COUPS, BIAFRA, INSECURITY: Nigeria won Civil War but didn’t know how to win peace – Gen Alabi-Isama (rtd)

•‘Why people give more information to B/Haram than to Federal Government’

•Says whoever does not want state police is a coward

By Demola Akinyemi, Ilorin

Brigadier General Godwin Alabi-Isama (retired) was one of the  top players in the military during the Nigerian Civil War, also known as Biafra War. Alabi-Isama served as chief of staff to Brigadier Benjamin Adekunle , Commanding Officer of the 3 Marine Commando, during the  Civil War. Alabi-Isama is also credited with leading forces against Biafra, successfully liberating various locations including Odukpani, Ikot-Okpora, Iwuru, Akunakuna, Itigidi, Ediba, Ugep, Obubra, Afikpo, Oban, and Ekang. He also “closed” the international border with Biafra at Nssakpa, as detailed in his book, The Tragedy of Victory. In this interview conducted in his residence in Ilorin, Kwara State capital, he speaks on the January 15, 1966 coup in Nigeria, which happened 60 years ago, the revenge coup of July of that year, the fallouts, one of which is the Civil War, the consequences for the country, the insecurity currently facing the nation and democracy. Excerpts:

In January 15, 1966, exactly 60 years ago, what was it like, how did it strike you?

 I read about coups in books, nobody taught us anything about coup. I was a very young officer then. I was a Captain and for people to just kill our senior officers that we respected so much, I was wondering.

Respecting those officers at that time was because they had so much to offer. They were teaching us, they were mentoring us, they were teaching us they rudiments how to run the military and be loyal to the country. Nzeogwu was a very good friend of mine. He was a senior officer and he liked me very much but I believe that every coup planner is an idiot. There is a difference between a fool and an idiot. You entered somebody’s house, I didn’t carry any weapon against you and you shot me and my family. Ademuwagun Ademola, for instance, was killed beside his pregnant wife on bed and the children became fatherless overnight. So, anyone that is organising a coup, killing people like Dimka (mastermind of the 1976 coup), they’re just idiots as far as I’m concerned, shooting and killing people that are armless. So, they (organizers of the January 15, 1966 coup) played their part, they had reasons for whatever they did, but I don’t just agree with them.

But do you agree that the coup was a tribal one?

 The coup to me was not a tribal one because even those people that foiled the coup were Ibos. Ojukwu (then a lt. col. in the army) and Ironsi (head of the army) foiled the coup but they cannot deny the fact that they didn’t know about it. That part of it; from reading books to now that I’m older, the coup was not an Ibo coup though there was no doubt in my mind that Ibo people knew about the coup. People like Azikiwe (ceremonial president of Nigeria), Ironsi and Ojukwu, they knew about the coup but somehow they were the ones who foiled the coup because I read a book written by COL NJEOKWU recently which claimed that Ironsi said “these boys, but they told me they were not going to kill anybody?” So, for me, it wasn’t an Ibo coup but, definitely, the Ibos knew about it.

 After the first coup in January 1966 came successive coups. Were there justifications for them?

 First of all, I will say that there’s no justification for any coup but these are Nigerians and they could not be indifferent to what happened around them but because they have ammunitions, so they used that as leverage over the people. But which of the coups had been successful? None. Even the army shot itself in the foot and had to run away. They didn’t have glorious exit. The second coup (July 1966) was an Hausa coup and when I use the word Hausa, that’s from Offa to Sokoto and Katsina, Maiduguri, it was a revenge coup. There were lots of killings. Now what caused the coup (January 1966) at that time was because of our political system, feudal system, which saw people sharing money and till today we are still sharing money. At the time we went to (civil) war, we said we didn’t want unitary system, we wanted federalism; the war ended and we ended up with the unitary system. So why did people die? That’s why I call all of them idiots.

There were civilians who worked with the military during the period irrespective of the success or failure. Would you justify the civilians working in the military government?

 Whether we like it or not, the military could not run the government alone. They had to run it with civilians and some civilians even encouraged them to organise coups, and we talk about foreign governments’ involvement and all that. But what should we do? The civilians with them in government also tried to put things right. They too wanted to rule the country, they too wanted to be governor.

