Reno Omokri has slammed an All Progressives Congress (APC) Chieftain, Senator Anthony Adefuye for saying former President Olusegun Obasanjo is an Igbo man from Anambra State.
Recall that Senator Adefuye in an interview with Plus TV alleged that Obasanjo’s father is an Igbo man and was awarded Obi of Onitsha, despite the former President being known to hail from Abeokuta, Ogun State.
In response, Omokri said, those who claim Obasanjo’s father was in reality an Igbo policeman and not a Yoruba man do not have a sense of history.
He said;
“Those saying President Obasanjo supported Peter Obi during the #NigerianElections2023 because General Obasanjo’s father was, in reality, an Igbo policeman and not a Yoruba man do not have a sense of history. It is so easy to bust their lies.
First of all, then Colonel Obasanjo defeated Biafra with his 3rd Marine Commando. If he was pro-Igbo, he had the power to frustrate victory for Nigeria. Especially as Prime Minister Harold Wilson of the United Kingdom had said that if Nigeria did not win the war by the Spring of 1970, Britain would intervene and put an end to the war, which would essentially mean dividing the country.
Why would an Igbo man fight Biafra and conquer them? After all, Biafra defeated Murtala Muhammed during the Abagana Ambush of March 31, 1968. Without Obasanjo, it is not certain that the Nigerian federal army would have won the Nigerian Civil War.
Secondly, Olusegun Obasanjo was born in 1937. At that time, there was nothing like the Nigerian Police Force as we know it today. Yes, a police force was based in Lagos, the colonial capital. But what existed in other parts of Nigeria was the Native Authority Police. This was a pillar of the indirect rule policy of the British colonial government.
Policing in the regions was delegated to local chiefs, and in the Western Region, this was administered by a combination of traditional rulers and district officers from 1933 until a few years before Independence.
In the Eastern Region, they did not have established monarchs in most Igbo communities, so the British had to create what they referred to as Warrant Chiefs to work with District Officers. The Native Authority police were not that successful in the Igbo-dominated parts of the Eastern Region, though they did exist.
If you remember the 1980s TV show Icheoku, a mostly Igbo language court comedy from the colonial era, the police officers you saw in that program were Native Authority police.
Native Authority police were more successful in Calabar Province, where it was more successful.
In the North, they were managed by Emirs.
From the above, it is physically impossible that in 1937, the man traducers claim to be Obasanjo’s father, Igwe Joseph Okwudili Onyejekwe, would have been a police officer in Egbaland.
It is possible, though unlikely, that he could have been a police officer in Lagos at that time. But he would not have been a police officer in the Owu division of Egba.
If the claim were that Olusegun Obasanjo’s father was a Northerner, it could be possible, though far-fetched, because the nucleus of the Nigerian Police that operated under the colonial government in Lagos and Lokoja was the Hausa Constabulary.
For example, if you look at the photos of the captured Oba Ovonramwen Nogbaisi of Benin in 1897, taken after the British Punitive Expedition, the police officers you see guarding the Oba of Benin were members of the Hausa Constabulary.
As of 1937, Nigeria had no national police with police stations all over Nigeria as we now have it.
Finally, President Olusegun Obasanjo himself, on page 675 of his book My Watch Volume 2: Political and Public Affairs, stated as follows:
“My two parents were from Owu in Abeokuta. And you cannot be more Yoruba than an Owu man.”
However, if those making these claims are stubborn in their assertions, there is a straightforward way to put this issue to rest. Olusegun Obasanjo has over thirty children and grandchildren, and Igwe Joseph Okwudili Onyejekwe has over fifty descendants. Just take a sample from any of Obasanjo’s descendants and gather specimens from Igwe Onyejekwe’s progenies. Then, run a DNA test. If they are related, we will know that there is truth to this story. Simple!”
