By Mark Curtis

On the 50th anniversary of the end of the Biafran war, the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in the late 1960s, declassified British files show that Harold Wilson’s government secretly armed and backed Nigeria’s aggression against the secessionist region.

The then Labour government secretly provided large quantities of arms to the Nigerian federal government which, by early 1970, had crushed an attempt by the country’s eastern region of Biafra to gain independence, which it had declared in May 1967. 

During the three years of war, up to three million people died, as Nigeria enforced a blockade on Biafra, causing widespread starvation amid considerable international opposition to the conflict.

British policy was mainly shaped by its oil interests, declassified government documents from the time show. “Our direct interests are trade and investment, including an important stake by Shell/BP in the eastern region,” the Foreign Office noted a few days before the outbreak of the war in 1967. 

Investments by Shell/BP—then a joint company in Nigeria which was partly owned by the British government—amounted to around £200-million at the time. The company was the largest producer of oil in Nigeria, most of which was in Biafra.

Shell “have much to lose if the FMG [federal military government] do not achieve the expected victory,” George Thomas, Labour’s commonwealth minister, noted in August 1967. He added: “The sole immediate British interest in Nigeria is that the Nigerian economy should be brought back to a condition in which our substantial trade and investment in the country can be further developed, and particularly so we can regain access to important oil installations.”

UK supplies of arms — which eventually enabled the Nigerian government to win the war — included millions of rounds of ammunition, hundreds of machine guns and grenades, thousands of mortar and artillery bombs, aircraft and armoured personnel carriers. 

These supplies were massively stepped up while Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson was telling parliament that Britain was supplying arms to Nigeria at the same level as before. He made the false claim that there was “no special provision” for the war.  

The decisions to supply arms and ammunition were taken at a time when it was clear they were being used against civilians. Wilson’s agreement to supply patrol boats in 1967 was done in the knowledge that this would help the government maintain the sea blockade against Biafra. 

Declaration of war

The Nigerian government under General Yakubu ‘Jack’ Gowon — who had seized power in a military coup in July 1966 — began military operations to defeat the Biafran secessionists in July 1967. 

His well-equipped federal army of over 85,000 men supplied by Britain and the Soviet Union, among others, took on a volunteer Biafran force under Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, the military governor of the Eastern region, much of whose equipment initially came from captured Nigerian supplies.

In the run-up to Gowon’s declaration of war, British officials made clear to the Nigerian government that they supported the country’s unity. Labour minister George Thomas told the Nigerian High Commissioner in London in April 1967, for example, that the federal government had “our sympathy and our full support” but hoped the use of force against the east could be avoided. Britain initially refused Gowon’s requests for military support to target Biafran ports.

By June 1967, however, the new British High Commissioner in Lagos, Sir David Hunt, wrote in a memo to London that the “only way… of preserving unity [sic] of Nigeria is to remove Ojukwu by force”. He said the Biafran leader was committed to remaining the ruler of an independent state and reiterated that UK interests lay in firmly supporting the federal government.

On 1 July 1967 Gowon asked Britain for jet fighter and bomber aircraft, six fast boats and 24 anti-aircraft guns. Britain rejected the aircraft and boats but agreed to supply the anti-aircraft guns. The deputy high commissioner in Enugu, Biafra’s main city, noted that supplying the anti-aircraft guns would be seen as British backing for the Gowon regime and “they could also take on an offensive role if mounted in an invasion fleet”. 

The British government’s news department was instructed to stress the “defensive nature of these weapons” and to avoid publicity on their export from Britain. High Commissioner Sir David Hunt said that “it would be better to use civil aircraft” to deliver these guns and secured agreement from the Nigerians that “there would be no publicity”.

Faced with Gowon’s complaints about Britain not supplying more arms, Prime Minister Wilson agreed in mid-July to supply him with the fast patrol boats, in the knowledge they would help the government maintain the blockade against Biafra. Wilson wrote to Gowon saying that “we have demonstrated in many ways our support for your government as the legal government of Nigeria and our refusal to recognise the secessionists”. 

Wilson also told Gowon that Britain does “not intend to put any obstacle in the way” of orders for “reasonable quantities of military material of types similar to those you have obtained here in the past”. 

