I recommend Ralph Uwechue’s book to every Nigerian, not only because of the analysis and conclusions he supplies about the war, but because the man is coruscatingly intelligent. President Senghor praises him further: “What he proposes to us, after presenting us with a series of verifiable facts, is more than just a solution. It is a method of finding solutions that are at once just and effective. Herein lies his double merit. Uwechue is a man well informed and consequently objective. He is a man of principle who is at the same time, a realist. All through the length of the work, which is clear and brief, we find the combination of practice and theory, of methodical pragmatism and moral rationalism – a characteristic which marks out the very best amongst the anglophones.” In other words, he is everything Achebe is not.
Of course, the epic humanitarian catastrophe was Biafra’s golden goose. Achebe writes revealingly: “Ojukwu seized upon this humanitarian emergency and channelled the Biafran propaganda machinery to broadcast and showcase the suffering of Biafra to the world. In one speech, he accused Gowon of a ‘calculated war of destruction and genocide’. Known in some circles as the ‘Biafran babies’ speech, it was hugely effective and touched the hearts of many around the world. This move was brilliant in a couple of respects. First, it deflected from himself or his war cabinet any sentiment of culpability and outrage that might have been welling up in the hearts and minds of Biafrans. And second, it was another opportunity to cast his arch-nemesis, Gowon, in negative light (pg 210). Ojukwu never made efforts to take care of those little children as any leader with a heart would do. Instead, Achebe continues: he “dispatched several of his ambassadors to world’s capitals hoping to build on the momentum from his broadcast”.
But the world’s capitals refused to be duped. Their spies and diplomats were collating independent facts and insiders’ accounts. Sir Louis Mbanefo, the Biafran Chief Justice, then emitted a Nessum Dorma howl: “…If we are condemned to die, alright, we will die. But, at least, let the world and the United States, be honest about it (pg 211).”
Uwechue did what Achebe never did: acting from a firm moral base, he berated Ojukwu and all the Biafran leaders for rallying the Igbo to die en masse for the secession. “Sovereignty or mass suicide,” he writes, “is an irresponsible slogan unworthy of the sanction or encouragement of any serious and sensible leadership.” What could have caused a thinking man to at least flinch, Achebe rejoices in. Here, he is narrating the “explosion of musical, lyrical, and poetic creativity and artistry (pg151)” that the Biafran war had brought about. “But if the price is death for all we hold dear/ Then let us die without a shred of fear…/Spilling our blood we’ll count a privilege…/We shall remember those who died en mass…(pg 152)”
That is the Biafran national anthem, Land of the Rising Sun. Achebe continues: “The anthem was set to the beautiful music of the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius….” And for any group to compare the Biafran deaths to the Holocaust is to desecrate the Holocaust and cast insults on the memory of the Jewish dead. European Jewry never had an anthem rallying themselves to mass deaths this way.
Another telling episode in the book is the war-ready celebrations amongst Biafran Christians in their houses of God: “Biafran churches made links to the persecution of the early Christians, others on radio to the Inquisition and the persecution of the Jewish people. The prevalent mantra of the time was ‘Ojukwu nyeanyiegbekaanyinuo agha’ – ‘Ojukwu give us guns to fight a war.’ It was an energetic, infectious duty song, one sung to a well-known melody and used effectively to recruit young men into the People’s Army (the army of the Republic of Biafra). But in the early stages of the war, when Biafran army grew quite rapidly, sadly Ojukwu had no guns to give those brave souls (pg 171).” “Sadly”… “brave souls”… “in the house of God” are all Achebe’s words.
Ojukwu’s wrong-headed intransigence to take another path in place of secession that was even alarming to neutral observers never makes it into this book unlike other books that recounted the stories. Azikiwe’s Origins of Civil War lists the properties Ojukwu stole even before he declared secession. How “he obstructed the passage of goods belonging to neighbouring countries like, Cameroun, Chad and Niger, and expropriated them”. Achebe writes that wealthy Biafrans’ private accounts were used to buy hardwares for the war. He never tells us that Ojukwu stole via armed robbery, money worth billions in today‘s rates, at the CBN branches at Benin, Calabar and Enugu, because he had no money to prosecute a war he was obsessed with, fighting without thinking the consequences through. Achebe never berates Ojukwu, both then and now that he is recollecting with benefit of hindsight on clearly invalid judgements. For instance, swindled by propaganda, Dick Tiger, the Liverpool-based Nigerian boxer, renounced his MBE to come and fight for Biafra. Achebe writes: “Ojukwu made Dick Tiger a lieutenant in the army of Biafra as soon as he enlisted (pg 158.)” That was a man with no military training or background being given over a hundred fighters to command as an assistant of a captain by just showing up in Nigeria!
