Lt. Oyewole

Q: Despite that you eugologise Ojukwu, at a point in your book, you criticized him…

A: No. I stated facts. Like Njoku was put in detention without being relieved of his post and he was in detention till the end of the crisis, he is dead now, and may his soul rest in peace. There were areas where Ojukwu was really in control, there is no doubt…

Q: Kindly appraise Ojukwu before, during and after the war (as a politician), how can you describe him?

A: Ojukwu was not a politician, he was not a politician. It is all survival instinct. Now that he has survived the war, stayed in exile and even the people he fought for started criticizing him, he wanted to make a strong point, self preservation, survival.

Q: Then, how will you describe Ojukwu before the war, during the war?
A: That’s a tall order. Ojukwu was a man who controlled his environment. You see the army then had what we called grade one officers, Ojuwku, Banjo, and so on and so forth. And Ojukwu was always in control of his environment. There is something extraordinary about him, he couldn’t grudge you, how many graduate officers in the army, he was conscious of it and you couldn’t blame him for it!

Q: Many criticize Ojukwu for being dictatorial, taking sole decisions above members of his Supreme Military Council and Consultative Assembly, what is your take on this?

A: When you are in a war situation, it is a difficult thing to say otherwise. What I mean is nobody wanted to be seen as being against the commander, let’s be honest. And they will interpret it as oh he forced us to do this or that. In some cases, he wrote his speech, from that speech you could see where he was going. Then when it is your turn to talk, what do you intend to say, to say he was wrong in his conclusion? Let’s be honest.

Q: Why was General Njoku replaced with Madiebo?
A: Where Njoku was being a professional, he assessed the situation and said ‘we are not ready for this war.’ And somehow, it filtered to Ojukwu and Ojukwu thought he was against him, he was not partisan. Njoku’s position was the position of the average professional soldier. Yes. We might have reason to fight the war but we must play for time, you just can’t start a war if you don’t have the material and that was the disadvantage against Ojukwu.

Here again, there are the people we call, Ojukwu nye anyi egbe, ka anyi je waa nu (Ojukwu give us weapon to deal with Gowon). The overzealous civilians, who thought that just to carry a gun was enough. The Biafran army were more or less divided into two, the professional soldiers and the ones who were telling Ojukwu to go to war without caring about the implications or what it would take. Njoku being a professional man couldn’t just say yes. So the only way to ease him off (and if Ojukwu had eased him off and left him alone, it would have been better), he put Njoku in jail.

Q: Did you fight along with some mercenaries?
A: Fola Oyewole fought with mercenaries? Or Biafran army fought with mercenaries?

Q: In your own segment?
A: No. No I did not. Incidentally where I would have, I commanded a company in Ohelle but then it hadn’t gotten to that level of mercenaries. No I didn’t.

Q: I want you to talk about the ordeal of the Igbo especially the civilians during the war, what did you see in your company or around your company? The picture that was sent out was that children had protruding stomachs and stuffs like that…
A: Indeed there were cases of kwashiorkor. They existed and I am sure if you have seen the IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) now, you will see some of them in such a situation, there is no way you can rule it out, there is no way.

Q: Christopher Okigbo, that intellectual and poet died in what many people referred to as controversial circumstances. Many of us don’t know, you were with Biafra, can you explain to us what really happened?
A: In your opinion, it is controversial, but ordinarily, most of the people like I said, the enthusiasts who didn’t want to think about rationale, Okigbo was interested in the war, he went to the front and he didn’t have the training, he was killed in action. Nzeogwu so to say was killed in action but he had no command. He and his men jumped into it and that it is how he was killed. Nzeogwu should have been commanding a division at least but Ojukwu didn’t give him a command.

Q: Was it out of suspicion or what?
A: Leave that to you and me. That was sacrifice. I give you a good story. When I was instructed to prepare vehicles to move weapons to the various fronts from the railway, so we went, got there and what we wanted was high calibre weapons, we searched the whole train, they didn’t exist. Ojukwu joined us at the railway and he said God! At the point he said, but there are weapons, rifles, anybody who wanted to fire, give them. Training or no training – give them and that is how it started and some of the young people lost; enthusiasts, lost their lives in Nsukka front, you see that is how I am amazed, people see war as play thing, war is not a play thing, you must be prepared for it.

Q: What will you in one sentence, say was Ojukwu’s mistake in that war?

A: He acted before time. You can imagine, all the weaponry, everything belonged to Nigerian army and they had it, Biafra had superior man power, most of the officers were of Biafran origin, material is important. Ojukwu tried his best but he had this failings which we must not lose sight of, which is only natural anyway, that is how I see him.

Q: Was there at a point the Biafran high command started suspecting Yoruba officers? If so, Why, if not, why not?

A: That is incorrect and never never. Civilians maybe but within the army there was no suspicion. I give you an example. Once I was travelling from Onitsha to come to a place called Agbo Ogwugwu, it is close to Enugu. Then I was arrested. Why was I arrested?

On December 3, 1967, when I took delivery of my first Peugeot car, one Igbo man took delivery of his own too and it happened that for about 6 – 7 months we were servicing our cars at the same place. Once he came to the hotel in Onitsha and he saw a man, he knew I was a Yoruba man, but he didn’t ask me, he greeted me, and he said can we have dinner tomorrow and I said with all pleasure.

