There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra (32 page)

2.
Nwankwo and Ifejika,
Biafra
; Achuzia,
Requiem Biafra
; Madiebo,
The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War
; Schabowska and Himmelstrand,
Africa
Reports on the Nigerian Crisis
; Biafra @ a glance, www.kwenu.com/biafra/biafra.htm; Biafra Foundation, http://biafra.cwis.org/pdf/BiafraNewsAgency23.pdf,
p. 6; Metz,
Nigeria
.

3.
Johnston Akunna Kalu Njoku,
Enyi Biafra: Regimental Drill, Duty Songs, and Cadences from Biafra
(Glassboro, NJ: Goldline & Jacobs Publishers, 2009).

4.
Europa Publications,
Regional Surveys of the World 2004 Set: Africa South of the Sahara 2004
(London: Routledge, 2004).

5.
Information from Professor Obiora Udechukwu.

T
HE
B
IAFRAN
F
LAG

6.
Robert A. Hill et al. (eds.),
The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Vol. X: Africa
for the Africans, 1923–1945
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006); Tony Martin,
Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the
Universal Negro Improvement Association
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987), p. 43; Vincent Bakpetu Thompson,
Africa and Unity: The Evolution of Pan-Africanism
(New York: Longman Publishing Group, 1977).

T
HE
B
IAFRAN
N
ATIONAL
A
NTHEM

7.
Njoku,
Enyi Biafra
.

8.
John Albert Lynn writes in
The Bayonets of the Republic
about the importance of songs in the establishment of new states and posits that
songs were engaged during the French Revolution for the purposes of “indoctrination
and as a medium of political education.” Lynn further reports that nations often turn
to songs to stir the spirit of patriotism and evoke emotions of nationhood and dreams
of prosperity and liberty: “[Songs] improve the public spirit,” the French revolutionaries
understood, “exciting the courage of the defenders of the Patric.”

Source
: John Albert Lynn,
The Bayonets of the Republic: Motivation and Tactics in the Army of Revolutionary
France, 1791–94
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996).

9.
Nnamdi Azikiwe,
Origins of the Nigerian Civil War
(Apapa, Nigeria: Nigerian National Press, 1969).

10.
William Peterson,
Ethnicity Counts
(Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1997).

11.
Jean Sibelius (December 8, 1865
–
September 20, 1957); Nwankwo and Ifejika,
Biafra
; http://www.nationalanthems.info/bia.txt; http://www.sibelius.fi/english/elamankaari/index.htm;
Biafra @ a glance: http://www.kwenu.com/biafra/biafra.htin.

12.
Alex Duval Smith, “Emeka Ojukwu: Soldier who led his people into the war of Biafran
independence,”
The Independent
, December 13, 2011.

13.
In
The Origins of the Civil War
, Nnamdi Azikiwe reports, “The music of Sibelius, ‘Be Still My Soul,’ was appropriated,
and my ode to ‘Onitsha Ado N’Idu: Land of the Rising Sun’ was plagiarized and adapted
to suit the secessionists.”

14.
Nwankwo and Ifejika,
Biafra
; http://www.nationalanthiems.info/bia.txt; http://www.sibelius.ri/english/elamankaari/index.htm;
Biafra at a glance.

15.
Ibid.

T
HE
M
ILITARY

16.
Clayton,
Frontiers Men
, p. 93.

17.
Biafra,
BBC documentary (1995).

18.
Clayton,
Frontiers Men
, p. 93;
Biafra,
BBC documentary (1995).

19.
We are told that Henry A. Wharton and Ron Archer were two American pilots who were
particularly effective in flying relief supplies and ammunitions into Biafra. Their
expert knowledge of the West African terrain made it possible for them to evade Nigerian
military radar and still land on Uli airstrip undetected. It was said that Mr. Wharton,
in particular, had become such a success and asset to the Biafrans that the military
government of Nigeria had placed a huge bounty on his head.

One of the most legendary expatriate pilots of the conflict, Rolf Steiner, worked
seamlessly with Biafra’s Fourth Commando Division. Military lore held that Steiner
was not paid for these exploits but required only free food and board. This endeared
him deeply to Ojukwu, who not only heaped military favors on Steiner but made him
a Biafran citizen. Steiner, a veteran French legionnaire of both the Vietnam and Algerian
conflicts, provided Biafra much needed military reconnaissance as well as tactical,
technical, and strategic guidance.

