Biafra’s ruling executive council consisted of civilian commissioners holding and being responsible for a wide range of portfolios. In theory this meant the equal and fair distribution of limited resources. However, because of two fundamental weaknesses this created chronic shortfalls of necessary arms, equipment and food supplies for the army. The first weakness was that the appointed directorates were responsible for distribution of all limited supplies not only to the military but also to the civilian population, and the directorates were controlled and staffed by civilians who had little appreciation or understanding of military needs. Secondly, the strict hierarchical nature and accountability of civilian servants in each directorate, led to people in positions of power within the directorates protecting and enhancing their own personal positions. Two examples show how damaging this system of distribution was to the well-being of the Biafran army. The first concerned the distribution of food to the army, which found itself crippled for supplies as a result of the Food Directorate’s inefficiency. The army tried to bypass the Food Directorate and suggested that the army’s supply and transport force take responsibility for the army’s food distribution. Not only did Ojukwu, as the army’s commander-in-chief, renege on his decision-making responsibilities, but he passed this request to the chairman of the directorates for a decision. However, the chairman of the directorates proposed that if the army should be allowed to distribute its own food this might have an adverse effect on food distribution and supply to the civilian population. The implication was that some army commanders might stockpile food supplies, which might lead to some army units, as well as civilians, suffering food shortages. The directorate’s chairman then went on to suggest that the army’s supply and transport companies should be disbanded and their places taken by the relevant directorates, and that the food directorate should have sole responsibility for food distribution to the army. He even went so far as to suggest that members of the food directorate should be given local military ranks and put into army uniform. This suggestion was not confirmed, and consequently both the food directorate and the army’s food distribution arm continued to procure and supply food, continually leading to serious food shortages within the army and in some cases outbreaks of kwashiorkor within the military. The other example was over fuel distribution. At the start of the war Biafra had access to large supplies of oil, but as the war progressed it lost many of the oil-production areas. However it remained adept at refining its own oil, but its distribution to the army was continually under constraint, leading to the unnecessary abandonment of military vehicles. In one instance, a military unit had been able to build up some reserves, but by August 1969 an indent for 800 gallons by the unit only produced 10 gallons from the fuel directorate. The officials within the directorate blamed the lack of supply on scarcity. The reality was that the black market within the confines of the fuel directorate’s depot was able to supply 100 gallons at a market rate of £5–£8 per gallon; the official rate at the time was £1. 234

  The sole military representative was Ojukwu himself who, whilst titular head of the army, having been promoted general of the army by the Consultative Committee, and also head of state, was not strictly speaking an active member of Biafra’s military hierarchy and was therefore unable to assess the day-to-day needs of the army. His focus tended not to be on the army but on other pressing matters, such as structural control of the state and active involvement in peace negotiations and obtaining international recognition for Biafra. He was therefore hardly in a position to have an accurate assessment of the day-to-day needs of his army. If he felt that there was a weakness in one of the army’s positions he had a habit of bypassing the army command structure and dealing with the local commander directly, or indeed appointing somebody else to take responsibility without reference to the army’s structural command.

  There are countless instances of Biafran troops fighting with limited armaments, no transportation and limited or non-existent fuel supplies, as well as having no food and no uniforms. So acute did these shortfalls become that Biafran soldiers became adept at overrunning enemy positions and capturing any and all equipment in order to ensure physical survival and being then in a position to carry out further attacks on the enemy. At one stage it was estimated that forty percent of Biafra’s fighting force was equipped with captured Nigerian equipment, which included a number of armoured cars, taken when their Nigerian crews simply ran away. 235 Njoku, who was the first commander of Biafra’s army, recounts how in the opening stages of the campaign at Nsukka, he had no arms to supply his frontline troops, and although he indented for supplies they were simply not forthcoming. His situation was made even more precarious because ‘My troops were always running short of arms and ammunition. The governor [Ojukwu] would not let me know the quantity and quality of weaponry available in the Armoury to help me plan for either offensive or defensive.’ 236

  Ben Gbulie makes a similar comment about the Nsukka front, as does Joe Achuzia, both going into action with very limited arms and ammunition. 237 There was also the extraordinary case of Biafra’s Captain Ujam, who when interviewed said that throughout the war he had retained his battalion’s position, but because of a lack of all kinds of supplies had had to rely on the local people for food and the Federal opposition for armaments. Whenever his battalion was short of ammunition, short aggressive assaults into enemy territory became necessary. Each time his men were successful in gaining fresh supplies of arms. Captain Ujam remained with his battalion of nearly 1,000 men in the same geographic area throughout the campaign’s thirty months. 238

