President Muhammadu say he is disgusted by the
international media coverage of the recent
#EndSARS protests in the country. Especially by
the CNN and BBC, because they were not
balanced.

Speaking at a meeting on Tuesday with State
Governors to review the security situation in the
country, the President wondered why the news
outlets did not report the killing of policemen and
jail breaks recorded during the protests.

A presidency statement issued after the meeting
said Buhari “noted that the foreign press
coverage of the #EndSARS violence was not
balanced, citing specifically the CNN and BBC, for
omitting the number of policemen killed, police
stations that were razed, and the prisons that
were thrown open for inmates to escape”.

It went on to quote the President thus: “I was
disgusted by the coverage, which did not give
attention to the policemen that were killed, the
stations that were burnt, and prisons that were
opened. (They said we are all at fault. We don’t
have the sympathy of anyone. We are on our
own)”.

He reiterated that violent demonstrations would
no longer be allowed, adding that “democracy does
not mean confusion or lack of accountability.

“We do not stop anyone from demonstrating, but
you don’t set up roadblocks and smash
windscreens. Which government will allow that?”
Giving an overview of the security situation in
each of the zones, the President said his
administration had done well in the North East
and South South, adding that the South South
situation was still worrisome.

“Every day I get situation reports about illegal
refineries and the blowing up of pipelines. You
must stop local rogues from sabotaging oil
installations”, he told the South-South Governors.

Addressing the issue of banditry and kidnapping
reported in each of the geo-political zones,
President Buhari said “security is important and
we must secure the whole country. We are thinking
very hard on the issue of kidnapping. We will make
it possible for the military to get to the bandits
and kidnappers and eliminate them.’’

He explained that the closure of the nation’s land
borders was partly an attempt to control the
smuggling in of weapons and drugs.

“Now that the message has sunk in with our
neighbours, we are looking into reopening the
borders as soon as possible.’’

He further charged all the Governors to work
more with traditional rulers and community
members to improve local intelligence gathering
that will aid the work of security agencies.

The President, who listened to presentations by a
Governor from each of the six geo-political zones
on their specific security challenges, recalled that
in the old order, communities identified new
comers and passed information to constituted
authority.

“The sub-region is no longer safe, more so with
the collapse of the former Libyan leader,
Muammar Gaddafi’s regime and the cross border
movement of weapons and criminals.

“Governors must work with traditional rulers. Try
and work with traditional rulers to boost
intelligence gathering”, he said.

Giving his word that the security situation would
be salvaged, the President: “I am not going to the
public to speak about the vehicles and equipment
we have ordered. What I can say is that the
military received armoured cars and other
equipment and they are training the trainers.

More of such equipment, including military
aircraft will come in.’’

On the eight-month long strike by Academic
Staff Union of Universities, the President said
lecturers had not taken into consideration the
larger challenges facing the country.

According to Buhari: “Government conceded
something. The problem is that they refused to
look at the problem of the whole country. The
Minister of Labour is working hard at it. It is
amazing how ASUU will stay out of classrooms for
so long. There’s a need for our elites to
understand the challenges facing the country.’’

https://expressday.ng/endsars-im-disgusted-with-cnn-bbc-reportage-buhari/

The National Population Commission says Nigeria’s
population is now estimated at 206 million.

This comes exactly two years after the NPC
estimated the country’s population at 198 million.
The Chairman of the NPC, Nasir Kwarra, said this
at a press conference on the commencement of
the next Enumeration Area Demarcation in Abuja
on Tuesday, Punch reports.

Kwarra said since Nigeria had not been able to
hold a census in the last 14 years, it would be
challenging to know the exact population of the
country.

He said, “In the absence of an actual census, we
formally make projections, and we have all along
been making our projections, and we estimate that
as of 2020, the estimated population of Nigeria is
206 million.”

The NPC boss said President Muhammadu Buhari
had the sole right to announce the next census.
Kwarra, however, said he was confident that
Buhari would do the needful soon.

While announcing the commencement of the
Enumeration Area Demarcation exercise, Kwarra
said about 260 local government areas out of the
774 in the country had been fully demarcated.

He stated that the 11th phase of the exercise
would begin on December 9, 2020, and end on
January 20, 2021.

The NPC chairman said, “Planning for the census
is anchored on the EAD as the basis for
estimating both the human and material resources
required for the census. In essence, the success
of a credible and accurate census depends very
much on the quality and reliability of the EAD.”

Kwarra explained that the EAD exercise is not the
enumeration of persons living in the country but a
preparatory exercise before the census.

He said the NPC would be assisting the
Independent National Electoral Commission to
create digitized maps of INEC registration areas
for the first time as part of the EAD. He said
this collaboration would positively affect future
elections.

The NPC chairman further stated, “It is essential
to say that the latest technology is being
deployed for this EAD exercise, including the use
of very high-resolution satellite imageries as the
base map, the use of GPS for georeferencing and
the use of GIS for data management.

“Also, personal data assistants (handheld devices/
tablets) that include computer software for
population estimation are being used for data
capture.”

http://saharareporters.com/2020/12/08/nigeria’s-population-now-206-million-npc-claims

The Federal Government has threatened to sanction a foreign media outlet, CNN, over its report on the alleged shooting of #EndSARS protesters by soldiers at the Lekki toll plaza on October 20, 2020.

The government described the report by the foreign news medium as “irresponsible journalism”.

Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, made this known on Thursday at a press conference in Abuja. According to him, the briefing was conveyed to address lingering issues regarding the #EndSARS protests for police reform that rocked the nation last month.

He described the event of October 20, 2020 as a “massacre without bodies”, insisting that not a single body has been produced or a single family has come out to claim their family member was killed at the Lekki tollgate.

The minister alleged that CNN relied on social media videos without verification to produce its report. “This should earn CNN a serious sanction for irresponsible reporting,” Mohammed said.

He added that some “unscrupulous persons” including celebrities circulated fake news on the social media that aggravated the violence that trailed the two-week demonstration.

https://punchng.com/breaking-fg-faults-cnn-report-on-lekki-shootings-threatens-action/


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noyI1gq_83E

bunch of jokers

President Muhammadu Buhari has commended
David Umahi, governor of Ebonyi state, over his
defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC)
from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

On Tuesday, Umahi announced his defection to the
APC, saying he left his former party because of
injustice.

In a statement on Wednesday, Garba Shehu,
presidential spokesman, quoted Buhari as praising
Umahi.

Buhari reportedly described the action of the
Ebonyi governor “as a bold move driven purely by
principle rather than opportunistic motives”.

“I am proud of Governor David Umahi for taking
this bold decision in accordance with his conscience
and principles rather than any external influence
or coercion,” the president was quoted to have
said.

“Good governance is very important to us in the
APC, and I’m glad that the governor has cited
this as a major factor in his decision to join us. I
urge our citizens to pay less emphasis on identity
politics if we want our democracy to make a
positive impact on our country.

“With men like Umahi, I foresee a brighter future
for our democracy because the voters will be more
motivated by performance records of parties and
their candidates.

“Let me once again; commend the boldness of
Governor Umahi for taking this courageous
decision in a country where principles are in short
supply among many.”

https://thecable.ng/buhari-with-men-like-umahi-i-foresee-a-brighter-future-for-our-democracy

heartless man.
This is barbarism.

Musician, Davido has been condemned for spending
millions on a diamond necklace he gifted his
daughter, Hailey.

He was slammed by controversial Nigerian
journalist, Kemi Olunloyo on Twitter.

Recall that, few days ago the father of three,
took his second daughter, Hailey Adeleke on
diamond shopping in a jewelry shop in Atlanta.

The DMW boss, took his 2 year-old daughter to
the jewelry shop were he usually shops his diamond
piece, and asked the little girl to pick whatever
she wants.

The overly excited father told assured his
beautiful that he’s very rich and can afford
anything she chooses.

In his words,

“Money dey. Your daddy is rich. Tell them. Say my
daddy gat money”.

However, Kemi Olunloyo has now criticized the
singer for spending so much on a necklace for the
young girl, and making the video public.

Expressing her displeasure on Twitter she wrote,
“Never compare WizKid to Davido. Different styles
of living Different kind of music Different
mentality Ayo won’t expose his children online
buying million dollar jewelry. #Kemitalks.”

https://www.tori.ng/news/158910/kemi-olunloyo-attacks-davido-for-buying-his-daught.html

...

Federal Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami has been spotted on social media, performing some fitness exercise in Kaftan.

The minister did this while on speaking a two-
day retreat under the theme “Staying fit to
deliver effective service”. This is aimed at
educating the staff on the ministry, on some
exercising tips that are good to maintain their
body and enhance good healthy living.

Sharing the photos on the official page of the
Federal Ministry of Communication and Digital
Economy, they attached the caption, “The
honourable Minister of Communication and
Digital Economy, demonstrating to the
management staff of the ministry some exercise
tips during the ongoing 2-day retreat.

He also stated that some benefits of keeping fit
are: it reduces the risk of heart diseases,
reduces the risk of cancer and diabetes and
many others

Recently, the minister was at another workshop
to advise the youth to develop creative and
entrepreneurial skills, especially ones that relate
to the ICT sector.

See the post below;

https://ab-tc.com/federal-minister-of-communications-and-digital-economy-dr-isa-pantami-gives-exercise-tips-in-kaftan/

lalasticlala

Timipre Sylva, the minister of state for petroleum
resources, says Nigerians will get used to the
deregulation of the pump price of petrol the same
way they adjusted to similar actions with diesel
and kerosene.

Sylva was addressing state house correspondents
on Monday after a meeting with President
Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja on Monday.
The minister said petrol is mostly used by the
elites while diesel and kerosene are more
important to the ordinary citizens.

He explained that trucks that move food products
from one part of the country to another use
diesel and most of the Nigerian masses use
kerosene, which has since been deregulated.

“Look at it, a situation where diesel has been
deregulated long ago, a situation where kerosene
has been deregulated long ago, and these are the
fuels the poorest people in Nigeria interact with
more. Why do I say that?” he said.

“If you want to transport food from the north to
the south, it will be by trucks that are run by
diesel, not with petrol. Those trucks that
transport food from the north to the south are
usually run by diesel.

“Kerosene is the preferred fuel at the lowest
level of our society. These have been deregulated
long ago. So, what is the problem with
deregulating petrol, which is mostly used by the
elite?

“Let us be fair to this country, let us be fair to
the poor people in this country.

“If we have deregulated what they were using,
then there is actually no reason why we should
continue to subsidise petrol. I feel so. That’s my
personal feeling.”

