THE POGROM, WAR & STARVATION

Nigeria's Coming Civil War

2011-09-12T19:31:00.000-07:00

Nigeria's Coming Civil War
Guardian, Sunday, 3 June, 1967

Having broken apart, Nigeria is now preparing for civil war. Major-General Gowon, who was promoted from Colonel yesterday, is apparently ready to follow up his blockade of the breakaway east - now called Biafra - with a full-scale invasion. In this he presumably expects the support of Nigeria's partners in the Commonwealth and her fellow members of the UN and the OAU - at least the tacit support of respecting the blockade and not recognising Biafra.

It will be a futile war. It is unlikely to unseat the embattled government of Colonel Ojukwu, and even if it does, it will not achieve the declared aim of restoring a workable federation. For most of the Ibo, who predominate in the east, last year's massacres in the north - and their implied end to the free movement of Nigerians within their country - meant the effective end of the federation. To follow this up by an invasion would merely be to drive a nail in the coffin. Biafia's non-Ibo minority is admittedly divided: some supporting Ojukwu's regime and others opposing it. Also, the presence of more than a million refugees - and the possibility of another million now arriving - has stored up a host of social and perhaps political problems for the self-proclaimed republic. But while the threat from Lagos lasts, support for Ojukwu will remain overwhelming. Invasion can only reinforce it further.

In reality it would not be a federal war as much as a northern one. The Yoruba of the western region are divided. Chief Awolowo, hitherto their most popular leader, has said - and apparently confirmed it after Biafra's secession - that the west would not wish to remain in a truncated federation. This section of the Yoruba, at any rate, would hardly support an invasion of Biafra. Similar reservations have been openly expressed in the midwest region.

In so far as it would be a northerners' war, one of its main objects would be revenge against the easterners for having dared to challenge federal, which is primarily northern, authority. One party in the north, at any rate, appears to want to teach the Ibo a lesson without any corresponding desire to keep them as federal partners. But the easterners are not the first to contemplate secession. The north openly threatened it in 1960 unless it was guaranteed half the seats in the federal parliament. It threatened it again last year unless General Ironsi repealed his "unitary decree". It proposed it once more in July and indeed, secession appeared to be Colonel Gowon's original intention when he assumed office. Now it is the easterners who have departed.

A deeper northern motive would be to secure the landlocked region's outlet to the sea. One of the two routes, through the east, is already blocked and the other, through the west, would be threatened if the west were to break away also. But could it be kept open in a federation maintained by force? The violent disorders in the west in 1965, in protest against the northern-backed regime of Chief Akintola, suggest that it could not. If Nigeria does break up, nothing could ensure the evacuation of northern produce more effectively than a Common Services organisation. This is perhaps the best solution to the Nigerian crisis. It is the kind of arrangement the north itself proposed in July last year - and the east has been proposing since then. Now, no region would benefit more from it than the north. By insisting on war the northerners would risk destroying their own vital interests.

Inevitably, outsiders have been drawn, into the conflict. The big shipping and trading companies, who have larger interests in the north and the west than in the east, are observing the blockade. The oil companies, whose exports all originate in the east, are in a different position and may be anxious for Biafra to be recognised. Britain could hardly do this until Colonel Ojukwu's breakaway regime has proved itself firmly in control. But we should immediately make it clear to General Gowon that our only interest is in a stable solution and that war will bring this no nearer.

Jos, Gaddafi and Nigeria's Federalism

2010-07-12T09:15:00.000-07:00

By Okachiukwu Dibia, Daily Independent

I pity those people who are surprised about the recent killings in Jos, the Plateau State capital in Nigeria. Certainly, if they know the cause of the killings, they will not be. The killings are as a result of the refusal of Nigeria to allow the different and diverse ethnic nations that make up the country to gather as equals, discuss and determine WHY and HOW they can live together. The nations of Nigeria must do this discussion in order to correct the mistake and imposition of 1914, strengthen the ethnic nationalities in their quest to develop themselves, recognize themselves as equals, voluntarily agree to become Nigeria and prepare their own constitution. This will reduce the aggressive domination by the big three ethnic groups, reduce suspicion and embrace one another. If this is done, we will discover that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with ethnicity. The nations of Nigeria must gather and do this discussion otherwise the killings may continue.

Today it is Jos, yesteryears it was Aba women’s riot of 1929, Ahmed Bello’s rejection of living together with others in Nigeria, Awolowo’s “tribalism” against Azikiwe in 1952, Tiv riots, the election crisis of Western Nigeria, nine military coups between 1966 and 1993, Kano riots of 1966, Isaac Adaka Boro’s uprising, Nigeria-Biafra civil war of 1967-1970, Maitatsine uprising, Zangon-Kataf killings, Amuleri-Aguleri clashes, Ife-Modakeke killings, Tiv-Jukun-Idoma crisis, Ogoni genocide and the killing of Ken Saro-Wiwa 1995, OPC killings, Urhobo-Itsekiri-Ijaw killings, Choba killings and rapes, Odi genocide, Umuechem killings, Rumuekpe killings, Niger Delta crisis, Boko Haram, etc. These are the manifestations of the problem and they shall continue in different shapes and shades, cloaks and appearances until the discussion of Nigeria by Nigerian nations (not the national or state assembly as constituted today) is given a sincere chance.

Because of the way these manifestations appear, people in error blame ethnic intolerance. Some out of deep ignorance will claim that there is nothing like ethnic nationality; yet they forget that in the literature of the science of leadership (Political Science), Nigeria is a state, not a nation. It is those composite ethnic groups that are correctly called nations. How could these different nations trust themselves when they deeply suspect each other and do not respect or give due recognition to each other? These are things that must be discussed, agreed on and let to evolve; they cannot be by fiat or decree. But the big three (Yoruba, Hausa-Fulani and Igbo) will insist that Nigeria be run as it is today because they are forcefully dominating and are in-charge. They have labelled the rest of Nigeria as minority ethnic groups who must be led, controlled, exploited, dominated and marginalized. To the ordinary natives in these minorities, these must be resisted, no matter how subtle and small. So, it is in the course of the minority native Berom relating with the mighty Hausa-Fulani in Jos that the conflict is automatically ignited and killings follow. This type of resistance by the commoners at the local level does not bring cash into the pockets of the locals; rather it brings destruction of properties and killing of human beings: characteristics of a true clash of two different ideas or interests.

On the other hand, elites from these marginalized minorities resist it by arguing for resource control, one Nigeria, human and women rights, reduction in HIV/AIDS, reproductive healthcare that favours abortion and sex education for infants, nude and indecent behaviours, fiscal federalism, building of infrastructure, even development, fanning the embers of indigene-settler hatred and other pseudo solution that will always put more unholy cash into their pockets. They have insisted on resource control instead of resource development; creation of states and local governments instead of ethnic states; federal character and zoning systems instead of self determination for the ethnic states; building of infrastructure (their easiest and cheapest means to transient dubious wealth) instead of guaranteeing development rights to the nations of Nigeria; RBDA-OMPADEC-NDDC-Ministry of the Niger Delta instead of resources and talents development via free education; state extra-judicial killings( of Ken Saro-Wiwa, Obi Wali, Claude Ake, Boko Haram followers, etc) instead of engaging them in extensive discussions, enlightenment and dialogue through the Sovereign National Conference (SNC). The Sovereign National Conference will not lead to the break-up of Nigeria; rather, it will consolidate it.

Another dubious solution from some Nigerian elites is that there should be nothing called indigenes in Nigeria because every group migrated here. But who migrated here first? They neglect this question and proceed to argue that single citizenship is the solution to ethnic hatred and suspicions. But Nigerian citizenship must evolve from ethnic Nigeria. This was why Carl Fredrick, one of the key scholars of federalism, said that federalism is a process of disaggregating and aggregating the characters of the societies that make up the federal state. Therefore, it is immoral and unacceptable to dissolve the blood of my ethnicity in me and inject Nigeria into me without my consent. What should be done is to recognize my ethnicity, and allow and guarantee it within one Nigeria. This way the nations of Nigeria will develop themselves based on what they are and have; and they will gather as equals at the centre to celebrate the real beauty of unity in diversity. This is the case in the European Union (EU) today. The EU is an evolution from ethnic Europe. EU cannot be united first before the unity of its component units; rather, the units will unite first and move that unity of the differences to form the unity of the EU. Down the line, the EU may form a true federalism in the future. This unity in diversity is the essence of federalism. We must not force federalism on different peoples and expect less volatile resistance.

The strength and beauty of Nigeria lies in the progress of its different and divers peoples. As long as these different peoples are underdeveloped, Nigeria cannot be developed because all the ingredients of development are located in ethnic Nigeria. For instance, Abuja does not have the needed resources with which to develop the Kanuri in Nigeria. Allocating funds from the federation account breeds laziness and underdevelopment of the ethnic groups. The Kanuri have the resources with which to develop themselves. Such ingredients of development include their environment, resources, talents and occupations. Any development efforts outside these ingredients cannot succeed, despite growth in infrastructure. Nigeria’s strength is and lies in her ethnic nationalities. The health of a system can be seen from the health of its sub-units. For example, if the parts of a human body become dysfunctional, can the body perform effectively?

Uncle Gaddafi should be forgiven because he is ignorant of what the peoples of Nigeria need for their development. For example, my people of Ikwerre do not wish to secede from Nigeria, rather, we want the Nigerian state to be restructured into ethnic states and be allowed self-determination, development rights and recognized not as a minority but as a nation in Nigeria. In that nation, all religions should be allowed to flourish as long as the people need them. Ikwerre do not agree to North-South or any other type of splitting of Nigeria. Those ethnic people that cannot be wholly found in one state should be allowed to live in any state of their choice or be regrouped into states of their own. Living in other states must be on conditions that can guarantee peace and cordial co-existence. For example, in Ikwerre, we have Hausa-Elele who are neither interested in directly ruling Rivers State nor producing the traditional head of Elele. They live in Elele peacefully, happily and enjoying themselves in Rivers State.

The strength of this approach lies in the strong belief that as long as the nations of Nigeria never discussed the why and how they can live together, this should be done. This is needed because we are different peoples with different cultures, resources, attitudes, etc. After that discussion, the nations of Nigeria will voluntarily agree to have Nigeria (the social contract) and quickly, they will organize the constitution of the nations of Nigeria to be called the people’s constitution, according to Chief Gani Fawehinmi. The continued absence of this all important discussion, voluntary agreement to be one Nigeria and the people’s constitution will continue to breed suspicion, hatred and intolerance between indigenes and settlers or minorities and majorities such that Jos will happen again and Gaddafi will continue to advise us wrongly.

First, Do No Harm

2010-07-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

By David Rieff, The New Republic

In 1940, as the Wehrmacht marched into Paris, Simone Weil wrote in her journal, “[T]his is a great day for the people of Indochina.” The remark is generally greeted with horror, by respectable opinion in Western Europe and North America, anyway, and mocked as an emblematic instance of the European (and by extension, American) self-hatred that the French writer Pascal Bruckner had in mind in his book, The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism. At first glance, even allowing for the fact that Weil’s observation did not impede her from trying to volunteer to fight for the Free French against the Nazis, the scorn heaped upon her by writers like Bruckner seems warranted. Weil was indeed filled with self-hatred, and like the medieval Christian mystics fetishized suffering, writing in Gravity and Grace that it “saves existence.”

But there is a problem with such dismissals: As a matter of historical fact, Weil was also incontrovertibly right. The collapse of the French empire in Indochina made independence possible. Anyone doubting this need only look at the fact that when the Nazis were defeated one of the first things the French did was re-establish their rule, successfully demanding at the Potsdam Conference in 1945 the return of their possessions in Southeast Asia. This was not India, where to Churchill’s discomfiture, by the end of the 1930s, British elite opinion was increasingly coming to the view that independence was inevitable. To the contrary, when a French army under General Leclerc—the same General Leclerc who had been one of France’s great heroes in the fight against Nazism, and whose 2nd Armored Division had liberated Paris in 1944—arrived in Saigon in October, 1945, it was with the intention of definitively crushing the Vietnamese independence movement. It would take nine years of war, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and tens of thousands of French dead, and General Giap’s victory at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, for Vietnam to secure its independence. Had Simone Weil not starved herself to death (whether intentionally or unintentionally is not clear) in Kent in 1943, refusing the extra food she needed because it was more than the official ration for her fellow-citizens in Nazi-occupied France, she would have been within her rights to say that the victory over Nazism was a black day for the people of Indochina.

The questions raised by Weil’s almost obscene historical dispassion—and surely it is the most extreme argument against interest any philosopher has ever advanced, with the possible exception of Nietzsche’s atheism of the abyss—are anything but matters of historical curiosity. The world does not just look different depending on where you are from, what nation, people or tribe (or in many cases, gender) you belong to, your social class, or your faith or the lack of it, it is different. I have chosen to begin with Weil’s example because of its ferocity and the discomfort and unhappiness it must necessarily evoke (I certainly feel it). But the same could be said of practically every great historical conflict with global implications. If you are a Navajo, you would have to be insane not to feel differently about the establishment of the United States than, say, an Italian-American. If you are a South Asian with any historical memory at all, you are hard-pressed to accept the narrative of the conflict between Britain and Japan in World War II as one between good and evil.

This should be obvious. But when liberal internationalists speak about military interventions on human rights or humanitarian grounds, or even about democracy-building or promotion without any use of military means, it seems to me that they too often lose sight of this, or at least fail to take its implications sufficiently into account. One of the most important points Richard Just made in his recent strong, fair-minded, and passionate response on this site to my opposition to liberal interventionism as a matter of principle (rather than simply whether intervention is wise or warranted in a particular instance), is that opponents of interventions in Darfur, or Sierra Leone, or Kosovo, or Burma—obviously, examples abound in this charnel house we call a world—think they know better than the people who are victims of ethnic cleansing, mass atrocity crimes, or genocide. In a Darfuri refugee camp, he says, rightly in my view, people view military intervention to protect them as something devoutly to be wished for.

How can anti-interventionists pay so little heed to the views of the victims? It is a fair question. I would respond first as an American: I do not want my country to be the world’s policeman, even in the most humane sense of that word. It seems to me that assuming this role has been a disaster for the United States. As W. H. Seward said in his eulogy to John Quincy Adams, “democracies are prone to war, and war consumes them.” For make no mistake, these military interventions on humanitarian or human rights grounds are wars, not armed philanthropy. Sorry, the military-industrial complex is no myth. Our power to intervene in Darfur is inextricably linked to other elements of our hegemony, and to the militarization of our society and our economy. Like it or not, support for the former, no matter how high-minded, idealistic, and compassionate (unlike some, I have never doubted the moral sincerity of the liberal interventionists), entails the perpetuation of the latter.

I believe that it is at long last time for us to stand down, and that not to do so is the true existential threat to the American republic. But if we insist on leading, let us lead by example, not by the projection of power, whether hard or soft, just as John Quincy Adams suggested we do in his great Independence Day speech of 1821. In the tradition of Adams, I wish Egyptian, Iranian, Burmese, and, for that matter, Chinese democracy well, but I do not see why the United States has the duty to ‘promote’ it, except, again, by example. It is not so much that I question our good intentions as I do our wisdom. America is a remarkable country in many ways, but I would say that, historically, wisdom has not been our strong suit—and to intervene, above all militarily, without wisdom is a recipe for disaster.

That said, I agree with the liberal interventionists to this extent: There are indeed exceptional cases—limiting cases, to use the old Philosophy 101 term—where an intervention to stop mass killing is practicable and where one should not let a foolish consistency, in Emerson’s famous phrase, trump one’s humanity. Rwanda in 1994 is probably the most clear-cut example of this (I have always been extremely doubtful that the same can be said about Darfur, but that is a debate for another day.) But in my view, the presumption against intervention should be overwhelming, whereas for liberal interventionists, the idea that it is America’s duty to “further the cause of liberalism and human rights,” as Just puts it, inevitably loads the deck in favor of intervention, though not, of course, in every single instance, and by no means necessarily by military means. The liberal interventionists call is a call to the barricades of international justice. Bluntly put, it is a call I think the United States answers at its peril. That peril is called empire.

This time is different, liberal interventionists say. Cecil Rhodes may have said that imperialism was philanthropy plus 5 percent, and we may be citizens of countries with imperial histories (recent ones at that), and our countries may have created and still dominate the current international world order economically, politically, and in the case of the United States, militarily, but imperialism? What has that to do with liberal interventionism? History is bunk, as Henry Ford said, and Cecil Rhodes be damned: This time our intentions really are pure.

Can we really be so sure of our motives? Is the history of humanitarian intervention, which historically has always been justified on human rights and, at times, even public health terms not overwhelmingly one of great powers exerting what at its kindest must be called political hegemony? And is that really so irrelevant? Richard Just has argued in a review in this magazine of Mahmood Mamdani’s recent book on Darfur that the real imperialists are the dictators in Rangoon, Khartoum, or Kigali in the Hutu Power days, not the liberal interventionists. And Just’s point about the true character of these regimes is essential, and, in my view, unarguable.

Where he goes wrong, I think, and badly wrong at that, is in deriving from this the belief that this somehow means the interventionists aren’t also imperialists. The justification for this view is that the victims themselves want us to respond; they want our protection. But which victims? In my earlier column, I tried to make two points: that today’s victims are often yesterday’s or tomorrow’s victimizers; and that, in any case, to speak of victims and victimizers is to leech people of their agency, and their history.

Rwanda, where, in point of fact, I agree with Just that an outside military intervention in 1994 to stop the genocide should have taken place, is a case in point. When I say, with regard to Rwanda, that today’s victims are tomorrow’s victimizers, I am not talking about the fact that when his army defeated and expelled the Hutu power genocidaires, President Kagame established a dictatorship. I imagine most liberal interventionists with any familiarity with the Great Lakes region of Africa would concede the point. What I am talking about is that the new Rwandan government—the government of, yes, the victims—promptly went on to foment a war for resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that has led to the deaths of many more people than perished in Rwanda in the genocide (though these were overwhelmingly due to the destruction of infrastructure—medical first and foremost—rather than deaths in combat or massacre of civilians). About this, when you meet with them, the Rwandan officials who rightly claim the moral credit for having halted the genocide of their own people when the world stood by and watched are either blandly indifferent or frankly contemptuous.

If liberal interventionists were consistent, they would have been demanding an intervention against the Kagame regime as it laid waste to Congo with at least as much fervor as it did when it demanded an intervention to stop the genocide of the Rwandan Tutsis, or as many have been demanding with regard to Sudan. It is true that it would be impossible to intervene everywhere. In some places—Tibet, say, or Chechnya—it is impracticable. By contrast, a Congo intervention in the late-'90s was technically feasible. But unlike Rwanda, or Kosovo, or Darfur, Congo did not engage the liberal interventionists politically. And that is what liberal interventionists never seem willing to face.

Intervention is taking a side. It is a political act. Yes it is important to speak of victims. But it is anything but morally dispositive, and no one should fall for the mainstream humanitarian claptrap (the International Committee of the Red Cross and the French section of Doctors Without Borders are honorable exceptions to this tendency) that we outsiders are just seeking to help the victims, and have no other agendas. Bernard Kouchner and the French doctors in Biafra did humanitarian work, but they supported Biafran secession, not just ‘the victims.’ What the U.S. government today wants the aid agencies to do in Afghanistan is contribute to the defeat of the Taliban; it’s hearts and minds redux, nothing less, nothing more, even if the best American aid workers themselves are privately appalled by the situation in which they find themselves. And many of the Darfur activists—Gerard Prunier and Eric Reeves come to mind—were admirably transparent about their support for regime change in Khartoum.

The liberal internationalists say that, difficult though it may be, it is our duty to try to help the victims, and to further democracy and to stand up for human rights. To do anything else is to turn our backs on those who most need our intervention, which is unconscionable. As Richard Just puts it, we must at least try to respond when “severely oppressed people tell us they want our help,” rather than, as he holds anti-interventionists like me would prefer to do, delivering lectures about their “failure to appreciate the odds of unintended consequences or the possibility that they themselves might become ‘tomorrow’s victimizers.’” But it is not a question of lectures but of limits. After Kosovo, after Iraq, after Afghanistan, and, yes, after Darfur, we should recognize just how faulty is our understanding of these places where we would intervene.

Yes, many people in these places want us to intervene (though many people do not—something interventionists rarely acknowledge when they gild their appeals with the moral authority of local wishes). And yes, it also is important to understand what people want from us. But this understanding should not, in and of itself, make intervention a moral imperative.

To come back to Simone Weil’s point, salvation for one group of people can be damnation for another. Is the de facto Kurdish state we secured by overthrowing Saddam worth the de facto ethnic cleansing of the Christian minority and the Yazidis who enjoyed Saddam’s protection and are now the victims of the Kurds and the Shia government in Baghdad? I am not wise enough to say. It depends on whether you’re a Christian or a Kurd, I suppose. But whatever else it is, despite what liberal interventionists say, the moral calculus in Iraq was not clear-cut, and, as a general matter, absolute distinctions between victims and victimizers rarely reflect realities on the ground. Again, of course there should be limiting cases. To exclude them would indeed be immoral. But in the words of the Hippocratic Oath, “First Do No Harm.”

And what has turned me into an anti-interventionist, beyond the moral and economic carnage I believe the American empire has wreaked on the American Republic, that is, is my sense that the interventions of the past two decades have at the very least done as much harm as good, and probably much more. ‘In dreams begin responsibilities,’ wrote Delmore Schwartz. But in my view, it is our democratic dreams themselves that are irresponsible.

David Rieff is the author of eight books including A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis.

Why Isn't Anyone Pointing Fingers at Hamas?

2010-06-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

By Kenneth Bandler, Fox News

Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the Hamas regime ruling Gaza, has admitted to rejecting the humanitarian assistance delivered on the Rachel Corrie and six other ships diverted to the Israeli port of Ashdod for security clearance. “We are not seeking to fill our (bellies), we are looking to break the Israeli siege on Gaza,” he said.

Haniyeh’s admission is proof-positive there was little need for the supplies on board the ships that sought to land in Gaza. International media reports of full shelves in Gaza belie the prevailing myth that this small territory between Egypt and Israel is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis akin to Biafra or Darfur.

Not that life is comfortable for the estimated 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. But misery in the land called Gaza began shortly after the Arab world, in 1947, rejected the UN Partition Plan, the two-state solution of the time. Egypt seized the territory during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and its 19-year occupation of Gaza was not pleasant, nor were there any proposals to create a Palestinian state.

Israel immediately sought to negotiate, in exchange for permanent peace, the return of territories captured in the 1967 Six Day War. Egypt pointedly did not want Gaza when Anwar Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. Similarly, Jordan abandoned any claims to the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, the territories it had occupied from 1948-67.

When Israel withdrew its civilians and military from Gaza, and transferred the territory to the Palestinian Authority in 2005, the Palestinians had a golden opportunity to create a foundation for an independent state. It was a chance to realize the vision of the 1993 Gaza – Jericho First agreement Israel had signed with the PLO, so quickly doomed as the Palestinians resorted to devastating suicide bombing campaigns in Israeli cities.

Tragically for the Palestinians, the aftermath of Israel’s total withdrawal from Gaza has not fared much better, as their own leaders again squandered the opportunity. After the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, the Quartet -- the United States, European Union, Russia and United Nations -- asked Hamas to recognize Israel, accept all existing Israeli-Palestinian agreements, and renounce terrorism, so the group could join PA President Mahmoud Abbas in peace talks with Israel.

Hamas refused. Its defiance invited the international boycott of Gaza, cemented after Hamas violently seized control in a coup against the PA three years ago. The blockade has been international, not Israel’s alone, and it has been partial. Israel has consistently delivered tons of humanitarian needs, including food, clothing, and medicine.

It is not a siege. “Grocery stores are stocked wall-to-wall” along Gaza City’s main thoroughfare, and “pharmacies look as well-supplied as a typical Rite Aid in the United States,” Janine Zacharia of The Washington Post reported days after the May 31 flotilla incident.

Supplementing the weekly truckloads of humanitarian basics entering Gaza from Israel, enterprising Palestinians have dug hundreds of tunnels under the border with Egypt to smuggle all kinds of household items, as well as arms. The Financial Times reported recently that the tunnels have been so successful that “the prices of many smuggled goods have fallen in recent months, thanks to a supply glut that is on striking display across the Strip.”

If Hamas, after participating in Palestinian elections, had transitioned from a terrorist organization to a bona fide political party, and fulfilled the conditions to join with the PA as a peace process partner, substantial European and American investments in the Gaza economy and infrastructure would have been forthcoming. Today, Gaza could be experiencing economic growth similar to the progress seen in the West Bank under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad.

But, alas, Hamas is not interested in a two-state solution. This non-state actor, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., continues to call for the elimination of a U.N. member-state -- Israel.

Instant universal condemnation of Israel, with no criticism of Hamas, after the flotilla clash with Israel’s navy, has not helped those who truly seek peace. Rather, the world has further emboldened Hamas in its rejectionist stance. “May 31 was and will be a turning point,” Haniyeh declared. “It marks the beginning of the delegitimization of the Zionist project in our country.” The Hamas leader, for sure, was not speaking only of Gaza.

Totally missing amid escalating calls worldwide to end the blockade has been any word of Hamas’s responsibility for the current situation. Even President Obama, who has called the Gaza situation “unsustainable,” and European leaders, have resisted any efforts to make Hamas accountable. Until the international community accepts that Hamas is the primary obstacle to advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace, many nations will be complicit in undermining the efforts of both Israel and the PA in seeking a sustainable peace.

Kenneth Bandler is the American Jewish Committee’s Director of Communications.

Book Launch - Day Okpe's Civil War Memoir Was Launched

2010-05-18T15:53:00.000-07:00

By Japhet Alakam/Vanguard/All Africa

Memories of the Nigerian civil war was relived recently as one of the major actors of the war, Captain August Okpe chief pilot of Biafra during the civil war years as well as the chief pilot of the Nigerian Airways and an established poet recounts the story of the war captured in his memoir, The Last Flight which was presented to the public forth night ago at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, (NIIA)Victoria Island.

The reviewer of the book, Uche Chukwumerije took time to reminisce over that war of attrition, describing it as the worse thing that has happened to the country. He therefore called on Nigerians to learn to apply courage and actuality of vision in doing what is right at all times as a way of moving the country forward.

The distinguished senator, and former Minister of Information under General Sani Abacha's military junta muted, "I pray that we do not go to war again." Reminiscing on the lessons of the war, he noted "I very much believe that if we learnt the lessons from the Nigerian civil war, if we learnt to make the Nigerian states more sensitive to the needs of all classes of Nigerians, and if we all know how to cultivate Nigeria and make it a 'Plural Political Community' Nigeria will become the largest ,strongest most powerful black country in the world."he said.

From left; Admiral Ndubusi Kanu, former Governor of Lagos State and old Imo State, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, former Vice President of Nigeria, Air Vice Marshal D. Bello, former Chief of Air Staff, and Captain August Okpe, (Rtd), author of the book.

Senator Chukwumerije said, although the book came out 40years after the war, its ample store of revelations of hitherto unknown events made it one of the most comprehensive and objective accounts of the war so far published.

According to him, the story of The Last Flight is far richer than a tale of war and one service: a gifted story teller, the author uses the vintage point of Biafran Air Force to knit together the essential happenings in virtually all sectors of the war theatre including its political environment. The book is almost a full picture of Biafra seen through the clear lenses of a major actor.

He said that the author also reveals the social environment of the war, the account of how some avoidable acts of omission and commission that could have spared the Republic the destabilizing consequence of fratricidal mistrust and inter ethnic animosity. The political intrigues of both sides of the conflict were also revealed . It also reminded people the example of the self reliant efforts of Biafra and what the black man can be in the world if he has a little more self confidence and self exertion. The book will endure as one of the major documents of the civil war.

In attendance were the cream of society, including the Vice-president during the second republic, Dr Alex Ekweme ,who chaired the occasion, former governor of Lagos and old Imo state Real Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu, Dr Abel Ubeku, Captain Shuaibi Alfa, Chief Alex Akinyele, HRH Prof. Laz Ekwueme, Navy Capt. Alison Madueke rtd. , Chief Mike Adeojo, Mr. ABC Orjiakor amongst others.

The chief launcher Mrs ABC Orjiakor while presenting the book congratulated the author for handing down history to us which is one of the things we are missing. She advised that the book should be made available to schools and library so that the children will read it and know what their parents passed through to bring them to this stage while Mr ABC Orjiakor who later joined the launching described Okpe as an eloquent fellow with clear mastery of English language and somebody that can captivate you with story telling. For Alison Madueke, while commending the author stated that emphasis should be laid on readership than the money because the essence of writing is for people to read.

Willy Murray Bruce, the number 2 man to Captain Okpe recounted how they did the last operational flight in Biafra before the war ended. Speaking with pains he also recalled how 43 cadet officers who trained in Germany and were about to be commissioned before the war broke out were not absolved by the Nigerian government after the war.

The author who could not hold his joy because of the large turnout said it was natural for him to write a book about military aviation as he was the head of Biafra Air force and later head of the Nigerian Airways. According to him the book talks about the activities of the air force in the Nigeria civil war. Stating that no other book has said something about that as previous books about the war concentrated on the army and navy as if there was no air war. The book also talks about the problems of the country and national upheavals. He said that the title was taken from one of the segments of the war, when he took what turned out to be the last flight that had to return to base when he saw the mass of Nigerian soldiers everywhere.

Earlier in his remark, Dr Ekwueme recalled how he met the author in 1968 at Urualla as the director of planning of Biafra and the author, a squadron leader who later headed the tactical Airforce Base at Uga in the course of the various efforts they made to establish airports during the war. He said that he was cut up by the author's way of signing his signature from right to left instead of the usual left to right. He described the author as a good story teller, one who accepts criticisms at all times and makes good conversation, stating that it was the combination of the above that led to the writing of the book. Continuing Dr Ekwueme, an architect told the audience that the first major work he did after the war was the redesigning of the Enugu Airport, a job given to him by General Gowon. Finally he advised that it is not good for brothers to take up arms against one another. Stating that millions of lives and properties were destroyed as a result of the war including the socio- psychological and physical dislocations.

In his goodwill message, the chief of Defence staff, Air vice Marshal Paul Dike who wrote the forward of the book represented by AVM J.O.Oshoniyi congratulated Captain Okpe for taking time to put down what happened in the unfortunate civil war especially as it concerns the deployment of Air power.

AVM Nyanayo who represented the Chief of Air Staff said that he was elected to see the man who was a pilot when they were in primary school. He expressed his happiness that somebody like Captain Okpe took it upon himself to put down all that happened during that time. and tasked past aviators to come out and give account of their days.

The chief host AVM Dominic Bello on his part described the book as a unique and incredible book. Unique in the sense that it is the first book to be written on the civil war about the Nigerian air force . He reminded the audience that Biafra introduced the air war long before the Nigerian forces overtook them because of the quality of the aircrafts. He therefore recommended the book to all students of Air power because the book to him contains an incredible source of information.

How I Built Bombs for Biafra - Kaine

2010-05-02T13:17:00.000-07:00

Saturday Vanguard last week in Enugu met Engr. Edmund Kaine, who built bombs and other explosives for the defunct Republic of Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War. He later became Chief Executive, Projects Development Institute, PRODA, a parastatal of the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology.

He spoke with BASHIR ADEFAKA on how Nigeria can emerge a technology power.

Excerpts:

How did you start out in life?

I started out in life like anybody else. But in my time, Nigeria was just coming out of what I call the past age and moving slowly tino the modern age. We didn't have tarred roads. We didn't have electric fans. The radios were boxes with wires.

The schools were not many. In Lagos, you had only a few colleges and so many people didn't really have the opportunity. But people were happy.

I went to St. Monica's Catholic School, Lafiaji. I attended St. Gregory's College, Ikoyi both in Lagos. The only luck I had was that my father became a lawyer and could send me abroad.

In those days, it was fashionable to do Engineering because Nigeria didn't really have prospects. It has not changed much today. But I chose to do Engineering because I liked technology: I liked Engineering. I read books about people going to space.

I read books about Stevenson who discovered the Railway and by God's grace, I became an engineer. But I only really got fulfilled as an engineer when I went to the then West Germany. That was where I found the opportunity I was looking for: To go into the factories. Then, I came back to Nigeria and, as I said, the country still had very little for those who really wanted to practise engineering;,mechanical and so on. Not much.

There were a lot of opportunities for civil engineers, that is, structural engineers who could design moderate buildings. But fortunately for me, I was able to work in the Projects Development Institute (PRODA) in Enugu after the Civil War under Ukpabi Asika, Governor of then East Central State, which comprised Onitsha, Enugu, Owerri put together. I retired from PRODA as Chief Executive many years ago and since then, I have been on my own. PRODA is a parastatal of Federal Ministry of Science and Technology.

Why does Nigeria lag behind in technological development despite experts like you in that discipline?

I have tried to make it clear to people that technology is not taught in technical schools and universities. Technology, as it is, is the property of a few multi-nationals. It is where they are; and they only let it out when they are in their own companies. But you can negotiate and buy the part you want.

Technology takes a long time to be acquired. Every technology is the result of intensive work and expenses, stressing over many years and when you acquire it, it becomes a precious property. And you cannot get it free; you cannot get it because you are too clever. So, you acquire it somehow by setting up the modalities for acquiring it.

We have thousands and thousands of engineers in the world and in Nigeria, but they don't have the technology. The technology is the property of those who have it, who have developed and are using it: the companies. We have to be clear about that.

If you worked in a company for a long time, you may see some aspects of the technology and come back with it for your own company. But you may find it difficult to utilize because you still need a lot of other services to complement it before you can get a product into the market.

We are still very much dependent, technologically. Can't we get out of this?

The main problem I think is that we have not defined our objectives. In many places where I worked as head, I'd say to them, what do we want to see in the next 20 years? Let's talk about that and agree, then we know what to do now to get there.

As a people, we must define what our country should look like in the next 30 years and then we must start now to see how we achieve it.

Again, most of the people in Nigeria don't know that the basic goal of a leader is to ensure that every individual in the community is utilized to his best capacity. If a man's talent is for football, he should be given every opportunity to play.

So, we should discover the potential of every individual and make use of it. That will be the focus.

Things like building roads, streets, schools are part of this but the main focus is what is every Nigerian individual capable of doing and is he given the opportunity to do it? That should be the main focus. And that is why a man like Chief Obafemi Awolowo was great! Because his main focus was: What does everyone of my people want? If there is a Yoruba man or woman somewhere there, is he or she happy with what he or she is doing?

That was Awolowo's focus and that was what made him great. And he did so many things; all geared towards that. He started the first television station in Nigeria and by extension in Africa so that every Yoruba man could watch television not because he as a person wanted to see television. But he wanted every Yoruba man to use TV to broaden his knowledge.

That, I think, is the greatest quality of a leader: To concentrate on what the smallest individual wants. We are not doing that. Building roads, building hospitals is fine! But again, that is not the soul of the matter.

So, what is the soul of the matter?

I have told you. It is to make sure that every individual should do that in which God has given him the talent to achieve his best.

How does that translate to the issue at hand? Our interest is in how we too can emerge as part of technology-based society. How do we do it?

You, see there are certain macro areas which are defined at high level like power. In the next 30 years, we should know what type of power Nigeria should be having. Everybody should know that now. We will not be running all thermal power stations any more because the oil resources will be very low, if not exhausted.

Fortunately, there is technology for wind turbines, which is the new one now, and solar energy. Solar energy is only applicable so far to residential areas, offices and so on. But wind turbines have succeeded in producing electricity that can be distributed nationwide. For example, Germany has an installed capacity of 30,000 mega watts.

In 30 years' time, when our oil will have dried up, Nigeria should know by now, that they should have something like 50,000 mega watts from wind alone and they should start working towards it from now.

Now, take the area of transportation; all these big lorries won't be in place because they will not have enough fuel again. Nigeria should know that in the next 30 years, the most effective and surest way to guarantee sure transportation is high speed electric train. And we should now start thinking about how we can have enough of it linking the vital areas of the country. We should, in fact, start working towards it: Not only thinking but implementing it. By now, we have only 30 years.

There are other areas and many of these things. The problem is not only installing it but how are we making some of the things by ourselves? Do we have the technology to make and maintain it? That is government issue but all those things, when they are really in place, will be operated only by the private sector. If government operates them, they will be flop.

We are a technology consumer, not producer. Whose responsibility is it to get these things done?

There are so many questions in one piece. But as I told you, there is nothing wrong in importing. Every country imports. But those things that you need in large quantities, you should make most of them here in your own country.

Those things that you have advantage of over other countries, like fruit juice, you should make them in your own country. Those things that other countries have advantage of over you, like precision instruments, you should import.

If this world is to have a good economic stability, then all the countries in the world should know that there is the need to distribute the production facilities equitably among countries. Some countries cannot just be making raw materials, mining and some others are making all the finished goods. That is one of the main reasons why the economy of the world is in .... affecting those of other countries.

If you want to acquire technology, the government itself must know what to put in place so that the technology will flow in. It is deliberate government policy and it must be implemented.

When China went out to acquire technology, they made a simple rule that no foreigner must touch a screw driver in their industries. If a foreigner touches a screw driver in China, he goes to jail. If it didn't make that rule, it wouldn't have acquired any technology. All those things imported would have just been useless now awaiting to be repaired.

As for India, they used to pick bodies of people who starved to death from various homes in the country. But when they realised the way out and wanted to really develop, they did not stop any foreigner from touching a screw driver but they made their own rule that for every product that would be imported into India, the makers, the foreigners, should bring the drawings showing the details of how that product was made.

Through that, India got technology and their status changed. The Chinese system opted for citizenship training about the working of those technologies and when the multi-nationals and the foreign companies realised that, they insisted that China must bear the cost of training the Chinese people. And the cost was enormous, which they agreed upon.

You see, it is one of these things that Nigerians don't know here. The cost of training your individual is enormous. Even in advanced countryies, people are being trained and re-trained. When your graduates come out, to be able to function, they will have to keep on going through training and training. But not just train them and at the end, they are looking for work.

No. It is part of the general plan of making sure that everybody is being utilised to his fullest. A lot of things are needed.

All those things must be put in place. Everybody has to think very hard. You have to have managers, people who can manage. Even if it means importing managers. Without a manager, a good one, anything you put in place will just fizzle out to nothing. If any manager fumbles, you sack him and bring another one on board. It is not easy, but we need a crop of good managers, even if it means getting them from abroad. Without that, anything you put in place will die. The rate at which enterprises collapse in the world is colossal.

What happens if we fail, consciously or unconsciously, to plan ahead of these realities?

I am afraid that the earthquake in Haiti will be child-play compared to what Nigeria will look like in the next 30 years if we don't have some of these alternative facilities in place.

What we need to really do this is a leader. Only the person to be held responsible for it, is the President. I had been in the service, on a national assignment under President Ibrahim Babangida. I went with Chief MKO Abiola on tours of Indonesia for purposes of trying to see how they developed and use the idea for our country.

It is the President alone that can begin to galvanise the ministers and the people if he wants to get these things in place, especially the private sector, the police force, the security forces.

In Indonesia, before they attracted these investors and all these capitals to do those things, they did a lot of things and they showed us what they did to make the country beautiful and convenient for multi-nationals to come and set up industries there.

They made the place a haven for industries to come and set up. They made it their job to make sure that those industries came and were given every possible facility. It is only the President that can tell his ministers and his people: This is what I want and this is my focus and how we will work towards it. Everybody will have to work based on its vision and directive. It is not one man's responsibility now to get the many wrongs in this regard corrected.

Everybody, the journalists, all of you will focus on it, design programme of development and let the government and the people begin to change their thinking for the better.

What if the people the President galvanised fail or sabotage him?

Every football manager will give you the answer to that question. If the President cannot do it, he should go and get advice from a football team manager. Only him, I repeat, only the President has the power; the ministers don't.

