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
THE BIAFRAN POSITION
1. Luckham, The Nigerian Military.
THE NIGERIAN ARGUMENT
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.
THE ROLE OF THE ORGANIZATION OF AFRICAN UNITY
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 t
he 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,” Independent Sunday.
6. Metz, Nigeria; Frederick Forsyth, The Biafra Story: The Making of an African Legend (London: Penguin, 1969); John de St. Jorre, The Nigerian Civil War (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1972); N. U. Akpan, The Struggle for Secession 1966–1970: A Personal Account of the Nigerian Civil War (London: Frank Kass and Co., 1972); Elechi Amadi, Sunset in Biafra: A Civil War Diary, African Writers Series (London: Heinemann, 1973); Falola and Heaton, A History of Nigeria; Madiebo, The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War, p. 14; Effiong, Nigeria and Biafra.
7. John W. Young, The Labour Governments 1964–70, Vol. 2: International Policy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009).
8. As quoted in Alain Rouvez, Michael Coco, and Jean-Paul Paddack, Disconsolate Empires: French, British, and Belgian Military Involvement in Post-Colonial Sub-Saharan Africa (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1994), p. 148.
9. Senators Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, Charles E. Goodell of New York, and Donald E. Lukens of Ohio were well-known American legislators who “became strong supporters of the Biafran regime, and urged relief organizations and the State Department to supply desperately needed funds [at least for humanitarian efforts].” Collectively, they put significant bipartisan pressure on the Nixon administration to act on the growing humanitarian catastrophe in Biafra.
10. Karen E. Smith, Genocide and the Europeans (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 71; Roger Pfister, Apartheid South Africa and African States: From Pariah to Middle Power, 1961–1994 (London: I. B. Tauris, 2005), pp. 52–53.
11. Jacques Foccart, Foccart parle: entretiens avec Philippe Gailland (Paris: Fayard, 1997).
12. Pfister, Apartheid South Africa and African States, pp. 52–53.
13. A 1968 article published in the journal Africa Today provides a self-congratulatory overview of the role of the United States in the war:
The United States is the only great power that has followed a neutral course. She has supported humanitarian efforts to bring relief to starving civilians, and even recently released several transport planes to religious relief agencies as dramatic testimony of concern for saving human lives. While the Nigerians have been unhappy over the opposition of the United States to a “starve them into submission” policy, they have recognized that the United States has not given military support to the Biafran secession or encouraged in principle diplomatically. However, other great powers have committed themselves. The French now privately back the Biafrans through Gabon with arms, and the Russians and British supply Lagos with arms, planes, and bombs.
Source: Council on Religion and International Affairs, Worldview 12 (1969).
14. A letter written by Mrs. Betty C. Carter of Washington, D.C., to Dean Rusk, dated July 25, 1968, illustrates this point:
Yesterday evening while eating dinner and watching the news I was unable to finish eating upon seeing the faces of starving children, babies, men, and women in Biafra. I felt nauseated because of having so much when these people were in obvious pain and in dire need of food. I cannot bear to see anyone in need when I have something to share. Though it is not possible for me to go to Biafra at this time, I felt the least I could do was write to you and express my concern for these people and ask that the U. S. and other concerned governments and the United Nations press for a cease fire. I am sending a check to the World Church Service today to help the starving Biafrans.
Source: “BIAFRA-NIGERIA 1967–1969 POLITICAL AFFAIRS,” Confidential U.S. State Department Central Files, A UPA Collection from LexisNexis.
15. The signatories to the declaration were the leaders of fifteen organizations at the vanguard of American organized labor, women’s groups, and the civil rights movements. The list now reads like a who’s who of African American civil rights history, with names such as: Roy Wilkins, executive director, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); Dorothy Height, president, National Council of Negro Women; and James Farmer, chairman, National Advisory Board, Congress of Racial Equality. Other leaders who signed the document included: A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and vice president of the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations; and Bayard Rustin, executive director, A. Philip Randolph Institute.
Sources: The Crisis Magazine 75, no. 8 (October 1968), p. 291. This is the official publication of the NAACP. See also: Baum, American Jewish Congress, “Memorandum,” December 27, 1968; 1968 Annual Report, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
16. Ibid.
17. Arthur Jay Klinghoffer, “Why the Soviets Chose Sides,” Africa Report (February 1968), p. 4. Also: Interviews with Nigerian and Biafran former military officers.