In March, the federal executive council approved a
monthly review of petroleum products prices in
line with the international market prices following
the impact the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Petroleum Products Marketing Company, a
subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation, recently increased the depot price of
petrol to N155.17.

https://thecable.ng/sylva-like-diesel-and-kerosene-nigerians-will-get-used-to-petrol-deregulation

wetin I dey see?

pray for more better things ahead... God bless you Emma.

...

A Nigerian lawyer took to social media to share
photos of an alleged courtroom in Nigeria.

From the photos shared on Twitter by
@Theinioluwa, it was gathered that the courtroom is located at Amada in Gombe state.

He shared the photos and wrote;

This is a courtroom in Nigeria.

It's not enough that I'm a lawyer in a lawless country.

I'm legally bewildered.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Theinioluwa/status/1326855719174496256

The Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola , said on Thursday that his ministry owed 3 , 504 contractors handlings its various housing projects, about N 69 .9bn .

Fashola stated this when he appeared before the joint National Assembly Committee on Housing, to defend his ministry’ s 2021 budget estimates .

He, therefore, said the N 76. 4bn allocated to the ministry in 2021 would be grossly inadequate to execute 186 projects across the country .

Details later

https://punchng.com/breaking-fg-owes-3504-contractors-fashola-tells-national-assembly/

Nigerian actor, Jigan Baba Oja has cried out over
the kinds of roles he gets in movies.

The actor revealed that he's tired of being cast
as a gateman in movies.

The comedian took to Twitter to ask movie
producers to help his career by giving him other
roles.

He wrote:

"If truly want to help my career , stop
giving me only gate man role !
"I can play any role my dear brother ! E ma baiye
mi je."

https://mobile.twitter.com/Jiganbabaoja11/status/1326795225713487872

can't he shout for help?

An Igbo group identified as The Industrious People
of Eastern Nigeria, IPEN has alleged that IPOB
leader, Nnamdi Kanu, is not fully an Igbo indigene
as his family roots have been traced down to
Cameroon.

IPEN stated that its members will no longer allow
a man whose genealogy has been traced to another
country to continuously cause disaffection
between them and other ethnic nationalities.

In a statement distributed by Mediashop Naija,
the group claimed that Nnamdi Kanu’s
grandfather settled in Rivers state and later
Afara Ukwu in Abia state in 1909.

The group claimed Kanu’s grandfather moved to
Abia when he was ostracised from Mankon village
in the Southern Cameroonian City of Bamenda.
It claimed Kanu’s grandfather Okwu Kanou was
ostracized due to issues relating to mental illness.
According to the group: “ The character and traits
exhibited so far by the IPOB leader in the quest
for his Biafra, clearly shows that he is not Igbo.”


Read the full statement by IPEN;

“The systematic infestation of the south eastern
region with Nnamdi Kanu’s victim mentality is
worrisome and has to be checked.

“Igbo people are not cowards neither are we
timid. We are naturally daring. The igbo man does
not run away from problems rather he is
constantly in search of solutions.

“We do not run away from challenges, we compete
and naturally dominate.

“Nnamdi Kanu wants Biafra simply because he
lacks the mental, physical and emotional capacity
required to succeed in a competitive society as
ours.

“This personal lack of self-confidence and feeling
of powerlessness which Nnamdi Kanu has
systematically tried to pass on to our youths is
un-igbo like and must be stopped.

“After the civil war, the Igbo man was left with
nothing. Our abandoned properties in other parts
of the country were taken over by people who
never worked hard for it.

“We had to build our region from the scratch and
today we have the biggest and most thriving
economy among other ethnic groups in Nigeria.

“We have dominated trade and commerce in
Nigeria and beyond. Neither Nnamdi Kanu nor his
lineage has contributed to the economic growth of
the igbo people.

“The Igbo man who has lived all his life doing
business in Maiduguri did not tell you he wants to
return. Neither did the one that owns fuel
stations and other properties in Damaturu tell you
he is not comfortable.

“But Nnamdi Kanu wants them to abandon their
sweat and return to the East where he expects to
Lord it over them.

“He has no verifiable business or source of income
anywhere in the world but want to create
problems for those with businesses in Lagos.

“The South-East remains the most developed
among all regions in the country not because of
Government presence but as a result of the
industrious nature of the true Igbo man.

“Nigeria has its peculiar challenges, obstacles and
limitations like can be found in many other
societies.

‘But the igbo man has made it a habit to break
these barriers and succeed everywhere we find
ourselves.

‘Igbo people have excelled in all spheres of human
endeavor in all parts of the world.

‘We have captains of Industries, sports men and
women, people in the entertainment industries,
academics of Igbo extraction that have left
indelible footprints in the sands of time all over
the world.

‘How do you imagine a tribe that produced the
great Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu
Ojukwu, Sam Mbakwe, the novelist and author of
“Things Fall Apart”, Chinua Achebe, Philip
Emeagwali, Prof Chuba Okadigbo, the former
Secretary General of the Common Wealth, Emeka
Anyaoku, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Late Prof.
Dora Akunyili and Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala among
others would have an Nnamdi Kanu as its
spokesperson?

“Nnamdi Kanu has not even achieved what the
likes of Christian Chukwu, Chioma Ajunwa, Kanu
Nwankwo, Mikel Obi, Peter and Paul of Psquare,
Flavour and Phyno achieved in the world of sports
and entertainment to put him in a pedestal to
speak for Ndi igbo

“All these people to mention but a few excelled
within and outside the same Nigeria that Nnamdi
Kanu could not.

“According to the group,

“Nnamdi Kanu does not possess the necessary
qualifications required to speak and cannot be said
to be speaking for Ndi Igbo.

“Mazi Nnamdi Kanu does not speak for ndi Igbo
and he does not control igbo as a tribe
“The group blamed the leadership vacuum created
by greedy politicians in the South-East as the
reason Kanu roamed the region unchecked.

“The group concluded by saying, that their
primary objective was to fill up that vacuum and
re-awaken the “can do” spirit of the Igbo man to
enable the people take their pride of place in the
Nigerian body-polity.”


https://www.tori.ng/news/158459/nnamdi-kanu-is-not-igbo-his-family-roots-has-been.html

As soon as Okonkwo became military administrator,
Banjo was recalled to Enugu to explain the failure
of the military campaign. During his absence, the
Midwest Administration was established (an
Advisory Council and an Administrative Council).

Banjo succeeded in convincing Biafran leaders in
Enugu that his halt at Ore had been dictated by
military expediency. He then returned to the
Midwest front. Banjo informed Okonkwo of the
military situation through Major Isichei, Chief of
Staff of the Midwest. Isichei later commented
that he had noticed that Banjo’s headquarters
staff never discussed plans or operations in his
presence. Through Isichei, Banjo told Okonkwo that
Auchi had been lost after a fierce battle when, in
fact, it was not defended at all.

Suspicions began to thicken around Banjo.
Okonkwo, in a confidential statement made
available to the Americans, said he also noticed
that Banjo obtained money by requisition from him
for materials, food and officers salaries’, thus
drawing on the Midwest treasury. On 19
September, when Okonkwo telephoned Enugu, he
discovered from the Biafran Army HQ that Banjo
was simultaneously drawing funds from Biafra for
all these supplies. Okonkwo sent Major Isichei to
arrest Banjo for embezzlement, but they found
that he had already left Benin and had left
orders for all Midwest and Biafran soldiers to fall
back to Agbor.

Okonkwo ordered his Midwest government to move
from Benin to Asaba, which it did that day. The
seat of the government was behind the textile
factory, in homes once inhabited by expatriates.
In August, Okonkwo tape-recorded five broadcasts
to be used when possible. Those included the
Declaration of Independence and the Proclamation
of the Republic of Benin, as well as a decree
setting up a Benin Central Bank, a Benin
University, etc. The Republic of Benin
Proclamation was delayed while the consent of the
Oba of Benin was sought. Finally, just when the
Oba had been convinced that the Republic was
“best for his people,” the actions of Banjo were
discovered and the Midwest seemed about to be
lost, or at least Benin was undefended. Okonkwo
went ahead with the broadcast early on 20
September 1967 in order to record for history
that the Midwest was separate from Biafra. It
was the last act of his government in Benin.
Early afternoon on 9 August, Banjo’s main force
left Benin for Ijebu-Ode. It was composed of both
Biafran and Midwest units. Midwest troops, who
were mostly Igbo, had joined the “liberation
army”. Commanding the Midwest forces with
Banjo was Major Samuel Ogbemudia, who had been
nursing the idea of defection. When the troops
reached Ore and halted, Ogbemudia disappeared
to later rejoin the Nigerian Army. Lt. Col Bisalla,
acting Chief of Army Staff, confirmed that
Ogbemudia, in the morning of 9 August,
telephoned him precisely at 7:20am to inform him
of the “trouble in Benin.”

According to Standish Brooks, the US Defense
Attaché, Ogbemudia was the first Nigerian officer
to attend American Military School’s
counterinsurgency course in Fort Bragg, 1961.
Brooks said after his arrival in Lagos on 9
September 1967, Ogbemudia said: “He escaped
with a small group of non-Ibo troops from the
Benin garrison and have been waging a guerrilla
warfare against Eastern units. Having run out of
ammo, he made his way back to Lagos.”

Army Headquarters believed him and Brooks’
report further stated: “Ogbemudia would be sent
to the headquarters of Second Division in Auchi to
assist in operational planning because of his
intimate knowledge of the Midwest area and his
recent experience in the Midwest under Eastern
control.”

From 20 September onwards, the Midwest and
Biafran Army began to fall apart. The 17th
Battalion in Ikom mutinied and fled. So did the
12th and 16th Battalion in the Midwest.

In the evening of 22 September, the Midwest
paymaster, Col. Morah, from Eze near Onicha
Olona, offered an American expatriate in Asaba
£3, 000 if the American would arrange for Morah
to get $5,000 upon his arrival in the United
States. This would have been a profit of about $3,
400 to the American. The offer was refused.

Later on September 25, Morah disappeared with
£33, 000, the document said. This was the time six
NAF planes went on reconnaissance and reported
back to the Defence Headquarters that they had
noticed “heavy movements of civilians over the
bridge from Asaba to Onitsha,” but did not have
the details. On 27 September, Okonkwo called a
meeting of all Midwest civil servants, where he
said if the Nigerian Army reached Agbor, he
would close the Onitsha Bridge. He would not let
the civil servants abandon the population of Asaba
to the inevitable massacre when the Federal Army
reached the town. The people of Asaba knew by
this time of the killings of Igbos in Benin when the
federal forces reached it on 20 September.