In fact, yesterday I was discussing with some people here, some civilians wanted to be President. I wanted to play Ludo with my mother, I didn’t want to be anybody’s governor. In 1976 when Ogbemudia was governor in the Midwest and was sick, and I was deputy there because I was Brigade Commander, so I became the acting governor, I received the first batch of the NYSC. There were too many people visiting from morning till night, so I didn’t have time to play Ludo with my mother and my mother wasn’t happy with it, and I wasn’t happy with it either. So, it depends on what you’re talking about. A lot of people are interested in governance, yes, and so they joined the military because the military alone couldn’t do it, they had to work with the civilians. But the fact is that the best military is still not as good as the worst civilian government. The military are not trained to do that and that is why in 1976 when I was at the Army Headquarters as the Principal Staff Officer, I started what was called ‘Building a qualitative Army’. Many weren’t intelligent to do what they were doing. There were some governors, after a meeting they will go to their various states. The one in Ibadan will say something different from the one in Kano and the one in Kano will say something different from the one in Bayelsa and all that. So, we then said after a meeting, they must select somebody that will now go and talk to the press, so that some of them will not be saying something and others will be denying it. So, there will be no argument and doubt about what the government wanted to do. Governance is different from military tactics and strategies

Looking at the Nigerian Army in the last 60 years or so, can we say that the country would have been much better without military incursion?

 Nigeria would have been much better that what it is now because we had federalism. The West started television and said ‘First in Africa’, East started something else and said ‘Second to none’ and the North also had their own. Then Awolowo came up with free education, the East and the North couldn’t do it. Awolowo built stadium for the youths, empowered them, he was like de facto President. What happened was that there was competition and it was competition that brought growth. I give you an example. If you ran 100 meters’ race with me and I came first, and you want to beat me next time, you will train more and I will train more so that you don’t beat me. So, the more we both train, the better for the situation which means both of us will break records, that’s exactly what it was. Federalism was what we need and what we had always needed because of the ethnic and linguistic groupings in the country. We need federalism where there would be competition, at that time the country was galloping. And now we broke into 36 states which used to be four regions, and look at the number of ministers and commissioners, that’s a lot of money which we needed for development.

The development now is not as fast as it was then because there was competition. While Zik in the East would construct thousands of roads, North would also build thousands of roads and West would not want to be left behind. So, there was competition and it’s only competition that would bring the growth we are all looking for. So, Nigeria would have been a developed country by now. Can you imagine that the whole of Nigeria is using DSTV today owned by South Africa and South Africa had no television by the time we ended the civil war in 1970?

Looking at the Nigeria military today, it’s as if they can’t contain rising banditry and terrorism in the country. What’s the way forward?

 Let me give you an incident about Maitatsine. Maitatsine was a Camerounian man, his real name was MARUA. He came from Cameroun to teach Nigerians what was called Wahabism. He said Nigeria Muslims were practicing adulterated Islam. So, why kill people, why not just establish a school, rather than killing people in Kano for like four years, and in Sokoto and they were advancing towards Maiduguri when I was transferred to Army Headquarters in 1976 after Murtala’s coup? So I asked if I could go there and secure the place. Finally with the wave of the hand, I was told to go. In one week I finished Maitatsine and handed Kano over to the police.

 But how did you do it?

 Yes, leadership is about loyalty. You want your people to be loyal to you, but the essence of that loyalty is humanity. A leader told you “let’s go to so so so place”. He went in a vehicle and you were to trek. If you have the same mind, you will both trek to the place. So, the essence of leadership is to have the same mind with the people. I know you have watched videos of people at parties with bundles of money in bags. The Maitatsine people saw that and they had not fed, they had not had breakfast, lunch or dinner. Was that the right thing to do? So let’s do the right thing. I went there, saw these people and asked them: “What’s your pain? Why are you killing Muslims? It is in the Qur’an that Muslims should not kill Muslims”. I appealed to them. Right now, our Sheikhs, our Imam should be appealing to the people, what’s their pain? In UAE, they arrested some Nigerians, they sent them back to Nigeria, we didn’t do anything about it. Malami was Attorney General and Minister of Justice at that time. They didn’t do anything about it till today. So, we must go back to the roots. What is it that is your pain? What is it that is making you kill your fellow Muslims? They say they also killed some Christians, okay, “what’s making you to kill your fellow northerners?” Once we know that, we’ll be able to solve the problems. People are interested, people are making money from it; if not, we won’t be in this problem. For instance, Buhari, may he rest in peace, went on health tourism abroad. He got to London and CNN Christian Amanpour interviewed him: “You’re a retired general. Why are kidnappings and banditry bothering your country when you’re a retired general?” He said “the money we gave to the generals to buy weapons and deal with them, they shared the money as if they were having dinner”. He removed them and made them ambassadors. Yesterday, I was told that the army captured Sambisa forest, was it bigger than the South-East where we had the civil war? In 15 years, you did not capture Sambisa forest, you must be sick. So, somebody is interested and that is why a lot of people are dying. But believe me, I curse with all the curses in the Qur’an and Bible all those that benefit from insurgency, banditry, kidnappings and terrorism; I curse them in the name of God!

