CHAPTER TWO

The Periods Just after the Counter Coup of July 29, 1966.

On July 29, 1966 and a few days after, it was not clear who the leaders of the counter coup were. However, the various interviews of motorists at the various Military checkpoints, gave a pointer to what was to come.

Here is a typical encounter by a lecturer in the University of Ibadan at a check-point.

Soldier: Halt there! And open your booth (the trunk of your car).

Motorist (stops): There is nothing in my booth; I am a lecturer at the University of Ibadan.

Soldier (looking fierce): You people know too much book; we ‘sabi’ (know) the gun. Come down and open your trunk or I’ll shoot you.

Motorist (now looking very terrified): O.k., o.k., Officer; (he opens the trunk); you see, I told you there is nothing in the trunk.

Soldier (still looking stern): What is in that bag? Open it!

Motorist (now looking very meek and humiliated): Oh, just my travelling clothes and my books.

Soldier: O.k., you can go; “bookuru” (a mockery on the Universities)

When this lecturer finally arrived safely into the University of Ibadan Campus, he found the mood at the Campus very subdued and disquieting; not the hilarious mood that had greeted the January 15 1966 Coup. People were huddled in groups discussing. As July was the first month of the University’s long vacation, there was still a large number of senior staff on the Campus. The Senior Staff Club became the venue for heated debates on the consequences of this counter-coup. Those who went to Ibadan town (the University was a suburb outside the main town), during the day came back with tales of heavy tension on the roads in the City. As the days rolled by there came tales of families in the various parts of Ibadan Metropolis moving towards their villages or regions of origin. Within the University Campus itself, rumours were rife that this counter-coup was aimed against a possible Igbo political domination of Nigeria. The Yoruba Academic Staff, jokingly or seriously, (at that time one could not be sure whether another member of staff was cracking a joke or not), always asked their Eastern Colleagues, particularly the Igbos, what they were still doing on the Campus; did they not hear that most of their “brothers and sisters” in the Ibadan Metropolis had left for the East?

Examples of their gibes went like this:

Lecturer A: Old boy! What are you still doing in the University Campus when the University is on long vacation?

Lecturer B replies: I have some urgent research work I am trying to finish off before the next session begins. I can give the research work full time now that the students are away on vacation and I do not have to divide my time between lecturing and the research work.

Lecturer A: Will you still be doing this research when the Northern Soldiers who don’t care about us academicians, crash into the University Campus and start slaughtering you lecturers of Eastern Nigerian Origin?

Lecturer B: You are very right; the Northern soldiers have no respect for quality education and would not hesitate to wipe off all Southern Academicians, starting with the Igbos they fear so much.

Lecturer A: I suggest you leave the University of Ibadan as soon as possible back to the East while the roads are still relatively safe to travel on.

Lecturer B: Thank you, lecturer A, for your good advice. I must try to convince my fellow Eastern Nigerian lecturers to pack and leave for the East, at least for the duration of the long vacation.

Lecturer C (after Lecturer B had left): Lecturer A, why are you advising the Igbo lecturers to leave the University of Ibadan and indeed the University of Lagos too?

Lecturer A: Lecturer C, are you so short-sighted. Have you forgotten that the University of Ibadan and indeed the University of Lagos, although Federal Universities are in the Yoruba catchment’s area of Nigeria and so should have predominantly Yoruba lecturers and students. Before the British Vice-Chancellor handed over the Vice-Chancellorship post to the incumbent Vice-Chancellor, who is an Igbo, the ratio of Igbo lecturers to the Yoruba lecturers was tolerable. However, what has happened since the Igbo Vice-Chancellor took over; the ratio has become lopsided in favour of the Igbos, especially at the Professorial levels. Even the new University of Lagos has as its first Vice-Chancellor, another Igbo Professor. This is our opportunity to change the nasty and unhealthy situation for good.

Note from the author: The true situation was that most of the Igbo Professors who studied abroad stayed on in the foreign countries like Britain and the United States of America to pursue their professional careers as they had better fulfilment there. However when the new Nigerian Vice-Chancellor was appointed at the University of Ibadan, he went on a recruitment tour of the foreign countries to recruit Nigerian Intellectuals willing to go back to Nigeria to serve. Many Nigerian Professors were willing to give the University of Ibadan a try while still keeping their positions in the foreign countries as a safety valve in case they did not like the political situation in Nigeria or were not getting academic fulfilment and satisfaction in Nigeria. Both the Yoruba and Igbo lecturers and professors heeded the new Vice-Chancellor’s call but the Igbos were more in number, thus tipping the balance of “academic power” at the University of Ibadan. It was not a deliberate action by the new Vice-Chancellor.

Also the appointment of an Igbo Professor to the post of the Vice-Chancellor of the new University of Lagos was because the most senior professor at Ibadan, the only University at the time in Nigeria, who was willing to go head the new University, happened to be an Igbo Professor of Botany. The other most senior Yoruba Professor was a Professor of Social and Preventive Medicine who preferred to stay on at Ibadan where he had established a viable Community Hospital.