Highest, he will deposed and another person is brought in, but he alone has the power to galvanise. If the President doesn't do it, nobody else can do it. That is why the Constitution gives him so much powers and so he has no excuses for not doing what he is empowered by the law to do.

Sectionalism has been Nigeria's albatross.

Throughout history, human beings have always been deceived in thinking that they, as a section, are better than the other. But God in His wisdom had created the universe and human beings with expectation that they would come together.

Because God has distributed these talents and unless you harmonise them, you cannot grow. It is like a forest, every small plant in a forest has its job.

Nigeria is blessed with so many diverse qualities: The Igbo, the Efik, the Hausas, the Fulanis, the Yorubas. A wise man will now look at these qualities by bringing them together. It is like a harmony. No matter how good a note is, if you keep sounding that note, you don't have music. But if you go to the next note and to the next note and put about 10 different notes together, then you have your melody and the harmony.

You cannot improve by using the quality of one tribe alone. You can't. You have to bring in various qualities. The problems are so complex because the problem of development is enormous. Many countries suddenly fall, many companies lose markets and die out.

During the Biafran time, why did you think, like many others, that the only way the Igbo could develop was by seceding?

Many countries in the world are often deluded. The Germans were deluded to fight Second World War. Now, they have everything; economic power and political power. The Japanese the same thing. A lot of nations and thinkers think erroneously.

In those days, we felt that we had to secede but we now know that it was wrong. It doesn't help anybody. I don't any longer believe that an individual can have so much. What we need is to think and focus on one problem so that we can find a solution to it. Let every individual focus, therefore, especially the journalists. You must increase the level of knowledge and awareness of the public so that they are aware that these problems are there and it takes cooperation, good thinking to do.

Along this line, I must say that the only mistake I ever made in my life was to believe that we could succeed by seceding out of Nigeria as Biafra. But it was also not our fault. The heavy attacks on the Igbo following the first military coup that killed prominent Nigerian leaders pushed us to the wall.

That coup was erroneously believed to be an Igbo agenda and so, every Igbo man living outside the Eastern part of the country was made to suffer for it. Left, right, back and front, the attacks were too much that all the Igbo returned home, banished, losing all their properties and other valuables. Those who could change tongues however stayed behind.

How did you meet Ojukwu and how did you come about making the bombs that were used in Biafra?

I met Ojukwu through Ukpabi Asika, the Administrator of East Central State. That is just about that.

At first, I gave the proposal for making those bombs to some military officers but they didn't take it seriously until when they had two weeks to the war and suddenly discovered that they needed so much. By the time Ojukwu saw the proposal and approved it, time had already caved in. But we tried our best and ensured that so much was done for the soldiers to have regular supplies.

But I made sure that those fighting around the area where I was producing were getting more of those bombs and explosives so that I did not need to start running around.

I must say that the fire brigade approach to setting up the bomb-making facility at that time was due to the general attitude of our people. I must also say that for the little we were to do, the Biafran government encouraged it and Dim Odumegwu Emeka Ojukwu was superior.

Can't Nigerian system improve on this technology for the military?

What we made in those days will fetch a price of zero naira today. We used the bombs we made locally in those days because we had no alternative. If you want to manufacture any product of that nature today, the quality, the standard, the level of the production, the price must be correct: You must source your materials, source management, everything. It is not just the technical know-how, they are there.

The technology we used in making those bombs and other explosives was fundamental. The technology of making bombs today is very high. We have to get that one and if we don't have it, we have to acquire it.

Also, look at some of these unmanned planes. From the satellite, they target spots on the ground and so it is.

Igbo Losses Counted at Oputa Panel

2010-04-17T01:26:00.000-07:00

By Emmanuel Onwubiko, The Guardian/Hartford

Abuja—Dark memories of the Nigerian civil war echoed at the Justice Chukwudifu Oputa panel yesterday as Ohanaeze Ndigbo and the Arewa Consultative Forum engaged each other in a fierce dispute over the cause of the 1967-70 war.

Ohanaeze's presentation, which was articulated by Uche Chukwumerije, a former information minister, was hinged on a thesis that the North, working in concert with some other parts of the country, embarked on a deliberate programme to marginalise and exterminate the Igbo.

Ohanaeze said the 1966 coup was an expression of the anti-Igbo sentiment, explaining that the Igbo drew the ire of their persecutors because of their enterprise in all spheres human endeavour which led them to all areas of Nigeria.

But, Secretary to Arewa Forum, Col. Hammeed Ali disagreed when he hinted that the war was spurred by the 1966 coup which he said was an “Igbo coup.” He also tried to exonerate the North, saying “Buhari's coup of December, 1983 was not a Northern coup.”

Earlier, the Ohanaeze listed its major grouse as marginalisation.

According to the group, “To help us understand our case on marginalisation and disempowerment, the petition defines this key concept. Marginalisation is purposeful denial of rights of some members of a given unit by some other members of the group who control the power of allocation of resources. Marginalisation must be understood as fundamentally different from marginality, which means loss of rights through self-inflicted under-development.”

“In all the realms of public endeavour, Ndi Ibgo have the requisite manpower and natural resources. But their rights to a fair share of Nigeria's resources have been consistently denied them by Federal authorities.”

Continuing, the group stated that: “It is necessary to emphasise the fundamental difference between Ndi Igbo's case of disempowerment and the new noisy national orchestra of marginalisation slogans most of which are raised to mock and trivialise our case. The distinctive difference is deliberate exclusion: ours is a case of deliberate exclusion of Ndi Igbo from common resources by a combination of ethnic groups which control the centre.”

“Indeed, the observed consistent pattern of discriminary and exclusionary responses of the Nigerian system to Ndi Igbo in the commanding heights of the polity suggests that our exclusion is not only deliberate but also malicious.”

Ohaneze described marginalisation of the Igbo to mean the denial of right to life, right to means of livelihood, right to human dignity, right to freedom of movement, right to freedom from discrimination, right to acquire and own immovable property anywhere in Nigeria and other rights enshrined in the Constitution.

Tracing the alleged injustices against the Igbo before the civil war, he said “The republican spirit of Ndi Igbo and their individual drive, expressing itself in a flair for fair competition in all spheres, encouraged them to exercise their citizenship rights all over Nigeria. The endeavours of Ndi Igbo, like those of other Nigerian citizens, were taking place in an atmosphere (so we thought) of brotherly debates and differences in our fledgling multi-ethnic democracy.
“But Ndi Igbo soon began to notice sinister stains in the responses of some national leaders to their differences with Ndi Igbo. Public statements of leaders of ruling political groups in Northern and Western Nigeria began to betray a disposition to extermination or total expulsion of Ndi Igbo as their acceptable solution of what they now saw as Igbo problem. Speeches of Northern Nigeria Ministers, as recorded in Hansard of March, 1964, and the anti-Igbo incitements in a booklet, UPGAISM, published by Western Government (1965) portrayed the new mood.”

The anti-Igbo mood, he further alleged, found a ready platform for “explosion and used as a rallying cry to mobilise Northern Nigeria and some parts of the rest of the Federation to advance genocidal plot against Ndi Igbo. The fiction and falsehood of Igbo coup has long been admitted by some of the major actors in that episodes (example, Lt. Gen. T.Y Danjuma in Nigerian Civil War 1967-1970 edited by Major-General H.B. Momoh P.373).”

According to Chukwumerije, the brewing “genocidal mood” “served” and “in response to anti-Igbo incitements, Igbo citizens in Northern Nigeria were massacred in three waves of pogrom in most sadistic and inhuman methods that made Jewish holocaust appear like mercy killings. 50,000 Igbos were slaughtered. Some of the inhuman methods of slaughter were recorded in affidavits of eye witness.”

He added: “The massacres which evidently were well planned and co-ordinated by ruling authorities had the character of genocidal attacks on Ndi Igbo. The acquiescence of other ethnic groups in the rest of Nigeria emphasised the isolation and helplessness of Ndi Igbo. The insensitivity of the Federal Government and its failure to implement a peace agreement (the Aburi Accord) compounded the sense in security of Ndi Igbo. When the Federal Government proceeded with an economic blockage and ill-motivated balkanisation of Eastern Region, Ndi Igbo were left in no doubt that the genocidal plot had thickened. Eastern Nigeria was forced to declare the Republic of Biafra on May 29, 1967.”

Ohanaeze continued: “The petition offers a little, just little, glimpse into the enormity of the holocaust that forced us out of Nigeria - the masacre of Igbo women and children who were deceived into flocking to railway stations in search of passenger trains to take them home, forcible collection of Igbo female students from schools and herding of them into leper colonies, to be defiled by lepers; the slaughtering in the transit zone of Middle-Belt of Igbo refugees who managed to escape the wrath of far North; the refusal virtually all Nigerians to give protection to any Easterner; the active involvement of law-enforcement agencies in the pogroms; and the exodus of 2 million people in flight from a country that has rejected them and that has offered them nothing but a mass grave. Indeed the future of no future confronting Ndi Igbo at this time was symbolised by the fate of Igbo babies in the Kano railway holocaust.”

On the atrocities during civil war (1967-1970), the Pan-Igbo group said:

“A 30-month civil war ensued as a result of Nigeria's attempt to quell what she described as a civil war. The civil war..gave Nigeria a perfect excuse to cast Ndi Igbo in the role of treasonable felons and wreckers of the nation.”

“Nigeria's prosecution of the war violated all aspects of the Geneva Convention and all code of civilized behaviour. Indeed, the violations were carried out with so much glee and abandon that it was clear that the war was an earnest pursuit of the programme of ethnic cleansing begun in 1966.”

“The committee of International Jurists, foreign press and other Independent observers have also testified to this fact. Indeed, the international Committee on The Investigation of Crimes of Genocide whose investigation included interview of 1,082 people representing the two sides of the conflict concluded thus through its investigator (Dr. Mensah of Ghana); 'Finally, I am of the opinion that tin many of the cases cited to me hatred of the Biafrans (mainly Igbos) and a wish to exterminate them was a foremost motivational factor.'”

Listed in the petition as methods through which the violations took place are:

the genocidal content of Nigeria's war slogans;

the use of starvation as an instrument of war;

the massacre of civilians in conquered areas;

the target of air attacks on concentrated civilian habitations;

rape, torture and dehumanization of Igbo women;

destruction of properties; animals and everything as in a scorched earth policy, and

torture and murder of war prisoners and civilians who surrendered. Over one million people, the petition added, died during the war through these atrocities.

On the atrocities and disempowerment immediately after the war (1970-1975), the apex Igbo group stated thus:

Nigeria's proclamation of a peace formula of three Rs (Reconciliation, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction) turned out in practice to be a smokescreen behind which she continued the war against Ndi Igbo by other means. Besides the continuation of killings in the first three months after the end of the war, the new method was the strategy of disempowerment and strangulation in all areas of public endeavour.

The policy of economic disempowerment of the Igbo, alleged the group were:

federal government's vindictive enactment of the abandoned property law, and the consequent dispossession of Igbo property owners of their houses and plots in Rivers State as “abandoned property,” in a ploy to incite the Easterners against one another.

the impoverishment of all Ndi Igbo through payment of a flat paltry sum of £20 irrespective of individual savings at the end of the war,

the intentional timing of the enactment of the “indigenisation decree” at the height of total destruction of the purchasing power of Ndi Igbo;

the denial of the reconstruction of utilities, structures and infrastructure damaged during the war;

excision of oil petroleum-rich areas of Igbo land, and exclusion of other mineral deposits found in Igbo land from the benefits of operations of umbrella organisations like OMPADEC or its successor, NDDC;

mass dismissal of Igbo public servants;

continuation of starvation policy and rejection of aids from foreign aid/donors;

treatment of Igbos as social pariahs in all the states of Nigeria;

the exclusion of Ndi Igbo from the higher echelons of policy-making;

manipulation of census figures to reduce Igbo ethnic group to a minority status; and

Igbophobia as the basis of creating states. Categorising what it called atrocities and disempowerment between 1975 to date, Ohanaeze stated:

“What would have been dismissed as unfortunate excesses of revengeful excitement in the flush of victory soon settled into a policy of marginalisation and disempowerment of Ndi Igbo. Successive governments maintained a disturbing continuity of a policy of strangulation of Ndi Igbo in spite of all rhetorics to the contrary. Public policy and practice since the mid-seventies to date have followed the same pattern.”

“In the political arena, observed pattern of appointments suggest that the Federal Government is decided that no Igbo man should be trusted with a key sensitive command position for a long while. In the public service, our share of federal employments is far below the constitutional stipulations of the constitution and the quota chart of the Federal Character Commission.”

“The history of the creation of states clearly suggests a policy of containment and siege, a policy designed to reduce the demographic leverage and financial strength of Ndi Igbo. Lastly, a new height in political disempowerment has been reached in the most blatant marginalisation by the present regime of President Obasanjo of South-East zone which gave it the second largest electoral support in the presidential democratic election of 1999.”

“In the social realm, the racial discrimination against Ndi Igbo continues to rage, unabated. The blood-chilling consistency in which Igbo citizens have always been scape goats of all bloody riots in Nigeria confirms that they enjoy less protection of the law than any other ethnic nationality in the republic.‘

Commending President Obasanjo, the group said “there have been some positive developments since then, May 29, 1999.”

Commenting on their prayers the group stated that it asked the panel to order payment “of reparations and appropriate restitution as a healing balm not just to Ndi Igbo but to the nation.”

Ohanaeze said “the remedies sought include financial compensations for bereaved and humiliated families in respect of the murdered, the maimed, the raped and the dehumanised; financial compensation for wrong dismissals; financial compensations for the havoc of scorched earth policy; reversals of economic marginalisation policy, and restitutions where possible.”

“But financial and economic redresses can never adequately compensate psychological wounds. The deepest wound of Ndi Igbo is a haunting spectre of insecurity, hanging like a dark cloud over a persistent ugly objective reality that continues to feed on traditional prejudice. Periodic anti-Igbo riots continue to warn Ndi Igbo that Nigeria has learnt nothing and has forgotten nothing.”

“Our prayer therefore emphasises two requests as the key reliefs. One is a national apology. The other is an assurance of Ozoemena! - a national vow that violations of our human rights will never occur again. Indeed, the essence of all our prayers is summed in our relief.”

Making suggestions on how to move the nation forward, the group asserted: “Our Constitution must address more explicitly and unequivocally than it has done hitherto the foundation question of the character of our Federal union. Should Nigeria be a mosaic of self-reinforcing ethnic mini-sovereignties barely interacting horizontally but intensively engaged vertically in a cockpit fight for the largest loot from the centre? Or, a dynamic multi-ethnic community purposefully evolving towards the end state of healthy national integration? It is surprising that our utterances and actions have shown that this basic choice has not been made after 40 years of togetherness.”

“If our choice is a multi-ethnic nation, as forward-looking patriots should prefer, then the constitution should be supported with necessary institutional arrangements which should invest more energy and resources on three areas:”

•A people-oriented economic development plan based on social justice and equity;
•A political system that protects the sovereignty of the people from the disorientation of free market forces;
•A genuinely progressive national ideology that replaces the cent and hypocrisy of primordial irredentism with the civic values of a modern or purposefully modernising nation-state;
•The Constitution should strengthen residency and citizenship rights vis- %GË† %@-vis aboriginal rights; and
•Our criminal code must be revised to establish responsibility for instigated mob, arsons and pogroms in the guise of spontaneous communal riots. There must no longer be a hiding place for unknown soldiers and anonymous thugs. The law should devise a way of laying collective responsibility, especially in reparation and restitution, for arsons and massacres, on the host communities and organisations.
Besides, the group advised that Nigeria should settle for a system that encourages production, in place of consumption through a flat rule-of-the thumb approach that shares all sharable federal resources equally among the six zones only.

Ohanaeze dismissed insinuations that their petition was basically complaining of marginalisation saying: “We conclude our Petition by emphasising once again the point that our case is fundamental to the growth of political democracy and civil society in Nigeria. It is deeper than 'marginalisation' as currently misused. We tender this Petition with faith and trepidation.”

Earlier, Oputa had summoned a former Comptroller of Prisons in River State, E.E Nkang to appear on September 23 to tell the commission where the remains of the Ogoni nine executed alongside Ken-Saro-Wiwa on November 10, 1995 were kept. This summons was at the instance of Femi Falana who represented MOSOP.

The panel will today continue hearing the Ohanaeze petition.

A journalist with Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Yusuf Jibo was summoned by the panel to explain why he produced and showed a programme considered unsavoury by Ohanaeze.

A spectacular scenario that was created yesterday was the physical presence of an array of the nation's choicest dignitaries like Prof. Ben Nwabueze (SAN), Alhaji Gambo Jimeta, Gen. Haruna, Alhaji Isah Funtua, Dr. Joe Nwaorgu, even as a galaxy of Senior Advocates like Chief Tony Mogbo (SAN); Joe Gadzama (SAN) and Chief O. J. J Okocha (SAN) was present.

Diverse groups that were colourfully decked also created a carnival - like atmosphere, during and after the emotionally charged session during which Colonel Ali was jeered and booed at.

Col. Ali, also a former military administrator of Kaduna State during the Abacha regime and a member of the Ogoni Special Military Tribunal which tried and convicted the Ogoni nine led by Dr. Ken Saro-Wiwa faulted the response he filed in to the commission challenging the position of the Ohanaeze because, in his words, “I did not read most of the authorities cited in the written submission of the Arewa Forum.”

Amid jeering, Ali stated that the military men plotted coups in the past with loyal officers from the same background.

But when the Ohanaeze legal representative, Chief Tony Mogbo (SAN) sought to know his opinion on the 1966, 1990, and 1983 coups, Ali said: “my lord the 1966 coup was an Igbo coup, that of 1990 led by Orkah was a Delta coup while that of 11983 was basically a Buhari coup and not a northern coup.”

A major dramatic scenario was played up when Col. Ali (rtd) admitted that; “my lord, in making our submission, we cited some quotations from some authors, but we only took what we wanted from them and considered the rest of the same quotation factitious.”

Some other lawyers who appeared in the session were Mr. R. F. Godwin for the River State government summoned as a witness in the Ohanaeze petition even as Mr. Yahaya Mohammed and Prof. Auwalu Yadudu appeared for Arewa Consultative Forum whose chairman M. D. Yusuf was present at yesterday's session.

Other lawyers included Mr. Sebastine Hon for the Joint Action Committee on the Middle Belt, Nuhu Ribadu, for the Commissioner of Police Kano State and Yisa A. N for General Wushishi and General I. B. Babangida.

Chukwumerije and Col. Ben Gbulie, two witnesses for Ohanaeze will also finish their cross examination session to be conducted by lawyers representing the respondents in the matter today. Chukwumerije was partly cross examined by counsel to Arewa yesterday.

Meanwhile, barring unforeseen impediments, the seemingly intractable feud between Shell Petroleum Development Company and the Ogoni would be resolved on September 12 at a tripartite meeting between the feuding parties, Federal and River State government.

This reconciliatory tone was struck at a peace parley initiated yesterday in Abuja by the Oputa panel.

Forty years afyer Biafra - Forgiveness and Beyond

2010-03-29T21:43:00.000-07:00

By Max Soillun/234Next

Imagine if the Israeli prime minister hired a former PLO fighter as his personal pilot; or if the president of the United States allowed a Russian to be his personal chauffeur at the height of the Cold War. Sounds surreal? Yet that is precisely what happened in Nigeria several decades ago when then head of state General Gowon hired an Igbo air force officer who formerly fought for Biafra as one of his presidential pilots.

The end of the brother's war

Friday January 15, 2010 marked the 40th anniversary of the end of the Nigerian civil war. *On that day in Dodan Barracks, a brutal 920-day civil war ended as former colleagues and combatants who had engaged each other in bitter warfare for over two and a half years embraced each other with unprecedented warmth. They ended a war wracked by famine, and characterized by starving children, one million corpses, and violence and suffering of such an intensely grotesque magnitude that the words "pogrom" and "kwashiorkor" were added to the standard Nigerian vocabulary.

No Nuremberg trials, no medals

When the war ended, the Igbos grimly expected that their defeat would be followed by their wholesale massacre. However the leader of the victorious army refused to proclaim victory, declared a general amnesty for all those who fought against him, invited members of the defeated side to join his administration. He refused to conduct trials of, or execute the defeated, and refused to award medals to his own soldiers who had fought the war. He even allowed some members of the enemy's army to join his own army.

For their part, Igbos quietly accepted their fate in a united Nigeria, went back to their farms and businesses, and rebuilt their destroyed homes without any thoughts of sabotage or guerilla warfare. All this happened without a United Nations resolution or peacekeeping force, international peace plans and conferences, or the protracted negotiations that it normally takes to resolve modern conflicts. Nigerians decided for themselves that they had seen enough bloodshed and that they wanted a war free future for their children. The former combatants now live, work, and intermarry with each other as if the war never happened. Yet the civil war literature rarely discusses this most remarkable and impressive aspect of the war - the humanity with which Nigerians and Biafrans forgave each other, laid down their arms and got on with their lives.

An achievement matched by few others

The war also ironically dissolved some of the negative stereotypes the combatants held about each other, and enhanced their mutual respect. The Igbos won admiration from the federal side for the tenacity, iron will, and the incredible improvisation with which they fought the war. The federal side won the Igbos' respect for their magnanimity in victory.

Forty-two years after United Nations resolutions called for them to cease hostilities, the Israelis and Arabs are still at each other's throats. Fifteen years after the Rwandan civil war, war crimes trials are still ongoing. However, a remarkably sober pragmatism rose from the blood, fire and ashes of the Nigerian civil war. It taught the combatants an unforgettable lesson in the evils of ethnic rivalry. The bitter memory of the war means that Nigeria stumbles through and survives the sorts of crises that cause war and disintegration in other countries. For example: presidential elections that take 8 years to organise then are retrospectively voided after the votes are counted, Sharia, military coups, ethnic violence, resource control, and a president who goes AWOL for nearly three months.

When an election was annulled in Algeria in 1991, it plunged the country into a decade long civil war in which up to 200,000 people died and terrorism linked to the event was exported to France. When an election was annulled in Nigeria two years later, the winner of the election said he abhorred violence and urged the public to protest peacefully.

Although pockets of bitterness remain (particularly over the emotional issue of properties abandoned by Igbos who fled for their safety, but which were illegally appropriated by other communities), Nigeria's remarkable reconciliation is rivaled in the modern era only by black South Africans' forgiveness of their former oppressors.

Commenting on Nigeria's reconciliation, a European observed that:

"When history takes a longer view of Nigeria's war it will be shown that while the black man has little to teach us about making war he has a real contribution to offer in making peace." (John de St. Jorre - The Brothers' War: Biafra and Nigeria)

The dawn of National reconciliation

For the benefit of those who have not read it, I have reproduced below, excerpts from Gowon's moving "The Dawn of National Reconciliation" speech to the nation on January 15, 1970. Please take the time to read the words carefully and remember them. Much of it still rings true today...

"My dear compatriots, we must pay homage to the fallen, to the heroes, who have made the supreme sacrifice that we may be able to build a nation great in justice, fair play, and industry. They will be mourned forever by a grateful nation. There are also the innocent men, women, and children who perished, not in battle but as a result of the conflict. We also honour their memory. We honour the fallen of both sides of this tragic fratricidal conflict. Let it be our resolution that all those dead shall have not died in vain. Let the greater nation we shall build be their proud monument forever...

"We also guarantee the right of every Nigerian to reside and work wherever he chooses in the Federation, as equal citizens of one united country. It is only right that we should all henceforth respect each other. We should all exercise civic restraint and use our freedom, taking into full account the legitimate right and needs of the other man. There is no question of second-class citizenship in Nigeria.

"The nation will be proud of the fact that the ceremony today at Dodan Barracks of reunion under the banner of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was arranged and conducted by Nigerians amongst ourselves alone. No foreign good offices was involved. That is what we always prayed for. We always prayed that we should resolve our problems ourselves, free from foreign mentors and go-betweens however well intentioned. Thus, our nation has come of age, and the meaning of today's event must be enshrined in the nation's memory forever."

"We must thank God for his mercies. We mourn the dead heroes. We thank God for sparing us to see this glorious dawn of national reconciliation.... We must use his guidance to do our duty to contribute our quota to the building of a great nation, founded on the concerted efforts of all its people and on justice and equality. A nation never to return to the fractious, sterile and selfish debates that led to the tragic conflict just ending. We have overcome a lot over the past four years. I have therefore every confidence that ours will become a great nation. So help us God."

Long Live the Federal Republic of Nigeria."

*The official members of the Biafran and federal delegations who attended the formal war ending ceremony at Dodan Barracks on January 15, 1970 were:

Biafran Delegation -

*Major-General Phillip Effiong - Officer Administering the Republic of Biafra

*Sir Louis Mbafeno - Chief Justice of Biafra

*Matthew Mbu - Biafran Foreign Minister

*Brigadier Patrick Amadi - Biafran Army

*Colonel Patrick Anwunah - Chief of Logistics and Principal Staff Officer to Ojukwu

*Colonel David Ogunewe - Military Adviser to Ojukwu

*Patrick Okeke - Inspector-General of Biafran Police

Federal Military Government Delegation:

*Major-General Yakubu Gowon - Nigerian Head of State

*Obafemi Awolowo - Deputy Chairman, Supreme Military Council

*Brigadier Emmanuel Ekpo - Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters

*Brigadier Hassan Katsina - Chief of Staff, Nigerian Army

*Brigadier Emmanuel Ikwue - Chief of Air Staff

*Rear-Admiral Joseph Wey - Chief of Naval Staff

*Dr Taslim Elias - Attorney-General

*H.E.A. Ejueyitchie - Secretary to the Federal Military Government

*Anthony Enahoro - Commissioner for Information

*The Military Governors of the 12 states: Ukpabi Asika, Audu Bako, David Bamigboye, Alfred Diete-Spiff, Jacob Esuene, Usman Faruk, Joseph Gomwalk, Mobolaji Johnson, Abba Kyari, Samuel Ogbemudia, Oluwole Rotimi, Musa Usman.

That UN's genocide mission to Nigeria

2010-03-23T16:59:00.000-07:00

Vanguard Editorial

ALARMED at the frequent outbreaks of violence in Northern Nigeria, especially the Plateau and Bauchi axes, the United Nations mandated its Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Mr Francis Deng, to visit Nigeria and work with the authorities to ensure the prevention of future occurrences of such incidences, especially in Plateau State.

Indeed, the incessant, callous killings in Plateau state, could be said to qualify as genocide, since, in the main, people have been targeted for elimination based on their tribal and religious backgrounds or based on the indigene/settler divide. The attacks are carefully planned, and often, professional, murderous militias are retained by one group or the other to ambush and launch attack on their enemies, with the vulnerable – women, children, the old and infirm being the main victims.

These mass murders especially in Plateau state have not been much different from the tragedies the world witnessed in Rwanda and Burundi in 1994 and the ongoing state sponsored attacks in Darfur, where Arab Janjaweed militias have been after the black population, who are mainly Muslims in the Darfur Region of the Sudan.

However, the case of Nigeria is different – and older – than those of Darfur and the central African countries. Genocidal tendencies first reared its head in Nigeria during 1952 Kano riots. It re-occurred again in 1966 when the first military coup took place. It was read to be motivated by ethnic interests due to the lopsided elimination of major political and military figures from a section of the country. The pogroms in the North were seen as a reprisal. It speedily snowballed into the civil war.

The war ended but ethnic and religious-related killings have flared from time to time in the Northern states of Nigeria, sometimes spilling to some areas in the South as reprisals. It is a pity that the international community kept a blind eye to these genocides (in which no one ever got punished for the dastardly wastage of human lives). The Nigerian authorities and the world looked the other way while religious fanatics and ethnic bigots freely attacked people and burnt down places of worship and private and public property.

Mr Francis Deng is welcome to Nigeria and West Africa, where he is supposed to investigate how genocidal situations can be curtailed in future. Our prayer is that one day, the United Nations may not have to send a peace keeping force to Nigeria because the Nigerian security system has either failed or collaborated with the enemies of the Nigerian people to stoke the fire of murderous anarchy.

If the UN mission is what it will take to make Nigerians safer in their own country and from their fellow countrymen, then so be it

Igbo, Non-Igbo Relive Civil War Experience

2010-02-19T20:46:00.000-08:00

By Ikenna Emewu, Sun News Online

How minutes fly into hours and days and later years is amazing. Many who saw and took part in the internecine and sanguinary war that tore the nation in shreds and still leaves its scars in the minds of a particular part of the country feel amazed that it is already 40 years since it wound to close.
Children born immediately after the war are already parents and have advanced into great minds and characters. But as the years add, the pains of the war fade because time is a healing balm.

Saturday Sun reasoned that 40 years is like a landmark on the war taking cognizance of the impacts it made in the history of the nation. From our interview sources, the history of Nigeria so far is one pivoted on that war of 30 months that cost the nation about two million lives and inflicted on its psyche an enduring gorge that has remained a borderline of disintegration of forces that should have united into a strong nation.

A participant on the Biafran side said: “A sharp knife was put at the middle of the nation’s heart. The wound remains unhealed, but it has been covered by flesh over time giving the impression that it is no longer there. Every now and then, the sharp pains still remind the owner of the heart that the wound is still open and hurting. I feel for myself that I might not see the healing of the wound, which I witnessed its infliction. I participated in it. We saw extermination gazing us in the face and as human beings all we had left was to fight as means of survival. That we did and gallantly. I still remain proud that it was better and wiser we fought than fold our arms and watch the unrelenting mad crowd of killers reduce our number everyday because they were unrepentant.”

There are thousands of the accounts of the war in every research step one takes. The books on our shelves, the sites on the World Wide Web (www) all narrate the war – causes, course and end. Regarding the prosecution and the methods applied, there could be variants according to the angle the narrator is coming from. But on the cause, the accounts agree that the January 15, 1966 coup brewed bad blood. That the July 1966 counter coup was worse and fallout of the earlier disturbances.

The earlier coup received ethnic coloration because of the pattern of killing. Most of the victims came from a part of the nation, while a part had no major victims. That the reprisal attack and decimation of soldiers of eastern Nigeria extraction by northern soldiers which started in Abeokuta on July 28, 1966 and culminated in another mass killing in Ikeja and later Kaduna the following day made the January coup a mere appetizer. While 15 persons were killed in January including the Prime Minister, Tafawa Balewa and Premier of Northern Region, Sir Ahmade Bello, 214 soldiers of South Eastern Nigeria fell to the firepower of the northern soldiers between July 28 and 29 in Abeokuta, Ikeja, Ibadan and Kaduna.

Of much interest in the January 15 coup is the role of Major Chukwuma Patrick Kaduna Nzeogwu who was reputed to be the leader of the five or nine majors that played the central role. The interest in Nzeogwu is the fact that he was an Igbo like most of the other majors. An account to disabuse the mind of history on the ethnic bias and dominance of the Igbo in the team said: “Igbo were the majority in the top ranks of the army then. So, it was not abnormal that the coupists were mainly Igbo soldiers.”

Although Nzeogwu was of Igbo parents, he was born and bred in Kaduna and hence his name ‘Kaduna’.
Max Siollun account from www.kwenu.com partly drawn from Frederick Forsyth book noted: “Some claim that Nzeogwu’s participation in the January 1966 coup was part of a grand Igbo agenda to “dominate” the country. This argument overlooks the fact that Nzeogwu was an Igbo in name only. Nzeogwu was born in the Northern Region’s capital of Kaduna to Igbo immigrant parents from the Mid-West Region. Such was his family’s affinity to the city of Nzeogwu’s birth that they and his military colleagues called him “Kaduna.” When not in his army uniform he wore northern mufti and frequently referred to himself as “a northerner. Nzeogwu spoke fluent Hausa “like a native”. In fact, his command of Hausa was better than his command of Igbo.”

Prior to days of blood
It was just two months after that raid in the army that led to the death of the Head of State Maj. Gen. JTU Aguiyi-Ironsi and the military governor of Western Nigeria, Col. Adekunle Fajuyi that the North staged the main blood cuddling massacre. If they felt pained about the assassination of their two prominent leaders in January, which was understandable, they also felt the killing of Ironsi, also a big shot from the East and over 200 others were not enough to assuage the feelings of revenge. They capped their vengeance with the mass genocide of close to 50,000 eastern civilians in the North between September and October 1966.
The killing, according to accounts, made over two million easterners residents in the North refugees. It was horrible reading historians who documented how headless bodies kept flowing down South from the North.

Pogrom
A wikipedia record noted that after the success of the counter coup that had 214 South East victims, the North had scored a vital point and had the feeling that they could go on with more killings at a time a man form their region was in charge, Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon. The resultant effect was the massacre of the Igbo in two months. The casualty list is put between 30,000 and 50,000.

“In the aftermath of the counter coup, there were pogroms in the North where soldiers, officers and civilians were killed. It was estimated that more than 30,000 out of the 13 million people of Igbo ethnic origin lost their lives. This led to a large influx of refugees from the North, about 1.8 million heading to the south east.
Several peace accords especially the one held at Aburi, Ghana (the Aburi Accord) collapsed and the shooting war followed. When attempts like the Aburi Accord failed, Ojukwu regarded it as both a failure by Gowon to keep to the spirit of the agreement, and lack of integrity on the side of Nigeria military government in the negotiations toward a united Nigeria.”

The book by Ambassador Raph Uwechue on the war recounted that the real reason Biafra through Ojukwu felt it should act to protect itself was Gowon’s indifference and silence in the face of the killing of tens of thousands of easterners. While the eastern Nigeria government doled out £1m for the rehabilitation of the army of about two million refugees flowing down from the North after the pogrom Gowon dropped mere paltry £300,000 pounds which he said meant about two shillings and some few pens for each refugee. “At a time the council of Obas of the West were sympathetic of the carnage, Gowon in his silence endorsed the act. Self -defence was the only thing left for the East, and therefore the declaration of a state where its people would be safe since the federal government approved of their massacre.”

War ensues
On July 6, 1967, the war proper started. It commenced with what Gowon had called police action. But it later took a serious dimension when blockades were introduced and full military troops moved into the East from the North. “Biafra had no alternative but to find a way to defend itself from the advancing federal troops. That involved setting up an army in a hurry”, as another account, recalled which went to war to defend the territory. “By the time the Biafran troops pushed far into the West region few months into hostilities, Gowon realized that he had to do something pretty fast. At this time, he employed full and brute force of indiscriminate blockade and bombing of civilian territories after the consent of Russia and Britain supplied it airplanes to bomb Biafran territories”.
What happened in the 30 months of the war is not a story for a volume of a book.

It would come in volumes. And about over 50 accounts in books and on the internet contacted have varying details of callous and savage butchering of civilians, the seizure and freezing of accounts, raiding of towns to massacre civilians, assembling of natives for random shooting, starving of children to death and many other gory details. In piecemeal, Nigeria kept dropping and shrinking the expanse of Biafra until about Christmas of 1969 when it became so glaring that Biafra had lost the struggle. On January 10, 1970, Ojukwu, the Biafran leader escaped with his family members to Ivory Coast while three days after, the war was declared ended. It was on January 15 that Maj. Gen, Phillip Effiong handed over the documents of surrender to Nigeria.

Bestiality
On October 7, 1967, the federal troops had captured the heart of the Biafra territory through Murtala Mohammed, the same man who headed the cleansing of the Nigeria Army of Igbo officers three months earlier in Abeokuta and Lagos. He saw himself in Asaba, an Igbo territory across the Niger. There he committed what chroniclers called “class atrocity against mankind.” His acts there would only equal the bestial horror Pol Pot of Cambodia staged against his people as head of government. All the reports of the Asaba genocide say Mohammed had summoned Asaba natives to the town square by threat and hook and separated the women from men.

While one account say Mohammed lowered his target to boys of six years, another said it was 10 years age limit. But the agreement in all accounts was that in a swift, he had ordered his soldiers to shoot and kill 500 Asaba natives in less than one hour. As if that was not enough, he proceeded to Onitsha with the same men and killed 300 worshippers in an Apostolic Church.

During the sitting of the Justice Chukwudifu Oputa Commission of Human Rights Violations in 2001, it was reported that in Abuja, the then head of State Gen. Gowon apologized for the atrocities committed during the war, including the Asaba Massacre.

But in the same commission, General Officer Commanding (GOC) Two Division of the Army during the civil war, Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Haruna said that he had no regret for the Asaba massacre in which over 500 Igbo men were killed by his troops. Haruna’s statement was on October 10.
Wikipedia documents also noted that whereas the Nigeria side suffered a casualty of 200,000 soldiers and civilians, Biafra lost one million lives (among whom are civilians mostly and soldiers) But there are other sources that hold the Biafran territory lost not less than 2.5m lives in all.

After the war
When the war was called off, the Federal Government of Nigeria declared that there was no victor and no vanquished. The statement was meant to persuade the parties to come together back as a nation and forge ahead.
According to Mr. Ernie Onwumere who Saturday Sun spoke with, the statement was more of rhetoric than any meaningful pronouncement from a government meant to re-unite a war torn nation and bandage the wounds. “After the statement, I don’t think any Nigerian that values the truth can say for certain that there were decisive steps to go beyond the words in mending fences.

“What brought Nigeria into coup and counter coup was the gross abuse of office by public office holders. We fought a bloody war, returned to sanity, yet the evil that drove us into killing each other has worsened. The government gets worse everyday and provocations still abound that may still lead to war but for caution and the lingering bad memory of the events of 44 to 40 years ago. I don’t think Nigeria gained from that war otherwise we would have been a different nation that respects the rights and dignity of citizens and value our unity. So, I can say the 40 years post-civil war are years of provocation and reminders that the nation has no plans to move forward to development.”

How We Saw Civil War As Kids

2010-02-19T20:32:00.000-08:00

By Ikenna Emewu, Sun News Online

The class of Biafrans affected most by the brutish war was the children. “The children lived at the mercy of the federal soldiers who defied the rules of warfare to drop bombs in refugee camps, markets and other places where the civilians and children hid”, a source told Saturday Sun.
In one of such occasions, Red Cross accounts of the war noted that its airplane conveying relief materials to the civilians in Biafra was shot down by the Nigerian troops who had proclaimed that the territory be shut out from supply of basic necessities as part of the warfare.

Saturday Sun, therefore, spoke with Nigerians who were children during the war to find out what their young memories registered of what they went through in the three-year hostility 40 years after the civil war.

Maggots lived inside children’s bodies
-Ernie Onwumere, advert consultant
As a child during the civil war, we were raised up in a very horrible condition. The memory I have of the war is that of hunger and unending starvation. There were endless horrifying lonely long nights, the agonizing cries of pains, and a period there was no hope for tomorrow. A period we waited for death that usually came without notice, we lived in absolute fear.

I still remember the civil war sad memories as if it were yesterday. Our frequent run for cover from the enemy plane that rained bombs still sticks. The long painful trek carrying our loads on the head is part of the indelible imprints on my young mind that has now grown old. The unending queues to receive our meagre refugees relief from the Red Cross, the family roll calls to distribute essential commodities were the agonies we bore.

But the most threatening was our poor personal hygiene. We could go on week after week without bath or change of clothes. This resulted in live maggots (jiga) being extracted with pin from our toes making our long trek more painful and slow. I have also not forgotten the joy and hope the aroma and sight of corn meal, dry egg powder and garri Gabon brought us. They were distributed by the Red Cross. The death toll at the refugee camps as a result of kwashiorkor was high and an evil we cohabited with.

Although we were of school age, we could not go to school because we lost all we had during the war. When the war ended my parents had no money to send me to school until two years later in 1972.
What worsened the situation was the new military government’s education policy that took over the mission and private schools throughout East Central State. That forcible acquisition of school affected school enrollment after the civil war. And much later the standard of education in the region was badly shattered.

The late Dr. Alvan Ikoku established a private secondary school in my hometown, Arochukwu in 1932, and the elders told us that food items were accepted in exchange for school fees while scholarships were offered to indigent students. But after the war, there was nothing like that anywhere. I still hang on my sitting room my enlarged photo after the war showing me dressed without shoes. The picture is a reminder of how bad the family economy was after the war.

