There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra

The red in Garvey’s conception highlighted the blood that links all people of African ancestry, as well as blood shed during slavery and liberation struggles around the globe. In the Biafran context it was used to represent blood shed during the pogroms and the quest for independence.

The black was seen as the affirmation of “an African nation State” by the UNIA-ACL. In Biafra, it was a symbolic ancestral connection to souls of years past. The green in both Garvey’s and Biafra’s concepts stood for Africa’s abundant natural wealth and resources, and its radiant future. The Biafran flag also highlighted these aspirations with a rising golden sun and rays representing the eleven original provinces in the republic.6

THE BIAFRAN NATIONAL ANTHEM

The Nigeria-Biafra War led to an explosion of musical, lyrical, and poetic creativity and artistry. Biafra’s founders tapped into this energy and commissioned a number of regimental drills, duty songs, and cadences7 that they hoped would “spur armies to victory and excite the populace to political and economic vitality.”8

The Biafran national anthem, “Land of the Rising Sun,” was based on a powerful poem by Nigeria’s first president, Nnamdi Azikiwe, called “Onitsha Ado N’Idu: Land of the Rising Sun.”9 Laced with irony, the poem contained several phrases that would become all too prophetic: “But if the price is death for all we hold dear, / Then let us die without a shred of fear. . . . / Spilling our blood we’ll count a privilege; . . . / We shall remember those who died in mass; . . .”10

The anthem was set to the beautiful music of the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius11—Finlandia (Be Still My Soul)—a personal favorite of, and calculated choice by, Ojukwu, “in reference to the Nordic country’s resistance to foreign domination.”12

Later, after Azikiwe withdrew his support for the breakaway republic, we would learn that there was some controversy over the adaptation of Azikiwe’s poetry. According to Zik, Ojukwu had used his work w

ithout permission, a charge the Biafran head of state vigorously denied.13

The Biafra National Anthem

LAND OF THE RISING SUN14

Land of the rising sun, we love and cherish, beloved homeland of our brave heroes; we must defend our lives or we shall perish,

We shall protect our hearth from all our foes; but if the price is death for all we hold dear,

Then let us die without a shred of fear.

Hail to Biafra, consecrated nation,

Oh fatherland, this is our solemn pledge: Defending thee shall be a dedication, spilling our blood we’ll count a privilege;

The waving standard which emboldens the free shall always be our flag of liberty.

We shall emerge triumphant from this ordeal, and through the crucible unscathed we’ll pass;

When we are poised the wounds of battle to heal, we shall remember those who died in mass;

Then shall our trumpets peal the glorious song of victory we scored o’er might and wrong.

Oh God, protect us from the hidden pitfall, Guide all our movements lest we go astray; Give us the strength to heed the humanist call:

“To give and not to count the cost” each day; Bless those who rule to serve with resoluteness, to make this clime a land of righteousness.15

THE MILITARY

Biafra had only two thousand troops at the beginning of the war. Most of the soldiers were former Nigerian army soldiers—Easterners who were based in Enugu and other former Nigerian military bases in the east. General Philip Effiong, Biafra’s chief of general staff, quickly recruited an additional twenty thousand men and created a separate Biafran militia of civilian volunteers, who received on-the-spot training. The Biafrans were devoid of any heavy military equipment apart from that of the former Nigerian battalion stationed in Enugu, Saracen armored cars, and 105 millimeter howitzers.16 Federick Forsyth recalls in an excellent BBC documentary, Biafra: Fighting a War Without Guns, that Biafran soldiers marched into war one man behind the other because they had only one rifle between them, and the thinking was that if one soldier was killed in combat the other would pick up the only weapon available and continue fighting.17

The Biafrans were completely outgunned compared to the Nigerians. The Soviet Union and Britain not only supplied Nigeria with brand-new MIG-17 and II-28 Beagle (Ilyushin) jets but also with Soviet T-34 battle tanks, antiaircraft guns, AK-47 rifles, machine guns, grenades, mines, bombs, etc.18

In light of this imbalance of resources, international support for Biafra was crucial. Arguably the most notable of all the Europeans that came to the aid of Biafra was Carl Gustaf von Rosen. He was a Swedish nobleman and World War II veteran. Von Rosen became a legend in the 1930s when he volunteered to fly Red Cross relief supplies into Ethiopia and fight for Emperor Haile Selassie against the Italians.19 He again came into the world’s consciousness as the pilot of the much admired United Nations secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld, who was widely regarded as a “dove of peace.” Hammarskjöld “mysteriously” died in an air crash while serving as the chief mediator of the Congo crisis of the 1960s, unfortunately at a time when his much trusted pilot, von Rosen, was ill.

It was von Rosen’s Biafran involvement, however, that truly catapulted him to worldwide recognition. Von Rosen was outraged by the injustice of the war and Nigeria’s imposition of an economic blockade on the Republic of Biafra, and he was moved to come to the aid of the suffering. It was in part because of this brave man’s involvement that the world was motivated to pay attention to this conflict in a heretofore forgotten part of the world. Von Rosen bore witness to the atrocities and humanitarian emergency in Biafra, and his public statements and influence propelled a number of Western relief agencies to respond to the crisis.20

He led multiple relief flights with humanitarian aid into Uli airport—Biafra’s chief airstrip. Fed up with Nigerian air force interference with his peaceful missions, he entered the war heroes hall of fame after leading a five-plane assault on Nigerian aircraft in Port Harcourt, Benin City, Ughelli, Enugu, and some other locations. He took the Nigerian air force by total surprise and destroyed several Soviet-supplied aircraft in the process.21

The Biafran air force was composed of a B-26, a B-25, and three helicopters22 until Carl Gustaf von Rosen23 came to the republic’s assistance in 1968. By year’s end the government of Biafra had procured a moderate amount of military ammunition from the neighboring former French colonies of Ivory Coast and Gabon.

Indeed, Paris’s ambassador to Gabon at the time of war, Maurice Delauney, worked with Jacques Foccart’s deputy, Jean Mauricheau-Beaupré—described by French journalist Pierre Péan as the “chief conductor of clandestine French support to the Biafran secessionists”—to supply arms to Ojukwu’s army.24

Uli airport was the major airport in Biafra for military and relief goods at the height of the war, and it was described by various authorities as one of the busiest airports in Africa, with more than 50 flights a night.25