Ahead March 28: Arewa’s Debt To Biriye
“Now that the NPC has openly supported the motion for a Mid-Western State I think that the NPC can conveniently support a motion for the creation of an Oil Rivers State. In such a new state the NPC would be running the Regional Government as it does now in Northern Nigeria. This is precisely what the NCNC wants to gain in the Mid-West through the help of the NPC. If the NPC is to rule Nigeria the party has to run the federal government alone and run as many Regions of the Federation as the party can control. This is a legitimate aspiration of any of the rival parties in this country; and I want us to pursue the objective without losing the game to the NCNC.”
(Harold Dappa-Biriye’s 4th of July 1961 letter to Alhaji the Honourable Mohammadu Ribadu, Minister of Defence and chieftain of Northern Peoples Congress (NPC).
The Lonely Prophet
IN early February 1958, thirty-seven years old Harold Dappa-Biriye, leader of Niger Delta minorities, turned up for a private cocktail party at the Government House, Lagos. His host British Governor-General James Robertson steered him to three well-known Nigerians. The first was the formidable Sir the Honourable Alhaji Ahmadu Bello K.B.A, C.B.E., M.H.A., M.C.C., President-General of the Northern Peoples Congress, NPC, and Premier of the Northern Region. The second was Alhaji the Honourable Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Vice President of the NPC. The third was Honourable Abba Habib, the General Secretary of NPC.
Biriye told his northern countrymen that the Chiefs and People of Rivers of the Niger Delta were floating a new political party. Fully established, this party would seek the alliance of NPC against Dr. Nnamdi (Zik) Azikiwe’s National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons, NCNC.
The British had already briefed Bello on who and what to expect. So important was this young man to the departing British, in fact, that Her Majesty’s government decided to preside over this meeting. But why? He finally spoke up. When Biriye’s party was formed and the Chiefs and People of Rivers ready to work with northerners, Bello responded, Biriye should contact Abba Habib. NPC would work with Biriye and his people. The Governor-General nodded his approval and the meeting was over.
This meeting was unknown to the Premiers of Eastern and Western Regions, Zik and Chief Obafemi Awolowo. At the resumed London Constitutional Conference later that year the two were further sold dummies, with Zik attacking Biriye and Awolowo passionately defending him. Zik succeeded in blocking the creation of COR State demanded by Biriye and Udo Udoma, arguing that creating state purely on tribal affiliations was dangerous for a newly independent Nigeria. Then Biriye asked for a separate political arrangement, never outright secession, based on pre-colonial treaties signed between the independent monarchs of Niger Delta and the British.
Everyone was stunned as there was not a single person in Lancaster House, venue of conference, with the slightest idea of these treaties. The presiding Colonial Secretary himself was caught off guard. Biriye’s demand made sense under international law. The Secretary asked for few days to look into these treaties to be able to respond adequately. Zik fanned out his aides to British libraries to read up all they could about these treaties. The Niger Delta was part of his region. Awolowo did the same as Western Ijawland fell under his region.
Biriye who was the youngest delegate left London heartbroken as these treaties, in the verdict of the British, were no longer of any consequence since they were superseded and invalidated by the new democratic order willfully entered into and participated by these monarchs and their elected representative. Awolowo mourned with him but Zik was elated as his region survived intact. But clearly, dagger and cloak diplomacy was at work. The British deliberately misinformed the conference on these treaties. Under international law, according to BJE Itsueli, no party can unilaterally invalidate and nullify a treaty. So what were the stakes?
Shell Petroleum BP struck oil in commercial quantity at Biriye’s backyard in Oloibiri January 1958. The following month the British hastily brokered the historic meeting between Biriye and Bello at Government House, Lagos, where the issue of alliance was agreed. Nothing else mattered, except Biriye’s oil. But Nigeria was at the last bus stop before independence and could pursue a foreign policy hostile to British interests. Bello was the guarantor that such never happened. Not only would the British leave power in the hands of a fellow colonialist Hausa/Fulani, to believe Ayo Oritsejafo, they hoped to control Biriye’s petroleum through a proxy government headed by NPC. Reverting autonomy to the petroleum-rich Niger Delta city-states was fraught with uncertainties and so these valid treaties were shot down in interpretation.