Taffy Williams, a controversial South African of Welsh descent, was called a “professional
soldier of fortune.” It was said he came to the aid of the Biafrans as a result of
what he felt was the injustice of the pogroms. “Taffy Williams, who looked something
like Peter O’Toole from
Lawrence of Arabia
, gregarious for a clandestine fighter,” was much admired by the Biafrans and decorated
with the honorary title of major of the People’s Army.

Sources
: Achebe Foundation interviews: Nigerian and former Biafran soldiers © Achebe Foundation,
2008; Peter Schwab, ed.,
Biafra
(New York: Facts on File, 1971); Madiebo,
The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War
; “World: Nigeria’s Civil War: Hate, Hunger and the Will to Survive,”
Time
, August 23, 1968; Rolf Steiner,
The Last Adventurer
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1978).

20.
Operation Biafran Babies. The Swedish military aviation page; www.canit.se/~griffon/aviation/text/biafra.htm.

21.
A
Time
magazine reporter wrote an article published in 1969, during the war, describing
the encounter:

Last week, as the Biafran rebellion against Nigeria neared its second anniversary,
Von Rosen and his flyers attacked the Nigerian airport at Benin, reported damage to
one MIG and several civilian planes sitting on the ground. That raid and two earlier
forays, which damaged British- and Russian-made Nigerian planes at Enugu and Port
Harcourt, eased the pressure on Biafra’s landing strip at Uli. With no Nigerian bombers
overhead for a change, transports were shuttling in.

Source
: “Biafra: How to Build an Instant Air Force,”
Time
, June 6, 1969.

22.
Madiebo,
The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War
, p. 100.

23.

After he returned home from Biafra last year, Von Rosen continued to worry about the
underdog. . . . The plight of the Biafrans rekindled his sympathies for the outgunned
and inspired an improbable, wildly romantic scheme: to marshal pilots and planes and
create an instant air force for the planeless Biafrans. . . . [Von Rosen] approached
Malmö Flygindustri, builders of the MFI-9B, and received permission to take up one
of the trainers for familiarization flights. He searched quietly for pilots and demanded,
with reason, that they be experienced. . . .

The Biafran government put up $60,000 for the purchase of five secondhand MFl-9Bs
in a third-party transaction handled through a Zurich bank. Biafran Leader Odumegwu
Ojukwu appointed Von Rosen an air force colonel and approved an additional $140,000
for refitting the planes in friendly Gabon and for the pilots’ salaries. Finally Von
Rosen told his wife, Gunvor, of his plans—up to a point. “He told me he was going
to Biafra,” Countess von Rosen said, . . . “but he didn’t say he would be bombing
MIGs.”

Source
: “Biafra: How to Build an Instant Air Force,”
Time
, June 6, 1969, the pogram-war-starvation.blogspot.com/2007/12/biafra-how-to-build-an-instant-air-force.html.

24.
Pfister,
Apartheid, South Africa, and African States,
pp. 52–53.

25.
McCullum, “Biafra Was the Beginning,”
AfricaFiles
.

26.
We have the following amazing description of what landing at Uli was like from a
1969 story in
Tim
e:

As they near ground level, crews must maneuver in darkness for all but the final 30
seconds before touchdown. The runway is really only a section of the road between
Uli and Mgbidi that has been widened to 75 feet. “That’s a nice wide road,” comments
one flyer, “but a damned narrow runway.” Airplanes’ wheels have no more than a 20-ft.
margin on either side. Wingtips brush treetops, and to avoid running out of runway,
pilots reverse their propellers and “stand” on their brakes. Not infrequently, an
incoming pilot discovers that the control tower has blithely sent a plane out above
or below him.

Source
: “Biafra: Come on Down and Get Killed,”
Time
, March 21, 1969.

27.
Interview with anonymous American relief pilot.

O
GBUNIGWE

28.
During his last wartime speech Biafran head of state Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu
summarized many of the technological feats of the Biafran state:

In three years of war, necessity gave birth to invention. During those three years, . . .
[w]e built bombs, rockets, and we designed and built our own refinery and our own
delivery systems and guided them far. For three years, blockaded without hope of import,
we maintained all our vehicles.

