Name: Banire, S. Abiodun. Fulbright Scholar at New York

University, Manhattan, USA.

Title: Chinua Achebe’s There Was Country: A Personal History of Biafra and

the Rhetoric of Tribal Spokesmanship.

Paper presented at the Toyin Falola International Conference on

Africa and the African Diaspora, held at Ibadan, Nigeria, July 2,

2013.

Abstract.

The search for truthful accounts of events that precipitated the Nigerian Civil War has

remained elusive in literary corpus, even in the autobiographical sub-genre which

prides itself on factuality and faithfulness to objective depiction of events. Over four

decades after the cessation of hostilities between Nigerian Federal Forces and the

secessionist Forces of Biafra, the plethora of autobiographical works on the subject

remains heavily compromised with the burden of tribal prejudices and sentiments,

taking us farther away from unraveling the true causes (remote and immediate) and

circumstances of a war that appears to have wrecked indelible scars on the psyche of

the Nigerian state. Dwelling on Chinua Achebe’s There Was A Country: A Personal

History of Biafra which is one of the most recent autobiographical works in the Nigerian

civil war continuum, this paper examines the strategies adopted by such writers to

pursue tribalistic agendas. It argues that Achebe, in this work, assumes the role of a

tribal spokesman bent on building up the Igbo as a master race, absolving it of any

blame in the events that culminated in the war, and reducing other (major) tribes of

Nigeria as less-sophisticated and incurably envious of the Igbo tribe. Through

comparison of Achebe’s civil war memoir with historical accounts (such as newspaper

articles, press releases, letters, and other memoirs on the subject) and examination of

the strategies he uses to mythicize the Igbo race (as infallible, and as victim of envy and

hate), disparage other tribes, trump up claims of genocide, and downplay the

totalitarian and repressive regime operated in Biafra’s brief existence to pursue his

Igbocentric leanings, this paper concludes that Achebe’s civil war memoir, rather than

expand factual knowledge on the tragic events of the war, is a further distortion of

history to achieve tribalistic intents, as evident from the avalanche of criticisms that

trails the “facts” presented in the book.

The prime motivations for literary engagements often vary from

one region to another. While the Western writer whose society has

relatively overcome the basic challenges of human survival (food,

shelter, responsive leadership etc) is at liberty to recreate and

even contrive literary works that have no serious or direct

implications for individuals and society, the African writer,

whose continent is bedeviled with myriads of challenges

(injustice, socio-economic deprivations/imbalances, endemic

poverty, pervasive corruption, inept and insensitive leadership),

has no alternative to being utilitarian in his art.

From its inaugural moments, African literature has always

been answerable to the society that produces it as Joe Ushie

(2008:1) affirms that:

In Africa, in orate pre-colonial period andafter, literature has never been a phenomenondetachable from the material realities of thesociety in which it is produced. Theumbilical cord between the material world and

the fictional world of literature is neversevered, as literature continues to feed onthis physical world which it, at the sametime, interrogates ridicules, satirizes orpraises...a literary work in Africa and therealities of its concrete world are, hence,necessarily mutually embedded in each other.

With this inextricable link that African literary works,

even from pre-colonial times, share with the material realities of

the society that produces them, it is unsurprising that early

popular works of African literature such as Kobina Sekyi’sThe

Blinkards and Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart sought to caution

Africans from slavish uncritical imitation of everything European,

and to rescue the African culture and civilization from the

crushing weight of European imperial superciliousness

respectively. This early socio-cultural, economic and political

consciousness of African literature is echoed in Chinua Achebe’s

(1975: 15) assertion that “The African writer who avoids the big

issues of contemporary Africa will end up being irrelevant.”

Colonialism is in many ways the major harbinger of the

“big issues” that confront and plague the African continent today

as the 1884–1885 Berlin Conference where European powers met to

partition the African continent among themselves did not take the

philosophical and cultural peculiarities of the different African

tribes into consideration before seaming them together into larger

amorphous units to ease colonial administration. This incongruity

laid the foundation for future squabbles among the heterogeneous

tribes, as Peter Muller (1997: 340) sees colonialism as:

Africa’s undoing in more ways than one. Bythe time independence returned to Africa in1950, the realm (of Africa) had acquired thelegacy of political fragmentation that couldneither be eliminated nor made to operatesatisfactorily.

