CHAPTER FOUR

Confusion in Enugu, the Biafran Capital.

As the Nigerian Soldiers in the Mid-Western Region were consolidating their position in the now regained Mid-West, the Nigerian Army in the northern sector was pounding Enugu with MORTAR SHELLS while the Nigerian Air Force was dropping bombs around Enugu. The irony of all these happenings was that at this crucial and critical moment when the Government of Biafra could have ordered an orderly evacuation of civilians from Enugu, ‘Radio Biafra’ was broadcasting the wrong information to the populace. Although the Nigerian Artillery situated at Aboh Hills had started shelling Enugu sporadically, ‘Radio Biafra’ kept on announcing that the shelling originated from within Enugu and was being perpetrated by saboteurs sympathetic to Col. Banjo and Major Ifeajuna, and that these few saboteurs were being rounded up. Thus although there was ample time to evacuate orderly from Enugu, most people abandoned most of their life’s belongings in Enugu as it finally became obvious that the Nigerian Army was at the Enugu doorsteps. The Nigerian Army finally moved into Enugu on the eve of Nigeria’s 7th Independence Anniversary.

After that it became very unsafe to venture into Enugu Township and those of us who braved it to go in saw many dead bodies littered along the major streets of Enugu Metropolis. It was a horrible sight to behold. The Nigerian Army had taken the Enugu Airport and occupied the Biafran Army Headquarters on the Enugu – Abakiliki Road leading to the Enugu Airport. They were also occupying the 9th Mile Corner which is a strategic junction controlling the Nsukka – Enugu Road and the Enugu – Onitsha Road. The Enugu – Abakiliki Road was also blocked and the only escape route from Enugu was the Enugu – Agbani – Awgu Road.

As people moved out of Enugu, it was clear that the main Science Group had crumbled. As people moved away from Enugu in confusion, the first instinct was to run to their various hometowns. The Science Groups in Enugu knew that other Science Groups had sprung up in Port Harcourt, Aba and Owerri but were not contemplating joining them as people thought that from what happens in Conventional Warfare, once a Capital City of a Nation has been captured by the invading forces, the War automatically ends, So instead of going to join the other Science Groups in Port Harcourt, Aba and Owerri, they went to their hometowns to await the official announcement that the Nigerian Civil War was over, and to await the verdict that would be passed on the Science Groups.

While the Science Group was evacuating from Enugu and the “mock” trials and execution of Col. Banjo, Major Ifeajuna and “Civilian Major “ Alele were going on, the workers in Radio Biafra had succeeded in evacuating from Enugu and installing elsewhere the Radio Communications Equipment belonging to Radio Biafra. When the Nigerian soldiers finally consolidated in Enugu in the first week of October, 1967, there was the funny situation of two broadcasting stations seemingly broadcasting from the same town – ENUGU.

A typical event will bring out the absurdity and fun of the whole drama. Let us assume that the time is 13.00 hours (1.00 p.m.) which is the normal time for the National News Network Broadcasts in Nigeria. The Nigerian Newscaster in Enugu would say: “This is Radio Nigeria broadcasting from Enugu, the Capital of East Central State. Here is the News. The Nigerian Army has now taken full control of Enugu and is doing mopping up exercises in the adjoining villages. Meanwhile, life is returning to normal in the town and the Nigerian Red Cross is distributing food to the refugees who have whole-heartedly embraced the Nigerian soldiers who liberated them from Ojukwu’s clutches. A new Civilian Administrator, Mr. Ukpabi Asika, has been appointed by the Head of State, Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon. Mr. Ukpabi Asika will soon move to Enugu to assume duties”

