Monday, 20 May 2013
Chinua Achebe At 82: “We Remember Differently” By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Chinua Achebe
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
I have met Chinua Achebe only three times. The first, at the National Arts Club in Manhattan, I joined the admiring circle around him. A gentle-faced man in a wheelchair.
“Good evening, sir. I’m Chimamanda Adichie,” I said, and he replied, mildly, “I thought you were running away from me.”
I mumbled, nervous, grateful for the crush of people around us. I had been running away from him. After my first novel was published, I received an email from his son. My dad has just read your novel and liked it very much. He wants you to call him at this number. I read it over and over, breathless with excitement. But I never called. A few years later, my editor sent Achebe a manuscript of my second novel. She did not tell me, because she wanted to shield me from the possibility of disappointment. One afternoon, she called. “Chimamanda, are you sitting down? I have wonderful news.” She read me the blurb Achebe had just sent her. We do not usually associate wisdom with beginners, but here is a new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers. Adichie knows what is at stake, and what to do about it. She is fearless or she would not have taken on the intimidating horror of Nigeria’s civil war. Adichie came almost fully made. Afterwards, I held on to the phone and wept. I have memorized those words. In my mind, they glimmer still, the validation of a writer whose work had validated me.
I grew up writing imitative stories. Of characters eating food I had never seen and having conversations I had never heard. They might have been good or bad, those stories, but they were emotionally false, they were not mine. Then came a glorious awakening: Chinua Achebe’s fiction. Here were familiar characters who felt true; here was language that captured my two worlds; here was a writer writing not what he felt he should write but what he wanted to write. His work was free of anxiety, wore its own skin effortlessly. It emboldened me, not to find my voice, but to speak in the voice I already had. And so, when that e-mail came from his son, I knew, overly-thrilled as I was, that I would not call. His work had done more than enough. In an odd way, I was so awed, so grateful, that I did not want to meet him. I wanted some distance between my literary hero and me.
Chinua Achebe and I have never had a proper conversation. The second time I saw him, at a luncheon in his honor hosted by the British House of Lords, I sat across from him and avoided his eye. (“Chinua Achebe is the only person I have seen you shy with,” a friend said). The third, at a New York event celebrating fifty years of THINGS FALL APART, we crowded around him backstage, Edwidge Danticat and I, Ha Jin and Toni Morrison, Colum McCann and Chris Abani. We seemed, magically, bound together in a warm web, all of us affected by his work. Achebe looked pleased, but also vaguely puzzled by all the attention. He spoke softly, the volume of his entire being turned to ‘low.’ I wanted to tell him how much I admired his integrity, his speaking out about the disastrous leadership in my home state of Anambra, but I did not. Before I went on stage, he told me, “Jisie ike.” I wondered if he fully grasped, if indeed it was possible to, how much his work meant to so many.
History and civics, as school subjects, function not merely to teach facts but to transmit more subtle things, like pride and dignity. My Nigerian education taught me much, but left gaping holes. I had not been taught to imagine my pre-colonial past with any accuracy, or pride, or complexity. And so Achebe’s work, for me, transcended literature. It became personal. ARROW OF GOD, my favorite, was not just about the British government’s creation of warrant chiefs and the linked destinies of two men, it became the life my grandfather might have lived. THINGS FALL APART is the African novel most read – and arguably most loved – by Africans, a novel published when ‘African novel’ meant European accounts of ‘native’ life. Achebe was an unapologetic member of the generation of African writers who were ‘writing back,’ challenging the stock Western images of their homeland, but his work was not burdened by its intent. It is much-loved not because Achebe wrote back, but because he wrote back well. His work was wise, humorous, human. For many Africans, THINGS FALL APART remains a gesture of returned dignity, a literary and an emotional experience; Mandela called Achebe the writer in whose presence the prison walls came down.
Achebe’s most recent book, his long-awaited memoir of the Nigerian-Biafra war, is both sad and angry, a book by a writer looking back and mourning Nigeria’s failures. I wish THERE WAS A COUNTRY had been better edited and more rigorously detailed in its account of the war. But these flaws do not make it any less seminal: an account of the most important event in Nigeria’s history by Nigeria’s most important storyteller.
An excerpt from the book has ignited great controversy among Nigerians. In it, Achebe, indignant about the millions of people who starved to death in Biafra, holds Obafemi Awolowo, Nigerian Finance Minister during the war, responsible for the policy of blockading Biafra. He quote’s Awolowo’s own words on the blockade – ‘all is fair in war and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I don’t see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight harder’ and then argues that Awolowo’s support of the blockade was ‘driven by an overriding ambition for power for himself in particular and for the advancement of his Yoruba people in general.’