We never recovered from that ravage. My family relocated from Enugu, the capital city to Abakaliki then a division headquarters to enable us to get closer to our relations who provided us food from the hinterland.
I remember the long bicycle journeys my mother made every Eke market day from Onueke Ezza to Abakaliki to provide us food.

Because of the war, our village lost educated men who were trained through the community central purse with the hope that they will in turn train others Majority of those of school age dropped out and took up menial jobs in a bid to earn a living. The Igbo and my people in Arochukwu as part of that carnage are yet to recover from the psychological torture of the war. The confidence of our men was eroded.

We saw our young ladies taken away into forced marriages. Soldiers raided communities and took away young girls, raping and maiming them. There was a particular niece of mine who was forcibly taken that way that we found two years ago in Badagry already married and has children. The family lost her and would never recover her as part of us. That was too bad.

We faced the most dehumanizing experience that cannot be imagined.
My uncle, who was a contemporary of Gen. Gowon, was arrested at a checkpoint in February 1971 long after the war at Akokwa by soldiers and was detained with all members of his family. He was severally tortured; today he still carries the mark of that battery 40 years after on his back. The Nigerian soldiers stole his car but for the intervention of the Catholic Church, he would have been executed.

Apart form his mention in series of accounts of the civil war; he has refused to document the horrible experience of that genocide against Nd’Igbo. How can you explain the bombing of Awgu and Ozu-Abam markets on a market day? Bombs rained on innocent civilians who were defenceless and unarmed. The communities are yet to recover from these tortures because the survivors are still alive carrying with them the pains of those incidents. The problem that led to the crisis has not been resolved.

The reason for the January 15, 1966 coup was corruption of the political class a post-independent Nigeria considered intolerable. Unfortunately it was tagged ‘Igbo coup’ but honest Nigerians can testify that the main reason was to eliminate corruption. Regrettably 40 years after we fought a war that had it roots on corruption, Nigeria seems to relish in corruption, political and military office holders milk the country dry, people now seek political office to enrich themselves. The private sector is even worse.

The recent revelations in the banking sector have shown how corrupt the system is. How can you explain that two former executive of the affected banks who were perceived as born again Christians could be deeply involved in reckless acquisition of wealth while clutching the Bible.

There is no rule of law in Nigeria, Yar’Adua started with the right solution but ended up disobeying the rule of law. A typical example is the public offer executed by the defunct All States Trust Bank Plc between Monday August 5, 2005 and September 5, 2005. During this time they raised over N18 billion from the Nigerian public. That money was not refunded or accounted for when Central Bank sold the bank to Ecobank. The promoters of that public offer fraud were rewarded with national honours and ministerial appointments. The parties to that act, FBN Merchant Bank now collapsed into First Bank and others are all growing fatter and stronger.
Forty years after the civil war, we are yet to learn our lessons.

I started primary school at 10 because of the war
– Sunny Ugwuocha, petroleum engineer
Prince Sunny Ugwuocha, today a petroleum engineer and principal partner of Flow Precision Limited was a little boy when the war broke out. But he could accurately remember how biting it was to survive those days.
The family lived in Abakaliki where he was born. But when the war started, the family ran back to their town, Edda. He recalled that his parents thought it was a case of a trouble that would start and end in the townships, reason they ran to the rural area. But they were wrong because the war lingered until no place was spared even his village.

“When the soldiers took over my town, we ran from Nguzu to nearby places to live in the bush. I particularly remember some incidents like the day we prepared soup with all manner of condiments only to wake up the following morning to discover that ants have filled the pot. Not minding the heavy cluster of the large insects, the family had no alternative but to eat the food that way. If we didn’t eat it, where would we get an alternative?
“Another remarkable incident that remains green in me was that particular night when my parents spread mat for us to sleep only to notice after lying down that something was moving under it. When the mat was raised, there was a big snake under and my father had to kill it before we could sleep.

“In another rainy night, my immediate younger sister got lost in the crowded bush camp. It took hours before she could be located huddled up near a fire some families far away from us made. She was terribly shivering in the cold and nearly died. When the war came to an end, my father had to relocate to Aba where he started a new life, and he told me that most of the journey then was on foot because there were no vehicles spared. Later he came to take us to Aba where we lived for sometime before the family moved to Lagos.

The effects of the war on my siblings and I were the retardation of our education, the hunger, the lack of medication that resulted in deaths, the denials and nakedness because there were no clothes. In fact, all the children looked dirty and seriously malnourished. We later grew to discover that some of our parents’ family members were killed during the war”.

As regards any difference in the system since the war ended, Ugwuocha says there is none. “The history books and what older people told us is that injustice gave rise to the conditions that preceded the war. And I can say like all Nigerians know that they are still here with us. There were killings of the easterners in the North before the war, and it still continues including the present one in Jos.

“The Igbo who were the major victims still suffer setbacks today like then in the Nigerian system. When all the geo-political regions in Nigeria have at least six states, the South East still has five, and that goes down to the number of LGAs and representatives at all levels”.

Lizards, grasshoppers were our choice delicacies
-Prince Gabriel Osunwa, businessman
Gabriel was a little boy and most of what he knew happened during the war were got from stories older people told him. But there are still memories that stick to his then young brain. His entire family lived in Lagos where he was born. At the break of war, there was fear and apprehension everywhere to the extent that people from the east resident in Lagos were not safe or at ease.

He told Saturday Sun that the tension got so bad that his father who lived under threat by the host community in Surulere had to flee to the East inside a petrol tanker. When he got to Asaba, he had counted himself dead but for providence that spared him amid the stench of petrol although the tank was empty. But the major threat to his life was when Nigerian soldiers wanted to shoot him at Asaba. He managed to cross over to Onitsha and later enrolled in the Biafran army.

“The day our father came home in the company of other soldiers, we could not believe it because we had counted him dead as we never heard from him until that day. He just paid us a brief visit and left again in their Land Rover”.
But there are other incidents of suffering Osunwa remembers like the lizard and grasshopper delicacies. “Because there was no meat anywhere, our people fed on lizards. Any day lizards are caught it will be great celebration. The tummy will be torn open and the body roasted and prepared for soup. Grasshopper was also very popular as meat and maybe source of protein.

I can’t forget the sight of children hit by kwashiorkor that had distended tummies and emaciated and bony frame. Many children of my age I can recall died of kwashiorkor. There was this particular girl who we would stab her fat tummy with our fingers and make joke of her. But I am happy that she survived and is today a well-to-do woman in USA. Whenever she visits Nigeria, I still jokingly remind her of her protruding tummy standing out of her shriveled and malnourished frame. Today, we laugh about it because she has really made well.

“After the war I remember also when the Red Cross used to come to our village in Okwudor, Imo State, to distribute relief materials – food, wears, drugs,º etc free. The food were mainly corn meal, milk powder and rice.
When I enrolled in school after the war, we had so many old people – far older than some us in the same class. These people were stopped from going to school on time by the war.

There were some who even were in the same class after fighting as Biafran soldiers. One had what was popularly called artillery. That means he suffered hearing impairment from the deafening sound of artillery firing. “In the class, he would be shouting and screaming to communicate.

There were signs of the war all over town and it was a serious devastation to our people. Sometimes after reading the accounts in books in addition to the little I saw as a child, I shake my head and recall that the war took the Igbo backwards by generations. My father also told me that bank accounts of Biafrans were frozen by the Nigerian government after the war. Many were stopped from going to school, and many who had got education before the war were killed.

Some two years after the war ended, we came back to Lagos to find out that the house my father had built to lintel level in Surulere had been taken over by someone else and we had to make do with renting an apartment afresh to start life anew”.

My grandfather lost his property in PH, Chimerizirm Nkwocha, calibration engineer
I cannot tell much about the war as witness. It was during the peak of the war that I was born, so I can’t say exactly what I witnessed. And moreover, after the war, since my parents had left Port Harcourt where we lived, we relocated to Onitsha and lived there all through my school days.

I heard my parents say that the destabilization was so much that I cried all the time as a baby because parents were not settled to properly take care of the children and families were always on the run living in bushes.
But today, as I compare Nigeria with what I read that caused the war, nothing has actually changed. The divisions and lack of common front to fight social injustice still prevail.

Today, the nation is full of various problems including the Niger Delta issue and when these people complain, those that fought for Biafra feel like telling others this is what we saw over forty years ago and wanted a way out of it. We have not outgrown sectarian violence in the north, which keeps coming every now and then.

A nation that should have matured to real development still pervasively applies the quota system discriminatingly to favour some and deny others of what they should have. It is not fair that we have not grown above the stage we saw ourselves years before the war.

In the West, my family hid in bush,
Sola Balogun, journalist
Contrary to the general perception that places outside the South East region watched it all from a far safe distance, some place in the South West were shaken by the vibrations of the war as a child in present Osun State recalls what his family went through.

“I can remember vividly what my mother told me about how she and my father coped in the dark days of the Nigerian civil war. The period was around 1967 – late in the year – when I was barely two years old. Then my parents lived in Iwo, Osun State but most times, they always shuttled between Iwo and Ogburo, my father’s hometown where my paternal grandmother was resident.

Then they used to run to the bush whenever the noise of bombs or strange gunshots was heard. My mother said my grandmother would drag her to the bush close to Oba River, hide her together with me for days while my father would have gone to fend for the family. My mother would join my grandmother who always stored food, cooking materials and fruits in her luggage whenever they needed to run to the bush to seek refuge.

In short, the civil war period was a time of fear, endless fear that soon translated into disparity and displacement. My parents were then always on the run and as a child, I also shared most of the bitter experience. My mother also remembered that on one occasion, when I was little above 18 months old, they tried hard to procure drugs for me but couldn’t for fear of running into soldiers who were then on the prowl. The atmosphere then was scary, and going to the township area (Iwo or Ibadan) was nightmare.

My mother, father, grandmother and my cousins suffered. They recounted stories of how they were moving from one place to the other in search of safety. None of them was bold enough to run to the city as news of killings and spurious physical attacks were rife.

I was, however, only a child during the period as I only learnt of the war when I was a bit older. It was really an agonizing period for the nuclear and extended family and I only wonder why at such period, the war, which we heard broke in the eastern part of the country could spread to the western part where we lived”.

Federal troops had no regard for lives of children, James Imoh, teacher
James Imoh is from present Akwa Ibom State and recounts that the exodus of his family from Calabar to Etinan never made any difference in the impact they felt. “We made the journey on foot,” he lamented. “We walked for days, stopping to rest at nightfall and continuing early the following morning. And worst of all, it was not a straight journey but one in which we intermittently ran into the bush and used bush paths so often to avoid running into federal soldiers. My little sister who was about two years old was carried on my father’s shoulders.

Because the five children who were not yet grown had to be considered, it meant most of our household belonging in Calabar were left behind. My father lamented the loss of his life earning in Calabar till he died.

They included his business and his other properties. When Calabar fell into the hands of the enemies, everybody in town left for hiding. But we saw the real war when at a point we had to leave Etinan after the enemies took Uyo and Aba.
Life was really unbearable, and we had to make do with all manner of things as food for the family. There was no trading or farming and we were told later that the Federal Government had also blocked the Biafra area from all food supply and it was a standstill as children died in dozens of diseases and hunger. It is painful to recall that the war was a wicked and painful one where the federal government had no value for the lives of even the children in Biafra.

Everyone was a target of annihilation and I have not heard of another war after that that was so callously prosecuted. After the Nazi Holocaust, nothing that inhuman ever happened to mankind. And sad enough, the people that did all these still dominate Nigeria and don’t seem to be remorseful”.

If what happened in the Biafra hostility shocks Imoh, he is bewildered by the reality that not much has actually changed in the system even today, forty years after the war.

“The Niger Delta agitation is still an ugly sign of our lack of ability to learn from history and change. The problem of denying some people their rights and the intimidation of others by the privileged that think it is their right to subvert justice still live with us. The political ills we read made the soldiers strike in January 1966 has remained the same and the killings in the north is still on even as we mark the 40 years of post civil war. It looks like this country is doomed to fail and we have not told ourselves the truth of how we want to live together if we should”.

Igbo, non-Igbo relive civil war experiences

2010-01-29T16:36:00.000-08:00

By Ikenna Emewu, Sun News Online

How minutes fly into hours and days and later years is amazing. Many who saw and took part in the internecine and sanguinary war that tore the nation in shreds and still leaves its scars in the minds of a particular part of the country feel amazed that it is already 40 years since it wound to close.
Children born immediately after the war are already parents and have advanced into great minds and characters. But as the years add, the pains of the war fade because time is a healing balm.

Saturday Sun reasoned that 40 years is like a landmark on the war taking cognizance of the impacts it made in the history of the nation. From our interview sources, the history of Nigeria so far is one pivoted on that war of 30 months that cost the nation about two million lives and inflicted on its psyche an enduring gorge that has remained a borderline of disintegration of forces that should have united into a strong nation.

A participant on the Biafran side said: “A sharp knife was put at the middle of the nation’s heart. The wound remains unhealed, but it has been covered by flesh over time giving the impression that it is no longer there. Every now and then, the sharp pains still remind the owner of the heart that the wound is still open and hurting. I feel for myself that I might not see the healing of the wound, which I witnessed its infliction. I participated in it. We saw extermination gazing us in the face and as human beings all we had left was to fight as means of survival. That we did and gallantly. I still remain proud that it was better and wiser we fought than fold our arms and watch the unrelenting mad crowd of killers reduce our number everyday because they were unrepentant.”

There are thousands of the accounts of the war in every research step one takes. The books on our shelves, the sites on the World Wide Web (www) all narrate the war – causes, course and end. Regarding the prosecution and the methods applied, there could be variants according to the angle the narrator is coming from. But on the cause, the accounts agree that the January 15, 1966 coup brewed bad blood. That the July 1966 counter coup was worse and fallout of the earlier disturbances.

The earlier coup received ethnic coloration because of the pattern of killing. Most of the victims came from a part of the nation, while a part had no major victims. That the reprisal attack and decimation of soldiers of eastern Nigeria extraction by northern soldiers which started in Abeokuta on July 28, 1966 and culminated in another mass killing in Ikeja and later Kaduna the following day made the January coup a mere appetizer. While 15 persons were killed in January including the Prime Minister, Tafawa Balewa and Premier of Northern Region, Sir Ahmade Bello, 214 soldiers of South Eastern Nigeria fell to the firepower of the northern soldiers between July 28 and 29 in Abeokuta, Ikeja, Ibadan and Kaduna.

Of much interest in the January 15 coup is the role of Major Chukwuma Patrick Kaduna Nzeogwu who was reputed to be the leader of the five or nine majors that played the central role. The interest in Nzeogwu is the fact that he was an Igbo like most of the other majors. An account to disabuse the mind of history on the ethnic bias and dominance of the Igbo in the team said: “Igbo were the majority in the top ranks of the army then. So, it was not abnormal that the coupists were mainly Igbo soldiers.”

Although Nzeogwu was of Igbo parents, he was born and bred in Kaduna and hence his name ‘Kaduna’.
Max Siollun account from www.kwenu.com partly drawn from Frederick Forsyth book noted: “Some claim that Nzeogwu’s participation in the January 1966 coup was part of a grand Igbo agenda to “dominate” the country. This argument overlooks the fact that Nzeogwu was an Igbo in name only. Nzeogwu was born in the Northern Region’s capital of Kaduna to Igbo immigrant parents from the Mid-West Region. Such was his family’s affinity to the city of Nzeogwu’s birth that they and his military colleagues called him “Kaduna.” When not in his army uniform he wore northern mufti and frequently referred to himself as “a northerner. Nzeogwu spoke fluent Hausa “like a native”. In fact, his command of Hausa was better than his command of Igbo.”

Prior to days of blood
It was just two months after that raid in the army that led to the death of the Head of State Maj. Gen. JTU Aguiyi-Ironsi and the military governor of Western Nigeria, Col. Adekunle Fajuyi that the North staged the main blood cuddling massacre. If they felt pained about the assassination of their two prominent leaders in January, which was understandable, they also felt the killing of Ironsi, also a big shot from the East and over 200 others were not enough to assuage the feelings of revenge. They capped their vengeance with the mass genocide of close to 50,000 eastern civilians in the North between September and October 1966.
The killing, according to accounts, made over two million easterners residents in the North refugees. It was horrible reading historians who documented how headless bodies kept flowing down South from the North.

Pogrom
A wikipedia record noted that after the success of the counter coup that had 214 South East victims, the North had scored a vital point and had the feeling that they could go on with more killings at a time a man form their region was in charge, Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon. The resultant effect was the massacre of the Igbo in two months. The casualty list is put between 30,000 and 50,000.

“In the aftermath of the counter coup, there were pogroms in the North where soldiers, officers and civilians were killed. It was estimated that more than 30,000 out of the 13 million people of Igbo ethnic origin lost their lives. This led to a large influx of refugees from the North, about 1.8 million heading to the south east.
Several peace accords especially the one held at Aburi, Ghana (the Aburi Accord) collapsed and the shooting war followed. When attempts like the Aburi Accord failed, Ojukwu regarded it as both a failure by Gowon to keep to the spirit of the agreement, and lack of integrity on the side of Nigeria military government in the negotiations toward a united Nigeria.”

The book by Ambassador Raph Uwechue on the war recounted that the real reason Biafra through Ojukwu felt it should act to protect itself was Gowon’s indifference and silence in the face of the killing of tens of thousands of easterners. While the eastern Nigeria government doled out £1m for the rehabilitation of the army of about two million refugees flowing down from the North after the pogrom Gowon dropped mere paltry £300,000 pounds which he said meant about two shillings and some few pens for each refugee. “At a time the council of Obas of the West were sympathetic of the carnage, Gowon in his silence endorsed the act. Self -defence was the only thing left for the East, and therefore the declaration of a state where its people would be safe since the federal government approved of their massacre.”

War ensues
On July 6, 1967, the war proper started. It commenced with what Gowon had called police action. But it later took a serious dimension when blockades were introduced and full military troops moved into the East from the North. “Biafra had no alternative but to find a way to defend itself from the advancing federal troops. That involved setting up an army in a hurry”, as another account, recalled which went to war to defend the territory. “By the time the Biafran troops pushed far into the West region few months into hostilities, Gowon realized that he had to do something pretty fast. At this time, he employed full and brute force of indiscriminate blockade and bombing of civilian territories after the consent of Russia and Britain supplied it airplanes to bomb Biafran territories”.
What happened in the 30 months of the war is not a story for a volume of a book.

It would come in volumes. And about over 50 accounts in books and on the internet contacted have varying details of callous and savage butchering of civilians, the seizure and freezing of accounts, raiding of towns to massacre civilians, assembling of natives for random shooting, starving of children to death and many other gory details. In piecemeal, Nigeria kept dropping and shrinking the expanse of Biafra until about Christmas of 1969 when it became so glaring that Biafra had lost the struggle. On January 10, 1970, Ojukwu, the Biafran leader escaped with his family members to Ivory Coast while three days after, the war was declared ended. It was on January 15 that Maj. Gen, Phillip Effiong handed over the documents of surrender to Nigeria.

Bestiality
On October 7, 1967, the federal troops had captured the heart of the Biafra territory through Murtala Mohammed, the same man who headed the cleansing of the Nigeria Army of Igbo officers three months earlier in Abeokuta and Lagos. He saw himself in Asaba, an Igbo territory across the Niger. There he committed what chroniclers called “class atrocity against mankind.” His acts there would only equal the bestial horror Pol Pot of Cambodia staged against his people as head of government. All the reports of the Asaba genocide say Mohammed had summoned Asaba natives to the town square by threat and hook and separated the women from men.

While one account say Mohammed lowered his target to boys of six years, another said it was 10 years age limit. But the agreement in all accounts was that in a swift, he had ordered his soldiers to shoot and kill 500 Asaba natives in less than one hour. As if that was not enough, he proceeded to Onitsha with the same men and killed 300 worshippers in an Apostolic Church.

During the sitting of the Justice Chukwudifu Oputa Commission of Human Rights Violations in 2001, it was reported that in Abuja, the then head of State Gen. Gowon apologized for the atrocities committed during the war, including the Asaba Massacre.

But in the same commission, General Officer Commanding (GOC) Two Division of the Army during the civil war, Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Haruna said that he had no regret for the Asaba massacre in which over 500 Igbo men were killed by his troops. Haruna’s statement was on October 10.
Wikipedia documents also noted that whereas the Nigeria side suffered a casualty of 200,000 soldiers and civilians, Biafra lost one million lives (among whom are civilians mostly and soldiers) But there are other sources that hold the Biafran territory lost not less than 2.5m lives in all.

When the war was called off, the Federal Government of Nigeria declared that there was no victor and no vanquished. The statement was meant to persuade the parties to come together back as a nation and forge ahead.
According to Mr. Ernie Onwumere who Saturday Sun spoke with, the statement was more of rhetoric than any meaningful pronouncement from a government meant to re-unite a war torn nation and bandage the wounds. “After the statement, I don’t think any Nigerian that values the truth can say for certain that there were decisive steps to go beyond the words in mending fences.

“What brought Nigeria into coup and counter coup was the gross abuse of office by public office holders. We fought a bloody war, returned to sanity, yet the evil that drove us into killing each other has worsened. The government gets worse everyday and provocations still abound that may still lead to war but for caution and the lingering bad memory of the events of 44 to 40 years ago. I don’t think Nigeria gained from that war otherwise we would have been a different nation that respects the rights and dignity of citizens and value our unity. So, I can say the 40 years post-civil war are years of provocation and reminders that the nation has no plans to move forward to development.”

Haiti’s tragedy, Biafran memories

2010-01-19T18:52:00.000-08:00

By Okey Ndibe, Sun News Online

Exactly a week ago, Haiti was struck by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake that reduced much of that misfortunate nation to a colossal ruin. The quake’s epicenter was a mere 16 miles offshore on the western side of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s heavily populated capital.

Earthquakes are hardly ever innocuous; but this one was particularly catastrophic. Its proximity to the capital – home to more than three million people – proved disastrous. As I write, Haitian authorities were estimating that 140,000 had perished from the devastating quake. That toll is, as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rightly stated, is of biblical proportions. The prognosis is even more dreadful. Some experts predict that many of the tens of thousands officially listed as missing, as well as many of the critically wounded, will explode the casualty figures.

To see the horror of Haiti is to come to terms to a modern-day apocalypse. For me, it was especially harrowing to look at images of children and the elderly with mangled limbs, gashed heads and swollen faces.

When a natural tragedy strikes on this scale, it’s almost as if the living, in their forlorn despair, begrudge the dead the joys of a grave. Except that most of the Haitian dead were not buried, but abandoned on the streets. I was brought to tears when television cameras panned streets strewn with decomposing bodies. Nigerians have fashioned a unique obituary style where each deceased person is “called to heavenly glory.” Glory was not a word that came to mind when one saw the cadavers that littered the streets of Port-au-Prince.

And yet, Haitians, who in 1804 became the first black-run nation ever to achieve independence, have a lot of glory in their past. Two figures from their revolutionary history, Toussaint l’Ouverture and Jean Jacques Dessalines, are venerable heroes not only for Haitians but also for all people of African descent. These two warriors took on and ultimately vanquished the better-armed forces of Napoleonic France. Though Toussaint was tricked by the French, captured, and transported to France where he died in 1803, his collaborator, Jacque Dessalines, lived to become Haiti’s first leader.

Thanks in large part to meddling by France and, more recently, the US, Haiti has fallen short of its revolutionary aspirations. The American media habitually announce, with something approaching glee, that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. Haitians are a much-beleaguered people. Eighty percent of the populace lives on less than $2 a day. In recent times, the island nation has been buffeted by hurricanes and widespread hunger that forced desperate people to eat mud.
That specter will become worse in the aftermath of the earthquake. About ten percent of the homes in Port-au-Prince, a hilly city with wide swathes of ghettoes, were destroyed by the quake and its aftershocks. That means that more than 300,000 inhabitants face the grim certainty of prolonged homelessness in a city whose infrastructure, rudimentary to begin with, is now decimated.

It’s in the nature of natural disasters to be blind in their fury and destruction. This earthquake did not discriminate between rich and poor, old and young, the powerful and the feeble. It shook the Presidential palace to its foundations and leveled the Parliament. The offices of the United Nations were wrecked, more than twenty members of the organization’s staff were confirmed dead, and (at the time of this writing) scores more were still trapped in a pile of rubble. Hotels, churches, and hospitals were also laid to ruin.

With a calamity that touched every sector, the task of providing medical care to the legions of the wounded and getting food to the displaced, drifting masses was bound to be difficult. Even though the US, China, Canada and a plethora of relief agencies responded quickly with shipment of food, water and medicines, Haiti’s battered roads frustrated efforts to immediately reach the victims of the earthquake. Four days after the quake, the vast majority of Haitians were yet to receive succor. Doubtless, many of the dead would have survived had help got to them sooner.

A tragic occurrence like an earthquake offers a measure both of our human fickleness and vulnerability as well as our heroism, staying power, and resilience. The Haitian people, great in the past, will – there’s no question – find a way to rise from their current nightmare.

The earthquake is an opportunity for other peoples and nations to demonstrate the depth of their fellow feeling and generosity – and to offer a hand to their besieged Haitian brethren. Many nations and individuals rose, admirably, to the challenge.

Sadly, to one’s profound shame, the Nigerian government failed to stir much less show continental leadership in the face of Haiti’s peril. Nigeria’s invisibility during the darkest time for the people of Haiti betrays a monumental lack of a sense of history among those running (that is to say, more aptly, ruining) the country.
Last week, author Chinua Achebe issued a statement that must have been a veiled rebuke as well as a cry from the heart. He pleaded with Nigeria and South Africa “to more vigorously join the international community – particularly the remarkable and admirable example of the United States and the European Union – and provide much needed funds and other forms of aid to the people of Haiti for disaster relief.”

Achebe’s plea has a particular resonance at this time, the 40th anniversary of the formal end of the Biafran war. In a move that did great credit to its revolutionary credentials, Haiti became the first nation in the world to recognize the legitimacy of the Biafran cause – and to extend diplomatic recognition to the embattled Biafrans.

In a letter that eloquently outlined the reasons for Haiti’s identification with Biafra, then President Dr. Francois Duvalier described Igbos as “descendants of those men who contributed to the founding of the Haitian homeland.” He then asserted that “Biafra fulfils the essential conditions to constitute a nation, namely: a material element, the territory and more especially, a human element: the population. The said human element is united by race, religion, language, history, a set of laws. It is, furthermore, consolidated by the moral unity and the common will of Biafrans to group themselves under one banner.”

With the Nigerian idea in disarray, that Haitian position strikes one today as highly discerned. A Nigerian that doesn’t respond to the travail of the Haitian people is a construct of fundamental questioning.

Biafra War anniversary highlights Nigeria’s uncertain future

2010-01-15T11:34:00.000-08:00

Biafra was the scene of one of Africa's bloodiest wars.

By Chimponda Chimbelu; edited by Rob Mudge, DW World

"Biafra" was the taunt German children used for skinny kids in the late 60s - the term was synonymous with starvation. It is now 40 years since the end of the Biafra war, and Nigeria's future still hangs in the balance."

The 60s were an exciting time for Africa as Ghana, Kenya, Cameroon, Tanzania, Nigeria and many other newly independent countries looked forward to self-determination. This soon changed for the most populous country, which went to war in 1967, when the southeastern province of Biafra declared independence from Nigeria.

The southeast, inhabited by members of the Igbo tribe, was the most densely populated region of Nigeria, so the Igbos were "the biggest diaspora of any group in Nigeria and had migrated to every crack and nook of Nigeria," Dr. Johannes Harnischfeger, author of "Democratization and Islamic Law: the Sharia conflict in Nigeria," told Deutsche Welle. Biafra's declaration of independence led to backlashes against Igbos in the rest of the country. This in turn triggered reprisals against other ethnic groups in Biafra.

During the war, the Nigerian federal government had the support of Great Britain and the Soviet Union while Biafra was only recognized by four African countries, the Vatican, and the World of Council of Churches. Leading expert on Nigeria, Dr. Axel Harneit-Sievers, told Deutsche Welle that "the US and Germany's neutral stance was a de facto support for the Nigerian federal government given the military and humanitarian situation."

At one point in the war, Nigeria did not allow any humanitarian aid into Biafra. Later, medical aid was allowed into the region, but food was not. The Biafra War ended on January 15 1970, leaving over one million people dead.

Religion and ethnicity in post-Biafra War Nigeria

After the war, Nigeria was divided into 36 states to try and minimize ethnic tension. However, any attempt to separate religion and ethnicity in Nigeria is fraught with problems. So even though the country experienced a wave of optimism and rapid development as a result of the 70s oil boom, many Igbos were still bitter.

According to Harneit-Sievers, "ethnic competition plays a bigger role than religion on the national level. None of the three large ethnic groups (Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo) has more than 30 percent of the overall population, so it is always necessary for someone who wants to become president of Nigeria to forge regional ethnic coalitions to get support." In May 1999, the Yoruba military leader Olusegun Obasanjo was elected president in part because he was able to get 70 percent of Igbo support.

According to Harnischfeger, the Igbos who had focused on democracy were soon disappointed with the government because they were underrepresented. As a result, the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) was founded in September 1999. A good number of Igbos are sympathetic to MASSOB, and the party has a lot of support from the young who did not experience the war.
The growing support of MASSOB among the Igbo youth illustrates how they feel disenfranchised as a result of their ethnicity. However, northerners (mostly Hausa-Fulani) perceive any political differences with the government or the South as religious. Most of them are Muslim and suspicious of the government.

In 2000, the implementation of Sharia Law in Kaduna State led to clashes between Muslims and Christians that left more than 2,000 dead. The 2002 Miss World Pageant also led to clashes between the two religions when journalist Isioma Daniel suggested that the prophet Muhammad would have married one of the competitors in a newspaper article.

Furthermore, events in other countries have an impact on the relationship between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria. Harneit-Sievers said one example was "the publication of the Muslim caricature in a Danish newspaper that also led to protests in Northern Nigeria." He added that such events "may translate into conflict and perhaps even counter attacks against Muslims in the South."

Uncertain times ahead for Nigeria

Today, the bigger issue facing Nigeria is the health of President Umaru Yar'Adua. Both Harnischfeger and Harneit-Sievers agree that this poses a problem. It is hard to say whether the President who was nicknamed "Baba go slow" brought many changes to the country, but he can be credited for the disarmament process in the Niger Delta, said Harneit-Sievers. This program is currently in danger as a result of his health, and the uncertainty surrounding who is actually ruling the country.
The recent protests in Abuja shows that "the criticism is rising and it could end with a situation which would make it necessary to have a new president, which poses its own problems because questions of ethnic balancing, regional background, power sharing, and so on, are involved," Harneit-Sievers said.

The general discontent of the Igbo with the government also makes secession a possibility. Nevertheless, Harnischfeger feels that "it is not an option for the near future though many Igbos are hoping for it." MASSOB has a growing support among the young who believe that a separate state would usher in an era of more opportunities for the oil-rich state. "So, if Nigeria falls apart, then Biafra may become a reality because of Igbo bitterness," he added.

However, Harneit-Sievers disagrees with the possiblity of another Biafra secession and says that the support for MASSOB among young Igbos "reflects the desperation of the youth in Nigeria."

Author: Chiponda Chimbelu

Biafra's Fresh Wounds

2010-01-13T15:48:00.000-08:00

By Tolu Ogunlesi, 234NEXT

Forty years ago today, the Nigerian civil war (also known as the Biafran War) came to an end with the formal acceptance of the Republic of Biafra's surrender documents by Olusegun Obasanjo, then a colonel, on behalf of the Nigerian government.

On the afternoon of the previous day (12 January), Philip Effiong, a general, who took over the leadership of the Biafran Government after Odimegwu Ojukwu, also a general, went into exile in Cote d'Ivoire, had announced that he was pulling his troops out of the war. "I am convinced that the suffering of our people must be brought to an immediate end. Our people are now disillusioned, and those elements of the old government regime who have made negotiations and reconciliation impossible have voluntarily removed themselves from our midst. I have, therefore, instructed an orderly disengagement of troops," Mr. Effiong said.

The war started in July 1967, when the Nigerian government invaded the Republic of Biafra, in a bid to prevent it from carrying out its vow to secede. Mr. Ojukwu, military administrator of Nigeria's Eastern region (which transformed into Biafra) had declared secession on May 30, 1967, in response to the mass killings of Igbos which started in Northern Nigeria in July 1966. By the end of the war, about one million persons, mostly Igbos, were estimated dead.

The war was also characterised by widespread starvation; with the photos of kwashiorkor-stricken children that found their way out of Biafra eliciting a significant humanitarian reaction from around the world. The founding of the humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) in 1971 by a group of French doctors who had worked in Biafra is believed to have been inspired by the war.

A story of loss

For many persons of Eastern Nigerian origin who lost family and loved ones to the war, the wounds of the war are fresh as ever, forty years on. The novelist Chimamanda Adichie, whose award-winning second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, is set during the war, lost both grandfathers to the war. "It is a personal issue - my father has tears in his eyes when he speaks of losing his father, my mother still cannot speak at length about losing her father in a refugee camp," she recalled in an interview shortly after the novel was published.

Paris-based filmmaker Newton Aduaka recalls that the war made him "a very insecure child." Relocating to Lagos from Eastern Nigeria after the war was like "starting all over again". He also believes that the war is "a very misunderstood story... it [wasn't] about Nigerians against Nigerians, this was a very divisive war from outside of Nigeria, an extension of colonialism; we were pawns within a bigger game that we didn't understand."

The ‘small' against the ‘big'

Finnish political scientist Mai Palmberg saw the war from the outside. She was a young student then, in a region of the world (Scandinavia) with a strong awareness of the conflict, as well as a lot of sympathy for the Biafrans. "[Biafra] was seen as the Christian part (not entirely correctly, but still) of Nigeria; it was the small nation against the big and ruthless one, and those pictures of children with Kwashiorkor moved people deeply. Perhaps it also mattered that both the Soviet Union and UK supported the federal government," she wrote in an email to NEXT.

France was Biafra's biggest Western supporter, providing weaponry and relief supplies. Carl Gustaf von Rosen, the mercenary fighter pilot who gained worldwide fame flying relief supplies into Biafra, as well as leading bombing missions into Nigerian territory, was Swedish. Ms. Palmberg says von Rosen was "treated as a hero" in Scandinavia. And in 1969, a protesting Finnish priest sprayed the word ‘BIAFRA' on the wall of Helsinki's iconic Temppeliaukio Church, during its construction.

A new Biafra?

Forty years on, resentments still exist amongst many Igbos. In a 2008 interview, Ms. Adichie lamented Nigeria's attitude to the war. "You're told that a war happened and nothing else. Igbo people have a sense that we're supposed to pretend nothing happened," she complained.

In recent years the agitation for Biafra has resurfaced, amidst a wave of ethnic nationalist movements that emerged with the dawning of a new democratic dispensation in 1999. Only months after the government of Olusegun Obasanjo came into office, the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) was founded by Igbo lawyer Ralph Uwazuruike.

Mr. Uwazuruike said his sister died in his arms during the war. According to him, his founding of MASSOB was "for the general interest of my people and for the emancipation of Ndi'Igbo from the slavery status in Nigeria." He has also said that President Obasanjo's failure to appoint Igbos into prominent positions in his cabinet in 1999 further inspired the formation of the movement.

On May 22, 2000, in Aba, Abia State, he announced the creation of "new Biafra" and hoisted the Biafran flag. "MASSOB shall commence the establishment of necessary structures that may sustain the sovereignty of the new Biafra State, if after 30 days from today the Federal Government of Nigeria fails to initiate the expected negotiations," he said.

A resilient cause

This position has been echoed over the years, despite a series of government clampdowns. "Biafrans have chosen to stay on our own as an independent sovereign state to ascertain the yearnings and aspirations of over forty million Biafrans," said Uchenna Madu, the MASSOB director of information, in July 2004.

The organisation marked its tenth anniversary last year with a series of civic and religious events. It has often said that its campaign is a non-violent one. During the tenth year anniversary, a senior official was quoted as saying that "kidnappers carry guns while we don't."

MASSOB's sentiments are not peculiar to the movement. Kazeem Badmus, national vice president of the Frederick Fasheun faction of the Oodua People's Congress (easily the Yoruba equivalent of MASSOB) is in full support of the decision of the Igbos to go to war. "They were fighting for their rights," he told NEXT in a telephone chat. "You cannot go to the market to buy power or independence, you have to fight for it."

The rising sun

On January 15 1970, Nigerian Head of State Yakubu Gowon, in his victory speech to the country, declared that, "the so-called Rising Sun of Biafra is set for ever. It will be a great disservice for anyone to continue to use the word Biafra to refer to any part of the East Central State of Nigeria. The tragic chapter of violence is just ended. We are at the dawn of national reconciliation. Once again, we have an opportunity to build a new nation."

Forty years on, there is no consensus on whether that new nation has seen the light of day.

An informed evaluation of the Nigerian Civil War of 1967: A social science case study

2009-12-15T13:20:00.000-08:00

Culled from Nigerian Muse

How do the Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler opportunity and grievance model, and the James Fearon and David Laitin’s civil war hypothesisassess the Nigeria Civil war (Biafra war of secession, 1967 – 1970)? Was the declaration of Biafra’s Independence largely as a result of opportunity or grievance?

Konye Obaji Ori

International Conflicts and Conflict Resolution

Department of International Relations

University of Indianapolis
12/02/09

Like several African nations, Nigeria was carved by the British who neglected the religious, ethnic and lingual differences that existed among the people who are Nigerians today. The country’s boundaries had been defined subjectively to demarcate where the contending claims of the colonial powers collided. Just seven years after independence from Britain in 1960, the eastern region of Nigeria by May 1967 declared itself an independent state called the Republic of Biafra, under the leadership of Lt Colonel Ojukwu in accordance with the wishes of the Igbo people. Upon this declaration, the Nigerian Civil War began; a war between the then eastern region of Nigeria and the rest of Nigeria. All efforts to intervene by eminent Nigerians and well - wishers were futile. The war began in 1967 and ended in 1970, costing over one million military and civilian casualties.

With advanced studies on civil wars today, the question asked here is what were the most relevant factors in the sudden occurrence of this civil war? I answer this question by assessing the Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler’s opportunity and grievance model, and the assessment of James Fearon and David Laitin’s civil war hypothesis in the case of the Nigerian civil war.

Previous researches have not overtly shown whether opportunity factors were more relevant than grievance factors, or vice versa, in the case of the Nigerian civil war. This study through a structured-focused analysis of events that led up to the war, and events during the war, argues that grievances such as ethnic rivalry and ethnic dominance, polarization and regionalism, perceived tribalism and religionism, and perceived income inequality, were the most significant factors that fuelled the Nigerian civil war. Opportunity factors such as weak democracy and state capacity, availability of oil, international recognition and sympathy, finance and the availability of arms were significant in assessing the outcome of the war than there were in assessing the outbreak of the war. This was because the opportunity factors favored the Nigerian side more so than the Biafran side. In conclusion, Biafra’s declaration of independence from Nigeria in 1967 is mostly based on grievance factors.

Literature

Are conflicts caused by ethnic tensions, religious differences, or other social affiliations, or do conflicts begin because it is in the economic best interests of individuals and groups to start them?

According to Collier and Hoeffler (2001), opportunities are more important in explaining conflicts than are motives. A particularly powerful risk factor is dependence upon primary commodity exports. A likely explanation is the scope these activities provide for extortion of natural resources by rebel groups, donations from Diasporas, and subventions from hostile governments.

Hirshleifer (1995, 2001) provides an important refinement on the motive-opportunity dichotomy. He classifies the possible causes of conflict into preferences, opportunities and perceptions. The introduction of perceptions allows for the possibility that both opportunities and grievances might be wrongly perceived. If the perceived opportunity for rebellion is illusory – analogous to the `winners’ curse’ – unprofitability will cause collapse, perhaps before reaching our threshold for civil war. By contrast, when exaggerated grievances trigger rebellion, fighting does not dispel the misperception and indeed may generate genuine grievances (Collier and Hoeffler 2001).