By early November 1967 Nigerian government forces had pushed back the Biafrans and captured Enugu. George Thomas now called for a “quick FMG victory” and recommended that the UK arms export policy towards Lagos be “relaxed” to ensure that outcome. On 23 November 1967 the Cabinet agreed that such a federal military victory provided the best hope for “an early end to the fighting”. 

Arms supplies

The following month, Commonwealth Secretary George Thomson suggested the UK should agree to Gowon’s shopping list for arms supplies. He wrote: “Anything that we now do to assist the FMG should help our oil companies to re-establish and expand their activities in Nigeria after the war, and, more generally, should help our commercial and political relationship with postwar Nigeria.”

As a result Britain supplied 36 armoured personnel carriers, along with 2,000 machine guns for them, anti-tank guns and nine million rounds of ammunition. Denis Healey, the Defence Secretary, wrote that he hoped these supplies would encourage the Nigerians “to look to the United Kingdom for their future purchases of defence equipment”. 

By mid-1968 Britain had supplied 15 million rounds of ammunition, 21,000 mortar bombs, 42,500 Howitzer rounds, 1,950 rifles with grenade launchers, 15,000 lbs of explosives, 500 submachine guns, 4,000 rifles and four helicopters. 

These arms exports were secretly stepped up at a time when killings were being widely reported in the press. About 1,000 people of the Ibo ethnic group, who predominated in Biafra, were killed in Benin city by local people with the acquiescence of the federal government forces, the New York Review noted in December 1967. 

A further 700 Ibo males were lined up and shot in the town of Asaba in January 1968, the Observer reported at the time. According to eyewitnesses the Nigerian commander ordered the execution of every Ibo male over the age of ten in the town.

Humanitarian suffering, especially starvation, was severe as a result of the federal government’s blockade of Biafra. Pictures of starving and malnourished children went around the world and the Nigerian government was widely seen to be engaging in atrocities against civilians, including apparently indiscriminate air strikes, in an increasingly brutal war.

By the beginning of 1968, British files refer to deaths of between 70,000-100,000 people in the war. The Red Cross estimated there were around 600,000 refugees in Biafra and was trying to arrange supplies to meet needs, estimated at around 30 tonnes a day.

Public and parliamentary pressure in Britain to halt arms exports to Lagos was now rising, with 70 Labour MPs filing a motion for an embargo in May 1968. Yet the real extent of arms supplied by Britain was concealed from the public by the government.

Throughout 1967 and 1968, Labour ministers told parliament that Britain was essentially neutral in the conflict and was continuing to supply arms to Nigeria on the same basis as before the war. Wilson misinformed the House of Commons on 16 May 1968 that: “We have continued the supply… of arms by private manufacturers in this country exactly on the basis that it has been in the past, but there has been no special provision for the needs of the war”.

With the forces of Gowon’s regime in control of Port Harcourt, Biafra’s most important southern coastal city, by mid-1968, British officials noted that “having gone this far in supporting the FMG, it would be a pity to throw away the credit we have built up with them just when they seem to have the upper hand”. 

Britain could not halt the supply of arms since “such an outcome would seriously put at risk about £200-million of British investments in non-Biafra Nigeria”, George Thomson explained to Harold Wilson in private.

Read full: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-04-29-how-britains-labour-government-facilitated-the-massacre-of-biafrans-in-nigeria-to-protect-its-oil-interests/

Ps: you can listen to full article.

Do we really need this now ?

sarrki:
Do we really need this now ?

Yes
One Nigeria is not by force.

The war was uncalled for from the Biafran side- Ojukwu

& Federal government of Nigeria then.(yakubu Gowon)

Both survived it and enjoyed the wealth of Niger till date

The women and children were the casualty

So let’s heal the wounds and move on

minasota:
Yes

Auntie can you share with us why ?

sarrki:

Auntie can you share with us why ?

People must not forget history.

minasota:
Yes
One Nigeria is not by force.

Is anyone forcing it on your throat?

The way and manner a lot of you think and reason are the baffles me

Tell me of what benefits is the Igbo to Yoruba if they leave or not ?

Our properties and investment in the region or what ?

The economic importance?

The financial gain?

The gateway I mean Airport ,sea and ocean in the region or what ?

sarrki:
Do we really need this now ?

Those who run away from their history have something to hide.