I have been startled and saddened by the responses to this excerpt. Many are blindingly ethnic, lacking in empathy and, most disturbing of all, lacking in knowledge. We can argue about how we interpret the facts of our shared history, but we cannot, surely, argue about the facts themselves. Awolowo, as de facto ‘number two man’ on the Nigerian side, was a central architect of the blockade on Biafra. During and after the war, Awolowo publicly defended the blockade. Without the blockade, the massive starvation in Biafra would not have occurred. These are the facts.
Some Nigerians, in responding to Achebe, have argued that the blockade was fair, as all is fair in war. The blockade was, in my opinion, inhumane and immoral. And it was unnecessary – Nigeria would have won anyway, it was the much-better-armed side in a war that Wole Soyinka called a shabby unequal conflict. The policy of starving a civilian population into surrender does not merely go against the Geneva conventions, but in this case, a war between siblings, people who were formerly fellow country men and women now suddenly on opposite sides, it seems more chilling. All is not fair in war.
Especially not in a fratricidal war. But I do not believe the blockade was a calculated power grab by Awolowo for himself and his ethnic group; I think of it, instead, as one of the many dehumanizing acts that war, by its nature, brings about.
Awolowo was undoubtedly a great political leader. He was also – rare for Nigerian leaders – a great intellectual. No Nigerian leader has, arguably, articulated a political vision as people-centered as Awolowo’s. For Nigerians from the west, he was the architect of free primary education, of progressive ideas. But for Nigerians from the east, he was a different man. I grew up hearing, from adults, versions of Achebe’s words about Awolowo. He was the man who prevented an Igbo man from leading the Western House of Assembly in the famous ‘carpet crossing’ incident of 1952. He was the man who betrayed Igbo people when he failed on his alleged promise to follow Biafra’s lead and pull the Western region out of Nigeria. He was the man who, in the words of my uncle, “made Igbo people poor because he never liked us.”
At the end of the war, every Igbo person who had a bank account in Nigeria was given twenty pounds, no matter how much they had in their accounts before the war. I have always thought this a livid injustice. I know a man who worked in a multinational company in 1965. He was, like Achebe, one of the many Igbo who just could not believe that their lives were in danger in Lagos and so he fled in a hurry, at the last minute, leaving thousands of pounds in his account. After the war, his account had twenty pounds. To many Igbo, this policy was uncommonly punitive, and went against the idea of ‘no victor, no vanquished.’ Then came the indigenization decree, which moved industrial and corporate power from foreign to Nigerian hands. It made many Nigerians wealthy; much of the great wealth in Nigeria today has its roots in this decree. But the Igbo could not participate; they were broke.
I do not agree, as Achebe writes, that one of the main reasons for Nigeria’s present backwardness is the failure to fully reintegrate the Igbo. I think Nigeria would be just as backward even if the Igbo had been fully integrated – institutional and leadership failures run across all ethnic lines. But the larger point Achebe makes is true, which is that the Igbo presence in Nigerian positions of power has been much reduced since the war. Before the war, many of Nigeria’s positions of power were occupied by Igbo people, in the military, politics, academia, business. Perhaps because the Igbo were very receptive to Western education, often at the expense of their own traditions, and had both a striving individualism and a communal ethic. This led to what, in history books, is often called a ‘fear of Igbo domination’ in the rest of Nigeria. The Igbo themselves were insensitive to this resentment, the bombast and brashness that is part of Igbo culture only exacerbated it. And so leading Igbo families entered the war as Nigeria’s privileged elite but emerged from it penniless, stripped and bitter.
Today, ‘marginalization’ is a popular word in Igboland. Many Igbo feel marginalized in Nigeria, a feeling based partly on experience and partly on the psychology of a defeated people. (Another consequence of this psychology, perhaps, is the loss of the communal ethic of the Igbo, much resented sixty years ago. It is almost non-existent today, or as my cousin eloquently put it: Igbo people don’t even send each other.)
Some responses to Achebe have had a ‘blame the victim’ undertone, suggesting that Biafrians started the war and therefore deserved what they got. But Biafrians did not ‘start the war.’ Nobody with a basic knowledge of the facts can make that case.
Biafrian secession was inevitable, after the federal government’s failure to implement the agreements reached at Aburi, itself prompted by the massacre of Igbo in the North. The cause of the massacres was arguably the first coup of 1966. Many believed it to be an ‘Igbo’ coup, which was not an unreasonable belief, Nigeria was already mired in ethnic resentments, the premiers of the West and North were murdered while the Eastern premier was not, and the coup plotters were Igbo. Except for Adewale Ademoyega, a Yoruba, who has argued that it was not an ethnic coup. I don’t believe it was. It seems, from most accounts, to have been an idealistic and poorly-planned nationalist exercise aimed at ridding Nigeria of a corrupt government. It was, also, horrendously, inexcusably violent. I wish the coup had never happened. I wish the premiers and other casualties had been arrested and imprisoned, rather than murdered. But the truth that glares above all else is that the thousands of Igbo people murdered in their homes and in the streets had nothing to do with the coup.