That night, the Igbo lecturer went round to his fellow lecturers from the Eastern Region to convince them about their insecurity if they continued to stay on in Ibadan. Only his fellow Igbo lecturers gladly acceded to his admonition; the non-Igbo lecturers, although they too felt insecure, told him they would think about his advice.


A week or so later, there was mass movement of the Lecturers from the Eastern Region back to the East ostensibly to spend their long vacation. However, unknown to the Igbo lecturers, at the end of the long vacation, all the non-Igbo lecturers of the Eastern Region travelled back to the University of Ibadan to resume the new 1966-67 academic year. All the Igbo lecturers stayed behind in the Eastern Region and started holding meetings to plan for their future outside the University of Ibadan. They were joined in these informal meetings by their colleagues from the other Universities in the West (Lagos and Ife) and the North (ABU).


At these meetings which started in Prof. Modebe’s Onitsha Village Home and moved over to Prof. Kenneth Dike’s Awka Village Home, it was unanimously agreed that all the lecturers who had returned to the Eastern Region from other parts of Nigeria, should not go back to their former posts because of the insecurity of their lives. The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Prof. Kenneth Dike, in whose house the last series of meetings were held, suggested that we all tender our letters of resignation to the University Administration to facilitate the administrative processes in our disengagement from the University. He also suggested that those lecturers from the other Universities of Lagos, Ife and Ahmadu Bello (ABU) should do the same. We all agreed and we the younger ones left, leaving the Professors to stay and fashion out a proper communiqué to be sent to Lt. Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu, Military Governor of the Eastern Region.



See what transpired after the younger lecturers left Prof. Dike’s Village Home:

The most senior Professor: Mr. Vice-Chancellor, why do you suggest we should all send in our letters of resignation to the University of Ibadan? Do you realize that we the Professors have a lot of accumulated Gratuity and Pension in British Pound Sterling which we have to claim before we resign? Do you want us to lose all we have worked for in life? The young ones can afford to do that because they have had only a few years service in the University.

Vice-Chancellor: What do you suggest we older ones do? Our lives are no longer safe in the Universities outside the Eastern Region.

One of the Professors: VC, we suggest you go back to Ibadan and using your position as the incumbent Vice-Chancellor pressurize the Bursar to prepare our gratuity and pension entitlements pronto and release the vouchers to us and then we can tender our letters of resignation with our full benefits collected. After all the military people are still jaw-jawing, so we can still move in and out of the University Campuses.

Vice-Chancellor: Ok. I shall see what I can do, but remember that our Yoruba colleagues are not our friends. Remember what transpired when I was appointed the first Nigerian Vice-Chancellor to take over from the British Vice-Chancellor. My live was threatened and the threat has not abated.

Second Professor: You will go for us; God will protect you. That is the prize to pay for being a leader. Look at what Lt. Col. Ojukwu is going through and he is a younger man than you.

When the list of those lecturers who resigned from the various Universities outside the Eastern Region came out in the Nigerian Newspapers, they were mostly the young and daring ones. The ironies of group actions.


Although it had become clear that Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon had emerged as the new Military Head of State of Nigeria in the July counter-coup after the confirmed death by assassination of Major-General Aguiyi Ironsi the first Military Head of State who came on board January 15, 1966, Lt. Col. Gowon was not yet in complete control of the new government. This confusion led to the continued mass massacre of the civilians of Igbo origin outside the Eastern Region.

The decision by the Igbo lecturers not to go back to their stations of primary assignment after the long vacation was conveyed to Lt. Col. Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu who was the Military Governor of Eastern Nigeria under the Major-General Aguiyi Ironsi’s Federal Government, and was contesting the appointment of Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon as the new Head of the Military Government after the counter-coup of July 1966. Lt. Col. Ojukwu was contending that Lt. Col. Gowon, not being the most senior officer after the death of Major-General Ironsi, should not be the recognised new Head of State. Lt. Col. Ojukwu misunderstood the essence of the July Counter-Coup in which even a Major could be the Head of State once he was in the coup planning group. [Ref. the Coup in Liberia in which a Sergeant (Sergeant Samuel Doe) emerged as the new Head of State in spite of the fact that there were more senior Army Officers in Liberia. A second example was the Coup masterminded by Flt. Lt. Jerry Rawlings in Ghana when there were more senior Military Officers].

The decision of the University Lecturers not to go back to their former posts outside Eastern Nigeria compounded Lt. Col. Ojukwu’s administrative problems. In the meantime, there was the massive return of maimed men, women and children from the rest of Nigeria, particularly from the Northern Region. Lt. Col. Ojukwu must have felt, along with his disagreements with the new Federal Government headed by Lt. Col. Gowon, that if all the University intelligentsia and the big business tycoons of Eastern Nigeria origin had decided to stay back in the then Eastern Region, the East was effectively cut off from the rest of Nigeria and that if he was to get enough subvention to run the new “State” from outside sources, the “State” had to be declared a “Sovereign Independent State”.

