koladebrainiac:


Like they have a choice? We are children of history bro.


Even Ojukwu never wanted war. Its the arrogance of some Igbo's that led to that slaughtering .

Effiong was a true war hero. Lot of Yoruba soldiers too fought for Biafra.

Victorvexz:

Keep deceiving urself, after all we practiced federalism back then, so the federal government did not stop the eastern region from being self-sufficient in food. We did not stop u from producing ur own food. Since the biafrans wanted a war, they should have made sure they were self-sufficient in food. So stop using starvation as an excuse on why u lost the war, because even if food filled the table of an average biafran then, Nigeria would have still won the war.

Keneking:
Whao so defunct Biafra had a VP like Osibande

seunmsg:
God bless Philip Effiong's soul wherever he is today. At least, he was brave enough not to abandon the soldiers when defeat became imminent unlike a certain coward that ran away to Cote d'ivoire.

oglalasioux:


You know nothing about wars.
You should observe that I said Ojukwu executed the war poorly. You should have asked me how before unleashing your hatred for the Igbo people.

OJUcrook:
Philip Effiong is the real Civil war hero on the Biafran side. He did not run away, he stood his ground and surrendered because he knew the odds were stacked against the Biafrans.

However, Ojukwu, the initiator of the war, could not equip his army properly, he could not feed his civilians adequately yet he once boasted before the commencement of hostilities that he had the largest army in Black Africa and that the other side(Nigeria) will be shocked as to what they will get from him. Ojukwu boasted that he would fight till the last drop of his blood but when the federal forces closed in on him, he ignominiously ran away to Abidjan after commndeering a plane that was meant to airlift sick Biafran children, abandoning the civilians he swore to protect.

Alhaji Shehu Shagari later granted Ojukwu amnesty in 1982 after twelve years in exile. In 1983 Ojukwu contested in the Senatorial election, he also contested in the 2003 and 2007 Presidential elections but lost woefully on all occassions.

It is highly preposterous that a man who led a war against Nigeria, came back to Nigeria and participated in elections in the same country he fought against

HarmonyDee:
Wow!what a fine man!
#Proudly S.S..was he from Aks Or CRs?
By the way he looks like my dad

KelleneOkonkwo:
May the soul of Effiong rest well. A very brave soldier unlike the pedophille ojukwu that ran away after losing 3m souls.

gidgiddy:
A fine Soldier and the last president of the first Republic of Biafra.

OJUcrook:
You are the ignorant one here. Ojukwu's Biafra had nothing to do with self determination, it was a territorial annexation exercise. Colonel David Ejoor, the military administrator of the midwest proclaimed that the midwest would take no part in the fighting, it was to be neutral, a buffer state. The Federal government accepted this situation and concentrated its fighting force - The 1st division on the only frontier over which it could attack Biafra, namely the border which separated the Eastern region from the Benue Province of the Northern Region.

Ojukwu on his own part did not respect the midwest neutrality. He invaded the midwest, forcefully appointed Major Albert Okonkwo, an ibo man as the administrator of the region, and then ordered his Biafran Liberatin Army to march to Lagos and Ibadan

BjDreamchaser:

Biafra is dead on arrival...

kropotkin2:
Ok. We understand how and why he lost, but what we cant understand is why he chose to run away

berrystunn:


Like Me...

Yes, you are a walking dead too

Victorvexz:
Philip Effiong is the real biafran hero. If not for him, the Military government of Nigeria then would have slaughtered an additional 3 million easterners. He was a very brave man to have stood his ground instead of running away like a coward just like Ojukwu did. I watched a video of Ojukwu speech just before the war started, I watched how he was boasting of having the largest military, he was boasting that Nigeria will be surprised with what they will get from him. With the way he was boasting, u would think he had a Nuclear bomb ready that can wipeout the Nigerian army with just one strike. I have never seen a military leader boast the way Ojukwu did. But unfortunately, he had to run away like a coward, instead of finishing what he started with Gowon.

striker9:
I have the video, looking at him roll those eyes and smile would make you think he already won.

ZoneBslayer:

oh Effiong was the only choice amongst millions of capable Igbo men? my point was to show the easily misleds that the division in the (now defunct) eastern Nigeria started after the civil war..before then, there was no difference between an okoro and an Effiong..

OH?! ojukwu never wanted war? coming from a Yoruba man this is a surprise to me..I thought he was labelled a warmonger by the Lagos/Ibadan press..

again I am lost in a state of bewilderment! so Yorubas fought and died for Biafra? what changed since then? I must have skipped that part in the history classes.