Everyone assumed that it would happen in Asaba.
From 20 September, there were no Biafran
soldiers stationed west of Umunede, east of
Agbor.

On 1 October, Midwest commanders in Umunede
and Igueben, south of Ubiaja on the Auchi-Agbor
Road, fled from their positions. Their Biafran
subordinates promptly retreated. Constant
streams of retreating Biafran and Midwest troops
filed through Asaba on 2 and 3 October. The
Biafrans were usually mounted in vehicles, while
the Midwesterners had to walk. The attitude of
the Biafran soldiers and officers was that they
would not fight for the Midwest if the Midwest
Army did not want to fight. In Asaba on 2
October, the elders and chiefs met to consider
sending a delegation to the approaching Nigerian
Army to surrender the town and ask for
protection in return for help in finding and
capturing Biafran soldiers in the town. Cadet
Uchei, who brought soldiers to stop the delegation
with death threats, thwarted this effort. At this
time, some 35 non-Igbos were rounded up and
given shelter at St. Patrick’s College, Asaba.

Twice, Cadet Uchei brought soldiers to kill the
refugees and arrest the Americans in charge of
the school. On the first occasion, Lt. Christian
Ogbulo, ADC to Okonkwo, stopped the attempt.
Cadet Williams from Ogwashi-Uku brought soldiers
to rescue only the Americans from Uchei’s second
attempt. Also on 2 October, Col. Chukwurah, who
had been the commanding officer at Agbor, came
to Asaba and told the Midwest Army HQ staff
that he had overthrown Okonkwo and he was now
military governor of the Midwest. Chukwurah fled
across the bridge to Biafra before nightfall.

Only two of the officers of the Midwest Army
were known not to have fled from battle during
the campaign: Major Joe Isichei (who was a
Lieutenant on August 9) and Lt-Col. Joe Achuzia.
Gathering a few soldiers, they attempted to shoot
their way out. Okwechime was seen in Onitsha at
this time; he had been wounded. By the evening of
2 October, the Midwest Army was completely
dissolved.

From 6 a.m on 4 October, machine gun-and
mortar fire was heard near Asaba, but the
direction was uncertain. It was later discovered
that the firing came from Asaba-Isele-Uku Road.
At about 1p.m, as the staff members of St.
Patrick’s College were leaving the dining room,
the first mortar shell landed on the school
football field. Mortar shelling continued until dusk.
Federal troops reached the northern edge of the
campus, along the Asaba-Agbor Road, at about
5p.m. By noon of 5 October, there were six
battalions lining up on the road in front of the
college, according to Captain Johnson, who was
third in command of the 71st Battalion. By the
evening of 6 October, Federal forces held the
road all the way into the Catholic Mission, two
miles inside Asaba. Biafran resistance west of the
Niger was over.

Major Alani Akinrinade commanded the 71st
Battalion. (Akinrinade in a clarification, said his
command was the 6th Brigade and truly he was in
Asaba at this time.

His second in command was a Tiv officer, older
than Alani. The men of this battalion were mostly
Yoruba and Tiv, with some Delta (Ijaw) men. “Most
spoke English. They were disciplined, courageous
and polite,” the American report stated.

Captain Johnson ordered the Americans to leave
Asaba by the morning of 6 October. The reason
was understood to be that the 71st Battalion was
unable to guarantee their safety from the
“second wave” of federal soldiers, known as “the
Sweepers” coming behind. “The Sweepers” were
only briefly observed, but they wore long hair, had
“cross-hatching tribal marks on both cheeks” and
apparently willing to live up to their reputation as
“exterminators.” According to secret cables sent
from American embassies in Niger and Chad to the
Embassy and consulates in Nigeria, thousands of
Nigeriens and Chadians crossed the border to
enlist for the war.

Ten trucks of Nigerien soldiers were seen being
transported for service in the Nigerian Army from
Gusau to Kaduna and over 2,000 more waiting on
Niger-Nigeria border for transportation to
Kaduna. The secret document went on: “1,000
Chadian soldiers passed through Maiduguri en
route Kaduna. These mercenary soldiers
constituted the “Sweepers.” The captured
American teachers aptly observed that there were
soldiers regarded as fighting soldiers and there
were other units that came behind to conduct
mass exterminations.

Major Alani, it was understood, was trying to get
as many civilians as possible into the bush before
the sweepers could arrive.

On the 5 October, when they came, a lieutenant
attempted to arrest the American teachers at St.
Patrick’s College and their non-Igbo refugees,
who had hidden from retreating but still vicious
Biafran troops.

Captain Johnson quickly summoned Major Alani. The
lieutenant claimed to be acting for a “Major
Jordane,” but a check proved this as false. Alani
sent the lieutenant and his men away and posted
a guard to the school until the staff and
refugees left Asaba. There were too many civilians
to be executed that Captain Paul Ogbebor and his
men were asked to get rid of a group of several
hundred Asaba citizens rounded up on 7 October.
Not wanting to risk insubordination, he marched
the contingent into the bush, told the people to
run and had his men fire harmlessly into the
ground. Eyewitness accounts confirmed that he
performed the same life-saving deception in
Ogwashi-Uku.

However, other civilian contingents the sweepers
rounded up were shot behind the Catholic Mission
and their bodies thrown into the Niger River. This
incident and many others were reported to
Colonel Arthur Halligan, the US military attaché in
Nigeria at that time, the document concluded.
At night on 19 September, Banjo was arrested in
Agbor. He was court martialed in Enugu three
days later. Okonkwo participated in the court-
martial and Ojukwu was present too. Banjo was
found guilty, together with Emmanuel Ifeajuna
(“the man from Ilaah who shot Abubakar” –the
Prime Minister), Phillip Alale and Sam Agbam.

Bob Barnard, American consul in Enugu, said
Ojukwu told him that he ordered the killing of
Banjo, Ifeajuna, Alale and Agbam because they
had planned to oust him from office, oust Gowon
as well and install Awolowo as Prime Minister. The
American military attaché, Arthur Halligan and
Brooks, the Defense Attaché who had some prior
intimation of the coup cabled the Defense
Intelligence Agency in Washington 3 August 1967
that “in the long run, Njoku will unseat Ojukwu.”

Ojukwu told Barnard: “The plotters intended to
take Brigadier Hillary Njoku, the head of Biafran
Army into custody and bring him to the State
House under heavy armed guard ostensibly to
demand of him that Njoku be relieved of command
on the grounds of incompetence.” They had been
behind the withdrawal of troops and reverses of
prior Biafran victories. He continued: “Once inside
the State House, Njoku’s guards would be used
against him. Ifeajuna would then declare himself
acting Governor and offer ceasefire on Gowon’s
terms. Banjo would go to the West and replace
Brigadier Yinka Adebayo, the military governor of
Western Region. Next, Gowon would be removed
and Awolowo declared Prime Minister of Reunited
Federation…Victor Banjo, Ifeajuna and others
kept in touch with co-conspirators in Lagos via
British Deputy High Commission’s facilities in
Benin.”

When the American consul asked Ojukwu for
evidence, Ojukwu replied: “Banjo is a very
meticulous man who kept records and notes of
everything he did. The mistake of the plotters was
they talked too much, their moves too conspicuous
and they made notes. As a result, the conspirators
came under surveillance from the early stages of
the plot’s existence. Their plans then became
known and confirmed by subsequent events.”

In a separate document, Clint Olson, American
Deputy Chief of Mission wrote: “Much of the
information recounted came from Major (Dr.)
Okonkwo. Banjo freely admitted in his testimony
that a group of Yorubas on both sides of the
battle were plotting together to take over Lagos
and Enugu governments and unite Nigeria under
Chief Awolowo. Gowon, Ojukwu, and Okonkwo were
to be eliminated; Gowon was to have been killed by
Yoruba officers in the Federal Army.”

The document stated further: “When arrested on
the night of 19 – 20th September, Banjo offered
no resistance because he said then it was too late
to stop the affair and the plot was already in
motion. His role, Banjo said, was already
accomplished. As far as is known, Banjo died
without revealing the names of his collaborators in
Lagos.

Before Banjo got to Enugu after his arrest,
Okonkwo had telephoned Gowon to warn him of a
threat to his life. Okonkwo said he was afraid that
the assassination of Gowon would prevent the
Heads of State Mission of the Organization of
African Unity from coming to Nigeria. The OAU
mission held the best hope of resolving the war,
Okonkwo believed.

Whether Ojukwu knew of or agreed with Okonkwo’s
warning to Gowon was not known. However
according to the American Olson, roadblocks
appeared in many places in Lagos and were
severely enforced. They were removed after about
48 hours as mysteriously as they had appeared.

Gowon, in an exclusive interview with New Nigeria
after Banjo revealed himself as the head of an
invading army, said he once met Banjo and Ojukwu
in 1965 during the crisis that followed the 1964
parliamentary elections. They were discussing the
merits of the army taking over governance.

One day, at about 2a.m, Biafran forces began
firing from the jungle in the hope of drawing a
return fire if the enemy was ahead. “But the
veterans were too smart and began to creep
towards the source of firing. After some time,
the Biafran troops began to advance thinking that
there were no federal troops ahead since there
was no return of fire. They walked straight into
the pointing guns of these veterans, their fingers
squeezed the triggers,” said Damboa to a US
Consulate officer named Arp.

These veterans were shooting at innocent Igbo
civilians, too. Damboa further told Arp, when he
came back from the frontlines on 17 September
1967, that “federal troops were shooting most Ibo
civilians on sight, including women and children
except for women with babies in their arms.

Initially they observed the rules laid down by
Gowon on the treatment of civilians. Then, after
the takeover of the Midwest, they heard stories
that Ibo soldiers had killed all the northerners
they found residing in the Midwest. Since that
time, Federal troops have been shooting Ibo
civilians on sight,” added Damboa.


The Midwest Invasion

Something was happening to Biafran soldiers,
which the Federal troops observed but could not
explain. Indeed, the fortunes of the Federal
troops were improving. Colonel Benjamin
Adekunle’s 3rd Marine Commando had landed on
25 July 1967 at Bonny Island, establishing a heavy
presence of federal forces in the creeks. Two L29
Delfins fighter jets from Czechoslovakia (NAF 401
and NAF 402) were at the Ikeja Airport and
battle ready.

