There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra

Facing international pressure and ridicule for failing to mediate effectively between the two warring parties,5 the OAU’s consultative committee, which was made up of diplomats from Liberia, Ghana, Niger, Ethiopia, the Congo, and Camaroon, quickly re-sent invitations to the heads of state of Nigeria and Biafra—Yakubu Gowon and Emeka Ojukwu—for talks in Niamey, the capital of Niger, Nigeria’s northern neighbor.6

The summit, from what I later learned, became a case of “sliding doors,” with Gowon arriving and meeting with OAU principals ahead of the visit by Ojukwu. This treatment, meant to avoid confrontation, created the opposite effect and played no small part in diminishing the possible results that the first president of the Republic of Niger, Hamani Diori, was attempting to moderate. Professor Eni Njoku, the chief negotiator from Biafra, gallantly attempted to salvage what was left of that Nigeria-Biafra summit. He arranged a meeting with the leader of the Mid-West Region government’s delegation, Chief Anthony Enahoro, that closed in an impasse.7

Ojukwu saw an opportunity to speak to a world audience at the next summit and agreed to attend; it was planned for August in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa. He treated the gathered delegates to a speech of over two hours in length, and made the case for Biafran independence. He pointed out the great irony of the conflict, one that most of us in Biafra were already aware of: Having spearheaded the fight for Nigerian independence, Biafrans were later driven out by the rest of Nigeria, which waged war with the secessionist republic to conserve the very sovereignty of a nation (Nigeria) within whose walls Biafrans did not feel free, safe, or desired.8

In my opinion, Gowon’s absence at these meetings was telling, because it clearly suggested that he had a different agenda. This suspicion would be confirmed by his announcement of a surge in the Nigerian offensive that would increase exponentially the numbers dying and starving to death in the coming months.

Most African countries adhered to the doctrines of the Organization of African Unity, which supported Nigeria for the same reasons espoused by the great powers: “[A]llowing Biafra to secede would result in the destabilization of the entire continent.”9 There were a few prominent nations in Africa that openly declared support for the Biafran cause for humanitarian, ethical, and moral reasons. Tanzania’s Nyerere, one of the few survivors of the cold war tussle on the continent and a towering African statesman of the era, saw Biafra’s attempts to secede through the lens of “the Jews seeking a homeland following the Holocaust in Nazi Germany and elsewhere in Europe.”10

President Julius Nyerere was the first African head of state to recognize Biafra. His statement was published by the government printer in Tanzania’s capital, Dar es Salam, on April 13, 1968. The day we heard that Tanzania had recognized Biafra “was a fantastic day.” I remember it vividly. “I was sitting in my home with my wife; we were feeling very depressed, I don’t know why, then suddenly somebody ran in and told us [the good news], and we said, ‘Don’t be silly,’ because we [did not believe him]. And then we heard [the same news] on the BBC [British Broadcasting Corporation], and my wife rushed up” to tell me. She was so elated and

said she was going to teach in Tanzania. Soon after that the streets were filled with people dancing and singing. For the first time in months you found dancing again, and the radio was playing Tanzanian music. People were reassured again that there was justice in the world, because we were already becoming quite cynical about the outside world, saying, “Don’t imagine anyone would come to your rescue—they know you’re right, but it doesn’t pay, so they won’t do anything.” We were more or less persuaded that we would have to fight on our own. [Nyerere’s] gesture meant nothing in military or material terms but it assured us—the effect it had on us—was electric.11

Other African leaders—Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda, Gabon’s Omar Bongo, and Ivory Coast’s Houphouët-Boigny—also officially recognized Biafra. I later learned that Boigny was ideologically opposed to large African states and helped develop France’s well-planned decolonization policy in West Africa during his days as a parliamentarian in Paris.12 Boigny could have very well convinced a sympathetic Charles de Gaulle to support Biafra in order to achieve this ideological vision. Whatever his agenda was, it was to Houphouët-Boigny’s Ivory Coast that Ojukwu would escape after the fall of Biafra in January 1970.

