CHAPTER THREE

July – October, 1967

As soon as the first shots were fired at Garkem near Ogoja in the northern boundary between Nigeria and Biafra, the Biafran Scientists moved to their new War Laboratories and Workshops in Enugu about 45 miles from Nsukka where the University of Nigeria was situated. The Students had already left for the long vacation, so the Biafran Army detailed to protect the northern boundaries, moved its headquarters to the University Campus with sub-bases at the Opi Junction on the Makurdi – Enugu highway.

The War raged on in the northern sector, with the Federal Forces pushing hard to get to Nsukka and take over the strategic University town. As they neared Nsukka, the Biafran Northern Front was forced to retreat from Nsukka and to move its Headquarters Command Post down to Opi Junction. The Nsukka civilians fled Nsukka to the neighbouring villages and hamlets. More Biafran re-enforcement was moved from Enugu to the Nsukka sector in a bid to push back the Federal Forces northwards. It was at that time that Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu appeared on the Scene.

Major Nzeogwu and co-coup planners of January 15, 1966, Majors Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Col. Banjo and others, had been put in protective custody after the January 15, 1966 coup, by the then new Military Head of State, Major-General Aguiyi Ironsi. When the Nigerian Civil War became imminent, Governor Ojukwu had been able to effect their release from detention and they had then stayed on in the new Biafra, when the Eastern Region was renamed Biafra. Although Major Nzeogwu was itching to be given a Command position of a Brigade in the Biafran Army, he never got the chance until he was killed by the Nigerian soldiers in an ambush in the Nsukka Sector.

Although Nzeogwu never believed, as a true military strategist, that Biafra could win a war against the rest of Nigeria, he was still prepared to fight on the Biafran Side but not for the same Cause as Ojukwu. He seemed to have regarded his attempted Coup of January 15 as an “unfinished business” – as a true REVOLUTION that was betrayed by Major-General Aguiyi Ironsi and his Cohorts (which unfortunately included Governor Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu).

Naturally, Ojukwu was silently afraid of Nzeogwu and therefore, inwardly distrusted Majors Nzeogwu and Ifeajuna and Col. Banjo. This will explain why Nzeogwu was never given a recognized Command position in the Biafran Army and Ifeajuna was moved to be the Coordinator of the Science Group, which Ojukwu must have felt at that time to be an innocuous position – a Major without a military command. Governor Ojukwu must have been afraid that Nzeogwu wanted to use Biafra as a base to continue his “unfinished revolution”. It is possible that if Nzeogwu had gotten his way, he would have liked to take charge of the Mid-West Biafran Operation when it was later conceived by the Biafran War Cabinet. Using the advantage of being a Mid-Westerner, and his charisma with the Nigerian Army, he might have marched through to Lagos in the surprise Mid-Western Operation, not to capture and retain Lagos, but to use his charisma of the January 15, 1966 first Coup to rally all Nigerians and Biafra to his own brand of a ONE NIGERIA. This Ojukwu would never have agreed to, having seen himself as a Ruler of a “NEW SOVEREIGN STATE OF BIAFRA”.

Whether Major Nzeogwu’s new dream could have reached fruition if Ojukwu had given him the Command of the Mid-Western Operation, we do not know; but the fact remains that in frustration at not being given a Command Position in the Biafran Army, Nzeogwu spent most of his spare time in the Nsukka Sector of the Warfront doing sorties with the Biafran Infantry Soldiers. It was at one of these informal sorties that the Nigerian soldiers ambushed him, killed him and took his body back to Northern Nigeria to try to dispel the ‘charm’ that Nzeogwu’s joining in the Biafran Cause had cast on some of the Nigerian Soldiers.

When the Nigerian Soldiers got to Nsukka, they pursed a while there to consolidate and get more military reinforcement before their push to Enugu, the Biafran Capital. Fighting was intense at the Nsukka Sector, the Biafran Army sending massive reinforcement there to try and dislodge the Nigerian Soldiers from Nsukka and Environs. They sent in the Air Force with the old B-26 bomber equipped with napalm bombs made in one of the Biafran Science Group’s Chemistry Laboratories in the Ministry of Commerce Laboratories in Enugu.

The gallant young Biafran Soldiers freshly recruited from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and the Senior Secondary Schools were equipped with modified Molotov Cocktails, grenades and some guns to try and steal into the Nigerian Army locations especially in the University Campus and do surprise night attacks of the Nigerian Army Motorized Columns parked in the Campus. These attacks were only partially effective, but what they achieved was to quicken the resolve of the Nigerian Army to move faster towards their target of getting to Enugu before October 1, the Nigerian Independent Anniversary as an anniversary gift to Col. Yakubu Gowon.

So in spite of these “minor annoyances”, the Nigerian soldiers in the Nsukka Sector started their move again towards Enugu. They had called for massive armoured vehicles reinforcements of ferrets, Saladins and so on for this final push to Enugu. As they were moving with these motorized columns, firing incendiary weapons, the young Biafran soldiers who were seeing armoured vehicles in real life for the first time in their lives, were no match for Nigeria’s firepower. The story goes that they all abandoned their trenches and ran for dear life, shouting that they have never seen vehicles spiting fires from their mouths. There was nothing the seasoned Biafran Army Commanders formerly of the Nigerian Army could do to bring the situation under control and stem the onslaught of the Nigerian motorized columns with their accompanying infantry soldiers.