Some have blamed the Biafrian starvation on Ojukwu, Biafra’s leader, because he rejected an offer from the Nigerian government to bring in food through a land corridor. It was an ungenerous offer, one easy to refuse. A land corridor could also mean advancement of Nigerian troops. Ojukwu preferred airlifts, they were tactically safer, more strategic, and he could bring in much-needed arms as well. Ojukwu should have accepted the land offer, shabby as it was.
Innocent lives would have been saved. I wish he had not insisted on a ceasefire, a condition which the Nigerian side would never have agreed to. But it is disingenuous to claim that Ojukwu’s rejection of this offer caused the starvation. Many Biafrians had already starved to death. And, more crucially, the Nigerian government had shown little regard for Biafra’s civilian population; it had, for a while, banned international relief agencies from importing food. Nigerian planes bombed markets and targeted hospitals in Biafra, and had even shot down an International Red Cross plane.
Ordinary Biafrians were steeped in distrust of the Nigerian side. They felt safe eating food flown in from Sao Tome, but many believed that food brought from Nigeria would be poisoned, just as they believed that, if the war ended in defeat, there would be mass killings of Igbo people. The Biafrian propaganda machine further drummed this in. But, before the propaganda, something else had sown the seed of hateful fear: the 1966 mass murders of Igbo in the North. The scars left were deep and abiding. Had the federal government not been unwilling or incapable of protecting their lives and property, Igbo people would not have so massively supported secession and intellectuals, like Achebe, would not have joined in the war effort.
I have always admired Ojukwu, especially for his early idealism, the choices he made as a young man to escape the shadow of his father’s great wealth, to serve his country. In Biafra, he was a flawed leader, his paranoia and inability to trust those close to him clouded his judgments about the execution of the war, but he was also a man of principle who spoke up forcefully about the preservation of the lives of Igbo people when the federal government seemed indifferent. He was, for many Igbo, a Churchillian figure, a hero who inspired them, whose oratory moved them to action and made them feel valued, especially in the early months of the war.
Other responses to Achebe have dismissed the war as something that happened ‘long ago.’ But some of the people who played major roles are alive today. We must confront our history, if only to begin to understand how we came to be where we are today. The Americans are still hashing out details of their civil war that ended in 1865; the Spanish have only just started, seventy years after theirs ended. Of course, discussing a history as contested and contentious as the Nigeria-Biafra war will not always be pleasant. But it is necessary. An Igbo saying goes: If a child does not ask what killed his father, that same thing will kill him.
What many of the responses to Achebe make clear, above all else, is that we remember differently. For some, Biafra is history, a series of events in a book, fodder for argument and analysis. For others, it is a loved one killed in a market bombing, it is hunger as a near-constant companion, it is the death of certainty. The war was fought on Biafrian soil. There are buildings in my hometown with bullet holes; as a child, playing outside, I would sometimes come across bits of rusty ammunition left behind from the war. My generation was born after 1970, but we know of property lost, of relatives who never ‘returned’ from the North, of shadows that hung heavily over family stories. We inherited memory. And we have the privilege of distance that Achebe does not have.
Achebe is a war survivor. He was a member of the generation of Nigerians who were supposed to lead a new nation, inchoate but full of optimism. It shocked him, how quickly Nigerian fell apart. In THERE WAS A COUNTRY he sounds unbelieving, still, about the federal government’s indifference while Igbo people were being massacred in Northern Nigeria in 1966. But shock-worthy events did not only happen in the North. Achebe himself was forced to leave Lagos, a place he had called home for many years, because his life was no longer safe. His crime was being Igbo. A Yoruba acquaintance once told me a story of how he was nearly lynched in Lagos at the height of the tensions before the war; he was light-skinned, and a small mob in a market assumed him to be ‘Igbo Yellow’ and attacked him. The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos was forced to leave. So was the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan. Because they were Igbo. For Achebe, all this was deeply personal, deeply painful. His house was bombed, his office was destroyed.
He escaped death a few times. His best friend died in battle. To expect a dispassionate account from him is a remarkable failure of empathy. I wish more of the responses had acknowledged, a real acknowledgement and not merely a dismissive preface, the deep scars that experiences like Achebe’s must have left behind.
