The year 2020 marks fifty years after the brutal Nigeria’s civil war. Nigeria’s history cannot be complete without a mention of the war and the events that led to it.
For some Nigerians who witnessed the war and particularly for the millions of Easterners who were at the forefront, the mention of it elicit goose pimples.
Perhaps, in a 21st century Nigeria and to the youth born in this generation who incidentally form the bulk of Nigeria’s estimated 200 million population, the remembrance of the war may just be another event in the calendar.
The Biafra or civil war ended precisely on January 15, 1970, when the instruments of surrender were officially received by the government of Yakubu Gowon, the then Nigerian military head of state.
The fratricidal war, which cost Nigeria about two-and-half million lives and property worth billions, was caused by a chain of events. The most prominent triggers of the war were the January 15, 1966 coup and the counter coup of July 29, 1966.
Following the ethnic tension, power struggle, rancour and violence that rocked post-independence Nigeria, group of young army officers mostly of Igbo extraction, led by Chukwuma Nzeogwu, a major in the army, who thought they had answers to the myriad of crises, staged a coup on January 15, 1966 and destroyed the First Republic. Nzeogwu and his men killed the then Prime Minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa; the powerful Premier of the Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello; Premier of the Western Region, Samuel Akintola and other prominent people mostly of northern extraction including senior army officers.
The fallout of the coup angered elements in the North as they felt shortchanged that most of the perpetrators of the coup were Igbo, while their victims were mostly non-Igbo, especially northerners.
This caused bitter feelings, suspicions and the desired for revenge. The coup was wrongly interpreted as an Igbo attempt to seize power and dominate the rest of the country. The counter coup then followed as the northern army officers staged their own coup on July 29, 1966 and carried out a purge of Igbo officers in the army beginning with the killing of Igbo head of state, Aguiyi Ironsi, who had taken over as the military head of state after the collapse of the First Republic.
The crisis deteriorated further as innocent Igbo civilians living in the north were also targeted and killed in their thousands by northern mobs. This pogrom threatened the Igbo and other easterners and they moved in large numbers back to the east, their traditional homeland as the regime of Yakubu Gowon, who took over the reins of power after Ironsi was killed, appeared to have failed to provide security for them.
Gowon also disagreed on several issues with the Eastern regional governor, Emeka Ojukwu. The issues were later taken to Aburi in Ghana, where agreements were reached by Gowon and Ojukwu. But upon their return to Nigeria, both men subjected the agreement to different interpretations and the stage for war was set. On May 30 1967, Ojukwu, probably fearing more massacre of Easterners, announced that the Eastern region had seceded from Nigeria. Gowon then vowed that no part of Nigeria shall be allowed to secede; he declared war to bring back the east to the country.
But within a year, the Federal Government troops surrounded Biafra, capturing coastal oil facilities and the city of Port Harcourt.
The blockade imposed during the ensuing stalemate led to mass starvation. During the two-and-half years of the war, there were about 100,000 overall military casualties, while between 500,000 and 2 million Biafran civilians died of starvation.
In mid-1968, images of malnourished and starving Biafran children saturated the mass media of Western countries. The plight of the starving Biafrans became a cause célèbre in foreign countries, enabling a significant rise in the funding and prominence of international non-governmental organisation (NGO).
The United Kingdom and the Soviet Union were the main supporters of the Nigerian government, while France and Israel and some other countries supported Biafra.
The war, which started on July 6, 1967, however, ended on January 15, 1970.
But fifty years after the brutal war, despite the bitter experience of the war, the issues that led to the war are still very much alive. Ethnic tensions, religious crisis, rancorous politics, nepotism and ethnic cleansing have led to death of many and heightened divisions across the country.
The Boko Haram menace, which had succeeded the multiple religious crises in the north, coupled with the rampaging activities of the Fulani herdsmen have aggravated insecurity in the country and deepened bitterness and divisions.
In one of his articles, former governor of the old Anambra State, the late Christian Onoh, lamented that Nigeria should have been greater in science and technology if only they imbibed the technological achievements of the Biafra side during the war. He regretted that Nigeria destroyed what would have been an opportunity to put the country on the map of technology.