Certain Niger Delta critics today blame Biriye for all their woes. Why didn’t he ask for outright secession at the conference? Simple, had he tried that the British would have separated his head from his shoulders. Petroleum was everything to Westminster. Biriye never underestimated British conspiracy as he could be dropped for a deal with Zik. Literally and figuratively, the young man was the unheeded lonely voice in the wilderness crying for redemption.
Back from the conference Biriye launched his Niger Delta Congress, NDC, 7th March 1959. The party’s symbol was a fish in a triangle with the motto, “Live and Let Live.” On 18th March, Secretary DST Allison of the Port Harcourt City Branch of NDC wrote the local branch of NPC introducing his party. On 4th April, a mini conference of the two parties took place in Port Harcourt. Then on 2nd and 3rd May, Biriye held the first national convention of his party at the Rex Cinema, Port Harcourt, where the national officers of his party were elected. Three days later 6th May, he personally wrote Bello introducing the newly elected officers with himself as President-General; Josiah A Jumbo, General-Secretary; SK Omoni, Financial Secretary; EF Allaputa, Party Manager, and IS Anthony as Treasurer.
In this letter Biriye laid out the economic and political goals of his NDC: “The economic objective of this party is to attend to the physical problem of the Niger Delta through the medium of the Niger Delta Development Board. Politically, the party’s objective is to press for the Special Area becoming Federal Territory before Nigeria’s independence.” Bello gave his nod for an alliance.
The Diplomat: NPC/NDC 1959 Alliance
The preliminary agreement stated, inter alia, (1) that the NPC and the NDC, or their successors by whatever name called, hereby agree to become political allies; (11) that the NPC and the NDC, hereby undertake to cooperate henceforth in the study and solution of all matters in the Exclusive List of the Nigerian Constitution, as well as of subjects connected with the attributes of sovereignty; (111) that the allied parties undertake to support the Niger Delta Development Board and the claim that the Special Area shall become Federal territory before independence; (IV) that the allied parties shall not contest elections against each other; rather, their members shall vote for candidates approved by the alliance; (V) that the allied parties shall have one Federal Parliamentary Caucus and shall conduct themselves in unison in the Federal legislature, and in the responsibility of governing the Federation of Nigeria; (VI) that the allied parties shall disclose to each other any overtures made by other parties for alliance or for any understanding involving the undertakings in this preliminary agreement, and (VII) that this agreement shall come into operation from the date of signature by the two parties.
This preliminary agreement was considered and signed Thursday 9th July 1959. No sooner than NDC opened its Kaduna office at 25 Ogbomosho Road than Zik now woke up to the new reality that he was no longer dealing with a peripheral minority but the behemoth North made stronger by the assured five seats from Biriye’s Special Area. Biriye himself was ecstatic in his new found strength, declaring that NDC “would prize most dearly the grand opportunity of riding into power in Nigeria in the pocket of the N.P.C.”
Under Bello’s Protection
To send a strong warning that Biriye was now under his protection Bello sent a high powered delegation October 1959 to the Niger Delta. Comprising of Hon. Abutu Obekpe MHA (Minister of Northern Region), Hon. JC Obande MHR (Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister of the Federation of Nigeria), Hon. Mallam Muhtari (Sarkin Bai), Barr. AGF Razq (NPC lawyer), and Mallam Yusufu Dantsoha (NPC Organising Secretary), the mission of this delegation was ostensibly fact-finding but one with a clear political undertone.
