What a poor and maligned Biafra!

By 

Boniface Egboka

One has read with untold confusion, anger and fear the statement that was quotably given on the front page of the Weekend Vanguard of March 17, 2001, credited to our amiable President where he was quoted to have said among other things while addressing the good people of Bayelsa State, that "in fact, the first thing Biafra would have done was that if Biafra had won that war, it would have been a different story ... it is true that the war we fought was partly resource control". As a youngman who saw and actively participated in that dirty internecine civil war, and reached the rank of a combatant Brigade Major in the 55 Brigade, Ohafia, of the Strike Force Division of Biafra Army, one is amazed and highly exasperated to be told at this my adult age that Biafrans fought that evil war because of earthly oil.

One must attempt to clarify issues if not for any reason, but for the important fact that the statements are credited to our highly respected President. As a youngman at the Federal Government College, Afikpo, and a member of the then Afikpo Cadet Unit of the Nigerian Army, we never were told or understood that we went into that war for oil. It was a war of survival for the Easterners! By the way, where are our old men and women who were there when the Biafran project took off? What do they have to say to the comments of our President who was also in the war front with us during that senseless experiment? Are they going to keep cowardly quiet or try and tell the world and our younger Nigerians why that war came to be?

It is a pity that many courageous ones are already dead, but what of the living? One ardently wishes that Hon. Dr. Michael Okpara, H.E. Dr. Akanu Ibiam, Professor Kenneth Onwuka Dike, Professor Eme Awa, Col. Archibong, Brigadier Onwuatuegwu, etc., are still alive. I believe that they would have come up immediately to tell us the other side of the story as one heard from them in those tempting days. These people and many more, both living and dead, are great heroes of the Biafran experience. Ndigbo will always tell you in one of their countless proverbs that "those who do not know from where the rain started beating them can never know from where to take cover from its beating". If Nigerians do not truthfully know what caused the war or are still confused about it, then, it is most unfortunate and bemoans a dangerous foreboding. The records must be set correct since history is the key to the past and a good compass for the future. It is the unwise and the unaware that claims that history repeats itself when actually, it is people who repeat history either for good or for evil.

By the way, what of those Easterners that were there during that war who are still living, and were there when the events occurred? Must they not speak out and shed more light on the statements of our President? They do not have to agree or disagree with him. Obasanjo is a great man with a listening ear who also fought on the side of Nigeria during that bad war. I understand the humanness that welled up in his mind when he was at the area of his former battlefield. The impulsive urge that came up in him to relive his combat experiences and make such emotive statements are natural and understandable. Whenever I find myself in Abakaliki /Afikpo/Ohaozara/Ohafia/Item Abiriba/Uzuakoli/Bende/Ugwueke areas, I feel the same as only God saved me from multiple deaths. His statements were not given ex-cathedral.

Do our old people who have the facts on that war not realise that we are in a democracy where they have every opportunity to give data on every controversial matter in order to set the records straight for posterity and history whenever the opportunity calls for it? Should we lose the war and also lose our fate with history? Why do they sit on the fence when a people are being confused? Instead, some of our leaders would go about playing their unholy flute like Nero, the mad Emperor, while their community burns. Why do some Ndigbo go about chasing the rat while their homesteads are burning?

Why do some of our Igbo leaders and political appointees work against Igbo interest for no just cause? Is it because people are no more sold into slavery or given a deserved native community treatment when they work against general or common interest, if one may use Chief Chekwas Okorie’s reminiscences into Igbo history? Why do some Igbos speak from both sides of their mouths or with forked tongues according to Dele Sobowale; preferring to set their house on fire in order to kill innocent cockroaches inside? But when real issues that touch on the lives of their people come up, they keep mum. Why? What will our youths and future generations yet unborn, think about us over the misguided lethargy of some of us and our leaders, vis-à-vis Ndigbo affairs? Some of us are comfortable in shouting about the marginalisation of Ndigbo while doing nothing about it. We are happy playing to the gallery for non-Igbos while our fate and history are hanging perilously on the balance.

Did the then Easterners fight the destructive Nigeria-Biafra war because of the oil in the Niger Delta? One would like to hear comments on the causes of that war from General Odumegwu Ojukwu, Maj. General Philip Effiong, Col. Ohanehi, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, Chief J.O.J. Okezie, Chief M.T. Mbu, Dr. Sam Mbakwe, Chief C.C. Onoh, Professor Ikenna Nzimiro, Maj. General Madiebo, Col. Achuzia and many other Biafran heroes who are still alive today. I, humbly, do not believe that either partly or wholly, it was oil that caused the Nigeria/Biafra war. The youths among us in those days, that fought and live or died bravely, never had any thoughts of oil in their innocent minds in whatever way. Maybe, the old ones can tell me more that they were fighting because of the oil.

