₦airaland Forum

Katsumoto: It is important to provide some context here.

In terms of civil service, the Igbos dominated in the East, The Yorubas in the West. The talk of meritocracy by Igbos relates to civil service in the North. Just as in today, in pre-colonial times, the Yorubas rarely traveled outside their region while the Igbos flocked to the North for commerce and to enlist in the civil service. After independence, NPC and NCNC ensured that all the top jobs went to their constituents. The Yorubas were locked out; it was that situation that led to the fall out between Akintola and Awolowo. Akintola argued, some might say rightly, that the Yorubas were losing. Awolowo argued that the Yoruba would be fine as long as they continued to pursue people-centric policies. Both were right but the NPC and NCNC both wanted the fall of AG for two different reasons.

If Ndigbo were just mere human beings in the scheme of things about 50s and 60s in what became Nigeria, one wonders what drove people such as Akintola to foolishly translate Igbo to “ I Get Before Others” and sold western region for cheap political gains or induce the Richard Akinjide, minister for education, to introduce tribalism into Nigeria’s academia?

Katsumoto: Just want to pick a few holes in Adichie’s knowledge and analytical ability.

1. The object of a blockade is not to starve your enemy but to restrict the flow of armaments to it. If your enemy continues to receive arms, it continues to fight. Since no man who can’t feed himself has no business fighting a war, the RATIONAL action is to surrender once you run out of food and arms. Blockade is a military tactic; since Awolowo was not a military man and he was surrounded by military men, men who had trained at the Royal Military College Sandhurst, the credit for the blockade can’t be Awo’s

2. Awo did not prevent an Igbo man (Azikiwe) from ruling the West; Azikiwe’s NCNC lost the election. We are yet to see the results of the elections according to the NCNC which gave it victory in 1951.

See election results below
http://books.google.ca/books?id=Oi0aVR4YkmUC&pg=PA35&lpg=PA35&dq=1956+election+NCNC&source=bl&ots=xlo8I8O_iF&sig=jmQDabaMysM0SG7MMZI3yFZ49dg&hl=en&ei=004zTvWKL4OnsALHmdTtCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=1956%20election%20NCNC&f=false

In any case, what business did Zik have in wanting to rule outside his region? Could he love the Western region as much as the people from the Western region? When some Igbo belabor this point, one would think that the Easterners had allowed a Yoruba man to be premier of the Eastern region but the Westerners prevented the Easterners from ruling the West.

3. I am disappointed in Adichie’s interpretation of Awo’s speech to the Western leaders in Ibadan just before the war started. Awo said and I quote “If the Eastern Region is allowed by acts of omission or commission to secede from or opt out of Nigeria, then the Western Region and Lagos must also stay out of the Federation.” One would have expected Adichie to have better comprehension skills. What part of that quote expresses the intention of Awo to secede with the Eastern region?

4. Another lie that is told by many Igbo people is that Awo gave them only £20 for the millions they left in their bank accounts. The facts are that Igbo people took their savings and contributed it to the war effort. The grouse with the £20 pound policy is that Biafran pounds were obviously worthless at the end of the war and many were expecting the Nigerian government to exchange the Biafran notes for Nigerian notes. That would have introduced serious inflation and would have been economic suicide. Did the Biafrans return the £40million in the central banks in PortHarcourt and Enugu, the £53million in circulation, and the £2 million stolen from the Benin central bank? Igbo people were able to recover their properties in the West, and the rent which accrued from it but were unable to recover their properties in PortHarcourt which was in their own region.

5. Adichie states the Igbo held many positions in Nigeria because they were receptive to Western education. So the other groups in Nigeria weren’t receptive to Western education?

6. Gowon implemented most of the provisions from Aburi, the blame for war lay with Ojukwu who insisted on 100% implementation. The sticking point in any case, was that Ojukwu insisted that the Nigerian Head of State not have the power to appoint and fire regional governors i.e Ojukwu. This is quite an irony considering each region had the right to elect its own officials until Igbo sons organized the first coup and Ironsi unified the entire country. However, you dice it, Ndigbo were responsible for the events leading to the war.

