In Praise Of President Olusegun Obasanjo 

By 1kechukwu Amaechi ikechukwuamaechi@yahoo.com, http://www.amadikwa.wordpress.com  

They came from all parts of Igboland, some in crutches, others in wheel chairs; most, if not all, of them wizened. But even in their perceptible frailties, it was easy to notice the unmistakable glint in their eyes.

These are men who finally kissed hope goodbye 37 years ago. Victims of a fratricidal war, the declaration and prosecution of which they had no control over, they became, to borrow a cliché, sacrificial lambs at the end of the bloody strife; punished for “crimes” if any, they share only vicarious liability. They are part of the 1033 former police officers from the five Southeast states of Imo, Abia, Ebonyi, Enugu and Anambra who had converged at the Enugu Campus of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka to receive cheques for their pension in fulfilment of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s promise six years ago.

Their sad story started almost four decades ago when the General Yakubu Gowon-led Federal Military Government dismissed “Biafran officers” from the Nigerian Police through Decree 46 of August 15, 1970. Their offence? They found themselves on the wrong side of the war. Truth be told, many of these officers had little or no say in the fate that befell them, being as it were, victims of a grim circumstance way beyond their control. Some may not even have believed in the philosophy that gave impetus to the war, whatever its merits were at the material time.

The termination of their appointments was part of a two-legged scotched earth policy aimed at crippling “Biafrans” financially; a plot hatched and clinically executed by the same people who saw starvation as a legitimate weapon of war and enforced a regime of food blockade against the East while the war lasted.

The first leg was the policy which reduced the wealth of every Igbo, no-matter how rich to only £20 after the war, thereby brazenly and unconscionably appropriating the riches of a people whose financial standing had already been dealt a devastating blow by the war. Sacking South easterners, who survived the hostilities with no homes, no money and no businesses to fall back on, from their places of work, was the final attempt to escalate their financial misery. And, come to think of it, these policies came on the heels of the 1971 Indigenous Enterprises Promotion Decree.

President Obasanjo promised to correct this long standing injustice in May 2000, during the first anniversary of his administration. To start with, he converted their dismissal to retirement and announced that the Federal Government would pay their entitlements in full. In July 2006, he approved the release of about N75 billion for the payment of outstanding arrears of pensions, including those of Biafran policemen, thereby putting some spine behind his words. In February last year, the government issued the policemen with retirement letters through the Police Pensions Board, which qualified them for pensions.

The gathering of these old men, brazenly purloined for years by the Nigerian state, at the Enugu Campus of the UNN, was to collect their cheques. Those from Cross River, Rivers, Akwa-Ibom and Delta, which at the time constituted the now defunct Eastern Region, converged in Port Harcourt for the same purpose. While those who are still alive were issued cheques in their own names, those who have died would have their cheques issued in the names of their next-of-kin. And most importantly, this is only the first phase of the exercise, which has been declared a continuous one.

Coming from Obasanjo whose heart, many would swear, does not overflow with the milk of kindness, and whose policies in government lack human face, this act which is an exemplar in magnanimity, is indeed a tectonic shift in policy and a loud disclaimer to the pretence of sundry regimes, military and civilian, that have held sway in the country since the end of the civil war. While the fulsome praises heaped on him by Mr. Charles Machie national chairman, Association of Retired War Affected Police Officers (AWAPO), may sound rather hyperbolic, this rare act of magnanimity should be commended by all and sundry. At the end of the day, the money is not the issue and some of the beneficiaries could as well do without it but the symbolism of the act matters.

There is no arguing the fact that in seeing through this six-year promise, the president has exhibited tremendous political will, knowing that some forces bent on perpetuating the injustices of the civil war would rather prefer that the status quo remained. These reactionary forces have ensured in 37 years and through seven regimes including the Murtala/Obasanjo government of the late 1970s that issues such as the benefits of former Nigerian officers trapped in the Biafran enclave during the war remained taboo.

Even when AWAPO, the umbrella organisation for the retired officers formally petitioned General Abdulsalami Abubakar in 1998, as the then military head of state, over their plight, he conveniently ignored them.

Yet, General Gowon had not only declared at the end of the war in January 1970 that there was “no victor, no vanquished,” but also embarked on the project of reconciliation, reconstruction and rehabilitation. Is it not disingenuous that the same regime embarked on an orchestrated campaign of persecution, as evidenced in the sack of the police officers? How could someone claim to be rehabilitating a people, and yet formulate policies aimed at persecuting them?

Will this gesture by President Obasanjo in the twilight of his eight-year administration bring a permanent closure to issues of marginalisation, if not outright persecution of South easterners in Nigeria? No! But it is a significant step. What the president has proved with this singular act is that with political will, issues that tend to constantly remind us of our bitter past and fuel separatist sentiments can be confronted frontally and dealt with appropriately.

Unfortunately, such issues still abound. That the Igbo are being made to pay a heavy price for having the guts to challenge the injustices that have become even more manifest in today’s Nigeria at the time they did is evident for all to see. Till date, the infrastructures in the Southeast, particularly the roads, which the war destroyed, remain in scandalous state. Construction of a second bridge across River Niger, as socially, economically and politically imperative as it is, remains sacrificed on the alter of post-war prejudice. The glass-ceiling placed on the career of military officers of Igbo extraction remains 37 years after the war and the constant pacification of Igbo towns and villages in the name of fighting an unarmed group – Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) – has become a pastime.

The latest wrinkle is the result of the 2006 population census, already endorsed by the National Council of State, which effectively made the Igbo one of the least populated ethnic nationalities in Nigeria. In a country where population is solely used for the sharing of national wealth rather than planning and developmental purposes, it goes without saying that the result has dire consequences for the Igbo nation.

But sometimes, the Igbo have themselves to blame for their woes in Nigeria by their inexplicable naivety.  It is instructive that while the Yoruba that were allocated the second highest number are vehemently protesting the result of the census, there is no whimper from the Southeast. Governor Bola Tinubu of Lagos State publicly repudiated the census figures but the five Southeast governors who are members of the Council of State endorsed them with relish. Yet, at 13.72 million, the population of Kano (9.38 million) and Jigawa (4.34 million), two North western states that used to be one, almost equals the population of the entire Southeast put at 16.4 million. This same census figures has been rejected by the Major-General Adeyinka Adebayo-led Yoruba Council of Elders as “totally unacceptable.” What is Ohanaeze Ndigbo’s position on this matter that has grave consequences for the people it purports to lead? Your guess is good as mine.

While the country’s leaders over the years have found it convenient to play the ostrich with the very important project of national reconciliation by failing to enthrone equity in the conduct of national affairs, the issues that gave birth to Biafra continue to fester. In fact, they are at the core of the insurgency in the Niger Delta which is threatening the very foundation of the Nigerian state.

Nigerian leaders have over the years totally gone off the deep end with nobody to call them to sanity. Many of them would bristle at the mere mention of this fact, but it goes without saying that for so long, we have been ruled by men without character and vision. But as we move towards the elections, part of the responsibility of the electorate is to make hay out of the process by identifying and electing those leaders who will have the courage of their conviction to enthrone justice and equity in the land by ensuring a permanent closure to those ever-present wrinkles, which seek to divide rather than unite us as a people, like Obasanjo has done with this rather uncharacteristic show of generosity of spirit.