posted
Another one bites the dust. The latest problem and any last hope for the survival of Olusegun Obasanjo's doctored conference came when retired Chief of General Staff Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe warned that a proposed package by politicians to restructure the military would spell doom.
So is Ukiwe saying that only places like Cross River should have a navy? Or places like Lagos and Makurdi should have an airforce? Or that the army should be based in the north and not the Niger-Delta because of it's terrain?
Posts: 479 | From: The Universe | Registered: Jul 2001
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I don't think any sensible person will feel betrayed by whatever happens at that conference. It is common knowledge that the whole thing is a waste of time, so don't lose sleep over what anyone says there.
Posts: 1532 | From: USA | Registered: Mar 2001
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Here is a man who spent a lifetime proving that he is loyal to the North. The only time he was said to have stood for anything worthwhile was when he pretended that his opposition to IBB's move to add BiafraNigeria to the OIC (Organization of Islamic Countries) was the reason for his dismissal. What Ukiwe failed to understand was that he was easily sacked because he commanded no divisions of his own in his home territory. Ukiwe's words are the words of a servile hireling. It is now clear why he was picked for the foolish jamboree.
Just because Ukiwe was excluded from the training on coups does not mean that "No one is trained to plan coups." How ignorant could he be?
Since Ukiwe thinks that his Hausa-Fulani bosses share his views that the "primary role is to defend the territorial integrity of this country and ward off external aggression," perhaps Ukiwe could tell us why the very first thing the Nigerian Army did during the civil war was to cede Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon. So much for defending the territorial integrity of the country. I think the old fool was brainwashed.
According to Ukiwe:
quote:“The armed forces are organised in such a way that commands are sometimes professional. In the Niger Delta, if you have the Army, it will be a Marine Command because of the terrain. That is the reality. The Artillery is elsewhere and Infantry in another
Are we to now assume that Island nations should not have an airforce or land Army, and that a navy has no reason to operate far from the its home territory. When was the last time the US Navy fired a shot anywhere near the US. Is the US Marine not the one fighting in the Iraqi Desert? When was the last time Ukiwe's marines were projected anywhere in the world? Ukiwe's reasoning is especially idiotic because he, better than most, should know that the prevailing logic in his country is that though the oil may be in the South, the biggest oil refineries must be in the North.
Ukiwe's military thinking is out of date; he is a commodore without common sense.
Posts: 90 | Registered: Mar 2001
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posted
Fact is that in functioning countries like the US and many European countries,the location of military formations are determined by reasons of military and defence strategy and not for internal political reasons as the delegates are suggesting.This shows that our polity is structuraly unsound. The suggestion of the delegates will never stop coups but will if implemented bring us one huge step closer to another civil war.
___________________ Biafra is inevitable.Illegitimis nil carborundum. Posts: 760 | From: europe | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
In the past, I've looked up to this Ukiwe dude with high esteem and it is with pain that I must say add my name to all Anthony Obaseki said about him. I strongly second his views towards this late sellout. Through this conference and things like that we’re seeing the quality of idiots that commandeered that country for way too long. Bunch of local idiots is what they are! Even the arab north wants their dirty sharia to supersede the constitution and you still want us to believe these people are normal?
___________________ BIAFRA: The land of my ancestors now, yesterday and always. So it will be! Posts: 2482 | From: Ala Igbo | Registered: Apr 2004
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"I don't think any sensible person will feel betrayed by whatever happens at that conference. It is common knowledge that the whole thing is a waste of time, so don't lose sleep over what anyone says there."
For those that refuse to see beyond OBJ gimmicks, many more irrellevant talks that has nothing to do with our survival and progress as a nation is in the offing. Sooner than later, trival issues will take over and ghana must go bags demanded for compromise sake.
Posts: 380 | From: US | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
I think Ochiagha Oko Ebitu Ukiwe should have his head examined. To go on Igbo mandate and canvass for the maintenance of the status quo ante is madness taken too far. If it was a serious conference I would have said recall the moron.
He is a disgrace to Ebiriba enachioken Posts: 6 | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Row over ex-military chiefs' apologies at confab
From Mohammed Abubakar and Emmanuel Onwubiko (Abuja)
THE war of words among retired military officers at the on-going National Political Reform Conference in Abuja continued yesterday.
It was over recent apologies tendered by some of the retired generals over military intervention in the political governance of the country.
At the centre of yesterday's controversy was Admiral Akin Aduwo (rtd) from Ondo State, whose apologies to Nigerians for the military's intervention in political governance attracted criticism from his colleagues.