Nigeria, one of the products of European colonial expedition

in Africa, is replete with several “fragmentations,” chief among

which is tribal fragmentation that has remained intractable, and

continues to preclude national progress. Rather than make frantic

efforts to build bridges of brotherhood across the tribal gulf

among Nigerians, the indigenous leaders who inherited the baton

of leadership from the British colonial forces exploited the

tribal differences of the people by whipping up xenophobic

sentiments to perpetually control the nation, eventually plunging

the young nation into a thirty-month civil war (1967 – 1970)

which claimed millions of lives.

Although the actual military combats ended in January 1970

when the representative of the secessionist region, Eastern

Nigeria (under the umbrella of Biafra Republic), Philip Effiong,

formally surrendered to federal forces, the war appears to have

left some unanswered questions and indelible scars on the psyche

of the Nigerian nation, as politicians, pundits, tribalists and

other opportunists continue to exploit the civil war discourse

for selfish gains.

On account of its status as one of the “big issues” of the

Nigerian nation, even in contemporary times, the Nigerian civil

war features prominently in literary outputs of Nigerian writers.

But rather than fill the gaps of unresolved issues and questions,

as Ken Saro-Wiwa (1995: 8) pontificates that “they (African

writers) must play an interventionist role”, writers, especially

in the fictional genre, relying on their license to recreate and

even create what never happened, have reduced the Nigerian civil

war to a postmodernist discourse where “truth” has been

mercilessly murdered and de-centered.

The autobiographical sub-genre of fiction, on account of its

relative faithfulness to factuality, naturally becomes a site

where truthful accounts of the Nigerian Civil war could be eked

as such works, also known as memoirs, in Alan Collet’s (1989:

343) view,

Possess truth values, in that they relate toreality outside the texts and that thisrelationship can be verified or falsified…thereader hopes that everything the authorwrites about…corresponds to the way thingsreally were, that the account is true.

Rather than utilize the autobiographical sub-genre to

illuminate obscure issues of the war and give the Nigerian

populace a true picture of the circumstances in which it was

fought, what obtains from recent autobiographical representations

of the war is a flagrant departure from facts, and an

unapologetic attempt to infuse tribal sentiments into such

remembrances. The emerging reality is such that the origin/tribe

of the autobiographer/memoirist determines the bent of his

narrative, culminating in the erosion of facts, hence the

validation of Timothy Dow Adam’s (1994: 459) assertions that:

In recent years, scholars working with this(autobiographical) genre have almostuniversally come to the realization thatwhatever else it is, autobiography is notnonfiction.

Chinua Achebe’s autobiographical reflection on the Nigerian

Civil war is a classic in the repository of such autobiographical

works that lend credence to the disappearance of the demarcations

between purely fictional and nonfictional works. Arguably, it is

such works as Achebe’s There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra that

Remy Oriaku (2005:96) has in mind when he asserts that:

They (memoirs) present the collective “life”experiences of a group, class or community ofwhich the narrator-protagonist is only asignificant member. The tendency usually isfor the memoirist to assume the role/post ofspokesman/spokeswoman of the group orcommunity

Resplendently garbed in the regalia of an Igbo-centric

spokesman, Achebe, in There Was A Country inexorably launches out to

exculpate his Igbo tribe from any blame in the events that

culminated into, and surrounded the civil war, painting the other

major Nigerian tribes as incurably envious of the Igbo, and hell-

bent on wiping them (Igbo’s) out. He copiously quotes from

materials that corroborate his ‘Igbo-as-victim” agenda,

conspicuously ignoring and downplaying ubiquitous records that

portray the culpability of the Igbo tribe in a manner that aptly

validates Ngugi Wa Thiong O’s (1981:6) opinion that every writer

is more or less a politician who, in his work, is essentially

…trying to persuade us, to make us view notonly a certain kind of reality, but also froma certain angle of vision often, thoughperhaps unconsciously, on behalf of a certainclass, race, or nation.