There were other attempts to garner recognition for secessionist Biafra beyond the African continent, including wide international ones. Those who followed our story were aware of the shared history between Biafra and several Caribbean nations, where descendants of former Igbo slaves now lived. That historical connection was employed by Biafran emissaries with some success. Biafra’s diplomatic delegation, led by Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani and Mr. Chukwuma Azikiwe, met with Dr. François Duvalier, president of Haiti, at the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince in February 1969. Following that visit, on March 22, 1969, Biafra secured the only non-African full diplomatic recognition—from the Haitian people.13

The Triangle Game: The UK, France, and the United States1

Great Britain’s official response to the conflict, we were told, was predicated upon the fact that as our “former colonial master,” she would not stand for the breakup of one of her prized colonies, especially one she had worked hard to develop. Michael Leapman’s report in The Independent in 1998 uncovers a far more cynical attitude. This paragraph confirmed what a number of us in Biafra already suspected about Harold Wilson’s government:

Cabinet papers for [1967], just released, show how the decision to continue arming Nigeria was not based on arguments for or against secession, or on the interests of its people, but on backing the likely winner. It is a case study in realpolitik. As one Commonwealth Office briefing document to the prime minister put it: “The sole immediate British interest is to bring the [Nigerian] economy back to a condition in which our substantial trade and investment can be further developed.”2

The BBC’s Rick Fountain, in a story on Monday, January 3, 2000, called “Secret Papers Reveal Biafra Intrigue,” confirms that oil interests and competition between Britain, France, and the United States played a far more important role than the “unified Nigeria” position:

At first Biafra was successful and this alarmed Britain, the former colonial power, anxious for its big oil holdings. It also interested the Soviet Union which saw a chance to increase its influence in West Africa. Both sent arms to boost the federal military government, under General Yakubu Gowon.

But France, the other big former colonial power in the region, also took a hand. . . . Although Paris repeatedly denied arming the Biafrans, the newly released papers reveal intelligence reports showing that very large weapon shipments were reaching Biafra via two neighboring Francophone states, Ivory Coast and Gabon. The UK intelligence services warned that Soviet penetration was growing but that this did not much trouble Paris. The British reports say the French objective “appears to be the breakup of Nigeria, which threatens, by its size and potential, to overshadow France’s client Francopho

ne states in West Africa.”3

I was aware from my contacts in England that many Britons were not pleased with the unsolicited leadership role Harold Wilson’s government was playing in the bloody conflict in their former African colony. Emotional antipathy among the British public grew sufficiently as the conflict progressed to threaten the British Labor government’s reelection chances. British journalists, writers, and intellectuals found the situation appalling as well. “The Times of London complain[ed] that Britain’s Nigerian policy is a failure. . . . [T]here is a serious loss of touch in the conduct of British foreign policy.”4

Harold Wilson’s government soon found itself awash in a public relations nightmare at home and abroad.5 Wilson personally accused Ojukwu of attempting to garner sympathy by exploiting the casualties of a war to which his government was supplying arms!6 The bombing of civilian targets in Biafra by the Nigerian air force made the evening news and appeared in the major newspapers in Great Britain and “stirred a hornet’s nest” of outrage from the British people. Things were so tense that British dockworkers reportedly refused to load ships with British arms heading for Lagos, protesting that they were being used to kill “Biafran babies.”

By the time the Nigerian air force shot down a Swedish Red Cross plane carrying humanitarian supplies and medicines to the sick and dying in Biafra, killing all aboard, there was, understandably, an “outbreak of public anguish” in Britain. That distress grew even worse shortly after this, with the awful news that the International Red Cross’s director, Dr. August Lindt, and his aides were detained for nearly sixteen hours following their arrival in Lagos for a tour of humanitarian relief sites in Biafra and talks with Nigerian government officials.7

Across the English Channel, there was uplifting news. On July 31, 1968, Biafran diplomacy reached a milestone when the French Council of Ministers released a statement of approbation in support of Biafra, though it fell short of a full recognition of the secessionist republic:

The Government [of France] considers that the bloodshed and suffering endured for over a year by the population of Biafra demonstrate their will to assert themselves as a people. Faithful to its principles, the French Government therefore considers that the present conflict should be solved on the basis of the right of peoples to self-determination and should include the setting in motion of appropriate international procedures.8

