Katsumoto:

You can read Soyinka's "You Must Set Forth At Dawn".


Here is the true account of what took place as taken from scripts of the discussion between Papa and Chief Ojukwu (the Ikemba). The discussion was taped by the Ikemba and the recorder was captured after Enugu fell.

On Saturday, May 6, 1967, at 5.15 pm, a meeting began to take place, at the State House, Enugu, between the then Excellency, Lt. Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu (the Ikemba) and a delegation of the National Conciliation Committee (Committee) led by the most Honorable Chief Obafemi Awolowo. The Committee was represented by Professor Samuel Aluko, Chief Mariere, Chief J.I. Onyia, while the Eastern Region was represented by Lt. Col Imo, Lt. Col Effiong, Lt. Col. Kurubo, Mr. C.O Mojekwu, Mr. N.U. Akpan, Professor Eni Njoku, Dr. Nwakanma Okoro, Dr. P.N.C. Okigbo, Mr. C.A. Onyegbale and Mr. Ndem with the Ikemba presiding over the meeting. The names are listed for the purpose of verification of facts presented herein below with those of them who may still be alive,

Papa: The main concern of these delegates is to ensure that Nigeria does not disintegrate, and I would like to see Nigeria bound together by any bond because it is better than breaking the whole place up because each unit will be the loser for it. Th[b]e economy of the country is so integrated that it is too late in the day to try and sever them without risking the death of one or both of them. So we have come, therefore, to appeal to you to let Eastern representatives attend the meeting of the Committee (ON-GOING NATIONAL CONCILIATION MEETING) I do not want to put myself in a position where I will be treated as an advocate of the Eastern cause. Let the Eastern delegates go there, make their case and then as a member of the Committee I will get up and say I support this entirely. If at the meeting the East and West present what they want for a new Nigeria whether temporarily or permanently, and the North says "no, we are not going to have it", I will go out and address a World Press Conference and send our case to that body and say this is what we have done and the North has turned it down.[/b] I will then take any step that is necessary to bring into effect what we want. The North needed to be in a position of being presented with the United front of the South.

Ikemba: I started off this struggle in July with 120 rifles to defend the entirety of the East. I took my stand knowing fully well that by doing so, whilst carving my name in history,[size=16pt][/size] I was signing also my death warrant. But I took it because I believe that this stand is vital to the survival of the South. I appealed for settlement quietly because I understood that this was a unclothed struggle for power and that the only time we can sit down and decide the future of Nigeria on basis of equality will always be equality of arms[b]. Quietly, I built up. If you do not know it, I am proud, and my officers are proud, that here in the East we possess the biggest army in Black Africa.[/b] I am no longer speaking as an underdog, I am speaking from a position of power. [SEE NOTE 3a] The only way for the South to present a united front is for the South to meet and hammer out that united front. It is a point which must be cleared first before proceeding to make a statement of whatever it is. That is why to my mind, at the present stage of the crisis the ideal thing is for the Southern people to meet in any platform and discuss and hammer out any difference they might have because I will have nothing to do with the North. Then going further, it would then mean that to do this the South to meet; because if we wait for their permission, we will wait for ever. On the specific question of whether there is a possibility of contact with the North, the answer is at the battle field.[size=26pt][/size]

You have still not denounced the apprenticeship you entered with Nowa Omoigui? I had thought you were smarter than this shameful act of “copy and paste”. If the so-called National Conciliation Committee (Committee) led by the most Honorable Chief Obafemi Awolowo was national indeed, one wonders why there was no single northerner among the delegates. Or was the major issue of discord existed between eastern, western and mid-western regions?

Please I urge someone to tell Kats and his\her idol Nowa Omoigui that easterners are no fools.

Ojukwu went to war because Gowon refused to implement the only provision from Aburi which would removed the power to appoint the Eastern governor from the head of state. Basically, Gowon wouldn't have been able to replace Ojukwu and Ojukwu knew that as soon as agreements are in place, he would have been replaced.

Did the East need to secede to safeguard Eastern lives? They just needed to remain in their region. The war wasn't prosecuted to rescue Easterners that were trapped outside the East.

