There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra

Source: Forsyth, The Biafra Story.

Also see: Thierry Hentsch, Face au blocus: histoire de l’intervention du Comité international de la Croix-Rouge dans le conflit du Nigéria, 1967–1970 (Geneva: Droz, 1973); Ekwe-Ekwe, Biafra Revisited; Ojukwu, Biafra.

4. Stanley Diamond’s extensive reporting from Biafra around this time has preserved his observations for posterity:

Direct reports from the former Biafran enclave (East Central State) indicate the following:

1)No systematic distribution of food and relief supplies is taking place; indeed no adequate effort is being made. This was already evident by the end of January, 1970. On the 24th the London Observer had reported that only eighty food distribution centers remained in the enclave; before the surrender there had been 3,000. . . .

2)Biafran currency has not been converted, nor is it accepted as legal tender. This works a particular hardship on the majority of impoverished peasants who must buy seed yams for the current growing season. A new cycle of hunger and dependency seems to have begun.

3)The more than 60,000 federal troops are billeted in secondary schools and private homes throughout the former Biafran enclave. Most if not all secondary schools are so occupied, prolonging the educational crisis.

4)Foreign correspondents are barred from Eastern Nigeria. Dispatches filed from Lagos on the situation in former Biafra are confused and contradictory.

The general policy seems to be one of attrition and isolation of the Ibo-speaking [sic] peoples in particular, with the promise of reward being held out for certain minority groups.

In the notes to his reply, Diamond quotes from K. W. J. Post’s article, “Is There a Case to Be Made for Biafra?” International Affairs 44 no. 1 (January 1968), pp. 26–39:

Post states further that with the failure of Biafran secession, “a restoration of the old spoils system is certainly on the cards. Similarly the northern leaders may emerge again, heading an axis of the six new states [in the north]; the old NPC [Northern Peoples’ Congress] was always something of a coalition of local interests and there is no reason why this should not emerge again under some of the old leaders, probably those from Kano and Bornu.”

Diamond further quotes in his notes from Dr. E. C. Schwartzenbach, Swiss Review of Africa (February 1968):

The [Nigerian] war aim and solution of the entire problem was to discriminate against the Ibos [sic] in the future in their own interest. Such discrimination would include above all the detachment of those oil-rich territories in the Eastern Region which were not inhabited by them at the beginning of the colonial period, on the

lines of the projected twelve-state plan. In addition, the Ibos’ movement would be restricted, to prevent their renewed penetration into the other parts of the country. Leaving them any access to the sea, the Commissioner declared, was quite out of the question.

He also cites in the notes an unpublished “memorandum on the background, cause, and consequences of the Nigerian civil war issued in November 1968 by more than sixty British subjects, including Sir Robert Stapledon, the last British governor of the Eastern Region (1959–60)”:

Each medal has its reverse. But, whatever the verdict, there can be no conceivable justification for what happened to the Ibos [sic] in the North in 1966. No objective consideration of their case can avoid the fact that, as rational and sentient human beings, they were made to feel themselves rejected by the most brutal possible means from the North and from Nigeria as a whole. The irony for Biafra was to be that, having seen her people driven out by the rest of Nigeria and hunted back to their homeland, she found Nigeria at war with her to preserve the integrity of a Federation where her people could no longer live.

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

5. “The Violations of Human and Civil Rights of Ndi Igbo in the Federation of Nigeria (1966–1969),” October 1999; Achebe, The Trouble with Nigeria, p. 45–46; Jane Guyer and LaRay Denzer, Vision and Policy in Nigerian Economics: The Legacy of Pius Okigbo. West African Studies (Ibadan, Nigeria: Ibadan University Press, 2005).

6. Ibid.

7. Guyer and Denzer, Vision and Policy in Nigerian Economics.

8. “Twin Stalemates,” Time.

9. This school of thought is exemplified by the well-regarded scholar Martin Meredith, who believes: “The aftermath of the war was notable for its compassion and mercy, and the way in which the memories of Biafra soon faded.”

Source: Meredith, The Fate of Africa, p. 205.

Gowon, expectedly, gives himself high marks for the role of his government following the conflict:

What you should remember about the time—and, at least, give us some credit for it—is that we did not take what would be considered normal action under such circumstances. In such an instance, all the senior officials involved—politicians as well as in the military—would have been strung up for their part in the war. This is what happened at the end of the Second World War in Germany; it happened in Japan at the end of the campaign in that part of the world. This is the civilized world’s way of doing things. But we did not do even that. We did set up committees to look into cases such as where rebel officers had been members of the Nigerian armed forces, and their loyalty was supposed to be to the federal government. When the war ended, we reabsorbed practically everyone who was in the army. But there were officers at a certain senior level that we insisted had to accept responsibility for their role in the secession. It was the only thing to do. Probably I could have given pardon; however, I was not the one who gave pardon to Ojukwu.

Source: Chinua Achebe Foundation interview: Gowon in conversation with Pini Jason, 2005.

10. I shared my views about reintegration with Transition magazine during the war period, and they reflect the mind-set of a lot of Biafrans following the war:

The Nigerians say, “You come back; we will integrate you.” This is nonsense—we know they will not—there is so much bitterness on both sides. This talk of integration is so much eyewash and is intended for foreign consumption. The point I am making is that it is not so much what the crimes are of the people persecuted—they may have committed crimes, but the point is they have been persecuted, and on a scale that is almost unbelievable. For a month or two the people were in a state of shock, a sort of total paralysis. It is really no use talking of unity; you don’t unite the dead, you only unite the living, and there must be a minimal willingness on the part of those who are to be united.

Source: Achebe, “Chinua Achebe on Biafra,” Transition, pp. 31–38.

Gowon Responds