There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra (22 page)

The Recapture of Owerri

The psychologically devastated Biafrans were wrestling with two dire prospects in
the latter part of the Harmattan Season of 1969: mass starvation or death by organized
“ethnic cleansing” at the hands of Gowon’s military. A third possibility, surrender,
was not in the cards. By this time there were close to one hundred thousand men, women,
and children, mainly children, perishing every six weeks. The Biafrans would get an
emotional reprieve at the news of the recapture of Owerri, one of Biafra’s largest
cities, from the Nigerian troops.
¹

Gowon was furious to learn that Owerri had fallen back into the hands of the army
he had sworn to defeat in three months. He instituted a major reorganization of his
army’s leadership. The Nigerian Third Battalion was now to be commanded by Olusegun
Obasanjo, the Second Division switched commanders from Haruna to Lieutenant Colonel
Gibson Sanda Jalo, and the First Battalion was now led by Brigadier Iliya Bisalla,
in place of Shuwa.

The next several weeks saw an energized Biafran army engage the federal troops with
heightened vigor. They were able to keep the Nigerian army at bay on several fronts—across
the Imo River; through Uzuakoli to the seat of power in Umuahia and around the perimeter
of Owerri, Nekede; and on the road to Aba. Colonel Joseph Achuzia, who had been placed
in charge of the Biafran offensive by Ojukwu, even contemplated a major military push
to Port Harcourt. The lack of ammunition or military supplies made this lofty goal
a suicide mission, and even the radical Joseph “Air Raid” Achuzia knew his limitations.
²

Achuzia was one of the most complicated, some say eccentric characters of the war.
He was well-known throughout the East as a “no-nonsense, disciplined, tactical and
strategic military genius,” and was highly respected, if not feared by the Nigerian
federal forces for his mastery of guerrilla warfare and for giving them a “run for
their money” on the battlefield. Military experts report that Achuzia remained Ojukwu’s
“ace commander” throughout the conflict, and he was often called upon to solve problems
or build upon military theater advantages. His detractors, who refer to him as “a
war zealot,” provide the counterpoint that no action on the battlefield should be
elevated to the level of “genius,” and that Achuzia’s desire for military discipline
often, allegedly, meant shooting a number of Biafran soldiers in order to get the
others to fall in line.
³
Achuzia survived the conflict and was appointed the secretary general of the influential
pan-Igbo group Ohaneze NdiIgbo in later years.

Biafra Takes an Oil Rig: “The Kwale Incident”

In the middle of the rainy season of 1969, Biafran military intelligence allegedly
obtained information that foreign oilmen, particularly staff from the Italian government’s
oil conglomerate, Eni,
¹
were aiding the Nigerian army. The foreign workers were allegedly providing sensitive
military information to the federal forces—about Biafran troop positions, strategic
military maneuvers, and training.

This information was quickly made available to the Biafran command, which swiftly
sent soldiers on a stealth dawn operation during which they invaded Eni’s combine
in Kwale, in the Niger River Delta’s oil reserve known as Okpai oil field. By the
end of the “exercise” eleven workers had been killed—ten of the dead were Italian
and one was from Jordan. The Biafrans took eighteen Eni employees hostage. Fourteen
were Italian, three were German, and one was Lebanese. What happened next would stir
international outrage of epic proportions and threaten the fragile emotional and moral
support that the Biafrans had developed during the course of the war.

The men were quickly detained on Biafran soil, tried, and found guilty of supporting
the enemy—the federal troops of Nigeria—to wage a war of genocide. Predictably, there
was a spontaneous outcry and appeals for clemency from disparate groups and countries.
The Vatican and the embassies of Italy, Germany, Portugal, and Biafra’s African supporters—Ivory
Coast and Gabon—were at the vanguard of those asking for the release of the prisoners.
²

Biafra’s local and international supporters were dismayed. One observer commented
at the time: “This indeed was not what the cause was about. . . . [W]e were engaged
in a fight for self-determination. . . . [T]his was an unnecessary and costly distraction.”
³
Biafran officials were adamant, even obstinate; the enclave’s minister for information,
Ifegwu Eke, had this to say about the incident:
“
Oilmen are more dangerous than mercenaries. . . . These are the people responsible
for our suffering.” Ojukwu’s own radio pronouncements about the incident were equally
irascible:

Oscillating amid impassioned outrage and constrained eloquence, the Biafran leader
exclaimed: “For 18 white men, Europe is aroused. What have they said about our millions?
Eighteen white men assisting in the crime of genocide. What do they say about our
murdered innocents? How many black dead make one missing white? Mathematicians, please
answer me. Is it infinity?”
⁴

After Ojukwu received a private letter from the pope in June 1969, personally pleading
for the release of the oilmen, many in Ojukwu’s inner circle were concerned about
an international backlash. If the situation was not resolved swiftly, they feared,
it could precipitate an instant sinking of Biafra’s international reputation and a
permanent loss of Vatican, Italian, indeed international humanitarian support. Eventually,
in late June 1969, the eighteen detained men were released and flown out of Biafra
in the custody of diplomats from the Ivory Coast and Gabon.

