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Books by Chinua Achebe
Things Fall Apart
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Arrow of God /
No Longer at Ease
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A Man of the People
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Anthills of
the Savannah
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Remembering Biafra: A
literary review
By Chioma Oruh
In the quest of
understanding the causations of the Nigerian Civil War
(1967-1970), otherwise known as the Biafran war, I
stumbled upon an interview with Chinua Achebe, a
prolific Igbo writer that is best known his book Things
Fall Apart (1958) that has earned over twenty honorary
doctorates and several international literary prize.1
In understanding this brief yet complex war of the
Eastern tribes of the colonial territory—which later
became the Federal Republic of Nigeria—it was important
for me to get under its skin, so to speak.
Getting-under-the-skin of Biafra implies that there were
causes much deeper than secession from the Federal
Republic of Nigeria, yet in order to understand the
struggle for a nation separate from Nigeria, it is
critical to include the well known driving force of
control over the oil territories and the policies that
disenfranchised, and continue to disenfranchise, the
various populations of Eastern Nigeria.
 |
It is also necessary to
understand the thick layer of the
divide-and-conquer strategy, as used by the
British, which stimulated negative relations
and undermined any unity efforts that would
have taken place between Nigeria and the
proposed sovereign nation of Biafra. Resting
at the core of this getting-under-the-skin
analogy is the cancer filled causation of
corruption that assisted in the political
and social unrest that attributed to the
senseless massacres of the Igbo that lived
in the North and Western regions of
Nigeria—a major factor in the logical
conclusion for the formation of the separate
nation of Biafra.
All of these factors were
addressed by this leading writer, poe, and
intellectual, Chinua Achebe, in an interview
conducted in 1968 by Transition—just a year
into the three year arms dispute that was to
follow the Biafran legacy, a dream tainted
by bloodshed in the infancy of
neo-colonialism. |
Massacres in
Nigeria
This interview
started out with Chinua Achebe recounting the trauma he
felt from the reality of war by stating, “you got used
to sleeping with the sound of shelling and all the other
things . . . I only realized how nervous I had become
when I got out to London about three weeks ago. The
first sound of an aeroplane I heard and my first
reaction was to take cover.” 2 Shortly after
this chilling prelude, he starts an even more
devastating story of killing sprees that defined his
life as an Igbo in post colonial Nigeria:
| …between May and
September 1966, there were massacres in
Northern Nigeria, and not only in the North,
but also in the West and Lagos. People were
hounded out of their homes, as I was from my
house in Lagos and we returned to the East…3 |
It is in this
retreat to the East that Achebe reported as the
involuntary organization that began the necessity for a
separate nation of Biafra. According to Achebe, this
necessity for a separate nation did not begin in an
egotistic desire to divide and create a separate world
for he mentioned that “[Igbos] went out in the spirit
of this experiment of one nation,”4 and that
the settlement outside of the indigenous Eastern region
was a voluntary move to work as one nation.
In further support of this argument, Achebe stated,
|
The original idea of
Nigeria had its base from the leaders and
intellectuals from the East, and they had,
with all their shortcomings, this idea to
build the country as one, and a long time
this has been the paradox of the situation.
