3.0 out of 5 stars there was a country that wasn't, 10 Nov 2012
By Mr Nice Guy - See all my reviews
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This review is from: There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra (Hardcover)
Chinua Achebe's reflection on the ill-fated Republic of Biafra could have been a good read but fell short in my opinion. As is to be expected, it is an intellectual exercise by the author full of his trade mark use of a mixture of his native language Igbo and a clear demonstration of his perfect use of English language. what I found disappointing is the lack of details of events in the book, for example, he did not give much details of his involvements, his activities and personal experience. the book lacked research evidence and detailed analysis using his personal experience to convey to the reader what really happened in the war and the role he played in it. It was almost as if he was telling a story that he heard from people who were there or took part. He failed to give details about the main characters or protagonist of the conflict notably Major kaduna Nzeogwu where he came from, his family and military background, Ifeajuna, Banjo, Ojukwu etc (he did a little bit that of Ojukwu. On the ingenuity of Biafrans and their inventions notebly the famous "Ogbunigwe" WMD, he started with an apology about his dislike for war and of being a man of peace. There was no reason for that, he is without a doubt a man of peace but one wanted to know more about the war and his reflection of it. He could have spoken about other inventions of the Biafrans such as how they refined petrol and made beer from cassava leaves etc., the role played by other Igbo people, and scientists, non intellectuals; what led to the disagreement between Ojukwu and Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe . In short, more details was expected by me from the book especially as I was only six years old when the war started and and an Igbo man myself, I would have loved to hear more and know more from someone who was there in person and a participant. I am a fan of Achebe, his style and simplicity of writing of and his intellect I also think that the book is somewhat one-sided in favour of the Igbos albeit that should be be expected. A good book nonetheless
There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra
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DJTee: I refuse to believe and accept there is this much hatred and animosity under the cover of Nairaland's anonymity.....when will you all forget the rantings of an 80 year old man and move on to the more noble task of building up this great nation

Utter nonsense...

To be honest with you that's not possible unless that wound is healed.Is is possible for you to dine,wine and work together with someone who is always proud to say he killed your wife and children.
Nah! Nah! Nah! Things don't work that way

DailyNews: But truly from all indications and from how people respect and shiver at the mention of the name; Igbo or Biafra, it then means that truly THERE WAS A COUNTRY!

i heard, it is safe to wallow in the beauty of one's adulation. I tot u were one non-biased intelligent bloke on NL. But now i see, one can't really scrub a Igbo guy clean from deceit and vague pride...it's your type dt sells puffpuff in the morning, but carry guns at night doing the normal Igbo business.
Like i said, i heard, it's safe, to wallow, in the beauty of one's adulation. Keep it up!

THE MAN MADE MADE MANY VALID POIINTS

shymexx:

You don't need to quote the article to make your point..

Please, modify your post.

seriously? It only aids in making his or ha post more understood and nt to be longer.



I think I agree with Ozudi Thomas, why are our best brains outside there was a time I thought Achebe was in one of the Nigeria unhversities lecturing thefore imparting knowledge to other generations, wont that have been better? Other than refusing honors from the same country? Aside that do we see white lecturers or their professors coming down here because of course the pay is good?
Why should Nigerian's own be a different issue, now ur called a professor by the whites and you call that the pinnacle of achievement? Even if at the end of the day he his given the debated Nobel Prize Award,yes it is his achievement but that does not do more than that for the ordinary Nigerian kid, if we had him here, believe it will be a source of pride for the Nigerian kids or students going out to say they were taught by an icon, so before he talks against or lashes out on Nigerian leaders he should know or remember that he has fuucked up, of what use will he be to the Nigerian system at 82, he has given his best to the white that oppressed him, was he expecting that by lecturing whites another chinua Achebe will come out? Who needs him more his people or his oppressors, he talks of our leaders being corrupt and all that, the selfless service should have started from him. Thats my view, u dnt like it, go cook your self in Hell.

berem: wonderful! A man with no wife and kids? The dude must be fuccking lonely! A lonely man is indeed a Devils Workshop.No wonder he reasons with his arsehole.smh

in your whole warped mind, u probably has seen a point to behold against the man's claim? No wife and kids? Does it matter?
So, you've never seen people, both male and female who decided not to get attached with anythin? Either to concentrate on whatever their passion is or doesn't see the fuss in it? It's clear this is the same mentality your forefathers adopted by jes givin birth to u unintelligent fools who terrorize ds nation with arm robbery and kidnapping and lairs as animalchebe. They could have saved us all this mess if they've undstud it aint by force!

After reading from begining to the end and the level of ignorance displayed by these igbos, i have to agree with the writer on the points raised.
The writer really understood the problem of his fellow igbos.

A history of person, country in 'There Was a Country'
Nigerian author Chinua Achebe ('Things Fall Apart') mixes memoir with history lessons, creating a mired, frustrating story of the author and the eastern Biafra region, which declared itself a republic in 1967, and the civil war that ensued.



Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian author of the groundbreaking 1958 novel "Things Fall Apart," is widely considered the most influential African writer of the 20th century. A staple in school curricula worldwide and with more than 10 million copies in print, Achebe's novel is an African story told in an African manner by an African — remarkable for colonial times.