While the Cold War raged between the new Head of State of Nigeria, Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon and Lt. Col. Emeka Ojukwu, Governor of Eastern Nigeria, the Eastern Region was bursting at the seams with the influx of refugees from other parts of Nigeria. This in itself generated its own internal strife. Where would all these people live? Where would they work? How would they be paid? What would be done with the Senior Military Officers who had returned successfully to Enugu? Now that all the Academicians from the other Nigerian Universities outside Eastern Nigeria had decided not to return to their former universities, could all of them be absorbed into the University of Nigeria, Nsukka? Where would the money for paying them come from?

Ojukwu’s Cabinet set up a Propaganda Machinery to tune up the people of Eastern Nigeria that if Lt. Col. Gowon and his Cabinet did not agree to a Confederation of States, then the people of Eastern Nigeria will secede and go it alone hopefully with the support of some Foreign Sympathetic Countries. The Propaganda Machinery took over the Eastern Nigeria Radio and Television and tried to convince the Easterners that many countries smaller than Eastern Nigeria were existing as Independent States recognised by the International Community. They mentioned Countries like the then Dahomey (now Republic of Benin), the Republic of Togo, Gabon and so on. Outside Africa, they mentioned Haiti and some of the other West Indian Countries. They fired up the imaginations of the Easterners, particularly the Igbos on how industrious and enterprising they are; having helped to build up the Nigerian Economy with their own sweat. They were told they could perform the same fit they performed in Nigeria and even better if they were forced to have a Separate and Independent Country of their own.

It should be recalled that Lt. Col. Gowon at one of his nationwide broadcasts after the July Counter-Coup had declared that there is no longer any basis for unity in Nigeria, which statement the Ojukwu Cabinet capitalized on in demanding for more power to be restored to the various Regions and if possible more Political Autonomy for the Regions as they existed before the January 15 Coup. Although when Gowon’s advisors pointed out the dangers of his maiden nationwide broadcast, Gowon modified his subsequent broadcasts, Ojukwu and his Advisors stuck to that first broadcast and urged for a Confederation of States as the least option to a complete separation of the four4 Regions as Independent States.

The typical arguments that would have raged on both sides would have gone like this:

Gowon’s Cabinet:
The Advisor on Political Affairs: The Head of State, Sir, do you realize the implications of your broadcast to the Nation? If implemented it would mean that you will no longer continue to be the Head of State of this big and powerful nation. Do you want that, Sir?

Gowon: No, no. That will negate the purpose of this counter-coup.

The Advisor on Economic Matters: The Head of State, Sir, do you realize that if we follow through with the implications of your broadcast, there will be economic ruin in Nigeria as we now know it?

Gowon: What do you mean by that? All our economic assets will still be there: the cotton and groundnut (peanut), the cocoa, the palm oil and kernel and of course the Crude Oil.

The Advisor on Economic Matters: Yes Sir, all these economic assets will still be there but will not necessarily be under your control in the Central Government. They will now be controlled by the semi-autonomous Regions with the right to send whatever portion of the revenue they derive from those assets to the Central (Federal) Government.

Gowon: Really, I did not envision that. It will be terrible if that were to happen, as Nigeria as an entity will seize to exist.

The Advisor on Finance: And very soon, Sir, the external foreign reserves will so dwindle that Nigeria will no longer be Credit Worthy in the World Bank and even the local Central Bank reserve will only be enough for paying the salaries of Federal Civil Servants.

Gowon: Then this will mean that the real essence of this counter-coup will have been defeated. God Forbid? Tell our broadcast media to withdraw that speech immediately and never have a repeat broadcast of it ever. Meanwhile tell our Man in charge of Information and the Media to quickly write up a new speech which I must broadcast this night.
We must subdue and oust Ojukwu as the Governor of Eastern Nigeria at all costs and as quickly as possible before the International Community steps into our affairs.

Advisor in charge of Information and Media: Sir, consider this as done. Prepare to read the revised Speech tonight. I shall send you a draft copy in a few hours time for you to o.k. and give us time to make a Clean Copy for tonight’s broadcast.

Gowon: Thank You, Gentlemen. I hope that from now on we do not make any further international and diplomatic blunders.


Ojukwu’s Cabinet:
Ojukwu: Gentlemen, you can all see the dilemma Gowon’s Counter-coup has thrown us Easterners into. Although the Igbos have been mostly affected by the mass massacre of innocent civilians in other parts of Nigeria, the mass massacre spread across all ethnic groups in the East: Igbos, Efiks, Ibibios, Ijaws, etc.
So we all have to collectively deliberate on what next line of action to take so that in future no such calamity will ever befall our people anywhere in Nigeria again.