  The Biafran state civil service, under the direction and overall sanction of state commissioners, controlled the distribution and supply of limited resources. All state commissioners were civilians with no understanding of the armed forces’ constant demand and need for an inexhaustible supply of resources, ranging from arms to clothing and food supplies to medical support. There is evidence that civil servants were in the habit of stockpiling supplies in order to protect their own positions, and there is evidence to prove that in some circumstances a healthy black market developed in the supply and procurement of limited resources. The Eastern Nigerian’s innate temptation to trade was never far from the minds of many Biafran civil servants. These nefarious activities led to chronic shortages of supply for the hard-pressed troops fighting for the very survival of Biafra. It seems strange that military demands to put an end to such practices went unheeded by the Biafran establishment. Only on occasions when Ojukwu himself became involved in a military operation did the supply of necessary arms and equipment, and basic needs, fulfil the needs of an engagement. It seems that civil servants, with the support of the Biafran government, were intent on preserving limited supplies to the detriment of successful military actions.

  By the middle of 1969 the Army was getting not more than 10 percent of all food available to the Directorate, and this amounted to a meal in four days to each soldier. Among the anomalies I identified with the Directorate was the fact that they worked daily from 0800 hours to 1500 hours and did not work at all on Sundays. Their services or assistance were therefore not available over weekends …. The sum total of the ugly food situation was that a good number of soldiers in the front lines either moved back in search of food or stayed on and fraternised with the enemy in the hope of getting presents of food and cigarettes from him. 239

  In the long term this was to have a debilitating effect on Biafra’s soldiers, and many instances show that some troops were resigned to failure and were more than happy to surrender to Federal troops. It was to take draconian measures on the part of a small number of the officer corps to ensure that troops remained loyal and supportive to the Biafran cause. When questioned on these comments, Ojukwu did admit to such shortcomings during the war, but commented on the lack of trust between the military, the civilian administration and the Biafran population. He admitted that his own lack of trust and his doubts about loyalty within the military stemmed from the time when he had put much faith in Lt-Col. Victor Banjo and Biafra’s invasion of the Mid-West. Indeed not only did Banjo’s treachery undermine Ojukwu’s faith in his armed forces but it also started the rumours of saboteurs. 240

  The rumours and counter-rumours of saboteurs were to become a disabling link in the defence of Biafra, and arguably a contribution to its eventual collapse. The aftermath of the Banjo affair was to have reverberations throughout the remainder of the war. There is little doubt that in the eyes of many Biafran civilians the army had let Biafra down badly through its failure to keep control of the Mid-West. Sabotage, rumour and counter-rumour were to become features of the war in Biafra. It was reported that even in the early stages of the campaign accusations of sabotage abounded, as in the case of Biafra’s ill-fated 54 Brigade, who were regularly attacked thirty minutes before their own attack on a particular front. The aforementioned Lt-Colonel Banjo and his assistant Major Alele accused the army commander, Colonel Njoku, of sabotage. Major Alele, a civilian political commissar, with the honorary rank of major, broadcast to the nation that there were saboteurs among top-ranking Biafrans. Tragically, without substantive confirmation, the people tended to believe him. Although in the broadcast he made no mention of names, he hinted that the blame lay with the army, and the effect of this was to undermine the army commander’s authority, leading to his eventual replacement. Both Banjo and Alele were executed following accusations of plotting to overthrow the Biafran state after the disastrous incursion into the Mid-West. 241 However, it was the effect of Biafra’s failed attempt to take over the Mid-West and the execution of the supposed coup plotters that sealed the fate of the army in the eyes of the civilian population until the end of the war. The population regarded every senior military officer as a saboteur. Indeed the early defeats to the Biafran army were blamed on saboteurs, much to the consternation of Madiebo who had replaced Njoku as army commander.

  Arms

  When the war started, both sides were ill-prepared for a conflict of any duration, and immediate efforts had to be made to rectify shortages and shortcomings. The Nigerian army had never been designed to fight an internal war, let alone a civil war. Both sides found themselves encountering new experiences and new challenges. It is interesting to note how each side resolved the problem, but in totally different ways. Recruitment into the Nigerian army had always been problematic, because it was not generally seen as a desirable career option. It was obliged therefore to look for recruitment for the expanding army in other areas. Recruitment of students, prison officers and indeed ex-prisoners became popular.