At the same time, on Radio Biafra (situated somewhere outside Enugu), the newscaster would say: “This is Radio Biafra broadcasting from Enugu, the capital of Biafra. Here is the news read by Okoko Ndem. The sporadic shelling you have been hearing in Enugu has been found to be perpetrated by saboteurs who planned to kill General Ojukwu, the Head of State of Biafra and to hand over Biafra back to Gowon. The locations of these saboteurs have been found out and the saboteurs are being rounded up. Please keep calm, be vigilant and go about your normal businesses. The ring leaders, Lt. Col. Banjo, Major Ifeajuna and Civilian Major Alele have been captured, tried and executed by firing squad. General Ojukwu, the Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Biafran Armed Forces congratulate all those who assisted in flushing out all these saboteurs. Long live Biafra. Igbo Kwenu; Anyi ga adi kwanu? Eh, anyi ga adi. (English translation of the Igbo phrases are: “The Masses please respond; shall we all survive? Yes, we shall survive”).

This master plan of Biafra helped to confuse both the Nigerian and Biafran populace and thus gave the Biafran Armed Forces, General Ojukwu and his War Cabinet (which was now mostly dominated by Ojukwu’s close relatives and confidants) time to decide whether Biafra should surrender, whether the War should continue and what the new strategy for the continued execution of the War should be.

By early October, the Biafran forward troops were in the town of Agbogugu on the Enugu – Agbani Road and the new Tactical Headquarters had been moved to Awgu, a town on the Enugu – Okigwe Road. Awgu was a good town to use as a tactical headquarters because one road ran to Okigwe and the other road ran to Udi, which was another tactical headquarters that controlled the Enugu – Onitsha and the Enugu – Nsukka axes of the War.

With the new policy of fighting to the “last man”, no one knew how long the War would last. It was also too late for anybody who wanted to defect to the Nigerian side, to do so. There were mass killings of civilians in Enugu and it would have been fool-hardy for any educated man or woman on the Biafran side of the battle front to infiltrate into the Nigerian side to give himself/herself up to the Nigerian soldiers with Mr. Ukpabi Asika, the new Civilian Administrator of the newly “liberated East Central State” still resident in Lagos, the capital of Nigeria. The Nigerian soldiers would have shot that person outright before their senior officers would have realized that it would make good propaganda material to keep such people alive and to parade them before the Foreign Press, to show that indeed Enugu had been taken by the Nigerian soldiers and that the Biafran Intelligentsia had abandoned Ojukwu.

By this time a new phrase “Radio without Battery” had emerged in Biafra. It means passing on Government Information by word of mouth. Through these radios without battery, people learnt that the Tactical Headquarters on the Enugu – Okigwe Road was based at Awgu while that on the Enugu – Onitsha Road was based at Udi. People, who could, went to these tactical bases to be able to get the most recent news first hand. It was on one of such visits to the new tactical bases that some of the Enugu Science Group members confirmed from the Government and Army Officials that, indeed, the War was to continue.

Those of us who were at the Awgu Tactical Headquarters conferred among ourselves and came to the conclusion that, because of logistic problems, it would be very difficult to re-convene as a one intact group. We felt that the new War Strategy that was now going to be more of a guerrilla type, demanded that as many Science Groups as possible should be formed to service the many scattered Biafran Army locations. Transportation of finished weapons was becoming difficult as more and more vehicles had broken down and the spare parts were difficult to come by. In fact the Science Group decided to form Liaison Officers who would liaise with the various Biafran Commanders and bring back their requirements in Weapons and, as we found out later, also their requirements in Foods and Drinks. This was a good strategy that paid off very well and helped to cement the friendship and trust that emerged and stayed on throughout the rest of the War, between the Biafran Soldiers and the Science Groups (later renamed the Research and Production (RAP) Directorate. This trust helped to sustain the morale of the Biafran Soldiers which had floundered because of Ojukwu’s insinuations of disloyalty within the Rank and File of the Biafran Army. General Madiebo had in his book given the details of the destructive effects of those insinuations, which made the newly recruited Biafran Soldiers to distrust the seasoned former Nigerian Soldiers whom Ojukwu had appointed as the Biafran Commanders when the new “Biafran State” was created on May 30, 1967.