Members representing the Efik speaking people: Your Excellency, we are indeed happy that you called us as the representatives of our people to come deliberate on the sad events occurring in Nigeria. Although the people who are bearing the brunt of this tragedy are our Igbo-speaking ‘brothers’, our kith and kin resident outside the Eastern Region were equally affected. We have therefore willingly come to join the whole cabinet here to find a lasting solution to this mayhem, and pray to Almighty God that it will never happen again in our lifetime or indeed forever more.

Ojukwu: Thank you, members from the Efik Speaking People. Your presence here gladdens me.

Members from the Ibibio-speaking people: Your Excellency, we have come willingly to the clarion call and we speak in the same vein as our Efik-speaking people.

Members from the Ijaw-speaking people: Your Excellency, we as a people sympathize with you as the Governor of the Eastern Region at the massive loss of live of all our peoples from the rest of Nigeria and those who returned home to the Eastern Region maimed or who were killed and their bodies returned to our homes. We are here to join the rest of the Cabinet in fashioning out a more lasting solution to Nigeria’s perennial political problems since Nigeria’s Independence in 1960.

Ojukwu: Gentlemen, I am very glad for your presence this day for the emergency Cabinet Meeting to tackle the aftermath of this counter-coup that has taken place in Lagos, the Federal Capital City. You all heard the first nationwide broadcast relayed on Radio Nigeria, in which Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon the apparent leader of the Counter-Coup, declared that to him there was no longer any basis for Unity in Nigeria.
What I would like us to deliberate on here is what our next step should be politically so as to further safeguard our people still resident outside the Eastern Region.

The deliberations then went into closed sessions.

With Lt. Col. Gowon’s new instructions to his Advisor on Information and Media to prepare a speech that will toughen up his stance against Lt. Col. Ojukwu, the COLD WAR between Gowon and Ojukwu went into a new gear. Gowon was bent on ousting Ojukwu as the Governor of the Eastern Region and replacing him with another Military Officer that would be loyal to him. He could not find one, because those Military Officers of Eastern Origin who survived the first mass slaughter after the July Counter-coup had run back to the Eastern Region for safety.

Soon the OAU stepped in to try and settle the political crisis in Nigeria. Ghana was chosen as a venue for the Meeting of minds of the Warring Factions – Gowon’s team from the Federal Government and Ojukwu’s team from Eastern Nigeria. Some of the problems that had led to this Cold War were tackled at the ABURI Meeting held in Aburi, Ghana on January 4 - 7, 1967. At the end of the two-day Conference, some important decisions were reached, among which were:

· The payment of salaries of all staff and employees of Government and Statutory Corporations and any others who were forced to leave their posts as a result of the disturbances, until March 31, 1967;
· The setting up, in the meantime, of a Committee to look into the problems of rehabilitation of displaced persons and the recovery of their properties;
· The exclusion of the use of force as a means of settling any differences within the country;
· The repealing of all decrees which tended to over-centralize power at the expense of Regional Autonomy; this would be followed by the enactment of a Decree before January 21, to restore the Regions to their political positions prior to January 15, 1966.
· The Head of the Federal Government of Nigeria shall not effect any major political changes in Nigeria without the consensus of all Military Governors.

If these were fully implemented, it would have led to the establishment of Military Commands in all the four Regions of Nigeria.

The Aburi Accord had been successfully signed in Ghana by both parties to the conflict; Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon for the Federal Government and Lt. Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu for Eastern Nigeria, and it seemed as if a solution would be found to avert a head-on collision and a War. Back in Nigeria, different organizations and groups gave different interpretations to the decisions and agreements arrived at in Aburi. However, it soon became obvious that the Aburi Accord would be abrogated by the Federal Government.

While the people of the Eastern Region were jubilating at a possible semi-autonomous State within Nigeria with more powers to chart their own political and economic course, Lt. Col. Gowon was having a rethink of the outcome of the Aburi Accord through the various advices he was receiving from his Permanent Secretaries (the so-called Super Perm Secs.) in Lagos.

Because of the big “Oxford Grammar” Ojukwu was blowing in Aburi and the presence of International Observers there, Gowon had literally acceded to all Ojukwu’s demands without really knowing where Ojukwu was finally heading to, a Confederation of the 4 Regions with semi-autonomous political powers and possibly an eventual secession when he has built up the Eastern Region as a politically powerful STATE.

Lt. Col. Gowon’s Permanent Secretaries, because they were as versed in the Oxford and Cambridge Grammar and Diplomacy as Lt. Col. Ojukwu himself knew where Ojukwu was coming from and where he was going in his Conflict with Lt. Col. Gowon.

They quickly dissected the Aburi Accord Papers and thereafter had a private meeting with Lt. Col. Gowon, the new Military Head of State. Gowon granted them an audience. One can guess that the discussions would have gone like this:

Gowon: Welcome gentlemen to the Supreme Headquarters, Dodan Barracks, Ikoyi, Lagos.