Ethnicity has become, in Nigeria, more political than cultural, less about philosophy and customs and values and more about which bank is a Yoruba or Hausa or Igbo bank, which political office is held by which ethnicity, which revered leader must be turned into a flawless saint. We cannot deny ethnicity. It matters. But our ethnic and national identities should not be spoken of as though they were mutually exclusive; I am as much Igbo as I am Nigerian. I have hope in the future of Nigeria, mostly because we have not yet made a real, conscious effort to begin creating a nation (We could start, for example, by not merely teaching Maths and English in primary schools, but also teaching idealism and citizenship.)
For some non-Igbo, confronting facts of the war is uncomfortable, even inconvenient. But we must hear one another’s stories. It is even more imperative for a subject like Biafra which, because of our different experiences, we remember differently. Biafrian minorities were distrusted by the Igbo majority, and some were unfairly attacked, blamed for being saboteurs. Nigerian minorities, particularly in the midwest, suffered at the hands of both Biafrian and Nigerian soldiers. ‘Abandoned property’ cases remain unresolved today in Port Harcourt, a city whose Igbo names were changed after the war, creating “Rumu” from “Umu.” Nigerian soldiers carried out a horrendous massacre in Asaba, murdering the males in a town which is today still alive with painful memories. Some Igbo families are still waiting, half-hoping, that a lost son, a lost daughter, will come home. All of these stories can sit alongside one another. The Nigerian stage is big enough. Chinua Achebe has told his story. This week, he turns 82. Long may he live.
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In response to a disgruntled individual
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on April 16, 2013 - 09:33.
How dare you? Who do you think you are? You are probably a disgruntled Yoruba man. You Yorubas are the ones that live by the law of the jungle. It obviously pains you that Igbos are more successful and smarter that you lot. Even if we are driven and motivated by wealth, at least it is mostly above board. You Yoruba people, all you know is 419, scams, robbery, corruption. Please respect yourself.
Chimamanda!!!
Submitted by basi koko (not verified) on December 27, 2012 - 11:28.
This is one of the most well thought out and extremely well written responses I have read since Achebe's book came out. Ngozi,it is still morning yet in your creative life - your time has not even began to come. May your pen never run dry and your chi never fail - chi gi aman da!!!!
Who brain damaged Chimamanda Ngozi Adiechie like this - part 2
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on December 11, 2012 - 09:17.
Shame on them because once realising that you Chinua had gone senile, they should have advised you not to print lies for gullible Igbo persons(Not Igbo people). Not all Igbo people, especially those who knew the truth about what really went down in Nigeria pre and post independence. They do not believe your crappy unintelligent lies. Useless condemned old man. Just look at his bitter, ugly face, then and now.
This is a well researched article with real names, dates, timesand references and as such the first article that made sense because it is the truth. Achebe and Biafran Propagandists like him must counter it with facts, names, times, dates and references if they have such concrete proof instead of giving Nigerians Fairy tales by Moonlight and fictions. Mswwwww!
Who brainwashed Chimamanda Ngozi Adiechie's brain like this?
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on December 11, 2012 - 08:27.
This child who is seeking relevance where there is non, in the person of a psychotic Biafran die hard liar, propagandist and an evil man like Chinua Achebe and his likes, like her uncle and other Igbo persons must be tried for treason in Nigeria for spreading lies, hatred and inciting genocide amongst peace loving Nigerians. Chimamanda go and read the truth properly, because it will set you free. Otherwise like Chinua, you will amount to nothing at the end of your untruthful writing career.
Chinua, go and rest in peace, you are no longer relevant in Nigeria with your backwardness. Instead of giving Nigerians positive solutions to it's problems to advance Nigeria, so that it can take it's rightful place amongst other Nations of equal and potential, this is what you have after all these years? Shame on you & your family.
Igbos are awkward
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on December 2, 2012 - 15:31.
Just listen to yourself praising your race to high heavens..Philistines your race are not Jews. When you are in school (a dropout like you) who are your better? All eforts; your Achebe never had nobel price, he rubbished Soyinka out of jealousy, the same thing that is destroying you. Ojukwu in 2010 said he never accused Awolowo so why are you retards insisting he did anything wrong? Your folks commited suicide and you can do same today no one will feel your absence. Anyway go to your shift job, illegal immigrant.
@ NAGODI cum Ewedu Retard : Count the miles !
Submitted by Wähala (not verified) on December 1, 2012 - 12:53.
@ Nagodi : I did not check the site bcos I'm certain it's another wacko conspiracy trash akin to Americans planned and carried out 911 bombing Arabs have been peddling about. Wie gesagt, neo-NAZIs did not go underground and capture America after WWII; many German Gypsies, Jews, Jehova Witnesses and the opposition "escaped" HItler's NS Germany. You cannot in 100yrs "Beweiss" (prove) that NAZI policies sustain the USA. Ibos are like the Germans, we lost a war but have "won" the control of (Black) Africa's economy thru hardwork and fiscal discipline. Ibos are the BrainBox of Africa! Wallahi.
