The Biafran War (1967-1970) Read online

  Michael Gould holds a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He has lived and worked in Nigeria and is an honorary chief of the Igbo people.

  ‘This book is an in-depth, scholarly and rigorous reassessment of the traumatic Biafran War and the making of today’s Nigeria, based on the author’s intimate personal knowledge of the region. One of its many strengths is its profound understanding of post-colonial Nigeria and its peoples. Another derives from the several searching interviews conducted with many of the leading protagonists. Michael Gould has written an excellent and genuinely enlightening book.’

  Denis Judd, Professor of History, University of

  New York in London

  ‘An outstanding account and analysis of the Nigerian Civil War (also known as the Biafran War) … Its profound research is based on unique personal interviews with many of the principal participants and on archival and other primary sources, which no other author has been able to access … Michael Gould’s outstanding study concludes with important interpretations of Biafra’s longevity and how far genocide was a reality or a myth, along with a notable appraisal of the history and impact of the two leaders … This is a brilliant history of the Nigerian Civil War and, forty years later, stands as the best analysis yet published.’

  Anthony Kirk-Greene, Emeritus Fellow of

  St. Antony’s College, Oxford

  New paperback edition published in 2013 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd

  6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU

  175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010

  www.ibtauris.com

  Distributed in the United Stats and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan

  175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010

  First published in hardback in 2012 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd

  Copyright © 2012, 2013 Michael Gould

  Foreword copyright © 2012 Frederick Forsyth

  The right of Michael Gould to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by

  the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any

  part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or

  transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording

  or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN 978 1 78076 463 4

  eISBN 9780857730954

  A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

  A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available

  Typeset by Newgen Publishers, Chennai

  This book is dedicated to my late father John,

  a member of the Royal West African Frontier Force.

  CONTENTS

  List of Illustrations

  Maps

  Foreword by Frederick Forsyth

  Preface

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1  Introduction

  Chapter content

  Chapter 2  Historical Background

  Ethnicity

  Religion

  Colonial control

  Post-independence

  Instabilities in the post-colonial period and the two coups

  The two military leaders

  Chapter 3  The Path to War and Its Beginning

  The effects of the second coup

  Aburi

  Boro and Gowon’s twelve-state decree

  Military strengths and weaknesses

  Biafra’s invasion of the Mid-West

  Ascendant and descendant positions

  International awareness

  Chapter 4  The Second Part of the War: From Mid-1968 to January 1970

  Propaganda and the international press

  Biafran infiltration and intelligence

  Ojukwu: control and supply

  Arms

  Gowon: control and logistics

  The end

  Chapter 5  Biafra’s Longevity

  Attempts at negotiated peace settlements

  Biafra’s resourcefulness

  Foreign support and aid agencies

  The aid agencies

  Propaganda and genocide

  Chapter 6  Gowon and Ojukwu: An Appraisal of the Two Leaders 149

  Gowon’s character

  Ojukwu’s character

  Gowon’s background

  Ojukwu’s background

  Towards war

  How they dealt with the war as leaders

  Their personal attitude to the war in retrospect

  Chapter 7  Conclusion

  Why was there a conflict?

  How realistic was Biafra’s determination to achieve sovereignty?

  What caused the war’s longevity?

  Was genocide a myth or a reality?

  What impact did the two leaders have on the conflict?

  Epilogue

  Postscript

  Chronology of Events: January 1966 to January 1970

  People featured in the Book

  Appendix 1: Documents showing Nigerian arms imports from Britain 1967–1969

  Appendix 2: Document confirming the potential doubling of Nigerian oil revenue by 1970

  Appendix 3: Documents confirming the proposed sale of Biafran natural resources to Rothschild Bank, Paris

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Plates

  ILLUSTRATIONS

   1.   Gowon. From Cronje, S., The World and Nigeria. (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1972)

   2.   Ojukwu. From Cronje, S., The World and Nigeria. (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1972)

   3.   Ojukwu’s father with his daughter (left) and the wife of Costain’s managing director (centre). From the private collection of Julia Burrows.

   4.   The Sauduna’s residence on the morning following the first coup. From the private collection of, and taken by, Simon Watson, manager, Bank of British West Africa, Kaduna.

   5.   Biafran currency. Britain-Biafra Association, Rhodes House.

   6.   Malnourished Biafran children. Britain-Biafra Association, Rhodes House.

   7.   Ojukwu inspecting a guard of honour. Britain-Biafra Association, Rhodes House.

   8.   Treatment of Igbo wounded at Enugu airport, following racial disturbances in the north, July to September 1966. Britain-Biafra Association, Rhodes House.

   9.   Photograph of an atrocity committed during the northern racial disturbances, July to September 1966. Britain-Biafra Association, Rhodes House.

