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Nigeria’s 30-month civil war caused by personality clash – Dokpesi

  • Says Ojukwu was my hero

The Chairman Emeritus of DAAR Communications Plc, High Chief Raymond Dokpesi, has said the nation’s 30-month civil war between 1967 and 1970 was a consequence of an unnecessary personality clash.

He said ex-Biafra leader, Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu was his hero.

But he revealed that ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo wooed him to return home in 1977 from where he was doing well as a maritime lecturer.

He described Obasanjo as a talent hunter and a non-discriminatory Nigerian.

Dokpesi, who made the revelations in his authorised biography, “The Handkerchief”, which will soon be unveiled to mark his 70th birthday, said he was told he would not live up to 35 years.

The biography, which was released to selected media in Abuja yesterday was authored by Okoh Aihe, Adebayo Bodunrin, Christopher Ebuetse and Ayo Ogundele.

Speaking on the civil war, Dokpesi said: “That was 1967. The development and the things that were going on at that time, the country was at war. I was giving to my family information as we were having them in order to keep them abreast with developments around the country.

“Like I said, the Biafran soldiers that came into Mid-West were friendly and some of them very close to me. When the Federal Army came, I also had friends among them.

“We were very young but there was the curiosity to understand the things going on in the country. There is no gainsaying that Colonel Chukwuemaka Odumegu was my hero. He was my role model as I was growing up.

“His intellect, his diction, I was highly fascinated.

“So, I wanted to understand much more what the Nigerian Civil War was all about. It was highly unfortunate; just a personality clash, it was not about the people. These were part of the contradictions and the pains of growing up, to see the war actually happen.

He paid tributes to the late Gen. Samuel Ogbemudia (who later became a civilian governor of Bendel State) for the role he played in the liberation of the Mid-West Region during the civil war.

He added: “During the civil war, Ogbemudia was a very courageous amour tanks officer, an artillery officer, who came in and played a very major role in liberating the Mid-West when he got appointed as the military Governor. The people loved him. Even when I was in Poland, he was still corresponding with me.”

He said Obasanjo had moved through parts of Europe in search of ideas that could help transform and expand marine business in Nigeria before their paths crossed in Poland.

He said Obasanjo is a non-discriminatory leader who wooed him back from Poland in 1977 to come and serve his fatherland.

He said as a consultant to the Polish Government on matters relating to Maritime Transportation and Economic Science, he joined the Polish team to hold talks with General Obasanjo when he paid a state visit to Poland in 1977.

He said Obasanjo was surprised that he found himself negotiating with a Polish team which had a black man as a member, who also served as the interpreter. The black man as he said Obasanjo got to know Dokpesi, a full-blooded Nigerian, whose education was funded by a scholarship from the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA).

He said “one thing that is difficult to contest about Obasanjo is his rich appetite for talents.”

He said: “I came back to Nigeria and thanks to the non-discriminatory stand of the then Military Head of State and Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Gen. Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo.

“I met t him on an official visit to Poland. That time, he was very enthusiastic about building ship yards in Nigeria. Ship yard in Burutu, ship yard in Lagos and wanted to have one other ship yard in Port Harcourt. He had three ship yards in mind, so it was a great privilege, a great honour and a great opportunity to come in.

“Even when I thought it was very difficult for me, the same Gen.Olusegun Obassanjo, who got me into the Federal Civil Service, got me posted to the Federal Ministry of Transport before the Nigerian Ports Authority started claiming ownership that they sent me out to Poland on scholarship.

“It was Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo that handed me over to General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua the then Chief of Staff Supreme Headquarters and the rest is history today.”

He said he was ravaged by an ailment such that he could not talk for seven years.

He said with the strange disease, doctors at home and in Poland said he would not live for more than 35 years.

He said: “The doctors returned the same result: even if this young man survived in the immediate, he would not live beyond the age of 35.

“I had no faith in the fact that I was going to live beyond those years. And it was not only because I was told or I felt that I won’t go beyond the age of 35. I was in a hospital in Poland. I was aware that extensive tests had been carried out on me.

“The doctors came up with that same conclusion that I might not be able to survive.”

Dokpesi said with divine grace, he has lived up to 70 years.

“I got admitted into what is today known as Auchi Polytechnic to study Mechanical Engineering. Later, I secured regional scholarship to study same course at Mid-West Institute of Technology, MIT, a precursor of University of Benin.

“I have only studied for a semester in Benin when I got the Nigerian Port Authority scholarship to study Marine Engineering in London. I have only studied for a little over three months at the University of Southampton in United Kingdom when I was told to proceed to Poland where I studied the same course, Marine Engineering.

“My going to Poland in search of the proverbial golden fleece was a huge success,” he said.

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