Dede1:


You have still not denounced the apprenticeship you entered with Nowa Omoigui? I had thought you were smarter than this shameful act of “copy and paste”. If the so-called National Conciliation Committee (Committee) led by the most Honorable Chief Obafemi Awolowo was national indeed, one wonders why there was no single northerner among the delegates. Or was the major issue of discord existed between eastern, western and mid-western regions?

Please I urge someone to tell Kats and his\her idol Nowa Omoigui that easterners are no fools.

Quit being an annoying pedant. You were expecting a Northerner to go to Enugu? ? ? If Ojukwu couldn't go to Lagos, let alone Kano/Kaduna, why are you expecting a Northerner to go to Enugu? Please use your brain.

Katsumoto: Ojukwu went to war because Gowon refused to implement the only provision from Aburi which would removed the power to appoint the Eastern governor from the head of state. Basically, Gowon wouldn't have been able to replace Ojukwu and Ojukwu knew that as soon as agreements are in place, he would have been replaced.

Did the East need to secede to safeguard Eastern lives? They just needed to remain in their region. The war wasn't prosecuted to rescue Easterners that were trapped outside the East.

You are going crazy sloooowly........
If not, you would have seen that secession was a better alternative that pinning the ibos back home, a people popular for their travel and enterprise and doing exploits in other lands. Their life may be safe in the east, but did they need to be imprisoned at home? What about their investments outside? I said you are shallow and you are proving me right.

Katsumoto:

Quit being an annoying pedant. You were expecting a Northerner to go to Enugu? ? ? If Ojukwu couldn't go to Lagos, let alone Kano/Kaduna, why are you expecting a Northerner to go to Enugu? Please use your brain.

Then, which idiott called it NATIONAL....

van bonattel:

I dont think you know anything about the army as to compare it to a civil setting with CEO and subordinates. What happened to Diya when he tried to advice Abacha?

I know more about the army than you would know in 100 lifetimes.

If Ekpo, Katsina, and Gowon, who were all junior to Ironsi, could advise against decree 34 and removing hausa as a testing language in the North, then why couldn't Ojukwu? Did Ironsi kill Ekpo, Katsina, and Gowon?

BTW, you tried to dodge the questions I posed to you with regards to Ojukwu being a genius.

van bonattel:

You are going crazy sloooowly........
If not, you would have seen that secession was a better alternative that pinning the ibos back home, a people popular for their travel and enterprise and doing exploits in other lands. Their life may be safe in the east, but did they need to be imprisoned at home? What about their investments outside? I said you are shallow and you are proving me right.

And secession guaranteed
a) their investments were safe?
b) ensured that they could travel freely through Nigeria?

Stop throwing stones because they are being returned to you.

Katsumoto:

I know more about the army than you would know in 100 lifetimes.

If Ekpo, Katsina, and Gowon, who were all junior to Ironsi, could advise against decree 34 and removing hausa as a testing language in the North, then why couldn't Ojukwu? Did Ironsi kill Ekpo, Katsina, and Gowon?

BTW, you tried to dodge the questions I posed to you with regards to Ojukwu being a genius.

Supposing, just supposing Ojukwu suggested and Ironsi refused, (like he refused Madiebo's advice) then what? Ojukwu will slap him?

Ojukwu will always be a world class genius irrespective of you wishing it away. It is already carved in stone and you are impotent about that fact.

Katsumoto:

And secession guaranteed
a) their investments were safe?
b) ensured that they could travel freely through Nigeria?

Stop throwing stones because they are being returned to you.

a) The new Biafran govt. can legally do something about their investments in a govt vs govt negotiation process
b) What can stop citizens of a new nation from traveling to their neighboring country on business trips?

Katsumoto: Yes, Gowon created states to undermine ojukwu but that was after ojukwu refused to accept decree 8 because it would have meant that ojukwu could be replaced by Gowon.