The fact that tribalism was endemic in Nigeria’s first

republic, regardless of region, is not controversial, as Remi

Anifowose (1982:35-36) affirms that:

Throughout the development of Nigeria from acolonial territory to a republic, it has beenrare, except for a small politicallyconscious elite, for Nigerians to think ofthemselves first as Nigerians, rather than asHausa, Yoruba, Tiv, Ibo (sic) and so forth.

Obviously on a mission to exonerate his Igbo tribe from the

guilt of tribalism, Achebe in his description of the frontline

political leaders of the major tribes – Ahmadu Bello (Hausa),

Nnamdi Azikiwe (Igbo) and Obafemi Awolowo (Yoruba) – elevates

Azikiwe, his Igbo kinsman, above his peers, declaring that “the

father of African independence was Nnamdi Azikiwe. There is no

question at all about that” (2012: 41). He goes on to paint

Azikiwe as an unwavering advocate of African independence who

ceaselessly berated colonialism through his newspaper The West

African Pilot:

His (Azikiwe’s) strategy was an incrediblesuccess. The West African Pilot’s anti-colonialmessage spread very quickly, widely andeffectively (P.42)

While Azikiwe’s enormous contributions to Nigeria’s

independence cannot be denied, there are records (which Achebe

refuses to acknowledge) that Azikiwe, more often than not,

surreptitiously used this newspaper (The West African Pilot) to build

up a myth of Igbo superiority, as he maintains in his July 8,

1949 publication that:

It would appear the God of Africa has createdthe Ibo (sic) nation to lead the children ofAfrican from the bondage of the ages…themartial prowess of the Ibo (sic) nation atall stages of human history has enabled themnot only to conquer others but also to adaptthemselves to the role of preserver...The Ibo(sic) nation cannot shirk its responsibilityfrom its manifest destiny (P. 7)

Even though this statement of Azikiwe is unarguably redolent

of the quintessential marks of an incurable tribalist, Achebe

labours hard to thrust the title of “father of African

Independence and Pan-Africanism” on him (Azikiwe). This

statement shows Azikiwe’s idea of independence - one that must be

organized under the supervision and leadership of Igbos whose

“manifest destiny” is to lead all other tribes of Africa. The

fact that Azikiwe voiced this sentiment in 1948, long before

Nigeria’s independence, further proves that the Igbos entered the

Nigerian nation with an air of superiority, and the refusal of

other tribes to be submissive could be (mis)interpreted as an

obstruction or denial of their (Igbos) “divine” mandate.

Achebe’s description of political leaders from the other

regions is far from charitable as he labels Ahmadu Bello (of the

North) as “a contentious and ardently ambitious figure”(P. 46),

while suggesting that Awolowo mainly formed the Action Group (AG)

for purely tribalistic reasons as he (Awolowo) “had become

increasingly concerned about what he saw as the domination of the

NCNC (National Council of Nigerian Citizens) by the Igbo elite,

led by Azikiwe”, hence pushing an argument that, except for

Azikiwe, the political leaders of other Nigerian tribes were

overly ambitious and tribalistic.

Having propped Azikiwe on a higher pedestal than his peers

from other regions, Achebe proceeds to assert that Igbos

practically singlehandedly won independence for Nigeria, after

which they were persecuted:

This group (the Igbo) that gave thecolonizing British so many headaches and thenliterally drove them out of Nigeria was nowan open target, scapegoats for the failingsand grievances of colonial and post-independence Nigeria (P. 67)

Perhaps (mis)understanding the refusal of other major tribes

to allow the Igbo to dominate Nigeria unquestionably as an

attempt to undermine its (Igbo’s) manifest destiny, Achebe blames

them (other tribes) for Nigeria’s present woes:

Nigeria’s pathetic attempt to crush these(divine leadership) idiosyncrasies (of theIgbo) rather than celebrate them is one ofthe fundamental reasons the country has notdeveloped as it should and has emerged as alaughingstock (P. 76).