ZoneBslayer:

oh Effiong was the only choice amongst millions of capable Igbo men? my point was to show the easily misleds that the division in the (now defunct) eastern Nigeria started after the civil war..before then, there was no difference between an okoro and an Effiong..

OH?! ojukwu never wanted war? coming from a Yoruba man this is a surprise to me..I thought he was labelled a warmonger by the Lagos/Ibadan press..

again I am lost in a state of bewilderment! so Yorubas fought and died for Biafra? what changed since then? I must have skipped that part in the history classes.

OJUcrook:
No that is not all. There is more to the story: Nnamdi Azikiwe was the one that composed the Biafran National anthem but he ran away from Biafra. Ojukwu was the one that declared Biafra but he also ran away from Biafra. All the Biafran leaders all ran away from Biafra after sending 3million civilians to the slaughter slab.

Of particular interest is Ojukwu, the Head-of-State of Biafra. While Biafran children were dieing of Kwarshiorkor and starvation, Ojukwu's own children were feeding fat and looking healthy. Ojukwu was never at the war front. He was hiding from one under ground bunker to another throughout the duration of the war.

When Enugu the capital of Biafra fell, Ojukwu ran away to Umuhia. When Umuhia fell, he ran deeper into the Biafra heartland. He was running all through the war until he eventually ran away to Abidjan. It is rumoured that while he was on exile in Ivory Coast, he lived comfortably in a sea side masion, eating the choicest delicacies and dancing Makossa daily with Abidjan girls

Aigbofa:


If you didn't know Yorubas fought on the Biafran side then you have no business making comments on the civil war. Listen to Ojukwu's comments before the war and you can make up your own mind whether he wanted war or not.

gidgiddy:


The war was the Nigerian/ Biafran war. There was nothing like neutality. Ejoor was just a Military Governor under Gowon, he had no power to enforce any neutality for the mid west as long as he was under Gowons command. Nigeria fired on the Biafran border town of Gakem in Ogoja on the 6th of October 1967 sparking off the war. It was not until a month later that Ojukwu invaded the mid west. Nigeria invaded Biafra and Biafra invaded back.

The bottomline here is that Gowon and Nigeria caused the war by breaching a sacred agreement signed right in front of the president of Ghana, General Ankarah. If Gowon had reservations about the agreement, he should have called another meeting and an amendment could have been discussed. Instead, Gowon went against the most important point of the Aburi accord, not to dismantle the 4 regions unless all 4 Military Governors agreed with him. Gowon chose the path of war. After that, Ojukwu was justified in fighting to uphold the sovereignty of his people.

The war was all about the economic and political control of Nigeria by the North and Ojukwu was the only one who had the courage to fight that oppression.


To this day, the South of Nigeria are still "begging" the North for the very same things Ojukwu fought for, true federalism, resource control, autonomy.

Ojukwu has long been vindicated.

BjDreamchaser:




Yes, you are a walking dead too

henrydadon:
was biafra ever a country..

you people are trying too hard

Aigbofa:


The unilateral declaration of secession was basically a declaration of war. Forget about when Nigeria fired first. There was no Biafran border, all was within the territory of Nigeria.
Nigerians are begging the north? Why don't you simply say the truth that the same thing one ibo man signed away with a pen, Ojukwu tried to retrieve it with a gun. I wonder if Ojukwu ever encouraged Ironsi in making the decree 34.

MrMcJay:
For those saying Ojukwu fought and lost,

1. The ONLY Biafran offensive throughout the war consisted of more than 5,000 Biafran Soldiers was led by Yoruba man named Col. Victor Banjo.

2. The Biafran offensive of more than 5,000 soldiers was stopped at Ore by 179 Yoruba Soldiers led by Colonel Oyinlade Iluyomade.

3. The 3rd Marine Commando, that eventually spearheaded the end of the three-year war in January 1970, was led by another Yoruba man named Benjamin Adekunle.

4. After Ojukwu ran away to Abidjan dresses like an aunty, the Biafran army surrendered to another man named Olusegun Obasanjo.

Let no one distort history, while none of Ojukwu's children or relations died of starvation during the war, Millions of Biafran children died of kwashiokor and other malnutrition-related diseases. When food supplies were dropped by airplanes, instead of distributing the food to the hungry Biafrans, Ojukwu and his soldiers sold these food to those who could afford it.

When the relief agencies dropped used clothing for the Biafran population, these same Biafran Soldiers seized and sold these clothes to those who could afford them.

The true heroes of Biafra are men like Banjo, Men like Effiong, Biafran men who fought with just a rifle and two bullets and not opportunistic and cowardly turncoats like Ojukwu who led his soldiers into slaughter and ran away only to came back to collect pension from the Nigerian Government.