While Achebe identifies himself as a Nigerian author, he is also Igbo, one of the three most dominant tribes in the vast country of more than 200 million people. It was the Igbo who led the cessation from Nigeria in 1967, forming the Republic of Biafra, resulting in a nearly 3-year-long civil war that killed more than 2 million people, mostly Biafran, who were starved to death by the Nigerian government's food blockade. While recently teaching in Lagos, I could still feel the reverberations from the international disaster, including lingering ethnic tensions and reports of the Boko Haram, the violent northern jihadist separatist group, spreading terror nationwide with what many see as governmental support.

In "There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra," Achebe — now nearly 82 — attempts to reckon with his own dashed expectations as well as those of the Igbo and all Nigerians and Africans. It is an odd, frustrating book, with elements of memoir mixed with a history lesson and accounting of those responsible, including the foreign countries that aided the attempted genocide, and those that tried to end or alleviate the bloodshed.

The early part of the book provides some welcome personal context. Nicknamed "Dictionary," as a boy Achebe was encouraged by his parents, Christian converts, to pursue an education. A member of the so-called Lucky Generation, Achebe took full advantage of the British-built school system. Graduating at the top of his high school class earned him entrée into Ibidan's prestigious University College, where he would become editor of the school newspaper and begin writing fiction.

Spurred by a British English professor's criticism that his writing lacked "form," Achebe writes, "I was moved to put down on paper the story that became 'Things Fall Apart.' I was conscripted by the story." Achebe recounts how he sent the handwritten manuscript, his only copy, to be typed up in London, where it was promptly misplaced. It was only months later that a colleague at the Nigerian Broadcasting Company, on business in London, was able to retrieve it.

Not surprisingly but ironically, Nigeria's best and brightest, including Achebe, pushed against their educators and joined other Africans demanding independence, which was finally granted in 1960. Achebe rightly points out that British rule had sown the seeds of ethnic and geographical tension, and by 1966 there was a military coup, which many in the northern Islamic territories blamed on the Igbo, who, because of their education and ambition, had a disproportionate number of quality jobs in the new country.

The resulting counter coup unleashed a wave of terror that left 20,000 northern Igbo massacred with no intervention by the new government. By the following year, many Igbo had fled to the eastern Biafra region, where they declared their own republic. Achebe, ever hopeful, stayed in Lagos until the outbreak of the war when his life was threatened by rogue soldiers, whereupon he fled to Biafra for the duration of the conflict, leaving only to act as an ambassador, traveling around the world to help bring attention to the humanitarian nightmare.

When writing about the Biafran conflict, Achebe switches from a personal and engaged mode to what feels like an attempt at reasoned, unbiased historian. Considering that Achebe was deeply involved with the government of the breakaway republic and fled Nigeria in 1972 for the U.S., where he has lived on and off ever since, this objective stance is strained at best.

What Achebe does well is document the personality struggle between the opposing leaders, Nigeria's ruthless Gen. Gowon versus headstrong Biafran Gen. Ojunkwu, former Nigerian military men locked in a game of brutal one-upmanship, "blinded by ego," which undoubtedly prolonged the suffering on both sides.

Clearly it is Achebe's intent to show not only the devastating toll the Biafran conflict took on Nigeria but to hold up the Biafran experiment as a noble enterprise, a truly democratic, humanistic model for what could have been in Nigeria, and also perhaps the rest of Africa. Achebe draws a sharp line between the corruption and incompetence plaguing post-colonial Nigeria to the Biafran conflict.

Unfortunately, his argument is muddled by exhaustive, somewhat stultifying sections about the makeup of the Biafran government, committee deliberations over creation of Utopian laws, and the derivation of the national flag and anthem. Much of the prose here is flat and uninspired (and seemingly unedited). To whit: "Food was short, meat was very short, and drugs were short." It is a slog through this messy yet heartfelt hybrid memoir-history for anyone not completely versed in Nigerian history.

The ruthless and reckless decisions that fueled Biafran conflict, mostly swept under the historical rug, are well worth documenting, and Achebe's book is an imperfect attempt at revealing the truth. Just as "Things Fell Apart" blazed the path for more African writers to write their own stories, hopefully "There Was a Country" will bring about more rigorous, soul-searching calls for historical reckoning, a necessary step toward true African democracy.

Spillman is the editor of Tin House and edited "Gods and Soldiers: The Penguin Anthology of Contemporary African Writing."

Wow : I closed my eyes and opened it, the thread has doubled.
The man speaking is an Igbo so I wouldn't want to question his attention. However, the guy tongue lashed Achibe well well.

Why do all threads on this forum degenerate into a tribal war, why cant we just discuss the claims made by both Achebe and Ozodi without insulting our different ethnic grps? Osuji may have stepped over a line when he labelled Achebe a narcissist, but he sure had a good argument. The book was based on the author's opinion not facts. Though a masterpiece, it should be at best regarded as another work of fiction from Dr Achebe.

BOOK REVIEW

In his book about the Biafran war, Achebe veers towards partisan politics rather than a personal memoir or balanced retelling of the history.