The alarming nature of this sweeping claim can be measured

in terms of the avalanche of rebuttals that trail it, even from

the Igbo fold, as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, as if unable to

mask the stench of a choking fart, declares that:

I do not agree, as Achebe writes, that one ofthe main reasons for Nigeria’s presentbackwardness is the failure to fullyreintegrate the Igbo. I think Nigeria wouldbe just as backward even if the Igbo had beenfully integrated –institutional andleadership failures run across all ethniclines (Vanguard. Nov. 28, 2012)

Apart from mutilating and assaulting the historical

consciousness of Nigerians, this wholesale Igbo-centric posturing

of Achebe is a flagrant desecration of the patriotic zeal of the

likes of Anthony Enahoro (a non-Igbo) who, in 1953, emerged as

one of the first Representatives to demand for Nigeria’s

independence. Enahoro was in the parliament on the ticket of the

AG (which Achebe describes as a haven of tribalists), while the

likes of Charles Onyema, an NCNC parliamentarian was chanting

“Igbo domination of Nigeria is only a matter of time” (Godfrey

Mwakikagile; 2001:204).

Even though tribalism, which Ohonbamu (1969:14) describes as

the act of “making fetish of one’s own tribe and tribesmen

whether they are right or wrong”, was rife in early post-

independence Nigeria, there is no record that it degenerated into

violent uprising before the military coup of January 15, 1966,

which had a preponderance of Igbo officers among its plotters,

and a preponderance of non-Igbos among victims. Yet, Achebe would

not concede this fact, but rather chooses to re-write history by

positing that:

Nigerians will probably achieve consensus onno other matter than their common resentmentof the Igbo. The origin of the nationalresentment of the Igbo is as old as Nigeriaand quite as complicated (P. 74)

Firstly, if any tribe has the moral grounds to present

itself as a victim of coordinated persecution at independence; it

is certainly not the Igbo tribe. At the risk of holding brief for

the Yoruba tribe, there are clear evidences that the NCNC

(controlled by Igbos) and the NPC (Northern People’s Congress

controlled by Hausas) entered into cahoots to form the government

at the centre, plunging the AG (Yoruba controlled) into

opposition. Not done, the NCNC and the NPC colluded to completely

emasculate the Western region and its frontline politicians (who

were framed up in a phantom coup and jailed), culminating in the

creation of the Mid-West Region from the West to make it (West)

less significant, as Adewale Ademoyega (1981:21) reasons that:

…to excise a region out of only the WesternRegion which incidentally was the smallest ofthe three regions…savored of politicalvictimization. Why, for instance, were theMiddle-Belt and the Calabar-Ogoja-RiversRegions, which were also hotly demanded, notexcised out of the Northern and EasternRegions respectively?

At what point did the North, which Azikiwe and this NCNC

preferred to the West, become “unprogressive” as Achebe tries to

prove? At what point did Northerners with whom Igbos (whose

party, NCNC, was the “beautiful bride” at independence) happily

cooperated with to form government and victimize the Yorubas,

become “resentful’ of them (Igbos)?

Sam Omatseye (2011:213) provides an answer to the origin of

the Northern resentment of Igbos, which in parts, culminated in

the civil war:

Historians know that the immediate cause(which laid the foundations) of the war wasthe tendentious nature of the coup (of Jan.15, 1966) led by Chukwuma Nzeogwu (an Igbo)that preserved Igbo leaders while Northernand Southwest leaders fell.

One of the most disputed issues in the public space of the

Nigerian nation is the true intentions of the plotters of the

first military coup in Nigeria – was it a patriotic revolution or

an attempt by the Igbos to gain absolute control of the nation?