7. Adichie’s insincerity and naivety comes to the fore when she argues that Ojukwu was right to ignore Gowon’s offer for a relief corridor because Airlifts were safer and also offered the opportunity to bring in much needed arms. First, Ojukwu charged landing fees to relief organisations which were providing FREE food to starving Biafrans. Second, Ojukwu refused different landing times for aid shipments because he wanted to continue smuggling in arms. Ojukwu’s people were dying and food should have been a priority over arms and money. He was in the weaker position against Gowon and had no right to make demands. He was also wrong to make extreme demands of the relief agencies. Does Adichie know the objectives of war? See excerpts from Fiona Terry's book "Codemmed to Repeat?: The Paradox Of Humanitarian Action' in the link below.

http://books.google.gr/books?id=KxiKPeQyiakC&pg=PA43&lpg=PA43&dq=landing+fees+biafra+ojukwu&source=bl&ots=9b32DbMfDR&sig=xPMnD19K0czQY9pPkxa1WRXEBlI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Atl0UPmcKInOswbwmYBo&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=landing%20fees%20biafra%20ojukwu&f=false

No one can deny Ndigbo’s right to feel the pains of the war but it appears that many Igbos want to continue twisting facts to further cement their victim mentality. It is obvious that the propaganda spread by Achebe has corrupted many Igbo young persons. When you tell your stories, be prepared to listen to the stories of the other side.

You seemed to lack audacious pedigree to pick holes in Adichie’s knowledge and analytical ability to recount events she saw or stories she heard from parents and uncles. The self-acclaimed rebuttal, as in the post above, has character issues. It is either you based your accounts on repeated falsehood or wrote out of ignorance. Nothing could be sillier or farther from truth than the landing fee saga which you attempted to shore-up with your Google Books written by one goofy writer who relied on conjectures instead of facts.

I thought by now your appetite for conjectural craps from hack writers who were paid to pen against Biafra’s struggle has waned. Ojukwu did not have any say when the relief planes leave the ports of origin and touch down at the ports of destination since Biafra did not control its airspace. It is a display of idiocy on the part of hack writer to insinuate that Ojukwu charged landing fees from CARITAS or RED CROSS when in fact Biafra did not have leverage to do so. I guess the moronic writer of the said book would also insinuate that Ojukwu ordered the relief planes to commence operations at dusk.

It is not a great piece by any stretch of imagination. Adichie wrote like someone who intends to curry favor from certain audiences by subtly while intentionally disagreeing with Achebe on the pure facts without proffering any meaningful alternative.

I can not believe she tends to incorporate rumors and innuendoes generated during or after the war by the Biafran enemies into a palatable conjecture and hoping it slide unnoticed. If Adichie really wants to present her views, she should have done so on a platform devoid of Achebe’s eyewitness account about Nigeria\Biafra civil war through a book titled There Was A Country.

She could have based her writing endeavor on the issues she believed Achebe got wrong in his narrative accounts and faced her critics. Instead, she tend to fly under the radar of Achebe’s well intended account while disagreeing on the strength of rumors propagated by Nigerians who were dogmatically opposed to Biafra.

Abagworo: I think the Southern half of Abia developed a naming autograph different from the North. Former Senate President is Adolph Wabara(Not Nwabara) while Minister for labour is Emeka Wogu(not Nwogu). A lot of people try to corrupt the spellings because they feel it should be in the Onwu autograph.

It is not true they try to develop naming convention different from what other Igbo are used to know. Rather, it is due to pronunciation of certain words by certain people hence the unfamiliar way the words are spelt.

There were some dudes who hailed from Ogwe and Obuzor both in Ukwa LGA that go by Wogu and Nwogu respectively.

In fact, during the era in discussion, there were two similar names, both were ministers and NCNC members. They were Aja Nwachukwu and Jaja Wachukwu

[quote author=re@lchange]we don't need any more state in SE
rather we need that all politickericians and polithieves demanding the state should move to abuja
never to return again

[size=26pt]leave us alone![/size][/quote]The above political posture is reminiscent of the political activities of yesteryears that led to the move of the administrative headquarter from Calaber to Lagos. When the northerners got hold of the real political power in Nigeria, they knew the right thing and executed. Today, one wonders where the this type of political agitation has left Ndigbo.