Is ojukwu a Hero or a Villain? by Max Siollun

January is a key month in Nigeria’s history. This January marks the 41st anniversary of the end of the Nigerian civil war, and the 44th anniversary of the Aburi accords – the debate in Aburi in Ghana which nearly pre-empted the war. The pivotal figure in both events is Chukwuemeka Odumegwu ojukwu.

ojukwu is a man that evokes conflicting emotions. To some he is a born leader and a hero. To others he is an ambitious man that tried to break up his country. Where ojukwu is concerned, no one is a neutral. The conflicting opinions on him are emblematic of his inconsistent personality and history. ojukwu is an educated man that entered a profession that many Nigerians regarded at the time as a profession for the uneducated. He is a southerner born in the north who fought a three year long war against the north. He is a man who once led an attempt to secede from Nigeria, but later ran for President of Nigeria.

A leader must be judged by what benefits or misfortune he has brought to his people. Has ojukwu brought anything positive to his people? His record is grim. The “accomplishments” ojukwu has brought his people include:

• Leading them in a brutal civil war they had no chance of winning, and which resulted in a million of them dying.
• Even when it became clear that his people were starving to death in massive numbers, he continued the war which was doomed from the start.
• He fled and left his people after the war.
• The civil war caused his people to be stereotyped as disloyal and led to an unwritten discrimination against them.


Yet he is still revered. ojukwu’s first official involvement in politics came after a group of young army Majors overthrew the democratic government in January 1966. Contrary to what has been written in some quarters, ojukwu refused to cooperate with the Majors – including Major Nzeogwu. ojukwu was appointed the Military Governor of the Eastern Region after the coup. This appointment was ironic as he had spent very little of his life in the east. ojukwu was the most politically active of the four military governors. By mid-1966 the army was imploding and another army coup was staged by northern soldiers during which hundreds of Igbo soldiers (including Ironsi) were killed. A central plank of this coup was the elimination of ojukwu. The ‘pointman’ who was to execute the coup in the eastern region was a young Lieutenant named Shehu Musa Yar’Adua (the older brother of Nigeria’s former President).

Aburi – ojukwu’s Finest Hour

After being dragged to the brink of an abyss by two military coups in 1966, and pogroms which followed them, ojukwu had refused to attend any meetings of the Supreme Military Council until the Ghanaian leader Lt-General Joseph Ankrah brokered a meeting in the neutral territory of Aburi in Ghana in January 1967. This was ojukwu’s finest hour. ojukwu prepared thoroughly and came armed with notes and secretaries. He managed to secure an agreement to devolve power from the federal government to the regions. This turned Nigeria into a confederation. In the words of one writer ojukwu “secured the signatures of the SMC to documents which would have had the effect of turning Nigeria into little more than a customs union".

The federal government attempted to implement the Aburi agreement in diluted form by enacting a modified Constitution (Suspension and Modification) decree (decree cool which turned Nigeria into a de facto confederation, but which did not incorporate ALL of the agreements reached at Aburi. Federal civil servants argued that to implement all of the Aburi agreements would lead to the dissolution of the federation. ojukwu declined to accept the initial draft of the decree and insisted on a full and complete implementation of the Aburi accords.

As the weaker party, could ojukwu still have showed greater pragmatism to spare further suffering for his people? Even with its flaws, decree 8 gave him 90% of what he wanted. The U.S. State Department was “impressed by extent to which decree 8 appears to meet many of East's fundamental demands for much greater regional autonomy. While recognizing that it stops short of granting everything ojukwu wants, Dept. considers decree represents genuine effort by FMG and other Mil Govs to implement Aburi agreements and to retain Nigerian unity in form which least objectionable to East…..Consulate Enugu has reported that some prominent and moderate Easterners may incline toward above view".

WINNER TAKES ALL – NIGERIA’S MALAISE

In the “winner takes all” mentality that is so symptomatic of Nigerian politics, ojukwu unrealistically held out for 100% of his demands and in the end, received 0%. His refusal to be tactically flexible by considering options other than secession, placed him and his people in a worse position than they started in. Rather than turning Nigeria into a confederation (which is what decree 8 did), ojukwu’s give no inch stance gave the federal government an opportunity to overrun the Eastern Region, carve the country into several states and concentrate massive powers in the central government. Forty years later many Nigerians now call for the restructuring of Nigeria, and for devolution of power to its regions. The opportunity to achieve this was squandered 45 years ago at Aburi.

