Anybody who was
present at the Aburi meeting or has read the minutes, the communiqués,
statements, and verbatim reports would be surprised that a person who calls
himself a head of state could so deliberately mislead accredited
representatives of foreign governments by saying that the implementation of
each item of the conclusions required prior detailed examination by the
administrative and professional experts in the various fields. The conclusions
in Aburi were no proposals but decisions taken by the highest authority in the
land.
What happened
in fact was that specific matters, namely, the decrees and sections of decrees
to be repealed, the mechanics of army reorganization, and the question of
rehabilitation of refugees, were referred to experts. The meeting of the
financial experts to consider the question of rehabilitation of displaced
persons has not been held because the Ministry of Finance does not think that
such a meeting would serve any useful purpose. The army experts met and reached
agreements, but these were rejected.
Lieutenant-Colonel
Yakubu Gowon told the Heads of Missions that the agreement about returning the
regions to the positions before January 17 also meant in effect that the
federal government in Lagos would continue to carry
on its functions as before. He failed to inform the world that the decisions
taken at Aburi, the federal government meant no more than the Supreme Military
Council. No one of course who knows the sort of advice Lieutenant-Colonel Gowon
is receiving in Lagos would be surprised by
this suppression and distortion of the truth.
The actual
Aburi decisions read as follows:
Members agree that the legislative and executive
authority of the Federal Military Government should remain in the Supreme
Military Council, to which any decision affecting the whole country shall be
referred for determination provided that where it is impossible for a meeting
to be held the matter requiring determination must be referred to military
governors for their comment and concurrence.
Specifically, the council agreed that appointments
to senior ranks in the police, diplomatic, and consular services as well as
appointment to super scale posts in the federal civil service and the
equivalent posts in the statutory corporation must be approved by the Supreme
Military Council.
The regional members felt that all the decrees
passed since January
15, 1966, and which detracted from previous powers and
positions of regional governments, should be repealed if mutual confidence is
to be restored.
It is difficult
to understand the introduction of the word "veto" into the matter.
The Aburi Agreement was that any decision which affected the whole country must
receive the concurrence of all the military governors because of their special
responsibilities in their different area of authority and so to the country as
a corporate whole.
On the
reorganization of the army, it is for Lieutenant-Colonel Gowon to explain to
the world what he means by the "army continuing to be under one
command," when in the very next sentence of his statement he also speaks
of an agreement to establish area commands corresponding with the existing
regional boundaries. This contradiction in itself tells the truth, and one does
not need to belabor the point.
The actual
decision of the Supreme Military Council as recorded in the official minutes
reads as follows:
The Council
decides that:
(i) on reorganization of the army:
(a) Army to be governed by the
Supreme Military Council under a chairman to be known Commander-in-Chief of the
Armed Forces and Head of the Federal Military Government.
(b) Establishment of a military
headquarters comprising equal representation from the regions and headed by a
Chief of Staff.
(c) Creation of area commands
corresponding to existing regions and under the charge of area commander.
(d) Matters of policy, including
appointments and promotions to top executive posts in the armed forces and the
police, to be dealt with by the Supreme Military Council.
(e) During the period of the
military government, military governors will have control over area commands
for internal security.
(f) Creation of a Lagos
garrison, including Ikeja barracks.
It is clear
from the Aburi decisions that what was envisaged was a loosely knit army
administered by a representative military headquarters under the charge of a
Chief of Staff and commanded by the Supreme Military Council, not by
Lieutenant-Colonel Yakubu Gowon as he claimed in his present statement to the
diplomats.
According to
the Aburi Agreements "the following appointments must be approved by the
Supreme Military Council; (a) diplomatic and consular posts; (b)
senior posts in the armed forces and the police; (c) superscale federal
civil service and federal corporation posts."
Everyone with
even the most superficial acquaintance with the Nigerian civil service knows
what those expressions mean and connote.
To confuse
issue, Lieutenant-Colonel Gowon gave the impression that the main difference
between him and me on this particular decision was that I insisted on canceling
the appointments of existing civil servants. I can think of nothing more
slanderous.
It is clear
from Gowon’s statement in question that he is prepared to distort the verbatim
reports of the Aburi meeting. To keep the public informed, the Eastern Nigerian
Broadcasting Service will be playing the tape records of the proceedings live
at scheduled times.... Arrangement have been completed to transform those tape
recordings to long-playing gramophone records ... We are also going ahead to
print and publish the documents and records of Aburi meeting. We in the East are
anxious to see that our difficulties are resolved by peaceful means and that Nigeria is preserved as a unit,
but it is doubtful, and the world must judge whether Lieutenant-Colonel Gowon’s
attitudes and other exhibitions of his insincerity are something which can lead
to a return of normalcy and confidence in the country.
I must warn all
Easterners once again to remain vigilant. The East will never be intimidated,
nor will she acquiesce to any form of dictation. It is not our intention to
play the aggressor. Nonetheless, it is not our intention to be slaughtered in
our beds; we are ready to defend our homeland.
Fellow countrymen and women, on Aburi We Stand. There will be no
compromise. God grant peace in our time.