Four general explanations are often advanced to account for group rebellion: state responses and capabilities, diffusion, relative deprivation, and rational actor. One of the most commonly used indicators of relative deprivation is income inequality. The empirical evidence for an inequality effect on internal political conflict is, however, mixed. Studies by Sigelman and Simpson (1977), Muller (1985), Muller and Seligson (1987), Boswell and Dixon (1990), and Schock (1996) report a significant, positive relationship between income inequality and political violence. Hardy (1979) and Weede (1981, 1987), on the other hand, conclude that once a control for the level of economic development is introduced, the relationship between income inequality and political violence vanishes (Collier and Hoeffler 2001).

Rebellion may be explained by atypically severe grievances, such as high inequality, a lack of political rights, or ethnic and religious divisions in society. Alternatively, it might be explained by atypical opportunities for building a rebel organization. Opportunity may be determined by access to finance, such as the scope for extortion of natural resources, donations from a Diaspora population, and donations from hostile governments. Opportunity may also depend upon factors such as military advantage, cost of rebellion, geography: mountains and forests that may be needed to incubate rebellion. Both opportunities and grievances increase with population, a result compatible with both the opportunity and grievance accounts. However, grievances increase with population due to rising heterogeneity. Yet those aspects of heterogeneity that measurable are not associated with an increased risk of conflict (Collier and Hoeffler 2001).

Collier and Hoeffler (2004), researching the factors impacting on civil war onset, have found it useful to distinguish between greed- and grievance related factors. Generally, they find more empirical support for greed-related factors, meaning that greedy rebels start civil wars with a view to realizing political or economic gains when the political structure provides them with an opportunity to do so. The importance of political opportunities was especially highlighted by Fearon and Laitin’s (2003) study on civil war onset, which concentrates on economic, political, and military aspects of state weakness (Gurses, Rost and McLeod 2008).

Under normal circumstances the amalgamation of Nigeria ought to have brought the various peoples together and provided a firm basis for the arduous task of establishing closer cultural, social, religious, and linguistic ties, vital for true unity among the people. There was division, hatred, unhealthy rivalry, and pronounced disparity in development. The Nigerian Civil War was the culmination of an uneasy peace and stability that had plagued the Nation from independence in 1960. This situation had its genesis in the geography, history, culture and demography of Nigeria. The immediate cause of the civil war itself may be identified as the coup and the counter coup of 1966 which altered the political equation and destroyed the fragile trust existing among the major ethnic groups (Atofarati, 1992).

James Fearon and David Laitin’s Civil War Hypothesis

According to Fearon and Laitin (2003), the political and military technology of insurgency will be favored, and thus civil war made more likely:

When potential rebels face or have a newly independent state available, which suddenly loses the coercive backing of the former imperial power and whose military capabilities are new and untested.

When there is political instability at the center, which may indicate disorganization and weakness, there is an opportunity for a separatist or center seeking rebellion.

When a regime mixes democratic with autocratic features; as this is likely to indicate political contestation among competing forces and, in consequence, state incapacity.

When a country’s population is large; it becomes necessary for the center to multiply layers of agents to keep tabs on who is doing what at the local level and, also, increases the number of potential recruits to an insurgency for a given level of income.

When the territorial base separated from the state's center by water or distance- for example, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) from West Pakistan or Angola from Portugal; foreign governments or Diasporas willing to supply weapons, money, or training.

Land that supports the production of high value, low-weight goods such as coca, opium, diamonds, and other contraband, can be used to finance an insurgency.

When the state’s revenues are derived primarily from oil exports.

The next section of this paper will evaluate these postulations and other hypotheses through a layered narration of the events leading to the Nigerian civil war.

The Creation of Nigeria and Ethno-political Split

Nigeria was composed of semi-autonomous Muslim feudal states in the desert north, and Christian and animist kingdoms in the south and east. During the colonial period, the British divided the country into three regions: The north which was dominated by the Hausa-Fulani ethnic group, the west which was dominated by the Yoruba ethnic group, and the east which was dominated by the Igbo ethnic group. The north had slightly more population than the other two regions combined, and on this basis the northern region was allocated a majority of the seats in the Federal Legislature established by the colonial authorities (McCaskie, 1997). The dominant ethnic groups within these three regions sought economic, political, and social dominance in the new Nigeria.

Ethnic Rivalry and Ethnic Dominance (Grievance***)

Measures of a country's ethnic or religious diversity should be associated with a higher risk of civil war (Fearon and Laitin, 2003).

According to Collier and Hoeffler’s grievance model, increased ethnic dominance increases the chances of civil conflict significantly. Prior to 1960, the region that became Nigeria had a population of 60 million people consisting of nearly 300 different ethnic and cultural groups. Of these numerous ethnicities, leaders of the Igbo and Yoruba ethnicities were at the forefront of the fight for independence from Britain. The Igbo’s and Yoruba’s wanted an independent Nigeria to be organized into several small states so that the conservative Northern ethnicities could not dominate the country. Northern leaders, however, fearful that independence would mean political and economic domination by the more educated elites in the South, preferred the perpetuation of British rule (Udofia, 1981).

The growth of nationalism in the society and the subsequent emergence of political parties were based on ethnicity and tribes rather than national interests, and therefore the country had no unifying effect on the people (Atofarati 1992).

Ethnic and religious hatreds are widely perceived as a cause of civil conflict. Although such hatreds cannot be quantified, they can evidently only occur in societies that are multi-ethnic or multi-religious. Intergroup hatreds must be greater in societies that are fractionalized than in those which are homogenous (Collier and Hoeffler 2004).

As a condition for accepting independence, the Northerners demanded that the country continue to be divided into three regions with the north having a clear majority. Igbo and Yoruba leaders, anxious to obtain an independent country at all costs, accepted the Northern demands. A coalition of ethnic-based conservative parties emerged. In 1960, a population of 60 million people from nearly 300 different ethnic and cultural groups, with desires of their own sovereign nations was incorporated into a nation (Udofia, 1981).

Polarization and Regionalism (Grievance ***)

Policies that discriminate in favor of a particular language or religion should raise the risk of civil war onset in states with religious or linguistic minorities (Fearon and Laitin, 2003). The Macpherson's constitution of 1951, created this situation in Nigeria.

After World War II, there was political awareness and upsurge of nationalism in Africa. Political parties were formed on regional and ethnic basis. The outcome of the three political regions created in Nigeria was full scale regionalism. According to Collier and Hoeffler (2004), ethnic polarization, increases the chances of war. The Macpherson's constitution of 1951, established a central legislative council and a central executive council for the country, and a greater measure of autonomy was granted the regions with stronger regional legislatures. All the political leaders who had strong and firm political bases in their regions fought hard for maximum powers for their regions which weakened the center (Atofarati, 1992). There was diffusion instead of fusion of the three units.

The only point on which Nigerian political leaders spoke with one voice was the granting by the British of political independence - and even then they did not agree on the timing. With granting of independence in 1960, all the dirt, swept under the carpet, surfaced. Nigeria was now beset by strings of political problems which stemmed from the lop-sided nature of the political divisions of the country and the type of the existing federal constitution and the spirit in which it operated (Olusegun, 1980).

As hypothesized by Fearon and Laitin (2003), Countries with an ethnic majority and a significant ethnic minority are at greater risk for civil war.

Availability of Oil (Opportunity ***)

Primary commodity exports substantially increase conflict risk. Collier and Hoeffler (2004) have interpreted this as being due to the opportunities such commodities provide for extortion, making rebellion feasible and perhaps even attractive. Auty and Gelb (2001) likewise concludes that ’point resources’ such as minerals, have a particularly strong association with destabilizing social tension, while Murshed (2004) suggests that ‘point resources’ retard democratic and institutional development. Similarly, de Soysa (2002) and Fearon and Laitin (2003) find that a dummy variable for oil exporters makes civil conflict more likely. Lujala (2005) concludes that onshore oil production increases the probability of civil conflict, but that offshore production does not, and Lujala, Gleditsch and Gilmore (2005) suggest that secondary diamonds increase the likelihood of conflict (Aslaksen and Torvik, 2005, 2).

In the case of Nigeria, the discovery of vast oil reserves in the Niger River delta had tempted the Igbo dominated South-Eastern region to annex in order to become economically self-sufficient. Prior to the discovery of oil, Nigeria's wealth derived from agricultural products from the south, and minerals from the north. In general, it seems fair to say that the results from the abundant empirical literature indicate that oil, gemstones, minerals and other ‘loot-able’ resources are connected with civil conflict, but that there appears to be no similar effect of less loot-able (and less valuable) resources such as agricultural land (Aslaksen and Torvik, 2005).

Northern Nigeria, up until around 1965, had had low-level demands to secede from Nigeria and retain its agricultural wealth for Northerners. These demands seemed to cease when it became clear that oil in the southeast would become a major revenue source. This further fuelled Igbo fears that the northerners had plans to strip eastern oil to benefit the North, following the exclusion of easterners from power. With oil now flowing in the Eastern Region, the way was now open for the implementation of the secession (Madiebo, 1980). Civil war chances are high when the state’s revenues are derived primarily from oil exports.

According to Collier and Hoeffler (2000), “the extent of primary commodity exports is the largest single influence on the risk of conflict.” Primary commodities are however associated with other characteristics that may cause civil war, such as poor public service provision, corruption and economic mismanagement (Sachs and Warner, 2000). Potentially, any increase in conflict risk may be due to rebel responses to such poor governance rather than to financial opportunities.

Like it was in Nigeria, natural resources are usually found in only one part of the country, often in a peripheral area. According to Collier (2004), the people who live in this area are ready prey for secessionist political movements. To the usual romantic propaganda of identity politics, secessionist leaders can add the powerful language of economic self-interest: ‘our’ resources are being squandered by corrupt and alien elite. Large natural resource rents not only make civil war more likely, they make it more likely that a civil war will be secessionist. Like Katanga, Cabinda: Africa’s secessionist wars including that of Biafra have usually been related to natural resources.

Economic Growth (Opportunity*)/ Income Distribution (Grievance**)

Opportunities arise from atypically low income. Recruits must be paid, and their cost may be related to the income forgone by enlisting as a rebel. Rebellions may occur when foregone income is unusually low. The Igbos at the time may have had a percived economic marginalization and weer suceptible to fight for better economic opportunities in an independent Biafra. The three proxies for foregone income are mean income per capita, male secondary schooling, and the growth rate of the economy (Collier and Hoeffler, 2004).

Greater income inequality should be associated with higher risks of civil war onset

(Fearon and Laitin, 2003). Income per capita in 1967 Nigeria was very low. Nigeria’s GDP as at 1967 was $5,203,136,000.00 (CIA: World Fact Book). During the 1960s and 1970s, Nigeria's degree of income concentration was average for sub-Saharan Africa, which, after Latin America, had the highest income inequality of any region in the world. Because the rural masses in Nigeria were politically weak, official income distribution policies focused on interurban redistribution (Nigeria: Country Data). According to Fearon and Laitin (2003), a higher per capita income should be associated with a lower risk of civil war onset because it is a proxy for a state's overall financial, administrative, police, and military capabilities.

The education proxy may affect the risk of conflict through changing attitudes. By 1957, Western Nigeria introduced Universal and Compulsory free primary education and devoted almost fifty per cent of the region's budget to education generally. At the attainment of the country independence in October 1960, there was already a wide gap between the North and the South in the matter of western education. The Northern region had only a handful University graduates and probably no more than two thousand (2000) holders of school certificate. The South, which received western education earlier than the North and which also, sponsored more students abroad than the north had these two categories of educated elements in their hundreds and thousands respectively.

Ten years later in 1967, there were about two and half million children in the primary schools of Eastern and Western regions, compared with a half million out of the greater population of the former North. Besides these, 119,000 students were in Southern secondary schools, against 14,000 in the Northern secondary schools (Atofarati, 1992). However the Western region at the break of the war was part of Nigeria, so their secondary schooling proxy factored into the Nigerian side, rather than the Biafran side.

The growth rate of the economy in the preceding period is intended to proxy new income opportunities: The lower the rate of growth, the higher the probability of unconstitutional political change (Alesina et al. 1996). However, the big brute fact according to Collier (2004) is that civil war is heavily concentrated in countries with low income, in economic decline, and dependent upon natural resources. Income inequality is also a strong grievance that increases the chances of rebellion. The relation between regional inequality and rebellion is indeed a close one as the poor may rebel to induce redistribution, and rich regions may mount secessionist rebellions to preempt redistribution (Sen, 1973), which was perceivably the case of Biafra.

Weak Democracy and State Capacity (Opportunity ***)

Researchers have often argued that state weakness plays a major role in causing and prolonging violent conflicts. To understand the role of state weakness in the Nigerian civil war, it is helpful to apply Bruce Bagley's theoretical conception of state capacity, which assesses the ability of government institutions to penetrate society, extract resources from it and regulate conflicts within it . . . [and] the ability of state authorities to govern legitimately, to enforce the law systematically, and to administer justice effectively throughout the national territory (Bagley 2001, 2)

In 1963, Nigeria declared itself a Federal Republic. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe of the Christian-dominated Igbo ethnicity was appointed as its first president and Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa of the Hausa and Muslim-dominated ethnicity was appointed prime minister. The battle to consolidate the legacy of political and military dominance of a section of Nigeria over the rest of the Federation began with increased intensity. A first and second census was highly disputed alleged to be riddled with malpractices and inflation of figures of such astronomical proportions that the Eastern Region refused to accept the result. The general election of 1964 was alleged to be neither free nor fair. All devices imaginable were said to have been used by the ruling parties in the regions to eliminate opponents (Atofarati, 1992). Civil war chances are high when there is political instability at the center, which may indicate disorganization and weakness; there is an opportunity for a separatist or center seeking rebellion.

The Chairman of the Electoral Commission admitted there were proven irregularities. The president, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe refused to appoint a prime minister in the light of these allegations. The president and the incumbent Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa of the northern region, were each seeking the support of the Armed Forces. This marked the first involvement of the Armed Forces in partisan politics. For four fearful days, the nation waited until the President announced that he had appointed the incumbent Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, to form a broad based government (Atofarati, 1992).

According to Cotton 2007, the notion of state failure is employed in several related but methodologically distinct senses. The major indicator of a failing state is its lack of capacity to exercise juridical sovereignty in the international system. An erosion or disappearance of Legitimacy is the focus of these approaches.

Rigging and irregularities in the Western Region election of 1965 were alleged to be more brazen and more shameful. Law and order broke down completely leading to an almost complete state of anarchy. Arson and indiscriminate killings were committed by a private army of thugs of political parties. Law abiding citizens lived in constant fear of their lives and properties. This was the state of affairs when the coup of 15 January 1966 took place. The aim of the coup was to establish a strong, unified and prosperous nation, free from corruption and internal strife. The outcome of coup was a change of political balance in the country. It is this struggle that eventually degenerated into coup, counter coup and a bloody civil war (Atofarati, 1992). Civil war chances are high when a regime mixes democratic with autocratic features; as this is likely to indicate political contestation among competing forces and, in consequence, state incapacity.

What constitutes a failed state has varied, therefore, according to the perspective. It would seem that there are at least two kinds of ‘state failure’. According to the first, the state atrophies, its revenues decline, its capacities diminish and its place is taken by local civil society and/or ‘traditional’ hierarchies and/or international forces/agencies. Alternatively, elements of the state become predatory, disputes over resources and revenues emerge, conflict increases, and humanitarian dislocation occurs. Perhaps there is a third sense of failure, which would entail (as in North Korea and Zimbabwe) the state becoming essentially criminalized (Cotton, 2007, 456). The third case was more prevalent in the case of newly independent Nigeria

As a means of holding the country together, Nigeria was divided into twelve states from the original four regions in May 1967. Following the act of the creation of states by decree without consultation, the former Eastern Region under Lt. Col. Ojukwu declared the Region an independent state of Biafra. The Federal Government saw this as an act of secession and illegal. Several meetings were held to resolve the issue peacefully without success. To avoid disintegration of the country, the central government was left with only one choice of bringing back the Region to the main fold by force (Harold, 1982).

Perceived Tribalism, Religionism and Genocide (Grievance*)

The first coup was carried out on January 15, 1966, known as the coup of the "Five Majors," carried out by Igbo officers, led by Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna which had toppled the parliament and therefore, the government of Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. An Igbo Army general, General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi was installed as president, the country’s first military head of state.

Gen. Ironsi was thought to have promoted many Igbo’s in the Army at the expense of Yoruba and Hausa officers, and was accused of perpetuating the brutal slayings of Yoruba and Hausa leaders. The Northerners in particular saw it as a deliberate plan to eliminate the political heavy weights in the North in order to pave way for the Easterners to take over the leadership role from them. Resentment grew in the North, culminating in the May 1966 riots throughout the North during which most Easterners (Igbo’s) residing in the North were attacked and killed (Atofarati, 1992).

In response to the Igbo-led coup, the Northerners and Islamic-faith-dominated Nigerian army led a coup against the Head of State, Maj. Gen Aguiyi Ironsi who was killed along with many other senior officers of the Igbo ethnicity. But as the military took over, the economic situation worsened, ethnic tensions broke out (Atofarati, 1992). This back to back coup led to an increase in ethnic tension and violence.

Claims of Genocide

After three anxious days of fear, doubts and non-government, Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon, who at the time was the most senior officer of Northern origin and then the Chief of Staff in the Nigerian Army, emerged as the new Nigerian political leader. The lack of planning and the revengeful intentions of the second coup manifested itself in the chaos, confusion and the scale of unnecessary killings of the Easterners throughout the country. Even the authors of the coup could not stem the general lawlessness and disorder, the senseless looting and killing which spread through the North like wild fire on 29 September 1966. The Northern initiated coup, which was mostly motivated by ethnic and religious reasons, was a bloodbath of both military officers and civilians, especially those of the Igbo tribe. In the anti-Igbo riots, up to 30,000 Ibos were killed in fighting with Hausas, and around 1million refugees fled to their Ibo homeland in the east (Reopening Nigeria’s Civil WarWounds, BBC, 2007).

Troops of Eastern Nigeria origin serving elsewhere in the country were officially and formally released and posted to Enugu, the capital of Eastern Region (Biafra), while troops of non-Eastern origin in Enugu moved to Kaduna and Lagos (Nigeria). This marked the beginning of division and disunity within the rank and file of the Nigerian Armed Forces:

This simple and seemingly innocuous action broke the last thread and split the last institution symbolizing Nigeria's nationhood and cohesion which had been regularly tampered with by the politicians since 1962. The rift between the Eastern Region and the rest of the country was total (Atofarati, 1992).

The violence against the Igbo’s increased their desire for autonomy and protection from the Northerners’ military wrath. The military governor of the Igbo-dominated southeast, Col. Ojukwu, citing the Northern massacres and electoral fraud, proclaimed with southern parliament the secession of the south-eastern region from Nigeria as the Republic of Biafra, an independent nation on 30 May 1967 (Atofarati, 1992).

Finance and Arms Availability (Opportunity *)

In general each combatant in an armed internal conflict chooses whether to acquire arms, forego acquiring arms, or disarm to some degree. In internal conflict both governments and armed opposition groups possess a variety of potential methods to obtain weapons. A link is likely between arms acquisitions and escalation, particularly by the military of a state embroiled in an ethnic dispute. In the case of Sri Lanka for example, arms acquisitions by the military were prompted by prior ethnic fighting and escalation, and by the military’s intention for subsequent escalation and dominance (Sislin, 2006).

Before the fighting began, Lt. Col. Ojukwu seized the Federal Government property and funds in the East. He planned the hijacking of a National commercial aircraft Fokker 27 on a schedule flight from Benin to Lagos. All these and other signs and reports convinced the Federal Military Government of Ojukwu's intention to secede. Lt Col. Yakubu Gowon, the Head of Federal Government, imposed a total blockade of the East. It was realized that more stringent action had to be taken to weaken support for Ojukwu and to forestall his secession bid (Atofarati, 1992).

The month of June of 1967 was used by both sides to prepare for war. Each side increased its military arsenal and moved troops to the border watching and waiting. At the dawn of 6 July 1967, the first bullet was fired signaling the beginning of the grisly 30 month civil war and carnage (Atofarati, 1992).

As stated by Sislin (2006), arms do play a role in a conflict’s progression. Just as the government of Southern Rhodesia pump-primed the Renamo rebellion in Mozambique while in the case of the Nigerian civil war, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union supplied Nigeria with arms while France sent Biafra weapons.

Photographs of starving children with huge distended stomachs from protein deficiency horrified people around the world. U.S. and European relief organizations, private groups and religious groups came to the assistance of the Biafrans in response to Biafran propaganda stressing the genocide of the Igbo. Airlifts brought food, medical supplies and arms to the war zones during the nights (Henryka and Himmelstrand, 1978).

International Recognition and Sympathy (Opportunity ***)

On May 30, 1967, Col. Ojukwu formally announced that Biafra would be an independent Republic. Several peace accords especially the one held at Aburi, Ghana (the 1968 Aburi Accord) collapsed. In July army combat units were dispatched to the east, but were met with rebel troops. Biafrans retaliated by taking control of strategic points in the mid-western region.

Conversely, only five nations recognized the Republic of Biafra, although socialist movements in many countries tried to give moral and material support. The Organization of African Unity, the papacy, and others tried to reconcile the combatants. Most countries continued to recognize Gen. Gowon’s regime as the government of all Nigeria. On the other hand, international sympathy for the plight of starving Biafran children brought airlifts of food and medicine from many countries.

One determinant of the prospects for insurgency is the availability of third-party support to either the rebels or the government of the state in question Fearon and Laitin, 2003). C te d’Ivoire, Gabon, Tanzania, South Africa and Zambia recognized Biafra as an independent state (Green, 1967), but the absence of international support from political superpowers could have weakened the resolve of the secession movement of Biafra. However, the finance and arms availability factor ties in with the international recognition and sympathy factor, because the former may have been induced by the later.

Interpretation

Collier and Hoeffler (2004) showed that most proxies for grievance were insignificant: inequality, political rights, ethnic polarization and religious fractionalization. Only ethnic dominance had adverse effects. Collier and Hoeffler pointed that even this factor has to be considered in combination with the benign effects of social fractionalization: societies characterized by ethnic and religious diversity are safer than homogenous societies as long as they avoid dominance.

Fearon and Laitin 2003 show that the conditions such as state weakness marked by poverty, a large population, and instability were better predictors of civil war than ethnic and religious diversity or measures of grievances such as economic inequality, lack of democracy or civil liberties, or state discrimination against minority religions or languages.

The presence of a rough terrain, poorly served by roads, at a distance from the centers of state power, should favor insurgency and civil war, and so should the availability of foreign, cross border sanctuaries and a local population that can be induced not to denounce the insurgents to government agents (Fearon and Laitin, 2003). But in Nigeria, the factor of Geography does not appear to have contributed to the opportunity to fight for secession. This observation is in accordance with Collier and Hoeffler’s 2004 findings that show a weak relationship between mountainous terrain and rebels’ advantage.

Collier and Hoeffler, (2004) suggested that both opportunities and grievances increase with population. This result is compatible with both the opportunity and grievance accounts; however, grievances increase with population due to rising heterogeneity. Fearon and Laitin (2003), hypothesize that among countries with an ethnic minority comprising at least 5% of the population, greater ethnic diversity should associate with a higher risk of ethnic civil war. This finding was evident in the case in Nigeria of 1967, with a population of 60 million people, 15 million of whom were Biafrans. However, I could not assess how significant the population size factored in the outbreak of the war, other than the inherent fact that grievances increases with population.

Among the factors listed in the James Fearon and David Laitin’s Civil War Hypothesis, only factors B, C, and G appeared relevant to the outbreak of this civil war:

Conclusion

Contrary to some of the findings of Collier and Hoeffler, and Fearon and Laitin, in my assessment of the Nigerian civil war, grievances such as ethnic rivalry and ethnic dominance, polarization/ regionalism, perceived tribalism and religionism, and perceived income inequality were very significant in the outbreak of the war (the demand for Biafra’s independence). The most significant opportunities were weak democracy and state capacity, availability of oil, international recognition and sympathy, finance and the availability of arms. However, these factors influenced the outcome of the war more so than the outbreak of the war.

Also, the factors of opportunities were mostly devalued by the might and size of the Nigerian side. Take for example, military advantage. Nigeria received arms, diplomatic support, and military training from Britain and the Soviet Union, while Biafra received arms from France. However, Lt Col. Yakubu Gowon, the Head of Federal Government, imposed a total blockade of the East (Biafra side). The Want-away country was only recognized by weak players such as C te d’Ivoire, Gabon, Tanzania, South Africa and Zambia. The powerful nations did not recognize Biafra.

Based on the assessment of Fearon and David Laitin’s Civil War Hypothesis, the outbreak of the Nigerian civil war occurred because; there was political instability at the center, which indicated disorganization and weakness and thus an opportunity for a separatist or center seeking rebellion; the government at the time was a mix of democratic and autocratic ideals as it sought to stay independent of Britain; an indication of political contestation among competing forces and weak state capacity; and the country’s revenue was chiefly derived from oil exports.

Availability of oil is perhaps the single most significant opportunity factor. Even though weak state capacity gave Biafra the opportunity to rebel and the dare to secede, the military size and financing of the Nigerian side thwarted any chances of victory. International recognition played a strong part in frustrating and ending the rebellion; however this paper does not asses weather a pre-perceived international support influenced the declaration of independence.

The introduction of perceptions to the grievance and opportunity factors allows for the possibility that both opportunities and grievances might be wrongly perceived. As stated by Collier and Hoeffler (2001), if the perceived opportunity for rebellion is illusory – analogous to the `winners’ curse’ – unprofitability will cause collapse, perhaps before reaching our threshold for civil war. By contrast, when exaggerated grievances trigger rebellion, fighting does not dispel the misperception and indeed may generate genuine grievances.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Biafra - A Recent History (Part I - II)

2009-12-03T20:33:00.000-08:00

By Astra Navigo, Subversify

(Coat of arms of the Republic of Biafra – 1967 – 1970)

It is better even from the point of survival to fight and be conquered than to surrender without fighting.

– George Orwell

Biafra lives.

– Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu (President; Biafra – 1967-’70)

5 July; 1967.

The day dawned hot and muggy in the thick forest canopy in eastern Nigeria, on the border of the new nation of Biafra. Early June saw the arrival of two Nigerian army artillery regiments, along with two regiments of Nigerian infantry, to the border.

The time had long passed to negotiate the many injustices suffered by the people east of the Niger River. All that was left was war.

The first shells began falling shortly after midnight.

_________________________

Created from necessity, Biafra existed as a response to the arbitrary ‘political construct’ of Nigeria from the ashes of the former British colony of the same name. The three major ethnic groups (Hausa, Falani, and Igbo) had never lived harmoniously; each had their own region; each their own culture, religious beliefs, and ethics.

The Hausa and Falani were more in number, but less-educated. The Igbo, primarily in eastern Nigeria, had a culture of hard work and education. Most of the professional-class of Nigeria, and most of the officer-corps of the army came from Igbo stock; the working-classes and enlisted military personnel from the Hausa and Falani.

This divide was never addressed by the colonial government, nor was it addressed by the Nigerian government which followed independence in 1960. While education was available, it was never pursued as aggressively by the Hausa and Falani.

Through the first of the 1960’s, the social fabric of Nigeria, absent the controlling ‘lid’ of British troops, began to come apart. Igbo’s who worked in the north and west of Nigeria were increasingly the targets of mass killings. Mobs of Hausa and Falani targeted the Igbo minority, first in the ‘strongholds’ of Hausa and Falani territory; then in the south-eastern part of Nigeria traditionally held as ‘Igboland’.

By 1966, the Igbo had had enough.
Igbo from all parts of Nigeria began moving ‘home’ to the south-eastern part of the country. A coup by General Yakubu Gowon in 1966 put a final end to democracy in Nigeria. Not long after, an increase in ethnic violence, targeted toward the Igbo, reached the point of genocide.

In May of 1967, then-Lt. Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, (commander of the eastern military district of Nigeria) in concert with other army officers, academics, and politicians, declared the independence of eastern Nigeria under the ancestral name of ‘Biafra’.

Biafra held some pretty important cards in the early stages of its bid for independence.

As a nation, it was better-educated. Most of the nation’s physicians were of Igbo ancestry; the core-cadre of military officers were nearly all Igbo, and the nation’s universities were staffed by Igbo professors.

Their culture of hard work and creativity were also a formidable asset – and combined with their desire for independence and autonomy, would have a telling effect on the longevity of the nation.

Biafra was a nation rich in resources; the country could boast of wood, water, minerals, plenty of arable land, and one of the region’s best deep-water ports (Port Harcourt).

Biafra also had oil.

Most of the nation’s then-known oil reserves, along with the refineries, were in the new nation of Biafra. Nigerian LSW (light sweet crude) is, in some cases, so good that upon extraction it can be put in a ship’s fuel tanks and simply fired with no need of further refinement. This was Nigeria’s single-greatest cash-convertible asset, and with that asset in Biafran control, the future of Nigeria as a nation was seriously in doubt.

Nigeria In Trouble

Mu je Mu Kerkeshe Su,
TuTatara Kayan Su,
Mu Ber Su Suna Kukan Banza.

(We go, we slaughter them,
We destroy their goods,
We abandon them; crying useless tears)

– Nigerian war slogan; translated from Hausa, broadcast at the beginning of the invasion of Biafra; July; 1967

Nigeria was in trouble.

As a nation, they had seen the majority of their talent, plus one of their deep-water ports and their largest single export-item fall into the hands of a people who were now calling themselves a ‘nation’.

They had a large army, but no air force, and a few gunboats to protect their coastline. They were ill equipped to do much of anything save for throwing massive numbers of troops at their enemy – and, as most of the officer-corps were Igbo, they were now squarely entrenched across the Niger, training a new Biafran army to resist any invasion.

The Nigerian government was faced with two possibilities: (1) A protracted war to recover land and assets, or (2) grant Biafra its independence, and become an insignificant neighbor of the new nation.

Nigeria chose to fight.

The initial incursions into Biafra were thrown back with massive casualties. While accurate records do not exist, consistent numbers from a low of 20,000 to a high of 75,000 Nigerian dead are quoted. By July, it was apparent that the Biafrans held the upper hand.

Biafra, for its part, knew from Ojukwu on down that failure was not an option. The Nigerian government, from the very beginning, clearly acted in a manner which left little doubt that the war would be a war of civilian attrition in order to destroy the Igbo people. Resources were secondary; this was a war of tribe-against-tribe, for the freedom of a people.

Biafran troops slashed forward into Nigeria, and came within 25 miles of the capital of Lagos. Rioting and looting broke out; both the British government and the Johnson administration in Washington informed the Gowon government in Lagos that they should remain in place, rather than evacuate Lagos and surrender to the Biafrans. President Ojukwu was anticipating a quick end to the war.

Biafran B-26’s bombed Nigerian advance positions in unopposed daylight raids. Biafran technology was minimal, but the Biafran ‘brain trust’ began to be felt in the form of short-range guided rockets which were used to devastating effect on government positions. It was clear that the Gowon government needed an air force.

They were obliged by both Great Britain and the Soviet Union, which sent five MiG-17’s and four Ilushin Il-28 bombers, along with advisors and technicians, to Nigeria. Egyptian and British pilots eagerly flew the MiGs while Nigerian pilots were in training.

Great Britain came to the aid of its former colony with small arms, uniforms, transport vehicles and other aid, along with pilots and technicians.

Biafra received the weapons (including some tanks) from the recently-concluded Six Day War fought between Israel and Egypt-and-its-allies (along with official recognition by Israel); several nations (Ivory Coast, Gabon, Tanzania, Rhodesia, and the Republic of South Africa) officially recognized Biafra as a nation – but material support was not forthcoming from those new diplomatic recognitions.

It is important to note that recognition by the Republic of South Africa and Rhodesia did nothing to endear the Biafran government to the newly-independent African nations, and in reality prevented many African nations from formally recognizing Biafra and coming to its aid due to the apartheid regime in South Africa as well as the ‘whites-only’ government of Rhodesia.

Biafra established a foreign office in Lisbon, Portugal, from which it actively recruited volunteers from many nations in Europe, as well as set about attempting to purchase munitions and arrange for civilian aid. Repeated requests for aid from the United States were met by deaf ears; the Johnson administration considered Biafra to be a ’side show’, which held little in the way of American interest.

Meantime, the effect of the new Nigerian air force began to be felt in earnest.

The Nigerians began to bomb civilian targets in Onitsha (on the Niger River border) and Enugu; the capital of Biafra had to be moved as a result to a city more-inland (Umuahia). MiG-17’s began shooting down relief planes (clearly marked with the symbol of the International Red Cross); Red Cross relief efforts were suspended as negotiations continued with the Nigerian government to open ’safe corridors’ for relief flights. While this was ongoing, Biafra began to starve.

Ojukwu, Oxford-educated and one of Nigeria’s wealthiest men in his own right, pledged and spent his personal fortune (around $40M U.S.) for supplies. Ojukwu also used his personal relationships with wealthy Europeans to arrange for supplies and munitions for the new nation. None of this, however, was nearly enough to prevent the Nigerians from invading Biafra.

The Biafran capital at Enugu fell in late September, 1967, after a combined Nigerian air/land campaign. It was during this time that General Murtala Mohammed, a Hausa from northern Nigeria, began his ’scorched earth’ campaign against Biafra.

At this point, 5,000 Biafrans were dying, daily.

Rapidly, things began to turn against Biafra.

Biafra: A Recent History (Part III - IV)

2009-12-03T20:10:00.000-08:00

By Astra Navigo, Subversify

“As I have said before, and I repeat, the war we are fighting is an imperialist war, waged by Britain and Russia in an unholy alliance and with the tacit acquiescence of the United States, and fought by proxy.”

“I see Biafra as a bastion of the free in an age in which freedom and self-determination are conditioned by the color of the skin. I would go further to say that for the acceptance of the black race, there must be a Biafra. If this Biafra is stifled, then perhaps in the future another will emerge.”

– Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu (Radio Biafra broadcasts; November/December; 1968)

By August of 1967, Biafra had been forced to withdraw from the occupied territories in Nigeria gained during its incursions in July and August. Back behind its original borders, Ojukwu could do nothing to prevent the destruction of most of his air force by the new Nigerian MiGs. By September, three Nigerian regiments had crossed the Niger into Biafra. With the abandonment of the capitol at Enugu for the inland city of Umuahia in September, 1967, Biafra was effectively on the defensive.

Now, his forces spread thin (augmented by European volunteers and mercenaries committed to his cause of freedom), Ojukwu had to make the choice between losing his country, and losing his one deep-water port, Port Harcourt, in the south of Biafra.

Port Harcourt is on the shores of the Bight of Biafra, which in turn is part of the Atlantic Ocean. One of the world’s largest river-deltas, the Niger River delta comprises the gateway to Port Harcourt, and is a natural ‘staging area’ for the large numbers of ships which come to Port Harcourt every day, bringing supplies to Biafra, as well as taking the oil which was such a vital part of the Biafran economy.

Ojukwu’s dilemma was plain – with the pressure of Nigerian troop-columns threatening his capital, he had to maintain sufficient forces in the field in western Biafra to counter this threat – but he also had to maintain Port Harcourt at all costs, defending the city while it was under siege.

He chose to fight a delaying-action, surrendering over 150 miles of territory as the Nigerian army pushed east, but holding the coast-district against the onslaught of Nigerian artillery and Egyptian/British-flown MiGs and Ilushin bombers. Savage fighting continued through most of the fall and winter of 1967-1968. Reinforced by additional mercenaries, volunteers, and Biafran regulars, the Biafran army managed to hold out through most of spring, 1968.

All the while, Biafrans were starving.

“By the beginning of April, 1968, the truth about Biafra and the genocide being perpetrated by Nigerians was filtering in increasing volume to the outside world,” said President Ojukwu in a broadcast over Radio Biafra in the summer of 1968. In truth, the Biafran famine was far worse than the media presented.

By this time, the failure of harvest (Nigeria had occupied most of the Biafran farmland close to the border near the Niger River) and the war itself was claiming 50,000 Biafran lives monthly.

Barring a miracle, Biafra was on borrowed time.

Map of the Republic of Biafra — 1967 – 1970)

“For nearly ten months now, we have been fighting a hard and bitter war in defense of our lives and property and the future of our children against Nigeria’s calculated war of destruction and genocide. The immediate tragic circumstances which culminated in this war are well known to all of us….”

– President Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu; broadcast of 31 March; 1968

“In Africa, a thing can be true at first light, and a lie by noon.”

– Ernest Hemingway

On 12 May, 1968, fifty thousand troops of the Nigerian Third Marine Commando under General Adekunle and his second-in-command, General Obasanjo, made an amphibious landing south of the Biafran city of Port Harcourt in the Niger River delta. At the same time, the Nigerian Air Force stepped up its bombing raids on Port Harcourt, attacking the outer-ring of Port Harcourt’s defenses round-the-clock.

Over fifty thousand Nigerian regulars, mainly Hausa troops from the north with no love for the Igbo, were chosen to assault the land-based defenses to the west of the city. The outcome left little in doubt.

Toward the end, broadcasts from Radio Biafra grew strident in its pleas for military, medical, and United Nations assistance. Biafran troops, out of ammunition, threw gasoline bombs on advancing Nigerian troop-carriers and fought hand-to-hand with fixed bayonets as the Nigerian troops pushed deeper into the city.

On 23 May, 1968, Port Harcourt fell.

Four brigades (about 20,000 effectives) of Biafran troops streamed through the now-chaotic city northward toward the city of Owerri to make what might be a final stand.

General Adekunle, commander of the Third Marine Commando (Nigerian Army), simply let his mainly-Hausa troops have the run of the city for nearly a week.

Bayoneting anyone who resisted, the Third Marines engaged in a chaotic ‘suppression’ of the Port Harcourt population, raping women at will, murdering their husbands and children, and looting with abandon.

Entering the Port Harcourt hospital, they bayoneted the wounded Biafran soldiers who could not evacuate, as well as the physicians who stayed behind; raped nurses and new mothers in the maternity wards, looted all medical supplies, and eventually returned to their units.

This complete breakdown in discipline on the part of Nigerian Third Marine Commando bought the remnants of the Biafran defenders badly-needed time to establish their perimeters around Owerri – but at a civilian cost of over 50,000 Biafran lives during the week-long orgy of murder, looting, and rape in Port Harcourt.

Biafra had lost its one deep-water port capable of bringing supplies to the nation via the sea. It had also lost its major population center, plus the oil resources so badly needed to fuel its economy.

In August, over 2,000 short-range rockets and millions of rounds of badly-needed ammunition began arriving at the airfield near Owerri. At the same time, the OAU (Organization of African Unity) began to lobby the international community for aid.

Ojukwu has long been criticized for his rejection of land-haulage for food-aid – however, there is a long –standing west African tradition of using poison to eliminate one’s enemies, and an equally-long tradition of failing to differentiate between civilian and military personnel in this endeavor; it may well be that the Biafran government wanted to prevent this possibility.

Ojukwu demanded airlift-only as a means of resupply; it’s often been suggested that he wanted this method so he could fly in arms along with food supplies; however, there’s little practical evidence that this occurred.

What is known is this – by the end of 1968, over 200,000 Biafrans were dying monthly, due to the Nigerian blockade of all road-entries to Biafra, plus the crowding of Biafra’s population into a land-area a little less than one-half of the original size of the nation.

Contacted repeatedly by the Biafran foreign-office in Lisbon, Portugal, the United States was content to do nothing, either to support a nation seeking its independence, or to provide material relief for the Biafran civilian population.