While Bello lived this alliance was honoured. Biriye’s protégé, Melford Okilo was appointed parliamentary secretary by Prime Minister Balewa, following Okilo’s election into the central House. The Niger Delta Development Board was also created with a renewable ten-year life span, though achieved very little before the military proscribed it. In response to the severe education crises among Niger Delta minorities, Balewa extended to them ten federal scholarships to augment the six by the Eastern Region. Biriye’s demand for the creation of Oil Rivers State 1961 and Niger Delta Region 1965 were favoured by Bello, but fiercely opposed by Zik who frowned at attempts to balkanization his region.
Biriye to the Rescue/Arewa’s Debt to Biriye
It was after Bello was killed in the coup of January 1966 that this alliance was single-handedly taken to a new height by Biriye. When JTU Aguiyi-Ironsi was toppled in a counter-coup July 1966, he immediately supported the northern-led junta of Yakubu Gowon against Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu. “Ojukwu called me to State House, Enugu, that we should secede but I told him no; that Rivers people would like to remain in Nigeria,” he told a 1998 international conference organised by the Yakubu Gowon Foundation at Hotel Presidential, Port Harcourt. That was how the North emerged victorious in the Biafran/Nigerian war.
In the three decades that Northern officers misruled this country Biriye gave them his unquantifiable support: Gowon (1966-1975), Murtala Mohammed (1975-1976), Muhammadu Buhari (1984-1985), and Ibrahim Babangida (1985-2003). He distanced himself from Sani Abacha (2003-2008) because Abacha killed an Ijaw man in cold blood. Under civil rule Biriye gave Rivers State votes to Shehu Shagari (1979-1983) and the National Party of Nigeria, NPN. Umaru Musa Yar’Adua (2007-2009) got his highest votes not from Katsina but from the minority states of Rivers and Bayelsa even after Biriye died 17th February 2005.
Even before his death his discontented successors were questioning the loop-sided implementation of this alliance skewed heavily against them, going by the wheel-turning 1998 Kaiama Declaration signed by Felix Tuodolo and TK Ogoriba. Biriye gave too much to the North, including power, sea ports for northern products, oil blocs, diplomatic and military supports; so much so that his beneficiary became presumptuous in its myth of born-to-rule.
But how has this same North reciprocated his immense sacrifice?
Liberator turned Oppressor
On the tombstone of communism is the caveat: “Every revolutionary movement ends up perpetuating the very vices it claims to eradicate. Beware, least you be snarled!”
After beating down the Mensheviks minority, Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks majority stormed to power October 1917 with the promise of liberating Russian peasants from royal tyranny. Within few years the Bolsheviks killed more Russians by exiling them to bitter-cold Siberia than Tsar Nicholas 11 ever did. In their suffering the victims remembered their fair monarch but it was too late for those Russians.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, emerged to correct the environmental and economic injustices against Niger Delta minorities by the Nigerian state. MEND was so successful that many mistook it for another Caesar until it turned itself into the greatest threat to the same minorities in its attempt to kill Goodluck Jonathan, the first Niger Delta man to rule this country.
The liberator turned oppressor is analogous of majority North and Niger Delta minorities. To escape the jaws of “predatory neighbours” Harold Dappa-Biriye and his Niger Delta Congress, NDC, ran to Ahmadu Bello and the Northern Peoples Congress, NPC, for succor. Bello did not disappoint and when the table turned January 1966, Biriye did not look back supporting Bello’s successors by whatever name called. Times took their tolls and Bello’s successors appear a thorn in the side of Biriye’s children, going by the utterances of the erudite Professor Ango Abdullahi. The pity of it all is that the distinguished academic is not alone in his attack on Jonathan. The great Yusuf Maitama Sule is also singing the same rebel music. As the Minister of Mine and Power, Sule was Bello’s powerful representative to Biriye’s rally during the 1964 general elections, according to Mallam Ibrahim Kano who was Propaganda Secretary of NPC.
Professor Abdullahi’s repudiation of Niger Delta minorities’ right to self-determination, that is what his opposition to Jonathan’s candidacy is all about, now compels Nigerians to ask the painful question: “Is the 1959 NPC/NDC alliance finally over?”