In the opening pages of his new memoir, There Was A Country, Chinua Achebe lays claim to 'story', as an almost proper noun in the grandest, most comprehensive of definitions. This story is not just for audiences in the West, with their long history of partial, often reductive interest in Africa, but also for his country of Nigeria and the continent that contains it, as well as for his children and grandchildren - for, basically, everyone.

It is the story of Biafra he proposes to tell. In 1967, after seven years of shoddy nation-building, three eastern states lumped together and broke away from the federation of Nigeria. Achebe, who had come to international attention with his first novel Things Fall Apart, published nine years before, went to work for the secessionist government's Ministry of Information. He travelled around drumming up support for the break-away nation, telling its story to Westerners and Africans alike. He also helmed the National Guidance Committee, which wrote up high-concept ideology to brand what at first seemed like an emerging nation.

History or his story?

In many ways, There Was A Country can be read as a continuation of that mission. The book approaches the story under the auspices of three genres: memoir, poetry, and academia. Achebe begins with a coming-of-age routine, recounting his early life of scholastics, his passion for literature, his burning desire to elevate African stories to a narrative tradition then burdened with cliché, misrepresentation, and outsider exposition. Tucked in between these and other pages are poems, previously published in some form, conjuring the horrors ordinary Biafrans experienced during their three years at war with Nigeria.

But the main mode of narration is academic. Achebe posits that the civil war was touched off by the genocidal ambitions of leading Nigerians, such as the late Obafemi Awolowo, a Yoruba who allegedly could not tolerate the presence of Igbos in the upper echelons of society. He also charges members of the mostly Hausa and Muslim north with systematically killing Igbos in their midst after a tit-for-tat series of coups in 1966.

Achebe details the international reaction to Biafra, the cynicism of leading Western powers who were mostly interested in supporting the most-likely-winner of a fight that had ramifications for the global oil industry. On the other side of the issue was the support of the international artists' corps, as well as national creative figures like Wole Soyinka.

Achebe also outlines the starvation tactics launched against Biafrans, lamenting the sad icon of children with hunger-swollen bellies, and the indiscriminate bomb raids perpetuated by Nigeria's air force.

In the end, he continues, two million people were dead, most of them Igbos who dreamed of a homeland that would foster the freedom to achieve. Survivors were inadequately reintegrated into the federation, with legislation and compensation conspiring against Igbo equality. Achebe decries Nigeria's present condition and makes recommendations for stronger public institutions, freer elections, and ethnic and religious tolerance. That's his story.

There was an imbalance?

That Achebe, who won the Man Booker International Prize in 2007, might be the man to tell this story - to tell any African story - is taken for granted. Things Fall Apart, for which he is still best known outside of Nigeria, has had a staggering reach since its publication in 1958. It has been translated into at least 50 languages and revered by critics on both sides of the global hemispheric divide. It remains go-to reading for outsiders visiting Africa for the first time and looking to gain the kinds of insight more readily available in fiction than non-fiction.

And, in addition to the dozens of other books Achebe has written, and to the scores of articles, he has worked hard as an editor connecting other African writers to international readerships. The London-based publisher Heinemann Educational Books tapped Achebe to edit a book list called the African Writers Series, for which, from 1962 to 1972, Achebe worked as an advisory editor.

Meanwhile, There Was A Country has, perhaps unsurprisingly given the sensitivity of its topic, rankled its fair share of Nigerians, some of whom have spoken out against the author in the national media.

Certainly, Achebe's memoir smacks hard of ethnic nationalism. Never does he directly disparage anyone of Yoruba or Hausa descent, Nigeria's other two most populous peoples, but his celebration of the Igbo as enterprising and industrious and common descriptions in Igbo identity-construction sometimes teeters into jingoism, if only because the rest of the country is portrayed as unable to achieve much of anything without Igbo contributions.

Biafra itself is presented as a utopia, a Mecca of freedom and a manifestation of pan-African independence. That its leader, Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, was an early participant in the country's decades-long issue with military dictatorships is not directly mentioned, even though it is obviously incongruent with Achebe's rhetoric of freedom. Likewise, allegations of human rights violations against Biafran soldiers are brushed off by the author as simply unlikely, not the sort of thing he saw personally.

Painting a partisan picture

It is hard not to think of Achebe acolyte and fellow Igbo Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, whose second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, also explores the Biafran war. This account seems to offer a much more realistic story, one complete with the moral degradation of the Biafran army, which is smeared with rape and child soldiering. Compared to her story, Achebe's seems like propaganda, which is fitting considering his role in the secession but nonetheless dangerous stuff in a country that continues to experience tensions along the same lines as in the late 1960s. Even Adichie, writing recently in The London Review of Books, seems disappointed in her mentor, though for reasons she suggests more than explores.

Finally, storytelling is hard work, no matter where the teller was born. In There Was A Country, Achebe spends too little time with the memoir trope of his project. The pro-Biafra academic treatise is the focus of his energies, while the poems offer nothing especially new, well-written as they are, and were the first time they were published.

Achebe dispenses with key events in his life in just a paragraph or two, seldom inviting the reader to touch or smell or hear much of anything. His traditionally laconic prose style does no service to these brief treatments, and what usually comes off as a sparse but meaningful approach to language here often reads as clumsy and incomplete, leaden with passive constructions and, for a man who boasts of being nicknamed Dictionary, much too reliant on vague verb choices.