As a retired general, what would you recommend as solution to the challenge of insecurity?

 I cannot recommend anything on radio, television or newspaper because those are future intentions. But the main thing that I recommend is that whoever that is making our people die and children kidnapped, let them just stop it, whatever their pain. For instance, the militants in Rivers and Bayelsa they told you what their pains were, they had no school, they could not farm, they could not fish because of the pollution from oil, so they gave reasons.

And everyone saw their reasons and we had to do something about that. But what is the reason of Boko Haram? Like I told you when you see people spending so much money at parties, and these people have no money and they are also looking for money and the way to get it is to kidnap your daughter, and you will pay ransom. So, are you going to return them to farm? What would he farm to make a million a day? So the best business in Nigeria today when you open the newspapers is politics or banditry or kidnapping, they make a lot of money from them. So, what we are saying is that we should go back to the roots. What is it that is wrong? One is unemployment. Two is the way we spend money lavishly and people ride expensive cars in the midst of all of unemployment. Let’s solve the problem of poverty and you will find that we have solved the problems of banditry and kidnapping.

What’s your assessment of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration so far?

 I’m not a politician, but from what I have seen, I wish I could draw you a map of Nigeria. The essence of government is to give enabling environment for employment, development and economic stability. He’s making a road from Lagos to Calabar. If you look at that alone, the number of people that would be employed at the end would not be small. Lagos has two ports, Koko will have one port, Sapele will have one port, Port Harcourt will have two ports, Calabar will have one port, that’s about eight ports. That’s parts of development. Ships would be coming in, they don’t have to come through Lagos alone, that’s decongestion. So, that’s enabling situation for people to grow and for jobs to be created. From there, if you have railway from Lagos to Sokoto, if you’re an investor and you want to invest in Nigeria and you have places like Lagos, or Ibadan and so on, because of the population, you’ll now say if you can travel by train and road are to Sokoto, you can go there to invest. To buy land in Lagos, you are talking about acres of lands for your project, you’ll be talking of hundreds of millions, but if you open the heartland from Lagos to Sokoto ,from Calabar to Maiduguri ,the one that will cost you hundreds of millions in Lagos would probably cost you one million in Sokoto or even less and whatever you produce, put it in train and they’ll get to Lagos. You open the heartland of the country, that’s what the government is doing, that aspect of it I like and that’s part of the economy. And of course the political situation, I’m not a politician but people crossing from one party to the other, I don’t understand that. But I would have loved a situation that if you cross from one party to another, you must go back to your constituency and re-contest. It is because we don’t have ideology, if we have ideology and one party stands with the unitary system another one with the federalism, if you were voted in on unitary system and you want to cross to federalism, you have to re-contest for that particular post. It is because we don’t have ideology, that’s why people just leave one political party for another; we should have ideology.

 What’s your assessment of how Nigerians elect their leaders?

 Like I told you that I never liked politics, but the thing is that the man there, be it Ibo, Yoruba or Hausa will favour his own people. So, let’s get back to federalism; that is what I’m preaching in my new book. When we have federalism, instead of giving oil bloc to individuals, you give it to the states, it’s better for the governor to have it use it for the people and leave it for another governor after eight years than to give it to individuals .Why give to Alabi-Isama to marry more wives when the states can use it to pay workers salaries and better the lot of the people? There is no state in Nigeria that does not have one minerals or the other. Let us have true fiscal policy. There are oil blocs in the Atlantic, let us share those ones to the states and the Federal Government, and reduce the power of the Federal Government. I was told somebody died recently, his house was gold, his teacup was gold and all that. Now who is going to maintain it? It is like Mobutu Seseseko who built palace of gold and all that, who’s maintaining it now? Nobody. We need to get psychiatric evaluation of some of our leaders but I like what the present government is doing: Building those roads for a purpose, not building railway to Maradi. What an insult! What does that benefit Nigerians? For instance building roads and railway from Lagos to Calabar, building roads and railway from Lagos to Sokoto, they’ll make their money, from the income they’ll pay back the loan. So, I like what the present government is doing based in economic situation and analysis.