The state extracted and refined petrol, individuals refined petrol in their back gardens.
We built and maintained our airports, maintained them under heavy bombardment. . . .
We spoke to the world through a telecommunications system engineered by local ingenuity.

In three years, we had broken the technological barrier, became the most advanced
Black people on earth.

Source
: Excerpt from last wartime speech of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, head of Biafran
state; Emma Okocha, “Odumegwu Ojukwu—The Last Campaign of the Biafran General,”
Vanguard
, February 15, 2010.

29.
E. O. Arene,
The “Biafran” Scientists: The Development of an African Indigenous Technology
(Lagos, Nigeria: Arnet Ventures, 1997); Bayo Onanuga,
People in the News, 1900–1999: A Survey of Nigerians of the 20th Century
(Lagos, Nigeria: Independent Communications Ltd., 2000); pay special attention to
entry on Ezekwe; Michael Robson, “Douglas A/B-26 Invader/Biafran Invaders”; www/vectaris.net/id307.html.

30.
Vincent Chukwuemeka Ike,
Sunset at Dawn: A Novel about Biafra
(London: Collins and Harvill Press, 2006).

B
IAFRAN
T
ANKS

31.
Morrow, “Chinua Achebe, An Interview,”
Conjunctions
.

32.
I hope I am not misunderstood: No nation is truly independent; clearly not. You can
manage certain things, but you do rely on others, and it’s a good thing the whole
world should be linked in interdependence. As human beings you can be independent,
but as members of society you are related to your fellows. In the same way, nations
can manage certain affairs on their own and yet be linked to others.

33.
After the war many of the scientists who developed the aforementioned devices were
absorbed by the federal government into the Projects Development Institute (PRODA)
and the Scientific Equipment Development Institute (SEDI-E), both in Enugu. The institutes
were initially fairly successful under the expert leadership of talented scientists
such as Gordian Ezekwe, but they suffered from poor federal investment and support,
and have, like so many other institutions in Nigeria, fallen into disrepair. See:
www.proda-ng.org/index.html.

A
T
IGER
J
OINS THE
A
RMY

34.
Theresa Emenike, “Welcome to Amaigbo”; www.amaigbo.plus.com/files/amaigbo2.html.

35.
Adeyinka Makinde
, Dick Tiger: The Life & Times of a Boxing Immortal
(Tarentum, PA: Word Association Publishers, 2005); www.boxrec.com/media/index.php/Dick_Tiger.

36.
Adeyinka Makinde
, Dick Tiger:
The Cyber Boxing Zone Encyclopedia—Lineal Champion
; www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/tiger-d.htm.

37.
Robert M. Lipsyte recalls how it happened:

We wrote the letter. . . . “I am hereby returning the M.B.E. because every time I
look at it I think of millions of men, women, and children who died and are still
dying in Biafra because of the arms and ammunition the British government is sending
to Nigeria and its continued moral support of this genocidal war against the people
of Biafra.”

Source
: Robert M. Lipsyte, “Pride of the Tiger,” in Jeff Silverman, ed.,
The Greatest Boxing Stories Ever Told:
Thirty-Six Incredible Tales from the Ring
(Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 2004), p. 299.

F
REEDOM
F
IGHTERS

38.
Ezenwa-Ohaeto,
Chinua Achebe
, p. 136.

39.
In the years before and directly after the Chinese Communist Party’s ascension to
power in 1949, the relationship between the civilian populace and the People’s Liberation
Army remained supportive, appreciative, and mutually beneficial. Mao Zedong compared
the army to a fish and the people to the water which is its element: The army exists
immersed within the populace, and without the support and affection of the people,
the army cannot succeed. During the early years of the Communist era, the People’s
Army did indeed enjoy the support of the civilian populace.

The PLA was a tool employed by the Communist Party, which implemented egalitarian
policies such as division of land and shattered the exploitative system of feudal
land tenure, providing a unifying ideology behind which peasants and soldiers alike
might rally. It was an army built of volunteers, so peasants did not fear conscription
for themselves or their sons when the army was near. Because the PLA was a successful
army, and representative of the inspirational ideology of the Communist Party, it
became a matter of pride to be a soldier or to have a family member enlist. The People’s
Army was a volunteer army, a force of men fighting for their political beliefs, their
future livelihood, and their newly claimed land.