Since democracy is game of numbers and Nigeria applied the rudimental form of it, I am in support of two additional states for southeastern zone so the zone will have equal number of senators with other zones in the federation. I do not know whether Nigeria will slide to regionalism however central legislative body will be responsible for serious national issues. I do anticipate my region to be lacking political vote that matters.

buffny: u are a dummy.

the biafran army was not a regular army. it was a rag tag rebel army. so it was far from being organised . but i'm sure with a little bit of research we can come up with names of those that commanded the troops in the midwest and rivers state that committed atrocities. plus igbo civilians are accused of committing atrocities as well. to suggest that atrocities did not occur because the names of those who committed them are not known , is stupid and ridiculous. at the end of the day . ojukwu who was the commander should be held responsible for all atrocities.

You simply personify idiocy and buffoonery. If Biafran army was not well organized fighting unit, it begs for clarification why the military help from British, USSR, Egypt, Niger, Chad, Australia and Cameroon failed woefully to defeat Biafra in a year. Be mindful that British had predicated the war should be over in two weeks, olodo.

Katsumoto: First, please don't waste any more time in identifying the units in the pictures posted by PhysicsQED. It is simply disingenuous to persist with this position if you can not identify the units. You have the benefit of looking at pictures for several days. If you can't, how do you suppose civilians would have been able to identify such units.

Second, the Nigerian Army was better armed and its units were identifiable while some Biafran units didn't even have units. Identifying some units, who had men wearing slippers, would have been as difficult as identifying Hutu militia mobs during the Rwandan genocide.

Third, are you insinuating that Biafran units committed no atrocities during the war? If you are, I doubt you are well versed in the conduct and psychology of warfare.

You simply can not cease to amaze me. I guess your first brief in defense of falsified allegation against Biafrans soldiers was that Biafrans are whiners and as such were able to easily identify the units of Nigerians soldiers who committed atrocity during the war.

When such reckless defense could not hold up to a scrutiny of toddler, you and ilk came up with most outlandish defense by stating that eyewitness civilians on the Nigerian side were borderline imbecilic nitwits who could not strike a difference between Nigerian and Biafran soldiers.

Again, when such useless defense falls apart like a park of cards, you jumped onto another flimsy excuse this time it is because Biafran army was not adequately equipped.
What has equipment got to do with dividing an army into units with identifiable insignia, at least, to avoid the instances of friendly fire? If the eyewitness civilian had seen soldiers who wore slippers and tatted uniforms, they should have said so. Unfortunately, the Biafran soldiers of 101 Division were well-equipped unit with insignia of the division as well of Biafran rising sun on their arms.

When the above ridiculous excuse fails to convince educated audiences, you latched onto the fact that war is always littered with atrocities. Granted that war can bring out the demon out of a human being is not a licensure for opposing sides to bear false allegation of commission of heinous crime against each other.

PhysicsQED is renowned denial artist and a staunch supporter of Nigeria such as you. So it does not faze me when such Nigerians post pictures of doctored Biafran soldiers who were probably on training mission as combat units.

@Olumide

Do not even try to insinuate capitalism is the reason people are poor or rich. It is even laughable to suggest that capitalism is accountable for the ever expanding wide gap between poor and rich.

Poverty or affluence depends on individual abilities and mental alertness. I guess socialism was accountable for the widest gap known to human between poor and rich.

As much as I disagree with the present onshore\offshore dichotomy involving crude oil production in Nigeria, it is arrant nonsense to harbor the idea that northern region of Nigeria sustained the protectorates before crude oil was struck in 1951, and of commercial quantity in 1956.

At the time referenced by Prof Ango Abdullahi in the alleged interview, northern region can not afford or sustain ordinary local authority schools talk less of sustaining the entire protectorates.

Deep Sight: No sane person can deny that in war, all sides DO commit atrocities.

As such, it is very odd to read a discussion in which attempts are made to deny such.

Atrocities known, and atrocities unknown, no doubt occurred on both sides.

However, in deference to Dede, I must point out that it is of no use discussing atrocities without pointing out the persons who allegedly committed same. I say this not because I do not recognize PhysicQED's point - i do - namely that one cannot expect civilians to recognize specific military insignia - I say this for the simple reason that there is such a thing as a war crime - and needless to say, you cannot be discussing a crime in the absence of any accussed. Even where this is done, it is futile: i.e: there can be no trial. Who is to be tried? It is a perfect waste of time and emotion

The only plausible way to try anyone in such circumstances would be an uphill task: to show first that the crimes occurred and then to hold the living leaders of the accused side personally responsible for a war crime, one would have to also show that they personally authourized such. This is impossible, and for this reason I say that it is futile to attempt to talk about war crimes if one cannot, as Dede said, point a finger at those supposedly responsible.