What other things do you think the present government can further do to better the lot of the masses?

 On politics they should remove feudalism. In 1626, Oliver Cromwell fought the government of England because of feudalism. Sharing money is like a beggar situation, it has never worked anywhere. So, why is it that in Nigeria it must work? Let each state be strong, that’s federalism, we will grow according to our strength. I give you an example. Places like Arizona in the US are in the desert, and that is what Tinubu is trying to do now by constructing road from Lagos to Sokoto. When you open the heartland, people will go and invest in Sokoto and they’ll be able to move their goods to where the population is. But if we are not doing that, what else can we do?

The next thing is in the area of security. I will like a situation whereby the traditional rulers are given constitutional roles on security. I also like to see, whether you like it or not, I am 85, I know in my life time, we will have state police, local government police, we will have school police. Whoever does not want state police is a coward. The security of the state should be that of the governor and the Constitution says so. Now why can’t he control the police there? They say he will use it for election, don’t they use the present federal police for election? There would be pros and cons, the more we see the pros and cons then we will adjust as we move on. We have to develop, but the state police and local police must be there, school police would be there, federalism would be there and the country will grow strong, not beggar situation where we share money. No country ever grows with that. In fact after Oliver Cromwell in 1625, by 1641, they found the king guilty and they cut off his head. Today England is galloping, they’re doing well. But here we are, at every election, our politician make promises to the electorate. By the time they get there, they go to where we call GRA, Government Reserved Areas, and put amenities there. Then the other people remain in a place also called GRA (Government Rejected Area) and they have no amenities and everyone is complaining. That’s why the people give more information to Boko Haram than to Federal Government, because what they’re suffering is what Boko Haram is fighting against. So, those are the problems the Federal Government needs to solve.

 Let’s look at the 2027 general elections. What are your expectations?

 I don’t know about politics enough to comment but I’ll like to see the government finish their term, Tinubu completing what he’s doing in economy, politics, reorganization of the country but I think he’s doing well.

This 60th anniversary of the first coup is still reverberating in my head. At 85, as a retired general, what memories do you have of the coup?

 This book that I’m writing now, I went to Aburi and I was lucky to meet someone who said he was 70 and all that. I was 27 at the time of the war. It’s just like Congo, I was 21 when the Congo war started and I’m 85 now and they’re still fighting. Why? Nigeria won civil war but we didn’t know how to win the peace. During the Second World War, Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allied Forces, it was not the entire German people that surrendered because there were those opposed to Hitler. Also in the case of the Nigerian civil war, there were people who didn’t want the war but because they were Ibos we classified them all together as Biafra, that’s not true. The Ibos did not surrender to Nigeria, it was Biafra that surrendered to Nigeria. If what we did is to classify every Ibo as Biafran, it was wrong. There were Yoruba and Hausa who believed in Biafra, so it wasn’t all of Ibos that believed in Biafra. So, why will I classify all the Ibos as having been defeated? The Ibos were not defeated, we defeated Biafra so that they will not secede. There were many people opposed to Ojukwu that he put in jail. In fact, the Minister of Works said now that Easterners are no longer marginalized which implies that they were marginalized before. Why should they be marginalized if we want one Nigeria? That was why after the Second World War they had what was called the Marshal Plan. It was to go to Germany to put back their factories, maintain their dams and roads and electricity and, today, look at Germany. So ,Nigeria didn’t defeat Ibos, we defeated Biafra, those that wanted to secede from Nigeria and we should look at all that together and get the Ibos back into the fold and I’m happy that the Minister of Works said they’ll no more be marginalized which means this government knows that they were marginalized.

 What is your view of the Nigerian military? Is it what you dream of or you feel that there are still one or two things that have to happen within the military today?

 There’s nothing with the military today except that government has monetized the military. For instance, in my time, the Minister of Defence was buying military equipments based on national plan. Today, I was told that it is the military buying their equipments and weapons. It wasn’t so in my time. We also didn’t have military men going on television to talk to the people. The Minister of Defence did that. When did you last hear of the army commander in the UK? Take the military out of politics.

 What is your message for Nigeria as we’re moving ahead?

 I am 85 years old and I know one thing: Our time on earth is limited and so our term in office. So, why would you take the whole country’s money and think your family will benefit? I want to advise my countrymen to deal with each other with the fear of God because judgment is waiting for all of us.

The post COUPS, BIAFRA, INSECURITY: Nigeria won Civil War but didn’t know how to win peace – Gen Alabi-Isama (rtd) appeared first on Vanguard News.