It was then the middle of September, 1967. The Nigerian Army was now halfway to Enugu from Nsukka. They had taken over the Biafran Brigade Headquarters at Ukehe and were regrouping there. Up until then there was no attempt by the Nigerian Armed Forces to attack Biafra from the Western Sector through the then Mid-Western Region which was governed by Col. David Ejoor. It is not certain whether this was due to Ejoor’s neutral stance (a large chunk of his State is Igbo-speaking and the first Civilian Governor, Dennis Osadebey that Col. Ejoor took over from is an Igbo), or the fact that Gowon believed that it was better to involve mostly the Nigerian Soldiers of Northern Nigerian origin, and so he concentrated on the northern flank (Nsukka and Ogoja). As the pressure mounted on the Nsukka and Ogoja sectors, it became obvious to the Biafran War Cabinet that a major diversionary step had to be taken immediately to ease the pressure on Enugu, the Biafran Capital.

As Madiebo’s book highlighted, a Mid-Western operation was hurriedly planned. I say hurriedly because most military strategists agree that it is bad military tactics to spread ones forces too thinly. A move to the Mid-West and thence to the Western Region would, of course disperse the Biafran Forces too thinly over a large expanse of hostile territory and make it difficult to “police” and defend the area effectively. But I think the Biafran Strategists were no fools! So what must have been the motivation for planning the Mid-West/Western attack? It seems to me that Ojukwu and the War Cabinet must have been banking on the “surprise element” to confuse and temporarily neutralize the Nigerian Army’s push from the Northern Sector. It seems also that Ojukwu and his War Cabinet must also have been banking on the neutral or supposedly slightly friendly attitude of the Mid-Western and Chief Awolowo’s Western Region. This was borne out by the fact that Col. Banjo (a Yoruba man in the Biafran Army whom Ojukwu did not trust implicitly) was appointed the Commander of the Mid-West Operation.

One may ask “Why was Col. Banjo trusted sufficiently to be given the Command of the Mid-Western Operation?” I have already pointed out that the Mid-Western Operation was merely diversionary in nature. It was aimed at approaching Chief Awolowo’s Yoruba land militarily to enable Awolowo and the Yorubas to shake off the presence of the Northern Nigerian soldiers that had effectively occupied the Western Region after the Counter-coup of July 29, 1966. Which better Biafran Army Commander could communicate and negotiate with Chief Awolowo than a “Yoruba” Biafran Army Commander!!

However, the two assumptions by Ojukwu and his War Cabinet turned out to be false assumptions as the strategies misfired hopelessly. Col. Banjo lost his life in the hands of Col. Ojukwu and the signs of the eventual collapse of Biafra became clearly evident.

The initial successful Mid-Western Operation led by Col. Banjo got to Ore on the outskirts of the Western Region. Col. Ojukwu having captured the Mid-Western Region, renamed it the “Republic of Benin” under a new Governor, Major (Dr.) Okonkwo, and was preparing to rename the Western Region as the “Republic of Oduduwa”, when “things fell apart”. Suddenly and without any obvious reason, the Biafran Army under the Command of Col. Banjo, occupying the new “Republic of Benin” collapsed like a pack of cards and the whole Mid-Western Region became a bitter battle ground.

The Nigerian Army overran the whole Mid-Western area and mass slaughter of the Igbos in the Igbo-speaking areas of the Mid-Western Region became the order of the day. This sudden collapse of the Biafran Army in the Mid-Western Region was termed by Col. Ojukwu as sabotage by Col. Banjo and for the first time in the Biafran Cause, fear spread like wild fire throughout Biafra. A new word had surfaced - SABOTEURS – to cast a dark cloud on Biafra and to linger on throughout the rest of the 30-month War.

I later learnt that Chief Awolowo refused the overtures of Col. Banjo when Col. Banjo talked to him from Ore for the Yoruba Soldiers to join the Biafran Soldiers to push the Northern Soldiers out of Yoruba land. Instead I was told Chief Awolowo reminded Col. Banjo that he was a Yoruba man and should not be fighting on the Biafran (Igbo) side. He was told that whatever happened he was still coming back to Nigeria as a Yoruba man. Banjo was said to have feared Chief Awolowo, the Yoruba Leader and in his panic, he ordered the Biafran Soldiers in Ore to pull back to Benin. This move gave Gowon time to rally the Northern soldiers in the Western Region for a push to Ore and from there to Benin, thereby routing the Biafran soldiers in the Mid-Western Region (the new “Republic of Benin”).

With the collapse of the still-born “Republic of Benin”, the confusion in Enugu, the capital of Biafra and the subsequent execution of Col. Banjo, Major Ifeajuna and a civilian, Mr. Alele by Col. Ojukwu, for the “attempted coup” against him and Biafra, and the bandying of the word saboteur or ‘sabo’ for short on any person one didn’t like, the stage was set for the eventual first collapse of the Biafran Army. It was obvious that Enugu, the capital of Biafra would fall anytime from then.

The Massacre in the Igbo-speaking areas of the Mid-West.
This needs to be highlighted because it was a clear testimony that the Nigerian Military were out to massacre as many Igbos as they could lay their hands on in the former Nigeria. After the Nigerian Army had regained the whole of the Mid-Western Region, they placed a strong contingent of Nigerian soldiers and the Amphibious Brigade in Asaba preparatory for a strong attack on the Commercial Town of Onitsha on the other side of the River Niger within Biafra. As the details of the report of the military tribunal headed by Major Charles B. Ndiomu for the Nigerian Military showed, many Igbo-speaking elders, young men and even woman and children were gathered in the football fields in Asaba and after drilling them and interviewing them, were shot and killed as a reprisal for allowing the Biafran soldiers to enter very easily into the Mid-West through their domain, march quickly unchallenged to Benin and thence to Ore before the Nigerian Army got wind of the invasion.