There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra (11 page)

The Writers and Intellectuals

Some of the leading international thinkers of the era were so appalled by the Biafran
tragedy that they took it upon themselves to pay the breakaway republic a visit and
get a firsthand look at the suffering, the destitution, and the starvation. Auberon
Waugh came and afterward wrote a devastating book on Harold Wilson’s duplicitous policy.
He also named his newborn child Biafra Waugh! There was a small group of American
writers—Kurt Vonnegut,
¹
Herbert Gold, and Harvey Swados—who came to show solidarity with me and other beleaguered
Biafran writers.
²

Vonnegut was so devastated following his trip that he cried for weeks. Todd Davis
reports that

Vonnegut’s response to his trip to Biafra was not suicide, but tears. He recounts
his return to Manhattan, where he checked in to [
sic
] the Royalton Hotel (his family was skiing in Vermont): “I found myself crying so
hard I was barking like a dog. I didn’t come close to doing that after World War II”
[
Fates
174]. [His experiences in] Biafra and Mozambique, quite obviously, play a part in
the author’s consistent plea that we respect one another, an action that must involve
our participation in meeting the needs of the global community.
³

Kurt left in the seminal essay “Biafra: A People Betrayed” a glowing testament to
his observations.

Geoffrey Hill, the British poet, Douglas Killam, the Canadian literary critic and
scholar, Stanley Diamond, and the amiable Conor Cruise O’Brien all visited Biafra.
Diamond brought something additional—a long-standing scholarly interest and expertise
in the territory.
⁴
This world-renowned anthropologist became an “intellectual Biafran warrior,”
⁵
galvanizing a formidable American and Canadian intellectual response to the tragedy.

Diamond’s knowledge of Nigeria came from having done extensive fieldwork in parts
of the country right from the last days of the British raj, and he followed its affairs
closely through independence, and after. He understood the ideological dimension of
the Nigeria-Biafra conflict. He was not fooled by the strenuous effort of Britain
to pass off her former colony as a success story of African independence, when in
fact it had only passed, with Britain’s active collaboration, from colonial to neocolonial
status. He saw the bloody civil war not as Harold Wilson and other apologists for
Nigeria presented it—that is, as progressive nationalism fighting “primitive” tribalism—but
as the ruining of a rare and genuine national culture at the moment of its birth.

It was advantageous to the federal Nigerian case to stigmatize Biafra for its alleged
links with South Africa and Portugal. Diamond pointed out that it was the Czechoslovakians
and the Chinese, not South Africans or Portuguese, who supplied the bulk of Biafra’s
arms in the first year of the war, and that the Czech source dried up after the Prague
spring reform movement was crushed by Soviet tanks and the fall of Alexander
in 1968.

The moment has come for Nigerians and the world to ask the proper questions and draw
the right inferences about what happened in those terrible years. Stanley Diamond’s
perceptions will, no doubt, be a great help to us. They are rooted in prodigious learning
and a profoundly humane sensibility. I am happy that this remarkable man, who has
searched far, who has found and reclaimed the uncluttered vision of the “primitive”
at the crossroads of science and song, has bestowed on my country the benefit of his
deep scholarly, humanistic, and spiritual meditation.

The New York Review of Books
of May 22, 1969, carried a long article, “Biafra Revisited,” by Conor Cruise O’Brien
on the second visit he made with Diamond to the secessionist enclave. It was accompanied
by a poem I had just written in memory of Christopher Okigbo, Africa’s greatest modern
poet, who had recently died on the Biafran battlefield. It also carried a profoundly
moving poem, “Sunday in Biafra,” by Stanley Diamond that, like all his poetry, combines
startling substantiality with haunting ease and inevitability, and it stamps on the
mind like an icon of Africa’s tragedy an image and logic that nothing will remove.
⁶

Nigerian author Enzwa-Ohaeto later wrote, “O’Brien was convinced that the ‘survival
of Biafra’ would be ‘a victory for African courage, endurance, and skill, and an opportunity
for the further development of African creativity.’ In his report on that visit in
The New York Review of Books
, he points out that of the ‘two best known writers, . . . Achebe is a convinced Biafran
patriot and the other, the playwright Wole Soyinka (a Yoruba) is a prisoner in Northern
Nigeria.’”
⁷
Of critical importance to the entire debate around the Biafran affair was O’Brien’s
conclusion: “‘[N]o one seriously interested in African literature, in its relation
to African social and political life, can have failed to ponder the meaning of the
choices and fates of these two men.’”
⁸

The War and the Nigerian Intellectual

The war came as a surprise to the vast majority of artists and intellectuals on both
sides of the conflict. We had not realized just how fragile, even weak, Nigeria was
as a nation. Only a few Nigerians, such as the poet Christopher Okigbo, had early
and privileged insights into the Nigerian-Biafran crisis.

We, the intellectuals, were deeply disillusioned by the ineptitude of Nigeria’s ruling
elite and by what we saw taking place in our young nation. As far as their relationship
with the masses was concerned, Nigerian politicians, we felt, had slowly transformed
themselves into the personification of Anwu.—the wasp—a notorious predator from the
insect kingdom. Wasps, African children learn during story time, greet unsuspecting
prey with a painful, paralyzing sting, then lay eggs on their body, which then proceed
to “eat the victim alive.”