It was the Easterners who were pressing for
one Nigeria. The first people to object were
the Yorubas. Awolowo came and created the
Action Group on the basis that the sons of
Odudu were the founders of the Yoruba
people. Eventually the Northerners took it
on and developed their own Northern
Peoples’s Congress. This was supposed to be
the national party, yet it refused to change
its name from Northern to Nigerian People’s
Party, even for the sake of appearances…So
you had a possibility for tribal conflict
accentuated by the power struggle in the
political scene.5 |
The most
devastating part of these massacres, as Achebe
described, was the Nigerian governmental support against
this movement to annihilate the Igbos,
|
…if it was only a
question of rioting in the streets and so
on, that would be bad enough, but it could
be explained. It happens everywhere in the
world. But where you had a plan in
detail—mass killing which the Government—the
Army, the Police, the people where there to
protect life and property— brought against
the people they were supposed to
protect—this is to me something quite
terrifying.6 |
In another report
of these massacres, more fittingly described as
genocide, C. Odumengwu Ojukwu described in detail the
events leading to the final retreat to the East,
|
From police reports, I
know that the May, 1966, riots claimed more
than 3,000 lives. Indeed, the police reports
say 3,300. I know that on the first night in
Zaria, Northern Nigeria, 670 people were
killed. I know also that in Kano, also in
the North, on the same day of the riot, we
lost over a thousand people, including women
and children. International Press
Conference, Enugu. October 11, 1966 7 |
It is with these
recounts that I began to question the true motivations
that led to this seemingly obvious state-sponsored acts
of violence, a trend that Africa will see time and again
in the successive tragedies of Rwanda, Somalia and, most
recently, in Sudan. It is here the excavation of layers
of debris of understanding the effects of colonization
begins for me, and with the help of Chinua Achebe
(amongst other brave souls that took it upon themselves
to tell this story), my comprehension is learned through
Biafra.
Divide and conquer
The term ‘divide and conquer’, rooted in the Latin words
divide et impera, can be understood in its modern
usage in computer science as splitting a large system
into manageable components.8 Ironically, this
system that works well for the computer technology
currently craved by contemporary African countries
seeking development was a major tool of implementation
and sustainability of colonial rule. As Walter Rodney
describes in his famous book
How Europe
Underdeveloped Africa (1973):
|
…the gap in levels of
political organization between Europe and
Africa was very crucial. The development of
political unity in the form of large states
was proceeding steadily in Africa. But even
so, at the time of the Berlin Conference,
Africa was still a continent of a large
number of socio-political groupings who had
not arrived at a common purpose. Therefore,
it was easy for the European intruder to
play the classic game of divide and conquer.
In that way, certain Africans became
unwitting allies of Europe. Many African
rulers sought a European ‘alliance’ to deal
with their own African neighbour, with whom
they were in conflict. Few of those rulers
appreciated the implications of their
actions. They could not know that Europeans
had come to stay permanently, they could not
know that Europeans were out to conquer not
some but all of Africans. This partial
inadequate view of the world was itself
a testimony of African underdevelopment
relative to Europe, which in the late 19th
century was self-confidently seeking
domination in that part of the globe.9 |
It is with this
science that Biafra found itself a victim of divide and
conquer. In Achebe’s reporting of the involvement of the
former colonial master, Britain, during the Nigerian
Civil War, he lamented that, “…my position would be that
[Britain] has no right to supply arms to Nigeria, in
these particular circumstances and especially on this
scale.”10 In the truly invisible nature of
divide and conquer, it was difficult to fully implicate
the British as allies of the Nigerian Army as Achebe
explained, “They will try to refute your charge by
technicalities: they would say, for instance, that they
are not sending any air force pilots or any Royal Navy
personnel; they are merely sending them to the Nigerian
Navy or Air Force.”11
The strategy of divide and conquer was also used in
efforts to build divisions between the various tribes of
Eastern Nigeria. As Achebe responded to a question posed
about the alleged ill-treatment of non-Igbo groups that
reside in the Eastern region,
|
A very good example of
propaganda. Rather than go into any special
pleading, I have made the position quite
clear, if anyone thinks that these
minorities would rather not go among the
Biafrans, it is quite a simple procedure to
go and ask them through plebiscite, and if
they want to go with Nigeria…my own personal
belief is that if you did hold this
plebiscite you would find that these people
would not want to go with Nigeria.12
|
Unfortunately,
divide and conquer continues to play an active role in
Nigerian politics as there has not been a president from
the East since before the Biafran War and this continues
to inspire organized efforts at secession such as the
Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of
Biafra (MASSOB) due to charges of discrimination and
marginalization as evident in federally mandated
policies towards issues that concern Eastern Nigeria.13
The oil factor
Nigeria’s first oil-cargo was exported in 1958 from the
Oloibiri oil-field (located in present day Bayelsa State
in the Niger Delta region), under the sponsor of the
Shell-BP Development Company of Nigeria, jointly
financed by the Royal Dutch Shell group and British
Company.14 Shortly following this discovery,
the Nigerian government granted 10 oil exploration
licenses to five companies—Shell-BP, Mobil Exploration
Nigeria Incorporated, Amonsea, Texaco and Nigerian Gulf
oil—and in 1965 commissioned the first oil refinery to
be located at Port Harcourt, also in the Eastern region
of Nigeria.15
By the beginning of the Biafran war, Nigeria was already
a major oil producing nation with its production of more
than 152 million barrels per annum being extracted from
the Eastern region.16 The desire to keep
control of this lucrative oil business was a motivating
factor for the British involvement in supplying Nigerian
Army with arms against Biafra.
