BIAFRA : Timeline Biafra War In Key Dates

It’s 50 years since the Nigerian civil war ended but the scars have endured. Here is a timeline of how the war started and major events since the shots were called off at Dodan Barracks.

 

January 15, 1966: A group of army majors, led by Kaduna Nzeogwu and Emmanuel Ifeajuna, execute Nigeria’s first military coup which ended the First Republic.

Most of the coup plotters were Igbo and a number of those killed – including Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa – were northerners.

The coup plotters attacked three cities – Lagos, Kaduna, and Ibadan – and said their stated objective was to cleanse the country of corruption.

In this file photograph taken on November 1, 1967, Biafran prisoners and civilians wait at the federal camp of Nakurdi, a converted outdoor movie theatre in Enugu, after fighting between Nigerian federal army troops and the Biafran rebels, during the Biafran war. Colin HAYNES / AFP

 

January 16, 1966: Head of the Nigerian Army, Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, is declared Head of State. Although Aguiyi-Ironsi had aided in coup suppression efforts, that he was Igbo stoked northern sentiments that the coup was intended to wipe out the North’s political powers.

January 17, 1966: Aguiyi-Ironsi appoints Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu as Military Governor of the Eastern Region.

In this file photograph taken on August 16, 1967, Colonel Odumegwu Emeka Ojukwu, the leader of the breakaway Republic of Biafra, stands in front of a Biafra flag as he addresses a press conference in Enugu. AFP

 

July 29, 1966: A few months after the first coup, northern soldiers stage a counter-coup, killing Aguiyi-Ironsi and many other high-ranking Eastern officers. Aguiyi-Ironsi’s death led to the emergence of Yakubu Gowon as Head of State.

September 29, 1966: The northern coup further inflamed anti-Igbo sentiments in the North. From May to September 1966, observers estimated that between 3,000 and 30,000 Igbos were slaughtered and another 150,000 – 300,000 fled to southern and eastern regions.

n this file photograph taken on July 24, 1967, European families wait for their evacuation by boat, in Port Harcourt, during the Biafran war. Colin HAYNES / AFP

 

January 1967: Nigerian military leaders famously meet in Aburi, Ghana, to resolve the complications and disaffections created by the two coups. 

May 27, 1967: Gowon declares the division of Nigeria in 12 states, which includes splitting the Eastern Region into three parts.

May 30, 1967: Ojukwu declared the independence of the Republic of Biafra, after an official vote of secession had taken place in the eastern region.

n this file photograph taken on November 13, 1967, a Nigerian federal army soldier points to a sign in Calabar, the oldest port on the West African coast, after the federal troops took the city from the Biafran rebellion, during the Biafran war. Colin HAYNES / AFP

 

June 1967: After Ojukwu’s declaration, Nigeria’s military government places an embargo on the shipping of goods to and from Biafra, excluding oil tankers. 

In this file photograph taken on October 28, 1967, Nigerian federal army soldiers survey a police checkpoint on the west bank of the Niger River at Asaba, from where they launched an amphibian offensive on Biafra, during the Biafran war. Colin HAYNES / AFP

 

July 6, 1967: Five weeks after Ojukwu declared the Republic of Biafra as an independent state, the Nigerian-Biafra war begins.

The initial attack by the Nigerians included two advancing columns, one of which captured the Biafran town of Nsukka on July 14 and the other which took the Biafran town of Garkem on July 12. However, the Biafran retaliation was strong and moved rapidly across the Niger River, through Benin City, and to the town of Ore, 130 miles east of the Nigerian capital of Lagos. where they were eventually stopped on August 21.

In this file photograph taken on August 31, 1968, a pair of child soldiers of the Biafran army, Moise, 14 (L) and Ferdinand, 16 (R) speak in Umuahia as the Nigerian federal troops continue their advance during the Biafran war. Francois Mazure / AFP

 

January 1968: After nearly six months of war, the Nigerian military had surrounded Biafra and cut off the majority of their supply lines, but the Biafrans continued to resist surrender and kept on fighting.

January 29, 1968: Biafra introduces its first Biafran currency.

In this file photograph taken on March 31, 1968, The Onitsha bridge, one of the most important communication pathways of West Africa, is destroyed by the Biafran Forces, on the Niger River at Onitsha in south-eastern Nigeria. Colin HAYNES / AFP

 

March 27, 1968: First airlift into the city of Port Harcourt, organised by Father Anthony Byrne, who also managed the Catholic relief operations in Biafra.