Could ojukwu have achieved his objectives – albeit at a later date, had he been more patient? The old adage is that “the best comes to those who wait”. Could he have accepted confederation in the short-term, then waited patiently until such time that the Eastern Region had enough weapons and infrastructure to sustain a fully independent state in the future?

WAS SECESSION A MISTAKE?

When armed confrontation with the federal government was imminent, ojukwu knew that the Eastern Region had absolutely no chance of victory in an armed conflict with the federal government. Where did he obtain the confidence to secede nonetheless? It certainly was not from international opinion. Western diplomats warned him that they would not recognize a new state of Biafra. In a telegram from the US Department of State to the US Embassy in Nigeria dated March 24, 1967, the U.S. warned:

"East making serious mistake if it under assumption that international recognition of independent East would be easily obtained; our info clearly to contrary". This was the consistent US position as far back as July/August 1966. The US had previously noted that “Both US Ambassador Mathews and UKHICOM Approaching-Bruce have made strong representations in opposition to secession of any area of Nigeria. We consider such development would be major political and economic disaster for Nigerian people and severe setback to independent Africa."

Yet he declared secession, knowing full well that powerful countries would not recognize his new state, and that federal troops would invade immediately after secession. ojukwu doubtless possessed outstanding leadership and motivational skills which he used admirably to pull his people solidly behind the war effort. However, exactly how did he possibly believe that the Eastern Region (armed only with a few elderly World War 2 era rifles) could succeed against an enemy armed with limitless mortars, machine guns, tanks, armoured personnel carriers, trucks and air force jets. One does not have to be a military strategist to see the folly of this decision. [size=12pt]


THE MID-WEST INVASION – A MISTAKE?

Under considerable military pressure from the federal army, in 1967 ojukwu ordered Biafran soldiers to invade the Mid-West Region as a way to relieve military pressure on Biafra’s land, and to force the federal army onto the defensive. The invasion caught the federal government totally off guard and threatened a stunning military humiliation for it.


However, did the invasion of the Mid-West turn into a public relations disaster? The Military Governor of the Mid-West Lt-Colonel Ejoor had repeatedly stated that due to the multi-ethnic composition of his region, the "Mid-West will not be a battleground". Ejoor had even refused to let federal troops cross through his territory. Hence it was regarded as neutral demilitarised territory. However the invasion forced Ejoor off the fence he had been sitting on. He fled to Lagos, now firmly opposed to Biafra. ojukwu had alienated a potential figure of friendly neutrality. The Mid-West was neutral until that invasion and may not have joined the war but for it.

Additionally, the invasion gave the rest of Nigeria the mistaken impression that Biafra's cause was not only about survival, but also about territorial conquest. It escalated the conflict and gave the federal army a free hand to start using heavy weapons, artillery and punishing air raids. Lt-Col Murtala Muhammed's 2nd division of the Nigerian army carried out massive reprisals against Igbos and murdered several hundred as punishment.

FLIGHT TO IVORY COAST

During the war, there was a widely held belief (propagated by ojukwu and other Biafran leaders) that defeat for Biafra would be met by mass genocidal massacres by the federal government. If ojukwu believed this, then his escape at the end of the war is deplorable. After over a million Igbos were killed (90% of whom were civilians), ojukwu fled in the last days of the war when his people were at their lowest ebb, despite repeatedly promising throughout the war that he would never leave them to the mercy of the federal troops. If he believed that all his people would be massacred, then his flight to a exile abroad and refusal to stand side by side with them to finish a war he led them into, cannot be applauded.

http://www.pointblanknews.com/Special_Reports/os4390.html

I have no illusion that Max Siollun is a good historical entity but he still succumbs to author’s imagination and hyperbolism. Please stop quoting Max because his words are not gospel. I have to categorical say that Max’s explanation about Midwestern region debacle is completely flawed with view to chronological order of events.

I guess Max forgot that the force that attacked eastern region and captured Bonny on July 26, 1967 departed from the Nigeria’s training depot at Escravos, Mid-western region of Nigeria. It is clearly that Mid-western region of Nigeria had joined the war on the Nigerian side before the August 8, 1967 inversion by Biafran forces.

van bonattel:

Supposing, just supposing Ojukwu suggested and Ironsi refused, (like he refused Madiebo's advice) then what? Ojukwu will slap him?