  I was given the task of recruiting what amounted to a whole new division. I looked for my recruits mainly in Lagos where I selected men from all walks of life, but found that some of my best soldiers, after training, came from the dregs of society. Many of my men had formerly been in prison, and were released to serve in my division. The 3rd Marine Commando Division was created from scratch by me from such dubious sources as street thugs, outlaws and renegades, mainly from Yoruba ethnic groups. I then had the task of moulding them into a credible fighting unit. 242

  In the early days of the war Biafra had no such constraints. Defence of Biafra became a popular sentiment, and the authorities found themselves oversubscribed with applicants to the army. It was only later in the war, when Biafra’s cause had lost support from the minority peoples of the East, that recruitment to the army became problematic and the authorities were obliged to introduce conscription, which had mixed results on the army’s efficiency. It led to some farcical incidents, as happened when a recruiting team raided a dance hall in Umuahia in December 1968. The dance was held to raise funds ‘for the successful prosecution of the war’. Not only were two lieutenant-colonels recruited on that evening but many women were obliged to return home without their menfolk. Such a forced style of recruitment eventually became an embarrassment, and public conscription was stopped, its place taken by an equally unpopular quota system. 243

  It is, therefore, unsurprising that throughout the campaign both armies maintained their methods of operation and their traditions as though this was still the Nigerian army of pre-independence days. The strict hierarchical nature and divisions of class were endemic within the army and were to remain so on both sides throughout the thirty months of the campaign. As Colonel Achuzia commented after he had trained a militia of 5,000 men in Port Harcourt, there was determined resistance by the Biafran army to allowing any men from his militia to taint the army. Indeed for a long period of the war, the various militias in Biafra were not integrated into the regular army. 244 An interesting observation was made by one former Sandhurst-trained serving officer about Achuzia, to the effect that he was not a proper trained soldier at all and had had to persuade Ojukwu to grant him a commission, which was awarded much to the distaste of many senior officers in the Biafran army. 245 It was said at the time about the military:

  in fact, it was the code of Kipling that influenced the conduct of the war on both sides. Until the very end Effiong [Biafra’s chief of staff] looked like a British staff general – polished Sam Browne belt, a sword for ceremonial occasions and a chauffeur-driven, khaki-coloured English Humber car bearing a general’s flag. His officers were similarly indoctrinated – moustaches, swagger sticks, batmen, officers’ mess. 246

  The effect of this tradition and rigid hierarchy was to make both sides adopt inflexible attitudes, which made for slow limited advances by the Federal army and entrenched positions by Biafran troops. At the start of the campaign the average Northern Federal soldier had little respect for the fighting qualities of Biafran soldiers, and expected only token resistance. However the fighting prowess of many Eastern soldiers was to change this opinion. The Welsh South African Major Taffy Williams, who fought for Biafra for twelve months of the war stated:

  I’ve seen a lot of Africans at war, but there’s nobody to touch these people. Give me 10,000 Biafrans for six months, and we’ll build an army that will be invincible on this continent. I’ve seen men die in this war who would have won the Victoria Cross in another contest. My God some of them are very good scrappers. 247

  A further comment was made as the war progressed:

  At the start of the conflict the general impression among the federal troops was that the Ibos would display only token resistance. It appeared, however, that the fortitude of the Ibos stemmed from their fear of annihilation and their leaders’ belief that, if they held out, the world would rally to their cause.

  The military tactics of the Biafrans were to place a series of defended posts, usually well sited, but not mutually supporting, across the line of federal advance. In their main defensive positions, particularly those in the north facing the federal first division, the Biafran soldiers showed great endurance. 248

  Furthermore the Easterners fighting on their own territory and over ever-changing boundaries found it easy and highly advantageous to infiltrate the other side. They were able to gather intelligence on enemy movements and this, coupled with the fact that they had details of the Federal army’s communication codes and had Biafran supporters placed at the army operations centre in Lagos, meant that they were often able to pre-empt the enemy’s movements. 249 This is borne out by the fact that within hours of the British High Commission military attaché’s assessment of the war being completed, Ojukwu had a copy of it. The report gave the breakdown and order of battle of the ‘final big push, being enacted towards the end of 1969, each division’s offensive capability, their tasks, and dispositions’. 250 The Biafrans had access to most Federal troop movements throughout the war. 251

  The strongest point of the Biafrans was their highly efficient intelligence network. They had their agents living amongst the Ibo population in Lagos and appeared to have access to both supreme and army headquarters. They even operated their own radio network from Lagos to Ojukwu’s headquarters. 252

  Being constantly aware of the Federal army’s movements meant that Biafran soldiers could always harass enemy positions; it also meant that Federal troops would only attack after making overzealous preparations and as they attacked expending inordinate amounts of ammunition. 253 However due often to lack of equipment and ammunition on most occasions Biafran troops tended not to stand and fight but simply disappeared into inaccessible parts of a friendly and supportive countryside.

  As the war progressed both sides did attempt to break the traditional mould. Ojukwu made extensive use of Achuzia and his unorthodox methods, as well as instructing Major Steiner, the German ex-Foreign Legion sergeant, to form a commando force of some 3,000 men, divided into six small battalions. Steiner, together with the Welshman Williams, formed the Biafran Fourth Commando Brigade.