Reinforced by fresh volunteers and French munitions, the Biafran army went on a counter-offensive in October of 1968. This resulted in large numbers of Nigerian army casualties along with the capture of Owerri by the Biafran army, but eventually resulted in a stalemate by spring of 1969 as the Biafrans ran out of ammunition, food and other supplies.

Airlift of arms and supplies were neither enough nor of any frequency to sustain the life of the population nor the viability of the army. What followed – from early 1969 until the end – is a shameful chapter in modern history.

Nigeria, with the tacit agreement of the international community and with the active support of Great Britain and the Soviet Union, having squeezed the population of Biafra into an area around half its original size, was allowed to simply starve Biafra into submission. During 1969, Biafrans died daily at a horrendous rate. At the peak of Biafra’s suffering, it’s been estimated that nearly 250,000 Biafrans were dying monthly.

On 22 December, 1969, the Gowon government launched its final offensive. Starving; Biafran troops could do no more. They simply threw down their weapons and faded into the jungle. Nigerian columns advanced unopposed, cutting Biafra in two and rendering the nation indefensible and the situation hopeless. Nigerian troops began a systematic process of killing every male over the age of ten, raping and mutilating the women of childbearing-age, and destroying anything that might be of value.

On 13 January, 1970, President Ojukwu fled with most of the Biafran government to Abidjan in the Ivory Coast. The remainder of the Biafran army capitulated later that day.

The war for Biafran independence — which held such promise both for the region and the world — was over.

“Blockaded and besieged, we had no alternative but to cry out as loud as we could, so that, should we perish, somewhere, some people in the world, men of good will, would at least record the fact that at one time we did exist.

May I take this opportunity to thank all those persons and organizations that have sacrificed that we might live – that we assure them that their sacrifice will not have been in vain.

Biafra lives. The struggle continues. Long live the Republic of Biafra.”

– Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu (President; Biafra – broadcast-from-exile; January, 1970)

“The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.”

– Ernest Hemingway

As an apologetic for Nigerian statehood, Biafra stood in sharp contrast to the artificiality of Nigeria. Biafra was the proof-made-manifest that political-constructs using arbitrary borders do not work in regions where familial and tribal affiliations hold sway.

These lessons were learned in Biafra, as they were to be learned later in Yugoslavia in the 1990’s, and in Iraq in present day.

Biafra was also proof that the definition of genocide is very much determined by money, power and skin color – nearly the same number of ethnic Igbos were killed between 1967-1970 as the number of Jewish people during the events in Europe between 1937-1945 – but Biafra was denied support for its nationhood and any form of United Nations-sponsored peacekeeping or aid relief.

The expected reprisals after the fall of Biafra never occurred, largely due to pressure from both the British and U.S. governments to end the war quietly – it was believed that there was still a danger of Biafra rising again due to popular support if the Gowon government completed its genocide. As a result, the entire war, along with its atrocities, were metaphorically ‘swept under the rug’ by the international community.

Tactically, the war was lost in September, 1967, when the original capital at Enugu was lost and Biafra went over to a defensive posture.

Strategically, the war was lost when Port Harcourt fell, and in spite of the recognition of Biafra by several west African states at that time, those recognitions did little to enhance Biafra’s stance in the eyes of the rest of the world. Deprived of its only deep-water port, its oil-reserves, half of its land-area and nearly all of its arable land, and with its population concentrated together in a manner which invited disease along with starvation, the question most people ask is “why did Ojukwu attempt to hold Biafra together, when there was little hope of winning?”

The answer is plainly obvious to most of us who’ve studied the phenomenon in any depth – given the alternative between an uncertain future at the hands of a known enemy, and a certain future – even death- with one’s ‘own’ – a person will choose the familiar over the unfamiliar; the miserable company of one’s own people over the ill-treatment of foreigners.

Statistics:

– Exact numbers are not possible after this time, but numbers between 2,000,000 and upward of 5,000,000 Biafrans dead of starvation, disease, and direct military action (wounds) during the war have been suggested.

– While reprisals never materialized after Biafra’s capitulation, the Igbo continue to be repressed. Many have left their homeland for more-peaceful lives in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States, where their talents are more welcome.

– The land east of the Niger River has never fully recovered from the thirty months of war which marked the existence of the Biafran Republic. To this day, the Igbo are persecuted.

– The United States government has never admitted any failure surrounding the events in Biafra from 1967-1970. To this date, the U.S. has no foreign policy which adequately addresses Africa.

– Nigeria continues to suffer from the effects of military dictatorship and corruption to this day.

Personalities:

– President Ojukwu returned from exile in 1980 to the acclaim of over a million people who lined the Owerri airport to welcome him home. He lives quietly in Nnewe, in eastern Nigeria.

– President Gowon saw a brief transition to democracy, then a descent into more chaotic military dictatorships, being overthrown in a coup in 1975. He lives comfortably today in Lagos, Nigeria. He was never called to account for his responsibility regarding the genocide in Biafra.

– General Murtala Mohammed was never called to answer for his crimes against humanity or genocide against Biafra. The international airport in Lagos is named after him. He was installed by coup as Gowon’s replacement in 1975; his rule was cut short in another coup attempt in 1976, when his limousine was ambushed in Lagos traffic.

– Neither General Adekunle nor General Obasanjo (the two architects of the Biafran genocide-by-starvation) were held accountable for their crimes. In fact, Adekunle said, “I want to prevent even one Igbo having one piece to eat before their capitulation,” in response to a question regarding his strategy. Adekunle now lives in retirement, and has recently published a memoir; Obasanjo is the current president of Nigeria.

________________________

On an academic level, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say I’d never have been able to complete either my masters’ thesis in college or this small series if the good people at Harper; Row hadn’t had the courage to publish the collected thoughts and speeches of President Ojukwu in their fine book “Biafra”, released in 1969. I’ve had a first-edition for many years; it survived my housefire and is a book I’ve read several times since I bought it for $1.50 at the used-book sale in college.

Fredrick Forsyth’s book, “The Biafra Story” contributed greatly to my understanding of the conflict.

There is much which was left out of this story for clarity’s sake – the miniCOIN Airforce of Swedish Count vonRosen makes for a grand tale; the memoirs of Rolf Steiner, the mercenary officer from Germany, also offered invaluable perspective.

I’m also indebted to the website Biafraland.Com, which provides much in the way of anecdotal material and other information about the land to the east of the Niger.

____________________________

On a personal level – when Biafra seceded from Nigeria, I was 12 years old. While other boys were out playing softball, a combination of personal interest and a touch of asthma kept me indoors, either reading or listening to my shortwave radio (a gift from Dad – he told me he’d give me his old Zenith when he knew I’d use it).

I had followed the problems in Nigeria, right along with the war in Vietnam, the Six-Day War in the Middle East, and (later) the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union.

Upon Biafra’s secession, I thought – ‘these people are in the right – the U.S. will have to do something for them!” I put a map of Nigeria on my wall, and followed the troop-movements, gleaned from broadcasts and magazine clippings.

I asked my Dad when he thought the Biafrans would win. He said, “Actually, son, I think they’re going to lose this one.” I was crestfallen. They were a new nation; certainly deserving of freedom.

I was 12 then. I had much to learn.

____________________________

References:

Surviving in Biafra: The Story of the Nigerian Civil War (Alfred Obiora Uzokwe; 2003) Writers’ Advantage Press

The Biafra Story (Frederick Forsyth; 1969; 2001) – Cooper Press; UK

The Selected Speeches of Lt. Col. Ojukwu (Biafran Govt. Press; Onitsha, Biafra – 1967)

War Stories – A Memoir of Nigeria and Biafra (John Sherman; 2002) Mesa Verde Press

Shadows – Airlift and Airwar in Biafra and Nigeria, 1967-’70 (Michael Draper; Hikoki Press; 1999)

The Last Adventurer (Rolf Steiner; Boston/Little/Brown Press; 1978)

American Policy and African Famine: The Nigeria-Biafra War, 1966-1970

Biafra (President Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu; Harper and Row; 1969)

Heinz Herrmann: My father in learning

2009-11-08T13:38:00.000-08:00

By Mark Nwangwu, Vanguard

THE most important duty of parents is to bring up their children to know and understand what is right and what is wrong; to be a person of good character. Better put, parents lead their children to live a life of virtue, of value, in all the circumstances that they, the children, may encounter. This learning experience takes place early in life and soon, one is ready to leave home, to face the world, armed with the truth of one's upbringing and the strength of one's character.

Professor Heinz Herrmann, who passed on in the early hours of October 18, 2009, was a man who nurtured me in the character of learning. He created a laboratory where learning and the pursuit of truth were the highest goals of human life. I was already twenty-nine and had my doctorate, when I first came to Prof. Herrmann's lab in 1966 on a post-doctoral fellowship paid entirely from his grants. If I had not learnt right from wrong, and did not know what it meant to live a life of virtue, then I was a lost soul. But science did not yet flow in my veins and I had not acquired a character in science. A whole new world awaited me in Prof. Herrmann's lab!

Having completed the study of medicine and a research assistantship in biochemistry at the University of Vienna and postdoctoral training in Copenhagen, Heinz arrived in the U.S. in 1939. After a stint at the Johns Hopkins Medical School, he started his studies of embryonic development, first at Yale and the University of Colorado Medical School, transferring his work to the University of Connecticut in 1959 with the tenure of a research professorship of the American Cancer Society. He was for ten years director of the Institute of Cell Biology and participated in the foundation of the American Society of Cell Biology. This was the man who was to shape my life in science.

1965 was a difficult year in Western Nigeria and, foreseeing a life in which I could not readily put my knowledge to use, I wrote to Prof. Herrmann applying for a post-doctoral fellowship. He had sent me a reprint of an article he had published when I was doing my Ph.D. research. I was later to learn that he had received numerous requests for this prized article but had kept the last copy. When he received my request for this same article, he told his post-graduate students that he would send it out because it was likely to be far more significant to this student from Africa than to others in the United States. Indeed, that article was monumental in my life!

The University of Connecticut, Storrs, offered me the fellowship and I was beside myself with joy. Then began a long series of correspondence to arrange for our flight tickets to the US - for myself, my wife, Helen and our two children. Finally, the university agreed to pay for our tickets and to deduct the cost from my first-year fellowship stipend. This was 1966 - The Federal Government had been overthrown in the January coup; Major-General Ironsi had been killed in the July counter-coup, and pogroms had been visited on Nigerians of non-northern descent, principally the Igbo. I had applied for tickets for the journey: Port-Harcourt - Calabar - Tiko - Douala - Paris - New York - Hartford. Now wait for this: all four tickets arrived, by registered mail, at Nkwogwu Postal Agency, in my hometown, Nguru, in then Eastern Nigeria, in October, 1966. We were all packed to travel and left a few days later. Prof. Herrmann met us at Hartford airport and drove us to Storrs, where a two-bedroom university accommodation was waiting for us at 10 Mansfield Apartments. Heinz had borrowed all sorts of furniture for our use and assisted with our settling in.

My work now began. Heinz had three Ph.D. students one of whom, Arthur William Rourke took me through many essential laboratory techniques and was ever so gracious. We became close friends and when his daughter Elizabeth arrived, Art chose me as her godfather. Heinz put me to work on a project I did not particularly like but to which I gave my best. In the process, I learnt to purify the major muscle protein, myosin, free of any other protein. Some time in 1967, Dr. Stuart Mackenzie Heywood delivered a seminar at Storrs on his brilliant and groundbreaking work on myosin synthesis that made him a leading light in molecular biology. After the seminar, I was raving wild with immeasurable joy telling everyone that this was exactly the type of work I craved for. Heinz then threw the bombshell: Stuart would be joining the University of Connecticut and would work in his lab. Thus, my dream of working on molecular biology of development would be realised. Stu (as we fondly called him) and I went on to publish two seminal papers that announced a new dawn in the molecular biology of cells of higher organisms. Up till then, what was known about genetics at the molecular level came from studies of viruses and bacteria. What Stu did for me is beyond words: an urchin from Obetiti, Nguru now worked at the cutting edge of molecular biology. Heinz watched us with the satisfaction of a grand patron, giving us all the support we needed, making sure our first paper was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, USA, one of the most prestigious journals in science.

After I moved to Canada in 1969 as an assistant professor at Brock University, St. Catharines, I kept in touch with Heinz and Stu and they continued to guide me and support my efforts. I spent my sabbatical leave at the University of Ibadan in 1974-75 only to run into Heinz and his dear wife, Virginia at the University of Ibadan Senior Staff Club. They had come as tourists to Nigeria not expecting to see me! Helen was expecting our fourth child and was at the University College Hospital awaiting delivery. When our son arrived while Heinz was still in Nigeria, we named him Heinz after my father in learning. Years later, he entered a subscription to The Economist, lasting over six years, for his namesake, then an economics student. After his retirement in 1980, he wrote a textbook of Cell Biology and a book about the nature of understanding complex systems both of which he sent to me. The latter book informed my foray into biology and the social order.

Helen and I visited Heinz and Stu in the summer of 1989 and, with their wives and friends, we were treated to a sumptuous lunch and a most unforgettable afternoon. We visited Storrs again in 2001, and in 2003. By this time, Heinz was already in his nineties and after dinner by 8 p.m., his dear wife Virginia drove us back to Willimantic, about fifteen kilometres away, complaining that Heinz drove too fast for her liking! This was the last time Helen and I saw Heinz. I wrote him in August this year that we would like to pay him a visit. In his last e-mail to me on August 1, he wrote to say, much to our dismay:

"To my regret, we are unfit for a visit right now. With senile deterioration, loss of hearing, and other complications, it would be too difficult to be an adequate host. I would be grateful for any news regarding Ikemefula and if you have finished your autobiography. We follow news from Nigeria and have been thinking of you. With much fondness, Heinz."

Simple, affable and compassionate, Heinz lived a life of humility and sincerity. A man of unsurpassed honour and generosity has passed on; a master of the learning culture. I am exceedingly proud to say, he made me what I am in molecular biology. Above all, he was my father in learning.

Professor Nwagwu lives in Obetiti, Nguru, Imo State

Revisiting The Asaba Massacres

2009-10-18T12:33:00.000-07:00

By Obi Nwakanma, Vanguard

My attempt this week is to bring some attention to the subject of the Asaba massacres, one of the haunting ghosts of Nigeria’s last civil war. I pay particular tribute to Emma Okocha – Onye Amuma Cable – author of Blood on the Niger, the chilling account of the Asaba massacres of October 7, 1967.

More than any other individual, Okocha has pursued the Asaba story with the temerity of a survivor, and the hardnosed instincts of a well-trained journalist. He has brought attention to the great evil that Nigerians love to forget: the attempt at selective annihilation of a people through acts of terrible war crimes.

Asaba has become Okocha’s life work; an obsession. He says it is to bring closure, and give final rest to those who perished that day in Asaba. But I suspect something much deeper and personal. Of course it is up close and personal for Emma Okocha. He is from Asaba; he survived the massacres; but his entire family perished.

The Igbo name their children, “Echezona/Echezola”- never forget, and “Odoemene/Ozoemena”- May this never happen again. These are names in recoil from harsh memory.

These I think are the profound sentiments that propel Okocha’s pursuit to reopen the case of the Asaba mass killings, compel the official acknowledgement of war crimes by the Nigerian government, and force a visible war memorial in honour of the dead of October 1967 – the “Asaba Memorial.”

Happily, Emma Okocha’s work is drawing attention to one of modern Africa’s darkest war crimes. Last week, the University of Southern Florida, Tampa, convened the Asaba Memorial symposium to reopen the issue, and unveil “the long-buried tragedy” led by the anthropologists Elizabeth Bird and Erin Kimmerle and Fraser Ottanelli, chairman of the department of history, in collaboration with the USF Libraries Holocaust and Genocide Studies Centre.

They have also recruited a Tampa Police homicide detective Charles Massucci to gather documents, record oral histories and to examine mass graves and recover evidence of the Asaba genocide.

Let me briefly place the Asaba tragedy in context for those who may either have forgotten, or who may not know about it, especially many contemporary Nigerians who may have been born after the war, and who ought to know the many evils that haunt Nigeria.

In May 1967, Eastern Nigeria declared secession from the old federation of Nigeria and declared itself the republic of Biafra. Eastern Nigerian secession naturally culminated in the Nigerian political crisis leading to the January 15, 1966 coup led by Emma Ifeajuna that overthrew the government of the first republic, and the July 29, 1966, led by Murtala Muhammed, and directed by Yakubu Gowon who subsequently took over as military head of state.

The July coup spiraled into the selective annihilation of all Igbo military officers and snowballed into a pogrom of the Igbo.

The Aburi agreements reached to stem the slide collapsed, and the Gowon administration in Lagos peremptorily dissolved the regions and created the twelve states on May 27, 1967, thus subverting as the government in the East saw it, the fundamental authority and rights of the regional governments, and complicating the East’s capacity to offer security to its people who had fled to it.

Odumegwu-Ojukwu, military governor of the Eastern region, on advise from the Eastern Nigerian Consultative Assembly declared secession, and announced the independent republic of Biafra three days later, on May 30, 1967.

The stage was set for an epic conflict. The government in Lagos declared war and attacked Biafra on July 6, fighting from Ogoja and Nsukka. By September, the Biafran capital was threatened.

That September, however, Biafra launched its own attack, a diversionary and tactical move through the Midwest; brilliant in conception, but poor in execution.

Brigadier Victor Banjo, leading the “Liberation Army” from Onitsha, made a lightning move into Benin City and was close to taking Lagos and Ibadan, in what then seemed a cake walk, when he suddenly lost the will to fight.

Old Biafra intelligence sources hint that Banjo had been told in unmistakable terms, in his meeting with the deputy British high commissioner in Benin, that the Brits might be forced to provide logistical support to Gowon from the sea, and attack Lagos with its special forces already nearby, off the coasts.

The prospects of the Brits bombing Lagos and turning “Yorubaland” into a bloody battle field forced Banjo to stymie the Liberation Army in Benin City, and order a hasty withdrawal. It also allowed the federal troops led by Murtala Muhammed to reorganize and retake the Midwest. Asaba was doomed from that moment.

The massacre of Igbo civilians began from Benin City with the arrival of the federal forces. Folks in Benin went house by house identifying and killing their Igbo neighbours. Murtala’s Army already war drunk thus arrived Asaba with bloodlust.

The account of what happened in Asaba is well documented in Emma Okocha’s Blood on the Niger. It is also the subject of my poem, The Horsemen, an elegy to that era.

But to put it quite simply, the troops under Murtala Muhammed and the late Colonel Ibrahim Taiwo, both of whom also ironically met death on the same day in 1976, supervised the killing of the adult males of Asaba.

They had ordered them to dance at the town square, separated the men from the women, and killed them.

Ironically, one of those killed was Sydney Asiodu, a potential Olympic medalist and undergraduate of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. His brother, Philip Asiodu was then a super permanent secretary in Gowon’s administration in Lagos.

Even then, Asaba was only one of the places where the Nigerian military committed war crimes of such horrendous magnitude during that war, and have sought to cover it up and even erase them.

Many of those who have strutted about as Nigeria’s military heroes indeed ought to be brought to account for their war crimes.

It is the legacy of impunity that continues to haunt Nigeria, and continues to breed the kind of viciousness that would lead to the mindless destruction of people be it at Umuechem, Odi or Gboko because no one yet has been brought to account for such horrendous acts.

The Asaba memorial will be an important first step towards full disclosure and possible restitution.

Death of a Missionary Priest, Father Aengus Finucane

2009-10-11T13:54:00.000-07:00

Written by John O'Shaughnessy, Limerick Post

FATHER Aengus Finucane, the former Chief Executive of the Third World charity Concern, and a native of Limerick, where he was made a Freeman of the City, has died, aged 77. He died in the Spiritan Fathers’ nursing home in Kimmage after a short illness. The late Fr Finucane is survived by two sisters and three brothers.

He was a product of Limerick CBS and later studied Philosophy, and was ordained a Holy Ghost priest in 1958.

The Nigerian civil war four decades ago catapulted him into emergency aid.

As a Spiritan missionary in Biafra, a region that was trying to breakaway from Nigeria, he was confronted with famine.

He joined parishioners in braving bombing raids to unload relief cargoes at a local airstrip.

Supporters of Fr Finucane and his fellow missionaries raised almost €4m and sent four shiploads of humanitarian aid. They founded Africa Concern.

Minister of State for Overseas Development, Peter Power, expressed deep regret at the death of Fr Aengus Finucane.

He said:

“As a fellow Limerick man, I would like to pay particular tribute to Fr Aengus Finucane, who always retained a great interest in the cultural and sporting life of the city, although he was often thousands of miles away.

“He was a marvellous ambassador for the city and this was recognised by the University of Limerick, who conferred on him an honorary Doctor of Laws. His passing will be much mourned in Limerick.

“He had been a tireless force for good across the globe for more than four decades. As a founder member of Concern, Fr Finucane harnessed his great energy, commitment and kindness to effect real improvements in the lives of the poor and those devastated by war and disaster.

“From Biafra in the late 1960s to Bangladesh in the 1970s and Rwanda more recently, Fr Finucane brought relief and hope to millions of people whose lives were blighted by poverty and injustice.

“More than three decades after he worked in Bangladesh, locals recently remembered him as a “giant of a man”, who not only provided food and clean water, but established training centres for women and schools for children. He provided material help, but also brought them hope and the opportunity to build their own lives.

“This is Fr Finucane’s legacy and we in Ireland, along with millions of people across the world, owe him a debt of gratitude. We extend our sympathies to his brother, Fr Jack, his family and his many friends and colleagues across the world”.

Concern’s current CEO Tom Arnold described Fr Finucane as one of the greatest men of his generation who used his gifts for the welfare of the world’s poorest people.

‘He had an absolute commitment to the poorest of the poor: his work with Concern saved countless lives and improved the lives of many millions of people”.

An Taoiseach Brian Cowen, described Fr Aengus as a great humanitarian and his life’s work was to help alleviate the suffering of the poorest of the poor.

“He has made a truly impressive contribution to improving the quality of life of people in the Third World and his courageous efforts saved a huge number of lives”.

President of the University of Limerick, Professor Don Barry, paid the following tribute: “Father Finucane worked tirelessly in the service of the world’s most disadvantaged peoples.

“His passing will leave a void that is as immeasurable as the number of lives touched by his contributions.

“He was champion for the poor, an advocate for the downtrodden and risked his life working in many of the world’s worst war zones. Father Finucane was an inspirational figure who never despaired in the face of new challenges. We would like to offer our condolences to Father Finucane’s family at this very sad time”.

Co-founder of photographic agency Press 22, Liam Burke spoke fondly of Father Finucane, “He was one of the most remarkable men I ever met. He inspired everyone who met him”.

Mr Burke, who first met Fr Finucane in 1989, said they recently watched the All-Ireland final together, “He was in great spirits, although he was a bit disappointed that Tipperary lost. He was always a great supporter of Limerick GAA”.

Although Father Finucane travelled to many nations carrying out humanitarian work, Mr Burke, who had travelled abroad with him in a professional capacity, said he had a soft spot for one country. “One of his favourite countries was Bangladesh, he spent many years there and always took any opportunity he had to go back”.

Liam described Father Finucane as a proud Limerickman, “He was very very proud of Limerick and he always defended it against its critics”.

Biafran Retrospect: Umu-Igbo Express Gratitude to a Man Who Saved Them

2009-09-26T10:38:00.000-07:00

By Rev. Father Tobe Nnamani

Dr George Hussler and Rev Father Tobe Nnamani

Gabon 1970: A gift given to Dr Hussler by the Biafran children at "Village KM 11"

Rev. Dr. Hussler and Chief Joseph Mmeh

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.”

- Cicero-

Preamble

In April 1968, the survival of the nascent Republic of Biafra was hanging on the balance. After the fall of Enugu in September 1967, Biafran major cities continued to fall one after the other into the hands of the enemy. Consequently, what was left of the Biafran Secretariat consisted of a mobile van moved from one corner to the other. While major world powers watched with folded arms, debating on the proper interpretation and application of the principles of territorial sovereignty and non-intervention in the OAU Charter, the Federal soldiers continued their ferocious onslaught on the defenseless Biafran population. They rampaged, pounded, bombed and shelled villages and towns including hospitals and schools with reckless abandon. The level of death-toll and human misery shocked the conscience of the international community. And, as Biafran borders continued to shrink by the day, the population density jumped from its pre-war level of 500 persons per square kilometer to 2,000. In spite of all these seemingly insurmountable odds, the Biafrans were determined to defend themselves to the last man or so it seemed. However, as a result of the total and suffocating blockade by land, sea and air, the resultant crushing effect of hunger and disease threatened to snuff life out of the fledging republic and its traumatized citizens. It was in the midst of this excruciating situation that the Christian Churches all over the world including Jewish Synagogues in America launched one of the greatest relief assistance in the history of humanitarian intervention.

One man who played a leading role in this timely intervention was Rev. Fr. Dr. Georg Hüssler, former President of Caritas International. This kind-hearted man of God celebrated his 88th Birthday on July 7, 2009. Prior to this date, the Co-ordinator of Nzuko Umuigbo World-Wide Inc., Chief Joe Mmeh did an effective networking; he sent out emails to many Umuigbo both home and abroad requesting them to send a congratulatory birthday message and _expression of gratitude to a man who gave them food when they were starving to death and thereby saved them from total annihilation. For, according to the Roman Poet Cicero, “gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but, the parent of all others;” it is also an attitude that leads to beatitude. The response to this appeal was over-whelming as post-cards and emails poured into Dr. Hüssler’s letter and email boxes in waves. The content of this parent of all virtues was laden with emotions as many of those who sent them recounted the agony they or their parents and relatives went through and how they might not have seen the light of day without his timely intervention. To crown this out-pouring of gratitude and give it a somewhat personal touch, Chief Mmeh and the author paid a courtesy call on Father Hüssler on July 23, 2009 in his home in Freiburg/Breisgau, south-west Germany . The Octogenarian - still relatively strong, came to the door to meet us. After exchanging pleasantries, he took us down the memory lane and recounted with passion and astonishing picturesque details how Caritas (Relief Organisation founded in May 1946 in Germany) in tandem with other relief agencies and good-spirited individuals airlifted thousands of tons of relief materials to Uli Airstrip. The following is a sketch of the tit-bits from the meeting.

Who is Rev. Fr. Dr. Georg Hüssler?

Father Georg Hüssler was born on July 7, 1921 in Einöd , Saarland , Germany and grew up in Elsass. He was a medical student when World War II broke out; he enlisted into the Germany army and worked as a Sanitary Inspector. When the war ended, he proceeded to Rome where he studied Theology and was ordained priest in 1951. After his doctoral studies, he became an Assistant to the then President of German Caritas with Headquarters in Freiburg . He rose through the ranks to become the Secretary-General and later the President of German Caritas, a post he held for 22 years from 1969 to 1991.In between the time , he was also appoint President of Caritas International. Dr. Hüssler was decorated with three Honours by the three tiers of government in Germany , namely; the local government of his city Freiburg , the State government of Baden-Württemberg and the Federal Republic of Germany. Dr. Hüssler was interested in both aspects of the Catholic Social Teaching. On the practical side, he distinguished himself in the excellent way he managed the affairs of Caritas in the whole world bringing relief and succor to thousands of people ravaged by war and natural disasters. On the theoretical level, he authored five insightful books among which are Caritas and Pastoral Work (1985), Life in the 20th Century (1998) and Humanity as Spirituality (2006). He has retired from active service and lives a quiet life in Freiburg

The saving Role of Relief Agencies in Biafra:TheJoint Church Aid (JCA)

It is pertinent to get a glimpse of the complex and dangerous circumstances in which the relief agencies operated. In fact, all the contentious elements in complex humanitarian emergencies interplayed in the Biafran war such as the possibility of exploiting existing differences within the civil society; the issue of disputed legitimacy of host authorities; high prevalence of hunger and disease; keen and probing journalistic interest; the likelihood of manipulating relief for military and diplomatic advantages and apparent division among the international relief agencies. While all these complex issues were being discussed in high and low quarters, the estimated monthly death-toll in Biafra was put at 750,000.

The first major huddle was the non-agreement of Biafran and Nigerian governments on the route through which relief aid should be supplied. While Nigeria wanted relief to pass through Lagos , Biafra on the other hand saw it as suicidal to let their food pass through enemy hands. When Obilagu Airstrip came as a compromise, the federal troops captured it within a few weeks and Uli was now the only outlet through which relief came to Biafra . The Nigerian government strongly opposed it and refused to guarantee safety of flights landing at Uli. The Red Cross was the first to airlift food in August 1968 but was compelled to stop after one of its planes was shot down by the Nigerian government killing the entire crew.

At this juncture, the JCA which was made up of 37 international Church bodies from 28countries picked up the gauntlet. It defied the federal governments order and began one of the most efficient and effective relief Airlifts in the history of humanitarian intervention. Fr. Hüssler told us that this was the first time relief agencies charted their own planes to supply relief materials. He recounted how he and Father Tony Byrne the Deputy Director of JCA with representatives from the Churches went to France to purchase four planes. According to Fr. Hussler, “initially, we hired one experienced Pilot, Frank Wharton (an American of Latvian descent) who was later joined by Gustav von Rosen another pilot from Sweden among others.” Von Rosen brought four of his own planes and flew relief aids into Biafra free of charge. However, as the Nigerian government was vehemently against this life-line, Uli Airstrip which was only 8,000 foot was bombarded day and night but after each bombardment, it was quickly repaired to received the next flights. In the end, JCA airlifted about 60,000 tons of assorted relief materials in 5,300 flights. The Red Cross, before its short-lived assistance, ferried 41,000 tons of food and medical equipment in 4,000 flights. There were also significant contributions by other smaller relief agencies. The entire relief action mounted by JCA gulped the sum of about $116 million dollars and another $250 million dollars was invested in it by American private interests. This wonderful work of mercy was accomplished but not without heavy human loses on the part of the helpers. Thus, by the end of 1969, 27 pilots had lost their lives with 10 planes short down by the Nigerian Air Force.

JCA’s assistance was not limited to sending food to Biafra ; it also came in some other significant ways. For example, when in January 1968, the Nigeria government changed its currency, Biafra became literally bankcrupt. Even though it printed its own currency, the purchasing power of the Biafran money worth little or nothing. The relief agencies exchanged the Biafran pounds at the rate of $2.80. In this regard, Fr. Hüssler made a handsome donation in cash even after the war had ended. According to him “unknown to me, on January 15, 1970, when I flew to Lagos to meet Gowon, the end of the Nigeria-Biafra war was announced that day. Now, the Biafrans were left with no money since the Biafran Currency had become worthless. I had 100,000 Deutsche Mark in my bag which I changed into Nigerian Currency, chartered a Taxi and drove down to Onitsha where the money was handed over the Church through the then Archbishop Arinze, who took it with two hands and expressed his gratitude.”

The relief planes did not lift relief materials alone. “We discovered that the planes were flying empty back to Europe, so we quickly loaded children and the sick into the planes and flew them to safety in Europe and some African countries such as Gabon , Sao- Tomé etc.” Fr. Hüssler personally took two children from Okporo in Orlu to Europe - Roseline and Moses. Roseline had a hole in her head while Moses had a broken jaw. Unfortunately, Roseline did not survive but Moses is still alive today. Dr. Hüssler related to us that one of the things that touched him during those turbulent days was the magnanimity shown to 3,000 Biafran children by late Oma Bongo of Gabon . He gave the JCA a very large expanse of land where an English school was built. Bongo personally gathered about 56 competent personnel from different countries to give the children sound education. Another 1,000 children were also airlifted to Sao-Tomé – a Portuguese Island perching on the Atlantic Ocean . Fr. Hüssler also told us that he was delighted by the way Gowon spontaneously gave permission for the children airlifted to Gabon to come back to Nigeria .

Conclusion

This was how we spent the two and half hours with him and his former secretary –Frau Engesser, when he was Caritas President . It was indeed a pleasant company. As Dr. Hüssler re-lived this intense experience, tears of joy rolled down his chicks and he ended by saying in German Language “also, das war doch eine schöne Arbeit und ich bin Gott dankbar” – that was indeed a nice work and I thank God for that. We were very glad that we met him in person. There are still a lot of other people out there who played decisive roles during those 30 months of horror and degradation. One such person is John Doyle – a Holy Ghost Father who is now over 80 years old and lives in Reutershügelweg4, D-18069, Rostock , Germany . It would be good for Umuigbo who live in this area to pay him a visit and, on behalf of all Biafrans in general and, Ndiigbo in particular, personally express our heart-felt gratitude to him. Finally, we wish Father Hüssler a happy Birth-day, more healthy days ahead and God’s choicest blessings.

(Rev. Fr. Dr. Tobe Nnamani, MSP, is a priest of the Missionaries of St. Paul. He studied in Germany and Belgium and now teaches at the National Missionary Seminary of St. Paul, Abuja . Contact:ecomat23@yahoo.co.uk, GSM: +234-80-36-37-88-03).

Florida Autumn Retreat: Asaba, Kingdom on the Niger, Unites to Bury Her Dead

2009-09-26T10:17:00.000-07:00

BY Emma Okocha, The Vanguard,

Forwarded by Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

“On the grant of the Charter to the company in July 10, 1886, the man to whom Goldie turned to as Chief Justice was Sir James Marshall. The headquarters was at Asaba.’’ — Oluwole, T. S. Elias, Makers of Nigerian Law, Lagos 1963. Also See Gills Geography, Text in use up to 1912, it was clearly stated that Asaba was the capital of Southern Nigeria.

“The greatest single massacre occurred in the Ibo town of Asaba where 700 Ibo male were lined up and shot’’ — London Observer, January 21, 1968.

“There has been genocide, for example on the occasion of the 1966 massacres…. Two areas have suffered badly …Firstly, the region between Benin and Asaba where only widows and orphans remain. Federal troops having for unknown reasons massacred all the men. Accordingly to eyewitnesses of that massacre the Nigeria commander ordered the execution of every Ibo male over the age of ten years’’ — Monsignor Georges [sent down on a fact -finding mission by His Holiness The Pope,] Le Monde, April 5, 1968.

“In every Sport, SBA, other wise called the Hurricane, brought into the game three elements; speed, strength and his own unique style of playing the game, once he mastered the techniques. Despite his star status, and unequaled achievements, he was unassuming. Nobody who was his contemporary at Igbobi College, Lagos, who knew Sydney Asiodu can fail to end up feeling that in him the civil war, took not just somebody, but a great leader of men.’’ — Dele Sobowale, Impressionistic Columnist, Vanguard, and Editor In Chief, The Igbobian, lamenting the wanton waste of young men and the senseless killing of the Nigerian decorated Olympian, Sydney Asiodu on the day of the Asaba Massacre.

“The Western Ibos became the most vulnerable Nigerians… required ten positive acts of loyalty to one of the rest of the nation to prove themselves human beings. Ever since the Midwest invasion, they had been hounded, killed and considered greater security risk than the real Igbos themselves’’ — Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, The Man Died.

“In the spirit of Christian reconciliation accept my apologies on behalf of the Federal Military Government on the activities of the soldiers in Asaba during the Nigerian Civil war. I’m sorry for what happened especially to those who lost families…. I hope Asaba people will accept this apology even if it is belated….” — General Yakubu Gowon, Apology To Asaba, Nigeria Prays, The Guardian, September 21, 2001.

THERE were families like the Chukwurahs of Umuaji, who at the end of the mayhem had fifteen dead. Another Chukwurah family from the different village of Umunaje, that is the quarters of the late, renowned Nigerian Constitutional lawyer, Olisa Chukwurah, SAN, counted their relations’ dead bodies, watching the horrible footage on the Western Nigeria Television.

Pa Chukwurah and all his sons, including Eddy, the handsome engineer who had just returned from England, his first son who was a veteran of the West African Force, were not spared as the soldiers painted the household with blood.

Others like the Ezeadeife family of Ugbomanta, did not fare better. They were simply wiped out! University of Ife undergraduate brothers, Akazua Oyana and Uwaegbunam Oyana were shot, wounded, and when the illiterate soldiers figured out that they were undergraduates, they furiously before their pleading mother, buried the bleeding brothers alive.

There were the pathetic cases of victims whose death caused revolution and sympathies even from their butchers. Until their death some twenty years after, the Omoko parents never recovered from the traumatic loss of their only son, Barrister Richard Omoko. Their constant mourning and inconsolable hopelessness eventually led to their deaths.

The mother of another only born, Chukwumah killed at Ogbeosowah was for many years in a state disbelief, refusing to acknowledge the fact that her only and innocent son had gone. When she eventually summoned courage to accept his passage she ran amock and since has been roaming the streets like a mad woman.

Indeed, Barrister Omoko’s death was so pathetic and more saddening when the parents learnt that they could not find his body.

The parents had continued to pray and hoped that he had escaped to Biafra. Unable to bear the personal guilt anymore, the Omoko parents were accosted one morning, by the same soldiers that dispatched their son into the River Niger. They confessed their murder of their son and presented the shocked parents with the Barrister’s golden watch, which they had forcefully taken from him before shooting him into the Niger.

They were countless professionals, medical doctors, like Dr. Eugene Akwule, and his brothers, educationists, like irreplaceable E.C. Philips MBE. top civil servants like my uncle, the late Vincent Iweze, former territorial Controller, P&T, Northern Nigeria. This man who had a red line with the mighty Sardauna was murdered with my father and his sons, to the chagrin of the commanders when the deed was over.

The big men in town on October 7, 1967, were not spared. On the other hand, Asaba was almost spared as the richest black man of that era stepped out to buy the town away from trouble. Michael Ugo who was the pioneer business mogul that owned the Ike Chukwuka Transport Lines that preceded the Ojukwu group or the Ekene Dili Transport Lines, also owned the Nigeria Airmails and was the first African to establish the Export /Import business at Apapa.

His real estate empire was so vast, that any young man who came down to Lagos and had no place to shelter him, Chief Ugo would provide him with a place under the sun. He offered the soldiers some millions of pounds. There was initial agreement to save the town from mostly Northern officers who were negotiating in Hausa with Ugo.

Suddenly, this time from predominantly officers of Niger Delta origin a master list of prominent Asaba indigenes were circulated. These red-eyed officers burnt the Mercedes car with the cash and came for him. Before he left for the killing ground he asked for his friend Ogbueshi Leo Okogwu. He was aware that this famous father of Nneka Mariam Babangida had prepared the Community’s Welcome Address.

They had planned to give the victorious Nigerian soldiers the traditional Asaba welcome reverie the latter would never forget. After all, Ugo had unlimited resources, started as the Army’s Paymaster General and he Leo Okogwu is very well known in the north, had worked all his life in the region and was their peerless in law.

His fourth wife is a northerner and she had adapted very well in Asaba and could speak the sexy Ibo dialect like Queen Elizabeth could speak the Queens English.

Nigeria: Ali Mazrui's Diagnosis and Prescriptions

2009-09-08T16:00:00.000-07:00

By Ali Mazrui

Ali Mazrui, Africa's most famous political scientist, dissects the history of Nigeria to make comparative statements. Professor Ali Mazrui is the Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies and The Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities, State University of New York at Binghamton. He is the author of over twenty five books, including Towards A Pax Africana. He was author and narrator of the acclaimed nine-part television series, The Africans: A Triple Heritage. He is also a senior scholar in African Studies at the Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University, the A. D. White Professor-At-Large Emeritus at Cornell University, the Albert Luthuli Professor-At-Large, University of Jos, Nigeria,and Chair, Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, Washington, D. C. USA.

The Path to Nigeria Greatness: Between Exceptionalism and Typicality

The cohesion of the United States as one country rests on the roles of two personalities - George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Paradoxically, the survival of Nigeria as one country also rests on two personalities ’ Lord Lugard and General Yakubu Gowon. George Washington was a rebel against British rule, but laid the foundation of post-colonial American unification. Lord Lugard was a representative of the British colonial order, but served the destiny of amalgamating Northern and Southern Nigeria into one country in 1914. This event launched Mega-Nigeria, an enlargement of political scale.