Ojukwu will always be a world class genius irrespective of you wishing it away. It is already carved in stone and you are impotent about that fact.

Stop debating like a ninny.

You were insinuating that Ojukwu was a genius because he saw issues with the unitary system which exists in Nigeria today. And I corrected you by telling you that Ojukwu was there when his kinsman destroyed confederationism and gave Nigeria a unitary system. Rather than Ojukwu pointing out the issues with decree 34, he saw the opportunity presented by decree 34 and declared publicly his support for decree 34 by stating that the Igbo would export civil servants to other parts of Nigeria. Think for a minute

So, is there any other reason why we should not believe the verdict of the Prof, that Awolowo was a power hungry, over ambitious bigot?

van bonattel:

a) The new Biafran govt. can legally do something about their investments in a govt vs govt negotiation process
b) What can stop citizens of a new nation from traveling to their neighboring country on business trips?

This guy is a comedian.

a) by choosing to remain in the East, legally they would have lost their investments in other regions??

b) So they couldn't make business trips if Nigeria had 4 confederations?

If I don't respond to any of your posts, don't think its because you are making good points.

Dede1:



I have no illusion that Max Siollun is a good historical entity but he still succumbs to author’s imagination and hyperbolism. Please stop quoting Max because his words are not gospel. I have to categorical say that Max’s explanation about Midwestern region debacle is completely flawed with view to chronological order of events.

I guess Max forgot that the force that attacked eastern region and captured Bonny on July 26, 1967 departed from the Nigeria’s training depot at Escravos, Mid-western region of Nigeria. It is clearly that Mid-western region of Nigeria had joined the war on the Nigerian side before the August 8, 1967 inversion by Biafran forces.

Again, introducing irrelevant information into a debate.

Katsumoto:

Stop debating like a ninny.

You were insinuating that Ojukwu was a genius because he saw issues with the unitary system which exists in Nigeria today. And I corrected you by telling you that Ojukwu was there when his kinsman destroyed confederationism and gave Nigeria a unitary system. Rather than Ojukwu pointing out the issues with decree 34, he saw the opportunity presented by decree 34 and declared publicly his support for decree 34 by stating that the Igbo would export civil servants to other parts of Nigeria. Think for a minute

I think you are the one that needs to close your eyes for a minute and think.......
My premise of calling Ojukwu a genius was on his foresight to have seen that this whole contraption will not work, not on decree 34. And I was telling you that events of the aftermath of the war, and the issues till day present still suggests the west backed the wrong horse. That was my point. Now, what has this got to do with the price of g****[s][/s] decree 34

Katsumoto:

Quit being an annoying pedant. You were expecting a Northerner to go to Enugu? ? ? If Ojukwu couldn't go to Lagos, let alone Kano/Kaduna, why are you expecting a Northerner to go to Enugu? Please use your brain.

It is laughable to read the craps you post on this forum. I had waited for long time to read a post from you where the delegates of so-called National Conciliation Committee (Committee) led by Awolowo visited Gowon in Kaduna, no my bad I meant to write Lagos. Gowon made home and command post in western region yet Awolowo was busy fooling himself about National Conciliation Committee. Again, easterners were no fools.

Katsumoto:

This guy is a comedian.

a) by choosing to remain in the East, legally they would have lost their investments in other regions??

b) So they couldn't make business trips if Nigeria had 4 confederations?

If I don't respond to any of your posts, don't think its because you are making good points.

Please, stop responding, your responses are starting to sound like gibberish, do you understand yourself at all? because I am looking for a toddler to show your drivel, they are the only people who can understand your kindergarten reasoning.

Dede1:


It is laughable to read the craps you post on this forum. I had waited for long time to read a post from you where the delegates of so-called National Conciliation Committee (Committee) led by Awolowo visited Gowon in Kaduna, no my bad I meant to write Lagos. Gowon made home and command post in western region yet Awolowo was busy fooling himself about National Conciliation Committee. Again, easterners were no fools.

