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Why the Aburi Accord that would have saved Nigeria is still relevant

A buri is a town in the Eastern Region of Ghana. The town hosts the Aburi Botanical Garden. It was in Aburi that Lt-Gen Ankrah, then Head of State of Ghana, made a last-minute effort to prevent Nigeria from sliding into an all-out war.

 

The Aburi meeting which was held between the 4th and 5th of January 1967 was attended by delegates of both the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Eastern delegates led by the Eastern Region’s leader, Colonel Chukwuemeka Ojukwu.

 

The then young military officers tried to reach an accord which has been subjected to various interpretations depending on where you stand.

 

As Nigeria wobbles with different contending issues, the Aburi Accord remains relevant as issues raised in that meeting remain unresolved and with no lessons learnt. Last week, I had a dialogue with some young professionals and intelligentsias.

 

In that dialogue, I held the view that the January 16th, 1966 military coup was not an Igbo coup as erroneously held in some quarters. That the January 16th coup was a careless action by young military officers and that the bloodiness of that coup cannot be justified. I held that the plotters of the coup ought to have been subjected to military court martial for treason by the succeeding military government.

 

That the coup was the trigger to all other tragedies that befell the country including the bloodier counter coup of July 27th 1966 led by Northern military officers, the civil war that followed and up-to our current conundrum.

 

I held that the genocide of the Igbo in the counter coup was unwarranted and that the civil war that ensued was avoidable were the young military officers more matured and experienced in conflict management.

 

I believed a second Aburi meeting would have saved Nigeria from the civil war that lasted between 1967-1970, and this is speaking from hindsight because no one in his right senses would go into a civil war that will cost over three million lives to save a Federation that is still dotted with many dark spots 54 years after.

 

Despite being a land of opportunities, despair deepens all over the country.

Those who didn’t witness the war are speaking over each other’s heads, issuing threats and voicing the language of hate. The politicians who ought to come together, put our Federation on the table and ask salient questions about what is wrong with its current structure and provide meaningful solutions are rather careless.

 

Let me say it again that the country is bleeding to death, and rather entrench in our partisan divide, we need to band together, understand our differences, put aside what needs to be set aside and forge a Federation that will work for all.

 

Unless we do this with a sense of urgency, we may find ourselves returning to a situation far more-worse than we were before the Aburi Accord that failed. I am for a better Nigeria.

A Nigeria that is peaceful, safe, secure and prosperous for all. A Nigeria where all citizens are equal. My dialogue with the young intelligentsias elicited a lengthy response from Emmanuel Chigozie Osuchukwu which I am reproducing here not because I agree with everything he has written, but because his are among the voices that need to be heard if we must seize our future as a people despite our disagreements.

His words: “Our dialogue on the Aburi Accord rekindled my passion for challenging ideas, especially an issue like the Aburi conference that remains a monumental event that actually decided the trajectory of Nigeria’s history.

“Unearthing the Aburi Accord is fortuitously timely in the light of Nigeria’s continuing slide into the precipice and the dearth of authentic history to inform the younger generations on what the Igbos proverbially regard as, where the rain started to fall on us.

“Just as a way of summary, the Aburi conference was the last-ditch attempt by the Ghanaian Head of State, Lt General Ankrah to get the surviving Nigerian military leaders of 1966 to reach an understanding and move the country forward. As he said then, he wanted the military men to sit down as brother officers and thrash out Nigeria’s logjam without the interference of politicians.

“To avoid over-elaboration, I am not going to restate the contents of the Aburi Accord. The text is easily available but I am going to dwell on the misinformation perpetrated mostly by people who knew the critical importance of the agreement and its role in intensifying the Igbo resolve that Nigeria and its leaders meant death to them and consequently the civil war.

 

It’s also important to look at the accord critically and debunk this fallacy that the civil war was the handiwork of a megalomaniac called Ojukwu. If we don’t, we continue to misconstrue the war and the underlying reasons for Nigeria’s current quagmire.

“WHY IS ABURI STILL RELEVANT: Aburi was a watershed moment. Following the bloody January 15 coup, the even bloodier July 27 counter coup and the genocidal massacre of the people of Eastern region in Northern Nigeria, the country was poised for total disintegration.

By the time the Aburi conference convened there was hardly any living Igbo person in the North or any Igbo of note in Yoruba land. The regions were basically heading towards separate existence.

 

“The anger, fear and suspicions were palpable. The Aburi Accord offered Nigeria a realistic option of holding the country together until tempers and nerves calmed down and for long term solutions to be explored.

 

The participants at the conference recognized that and acted accordingly but there was a massive problem that scuttled the common sense that prevailed at Aburi.

 

“The 1966 July 27th counter coup was an exclusively Northern Nigeria conspiracy. Apart from Hassan Usman Katsina, there was no one from the Nigerian side at the conference that can claim to be an insider of the coup and therefore capable of exercising decisive authority. Hassan’s intransigence at the conference was very noticeable and stood him out.

 

“Even the Head of State, Gowon was not taken into confidence by the coup plotters and he owed his position to the madness of the three days from July 27 when Nigeria had not even a nominal government and the middle belt elements in the military installed him.

 

“The significance of this narrative is that on return to Lagos the real powers behind Gowon’s government took over. The military wing of the northern establishment represented by Majors Murtala, Danjuma and Adamu, the Emirs, the so-called Super Permanent Secretaries who by now had acquired enormous political leverage in the face of the naive and bumbling soldiers and most crucially the British High Commission took control.

 

“Aburi Accord was now considered inimical to the interests of those exercising effective powers in Lagos and proceeded to renege on the agreements. Ojukwu’s views on the contrary reflected the overwhelming views and feelings of Eastern region at that point.

 

Considering that at this point no Nigerian felt safe outside his region, there was hardly an opportunity for a second Aburi and the regions swiftly drifted into their own devices.

 

Western Region accepted their fate and some of them lamented their position as a region of occupation and the Midwest opted to remain neutral. The Northern control held sway and the structure of modern Nigeria was effectively sealed.

 

The rest is history. “In January 1970 the war ended and the only challenge to Northern control of Nigeria was extinguished. It was an opportunity to vindicate the victorious and vilify the vanquished.

 

“It’s worth noting that practically Nigeria bequeathed to us by our founding fathers in 1960 died in 1966 and what we have today is a new construction that rose from the ashes of 1966 and its aftermath.

 

Not everyone had a say in this construction and that’s a major problem plaguing Nigeria today and until those who actively participated in constructing the New Nigeria are cleaned out of the system and the country reconstructed properly, the country will continue to swing from one crisis to another”. I wish to commend Emmanuel Osuchukwu for his civilized commentary.

 

Hopefully we shall much sooner than later find a common ground

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