June 26, 1968: The government of the Republic of Biafra releases a “Charge to Humanity” statement outlining the deteriorating situation in Biafra and calling for foreign support.

In this file photograph taken on August 17, 1967, young militia women of the civil defence parade during military training in Enugu, capital of the new Republic of Biafra, during the Biafran war. AFP

 

July 12, 1968: Biafran children appear on the cover of Life Magazine with headline “Starving Children of Biafra War”

May 1969: Biafrans commence land offensive reinforced by foreign mercenary pilots, attacking military airfields in Enugu, Port Harcourt, Ughelli, and Benin City.

June 5, 1969: A Red Cross plane is downed while delivering relief supplies to Biafra. As a result, the Red Cross ceases air deliveries of aid.

June 30, 1969: Nigeria bans International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) aid to Biafra; the American Jewish Emergency Effort for Biafran Relief has raised a total of $185,000.

In this file photograph taken on August 28, 1968, civilians flee Aba to go to Umuahia, the new capital of the Re

public of Biafra, as the Nigerian federal troops advance toward the city during the Biafran war. Francois  / AFP

 

January 7, 1970: Nigerian forces launch its offensive “Operation Tail-Wind,” which successfully conquers Owerri and Uli within 5 days.

January 15, 1970: Official surrender papers signed by Biafran General Philip Effiong, deputy to Ojukwu who had fled to the Ivory Coast a few days earlier.

July 1985: National War Museum is established in Umuahia, Nigeria.

In this file photograph taken on May 26, 2017, shows the NSS BONNY on display at the War Museum in Umuahia, in south-eastern Nigeria. STEFAN HEUNIS / AFP

 

1999: Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) is founded by Indian-trained lawyer, Ralph Uwazuruike.

In this file photograph taken on May 28, 2017, supporters of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) march through the Osusu district in Aba. STEFAN HEUNIS / AFP

 

September 2006: Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun is published.

November 26, 2011: Ojukwu dies in the United Kingdom after a brief illness,

In this file photograph taken on March 2, 2012, a soldier salutes after arranging the boots and cap on the casket of Nigeria’s secessionist leader Odumegwu Ojukwu during his funeral at his native Nnewi country home in Anambra State eastern Nigeria. Pius Utomi EKPEI / AFP

 

2012: The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) is founded by Nnamdi Kanu. The group’s stated aim is to restore an independent state of Biafra through a referendum.

September 2017: A federal court in Abuja declares IPOB activities as ‘Acts of Terrorism’ just a week after the federal government declared the group as a militant terrorist organisation.

BIAFRA : Wike speaks for Nigerian soldiers

Gov. Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has called for the institution of a reward system to encourage soldiers to put in their best for Nigeria.

He made the call during an inter-denominational Church Service marking the 2020 Armed Forces Remembrance Day Celebration at Saint Peter’s Anglican Church, Rumuepirikom on Sunday.

The Governor, who urged members of the armed forces to be professional, praised them for the roles they have played in preserving the unity of the country.

“But for them, kidnappers, cultists, insurgents and armed robbers would have taken over the country.

“I urge members of the Armed Forces to choose the right path in the interest of the country,’’ NAN quoted him as saying.

In a sermon, Venerable Samuel Chimele, called on soldiers to be professional in the discharge of their duties to the nation.

“As we remember our fallen heroes, be professional. There are temptations to the military to be unprofessional, but strive to be professional,’’ he said.

He said that soldiers who engage in unprofessional acts will go unrecognised in the long run, even when they enjoy earthly promotion.

Chimele also warned soldiers against misuse of power against national interest, in the sermon with the theme, “Faithfulness in Service: The Hallmark of a True Soldier’’.

BIAFRA : ACF to Igbo: Pick Biafra or 2023 Presidency

Chief Nnia Nwodo, President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo   Nigeria’s Igbo ethnic group in the five states constituting the South East zone, has been asked to make a choice between having Biafra Republic or Nigerian presidency in 2023.