“At the end of the World War 2, the British and Americans were scrambling for the scientists in Germany. It was these scientists that developed the atom bomb. When the Nigerian civil war ended instead of Nigeria adopting the same system, they proceeded to destroy everything that is related to the Igboman. We produced Ogbunigwe, they destroyed it, Uli airport, was destroyed; everything the Research and Production (RAP) Biafra produced they destroyed,” he said.
In an interview with BDSUNDAY, public affairs analyst, Katch Ononuju, said Nigeria had not learnt anything from the war, stressing that the issues which necessitated the world are still prevalent.
“All across the world after every war historically the people will sit down to look at the remote and primary causes of the war and try to mitigate a recurrence but Nigeria did not,” he said.
He added that the triple ‘Rs’ of Reconstruction, Reconciliation and Rehabilitation initiated by Gowon after the war did not work, alleging that the money was not spent in the war-ravaged eastern region dominated by the Igbo.
According to him, “The reconstruction money was not spent in the east. The money was used to rebuild Lagos and when the reconstruction started happening outside the east, easterners started leaving the east to the other areas where the reconstruction happened.
“As for the reconciliation, the defeated people were forced to toe the line of government while there was no rehabilitation either.”
He also alleged that the government of President, Muhammadu Buhari has also divided the people of Nigeria with alleged nepotism and lopsided appointments, giving his Fulani ethnic group a clear advantage which he warned may force other groups to realign against the Fulani, which has a potential threat to the unity of the country.
When reminded that Nigeria achieved some success in the war at least by sticking together as a nation, he said, “Staying together and you don’t progress it does not make sense. Staying together became a strategy to mitigate the progress of people.
“If you stay together not based on merit you cannot progress, why should staying together not bring progress?”
“How come all the things we use to have before we don’t have them anymore, Nigerian Shipping Line, Nigerian Airways, Unity Schools, they were all destroyed,” he added.
His views, were corroborated by some eminent Nigerians at an event to mark the fifty years after the war held at the Muson centre in Lagos last week titled ‘Never Again Conference 2020’ organised by Igbo think-tank, Nzuko Umunna, and Ndigbo Lagos, which was in collaboration with civil society organisations.
Speaking in a video message at the event, Gowon warned leaders to take measures to forestall any future war.
He demanded total and patriotic commitment from Nigerians, adding that leaders must ensure the wellbeing of the country in politics, economy and security, while urging the citizens to reconcile their differences to avert another war.
Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka in a presentation said the tragic death of about two-and-a-half million people in the war should provoke sober reflection.
The eminent scholar also demanded for the entrenchment of democratic principles to forestall war.
According to him, “No nation has ever survived two civil wars. The sovereignty of the country is non-negotiable and the wisdom of not holding a banknote over a flame is not a justification to tempt fate. We need to ask, are we being heard?” he said.
In his address, the chairman of the occasion, Anya O. Anya, demanded justice for all as an important principle for the nation’s survival.
“A proposition could be made that we went to war because of the failure of leadership, and marginalisation. Let Nigerians eschew violence because ‘those who lead by the sword shall die by the sword’.
“We haven’t learned lessons from our past. Germany fought a war and in less than 30 years after became the strongest economy. Losing a war doesn’t mean economic backwardness,” he said.
Fifty years after the brutal war, perhaps, it must be said that at no point in her history had Nigeria been in a more precarious situation and in need of a lift from ashes then now.
Political observers say, incumbent President, Muhammadu Buhari must strive to eliminate and solve complaints of nepotism and marginalisation which have characterised his administration since he assumed office and which had led to more ethnic divisions among Nigerians.
Buhari must tackle impunity in the polity. Perhaps the most dangerous hurdle to Nigeria’s unity is the worsening insecurity situation in the country which has led to increasing spate of killings and kidnapping for ransom.
In view of recent events this issues must be urgently tackled to forestall a repeat of another civil war.
Iniobong Iwok