With the execution of Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna, the Coordinator of the Science Group, the Group now preferred a Civilian as the new Coordinator. As mainly University people, they wanted to maintain their academic freedom to research into whatever they wanted; some also felt that Biafra would lose the War in the end, in fact had already lost the War! If they joined the Biafran Army officially as Ojukwu had wanted, they would be treated as War Criminals and Prisoners and therefore punished in the same way as the regular combatant Biafran Soldiers. As respected academicians who were committed to the Biafran Cause, Ojukwu could listen to them, whereas he could despise his Army Commanders as he often did when the going was bad. He could order his Army Commanders to fight a battle with insufficient weapons, but he could not order the Science Group around as long as they remained Civilians.

When Enugu was captured by the Nigerian Army and Ojukwu decided to continue the War, the new Capital of Biafra was moved to Umuahia. The main reason for this was that Port Harcourt was already being threatened by the Nigerian Third Marine Commandoes led by Brig. Adekunle (the Scorpion); Owerri was too near to Port Harcourt and hence to the Oil-bearing areas which were to become the hot battle grounds. Umuahia was better located strategically – there were the famous Queen Elizabeth Hospital, the Agricultural Research Institute in Umudike with the research facilities needed for the weapons manufacture and for food production that was badly needed in the dwindling Biafra.; there was the famous Government College, Umudike which could also be used and there was the equally famous Methodist College, Uzuakoli close by. Finally, the late Dr. Mike Okpara, the one-time Premier of Eastern Nigeria, came from Umuahia and the one time Governor of Eastern Nigeria, Dr. Akanu Ibiam’s town was not too far away from Umuahia. By using Umuahia as Ojukwu’s new Headquarters (or indeed the new Capital of Biafra), these two important Biafran Citizens could be consulted on a regular basis.

‘Radio Biafra’ was situated on one of the hills (in Igbo language, a hill is “Enu-ugwu”; for short ENUGU) in Umuahia and so ironically, it was still correct to say “This is ‘Radio Biafra’ broadcasting from ENUGU”. So, throughout the rest of the War, ‘Radio Biafra’ continued to broadcast from “ENUGU”!

By early 1968, the Nigerian Armed Forces had completely overrun Enugu and its environs and repaired the Enugu Airport. Also by this time the Nigerian Air force had gotten equipped with Russian Bombers and Fighter Planes and some of these planes were sent to Enugu Airport as a backup to the Nigerian Army based in Enugu. Also the Nigerian Third Marine Commandoes under Brig. Adekunle (the Scorpion) had taken Calabar, consolidated there and were on the march to Port Harcourt. However, as there was alleged gross indiscipline within the Officers and the Rank and File of the Brigade, Brig. Adekunle was later replaced by Major Olusegun Obasanjo who was able to move the Third Marine Commandoes eventually into the Oil City of Port Harcourt where they established their base for the onslaught of Biafra from the Southern Flank.

The Nigerian Army based in Asaba had made many sorties to cross the River Niger and enter the Commercial City of Onitsha. Their several attempts were rebuffed by the gallant Biafran soldiers stationed in Onitsha and the surrounding villages. The Biafran soldiers has succeeded in damaging a substantial part of the Niger Bridge linking Asaba and Onitsha, so the Nigerian Army could not move into Onitsha in motorized columns. They therefore resorted to using boats and barges which were successfully sunk by the Biafran Artillery anytime the Nigerian Amphibious Brigade tried the river crossing.