@ Omo-gbana! : Ignorant fool, all those Mansions you see in Nollywood movies are in Iboland. "Nollywood" is in Enugu, Owerri, Awka and Ibo enclaves like FESTAC in Lagos. Your Ibadan remains the dirtiest capital in Africa. Like Germany owns Europe, we own Nigeria and that's Gospel. Bite your (toe) nails off, a drug addict can't upset me. Amu igbo!
Achebe si an old fool at 82
Submitted by Festus Toju (not verified) on December 1, 2012 - 10:16.
Chinua Achebe and Igbos are driven and motivated by vanity and primitive acquisition of wealth, they operate under the law of the jungle where anything goes and winner takes all. They act without considering the consequences of their action. They do no impact analysis on any project they are about to embark upon especially when it relates to another race or tribe . They lack sense of fairness and balance in their world view. They act foolishly all the time and when their foolish act bounce back on them in geometric proportion they cry foul. Chinua Achebe at 82 is a frustrated man will remain frustrated for the rest of his life for his moronic and unwarranted attacked on Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Yoruba. Awolowo promoted equality&fairness among all Nigeria regardless tribe throughout his lifetime. This he demonstrated while he was premier of west all ethnic group were treated fairly and equally. Azikwe and Igbos brutally dominated and oppressed ethic minority in east.
Chinua Achebe At 82
Submitted by Festus Toju (not verified) on November 30, 2012 - 18:06.
Chinua Achebe and Igbos are driven and motivated by vanity and primitive acquisition of wealth, they operate under the law of the jungle where anything goes and winner takes all. They act without considering the consequences of their action. They do no impact analysis on any project they are about to embark upon especially when it relates to another race or tribe . They lack sense of fairness and balance in their world view. They act foolishly all the time and when their foolish act bounce back on them in geometric proportion they cry foul. Chinua Achebe at 82 is a frustrated man will remain frustrated for the rest of his life for his moronic and unwarranted attacked on Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Yoruba. Awolowo promoted equality&fairness among all Nigeria regardless tribe throughout his lifetime. This he demonstrated while he was premier of west all ethnic group were treated fairly and equally. Azikwe and Igbos brutally dominated and oppressed ethic minority in east.
Chinua Achebe At 82
Submitted by Festus Toju (not verified) on November 30, 2012 - 18:05.
Chinua Achebe and Igbos are driven and motivated by vanity and primitive acquisition of wealth, they operate under the law of the jungle where anything goes and winner takes all. They act without considering the consequences of their action. They do no impact analysis on any project they are about to embark upon especially when it relates to another race or tribe . They lack sense of fairness and balance in their world view. They act foolishly all the time and when their foolish act bounce back on them in geometric proportion they cry foul. Chinua Achebe at 82 is a frustrated man will remain frustrated for the rest of his life for his moronic and unwarranted attacked on Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Yoruba. Awolowo promoted equality&fairness among all Nigeria regardless tribe throughout his lifetime. This he demonstrated while he was premier of west all ethnic group were treated fairly and equally. Azikwe and Igbos brutally dominated and oppressed ethic minority in east.
I MADE A CLAIM AND PROVIDE PROOF WHICH YOU DID NOT LOOK AT
Submitted by NAGODI (not verified) on November 30, 2012 - 16:54.
"...what I don't know is that America (the most culturally diverse country in the World) is run by NAZIs who are "implementing exatly the NAZI policies that Hitler fought so hard to achieve", Blödmann!"
THE SITE I REFER GAVE CONVINCING EVIDENCE OF THE QUESTION YOU ASK ABOVE. BUT IF, AS YOU ADMITTED, YOU WONT GO TO THE SITE, THEN HOW CAN ANYBODY HELP YOU? KNOW THIS THAT AS HITLER SET UP A TERRORISTS DATABASE IN THE 30'S SO DOES AMERICA TODAY. AS HE FORCED SUSPECTED COMMUNIST TO SUBMIT TO ILLEGAL AND INTRUSIVE SEARCHES AT AIRPORTS AND RAIL/BUS STATIONS SO DOES AMERICA TODAY. HILTER HAS A NO FLY LIST OF TERRORISTS JUST LIKE THE U.S. TODAY. HILTERS ENABLING ACT (A DRACONIAN LAW) IS A WORD FOR WORD COPY OF AMERICAS PATRIOT ACT- I SAY WORD FOR WORD COPY. SO EDUCATE YOURSELF WAHALA OR WALLOW IN IGNORANCE. AMERICA TODAY IS HITLER'S DREAM COME TRUE, IF YOU DOUBT VISIT. I AM SURE YOU WILL HAVE YOUR ASS PROBED AND YOUR DICK IRRADIATED SO MUCH THAT YOU WILL HATE YOURSELF.