Achebe explains his belief that oil was a major factor
in the arms struggle in Nigeria,
|
"…Well, I think there are
many economic reasons. It is probably clear
to them that Nigeria will be the worse for
not having the place now called Biafra, not
only in terms of natural resources but in
human resources. But more, there is the
glamour with oil. I think this is by far the
most important reason…"17 |
Unfortunately,
Achebe’s assertions would be proven correct and made
evident in the policies taken after the end of the
Biafran War. In May of 1971, a year after the end of
Biafra, the Nigerian National Oil Corporation (NNOC) was
set up as a government agency empowered to engage in all
phases of oil industry from exploration to
marketing—this being a formation of a powerful
governmental union between the ministry of petroleum and
the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).18
By the mid 1980s, under the leadership of the military
leader President Babagida, NNPC would re-organize itself
into six semi-autonomous units known as sectors in a bid
to privatize oil and under the pretenses of encouraging
revenue, Nigeria would sell oil at a cheaper rate than
other member of OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries)—hence making way for inflation that
has led to the disparities of lack of economic
compensation in the present day conflicts in the
Niger-Delta region on claims that the indigenous tribes
are not receiving reparations for the privatized oil
drilling by foreign corporations.19
Biafra: A dream tainted by blood
Towards the end of the interview, Achebe remembered the
enthusiasm that came as a result of Tanzania recognizing
Biafra as a sovereign nation. He recounted, “it was a
fantastic day . . . the streets were filled with people
dancing and singing. For the first time in months you
found dancing again, and the radio was playing Tanzanian
music . . the gesture meant nothing in military or
material terms but it assured us—the effects it had on
us—was electric.”20
It was with this innocent desire for autonomy that
inspired millions of tribes-people of Eastern Nigeria to
believe in this liberation and waited for the world to
support them in their desire for freedom and
independence…a call that would be answered in trickled
and faint responses. As Ojukwu reported,
|
The Biafran problem, to
most major powers, is a nuisance. They would
rather not have to deal with it in a world
already gripped with the Vietnam War,
economic crises, monetary crises, election
fever here and there. There is an initial
resentment against Biafra for leading them
into another problem when they have got so
much to deal with…" Address to delegation of
World Council of Churches, Umahia, March 28,
1968.21 |
Biafra was
isolated. There were only five countries in the world
that officially recognized Biafra: Gabon, Haiti, Ivory
Coast, Tanzania, and Zambia.22
 |
A big part of this
isolation was due to the lack of media
coverage of this case due to the
state-sponsorship of the atrocities towards
the people of the East, particularly the
Igbos. Achebe recounted the bombing in the
center city of Aba that happened in the
presence of twenty foreign journalists just
arriving and how that event broke the news
and successive international protests at the
injustice imposed on the people of the East.23
As a descendant of two
ex-Biafran soldiers, my mother and father,
this story stings with the remembrance of a
tragic time in our people’s history. However
difficult of a subject that this matter may
be, it is necessary to remember how
situations like this arise so as to be part
of efforts to stop them from happening
again. Unfortunately, Africa finds herself
in many other conflicts that resemble Biafra
and it is with this knowledge that I take
the time to remember the root causes that
stem in public policies towards certain
groups, primarily on ethnic bases. |
As Biafra served as
the sound bell for one of the most tragic consequences
of the colonial tool of divide and conquer in its
neo-colonial manifestation, so must of its memory serves
as a reminder that in 2007 African nations still suffer
from this type of seemingly invisible rule.As Kwame
Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, prophetically
noted the five points of neo-colonialism in 1965:
|
•It continues to actively
control the affairs of the newly independent
state
•In most cases neocolonialism is manifested
through economic and monetary measures. For
example the neocolonial territories become
the target markets for imports from the
imperial centre(s)
•While neocolonialism may be a form of
continuing control by a state's previous
formal colonial master, these states may
also become subjected to imperial power by
new actors. These new actors include the
United States or may be international
financial and monetary organizations
•Because of the nuclear parity between the
superpowers, the conflict between the two
takes place in the form of "limited wars."
