There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra (28 page)

2.
Lieutenant Colonel Yakubu Gowon—the Nigerian head of state—Colonel Robert Adebayo,
Lieutenant Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu—governor of the Eastern Region—Lieutenant Colonel
David Ejoor, Lieutenant Colonel Hassan Katsina, Commodore J. E. A. Wey, Major Mobolaji
Johnson, Alhaji Kam Selem, Mr. T. Omo-Bare.

3.
Nwankwo and Ifejika,
Biafra
; Madiebo,
The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War
; Schabowska and Himmelstrand,
Africa Reports on the Nigerian Crisis
; Achuzia,
Requiem Biafra
; Metz,
Nigeria
.

4.
Ibid. Also J. Isawa Elaigwu,
Gowon—The Biography of a Soldier-Statesman
(Ibadan, Nigeria: West Books Publisher, 1986).

5.
Nwankwo and Ifejika,
Biafra
; Achuzia,
Requiem Biafra
; Madiebo,
The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War
; Schabowska and Himmelstrand,
Africa Reports on the Nigerian Crisis
; Metz,
Nigeria
.

6.
Ibid.

7.
Odumegwu Ojukwu.
Encyclopedia Britannica
; retrieved July 20, 2005, using Encyclopedia Britannica Premium Service; interviews
with former Nigerian and Biafran soldiers, diplomats, and government officials, Achebe
Foundation. T. C. McCaskie, “Nigeria,”
Africa South of the Sahara 1998
(London: Europa, 1997); Harold Nelson,
Nigeria: A Country Study
(Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1982); Nwankwo and Ifejika,
Biafra
; Schabowska and Himmelstrand,
Africa Reports on the Nigerian Crisis
; Metz,
Nigeria
; Audrey Smock,
Ibo Politics: The Role of Ethnic Unions in Eastern Nigeria
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971); Madiebo,
The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War
.

8.
Ibid.

G
ENERATION
G
AP

1.
Chinua Achebe,
Collected Poems
(New York: Anchor Books, 2004).

The Nightmare Begins

1.
Madiebo,
The Nigerian
Revolution and the Biafran War,
p. 93.

2.
A memorandum from the American Jewish Congress in 1968 provides some more clarity
to this murky milieu:

A definite step [toward secession] was taken in March when the Government of the Eastern
Region announced that all revenues collected on behalf of the Federal Government would
be paid to the Treasury of the Eastern Region. The Federal Government, it was alleged,
had refused to pay the salaries of refugee civil servants forced to flee their areas
of employment, and the East now had some 2 million refugees whose displacement from
other parts of Nigeria was “irreversible.” Moreover, the Federal Government, it was
alleged, had refused to pay the East its statutory share of revenues for months.

Faced with virtual secession, Colonel Gowon finally attempted to deal with grievances
about Northern domination and also to appeal to minorities throughout Nigeria. He
proposed that the Northern Region be broken up into six states, the East into three,
and the West into two. The new states would coincide, to a large extent, with natural
ethnic divisions. Notably, the East would be divided in such a way that the oil reserves
would be located in states without an Ibo majority.

Source
: Phil Baum, director, Commission on International Affairs, American Jewish Congress,
“Memorandum to Chapter and Division Presidents, Chapter and Division CIA Chairmen,
CRC’s
,
Field Staff,” December 27, 1968.

3.
There is confirmation of this analysis from the
CIA World Factbook
:

Gowon rightly calculated that the eastern minorities would not actively support the
Igbos, given the prospect of having their own states if the secession effort were
defeated. Many of the federal troops who fought the civil war, known as the Biafran
War, to bring the Eastern Region back to the federation were members of minority groups.

Sources
:
The Library of Congress Country Studies: Nigeria Civil War,
http://workmall.com/wfb2001/nigeria/nigeria_history_civil_war.html;
CIA World Factbook: Nigeria, the 1966 Coups, Civil War, and Gowon’s Government
; Metz,
Nigeria
.