Making his intervention on the state of the nation during the plenary debate on the floor of the conference Aduwo, a former military governor of defunct Western Region, made reference to the bitter reactions his apologies generated among his colleagues.
Gen. Adeyinka Adebayo and Air Commodore Samson Emeka Omeruah had previously apologised to the country for the role of the military in governance.
Aduwo, who spoke on national security, said the armed forces should be structured in such a way that non-interference in political process would become a national culture.
Making reference to the apologies that have generated heated reaction, Aduwo said he had no regrets for not conferring with his colleagues to seek their consent before tendering his own.
His reason? He is by way of age and position the most senior among the generals at the conference.
"So, I had the right and position to make the statement without reference to anybody," he said.
However, Gen, Ibrahim Bata Malgwi, a delegate representing the Arewa Consultative Forum, (ACF) countered Aduwo's claim that he was the oldest among the retired generals at the conference.
He remarked that apart from himself, other generals who were senior to Admiral Aduwo at the conference included Generals Adebayo, Ejiga and Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe, all of whom he said were in the military before Aduwo.
Backing his claim with facts and figures, Gen. Haruna, a one-time Federal Commissioner for Information and Culture, said while he was in Sandhurst England in 1961 as a Lieutenant, Admiral Aduwo joined him in 1962, not commissioned.
"I thought I should put the record straight," he said.
The need for the entrenchment of roles for traditional rulers in the constitution was variously canvassed by the delegates, who argued that removing that clause from the 1999 Constitution by the Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar's military regime was a fundamental error.
Leading the discussion was a former Director-General of National Maritime Authority (NMA), Prince Munir Jaafaru, who argued that in view of the significant roles played by the traditional rulers, excluding them from the process of governance was injustice.
Arguing along the same line was Alhaji Basharu Gamel from Jigawa State.
He said: "The role of traditional rulers is clear: it is their sacred duty to teach their followers those aspects that have to do with patience, peace, tolerance and co-existence." For Taiwo Alimi, Nigeria rests on a monarchical foundation ever since the evolution of the country. "It was in 1963 that we hoisted a republican umbrella on Nigeria's monarchical foundation," he said.
According to him, in the country's history, all governments have always sought help and support of traditional rulers when there were crises or threat to peace.
On the economy, he advocated a bottom-up approach to all development initiatives, adding that the top-bottom approach "which we have been practising since independence has not worked and can never work." "When you adopt the bottom-up strategy, making the 97,000 communities in Nigeria units of development and with the poor as centre for all development initiatives, then we will have the Nigeria of our dreams," he said.
Former Governor of Anambra State, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, in his contribution suggested a Development Constraint mitigation duty. This, he said, could be done irrespective of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
He spoke on the need to reform the judiciary, stressing that selective justice would not augur well for democracy.
He made reference to the protracted petitions at the governorship election tribunals.
A former legal adviser to the late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha, Prof. Awwalu Yadudu, raised the question of legality of the conference.
He said: "There has to be a legal basis to whatever we are doing so that we don't end up experiencing what the Oputa Panel report suffered." For the President of the Nigerian Guilds of Editors (NGE), Halilu Baba Dantiye, the problem of the Niger Delta is not just resource control but resource management.
According to him, people of the Niger Delta region should probe their governors to account for how they spend their 13 per cent derivation. After that, "we could plead on their behalf for increment." In addition, Dantiye called for compensation for the people of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, whose lands were acquired by the Federal Government as the seat of power.
Mr. Albert Kattiems, a delegate from the Manufacturing Association of Nigeria (MAN), stressed the need for serious private/public sectors partnership.
To give vent to that, he said the constitution should be amended so that a private sector person can become the vice-chairman of the National Economic Council (NEC).
Besides, he urged the conference to pressure the Federal Government to release the withheld local councils' allocations to Lagos State.
Former Deputy Governor of Kaduna State, Mrs. Pamela Sadauki, was worried about the high level of waste at the state level and called on governors to put in place strategies to distribute resources evenly among all the strata of the society to the benefit of all.
She also advocated the review of curriculum of colleges of agriculture to make them relevant for modern-day agricultural needs.
___________________ BE WISER, AFFLUENT, ACTIVE AND MOBILE Posts: 24 | From: Greensboro, NC USA | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Is it me or is this conference all about bunch of talking heads. I think that former legal adviser to Abacha is absolutely right, whatever thes bunch of talking heads come up with, will suffer the same faith as Oputa report.
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