The Permanent Secretary overseeing Political Affairs: Your Excellency, we have individually and collectively gone through the Papers on the Aburi Accord, the audio tapes and the final communiqué and we have come to the conclusion that if you re-endorse this Accord, you will be signing off the Corporate Existence of Nigeria and impoverishing the other three Regions.

Gowon: Please Permsec elaborate.

Permanent Secretary: YourYou’re Excellency, on the payment of salaries of all staff and employees of Government and Statutory Corporations and any others who were forced to leave their posts as a resultbecause of the disturbances, until March 31, 1967, the logistics of accomplishing this task will be very daunting indeed.
Also, the setting up of a Committee to look into the problems of rehabilitation of displaced persons and the recovery of their property can only be achieved after things have been normalized in the country.
The exclusion of the use of force as a means of settling any differences within the country does not now apply because, Your Excellency you cannot justifiably fold your hands if things get out of hand.
Finally, Your Excellency, right now, Nigeria’s natural resources of Groundnut (Peanut), Cotton, Cocoa and Palm Oil are no longer yielding us much revenue. Nigeria is depending on its Crude Oil Reserves which gives us a sizeable percentage of our GNP.

Gowon: Yes!

Permanent Secretary: This Crude Oil is predominantly in the Eastern Region and so if you endorse the Aburi Accord you will sign off Nigeria’s wealth to Eastern Nigeria to do as it pleases with it.

Gowon: That is very true. What should we do to prevent this from happening and still save our face with the International Community?

Permanent Secretary: Your Excellency, you have to abrogate the Aburi Accord on the basis that it will eventually destroy the corporate existence of Nigeria which our Political Fathers fought for by winning Nigeria’s Independence from Britain in 1960. That you believe in One Indivisible Country with a strong Central (Federal) Government.

Gowon: If Ojukwu refuses our new move and calls on the International Community to step in and hold us to our words, what then?

Permanent Secretary: Your Excellency, pardon us for advising that in that case you should prepare to go to war (call it a Police Action) to quell Ojukwu’s Rebellion against constituted authority – a Governor is expected to obey a Head of State especially in a Military Regime. Your Excellency do not forget that your name is G-O-W-O-N (Go On With One Nigeria)

At this point, every one including Gowon himself, SMILES and the deal was concluded!

The Federal Permanent Secretaries, who knew Odumegwu Ojukwu from school days, knew that Ojukwu would not bow to Gowon. So when Ojukwu refused Gowon’s new overtures, Gowon’s Permanent Secretaries advised him to prepare for WAR to subdue Ojukwu. The Cold War, therefore, worsened, giving way to indications that Gowon would use military force to subdue Ojukwu. It was now time for both sides to start arming themselves for an eventual combat. Gowon had the upper hand in military hardware, but Ojukwu had a more powerful propaganda machinery which he put across to try and frighten the Nigerian populace and help stay Gowon’s hands, while he, Ojukwu, found a way of obtaining arms for the inevitable war that had to be fought, once the former Eastern Region was renamed an Independent Sovereign State of BIAFRA by Ojukwu on May 30, 1967.

Gowon’s War Strategy.
Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon and his Cabinet planned the War using two strategies:
· Divide and Rule Strategy;
· Physical War Strategy.

On May 27, 1967, Gowon created 12 States in Nigeria in which the former Eastern Region was carved into 3 new States – The South-Eastern State, the Rivers State and the East Central State. The South-Eastern State was made up primarily of the Efik and Ibibio speaking areas; the Rivers State was made up of primarily the Ijaw and a few minority Igbo Speaking areas; while the East Central State was made up of the main Igbo speaking area of the former Eastern Region. Whether Gowon had the mandate of the people in creating these new States is questionable because there was no referendum or plebiscite conducted before the 12 States were created by Decree.

This first strategy was used to weaken Ojukwu’s political powers by playing on the long standing political differences between the Igbos and the rest of the people in the Eastern Region and also on the fear of Igbo domination which these non-Igbos have held for years.

On July 6, 1967 Gowon implemented his physical war strategy by attacking Biafra from the Northern flank at the Ogoja Sector, thereby contravening the Aburi Accord.

Ojukwu’s War Strategy.
Lt. Col. Emeka Ojukwu and his Cabinet planned for a possible war using two strategies:
Massive Propaganda of the might of Biafra to impress the International Community and to frighten Gowon;
Massive mobilization of the Biafran populace to fight to the last man to defend their new Republic of Biafra if a war ensures.

As the Cold War dragged on and Gowon implemented his first War Strategy by creating 12 States out of the former 4 Regions, Ojukwu found there was no going back on his plan to have a Sovereign State out of the former Eastern Region. He guessed he would have more political and financial support from friendly foreign countries if he had a separate nation from Nigeria.

Therefore, on May 30, 1967, Lt. Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu declared the Sovereign State of Biafra made up of the land area formerly known as the Eastern Region of Nigeria. The name ‘Biafra’ was coined form the Bight of Biafra being the Coastline bordering the Eastern Region of Nigeria with the Atlantic Ocean. Ojukwu claimed that he got the mandate of the various leaders of the people resident in the Eastern Region to declare the area a new State of Biafra.