On the other hand, Dede, for his part, was very specific in naming names and units and brigades involved in the crimes he alleged. That gave his allegations better credibility, and certainly make them prosecutable, as opposed to the futile discussion about crimes in which there is no accused person pointed at.

In my opinion, Physics QED did a great job of dismantling Dede's contention that civilians ought to recognize military insignia, for which Dede had no response, but persons who think that he thereby held the day are simply not clued on to the precise nature of proper debates. As I have said, Dede's contention that it is useless to refer to crimes without mentioning an accused remains very valid: and may I just point out that I AM NOT thus saying that the crimes did not occur, or are not tragic: I am only saying that it is futile to discuss such. Who would you try for such crimes, if they occurred? Ghosts?

I do not think PhysicsQED did any good job to dispute the fact about civilians being able to recognize military insignia. Rather the aforementioned poster proved one thing, thus, the allegation Biafran soldiers committed certain atrocities in Midwestern region was a mere conjecture and empty assertion borne out of delusion.

In the cases of Asaba, Ogba\Egbema and Obisi, the eyewitnesses were civilians not soldiers or CIA trained operatives. Yet they were able to cite the soldiers were Nigerians, 3MCDO or 2nd Division due to insignia on the soldiers who perpetrated the atrocities.

If the eyewitnesses had slightly waived on what they saw as identifiable reference of the soldiers such as Biafran raising sun emblem or 101 or black octopus or jumping white horse, there would have been doubt cast on claims by civilians that atrocities were committed in Asaba, Ogba\Egbema or Obisi.

However, it is foolhardy for denial artists and deluded civilians to wake one morning and decide to conjure a blatant falsehood about heinous crimes committed by Biafran soldiers without offering an iota of evidence to support such idiotic claims. It is even a crime for someone to deduce the so-called civilian eyewitnesses were halfwits who could not differentiate a badge of 101 from White Horse. It is safe to conclude that if the midwestern region eyewitness civilians were halfwits as writer suggested, the allegation of atrocities committed by Biafran soldiers in midwestern region might be a mere conjectural crap after all.

TGlobe: val: Do you know that Oyo state or former Ondo or Kwara are bigger than Igboland
Why is Oyo state bigger than Igboland
Let us discuss this.. ?

please help out..


so of you say this thing because you lack understanding.

You are an ill-educated lapper. Please find means to get yourself properly educated before you can join issues on how big is Igbo land or what it is bigger than Igbo land.

I urge reasonable Igbo peeps not to aid the education of the deluded poster by intelligently contributing to this junk thread.

buffny: ohh , so you are now conceding that atrocities were infact possibly committed by igbos !!!!

u are a funny one. let me provide you with the source of all that i have put up there since u choose to not believe.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Struggle-Secession-1966-1970-Personal/dp/0714629499/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1353181904&sr=8-2&keywords=n+u+akpan

you can utilize amazons preview feature to browse through the pages you dumb dingbat.


Nu akpan stated clearly in his book that ojukwu was a tyrant ready to kill those who opposed him , so why would he voice opposition and risk being killed.

I am not coinciding anything. NU Akpan made clear statement about the treatment handed to anyone slightly suspected of aiding the enemy. Whether the suspected saboteur was Igbo, Efik, Ijo, Ogoni, Ibibio or Annang, it did not matter a bit as he\she was roughly handled. I guess this scenario is different from the atrocity in discussion because the victims were simply killed because of their ethnicity, olodo.

[quote author=Okija_juju]I am an engineer so I know all about making the impossible possible.. However, I am simply wondering how this picture works.. Two bikes, two different gear systems, two different brake systemts, Both brakes located originally on the right side of the bikes, both gear systems on the left side of the bikes.. How does he manage to work them and maintain a stable ride.. Or does he leav on bike on neutral and just ride one?! If so, what about braking?!