  10.   Protest march in London to stop the Nigerian civil war. Britain-Biafra Association, Rhodes House.

  11.   Maps showing the geographical reduction of Biafra from August 1967 to April to May 1969. FCO 51/169, Public Records Office Kew.

  12.   Lt-Col. Benjamin Adekunle (The Black Scorpion), who commanded the 3rd Commando Division of the Nigerian Army.

  13.   Lt-Col. Achuzia (left), Adekunle’s opposite number in the Biafran Army, and Lt-Col. Morah (right), whom Achuzia threatened to shoot, after Morah had apparently absconded with two million pounds. Achuzia was ordered not to shoot Morah, but to send him back to Enugu, where he was promptly promoted.

  Map 1. Map of Nigeria

  Map 2. Map of Biafra

  FOREWORD

  At the time of writing it has been forty years, but people still remember Biafra.

  The rebellion of Nigeria’s Eastern Region against the Federal Government many miles away and its declaration of separate independence was supposed
to be quashed within ten days by the federal army. So at least London’s Commonwealth Relations Office confidently announced.

  The war lasted two and a half years, from July 1967 to January 1970. In that period an estimated number of Biafrans died, overwhelmingly children and primarily of starvation, that is generally agreed to be close to a million.

  For the last year and a half, the outer world, belatedly made aware of the horror, watched and protested. In vain. There was no intervention.

  But those thirty months marked two basic innovations that it took years to realise. Television war coverage came of age, and the developed world, impotent in a hundred million sitting rooms, watched their first African mass famine. Others would follow, have followed, ever since. But this was a man-made famine and no one had ever seen its like before.

  Today old-stagers of the war correspondents’ circuit watch in awe the technology of the new craft: the brilliant colour images, in high definition, transmitted from the most obscure rock defile or jungle clearing direct to our screens at the touch of a ‘send’ button. Back then it could take weeks.

  Cameramen back-hauled cumbersome kit using old celluloid film. With the film finally ‘in the can’ (literally a flat disc of aluminium duct-taped shut) the evidence had to reach some kind of airport. From there, perhaps in the hand baggage of a kindly missionary, it had to be flown across the world to the USA or Europe.

  That was not the end. A despatch rider would take the discs to the studio for slow development into long wet strings, pegged up to dry. Finally, cut and edited, literally with a guillotine and sticky tape, the sound-track pasted to the edge, hopefully ‘in synch’, the film would make the evening newscast. It was often screened a week after being shot. In the battle-zone much could have happened, but it was the best we could do.

  Much of it was in black and white, for colour ‘stock’ was expensive. But for all the struggles and all the delays, those filmed reportages out of the Biafran enclave had a traumatic effect on two continents: Europe and North America. They just had not seen anything like it before.

  Words can do so much and some still photos have become iconic down the decades. But there is nothing like the moving colour film and the sheer immediacy of instant transmission. People in their sitting rooms had never seen, in the corner, images of children reduced to stick insects. They had not seen the monstrous heads lolling on the wasted necks; the bones jutting like dry kindling; the air-bloated bellies; the mass graves tended by priests and nuns. And they had not heard the constant low wailing of dying babies.

  The images shocked, horrified and angered. There were demonstrations; politicians were hounded; donations collected; relief aid flooded in. The world looked, gagged and tried to help.

  Today we are all inured. We have seen it countless times. In Ethiopia, Tigre, Eritrea, Sudan, Darfur, Niger. We donate and turn away. But Biafra was the first and it shook the world.

  And Biafra was deliberate. The land called Eastern Nigeria was rich and prosperous. It grew food and exported much. But due to its intensive population in a small landmass it had to import protein: fish, meat, eggs, milk. It was the Nigerian blockade that caused the slaughter. Children need protein every day.

  One can be sad over a drought, a volcano, an earthquake, a flood, a failed crop. But one cannot rail at it. It is an act of God. But Biafra was deliberate, an act of Man.

  The actual ground war was sometimes brutal, often farcical. Despite prodigious quantities of fired-off ammunition, few died of violence. The killer was the hunger.

  But why did it happen? How did it happen? Who was behind it? Why could it not be stopped? Who were the main players? Who told us the truth and who lied?

  In those forty years an enormous amount has come to light. Some memories have faded, others have been muted by death, and yet others conveniently altered. But the revelations supercede them. Forty years on it is possible to reveal what I could not explain as I sat writing the slim paperback The Biafra Story in the heart of it all.

  That is why I am confident that Michael Gould can tell us much we did not know before.

  Frederick Forsyth

  Hertford, 2010

  PREFACE

  This narrative is an overview account of the Nigerian Civil War. It discusses the ethnicity of the conflict and how it was supported by Britain who backed the Federal Government, and France who sided with the seceded state of Biafra. It argues that at certain times during the war, because of frustration by the international community over both parties’ inability to agree a truce, some nations gave Biafra international recognition, and others came very close to doing so. Debatably, part of the international dimension to the war was the great powers’ wish to protect and enhance their commercial interests in Nigeria.