Not just Britain but also Yorubas and Hausa-Fulani, and middlebelt

Dedetwo:


Those who run away from their history have something to hide.

What history are you talking about?

The madness from the both side ( Nigeria and Biafra)is what you referred to as history?

Naija9090:
Not just Britain but also Yorubas and Hausa-Fulani, and middlebelt

You lack sense of reasoning

Nothing defines Nigeria better than Nigeria/Biafra war. Ironically it is the only facilitator in the amalgam of my political philosophy in Nigeria. I had seriously wondered aloud how Africans fall prey to liberal wings in USA and Europe.

Naija9090:
Not just Britain but also Yorubas and Hausa-Fulani, and middlebelt

The Yoruba that there land was tricked and nearly lost there land to the madness?

The British did the best that should have been done.

If it's modern day warfare. An atomic bomb would have been dropped over Biafra.

It's warfare and not romance.

Everything counts.


Britain took sides and it payed off for them.

Biafra also got support from other countries so nobody should act like the victim.


Like I said earlier, it's warfare and not romance.

It's funny how some people will lie claiming the British directly enforced the blockade. If you ask them to cite their sources it turns into mission impossible. Even their declassified documents make this known.

sarrki:
Do we really need this now ?

Know your history. Oh i see you don't the know the Atrocity the Britannia commuted.

sarrki:


What history are you talking about?

The madness from the both side ( Nigeria and Biafra) is what you referred to as history?

Please do not include Biafra in your treacherous scheme to create one fault. Ndigbo will not fight or go to war because Hausa, Yari.ba or Fulani have decided to part ways with Nigeria. It was act of foolishness that certain sections of Nigeria had to foist a war on Biafrans.

sarrki:


Is anyone forcing it on your throat?

The way and manner a lot of you think and reason are the baffles me

Tell me of what benefits is the Igbo to Yoruba if they leave or not ?

Our properties and investment in the region or what ?

The economic importance?

The financial gain?

The gateway I mean Airport ,sea and ocean in the region or what ?

I'm not here to exchange words to people like you...or you thought I don't know You?
You don't expect someone who's still learning
quadratic equation to be in M. Sc. class in System Engineering.
Look for your mates.....

minasota:
I'm not here to exchange words to people like you...or you thought I don't know You?
You don't expect someone who's still learning
quadratic equation to be in M. Sc. class in System Engineering.
Look for your mates.....

The way you composed your sentence is a pointer to the fact that you are actually below the bro you quoted in intellect.

sarrki:


The Yoruba that there land was tricked and nearly lost there land to the madness?

This is 21st century and people from certain ethnicity in Nigeria are still bearing falsehood of the forbearers. I guess Yari.ba were six years old tolder whom Gowon and northern elites tricked into the war. What a loser.

LegendHero:


The way you composed your sentence is a pointer to the fact that you are actually below the bro you quoted in intellect.

Another sign of Africa's mentality. What has his/her grammar got to do with historical facts about Nigeria/Biafra war?

This is not news. Every literate person with a robust sense of history knows that war was Biafra vs Britain, the other nigerian tribes empowered by the British in that war were just pawns.

sarrki:


Is anyone forcing it on your throat?

The way and manner a lot of you think and reason are the baffles me

Tell me of what benefits is the Igbo to Yoruba if they leave or not ?

Our properties and investment in the region or what ?

The economic importance?

The financial gain?

The gateway I mean Airport ,sea and ocean in the region or what ?

Since you know all these, why were you being diversionary at the start of the thread?

Dedetwo:


Another sign of Africa's mentality. What has his/her grammar got to do with historical facts about Nigeria/Biafra war?

You saw the way she/he replied to sarrki and yet you’re here to correct me instead of first telling her to desist from playing the intellect game.

Biafra war is yesterday’s message. No need of trying to bring all these kind of articles coz there is actually nothing new about it. People know all these things and both sides already learnt from the war.

Blue3k:
It's funny how some people will lie claiming the British directly enforced the blockade. If you ask them to cite their sources it turns into mission impossible. Even their declassified documents make this known.

Would the blockade have been enforceable without British Naval ships on the Bight of Biafra (Sea), British amoury and other hardware on the border with cameroon (Land) and killer fighter jets harrasing and bombing Biafran civilians in villages and markets aerially (Air)?