If telling an honest and true story is the business of the writer, and Achebe would attest that indeed it is, then one of Africa's most celebrated tellers of truth has missed his mark. What we have here instead is mostly a partisan story about politics, rather than a sound contribution to the bigger picture.

Paul Carlucci is a Canadian writer and journalist. He's reported from Ghana and Ivory Coast for Think Africa Press, IPS Africa, Al Jazeera English, the Toronto Star, and the Toronto Standard. His short fiction has been published in Canadian journals and magazines, and a collection of his stories will be published by Oberon Press in Fall 2013. Follow him on twitter @PaulCarlucci.

Andre Uweh: @topic, as you know, Dr Osuji is a mad man and no one ever takes him serious.
On ageing writers are generally expected to write autobiographies that sum up their writing carrers. The shameless maggot called Ozodi should know that there is nothing wrong in one publishing his memoirs at whatever age. Ozodi the ape was in the war, and has not yet published his own memoirs. What a hypocrite.
On Achebe been a historian, Prof Achebe did not take that credit and has never done so. You do not need to be a trained historian to publish a book of notes you jotted down during a war. Most people who have written about the war were not historians e.g Madiebo, Obasanjo, Amadi etc.
On verification. Achebe's facts are verifiabe as he used footnotes and at the end of the book, listed all his references. It seems the Chimpazee called Osuji read the book turned upside down.
Ozodi's attempt at history is flawed as always, he claimed that Achebe was born around the time the British were penetrating AlaIgbo. Wrong, for more than 40 years before Achebe's birth, The British have penetrated Alaigbo through companies, protectorate and later formal colonialism. Ozodi, should go into history as it's not his field.
Contrary to Osuji's article, Prof Achebe did not see the actions of Igbo people right and others wrong. Prof Achebe on many ocassions condenmed the actions of his own people. Prof Achebe even cited Uwechue's reasons for resignation as an envoy and supportd his claims. Am sure Ozodi did not see that page.
On Ministry of information, Achebe left the ministry long ago to serve as an envoy, as a result was not i nvolved in any Biafran propaganda.
On writers formulating policies for Ojukwu. Ozodi was wrong, Ojukwu wanted a philosophy in line with Nyerere's Arusha declaration, so he gathered intellectuals in Biafra to formulate that policy which later became Ahiara declaration. Surely, Ozodi hasn't read the Ahiara declaration document.
On recruitment into the Biafran army, Prof Achebe was not responsible for that. Most people recruited to join the Biafran army were from 18 years and above. Those who were sent to the war front were from18 years and above. The young Biafrans who were less than 18 were not involved in the war. Ozodimgba the ape couldn't have joined the army at 14 and fought in the war. Surely, he is false about his age.
On corrution, Achebe did not single the Igbo people as less corrupt from others. He even saw an Hausa man as less corrupt than his own southern Nigerian people. So he joined Aminu Kano's party for this reason and others.
Ozodi should have querried the Indian defeat in the hands of Britain. India with a population almost twice of Africa were defeated by the Brits and compared to the Igbo defeat by the Brits.
On the Igbo, Yoruba etc, Prof Achebe at no time said Igbo students or civil servants did better than others. Achebe studied at U.I, and has praises for non Igbo people who excelled in U.I. Prof Achebe does not hate Yorubas and throught his memoirs poured encomiums on Yorubas such as Soyinka, Amos Tutuola, Hubert Ogunde etc. What is Osuji insunuating?.
As usual, people will always poopoo on Osuji's article. Shameless man.

You are full of crap, crap and more crap. Osuji is the first de-tribalised and civilised igbo I have encountered. I have often wondered why igbos are so intellectually backward yet with overblown ego, I realised its only igbos that can travel to a developed country, school and work there for 20yrs and yet are able to come home to their village to marry a local girl and still be able to relate with her and her. It simply shows how undeveloped the igbo mind can remain even in an intellectually
Fertile environment. Mr osuji please be assured you have my full respects and please continue to be yourself as the truth will always eventually drown lies

ACHEBE AND HIS FELLOW IBOS, yet this idiot claims to be an Ibo man. a yoruba idiot using Ibo name

nku5: Osuji is a reject and sociopath. Naturally he wll be appreciated by the enemy.

Mr. Ozodi Thomas Osuji wrote an article titled “False Sense of Victimization in Achebe’s Worldview”, which was published on the Nigerian Internet portal Nigeriavillagesquare.com. This article dated 15th October 2008, was a supposed response to Achebe’s Lecture marking the Guardian Silver Jubilee at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in Lagos; in which the legend recapitulated his relationship with Nigeria. Osuji’s pedestrian attempts to contribute a voice to such a discourse would have been wonderful if its contributions were an intelligent analysis or a logical and factual rebuttal of Achebe’s position. But Osuji on the contrary achieved only a wooden advertisement of his schizophrenia. What that piece lacked in merits, it made up for with a mishmash of cheap innuendoes, false scholarship, self-loathing and a pathological attempt to throw Lilliputian darts at the tallest African in the house of literature. The pseudo-intellectual diarrhoea, which he dumped on those pages, was a lewd masturbation to assuage his psychological priapism. And from this psychological imbalance, no one can save him and his heritage of stupidity.