......and Gowon was sitting his dry azz at (wait for it) dodan barracks?

van bonattel:

I think you are the one that needs to close your eyes for a minute and think.......
My premise of calling Ojukwu a genius was on his foresight to have seen that this whole contraption will not work, not on decree 34. And I was telling you that events of the aftermath of the war, and the issues till day present still suggests the west backed the wrong horse. That was my point. Now, what has this got to do with the price of g****[s][/s] decree 34

So we should judge ojukwu based on the stand of the west and not on ojukwu's actions and words? No, lets forget that ojukwu embraced decree 34 which unified the country because it offered opportunities and only fought against it when others reacted against the scheming.

I suppose we should also forget that the east backed the 'right horse' in 1959.

Don't you guys ever take responsibility for your own actions?

Katsumoto:

Again, introducing irrelevant information into a debate.

I read in your post the extracts from Max Siollun’s write-up where it indicated “the "Mid-West will not be a battleground". Ejoor had even refused to let federal troops cross through his territory. Hence it was regarded as neutral demilitarized territory”. There is nothing farthest from truth than this crap.

Escravos, Mid-western region was the training depot of the 3MCDO that launched attack on eastern region and captured Bonny on July 12, 1967. And by July 26, 1967, Bonny is securely in the hands of elements of 3MCDO of Nigerian army. If Max Siollun was not under the influence of author’s imagination, he was outright lying about the so-called Mid-western region's false sense of neutrality

Dede1:


I read in your post the extracts from Max Siollun’s write-up where it indicated “the "Mid-West will not be a battleground". Ejoor had even refused to let federal troops cross through his territory. Hence it was regarded as neutral demilitarized territory”. There is nothing farthest from truth than this crap.

Escravos, Mid-western region was the training depot of the 3MCDO that launched attack on eastern region and captured Bonny on July 12, 1967. And by July 26, 1967, Bonny is securely in the hands of elements of 3MCDO of Nigerian army. If Max Siollun was not under the influence of author’s imagination, he was outright lying about the so-called Mid-western region's false sense of neutrality

Someone asked for proof about whether Ojukwu was keen on war or not. I obliged his request by putting up that report. You chose to ignore that point and the evidence supporting it. Instead you decided to go on this runaround. It is in your head that the mid-west was not neutral.

What we know is that Nigeria opened two fronts on Biafra. The northern front through Benue and the southern front through the ocean. The Western front was only opened after Biafra invaded the mid-west. I am not going to debate this with you because those are the facts. You guys always focus on what others are doing. You make your move, the other side doesn't complain but when they react to your first move, you start whining.

nku5: I tell you what with benefit of hindsight we know things could have been done a bit differently. That does not take away the reality of things that happened in the prosecution of the war. Whether we realise it or not, war has rules. If two men are fighting it doesn't give the other the right to look for the other ones chiildren to murder. Okay the war had ended, what about the post-war policies, banning of commodities that would have helped igbo people get back on their feet. As for revisionism you haven't pointed out ONE lie in the article of which only an excerpt was posted. Anybody with the full article should please post so we can read it in full

I think Prof deliberately lied about this. We all know that the Ibos are not only known for second hand clothin. Besides, the second hand cloth term "okrika" became popular after the war. More importantly, should the prof celebrate trading on second hand cloth?

The esteemed Professor Chinua Achebe, has brought the horros of this war back to the forefront.

From what I have noticed recently, there has been questions from the rest of the world to why Nigeria with all of its oil wealth continues to be filled with ignorance, corruption and poverty. Some of you may not want to forget about the war, but 2 million lives were extinguished in that conflict. That is not a small number.

And it would be a travesty to forget about all the lives that were lost in that war not only Biafrans, but the soldiers who fought on behalf of Nigeria. In the United States, we still learn about the Civil War that happened over 150 years ago. The Nigerian Civil War was not that long ago.

.

It must sound true in your ears since you don't know any better.

re@lchange:
achebe has spoken and we know he spoke the truth
all the yaribas can keep kidding themselves

What is even more sad is the fact that most of you cannot see that Nigeria has not progressed after the victorious Nigerian federal troops defeated Biafra. What does Nigeria has to show for it? The county is simply a laughing stock for the rest of the world. You may not want to hear this, but it is the truth.