While I was changing, the hotel was surrounded and I saw the boy and I asked what is it, and he said we are looking for a Yoruba major, I said where are you from, he said we are Biafran boys, and I said I was the Yoruba man, he said you are under arrest. I said what? That time FG just captured Asaba and they taught I infiltrated from Asaba to Onitsha and I said what is the next thing? I said before then, let us go and see the DPO he knows me. The boy came in two vehicles and I drove mine. I followed them, unfortunately for me, we got to the police station, the DPO was not around, his officer who has seen me regularly for weeks kept quiet, they denied me and said ah. If they denied it would have been better, they said ‘we don’t know him.’ I said ok lets go to the army headquarters, a colleague of mine, Major Anan was there, and they said ehnn this Anan self, one day we will deal with him, come it is the Biafran boys who want you not Anan.

I followed them and they had a point under the bridge where they carried out executions, they were taking me down there. So we went on, as luck would have it, as we got to the entrance of the bridge, Colonel Iwanwa was there, and he said ah Fola, kedu (how are you, what happened)? We have been waiting for you and I said, you can’t see me oo, I am under arrest. He said these riff raffs arrest you? Ahh you better come to army headquarters where everybody knows you. So to say soldiers didn’t trust Yoruba officers maybe it exist but I didn’t experience it. But some civilians didn’t feel comfortable within the 18 months of the war but towards the end I was a celebrity!

Q: The other time you were explaining that Nzeogwu died in action, it was like a coded language, please can you explain more…

A: He died trying to fight with the Nigerian troops with his rag-tag boys, not an organized unit because nobody gave him a unit but the urging was too much, he couldn’t sit down watching, and soldiers really respected him, officers respected him so he would gather a few people and say common lets go, not an organized attack, and he got killed.

Q: Presently there is agitation for Biafra led by Kanu, what can you say about the agitation? Is the agitation right or…

A: the agitation can never be right. Who is he? What does he know about Biafra? The Kanu boy, he doesn’t know anything about Biafra and without apology if anybody should agitate in Nigeria today with the set-up, maybe it is going to be the Yoruba people. But since I am one of them I just want to look because I think the Igbo are getting more than their share but they are still complaining. What can you do? But I don’t know where the trend of Biafra will lead them, I don’t know. I can’t even see it leading anywhere except crisis; if they know what it is to have a war, they won’t do it. Enthusiasm of the ignorant!

Lt. Oyewole. Photo Credit Idowu Ogunleye

Q: Not all Igbo elders are supporting it, but the youths are into it

A: Selfless Igbo elders won’t support them; the likes of Ezeife are not talking sense. If you listen to him, I don’t think he is right. They should let a sleeping dog lie. Again it is the fault of the government because I think there is enough, how much did we spend on this jamboree of this Confab, what has come out of it? I don’t think anybody is thinking about it. I for once thought it was unnecessary. If you really want anything reasonable to happen, take this Aburi accord, take the Justice Uwais report. I think it is Justice Uwais or one judge, who advocated: select a maximum of 12 people and let them think about it because left to me before 1966 we could improve on what happened then and you can see these days everybody wants federal fund, nobody was asking for federal funds in those days, every region was working on its own, today people carry brief case, our quota in Abuja, why? Go and examine what the constitution in those days was, examine the Aburi accord, examine what Justice Uwais commission contains, see how it can be managed, see how it can be married. These, about 400 people? They can’t give us a good deal – constitution, good money thrown away – billions. It is sad.

Q: Despite that Biafra gave its all, it lost the war, what will you say was the last straw that broke it?

A: The straw can’t be anything except arms and ammunition. Don’t forget, here again the Igbo, they shot themselves in the foot. Some promised Ojukwu, just carry on we will give you arms, when it came to the crux, where are the arms? Aah. There was a committee for ammunition. To show you that there was never discrimination against me as a person, I was on this committee, the person nominated to go and negotiate arms for us, he went and never came back, he went to England and disappeared. Incidentally I think he was a pharmacist. You send people to go and monitor the enemy, they said yes. They go there and settled down and started living. We call them BOFF (Biafran Organisation for Freedom Fighters) and some people used a vulgar language. I am sure you have them too on Nigerian side but because they won the war you won’t hear it.

Q: But there is a kind of what I will call a distinction between those who supported Biafra in Africa especially the Francophone countries, what is the reason for that?

A: France is the force. France didn’t make any noise but we knew where the interest was.

Q: There is this expression sir, ole ku ija Ore (battle of Ore was tough)… What were the Biafrans coming to do on this side?

A: This is very sensitive. It is a nasty experience. Before coming to Ore at all, the war was supposed to be in the east against the west and the rest and as at that point the Biafrans had people in the west waiting to receive them. Fine I said I commanded troops at Ugheli, Ugheli was not part of the team, Oghele wasn’t. But here again, Banjo and Ojukwu decided to have quarrel and they quarrelled to the extent that if you capture the west, it is going to be under Biafra. It won’t be a separate entity of itself.