It has long been a personal principle never to dignify fools like Osuji with an essay-length rebuttal. This lies in the fact that there is no need joining issues with the ranting of depraved scoundrels, who, as congenital attention-starved underachievers are pathologically allergic to the achievements of genius resident in others. My stand here equally flows from some many veritable reasons. First and foremost, the truth will never convince a mind impervious to reason, or one in the thralls of intellectual leprosy, like Osuji’s. Secondly, I have forever found other preoccupations pertinent than to treasure the irreverent conversations of this fool. This is a man, who was quite early introduced to his own insignificance, than he graduated into an underachiever per excellence. This is a mentally deformed man, with nothing more than a subsisting inferiority complex. The stupidity, with which he was favoured by nature, makes him think highly of his congenital allergy to reason. He thinks highly of his monumental indisposition and pathological rejection of his intellectual superiors. This guy is neither sensible nor agreeable. His society is irksome, and his occupations senile.

But responding to his latest gaffe became necessary because few simpletons have cut so an unglamorous a figure in their notorious tendency to capture falsehoods from the jaws of truth, like Osuji has grown adept at doing. I am responding to Osuji’s latest celebration of ignorance also because of the fact that I nurse a derisive disrespect for pretentiousness. And the more he pretended to scholarship; the more his disabilities annoy and amply misinform other closet idiots of his ilk, who are wont to cheerlead his madness, or run the risk of running with the diet of falsehoods, which generate the kind of intellectual constipation required to smear a giant like Achebe. Suffice it to note that as there exists always an eager cast of spectators and captive audience for any dressing-up game or idiotic presentation, there is equally an appreciative audience for any doggerel performance, where an idiot chooses to show his undeodorized anus in broad public view.

We are finally called upon to battle a mad man because of the danger he poses to the unwary. His mismanagement of his diseased mind, and the toxic falsehoods generated therefrom, runs the risk of corrupting public place with the malodorous lies. The silence of men of conviction seems to have empowered the audacious impunity of Osuji’s madness. The stream of outrageously nonsensical spoofs oozing from his sick head would have been taken as some soft porn for the lewd minds, who masturbate at his pseudo-intellectual obscenities, save for the fact that the unenlightened Nigerian accidents resident in his worldview, take his logical obscenities as kosher for their mental instabilities. What Ozodi Osuji lacked in taste and polish, he made up for in ignorance and envious denigration of others. That is why we have decided to give him a rejoinder.

Igbos always disappoint unfailingly. From the english you speak you aPpear educated but see how unobjective you are? I realised that igbos are the only tribe in nig where an educated person and an illiterate have no difference in thinking. So all the truths told by your brother osuji has not raised a soul search in you? You will rather pelt him with stones? Very disappointing

nku5: Osuji is a reject and sociopath. Naturally he wll be appreciated by the enemy.

Mr. Ozodi Thomas Osuji wrote an article titled “False Sense of Victimization in Achebe’s Worldview”, which was published on the Nigerian Internet portal Nigeriavillagesquare.com. This article dated 15th October 2008, was a supposed response to Achebe’s Lecture marking the Guardian Silver Jubilee at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in Lagos; in which the legend recapitulated his relationship with Nigeria. Osuji’s pedestrian attempts to contribute a voice to such a discourse would have been wonderful if its contributions were an intelligent analysis or a logical and factual rebuttal of Achebe’s position. But Osuji on the contrary achieved only a wooden advertisement of his schizophrenia. What that piece lacked in merits, it made up for with a mishmash of cheap innuendoes, false scholarship, self-loathing and a pathological attempt to throw Lilliputian darts at the tallest African in the house of literature. The pseudo-intellectual diarrhoea, which he dumped on those pages, was a lewd masturbation to assuage his psychological priapism. And from this psychological imbalance, no one can save him and his heritage of stupidity.

It has long been a personal principle never to dignify fools like Osuji with an essay-length rebuttal. This lies in the fact that there is no need joining issues with the ranting of depraved scoundrels, who, as congenital attention-starved underachievers are pathologically allergic to the achievements of genius resident in others. My stand here equally flows from some many veritable reasons. First and foremost, the truth will never convince a mind impervious to reason, or one in the thralls of intellectual leprosy, like Osuji’s. Secondly, I have forever found other preoccupations pertinent than to treasure the irreverent conversations of this fool. This is a man, who was quite early introduced to his own insignificance, than he graduated into an underachiever per excellence. This is a mentally deformed man, with nothing more than a subsisting inferiority complex. The stupidity, with which he was favoured by nature, makes him think highly of his congenital allergy to reason. He thinks highly of his monumental indisposition and pathological rejection of his intellectual superiors. This guy is neither sensible nor agreeable. His society is irksome, and his occupations senile.

But responding to his latest gaffe became necessary because few simpletons have cut so an unglamorous a figure in their notorious tendency to capture falsehoods from the jaws of truth, like Osuji has grown adept at doing. I am responding to Osuji’s latest celebration of ignorance also because of the fact that I nurse a derisive disrespect for pretentiousness. And the more he pretended to scholarship; the more his disabilities annoy and amply misinform other closet idiots of his ilk, who are wont to cheerlead his madness, or run the risk of running with the diet of falsehoods, which generate the kind of intellectual constipation required to smear a giant like Achebe. Suffice it to note that as there exists always an eager cast of spectators and captive audience for any dressing-up game or idiotic presentation, there is equally an appreciative audience for any doggerel performance, where an idiot chooses to show his undeodorized anus in broad public view.

