JESCONAIJA

‘Why I hungered for university education in uk

Interview conducted by Martins Oloja, Abraham Ogbodo and Oluseye Olumide. 
HOW did you feel about some of the big actors and indeed icons within OAU then, including the Tanzanian leader that had already recognised Biafra during the civil war years? How were you managing that situation as some of them were supposed to be Nigeria’s friends? 
You would recall that I could not attend the OAU meetings. At the end of the war, we had the three ‘Rs’ – Reconciliation, Reconstruction & Rehabilitation. We offered our hands of fellowship too to all including those that recognized Biafra then. Kenneth Kaunda certainly regretted it while Julius Nyerere was feeling slightly humiliated. Same situation for Garbon and Ivory Coast, of course, as their representatives acknowledged and we made up. Algeria was to have recognized Biafra on 12 January when the whole thing collapsed. But we had to make it up many years later. That helped us in the end to build ECOWAS
.
  Even when you did all that international reconciliation it took so long for you to reconcile personally with Ojukwu. What happened?
  Who told you that? Ojukwu and I were in the UK when he rang my wife. She told me while I was in the University. When she told me where he (Ojukwu) was staying I visited him in the hotel in London. Would you say that was not reconciliation?
We cracked jokes and exchanged banters. I called him ‘rebel’ and he also replied in his Oxford Style, Queen’s English. I told him that we were both ‘checked out’ by our country. I checked him out and my own boys also checked me out and we were both fugitives in a foreign land.
  Did you two meet him intimately in Nigeria before he died? 
   Yes, I visited him in Enugu. We went for “Nigeria Prays” programme and I found out if he was in Enugu and it was confirmed. I said I didn’t want him to know I would like to visit him. I wanted to see him for two reasons. One was to console his wife, Bianca over the death of her father, C.C. Onoh, who was very close to me. The wife likes me and she used to ring me from time to time and that made Ojukwu jealous (laughter).
  The second reason was to condole with him for the death of his first wife that we knew, Njideka.
  From the time the ruling party the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) at the time said they wanted to pardon me, I said, me? They wanted to pardon me? There had been earlier moves by the security to see us. To ask us to say if only we could say we were sorry. But I said to the emissaries, I was to apologize to whom? I said to them, they were the one to do that and they did. So when the Shagari’s government was desperate to get Ojukwu to win election in the East then, of course, they had to say they wanted to pardon us. I rejected the offer. They could not pardon Ojukwu and leave me but I rejected pardon because I didn’t do anything wrong. They had to find the correct language to use. They used the word, ‘rescinded’. They said they had rescinded government’s earlier decision to try me for an offence. My brother said he was going to write his own book to tell his story. I knew that many innocent officers were jailed at that time.
  How did you get Chief Awolowo released from prison to serve in your government at that period?  Why did you also appoint him as Vice Chairman of the Federal Executive Council (FEC)?
  It was an interesting and remarkable story. Awolowo was in prison in 1964 and he was there when civil war started. As said earlier on those who allegedly did the coup, Fani-Kayode was here and my suspicion was that they had an idea to make Awolowo the prime minister. Fani-Kayode was to make a broadcast to convince his people since he was in the opposition. He was to convince the Yoruba that he then regretted his action for his opposition to Awolowo and that they should accept him as the prime minister. That was my own view. There were some other reports of Ojukwu claiming that he was the one who released Awolowo from prison. It was funny but he was just the Governor of the Eastern Region and Prisons was and is still under the central government. There was no way he could have done that. If they claimed that they released him, then I am tying up to the idea that he was to be announced the prime minister if that coup had succeeded.
  The West was boiling then because of the “operation weti e” crisis. I thought of how to assuage the West! In the end, I was persuaded that the release of Awolowo would solve the issue because of his political influence. Besides, we felt that he was sentenced to prison under Tafawa Balewa’s government. But the person that actually sentenced him (Awolowo) was Justice Adetokunbo Ademola. It was generally believed to be a political imprisonment.
 We sent an aircraft to Calabar to convey him home when we released him. So, certainly, Ojukwu had no power to do that. Awolowo was brought back to Lagos but later on we thought of what to do to get his contribution to our government. Most of the Federal Executive Council members were military officers but in order to give some sense of belonging to the people, we decided to make some civilian appointments. We sent some of our seniors to him to come and help us in government.
  It was gratifying that he honoured our invitation to serve. He was a good politician. He saw it as an opportunity. He played a very important role in helping to get us persuade Ojukwu.
  In 1964, Ojukwu and Banjo told me about their plan, which had to do with getting the military to be involved in politics on behalf of the President Azikiwe. But I warned them against such a move. I was forced to report the matter to the General Officer Commanding then urging us to call all the senior officers to order. That could have been the first coup. The idea was to get the four regions involved. Ojukwu to represent the East, Banjo West, David Ejoor Mid-West and I was to represent North. You could see from this that I was never interested in dragging military into politics. I was not interested. The 1964 plot that I foiled would have been the first coup in the country.
  How did you come to realise that you had to read up to a doctorate degree while ‘hibernating’ in the UK?
  There were many stories. One version was that most of the things that I did as Head of State were not deep and that was as a result of the fact that I didn’t have the educational background. Specifically, it was said that my policies lacked philosophical basis and, of course, economic and political objectives. As Head of State, I had also visited most Nigerian universities and even some in the United States and so I thought I had obtained a Ph.D. already. It was the undue criticism that I did not know about economics and political theory because I had not been to the university that triggered my resolve to get university education.
  Another factor was the fact that I used to admire the big letters written after the names of the students when they finished their studies in the university. I mean B.A; B.Sc., M.A, M.Sc., etc. I used to tell the students whenever I met them that they were lucky to have had that opportunity to acquire university education before working.
  So, when the opportunity came after my overthrow, I didn’t want to remain idle. Since I was not going to be able to do any work in the UK except I had a certain level of qualification, I decided to go to the university to read Politics, Economics and Law.
I decided to do the three courses at the same time but certainly I didn’t want to stay in any of the universities in London for the fact that people would be disturbing me. I wanted a university not too near and not too far from London.
  So at that time, Prof. Ishaya Audu was also removed from ABU as the Vice Chancellor. He was visiting Russia when they removed him. They also removed a number of senior lecturers that were associated with me then.
  I told Prof. Audu about my plan to go to university and he suggested Warwick University, which is about a 100 miles away from London.
  The Vice Chancellor then was Prof. Audu’s friend and he was the Chairman of the Commonwealth Universities Association in 1973 I had met the VCs then when they visited me in office and I told them about the country. The VC of Warwick University remembered their visit to me in Nigeria. I had discussion on admission and they expressed delight in having me as a student in their university. I was accepted to take a direct Master’s degree with my previous qualifications and experience qualified me for but I refused and opted to begin with a first degree.
I told them I would like to read Politics, Economics and Law together. But the Vice Chancellor told me that no genius could take the three courses together.  They rather suggested that I should combine the three courses in one. They then suggested Politics & International Relations where I could get the three elements I suggested.
  When I finished with my first degree in 1975 to 1978 and there was no possibility to go back to Nigeria yet, I decided to further up to my doctorate degree, which I concluded in 1983. I did my doctoral thesis on “Politics & Policies of Developing Nations” and ECOWAS as the main focus. Fortunately, I was one of the founders of ECOWAS and it was so remarkable for me to study it.
•TO BE CONTINUED