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An incisive look into the book, Tragedy of Victory by Brigadier Alabi-Isama, that focuses on the merits and shortcomings of the author’s handling of the contentious issues he raised.
I picked up a shrink-wrapped copy of Brigadier Alabi-Isama’s book, the Tragedy of Victory, during my recent trip to Nigeria. Realizing from its blurb that the author devotes a substantial part to debunk the alleged misrepresentations in General Obasanjo’s My Command, I decided to go through My Command again, having read it much earlier when it was first published. It turns out that re-reading My Command is not necessary, as Alabi-Isama generously excerpts relevant sections of the book that he addresses. In fact, Alabi-Isama employs about the same number of pages to refute several claims in the 174-page book!
Alabi-Isama’s Tragedy of Victory is perhaps the first book that I have read with five forewords. The first is by NowaOmoigui, a US-based MD and an acknowledged military historian. The second is by the Emir of Ilorin, the paramount ruler of the birthplace of the author’s mother. The third is by Major General Adeyinka Adebayo who recruited Alabi-Isama into the Army. The fourth and, in my view, the most informative , is by General Yakubu Gowon, Alabi-Isama’s Commander-in Chief during the war. The fifth is by Madiebo, the Commander of the Biafran Army. Strangely, the fourth and fifth forewords are deliberately omitted in some print versions!
In a way that many of us could relate, Isama’s entry into the military was motivated by his fascination with the exquisite accouterment and panache of the military honor guards posted to Awolowo’s house in Ibadan, then the Premier of Western Region. This house was in close proximity to Ibadan Boys High School where Alabi-Isama was an enrolled student. In a country where one’s fortune is often shaped by accident of birth, Alabi-Isama‘s dual ethnic parentage turned out to be of mixed blessing. He was born and raised by a Yoruba Muslim woman from Ilorin in the geopolitical North. His father, a Christian from Utagbo Uno in current Delta State, died when Alabi-Isama was virtually a toddler. So Alabi-Isama grew up as Abdul RahmanAlabi, a Muslim from the North. This northern affiliation aided his smooth enlistment into the military as the strict education requirement was relaxed for northerners. It is unfortunate that, more than 50 years later, such a quota system is still a feature of federal appointments or placement in federal schools and universities in Nigeria. The author also profited from his northern association as he was unharmed during the retaliatory attacks on southeastern soldiers who were based in the North after the January 1966 coup. However, the doubt about his ‘northern allegiance’ crept in early on in his career when he, in a Mosaic-like move, facilitated safe repatriation of several northern-based soldiers of southern origin to the South to escape this 1966/67mayhem. With this act, he became a ‘marked enemy’ of some northern troops and so he relocated to the Midwest. With this relocation, he gained legitimacy as the ‘true son of the soil’ by effecting a name change from the Muslim’s Abdul RahmanAlabi to Godwin Alabi-Isama, a Christian. This ‘conversion’ also turned out to be a blessing at a point in his military career. As a federal soldier, when he was captured by the Biafran army, he was just re-kitted and recruited into the seceding army instead of being killed; his most likely fate if he had been identified as a ‘northern’ soldier. He later deserted the Biafran Army and rejoined the federal side, after which he was wrongly jailed at Kirikiri maximum prison for suspicious treasonable activities. This ‘illegal’ imprisonment also turned out to be a saving grace as he could have lost his life along with several federal troops who perished while attempting to cross Asaba River under the command of Murtala Mohammed 2nd Division during the war. However, the shifting allegiance finally caught up with Alabi-Isama as it appears that he eventually paid the price for ‘disowning the North’ as his military career cratered. At age 37, he was ultimately dismissed from the Army as a one-star general under his course-mate, the three-star General Danjuma, as the Chief of Army Staff.