We are finally called upon to battle a mad man because of the danger he poses to the unwary. His mismanagement of his diseased mind, and the toxic falsehoods generated therefrom, runs the risk of corrupting public place with the malodorous lies. The silence of men of conviction seems to have empowered the audacious impunity of Osuji’s madness. The stream of outrageously nonsensical spoofs oozing from his sick head would have been taken as some soft porn for the lewd minds, who masturbate at his pseudo-intellectual obscenities, save for the fact that the unenlightened Nigerian accidents resident in his worldview, take his logical obscenities as kosher for their mental instabilities. What Ozodi Osuji lacked in taste and polish, he made up for in ignorance and envious denigration of others. That is why we have decided to give him a rejoinder.

Igbos always disappoint unfailingly. From the english you speak you aPpear educated but see how unobjective you are? I realised that igbos are the only tribe in nig where an educated person and an illiterate have no difference in thinking. So all the truths told by your brother osuji has not raised a soul search in you? You will rather pelt him with stones? Very disappointing

inufele2: Igbos need to do some soul searching, their attitude of arrogance, pride and feeling superior to others will continue to annihilate them.

....even here on nairaland you can see that arrogance, pride and feeling of superiority to others. However kudos to the peace loving yorubas, who despite knowing of the deep seated hatred of the ibo for her, still continue to tolerate the ibos and allow them live and flourish in their lands.

chief batiatus:

Igbos always disappoint unfailingly. From the english you speak you aPpear educated but see how unobjective you are? I realised that igbos are the only tribe in nig where an educated person and an illiterate have no difference in thinking. So all the truths told by your brother osuji has not raised a soul search in you? You will rather pelt him with stones? Very disappointing

I know that you are disappionted now you know Thomas Ozodi is your brother. Your tibes man. I have told you how his mother TiTi was impregnated by a yoruba man in Lagos.

He is just writing these rubbish because he was never accepted in Igbo land.

He is a reject in Igbo land. Igbos Naturally do not marry Yoruba ladies unless on friendship bases. We have sense naa

Beautiful and enlightening piece written by Mr Osuji. I read it with an open mind, and everything he said made intellectual sense. Then i started reading the comments from the igbo pple commenting, and it just makes all what the man said more valid. Some pple admitted to not even reading the whole piece before commenting...what does that tell u.

I would say one thing though; this write-up would definitely bring tears to Achebe's eyes if he is true to himself while reading it.

Beautiful and enlightening piece written by Mr Osuji. I read it with an open mind, and everything he said made intellectual sense. Then i started reading the comments from the igbo pple commenting, and it just makes all what the man said more valid. Some pple admitted to not even reading the whole piece before commenting...what does that tell u.

I would say one thing though; this write-up would definitely bring tears to Achebe's eyes if he is true to himself while reading it.

And i am not a hater of any tribe...i lived in Anambra a full year during NYSC, and continue to go back once in a while cos of a girl i met there. But the amount of views and comments this thread has generated just shows that truth is bitter.

chief batiatus:

Igbos always disappoint unfailingly. From the english you speak you aPpear educated but see how unobjective you are? I realised that igbos are the only tribe in nig where an educated person and an illiterate have no difference in thinking. So all the truths told by your brother osuji has not raised a soul search in you? You will rather pelt him with stones? Very disappointing

How on earth am I supposed to pick anything from Osuji when he rambles endlessly wiithout "connecting any dots". For example see the following excerpt where he tries to fault Achebe's assertion that nigeria's 1st Republic was corrupt -

Achebe talked about the events that led to the war as if Igbo’s were always right and other Nigerians always wrong. For example, corruption is endemic in Nigeria . Achebe gave the impression that this disease of Nigerians did not affect his Igbos. All we need to do if we are interested in actual history is examine the behavior of actual Igbos to see if they, too, were corrupt.

Igbos did not have chiefs and kings; Igbos were a stateless people. Frederick Lugard, the Briton who clubbed Nigerian tribes together in 1914, decided to appoint what he called warrant chiefs in those parts of Nigeria that did not have chiefs. He wanted to rule the country through what he called indirect rule: ruling the people through their chiefs and that way save on administrative cost of running such a huge country, a country about four times the size of England.

Lugard appointed warrant chiefs in Alaigbo. In each Igbo town he appointed a chief and thereafter established what he called Native Authorities where the various chiefs in a district came together to solve their mutual problems. The chiefs acted as courts adjudicating on the people’s customary issues. (Lugard appointed white district officers who had the authority to over rule what the African chiefs did.)

Igbo warrant chiefs were probably the most corrupt set of human beings that have walked this earth! They gave themselves access to many wives, including Being Intimate with the wives of men who brought their issues to their courts. They did nothing for the people without taking bribes from them.

The point here is that right from the beginning of the British era in Nigeria , Igbos showed that they were as corrupt as other Nigerians. When Igbos were brought into the Nigerian civil services, like other Nigerians they personalized their offices and took bribes before they hired people or promoted them or provided any service to the public.