The most reliable proof that it was a revolution propelled

by patriotism is found in Adewale Ademoyega’s (who is the only

non-Igbo among the plotters) account of the coup, Why We Struck, and

Achebe not only identifies with it but also adds that “Nzeogwu

(the acclaimed leader of the coup) himself was Igbo in name

only”, stating further that “he was widely known as someone who

saw himself as Northerner, spoke fluent Hausa and little Igbo”

(P.79).

However exculpatory this argument sounds, the conspicuous

preservation of the Igbo frontline politicians and military

leaders by the “revolutionaries” cannot be overlooked as mere

coincidence as Achebe tries to make us believe by surreptitiously

avoiding it, and not recognizing the link between it and the

“Igbo resentment” it endangered.

Emmanuel Ifeajuna who coordinated the coup in the South,

being a cousin to Nnamdi Azikiwe, was believed to have given

Azikiwe a hint that a coup was in the offing, hence the refusal

of the President (Azikiwe) to return to Nigeria after a

protracted medical vacation, even when Nigeria was hosting

Commonwealth Heads of Government for the first time. Brigadier

Aguiyi Ironsi, an Igbo, who was the most senior military officer

in Nigeria at the time of the coup, rallied loyal troops to quash

the insurgence, and Achebe uses this to consolidate his argument

that it was not an Igbo plot.

Adinoyi Onukaba (2007:107) in his biography on Olusegun

Obasanjo, however recollects the conversation between Ironsi,

Yakubu Gowon (then Lt. Colonel) and Hilary Njoku when news of the

coup first filtered in. Onukaba quotes Ironsi as fuming, in the

presence of Gowon and Njoku, that: “But they said they would not

kill anyone…but they said there would be no bloodshed”. These

statements (which Hilary Njoku reproduces in his book, A Tragedy

Without Heroes: the Nigerian-Biafran War) unarguably shows that Ironsi was

privy to the plot; whether he supported it or not is a matter

that may remain in the realm of imagination till eternity.

If the foreknowledge of the major Igbo leaders in government

(Azikiwe) and army (Ironsi) is not enough proof that the first

coup was an Igbo plot, the body language and actions of Igbos

living in the North as civilians and soldiers further aggravated

the injuries of Northerners (who suffered the highest casualty in

terms of human and political resources).

Onukaba (2007:114) gives a view of the post-January 15 coup

atmosphere in the North:

The tension in the country was furtherheightened by the alleged insensitivity ofsome Igbos living in the North. It was saidthat posters were offensively displayed inIgbo shops and homes showing the head of all-powerful-but-now-dead Ahmadu Bello, theSardauna of Sokoto, under the combat boot ofMajor Nzeogwu. Northerners were allegedlyridiculed and insulted by these Igbo traders.

This provocation by Igbo residents in the North is conceded

by most historians as a precursor, and in fact harbinger of the

infamous pogroms that claimed thousands of lives in the North,

yet Chinua Achebe deliberately silences it in his attempt to

railroad the readers into thinking that Northerners were

unreasonably and unjustifiably resentful of the Igbos, as Arthur

Nwankwo (1972:11) affirms the deliberate attempts of such writers

as Achebe to murder facts surrounding the conflict:

Since the collapse of Biafra, we have beendeluged with highly colored accounts of thewar. The motive of the authors of theseaccounts, most of whom had the best ofBiafra, has been self-exculpation.

Even Nnamdi Azikiwe, in spite of his Igbo-centric

sentiments, finds it dutiful to be faithful to truthful account

of events that instigated the pogrom, as he maintains in his 1969

pamphlet, The Origins of The Civil War, that:

…some Ibo (sic) elements who were domiciledin Northern Nigeria taunted Northerners bydefaming their leaders through means ofrecords or songs or pictures. They alsopublished pamphlets and postcards whichdisplayed a peculiar representation ofcertain Northerners, living or dead, in amanner likely to provoke disaffection.

The failure of Agunyi Ironsi to punish the culprits (who

were mostly his tribesmen) in accordance with military precepts

further served to incense the Northerners. They (the plotters)

were kept in “protective custody” which Achebe prefers to call

“stiff prison sentences” (P.80), even though they were never

sentenced nor tried.

