Nigerian Loyalties – Millions of people in this country saw on their television screens on Monday night the murder of an unarmed youth by an officer of the Federal Nigerian Army, who himself was shot in front of television cameras in Lagos on Tuesday. In this way, the bestialities of this squalid but destiny-laden African war are brought into people’s living rooms …. The country was British until only eight years ago. Generations of British missionaries have worked there, in particular in the areas of the present fighting. Their heartbreak at pictures of dying children is comparable to, and as honourable as, that of a parent forced to watch his own children suffer.

  The Nigerian forces were raised and trained by the British. The many links to this country rule out any question of her present woes being a matter of indifference to us. 384

  Because of incessant propaganda about the Federal army’s atrocities against the Biafran people, which led to increasing international support for Biafra, and concern in some quarters, and condemnatory attitudes in others, led the British Government to put pressure on the Federal Administration to counter these charges. The United Nations Organisation and the Organisation of African Unity were invited by the Federal Government to report independently on the many accusations. Gowon said that he wanted these independent observers to have a completely free and supportive hand and to give an objective and unbiased report on their findings. 385 It was agreed with Gowon that the teams should have complete freedom of movement, which meant they could change their plans according to the situation, as they saw fit. They felt that some’ window-dressing’ took place if a particular commander knew that the observers were about to visit, but that it was certainly not sufficient to conceal malpractices that had been recorded.

  The major conclusions reached by the International Observer Team were:

  The word genocide is completely unjustified. There undoubtedly have been acts of brutality perpetrated by both sides in this Civil war. This is not surprising since on the Federal side their army expanded from approximately 5,000 to 85,000 in 18 months and on the Biafran side their soldiers only receive 3 weeks training. However it is absolutely clear that it is not the policy of either the Federal Government or its army to deliberately destroy the Ibo people. In fact, a great deal is being done to help those Ibos who are now behind the Federal lines. 386

  However, the observer team did investigate three areas where atrocities had been reported locally in the East and then been in the foreign press, emanating from Biafra’s public relations company Markpress. The first area was around Mbaise, north of Aba, and the team confirmed after enquiry that no massacre or large-scale killings had occurred, although some civilians had been killed during the fighting. The second area was at Afikpo, where the team investigated ‘irregular conduct’ by Federal troops. The conclusion the team came to was that, although some civilians had been killed by Federal troops, the main reason for the atrocity was activity by the Biafran Organisation of Freedom Fighters (BOFF), which was responsible for killing 17 people and destroying 40 homes, due to an incident with the local head of the Muslim community. However, it did confirm the unlawful killing of some 70 people by Federal troops on 25 December 1969 at a village called Ndukwu. The third area the team visited was at Afikpo, together with five other villages in the area. Here the team did find that Federal soldiers had rounded up some of the villagers and forced them into a blockhouse in one of the villages, planted charges and blew up the building, and afterwards shot any who had survived the ordeal. With this incident the team concluded:

  The team is of the opinion that the behaviour of the Federal troops in the Amaseri area may not have been in accordance with the Operational Code of Conduct for Nigerian Armed Forces…. The conduct of the Federal Military Government [F.M.G.] forces was as good as that of any forces during and after the war. 387

  The more this aspect of the war was researched it seemed to point to the conclusion that word genocide had been a useful promotional tool, firstly to instil in the Biafran population the ongoing fear that Federal troops were intent on destroying the Igbo race, and secondly to persuade the outside world that genocide, being contrary to international law, should be condemned by the international community, and that countries should offer their support to Biafra against the Federal Government’s inhumane activity. The reality, as investigated by the observer team, was that the charge of genocide levelled at the Federal Government and her forces was completely unjustified. The idea of genocide had become a popular promotional thought which, alongside starvation, death and killings, helped foster the idea that Biafra should be helped for humanitarian reasons. Undoubtedly many people in the international community were convinced by the propaganda, and it helped perpetuate a myth and therefore prolonged the war, because, as with attempts at peaceful settlements, it encouraged the international community to pressurise both sides to agree on a compromise settlement, and this neither side was prepared to entertain. It is interesting to note that Markpress’s public relations promotional propaganda was linked to five major news agencies, as well as all members of the British House of Commons and the United States Congress. Markpress became synonymous with Biafra, and because of its reputation it was able to promote Biafra and its cause convincingly to the international community, especially after the middle of 1968 when starvation and then genocide was promoted to the outside world. 388 The perception of genocide had grown from the uncontrolled riots which occurred in the North in the later part of 1966 against the Easterners who lived there, and which Ojukwu accused Gowon’s administration of being unable to condemn or stop. As Ojukwu said, it was a useful weapon in Biafra’s propaganda armoury and one which she used to good effect until the end of the war. 389

  As one article in the international press commented:

  Besides righteousness, however, the Biafran leader possesses a considerable talent for propaganda, and he has skilfully used that talent to promote abroad the notion that Nigeria is waging a genocidal war against the Igbos. In this effect he has received considerable assistance from the Nigerians themselves. Nearly every day Russian-made Ilyushin bombers piloted by Egyptians swoop out over Biafran territory. Almost always their targets are purely civilian. One such, late last month, was the village of Ozu-Abam. ‘The plane passed over very low,’ recalls the parish priest, Father Raymond Mahar. ‘I heard six explosions as it circled two or three times. When I got to the market every square yard was covered by a body or a part of a body. In all, there were more than two hundred bodies, not more than four or five of them were men.’ 390

  One of the members of the International Observer Team commented:

  I have been distressed by numerous letters from well meaning people telling me things which I know to be false: that the Federals shot every Igbo man, woman and children between Agbor and Asaba; that the minority peoples in the original breakaway state of Biafra were heart and soul behind the secessionists; that all the excesses in the war have been committed by the federals and none by the Igbos. I am sure there have been excesses on both sides. 391

  Conclusively, therefore, it seems that genocide was not a Federal Government objective, but it proved a useful tool in Biafra’s armoury for encouraging the international community to support its cause, and thus was a contributory factor in the war’s longevity.

  Although the results of the International Observer Team’s extensive investigations into indiscriminate killings by Federal troops confirmed that accusations of genocide and unlawful killings were unjustified, the international press continued to promote the notion that the Federal army was intent on killing innocent Biafrans. In March 1969 a report stated:

  Deaths and damage caused, in Biafra, by ‘indiscriminate bombing’ by Federal Nigerian air force planes were described by Mr Frank Alluan, Labour MP for Salford, when he returned to London yesterday from an eight day visit to Nigeria. Mr Allaun said he had seen homes, hospital and welfare clinics had been shelled in many Biafran towns. In Biafra’s capital, Umuahia, he visited air raid victims in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. ‘The matron, Miss Anne Bent of Lancashire, told me that on the weekend prior to my visit 60 civilian victims of a bombing raid were taken to the hospital for operations.’ One air raid victim was a six year old boy. Doctors removed a piece of shrapnel the size of a matchbox from one eye. 392

  The problem for the Federal Administration was that although they had been exonerated by the International Observer Team from promoting genocide and indiscriminate civilian killings generally, incidents like this were continually reported in the international press, leading many people to believe that civilian deaths were still being condoned by the Federal army. These reports continued to favour Biafra and encourage people to subscribe funds to aid agencies. As Biafran territory became more restricted, through a process of attrition because of the ascendancy of Federal forces, mainly through increased arms supply, the well-intentioned aid increasingly went to support Biafran arms and troops, which prolonged the war.

  It could be argued that balanced armies, one side with better-trained forces and the other with more firepower, could have created the conditions for a never-ending war. However, it was the effect of Britain supporting the Federal Authorities with her continual supply of arms, and then France’s arms support for Biafra, which ensured the war’s longevity. It is interesting to note that from the beginning of hostilities Wilson’s government refused to countenance the supply of fighter aircraft, but that did not deter Gowon and his administration searching for a more compliant supplier. Unfortunately for Gowon, having achieved this objective, the perceived bombing of innocent civilians did little to endear him to the international press who, enthusing over a good story, were able to expose the horrors of this war to a sensitive and largely gullible public. This led the public to give funds willingly to the aid agencies which in turn created conditions of longevity. In spite of Gowon’s well-intentioned attempts to have a disinterested assessment of unlawful killings and genocide, once the international press focused on their story of killings by Federal aircraft and undisciplined troops, it was never going to promote the cause of the International Observer Team to any great extent, primarily because good news does not sell newspapers.

  It was therefore a combination of events which ensured that the war would last for thirty months, where, in retrospect, it seemed as though many of these events may well, on their own, have shortened the war, when sequentially put together they only added to its length.

  CHAPTER 6

  GOWON AND OJUKWU

  An Appraisal of the Two Leaders

  Both leaders were interviewed extensively, not only on the war, but also on their past, including their upbringing, and their opinion of the country in its present form and its present status. For Ojukwu corroborative interviews were made with several members of the Costain family, who knew Ojukwu as a schoolboy and as a young man growing up in Britain in the early 1950s, as well as Iro Hunt, the wife of the British High Commissioner, who was close to him during his early career in Nigeria. With Gowon the author used his own knowledge of him, when he was a young officer in the nascent Nigerian Army and was an intimate friend of the author’s family. The appraisal has been divided, into their respective backgrounds, which have a bearing on the way they exercised their authority whilst in power, and their approach up to and during the conflict, how they dealt with the war as leaders on opposing sides, and finally their personal attitude to the war in retrospect.

  Both Gowon and Ojukwu were two of the most important and significant people who held centre stage and controlled Nigeria’s destiny during the period following the second coup in 1966 until the war finally came to an end early in 1970. Without their rise to power Nigeria’s history might have followed a different path and conceivably a war might not have taken place. Although they held their respective positions throughout the conflict, both were challenged, but only once. Ojukwu finally lost his leadership when he sought peace or escape (the evidence is ambivalent), just prior to Biafra’s collapse, whilst Gowon retained his position until finally undermined by his ongoing rival, Lt-Col. Mohammed, in 1976. Unlike Ojukwu, Gowon’s position as Nigeria’s head of state was always consensual.