In desperation, Gowon detailed the Second Motorized Brigade led by Brigadier Murtala Mohammed to try to get to Onitsha by the long land route from Enugu. Murtala Mohammed and this Motorized Brigade were well equipped with Tanks, Ferrets, APCs, and tankers of fuel to refuel the motorized columns as they tried to have an easy drive to Onitsha through Awka, Abagana and Ogidi into Onitsha. When the Nigerian Motorized Brigade reached Abagana, a town after Awka, tragedy struck them. A barrage of homemade rockets made by the Ezekwe’s Engineering Unit of the Research and Production (RAP) Directorate hit the Petrol (Gasoline) tankers in the convoy. The fuel tanks burst into flames instantly and the burning fuel tankers sprayed burning fuel on the other vehicles in the motorized column, including the vehicles carrying the ammunitions. There was total conflagration on a stretch of about one mile along the road leading from Abagana to Onitsha, causing so much damage that the Mohammed’s Motorized Column was put out of commission immediately. The surviving Nigerian soldiers had to escape back to Enugu before the Biafran soldiers and the villagers started their mop up operations to capture and kill the stragglers.

This was a real set back for the Nigerian Armed Forces and this incident eventually caused Murtala Mohammed his Command as he was recalled to Lagos. It is not unlikely that this loss of face caused a bitter rift between Gowon and Murtala Mohammed which later in 1975 caused Murtala Mohammed to overthrow Yakubu Gowon in a bloodless Coup de’tat.

With the tragedy on the Enugu – Onitsha Road and the unsuccessful attempts by the Nigerian soldiers to cross Asaba into Onitsha, the Nigeria Air Force equipped with the latest arsenals from the USSR decided on indiscriminate bombing and strafing of Umuahia Town and its environ, killing and maiming many innocent civilians.

Because Umuahia had become the new Biafran Capital, it was very well fortified with anti-aircraft guns and rockets (both foreign and homemade); therefore the planes did not achieve much damage of strategic areas but merely succeeded in harassing and killing innocent civilians. In the words of late Prof. Okoronkwo Ogan, a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist who was working at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital at the time: “I have never seen so many corpses in my whole medical career as I saw in one day of those catastrophic bombings that April by the Nigerian Air Force planes manned primarily by cowardly Egyptian Pilots”.

The planes were flying so low that you could literally see the markings on the planes and envisage the cowardly pilots giggling at the poor hapless civilians running in confusion for their lives. The pilots devised a method of temporarily switching off their engines as they came into Umuahia to drop their bombs and to strafe the civilians. Because of this the Biafran Air force personnel engaged young Biafran Air force boys to mount their home-made rockets on the surrounding Umuahia hills which they were expected to fire anytime they heard the sound of the Nigerian planes before they temporarily switched off their engines as they made their sorties into the town. This worked as a warning signal to the seasoned Biafran Air force men with more sophisticated foreign boofer guns and ground-to-air missiles to fire at the low flying Nigerian planes.

The homemade rockets worked on being primed with car batteries, but the Biafran Scientists who made these rockets did not realize that these young Biafran Air force men were afraid of anything electrical and thought that a car battery could shock them to death just as the ordinary house electrical gadgets could paralyse them if they touched their sources of the electricity. So most times the young boys did not fire the homemade rockets to warn the Biafran Air force of the approach of the Nigerian planes.

[Please send in your comments and observations through the E-Mail: eugenearene@yahoo.com]

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.

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.

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction.

When I wrote the first public edition of the Biafran Scientists 10 years ago, precisely 30 years after the beginning of the Nigerian Civil War in 1967, it was to put on record the scientific achievements of African Scientists trapped on the Biafran side of the conflict. It was not intended to eulogize the Biafran Scientists and to incite the younger generations to opt for WAR as a means of settling political disputes. It is always better to JAW-JAW rather than to WAR-WAR. It was merely written so that the complete facts about the Nigerian Civil War are not those portrayed by writers praising the achievements of the well-armed and well-trained Nigerian Armed Forces over the ill-equipped and untrained Biafran quickly - assembled Armed Forces.

It is now 40 years since the beginning of the Nigerian Civil War in which the Nigerian Federal Armed Forces after 30 months of intense battles and the untold hardship of civilians on the Biafran side of the various War Fronts occurred.