IGBOS LOST A WAR THEY STARTED, THEREFORE NO MEMORIAL FOR YOU
Submitted by NAGODI (not verified) on November 30, 2012 - 16:37.
"... How many Biafrans that invented their own bombs, refined their petroleum etc, did Nigeria assimmilate after the war? Instead, you garnered their property, stole their money and've continued to marginalize them politically since the war ended. Yet, you can't let them be. I live in Germany and have visited Bergen Belsen and other Concentration Camp memorials, where are Nigeria's war memorials? In Germany it's a crime to deny the Holocust, in Nigeria, the senseless pogrom is the fault of Ibo leaders. "
YOU FORGOT THE DICTUM THAT HISTORY IS WRITTEN BY THE VICTORS. THE JEWS WON THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND AS A BOUNTY ESTABLISH THE STATE OF ISRAEL. THEY CRIMINALISE "HOLOCUST DENIAL" AND INSTITUTE OTHER DRACONIAN LAWS SUCH AS "ANTI-SEMITISM". THE IGBOS ON THE OTHER HAND LOST THE WAR YET THEY WANT THE PREVILEDGES OF THE VICTOR!
IF YOU WONT CHECK A SITE AND SEE ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW HOW THEN WILL YOU LEARN? IGBO ARROGANCE!?
Wahala
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on November 30, 2012 - 15:16.
You get wahala true true. At least I upset you very well. 1 for me 0 for you. You can go hug a transformer. Igboman own 40% of Lagos, agbero like you, own 100% of thatch houses in the east, we dash you. Your uncles and fathers withdrew their funds from Nigerian banks, came back after loosing asking for the same money they had withdrawn and crying like babies that all their cashbooks are lost, stupid as usual. Why then did Ojukwu that asked you to exchange all your funds for Biafran pounds and collecting your cashbook burning them up not burn his own Nigerian account books? he came back, presented his credentials, collected all his monies and his fathers properties because he knew you dont think much. Gowon put an elderly man beside him, Igbos followed a 29yr old boy to their suicide.
@ ewedu lover! (aka @ anonymous)
Submitted by Wähala (not verified) on November 30, 2012 - 00:54.
Fool, but Awo and his worshippers allowed Ibo VC's for both UI & Ife universities at the time abi? Ibos thought you what you know! Your reference to "western house" blew your cover as yet another cowardly Yoruba tout. A rapist ex-soldier (bootless) that wrote similar trash at Amb. Abdulrazaaq Hamzat's gibberish. 42yrs. onward, is Ibadan, the Oyo State capital still not rated the dirtiest in Nigeria, what have you been up to other than servitude to arid abokis? But with only twenty pounds, Ibos own 40% of Eko City, 75% of aboki's Abuja and 100% of Iboland. So, eat your heart out. Touts like Abiola, Muritala, Saro-Wiwa have paid their dues, more will follow, just follow what's going on in arid abokiland. Ofemmanu sucker like you.
Mumus, mugus
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on November 29, 2012 - 21:22.
they want Biafra, they want Nigeria, they want Biafran pounds, yet they are laying claims to Nigerian Naira after withdrawing all their funds before leaving Nigeria for Biafra. They want Biafran food they also want Nigerian food. too greedy as ever.Can azikiwe allow a yoruba man take over eastern assembly at Enugu? idiots, igboman becoming leader of western house, they cook mad for una chop? that will never happen. Achebe just reversed you back 42yrs, low IQ people.
@NAGODI : Further Nonsense
Submitted by Wähala (not verified) on November 29, 2012 - 11:20.
@ Nagodi : Albert Einstein also ran with his friends to America. I know that Oppenheimer, Fermi and others fled NS Germany, what I don't know is that America (the most culturally diverse country in the World) is run by NAZIs who are "implementing exatly the NAZI policies that Hitler fought so hard to achieve", Blödmann! Question : How many Biafrans that invented their own bombs, refined their petroleum etc, did Nigeria assimmilate after the war? Instead, you garnered their property, stole their money and've continued to marginalize them politically since the war ended. Yet, you can't let them be. I live in Germany and have visited Bergen Belsen and other Concentration Camp memorials, where are Nigeria's war memorials? In Germany it's a crime to deny the Holocust, in Nigeria, the senseless pogrom is the fault of Ibo leaders. I'm not checking out any site, just know that what goes around, comes around. Again, look who's murdering innocents Nigerians today, same Animals!
one of the ways to make peace
Submitted by Emmanuel (not verified) on November 28, 2012 - 16:44.