  Whereas the Federal forces thought and planned for a short conflict, indeed its initial strategy was that this was simply a police action, they totally underestimated the strength and determination of the opposition to succeed. Federal Nigeria, also, had no long term strategy for subduing the recalcitrant state, whereas Biafra’s objective was to achieve permanent sovereignty.

  Both sides were to suffer from a chronic shortage of arms throughout the campaign, but for totally different reasons. Overt support for arms and armaments was given by Britain to the federation as the conflict ensued, but this was soon tempered by political constraints confirming limits and restrictions on the supply of arms. This forced the federal forces to look elsewhere. They found support for their needs from Russia. Being at the height of the ‘Cold War’ this caused reverberations of concern among the western powers. Biafra sought arms support from any country and source that was willing to trade with the seceded state. However throughout the campaign she received covert arms support from France. It was these two factors which turned the war from a local conflict into an international one. The lack of consistent arms supply for both sides, throughout the war, was to cause constraints on both parties’ ability to gain overall military superiority.

  Initially the conflict appeared to have been ethnically inspired, but gradually support from Britain and France arguably turned the war into an international commercial war, for control over Nigeria’s natural resources. Both powers realised the future potential and significance of the country’s oil resource. Indeed Shell had carried out confidential research into Nigeria’s oil reserves and it had found them to be twice the original estimates. This information was to remain confidential to the oil company until after the cessation of hostilities. Neither of Nigeria’s antagonists, in the war, was aware of this.

  Within the first few days of the campaign the Federal forces were very nearly able to conclusively defeat Biafra. Due to supply problems they stalled their attack and Biafra reversed its misfortune by a daring incursion on the West through the Mid-West region.

  Even though this initiative ended in failure, because of its commander’s perfidiousness, Biafra became increasingly impervious to the continual Federal onslaughts. Its position was inadvertently strengthened by the media’s ability to bring the ravages of this war to the attention of the international community. Not only did this attention swell the coffers of the aid agencies, because of the international communities’ concerns for the starving, dying and disease-ridden children of Biafra, but armament support became entwined with aid support for Biafra. This situation became even more confused, and was to cause great embarrassment to Britain, because on the one hand it continued to supply arms to the Federal Government, but on the other its charities were overwhelmed with funds to support the civilian population of Biafra who were being killed and maimed by the opposing military machine armed by Britain.

  Inexorably, the Federal forces gained the upper hand and Biafra’s frontiers contracted, until it became a fraction in size of its former territory. In spite of this it finally only agreed to an armistice, not unconditional surrender, threatening a guerrilla campaign, if this was unacceptable.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  In writing this bo
ok I received tremendous support and encouragement from a large number of people both in Britain and Nigeria. They ranged from librarians, museum curators, academics, politicians, diplomats and military personnel to friends and friends-of-friends and acquaintances. They were all very supportive of my project and freely gave their time to help me write this book. Without their input and support my task would have been very daunting. Most people were able to give valuable information, which helped to fill in gaps and to answer my many questions. To all these people I am deeply indebted. I wish to record my gratitude and thanks. It is important to me that I recognise the support I received from Denis Judd, who mentored me from the start and told me that my thesis was worthy of becoming a book, and indeed gave me confidence at every stage of the writing process to help me achieve my objective. I would also like to acknowledge Tony Kirk-Greene, who enthused over my project and gave me constant support whenever it was sought. James Eneje is another person to whom I was able to turn when support was needed and who was able to act as introducer when I sought to meet various people from his native Igboland. I would also mention Joe Achuzia, who welcomed me into his family in Asaba, and now regards me as a member of that family. Ben Gbulie was also another supporter who gave me his personal insight into the first coup. Finally I would like to acknowledge and thank everybody at I.B.Tauris, especially my editor Joanna Godfrey, who has patiently guided me through the intricacies of the publishing world.

  CHAPTER 1

  INTRODUCTION

  To the North … dwell the Hausa and Fulani, devout Moslem people governed by feudal emirs. The Western Region is the home of the Yoruba, a tribe known for its profusion of gods and its joie de vivre. To the East, where they are now trapped, the ambitious and clever Ibo people thrived. Brought together forcibly under colonial rule, the three regions developed the hatreds and jealousies of totally different cultures. 1

  At the time of independence in 1960 Nigeria was ruled by Britain and the North’s oligarchic elite, together with their coalition partners. After independence it was this same group of people who were left in charge. Admittedly there was a veneer of parliamentary democracy, but rigged and corrupt voting seriously compromised democratic elections. This meant that although there were sincere attempts by well-meaning nationalists to ensure that democracy was potentially possible, the reality was that the parliamentary system left by the British was hopelessly undemocratic and factionalised.