Basically, his design though ingenious, does not look plausible from here.. I need to see his design modifications upclose.. [/quote]What field of engineering did you study? To simplify your curiosity, one of the bikes is a dummy and it is only used for support and balance. The man only needed to figure how to get the breaking system applicable on both bikes to avoid over steer.

buffny: https://i.imgur.com/nnQoK.png

https://i.imgur.com/pvrte.png

https://i.imgur.com/iSeU3.png

I guess the hard-earned money your parents spent to get you educated remains a futile effort. Many Igbo people were killed, harassed and even imprisoned on the slightest suspicion they were saboteurs. I have seen previously happily married couples get nasty in a divorce matters. It is not surprise to read a crap allegedly written by AU Akpan who was top government official both in eastern region and Biafra. The persons of minority ethnic group held important positions in Biafra. If the minorities people were maltreated as Akpan would want us to believe, he, AU Akpan, should be held responsible.

There are cross sections of Africans that continuously hunger to be accepted by Europeans. Most of these moronic dingbats that always talk about Achebe’s achievement or lack thereof hinged their skewed stream of thought on Nobel Prize.

If Achebe did not furiously challenge and critic the arrowhead of European’s misguided arrogation of err of supremacy to them selves in Joseph Conrad through Things Fall Apart and other critical essays, he would have been awarded the nonsensical Nobel Prize with a note.

Achebe has publically said that Nobel Prize is a European thing. And I do believe that the so-called Nobel Prize committee is worried that Achebe might be the first person and African to reject the crap.

Aigbofa: Achebe is an overrated small minded bigot.

You are an underrated and insignificant bigot.

Tolexander: if someone is said to be tribalistic, honestly, u are the summary

If standing on the side of the truth is translated as tribalism, I had worn it as a badge of honor like Awolowo did.

buffny: did u forget the part where so called biafran liberation forces invaded the midwest and committed atrocities against non igbos. shooting and harassing.

stupid dumbass.

Buffoonery,

You are one of the bitter reasons people like me want out of Nigeria. This dubious niche you have to show off idiocy in public is terminal disease.

The planks of Biafran have remained that idi.ots such as you who had bore false accusations that Biafra soldiers committed atrocity in Midwestern region should proffer a shred of evidence. Biafrans had raised similar accusation against certain Nigerian military units and were able to provide the name of the units, commanders of such units and places such atrocities were committed. I guess being drooling fool also prevents you from speaking the truth.

Some folks thought that acts of repeated falsehood become de facto truth. Nigerians have found unavoidable favor with such shamelful behavior.

If a person thinks Port Harcourt is the pride of East or even Calabar, it does not mean everybody from the east has to bow for Port Harcout or Calabar. I do not give a ratazz if Abuja is pride of Nigeria talk less a city or state. As a matter of fact, I have no intentions to do business in Abuja.

londoner: Forget about whether Enugu is the pride of the East........the attacks on fellow Igbos/Eastern states and the complete inability to form any type of cohesive unity, as shown in this thread is a collective shame and embarrassment to ALL Igbos, whether from Enugu, Anambra, Abia, Imo etc

That is why Igboland is always self destructive and can not move forward as a region.........too preoccupied with in fighting and ego, while gaining a sorry reputation among those who witness it.

Those who turned this once wonderful thread into a shame before all Nigerians here on NL......I hope you are proud of yourselves.

It is very shameful to read and watch the childish display of certain Igbo peeps on this thread.

Abagworro:
You are dead wrong, that was before but not anymore. It was the same reason other SE state has overtaken Enugu state because it was still wallowing in the euphoria of the past. My governor of less than 1yrs has done so much for the state. Look at what Obi is doing in Abuja, he has drawn almost all the federal government projects to Anambra. From what am seeing he is gradually making Anambra the new capital of SE. What Chime done to warrant this unnecessary subject; enugu the pride of the East.[i][i] These and more are still the injustice our leaders do with their positions. To you tent everybody..[/i] I will still maintain my stand, Enugu state does not hold brief for SE and does not represent the pride of SE. Its an insult and will turn us all into a laughing stock[/i].

Honestly speaking your post reeks of a person who is engaged in an imagery fight with oneself. For intent and practical purposes, Enugu can appear as a backwater yet the pride of the East. If your governor is Rochas Okorocha, I suggest you reserve such allusion for another discussion.