Some scholars believe that Ojukwu’s calculation was that a combination of Biafran
military resistance and the disruption of oil operations in the region would reduce
oil revenue flowing to Nigeria’s supporters and into the Nigerian treasury, crippling
their war machinery and bringing about an accelerated negotiation to end the war.
⁵
Others are less charitable and feel that the whole affair was a blunder for the record
books; they ascribe Ojukwu’s decision to free the men as informed as much by the pope’s
letter as by the prospect of Italian “armed intervention to free their citizens”
⁶
—and his own rapid tumble from power in such a scenario.

Be that as it may, the fact that seemed to have completely escaped the Biafran leaders
was this: As a people proclaiming victimization at the hands of Nigeria, and rightfully
so, we could not be seen as victimizers in any situation or setting, in order to continue
receiving the widespread moral and humanitarian support we needed to survive. This
failure to recognize this fundamental principle, I believe, contributed immensely
to the downturn in Biafra’s fortunes. I personally believe that this fiasco was the
clearest evidence of the mental fatigue of the Biafran military leadership.

—

The summer of 1969 would prove a busy one on the diplomatic front. Pope Paul VI, buoyed
by the success of his emissaries in diffusing the Kwale incident, focused his energies
next on procuring a lasting peace between the warring parties. During an official
trip to Uganda the pontiff met the Biafran and Nigerian emissaries separately in lengthy
talks, during which he expressed his desire that a peaceful resolution be found.
⁷

The pontiff addressed the Ugandan Parliament on August 10, following an exhausting
ceremony during which he consecrated twelve new African bishops, and repeated the
Vatican’s desire to mediate a lasting peace between Nigeria and Biafra:

[I]n a region of Africa dear to us . . . there still rages an agonizing conflict. . . .
We have not only sought to secure goods and medical assistance, impartially and by
every means available, but have also tried to apply the remedy of a certain initial
reconciliation. Up to now we have not succeeded and this gives us heartfelt pain.
But we are resolved to continue our modest but affectionate and fair efforts of persuasion
to help heal this fatal dissension.
⁸

In America, the Nixon administration increased diplomatic pressure on the Gowon administration
to open up avenues for international relief agencies at about the same time, following
months of impasse over the logistics of supply routes. Many congressmembers, government
officials, indeed lay citizens were increasingly exasperated by the endless streaming
television imagery of dying Biafran babies, and by the blockade imposed by the Gowon
government. Biafra had in Senator Edward M. Kennedy a humane and sympathetic ear.
Kennedy called for early and sustained U.S. humanitarian intervention throughout the
bloody conflict.
⁹
Strom Thurmond, a senator from South Carolina, also became particularly vocal about
America’s intention to continue providing relief supplies to the needy irrespective
of the Nigerian federal government’s obstinate blockade measures.
¹⁰

Thurmond, an unlikely supporter of the breakaway Republic of Biafra, was a former
“‘Dixiecrat”
¹¹
—a member of the conservative base of the “old Democratic party of the 1950s and early
1960s” that fled to the safety of the Republican Party following the reverberations
of the civil rights period. He also had a not too flattering reputation for commandeering
the filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. He was, however, a well-respected
and high-profile congressman and a particularly effective legislator—all the characteristics
that the desperate Biafrans needed.
¹²

Biafran diplomats began to see some of the repercussions of the Kwale incident by
the end of 1969, and the erosion of the goodwill that had been built up so successfully
over the previous twenty-seven months. Neutral countries like Canada, hitherto officially
silent, more or less, while engaged in spirited humanitarian support of the suffering,
openly criticized the Ojukwu administration as one “that was more interested in getting
arms than food or medical supplies and had made up reasons for rejecting [humanitarian
aid].”
¹³
For the Biafrans, particularly those of us who had made trips to Canada to secure
their humanitarian support, this rhetoric was particularly devastating.