Instead of upbraiding him, Achebe goes on to praise Ojukwu as a man who needed little or no advice. “This trait would bring Ojukwu in direct collision with some senior Biafrans, such as Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Dr. Michael Okpara, Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani and a few others, who were concerned about Ojukwu’s tendency toward introversion and independent decision making (pg119).” The US State Department’s files on Ojukwu did not dignify dictatorship with fanciful language the way Achebe does; they called it by its proper name. Here is a telegram cabled to Washington and some other American embassies worldwide:
“Internal situation has changed a great deal since secession was first declared. Ojukwu now rules as a dictator and moves about surrounded by retinue of relatives and yes men. Responsible Ibos, who had been advising him at the start of the war, have been eliminated in one way or the other from the picture because they came to believe accommodation of some sorts would have to be reached with FMG (Gowon’s Federal Military Government). Situation so bad that Biafran representative in Paris, Okechukwu Mezu, has quit in disgust. Azikiwe refuses to go back to Biafra and is sitting in London as an exile. Ojukwu’s propaganda machine, by succeeding in creating the impression of some forward movement, masked the cold fact that Biafrans are unable to break out of FMG’s encirclement.”
That was 2 February 1969. Had Ojukwu listened to the advice of “responsible Ibos” in his inner caucus all along, more lives would have been saved. Instead, he surrounded himself with yes men. Take the chapter, The Republic of Biafra: The Intellectual Foundation of a New Nation. Achebe’s committee was National Guidance Committee; his office was in Ojukwu’s State House. “Ojukwu then told me he wanted the new committee to report directly to him, outside the control of the cabinet. I became immediately apprehensive…Nevertheless I went ahead and chose a larger committee of experts for the task at hand (pg 144).” Then the experts started to work on what was to become the Ahiara Declaration, which Ojukwu read on radio 1 June 1969 “very close to the end of the war”. There was starvation, great panic, epidemic, anxiety, bereavements and despair in the streets. Even according to Biafra’s propaganda statistics, over a million were already dead. The war was obviously unwinnable. Federal forces had captured Enugu, Biafra’s first capital; Umuahia, the second capital, Onitsha, Port Harcourt, Calabar, Nsukka and many places in Biafra. Biafran troops were desperately fleeing and hiding. Yet, Achebe and other Igbo intellectuals, who were clearly in a position to tell Ojukwu the truth and prevent further deaths, were busy writing sycophantic declarations. N.U. Akpan, Secretary to the Biafran government, was particularly scathing on these “arrogant” “ignorant” intellectuals in his account of the war. “The day this declaration was published and read by Ojukwu was a day of celebration in Biafra,” Achebe writes. “My late brother, Frank, described the effect of this Ahiara Declaration this way: ‘Odikasigbabiaagbagba’ (It was as if we should be dancing to what Ojukwu was saying). People listened from wherever they were. It sounded right to them: freedom, quality, self-determination, excellence. Ojukwu read it beautifully that day. He had a gift for oratory (pg 149).”
The Americans took note of the contextual inanities of the two and a half hour-long declaration and cabled this commentary to Washington: “Ojukwu repeatedly develops the theme that our disability is racial. The root cause of our problems lies in the fact that we are black.” Considering the humanitarian and political support in response to Biafran propaganda, the level of relief flown in and the concern expressed by private organisations and governments, Ojukwu’s speech was almost unreal as he skipped even a passing reference to the International Red Cross, Caritas or French military assistance. The Americans continue: “In his efforts to foster solidarity and support for continuing the war and maintaining the secession, Ojukwu appeals as much to fear and xenophobia… Ojukwu sees the Nigerian Civil War in almost conspiratorial terms. For example, he describes the war as the ‘latest recrudescence in our time of the age-old struggle of the blackman for his true stature of man’. We are the latest victims of a wicked collusion between the three traditional curses of the blackman: racism, Arab-Muslim expansionism and white economic imperialism.”
All along, the Americans knew of the ruthlessly efficient Biafran propaganda. They questioned how they arrived at the 20/30/50,000 killed in the North before the war. Reviewing Ojukwu’s radio broadcast of 14 November 1968, the Americans cabled this to Washington: “Ojukwu claimed 50,000 were ‘slaughtered like cattle’ in 1966, adding that in the course of war, ‘well over one million of us have been killed, yet the world is unimpressed and looks on in indifference.’ It was the highest figure we have seen him use for the pre-war deaths, and the one million he claimed killed since the war began is inconsistent with his assertion in the same speech that 6,700 Biafrans have been killed daily since July 6, 1967.”
They also noted Ojukwu’s dishonest fabrications in his broadcast of 31 October 1969 that President Nixon “had acknowledged fact of genocide”, that earlier on, he called on Nixon “to live up to his words”. When at the inception of secession, Biafran Radio broadcast the countries that had recognised Biafra, the Americans informed Washington: “Following countries have denied recognition of Biafra: US, USSR, Ethiopia, Israel, Australia, Ghana, Guinea…wording of statements varies greatly, but all disapprove of secession, or use words such as recognition, integrity of Nigeria, support for federal government (June 9, 1967).” In fact, Ojukwu and the Biafran project were one long crisis of credibility. In the cable of 22 May 1969, the Americans cabled Washington: “How he (Ojukwu) can continue to deceive his people, and apparently get away with it, is minor miracle, but difficult to see how much delusions can last much longer.”