सिविल वर एंड एफ्फेक्ट्स इन nigeriaसिविल वर एंड एफ्फेक्ट्स इन nigeria
CIVIL WAR AND EFFECTS IN REVIEW (NIGERIA)
AUTHOR: AFUEWELU AUGUSTUS BILLS C. (HON)
After thirty months of a cascading blood bath, the bitterest conflict ever to erupt in Africa ended when the nation of Biafra officially died as the New Year opened in 1970. A tremor of relief shuddered through all of black Africa. Grateful exclamations – ‘thank goodness, it’s over!’ – were breathed through million of lips. The demise of Biafra recalled a basic truth: man has a right to peace and security. Peace and security – meaningful peace and Lasting security – should always be the unfaltering objective of all government. Any government which is blind to this objective fails its citizens and does not deserve support.
Whatever threatens the right of its citizens to a secure and peaceful life must be combated by any responsible government. One measure of leadership is the ability to see such threats and to prevent them from becoming realities. The health of a body politic depends on the capacity of leaders and citizens alike to learn from past mistakes.
What lessons have Nigerians learned from their chequered history since independence in 1960? To what extent has Nigeria matured in its aspiration to greater nation-hood? There is no doubt that the main causes of Nigeria’s post-independence crises – nepotism, tribalism and corruption – still exist today. However, this bleak truth may be brightened by the knowledge that at least one lesson of the war is not lost: the realization of the grave consequences of intolerance and chauvinistic myths, and the knowledge that no one section of the country can seek to impose itself on another without frightful consequences.
The Nigerian Federation is today at another crossroad. We may choose one way or the other. We cannot afford to say, ‘let us forget about the past’. Before arriving to this crossroad we have stumbled along a tortuous path. We must, in picking a new way, draw from our experience. What about that seemingly smooth path that thrust us into a ditch? What about that exhausting pace that tired us so quickly? What about that irrepressible gluttony that exhausted our rations before we went a tenth of the way? What about that beastly passion veiled our eyes to the more honorable and lofty ideals of the world? Should we forget our regrets, our sufferings and our cravings for another chance? Certainly not! Because we cannot afford to forget.
If we should forget the pains caused by the events of our recent history, we must not forget the facts of such pains and the circumstances that created them. Either we will digest the bitter fruits of our history or they will poison us. Anybody who claims leadership of our people owes it to them not to permit another harvest of mistakes.
It is in the light of this that we must come to grips with our present. And it is in partial fulfillment of this need that the combination of events, times and places that came to be called the Republic of Biafra must be made known in order to see what benefit can be derived from that phenomenon. Since the collapse of Biafra, we have been deluged with highly colored accounts of the war. The motive of the authors of these accounts, most of whom had the best of Biafra, has been self-exculpation. With time, however, it will be convenient to write a more comprehensive account of the Nigerian Civil war. This work is intended to hold brief of such account.
Without prejudice to the political and geographical reality of Nigeria today, the terms ‘Biafra’ and ‘Biafrans’ will be used for the sake of convenience and explicitness. It is assumed that Biafra existed as a nation throughout the war.
BACKGROUND
Post-independence Nigeria was beset by a series of crises. These took a dramatic turn with the military coup of 15January 1966 which installed Major-General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Ibo, as Head of Nigeria’s first military government. Ironsi appointed military governors to administer the four regions of the federation. One of those appointed was Lt-Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu who was placed in charge of the Eastern Region. In the coup that installed Ironsi in power, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sarduana of Sokoto and Premier of the Nothern Region, and Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Federal Prime Minister and also a Northerner, were killed. Also killed were four Northern and two Western Senior officers and one Eastern (Ibo). The ethnic distribution of the casualties of the coup led to the allegation that it was an Ibo coup.
A counter coup on 29 July 1966 swept Ironsi from power and installed General Yakubu Gowon, a Northener. Together with Ironsi, thirthy-three officers of the Eastern Nigerian origin, majority of whom were Ibos, were killed. Then followed a series of riots in the North in which thousands of Easterners living there were killed. In retaliation scores of Northerners living in the East were set upon by irate refugees from the North. Subsequently over a million refugees returned to the East from other parts of the Federation. And ‘non Easterners’ were expelled from the East. This more than anything else, polarized the Nigerian crisis into an Eastern Region-Federal Government conflict.
All efforts towards settlement – and they were many – failed. The most prominent of these efforts was the meeting in January1967, of the Nigerian Supreme Military Council at Aburi, Ghana. Some agreements were reached which raised hopes of settling the crises. These hopes were shattered when the government of the Eastern Region and the Federal Government interpreted the agreements differently.
Events so deteriorated that on 27 May Gowon promulgated a decree dividing Nigeria into Twelve States. Three days later, on 30 May, Ojukwu declared the secession of the Eastern Region of Nigeria and the establishment of the Independent Republic of Biafra.
A war ensued between the Federal Government – to prevent secession – and Biafra – to assert its independence. The war which began on 6 July 1967 ended on 12 January 1970 with the defeat of Biafra.