Whether the two contending leaders, Gowon and Ojukwu got the true mandate of the various peoples of Nigeria before renaming their homelands, is a political issue many Nigerian Intellectuals can debate. Most non-Igbos resident outside the Eastern Region when the July 29 counter-coup took place did not run back to the East; a few who did later went back to the different parts of Nigeria where they first ran from. Whether these people, particularly their intellectuals, were able to influence their people back home not to join in the “Biafran Cause” is again what many people did not know.

The stage was now set for the Nigerian Civil War and there was no going back on both sides. Both sides used Propaganda to win the support of the International Community. Gowon claimed that Ojukwu was intransigent and his action was just a Police Action to discipline Ojukwu who should show respect and obedience to the new Head of Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Ojukwu claimed Gowon was usurping a position that rightly belongs to the next most senior military officer after Major-General Aguiyi Ironsi. The International Community after comparing the size of Eastern Nigeria (the New Biafra) with the size of the rest of Nigeria was in no doubt that the Federal Armed Forces would quickly bring the so-called rebellion to an end in a matter of 2 weeks as Gowon had predicted and therefore decided not to intervene, but regarded the whole affair as an internal matter. However, after 2 weeks the Federal Forces had not made much headway towards crushing “Ojukwu’s Rebellion”, and so the International Community got concerned and planned to intervene to avert a possible bloodbath of innocent civilians particularly on the Biafran side of the conflict. The Organization of African Unity (OAU) was contacted to intervene and find an amicable resolution to the escalating conflict which had now moved from Gowon’s Police Action to a full blown Civil War.

Meanwhile, because Ojukwu did not get the promised military help he expected to obtain from foreign friends, he had to quickly rally round the Engineers, Scientists and Technicians resident in the new Biafra whom he now called the Biafran Scientists, to go quickly into weapons production to assist the ill-equipped Biafran Military until the promised help from friendly foreign allies arrived.

Visitors by Night.
By October 1966, all the lecturers of Eastern Origin resident outside the Eastern Region had returned to the East and had been re-deployed to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN). So by the time the political crisis was deepening they were all doing their teaching and research at UNN along with their UNN staff colleagues. They all joined other Easterners in attending rallies which the Government Political Arms arranged regularly to acquaint them of the progress of the political discord in Nigeria. It was during some of these rallies that the people were motivated and inspired that living a separate existence from Nigeria was the only right thing to do to save their honour, their lives and the lives of their children. It was pointed out that some countries in the World imbued with less human and material resources are existing as Independent Sovereign States recognized by the International Community.

The academicians were so psyched up that they promised to do all they could to make sure Biafra survived as a recognized Sovereign and Independent Nation State.
It was not surprising to some of us one evening in April 1967, while we were relaxing in the University Senior Staff Club, when some two gentlemen accompanied by one of our Chemistry Colleagues came to see us in the Club. After the usual pleasantries during which we learnt that the two gentlemen were in fact senior ranking army officers from the Capital, Enugu, we settled down to more serious discussions.

The First Army Officer: Your colleague with us says we can talk frankly with all of you, so we intend to do just that. I have been posted to Nsukka as Brigade Commander to man our border with Northern Nigeria. In spite of what the propaganda on our Radio and Television is saying “that no Force in Black Africa can defeat us”, we only have bolt-action police officers’ guns and rifles and a few military weapons we salvaged from Enugu Depot. My friend here has come from Army Headquarters in Enugu to chat with all the Engineers and Scientists in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. I shall now like him to talk to you all.

The Second Army Officer: Good evening, gentlemen. As the first officer has said, we don’t really have the weapons to execute an effective war against the rest of Nigeria. Even the good guns we had were taken away from us by the Nigerian troops of non-Eastern Origin when we began disengaging the troops in the spirit of the Aburi Accord. The few we have left with us are those we had to stop from accompanying the soldiers of non-Eastern Nigerian origin when we realized the full implications of abiding by that section of the Aburi Accord, as our own soldiers were coming back from the rest of Nigeria empty handed. Some foreign countries have given us promises of arms in the event of a war starting, but as of now these are just promises and we have to see what we can generate from our internal resources in material and manpower.

One of our Scientists: We fully understand the grave situation in which the new State of Biafra is. However, all of us are not military scientists. We have only read about military science as a fiction book and watched televisions, but we have never attempted to make any military hardware however crude, nor have we ever made chemical explosives and rocket fuels.