1970 and The Fall

In Biafra, the Harmattan Season leading into 1970 was particularly harsh. I remember
vividly the suffering of the people; everything seemed particularly bleak. The dry,
sandy air seemed to be an additional torment, delighting in covering the body with
layers of the Sahara Desert’s fine dust, blown in from hundreds of miles away. This
made it impossible for bare, weeping, vulnerable skin lesions to heal. It was particularly
hard on the children. Looking around one could see a proud, devastated people.

The Nigerians at this point were also worried about the physical and psychological
impact that this war was having on their troops. The federal government, it was well-known,
increased the recruitment of a great number of mercenaries from the neighboring countries
of Chad and Niger, and from far away Mali, to supplement their numbers. The federal
ranks were also plagued by widespread dissatisfaction with the war effort, the escalating
number of casualties, and the lack of a clear vision for ending the conflict. To make
matters worse for Gowon, the general population had grown impatient with what now
appeared to be an endless conflict that had entered its thirtieth month.

Gowon was clearly in a bind. He responded to this predicament by sending off secret
memos to relay the details of his final offensive, a scorched-earth policy to crush
the Biafran resistance once and for all. By the middle of January 1970, the Nigerian
troops had regained the upper hand decisively. Biafra, for all terms and purposes
was crushed emotionally, psychologically, financially, and militarily, and it came
crashing down soon after the new year began.

After failing many times over the thirty-month period, Gowon finally had Biafra surrounded
on three fronts. In mid-January 1970, after Owerri had been recaptured by the federal
troops and Uli airport was under heavy air and land assault by federal troops led
by Olusegun Obasanjo, I knew the end for Biafra was near. That feeling was confirmed
for millions of others in Biafra when Ojukwu went on the radio and announced that
he was “leaving the People’s Republic of Biafra to explore alternative options for
peace.” We all learned later that he had traveled to Ivory Coast, one of Biafra’s
early African supporters, where his longtime friend president Félix Houphouët-Boigny,
with French backing, had offered him asylum. Nigeria mounted attempts to repatriate
Ojukwu for at least five years following the war in order to try him for war crimes,
but they failed mainly because the French made access to him impossible.

After that announcement there was sheer pandemonium throughout Biafra. Millions of
Biafrans could be seen scrambling to get away from the Nigerian military forces, which
at this point seemed to be advancing from every direction. Many of the classic
Time
and
Life
photos of this era were taken during this time of great panic, despair, and anxiety.

There have been several debates over the decades since about why Ojukwu, the resistance
leader of a people so wronged, left (some say fled) Biafra at this critical juncture,
declaring in his classic style: “Whilst I live, Biafra lives.”
¹
His detractors, many of whom are still alive, still believe that this particular
act was one of great cowardice, and that true heroes go down with the cause.

I think Ojukwu’s departure, like many things that he did before, during, and after
the war, was a complicated matter. It was clear to the Biafran leader that the end
was near, that his troops had been defeated, at least militarily, and that the mostly
Igbo Easterners on whose behalf he had waged this war were broken in every respect
and were standing at the precipice of annihilation. By taking himself out of the equation,
so to speak, Ojukwu robbed his old nemesis Gowon of the war booty he sought the most—his
head. Therefore, the protracted internal rivalry between the two men that I have referred
to had no resolution, and he had robbed Gowon of closure and complete satisfaction
in victory. Indeed, many psychologists believe that Gowon may not have been as conciliatory
as he ended up being had Ojukwu stayed behind.

Gowon does not stray far from my conclusions on this subject:

What you should remember about the time—and, at least, give us some credit for it—is
that we did not take what would be considered normal action under such circumstances.
In such an instance, all the senior officials involved—politicians as well as in the
military—would have been strung up for their part in the war. This is what happened
at the end of the Second World War in Germany; it happened in Japan at the end of
the campaign in that part of the world. This is the civilized world’s way of doing
things. But we did not do even that. We did set up committees to look into cases such
as where rebel officers had been members of the Nigerian Armed Forces, and their loyalty
was supposed to be to the Federal Government. When the war ended, we reabsorbed practically
everyone who was in the Army. But there were officers at a certain senior level [who]
we insisted had to accept responsibility for their role in the secession. It was the
only thing to do. Probably I could have given pardon; however, I was not the one who
gave pardon to Ojukwu. . . .