Although in January 1970, the Biafran Armed Forces finally succumbed to the superior fire power of the well-trained and well-equipped Nigerian Armed Forces, General Yakubu Gowon, the Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed forces, in his amnesty speech declared that there was “no victor and no vanquished”. This heroic and historic speech, paved the way for the eventual reconciliation and re-absorption of Biafra (the former Eastern Nigeria) into the old Nigerian Fold.

The wounds of the Civil War have not been easy to heal, but a lot has been achieved in the past 40 years. Many of the active combatants (political and military) have passed on or are now approaching their “last bus stop” in their final journey through life. The now very active youths in the Nigerian Political Arena did not experience the horrors of the Civil War or were too young to remember vividly the details of the War and Conflict.

This is the time to revisit the Nigerian Civil War in a SATIRICAL and HUMOROUS WAY avoiding JUDGEMENTAL ISSUES, so that both the old and the young can enjoy this book as a “misunderstanding between ‘several brothers and sisters’ in the same way that the people of LILLIPUT fought over how to break an egg they would all jointly eat”. For the Lilliputians, the question was whether to break the egg from the small end or from the big end. For the Nigerians, the question was whether after the bloodbaths of January 15, 1966, July 29, 1966 and thereafter, to continue to live as one United Country, as several Independent States or as a Confederation of semi-autonomous States.

In the 1950s the Nigerian Political Leaders led by Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, the Sarduana of Sokoto, leading the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC), Chief Obafemi Awolowo of the Action Group (AG) in the West and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe (Zik) of the NCNC in the East, were clamouring for Nigeria’s Independence from British Colonial Rule. Awolowo and Zik told the British Colonial Government that they were ready to accept Political Independence from Britain in 1957, but Alhaji Ahmadu Bello said the North would not be ready for political independence till after 1957. In a reconciliatory mood both Awolowo and Zik conceded to Ahmadu Bello’s request and instead of getting Nigeria’s Independence in 1957 as the Gold Coast (now Ghana) did, Nigeria’s Independence was deferred to 1960. By 1960, the North had acquired a lot of administrative and political power in Nigeria and with the help of the then British Government was able to win more votes at the pools than either the Action Group or the NCNC; though no Party won an overall majority to be able to rule Nigeria. Then followed the horse trading between the three political parties in which finally the NPC of the North and the NCNC of the East agreed to form an alliance (a coalition) and the majority ruling group while the AG became a strong Opposition Party.

This led to a lot of political instability in Nigeria as each political group spent all the time seeking for political alliances that will give them the ruling edge at the Central Government (The Federal Government) that had the control of Power and Financial Muscle of Nigeria. It was not surprising when in 1964 political turmoil became the order of the day in Nigeria. Chief Obafemi Awolowo of the AG was eventually jailed by the Alhaji Tafawa Balewa-led Federal Government for treasonable felony. Dr. Mike Okpara now leader of the NCNC of the Eastern Nigeria (the former leader Zik had become a ceremonial President), tried to team up with the remnants of the AG while the NPC had got tired of its alliance with the Eastern NCNC and was forging an alliance with Chief SLA Akintola’s faction of the Yoruba AG.

