AFRICAN PROFILE MAGAZINE

“While Revolutionaries as Individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas.”~ Thomas Sankara 

 

"A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”~ John C. Maxwell

 

“The key to change... is to let go of fear.”~ Rosanne Cash

 

On April 22, 1990, when Major Gideon Orkar made his broadcast, it was ecstasy for me and I had thought that, having been born in April, I got the greatest birthday gift of my life, at least for the next twelve hours until the deleterious empire re-took charge.

 

Anyone familiar with the details of events in the hours leading to the execution of the April 22, 1990 Revolution (I used this word advisedly in place of the word “coup” which actually means the same as “revolution”, but in recent times and in certain parlances, has come to connote “an illegal act.” Attempting to overthrow an illegal and oppressive government is not an “illegal act” but a “revolutionary act”), would agree with me that Gideon Orkar was and still remains one of the most courageous human beings that has ever lived. I have lined him up with several great men in history of the world and of all ages, he stands shoulder to shoulder with them.

 

Even, in captivity, he was bolder than Daniel, as he exuded robust and uncommon courage, unconcerned about injury or death to his body but buoyed by his ideals of fairness and justice. His alluringly innocuous baby-face baring a look that bellied the inimitability of his conquest over fear. He was not afraid to die for what he believed but for which he was killed. Orkar represents the triumph of the spirit over body. He represents the conquest of sacrifice over crass opportunism. He represents the victory of self denial over gratuitous self indulgence. He represents the triumph of an idea, especially a type “whose time has come” over the stagnancy of thought of the subjugating sentries of the status quo.

 

Orkar still lives and would live on as an ideal of fairness and justice for which his body was taken but for which his spirit remains unconquerable. When Nigeria eventually accosts its destiny of dismemberment, Major Gideon Orkar would still remain a hero to the majority of all peoples that would eventually be the citizens of the different Nations that would emanate from it. This is because he represents an idea that transcends the rivers, the mountains and the valleys of his Tiv land. He represents an idea - justice and fairness - that transcends the abhorrent boundaries of the geographical expression called Nigeria.

 

In his determination to speak for the disadvantaged and the dispossessed, the denigrated and the dehumanized, the subjugated and the subverted within the contrived country called Nigeria, St. Gideon Orkar ended up speaking for humanity. Those who murdered him thought they got rid of him, but unfortunately for them, Gideon Gwaza Orkar is not dead. He lives on in our hearts, his defiance our clarion call, his courage our inspiration, his sacrifice our motivation, his vision our hope, his words our elixir, his mission our goal, his imminent victory our consolation while his name remains our buoy as we march on.

 

Let all the protagonists of NIGERIA AT ALL COSTS hear loud and clear –The ethnic nationalities of this forced marriage would not be held in permanent bondage. We know this to be true and self evident. It is either Nigeria is restructured satisfactorily or it is dismembered completely. The political slave drivers and economic pillagers are anxious and afraid. Their only source of confidence is the state control of violence. At the H – hour of the peoples’ judgment, forces of state would be toothless and powerless. State violence would not be able to deter the surge to freedom. They would not be able to stem the tide.

 

Protagonists of “One Nigeria at all costs” are panicky and disoriented. They are nervous and scared. It is very easy to fathom and discern. They are confused and befuddled. The levers of power and control have become slippery in their hands. Their anxiety is palpable. The slave is about to break free. The taskmaster is bewildered and jittery. Frightened rats whose only ability is to be parasitic. They are vile predators with noxious bile. They are fake nationalists that derive sadistic satisfaction from the woes of others. Logic is alien to greed. Greed is oblivious of danger.

 

Pity not the latter day nationalists with fake "common humanity" concept. They shout UNITY for Nigeria during the day and they go about defiling and raping her at night. They are often undemocratic and very afraid of the people. They are often holier than thou supposedly with all the wisdom of the world, yet they could only exude nauseating stupidity when they communicate. They are foxy, merciless, nasty, brutish and greedy. They have lost control over their own destinies. Yet, they want to control the destinies of others. But their days are numbered as oppressors. The shackled shall be freed. The memory of Gideon Orkar is an attestation to this. And if the fake nationalists refuse to let the captives go, they would have deserved the judgment the people deemed fit for them. The judgment of the people is like the mill of God, it grinds very, very slowly, but very, very certainly.

 

Now that my birthday has come around again, especially at this time that a comedic confab is on-going, adrift and in quandary as to which direction to turn, I invite you to share with me the historical message of Major Gideon Orkar. As Nigeria flagrantly makes haste slowly to its manifest destiny, I invite you at this moment of prelude to be armed with the Gospel according to St. Gideon Orkar. As we all witness the prologue to the imminent liberation of all the subjugated ethnic nationalities in the miasma called Nigeria, please, share with me a “food for thought” from Major Gideon Orkar.

 

I plead with you to take few minutes to once again celebrate with me, not just my birthday but the memory of one of the greatest human beings, Major Gideon Gwaza Orkar by reading excerpts from his broadcast of April 22,1990:

 

“…. We wish to emphasize that this is …… revolution for the marginalized, oppressed and enslaved peoples of the Middle Belt and the south with a view to freeing ourselves and children yet unborn from eternal slavery and colonization by a clique of this country.

 

Our history is replete with numerous and uncontrollable instances of callous and insensitive, repressive intrigues by those who think it is their birthright to dominate till eternity the political and economic privileges of this great country to the exclusion of the people of the Middle Belt and the south.

 

They have almost succeeded in subjugating the Middle Belt and making them voiceless and now extending same to the south. It is our unflinching belief that this quest for domination, oppression and marginalization is against the wish of God and therefore, must be resisted with the vehemence.

 

Anything that has a beginning must have an end. ……….. …..reason for the change is the need to stop intrigues, domination and internal colonization of the Nigerian state by the so-called chosen few. This, in our view, has been and is still responsible for 90 percent of the problems of Nigerians. This indeed has been the major clog in our wheel of progress.

 

This clique has an unabated penchant for domination and unrivaled fostering of mediocrity and outright detest for accountability, all put together have been our undoing as a nation.

 

The deliberate disruption of the educational culture and retarding its place to suit the favored class to the detriment of other educational minded parts of this country.

 

The deliberate impoverishment of the peoples from the Middle Belt and the south, making them working ghosts and feeding on the formulae of 0-1-1- or 0-0-0 while the aristocratic class and their stooges are living in absolute affluence on a daily basis without working for it.

 

Other countless examples of the exploitative, oppressive, dirty games of intrigues of its class, where people and stooges that can best be described by the fact that even though they contribute very little economically to the well being of Nigeria, they have over the years served and presided over the supposedly national wealth derived in the main from the Middle Belt and the southern part of this country, while the people from these parts of the country have been completely deprived from benefiting from the resources given to them by God. …….”

 

May the courageous spirit of Major Gideon Orkar continue to fly on infinitely.