One is not saying that Igbos were particularly egregious in this bribery taking matter; one is just saying that Igbos were as culprit as other Nigerians in the issue"


If YOU will be objective you will notice that he tried to infer that igbos were corrupt like everybody else. While not trying to say igbos are all saints, Osuji hopped like a drunk bull frog from history about warrant chiefs in 1914 to buttress an unconnected point. He writes with flair and confidence in ways that thrill and tickle his like minds and no one else. People I have noticed DON'T READ for themselves but jump on the bandwagon. Bigotry it seems diminishes intelligence and kills even the minimal required attention span

okunoba: BOOK REVIEW


But the main mode of narration is academic. Achebe posits that the civil war was touched off by the genocidal ambitions of leading Nigerians, such as the late Obafemi Awolowo, a Yoruba who allegedly could not tolerate the presence of Igbos in the upper echelons of society. He also charges members of the mostly Hausa and Muslim north with systematically killing Igbos in their midst after a tit-for-tat series of coups in 1966.


@PaulCarlucci.

bosom for tat or is it t.i.t for tat

nairaland magic editor

This is so revealing. An Eye Opener. Now I know better. . . In as much as i still do believe that we are one NIGERIA.. . . . . . . God Bless Nigeria

inufele2:
Stop turning in a circle like a lunatic, I throw you a challenge its either you take it or fckk off! Osuji is a psychopath? Ok agreed now disprove the points of this psychopath and prove he's wrong otherwise this so called psychopath is better than you simples.

Challenge? u never did, u were only regurgitating what Osuji did and I raised a vital point Osuji was trying to evade, GENOCIDE! Over to u now, was their a GENOCIDE againt defenseless Biafrans or not?

osuji:

This is the Nigerian lay of the land. Obviously, this is not good for it often leads to hiring incompetent fellow ethnics rather than hiring qualified persons from other ethnic groups. This ethnic nepotism business is not correlated to economic progress, but who said that Nigeria is looking for economic development? All Nigerians want to do is share the money they get from oil and use it to eat and be happy; joining the rest of the world in economic development is not their issue.

Igbos tend to believe that they are superior to other Nigerians and that if hiring for jobs are based on merit that more Igbos would be hired than other ethnic Nigerians. This belief is part of their delusion of superiority.

There is no empirical evidence that Igbos do better at schools than other Nigerians. Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa do the same at schools and examinations. Therefore, if examinations and competence is used in recruiting civil servants in Nigeria all the ethnic groups would be equally represented (provided that all of them have equal access to education).

The salient point is that Igbos are under the delusion that if competence was valued that somehow they would have heads up over other Nigerians; that is not true.

Achebe operating on the false premise that his fellow Igbos would be over represented in the civil service if merit was the criterion for hiring people thinks that any Igbo who applies for a job and was not hired that the reason is because of tribalism. He is wrong. There are other
Nigerians who are as qualified as Igbos.

(During the colonial era, apparently, out of respect for Islam the British colonials did not encourage Christian missionaries to go build Christian schools in the North, a Muslim area. Thus, upon independence in 1960 there were noticeably more educated Christian southerners, such as they were, than northerners. The correct approach to this imbalance was to build schools and do whatever was necessary to bring Hausas up to snuff with other Nigerians without holding any one down. How about offering all Nigerian children free public education through secondary school and tuition waiver at the university for brilliant ones, especially in the sciences? The money stolen by Nigerian big wigs certainly could have paid for this service.)

Regarding the quota system which Nigerian ministries and states used to hire their people, well, it is unfair, but who said that life is fair?

Why will anyone listen to a man celebrating mediocrity! This man who see reason in dethroning competence for nepotism has no competence reviewing the works of a man whose competence has been acknowledged worldwide, not once and not twice.
Unfortunately, in his depraved mind He could not recognise that Asians are foreigners in the US, are Igbos foreigners in Nigeria? If they can not demand the prioritisation of competence, why should any Nigerian for that matter demand good governance.

That also brings me to the writer below;

naughtybig: ....even here on nairaland you can see that arrogance, pride and feeling of superiority to others. However kudos to the peace loving yorubas, who despite knowing of the deep seated hatred of the ibo for her, still continue to tolerate the ibos and allow them live and flourish in their lands.

Igbos are all that yet you continue to love them and live with them? you either love those qualities or you are lying or you have a hidden interest in having them around, especially when the majority of them do not want you near them. And where exactly is the land you talk about, within or outside Nigeria? is it the same that was fought over as one Nigeria? Why would anyone need your tolerance to live in one country that he belongs to or are you preaching oneness with one hand and tribal nationhood with the other? With today's Nigeria, and its multi-fractured identities I really wonder what the so called Nigeria fought for in 1966. The so called winners seem to have been informally enthroning the Biafran agenda of division ever since the civil war.

Achebe has made his mark, Unfortunately it has severely unveiled the true image of the so called Yoruba tribal sage, Awolowo. While I do not value Awolowo for anything other than nepotism and tribal politics, I understand why yorubas will not rest in their efforts to discredit Chinua's write up. The latest strategy of recruiting half- Yoruba, half Igbo bastards like Osuji might have held prospect of success if only the man was intellectually functioning apart from his obvious case of dementia and mediocrity. Alas, Achebe is a man astutely built on competence that has been acclaimed over years of scholarship. Even an idi.ot will see through these lazy attempts to portray him as incompetent as soon as he wrote negative view of Awolowo. Again these attempts are understandable given the cult following given to Awolowo by his Yoruba minions.