Intellectuals had other reasons to despair: We were especially disheartened by the
disintegration of the state because we were brought up in the belief that we were
destined to rule. Our Northern Nigerian brethren had similar sentiments, but those
feelings came from a totally different understanding of the world.

This opinion may explain why so many intellectuals played an active role in various
capacities during the war years. Some of us evolved into “public intellectuals” through
the period of the national crisis leading up to the war and exposed distortions and
misrepresentations within the political system. Once the war began, however, many,
particularly those of us in Biafra, drew upon the teachings of our ancient traditions.

Nri philosophy implores intellectuals to transform themselves into “warriors of peace”
during periods of crisis, with a proclivity for action over rhetoric. Many of our
finest writers and thinkers were armed with this ancient wisdom and worked toward
a peaceful resolution to the hostilities.

Cyprian Ekwensi was one of the pioneers of the West African literary renaissance of
the twentieth century. He was the author of numerous works, such as
An African Night’s Entertainment
,
The Passport of Mallam Ilia
,
Burning Grass
,
The Drummer Boy
, and
Jagua Nana
. When the war broke out Ekwensi left his job as director of the Nigerian Ministry
of Information and served the Biafran cause in the Bureau of External Publicity, and
as a roving ambassador for the people of the enclave. During the war years I traveled
with Ekwensi and Gabriel Okara on several diplomatic voyages on behalf of the people
of Biafra.

Wole Soyinka was already regarded by this time as Africa’s foremost dramatist. He
had published
The Swamp Dweller
,
The Lion and the Jewel
, and
The Trials of Brother Jero
as well as collections of poetry.
The Road
is considered by many to be his greatest play.
A Dance of the Forest
, a biting criticism of Nigeria’s ruling classes, was the first of what was to become
his signature role—as one of the most consistent critics of misrule from his generation.
His 1964 novel,
The Interpreters
, as well as ventures into recording, film, and poetry, showcased his versatility.
Soyinka’s attempts to avert a full-blown civil war by meeting with Colonel Ojukwu
and Victor Banjo, as well as with then lieutenant colonel Olusegun Obasanjo, would
earn him enemies in the Nigerian federal government and a twenty-two-month imprisonment.

The story I was told about this incident was that Wole, fed up with the federal government’s
unsuccessful treatment of the Biafra issue, had traveled to secessionist Biafra in
an attempt to appeal for a cease-fire to the hostilities. He planned to set up an
antiwar delegation made up of intellectuals, artists, and writers from both sides
of the conflict—and from around the world—to achieve his aim. When he returned to
Nigeria the authorities arrested him and accused him of assisting Biafra in the purchase
of weapons of war.
¹
There was no evidence to corroborate their case, and Wole was imprisoned without
bail. Later, to justify holding him without evidence, the federal government accused
Wole of being a Biafran agent or spy, trumped-up charges that he categorically denied.
I remember relating my disgust about Soyinka’s predicament to the editors of
Transition
in 1968 during the war: “I have no intention of being placed in a Nigerian situation
at all. I find it intolerable. I find the Nigerian situation untenable. If I had been
a Nigerian, I think I would have been in the same situation as Wole Soyinka is—in
prison.”
²

There was great concern for Wole’s health and safety as time went on. For many of
the months he was in prison he was held in solitary confinement and moved from one
prison to another. Most of us in Biafra were appalled. PEN International and many
major writers of the time—Norman Mailer comes to mind—led a vigorous protest on his
behalf, but he was not released until close to the very end of the war.

Professor Kenneth Onwuka Dike inspired us all very greatly and deserves special attention.
He was a pioneer in so many respects. He was one of the first pupils to attended Dennis
Memorial Grammar School. After that he traveled to the Gold Coast to attend Achimota
College, and then went farther afield to Sierra Leone to attend Fourah Bay College
before proceeding to England for undergraduate studies. He received his bachelor of
science degree at the Durham University, England, and his master of arts degree from
the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland. After a few years of study at Oxford, he
earned his PhD in history from the University of London and returned to Nigeria, first
to join the faculty, but later to become the first indigenous vice chancellor of University
College, Ibadan.

In the late 1960s, the Ford and Rockefeller foundations decided to set up the International
Institute of Tropical Agriculture somewhere in Nigeria, under the leadership of the
former president of North Dakota State University, Fargo, Dr. Herbert R. Albrecht;
Dike, along with Dr. T. A. Lambo, were among the Nigerians consulted. Dike suggested
the prestigious institute be founded on a twenty-three-hundred-acre campus, in a loose
affiliation with University College, Ibadan. And so it was. Dike was involved in several
of these kinds of projects. For example, he was also instrumental in the establishment
of the Nigerian National Archives.