18.
The Soviets have broadened their technical assistance and trade programs, and have announced plans to erect a $120 million steel mill and, if Gowon is agreeable, intend to expand their embassy staff and open consulates in other Nigerian towns to put them in closer contact with labor and student groups.
Source: “Britain: Loss of Touch?” Time, March, 29, 1969.
19. Ibid. Robert Guest, in The Shackled Continent: Power, Corruption, and African Lives (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2004), writes:
Visitors to the Ajaokuta steel plant in Nigeria are surprised to see goats grazing among the gantries and children playing by the silent rolling mills. Nigeria flushed away a total of $8 billion trying to build a steel industry at Ajaokuta and elsewhere [which] operated fitfully, at a loss, and usually at a small fraction of capacity when the present government came on board.
See also: The Economist 354, iss. 8152–55; Daniel Jordan Smith, A Culture of Corruption: Everyday Deception and Popular Discontent in Nigeria (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); Colin Nicholls, et al., Corruption and Misuse of Public Office (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Yingqi Wei and Balasubramanyam, V. N., eds., Foreign Direct Investment: Six Country Case Studies, New Horizons in International Business Series (Northampton, Mass: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2004); Africa Confidential 42–43 (2001); Mary Dowell-Jones, Contextualizing the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Assessing the Economic Deficit (Herndon, Va.: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers/Brill, 2004).
20.
The [Nigerian] House of Representatives asked the Federal Government to investigate the alleged “massive” looting of equipment at the Ajoakuta Steel Company Limited and the National Iron-Ore Mining Company, Itakpe, and bring the perpetrators to book. The House, in a resolution in Abuja, observed that the Ajaokuta steel plant had cost Nigerian tax payers over $4.6bn without producing one sheet of steel in its many years of existence.
Source: John Ameh, “Reps move to halt looting of Ajaokuta Steel Company equipment,” Punch, October 30, 2009.
21. Achebe, “Chinua Achebe on Biafra,” Transition.
22. On this point, the American Jewish Congress goes even further:
The crazy-quilt grouping of Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the UAR (Egyptian pilots fly most of the MIG’s for the Nigerian Air Force), on one side, and France, China and Portugal on the other (Portugal allows the use of the island of Sao Tome for relief flights) makes clear, at least, the unmitigated and cynical pursuit of selfish interes
ts on the part of the Great Powers, while hundreds of thousands of Africans die each month.
Source: Baum, American Jewish Congress, “Memorandum,” December 27, 1968.
The tragedy is also captured succinctly here by the American scholar Stanley Diamond:
Commentators of such divergent views as Richard Sklar and Auberon Waugh have pointed out [that] it is unlikely that the war would have been declared or, if declared, that it would have followed its tragic course, had the interests of the Big Powers not been decisive. In so critical an area as Nigeria, which attained formal independence as recently as 1960, imperial and internal dynamics can hardly be divorced from each other.
Source: Diamond, Reply, New York Review of Books.
The Writers and Intellectuals
1. The following passage from Kurt Vonnegut highlights his keen sense of perception and irony and captures, ultimately, the cruel absurdity of war:
The young general [Ojukwu] was boisterous, wry, swashbuckling—high as a kite on incredibly awful news from the fronts. Why did he come to see us? Here is my guess: He couldn’t tell his own people how bad things were, and he had to tell somebody. We were the only foreigners around.
He talked for three hours. The Nigerians had broken through everywhere. They were fanning out fast, slicing the Biafran dot into dozens of littler ones. Inside some of these littler dots, hiding in the bush, were tens of thousands of Biafrans who had not eaten anything for two weeks and more.
What had become of the brave Biafran soldiers? They were woozy with hunger. They were palsied by shell shock. They had left their holes. They were wandering.
Source: Kurt Vonnegut, “Biafra: A People Betrayed,” Wampeters Foma & Granfalloons (New York: Delacorte Press, 1979).
2. Ezenwa-Ohaeto, Chinua Achebe, p. 143.
3. Todd F. Davis, Kurt Vonnegut’s Crusade, or, How a Postmodern Harlequin Preached a New Kind of Humanism. SUNY Series in Postmodern Culture (Albany, N. Y.: State University of New York Press, 2006), p. 141.