Five more, on board Polish vessel Krakow, were a
week away from the Apapa Ports. Major Lal, an
ammunition ordnance officer seconded from the
Indian Army to Nigeria, had arrived from Eastern
Europe, where he had gone to acquire information
necessary to utilize Czech aerial ordnance.

Sections of 15 Soviet MiG bombers hidden in NAF
hangars were being assembled by 40 Russian
technicians lodging in Central Hotel, Kano. Bruce
Brent of Mobil Oil was flying jet oil to Kano to fuel
these bombers. Captain N.O. Sandburg of Nigerian
Airlines had flown in seven pilots, who had
previously done mercenary work in South Africa
and Congo, to fly the MiGs. Names, birthdates
and passport numbers of 26 Russians, who were to
serve as military advisors had been passed to
Edwin Ogbu, Permanent Secretary, External
Affairs Ministry. They were in Western Europe
awaiting a direct flight to Lagos.

But George Kurubo, the Federal Air Force Chief
of Staff, who had earlier joined the Biafran high
command, had defected back to the fold and had
been sent to Moscow as ambassador to facilitate
the flow of more arms from the Soviets.

Lt. Colonel Oluwole Rotimi, Quartermaster-
General of the Nigerian Army, went to western
Europe with a fat chequebook.

What followed was the arrival of Norwegian ship,
Hoegh Bell, bearing 2,000 cases of ammunition;
and British ship, Perang, which discharged its own
2000 cases of ammunition. A German ship
Suderholm also arrived. Those in charge of it
claimed she was in Apapa to offload gypsum. But
the US defense attaché reported that it was
carrying “300 tonnes of 60mm and 90mm ammo.”

The Ghanaian vessel, Sakumo Lagoon, was already
in Lome, heading to Apapa to discharge its own
ammo. A cache of 1,000 automatic
fabriquenationale rifles had arrived Lagos by air
on 8 August 1967 from the UK.

Speaking secretly to UK Defence Attaché, Lt.
Colonel Ikwue said he too had gone to the German
Defence Firm, Merex, to buy ammunition: 106mm
US recoilless rifles at $86 per round; 84mm ammo
for the Carl Gustav recoilless rifles at $72 per
round; 105mm HEAT- High Explosive Anti-Tank
warheads at $47 per round. Ikwue also bought
three English Electra Canberra, eight Mark II
Bombers at $105,000 each, 15 Sabre MK VI-T33
Jets at $100,000 each.

With all of these, Awolowo, rejected Hassan
Katsina’s request for funding of 55, 000 more
rifles for new recruits. However, he agreed once
Gowon intervened and assured him it was not a
request inspired by fraudulent intentions.

Federal troops had captured Nsukka, 56km from
Enugu. Over 200 non-Igbo Biafran policemen had
fled across the Mamfe border into Cameroun. In
Ogoja, the Ishibori, Mbube and other non-Igbo
Biafrans welcomed the federal troops after
driving out the Biafran troops in a fierce battle.

The Biafrans blew up the bridge over the Ayim
River at Mfume as they retreated.

The momentum was with the Federal side, but
they knew their victories were not only because of
their military superiority. At critical stages of
battle, even when the Biafrans were clearly
winning, they suddenly withdrew. An instance was
on 15 July 1967, to the west of Nsukka on the
route to Obolo. According to a conversation
Colonel J.R. Akahan, Nigeria’s Chief of Army
Staff, had with British Defence Advisor, the
Nigerian infantry companies of the 4th Battalion,
totally unaware of the presence of the 8th
Battalion of the Biafran army, were buried under
a hail of bullets and mortar.

Yet, the Biafran forces began to retreat. This
enabled the remnants of the federal infantry
company to regroup and successfully counter-
attack. Even more senior Biafran commanders
that should have been aware that the area had
come under federal control were driving into the
arms of the federal side. Nzeogwu and Tome
Bigger (Ojukwu’s half-brother) were victims of
the mysterious happening. Ojukwu initially put this
down to breakdown of communication in the chain
of command. During a special announcement over
Biafran radio on 15 July 1967, Ojukwu said:

“Yesterday, a special attack, which would have
completely sealed the doom of enemy troops in
the Nsukka sector of the northern front, was
ruthlessly sabotaged by a mysterious order from
the army high command…Our valiant troops were
treacherously exposed to enemy flanks.”

At 9.30p.m on 8 August 1967, Biafran forces
invaded the Midwest. In the recollection of Major
(Dr.) Albert Nwazu Okonkwo, military
administrator of Midwest, made available in
confidence through an American teacher living in
Asaba to Clinton Olson, Deputy Chief of Mission in
Lagos on 1 November 1967, it was known by 4
August 1967 in Asaba that the Midwest, West and
Lagos would soon be invaded.

On 5 August, Ojukwu had warned the Midwest
government, headed by Colonel David Ejoor, that
if northern troops were allowed to stay in the
Midwest, the region would become a battleground.
Many Midwestern officers knew of the plans; some
of them had gone to Biafra earlier to help in the
preparations. Lt Col. Nwawo, Commander of the
Fourth Area Command at Benin, was probably
aware. Lt Col. Okwechime, according to the
document, certainly knew of it. Lt Col. Nwajei did
not know and was never trusted by the anti-Lagos
elements in the Midwest. “After the Biafran
takeover, Nwajei was sent back to his village of
Ibusa, where he was said to be engaged in
repainting his home until just the arrival of
Nigerian troops in the area,” disclosed the
document.

Major Albert Okonkwo, later appointed military
administrator, did not know in advance.

Lieutenant (later Major) Joseph Isichei and
Lieutenant Colonel Chukwurah were not informed
in advance. “Major Samuel Ogbemudia participated
in the invasion, properly by prior agreement,” the
document stated.

That night of 8 August, Biafran army units blazed
across the Onitsha Bridge and disarmed the Asaba
garrison that was then stationed at St Peter’s
Teachers’ Training College. Then they went on to
the Catering Rest House, where Midwest officers
were living, and disarmed the officers. The only
exception was Major Asama, the local commander,
who escaped and drove to Agbor at about
22.30hrs.

There were no casualties except for one officer
with a gunshot wound in the leg. The invading
force drove to Agbor, where it split into three
columns. One column drove northwards towards
Auchi and Aghenebode. A second column went to
Warri and Sapele.

“The main force led by Victor Banjo was supposed
to drive on to Benin and capture Ijebu-Ode, reach
Ibadan on 9 August, reach Ikeja near Lagos by 10
August, setting up a blockade there to seal off
the capital city,” the document quoted Okonkwo as
saying.

However, this main column stopped in Agbor for six
hours, reaching Benin at dawn. There was no real
resistance in Benin, where no civilian was killed.
The main column left Benin for Ijebu-Ode early in
the afternoon. It stopped at Ore, just at the
Western Region’s border.

According to US Defense Attaché report, three
weeks before, Ejoor informed the Supreme
Headquarters that he had information that
Ojukwu was planning to send soldiers in mufti to
conquer the Midwest. So, the 3rd Battalion, which
was heading towards the Okene – Idah route to
join the 1st Division on the Nsukka frontline, was
ordered to stop at Owo. The first Recce Squadron
from Ibadan, which had already reached Okene,
was reassigned to take care of any surprise in the
Midwest. By the time Lagos heard of the invasion,
this squadron was quickly upgraded from company
strength to a battalion, with troops of Shuwa’s
1st Division across the river, and another
battalion was stationed at Idah to hold a defensive
alignment against any Biafran surprise from
Auchi.

Upon receiving the telephone call from Major
Asama about the Biafran invasion at Asaba, Ejoor
hurriedly left his wife and children at the State
House, went to his friend, Dr Albert Okonkwo at
Benin Hospital to borrow his car. He then sought
asylum in the home of Catholic Bishop of Benin,
Patrick Kelly.

In his first radio address to the people of Midwest
on 9 August 1967, Banjo said Ejoor was safe and
“efforts were being made to enlist his continued
service in Midwest and in Nigeria.” Ejoor stayed in
the seminary next door to the bishop’s house for
almost two weeks, receiving visitors including
Banjo, Colonels Nwawo and Nwajei, Major (Dr.)
Okonkwo, who were trying to persuade him to
make a speech supporting the new administration.

Ejoor refused. He was told that he was free to go
wherever he wished without molestation. Not
trusting what they might do, he went back to
Isoko his native area, where he remained till
federal forces captured it on 22 September 1967.
Before Banjo knew the full score, he met with Mr.
Bell, UK Deputy High Commissioner, the evening of
Benin invasion. Bell summarized his and Banjo’s
words as:

a. There were no fatal casualties though some
were wounded.

b. Ejoor and two senior officers were not in Benin
when Eastern troops arrived. Bell had firm
impression that they had been warned about the
day’s event.

c. All the Midwest is now under the control of
combined East/Midwest forces.

d. East was asked to cooperate by certain Midwest
officers because an invasion of the Midwest by the
North was imminent.

e. That he does not agree with Ojukwu on the
separate existence of Biafra. He is convinced that
a united Nigeria is essential.

f. Bell said he saw only three officers at the
army headquarters: one was a Midwestern medical
officer (Major Okoko). All others were Easterners.

Meanwhile when Banjo made the first radio
address, he announced the impending appointment
of a military administrator, but there was
considerable difficulty among the Biafran and
Midwestern leaders in selecting a suitable man.
First choice was to be someone from the Ishan or
Afemai areas. Someone from the Delta was next,
preferably an Ika-Igbo. However, the stalemate
continued until Ojukwu intervened and selected
Albert Okonkwo. Ojukwu knew Okonkwo only by
reputation.

Okonkwo had certain things that recommended
him. First, he had an American wife, which cut the
family/tribe relationship problem of those times in
half. Second, he was considered to be politically
“sterile,” having been in the US for 13 years and
was not associated with any political party or
faction. Third, he was commissioned a captain in
the medical corps on 2 October 1965 and just
made a Major on 22 June 1967. The implication was
that he was not tainted by army politics. He was
also very pro-Biafra.

continue. ..

The CIA had predicted a victory for Ojukwu, but
American diplomatic and consular corps in Nigeria
predicted victory for the Federal side and
concluded that a united Nigeria served American
interests better than the one without the Eastern
Region. Two conflicting conclusions from an
important department and a useful agency. The
American government chose to be neutral. Dean
Rusk, America’s Secretary of State said: “America
is not in a position to take action as Nigeria is an
area under British influence.”

The British on the other hand were foot-
dragging. At the insistence of Awolowo, “the
acting prime minister” as he was called in
diplomatic circles, Gowon approached the Soviet
Union.

