Within five years of independence, Nigeria was subjected to a series of harrowing events. The country afflicted with regional and ethnic chauvinism, political intolerance, victimization, lawlessness, government ineptitude and corruption, and nepotism, which culminated in the military coup d’etat of January 15, 1966. The coup, aimed at rescuing the country from disintegration, was interpreted as an Igbo subterfuge to dominate Nigeria. The ineptitude of General Ironsi, head of state, and an Igbo, seemed to confirm northern fears of planned Igbo domination. A countercoup, which toppled General Ironsi on July 29, 1966, brought Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon installed as head of state. This countercoup was followed by massacres of Igbo in the northern region, in September and October of 1966. At the end of this organized genocide over 10,000 Igbo people had been exterminated. Several thousand more were maimed, or dispossessed, while 1.5 million people were turned into refugees within their own country. The perpetrators of this heinous crime were not punished, nor was compensation made to the victims.
The government’s failure to stop the massacres convinced the Igbo that their security could only be guaranteed in the eastern region, which was overseen by Lt. Col. Emeka Ojukwu, an Igbo. It was against this background that the eastern region refused to recognize Gowon as the head of state of Nigeria.
A combination of bad faith, mutual distrust, duplicity, and the incompatible styles of Ojukwu and Gowon scuttled all mediation efforts both within and outside Nigeria. For instance, a good opportunity for the peaceful resolution of the situation came in January 1967, when General Ankrah, the military head of state of Ghana, interceded in the crisis. He convened a meeting of the Nigerian Supreme Military Council at Aburi, Ghana on January 4-5,1967 to iron out the differences between Ojukwu and Gowon’s federal government. The Aburi conference passed the following resolutions: non-use of force in the settlement of the crisis; a confederal status for the regions without boundary adjustments; a veto power for all members of the supreme military council that would enjoin a unanimous concurrence of the regions before any major decision could be taken; the payment of salaries of all displaced persons until March 31, 1967; and finally, the head of the federal military government should assume the title of commander in chief of the armed forces.
However, the prospects for peace in Nigeria were short-lived. Federal civil servants, after thorough perusal of the Aburi accord, told Gowon that he had been outwitted by Ojukwu. Gowon started to demur on the agreement and on March 17, 1967, issued Decree No. 8, which rejected some of the resolutions of the Aburi agreement. Ojukwu, in turn, rejected Decree No. 8.
The stage was thus set for a conflict between the eastern region and the federal military government. At the end of March 1967, Ojukwu issued a number of edicts to safeguard the region’s economic interest. The federal government imposed economic sanctions against the region. The face-off continued until
May 26, 1967, when Ojukwu summoned the Eastern Region Consultative Assembly and the Advisory Committee of Chiefs and Elders in Enugu. On May 27 the assembly issued a communique empowering Ojukwu to declare the eastern region an independent sovereign state to be known as the Republic of Biafra. The federal authority reacted swiftly on the same day by splitting Nigeria into twelve states. Gowon assumed sweeping powers under Decree No.14, which banned political activities and introduced press censorship.
The “cold war” reached its crescendo when on May 30,1967, Ojukwu declared the Republic of Biafra. The federal government declared the action null and immediately made clear its determination to suppress the secession. It also embarked upon massive mobilization and procurement of military weaponry. In Enugu, the Biafran capital, Ojukwu embarked upon a propaganda campaign, declaring that no power in black Africa could overcome Biafra.
The federal government launched a two-pronged attack against Biafra on July 6, 1967. From the northern border at Nsukka, Biafra presented an initial stiff resistance against the federal onslaught, but faced a continuing problem of low supplies of ammunition. Within a fortnight, the federal forces had pushed the Biafra forces out of the university town of Nsukka. At the Garkem-Ogoja front, Biafrans offered feeble resistance to the artillery and firepower of the federal troops. Biafra continued to suffer because of insufficient weaponry. The federal government drew from its enormous human and material resources, while Biafra was handicapped by sea blockade, little international support, and internal division. Despite heroic displays by the Biafrans through technological innovation, and grim determination, the secession was doomed to failure. Starvation decimated much of the Biafra population. Early in the war, an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 people died daily in Biafra, and about 10,000 daily toward its close.
Biafra had lost most of its strategic and important towns by July 1968 to the federal government. However, Biafra won a consolatory victory when it recaptured Owerri in April 1969. Nevertheless, Biafra lacked the resources to follow up its victories. About this time Biafra had shrunk to one-third of its original size.
Biafra’s insurrection collapsed on January 11, 1970 when General Ojukwu fled to Cote d’ Ivoire. On January 15 General Gowon accepted the unconditional surrender of Biafra by Maj. Gen. Philip Effiong, declaring that there was “no victor and no vanquished.” Gowon’s post-civil war reconstruction was half-hearted, inconsistent with his government’s declared aims, and mere window-dressing to calm the international community’s fear of reprisals against the Igbo. The Igbo people were discriminated again in Nigeria during Gowon’s regime and received harsh peace terms from the victorious federal government. Their properties were declared abandoned in several parts of the country at the end of the civil war. They were refused reinstatement in their previous places of employment. The fate of the Igbo people still hangs in the balance in post-civil war Nigeria.
Paul O. Obi-Ani
See also: Nigeria: Gowon Regime, 1966-1975.
Further Reading
Achuzia, J. O. G. Requiem Biafra. Enugu: Fourth Dimension Publishers, 1986.
Ademoyega, A. Why We Struck: The Story of the First Nigeria Coup. Ibadan: Evans Brothers (Nigeria Publishers), 1981. Elaigwu, J. I. Gowon: The Biography of a Soldier Statesman.
Ibadan: West Books Publishers Ltd, 1982.
Forsyth, F. Emeka. Ibadan: Spectrum Books, 1982.
Gbulie, B. Nigeria’s Five Majors: Coup D’etat of 15th January 1966 First Insider’s Account. Onitsha: Africana Educational Publishers (Nig.), 1981.
Jorre, J. De St. The Nigeria Civil War. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1972.
Madiebo, A. A. The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafra War.
Enugu: Fourth Dimension Publishing Co., 1980.
Oluleye, J. J. “The Role of the Nigerian Army in the Crises and Civil War of 1966-1970: The Facts and the Lessons.” In Inside Nigeria History 1950-1970: Events, Issues, and Sources, edited by Y. B. Usman and G. Amale Kwanashie. Ibadan: The Presidential Panel on Nigeria Since Independence History Project, 1995.
World History
