BIAFRA : The Angel of History and the Ghost of Biafra

Wednesday 15 January marked 50 years since the end of Nigeria’s bitter civil war. That was the day that Colonel Philip Effiong submitted the articles of surrender to Yakubu Gowon at Dodan Barracks, Lagos. Gowon famously declared that there were “no victors, no vanquished”. By a curious coincidence, January 15 was also the date when,

 in 1966, the first military putsch led by Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu triggered a chain reaction that culminated in the tragic civil war, 1967–1970. As a child I recall when the thick of night dozens of Igbo families turned up at my parents’ modest home in the parsonage in Murya, a mission settlement just outside Lafia, today the capital of Nasarawa State. One of the women had just put to bed. Daddy did all he could to protect them from a bloodbath that was to consume more than a hundred thousand defenseless people. I have never seen such fear in the eyes of grown men. After barely a week, my parents received death threats from the neigbouring villages for harbouring Igbo people. Daddy had to let them go. In the thick of midnight, the refugees tearfully disappeared into the bowels of the primeval savannah. Never to be seen or heard of again. Their memory still haunts me to this day

The debate on whether the January coup was an “Igbo coup” or a nationalist uprising need not preoccupy us. True, there were the likes of Major Adewale Ademoyega and one or two Northern subalterns, but the key conspirators were Igbo. Nzeogwu, Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Timothy Onwuatuegu, Chris Anuforo, Henry Chukwuka and Don Okafor were patriots with probably honest intentions. But their coup was one-sided in execution. Circulating pictures of the slain Ahmadu Bello with the boots of Nzeogwu on his chest was deeply offensive to Northern sensibilities. To add insult to injury, most of Ironsi’s ministers and advisers were Igbo. His infamous Decree No. 34 summarily creating a unitary state only served to confirm Northern fears that they were about to be swamped. It seems clear that destiny prepared Yakubu Gowon for the singular role of keeping our country together. The son of Anglican missionary parents born in Wusasa in 1934, he was an Angas by tribe but culturally Hausa. An outstanding student of Barewa College – Head Boy, football captain and star athlete — he had intended to pursue a career in engineering and teaching, but his British teachers saw in him the potential of a great military commander and convinced  him to tow that that path. He attended Sandhurst Royal Military Academy where he acquitted himself with distinction.

Gowon was engaged to an attractive young Igbo woman, but could not marry her because his colleagues warned him that it was impolitic in a time of belligerence marry from the “enemy”. Contrary to popular misrepresentations, Gowon never waged a genocidal war against Biafra. He saw it as a quarrel between brothers. This, unfortunately, could not be said of field commanders such as Murtala Mohammed and Benjamin Adekunle. Gowon and Awolowo have been blamed for the economic blockade that led to the loss of a million souls in Biafra. But we must weigh the counterfactual – in terms of how much more devastating the war would have been if it had lasted for many more years. History will absolve Yakubu Gowon. He is the Abraham Lincoln of modern Nigeria; a man of compassion, justice and restraint. He towers heads and shoulders above all our leaders, past and present. Biafra is dead, but its ghost continues to haunt our country like a phantom that refuses to go away. Ever since 1970, there has been an unwritten conspiracy that no Igbo man can be trusted to assume the high magistracy of our federal republic. It is an affront to the highly gifted Ndigbo, with their ingenuity, sagacity and can-do spirit. Part of the problem is that Ndigbo themselves have been their own worst enemies. Betrayal is common among them. The people of the Blessed Cyprian Iwene Tansi and the venerable Cardinal Francis Arinze have tragically been overtaken by a godless materialism that has eroded their spirituality and sense of values. Their presumptuous attitudes have alienated the Ijaw, Ikwerre and other South-South minorities who abhor the very mention of Biafra.  It is a collective tragedy. With the benefit of hindsight, Biafra was a tragic misadventure. Neither Gowon nor Ojukwu expected what they regarded as a mere skirmish to end up in a war that took the lives of millions. It is in the nature of human conflict that it is capable of assuming a dynamic of its own while moving into unforeseen and unexpected directions. Ojukwu’s personal ego, if truth be told, stood on the way of a genuine settlement. He was a pigheaded spoilt brat. Born with a silver spoon, his legend still endured in the Oxford of my days as one of the few undergraduates who drove around campus in a Rolls Royce. He saw Gowon as a peasant boy from the rustic backwaters of the North; under-estimating him to his own tragic discomfiture. A man with a lion heart, Gowon spoke softly but wielded a big stick. Ojukwu took his people on a tragic fiasco in the single-minded pursuit of personal power. With such great constitutional theorists as Kalu Ezera, Edwin Nwogugu and B. O. Nwabueze, why didn’t Biafra operate a viable constitution? Was Biafra just another African autocracy anchored on personal rule? Even granted that things were difficult in that complex and chaotic war environment, did he not owe his people a commitment to govern on the basis of law and constitutionalism instead of egocentric adventurism? And was it true that Nzeogwu was set up to be killed at the war front because he was seen as a personal threat to Ojukwu? Were Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Victor Banjo, Philip Alale and Sam Agbam executed because they differed with him on questions of political policy? Why did he abandon his people at their hour of defeat in such a cowardly manner? These questions are for historians, not for a humble Columnist. I am persuaded that the Good Lord did not make mistake in placing the Igbo people among us. There is no one to rival their commercial acumen. My own people always say that wherever you go and you don’t find Igbo people there, leave the place immediately! Truth is, Nigeria will never be Nigeria without Ndigbo. I can understand even if I do not approve of, Nnamdi Kanu and his IPOB movement. The English political philosopher John Locke taught that an oppressive government that operates on the basis of exclusionism and sinister agendas must be resisted and opposed. Matthew Hassan Kukah, Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, is right when he says that our government has created the atmosphere that provides fertile ground for the murderous activities of Boko Haram.  Ndigbo continue to suffer disproportionately whenever Northerners resume the madness of their ritual bloodbaths. We can only bury the ghost of Biafra through repentance and reconciliation. We must repent for the crimes we have committed against Ndigbo and against God and Humanity. With the prospects of ISWAP invading our country, the Yoruba have come up with Amotekun as a vehicle of resistance. Do not be deceived: Ametukn will metamorphose into an army when push comes to shove. Both municipal and international law give people who face an existential threat the right to defend themselves. We who have been at the receiving end are not about to commit suicide. Only a re-engineered and restructured political order can save our country from mortal peril.

Read more: https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/the-angel-of-history-and-the-ghost-of-biafra.html