According to a secret cable (dated 24/08/67)
sent by Dr. Martin Hillenbrand, American
Ambassador in East Germany, to his counterpart
in Lagos, MCK Ajuluchukwu, Ojukwu’s special envoy,
met Soviet Ambassador to Nigeria, Alexandr
Romanov, in Moscow in June 1967. Romanov said
that for USSR to recognize Biafra and supply it
arms, the latter had to nationalize the oil
industry. Ojukwu refused, saying that he had no
money to reimburse the oil companies and that
Biafrans did not have the expertise to run the oil
installations.

A month later, Anthony Enahoro, the Federal
Commissioner for Information and Labour, went to
Moscow, signed a cultural agreement with Moscow
and promised to nationalize the oil industry,
including its allied industries once they got arms
to recapture them from the Biafrans. Within
days, 15 MiGs arrived in sections in Ikeja and Kano
airports, awaiting assemblage. There was no
nationalization.

Meanwhile, buoyed by the confidence from early
success, the Biafrans went on the offensive. Their
B26 (one of the six originally intended for use
against the Nigerian Navy) was fitted with
multiple canon and 50mm calibre machine gun
mounts. It conducted bombing raids on Makurdi
airfield, Kano and Kaduna. Luckily for Nigeria,
the two transport DC3s had gone to Lagos to get
more reserve mortar and 106-artillery ammo. In
Kano, there were no fatalities, only a slight
damage to the wing of a commercial plane.

Kaduna, however, was not that lucky. On 10
August 1967, the B26 dropped bombs on Kaduna
airbase, damaging many buildings and the main
hangar. The German consulate in Kaduna
confirmed that a German citizen, a Dornier
technician tasked with maintaining Nigerian
military planes, was killed and two others injured.
A week later, the senior traffic control officer,
A.O. Amaku, was arrested for sabotage. He was
accused of failing to shut off the airport’s
homing device, thus giving the Biafran plane
navigational assistance. His British assistant, Mr.
Palfrey, was similarly suspected. He resigned and
immediately returned to the UK. However, Major
Obada, the airbase commanding officer and an
Urhobo from the Midwest, strongly defended the
accused.

The daring bomb raid provoked many more
Northern civilians to run to the nearest army base
and enlist to fight.

According to a report by US Ambassador Elbert
Matthews, cabled to Washington on 3 July 1967,
unidentified men tried to bomb the police
headquarters in Lagos on the night of 2 July. They
attempted to drive an automobile into the
compound, but the guards did not open the gate.

They packed the car across the street near a
small house opposite a petrol station. Leaving the
car, the men fled and within seconds, an explosion
took place. The house was demolished and all its
occupants killed, but the petrol station was
unaffected. Eleven people, including some of the
guards at the police headquarters, were injured.

Two hours later, a second explosion, from
explosives in a car parked by a petrol station,
rocked Yaba. This time, the station caught fire.
The ambassador remarked: “It is possible this is a
start of campaign of terrorism…public reactions
could further jeopardize safety of Ibos in Lagos.”
And sure it did.

A Lagos resident, who visited the police
headquarters after the attack, told the
Australian ambassador “Ibos must be killed.”

There was panic all over Lagos. Anti-Igbo riots
broke out. Northern soldiers at the 2nd Battalion
Barracks in Ikeja used the opportunity to launch a
mini-version of the previous year’s torture and
massacre of the Igbo in the North. On 7 July
1967, Lagos State governor, Lieutenant Colonel
Mobolaji Johnson, condemned the bombing in a
radio broadcast. “A good number of Igbos in Lagos
is innocent and loyal to the federal government.

It is only fair that they be allowed to go about
their business unmolested so long as they abide by
the law and are not agents and evildoers,”
Johnson said.

He called for Lagosians to join civil defence units
and for Easterners to come and register with the
police.

Meanwhile, the corpses of troops and soldiers
wounded in Yahe, Wakande, Obudu and Gakem that
arrived Kaduna by train on 11 July 1967 sparked
enormous interest in enlistment and volunteering.

Recruitment centres were established in Ibadan,
Enugu, Lagos and Kano. But it was at the Kano
centre, headquarters of the 4th Battalion of the
Nigerian Regiment that generated the biggest
number of recruits. According to the US
confidential cable of 17 July 1967, 20,000 of these
were veterans, who had been recruited to fight on
the British side in Burma. The Burma veterans
marched angrily to the recruitment offices to
replace those that had been killed or injured.

Around 7,000 were accepted. Of these, 5,000 were
immediately sent to the frontline. They said they
needed no training; only guns.

As they advanced, towards the outskirts of Ikem,
4km southeast of Nsukka, when mortal fires from
the Biafran artillery landed close by,
inexperienced recruits ducked for cover behind
their transport columns out of fear and
incompetence in bush warfare. Not these Burma
veterans. Damboa, the Regional Editor of the
Morning Post, was embedded with some of these
veterans under the command of Major Shande,
formerly of the 5th Battalion, Kano, which Ojukwu
commanded in 1963.

continue...

The CIA had predicted a victory for Ojukwu, but
American diplomatic and consular corps in Nigeria
predicted victory for the Federal side and
concluded that a united Nigeria served American
interests better than the one without the Eastern
Region. Two conflicting conclusions from an
important department and a useful agency. The
American government chose to be neutral. Dean
Rusk, America’s Secretary of State said: “America
is not in a position to take action as Nigeria is an
area under British influence.”

The British on the other hand were foot-
dragging. At the insistence of Awolowo, “the
acting prime minister” as he was called in
diplomatic circles, Gowon approached the Soviet
Union.

According to a secret cable (dated 24/08/67)
sent by Dr. Martin Hillenbrand, American
Ambassador in East Germany, to his counterpart
in Lagos, MCK Ajuluchukwu, Ojukwu’s special envoy,
met Soviet Ambassador to Nigeria, Alexandr
Romanov, in Moscow in June 1967. Romanov said
that for USSR to recognize Biafra and supply it
arms, the latter had to nationalize the oil
industry. Ojukwu refused, saying that he had no
money to reimburse the oil companies and that
Biafrans did not have the expertise to run the oil
installations.

A month later, Anthony Enahoro, the Federal
Commissioner for Information and Labour, went to
Moscow, signed a cultural agreement with Moscow
and promised to nationalize the oil industry,
including its allied industries once they got arms
to recapture them from the Biafrans. Within
days, 15 MiGs arrived in sections in Ikeja and Kano
airports, awaiting assemblage. There was no
nationalization.

Meanwhile, buoyed by the confidence from early
success, the Biafrans went on the offensive. Their
B26 (one of the six originally intended for use
against the Nigerian Navy) was fitted with
multiple canon and 50mm calibre machine gun
mounts. It conducted bombing raids on Makurdi
airfield, Kano and Kaduna. Luckily for Nigeria,
the two transport DC3s had gone to Lagos to get
more reserve mortar and 106-artillery ammo. In
Kano, there were no fatalities, only a slight
damage to the wing of a commercial plane.

Kaduna, however, was not that lucky. On 10
August 1967, the B26 dropped bombs on Kaduna
airbase, damaging many buildings and the main
hangar. The German consulate in Kaduna
confirmed that a German citizen, a Dornier
technician tasked with maintaining Nigerian
military planes, was killed and two others injured.
A week later, the senior traffic control officer,
A.O. Amaku, was arrested for sabotage. He was
accused of failing to shut off the airport’s
homing device, thus giving the Biafran plane
navigational assistance. His British assistant, Mr.
Palfrey, was similarly suspected. He resigned and
immediately returned to the UK. However, Major
Obada, the airbase commanding officer and an
Urhobo from the Midwest, strongly defended the
accused.

The daring bomb raid provoked many more
Northern civilians to run to the nearest army base
and enlist to fight.

According to a report by US Ambassador Elbert
Matthews, cabled to Washington on 3 July 1967,
unidentified men tried to bomb the police
headquarters in Lagos on the night of 2 July. They
attempted to drive an automobile into the
compound, but the guards did not open the gate.

They packed the car across the street near a
small house opposite a petrol station. Leaving the
car, the men fled and within seconds, an explosion
took place. The house was demolished and all its
occupants killed, but the petrol station was
unaffected. Eleven people, including some of the
guards at the police headquarters, were injured.

Two hours later, a second explosion, from
explosives in a car parked by a petrol station,
rocked Yaba. This time, the station caught fire.
The ambassador remarked: “It is possible this is a
start of campaign of terrorism…public reactions
could further jeopardize safety of Ibos in Lagos.”
And sure it did.

A Lagos resident, who visited the police
headquarters after the attack, told the
Australian ambassador “Ibos must be killed.”

There was panic all over Lagos. Anti-Igbo riots
broke out. Northern soldiers at the 2nd Battalion
Barracks in Ikeja used the opportunity to launch a
mini-version of the previous year’s torture and
massacre of the Igbo in the North. On 7 July
1967, Lagos State governor, Lieutenant Colonel
Mobolaji Johnson, condemned the bombing in a
radio broadcast. “A good number of Igbos in Lagos
is innocent and loyal to the federal government.

It is only fair that they be allowed to go about
their business unmolested so long as they abide by
the law and are not agents and evildoers,”
Johnson said.

He called for Lagosians to join civil defence units
and for Easterners to come and register with the
police.

Meanwhile, the corpses of troops and soldiers
wounded in Yahe, Wakande, Obudu and Gakem that
arrived Kaduna by train on 11 July 1967 sparked
enormous interest in enlistment and volunteering.

Recruitment centres were established in Ibadan,
Enugu, Lagos and Kano. But it was at the Kano
centre, headquarters of the 4th Battalion of the
Nigerian Regiment that generated the biggest
number of recruits. According to the US
confidential cable of 17 July 1967, 20,000 of these
were veterans, who had been recruited to fight on
the British side in Burma. The Burma veterans
marched angrily to the recruitment offices to
replace those that had been killed or injured.

Around 7,000 were accepted. Of these, 5,000 were
immediately sent to the frontline. They said they
needed no training; only guns.

As they advanced, towards the outskirts of Ikem,
4km southeast of Nsukka, when mortal fires from
the Biafran artillery landed close by,
inexperienced recruits ducked for cover behind
their transport columns out of fear and
incompetence in bush warfare. Not these Burma
veterans. Damboa, the Regional Editor of the
Morning Post, was embedded with some of these
veterans under the command of Major Shande,
formerly of the 5th Battalion, Kano, which Ojukwu
commanded in 1963.

continue...