In the fracas and political instability that ensued throughout Nigeria, the Nigerian Military saw an opportunity to step in and allegedly bring the turmoil to a stop and begin the economic development of Nigeria for the good of the Nigerian Masses. Unfortunately, the main leaders of the 5 Majors who effected the first military Coup de'tat in Nigeria on January 15, 1966 came from the Igbo (Ibo in English)-area of Nigeria. Notable among them were Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu (Mid-Western Igbo), Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna, and Major Gbulie, though Major Banjo (a Yoruba man) was among them. Their maiden speech did not indicate that the Igbo military boys had planned to take over the Federal Government of Nigeria and install an Igbo-dominated Central Government. However, a lot of senior military officers from Northern Nigeria were killed in the coup. The coup was successful in the North and the West but failed hopelessly in the East which further fuelled the rumour that it was an Igbo-planned coup. There was only partial success in the Central Government with the Prime Minister, Sir Alhaji Tafawa Balewa and the Federal Minister of Finance, Chief Okotiebo being killed before the Senate convened in an emergency meeting and hurriedly handed political power to the Military and made the most senior Military Officer, Major-General Aguiyi Ironsi the Military Head of State. Major-General Aguiyi Ironsi, though the most Senior Nigerian Military Officer who had served meritoriously in the Congo, was unfortunately an Igbo man thus further strengthening the rumour of an Igbo domination of Nigeria.
All these allegations finally spelt doom for the Igbo race in Nigeria as far as Nigerian politics was concerned. Subsequent events in the political history of Nigeria have borne out the mortal fear the rest of the Nigerian people have against the Igbos (even the Igbos in Diaspora). Even the other tribes in the then Eastern Nigeria who should know the Igbos better and be more friendly with them, unfortunately feel more comfortable with other tribes in the rest of Nigeria. Is it because the Igbos are bad and evil people or that the rest of Nigeria is afraid of their industrious and daring attitude when it comes to business matters and going to places where even the “devil fears to tread”?

When Major-General Aguiyi Ironsi became the Military Head of State, he instituted Military Decrees that gave the indication that he wanted Unitary Rule under his own Command, with the Military Governors he appointed in-charge of the four regions to be reporting directly to him in Lagos, the then Federal Capital City of Nigeria. This alienated him against the Northern politicians and through their military officers the North planned a counter-coup which was carried out on July 29, 1966, a few months after the Nzeogwu-led first coup of January 15, 1966. This coup led to a massive bloodshed of both the military and the civilians of Eastern origin resident in Northern Nigeria. The people who bore the brunt of the massacre or pogrom were of course the people from the Igbo-speaking areas of Eastern Nigeria.

The tension created by this second coup and its aftermath spread all over Nigeria and soon many people of Eastern Nigerian Origin in the Southern Regions outside the Eastern Region started feeling unsafe for their lives and as the massive killings of the Easterners continued in the North, they joined their kith and kin in the North in fleeing back to the safe haven of Eastern Nigeria.

This book as earlier stated is a SATIRE on the sad history of Nigeria between 1966 and 1970, so it will not highlight the full details of the mass massacres of defenceless civilians that took place all over Nigeria before the actual Civil War started in July 1967. Many authors have already chronicled these in their various Nigerian Civil War Books.

Satire on the Nigerian Civil War and the Aftermath

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

When my first book: The Biafran Scientists (The Development of an African Indigenous Technology) was written, the feedback I got from “some Nigerian Elites” was that I was eulogising the achievements of the Biafran Scientists who were also Nigerian Scientists before the Declaration of the Sovereign State of Biafra from what was formerly the Eastern Region of Nigeria.

Some of these Nigerian Elites were the Gowon’s Super-Permanent Secretaries and Senior Administrative Officers who did not want anything good from Biafra to be emulated by Nigeria. They even went to the extent of declaring that the war machines that were developed within Biafra were obsolete tools used in the First World War, and that the cholera vaccine manufactured by late Prof. Njoku –Obi of the Microbiological Laboratories were fake, but they forgot to tell the Nigerians that when the war actually started the Nigerian Air Force was “nothing to write home about”. Before the USSR came to Nigeria’s aid with their Illuysen Bombers, MIG Fighter Planes and the sophisticated air force arsenals, their air force planes were dropping “fire extinguisher canisters” as their make-believe bombs while the Biafran B26 bomber, though old, was dropping napalm and other incendiary bombs made in the Chemical Laboratories within BIAFRA. Some of these Incendiary Bombs meant for Carter bridge, hit Iddo market in Lagos by mistake and some hit the Kaduna Township.