4.
The government of Eastern Nigeria was quick to attack Gowon’s sardonic tactic of
divide and conquer:

To the charge of Igbo domination over reluctant minorities, the Biafran Authorities
reply: Because of the well-developed sense of community and cultural assimilation,
there are no genuine minorities in the region, only local communities. . . . [T]he
territory of the former Eastern Region of Nigeria is characterized by a high degree
of cultural assimilation among the four major linguistic groups of the area: the Igbo,
Efik, Ijaw, and Ogoja. Bilingualism and intermarriage, they claim, have made it difficult
in many areas even to distinguish Ibos from non-Ibos [
sic
]. To support their claim that the non-Ibo peoples of the former Eastern Region are
fully behind Biafra, officials of that state assert that of the 30,000 Easterners
massacred in 1966, some 10,000 were non-Ibos [
sic
] and of the 2 million who were forced to return home, nearly 480,000 were non-Ibo
[
sic
]. Biafran officials further assert that the former Eastern Region was the only part
of Federal Nigeria which did not experience violent ethnic strife.

Sources
: Baum, American Jewish Congress, “Memorandum,” December 27, 1968; The Library of
Congress Country Studies;
CIA World Factbook
; Metz,
Nigeria
.

5.
The Library of Congress Country Studies;
CIA World Factbook
; Nwankwo and Ifejika,
Biafra;
Achuzia,
Requiem Biafra
; Madiebo,
The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War
; Schabowska and Himmelstrand,
Africa
Reports on the Nigerian Crisis.

Part 2

The Nigeria-Biafra War

T
HE
B
IAFRAN
P
OSITION

1.
Luckham,
The Nigerian Military.

T
HE
N
IGERIAN
A
RGUMENT

2.
The American Jewish Congress provides further elucidation. Some used the minorities
and their fear of Igbo domination as a reason for preventing the secession of Biafra:

Supporters of Nigeria fear that Biafran success would encourage ethnic groups in other
African countries to attempt secession, thus further balkanizing a continent already
divided into a large number of tiny and barely viable nations. They also argue that
minority groups in the East, which form 35-40% of the population, do not favor an
independent state in which they would allegedly be at the mercy of the more aggressive
and numerous Ibos [
sic
]. The Federal Government, they claim, therefore has a moral responsibility not to
abandon these peoples to Ibo [
sic
] domination. Mr. William Whitlock, British Under Secretary of State for Commonwealth
Affairs, stated before Parliament on August 27 that he believed the 5 million non-Ibos
[
sic
] of the East wanted to remain within Nigeria. This view was supported by The Guardian
of August 21 (Parliamentary Debates pp. 32, 18).

One leading supporter of the Nigerian cause, Father James O’Connell, Professor of
Government at Ahmadu Bello University, sees the conflict as one between the Ibos [
sic
] of the East and the minorities in the rest of Nigeria. The latter, he claims, now
control the Federal Government, sit on the richest oil fields, and provide the majority
of the soldiers for the Federal army. Within the context of the new 12-state structure
which Colonel Gowon has decreed, these minorities see a chance to escape from domination
by the major ethnic groups which they experienced in the three regions of the old
Federation. O’Connell suggests they are as desperate to maintain a united Nigeria
as the Ibos [
sic
] are to have their own country.

Source
: Baum, American Jewish Congress, “Memorandum,” December 27, 1968.

3.
Ibid.

T
HE
R
OLE OF THE
O
RGANIZATION OF
A
FRICAN
U
NITY

4.
Ibid.

5.
James D. D. Smith provides this historical observation of the role of intermediaries
such as the Organization of African Unity in serving as effective agents of conflict
resolution:

Intermediaries have their own difficulties when they become involved in cease-fire
negotiations, and the way they conduct themselves has serious implications on their
ability to be effective. Indeed, third parties may even be an obstacle to cease-fire
[negotiations]. . . . These obstacles are not the same as those which stand in the
way of a cease-fire. Here, we are concerned with those obstacles preventing the existence
of a workable cease-fire proposal or agreement, which may or may not lead to an actual
cease-fire. The acceptable proposal or agreement is a necessary but insufficient requirement
for an actual cease-fire. In the case where it is only the appearance of the desire
for cease-fire which is sought, proposals may be deliberately defective.