In a trending commentary, Anthony Sani, secretary-general of the influential Northern Nigeria Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) asked the Igbo to make the choice, saying the rest of Nigerians would be too scared to entrust the Igbo with the presidency in 2023 if “they are seen to also be agitating for secession from the federation”

Sani was reacting to a debate stirred by an interview granted by Malam Isa Funtua, a member of the Buhari inner circle to Arise TV. Funtua advised the Igbo to stop politics of exclusion and reach out to other ethnic blocs.

“If the Igbo want to be President, then they must belong. If you don’t belong, then you can’t be the President,” Funtua said.

Weighing in on the controversy, Sani described the Igbo as suffering from “superiority and inferiority complexes” simultaneously, accusing them of playing both victim and also having a sense of entitlement.

Read Sani’s intervention:

“When I read a letter by one Frederick Nwabufo on page 18 of The Nation newspaper under the caption “Isa Funtua, Igbo and 2023 presidency” in which the author berated Isa Funtua of being an arrogant man who suffers from a sense of entitlement, I wonder the wisdom,” Sani said.

“As far as I am concerned, it is Igbo who is obsessed with a sense of entitlement by their insistence that it is their turn to produce the president in a country which boasts of over 250 ethnic nationalities. Igbos suffer from both superiority and inferiority complexes.

“At one point, they tout their superiority by claiming to be over and above any other nationality in Nigeria because they are better at the use of their superior commercial acumen for trade.

“At another, they play the victim by crying of marginalization the most. Power in a multi-party democracy is never secured through threats and intimidation, nor is it obtained by jeremiads out of pity.

“This is because democracy is a contest of ideas and reason and is never a bullfight.

“Igbos cannot agitate for separation and hanker for president by still expecting the country would not be scared of voting them for the presidency.

“Igbos may wish to recall that Senator McCain lost the elections because he had [Mrs Palin] who was governor of the state of Alaska. This was also because her husband was accused of attending a meeting of separatists who wish the state of Alaska to leave [the] USA and join Russia.

“I do not see how somebody from Scotland, Catalan, Quebec, Aceh or Xinjiang could dream of being voted president of their countries. Reason: Such a person would most likely play Gorbachev.

“So when Isa Funtua says Igbo should belong, he meant “belong to where the majority [is]”. That is to say, Igbo must develop their winning game plan by reaching out to build bridges and break barriers.

“The North does not comprise the caliphate alone but is very diverse. In fact, the caliphate today is not ruled by the ruling party.”

BIAFRA : Presidency reacts as Buhari’s daughter, Hanna flies presidential jet for her private business

The Presidency on Saturday reacted to reports that President Muhammadu Buhari’s daughter flew a presidential jet for her private business.

In a text to DAILY POST, Buhari’s media aide, Garba Shehu said the criticism that followed the situation was misplaced.

“Criticism is the rights of Nigerians. It is, however, misplaced in this circumstance. We have issued a statement about this issue.”

Reports had it that Buhari’s daughter, Hanan flew in a presidential jet to an occasion in Bauchi State.

Hannan, who is a first class graduate in photography was said to have been invited to the Durbar by Rilwanu Adamu, Emir of Bauchi, on Thursday.

Pictures which surfaced online showed that Hannan was accorded a warm reception by officials of the state waiting for her at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa International Airport.

The daughter of the president was said to have visited the state to document the event and other tourist attractions in the state as a professional photographer.

Hanna’s visit, however, elicited a lot of criticism from Nigerians who frowned at the choice of her flying a presidential jet for her personal business.

BIAFRA : PDP attacks Buhari as daughter, Hannan flies presidential jet for private business

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Saturday stated that President Muhammadu Buhari directly abused his office and exhibited the worst form of corruption by detailing the officially restricted Presidential jet to chauffeur his daughter, Hanan, for her private photography event in Bauchi state.

PDP described the action as provocative, condemnable, completely improper and an unpardonable slap on the sensibilities of millions of Nigerians, particularly, the youths, who look up to the President for integrity, uprightness and respect for rules.

Reports had it that Hanan flew in a presidential jet to an occasion in Bauchi State.

Hannan, who is a first class graduate in photography was said to have been invited to the Durbar by Rilwanu Adamu, Emir of Bauchi, on Thursday.

Pictures which surfaced online showed that Hannan was accorded a warm reception by officials of the state waiting for her at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa International Airport.

Hanna’s visit, however, elicited a lot of criticism from Nigerians who frowned at the choice of her flying a presidential jet for her personal business.