In response we must look at the forces that propelled Jonathan to the center. He was seconded 2007 as running mate to Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. Going by all laws of logic the struggle hero Peter Odili should have deputized Yar’Adua. At the eleventh hour powerful northerners, including Aluko Dangote, kicked against the choice of Odili in favour of Jonathan, according to Odili’s account in his autobiographical “Conscience and History. My Story.”
Upon Yar’Adua’s demise Jonathan again allied with northerners when he 2011 and 2015 picked Namadi Sambo as his running mate. Therefore, the choices of Jonathan as Yar’Adua’s running mate and Sambo as Jonathan’s running mate were consistent with Clause I of the alliance, “that the NPC and the NDC, or their successors by whatever name called, hereby agree to become political allies.” It also means that right into the 21st Century the alliance subsists.
The question now arises, if the allies are still in business why did the North 2011 field Buhari against Jonathan contrary to Clause IV? This clause states “that the allied parties shall not contest elections against each other; rather, their members shall vote for candidates approved by the alliance.” Question must also be asked about the post-election violence in northern Nigeria following Jonathan’s victory over Buhari. Thirdly is question on the escalation of insurgency in the same North aimed at making Jonathan look incompetent.
It must be pointed out, though, that northern opposition to Jonathan seems the handiwork of a selfish few whose utterances do not reflect grassroots opinion. The Jonathan/Sambo ticket is sellable in the North today as it was in 2011 because northerners acknowledge their debt to Biriye and Niger Delta minorities. This debt is only payable when northerners give their votes ungrudgingly to Jonathan. The Northern Elders Forum, NEF, All Progressives Congress, APC, and Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, believe in using and dumping minorities and must be discountenanced.
Kicking against Jonathan’s candidacy is an act of ingratitude on the part of NEF considering that in a hundred years the North could not have moved Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu’s foot by one inch without the support of Niger Delta minorities. Russia and Britain gave the North weapons because oil rich Niger Delta allied with northerners. Questioning the pittance allocated for the development of the Niger Delta region in the 2015 budget is a mark of insensitivity on the part of Prof. Abdullahi considering that the ecological and social devastations in the region occasioned by oil exploration surpass what obtains in the other five geo-political zones put together.
The esteemed academic must be reminded that the North dominates because a gentleman called Harold Dappa-Biriye upset the balance of weakness to give it undue advantage. A reversal of this imbalance, clearly within the powers of Biriye’s successors, will cut the North down to size. Don’t tempt fate.
My Message to Ndigbo
“Paradox of Development,” according Ian Morris, encourages you to see every step and misstep within the ambit of history and its dynamics. That every development creates a condition that reduces it to a potential problem, as seen today in the excesses of Hausa/Fulani who should be protecting Jonathan and not threatening him. By inference, it also means that every problem contains the seed of a great leap forward, as seen in the solidarity of Igbo who should be threatening Jonathan and not protecting him.
Jonathan himself is paradox of development. He was not a struggle hero, just a harmless civil servant who probably dodged his own landlord. Thinking it had found a zombie, the North snapped him up over the articulate Odili as Yar’Adua’s deputy. The North realized only too late what a viper it had brought to Abuja and is now crying wolf. One question puzzles me though: If Jonathan is such a bad meat for the Arewa pot, why was he seconded to Yar’Adua if not that the North wanted to use him to undermine the Kaiama Declaration?
It is paradox of development that Ndigbo have refused to present a candidate against Jonathan, heir to Biriye who was pro-North. But Buhari who is anti-Biriye is rejected by Ndigbo who understand that the physical development of the Niger Delta is a priority. We also have no quarrel in Jonathan allocating N639 billions, if it is true, for the rehabilitation of a region that sustains the national economy. Our position is not defined by fear or hatred. We support Jonathan because Biriye’s “Live and Let Live” is original to the ontological and political Igbo. I therefore tackle a historic fallacy.