To be continued………………………………………………………………………………..
AUTHOR: AFUEWELU AUGUSTUS BILLS C. (HON)
After thirty months of a cascading blood bath, the bitterest conflict ever to erupt in Africa ended when the nation of Biafra officially died as the New Year opened in 1970. A tremor of relief shuddered through all of black Africa. Grateful exclamations – ‘thank goodness, it’s over!’ – were breathed through million of lips. The demise of Biafra recalled a basic truth: man has a right to peace and security. Peace and security – meaningful peace and Lasting security – should always be the unfaltering objective of all government. Any government which is blind to this objective fails its citizens and does not deserve support.
Whatever threatens the right of its citizens to a secure and peaceful life must be combated by any responsible government. One measure of leadership is the ability to see such threats and to prevent them from becoming realities. The health of a body politic depends on the capacity of leaders and citizens alike to learn from past mistakes.
What lessons have Nigerians learned from their chequered history since independence in 1960? To what extent has Nigeria matured in its aspiration to greater nation-hood? There is no doubt that the main causes of Nigeria’s post-independence crises – nepotism, tribalism and corruption – still exist today. However, this bleak truth may be brightened by the knowledge that at least one lesson of the war is not lost: the realization of the grave consequences of intolerance and chauvinistic myths, and the knowledge that no one section of the country can seek to impose itself on another without frightful consequences.
The Nigerian Federation is today at another crossroad. We may choose one way or the other. We cannot afford to say, ‘let us forget about the past’. Before arriving to this crossroad we have stumbled along a tortuous path. We must, in picking a new way, draw from our experience. What about that seemingly smooth path that thrust us into a ditch? What about that exhausting pace that tired us so quickly? What about that irrepressible gluttony that exhausted our rations before we went a tenth of the way? What about that beastly passion veiled our eyes to the more honorable and lofty ideals of the world? Should we forget our regrets, our sufferings and our cravings for another chance? Certainly not! Because we cannot afford to forget.
If we should forget the pains caused by the events of our recent history, we must not forget the facts of such pains and the circumstances that created them. Either we will digest the bitter fruits of our history or they will poison us. Anybody who claims leadership of our people owes it to them not to permit another harvest of mistakes.
It is in the light of this that we must come to grips with our present. And it is in partial fulfillment of this need that the combination of events, times and places that came to be called the Republic of Biafra must be made known in order to see what benefit can be derived from that phenomenon. Since the collapse of Biafra, we have been deluged with highly colored accounts of the war. The motive of the authors of these accounts, most of whom had the best of Biafra, has been self-exculpation. With time, however, it will be convenient to write a more comprehensive account of the Nigerian Civil war. This work is intended to hold brief of such account.
Without prejudice to the political and geographical reality of Nigeria today, the terms ‘Biafra’ and ‘Biafrans’ will be used for the sake of convenience and explicitness. It is assumed that Biafra existed as a nation throughout the war.
BACKGROUND
Post-independence Nigeria was beset by a series of crises. These took a dramatic turn with the military coup of 15January 1966 which installed Major-General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Ibo, as Head of Nigeria’s first military government. Ironsi appointed military governors to administer the four regions of the federation. One of those appointed was Lt-Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu who was placed in charge of the Eastern Region. In the coup that installed Ironsi in power, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sarduana of Sokoto and Premier of the Nothern Region, and Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Federal Prime Minister and also a Northerner, were killed. Also killed were four Northern and two Western Senior officers and one Eastern (Ibo). The ethnic distribution of the casualties of the coup led to the allegation that it was an Ibo coup.
A counter coup on 29 July 1966 swept Ironsi from power and installed General Yakubu Gowon, a Northener. Together with Ironsi, thirthy-three officers of the Eastern Nigerian origin, majority of whom were Ibos, were killed. Then followed a series of riots in the North in which thousands of Easterners living there were killed. In retaliation scores of Northerners living in the East were set upon by irate refugees from the North. Subsequently over a million refugees returned to the East from other parts of the Federation. And ‘non Easterners’ were expelled from the East. This more than anything else, polarized the Nigerian crisis into an Eastern Region-Federal Government conflict.
All efforts towards settlement – and they were many – failed. The most prominent of these efforts was the meeting in January1967, of the Nigerian Supreme Military Council at Aburi, Ghana. Some agreements were reached which raised hopes of settling the crises. These hopes were shattered when the government of the Eastern Region and the Federal Government interpreted the agreements differently.
Events so deteriorated that on 27 May Gowon promulgated a decree dividing Nigeria into Twelve States. Three days later, on 30 May, Ojukwu declared the secession of the Eastern Region of Nigeria and the establishment of the Independent Republic of Biafra.
A war ensued between the Federal Government – to prevent secession – and Biafra – to assert its independence. The war which began on 6 July 1967 ended on 12 January 1970 with the defeat of Biafra.
To be continued………………………………………………………………………………..
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