Source
: James D. D. Smith
, Stopping Wars: Defining the Obstacles to Cease-Fire
(Boulder, CO.: Westview Press, 1995).

6.
It is sad to note, with the benefit of forty years of hindsight, that of the aforementioned
six nations only Ghana and Cameroon were spared destabilizing national crises similar
to Nigeria’s that either broke up the respective country or toppled political interests.

7.
Enahoro, who was federal commissioner (minister) for information and labor under
General Yakubu Gowon’s military government, remembers his encounter with Eni Njoku
this way:

I have always held that the civil war was unnecessary and avoidable. The delegation
of the Midwest Region, which I led at the 1966 conference, held behind-the-scenes
discussions with leaders of each of the other delegations; we made proposals, which
the leader of the Eastern delegation, Prof Eni Njoku, agreed to go to Enugu to try
and sell the plan to the then Military Governor of the Eastern Region, Colonel Ojukwu.
The Conference therefore adjourned for a short period; but Professor Njoku and the
Eastern delegation never returned to the Conference, and that was the end of our efforts.

Source
: Pini Jacobs, “Chief Anthony Enahoro Speaks,”
Sahara Reporters
, January 2, 2006.

8.
Sara S. Berry, Elbert, George A., Uphoff, Norman Thomas; reply by Stanley Diamond.
“Letters: An Exchange on Biafra,”
New York Review of Books
, April 23, 1970.

9.
Ibid. Baum, American Jewish Congress, “Memorandum,” December 27, 1968; Morrow, “Chinua
Achebe, An Interview,”
Conjunctions
; Metz,
Nigeria
; Achebe, “Chinua Achebe on Biafra,”
Transition
; The Library of Congress Country Studies.

10.
Julius Nyerere,
Biafra, Human Rights and Self-Determination in Africa
(Dar es Salam: Government Printer, April 13, 1968).

11.
Achebe, “Chinua Achebe on Biafra,”
Transition.

12.
From francophone West African writers.

13.
Details from Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani.

The Triangle Game: The UK, France, and the United States

1.
The triangle game of the former imperial powers and the United States has been extensively
discussed by a number of authors, Michael Leapman, Rick Fountain, and university scholars
among them.

2.
Michael Leapman writing about cabinet papers that recall the starving children of
the Biafran war: “British Interests, Nigerian Tragedy,”
Independent Sunday
, January 4, 1998.

3.
Rick Fountain, “Secret Papers Reveal Biafra Intrigue,” BBC News, January 3, 2000.

4.
“Britain: Loss of Touch?”
Time
, March, 29, 1969.

5.
The eminent journalist Leapman provides a rare look into the schemes and policy intrigues
of the Wilson cabinet:

General Gowon imposed a blockade on Biafra, which meant that no oil could be exported
anyway. This was a blow for the British economy, already floundering in the crisis
that led to devaluation later in the year. Now the prime object of Whitehall was to
get the blockade lifted. An important lever fell into British hands when Gen. Gowon
asked for more arms: 12 jet fighter-bombers, six fast patrol boats, 24 anti-aircraft
guns. . . . George Thomas, Minister of State at the Commonwealth Office, was sent
to Lagos. The Commonwealth Office note to Wilson about the mission was explicit: “If
Gowon is helpful on oil, Mr. Thomas will offer a sale of anti-aircraft guns.”

The plan went awry. Gen. Gowon would not lift the blockade but he got his guns anyway;
planes and boats were refused, but the Nigerians were permitted to take delivery of
two previously ordered patrol boats—which ironically helped enforce the ban on Shell-BP’s
oil shipments. That victory came, but not quickly. During 1967 the words “famine”
or “hunger” appeared nowhere in the hundreds of official documents devoted to the
conflict. They would not emerge until 1968, when I and other reporters went to Biafra
and witnessed the scenes for ourselves.

By then the policy was too set to be altered. Too many reputations depended on the
war’s outcome. The conflict went on for another two years. Millions of children starved.
How many would still be alive if that one slim chance had been grabbed back in August
1967 and Option E, E for ethical, had prevailed?

Source
: Leapman, “British Interests,”
Independen
t
Sunday
.