The book “The Biafran Scientists (The Development of an African Indigenous Technology) was certainly not meant to eulogise a “defeated people”, but was meant to put in historical perspective the struggle of a beleaguered innocent people being fought by a superior Federal Government, not with weapons they manufactured themselves but with destructive weapons they bought from European Countries with the Crude Oil Money (PETRO-NAIRA) which belonged to both Nigeria and the new Biafra from the Crude Oil (BLACK GOLD) that was predominantly exploited from the then Eastern Nigeria that turned to rename itself BIAFRA due to the persecution Eastern Nigeria was having from the rest of Nigeria.

However, in spite of the negative posture of the Nigerian Senior Civil Servants at that time, the Nigerian Armed Forces and the Nigeria Police Force massively bought the book even more expensively than the author was selling the book to the general Nigerian public.

The Nigerian public however were appalled at the openness and simplicity in which the secrets of military weaponry were discussed in the book and feared that some “bad” university students could, with a little science knowledge (in particular Chemistry), try to make these weapons for terrorizing their lecturers in these days of secret cults in the tertiary institutions in Nigeria.

It was this fear that made the author to first restrict the publication to the National War Museum in Umuahia, the Nigeria Police Libraries, the National War College, Abuja and other Security Organizations until 30 years after the end of the Civil War when internationally such documents are de-classified for public consumption.

I hope that this new book which no longer reveals the technical detail of WEAPONS MANUFACTURE, but merely tells stories which the new generations of the “NEW NIGERIA” should know, will now satisfy the misgivings of some of the older Nigerians on the “Nigerian side” of the conflict.

I acknowledge the first editing work done for me by my good and trusted friend, Mr. M. C. Azuike, retired Director of Narcotics and Controlled Substances in the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and my brother, Prof. Felix Arene of the University of Port Harcourt, and the many suggestions they made to me for expanding the Scope of the Book to include THE AFTERMATH OF THE CIVIL WAR (1970 – 2007).

My gratitude also goes to my nuclear family, Dr. (Mrs.) Violet Arene (my wife), Dr. Ike Arene, Dr. Nkiru Arene and Dr. Ify Arene (my children) for the encouragement they gave me while I was writing this book at the age of 70 years. In particular, I pay special tribute to my three children, who as Medical Doctors (in various fields of Medicine) spared no efforts in seeing that I was medically fit and of sound mind to carry on with the bitter retelling of a SAD STORY in my LIFE.

Dr. Alex Ekwueme, my MENTOR in the Political Arena of Nigeria and the IDE of Oko Town in the now New Anambra state of Nigeria, in spite of his age and his still busy activities in shaping the POLITICAL FORTUNES of Nigeria has found time to browse through the DRAFT of this BOOK and agreed to write the FOREWORD. For this gesture, I am eternally grateful.

To the American Publishers of this Book, I say a mighty thank you because it is through your efforts that the World will read this Book and help bring succour to the Beleaguered NIGERIA of the 21st Century.

Finally, I take full responsibility for the facts contained in this book which is not a FICTION but the TRUE facts as witnessed by the author. To you the reader, I say thank you for buying the book, for going through it and for possibly resolving to help the NEW NIGERIAN YOUTHS to see the way forward in their genuine attempt to join the youths of the rest of the WORLD in making the World a better place to live in for themselves and their children.


Eugene Arene

Satire on the Nigerian Civil War and the Aftermath

PREFACE

It is usually very difficult to SATIRIZE CIVIL CONFLICTS especially when such conflicts eventually lead to WARS where about one million innocent men, women and children die from bullet wounds, air raids, or from kwashiorkor due to malnutrition and under-nutrition. The kwashiorkor was caused by the well orchestrated and planned starvation by the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Gowon’s Commissioner (Minister) of Finance during the Nigerian Civil War. He had claimed that starvation is an instrument of war.