one of the ways to make peace is to attack a problem head on, people "trusted and reverred people" from both sides are supposed to come out and discuss this issues and point out the right and the wrong parts of this dispute which, though we dont know it is killing us within. That way we can forge ahead, i ve never seen a dispute solved by sweeping it under the rug. The reason y d likes of adichie and achebe are popular than u is because the think better
see yearns o
Submitted by chuks (not verified) on November 28, 2012 - 12:29.
o boy, u dey ask person u dey fight for free food e no come give u, u come dey vex...shame on u.u shld cover your face in shame...na ur papa?..we ibos left the country we come dey cry say dem no feed us...doesn't that tell u the ibos were not ready to govern themselves?...I am disappointed in my fellow ibos. stop the mediocrity. ..papa achebe shld go and rest in peace!. We new ibos are not village warfare oriented.
Wahala, it is not easy for people like you to see!
Submitted by NAGODI (not verified) on November 28, 2012 - 02:15.
I WAS SHOCKED TO READ ABOUT "OPERATION PAPERCLIP" IN WHICH THE U.S. IMPORTED NAZI SCIENTIST, POLITICIANS, HISTORIANS AND OTHER INTELLECTUALS FROM GERMANY AFTER WW2 INCLUDING THE FAMOUS WERNER VON BRAUN. THESE PEOPLE SET UP THE THE AMERICAN EUGENICS, PHARMACEUTICAL, GENETIC AND SPACE ENGINEERING FIRMS. INFACT THEY EFFECTIVELY RUN THE U.S. TODAY AND ARE IMPLEMENTING EXACTLY THE NAZI POLICY THAT HITLER FOUGHT SO HARD TO ACHIEVE BUT FAILED THEN! ONE OF MY PERSONAL WAKE UP CALL WAS WHEN BUSH NAMED AN AGENCY "HOMELAND SECURITY" AFTER THE SELF INFLICTED WOUNDS OF 911, EXACTLY WHAT HITLER DID AFTER THE SELF INFLICTED WOUNDS OF THE BURNING OF THE PARLIAMENT IN BERLIN. HITLER NAMED HIS AGENCY "Heimatschutz-Ministerium"!
PLS WAHALA CHECK OUT THIS SITE TO SEE WHAT I MEAN
@Emeka London
Submitted by Dele Awogbeoba (not verified) on November 28, 2012 - 01:10.
If only people were tried and convicted on marginal websites. If you have a case, go to the Hague and attempt to get a conviction. You may meet Hitler's commanders and their descendants that may have similar complaints against Stalin and Churchill! Otherwise....(as the brits are oft to say) sod off you wanker!!
Another Attempt To Confuse Issues
Submitted by Emeka London (not verified) on November 27, 2012 - 13:19.
Quote: “With this definition, Dr. Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe was a SABOTEUR because he was supposed to be on Biafra's side”
Gbam!
Azikiwe maybe a saboteur as you rightly observed but NOT a war criminal. Awolowo had the intention to commit mass murder (judging from his own words), did commit mass murder (with his food-as-weapon-of-war policy that cost millions of Igbo lives), boasted about it (in many interviews published after the war), meaning he had no regrets for his actions. So he and his followers should live with that REALITY; which is that he is an established WAR CRIMINAL.
Bringing in Zik’s name into the debate is a typical tactics by the Awoists tp confuse issues where all other excuses have been robustly defeated.
Some Yorubas Are Now Ashamed To Bear Their Father's Name
Submitted by Emeka London (not verified) on November 27, 2012 - 12:46.
Quote: "Your silly tantrums is not needed or welcome here. Just sad that we bear the same name" 'Emeka'
Another masquarader!
Young man/woman, are you so ashamed to be identified with your back-stabbing and ungrateful Yoruba race that you now bear 'Emeka'?
Why claim a name you probably don’t know what it means or signify?
FYI, this GENUINE Emeka like Chinua Achebe doesn't give a moniker what a Yoruba masquerading as Igbo thinks.
Try another tricks.
Chinua Achebe At 82: “We Remember Differently” By Chimamanda Ngo
Submitted by bamikolaAnonymous (not verified) on November 27, 2012 - 09:35.
"NO WAR-STORY READs LIKE a LOVE-STORY:
Even when Cause hath followed up with reasons for War
A war is like an Elephant in the midst of the fable-blinds,
each shooting blindly for a “piece of meat”..!
What will you call Zik if Awo is an established war criminal?
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on November 27, 2012 - 01:32.
I bet you will call him worse. While Awo lined up with the Federal Govt, Zik, who lined up with Biafra flew into Lagos during the height of the war to meet with General Gowon and his war cabinet to subverse, subvert, and sell out the secrets of his people and his dream nation of Biafra to a sworn enemy. With this definition, Dr. Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe was a SABOTEUR because he was supposed to be on Biafra's side.
