobody could accuse us of either precipitating the war or as they try to accuse us that the coup was tailored against the North, an Igbo coup. If such a coup that had a universal acclaim could later change into an Igbo coup, what then would have happened if we had carried the war right into the North. The possibility was there and we didn’t do that.
But then when Igbo officers and men crossed into the West why were they not coordinated, allowing soldiers scatter into different directions?
No! No!! You see the war,… Every war produces certain actions and reactions. When it became clear after the second division of Nigerian army crossed over and attacked Biafra, we already heard that they were going to use the Mid-west whom we thought was the buffer zone between us and them. But the rampaging Nigerian army did not honour that. We were not prepared to allow them because once they did, it meant that they had three-quarters of the totality of the land in Nigeria. And that would have been very difficult for us.
We were also mindful of the fact that during the pogrom in the North, the majority of the soldiers as far as the North was concerned, Midwest was an Igbo land. It was in fact an afterthought when they tried to woo the Benins, the Urhobo’s and so on, forgetting that the Benins and Urhobos were some of those they killed during the pogrom.
So, ranging them against us by pacifying them as they did when they created Cross-River and Rivers States, it was not done to appease the North. No. it was done to range them against the Igbo people by telling them that they were sufficient to be on their own as states. And that they should not be an appendage of the Igbos. They even forgot that we could have done the same by moving into the North, bringing the Middlebelt against the Fulanis.
But we didn’t do that. So, that was what it was like.
Okay, were all these part of the blunders that prolonged the war?
Of course, yes. If we had played the game the way Nigeria played it, we would still be in the battle field today. But our people have a saying that the hen with so many chicks doesn’t know how to run in a battle situation.
Do you think because the Yoruba officers were the ones that saw to the end of the war, it has caused any friction between them and the Igbo people?
No, because a day after my declaration, I started the announcement from 9a.m. Every 15 minutes, my broadcast was on. Sir Louis Mbanefo crafted the statement that we gave Philip Effiong to read. After it was read, it became necessary because in my broadcast, we said we had sent emissaries to various Nigerian military formations to inform them that we had decided to end the war.
It is only people with authority who could do that. Any army on the run will not make such statement. So, we did it on a friendly basis. Today Akin is still my friend. We meet from time to time. He visits me here too. No, it has not caused any friction at all.
Why was it possible for the Owerri battle front to be inclusive as it were?
First and foremost, to take over Owerri was impossible. Owerri is the heartland of the Igbo nation. The heart land of our domain. Enugu is our foremost town which was prepared by the colonial masters as an administrative headquarters. Just as Lagos is to the West, even though Ibadan was the heartland of the Yoruba. So, also in the North, they have Kaduna State, which now they have Abuja, even though they have Sokoto, Maiduguiri and those other places.
Nigeria is centered on a tripod, whichever way you push it, all that come to the surface are the Hausa nation, the Yoruba nation and the Igbo nation. Each of these nations has minorities. Today, all that people talk about are the minorities within the East, within the Igbo nation because of economic interest. If oil has not been the main source of income for the totality of Nigerians, nobody would care how the Ijaws, how the Itsekiris, the Ibibios, Kalabairis, the Efiks and so on, are faring. This is so because they’ve been in existence before the arrival of the Europeans.
God Bless Biafra.
The struggle continue until Victory is achieved
ALL HAIL #BIAFRA.
No comments:
Post a Comment