  Murtala Mohammed and his Northern political supporters had been attempting to oust me from power from the early days in 1966. I feel it was these Northerner’s political frustration that we the military were still in power after nine years, in spite of my attempts to return the country to civilian rule, and that the country was no nearer to a political solution. Although I was concerned about Murtala’s rather unstable personality I felt it was time for me to go, and let someone else try to resolve the seemingly intractable problem. So I resigned whilst I was attending an Organisation of African Unity (O.A.U) conference. 393

  The reality was that Gowon was removed in a relatively bloodless coup by Murtala Mohammed, timed to coincide with the former’s visit to the OAU in Addis Ababa.

  An FCO report on 11 November 1966 stated:

  I am now reliably informed that the old NPC led by Inuwa Wada did in fact attempt last week to get Gowon to stand down as Supreme Commander in favour of Lt. Col. Mohammed who, it was thought, would more actively further NPC interests. Gowon was apparently offered command of the army, but he refused to accept the deal and carried the day by emphasising his control over the Middle Belt elements in the army. Gowon is also supported by young Northern intellectuals. Mohammed has since been relieved of his post as Chief of Staff and was sent to Northern Nigeria by special plane on 9 November. 394

  Ojukwu’s leadership was threatened when he recalled Banjo, after the latter’s ill-fated invasion of the Mid West:

  Once Banjo had dislodged Gowon in Lagos, he planned to remove Ojukwu and appoint Lt.-Col. Emma Ifeajuna, the Olympic highjump celebrity, to the office of Military Governor of the East. Biafra would have ceased to exist and the idea of secession would have been dropped. In the event Banjo, Ifeajuna, Alale and Agbam were made to stand trial for treason and were executed on 25 September 1967. 395

  Both men have admitted independently that if they had been given the time again they would have handled the situation differently and would have sought a negotiated settlement. 396

  How was it that two men from seemingly similar backgrounds (both men are Christian and had been exposed to British army culture) came face to face with each other over the seemingly intractable problems of the Biafran War? Ojukwu came from a privileged background, mixing freely with the Nigerian elite from all regions within the country. His father, who started out in life working for the United Africa Company, enjoyed a degree of success to the point where he felt secure enough to branch out on his own. His transportation company became the most successful in Nigeria, making him a rich and commercially powerful man. He thus associated with all the important people of the day, Nigerians and expatriates, giving him an entrée into the upper echelons of Nigerian society. He had a particularly close relationship with the Leventis family, who through several generations had established themselves as very powerful traders on the west coast of Africa, as well as all the leading Nigerian politicians and members of the British colonial establishment, including the governor-general. The young Ojukwu would automatically have enjoyed the benefits of this world from a very early age.

  As a young man growing up in the North, Gowon enjoyed none of Ojukwu’s privilages. He was also a member of a small ethnic group, the Angas people. His father was a Christian lay preacher and a farmer, who was intent on his children enjoying the benefits of western learning but who lacked the resources to secure them a good further education, leaving it to his children’s own talents to secure that for themselves. Undoubtedly both men were ambitious, Gowon focusing on a successful military career, and Ojukwu aspiring towards politics. What motivated them to become embroiled in Nigeria’s politics and how did both find themselves in commanding positions, but on opposing sides? To answer these questions and to enquire into the background and motivation of these two men it is necessary to look at their early development, the opportunities open to them, the political and social development of the late fifties and early sixties in Nigeria. It is also interesting and enlightening to investigate the status of these two men today. Both are in their mid-seventies, and essentially retired people, but living out their lives in totally different circumstances. Both reached the pinnacle of their careers in their early thirties, a time when most people are only just beginning to make their mark in their chosen activity.

  Gowon’s character

  He is generally believed to be a modest man who reluctantly accepted the responsibility of Head of State as [a] military duty and to possess generally the opposite qualities to those required for success in the Nigerian political jungle. His experience of life was largely confined to the artificial environs of the officers’ mess where he was more noted for quiet efficiency than for charismatic qualities. The fact that he had made his mark at Sandhurst was attributable to his absorption of the appropriate ethos and of itself not by any means necessarily an asset amongst his African colleagues and contemporaries. Moreover when he took office he was the youngest head of state in the world; his inexperienced innocence was glaringly exposed at the Aburi talks in Ghana …. Few political leaders could in normal circumstances have survived being publicly outclassed to such a degree, but in this instance subsequent events proved their own commentary. Ojukwu disappeared into exile in the Ivory Coast, while Gowon’s achievement of reconciliation in Nigeria was followed up by an increase in his external stature culminating in one year, in 1973, in unanimous election to chairmanship of the Organisation of African Unity, the state visit to London and an effective presence at the Commonwealth Conference at Ottawa …. It was, however, the reunification of Nigeria … which established his reputation in Western eyes. Portentous prognostications of massacre and genocide of Ibos were nullified in the first instance by his example …. Not only were former opponents treated with magnanimity but he did not preclude the development of trust and loyalty on a personal level: his employment of Ibo pilots for his own plane might well have seemed foolhardy by some. 397