Chinua Achebe At 82: “We Remember Differently” By Chimam
Submitted by mike (not verified) on November 27, 2012 - 01:04.
It is a shame that you can even think along this line. As learned as you are. It would have been better to read all available write ups before jumping to this conclusion. May I refer you to the series on Nigerian war in 'The Nigerian Tribune".
It may be of interest for you to follow the current infighting among the Ojukwu siblings. All the properties in question are situated in Lagos. These are not knew acquisitions. These were the 'abandoned' properties preserved for those who left to fight on the other side of the war.
Your reasoning does not hold water. Try another one. You just lost an admirer.
@NAGODI : Stop impersonating Sa'ad Nagodi...you're an almagiri !
Submitted by Wähala (not verified) on November 27, 2012 - 00:55.
@NAGODI : Pal, get a life. I've been following @ Nadogi's comments for years and can tell you're a bloated fool. Your English is so poor you need a teacher, your logic so disjointed you need a doctor. You're a buffon hiding under s'one else's name to direct obsene rubbish at superior race, not even Deri is this daft. In which underground war did the Neo-Nazis "capture their chief enemy America" according to your almagiri textbook? Fool, even in the middle of the Intifada, Isreal allows your Arab mentors to bring food into Palestinian territories, it's covered under international rules of engagement. Mugu, when was the Berlin Wall built, during or after the war? You're so stupid you need the Imam to "Falaqa" your scally arse. Arid animal, One Ibo person is more produtive than a village of almagiris like your hopeless self. Today your illitrate cousins are murdering innocent people, where are your "smart Generals" to recapture Aso Rock if you're not cowards. Rusty clown!
IBBOS HAVE FAILED TWICE!
Submitted by NAGODI (not verified) on November 26, 2012 - 22:00.
IT IS ASTOUNDING THAT PEOPLE WHO LOST A WAR WILL BE PEDDLING THIS STUPIDITY. BRAVE LOSERS LIKE HERMANN GOERING, HITLERS SECOND IN COMMAND COMMIT SUICIDE WHILE THEIR YOUNGER GENERATION ARE NEO-NAZIS WHO WENT UNDERGROUND AND CAPTURE THEIR CHIEF ENEMY, AMERICA. COWARDS LIKE ACHEBE HOWEVER ARE WRITING BOOKS TO BLAME THEIR ENEMY FOR THEIR OWN LACK OF FORESIGHT AND PREPARATION. WHICH FOOL WILL GO TO WAR EXPECTING HIS ENEMY TO PROVIDE A FOOD CORRIDOR FOR HIM IN THE HEAT OF THE BATTLE? WHICH FOOLISH GENERAL GOES TO WAR WITH NO STRATEGY FOR LOGISTIC SUCH THAT HIS ENEMY CAN BLOCK HIS ONLY SOURCE OF WEAPONS AND FOOD. WELL THERE IS ONLY ONE SUCH GENERAL AND IS GENERAL OJUKWU!
THE IGBOS SHOULD KNOW THAT STARVATION OF POPULATIONS IS A LEGITIMATE WEAPON OF WAR FROM THE SIEGE OF JERICO TO THAT OF BERLIN. REAL GENERALS RESPOND LIKE GENERAL EISENHOWER WHO, WHEN THE RUSSIANS IMPOSE A SIEGE ON BERLIN BLOCKING FOOD AND WEAPONS SUPPLIES, STARTED THE HISTORIC BERLIN AIRLIFT.
Chinua Achebe is coming to Igboland
Submitted by Festus Toju (not verified) on November 26, 2012 - 20:26.
I challenge chinua Achebe to step into Anambra state or anywhere in Igbo land today if he will not be kidnapped and ransom place on his head.
@Emeka an angry vermin. Read
Submitted by Emeka (not verified) on November 26, 2012 - 18:12.
@Emeka an angry vermin. Read and assimilte what this sister wrote. Learn something positive from her. Your silly tantrums is not needed or welcome here. Just sad that we bear the same name.
Nice one guyz,but I think
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on November 26, 2012 - 16:12.
Nice one guyz,but I think this comments you made about the ibos can cause trouble in this country,but its the absolute truth to the core. I like what you spoke about but I don't think other s would like it aswell.
THERE IS A COUNTRY
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on November 26, 2012 - 15:17.
In my view, this book by Prof. Achebe did its job. Even if the contents are all lies, just look at the reaction by the various people who are from the same this same country. People making hateful comments that has nothing to do with the topic of discuss. The war never really ended. Indeed, there WAS a country. If you think I am lying read all the previous posts.