The central objective of the Tragedy of Victory is to give a detailed account of the activities of the 3rd Marine Commando Division (3MCDO) that the author claims was largely responsible for winning the war. He also debunks the alleged inaccuracies in Obasanjo’s book. According to the author, he had twin crowning moments during the war; the first as the architect and executor of the strategy for capturing Port Harcourt from their Calabar base and the other as the architect of the ‘Pincer Two’ strategy that Obasanjo dubbed ‘Operation Tail Wind’ used to end the war. For the first achievement, Adekunle, the then 3MCDO Commander, endorsed this ‘wandering Israelites- in-the wilderness’ strategy of attacking Port Harcourt from the ‘480 Km’ base in Calabar, instead of Adekunle’s original strategy of doing so from the much closer Bonny that is 80km away. For the second achievement, while Alabi-Isama had been transferred out of 3MCDO by Obasanjo who replaced Adekunle as its Commander, author claims that Obasanjo eventually employed ‘Pincer Two’ strategy that forced Biafran surrender but not before his costly misadventure in Ohoba.
The greatest strength of the Tragedy of Victory is the richness of its illustrations. The breadth of its war pictures appears to be unmatched in any of the existing literature on Nigerian civil war. Alabi-Isama should feel exceedingly proud for being able to preserve these photographs, especially since they were taken at the time when computerized digitalization of images was a rarity. Equally noteworthy is the superb prowess of the author in recordkeeping which made his detailed accounting appear as if the war has just ended. The discussion of the strategies and tactics employed in prosecuting the war should provide valuable insights for military strategists and scholars. The author persuasively argues his case on why his recollection should be considered more credible than the ‘fiction’ presented in My Command. The ample evidence he provides via photographic images makes the arguments in the Tragedy of Victory more compelling. On the flip side, there are noticeable shortcomings that could dumb down the value of the book. First, the publisher did not do a masterful editorial job, given the plethora of spelling and grammatical errors that are avoidable in this era of computer-aided word processing tools with spell-checking functionalities. Furthermore, the arguments in the book are too repetitive to dampen enthusiasm quickly. In fact, a more careful editing with a view to eliminate these redundancies could possibly cut the tome by half without any significant loss in substance. Finally, several claims in the book stretch credulity. To illustrate, the various specified distances such as the 480-km Calabar to Port Harcourt are mindboggling unless they describe the typical non-linear movement of troops between locations. If this is the case, it ought to have been pointed out.
Looking into the substance of the contentious issues raised by the author vis-à-vis My Command, one is still not convinced that all the facts are fully disclosed. Rather, it appears that the truth is somewhere in-between these contrasting depositions. To start off, one recurring theme that runs through Alabi-Isama book is his contention that Obasanjo is an egoist who arrogates to himself the undeserved credit for the war victory while disregarding the contributions of others within and outside his Division. It is difficult to argue with this conclusion after reading My Command. Obasanjo can be likened to a closer of a baseball game who provides the save that preserves the lead and secures the win. He could not claim all the glory. However, like Gowon pointed out in the foreword, Obasanjo’s role could also not be diminished as the Commander who received the surrender instrument from the Biafran Army. Pertaining to the non-acknowledgement of the contribution of others, Obasanjo‘sbehavior, selfish as it appeared, is not inconsistent with what other contemporary war heroes have done. The information about those who were in the trenches with Generals Schwarzkopf and Petraeus is not a public knowledge either. On another issue, Alabi-Isama argues convincingly on the salutary roles played by the 3MCDO ladies in the prosecution of the war and disagrees with Obasanjo’s decision to disband the unit. However, the author is silent as to whether these ladies also served as ‘comfort girls’ for the division’s officers; a development that would certainly undermine discipline and justify Obasanjo’s action. While the author disputes the widespread looting allegation made by Obasanjo, he concedes that there were refrigerators, air conditioners, TV sets and similar pricey gadgets in the trenches of 3MCDO troops and that these items were being used as footstools for their waterlogged foxholes. Hmm, one wonders where they came from?