In attempting to satirize the very traumatic Nigerian Civil War, the author is not trying to needlessly poke fun on an otherwise serious matter of life and death. This book is rather trying to poke fun on the brotherly and sisterly misunderstandings which if handled better should not have led to the colossal loss of life to the degree and magnitude that made the honest people of the world call the war a pogrom of a race of people, the IGBOS.

It is poking fun on the whole dastardly affair because at the end of the 30 month War, the General of the Winning Group, the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria declared that there was “no victor and no vanquished”. What was then the real purpose for trying to decimate a race of innocent people of Igbo origin?

General Gowon’s name was translated as being “GO-ON-WITH-ONE-NIGERIA” by sycophantic Nigerians in their bid to induce and pressurize Gowon to wipe out the Igbo race from the map of Nigeria.

This did not finally happen and the remnants of the Igbo race who were still alive after January 15, 1970 were forced to re-join the rest of Nigeria at Nigeria’s terms and as second-rate citizens and a defeated people.

The Question is: Have the Nigerian People now been truly RE-UNITED?

Your guess is as true as that of the writer of this book!

I leave YOU to come to your own unbiased conclusion as you find time to go through this book from the beginning to the end.

Enjoy the reading!!

Prof. Eugene Arene, mni
Lagos, Nigeria.
2008.

Satire on the Nigerian Civil War and the Aftermath

FOREWORD

The Nigerian Civil War (1967 – 70) ended about 40 years ago. Active participants on both sides of the battle-lines, as well as observers of both Nigerian and Expatriate origin, have written books on it, with each group dealing with the aspects of the subject which most caught each author’s attention and interest.

The author of this book had also written the book: The Biafran Scientists (the Development of an African Indigenous Technology) from a personal and first-hand experience of most of the events which he narrated.

The book put in a vivid and readable form how the Science Group of the former Eastern Nigeria rose to the challenge of the civil war, by applying ingenuity and resourcefulness to the production of many of the military weapons needed by the Biafran Armed Forces, and the essential commodities required by the population to survive the most gruelling 30 months of the Nigerian history, in which the superior Federal Forces had completely blockaded the Biafran Enclave by air, land and sea.

The response of the Science Group can truly be described as a feat, because there was no Science and Engineering Infrastructure worth mentioning. The record given in the book, of achievements of indigenous experts in military equipment and essential commodities production, shows that, even under the now prevailing atmosphere of a severe economic depression in Nigeria, which is none-the-less more congenial than the civil war environment, Nigerian scientists and engineers can transform the country into a “newly industrialized nation” in a tolerable period of time, if and when they are properly motivated to do so.

It is now about 40 years since that terrible and senseless Civil War ended with the loss of about one million lives. Most of the active participants in the Nigerian Political Crisis that led to that Civil War are now dead. The active Nigerian youths now alive merely heard about the civil war or experienced it as little children, who normally easily forget hard times when good times come again.

The author of this book, “Satire on the Nigerian Civil War, 1967 – 70 and the Aftermath (1970 – 2007)”, experienced the full weight of the Nigerian Civil War and the accompanying TRAUMA.

In this book he has taken a more satirical view of the Civil War, while still telling the full story and some untold stories which the Nigeria youth should know about to guide them in fashioning out a better society for Nigeria, and which the rest of the World should also know about if they are really truly interested in helping Nigeria come out of its perennial Political Crises, either as a truly united country, or as a confederation of self-reliant groups. After all, although in the late 60s and 70s, the World abhorred the word secession, now in the later 90s and this early 21st Century, countries of Europe are breaking up into smaller independent entities, which now co-exist along side one another.

Having myself been part of the NIGERIAN HISTORY, I commend this satirical approach to treating a VERY SERIOUS POLITICAL PROBLEM to all lovers of peace in the World, which has become a GLOBAL VILLAGE, where one event in one country affects other countries now more than it did when telecommunications had not become so advanced and INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY was still in its INFANCY.

Dr. Alex I. Ekwueme
Former Vice President,
Federal Republic of Nigeria (1979 – 83).

May, 2008.