As if he suddenly recovered from a spell of selective

amnesia, Achebe proceeds to give a graphic, almost sensational,

picture of the pogrom perpetrated against Igbos in the North:

What terrified me about the massacres inNigeria was this: If it was only a questionof rioting on the streets and so on, thatwould be bad enough, but it could beexplained. It happens everywhere in theworld. But in this particular case a detailedplan for mass killing was implemented by thegovernment- the army, the police- the verypeople who were there to protect life andproperty (P.82)

Expectedly, Achebe gives a picture of the mass

exodus of Easterners back to their homeland, and the refugee

challenge, affirming that “the Eastern Region was tackling the

herculean task of resettling the refugees who were pouring into

the East in the hundreds of thousands” (P.83). Again, he slumps

into a fit of deliberate amnesia by silencing the retaliatory

acts of these refugees who pounced on Northerners living in the

East, as Arthur Nwankwo (972:12) fortunately remembers that:

In retaliation (of the Northern pogroms whichtargeted Easterners), scores of Northernersliving in the East were set upon by iraterefugees from the North…and non-Easternerswere expelled from the East. This, more thananything else, polarized the Nigerian crisisinto an Eastern Region-Federal Governmentconflict.

Having lost its military arrowhead, Aguiyi Ironsi, and

countless other soldiers and civilian populace in another coup

ostensibly organized by Northern soldiers to “balance the scale”

(hence the term “counter-coup”), the Eastern Region Government

under the rulership of Lt. Colonel Emeka Ojukwu, sent strong

signals to the Federal Government under Yakubu Gowon (who was

installed by the Northern mutineers) that the Eastern Region

people were no longer safe in Nigeria. Beyond this issue of

safety was the refusal of Ojukwu to acknowledge Gowon as rightful

head of the nation on the ground that he (Gowon) was not the most

senior officer after the slain commander (Ironsi) and should not

have emerged as new commander. Many efforts to reconcile Ojukwu

and Gowon, and, by extension, the Eastern Region and the rest of

Nigeria, hit a brick wall, including the Aburi Conference,

setting the stage for a civil war.

The character and temperament of Emeka Ojukwu who led the

Eastern Region out of Nigeria under the umbrella of Biafra

Republic, has been quite topical as many historians feel he saw

himself as more intellectually gifted and qualified to lead

(being Oxford University-trained) than Gowon who had no

university education nor influential background.

Achebe tries to exonerate Ojukwu from this lust for power,

asserting that “those of us who knew Ojukwu did not feel he

harbored such sentiments” (P.120), but Omatseye (2011:213) thinks

otherwise, positing that:

Ojukwu saw his time. He wanted to lead anation. He envied Gowon’s position. That isthe truth. He conflated his ambition with

that of the Igbo people. The tragedy was thatthe Igbo let him have his way.

Omatseye’s argument is relevant and plausible if one

considers the military preparedness of the Eastern Region at the

time Ojukwu declared its secession. Unlike the wartime leader of

Britain, Winston Churchill, who told his countrymen the harsh

truths about the World War II (especially against Hitler’s

Germany) in his speech- “Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat” (as

depicted in his declaration that “I have nothing to offer but

blood, toil, tears and swear”), Ojukwu, on the eve of the Civil

war, fed his people nothing but hypnosis and baseless boasts that

“No force in Black Africa can defeat Biafra”, even though he knew

he had no weapon to defeat a tiny Island.

Nelson Ottah who, interestingly, was the head of Biafra’s

propaganda machinery, in his book, Rebels Against Rebels, affirms

that:

Millions of the inmates of Ojukwu’smonolithic empire fed on nothing but thefanfaronade being dished out by Radio Biafra…the euphoria was too massive to allow eitherdoubt or dissent (1979:31).

