Biafra: Romanticizing failure

By

Victor Manfredi
Research fellow
African Studies Center
Boston University
 

Dear Dr. Ellis,

Although I am no apologist for neocolonial, authoritarian states like Nigeria, some of the well-intentioned rhetorical points in your article Biafra a tragedy set to be repeated  are unhelpfully exaggerated, to put it mildly. Allow me to quote some examples. "They were a people with a distinctive language, cultural unity and politically united."

The linguistic unity of Igbo, unlike that of Yoruba, does not extend to writing, which is the crucial format for elite mobilization as recognized by all theorists of nationalism (Gellner, Anderson). Standard Yoruba has existed in much the same form for about 150 years, whereas even the standard Igbo orthography, adopted in 1961, remains controversial and indeed is still today the target of destructive attacks from Igbo-speaking intellectuals like Achebe and Echeruo. If one explanation can be given to this pattern, it is the destructive effects of missionary rivalry in the Igbo-speaking area, as extensively studied by Profs. F. Ekechi and A. Afiigbo. As for political unity, there's never been anything comparable to Awolo.wo.'s Egbe O.mo. Oduduwa movement. Here one can blame Zik, a brilliant opportunist who, as is widely acknowleged, was more interested in his own advancement than in unity. Incidentally, the
preconquest Igbo situation was no different, with at best two large spheres of state-formation (Nri and Aru.). "Nigeria was composed of the Muslim feudal states in the north, the Hausa and Fulani, and the Yoruba in the south-west. The Ibos, or Biafrans, were in the south-east."

A fatal mistake, made also by Ojukwu, is to ignore the so-called "minorities", which come close to accounting for a majority of Nigerian population. The middle belt has many nominal Hausas whose first languages are really Gbari, Birom, Jukun etc. That Hausa is not comparable to Yoruba or Igbo as an ethnolinguistic unit was recognized by the Itsekiri political scientist Prof. Billy Dudley in his 1973 book on the civil war. Then there's the Edo's, who Ojukwu invaded and placed under Igbo rule in the early months of the war; the Cross River area, which was Igbophobic even before secession (witness the result of the West Cameroun plebiscite), and the Niger Delta, who are sitting on most of the oil and include many people who on scientific grounds could be described as Igbo
speakers, but vehemently reject that label. OK?

"Lt. Colonel Chukuemerka Odumegwu Ojukwu, born 1933, an Ibo who had become military governor of eastern Nigeria just before Gowon¹s coup, was declared head of state by parliament" The reason Ojukwu became Biafran head of state has less to do with democracy, as you imply, than with the fact that he was already head of a martial law regime in the Eastern Region after the first coup, as the ranking officer. Military dictators never have much trouble getting parliamentary approval, anywhere in the world. "I remember how popular Ojukwu¹s little green book¹, outlining his government¹s political philosophy, was in 1968/69."

Ojukwu ran a paranoid authoritarian regime. His best field commanders were executed as "saboteurs" (obviously to eliminate potential rivals) and he created a special army corps which actually fought against the regular Biafran army on occasion (as described in Madiebo's book). "But Biafra had oil fields." See on "minorities" above. "The Biafrans put up an heroic struggle, even making military gains in the early part of the war."

The initial drive to Lagos was badly planned and literally ran out of gas at Ore; the subsequent "liberation" of the "Republic of Benin" (see above) guaranteed the hostility of the Edos. From then on it was slow erosion, paid with the blood and starvation of the peasantry, not by Ojukwu's Nnewi inner circle of war profiteers.

"Ojukwu knew Gowon would not negotiate with him and went into voluntary exile on January 8, 1970..." More plainly put: after declaring to fight to the death, he ran away with the remaining hard currency after milking the endgame for all it was worth.

"Ojukwu was forgiven by the Nigerian government and is allowed to live in Enugu."

No, in order to return in 1982 he made a cynical deal with Shagari to regain his "abandoned property" in Lagos by undermining Igbo political leadership, specifically by joining Shagari's NPN and setting up a paramilitary gang called Ikemba Front.
 

I'd be happy to provide documentation for any of the above points--all of which are generally well known to students of Nigerian affairs. Freddy Forsyth may be a good storyteller but he's neither a historian or a journalist!

Summing up, the acknowledged rottenness of Nigerian neocolonial political economy does not automatically confer the "progressive" label on any and all forms of resistance. That ethnic consciousness is not a plausible solution to this British-created and Shell-maintained mess, is demonstrated inter alia by the INTERNALLY CAUSED failure of the Biafran experiment, and I respectfully submit that it is irresponsible for anyone to encourage a rerun by romanticising this failure.

November 2003