But, Buhari’s Media Aide, Garba Shehu in a swift reaction rubbished the criticisms that greeted the development.

However, PDP stated that the development is a strong pointer to the recklessness that pervades the Buhari Presidency and the indefensible
annexation of our national assets and resources for illegal private use.

A statement by PDP’s spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan sent to DAILY POST reads: “It is even most appalling that instead of apologizing to Nigerians, the Buhari Presidency, in its arrogance, is resorting to falsehood and trying to justify the inexcusable.

“Our party holds that Mr. President should apologise for approving that her daughter uses the Presidential jet just for the purpose of allegedly taking photographs in a Durbar event in Bauchi state.

“Perhaps, the Buhari Presidency forgot that it is public knowledge that the Presidential fleet can only be authorized for use by the President, the First Lady, Vice President, Senate President, Speaker of the House
of Representatives, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, former Presidents, Presidential delegation and no one else.

“Moreover, the rules do not grant the President any powers to transfer any paraphernalia of office or privileges of his position to any of his children.”

PDP stated that the Presidency’s defence was a direct spat on millions of Nigerians who cannot freely ply our highways because Buhari and his party the APC, have failed to fix and rid our roads of kidnappers and bandits, who have practically taken over major routes under their despicable watch.

The opposition party noted that never in the history of Nigeria has a Presidency exhibited such arrogance, impunity and corruption, adding that the action has further shown that the Buhari Presidency had only been parading and getting away with false integrity.

“Nigerians could recall how President Buhari heavily accused and criticized previous administrations of voting and wasting huge resources to maintain the Presidential fleet and promised to sell off most of the planes to save cost.

“Since President Buhari assumed office, none of the planes had been sold. Instead, the Buhari Presidency had continued to budget more funds for the fleet with N8.5 bn budgeted for 2020 alone, only to approve that his daughter use a Presidential jet for her private photography event,” the statement added.

BIAFRA : 50 Years On, Nigeria Struggles With Memory Of Biafra War

(FILES) In this file photograph taken on November 13, 1967, a Nigerian federal army soldier points to a sign in Calabar, the oldest port on the West African coast, after the federal troops took the city from the Biafran rebellion, during the Biafran war. 
Colin HAYNES / AFP

Dikoye Oyeyinka, 33, has been billed as one of the most promising Nigerian writers of his generation. 

He went to some of the finest schools in his West African homeland but says that like the majority of his classmates he “didn’t know about Biafra until I was 14”.

When he did begin to find out about the brutal civil war that nearly tore Nigeria apart, it was not in the classroom.

Instead, it was a schoolmate in his dormitory who showed him a separatist leaflet demanding Nigeria’s southeast break away from the rest of the country.

Before then Oyeyinka had known nothing about how leaders from the Igbo ethnic group declared the independent state of Biafra in 1967.

(FILES) In this file photograph taken on August 16, 1967, Colonel Odumegwu Emeka Ojukwu, the leader of the breakaway Republic of Biafra, stands in front of a Biafra flag as he addresses a press conference in Enugu. 
AFP

He knew nothing of the conflict that resulted and the 30 months of fighting and famine estimated to have cost over a million lives before the secessionists surrendered 50 years ago in January 1970.

“We’ve had a very brutal history, the older generation went through a lot of trauma,” Oyeyinka told AFP.

“We just sweep it under the carpet, pretending nothing happened. But without knowing our history we will repeat the same mistakes. Our history is a succession of deja-vu.”

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It was to try to break this cycle of ignorance that the Oyeyinka wrote the novel Stillborn – a historic epic about Nigeria from the days of British colonial rule from 1950 to 2010.

In it, the civil war is the pivotal event.

‘Our History, Our Conflict’

Unlike other famed Nigerian writers such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, with her novel Half Of A Yellow Sun, or Chinua Achebe’s memoir There Was A Country, Oyeyinka is one of the few non-Igbo writers to have dwelt on the conflict.

“An Igbo friend got angry at me and said ‘You can’t write about us, it’s our conflict’,” he recounted.

But Oyeyinka insists that all Nigerians need to be made aware of what happened.

“We need to address these traumas ourselves, as a country, otherwise we are a tinder box ready to explode.”