So hypnotized by the “invincibility” of Biafra were the

people that when Federal Forces started shelling Enugu seriously;

Ordinary men and women on the streets werestill telling themselves and their neighborsthat there was no danger, that the artilleryshells which were then exploding withuncomfortable frequency were new weapons

being tested by the Biafra scientists(1979:32).

Sated with an overdose of the “invincibility’ and

“infallibility” of their nation and cause, Biafrans roared and

thirsted for action, but Ojukwu gave them nothing but sticks and

dane guns hardly capable of holding the Federal Forces for long,

as Nwankwo (1972:19) observes further that:

…there were no arms…all firearms- includingdane guns- were commandeered. These couldonly arm a few score. The rest were armedwith machetes, clothed and moved forward intothe forests to face a force armed withmachine guns and automatic rifles. Naturallyhundreds of them died.

From this ragtag nature of the Biafra “Army”, it is

unsurprising that their most celebrated putsch, the invasion of

Mid-west Region, made a mockery of modern warfare; a fact Achebe,

thankfully, concedes, citing an independent source that:

The Biafrans stormed through the Midwest notin the usual massive impedimenta of modernwarfare but in a bizarre collection ofprivate cars, “mammy” wagons, cattle andvegetable trucks…the whole operation was notcarried out by an “army” or even a “brigade”…but by at most 1,000 men, the majority poorlytrained and armed, and many wearing civilianclothes because they had not been issued withuniforms (P.129)

Rather than paint the true picture of what happened after

the “capture” of Mid-west by Biafran troops whose victims (Mid-

westerners) did not put up any resistance, Achebe goes on to

(mis)represent Mid-westerners’ non-aggressive disposition to the

invaders as a show of indifference and solidarity:

The leading political and traditional leadersof the Mid-West had made it clear to Gowonthat they wanted no part of a civil war andthe region would be neutral in the event ofany hostilities…Apart from a desire for peaceduring a precarious period, the leaders ofthat part of Nigeria recognized that theircitizens were of a multiethnic background,including a sizable Igbo population (P.129).

If this position of Achebe is regarded as truthful, one then

wonders why the Biafran forces pillaged the region that housed

their kinsmen, as Omatseye affirms that:

When in the Mid-west, they (Biafra soldiers)treated the locals like an underclass – rape,looting and rapine became the hallmark. TheMidwesterners saw them as an army ofoccupation, hence an underground resistancereminiscent of the French example during theSecond World War.

One imagines how Chinua Achebe who forgets this atrocity

committed against a defenseless, and in fact, friendly population

of Mid-west by Biafran forces could vividly remember the

massacres at Asaba and Calabar perpetrated by Nigerian Forces

against Biafran population. The truth of the matter, as the

sacking of the Mid-West by Biafra proves, is that both sides

(Nigeria and Biafra) had the tendency to commit genocide, only

that the Nigerian side, on account of its superior military

might, did it more. Had Biafrans been more equipped militarily,

they would have perpetrated more atrocious acts than what they

did in the Mid-West.

The claim of deliberate genocide perpetrated against Igbos

by Nigerian forces during the war is one that is still very much

topical today. While this paper does not contest the fact that

defenseless Biafrans were killed in thousands by Nigerian Forces

after the capture of every Biafran city, the claims of blockade

and deliberate starvation of the Biafran populace requires closer

scrutiny.

Chinua Achebe, in validating the claims of genocide through

economic blockade imposed on Biafra by the Nigerian state,

selectively quotes sources that confirm the deliberate attempt of

Nigeria to exterminate Igbos, chief among which is Dan Jacobs’

submission that

One word now describes the policy of theNigerian military government towardssecessionist Biafra: genocide. It is ugly andextreme, but it is the only word which fitsNigeria’s decision to stop the InternationalCommittee of the Red Cross, and other reliefagencies, from flying food to Biafra (P.230).