Neocolonial territories are often the places
where these "limited wars" are waged.
•As the ruling elites pay constant deference
to the neocolonial masters, the needs of the
population are often ignored, leaving issues
of living conditions like education,
development, and poverty unresolved.24 |
The consequences of
going against the grain of neo-colonialism were
expressed by Chinua Achebe in his concluding statements
at the end of this published interview on Biafra as he
affirmed, “I have no intention of being placed in a
Nigerian situation at all. I find it untenable. I find
the Nigerian situation untenable. If I had been a
Nigerian, I think I would have been in the same
situation as Wole Soyinka is – in prison.”25
It is with this reflection on neo-colonialism that I
also conclude this review with the hopes in remembering
Biafra because I realize my part in the efforts to
recognize the bigger picture of what has gone wrong for
Africa since the 1960s, the supposed era of
independence. This remembrance is not aimed at the
continuous tensions inspired by divide and conquer
tactics but as an invitation to look at Pan Africanism
despite the scars and wounds with sympathy towards all
other African nations that have fallen prey, and
continue to fall prey, to the divisive effects of
neo-colonialism.
* *
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Endnotes
1] “Chinua Achebe Profile”
BBC Chinua Achebe.
2] "Chinua Achebe
on Biafra” by Achebe, Chinua. Transition No. 36
(1968), pp. 1-38. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
3] Ibid, pp. 32.
4] Ibid, pp. 32.
5] Ibid, pp. 33.
6] Ibid, pp. 35.
7] “On Genocide,”
Random Thoughts of C. Odumegwu Ojukwu, General of the
People’s Army by Ojukwu, Chukwuemeka O. New York:
Harper & Row Publishers, Incorporated, 1969.
8] Divide et Impera:
A Computational Framework for Verifying Object Component
Substitutability by Nordhagen, Else K. Olso, Norway:
University of Oslo, Department of Informatics, November
1998.
9] “Europe and the
Roots of African Underdevelopment: 4.4 The Coming of
Imperialism and Colonialism”.
How Europe
Underdeveloped Africa, Rodney, Walter. London:
Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications, 1963.
10] Achebe on
Biafra, pp. 35.
11] Ibid, pp. 36.
12] Ibid, pp. 37.
13]
Biafra
Land.
14] “Oil Policy in
Nigeria: A Critical Assessment” by Nwaobi, Godwin
Chukudum. Abuja: Quantative Economic Research Bureau,
2005.
15] Ibid.
16] Ibid.
17] Achebe on
Biafra, pp. 33.
18] Oil Policy in
Nigeria, 2.0 “Nigeria’s Oil History.”
19] Oil Policy in
Nigeria, 3.0 “Oil Policy Evaluation.”
20] Achebe on
Biafra, pp. 37.
21] “On the World,”
Ojukwu.
22]
Biafra Land.
23] Achebe on
Biafra, pp. 35.
24]
“Neocolonialism” by Yew, Leong, Research Fellow,
University Scholars Programme of Singapore.
Scholars.
25] Achebe on Biafra,
pp. 37.
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Chioma Oruh is a Doctoral student at
Howard University in Washington DC.
(31 October 2007)
Source:
Pambazuka / Maps source:
Encarta--Republic of Biafra
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Remembering Biafra--Uchenna Izundu talks to musician and
actor, Ben Okafor
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posted 30 November
2007 |