The CIA had predicted a victory for Ojukwu, but
American diplomatic and consular corps in Nigeria
predicted victory for the Federal side and
concluded that a united Nigeria served American
interests better than the one without the Eastern
Region. Two conflicting conclusions from an
important department and a useful agency. The
American government chose to be neutral. Dean
Rusk, America’s Secretary of State said: “America
is not in a position to take action as Nigeria is an
area under British influence.”

The British on the other hand were foot-
dragging. At the insistence of Awolowo, “the
acting prime minister” as he was called in
diplomatic circles, Gowon approached the Soviet
Union.

According to a secret cable (dated 24/08/67)
sent by Dr. Martin Hillenbrand, American
Ambassador in East Germany, to his counterpart
in Lagos, MCK Ajuluchukwu, Ojukwu’s special envoy,
met Soviet Ambassador to Nigeria, Alexandr
Romanov, in Moscow in June 1967. Romanov said
that for USSR to recognize Biafra and supply it
arms, the latter had to nationalize the oil
industry. Ojukwu refused, saying that he had no
money to reimburse the oil companies and that
Biafrans did not have the expertise to run the oil
installations.

A month later, Anthony Enahoro, the Federal
Commissioner for Information and Labour, went to
Moscow, signed a cultural agreement with Moscow
and promised to nationalize the oil industry,
including its allied industries once they got arms
to recapture them from the Biafrans. Within
days, 15 MiGs arrived in sections in Ikeja and Kano
airports, awaiting assemblage. There was no
nationalization.

Meanwhile, buoyed by the confidence from early
success, the Biafrans went on the offensive. Their
B26 (one of the six originally intended for use
against the Nigerian Navy) was fitted with
multiple canon and 50mm calibre machine gun
mounts. It conducted bombing raids on Makurdi
airfield, Kano and Kaduna. Luckily for Nigeria,
the two transport DC3s had gone to Lagos to get
more reserve mortar and 106-artillery ammo. In
Kano, there were no fatalities, only a slight
damage to the wing of a commercial plane.

Kaduna, however, was not that lucky. On 10
August 1967, the B26 dropped bombs on Kaduna
airbase, damaging many buildings and the main
hangar. The German consulate in Kaduna
confirmed that a German citizen, a Dornier
technician tasked with maintaining Nigerian
military planes, was killed and two others injured.
A week later, the senior traffic control officer,
A.O. Amaku, was arrested for sabotage. He was
accused of failing to shut off the airport’s
homing device, thus giving the Biafran plane
navigational assistance. His British assistant, Mr.
Palfrey, was similarly suspected. He resigned and
immediately returned to the UK. However, Major
Obada, the airbase commanding officer and an
Urhobo from the Midwest, strongly defended the
accused.

The daring bomb raid provoked many more
Northern civilians to run to the nearest army base
and enlist to fight.

According to a report by US Ambassador Elbert
Matthews, cabled to Washington on 3 July 1967,
unidentified men tried to bomb the police
headquarters in Lagos on the night of 2 July. They
attempted to drive an automobile into the
compound, but the guards did not open the gate.

They packed the car across the street near a
small house opposite a petrol station. Leaving the
car, the men fled and within seconds, an explosion
took place. The house was demolished and all its
occupants killed, but the petrol station was
unaffected. Eleven people, including some of the
guards at the police headquarters, were injured.

Two hours later, a second explosion, from
explosives in a car parked by a petrol station,
rocked Yaba. This time, the station caught fire.
The ambassador remarked: “It is possible this is a
start of campaign of terrorism…public reactions
could further jeopardize safety of Ibos in Lagos.”
And sure it did.

A Lagos resident, who visited the police
headquarters after the attack, told the
Australian ambassador “Ibos must be killed.”

There was panic all over Lagos. Anti-Igbo riots
broke out. Northern soldiers at the 2nd Battalion
Barracks in Ikeja used the opportunity to launch a
mini-version of the previous year’s torture and
massacre of the Igbo in the North. On 7 July
1967, Lagos State governor, Lieutenant Colonel
Mobolaji Johnson, condemned the bombing in a
radio broadcast. “A good number of Igbos in Lagos
is innocent and loyal to the federal government.

It is only fair that they be allowed to go about
their business unmolested so long as they abide by
the law and are not agents and evildoers,”
Johnson said.

He called for Lagosians to join civil defence units
and for Easterners to come and register with the
police.

Meanwhile, the corpses of troops and soldiers
wounded in Yahe, Wakande, Obudu and Gakem that
arrived Kaduna by train on 11 July 1967 sparked
enormous interest in enlistment and volunteering.

Recruitment centres were established in Ibadan,
Enugu, Lagos and Kano. But it was at the Kano
centre, headquarters of the 4th Battalion of the
Nigerian Regiment that generated the biggest
number of recruits. According to the US
confidential cable of 17 July 1967, 20,000 of these
were veterans, who had been recruited to fight on
the British side in Burma. The Burma veterans
marched angrily to the recruitment offices to
replace those that had been killed or injured.

Around 7,000 were accepted. Of these, 5,000 were
immediately sent to the frontline. They said they
needed no training; only guns.

As they advanced, towards the outskirts of Ikem,
4km southeast of Nsukka, when mortal fires from
the Biafran artillery landed close by,
inexperienced recruits ducked for cover behind
their transport columns out of fear and
incompetence in bush warfare. Not these Burma
veterans. Damboa, the Regional Editor of the
Morning Post, was embedded with some of these
veterans under the command of Major Shande,
formerly of the 5th Battalion, Kano, which Ojukwu
commanded in 1963.

continue...

The Biafrans also knew that Gowon wanted to
respect the neutrality of Midwest and not invade
through Niger Bridge, which would have driven the
people of the Midwest into waiting Biafran hands.

But if Gowon changed his mind and there was a
general mobilization of the two battalions of the
federal troops there, they had trustworthy men
there that would alert Enugu. And if that failed,
according to the US documents, the Niger Bridge
had been mined using “explosives with metal
covering across the roadbed at second pier out
from the eastern side”.

The Biafrans also knew that the Yoruba, who were
sworn enemies of the Northern hegemony, would
never join the North militarily or politically
against the Biafrans. When Gowon vouched to
“crush the rebellion,” progressive Yoruba
intellectuals deplored the language. Professor
Hezekiah Oluwasanmi, Vice Chancellor of University
of Ife, described the use of the word as
unfortunate. Justice Kayode Eso of the Western
Court of Appeal said: “Crushing the East was not
the way to make Nigeria one.”

Mr. Strong, the American consul in Ibadan, whom
they had been speaking to, confidentially wrote:
“As intellectuals and modernizers, they see the
conflict in terms of continuing determination of
conservative North to dominate the more
advanced South and they expressed fear that once
North subdues East, it will seek to assert outright
dominance over the West. The centre of trouble
might then swing back to the West, where it all
started.”

The Biafrans understood, therefore, that their
strongest defence perimeter would be along
Nsukka, Obudu, Gakem and Nyonya in Ogoja
province, where they share border with the North.

That was where they concentrated. On 8 July
after three days of fighting, only four Biafran
troops were dead and nine wounded in Obudu,
while up to 100 Nigerian troops were dead,
according to the Irish Embassy official, Eamon
O’tuathail, who visited the Catholic Mission
Hospital in Obudu. He said: “Forty five (45) of
the dead had already been buried and the
villagers were seen carrying the heads of the
remaining around town.” In June before fighting
started, Ojukwu charged on Biafra Radio: “Each
Biafran soldier should bring back ten or twenty
Hausa heads.”

At Nyanya, Nigerian troops attempted to seize
the bridge linking Obudu and Ogoja, but were
beaten back by the Biafran troops on 7 July at
1400hrs. According to the New York Times’ Lloyd
Garrison’s dispatch of 8 July: “The Biafran Air
Force–a lone B-26 fighter bomber–flew sorties
from Enugu today, bombing and strafing enemy
columns. Asked what damage it had inflicted, its
European pilot replied: “Frankly, I don’t know. But
we made a lot of smoke. Hundreds of Enugu
pedestrians waved and cheered each time the
plane returned from a mission and swooped low
over the city buzzing Ogui Avenue.”

Tunde Akingbade of the Daily Times, who was
returning from the frontlines, said the first
Nigerian battalion in Ogoja area was “almost
completely wiped out by a combination of mines
and electrical devices (Ogbunigwe)”.

In the first few weeks of the war, the Biafrans
were clearly on top. “Enugu is very calm,” the
confidential cable of 13 July 1967 noted. “Ojukwu
is dining with Field Commanders in State House
tonight.”

On the federal side, confusion reigned. They had
grossly underestimated Biafran capabilities.

“Gowon and his immediate military advisers believe
they can carry out a successful operation putting
their trust in the superiority of the Hausa
soldier,” the British High Commissioner, Sir David
Hunt, told his American counterpart on 31 May
1967. He said further: “A northern incursion would
be hastily mounted, ill-conceived and more in the
nature of a foray.”

Even the Nigerian infantry, which advanced as far
as Obolo on Oturkpo-Nsukka Road, was easily
repelled. It ran out of ammunition. At the
Supreme Headquarters in Lagos, they were
accusing Shuwa, the commander, of not sending
enough information about what was going on.
Shuwa counter-accused that he was not getting
enough and timely orders. Requests for
ammunition and hardware procurement were
chaotically coming to the Federal Armament
Board from different units, not collectively from
the central command.

Major S.A. Alao, acting commander of Nigerian Air
Force (after George Kurubo defected to Biafran
High Command) together with the German
adviser, Lieutenant Colonel Karl Shipp, had
travelled to many European cities to buy jets.
They were unsuccessful. Gowon had written to the
American president for arms. The State
Department declined military assistance to either
side. Gowon replied that he was not requesting for
assistance, but a right to buy arms from the
American market. That too was rejected.


continue...

The Biafrans also knew that Gowon wanted to
respect the neutrality of Midwest and not invade
through Niger Bridge, which would have driven the
people of the Midwest into waiting Biafran hands.

But if Gowon changed his mind and there was a
general mobilization of the two battalions of the
federal troops there, they had trustworthy men
there that would alert Enugu. And if that failed,
according to the US documents, the Niger Bridge
had been mined using “explosives with metal
covering across the roadbed at second pier out
from the eastern side”.

The Biafrans also knew that the Yoruba, who were
sworn enemies of the Northern hegemony, would
never join the North militarily or politically
against the Biafrans. When Gowon vouched to
“crush the rebellion,” progressive Yoruba
intellectuals deplored the language. Professor
Hezekiah Oluwasanmi, Vice Chancellor of University
of Ife, described the use of the word as
unfortunate. Justice Kayode Eso of the Western
Court of Appeal said: “Crushing the East was not
the way to make Nigeria one.”