Achebe exposes the indubitably Igbo–centric bent of

his narrative be refusing to acknowledge more authoritative

records of Biafra’s culpability in the starvation that decimated

the population of its citizens. The open letter of resignation by

Robert Goldstein who was Biafra’ Public Relations Officer (until

1968) exposes, among other things, the fact that Ojukwu trumped

up and exploited the starvation of Biafrans, using it as a bait

to curry world sympathy to recognize, and fight for Biafra,

rather than provide food for the dying people. But somehow, this

“Open Letter of Resignation” managed to escape Achebe’s notice,

even though it was published in the Morning Post newspaper in Lagos,

Nigeria.

Goldstein gives a graphic detail of his contact and

mission for Ojukwu:

As your Public Relations Representative inthe United States…You told me the woes ofyour little Republic, that thousands ofpeople had died, were dying…You asked me totell the world that Britain had teamed upwith Russia in a conspiracy with the FederalGovernment of Nigeria to murder every Ibo(sic) in Biafra. You suggested I use mytalents to induce the Press to write aboutthe Biafran side of the war…(Morning Post, Aug,17, 1968)

Having performed this task to “induce the Press to write

about the Biafran side” (which subtly suggests a propagandist and

sentimental bias for Biafra), many conferences were convened and

a land corridor to supply food to starving Biafrans was presented

to Ojukwu who bluntly refused as Goldstein affirms:

Then came the incredible answer from Biafrathat land corridors could not be acceptableuntil there was a complete ceasefire, andthat airlift was the only solution to feedthe starving population.

For a man (Ojukwu) who claimed to be desperately

concerned about the starvation of his people, the insistence on a

particular route for aid to come in smacks of deceit, as

Goldstein submits:

This was incredible to me. I am now convincedthat I have been used by you and your cabinetto help in military adventures of yourorigin…using your starving hordes as hostagesto negotiate victory.

Rather than concede the ubiquitous fact that Ojukwu used

starving Biafrans as cannon fodder and “hostages” for

negotiation, Achebe offers him (Ojukwu) a soft-landing,

describing it as “evidence of the mental fatigue of the Biafran

military leadership” (P.220). He rather finds a ready culprit in

Obafemi Awolowo (who was released from prison and made economic

strategist by Gowon), who he accuses of instigating the blockade

against Biafrans in furtherance of his (Awolowo’s) long-standing

hatred of Igbos.

In his portrayal of life in Biafra, Chinua Achebe

laboriously attempts to present the seceding Igbos as proud and

contented in their new home:

…the most vital feeling Biafrans had at thattime was that they were finally in a safeplace…at home. This was the first and mostimportant thing, and one could see this senseof exhilaration in the war (P.171)

This picture of Biafra as “a home for all” which Achebe

paints sharply contrasts with Arthur Nwankwo’s (1972:32-33)

account of the free-for-all grabbing that characterized Biafra:

Officials of the Fuel Directorate sold fuelmeant for military use. Food meant for men inthe trenches was diverted to homes and marketstalls. What at first were the scatteredmalpractices of individuals later degeneratedinto organized rackets. A contractor wouldsupply food worth, say, a hundred pounds, hisaccomplices would prepare a voucher for athousand pounds. Then they would share theloot.

These socio-economic vices - racketeering, corruption,

diversion of public fund, looting - were the unmistakable

realities of life in Nigeria’s first republic, and the fact that

they reared head in the new Biafra Republic simply proves that

the Igbos, as well as Hausas and Yorubas, have a share of blame

in the stagnation of the Nigerian state - before, during and

after the war.

The culpability of the Igbo in the events that led to the

collapse of Nigeria’s first republic which climaxed in a bloody

civil war that has kept the country permanently divided is what

Chinua Achebe tries to blur, deny and obliterate in his civil war

memoir, There Was A Country. It (the memoir) validates Ngugi’s

position that every writer is essentially a politician who

skillfully guides his readers towards a predetermined angle of

reasoning and opinion. Achebe, in his unapologetic and brazen

attempt to exculpate Igbos of all blames in Nigeria’s woes from

independence, and to also project them as victims of envy and

animosity, regrettably assaults the memory of Nigerians by

handling down a work of pure fiction as a historically and

factually valid document.

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