The Igbo dominated and oppressed Niger Delta minorities in so far as the British divide and rule was a reality. The Yoruba, Igbo, Ijaw, etc, woke up one morning to find themselves under white rule. Everyone did what he was told and none realized he was being used against his neighbor. In Rwanda the French used minority Tutsis to oppress majority Hutus and we all saw the disastrous outcome 1994. The reverse was the case in Nigeria where the British used majority against minority. The Igbo were no isolated case as majority Yoruba and Hausa/Fulani also oppressed their minorities, going by the damning report of 1957 Willinks Minority Commission. The British allowed this evil to thrive for their own selfish interests.
In his “The Twelve-Day Revolution” autobiography, the scholar-soldier Isaac Jasper Boro passes a harsh judgement on the British for this crime:
“One may be led to blame the Ibos for desiring to retain a closed territory principally to satisfy their own economic and political considerations, but they were only momentary opportunists. The whole discredit is attributable to the then British government.
“When the British arrived in Nigeria…a greater part of the hinterland was still unknown to them. Their own administrators admit that the ethnic components of the Nigeria they found were astonishingly varied. When the coastal chiefs, with reluctance, opened the gates to the Nigerian hinterland to them, the British awarded them a prize of neglect and derision….
“Before independence was granted, eleven distinct ethnic groups stared the British in the face. They were: Hausas, Fulanis, Yorubas, Ibos, Ijaws, Tivs, Kanuris, Nupes, Edos, Urhobos, Itsekiris. What prevented them from creating ethnic states in the Federation, knowing just as well as anybody that any of these tribes would sooner or later object to domination by the other.
“Their attitude to the Nigerian problem, therefore, suggested that their handing over to Nigeria a political set-up of total democratic imbalance and contradictions was in truth satanical and a calculated trap to overwhelm the country with disastrous political upheavals….Unfortunately, those who perpetrated this outrageous crime on freedom and democracy are no longer in office in Britain. What all lovers of peace and equity would tell them was that they made a mess of Nigeria and owe a profound apology to the democratic world at large. The Ijaw as may be seen from the list of Nigerian tribes were thus pronounced victim of a woolly administration.”
Morris also identifies two agents whose actions shape the course of human history. These are the exceptional genius and the bungling idiot. The former is the element whose step sets his people on the path of greatness; while the latter’s misstep sets his people back by generations.
But “genius,” “idiot,” “step” and “misstep” are relative terms. The idiot who attains wealth by accident will pass as a genius while the genius who loses by an act of God will become the idiot. The wench who refuses to cooperate may have taken the misstep into misery while her mate who uses her bottom-power has just taken the right step to plenty. Who told you that the race is for the swift? The cripple who crosses the finishing line before you is the champion; does it matter if he rode on the back of the British?
The above reflects my attitude whenever I hear Nigerians ridicule first generation Igbo political/military leaders as the bungling idiot whose head was used in breaking the coconut that others ate. Perhaps our leaders were complicit by conduct: If they did not frighten the life out of Biriye, his extreme response would certainly not have been necessary. Before joining ranks with Bello, it is on record he first embraced Zik’s NCNC then SG Ikoku’s United Nigeria Party, UNP, where he 1952 served as Field Secretary.
My generation, therefore, will be the exceptional genius doing things differently 2015. We shall support Ijaws and give our votes to Jonathan who is being harassed left and right by the same Abdullahi for making an Igbo man Chief of Army Staff, COAS.
This year marks 10th memorial of Chief Harold Dappa-Biriye: 26th Sept.1920-17th Feb.2005. Writer thanks Miss Ibitomie Dappa-Biriye of Harold Dappa-Biriye Foundation. Chief Esoetok Ikpong Etteh provided additional materials. More thanks to Dr Felix Tuodolo, Honourable Commissioner for Culture and Ijaw National Affairs, Bayelsa State.
*Thousands of documents left behind by Chief Biriye could be lost forever as his Foundation lacks the resources to secure them, unless Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, MNDA, and Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, urgently intervene.
chigachieke@yahoo.co.uk
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