When George Washington's achievement was threatened by separatism and secession in the 1860s, Abraham Lincoln came to the rescue and saved the Union. When Lord Lugard's amalgamation of North South was threatened by separatism and secession in the 1960s, Yakubu Gowon came to the rescue and helped to save the Union and to preserve Mega-Nigeria.

>From World War 1 To The Biafra War The year 2004 has marked the 90th anniversary of the amalgamation of Northern Nigeria with Southern. In 1914 Lord Lugard, the British Administrator, had unified what could have been two separate countries each destined to have at least 50 million people by the end of the 20th century. It is an open question which of the two halves of the country would finally have retained Nigeria as its name.

But because Lugard amalgamated the two haves into one entity, Nigeria developed into a country of 120 million people by the beginning of this new millennium.

It is a surprise of historic proportions that the amalgamation has survived these ninety years. It has survived the vagaries of differentiated colonial policies when the North was governed differently from the South.

Nigeria's amalgamation has survived Northern separatism after World War II when Northern Nigeria wanted to attain independence as a separate country form the South. Kwame Nkrumah, the Ghanaian Leader, described Northern separatism at that time as a form of "Pakistanism" ’Äì’Äì with the goal of religiously inspired partition. Yakubu Gowon was at the time a mere child and a Christian and was not involved in Muslim separatism.

Nigeria's amalgamation survived Eastern separatism in the first decade of independence when the Eastern region attempted to invent Biafra and helped to unleash a civil war from 1967 to 1970. On this occasion, Yakubu Gowon was called upon to play his supreme historical role ’Äì’Äì the role of saving the Union of a singular Mega-Nigeria.

As Governor-General of Nigeria during the period of World War 1, Lord Lugard has contradictory effects on the future of Nigeria's unity. Lugard was the architect of Nigeria's national amalgamation, but his policies were detrimental of Nigeria's national integration. Amalgamation broadened the national boundaries and merged north and south into one country. National integration was supposed to be the process by which ethnic and religious division would be softened or ameliorated as the people acquired a sense of shared citizenship and national consciousness.

Lord Lugard virtually invented the British policy of Indirect Rule in Africa, which attempted to govern Africans through their own "native authorities". Indirect rule was particularly successful in Nigeria, leaving the Emirates of the north especially strong. As a colonial policy which respected indigenous institutions, Indirect Rule was more humane than the assimilation policies pursued by France and Portugal. But by helping to preserve indigenous cultures and native institutions, Indirect Rule also helped to sustain "tribal identities" in Nigeria, and thus made national integration more difficult. It might, therefore, be said that while Lord Lugard was a hero of national amalgamation, he was inadvertently an adversary of national integration.

At independence amalgamation had given Nigeria an ethnically mixed single national army. But inadequate national integration had made ethnic consciousness a little too strong within the armed forces. Amalgamation had made the Nigeria army strong enough to control both halves of the country, North and South. But ethnic divisions within the armed forces turned Nigeria's first military coup in January 1966 into an ethnic bloodbath (essentially in favour of the Igbo). The counter-coup which followed a few months later deepened the ethnic and regional divide. The country remained amalgamated, but not adequately integrated.

Onto this stressful national stage stepped young Yakubu Gowon, then in his early thirties. His twin tasks were first to prevent the break-up of Nigeria's amalgamation and, secondly, to try to promote greater national integration.

A major set-back to both ambitions was the anti-Igbo pogrom which broke out in northern Nigeria in October 1966, killing many people and triggering off large-scale migration of the Igbo back to the Eastern region. Igbo separatism entered a new phase. The break up of Nigeria's amalgamation was ominously on the horizon.

One solution was a looser federation, what was described as confederation at the Aburi meeting in Ghana between Yakubu Gowon and the Igbo leader, Colonel Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. Gowon failed to persuade Ojukwu to drop his secessionist aspirations. Ojukwu declared the separation of Baifra from Nigeria. Ojukwu hoped that the Yoruba of the Western region would join him and also secede, thus ending the egacy of 1914.

General Gowon made a shrewd and brilliant move. He abolished the old regions of Nigeria and divided the country into twelve new states. This help to diffuse fear of Northern domination among the Yoruba and other groups, and encouraged Eastern minorities to turn against Igbo leadership and pray for a Federal victory.

Weakening the original political regions of post-colonial Nigeria helped the cause of national integration. But what about saving the Union which had been created in 1914? General Gowon succeeded in keeping the Yoruba and other group within the Nigerian Federation. By July 1967 Gowon was ready to declare "police action" to stop the secession.

But Yakubu Gowon was constantly aware that saving the territorial integrity of Nigeria was useless without simultaneously pursuing the national integration of its people. He was emphatic about a "code of conduct" and sensitive rules of engagement. He insisted that the so-called Biafrans should not be called "enemies", but should be regarded as fellow Nigerians who needed to be won back into the national fold. He was a benign war leader who was against the so-called 'quick kill'. He could have made the illegal night-flying to Biafra dangerous for the aircraft. But for almost a year and a half he shut a blind eye to these night-flights of relief supplies to Biafra.

Yakubu Gowon had triumphed in saving the Union, but he still needed to promote greater national integration. His leadership helped to avert another anti-Igbo bloodbath in the wake of Biafra's defeat. He permitted mercy missions to be rushed to the former Biafra. Within a single year the agonies of widespread disease and starvation were reversed in the Eastern region.

On the tenth anniversary of Nigeria's independence he declared plans for new elections, a new constitution and a new populations census. He said military rule would be needed until 1976. He wanted time to consolidate civil reconstruction as part of the process of national integration. He later made the mistake of asking for even more time at a moment in history when the country was impatient or a return to civilian rule. His fellow solders, led by Murtala Muhammad, overthrew him in July 1975.

Like Abraham Lincoln, Yakubu Gowon has saved the Union of his country. Like Lincoln, Gowon's tenure of office was ended by force. But while Lincoln was assassinated, Yakubu Gowon went into exile for a least a decade.

Our main focus in this paper is, of course, Nigeria rather than the United States, but the hope to conclude with a discussion of whether Nigeria is a future African equivalent of the United States, and whether Yakubu Gowon is Africa's equivalent of Abraham Lincoln.

Between Exceptionalism and Typicality

There are indeed certain attributes which make Nigeria strikingly unique in Africa-setting it apart in configuration from all other African Countries. This aspect might be called Nigeria's exceptionalism. Many of those attributes are a consequence of the policies of Lord Lugard, on one side, and General Gowon, on the other.

There are other attributes, however, which make Nigeria a mirror of the African experience as a whole ’ making Nigeria a good illustration of what the whole of Africa is all about. This side of Nigeria might be called Nigeria's typicality. Some particular ups and-downs of the country may be typical of the entire continent. To understand Nigeria is to comprehend this dialectic between the exceptionalism of Nigeria in the African configuration and the typicality of Nigeria as a mirror of the continent.

The exceptionalism of Nigeria includes of course the huge size of its population in relation to its neighbours. It is by far the most populous country in Africa. This is a central aspect of the 1914 amalgamation. The next country in size on the African continent is Egypt ’and yet Egypt is only a little more than half of Nigeria's population.

When ECOWAS was formed in 1975 upon the initiative of Nigeria and Togo, its population comprised 150 million people in sixteen countries; more than half of that total population were Nigerians. The Gross National Product of ECOWAS in 1975 was $85 billion U.S. dollars ’ the bulk of that came from Nigeria. General Yakubu Gowon was a major architect of this ambitious African regional organisation. He was strengthened by the legacy of enlargement from 1914.

Nigeria's exceptionalism also includes the combination of immense human resources (youthful and potentially gifted population) with immense natural resources (led by oil and gas). In 1914 Lord Lugard knew about Nigeria's palm oil. Nigeria's other oil ’ petroleum, had yet to reveal itself.

Towards A Pax Nigerian

Almost from independence Nigeria's exceptionalism included a potential leadership role to hope keep the peace in West Africa a kind of Pax Nigeriana. For better or for worse, Nigeria''s regional rival in this peace-keeping role has not been another West African Country. It has in fact been France. It has been France, combined with Nigeria's own internal problems, which have prevented Pax Nigeriana from fulfilling its regional mission to the full.

Opinion is divided within France in this new millennium as to whether to continue Paris's historic role in Africa or whether to find a new mission for French destiny in the newly emerging countries of Eastern and Central Europe. If France is beginning to withdraw from African (as the devaluation of the C.F.A. franc portended) the so-called regional "vacuum" left behind is likely to be increasingly filled by Pax Nigeriana.

On the evidence so far, Pax Nigeriana ’ keeping the peace in West Africa under Nigeria's auspices ’ is better fulfilled when Nigeria is under military rule than when it is under the politicians. The most spectacular exercises in Pax Nigeriana occurred in the 1990s when Nigeria led the forces of ECOWAS (the ECOMOG troops) into Liberia first to restore peace and then to help re-start electoral democracy. The final result were elections in Liberia in 1997, which returned Charles Taylor to power for a while.

In 1998 Nigeria more unilaterally took on the army in Sierra Leone, which had overthrown the elected government of President Kaba. Nigeria reversed the military takeover and restored the constitutionally elected government. But what had made it possible for Nigeria to play this role of "Big Brother" in West Africa? Mega-Nigeria's enlargement of scale went straight back to the unification of 1914 and to the preservation of the Nigerian Union under the leadership of Yakubu Gowon.

For most of the 1990s Nigeria paradoxically became a force for democracy abroad but remained a dictatorship at home. Nigerian forces helped to restore relative freedom to the people of Liberia and Sierra Leone ’but the Nigeria forces were slow to extend freedom to the Nigerian people at home.

This does not mean that Nigeria should not have helped to re-democratize Liberia and Sierra Leone. General Sani Abacha's regional role was one of the positive aspects of Pax Nigeriana. But doing good abroad is no excuse for not doing better at home. Fortunately, there were indications that the military government after Abacha wanted an honorable way towards re-civilization. The last elections of the end of the 20th century brought a former soldier to head the new democracy’ General Olusegun Obasanjo.

It is arguable that one of the first exercises of Pax Nigeriana occurred in Tanzania in1964. Army mutinies in Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika had forced the three governments to invite British troops to return to East Africa and disarm their own mutinous solders.

President Julius K. Nyerere understandably disbanded the whole mutinous army once order was restored. But who was going to keep the peace in a Tanganyika without an army? Julius Nyerere called upon fraternal troops from Nigeria to fill the vacuum while Nyerere set about creating an alternate indigenous security force. It is arguable that the beginnings of Pax Nigeriana lie in a voluntary partnership between Nigeria and what later became Tanzania. Nigerians helped Tanzanians keep the peace in their own country in 1964. Ironically, this marked the 50th anniversary of the amalgamation of Nigeria into one country.

Nigerian Politics: Between The Sublime And The Theatrical

Perhaps it is also part of Nigeria's exceptionalism that it has not just one pivotal ethnic group in a national configuration but three. Uganda has one pivotal group ’ the Baganda. Kenya has in reality Two outstanding pivotal group- the Luo and Kikuyu. Senegal's outstanding pivotal group are the Wolof.

Is Nigeria exceptional in having three very large pivot ethnic groups, each with a dazzling record of achievement? Nigeria would not have had such a triad of vanguard ethnic groups if the 1914 amalgamation had not occurred, and if it had not been preserved by Yakubu Gowon''s government.

The Hausa are by far the largest linguistic group not only in Nigeria but in West Africa as a whole. Within Nigeria itself the Hausa also have a long record of skill of governance from precolonial days, right through colonialism until postcolonial days. The Yoruba have in many ways the most complex indigenous culture of them all. The Yoruba impact on global Africa and the rest of the Black world is less about the Yoruba language and more about the Yoruba religion and culture. Yoruba religious rites are to be witnessed in countries as diverse as Brazil, Jamaica, Haiti, Surinam, Nigeria, Dahomey (now Republic of Benin) and the United States.

The Igbo were the great technologists of Nigeria in the second half of the twentieth century. Their triumph in economic skills in Northern Nigeria in the 1950s and 1960s contributed to their vulnerability as a people in 1966. During the Nigerian Civil war the Igbo's innovativeness also produced Africa's first locally made gun-vehicles.

During the Civil War the Igbo displayed levels of innovative daring unknown in post-colonial African History. The Igbo created rough-and-ready armed militarized vehicles as well as the beginnings of African's industrial revolution. This renaissance was aborted by the oil bonanza from the 1970s onwards.

During the Biafra War Nigeria was more internally innovative than externally prosperous. The Nigerian Civil War produced some of the high points of Nigeria's experience with technological innovation. The Nigerian oil bonanza after the 1973 OPEC price escalation created disincentives to Nigerian enterprise.

War had brought out both the best and the worst of Nigeria in human terms. But technologically the power of spilt blood in Nigeria produced greater innovation than the power of sprouting petroleum. The pain of Biafra was technologically more fruitful than the profit of OPEC. While Commander-in-chief Yakubu Gowon was mobilizing the Federal forces, Colonel Emeka Ojukwu was inspiring and motivating Igbo innovation.

Nigeria's exceptionalism in 1998 included the extraordinary phenomenon of five political parties choosing the same man as their Presidential candidate ’ Sani Abacha even when Abacha was not even A member of any of these parties. This was unprecedented any where in the world. At one level this showed political opportunism at its most glaring, and where in the world. At one level this showed political opportunism at its most glaring, and was not a credit to the complex size of Nigeria. But at another level this could have been a defensible constitutional experiment if it had been presented as such.

When Africa had one-party states (as in Kenya, Zambia, Tanzania and the Ivory Coast), the real choice for voters involved elections to the legislature. The choice of the Head of State was never in doubt in those African on-party states. The legislative choice was between individual candidates within the same party.

What Nigeria might have evolved in 1998 was a system a little more pluralistic than the one-party state but a little less pluralistic than a system of full-blown electoral competition at all levels. At the presidential level, the people of Nigeria would have no more choice than the electorates of Africa's one-party states had before the 1990s. But at the level of legislative elections the people of Nigeria could choose between arties and not simply between individuals. At least theoretically the people of Nigeria would have had more choice in 1998 than the people of one-party Kenya had before 1992. However, the Nigerian voter was not impressed. And Abacha did not live long enough to be the Head of five political parties. Let us now shift from Nigeria's exceptionalism, its uniqueness, to Nigeria's typicality in the African context.

Ideologies: The Cultural And The Economic

Nigeria's typicality includes the fact that Nigerians are more strongly moved by socio-cultural ideologies than by socio-economic ideologies. Socio-cultural ideologies appeal to such cultural forces as ethnicity, religion, nationalism, race-consciousness and regional allegiance.

Socio-economic ideologies try to appeal to such economic interest at class, economic equity, trade union right and the like. Marxism, ujamaa and most other forms of socialism are socio-economic ideologies. Ethnicity, nationalism and regional allegiance are socio-cultural ideologies.

In Nigeria ’ as in most other parts of Africa ’ ethno-cultural ideologies are much stronger than ethno-economic ones. My favorite Nigerian example was Obafemi Awolowo's effort to move Nigeria a little to the left. When he looked to see who was following him, it was not the dispossessed of all ethnic groups Nigeria who followed; it was his fellow Yoruba of all social classes and levels of income.

My favorite Kenyan example was Oginga Odinga's modest attempt to move Kenyans a little to the left. When Oginga looked to see who was following him, once again it was not the dispossessed of Kenya of all ethnic groups. It was his fellow Luo of all social classes and levels of income.

Africa is a continent of surplus passion but deficit power. Nigerians as Africans feel strongly about many aspirations. In the controversial words of a very distinguished African philosopher president ’a king of philosopher king ’ Leopold Senghor of Senegal: "Emotion Is Black’ Reason Is Greek."

Nigeria is typical of Africans also because of the swings between tyranny (too much government) and anarchy (too little government). When under military rule, Nigeria leans towards tyranny (too much government), when under civilian administration, Nigeria leans towards anarchy (too little government).

In spite of the fact the country was at war from 1967 to 1970, military rule under Yakubu Gowon was more benign than military rule either before the Gowon regime or subsequent to it.

Nigeria's triple heritage is a convergence of indigenous African values, Islamic culture, and the impact of the West (both secular and Christian). In one sense, this convergence of the three legacies is part of Nigeria's typicality.

But Nigeria is exceptional in having those three civilizations (Africanity, Islam and the West) almost equal in power. Can we measure political development by the yardstick of declining scale of political violence? Let us try with Nigeria. The first two decades of Nigeria's independence were the age of regicide and primary violence. The killing of the King or Head Executive
as a trend as regicide. Of the eight supreme leaders of Nigeria in the first 20 years, four has been assassinated.

The eight supreme leaders were Azikwe, Balewa, Ahmadu Bello, Ironsi, Gowon, Murtala, Obansanjo and Shagari. The 50% who were assassinated were of course Balewa, Ahmadu Bello, Ironsi and Murtala Muhammed. Regicide was at a 50% rate ’ a high rate indeed. Ahmadu Bellow was technically a regional leader but with immense federal and national power. In all, three Northern leaders were killed, as compared with one Southern.

The next 20 years of Nigeria's independence (1980 to the year 2000) were to be of militarism and constitutional experimentation. These were the last years of Shagari, those of Shagari, those of Buhari, those of Babangida and his immediate successors, and the emergence of Sani Abacha. The most promising experiment was the Babangida transition, which collapsed ignominiously with the aborted election of June 1993. The transition would apparently have bought M.K.O Abiola into power. It would have been a remarkable stage in the electoral amalgamation of the two halves of Nigeria. For the first time a Southern Muslim would have presided over Nigeria. Under Abacha the years of Militarism and constitutional experimentation could have continued, on the other hand, with a new concept of presidential recycling from military ruler to elected Head of State.

If Abacha had lived and run for the Presidency, he would have been partially following the precedent of Jerry Rawlings who captured power twice by the barrel of gun and later gained legitimacy through the ballot box and electoral process. But Abacha died in June 1998 before the scenario could be attempted in Nigeria. The experiment in North South amalgamation was inconclusive and was still subject to ups and downs.

Brazil Discourses -- Africa, the state, genocide and the Future

2009-07-18T15:18:00.000-07:00

By Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

Text of 10 lectures on Africa delivered between 13 June and 10 July 2009 at the following universities in Brazil: Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, Universidade Federal de Sergipe, Aracaju, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro and Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, São Paulo. I wish to thank Alyxandra Gomes Nunes of the Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador, for her excellent planning and coordination of the lecture tour and to Professors Paula Barreto, Eliane Veras Soares, Claudio Pereira, Antonio Mota, Walteir Silva, Hypolite Brice, Luiz Eduardo Oliveira, Marie Teresa Salgado, César Nunes, Fábio Akcelrud Durão, Jose Augusto Alburquerque and Jamie Ginzburg for their stimulating contributions and exchanges during the lively post-lecture question & discussion sessions and for creating the enabling environment in their various universities which made the tour such a resounding intellectual success. To you all, I say, “Obrigado. Tchau!” All notes and references are in the original – HE-E]

Arms, arming, armies and armed conflicts as well as a deleterious political economy characterise the tragedy of contemporary Africa. With 10 major ongoing-armed conflicts, including the genocide in Darfur being perpetrated by the Arab-led state in the Sudan, Africa has more wars raging on its territory than any other continent in the world. Since the end of the Second World War in 1945, more than 120 wars have been fought in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America/the Caribbean resulting in the death of 40 million people. This figure represents about 80 per cent of the total number of those killed during the Second World War. Of these 40 million fatalities, well over one-third or 15 million are Africans, killed in the genocidal murders and other so-called “internal-based” wars that have been fought across Africa since the 1960s – notably the 1966-1970 Igbo genocide executed by the Nigeria state and its allies, the foundational and most gruesome genocide in Africa to date where 3.1 million Igbo people were murdered, the 1996 Rwanda genocide, the ongoing Darfur genocide, and the wars in the Congos (Congo Democratic Republic, Republic of Congo), Ethiopia, Djibouti, Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Angola, Senegal (southern Casamance province), Liberia, Sierra Leone, Chad, Guinea Bissau, southern Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire. Elsewhere, the war theatre fatalities of the period that complete the grisly tally of 15 million occurred in the following countries where Africans waged wars against occupying European conquest regimes: South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Kenya and Angola. Presently, Côte d'Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Somalia, Sudan, the Congos, Rwanda, Burundi, Nigeria, Angola, Central Africa Republic, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Eritrea are still ravaged by simmering conflict or the aftermath of one, and the spill-over consequences on contiguous states and regions have been devastating. The displacement of millions of people and the prevailing extensive food shortages and desperate famine conditions in west, central, east and southern Africa that affect 38 million people have indeed been exacerbated by these varied war and post-war situations.

In essence, the state in Africa that emerged on the morrow of the late 1950s/early 1960s’ “termination” of direct European conquest occupation of the continent demonstrates a glaring inability to fulfil its basic role. This state does not provide security and welfare nor does it enable the growth and _expression of society’s transformative capacities. It is virtually at war with its peoples, having murdered 15 million since 1966 as we have highlighted. The typical African state, 53 years after the so-called “restoration of independence”, is essentially a genocide-state.

Child Soldiers

Currently, Africa has the world's largest number of refugees displaced by wars – a total of 15 million or just short of one-half of the world's total of 38 million that includes the Middle East, South-West Asia and South-East Asia. As can be imagined, the effect of these wars on the African family and the community at large has been profoundly tragic – bereavement, separation, disorganisation, displacement. Life in a refugee camp that could be miles away from one's village, town, province, district or region in another part of the country (or even in a foreign land) with a missing mother or father or daughter or son, has taken a heavy toll on Africa's legendary family cohesiveness. The effect on children is particularly grave and the ever contentious questions increasingly posed in several intellectual circles on the survivability of the African family life in its present form can no longer be shrugged off. As casualties on the war front mount inexorably, the recruitment of children from refugee camps and elsewhere into the military intensifies. Africa has the highest concentration of child-soldiers (boys and girls) presently. Of the 120,000 children fighting in the world’s wars, 80,000 or two-thirds of the total are Africans – actively involved in the continent's major conflicts in the east, central and west regions.

Economies and Indebtedness

The economics of Africa's arms, arming and armed conflicts, as should be expected, have had a strangulating effect on the continent's resources. The variegated features of African militarisation and wars have been very costly, creating crippling indebtedness. These constitute US$170 billion or about a 40 per cent share of Africa's total so-called “external debt” that currently stands at US$350 billion. Africa's annual servicing of these “debts”, with ever spiralling interest rates on them, has ensured that the continent has been a net exporter of capital to overseas, mostly to the Western World, since 1981. During the period, Africa transferred the gargantuan amount of US$400 billion to the West – a sum which is in fact four times the size of the original US$100 billion principal of the continent's “debt” as it stood in 1980, and in excess of the present value of US$350 billion. The militarisation component of African “indebtedness” will surely continue to rise as more resources than ever before are allocated to this across the continent. In the era of the virtual collapse of the so-called African “nation-state”, it is not as ironical as it may seem that the only sector of the state's economic activity with the rest of the world that has retained an unrivalled dynamism is its arms, arming, genocide, conflict and war capability. Africa as a whole now spends 25 per cent of its GNP (Gross National Product) on militarisation and wars while it allocates a paltry 2.4 per cent of its GNP to education – despite the general collapse of the continent's educational infrastructure at all tiers – and 2.1 per cent of its GNP to health, despite the HIV/AIDs pandemic that afflicts millions of its people and other equally debilitating maladies. It should be stressed that this stated expenditure on militarisation is highly conservative as it does not account for the usual “military/security-oriented” funds that many a regime in Africa surreptitiously lodges in the budget of the Office of the President or those of the Ministry of Public Works or Ministry of Reconstruction and Planning or some other quaint-sounding government department of dubious tasks. Neither does this expenditure fully account for those that emanate from quasi-state operatives (for instance, the notorious Sudanese janjaweed) the non-state/anti-state insurgent organisations and their constituencies that sprout up here and there as this emergency deteriorates. In countries and regions with multi-sectoral sites of ongoing wars (Côte d'Ivoire/central West Africa, Chad, the Congos/Great Lakes, the Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria), quasi-state and non-state/anti-state insurgent groups now compete actively in Africa's arms build-up and proliferation. In effect, Africa's expenditure on militarisation and wars is closer to one-third of its GNP than the 20 per cent stated above. What is therefore certain is that until there is a dramatic de-escalation of this grim crisis, the ratio of both Africa's annual militarisation budgetary provision vis-à-vis the rest of the economy, and the share of this provision to the continent's overall “debt” budget, will continue to expand.

Fuelling Killing Fields

Besides South Africa and Egypt and the very limited arms production base in Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Morocco, Africa does not, in the main, produce the array of weaponry that fuels the killing fields that stretch across the continent. The United States and Britain are Africa's principal suppliers of weapons and the impact of their roles here need highlighting. Both countries make up 70 per cent of Africa's total imports while Russia, France, China, Germany and Belgium account for 20 per cent. The remaining 10 per cent are made up of the so-called “illegal weapons”, most of which are imported from east and central Europe. If US arms sales and transfers to Egypt and Morocco could be ignored for now (transactions that are more related to the US's Middle-East strategic considerations than Africa itself), Britain is in fact the leading arms exporter to Africa. In 1999 alone, Britain sold US$80 million worth of arms to Africa which represented about one-third of all US sales to the continent (Egypt and Morocco excluded) in the entire 1990s decade. In this first decade of the new millennium, British military sales to Africa have leapt to an average of US$180 million per annum or about 80 per cent of US's total military exports to the region (Egypt and Morocco again excluded) in the previous decade.

British arms exporters were the leading beneficiaries of the billions of dollars that Nigeria, to use the example of the country in Africa that inaugurated the genocide state in 1966, spent on arms and other “state security-related” imports during the 16 years of the appalling military dictatorships of Generals Buhari, Babangida, Abacha and Abubakar. At the time, budgetary allocations to the Nigerian military and other paraphernalia of the juntas' repressive apparatus averaged US$2 billion per annum with Britain enjoying 60-70 per cent of all imports. The dictatorships were therefore fully equipped to pursue their notorious state of siege on the populations with such devastating consequences: a run-down economy, the murder of scores of political opponents, the detention of several others, the catastrophic military interventions in Liberia and Sierra Leone which cost the country US$13 billion and thousands of casualties (never acknowledged officially by any of the latter three military regimes that were involved in the intervention nor indeed the so-called two “civilian” successor regimes), and the flight of tens of thousands of intellectuals and professionals into exile. Contrary to popular expectations across the country in 1999, the formal end of military rule did not reverse the underlying anti-democratic policy and manifestation of militarisation. The situation had not least been helped by the leadership of the new regime, headed by none other than Olusegun Obasanjo, an ex-military dictator himself who led a junta for three years in the 1970s and a genocidist commander during the Igbo genocide of 1966-1970. In an era when the rest of the world appeared completely exasperated in watching Africa forced to its knees by a cyclical retinue of colonels and generals wielding the cudgel of their brute usurpation of state power, Obasanjo had essentially followed in the footsteps of former military dictators in west and central Africa (Togolese General Eyadema, Ghanaian Flt-Lt Rawlings, Burkinabe Captain Campore and Central African Republic General Bokassa, for instance) to “civilianise” himself into state president. The outcome, his eight years in office, was a disaster in the country. Rather than slash the budget on militarisation, “Civilian” President Obasanjo increased it! When Obasanjo took over from the formal military regime in 1999, the junta's stated budgetary allocation to militarisation was US$2.2 billion. In Obasanjo's own first budget in 2000, he earmarked US$2.4 billion for militarisation/state brutalisation, an increase of almost 10 per cent from the previous year. In contrast, US$500 million was assigned to education while health care received US$150 million. The widespread human rights abuse and personal insecurity that were the hallmark of life in the country during formal military rule did not abate. Instead, the situation worsened markedly with the increased levels of state and quasi-state violence on principally Igbo people and the further strangulation of the economy of occupied Igboland.

In the eight years that Obasanjo was in power, 20,000 people in Nigeria were murdered by the state, quasi-state agencies and others. Eighty per cent of those murdered were Igbo. In all, Obasanjo had overseen one of the most corrupt and incompetent governments in Nigeria. Transparency International branded Nigeria the “second most corrupt country” in the world. But the Obasanjo regime's more detailed and graphic indictment came from a January 2003 damning report on its financial life published by its own auditor general, noting gross irregularities: “over-invoicing, non-retirement of cash advances, lack of audit inspection, payments for jobs not done, double debiting, contract inflation, lack of receipts of back pay, flagrant violation of financial regulations, release of money without approving authority…” Thousands of employees, especially in public services, were owed salaries ranging from 12-18 months. Industrial enterprises operated at about 30 per cent capacity and acute shortages of petrol and petroleum products were the norm for a country that is the world's sixth largest exporter of petroleum oil! Several universities and other educational institutions of higher learning were strike-bound for long stretches during the academic year due to both staff and students' protests over lack of adequate state funding for education. Hospitals were also frequent sites of strike action by doctors, nurses and other medical staff protesting over the government's poor funding of healthcare. What Obasanjo has shown demonstrably in Nigeria is that rather than ease an already desperate situation, the “civilianisation” of ex-military dictators in the politics of their countries deepens the crisis of militarisation and brutalisation, with the predictable consequences on the welfare and aspirations of the people. The haemorrhage on the economy as the regime ploughs even more resources into the procurement of armaments to suppress recalcitrant/targeted population(s) intensifies. More armament requirement for these regimes is of course welcome news to Britain, Africa's chief weapon exporter, and the others contending for a slice of this scrumptious pie…

Britain's pervasive entrenchment in the very lucrative business of African militarisation and wars is equally evident in central and southern Africa. Despite its rhetoric of an “ethical foreign policy”, the British Labour party government that took office in 1997 was heavily involved in the Congo/Great Lakes war. Similar to the United States's intervention in this conflict, Britain had sold arms to both sides of the principal protagonists – Congo Democratic Republic itself, Rwanda, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Burundi and Uganda. In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation at the height of the conflict in 2000, Charles Onyango-Obbo, the editor of the respected Ugandan independent newspaper, The Monitor, did not fail to stress the significance of the British role in the region:

Britain is supporting both sides – it just robs [it] of any moral authority and a lot of people rightly do despise the British government in this affair.

Despite this “ethical foreign policy”, British Prime Minister Blair at the time personally visited South Africa in 1999 to lobby successfully on behalf of the British arms industry for a substantial share in the massive US$6 billion arms build up planned then by the South African military. For South Africa, such an outlandish expenditure on militarisation was a shock to many observers concerned about the country's priorities. None of South Africa's neighbours posed (or poses) any threat to the country's security and no such threats were envisaged from elsewhere in the world in the foreseeable future. The post-conquest years of urgently required reconstruction of institutions, and the provision of services to ensure equitable inclusion and participation by all races and peoples in South African society, would surely have benefited immensely from the injection of US$6 billion rather than the government’s allocation of such a huge sum to the armaments of certain death.

For yet more thoughts on Britain’s “ethical foreign policy”, it is worth noting that this “orientation” was equally unsustainable in the light of the convoluted phases of the controversial British military intervention in the Sierra Leone wars during the 1990s, including the highly embarrassing “arms-to-Africa” affair. In this affair, well-placed British government officials connived with Sandline International, a British-based mercenary force, which was in combat operations in Sierra Leone to install a pro-British regime. British arms were also sent to contending combatant groups in the country, often in clear violations to stipulated United Nations arms embargo on Sierra Leone and the region. Finally, an “ethical foreign policy” did not in any way sway Britain's decision in its most scandalous participation in African militarisation to date when, in 2002, it sold a military air traffic control system to Tanzania (a country without a credible air force) for the price tag of US$42 million. Not even the usually reticent World Bank and the IMF restrained themselves from publicly criticising a deal that had been struck by London only after putting “unbearable” pressure on the Tanzanian government. As for the latter, it was an ignoble occasion at the time to watch senior state officials struggle pitiably to explain or rather rationalise how a country that had no obvious need for the expensive machinery that they had just purchased would hence slide into certain debt as a result.

Onyango-Obbo's observations on Britain could equally have been made, with the obvious substitutions, to also capture the nature of US foreign policy towards the scourge of African militarisation and wars as we show shortly, and indeed those of other countries such as Russia, the Ukraine, Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Slovakia. In the 1998-2000 war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, one of Africa’s few but most costly inter-state conflicts, Russia and Bulgaria, for instance, sold expensive weapons’ systems (especially fighter aircraft, bombers, helicopter gun ships, tanks) to both African neighbours throughout their devastating confrontation. Thousands of Ethiopians and Eritreans were killed in the war and it is estimated that both sides spent about US$1 million per day throughout the duration of the arms build up and hostilities. Less than three years after the end of fighting, the two countries made a startling appeal to an outside world still bewildered over the sheer idiocy of their conflict: they urgently needed international support to feed 11 million of their citizens facing hunger and starvation. Nothing in this appeal indicated that the political leadership in either Addis Ababa or Asmara really cared for the welfare of its citizens when it drove thousands of them into war to face untimely deaths just a few years earlier. In so doing, these leaderships laid the very foundations of the deaths that presently stalk their lands through starvation.

As for the United States, it sold weapons totalling about US$230 million to Africa during the years 1990-1999. Significantly, about 50 per cent of these sales went directly to the countries steeped in the very fractured contours of the epicentre of the raging wars of the Congo/Great Lakes arc: Congo Democratic Republic, Uganda, Rwanda, Sudan, Angola, Burundi, Namibia and Zimbabwe. The fact that some of these countries and their varying non-state insurgent forces' allies were in opposing military alliances during the conflict (necessitating using US weaponry against enemies similarly armed by the same supplier!), was of little consideration in Washington's arms transfer policy. Furthermore, Rwanda, which consistently maintained an intransigent position towards innumerable peace settlements at the time, received an additional US$75 million worth of “emergency aid” during the period, that hardly disguised the incorporated military/quasi-military components in it. Similarly, US arms sales and transfers to war-torn Sierra Leone and Liberia (and to contiguous states with interest in the wars such as Guinea and Mali) during the era did not in any way enhance the goals of conflict resolution. On the contrary, more arms were just being poured into a region already bursting at the seams with an unimaginable array of destructive arsenal…

“Legal” vs “Illegal”?

We should now focus briefly on Africa's so-called “illegal arms”. The Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Ukraine and Bulgaria make up the bulk of exporters of weapons to the continent's ever-expanding non-state insurgents, some of whose missions are anti-state (as the innumerable clusters in Somalia, for example, are) or are indeed pro-state (as the janjaweed, in the Sudan, for instance). These armaments, often made up of small and light arms (pistols, rifles, machine guns, grenades), are usually categorised as “illegal weapons” to highlight the juridical status of their destinations or recipients, but not their sources. There are about 500 million of such weapons circulating in the world and one-fifth of these or 100 million are used in Africa's wars, armed banditry and other escapades. To underscore the seriousness of the situation at stake, the deadly AK-47 assault rifle, for example, can be purchased as cheaply as six US dollars in a number of African countries. This is equivalent to the cost of a chicken or a bag of corn in many parts of the continent! Yet, thanks to the fragility of the African state with its underlying unpredictable upheavals, millions of items of weaponry that ultimately make up this “illegal” pool of categorisation do have their origins from the sources of the (African) “sovereign states”’ armouries initially supplied by the principal arms exporter powers cited earlier. In other words, an item of AK-47 rifle or a rocket launcher on the African scene that may have started its original classificatory placement as a “legal weapon” in some state armoury could, in a few weeks, or even much less time, transmogrify into an “illegal arm” label because it is now in the hands of some dissident or insurgent organisation opposed to the state or a pro-state militia murdering targeted individuals, groups or, especially, targeted constituent nations. The converse of this transmutable process is also the case.

It should therefore be stressed that whilst the dichotomy often placed between “legal arms” and “illegal arms” by some observers (in the African militarisation, genocide and war debate) has some analytical credit, its outcome on the ground, particularly in enabling us evaluate the comparative impact that the two categories ultimately pose on African social co-existence and security always comes as a shock! Contrary to the initial value judgement that most people would make between the “legality” of a particular commodity (in this case, arms) and its “illegality”, it is definitely no comfort at all when it is shown at the end of the exercise that the overwhelming majority of the 15 million killed in Africa's genocides and wars in the past 45 years were in fact slaughtered with the use of “legal” armaments, operated seemingly legally by the armed forces of the state and their allies. The examples of the Nigeria state in 1966-1970, the Rwandan central government in the 1990s and the current Arab regime in Khartoum are acutely illustrative of this cataclysmic sequence. In effect, whether “legal” or “illegal”, armaments in Africa, controlled overwhelmingly by the African state and its allies, are used to murder targeted African nations and populations domiciled within these states; the African states, since the Igbo genocide, have deployed armaments in their armouries to murder their peoples most brutally, massively and extensively. These states, starting from Nigeria, have murdered a ghastly total of 15 million Africans in a generation. They are still murdering without let up… They have devastated communities. They have disfigured and traumatised peoples’ lives and aspirations. In the hands of the typical African state, since the Igbo genocide, these armaments, even though classified “conventional”, are indeed weapons of mass destruction. Nothing else, but weapons of mass destruction… In Africa, the pistol, the rifle, the grenade, the rocket, the bazooka, the landmine, the helicopter gunship, the naval gunship, the fighter aircraft, the bomber, the tank – each and every one of these items, imported by and large from abroad, is a killer used primarily by the state to murder targeted peoples within its border. The African state should and must be stopped from murdering peoples within its frontiers. The rest of the world, especially from where weapons to these African states originate, day in, and day out, can no longer remain bystanders as this orgy of death is brazenly played out in Africa. Since the Igbo genocide, the African state has been destroying African lives; they are presently destroying African lives; they will continue to destroy African lives until stopped. The African state must surely be stopped from its pursuit of this pulverising mission of death.

“Failed States”? “Sub-Sahara Africa”?

It is perhaps difficult not to conclude from our portrait of the contemporary African state that its being is symptomatic or even indicative of that term that several scholars and political commentators increasingly employ in characterising most of Africa – the “failed state”. The concept “failed state” of course has a melodramatic import! It designates the outcome, penned in a professorial manner, of a project supposedly observed and assessed over time and space. In that case, the recipient or audience to which this outcome is conveyed is assumed to be well in tune with the progress or otherwise of the subject matter. The problem though is that the evaluative parameter of this enterprise of assessing and therefore concluding that this or that African state has “failed” is often not clear or certain. Or is it? Was Nigeria, for instance, a “failed state” during the course of May to September 1966 (that is just six years after its so-called “restoration” of independence after the British occupation) when it murdered 100,000 of its Igbo citizens in the first phase of the genocide that would over the subsequent three years cost the death of an additional 3 million Igbo people? Before Somalia became a state without a central government, which has now lasted for well over a decade, was it a failed state? Successive central governments in Kinshasa, Congo Democratic Republic, have for over 20 years hardly exercised effective authority over a quarter of the country’s territory which is twice the size of western Europe; is Congo Democratic Republic a “failed state”? A devastating war raged in south Sudan for about 20 years and a genocidal one is being waged on the people of Darfur (northwest of the country) by the Arab government in Khartoum currently; is the Sudan a “failed state”? All of Africa, since 1981, has been a net exporter of capital to the West – 85 per cent which accounts for the servicing of its so-called “debts”. In 1981, Africa recorded a net export capital export of US$5.3 billion to the West. In 1985, this figure increased to US$21.5 billion. Three years later, this net capital transfer was US$36 billion or US$100 million per day. In 1995, this figure jumped to US$100 billion and on the eve of the new millennium in 2000, Africa’s net capital transfer to the West hit the US$150 billion mark. As we indicated earlier, Africa has exported a total of US$400 billion in the past 30 years in this way – these are funds that should easily have provided a comprehensive health programme across the continent, the establishment of schools, colleges and skills’ training, the construction of an integrative communication network, and finally, the transformation of agriculture to abolish the scourge of malnutrition, hunger and starvation. Would this outlandish export of critical resources merit designating all of Africa as “failed states”?

