At the recently concluded United Nations General Assembly (10 to 24 September 2024), His Excellency President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR delivered a passionate plea for debt forgiveness. Our fervent hope is that forgiveness will not come too late. We must also work assiduously in preparation for the awkward question that would inevitably be asked as well as our own arsenal of documentary frauds going back several decades—with Nigeria as the victim.
We must not underestimate the eloquence or gravity of a ceasefire. It comes with a genuine desire and commitment to restore justice based on conviction and reconciliation together with justice.
Read also: Tinubu hails Governors endorsement of tax reforms
Here is the continuation of “CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS VERSUS ECONOMISTS” on the subject matter.
“Is it true you were once a Catholic?
Emeritus Archbishop of Enugu Anglican Diocese, Most Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Chukwuma, who, penultimate week, retired from priesthood, speaks.
No! People make mistakes. I attended a Roman Catholic school, St. Aquinas College, Akure, just like the College of Immaculate Conception, CIC, here in Enugu. If somebody attends CIC, must he be a Roman Catholic? But you find that it was made compulsory for everybody to behave like a Roman Catholic, and because of my attitude and way of life, I speak Latin; the Irish Fathers loved me, and so they put me in charge of the sacristy.
At that time, I was serving Mass. We were all made to attend the chapel; whether you were a Roman Catholic or not, it was compulsory. So, I was influenced a bit by the Roman Catholic doctrine, which was an eye-opener, and my father therefore said, Why don’t I become a reverend father because of the way I served Mass and followed the reverend fathers for evangelism?
My father wanted me to be a lawyer, and some people wanted me to be a Reverend Father. I started teaching; from teaching, I was to read law at the University of Ife, but I went into theology because during the civil war I was one of those that would have been killed in the Asaba genocide, but God saved my life.
In 1967 I was to be killed among those that were killed, but God saved my life. When they were shooting, I fell down, and in the night I escaped. So, I experienced the genocide of the Nigeria civil war. I saw war with my eyes, I saw blood with my eyes, and it was a serious genocide. Innocent people in my Asaba area were killed for nothing except that we were ‘Ajukwu’ brothers (Ojukwu brothers); that was what they were saying. My father’s first house in Asaba was burnt down; many of our houses were burnt, many of our relatives were burnt, many of our kindred were killed unnecessarily, and many of our women were forcefully married by the soldiers. It was such a terrible thing that when I remember it, I shed tears, especially when they are doing Armed Forces Remembrance Day.
I feel that Nigeria still has to apologise to the Asaba people and to the eastern part of Nigeria for the genocide and war. That was the reason I said that January 15, which is my birthday, Nigeria should be celebrating it as a day of mourning and forgiveness, asking God for forgiveness and thanksgiving for the end of the war. Remember that in the Bible when God destroyed the world with water Noah prayed to God and he stopped the war of water and Noah praised and thanked God for it. So if the war has ended, we should be able to say, Father, thank you for the war that ended, but rather than doing it, what you see now is selectiveness against the Igbo. We are being neglected, sidelined, and nobody is thinking about what we suffered during the civil war. This is unfortunate, and I feel that President Bola Tinubu, if they could do something to MKO Abiola and honour him, the people of Asaba should be honoured with a day of forgiveness and thanksgiving, and then a lot of things should be done in memory and compensation for the Eastern part of Nigeria for the civil war.
Read also: Tinubu reforms: My words were taken out of context, sensationalised Sanusi
How did the Asaba genocide actually happen?
The Nigerian soldiers were to cross the River Niger, and when they came, they couldn’t cross. They said there was a goddess in the River called Onishee who would come out and their boat would sink because at that time the bridge had collapsed. So, the soldiers got angry and said that there were some Biafran soldiers among us. In fact, they separated us. I was about 14 years old. They separated the women and said that all of us, the males, should be lined up and killed. In the course of the shooting, I fell down, and corpses fell on me. That was how I escaped.
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