WHISTLE BLOWER: You dey mad?? SE is a collective name for Anambra, Imo, Abia, Enugu and Ebonyi.. so we are not gonna sit here and allow you draw it to the mud with enugu state mediocres.

Change the topic to 'enugu the pride of WAWA people' and see if anybody will look this thread twice, even if you post streets made of diamonds. The reason both ndi-Yoruba are being attracted here to insult us on mediocre exhibition is because you mentioned SE. As I have stated earlier nothing will ever make an average Anambran or Imolite take pride in anything Enugu state when he or she is outside SE, because there is non that exist to be proud of in the state.

The above post is a conjecture borne out of illogicality. Of course, Enugu can be termed as the pride of the East. The last time I checked though, Enugu is situated on the southeastern region of Nigeria, was the seat of defunct eastern regional government, a part and parcel of Igbo land and culturally the ancestral home of Wawa, hence Igbo.

I can not fathom, for the sake of my life, why a true Igbo son or daughter would find fault in a statement that Enugu, of all places, is pride of East.

chino24: Dede

I didnt talk about Cross river and Akwaibom. I only mentioned Rivers. Is River not industrialized? Is lagos not industrialized. Some of these pariah state will soon be annexed because they won't be able to fund there budget when the oil dries and there won't be oil money. Then industrialized states will start buying them over. God forbid if this happens..

There is nothing industrialization about Nigeria I have ever seen talk less States. Nigeria, a piece of crap, is not industrialized and has never set the ground work for industrial process to gain a foothold in the country. It is arrant nonsense to term a country that can not afford ordinary good network of roads, no supply of power and absolutely no running water as attractive site for industrialization. I applaud some Nigerians such as INNOSON to even think of setting up workshop in Nigeria.

chino24: Afam, you have come again. When last did you visit Onitsha. Anybody who has been to Onitsha in the recent past will attest to the fact that the city is clean now and has some of good roads, coupled with the reconstruction of Onitsha-Awka express. You said if Onitsha has a bit of what enugu has, then you will relocate to Onitsha? I put it to you that bulk of the people that make up large chunk of businessmen/women, menial workers are majorly people from Enugu/Ebonyi states. 98% of drug dealers at the drug market are people from Imo and Abia states. If enugu is that livable and good why is it that all of you guys has since left the town to be shadow of itself. Its a city that has highest number of bank/corporate workers in Nigeria after Lagos and PH.

If you guys are talking about enugu wonder what happens to Calabar and Akwaibom, they should have gone to CNN. Today with all the organization of the Calabar and Akwaibom people still troop to Rivers because of what? Economic activity. And today Rivers state is rich because of industrialization, population and all that. So no matter what your gov chime builds without a touch of industrialization it will still be a pariah state.

This is one of the most conjectural junks I have read on this forum. The so-called affluence in abundant in Rivers, Akwa Ibiom and Cross River States is organized by political machination that has been at war with Ndigbo since 1960 and not the spirit of industrialization as the writer would want us to believe. I am shock that certain Igbo peeps are still sleep-walking.

Only few people knew that Port Harcourt was initiated by the government of eastern region of Nigeria to give Lagos a run for its money in the 50s and 60s. Is there any other township worthy of mention in Rivers State beyond Port Harcourt?

felifeli: Forget 1967. This is 2012 and a certain important Ibo man has made grievous allegations which require grievous responses. Instead of furthering the cause of Biafra Achebe has made Ndigbo a laughing stock all over the world.

From your skewed stream of thought, it is safe to say you unwisely deduced that the premise of Achebe’s memoir is based on 2012 instead of Nigeria\Biafra civil war. I hope you are not one of the so-called crimes of the crop Nigeria wishes to pluck.

T9ksy: Ha ha ha .......bet "Dendemoron" is endowed with the generic ibo Igbo, too.

I can not believe you joined moronic Eko Ole and Dayolodo in this show of shame. I guess tribalism runs excessively deep in certain people.

ROSSIKE: I think you actually reduce the gravitas of these individuals by your ''Igbo'' appendage. Few people on earth have ever heard of ''Igbos'', but everyone's heard of Nigeria.

It's like addressing a Phd graduate as a BSc.

Deluded carteen rat for real.