Food for thought: Perhaps, It is these Igbos obsession with competence that makes them wholly uncomfortable in Nigeria, where, according to Mr. Osuji, every body practices mediocrity (And according to Osuji, it is alright since everyone practices it) This his postulation seems to be supported by the fact that modern Nigeria is not even competent enough to provide herself with the basic provisions of urban life, electricity, pipe borne water, even a coherent traffic control seems to be a great challenge. I often wonder how such a "great nation" will run a nuclear power plant.lol

tomakint:
Challenge? u never did, u were only regurgitating what Osuji did and I raised a vital point Osuji was trying to evade, GENOCIDE! Over to u now, was their a GENOCIDE againt defenseless Biafrans or not?

There was a genocide of which Ojukwu was part and parcel of! what will you call a leader that forced children to fight against their will, armed them with sub standard weapons and brainwashed them with bitterness, revenge and fake Igbo nationalist agenda?
What will you call a leader that watched many biafran innocent and defenceless children die like chickens without taking steps to save their lives even if it means he has to sacrifice his?

Yorope are holding on osuji claim just to clear their guilty conscience from evil war crimes and genocide committed by awolowo,poor osuji has long time been told many times by his kinsmen that he is not igbo, that he has no biological-link in his so call native land now he is acting like a prodigal son but he should remember that if u are not igbo by blood/DNA you will never be accepted ...we have too many enemies....

No one has a guilty conscience but it would be foolish to allow one group's version of TRUTH to prevail.There was a war, a partisan conflict with partisan interpretations and we should be honest about that.We should accept that others see truth differently from us and move on.It is NEVER going to happen that one side accepts the other's version of truth so short of starting another war we can continue saying the same thing till 2112 nothing will change.

I believe we alredy know what we all believe, is there some hope that one group will be bullied into submission and say "yes we are wrong you are right".
Nigeria won and Biafra lost so the Biafran diehards should maybe regroup and start again as nothing will be achieved with all this talking

@inufBefore u take Osuji's account as ur 'gospel' try to read General Madiebo's on the war u will av a full grasp of the true picture on how genocide was committed against the Biafrans. All those claims that the FG was tryin to send food to the Biafrans were 'laughable propaganda' the food sent to Biafra by FG were for the FG troops in occupied territories of Biafra. Ojukwu insisted on the usual route for food supply from foreign aid but Gowon refused, there the starvation-driven GENOCIDE sets in!

tomakint: @inufBefore u take Osuji's account as ur 'gospel' try to read General Madiebo's on the war u will av a full grasp of the true picture on how genocide was committed against the Biafrans. All those claims that the FG was tryin to send food to the Biafrans were 'laughable propaganda' the food sent to Biafra by FG were for the FG troops in occupied territories of Biafra. Ojukwu insisted on the usual route for food supply from foreign aid but Gowon refused, there the starvation-driven GENOCIDE sets in!

Dude on a serious note lets try and be reasonable for once, there was a genocide which is highly regrettable but trying to place the blame solely on Awolowo, Gowon and labelling Yorubas as cowards while placing no blame on the Biafran leaders is not only one sided but insensitive and dangerous for the future generations.

Therefore I will subscribe to aribisalas post below

aribisala0: No one has a guilty conscience but it would be foolish to allow one group's version of TRUTH to prevail.There was a war, a partisan conflict with partisan interpretations and we should be honest about that.We should accept that others see truth differently from us and move on.It is NEVER going to happen that one side accepts the other's version of truth so short of starting another war we can continue saying the same thing till 2112 nothing will change.

I believe we alredy know what we all believe, is there some hope that one group will be bullied into submission and say "yes we are wrong you are right".
Nigeria won and Biafra lost so the Biafran diehards should maybe regroup and start again as nothing will be achieved with all this talking

tomakint: @inufBefore u take Osuji's account as ur 'gospel' try to read General Madiebo's on the war u will av a full grasp of the true picture on how genocide was committed against the Biafrans. All those claims that the FG was tryin to send food to the Biafrans were 'laughable propaganda' the food sent to Biafra by FG were for the FG troops in occupied territories of Biafra. Ojukwu insisted on the usual route for food supply from foreign aid but Gowon refused, there the starvation-driven GENOCIDE sets in!

simple and short,the thing is that guilty conscience is making them to argue blindly, some said how can u feed your enemy that phrase was took from awolowo the devil,he made the same statement that why he use Egyptian pilots to bomb red cross camps and schools and hospitals and u wonder how an evil blood sucker of a man like awolowo be judge in hell,well GOD is not sleeping we all know the truth no matter how they try to bend it that will be in vein the victims have told their own stories and in history attention are always pay on the victims they will tell you what really happen....

Definately one of d most enligtning articles I av read. And I cant believe after going through 11 pages no sensible point can be drawn frm all the writer's critics. I wonder who will cure these pple of their self-destructive mentality.