Nigerians have learned nothing from the war and history has a funny way of repeating itself.

MAYOWAAK: Almost 30 years before Rwanda, before Darfur, more than 2 million people – mothers, children, babies, civilians – lost their lives as a result of the blatantly callous and unnecessary policies enacted by the leaders of the federal government of Nigeria.


The Oxford English Dictionary defines genocide as "the deliberate and systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group ...". The UN general assembly defined it in 1946 as "... a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups". Throughout the conflict the Biafrans consistently charged that the Nigerians had a design to exterminate the Igbo people from the face of the earth. This calculation, the Biafrans insisted, was predicated on a holy jihad proclaimed by mainly Islamic extremists in the Nigerian army and supported by the policies of economic blockade that prevented shipments of humanitarian aid, food and supplies to the needy in Biafra.

Mr Achebe

Why did you conveniently forget that Biafra charged landing fees in foreign currency to charities who were bringing in free food for starving children? Linda Polman's The Crisis Caravan: What’s wrong with humanitarian aid, laid bare into this. If you refuse to believe a foreigner, what about Ntieyong Akpan, secretary to the Eastern government, who wrote in his book, "The Struggle For Succession", that they were unaware that Biafra was charging charities landing fees.

Why did you forget that Gowon insisted on searching food supplies because Biafra was smuggling weapons in with food?

Why did Biafra insist on receiving food supplies at night because it wanted to smuggle weapons in?

Can you tell us of a conflict in which a side which couldn't feed itself wanted to fight an enemy that has you surrounded on all sides?

.,

I read an interesting comment on this, which I think is the truth.

If the Nigerian military government, believed in "No Victor, No Vanquished," then it would have used a type of Marshall Plan to rebuild Eastern Nigeria after it was decimated after the war. Sadly, that did not happen.

Germany brought the entire globe to war TWICE, and after World War II, their country was rebuilt by the Allied Powers. I hope people see the irony of the situation.

MAYOWAAK: Almost 30 years before Rwanda, before Darfur, more than 2 million people – mothers, children, babies, civilians – lost their lives as a result of the blatantly callous and unnecessary policies enacted by the leaders of the federal government of Nigeria.



It is my impression that Awolowo was driven by an overriding ambition for power, for himself and for his Yoruba people. There is, on the surface at least, nothing wrong with those aspirations. However, Awolowo saw the dominant Igbos at the time as the obstacles to that goal, and when the opportunity arose – the Nigeria-Biafra war – his ambition drove him into a frenzy to go to every length to achieve his dreams. In the Biafran case it meant hatching up a diabolical policy to reduce the numbers of his enemies significantly through starvation — eliminating over two million people, mainly members of future generations.

Mr Achebe

Who told you that the Igbos were the dominant group in Nigeria? Why do Igbo sons ascribe to themselves labels such as dominant, most successful, most traveled, responsible for most growth, etc? This is not any different from Ojukwu's 'we possess the largest army in Black Africa' and then proceeded to serve his ass on a plate for some whooping.

Empty barrels make the most noise.

I guess dominance comes from joining another in a coalition against a third group.

Soon you will tell us that you were not awarded a Nobel prize because your group is 'dominant'.

Nebeuwa: What is even more sad is the fact that most of you cannot see that Nigeria has not progressed after the victorious Nigerian federal troops defeated Biafra. What does Nigeria has to show for it? The county is simply a laughing stock for the rest of the world. You may not want to hear this, but it is the truth.

Nigerians have learned nothing from the war and history has a funny way of repeating itself.

Was the war fought to ensure progress?

Did Vietnam become more prosperous than the US after the US left Vietnam?

Nigeria had problems before the war. If Nigeria didn't fight a war, it would have still maintained a downward spiral.

What has reading his book got to do with him being overrated? the things fall apart was forced down secondary students throats by those who wanted to give eastern nigeria chance to recover from the war. there were better literature books, but as always you cried your way into that book being accepted. so tell me what i don't know.

van bonattel:

Have you ever read his books, or are you like the normal educated illiterate Nigerian who will refuse to give credit only on the basis of the authors tribe?