Why didn't Gowon and Awolowo go and stand physically on the Bakkasi border with southern cameroons to enforce their blockade after making their declaration, if that's what it means in your dictionary?

PicLtd:


Would the blockade have been enforceable without British Naval ships on the Bight of Biafra (Sea), British amoury and other hardware on the border with cameroon (Land) and killer fighter jets harrasing and bombing Biafran civilians in villages and markets aerially (Air)?

Why didn't Gowon and Awolowo go and stand physically on the Bakkasi border with southern cameroons to enforce their blockade after making their declaration, if that's what it means in your dictionary?

Why do guys like telling these historical fictions. The British didnt directly enforce the blockade. There were no British naval ships on the on the bight of biafra. None of you can cite any source stating this. Nobody debating the British assisted materially and in other areas.

Blue3k:


Why do guys like telling these historical fictions. The British didnt directly enforce the blockade. There were no British naval ships on the on the bight of biafra. None of you can cite any source stating this. Nobody debating the British assisted materially and in other areas.

It is on record that Britain supplied Gowon naval patrol Ships, Military hardware, armouries. I had this information saved and bookmarked on my microscoft Encarta encyclopedia as far as 2011.

Stop lying.

Blue3k:


Why do guys like telling these historical fictions. The British didnt directly enforce the blockade. There were no British naval ships on the on the bight of biafra. None of you can cite any source stating this. Nobody debating the British assisted materially and in other areas.

British warships or no warships in Bight of Biafra remains irrelevant in the case of sea blockade of Biafra since the infantry had already overrun the seaport facilities in Biafra.

PicLtd:


It is on record that Britain supplied Gowon naval patrol Ships, Military hardware, armouries. I had this information saved and bookmarked on my microscoft Encarta encyclopedia as far as 2011.

Stop lying.

Read the post slowly so you know what's being argued. I said The British didnt enforce the blockade directly. You said British naval ships were on bight of Biafra. I already said British assisted materially meaning selling weapons. Even the article I posted said this.

Lol you guys enjoy making up historical fictions and mindless ranting. Cite the source that says the British directly enforced the blockade by stationing troops.

Dedetwo:


British warships or no warships in Bight of Biafra remains irrelevant in the case of sea blockade of Biafra since the infantry had already overrun the seaport facilities in Biafra.

You're wrong because the sea blockade ensured they were encircled and economicly crippled. The could resupply troops with weapons or get food to populace. The naval blockade ensured they couldn't potentially retake those cities forcing the troops futher inland.

Blue3k:


Read the post slowly so you know what's being argued. I said The British didnt enforce the blockade directly. You said British naval ships were on bight of Biafra. I already said British assisted materially meaning selling weapons. Even the article I posted said this.

Lol you guys enjoy making up historical fictions and mindless ranting. Cite the source that says the British directly enforced the blockade by stationing troops.




You're wrong because the sea blockade ensured they were encircled and economicly crippled. The could resupply troops with weapons or get food to populace. The naval blockade ensured they couldn't potentially retake those cities forcing the troops futher inland.

Nobody, no Biafrans has ever said the British sent in troop.
Why should they send in British troops to bleed when there were lots of illiterate hausas and yoruba foot soldiers and pawns ready to bleed for a cause they hardly even understood.

Britains sent in military hardwares to enforce the blockade.

PM Harold Wilson made it clear that Britain's neutrality will mean a quick and decisive military victory for the Biafrans and he was right.

Below is an excerpt of the proceedings on Biafra in the British parliament, confirming supply of military hardwares to Gowon during the war.

Blue3k:


Read the post slowly so you know what's being argued. I said The British didnt enforce the blockade directly. You said British naval ships were on bight of Biafra. I already said British assisted materially meaning selling weapons. Even the article I posted said this.

Lol you guys enjoy making up historical fictions and mindless ranting. Cite the source that says the British directly enforced the blockade by stationing troops.


You're wrong because the sea blockade ensured they were encircled and economicly crippled. The could resupply troops with weapons or get food to populace. The naval blockade ensured they couldn't potentially retake those cities forcing the troops futher inland.

I do not know the War College which taught you about the essence of naval blockade when the target does not have seaport facility.