It should be stressed that none of the figures referred to above includes the national accounting of the Arab states in north Africa – namely, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt – but the rest of the 48 countries on the continent which some commentators, especially the CNN, BBC, International Herald Tribune, Reuters, Associated Press, Fox News, Yahoo! News, the UN/allied agencies and some governments and academics in the West, increasingly categorise as “sub-Sahara Africa”, a term that requires some examination forthwith. Its users routinely invoke the reference to the Sahara Desert when writing, speaking about or broadcasting on Africa, especially when they wish to refer to Africa that excludes the five predominantly Arab states of north Africa just mentioned. Pointedly, they also exclude the Sudan, a north-central African state whose overwhelming territory is south of the Sahara from the “sub-Sahara” tagging because the regime in power describes the country as “Arab” despite its majority African population.

As we show now, the concept “sub-Sahara Africa” is absurd, misleading, if not a meaningless classificatory schema. Its use defies the science of the fundamentals of geography but prioritises hackneyed, stereotypical, racist labelling. It is not obvious, on the face of it, which of the four possible meanings of the prefix, “sub”, its users attach to its “sub-Sahara Africa” labelling. Is it “under” or “part of”/“partly”? Or, presumably, “partially”/“nearly” or even the very unlikely (hopefully!) application of “in the style of, but inferior to”, especially considering that there is an Arab people sandwiched between Morocco and Mauritania (northwest Africa) called Saharan?

The example of South Africa is apt here. Crucially, this is a reference underlined in the relevant literature of the era especially those emanating from West states, the United Nations (principally UNDP, FAO, UNCTAD, ILO), the World Bank and IMF, the so-called NGOs/“aid” groups, and some in academia who are variously responsible for initiating and sustaining the operationalisation of this dogma. Prior to the formal restoration of African majority government in 1994, South Africa was never designated “sub-Sahara Africa” by anyone in this portrait unlike the rest of the 13 African-led states in southern Africa. South Africa then was either termed “white South Africa” or the “South Africa sub-continent” (as in the “India sub-continent” usage, for instance) i.e. “almost”/“partially” a continent – quite clearly a usage of “admiration” or “compliment” employed by its subscribers to essentially project and valorise the perceived geo-strategic potentials or capabilities of the erstwhile European-minority occupying regime. But soon after the triumph of the African freedom movement there, South Africa became “sub-Sahara Africa” in the quickly adjusted schema of this representation! What suddenly happened to South Africa’s “geography” to be so differently classified?! Is it African liberation/rule that renders an African state “sub-Sahara”? Does this post-1994 West-inflected South Africa-changed classification make “sub-Sahara Africa” any more intelligible? Just as in the South Africa “sub-continent” example, the application of the “almost”/“partially” or indeed “part of”/“partly” meaning of prefix “sub-” to “Sahara Africa” focuses unambiguously on the following countries of Africa: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, each of which has 25-75 per cent of its territory (especially to the south) covered by the Sahara Desert. It also focuses on Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Sudan, which variously have 25-75 per cent of their territories (to the north) covered by the same desert. In effect, these 10 states would make up sub-Sahara Africa.

Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, the five Arab north Africa states do not, correctly, describe themselves as Africans even though they unquestionably habituate African geography, the African continent, since the Arab conquest and occupation of this north one-third of African territory in the 7th century CE. The West governments, press and the transnational bodies we referred to earlier (which are predominantly led by West personnel and interests) have consistently “conceded” to this Arab cultural insistence on racial identity. Presumably, this accounts for the West’s non-designation of its “sub-Sahara Africa” dogma to these states as well as the Sudan, whose successive Arab-minority regimes in the past 53 years have claimed, but incorrectly, that the Sudan “belongs” to the Arab World. On this subject, the West does no doubt know that what it has been engaged in, all along, is blatant sophistry and not science. This, however, conveniently suits its current propaganda packaging on Africa, which we shall be elaborating on shortly.

It would appear that we still don’t seem to be any closer at establishing, conclusively, what its users mean by “sub-Sahara Africa”. Could it, perhaps, just be a benign reference to all the countries “under” the Sahara, whatever their distances from this desert, to interrogate our final, fourth probability? Presently, there are 53 so-called “sovereign” states in Africa. If the five north Africa Arab states are said to be located “above” the Sahara, then 48 are positioned “under”. The latter would therefore include all the five countries mentioned above whose north frontiers incorporate the southern stretches of the desert (namely, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and the Sudan), countries in central Africa (the Congos, Rwanda, Burundi, etc., etc), for instance, despite being 2000-2500 miles away, and even the southern African states situated 3000-3500 miles away! In fact, all these 48 countries, except the Sudan (alas, not included for the plausible reason already cited!), which is clearly “under” the Sahara and situated within the same latitudes as Mali, Niger and Chad (i.e., Between 10 and 20 degrees north of the equator), are all categorised by “sub-Sahara Africa” users as “sub-Sahara Africa”. To replicate this obvious farce of a classification elsewhere in the world, the following random exercise is not such an indistinct scenario for universal, everyday, referencing:

1. Australia hence becomes “sub-Great Sandy Australia” after the hot deserts that cover much of west and central Australia

2. East Russia, east of the Urals, becomes “sub-Siberia Asia”

3. China, Japan and Indonesia are reclassified “sub-Gobi Asia”

4. Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam become “sub-Himalaya Asia”

5. All of Europe is “sub-Arctic Europe”

6. Most of England, central and southern counties, is renamed “sub-Pennines Europe”

7. East/southeast France, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia are “sub-Alps Europe”

8. The Americas become “sub-Arctic Americas”

9. All of South America south of the Amazon is proclaimed “sub-Amazon South America”; Chile could be “sub-Atacama South America”

10. Most of New Zealand’s South Island is renamed “sub-Southern Alps New Zealand”

11. Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama become “sub-Rocky North America”

12. The entire Caribbean becomes “sub-Appalachian Americas”

So, rather than some benign construct, “sub-Sahara Africa” is, in the end, an outlandish nomenclatural code that its users employ to depict an African-led “sovereign” state – anywhere in Africa, as distinct from an Arab-led one. It is the users’ non-inclusion of the Sudan in this grouping (despite its majority African population and geographical location) but its inclusion of South Africa only after the latter’s 1994 restoration of independence that gives the game away! More seriously to the point, “sub-Sahara Africa” is employed to create the stunning effect of a supposedly shrinking African geographical landmass in the popular imagination, coupled with the continent’s supposedly attendant geo-strategic global “irrelevance”. “Sub-Sahara Africa” is undoubtedly a racist geo-political signature in which its users aim repeatedly to present the imagery of the desolation, aridity, and hopelessness of a desert environment. This is despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of 800 million Africans do not live anywhere close to the Sahara, nor are their lives so affected by the implied impact of the very loaded meaning that this dogma intends to convey. Except this increasingly pervasive use of “sub-Sahara Africa” is robustly challenged by rigorous African-centred scholarship and publicity work, its proponents will succeed eventually in substituting the name of the continent “Africa” with “sub-Sahara Africa” and the name of its peoples, “Africans”, with “sub-Sahara Africans” or worse still “sub-Saharans” in the realm of public memory and reckoning.

We should return and conclude on our reflections on the so-called “failed state” in Africa – scientifically understood and unambiguously expressed! Christopher Clapham has argued that the concept “failed state” is “one of those categories that is named after what it isn’t, rather than what it is”. He obviously has a point for a state that routinely wages wars on its population(s), does not provide basic services for its people, and immanently churns out successive leaderships that fleece the collective wealth can hardly merit such a description as the concept connotes in social science discourses. All we need to do is to reflect on the fact that crucial state functions such as the provision of security, rule of law, a rationalising but flexible structure of management, accountability and open and unfettered competition especially with respect to regime change have never existed in the African “nation state” in order to highlight the obvious flaw within this concept. Ultimately, the major limitation of the use of the “failed state” concept to assess the crisis in contemporary Africa is that it confers an unjustifiable rationality on an enterprise in which a spectrum of outcomes ranging from perhaps “very successful” to “failure” or “outright failure” is typecast; it is assumed that those who run the Africa state (Museveni, Obasanjo, Gnassingbé, Buhari, Yar’Adua, Idi Amin, Mengistu, Abacha, Mugabe, Mohammed, Abubakar, Eyadema, Banda, al-Bashier, Numeiri, Bokassa, Toure, Biya, Moi, Gowon, Taylor, Habre, Ahidjo, Babangida, Obote, Rawlings, Doe …) are aware of this test and its evaluative scruples and, like any rational participant, would want to succeed… If they do not do so well, at some instance, so goes the logic, they would try to improve on their previous score and, hopefully, do better… Success is always a possibility! On the contrary, there is limited indication on the ground that African state operatives in the past 40-50 years have approached statecraft as a challenge to succeed in transforming the lives of their peoples. “Success” is never a goal set along the trajectory of their mission. For the Obasanjos and Gowons, for instance, “statecraft” is a fiendish opportunity to murder as many millions of Igbo people as they can possibly achieve … Furthermore, it should be noted that given the evidently limited concerns on just “measuring” the scoreboard of performance, “failed states”’ discourses tend to overlook the much more expansive turbulence of underlying history.

So, rather than organisations that bring benefits to many of its people, the state in Africa has “evidently been a source of suffering”, to quote Christopher Clapham, again, an imagery consistent with Basil Davidson’s description of the impact of this state on the African humanity as a “curse”. Richard Dowden also uses a health metaphor in capturing the legacy of the African state when he notes, alluding to its genesis – a feature that we shall confront soon – “[this European]-scissors and paste job [has indeed caused Africa] much blood and tears”. For her own observation, Lyn Innes is in no doubt that the African state has created what she describes as a “deeply diseased [outcome]” on the continent. William Reno’s categorisation of Sierra Leone as a “shadow state” may appear more of an aesthetic judgement than pathological, but the psychosocial outcome of vivid alienation evident in the country in the 1990s as state and disparate insurgent military forces battled up and down the country as the state was in free fall was palpable.

Chester Crocker has observed, succinctly, that the fundamental problem with the nature of the African state that we have been discussing has been its lack of “legitimacy and authority to manage [its] affairs… As such, [this state has] always derived a major, if not dominant, share of [its] legitimacy from the international system rather than from domestic society”. It is this question of alienability that is at the crux of this grave crisis. T o live in the typical African “nation state” presently is to live in the most oppressively centralised state in the world that denies most peoples in constituent nations their fundamental human rights. This has been a debilitating legacy for most Africans since Europeans created this state during their occupation of the continent. It was, and still remains a conqueror’s and a conquest state, having clobbered together peoples of varying political, cultural, religious and ideational heritage with no identifiably-embracing organic transnational sensibility, save an ensemble or organisation to rationalise the exploitation of critical human and non-human resources for transfers to the West World and elsewhere.

It is precisely in this context that what P. Chabal and J-P. Daloz have ironically called the “political economy of disorder” actually works in Africa: it offers immense opportunities to those who control the instrument of the state but who clearly lack or do not subscribe to the domestic or internal legitimacy to work the system. This state was a boon to the European occupation project as was expected. It was the instrument to harness and enforce the African occupation in its entirety and maximise the expropriation of the spoils of conquest. The African take-over of this state in the 1950s/1960s, without any efforts to transform it into an African-centred ethos and enterprise, witnessed a new era of even greater disregard for domestic legitimacy with cataclysmic consequences – creating that “deeply diseased [outcome]” Innes has referred to: the slaughter of 15 million, colossal decapitalisation of the economy, degenerative poverty. It should never escape the attention of the observer that the flip side of the coin that tells the tale of Africa’s staggering capital transfers to the Western World, day in, day out, as we have just highlighted, is the emaciated, starving and dying African child, woman or man that has for long been the abiding image on television screens across the world. In effect, Franz Schurmann is right to note in his illuminating study on the subject that African leaderships who oversee the non-deconstructed state of the European conquest “are not traditional but rather a phenomenon of modernity. They are fighting for power in a Western-type state with its armies, police, bureaucracies [and] control over economic institutions”.

Pertinently, these leaderships have failed to incorporate into the state structures “inherited” in the aftermath of the European occupation pre-conquest African institutions of politics and governance aimed at maintaining a democratic, fully participatory process and government to respond to the needs and aspirations of individuals and constituent nations. The resulting imbalance in power relations so widely witnessed in Africa today between the state and its people, among constituent peoples, and between men and women have their roots in this systematic marginalisation of Africa’s traditional democratic legacy. Thus, structural alienation from the political process typifies the overall disposition of peoples in the African state. The overwhelming majority of the people are not involved in the process of their own governance and of course one obvious and serious consequence of this is the ease with which political differences and disagreements often deteriorate into major conflicts and wars. This is dictated largely by the unresolved nature and character of the state vis-à-vis the constituent nations. Evidently, the underlying structural basis of independence, or, more correctly, the restoration of independence in Africa has never really been defined. There is no rigorously worked-out agreement on the fundamental character and role of the “post-conquest state” by the constituent nations that make up the state. The broad sectors of African peoples are yet to be placed and involved centrally in the entire process of societal reconstruction and transformation. Not surprisingly, the nature of the state that emerged after the European conquest and occupation had, and still has limited organically shared values linking its peoples. Most African conflicts have therefore centred on the continuously thunderous demands made by desperately deprived and exploited nations and peoples in these states for the construction of decentralised and decentring alternative political structures and institutions which empower people at their locale. It is as a result of this unresolved historical factor of conquest that Africa remains a tinderbox, exploding uncontrollably from time to time, with the devastating consequences that the world has come to know in the past half of a century. Until there is a far-reaching restructuring of political and economic relations within the state to ensure inclusive participation by all nations and peoples, conflicts in Africa will remain endemic. Decentralisation and democratisation are essential in creating a sense of inclusiveness amongst African peoples, a crucial ingredient in overcoming the present causes of disempowerment, instability and underdevelopment. Only within these parameters of justice, equality, freedom, the cessation of violence and alienation can true peace occur.

Disarming Africa: Brazil, Africa Arms-Free Zone, Obama Legacy

Inevitably, Africa must resolve the contentious issues that fuel the current conflictual existence of most of its peoples before achieving urgently needed socio-economic transformation. This is a political question. The widespread feeling of alienation by most constituent peoples in a typical African “nation-state” is palpable enough. This state, in which African peoples were cobbled together in the past by the triumph of external conquest to serve the spoils of occupation, has been a monumental failure in the past 40-50 years of mismanagement by African leaderships. Africans urgently need a principled, unfettered, and unsentimental debate on the “inherited” state, with its ultra-centralising and utterly unviable ethos. It cannot lead to that transformation of a very rich continent that has been the expectation of millions of Africans across the world. The way out is for an extensive political and economic decentralisation which is essential in creating a sense of inclusiveness amongst peoples, a crucial ingredient in overcoming the present causes of disempowerment, instability and underdevelopment. It cannot be over-stressed that if people are not actively involved in the affairs of their society, issues of human and civil rights as well as civic responsibilities will be subverted, creating societies that are clearly not at peace with themselves.

Militarisation, including arms confrontation, is obviously not a viable option to resolve Africa's outstanding problems – especially those that affect constituent peoples in the current state. Arms should henceforth be removed from the African scene as the vehicle for the settlement of disputes. All Africa's problems, however complex and intractable they may appear presently, can and should be resolved through painstaking negotiation even if this seems or becomes protracted. As it was generally in pre-European/pre-Arab conquest times in most of Africa, there should be no limits or ultimatums placed on negotiations and conflict resolutions in Africa: the talking went on and on until some resolution was achieved… The mutual bombardment of ideas, not bullets and shells, was the driving impetus for the avoidance and overcoming of conflicts. Thus the genocide killing field or the battlefield or indeed the riot-field, whether it is Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Angola, Sierra Leone, Congo, the Sudan or Kenya should no longer be an option for the settlement of Africa's extant problems.

On this score, the ethos that governs the African journey of recovery is the commitment of all Africans and the demand that they need to make to the rest of the world to place a mandatory embargo on all arms sales and transfers to all of Africa, as well as a complete demilitarisation of the continent. Africa needs justice and peace for, and with itself, to enable it embark on the much-vaunted era of reconstruction. Britain, the world’s leading arms-delivery-state to Africa must now mothball its arms-delivery behemoth destined for Africa. The British public opinion and British-based human rights and charities such as the British Red Cross, Amnesty International, Oxfam and Christian Aid can no longer live comfortably with the seeming anomaly whereby the British ministry of defence approves to send weapons of death to Africa (whose sales enjoy cast-iron official guarantees for the British arms manufacturer readily provided by the British ministry of trade) and then respond to the inevitable devastating aftermath of the use of these weapons on the African scene by initiating radio and television campaigns to raise and send “relief aid” to the targeted African population(s). It is really no longer sufficient for the Amnesty Internationals and Oxfams of Britain to issue periodic condemnations of the misdemeanours and transgressions of the African state when they are silent over the crucial role that the very heart of the British political establishment at Whitehall (London), located just a few miles away from these organisations, plays in propping up the African genocide state. The Amnesty Internationals and Oxfams must be in the forefront of the campaign calling for a total, unconditional arms ban on Africa and the demilitarisation of the continent. This focus on British charity/human rights institutions’ relationship with their state and the latter’s arms shipment to Africa also applies to the US, France, Belgium, Canada and other countries in the West that export arms to Africa.

Thanks to Brazil’s current impressive scientific and technological advancement, which has, understandably, impacted on its arms manufacturing industry, this country is rapidly expanding its arms export capacity. As a result, Brazil is steadily climbing up the Africa arms-delivery-states’ ladder. But Brazil shouldn’t be on any of the rungs of this notorious ladder in the first place. Yet, on this very important subject of our times, Brazil can act as a beacon to the rest of the world by being the first country to descend from this ladder and walk away. If the indolent African regime is ever interested in Brazil’s exciting technological innovations, it should instead be presented with a catalogue of Brazilian-made tractors, harvesters, irrigation machinery … Brazil should immediately place a blanket arms embargo on all of Africa. Even arms being negotiated presently with any African state and those in the pipeline of delivery to the continent should be abandoned, withdrawn or blocked. Brazil has the enviable status as the country in the world outside Africa with the highest number of peoples of African descent in its population. It should not at the same time be sending weapons of death to Africa’s genocide states to murder Africans who live east of the Atlantic. Brazilian intellectuals and students have their work very much cut out on this in their dialogue with their state. Finally, US President Obama, his country’s first African-descent head of state, can be assured of a lasting legacy of his presidency by imposing a comprehensive US arms embargo on this continent of his fathers at the cusp of constructing new states of organic sensibilities – away from the terror of the genocide state. Obama should expand this initiative to involve other arms-exporters-to-Africa especially on such forums as the UN Security Council and the G-8. Arms ban to Africa should be internationally mandatory and enforceable.

On this, Africa’s challenge to the rest of the world couldn’t be clearer: those who live outside Africa but “care so much for Africa” should now scale down their multitudinous “aid-ventures for Africa” and turn their incredible talents to lobbying their respective states and other institutions in their countries and elsewhere to ban arms sales/transfers to Africa. This new focus for the world’s leading charities, away from the band-aid syndrome, will surely be more exciting, even less taxing, but definitely more rewarding for the ultimate outcome for Africa and the rest of the world alike. Africa seeks no resources from anyone, not even for one US dollar, to accomplish its current transformative mission to dismantle the genocide state. It is simply asking the world to completely seal off its vast armouries to deny access to the deadly claws of the Africa genocide state. For once, no one is asking anyone to raise money for Africa! Given the devastating impact of arms, arming, armies, genocide and other armed conflicts on Africa’s tragic history and the present, Africa, in 2009, projects an unwavering signpost for the world’s attention that proclaims: Africa Is An Arms-Free Zone. A demilitarised continent. No More Arms Sales Or Transfers To Africa.

Renaissance

The African genocide state has now run the course of its bloody trail in history. The greatest challenge facing Africans in the new millennium is to dismantle this state and create new state forms based on Africa’s critical re-engagement with its rich cultural heritage. This is to enable them to safeguard the lives of their people and embark on the vast topography of reconstruction of society after a depressing and devastating history. This task is a cardinal facet of the African renaissance or renewal. Africa’s alternative path of survival and reconstruction is clearly a path that emerges from the people re-connecting to the continent’s enduring cultural precepts and institutions emplaced in its ancient nations or in “real Africa”, as some scholars have aptly categorised them. It attaches a high priority to the resuscitation of the treasured position of the family in African community affairs and the full operation of the ethos and institutions of the dual-sex complementarity that has for centuries defined the central tenets of African social existence. These spheres of African life have come under sustained assaults and, in some fronts, have had considerable fractures during the course of the European occupation of the continent and the last 40-50 years of disastrous African overseeing-management. One such emergency zone of fracture has been the outrageous marginalisation of African women from participating actively in the key institutions of the state and society. This has been an historical setback for women who in the past controlled and exercised extensive rights and authority over their own affairs as well as those of the rest of society as has been demonstrated extensively in the writings and studies of novelists such as Flora Nwapa, Ama Ata Aidoo and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and scholars such as Kemene Okonjo, Adiele Afigbo, Ifi Amadiume, Nkiru Nzegwu and Okwuonicha Femi Nzegwu. The re-positioning of women in the shared complementary spaces of responsibility, power and authority must be at the epicentre of the reconfiguration of African fortunes in these new state forms of decentralisation.

Already, this alternative Africa, this reconstituted land of renewal, translated into decentralised, organically articulated new states, is being built amidst the chaos and brutality of a tragic epoch. As should be already obvious, this future of Africa discussed here is antithetical to Muammar Gaddafi’s current “Africa Unity” theatrical digressions, which, more seriously as I demonstrate in a 2007 essay, are indeed a cover for an ominous proto-islamic, neofeudal Africa-wide continental dynastic fiefdom modelled on Gaddafi’s own family firm and patronage formulations in Libya since 1969. This contraption will only reinforce and expand the stranglehold of the genocide state in Africa. Whilst the death machine that is the African state is undoubtedly ruthless, as we have shown, it has an immanent weakness which the people are presently exploiting across different regions of the continent to recast a new social existence. Thanks to the sheer size of the territorial space that it has to contend with in its existentialist quest to enforce its legendary brute power, and given its notorious inefficiency and stunted technological development, this pulverising state of death has not been able to exercise an all-embracing, omni-present Gestapo-like or Ba’athist party-like control of society. It does not have tentacles embedded all over the place. The ever-bubbling currents of enhanced globalisation with attendant flashes of instant communication, 24 hours a day, have further exposed the tenuousness of the foundation of its existence. The peoples have therefore exploited this weakness with aplomb. Africa is currently saturated with communities actively experimenting and exercising control of their immediate, surrounding societies by setting up a people-oriented security and a working justice system, developing infrastructure, building schools and hospitals and negotiating operating terms of relations with transnational companies or corporations or even the odd government or quasi-government organisation from overseas. The operationalising slogan that appears to underpin this exercise is the “Survival of Our Nation”. From Senegal, Mali, Guinea, Ghana, Benin and genocidist Nigeria in the west, through Cameroon and Gabon in the centre, to Uganda, Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia to the east and to Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Lesotho and South Africa in the south, a new Africa of constituent nations-based reconstruction is emerging to pursue the tasks of reconstruction as the genocidist/so-called “nation-state” collapses or retreats into insignificance. The well over 100,000 African intellectuals and professionals who have left Africa for overseas (particularly in the West) are playing a crucial role in this renewal. They are part of the 12 million-strong Africans who left the continent since 1980. These émigrés are now the most active source of Africa-directed investment presently. It is people-targeted and the results are astonishing. These African émigrés now dispatch billions of dollars per annum as well as lend their skill and time to Africa’s growth – investing directly in the development of the people as they literally take care of the feeding, clothing, housing, education, health care and other social needs of relatives and indeed the wider community, amongst a re-emerging/revivalist ethos of local initiative, local control, transparency and accountability. In 2003, according to the World Bank, African émigrés sent to Africa the impressive sum of US$200 billion – invested directly in their home communities. This is 40 times the sum of “Western aid” in real terms in the same year – i.e. when the pervasive “overheads” attendant to the latter are accounted for. It is interesting that the source of the information of the instrumental role of African émigrés in current external capital transfers to Africa comes from the World Bank. It is this same World Bank, which, in alliance with the International Monetary Fund and the string of kakistocratic African regimes in the past 30 years, contributed to the virtual destruction of the African economy in its so-called “structural adjustment programme” of the era. Contrary to the very partial, stunted imagery of the African situation of this period propagated with relish by predictable, stunningly uncritical pastiche of international media reporting on the continent, Africans, themselves, have, on the whole, taken central care of coping with the punishing aftermath of the socioeconomics of state collapse and terror, and in charting new pathways to construct organically-responsive states to subvert and replace the extant genocide state.

We cannot overstate the immeasurably favourable resource base that would support this goal of African renaissance. An overview is necessary to underscore the immense possibilities that exist. Africa has developed and continues to develop an advanced humanpower capability that will drive the transformation of the post-genocide state. Eighty per cent of Uganda’s arable land, some of the richest in Africa, remain uncultivated. Were Uganda to expand its current food production by just 50 per cent, not only would it be completely self-sufficient, but it would be able to feed all the countries contiguous to its territory without difficulty (the countries in question are Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan and the Congo Democratic Republic). The overall statistics of the African situation is even more revealing as with regards to the continent’s long-term endowment. Just a quarter of the potential arable land of Africa is being cultivated presently. Even here, an increasingly high proportion of the cultivated area is assigned to the so-called cash-crops (cocoa, coffee, tea, peanut, sisal, floral cultivation, etc.) for exports mainly to the West World at a time when there has been a virtual collapse, across the board, of the price of these crops in the West’s commodity markets. In the past 30 years, the average real price of these African products in the West has been about 20 per cent less than their worth during the 1960s-70s period which was soon after the restoration of independence. As for the remaining 75 per cent of Africa’s uncultivated land, this represents 66 per cent of the entire world’s potential. The world is aware of the array of strategic minerals such as cobalt, copper, diamonds, gold, industrial diamonds, iron ore, manganese, phosphates, titanium, uranium, petroleum oil found in the Sudan, Congo Democratic Republic, Namibia, South Africa, Angola, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and elsewhere on the continent. These countries are among Africa’s most wealthy and potentially some of the world’s wealthiest. However, what is not always or simultaneously associated with the wealth profiles of these countries is that they have vast acreage of rich farmlands with capacity to optimally support the food needs of generations of African peoples. In addition, the famous fish industry in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana for instance, Botswana’s rich cattle farms, west Africa’s yam and plantain belts extending from southern Cameroon to the Casamance province of Senegal, the continent’s rich rice production fields, etc., all highlight the potential Africa has for fully providing for all its food needs.

In effect, what the current African socioeconomic situation shows is extraordinarily reassuring, provided the acreage devoted to cultivation is expanded and expressly targeted to address Africa’s own internal consumption needs. Land used directed at agriculture for food output, as opposed to the calamitous waste of “cash crop” production for export, must become the focus of agricultural policy in the new Africa. It is an inexplicable tragedy that any African child, woman, or man could go without food in the light of the staggering endowment of resources on this continent. Africa constitutes a spacious, rich and arable landmass that can support its population, which is still one of the world’s least densely populated and distributed, into the indefinite future. There is only one condition, though, for the realisation of this goal: Africa must utilise these immense resources for the benefit of its own peoples within newly negotiated, radically decentralised political dispensations which must shed any resemblance to the genocide state. Thus, Africa’s pressing problem in the past 53 years has not been “poverty”, as it is often uncritically portrayed, but how to husband phenomenal resources, human and non-human, for the express benefit of the peoples at a time when the strategic goal for change is to dismantle the architecture of annihilation posed to African existence by its genocide states.

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is a leading scholar of the Igbo genocide, 1966-1970. His books include Conflict and Intervention (Macmillan, 1990), Issues in Nigerian Politics Since the Fall of the Second Republic, 1984-1990 (Mellen, 1991), Africa 2001: The State, Human Rights and the People (IIAR, 1994), African Literature in Defence of History: An Essay on Chinua Achebe (African Renaissance, 2001), Biafra Revisited (African Renaissance, 2006) and Readings from Reading: Essays on African Politics, Genocide, Literature (forthcoming, 2009).

Genocide by any other name

2009-05-23T13:13:00.000-07:00

Federal Nigerian troops walk along a road near Ikot Expene, Nigeria, with Biafran forces in this 1968 file photograph. On the roadside are two emaciated Nigerian boys. (Photograph: AP) By Percy Zvomuya

The first half-century of black Africa's independence was especially notorious for three reasons: coups, corrupt dictatorships and genocides.

Just seven years after Nigeria's independence in 1960, more than a million Igbos died of starvation or were slaughtered in the Biafran war in Nigeria; in the 1980s a million people died of starvation in Ethiopia as the government was busy buying weapons, and more than 20 000 Ndebele were slaughtered by the Zimbabwean army's Fifth Brigade.

In 1994, in just three months, a million Tutsis died in Rwanda at the hands of their Hutu compatriots and, more recently, up to four million Congolese people have died as an indirect result of 10 years of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And in the Sudanese provinces of Darfur, massacres have claimed up to 300 000 people, a conflict for which the country's president Omar al-Bashir has been indicted by the International Criminal Court.

So many millions gone, deaths that could easily fill an encyclopedia, which is precisely the project that Abebe Zegeye, professor and chair of genocide and holocaust studies at Unisa, and Maurice Vambe, a professor at Unisa's English studies department, have undertaken. The two academics are writing the first African encyclopedia of genocide, a 600-page tome that is due to come out next year.

The pair's working definition of genocide is not the one the UN arrived at in 1948, which defines genocide as what happens when one ethnic group seeks to destroy another in part or in whole.

"While this definition provides a broad framework within which to understand mass murder, it has to be expanded to accommodate the peculiarities of present-day crimes related to mass murder in Africa." They argue that "genocide must be explained first in terms of the number of bodies that lie dead, but also most importantly, in terms of the conditions that result directly or indirectly [in] the death of masses of people".

Vambe said rogue governments now know that killing 100 people, for example, will ignite the interest of the international community, so what governments do instead is create conditions that make it impossible for people to live or learn.

"These conditions could be hunger, choleraor failure to go school. We shouldn't focus on the outcome, but on the process of consciously denying people their rights."

Using this definition, the two scholars argue that the lives lost in Operation Murambatsvina, the Zimbabwean government'sbrutal 2005 crackdown on inhabitants of informal settlements, and the electoral violence oflast year could be defined as genocide.

When communities are killed it's not only individual lives that are lost, language too is distorted as governments resort to obfuscation and Orwellian double-speak.

"The use of selective vocabulary to insulate acts of aggression and violence in 'officialese or diplomatic speak' can indeed encourage and escalate the violence," they say.

This explains why there has been confusion about what happened in the conflict in Biafra, routinely referred to as the Biafran War. "To describe it this way might imply that the people fighting one another were equals and all were armed. History tells us that this was not the case."

Vambe and Zegeye say that hundreds of thousands of Biafrans were massacred during the conflict, which was sparked by the region's desire to break away from the rest of Nigeria.

Their project is motivated by the realisation that, in mainstream history, what happened in Biafra is not defined as genocide. "Instead it was described [by the Nigerian government] as a preservation of national sovereignty -- a euphemism that every dictator in Africa is now using."

The appalling silence and inactivity of the British Left as Biafrans face death and starvation ...

2009-05-23T13:04:00.000-07:00

Peter Sedgwick on the grim meaning of ‘The Wilson Syndrome’

The people of Biafra once again face annihilation despite talk of resuming relief flights. Until last month, international charities had secured the passage of vital protein foods into the war area, and ended the famine in which more than a million people, of both sexes and all ages, died of hunger and deficiency diseases.

Now the famine is be to be repeated – especially since a number of spokesmen for the Federal Nigerian government have at last admitted that their policy is to use starvation as a weapon to subjugate Biafra.

The British government continues to support the Federal campaign, diplomatically and in the massive supply of arms. In the hospitals and mortuaries of Biafra, the causes of starvation and death are inscribed in the victims’ records officially ‘The Wilson Syndrome’.

Total surrender

The issues in the war are fairly simple. The demands of General Gowon’s Federal Nigerian government are for the total surrender of Biafra and the total re-organisation of the whole of Nigeria into 12 states one of which would be a truncated ‘Iboland’ without access to the sea.

The other Ibo areas would be carved up in different regions. The vital Port Harcourt (predominantly an Ibo town) and several Ibo-speaking oil areas would be outside ‘Iboland’.

Quite apart from the prospect of this dismemberment, the Eastern people do not trust their future within a Federal structure which in 1966 permitted several waves of massacre of their citizens in the backward North and which in 1967 refused to accept any financial responsibility for assistance to the two million Ibos who migrated back into the East after the massacre.

They do not trust a regime which imposed a total blockade on the Eastern region, when the latter, after the refusal of aid, switched its funds from Federal taxes to local relief, and which has demonstrated its concern for the population of Biafra(whom it claims to rule) by genocidal starvation and the repeated slaughter of whole townships by Northern units waging a fanatical Muslim ‘holy war’.

What are Biafra’s demands? Simply sovereignty and independence, with the borders of the new state to be determined by referendum among the peoples of disputed areas, with the re-settlement of any groups who wanted to live either inside or outside Biafra.

This latest operation would be no more difficult than the re-settlement that took place with, for example, the people displaced in Ghana’s Volta River Project, and is an effective answer to those who claim that Biafra is simply an expression of the desire of the Ibos to dominate their own non-Ibo minorities. (The Ojukwu regime is fairly confident that many of the minority peoples would choose Biafra, since many of them were also, as Easterners, on the receiving end of the massacres in 1966)

Virtually nobody, in fact, can be found who will defend the Federals’ war-aims. Nobody, that is, except the official ‘Nigerian Marxist-Leninists’ delegation to the international Communist Party conference in Moscow last month which declared, without any contradiction in the assembly, that ‘history and the example of the Soviet Union’ had proved the justice of the Federal/Military government’s 12-state programme and that Biafra had been set up by, among others, the Vatican and Mao Tse-tung.

There has been, on the other hand a marked lack of enthusiasm on the Left for taking up the Biafrans’ cause. Surely some compromise should be arrived at, or so it is hinted.

Illusory demands

Unfortunately, as in Vietnam, the demand for ‘negotiation’ is illusory. The Federal side demands surrender – it is the Biafrans who are calling for a cease-fire and talks. Even the recent attempts by a few high-ranking Biafrans to fish for a settlement on terms of less than full sovereignty have proved totally abortive. General Gowon wants his victory.

It is quite likely, in any case that any compromise offered by Biafran leaders would be repudiated by the populace. In the original decision to secede in May 1967, Ojukwu was pushed beyond the mandate he requested to ‘assert the autonomy of Eastern Nigeria without specifying either when or in what form this autonomy should finally be claimed’.

The Eastern ‘Consultative Assembly’, responding to the pressure of mass meetings in the localities instead mandated him urgently to declare the total secession of an independent Biafra. So much for the image of a Biafra created by the wilful ineptitude of the intransigent General Ojukwu.

Others on the Left allege that Biafra is in some way or other an imperialist puppet, the creature of South Africa, Portugal or France. If this were so, the recognition of Biafra by Tanzania and Zambia, who (especially the former) are vigorous opponents of white imperialism in Africa, would be very surprising.

And it is not so, Portugal supplies no arms or aid to Biafra (with the exception of permitting one of Biafra’s few air outlets to the outside world via Lisbon and Sao Tome). Rumours of South African mercenaries have subsided as such characters have failed to make any appearance in the actual course of the war – although we must not forget the vicious behaviour of the small group of Swedes who recently committed the unforgivable atrocity of destroying most of Nigeria’s Russian bombers by flying low over them with lightly-armed trainers (clear evidence of western neo-colonial influence).

Oil take-over

The role of France is obscure, though nobody suggested that de Gaulle’s diplomatic support for North Vietnam and the Arab world meant that Ho Chi Minh or Nasser had sold out to French imperialism.

There have been reports that French channels have been used for the sale of arms to Biafra. Even if these accounts were true, why the hell not? The Federal Nigerian government denies this incidentally, claiming that Biafra is being armed from China, no less.

Far from being a, neo-colonialist stooge, the Biafran government has taken over the oil fields in its territory, and is now the first African nation to refine its own oil.

Biafran guerrillas in the Mid-West are, operating successfully against Shell-BP’s pipelines in areas adjacent to Biafra (hence those captured oilmen), where the British oil, companies have been moving in behind the Nigerian army to extract new wealth. Britain gets 20 per cent of its oil from Nigeria and would like more, given the Arab situation; Shell-UK bases its growth prospects for the coming year almost entirely on its Nigerian activities.

Press outcry

This month, Shell-BP plans to open a new 60-mile pipeline in the Mid-West costing £17½ million. As Auberon Waugh pointed out in The Spectator (May 30) these pipelines are militarily indefensible, in a region where an effective Biafran guerrilla force has been ranging for the last six months with the support of the Mid-West people.

Possibly the recent outcry in certain British newspapers over Biafra’s plight may be prompted by the realisation that, ‘our oil’ is not, after all, safeguarded by the support given by Gowon.

Readers of the press may remember the prominence given to a Major-General H.T. Alexander, former Chief of Staff in Nkrumah’s Ghana, who visited the Federal-occupied areas as an ‘impartial observer’ and reported that no genocide was being committed. A man, clearly, of impeccable credentials.

Auberon Waugh, in the article cited above, revealed (1) that Major-General Alexander is managing director of London and Thames Haven Oil Wharves, which was deriving 75 per cent of its profits from Shell and (2) that Shell has now taken over London and Thames, loch, stock and General Alexander.

The Major-General has now been publicly encouraging the Nigerian government to take out Uli air-strip the only way in for relief aircraft to Biafra. No genocide of course, just let them starve to death. (As the commandant of Belsen, said at his trial: we didn’t kill all those Jews, it just so happened that conditions were very, very bad.)

On any other issue of course the Tory Spectator would not come out with this kind of exposure.

The silence and inactivity of the official and unofficial British Labour movement on Biafra has been appalling. The alliance of Brezhnev’s Russia and Shell-BP, of technological Harold and the feudal Emirs of North Nigeria would be monstrous enough even without its consequences and its consequences are imperialist mass-murder, the war of oil and blood.

Softened up

The protest movement in the West has been softened up for too long. Duties are no longer enough for it, it must have the excitement of loyalties. If Ojukwu were to exclaim – ‘Viva Che!’ and proclaim himself a Marxist; if Biafra were to invent yet another phoney brand of ‘African socialism’ and introduce a one-party (instead of a no-party) state, then of course, ‘solidarity campaigns’ would, sprout and Shell-Mex House would replace Grosvenor Square as the scene of demonstration and battle.

Some supporters of Biafra have in their enthusiasm tended to claim that Ojukwu’s regime represents some new wave of African radicalism. This is probably not so. A consistent anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist programme will need to be developed, in Biafra no less than in Nigeria, against the military, bureaucratic and native-business structure.

Cruel invasion

Paradoxically, it has been the very existence of illusions about the ‘socialism’ of many third world movements that has prevented the cruel invasion of foreign powers, of monopolist exploiters, and of an Islamic mediaeval Mafia on a scale which makes Vietnam look like a picnic.

The cause of Biafra is just. Its people are fighting a heroic war of courage and ingenuity against the gigantic weaponry of a feudal-imperial bloc.

And they are being killed off, the first million already, the next million probably soon to come. That should be enough surely to compel us to act.

A PROTEST AGAINST GENOCIDE: BIAFRA RALLY

2009-05-23T12:50:00.000-07:00

Rabbi Tanenbaum

STATEMENT BY RABBI MARC H. TANEN3AUM, NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF INTERRELIGIOUS
AFFAIRS, AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE; CHAIRMAN OF THE INTERRELIGIOUS
LIASION COMMITTEE OF THE AMERICAN JEWISH EMERGENCY EFFORT
FOR BIAFRAN RELIEF, AND PRESIDENT OF THE INTERRELIGIOUS FOUNDATION
FOR COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION

Today is the Jewish Sabbath. Traditionally the Sabbath is an
oasis in time for retreat from the turmoil of the world, for calm
reflection, meditation, and study. By superficial standards, a Jew,
and certainly a rabbi, should not be taking part in a public meeting
such as this on the Sabbath Day. However, from the deepest
perspectives of the humanism of the Jewish faith and the historic
experience of the Jewish people, I can do no other but lend my voice
and my presence on this Sabbath in sorrowful and bitter protest
against the bestiality that is taking place against innocent men,
women and children, victims of the civil war in Nigeria.