PhysicsQED: A "unit" is a term indicating something like a division or a brigade or company or battalion in the military. That's the standard use of the term, correct? It's not my particular preference or something. The term is not usually indicative of a major military branch like the navy, air force, army, marines, etc., which always have distinguishing insignia.

By claiming that Biafran soldiers in the Midwest could and should have been visually identified down to the unit by civilians, what else were you claiming but that a specific section of the "Biafran Liberation Army" occupying the Midwest (like one of its brigades) could be identified by its insignia? Or did you think there was some confusion on my part about whether air force and army units had distinguishing insignia? That's not even relevant here because the force under question is the "Biafran Liberation Army" that was occupying the Midwest. Now if you were not claiming that specific units in the BLA could be identified by non-Biafran civilians, then what were you claiming and why did you repeatedly use the term "unit"?



Doctored photographs? Who do you think doctored them and why? Some of those war time photographs are directly from Phillip Effiong Jr.'s website. If those ones are considered "doctored" to you as well, then maybe you should take it up with him.

Anyway, there are many pictures of Biafran soldiers with the arm badges of Biafra's rising sun. There are pictures of Ojukwu wearing it, Effiong wearing it, etc. And Rolf Steiner's actual unit insignia (the skull and crossbones) was worn underneath the Biafran rising sun badge on his arm. How are those badges of Biafra's rising sun supposed to be unique to a "unit" so that that unit can be identified and distinguished from others when that sun badge was being worn by many different units, and furthermore, how is that rising sun badge possibly supposed to be useful to a civilian in identifying the specific unit?



"Easy" for you (if you're actually some sort of military consultant or something, like some people here claimed) or for someone with any intelligence gathering expertise, maybe. But not for an ordinary civilian. This should not be hard to grasp, but somehow it eludes you.



This is why Nnamdi Azikiwe admitted in 1969 that atrocities had been committed by Biafran occupiers in the Midwest, right?

It was ironic coming across a statement in a book recently in which a certain writer thought that there was "no credible corroboration" of the claims of atrocities being committed by Biafran soldiers that were in the Midwest in the same book where praises were heaped upon Nnamdi Azikiwe, who had already spoke in 1969 on the Biafran occupation atrocities that were committed in the Midwest. I guess not even Zik would remain credible to that writer who praised him effusively if the writer were to come across Zik's statement.

But I think that maybe you want people to dig up and identify bodies and look for bullet fragments to match with Biafran ammunition or something else that's not practically possible, and even if that were somehow carried out I still doubt that you would accept the truth. Because neither you nor others that talk about this issue seem to be willing to say what would constitute "credible corroboration" or "evidence."



Who is even talking about "Nigerians that fought against Biafra"? I am talking about ordinary civilians. Why are you under the impression that ordinary civilians are capable of identifying a unit merely by glancing at soldiers' insignia that they don't understand? Also nice job, as an evasion artist, of evading the question asked of you to identify those Biafran soldiers by simply claiming the pictures were all "doctored".



If you were not being deliberately disingenuous, you would admit that an ordinary civilian would not be engaging in some kind intelligence gathering operation (for who?), but instead would be trying not to get killed or accused of being a spy/infiltrator for no reason.

And I've said it before, whether you'll like to admit it or not, not every commander and unit for every place where war crimes were committed by Biafra or Nigeria has been identified, nor is that what matters most because merely identifying the commander and unit that were in a certain area does not establish that something happened but rather the testimony of the people affected does.

This is one of the nonsensical drivels I have come across on this forum. You and ilk made goofy allegation against Biafran soldiers and had been asked to provide a shred of evidence. Instead of backing your nonsensical accusations with proof, you seemed interested in spewing outdated and unfounded crap.

I do not give a ratazz if you dig up bullet fragments to match Biafran ammunitions, train civilians to be capable of discerning insignia worn by Biafran army units or turn cross section of Nigerians that fought Biafra into CIA or M16 or KGB, the proof of atrocity allegedly committed by Biafran soldiers in midwestern region of Nigeria rests on the shoulders of ninnies who bore such outlandish falsehood.

Biafrans accused certain units of Nigerian armed forces of atrocities and had proffered convincing evidences to back such claims. During Oputa’s tribunal, some of principal actors in the war shamefully admitted atrocities were committed when confronted with overwhelming evidences.