While in the rest of Africa’s most populous nation many know little about the history of Biafra, in the former capital of the self-proclaimed state at Enugu the memory of those years lives on.

(FILES) In this file photograph taken on May 28, 2017, supporters of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) march through the Osusu district in Aba. 
STEFAN HEUNIS / AFP

Biafran flags — an iconic red, black and green with a rising golden sun — make appearances on the front of buildings and hardline separatists still demand independence.

The security forces — deployed heavily in the region — are quick to stamp out any clamour for a new Biafra.     At the end of the war in 1970, Nigeria’s war leader Yukubu Gowon famously declared there would be “no victor, no vanquished” as he sought to reunite his shattered country.

(FILES) In this file photograph taken on August 31, 1968, a pair of child soldiers of the Biafran army, Moise, 14 (L) and Ferdinand, 16 (R) speak in Umuahia as the Nigerian federal troops continue their advance during the Biafran war. 
Francois Mazure / AFP

The leader of the breakaway Republic of Biafra, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, went into exile for 13 years before being pardoned. He returned to Nigerian politics but was detained for 10 months in prison.

Leading Nigerian intellectual Pat Utomi says that many Igbos — the country’s third-biggest ethnic group after the Hausa and the Yoruba — still feel marginalised.

One key event was when current President Muhammadu Buhari — then a military chief — seized power in 1983, and stopped the only Igbo aspirant to get close to leading Nigeria since the war from becoming head of state.

“In the early 1980s, people had forgotten about the war, but this succession of poor leadership brought bitterness among the new generations,” Utomi said.

  ‘More Divided’

Nowadays any incident — from the closure of the only airport in the southeast last year to the sacking of Igbo shops by customs officials in economic hub Lagos — can cause grievances to flare.

“It’s important to deal with history, to write it down. In Nigeria, we try to cover it up,” Utomi said.

“We are more divided today than we’ve ever been before the civil war. We learnt nothing from it.”

In order to try to heal the rifts, Utomi helped organise a “Never Again” conference aiming to bring together key cultural and political figures to discuss the lessons of the Biafra war half a century after it ended.

He is also a patron of the “Centre for Memories” in Enugu, a combination of a museum and library where visitors can come and “dig into history”.

‘History Is Essential’

History itself has been absent from Nigerian schools.

The current government reintroduced it only from the last term as an obligatory subject for pupils aged 10 to 13, after more than a decade off the curriculum.

“Teaching history is essential to build our identity as a country, and defend our patriotic values,” said Sonny Echono, permanent secretary at the education ministry.

But schools still remain woefully short of qualified history teachers and there is no unified narrative about the civil war which does not figure in the lessons.

“We need to teach the war in our schools,” said Egodi Uchendu, a history professor at the University of Nsukka, in the former Biafra territory.

“Eastern Nigeria is completely different from how it was experienced in other parts of the country. We need to bring in the different angles to it.”

Chika Oduah, a Nigerian-American journalist, has crossed the country to collect hundreds of testimonies of the victims and combatants of the Biafra conflict which she publishes on her website Biafran War Memories.

She says that for many of those she interviewed it was the first time they had retold the horrors of the period.

“A 70-something former soldier… broke down crying, when he told me how he lost his brother during the war,” she said.

She herself only learnt at the age of 17 that her mother as a child spent two years in a camp for displaced people.

“Our parents wanted to move on, not look at the past,” Oduah insisted.

“But we need to talk about it, otherwise we won’t heal”.

BIAFRA : Dangote shuns Innoson, orders 10,000 trucks from Indonesia

Dangote Group has concluded plans to purchase 10,000 light pickup trucks.

But the company appears to have shunned Nigerian carmaker, Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing, IVM, as trucks are coming in from Indonesia.

Putu Juli Ardika, the Indonesian Director of Maritime Industry, Transportation Equipment and Defense Equipment, the vehicles would be purchased by Aliko Dangote through his company, Dangote Group.

Ardika explained that the trucks would be imported into Nigeria to serve as means of transportation to rural communities.

He said the vehicles would be used by farmers and others in Nigeria’s agricultural value chain, to transport water, cassava, and seed processors.

“Dangote’s team will check three units as a sample to be brought to Africa at the end of January.

“The trucks are set to be exported over five years, with 1,000 units to be exported this year and next year,” Putu said.