Rabbinic tradition affirms (Ketubah 19a), "There is nothing -
no religious law - that must not yield to the duty of saving life."
And the Sabbath itself must be set aside to save a life (Ketubah 5a)
... whether the person in need is a Jew or a Gentile (Ibid. 15b).
We are here to try to save the lives not of a single person,
but of tens of thousands of persons, before it is too late. The
world - nations, governments, whole peoples — have created an

artificial Sabbath about themselves, retreating to an indecent
calm, an obscene indifference to the plight of millions who are
being massacred and dying from hunger. We are here to cry out to
the world to set aside this Sabbath calm and end the morbid immoral
silence under whose cloak wholesale destruction of lives is taking
place.

On June 9, 1942, the village of Lidice was wiped off the face
of the earth, the entire male population of the village was
massacred. The women and children were carried off to be shot,
gassed, or to die from ill-treatment. Four of the Lidice women who
were about to give birth were taken to a maternity hospital in
Prague where their newly born infants were murdered. The Nazi
security police then burned down the village, dynamited the ruins,
and leveled it off.

Lidice is the most widely known example of Nazi savagery and
one of the longest remembered acts of barbarism in the civilized
world.

In the second half of the 20th century, Biafra is on its way
to becoming the Lidice of mankind.

Yesterday morning, I received a letter from a priest in Port
Harcourt, Rev. Fintan Kilbride, who described an hour-long bombing
of the town of Ihiala. "The first stick of bombs was dropped

immediately behind the Holy Ghost Seminary where Rev. J. McNulty
was feeding 300 starving children in the clinic. The first bomb
dropped only a short distance away and decapitated one of the
mission workers. The second which fell a little further away,
killed 12 people and injured 115 in front of their eyes. The
Russian Mig, piloted presumably by an Egyptian pilot, then circled
for a while before coming in for the kill again, this time on the
village market place which was crowded with shoppers. Twelve were
killed and 35 injured. The next target was the Holy Rosary
Hospital. It was struck three times before it was completely
destroyed. It was absolute carnage." --The letter concludes, :'In
the name of humanity something must be done to stop this savage
slaughter.."

Less than 25 years ago the Jewish People suffered a catastrophe
in the ruthless murder of six million men, women and children,
the import of which has permanently impaired our image of God,
man and the moral order. The most traumatic effect of all was the
feeling of abandonment, the agony of being surrounded by an ocean
of silence.

Out of that holocaust we, the Jewish People, have salvaged
one permanent lesson. There must never again be silence in the
face of atrocities and human suffering.
"Thou shalt not stand by idly the blood of thy brother,"
is the eleventh commandment of the Jewish People.

If we remain silent now in the face of what amounts to in fact
another attempted genocide, we will have given Hitler and Nazi
Germany their final victory.

What are we to do? There are two things we can and must do:
First, we must help stop the slaughter.

Second, we must help put an end to the cruel starvation.

Unless a cease-fire or truce is brought about, and the massacre
of innocents ends, all the humanitarian aid we send will in a short
time be poured into a cemetery called Biafra. I urge therefore that
our next rally take place not again before the United Nations, which
is apparently and tragically paralyzed from doing anything effective
to end the killing, but that we march on Washington, and in particular
on the State Department.

Our government has been engaged in a diplomatic bird dance,
feigning an impotence which is a lie. The culprits in the Nigerian
war effort are Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and Egypt, without
whose heavy military support and pilots this war could not rage on
for long. We need to march on the State Department and insist on
public answers to these questions:

Why is our government not protesting against Great Britain's
imperialist role in Nigeria? Is Britain, our great ally, going to
be allowedto continue to play the role of perfidious Albion in
bartering human lives for Biafran Oil?

Why does not our government make it clear to the Soviet Union
that we will not tolerate her continued feeding into Nigeria the
Migs and Ilyushin bombers, flown by Egyptian pilots, to exterminate
innocent peoples? Our president put the Soviet Union on public
notice when the Red armies marched into Czechoslovakia? Is the
Biafran tragedy any less demanding of our public outrage?

And finally we must ask what is the role of Ambassador Joseph
Palmer, the head of the African desk in the State Department, in
our strange neutrality in the face of genocide? Why is he dragging
his feet in response to pleas for American airlifts of food and
medicine to Biafra? Is the State Department repeating the same
cynical pattern of the 1940's of turning a deaf ear to cries to
help save human lives when it has the clear capacity to do
infinitely more than it is doing?

While we must march on Washington and turn the light of world
public opinion on the State Department and those responsible for
its ignominious policy of neutrality, we must not relax for a
moment our drives to raise monies to provide food, drugs and
medicines.

I wish to use this occasion to announce that the entire Jewish
community in the United States has organized an unprecedented
American Jewish Emergency Effort for Biafran Relief, following the
great leadership given by the Catholic Relief Services and Church
World Service, who have done more than any government or interRabbi

national relief bodies to bring succor and relief to the suffering
people of Nigeria. We have just raised $32,000 for Biafran
relief, and two days ago have committed checks to Catholic Relief
Services and to Church World Service and UNICEF which will make
possible the shipment of twenty flights of food amounting to 200
tons and one flight of medicines from Portugal to Biafra.

In the days and weeks ahead we will continue to work with you,
for the sake of the Biafran People, but also for the sake of our
own sanity and our belief in the worth of man.

Bodies stacked in street as genocide grips Biafra

2009-05-23T12:38:00.000-07:00

The Times Online Archives

May 12, 1968: Frederick Forsyth, at this time a freelance reporter, finds the breakaway region is now a charnel house

THE war raging between Nigeria and her breakaway eastern region of Biafra has just ended its 10th and bloodiest month. After 10 weeks in the bush with the Biafran army commandos, I have emerged sickened by the senseless violence that this war has wreaked upon a west African nation that could have been an example of harmonious progress to the whole of the continent.

The most disturbing aspect is that inside 10 months it has deteriorated steadily from a war in which the original motivation was the reincorporation of the breakaway east into Nigeria into a spectacle of racial hatred run amok.

General Yakubu Gowon, the head of the federal government, in unleashing a war that he thought could be ended within 48 hours, has let loose forces that white men do not understand and that the Nigerians cannot control.

The Lagos government, to judge from its public utterances, seems blandly unaware of just how far its own army is out of its control.

When one hears what Lagos says about the rehabilitation of the Ibos of Biafra, about non-discrimination, about equal job opportunity and so forth, and then one sees what is actually going on at the battle fronts and behind them, one must come to the conclusion that either Lagos is lying or it has lost control.

In six forays behind Nigerian lines, I was able to observe Nigerian-occupied Biafra. It is being turned into a charnel house of gutted hamlets and rotting corpses.

From the bush a timorous Ibo native emerges to explain what happened when “Hausa man come”. The descriptions tally so closely that they are almost standardised: the menfolk lined up against the wall of the biggest building and machinegunned, the women raped to the accompaniment of the all-too-ritualistic mutilations, the children spitted on machete knives.

Genocide is an ugly word and an even uglier reality. I do not use it lightly, but my judgment that it really could be the extermination of an entire race does not go unsupported.

The two papal delegates who visited both sides in the conflict submitted a report to the Pope which caused the latter to condemn the war for its “strong genocidal overtones”.

I spoke to nearly 100 Nigerian prisoners of war and, once their Ibo captors had been sent out of earshot, they spoke quite freely. All admitted that they had not volunteered but had been conscripted by no-nonsense recruiting sergeants on street corners and in market places. After a week’s training they were sent up to the front with a rifle and a pouch of ammunition. These new soldiers loot, rape, kill and torture.

At Onitsha, under siege from the federal troops, the 300-strong congregation of the Apostolic church decided to stay on while others fled and to pray for deliverance. The Second Division found them in the church, dragged them out, tied their hands behind their backs and executed them. Three hours later, entering Onitsha, I found the corpses stacked in the road.

It is the Biafrans’ firm belief, which seemed to be supported by a lot of evidence, that the great majority of the weapons in Nigerian hands are being supplied by the British. British government spokesmen, both in parliament and elsewhere, have been remarkably evasive about just what has been sent to Nigeria.

The Biafrans vigorously reject Britain’s claim that she is obliged to support Gowon’s war because he is the legal government of Nigeria. The Biafran leader, Lieutenant-Colonel Emeka Ojukwu, points out that Britain does not always feel obliged to arm military regimes, particularly when the use to which the weapons might be put is dubious in the extreme.

His attitude is, as usual, moderate compared with that of his more emotional countrymen. The hatred of Britain has steadily grown as 80,000 Biafrans, more than 65,000 of them civilians, have died. Now they believe that just about everything being thrown at them is of British origin – including bombs and rockets.

Time is running short, as the Biafrans are squeezed ever more tightly into the centre of the ring, with a vengeful Nigerian army seeking its pound of flesh for its own 35,000 casualties. Negotiation is one road; the other leads to the biggest bloodbath the Commonwealth has ever seen.

The Biafra secession was finally crushed in January 1970.

Comments:

it is quite unfortunate that the man that orchestrated the worst genocide in Africa General gowon was never tried for warcrime.Though out of realisation for peace as the best option for the Nigeria state to attain her full potential.It is very ridiculous for anyone especial other tribes from Nigeria

Joseph , Aberdeen, United Kingdom

My Ibo country people greetings from your Bini sister. I read the story and it puts the chill in my blood... of course I did not experience the war but I'm a firm believer that none should be exempt from justice. This was clearly genocide and those responsible should be tried. May God deliver us!

Stella, Norfolk, USA

Only uneducated Ibos would want a Biafrian nation. And I always pity their mentality(ies). Its time to think of a united and democratic Nigeria where there should be equality. Biafrian war was a political mistake in our history. Lets join hands together to make Nigeria a great and peaceful nation.

ighodaro eguaoje, Moscow., Russia.

Now we know who prolonged the war and told all those lies. Let anyone stand up today and say what Forshyte reported at Onitsha actually happened? Genocide was committed on the Eastern minorities. I know because i was a Biafran soilder. We Ibos need to apologise to the Eastern minoriyies.

Chima, Aba, Nigeria

Biafra is real and one day will come to pass .Nigeria is a failed state and will soon disintigrate. Forces that are against biafra resurgence will soon fizzle out and the sun will rise again. The powers that be in the whole world will be asleep when this will happen.

emeka, nnewi, biafra

I was about 9 years old during the Biafran/Nigerian civilwar. A nigerian captain called Gagara and his men raped women married and unmarried, took many young girls away from their parents. They killed all the Igbos they captured in Ibibio land, no prisoner of war was kept. We know the mass graves.

Nsima, Leoben, Austria

Despite evidence of genocide, no one has been charged by the War Crime Tribunal in Heig. Doesn't this make the UN an accomplice after a fact of genocide? Biafrans are still suffering in Nigeria. UN should redeem it s image by calling for a referandum in Biafra now!

sunday, Aba, Biafra,

Biafra was the first attempt at building true African nation and it was killed by forces intent in keeping the blackman backward.
As for the dramatis personae in this first African genocide, may God have mercy on their souls. As for the way forward, restore Biafra.

Davis, Nri, Nigeria

I call on all Igbos to rise up as one and seek the hand of law against Gowon and the British government.i wish to use this avenue to say categorically that any Igbo that ever stays in Britain should be looked upon as outcast.We should stay away from the british because they are evil,IGBOS BEWARE

UZOMA, VIENNA, AUSTRIA

Another immense tragedy made possible by British trade in weapons. Is oil worth the price? The British are obliged to say no.

Matthew, Bumpass, USA

All the men and women who killed the innocent Biafrans who were fighting for their right will suffer miserably and their children too.The Nigerian forces were really very inhuman.They killed,raped, committed all sorts of crime to their own people under the guise of war.its horrible.God bless biafra.

Dubem, Imo state, Biafra

Nyerere was Africa's true man of the people

2009-05-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

By James N. Kariuki

Afro-pessimists of the world once glorified Tanzania's Julius Kambarage Nyerere by musing that he should not have been born African. More sincere admirers saluted him simply as 'one of the planet's best and brightest'. When he died in 1999, practically the entire world, including the General Assembly of the UN, grieved a terrible loss. An American Afro-optimist simply lamented tearfully: I would have followed him anywhere!

To many, Nyerere was the pride of Africa. He was the embodiment of the finest to be found in a leader, not only in Tanzania and Africa, but also for the entire world. Yet, for all his atrocities, Uganda's Idi Amin is better known than this remarkable son of our continent. But Nyerere does have a hardcore following.

Some of the diehards were attracted by Nyerere's intellectual output. Others cite oratory skills and charisma as his 'talent' as a politician. Still others point to his brilliance in political organisation and mobilisation. But what made Nyerere truly exceptional were his stands on principles, his statesmanship.

A notable illustration is Nyerere's uncompromising opposition to racism in Southern Africa. During his Inaugural Address on Tanganyika's Independence Day on December 9, 1961, he devoted the largest segment of the speech on the racial woes of Southern Africa. It was then that he proclaimed to the world that, even though newly independent Tanganyika was too poor to send scientific rockets to the moon, it would send rockets of love to those in Southern Africa who were consigned to permanent humiliation for being born whom they were.

Tanzania under Nyerere was destined to send more than 'rockets of love' to Southern Africa. In the early days of independence, Nyerere personally became the ambassador-at-large in championing the cause of Black Southern Africans. In that capacity, he globetrotted the world, taking the matter of apartheid to international bodies and Western capitals. Concomitantly, Dar es Salaam became headquarters for OAU's Liberation Committee and home-away-from-home for countless refugees from Southern Africa.

One of the Nyerere's agonising decisions was the recognition of Biafra in 1968. When the Igbo of Eastern Nigeria opted to secede from federal Nigeria, they acted in a manner contrary to the principles of the OAU of protecting the colonial boundaries. Accordingly, Africa in general, including Tanzania, was in support of sustaining a united Nigeria.

However, the Igbos had endured much suffering within Nigeria. Indeed, there was the Northern Nigeria September-October 1966 anti-Igbo pogrom in which thousands of people were killed and massive numbers flocked back to Igboland in its wake. The Igbo were then convinced that they would be better off without Nigeria. Hence, the breakaway attempt of 1967.

As a core Pan-Africanist, Nyerere was inclined to support the principles of safeguarding the integrity of the colonial boundaries. This reasoning demanded of Tanzania to oppose the quest to establish Biafra. On the other hand, as a moral individual, Nyerere knew that the Igbos had suffered enough and saw little hope that their condition would improve within the Union of Nigeria.

The options were thus reduced to either supporting the territorial integrity of Nigeria, or upholding the sanctity of human life of Igbo. Given his human-centred philosophy, this was really no choice. Hence, the starling Tanzania's diplomatic recognition of breakaway Biafra in April 1968, an act tantamount to a declaration of war against Nigeria. In the end Biafra lost the war. But Nyerere had no regrets. Even his worst antagonists knew that his heart was in the right place.

Perhaps the most surprising of all his actions was Nyerere's invasion of Uganda in 1979 to topple the regime of Idi Amin. In Nyerere's views, Amin was guilty of many things but what was fundamentally unacceptable was Amin's disregard for human life within Uganda itself.

In February, the London-based magazine, New African, chose Kwame Nkrumah as the African man of the 20th Century. Perhaps that honour should have been shared with one Julius Kambarage Nyerere, a true man of the people. After all, he was one individual who would who would never compromise or be compromised on issues of right and wrong. He did Global Africa proud.

Afro-pessimists of the world once glorified Tanzania's Julius Kambarage Nyerere by musing that he should not have been born African. More sincere admirers saluted him simply as 'one of the planet's best and brightest'. When he died in 1999, practically the entire world, including the General Assembly of the UN, grieved a terrible loss. An American Afro-optimist simply lamented tearfully: I would have followed him anywhere!

James Kariuki is Head of the African Diaspora Unit at the Africa Institute of South Africa in Pretoria. He writes in his personal capacity.

No regrets for the Asaba massacre of Igbo -Haruna

2009-05-23T11:34:00.000-07:00

By Sufuyan Ojeifo & Lemmy Ughegbe, Vanguard

ABUJA — GENERAL Officer Commanding (GOC) Two Division of the Army during the civil war, Maj.-Gen. Ibrahim Haruna said yesterday that he had no regret for the Asaba massacre in which over 500 Igbo men were killed by his troops.

Testifying for the second day running for the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) at the Oputa panel sitting, Gen. Haruna also revealed that Nigeria’s late Prime Minister, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa had a foreknowledge of the 1966 coup that claimed his life.

He said the late Prime Minister even turned down an invitation from the British government to pass the night of January 14, 1966 at the British High Commission in Lagos to escape from the coup plotters.

Gen. Haruna who was under cross-examination by the Ohanaeze Ndigbo’s counsel, Chief Anthony Mogbo (SAN) said whatever action he or his troops took during the war was motivated by a sense of duty to protect the unity of the country.

"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," he declared.

"If Gen. Yakubu Gowon apologised, he did it in his own capacity. As for me I have no apology," explaining, however, that "it was as barbaric as the 1966 coup; it was as barbaric as the pogrom, if there was also any other atrocity, the Kano extrajudicial killing was as barbaric as that."

Gen. Haruna also recommended that Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, Gen. Yakubu Gowon and Gen. Ibrahim Babangida be charged with failure to investigate the 1966 coup during their different terms as head of state.

"Charge Buhari, Gowon, Babangida for not investigating the 1966 coup on the grounds of dereliction of duty," he said.

On the 1966 coup, Gen. Haruna informed the panel that the late Alhaji Tafawa-Balewa, among other prominent Nigerians, had a foreknowledge of the coup.

He said the late Prime Minister actually turned down an invitation from the British government to pass the night at its High Commission in Lagos as he believed the mutineers would kill him.

Called by Mogbo (SAN) to explain the rationale behind ACF tagging the 1966 coup an "Igbo coup in spite of Alhaji Balewa, M.D. Yusuf, then a police officer, Col. Maimalari and many others of Northern extraction having prior knowledge of the coup, the star witness declined response.

He, however, disclosed that the North had planned a jihad on the day of the coup, insisting that the statement "Igbo, Igbo, Igbo, you are no longer part of Nigeria," credited to the former Prime Minister (Balewa) was a misinterpretation of the actual intent.

On the Gideon Akaluka incident of 1994, Gen. Haruna said that it was wrong to say that the Kano State Government never punished the killers of Mr. Gideon Akaluka, saying 20 unnamed persons were victims of extra-judicial killings which were supposed to be a deterrent.

But he said the killings were not ordered by the state government.

"My lord, I do not know who ordered the extra-judicial killing, nor where they were killed. All I know is that the Kano State Government, killed 20 people linked to the barbaric act," he said.

Gen. Haruna said, "I don’t know what you mean, 20 people were victims of the extra-judicial killing, but I don‘t know who ordered it, I have not said it is Kano State that ordered it."

Also testifying, the Plateau State branch of NBA Chairman and son of late Lt.-Col. Yakubu Pam, Barrister Yusuf Pam demanded a public apology from Col. Ben Gbulie for alleging that the house which his father built was a gift from the then Northern regional government.

"We were taught to forgive, but it is only normal for us to demand that such a statement that is patently false should be retracted by Gbulie. He should also apologise to us for this further damage to the memory of a patriotic officer who served the country well with his life."

Igbo soldiers plotted coup from independence day – Ejoor

2009-04-20T17:49:00.000-07:00

In a three-part thriller that is sure to send historians about the Nigerian Civil War back to library shelves, the Military Governor of the... defunct Midwest Region, Major General David Akpode Ejoor, says military coups in Nigeria began right from independence in 1960. In this interview with BIMBO OGUNNAIKE and AZEEZ FOLURUNSHO, he shredded several claims and set-positions about the country's past and future.

Firing from the hips, like a war veteran that he is, and in a no-holds-barred interview, Ejoor maintains that the political and military leaders of Igbo extraction had nursed the ambition of upturning the Nigerian political space because their leading light, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, emerged only as a nominal Governor-General while power resided in another geo-political zone. The concluding parts of the rare interview will be served you, dear readers, next Saturday and the week after. Excerpts:

You appear to be more of an enigma to Nigerians, most of whom know very little about you despite being an open-book; one about whom so much has been said and written. Who, really, are you, sir?

A woman called Uvwerhero gave birth to me. I was born in 1932. She put me in school and when I finished my school, she sent me to the Government College, Ugheli. When I finished college, I didn’t have money to continue to do the HSC or to enter the university. My school principal gave me a letter to the Comptroller of Customs in Warri. I didn’t know what was in the letter and so when the Comptroller read it, he said your principal said I should give you a job. He asked me: “When are you starting?” I said now. He said: “All right, come tomorrow”. That was how I started work in the Customs.

What year was that?

In 1953. After the first six months, one of my colleagues came from the college to say that they were looking for the people to join the army. I told him that I was already working but he gave me the form. Out of interest, I filled the form and by September 1953, they replied me and said that I should come to Enugu for examination to join the army. I didn’t know that day, I didn’t know Enugu. To tell the Comptroller of Customs that he should excuse me to go to Enugu for exam, I couldn’t do it. I had to resign and go to look for money because at that time any money they gave to me at the end of the month, I gave it to my elder brother to keep for me. I did not keep the money. When I wanted to resign, I didn’t have any money. so, I had to rush to him in school and told him that he should give me money; that I wanted to resign. He said. ‘you are playing with your certificate.’ He gave me money and I wen to the treasury, paid and dropped my letter to the Comptroller of Customs and I didn’t allow him to read it before I left. I just ran away from him because I knew he would not let me go. The following day, I asked my mother to get me some money and three days after, I found my way to Enugu to do the exam there.

How many of you sat for the examination that day?

We were six, but at the end of the day, we were asked to come for an interview in Lagos. I was the only one who passed from Enugu. We did the interview in Lagos and only four of us passed. The four of us were then sent to Ghana to do our initial training at the Regular Officers Training School. After six months, those of us who passed, about four, were selected to go to England to do the Officers Cadet Training.

When we got to England, we went to another selection board and it happened that two of us passed -- that is I and Victor Banjo, who worked with Ojukwu. So, Banjo and I went to England to do first, the Short Service Commission Course which lasted for six months. At the end of the six months, we were asked to go to Sandhurst for interview. At Sandhurst, we did almost three years course. We were commissioned in 1956 by the Queen, the present Queen, and then we came back to Nigeria. Some of us later went back to England for other military trainings.

When you were about joining the army, what was your parents’ attitude?

The immediate brother by my mother was killed by some people in 1951. So, as far as Army was concerned at that time, people would say when you join the Army, you were going to die. So, I couldn’t tell my mother that I wanted to join the army because she would never agree. I did all these, went to Accra for the training and after the training I now told her that I was going to England but it would be training in the army and she couldn’t say no then because I was the only boy left and the other two sisters were the only three left out of seven children which she had before.

Do you share the view that Biafra was a tragic mistake in Nigeria’s history?

First of all, let me tell you this, when the British were here, we were the last Nigerian officers to be commanded by the British soldiers. (He called for a picture hung on the wall of his sitting room to be brought down to show the first set of Nigerian military officers at that period).The senior person to me in Nigeria was Bassey, the second was Aguiyi Ironsi. The Igbos wanted to rule. Why they wanted to rule was that (Nnamdi) Azikiwe was the then Governor-General and more or less Head of State. The constitution did not give any power to Azikiwe. So, this annoyed the Igbo people and they used to say: “How can we run a constitution in which the Head of State cannot advise the government, the government cannot contact the Head of State for any advice?” So, the answer was well to take over since they were already leading and yet they had no control over the government. That was why the Igbo soldiers decided to organise a coup. But at that time, there were four major leading officers which included me, Yakubu Gowon, Bassey and Ojukwu. Igbo people relied on Ojukwu for the coup and they were able to convince the Yoruba. Ojukwu and Banjo now contacted me and Gowon for a coup. But we refused.

How many of you refused to participate in the planned coup then?

Gowon and I refused and they went on their own. But we then reported to that European officer, General Foster. I and Gowon reported to him that some people were trying to plan a coup. He called all of us -- the Nigerian Army officers -- and advised us not to organise any military coup. When Ojukwu’s father heard about this, he put a memo into House of Assembly that all Europeans should leave the army. It was that year that all the Europeans in the army were sent back to their country. Then, Ironsi, who was Number Two, took over the command of the army. While he was there, Ojukwu still had the coup plot in his mind. He told Ironsi that he should not allow Ejoor and Gowon to be in Army Headquarters, saying as long they remained in Army headquarters, they would not be able to execute the coup. So, Ironsi sent Gowon on a course in the United Kingdom but he left me alone. When Igbos were worrying him that Ejoor was still there, he told them that:

“This man from that small state, minority state? You can handle him, he cannot do anything. Go away, and leave me.” So, he left me. By December when Gowon came back, it was like a small war in Ironsi’s office. Some army officers told Ironsi that: “We told you to send these two people away, now Gowon has come back. What can we do now? Ironsi was embarrassed and after Gowon came back on the 20th and on the 23rd of that month, Ironsi now sent me away from Army headquarters to Enugu, saying: “He should be hidden there.” I went there and then they tried again but the one they tried was in January 1966 after I had left the Army headquarters. But at that time, they said whatever happened, Ejoor and Gowon must die. They threatened the person who was to organise a coup on behalf of the Igbos in Lagos side.

Who was that person?

Emmanuel Ifeajuna. The one in Kaduna, Nzeogwu. I think you know that one. Ifeajuna was holding a very big post in the Brigade then. He was a Chief of Staff to Maimalari. He sent a message that we had this meeting which would last a week; that I should come to Lagos. He was the one who booked me into Ikoyi Hotel in Room 17 and my number in the army was 17. It was a lucky number for me. I got to Lagos for the meeting and then the meeting started on Monday. Then on Thursday, I can't recall what happened in my hotel room. I just complained that I didn't like the room. They couldn’t change it on Thursday. It was on Friday, the last day of the meeting that I came back to the hotel by 4.30 pm. When I got to the hotel, they had changed my room because they knew that the following day, I would leave. I said all right. Because of the cocktail party which Maimalari organised for us, we could not come back on time. I left the cocktail party at about 11 p.m when we should have left at 8.00 pm.There was no need for us to come on time. Although he called it a cocktail party, it was like a buffet dinner. So, I ate to my satisfaction and when I got to the hotel, I didn’t go to the dining room to eat again; I just went straight to my bed and slept off. It was at three o'clock that night that the coup plotters came. They killed my colleague, the one commanding the Western Region, and after putting his body in the booth of the car, they rushed to my room, to Room 17, to kill me thinking that I was there. According to their story, they didn’t want me to see them. So, when they kicked the door open, they just sprayed the bed with bullets and then round before they switched on the light. When they switched on the light, nobody was there and they started saying to themselves, “he is gone, he is gone” and I was snoring downstairs. That was how, at least, I can tell that God saved me from the coup. Now, for Gowon.

Gowon had just come back on the 20th of December and he was posted to take over a battalion in Ikeja. He had not moved to his official house. He was staying in one of the Officers Mess accommodation. On that night, he did not come back to where he was staying because he went to see his prospective in-law. He did not come back in time, so when the coup plotters went there, they did not see him. They were now saying it is me and Gowon that would counter their coup and on the following day the news was that there was a coup. The following day, I was told that my colleague was killed and I went to his room and all what I saw was just blood. His body was not in the room and so I went to the person who was in charge, Brigadier Pam to come and take the blood sample and check. But when I got to that place, his wife told me that his husband was taken away in the middle of the night around 3.00 a.m. to a rendezvous where he was killed. Then, I rushed to
Maimalari's house who was then our commander where we had the cocktail party. When we got there, his soldiers just told me that Maimalari was killed in Ikoyi, Awolowo Road by the petrol station that night. I now told myself, 'how can I just rush to Enugu when I have heard this bad news.' So, I went to Ironsi’s house whether he could tell me anything before I went to Enugu. But when I got there, his soldiers said he left his house at 4.00 o'clock in the morning. What do I do? The head of the army, we could not find him. So, I said to myself, let me go to the Army unit, maybe I would get more information from them. I rushed to Ikeja Battalion and it was there, luckily, I saw his car in a car park. I sent my guard to check his office if there was anybody, and to ask if I should come in. And then I heard them all shouting: “Tell him to come. Tell him to come.” So, I went in. He opened the door for me and when I got in, I saw Ironsi sitting opposite the door pointing a gun at me, saying: “ David, are you with me or against me?” It was a surprise to him because he thought I was dead. So, I shouted back at him that “you are our father. Whatever it is, I am with you. What is it, anyway?” He said: “All right, sit down.” So, I sat down and he told me how the Prime Minister contacted him to say that he was being attacked with Okotie- Eboh and all that. He promised me he was going to get some help, but he couldn’t raise any help and that was why I had to go to the battalion itself, to get some soldiers under his command. He told me that he had to send Gowon out with soldiers to trace the coup plotters. I couldn’t see Gowon at that time. After I had told him the story, then he said he was going to the Police headquarters for a meeting where he was appointed Head of State. I told him I was going to Enugu to join my troops and also to join my wife and children. He just turned round to me and
said, “David, I cannot order you to Enugu now.” He did not want me to go to Enugu.

Why did he not want you to go to Enugu?

Probably, in their plan, I was to have been killed. I was not in their team. He said I should not go to Enugu and he left. I now concluded that Ironsi was part of the coup and that I could no longer rely on him because he was part of the coup plotters. I said to myself that my loyalty is to my country and I would not take any instruction from any officer anymore. I said if I went to Enugu by road, I would not arrive there. So, I went to the airport for an aircraft to take to Enugu. When I got to Enugu, everybody was shaking. The officer, my Second in Command, Major Gabriel Okonweze, told me that he was not expecting me. I asked him why he was not expecting me. He said he was given instruction to take over the command of the battalion, that I was not coming back. I said how did you get this information? Is it by radio, telephone or what? He said no and put his hand in his pocket and brought out a letter saying he should take over the command of the battalion. When I put the letter inside my pocket, he said no, that it was his letter and I said, “but I am still the commander.” I left the battalion and went to see Dr. Opara, the governor of Eastern Region, came back to the battalion and ordered that all soldiers that were deployed outside the battalion should be brought back to the barrack. I assembled them by 4.00 o'clock and addressed them. My second-in-command was telling me, “don’t tell them that anybody is dead. Don’t tell them anything?” I said I would tell them; these people were taken to unknown destinations, I will not say I saw any dead body, I saw blood. Yes, I cannot say so but if I do not mention it that way, when they get to know, you and I would be the first victim of Hausa soldiers. I told them what I knew and then we ran the battalion with peace. Then on the third day when Ironsi was made the Head of State, he withdrew me from Enugu and called me back to Lagos .

Why do you think he removed you from Enugu?

He removed me from Enugu because since I was still not dead, he could not trust me in Enugu. When I got to Lagos, he now said that I should be the Governor of the Mid- West.

Did he do that to compensate you?

More or less. But, you know that he had to behave in a way to show that he still liked me. Having removed me from Enugu, he brought me to Benin and that time, most of the officers in the Mid-West were from Anioma area, predominantly Igbo, because as it was, we were nine Lieutenant-Colonels in the Mid-West. I was the only Urhobo and the remaining eight were Anioma. Now that the person they wanted to kill was the governor, how was I to rule that place with satisfaction? I worked with them. I did not know that they were against me. I worked with them in the day time, but in the night, they worked against me. It wasn’t easy. God just preserved me because they did all sorts of things to see whether I could die.

When General Ironsi came on a visit to your region, 24 hours after he left your zone, he was kidnapped by some sections of the army along with the Governor of the Western Region where they were killed. What was in your mind when you heard the news?

The fact was this. He visited Western Region after leaving my place. The idea was that he did not want my killing to take place while he was there

Your own killing?

Yes. When he got to Ibadan , the counter-coup people, Brigadier Danjuma, waylaid him. It was there they waylaid him and killed him in Ibadan. When he was with Fajuyi, Fajuyi did not want them to take Ironsi away just like that. That was why they killed Fajuyi with Ironsi, not that they had anything against Fajuyi at that time. That was how I escaped death for the second time. As I am talking to you, I have looked at death, where there was nothing I could do, I was just waiting for death to come, for seven times. How many people have gone through that? Looking at death, not that I was told. The other ones that happened when I did not know is different, but the ones I saw, I know.

Are you saying the lack of trust and the in-fighting among the top generals at that time led to Nigeria’s civil war?

The civil war was straightforward. the Igbo wanted to take over the ruling of Nigeria. When all these cunny-cunny actions that people who were preventing them from organising a coup had not been killed, that is Gowon and I, the only thing left was to have a civil war. That was why there was a civil war and in the civil war, the first place Ojukwu attacked was the Mid-West. Now, I do not know that he was already in league with all the officers from Anioma area. When the Federal Government was suspecting them, most of them ran away to the East and joined Ojukwu in the Biafran army. At that time, Banjo himself, being a friend to Ojukwu because they joined the army the same day and commissioned, was suspected to be organising a coup. Ironsi had sent him, well not to prison but more or less arrested but sent to the East where he was detained in one of the prisons there. But being a friend to Ojukwu, Ojukwu released him and made him the Commander of the
Biafran troops. And he was the one who commanded the Biafran soldiers to come and attack Mid- West before moving to Lagos. The Igbo tried to rule Nigeria by force, what they cannot do through the ballot box; they tried it through coup. They tried the coup, it failed and now decided to do a civil war. It was a contract. That is the basic thing.

During this war, you said Ojukwu was coming from the East through your zone to Lagos. What were the things you put in place to checkmate him at that time?

As I told you, I did not know. It was just that morning that I heard firing in the State House where I was told that the Biafran Army was in the Mid- West. I could not believe that Banjo would be the person to kill me because he was the nearest person to me in the army. What happened was that when they got to Ikpoba Hills in Benin, the person that was sent by Ojukwu to kill me was ordered to take me dead or alive to Enugu was different because Banjo did not know about this. When they got to Ikpoba Hill, this officer from the Mid West, from Anioma, told Banjo he should give him time; let him go and find out where I was in Benin and take me to Enugu, dead or alive. The firing started at about 7.00 o'clock. I just managed to get the radio to tell Gowon that I was being attacked by the Biafran army. I took the weapon of the operator and ran down to the gate to join the soldiers who were firing and we started firing together. But after sometime, we ran out of
ammunition. What do we do? I knew that if they came in, they were coming for me to kill me. These soldiers who were defending me, why should I allow them to die? And then if I leave this place they would be killed, including my wife and children. Why should I allow any of these people to be killed? I said they had to kill me first so that other people would survive. I jumped down from where I was and walked towards where they were firing. I thought that that was the end. I didn’t know what was happening and then I found myself in a veranda in one of the houses not far from the State House. I decided to move my leg but I couldn’t move any part of my body. I looked up and I saw somebody holding my leg and my hand. He was kneeling down when I was thinking about other things. I did not know that somebody was holding me. I now asked him who are you? He said he was Chief Asemota. I thanked him and said I had to go now. He sad “no, you can’t go, they
are everywhere.” When he got up and started dragging me in, I asked him have you not seen any of the Biafran soldiers here? He answered that they were two in this veranda. It wasn’t long when they left that you came.These are the ones that would have killed you. I said: “My time has come; those who sent me here want me dead. My time has come. Let me go so that you or any of your family members will not die.” He said no. I argued and argued but he did not agree. So, I got up annoyed, to walk out. But before I could get to the door, he ran past me, he locked the door and threw the key out through the window. So, what do I do now? I could not break the door like that. Then I persuaded him that he should go and look for an Urhobo person around the area who could take me away from Benin. I waited for him and he found somebody from Urhobo who said he was coming. In the afternoon, in the night, we did not see him. So, I said he was not interested. The
following morning, around 7.00 o'clock, I heard a woman shouting: “There is war; you are going there if they kill you now, who will bury me?” That was what he was saying in Urhobo. I peeped through the window and I saw the woman running after the son, and returning into the compound I recognized him as one of the people with whom we grew up together.

What is the name of that person, sir?

John Ebuche. So, I opened the door and told him, “look, take your mother home,” and turned. He took his mother home.

A Generals’General

That Major General David Akpode Ejoor (rtd) parades an intimidating profile is an understatement. Commissioned in 1953 in the United Kingdom, he is a Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON) and an Officer of the Federal Republic (OFR). Ejoor also holds the prestigious Royal College of Defence Studies (RCDS), UK; a Pass Staff College (PSC) and a honorary Doctor of Letters (LL. D), of the University of Benin (UNIBEN).

He was a member of the Supreme Military Council from 1966 to 1975, the first Military Governor of Mid-Western State between 1966 and 1967; Chief of Army Staff, from 1972 to 1975, when he retired.

His medals include the Congo, Independence, Republic, Defence Service, General Service and National Service. He is a Grand Commander of the Republic of Togo, and has received the Order of the two Niles-Ist Class Sudan, the Grand Officer O.N. Du Lion Senegal and Kt. Order of the Crown, Belgium. His chieftaincy titles include the Olorogun Oloho of Olomu, Okakuro-Egbe of Agbon, Okakuro of Ovu, Onotuku of Ebor and Orhuerakpo Ru Ughelli.

The first speech by Military Governor Lt. Col. David Ejoor after the death of Maj. Gen. J.T.U Aguiyi- Ironsi and the emergence of Lt. Col Yakubu Gowon as Head of State:

Barely one week ago, the people of the Mid-Western Group of Provinces had the honour and privilege to receive Major-General J.T.U. Aguiyi-Ironsi as Head of the National Military Government and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. The reception accorded him was such that he felt reassured of unflinching support for the National Military Government.

I was shocked to hear that within 24 hours of his departure from the Mid-West for a conference of traditional rulers at Ibadan, he and his host, Lt. Col. F.A. Fajuyi, Military Governor of the Western Group of Provinces, were kidnapped by a section of the Army and taken to an unknown destination.

It is gratifying however, that, despite these unfortunate and gruesome incidents, the people of the Mid-Western Group of Provinces have remained calm and have refrained from violent reactions. This is no doubt because they are noted to be generally peaceful and law abiding, especially in times of crisis. I trust that these qualities will be maintained, whatever the situation, and that law and order will continue to be preserved in this area. I personally intend to do everything in my power to see that the balance is maintained.

Although I am deeply touched by the events of the last few days, I am resolved not to allow what has happened to becloud my sense of responsibility to the Republic as a whole and to the people of the Mid-West in particular. A new Military Government, led by Lt. Col. Gowon, has been announced and we should do our utmost to co-operate with it.

I am convinced, however, that it is idle and unpatriotic to pretend that all is now well with the nation. Frankly, the position, as I see it, is still tense and all true lovers of the country, especially those in positions of trust and authority, must take all necessary measures firmly to arrest the situation. Time may well be against us . . . .

It seems that most Mid-Westerners are giving serious thought to the following questions:

Are we to have a unitary state with powers centralized at the national capital?

A federal state with strong Central Government and relatively weak regional or provincial Government?

A loose Federation with strong Regional (or provincial) Government and a relatively weak Government at the centre responsible only for limited common services? Or Should the country be broken up into several new and independent states?

The questions posed above raise fundamental issues to which the right answer must be found without delay, not by bullets but by mutualand friendly discussion.

This is a challenge from which we must not flinch.

I hope that the Head of the new National Military Government will accept it and arrange in the next few days for a conference to be attended by representatives of all parts of the Republic and at which serious and objective attempt would be made to help determine the future of the country.

Note: This is absolutely rubbish but I have to post it here anyway for the records -- Ambrose