There was great excitement about this news in Biafra. Charles de Gaulle was a widely respected European leader who fought the Nazis valiantly during World War II from his base in Africa. I personally hoped that de Gaulle’s extensive knowledge of the continent’s history and political affairs would result in a sophisticated response to the crisis. I was encouraged when I heard that he was toying with the possibility of an outright statement of recognition of the Republic of Biafra. Also buoyed by this news, the Biafran head of state, Ojukwu, sent emissaries to Paris to lobby for full French credence, which we all mistakenly assumed was in the bag, but also for de Gaulle to help persuade the United States government to support the Biafran cause.9

I discovered later that Jacques Foccart—described as “the most powerful man in the fifth republic” by eminent French journalist Pierre Péan—was the chief architect of French policy on the African continent. It was Foccart, I understand, who convinced the French parliament and de Gaulle to respond forcefully to the humanitarian disaster in Biafra.10

De Gaulle needed little persuasion. It was well-known that he bore a deep resentment of the British for what he saw as their unhelpful role in the French resistance (La Résistance française) during World War II. Foccart, in his memoirs, informs us that Paris increased this Anglo-French rivalry by making aggressive diplomatic inroads into Ghana (a former British colony, which was surrounded by the former French colonies Benin, Togo, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast).11 Some Africanists believe that the Gaullist objective seemed to be to neutralize Ghana and diminish Nigeria as a regional power, and thereby contract Great Britain’s sphere of influence in West Africa.

There were other French interests that later came to light: Paris wanted the French oil company Elf Aquitaine (which had a smaller market share in Nigeria’s oil industry) to have a greater footprint in the West African region consistent with Jacques Foccart’s vision of French dominance.12 Whatever French motivations might have been, we were grateful in Biafra to be receiving their support.

The United States of America was officially “neutral” during the conflict, which meant that it overtly supported neither the Nigerians nor the Biafrans.13 Those of us who wanted a more aggressive pro-Biafra stance from America, particularly on humanitarian grounds, were deeply disappointed, to put it mildly. Covertly, however, it was alleged that Washington under President Lyndon Johnson, before he left office in January 1968, was aiding the Nigerian war effort, in cooperation with the British. His government also had a number of run-ins with Biafran authorities over the role of the International Red Cross, America’s chief humanitarian organ for getting relief to the needy in Biafra, particularly after Gowon and his government imposed a blockade.

Several months into the conflict, however, the Nixon administration, initially toeing the Johnson administration’s line of “neutral engagement in support of a one Nigeria,” took a more proactive role and called for the cessation of hostilities. It was the government of the much maligned Richard Nixon that raised concerns about Nigerian military strategy and levied the charges of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Nigerian forces. Despite what some of us saw as a cynical disinterest on the part of the American government, the American people were characteristically generous and magnanimous in spirit; they sent millions of humanitarian dollars to ease the suffering of the innocent caught between the belligerents.14

The leaders of the African American civil rights community were understandably horrified by the breakdown in law and order in Nigeria. The black intelligentsia—colleagues of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks—were scholars of the nonviolence movement. On several occasions they came out forcefully against all forms of ferocity during the Nigeria-Biafra conflict, reacting with dismay at the magnitude of the human suffering in Biafra. They sent numerous forms of communication both to Ojukwu and Gowon to put an end to the bloody civil war. They were particularly appalled by the widespread hunger and starvation of Biafrans and by the millions of stranded refugees, all of which they reiterated was “unacceptable to civilized world opinion.”15

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was particularly critical of the brutality of the conflict. The leader of the influential civil rights group, Roy Wilkins, implored the Nigerians especially to be more humane in their treatment of the Biafrans. He made a moral argument to end the food blockade by reminding Gowon that the need to save the lives of the thousands starving daily “outweighed any military or political considerations.”16 My admiration of the African American civil rights community was due not only to their moral positions on racial equality and the quest for peaceful coexistence of all peoples, but also on their arbitration during the Biafran struggle—an intervention that brought succor to millions and helped place a moral lens on the atrocities taking place in my homeland.

The Soviet Union had no significant presence in the region prior to 1966 but progressively took greater interest in Nigerian affairs after the Aguiyi-Ironsi coup d’état and the emergence of Nigeria as an important oil exporter. The initial neutrality of the USSR’s Western rivals, including Britain and the United States in particular, I gather, provided an opening for the Soviets to send MiG fighters and technical assistance to the Nigerians, thereby including the region in the cold war theater.17