MegaMan2020:

Clearly you haven't because you people are still crying about it to this day.

Recounting and relating what happened during the war do not in any way amount to crying about the war. Adults who lived through the war have it as a duty to tell the younger generation what actially happened. The much we know about the 2 WWs are personal outcomes of people who lived and witnessed the wars. Achebe was right to write but as to whether his claims are genuine and true is open for debates as we are obviously getting now. I read in another site that Pa Adebanjo is going to write his own account as a reply to Achebe, such is needed so that hopefully we truth about the war will surface. BTW what Achebe said is much similar to what my late father and other uncles who took part in the war have told us and I am finding it difficult not to believe them you see.

Katsumoto:

So because you question when a bridge was blown, the rest of the news should be disregarded?

In any case, your rebuttal to a newspaper article is the data in your brain? Are we supposed to accept that you as an embodiment of knowledge when you get simple things wrong. Just yesterday, i had to correct and educate you when you stated that there was no blockade of the south in the US by the union navy during the American civil war.

You have to do better than that; i have exposed you far too many times to accept your word over a newspaper.

I am not surprise at the plank of your argument especially from a person who termed wrestling matches over tubers of yam such as Kiriji as wars. Any busted blockade is not a blockade as in the case of the so-called Union blockade of Southern Confederacy during USA civil war of 1861-65. My beef with the assessment was the moronic analogy the clueless poster such as you tried to establish between Nigeria\Biafra and Union\Confederacy civil wars with respect to blockade. The battle of Ironclad and cases of blockade runners instigated by powerful nations spoke volume or underscored effectiveness of the so-called Union blockade.

Dede1:

I am not surprise at the plank of your argument especially from a person who termed wrestling matches over tubers of yam such as Kiriji as wars. Any busted blockade is not a blockade as in the case of the so-called Union blockade of Southern Confederacy during USA civil war of 1861-65. My beef with the assessment was the moronic analogy the clueless poster such as you tried to establish between Nigeria\Biafra and Union\Confederacy civil wars with respect to blockade. The battle of Ironclad and cases of blockade runners instigated by powerful nations spoke volume or underscored effectiveness of the so-called Union blockade.

Hahahaha

I know you were a Biafran soldier; but given that strategy failed Biafra, I don't expect you to understand the point about blackade and seige but let me try.

All sides in a war try to enforce some sort of blockade on the enemy. They may announce it officially or they may just attempt it. When your enemy tries to enforce a blockade do you accept it or you try to break it one way or the other?

Lincoln announced and enforced a blockade against the South and he was largely successful. That a handful of blockade runners were successful in getting through the blockade does not mean there was no blockade especially when one considers that over 1200 ships were captured or destroyed by the Union Navy.

Similarly, Nigeria enforced a blockade but does that mean arms and supplies did not get through? If we use your logic that there was no blockade in the American civil war simply because a few ships made it through, then we can also conclude that there was no blockade in the Nigerian Civil war because arms and supplies made it to Biafra by air. Or does blockade only refer to sea blockade?

Stop clutching at straws. You made a definitive statement that there was no blockade and I corrected and educated you. Abraham Lincoln announced a blockade of the South on April 19 1861 along over 3000 miles of coastline and 12 sea ports. Blockade ended in 1865.

Relief agencies dont pay landing fees. landing fees are paid by the airlines contracted to fly in the relief. They abinitio calculate these as cost to the agencies. This is done all over the world. In Haiti during the last earthquake crisis, airlines paid landing fees. See below.

Relief Pilot Recounts Time at Haiti's Airport
BY GEORGE MILLER — MARCH 4, 2010
On Monday, March 1, I flew my second relief flight from St. Thomas to Port-au-Prince, Haiti … this time carrying Dr. Leah Coffman (an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in post-op stump care and prosthetic fittings for amputees), a nurse, and an administrator, as well as 190 pounds of medical equipment, and my awesome young co-pilot Henley "Joey" Joseph.
We took off from St. Thomas at 8:20 a.m. and landed in Port-au-Prince exactly three hours later (headwinds).
After parking, we unloaded our passengers, medical equipment and supplies, found our returning passenger, paid our landing fees, filed our paperwork (flight plan & general declarations) all within a half an hour.
Then the wait began … waiting for fuel for our return trip home. We waited another 90 minutes for the avgas fuel truck to arrive with the explanation that it had run out of avgas and had to reload. By coincidence, we arrived just as it had run out.
Another coincidence was that we arrived on the first day since the earthquake that Haitians began operating their airport instead of the U.S. Air Force (although strangely enough, the voice on the ground control frequency had a very thick British accent … delightful chap, most helpful indeed).
I saw cracks in the walls of the terminal building where the control tower is located, but the structure was otherwise intact, and no part of it had collapsed. We had to go up to the second floor to file our paperwork, and pay our landing fees. A shiny escalator and an adjacent staircase connected the ground floor to the second floor of the terminal, but strangely, the escalator operated in descending mode so you had to climb the stairs to file paperwork, pay your fees, and then ride the escalator back down.
To our surprise, shock, and chagrin, we were charged $154 for landing fees (they called them Air Navigation Approach fees and Airport fees).
The escalator anomaly, the exorbitant landing fees, and the fact that (since my previous relief flight to Port au Prince on Jan. 23) the price of avgas had risen from $6.60 to $7.20 per gallon made me contemplate the comment of a Haitian airport employee who said: "Yes, as of today, things are getting back to normal."
Finally after two hours on the ground we were able to take off back to St. Thomas.
As usual, the Baron performed perfectly ... a great little airplane!
George Marshall Miller