Officer from Enugu: We know that, but we believe that now the situation is challenging us, you will be up to the task in brushing up your science and engineering theories and putting them to work for Biafra’s War Efforts.
We have got clearance from your Vice-Chancellor and from now on you will be given the general title of the Biafran Scientists. The General Officer Commanding the new Biafran Army wishes you all to come down to the Army Headquarters in Enugu for further briefing in a question and answer session to fully prepare you for your new roles as Military Scientists and Engineers.
I want to reveal to you all that in a few weeks’ time, Col. Ojukwu, the Governor of Eastern Nigeria will declare Eastern Nigeria as the “Sovereign State of Biafra”. Once this is done, all borders with the rest of Nigeria will be closed and nobody can easily get out or come into the new State. That means that once a war breaks out, we all will either fight and die fighting or be slaughtered like chickens.

At the appointed weekend all the engineers and scientists based in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka who had been contacted to act as the core of the new group, drove down to Enugu Military Barracks on the Enugu-Abakiliki Road for the first formal meeting and briefing of the Biafran Scientists. At the meeting they were shown the true military capability of the then Eastern Nigeria renamed the Republic of Biafra. They were briefed on the arrangements that had been made so far to procure more military hardware. They were shown the armoured personnel carriers (APCs) which had just arrived Enugu from the Port Harcourt Wharf. The APCs were relics of the Second World War and were really small and very fragile and unimpressive compared with the APCs in the Nigerian Armoury. They were shown the landmines, anti-personnel mines, mortar barrels and mortar shells, mostly the 81 and 105 mm types. At the end of the briefing, Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna, who was himself a scientist was introduced to the group as the Group’s Military Coordinator.

Official permission was granted by the new Head of State, Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu for the Biafran Scientists from Nsukka and Enugu to operate from the following locations:
· The Ministry of Commerce Laboratories as the main Chemistry Laboratories;
· The Workshops of the Nigerian Railway Corporation for Engineering;
· The Workshops of the Nigerian Coal Corporation for Engineering;
· A new Chemical Laboratory in the sheltered areas of Iva Valley to house the real chemical warfare agents like Mustard Gas;
· A secondary school on Agbani Road to be converted into the laboratory for making Nitro-glycerine and TNT.

The Biafran Scientists could not of course start on anything elaborate at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka as the University was still in session. The need for caution was highlighted by the various incidents that occurred among the student community.

The political dialogues were still in progress and while the Igbo students felt safe (mainly because the University of Nigeria is situated in Nsukka (Igbo land), the students from areas now called the Cross River and Rivers States did not feel so secure, as they were relatively far away from their places of origin. The students from the Western States felt even more insecure.

There were polarizations among the students’ body as to whether a separate sovereign state should have been created by Ojukwu. The rumours started flying around that some people were planning to poison all the students of non-Eastern origin in retaliation for the killing and maiming of Easterners in the Northern and Western Nigeria. According to the rumour, arsenic or cyanide was to be put in the table salt and placed on the dinning tables that the non-Eastern Nigerian students normally used. When the rumour spread, the Chemistry Department was instructed to keep the chemical stores under lock and key and to monitor the movement of chemicals either in the chemical stores or in the various chemistry laboratories and account for any poisonous chemical removed officially or clandestinely from the Chemistry Department. In addition all samples of table (common) salt issued to the students’ cafeteria were routinely tested to make sure they were 100% pure with only traces of IODINE as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Any tragedy among the student population was averted. Soon after that the University Authorities had to give permission to the students of non-Eastern Nigerian origin to leave the University voluntarily. As the political situation had worsened and there was no reconciliation between Gowon and Ojukwu, all the students of non-Eastern Nigeria origin finally had to leave the University of Nigeria as the Republic of Biafra became a reality.

If the students had known that their lecturers were experimenting in military science and engineering, they would have been further frightened and the students of the non-Eastern origin would have revealed this to Gowon and his Cabinet, who would have hastened their decision to invade the new Biafra sooner than they did.

The suggestion that the Biafran Science Group be expanded to include all University of Nigeria scientists, engineers and technicians and also those from the various Government Establishments as well was well taken.

As the University students of non-Eastern Nigerian origin had left, there was no longer any need for secrecy in the Nsukka Campus. The then Vice-Chancellor of the University had been officially informed of the formation of the Biafran Scientists and so the scientists, engineers and technicians could now group themselves into project groups for the purpose of the initial war research efforts.

The Engineers were to tackle rocketry research and production, the production of mortar barrels and shells, grenade casings and casings for landmines and anti-personnel bombs.

The Chemists were to tackle the production of napalm bombs and the various incendiary materials, chemical warfare weapons like nitrogen and sulphur mustard and if possible arsenic compounds (as nerve gases). In addition, they were to assist the engineers in a general way to solve any chemical problems that they may encounter, such as the preparation of primers and detonators for the bombs, preparation of rocket fuels and the various explosives for the landmines and other anti-personnel bombs and grenades.

The Biologists, especially the Microbiologists, were to investigate and store if necessary and possible, materials for biological warfare. In addition, they were to assist in testing the safety of various foods supplied to the Biafran Armed Forces, particularly as these foods can be stored for long periods or be gotten from abandoned Nigerian Army Food Depots.

