The greatest irony of all is that, generally speaking, the Igbo detest Awolowo so much and have done everything that is physically possible to malign and discredit him since 1967. Yet this was the man whose party went into an alliance with them at the most critical point in our history (between 1964 and 1966) and who wanted the Yoruba to work closely with them. Due to Ojukwu's greed and willingness to be president of Biafra, He failed to honor the terms of the Aburi Accord signed in Ghana which eventually led to the civil war. The Igbos do not teach their children all the good works of Awolowo to the Igbo tribe and instead they tell them that Awolowo was the devil incarnate, a murderer of children, a genocidal maniac and an Igbo hater who ended up committing suicide out of frustration. These of course were all lies and well orchestrated fabrications that were designed to rubbish the man's memory and legacy. They demonized Chief Awolowo, their friend and political ally, and on the night of Jan 15th 1966, during the course of the Ifejuna-led Igbo coup, amongst many others, they murdered Chief S.L. Akintola and Sir Ahmadu Bello (the Premiers of the Western and Northern Regions respectively) who were both their political adversaries, who saw through them at an early stage and who had open contempt for them. This is one of the reasons why u see many bitter Igbos of this generation on Nairaland venting their anger and frustration and screaming they want Biafra due to the lies they have been fed with.
Till today only the Igbo can explain why they hated and still hate Awolowo and Yoruba so much. This is because he was their friend and ally when the crisis in the Western Region took place. I guess that their hatred stems from the role that he and the Yoruba played during the civil war. Yet I believe that Col. Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the Igbo rebel leader, made the greatest mistake by attempting to secede at the time that he did (against Awolowo's advice) and worst still he attacked the Western Region with his Biafran forces even when many of our people had sympathy for their cause and plight.
It was Ojukwu that betrayed Awolowo and the Yoruba and not the other way around. This is because they fired the first shot and tried to overwhelm, capture and enslave us by attacking our territory with their forces. They overwhelmed the people of the south south and Midwest very easily but when they got to the Western region at a place called Ore they were stopped in their tracks by the Yoruba forces and the famous 3rd Marine Commando which was a 98 per cent Yoruba fighting force. That is how they were prevented from entering Yoruba land and they were pushed back, inch by inch, from the Midwest and south south (by the same 3rd Marine Commando) back into Igbo land until they were broken, defeated and forced to surrender.
The moral of the story is Yoruba's have always stood by the Igbos and we always loved them until Ojukwu became greedy and decided to break away hereby betraying our trust and support for the Igbos.
God bless our united Nigeria.
AbleMoJah® Nigeria.
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