Mr. Strong, the American consul in Ibadan, whom
they had been speaking to, confidentially wrote:
“As intellectuals and modernizers, they see the
conflict in terms of continuing determination of
conservative North to dominate the more
advanced South and they expressed fear that once
North subdues East, it will seek to assert outright
dominance over the West. The centre of trouble
might then swing back to the West, where it all
started.”

The Biafrans understood, therefore, that their
strongest defence perimeter would be along
Nsukka, Obudu, Gakem and Nyonya in Ogoja
province, where they share border with the North.

That was where they concentrated. On 8 July
after three days of fighting, only four Biafran
troops were dead and nine wounded in Obudu,
while up to 100 Nigerian troops were dead,
according to the Irish Embassy official, Eamon
O’tuathail, who visited the Catholic Mission
Hospital in Obudu. He said: “Forty five (45) of
the dead had already been buried and the
villagers were seen carrying the heads of the
remaining around town.” In June before fighting
started, Ojukwu charged on Biafra Radio: “Each
Biafran soldier should bring back ten or twenty
Hausa heads.”

At Nyanya, Nigerian troops attempted to seize
the bridge linking Obudu and Ogoja, but were
beaten back by the Biafran troops on 7 July at
1400hrs. According to the New York Times’ Lloyd
Garrison’s dispatch of 8 July: “The Biafran Air
Force–a lone B-26 fighter bomber–flew sorties
from Enugu today, bombing and strafing enemy
columns. Asked what damage it had inflicted, its
European pilot replied: “Frankly, I don’t know. But
we made a lot of smoke. Hundreds of Enugu
pedestrians waved and cheered each time the
plane returned from a mission and swooped low
over the city buzzing Ogui Avenue.”

Tunde Akingbade of the Daily Times, who was
returning from the frontlines, said the first
Nigerian battalion in Ogoja area was “almost
completely wiped out by a combination of mines
and electrical devices (Ogbunigwe)”.

In the first few weeks of the war, the Biafrans
were clearly on top. “Enugu is very calm,” the
confidential cable of 13 July 1967 noted. “Ojukwu
is dining with Field Commanders in State House
tonight.”

On the federal side, confusion reigned. They had
grossly underestimated Biafran capabilities.

“Gowon and his immediate military advisers believe
they can carry out a successful operation putting
their trust in the superiority of the Hausa
soldier,” the British High Commissioner, Sir David
Hunt, told his American counterpart on 31 May
1967. He said further: “A northern incursion would
be hastily mounted, ill-conceived and more in the
nature of a foray.”

Even the Nigerian infantry, which advanced as far
as Obolo on Oturkpo-Nsukka Road, was easily
repelled. It ran out of ammunition. At the
Supreme Headquarters in Lagos, they were
accusing Shuwa, the commander, of not sending
enough information about what was going on.
Shuwa counter-accused that he was not getting
enough and timely orders. Requests for
ammunition and hardware procurement were
chaotically coming to the Federal Armament
Board from different units, not collectively from
the central command.

Major S.A. Alao, acting commander of Nigerian Air
Force (after George Kurubo defected to Biafran
High Command) together with the German
adviser, Lieutenant Colonel Karl Shipp, had
travelled to many European cities to buy jets.
They were unsuccessful. Gowon had written to the
American president for arms. The State
Department declined military assistance to either
side. Gowon replied that he was not requesting for
assistance, but a right to buy arms from the
American market. That too was rejected.


continue...

To Major B.M. Usman and other northern officers
around Gowon, who had attributed his slow
response to the secession to the fact that his
girlfriend was Igbo and that her parents were
resettled in the East, it was such a huge relief
that at the Supreme Military Council meeting of 3
July 1967, Gowon authorized the long awaited
military campaign.

Edith had safely landed in West Germany. Gowon
told the gathering: “Gentlemen, we are going to
crush the rebellion, but note that we are going
after the rebels, not the Ibos.” The military
action, which was to become the Nigerian Civil War
or the Biafran War or Operation Unicord, as it was
coded in military circles, officially started on 6
July 1967 at 5 a.m.

The North was minded to use the war as a tool to
reassert its dominance of national affairs. Mallam
Kagu, Damboa, Regional Editor of the Morning
Post, told the American consul in Kaduna: “No one
should kid himself that this is a fight between the
East and the rest of Nigeria. It is a fight
between the North and the Ibo.” He added that
the rebels would be flushed out of Enugu within
six weeks. Lt. Colonel Hassan Katsina went further
to say with the level of enthusiasm among the
soldiers; it would be a matter of “only hours
before Ojukwu and his men were rounded up”.

The northern section of the Nigerian military was
the best equipped in the country. To ensure the
region’s continued dominance, the British assigned
most of the army and air force resources to the
North. It was only the Navy’s they could not
transfer. All the elite military schools were there.
The headquarters of the infantry and artillery
corps were there. Kaduna alone was home to the
headquarters of the 1st Division of the Nigerian
Army, Defense Industries Corporation of Nigeria
(Army Depot), Air Force Training School and,
Nigerian Defence Academy.

Maitama Sule, Minister of Mines and Power in
1966, once told the story of how Muhammadu
Ribadu, his counterpart in Defence Ministry, went
to the Nigerian Military School, Zaria, and the
British Commandant of the school told him many
of the students could not continue because they
failed woefully. When Ribadu thumbed through the
list, Sule said, it was a Mohammed, an Ibrahim, a
Yusuf or an Abdullahi. “You don’t know what you
are doing and because of this you cannot continue
to head the school,” an irate Ribadu was said to
have told the commandant.

Shehu Musa Yar’Adua was one of the students for
whom the commandant was sacked. “You can see
what Yar’Adua later became in life. He became
the vice president. This is the power of forward
planning,” Sule declared.

Unknown to the forward planners, according to
the US documents, Ojukwu had been meticulously
preparing for war as early as October 1966, after
the second round of massacre in the North. He
had stopped the Eastern share of revenues that
were supposed to accrue to the Federation
Account. By 30 April 1967, he had recalled all
Igbos serving in Nigeria embassies and foreign
missions and those that heeded his call were
placed on the payroll of the government of
Eastern Region. The 77,000 square kilometres of
the Republic of Biafra–a mere 8 per cent of the
size of Nigeria–was already divided into 20
provinces, with leaders selected for each. They
had their own judiciary, legislative councils,
ministries and ambassadors. Alouette helicopters
and a B26 bomber were procured from the French
Air Force through a Luxemburg trading company.

Hank Warton, the German-American arms dealer,
had been flying in Czech and Israeli arms via Spain
and Portugal since October 1966. The military
hardware, they could not get, they seized. A DC3
and a Fokker F27 were seized from the Nigerian
Air Force in April. NNS Ibadan, a Nigerian Navy
Seaward Defence Boat (SDB) that docked in
Calabar Port, was quickly made Biafran.

Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu, who was supposed to be
in Enugu in prison for his role in 1966 coup, joined
in training recruits in Abakaliki. Foreign
mercenaries were training indoctrinated old
people, young men and teenagers recruited as
NCOs [Non-commissioned Officers] in jungle
warfare, bomb making, mortar and other artillery
firing. Ojukwu, through speeches, town hall
meetings, market square performances and radio
broadcasts, succeeded in convincing his people that
their destiny was death or a separate state. All
his performances in Ghana that culminated in the
Aburi Accord of January 1967, or discussions with
the Awolowo-led National Conciliation Committee
five months later, turned out to be ruse.

The underground war preparations, the secret
arms stockpiles openly manifested themselves as
Ojukwu’s stubborn refusal to accept offers or
concessions during these peace meetings.

But the Biafrans knew that their vulnerable line
was along Ogoja, Ikom, Calabar, Port Harcourt,
and Yenogoa. Support from the six million people
making up the Eastern minorities was very much
unsure. The minorities viewed their leaders in
Biafra high command as traitors. And without the
minorities, Biafra would be landlocked and most
likely, unviable as a state. More so, their vast oil
and gas resources were the reason they
contemplated secession in the first place. The
Biafra high command believed that if there was
going to be any troop incursion from there, they
are going to be transported through ship. They
already had a B26 bomber to deal fire to
Nigeria’s only transport ship, NNS Lokoja, anytime
it approached the Biafran coastline.

continue. ..

To Major B.M. Usman and other northern officers
around Gowon, who had attributed his slow
response to the secession to the fact that his
girlfriend was Igbo and that her parents were
resettled in the East, it was such a huge relief
that at the Supreme Military Council meeting of 3
July 1967, Gowon authorized the long awaited
military campaign.

Edith had safely landed in West Germany. Gowon
told the gathering: “Gentlemen, we are going to
crush the rebellion, but note that we are going
after the rebels, not the Ibos.” The military
action, which was to become the Nigerian Civil War
or the Biafran War or Operation Unicord, as it was
coded in military circles, officially started on 6
July 1967 at 5 a.m.

The North was minded to use the war as a tool to
reassert its dominance of national affairs. Mallam
Kagu, Damboa, Regional Editor of the Morning
Post, told the American consul in Kaduna: “No one
should kid himself that this is a fight between the
East and the rest of Nigeria. It is a fight
between the North and the Ibo.” He added that
the rebels would be flushed out of Enugu within
six weeks. Lt. Colonel Hassan Katsina went further
to say with the level of enthusiasm among the
soldiers; it would be a matter of “only hours
before Ojukwu and his men were rounded up”.

The northern section of the Nigerian military was
the best equipped in the country. To ensure the
region’s continued dominance, the British assigned
most of the army and air force resources to the
North. It was only the Navy’s they could not
transfer. All the elite military schools were there.
The headquarters of the infantry and artillery
corps were there. Kaduna alone was home to the
headquarters of the 1st Division of the Nigerian
Army, Defense Industries Corporation of Nigeria
(Army Depot), Air Force Training School and,
Nigerian Defence Academy.

Maitama Sule, Minister of Mines and Power in
1966, once told the story of how Muhammadu
Ribadu, his counterpart in Defence Ministry, went
to the Nigerian Military School, Zaria, and the
British Commandant of the school told him many
of the students could not continue because they
failed woefully. When Ribadu thumbed through the
list, Sule said, it was a Mohammed, an Ibrahim, a
Yusuf or an Abdullahi. “You don’t know what you
are doing and because of this you cannot continue
to head the school,” an irate Ribadu was said to
have told the commandant.