[I]n the case of Ojukwu, he had committed treason against the country! No matter how
you see it, as far as the Nigerian context was concerned, he was the guilty party.
In other areas, he would have been eliminated, and I thank God that He never put him
in my hands. Otherwise I would have found it very difficult to save his life, even
though I would try my best to save his life, because he was an old colleague, an old
friend. But the public pressure would have made it impossible. So that was what happened
in the case of people like Effiong. A few of the senior ones [who] were directly involved,
we felt they should go. I think Effiong was dismissed. All that happened to the others
was that they lost the few years of seniority gained during the period of the civil
war.
²

In Ojukwu’s absence, Sir Louis Mbanefo, the chief justice, and General Philip Effiong,
the defeated republic’s leading military officer, met with a small group of Biafran
government officials and made the fateful decision to surrender to the federal government
of Nigeria. Effiong went on Biafran radio to announce the capitulation, and he spoke
to the fear-stricken populace, urging calm and encouraging the troops to lay down
their weapons. He announced that he was currently negotiating an armistice with the
federal government of Nigeria, and that General Ojukwu had left the nation. This drew
a very clear line between what was going on in the country and what was about to happen—which
was the fall of Biafra.

Before that the defeat was already quite apparent. There were a few people who refused
to recognize it and planned to continue to fight. I did not feel that continuing the
conflict was an option at all. I felt that the best way to deal with this tremendous
disaster was to not prolong the agony but to bring it to a close.

—

In the end, Biafra collapsed. We simply had to turn around and find a way to keep
those people still there alive. It was a desperate situation, with so many children
in need, kwashiorkor rampant, and thousands perishing every week. The notoriously
incompetent Nigerian government was not responding to those in need quickly enough.
With ill-advised bravado Gowon was busy banning relief agencies that had helped Biafra.
³
It was in this environment of desperation that some people said, Let’s go into the
forest and continue the struggle. That would have been suicidal, and I don’t think
anybody should commit suicide.

We had spent nearly three years fighting, fighting for a cause, fighting to the finish . . .
for freedom. But all that had collapsed, and Biafra with it. A very bitter experience
had led to it in the first place. And the big powers prolonged it.

You see we, the little people of the world, are ever expendable. The big powers can
play their games even if millions perish in the process. And perish they did. In the
end millions (some state upward of three million, mostly children) had died, mainly
from starvation due to the federal government of Nigeria’s blockade policies.
⁴

General Gowon made a national broadcast on the eve of the official surrender to announce
the end of the thirty-month war that he said had claimed over one hundred thousand
military service men and women and over three million Biafrans. His “no victor, no
vanquished” speech
⁵
as it has come to be known, strove to strike a conciliatory tone, calling for the
full reintegration of Igbos into the fabric of Nigerian life. There was great celebration
throughout Nigeria and Biafra at the news of the end of the hostilities.

A day later, on January 15, 1970, the Biafran delegation, which was led by Major General
Philip Effiong and included Sir Louis Mbanefo, M. T. Mbu, Colonel David Ogunewe, and
other Biafran military officers, formally surrendered at Dodan Barracks to the troops
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Among the Nigerian delegation were: General Yakubu
Gowon; the deputy chairman of the Supreme Military Council, Obafemi Awolowo; leaders
of the various branches of the armed forces, including Brigadier Hassan Katsina, chief
of staff; H. E. A. Ejueyitchie, the secretary to the federal military government;
Anthony Enahoro, the commissioner for information; Taslim Elias, the attorney general;
and the twelve military governors of the federation.

At the end of the thirty-month war Biafra was a vast smoldering rubble. The head count
at the end of the war was perhaps three million dead, which was approximately 20 percent
of the entire population. This high proportion was mostly children. The cost in human
lives made it one of the bloodiest civil wars in human history.
⁶

The sequelae of wars often begin with an armistice. The suffering and humanitarian
disaster left in the wake of war’s destruction goes on long after the weapons are
silenced—for months and years. Entire towns and villages, schools and farms in Biafra
were destroyed. Roads and the rural areas were littered with landmines that continued
to maim and kill unsuspecting pedestrians well after the hostilities ended. Many people
had lost all that they owned. Loved ones in the thousands were reported missing by
families. There were stories of scores of suicides. This was not just a case of Ani,
or the land and its protector, the land goddess, “bleeding,” as my people would describe
catastrophic events of this nature. It was worse: a case of Ani nearly “exsanguinating
to death.”

My generation had great expectations for our young nation. After the war everything
we had known before about Nigeria, all the optimism, had to be rethought. The worst
had happened, and we were now forced into reorganizing our thinking, expectations,
and hopes. We (the former Biafrans) had to carry on in spite of the great disaster
that was military defeat and learn very quickly to live with such a loss. We would
have to adjust to the realities and consequences of a Nigeria that did not appeal
to us any longer. Nigeria had not succeeded in crushing the spirit of the Igbo people,
but it had left us indigent, stripped bare, and stranded in the wilderness.