Otherwise, the civil war would not have been lost. The then leaders of Biafra would have been intelligent enough to have cleverly mortgaged that oil to some foreign power, believed innocent me. Anyone who decides to fight a war because of mineral resources or religion can hardly lose or stop fighting such a war until success is achieved as recent and ancient history can easily confirm. The Nigeria/Biafra war was fought solely for self-determination and was lost because it was mismanaged when saboteurs stormed the Biafran enclave and hunger was used as a weapon of war. The painful events of that war are still very clear in everybody’s mind. The injustices that brought about the war are all over Nigeria.

If anything, more people have now understood the plight of the Igbos and the minorities of the East who were embroiled in that useless war. This is why all Nigerian governments today, (federal/state/local) should be seriously worried on the various complaints of maltreatment and skirmishes by different nationalities including the people of the Niger Delta. This was how the case of Biafra started as a smouldering fire that ended as a raging inferno of police action of General Gowon and later, a full-scale war that consumed millions of innocent Nigerian lives and property. The whole truth must be told and accepted by all and sundry, and proper remedial actions taken to correct the present prevailing biting injustices meted out to people through denial of rights and privileges and fundamental human rights so that we can have peace in our well-endowed country.

What caused that great war are still very clear in my mind; some I did learn from our elders, and some I did see and witnessed myself. There was an army coup d’etat led by an Igboman, Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu, who was known better in Hausa-Fulani land than in Igboland. The prominent Northern leaders such as Ahmadu Bello were killed while no prominent Igbo was killed. Worse still, the coup was a woeful failure and our Northern brothers were outraged for the death of the Sadauna and Brigadier Maimalari. They called it an Igbo coup for which our people would one day pay dearly and fully for it. To add salt to injury, a bad and an unfair cartoon was put in the Drum Magazine that was titled: "Ewu na ebe akwa". The cartoon seemed to be making a caricature of somebody or some people.

All these acts enraged the Northerners more, resulting in a counter coup where Igbo army officers were killed like no man’s business from barrack to barrack, all over the country including the Yoruba- land. The killers were fully involved irrespective of whether they were Moslems or Christians or pagans. They did not also discriminate on the type of Easterners that were killed, not minding whether they were Igbos, Efiks, Ibibios, Ijaws, etc.

There was also no discrimination during the ensuing pogrom that was more heinous than the recent Hutu against Tutsi mayhem. This Gowon-led coup was followed by waves of pogrom where Easterners were slaughtered all over the North without mercy. As a result they ran home to the East for safety. There were negotiations including General Gowon’s famous statement that the basis of unity no more existed then in Nigeria as well as the Aburi experience. It was at this juncture of anomie that General Gowon undemocratically created states to undercut negotiations. The Easterners became most terrified of being massacred right in their homes and decided to take their destiny in their hands. Then, Gowon’s police action took off, and later on, to broaden into a full-scale war that lasted for three years.

It is saddening to reminisce on a maligned and confused Biafra. It is a sad reminder to me of late Col. Archibong who was such a great and brave soul. What of my brave younger brother, Sgt. Cletus Egboka? He was mowed down in his prime at Ugwueke battlefield, as I could not save him. Our mother still believes up till today that he is still alive and will return. Our father has waited in vain for his first son to come back, and has sadly died; and Cpl. Felix Egboka? Another young brother. We do not know where he was slaughtered and buried; and so were many many other Biafran casualties. Then, came Lt. Dan Ekpenyong; a great friend and fighter. He was cut down at Abakaliki area right before our eyes. He was such a cool-headed gentle officer of strength. Major Masimbo, the Commander of 40 Battalion of Biafra Army was a brave and conscientious officer. He was killed in an ambush with nine of his men at Ibii junction, Afikpo. But we courageously fought for and recovered his body and gave him an officer’s burial. Lt. Anadu who was popularly called "Colonel-one-pip" because of his bravery and chivalry; Capt. Ndubuisi Amaonwu called by a jolly name of "Dengo-Dengo"; Capt. Nwaka; Capt. Chilaka; etc. All fought gallantly and died at the war front at Ugwueke/Ohafia/Ekoli/Nguzu/Bende areas fighting for a war of self-determination. Along the Enugu-Onitsha expressway of Oji River, right on the roadside, the victims of the Nigeria/Biafra war are seen daily under rain or sunshine begging for their livelihood. They were wounded in the war and are now handicapped who have to beg to exist as no government has cared to look after them.

The issues arising from the Nigeria/Biafra war are a composite of a sacred duty that affected many lives of Nigerians, and that still affect many today. They’re a lot of lessons to be learned from the experience. They are events that must be handled with care for the present, future, posterity and history. The lives of our heroes past must not be in vain.