Everyone who knew him will acknowledge that Dike was one of the most “detribalized”
Nigerians of his generation. This point requires emphasis. A man of this ilk, a rare
breed indeed, watched horrified at the disintegration of the nation that he and so
many others had fought to establish. His sentiments would change to despair and anger
following the massacre of thirty thousand Easterners and the rising hostility toward
him and his family in Ibadan.
³

Dike resigned as vice chancellor of Ibadan in December 1966 and returned to Eastern
Nigeria, where he served as vice chancellor of the University of Biafra for a brief
period. When the war broke out Dike was appointed by Ojukwu to be a roving ambassador
for Biafra. He and other roving ambassadors
⁴
traveled extensively throughout the world, speaking on behalf of the secessionist
republic. Dike was particularly effective in this role, and his appearances attracted
vigorous media attention. I remember reading several articles in the
Washington
Post
following his appearance at the National Press Club. One article in particular, called
“Biafra Explains Its Case” and published on April 13, 1969, was especially influential.

Before our time, Dike had already established an international reputation for academic
excellence as a historian. He taught at Harvard University after the war as the first
Mellon Professor of African History. In 1978, at the dawn of Nigeria’s Second Republic,
this towering international academic returned to Nigeria to help set up the Anambra
State University of Technology (ASUTECH). It is a disservice to this wonderful man,
to his achievements and contribution to Nigeria’s development, that he died in 1983
from a blood infection that would not have been difficult to cure had he stayed in
the United States!
⁵

Vincent Chukwuemeka Ike also supported the Biafran cause and served the Biafran people
in several bureaucratic positions. Later, through prolific literary output, Ike took
a well-deserved place at the vanguard of the continent’s leading novelists.

The literary harvest from Africa today owes a great debt to female African intellectual
forerunners. These griots, orators, and later writers played an indispensable role
in recording, molding, and transmitting the African story. By boldly mixing numerous
African and Western literary traditions in a cauldron, seasoning them with local color,
and spicing their tales with the complexity of the human condition, modern women wordsmiths
have deepened our understanding of our world. Florence Nwanzuruahu Nwapa (Flora Nwapa)
belongs to this important school of African female literary progenitors.

Five years before the war, in 1962, Flora Nwapa informed me that she was working on
a manuscript to be called
Efuru.
After some editorial work,
Efuru
was published in 1966, on the eve of the war, to great fanfare. It was a monumental
event, as it was, as far as I could tell, the first novel published by a Nigerian
woman. It was also important because it was a book ahead of its time, with an assuredly
feminist plot and perspective.
⁶

Around the same period, as providence would have it, Alan Hill, the publishing executive
at Heinemann Publishers in England, asked me to become the first editor of the African
Writers Series. Alan and I, with James Currey and a few others, developed a vision
of gathering much of Africa’s literary talent under this series rubric in order to
showcase the best of postcolonial African literature. We had a fascinating beginning,
and ended up publishing Christopher Okigbo from Nigeria, Ayi Kwei Armah from Ghana,
al-Tayyib Salih from Sudan,
from Kenya, Bessie Head from Botswana, Nadine Gordimer from South Africa, and Nelson
Mandela, along with several other major African writers.
⁷

Flora Nwapa aided the Biafran war effort in various capacities, and after the conflict
was over continued her service to her people in the Ministry of Health and Social
Welfare, the Ministry of Lands, Survey and Urban Development, and the Ministry of
Establishment. She is remembered for her bold efforts at reconstructing many institutions
that had been destroyed during the Nigeria-Biafra War.
⁸

It is important to point out that a number of writers were neutral and quietly, as
far as I could tell, apolitical during the conflict between Nigeria and Biafra. They
did not align themselves with or provide overt support to either belligerent during
the war. One such individual was Amos Tutuola, who was a talented writer. His most
famous novels,
The Palm-Wine Drinkard
, published in 1946, and
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
, in 1954, explore Yoruba traditions and folklore. He received a great deal of criticism
from Nigerian literary critics for his use of “broken or Pidgin English.” Luckily
for all of us, Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet and writer, was enthralled by Tutuola’s
“bewitching literary prose” and wrote glowing reviews that helped Tutuola’s work attain
international acclaim. I still believe that Tutuola’s critics in Nigeria missed the
point. The beauty of his tales was fantastical expression of a form of an indigenous
Yoruba, therefore African, magical realism. It is important to note that his books
came out several decades before the brilliant Gabriel García Márquez published his
own masterpieces of Latin American literature, such as
One Hundred Years of Solitude
.

I first met Mabel Segun (nee Aig-Imoukhuede), another prominent literary figure, who
was in the second set of students admitted to University College, Ibadan, around 1949.
She was a bright and energetic student from Sabongida Ora in Edo State. I was the
editor of the university paper, the
University Herald
, and when it came time to appoint a deputy editor and advertisement manager, she
was a natural choice. In 1965, African University Press, a formidable outfit at the
time, published her children’s book,
My Father’s Daughter.

Bolanle Awe, Dr. Tai Solarin, S. J. Cookey, Gabriel Okara, Ola Rotimi, Ade Ajayi,
and Emmanuel Obiechina were other towering figures of that era who I admired.