The Mathematicians and Physicists were to join the Engineering groups, especially in working out the efficiency of flight and targeting of the “home-made” rockets.

The Agriculturists were initially deployed into the Biological and Chemical Groups and later were constituted into the Land Army to grow food and also to identify fruits, vegetables and animal proteins, which though not in popular demand as food, could be used effectively to feed the Army and the civilian populace.

By the time the Nigerian Civil War actually broke out in July 1967, the Biafran Scientists had effectively researched into and produced prototype napalm bombs, solid rocket fuels, grenades, mortar shells (81 mm and 105 mm calibres), and rocket barrels.

By June 1967, it was obvious to all political observers and analysts that there would be a Civil War in Nigeria. All diplomatic and political manoeuvres to stem the war had failed and everybody was waiting to see which side would fire the first salvo of shots - the Nigerian side or the Biafran side.

The Biafran side was stalling by using heavy political propaganda aimed at winning the sympathy of African Countries in the first place and then later Britain, the traditional friend of Nigeria. Gowon was stalling because he knew he had the upper hand militarily and did not want to make the African and European countries’ sympathies to turn to Biafra, by staging a massive military offensive.

The behind-the-scene discussions must have gone as follows:

Nigeria: If we start a war now without exhausting all the political and diplomatic channels, the foreign countries and the other African countries might brand us as bloodthirsty after the massive pogrom of people of Eastern origin resident in the Northern Region. We must find a way to convince our African brothers that Ojukwu is really recalcitrant and belligerent and make them to agree with us that Ojukwu must be removed and a new less belligerent Governor be appointed in the new East Central State for normalcy to return to the Eastern States. We shall recognize the enormous military power of the Federal Government and say we are merely taking a Police Action in the Eastern States and that there would not be an all out WAR, because of the massive loss of civilian lives that could occur.

Biafra: We shall intensify our political and diplomatic pressure on our African brothers to call Nigeria to order and let us be. That we have been wounded and traumatized enough and they should allow us to exist as an independent state; that we shall be a viable nation even more than some other smaller African countries. We shall convince them that we shall not attack the rest of Nigeria but will leak our wounds and “let things be”.


Finally, when all political and diplomatic manoeuvres failed to solve the Political Crisis, Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon, in the early hours of July 6, 1967 commenced what he called a POLICE ACTION to discipline Lt. Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu. The first real battle started in the town of Garkem, on the outskirts of Ogoja, a border town between the Northern Region and the Eastern Region. As Major-General Alexander Madiebo (retd), Commander of the Biafran Army, stated in his book: “The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War”, the first shots were heard at 03.30 hours on July 6, 1967.

And so the Nigerian Civil War began; a war that was to take many lives of innocent people who did not even understand what the political upheaval was all about; villagers who woke up one morning and were dead by night-fall; children whose schools were closed down without convincing explanations to them; children who had to be moved from one town to another in search of a safe haven away from bullets from the ground or bombs from the air; a civil war that was to task and challenge the conscience of the World who love PEACE; a civil war in which you either fought and got killed or stayed and also got killed; a civil war in which one side was fighting with Tanks, MIG Fighter Planes, Ilyushin Bomber Planes and so on, and the other side was fighting with bolt-action guns, machetes, home-made weapons and a few helicopters; a civil war which, if it had been fought in the conventional way, that once a capital of a country has been overrun, the war ends, would have saved many lives; but which because of the unconventional and crude manner in which it was fought, took more lives than necessary and achieved NOTHING. In the words of Col. Yakubu Gowon at the end of the 30-month Civil War, “there was no VICTOR and no VANQUISHED”, and in my own words, only the active participants quit the stage.

From what the writers who were caught up on the Biafran Side of the Conflict throughout the 30 months of the hostilities, learnt at the end of the Civil War, people on the Nigerian side did not experience the real horrors of the War. Except for the short period when Biafra overran the Mid-Western Region and threatened the Western Region and we were told that the Western Region and indeed the Federal Seat of Power in Lagos considered moving up to Kaduna in the Northern Region, the battle fields were all on the Biafran Sectors of the War. There were a few moments of panic when the Biafran Air Force was able to drop a few homemade NAPALM BOMBS in Lagos (around Iddo) and in Kaduna areas with the B-26 Second World War Bomber Biafra acquired at the beginning of the War. But these threats were short-lived as the B-26 bomber being very old, soon went out of commission.

As all the War fronts were in the Mid-Western Region and the new Biafra, this narration will concentrate on these Regions and highlight in detail all the suffering of the Biafran Armed Forces, the Biafran Civilians and the Igbos in the Mid-Western Region in the 30-months gruelling Nigerian Civil War. As promised earlier, the narration is to be as humorous and satirical as possible so as to remove most of the sting of the War. Other Authors referenced in the Bibliography of Books on the Nigerian Civil War, 1967 – 1970 have already highlighted in detail these sufferings and inhumane treatments within the battlefronts and the surrounding villages.