GODWIN ALABI-ISAMA

I’m gravely pained to be trading words with General Olusegun Obasanjo once again on the history of Nigeria-Biafra War. He is an elder and a former ruler who, ordinarily, should be treated with utmost respect.
But how can one genuinely respect an old man who tells lies like a badly raised child? Obasanjo has obviously not recovered from the shock inflicted on him by my book, The Tragedy of Victory, in which I exposed the tissues of lies in his civil war memoir, My Command. It is said that a lie may travel for a thousand miles, but it takes just one step of truth to catch up with it.
I’m alive to stand up to him on the lies he has told on the war because I was a major participant in it.  I kept records.  With facts and figures at my fingertips, I have debunked Obasanjo’s lies in Part Three of my book, consisting of 165 pages, 69 pictures, 13 military strategies and tactics, maps and documents.  This was the same Obasanjo who published a fake Federal Government gazette that I was found guilty by the Army, when I was never tried.  I have proved that Obasanjo was an incompetent commander. I have proved that he was a wily and cunning fellow, and an incredible opportunist who reaped where he did not sow.
I have proved that he was an ingrate and a hypocrite. More importantly, I have proved that he was a coward, who ran away from the war front to go and look for phantom ammunition.  Rather than respond to my claims the way a gallant officer should, he has now responded like a motor-park tout, impugning my person and questioning my ethnic lineage. I never said I was from Ibadan. I only schooled there.
General Obasanjo, this bolekaja style is so demeaning.  You live in a glasshouse, so stop throwing stones. We, who have facts, pictures and documents, meticulously kept over the years, can tell the whole world one or two things about you.
Have a look at the picture at your wedding to your first wife Remi. When the photographer wanted to take the picture of the bride and groom and their parents, you said a few things about your parents, which I still remember.  It was only Remi’s mother that took the picture with us. Please, don’t mess with the memory of my dear parents. You know my mother, an Ilorin woman, and you also saw her at the war front. She told me who my father was and she spoke his language, and took me to his hometown when he died. I went to primary school in Owu, so I know your family very well.  You should be honest enough to tell the world the story of the man who was your father.  I told you and wrote in my book that any person who does not appreciate the efforts of women has had no good mother. Please, don’t go beyond military tactics and strategies when dealing with me.
You say in volume three of your book ‘My Watch’ that I could be in bed with a woman while radioing my commander that I was in pursuit of rebels. Hundreds of thousands of those who have read my book The Tragedy of Victory – a 670 book, complete with 450 pictures and 39 military strategies and tactics, maps and documents – will call you a liar. I am so surprised and even embarrassed that a man of your status is still trading in gutter rumours. An elder with a filthy mind, a leader who lacks wisdom of age, does not deserve any respect.
I’m the same Godwin Alabi-Isama that commanded the troops that liberated today’s Cross River State in 30 days of battle from Calabar to Obubra with no single casualty.  This is the same Alabi-Isama that advanced 480 kilometres in 30 days from Calabar to Port Harcourt, liberating today’s Akwa Ibom, Rivers and Bayelsa States with 35,000 men and women with 15000 on logistics, building roads and pontoons, with eight men and two officers as my casualties. Obasanjo ordered the attack of Ohoba, a mere 24 miles from Owerri, in one hour of battle, more than 1000 Nigerian soldiers were dead.
Obasanjo claims that when I once played squash with him, I cheated. This incredible liar has forgotten that there were witnesses to that game.  Those witnesses are still alive, and they remember what really happened.  I played squash with him once in my life. He could not make a point because I was not one of his sycophants who would allow him to win a game just to massage his huge ego.  Look, General Obasanjo, there was no way you could have beaten me in any game. You do not have the physique and agility to do that. Apart from being a popular sportsman and soccer captain in Ibadan Boys High School,  I was Sports Officer in the Nigerian Army, playing games from soccer to tennis, athletics etc. You never played any games at school let alone in the Army. If you had been diligent at your physical exercises as we were taught to be, your protruding tummy would not have become a butt of joke to many officers and men of the Army.