Shehu Musa Yar’Adua was one of the students for
whom the commandant was sacked. “You can see
what Yar’Adua later became in life. He became
the vice president. This is the power of forward
planning,” Sule declared.

Unknown to the forward planners, according to
the US documents, Ojukwu had been meticulously
preparing for war as early as October 1966, after
the second round of massacre in the North. He
had stopped the Eastern share of revenues that
were supposed to accrue to the Federation
Account. By 30 April 1967, he had recalled all
Igbos serving in Nigeria embassies and foreign
missions and those that heeded his call were
placed on the payroll of the government of
Eastern Region. The 77,000 square kilometres of
the Republic of Biafra–a mere 8 per cent of the
size of Nigeria–was already divided into 20
provinces, with leaders selected for each. They
had their own judiciary, legislative councils,
ministries and ambassadors. Alouette helicopters
and a B26 bomber were procured from the French
Air Force through a Luxemburg trading company.

Hank Warton, the German-American arms dealer,
had been flying in Czech and Israeli arms via Spain
and Portugal since October 1966. The military
hardware, they could not get, they seized. A DC3
and a Fokker F27 were seized from the Nigerian
Air Force in April. NNS Ibadan, a Nigerian Navy
Seaward Defence Boat (SDB) that docked in
Calabar Port, was quickly made Biafran.

Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu, who was supposed to be
in Enugu in prison for his role in 1966 coup, joined
in training recruits in Abakaliki. Foreign
mercenaries were training indoctrinated old
people, young men and teenagers recruited as
NCOs [Non-commissioned Officers] in jungle
warfare, bomb making, mortar and other artillery
firing. Ojukwu, through speeches, town hall
meetings, market square performances and radio
broadcasts, succeeded in convincing his people that
their destiny was death or a separate state. All
his performances in Ghana that culminated in the
Aburi Accord of January 1967, or discussions with
the Awolowo-led National Conciliation Committee
five months later, turned out to be ruse.

The underground war preparations, the secret
arms stockpiles openly manifested themselves as
Ojukwu’s stubborn refusal to accept offers or
concessions during these peace meetings.

But the Biafrans knew that their vulnerable line
was along Ogoja, Ikom, Calabar, Port Harcourt,
and Yenogoa. Support from the six million people
making up the Eastern minorities was very much
unsure. The minorities viewed their leaders in
Biafra high command as traitors. And without the
minorities, Biafra would be landlocked and most
likely, unviable as a state. More so, their vast oil
and gas resources were the reason they
contemplated secession in the first place. The
Biafra high command believed that if there was
going to be any troop incursion from there, they
are going to be transported through ship. They
already had a B26 bomber to deal fire to
Nigeria’s only transport ship, NNS Lokoja, anytime
it approached the Biafran coastline.

continue. ..

Gowon paced to the large outdated map of the
country by the door to his office. When he asked
Awolowo to come and join his government, Awolowo
said he would accept only if Gowon did something
about the dominance of North over the rest of
the nation. A month before, Gowon had broken up
the North into six states, but the map by the door
still showed the old Nigeria, with an imposing
North at the top. He ran his finger around the
boundaries of Biafra and asked himself: “How can
I authorize an invasion of my own people?” He
knew what it meant to be resented. He was not
the most senior officer in the army. He was not a
Muslim Hausa or Fulani from Kano, Kaduna or
Sokoto. He was a Christian from one of the small
minorities that dot the North and yet, events had
promoted him to the position of the Head of
State and Commander-in-Chief–to the chagrin of
many northern officers, politicians, and emirs.

He knew the Igbo were resented in the North for
succeeding where indigenes had failed. His Igbo
lover, Edith Ike, told him her life was threatened
twice in Lagos since she returned from the North
in March.

According to the secret US document of 1 July
1967, Edith’s parents, having lived in the North
for 30 years, where she too was born, had fled
back to the East in October 1966 because of that
year’s massacre of the Igbo. Not 30,000 but
around 7,000 were killed, according to the
American documents. Donald Patterson of the
Political Section and Tom Smith of the Economic
Section travelled from the US Embassy in Lagos
to the North after the pogrom. “The Sabon-Garis
were ghost towns, deserted, with the detritus of
people, who had fled rapidly, left behind. Most
Northerners we talked to had no apologies for
what had happened to the Ibos, for the pogrom
that had killed so many. There were exceptions,
but in general, there was no remorse and the
feeling was one of good riddance.

“One day, our Hausa gardener attacked and tried
to beat up our Ibo cook. We fired the gardener,
but not long afterwards, the cook left for the
East,” said Patterson.

Earlier that week, Gowon called the West German
Ambassador in Lagos. The Germans were eager to
be in the good graces of the Gowon
administration. A war loomed. And in wars,
buildings, roads, bridges, and other infrastructure
are destroyed. These would need rebuilding. The
contract for the 2nd Mainland Bridge (later
called Eko Bridge) was signed two years earlier by
the Ambassador, CEO of Julius Berger Tiefbau AG
and Shehu Shagari, Federal Commissioner for
Works and Survey. That was Julius Berger’s first
contract in Nigeria. It was due for completion in
less than two years and they wanted more
bilateral cooperation. The ambassador assured
Gowon over the phone that he had taken care of
all the details and guaranteed the safety of
Edith, the nation’s “First Girlfriend”.

On the evening of 30 June, just before her
departure on a commercial airline, Edith told the
American Defense Attaché Standish Brooks, and
his wife, Gail, that she actually wanted to go to
the UK or USA, but Jack, as she affectionately
called Gowon, insisted that she could be exposed
to danger in either of the two countries.
Germany, he reasoned, would be safer.

continue...

Early in the morning of 1 July 1967, Nigeria’s
young head of state, Colonel Yakubu Gowon, was
feeling uneasy in his office at the Supreme
Headquarters, Dodan Barracks in Lagos. The
unease was a result of his being ceaselessly
pressured to authorize a military invasion of the
breakaway Republic of Biafra.

Thirty officers had been recalled from courses
abroad. Trains and truck convoys, bearing fuel,
supplies and men, were still leaving Kano and
Kaduna for the south of River Benue.

Colonel Mohammed Shuwa of the First Area
Command had moved his command headquarters
southwards and set it up in Makurdi. The 2nd
Battalion was already headquartered in Adikpo.
Schools and private homes had been
commandeered for the use of Major Sule Apollo
and his 4th Battalion in Oturkpo. They were
itching for action. The same day, Major B.M.
Usman “a member of the intimate northern group
around Gowon” told the American defense
attaché: “I do not know what in hell he is waiting
for; the boys are all ready to go. They are only
waiting on his word.”

Members of the Supreme Military Council, who had
been meeting twice daily, were waiting for his
word. The whole nation was waiting. Biafra, which
was on high alert, was also waiting.

On 27 June 1967, Cyprian Ekwensi, famous writer
and Biafra’s Director of Information Service,
through the Voice of Biafra (formerly Enugu
Radio), urged Biafrans to be prepared for an
invasion on June 29 since “Northerners have often
struck on 29th day of the month.” He was alluding
to the day northern officers, led by Major T.Y.
Danjuma, seized Gowon’s predecessor, Major-
General Aguiyi-Ironsi, and killed him in a forest
outside Ibadan.

Gowon, then 31, had been running the affairs of
57million Nigerians for 10 months. It had not been
easy. Chief Obafemi Awolowo, his 58-year old
trusted deputy and adviser, was with Okoi Arikpo
and Philip Asiodu, permanent secretaries of the
ministries of External Affairs and Trade and
Industries respectively.

They were preparing to put the noose on the neck
of the Anglo-Dutch oil giant, Shell-BP, which had
frozen royalty payments due to the Federation
Account on 1 June 1967 and had offered to pay
the Biafran government £250,000.

Lieutenant Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, Biafran
leader, had ordered all oil companies to start
paying all royalties to Enugu because they were
operating in a new country or risk heavy penalties.
Specifically, he demanded a minimum of £2million
from Shell-BP. The Federal Government had
imposed an economic blockade on Biafra. It
entailed barring all merchant vessels and sea
tankers from sailing to and from Koko, Warri,
Sapele, Escravos, Bonny, Port Harcourt, Calabar
ports, which Ojukwu had declared part and parcel
of Biafra.

Biafra controlled the land on which the oil
installations sat; the Nigerian government
controlled the coastal entrance and exit to those
lands. Shell-BP was confused as to whose order
should be obeyed. Sir David Hunt, the British High
Commissioner to Nigeria, told his American
counterpart after the meeting with the Nigerian
delegation: “Awolowo is very firmly in control of
Ministry of Finance and he is giving Stanley Gray,
Shell’s General Manager and other experts from
London a very difficult time for the past three
days.” They persuaded Awolowo to accept a deal
that would favour the Nigerian government and,
at the same time, would predispose oil workers and
the £150million investment to danger in the hands
of Biafran military forces. Awolowo refused,
arguing that anything short of the status quo was
recognition of Biafra and concession to the rebels.

As for security of investments and personnel, he
argued that once royalties were paid, the Nigerian
government would have the capacity to fund
whatever action it would take on the rebels and
Shell-BP’s investments would be safe.

continue...

A total of than Eighty-eight local government
staff who sat for a promotional exam in
Nasarawa have reportedly failed woefully.

Chairman of the Commission, Sani Bawa
disclosed that 88 of the staff who sat for
promotion examination in January 2020 failed
the examination conducted by the Academic
Staff College of Nigeria.

The chairman who spoke with Journalists in
Lafia explained that a total of 701 staff of the
Local Government who sat for the exams, 41 got
distinction, 131 had credit, 185 passed with
merit, 249 scored passes, 88 failed the promotion
examination while 7 absconded.

He said those who failed the examination scored
between 0- 39, those with 40 per cent had
passes, 50- 59 got merit while 70 to 90 had
distinction adding that the result of the
examination was released on the 4th of
September, 2020.

The chairman who stated that for the past 14
years no promotion examination has been
conducted after the governor, Abdullahi Adamu
said: “Promotion examination were supposed to
hold in every three years as such we are
expecting another set of civil servants for
promotion examination by January 2023″.

“The Commission has embarked on training and
would soon organize another round of workshops
so as to enhance the capacity of workers. The
present administration is committed through the
Commission to give financial support to those
going for further studies”, the Chairman
stated.

https://www.vanguardngr.com/2020/11/88-lg-staff-fail-promotion-exams-in-nasarawa/

mumu

in short, I'm proud to be an African again after seeing this nonsense nonsensical