There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra

The Asaba Massacre

The federal forces were soon able to snatch Benin from Biafran military hands and advance quickly toward the River Niger, arriving in Asaba in early October 1967. There are multiple versions of what transpired in Asaba. The version I heard amounted to this: Murtala Muhammed—chief commander (GOC) Division Two—and his lieutenants, including Colonel Ibrahim Haruna, felt humiliated by the Biafran Mid-Western offensive. Armed with direct orders to retake the occupied areas at all costs, this division rounded up and shot as many defenseless Igbo men and boys as they could find. Some reports place the death toll at five hundred, others as high as one thousand.1

The Asaba Massacre, as it would be known, was only one of many such postpogrom atrocities committed by Nigerian soldiers during the war. It became a particular abomination for Asaba residents, as many of those killed were titled Igbo chiefs and common folk alike, and their bodies were disposed of with reckless abandon in mass graves, without regard to the wishes of the families of the victims or the town’s ancient traditions.2

His Holiness Pope Paul VI, having received no commitments from either the Nigerians or the Biafrans for a cease-fire, sent his emissary, the well-regarded Monsignor Georges Rocheau, to Nigeria on a fact-finding mission. The horrified Roman Catholic priest spoke to the French newspaper Le Monde following the visit, recounting what he witnessed:

There has been genocide, for example on the occasion of the 1966 massacres. . . . Two areas have suffered badly [from the fighting]. Firstly the region between the towns of Benin and Asaba where only widows and orphans remain, Federal troops having for unknown reasons massacred all the men.3

General Gowon broke his silence thirty-five years later on this matter and apologized for this atrocity to the Igbos in Asaba:

It came to me as a shock when I came to know about the unfortunate happenings that happened to the sons and daughters . . . of [Asaba] domain. I felt very touched and honestly I referred to [the killings] and ask for forgiveness being the one who was in charge at that time. Certainly, it is not something that I would have approved of in whatsoever. I was made ignorant of it, I think until it appeared in the papers. A young man wrote a book at that time.4

Testifying at the Justice Oputa Panel (a Nigerian version of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission), Major General Ibrahim Haruna, belligerent and unremorseful as ever, proclaimed:

As the commanding officer and leader of the troops that massacred 500 men in Asaba, I have no apology for those massacred in Asaba, Owerri, and Ameke-Item. I acted as a soldier maintaining the peace and unity of Nigeria. . . . If General Yakubu Gowon apologized, he did it in his own capacity. As for me I have no apology.5

Murtala Muhammed advanced quickly following the abomination in Asaba to cross the Niger River Bridge to Onitsha. Muhammed’s federal troops sustained many casualties in that guerrilla warfare, and from sniper attacks by Achuzia’s Biafran troops, and they failed to take the market town in the first attempt.

Biafran Repercussions

The exhausted, fleeing Biafran soldiers crossed the River Niger and arrived in Enugu, Biafra’s capital. Their actions had unanticipated consequences. Ojukwu, nursing the wounds of, as he saw it, a “self-inflicted defeat,” summarily court-martialed the leaders of the exercise. The accused men—Brigadier Victor Banjo, Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Sam Agbamuche, and Major Phillip Alale—were found guilty of planning a coup d’état to overthrown Ojukwu’s regime, a treasonable felony punishable by death. All four men were executed on September 25, 1967.1

It is important to point out that at the time Enugu had a conspiratorial atmosphere, and some in Ojukwu’s inner circle added fuel to the fire. There was talk of alleged plots to overthrow the government. Rumors swirled that Major Ifeajuna, a mastermind of the January 15, 1966, coup, was spotted by Biafran intelligence in covert meetings with British secret service agents. Others alleged that the British had paid Victor Banjo a large commission—to the tune of several thousand pounds—to bungle the Mid-Western advance. Such was the climate of fear and paranoia.2

Blood, Blood, Everywhere

The Biafrans found themselves under heavy assault after the Mid-West offensive. Mohammed Shuwa’s First Army Division, advancing with Theophilus Danjuma, quickly overran the university town of Nsukka, and then relentlessly bombarded Biafra’s capital with heavy armaments. The military operation was aided by Egyptian mercenary pilots flying the Nigerian army’s brand-new British, Czech L-29 Delphins, and Soviet MiG-17 and Ilyushin Beagle II-28 aircraft. Most of us in the civilian population had fled with family members into the hinterlands, ahead of the advancing Nigerian troops. By the second week of October 1967, overwhelmed by the Nigerian military pounding, the Biafran central government also receded southward, to Umuahia, where a new capital was set up.1

By now the world had started taking notice, and a number of international organizations were visiting Nigeria to try to broker a peace between the two warring parties. One of the first to intervene was the Organization of African Unity (OAU), which appointed Ghanaian lieutenant general Joseph Arthur Ankrah their emissary to Biafra. Ankrah had some experience with the conflict, having hosted the Aburi meeting in January. Many Biafrans, myself included, had mixed feelings about the OAU’s choice, as Ankrah, widely regarded as “a Cold War pawn,” was the man responsible for deposing one of the heroes of the African liberation struggle—Kwame Nkrumah. It was little surprise to those of us in Biafra, therefore, to discover that under his guidance the OAU supported “a unified Nigeria” stance despite Biafra’s protests.

The Calabar Massacre

The Nigerian forces overran Calabar in early 1968 without much resistance or investment. A seat of the ancient kingdom of the same name, Calabar is in the southeastern part of Biafra, on the banks of the majestic Calabar River. It had for decades been a melting pot of Easterners—Efik, Ibibio, Igbo, and others—that had produced a beautiful cultural mosaic of traditions and dialects.

In actions reminiscent of the Nazi policy of eradicating Jews throughout Europe just twenty years earlier, the Nigerian forces decided to purge the city of its Igbo inhabitants.1 By the time the Nigerians were done they had “shot at least 1,000 and perhaps 2,000 Ibos [sic], most of them civilians.”2 There were other atrocities, throughout the region. “In Oji River,” The Times of London reported on August 2, 1968, “the Nigerian forces opened fire and murdered fourteen nurses and the patients in the wards.”3 In Uyo and Okigwe more innocent lives were lost to the brutality and blood lust of the Nigerian soldiers.4

In April 1968, the Nigerians decided to mount a major strategic and tactical offensive designed to cut Biafra off from the seacoast. The over forty thousand troops of the Third Division, lead by army colonel Benjamin Adekunle, engaged in an amphibious, land, and air onslaught on the Niger River Delta city of Port Harcourt. After several weeks of sustained air, land, and sea pounding, a period reportedly characterized by military atrocities—rapes, looting, outright brigandry—Port Harcourt fell to the Nigerians on May 12, 1968.

The Third Division slowly marched north, crossing the Imo River, toward the market town of Aba. With heavy casualties along the way, Adekunle and his men shot gleefully through a fierce Biafran resistance and took Aba in August and Owerri in September. The Aba offensive was particularly gruesome:

On entry into Aba, the Nigerian soldiers massacred more than 2000 civilians. Susan Masid of the French Press Agency reporting this horrifying incident had this to say: “Young Ibos [sic] with terrifying eyes and trembling lips told journalists in Aba that in the villages Nigerian troops came from behind, shooting and firing everywhere, shooting everybody who was running, firing into the homes.” (Emphases in original.)5

Colonel Adekunle, no doubt a Nigerian war hero, had by now earned a reputation, at least in Biafran quarters, for cruelty and sadism. After a number of provocative public statements illustrating his zeal for warfare, coupled with verbal clashes with international journalists and observer teams, Adekunle became the subject of the local and international spotlight. I was told, away from the media glare, that his conduct became a source of embarrassment for Gowon’s wartime cabinet.

Perhaps Adekunle’s most heinous statement during the war was this: “[Biafran aid is] ‘misguided humanitarian rubbish. . . . If children must die first, then that is too bad, just too bad.’”6 That statement caused such an international uproar that the federal government of Nigeria found itself in the unenviable position of having to apologize for the actions not only of Adekunle but also of Haruna, leader of the Asaba Massacre infamy. Unbeknownst to Adekunle, a quiet retirement from the Nigerian army was in the offing.7

I have often thought of the man who returns after an “operation”—this is what it is called, an “operation”—and has a wash and goes into the bar of his hotel and drinks whiskey. He has been on an “operation,” and on the other side you have maybe 120 people cut to pieces. A friend of mine had his three children—just like that, they went out to buy books—five minutes later, it was over—it does not take long—10 seconds. It is quite frightening.8

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Meanwhile, on the northeastern front, Mohammed Shuwa’s First Division easily overran Abakaliki and Afikpo.9 Umuahia was the only major urban area in the secessionist republic that had not been overtaken by the Nigerians.

Gowon rapidly increased the size of his army to well over a quarter of a million men and women. His final offensive, which would be mounted on the three fronts that surrounded the Biafrans, was supposed to end the war swiftly, in three months. As he advanced for what he thought was to be a final push to claim a Biafran surrender in September 1968, he was met by fierce Biafran resistance—sniper fire and guerrilla warfare.10 Several unanticipated events coalesced to form a perfect storm that bought the exhausted Biafran army much needed time to regroup, repair the much damaged Uli airstrip, and develop a defensive strategy. Antiwar sentiment worldwide was reaching a peak. Bombarded constantly with war imagery through their television sets and newspapers, particularly pictures of babies and women perishing and starving, several individuals and international human rights agencies started mounting demonstrations in world capitals—London, Washington, Lisbon—against the war.

Jean-Paul Sartre and François Mauriac in France11 and John Lennon in London made public statements condemning the war. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., long a champion of universal justice, had to suddenly cancel his planned trip to Nigeria over fears for his safety. Joan Baez and Jimi Hendrix were some of the famous musicians who took part in a Biafran relief concert in Manhattan, on August 29, 1968. Other British and American artists led peaceful protests of song to draw American public attention to the conflict. The newscasters in America were mesmerized by the story of a young college student, Bruce Mayrock, who set himself on fire to protest the killing of “innocent Biafran babies.” Mayrock, sadly, later died in the hospital from his wounds. It was reported that he wanted to draw the attention of the media, delegates in session at the United Nations, and United States government officials to what he believed was genocide in Biafra.12 Henry Kissinger, now under heavy pressure from civil society groups, found himself encouraging the Nixon administration to rethink their policy on the Nigeria-Biafra conflict.13

BIAFRA, 1969