First, I would be flattered if you were to mistake me for the writer of that piece by Fani-Kayode. I was not of the age of that level of awareness he describes at the time of the war. I was in my village, knowing nothing of what was going on.
If I were to indicate what points I agree with you in your response, that might take the entire mail, so please permit me to do something else and indicate the thoughts your analysis brings to my mind.
The Mid-West Offensive
On the ill fated Midwest-West expedition, it seems the jury is still out as to its rationale and why it failed. Banjo is dead, executed by Ojukwu on claims of planning to kill Ojukwu and hand Biafra to Nigeria, if I remember the charge well. Ojukwu is not known to have analyzed the issue in print or speech. Obasanjo and Soyinka are pointed to as central figures in the shadows in that campaign but I dont know if they have cleared issues.
In The Man Died, I seem to remember Soyinka fuming in regret over Banjo's delay in advancing beyond Benin. That delay is described as giving the Nigerian govt time to regroup, form new divisions defeat him in the decisive battle at Ore. I will l examine the book and post the section. There is this wonderful PhD thesis supervised by Toyin Falola where the story and the entire war are analysed so delicately. I will give the link to that later. Once I read that thesis, it became a centre of alignment of other sources, on account of its logical and expressive lucidity and comprehensiveness. I also read, I think in Nowa Omoigui's online writings on the war, that Banjo is speculated to have delayed because he was trying to reach an agreement with the Yoruba political and military elite, an agreement that never materialized. Part of this folklore like narrative is that Obasanjo has reported that someone had come to see him on behalf of Banjo, and asked him to deliver the West or a part of it at any price he would name and he refused. He is described as stating this contact was a 'well known social critic'. We all know who that is likely to refer to at that time. I have not looked into this story or crosschecked if it fits with before Soyinka went to jail.
This PhD I mentioned also analyses in some detail the dilemma emerging from the failure of the Midwest offensive and speculates as to the possible conflicts of strategy emerging from different figures in the Biafran command on what to do next.
It is also instructive to read eyewitness accounts of the time of responses to the offensive from within Biafra-such as TIME magazine, which covered the war carefully, all the issues being online and available through a cheap subscription- and contemporary accounts from outside Biafra, as on Nigerian listserves, those being among the sources I have consulted so far.Views from the West and the Midwest agree in even starker terms with your analysis of the campaign.
Awolowo's Release from Prison
As to who released Awolowo from prison, the consensus seems to be it was done by Ojukwu, since Calabar I expect was in the South-East where he was governor. Some decry what they see as Awo's betrayal of Ojukwu's goodwill by releasing him, while others point to the idea that the coup plotters wanted to install Awo as head of state, thereby indicating the coup was not ethnically motivated, in spite of the possibility that some self directed actors among them saving their Igbo brethren from the slaughter of politicians and military men in the coup.
Responses to the 1966 Coup
As to the variety of responses to the coup, it is instructive to compare the responses on general Nigerian and Northern Nigerian centred listserves on Achebe's book. I am yet too see invocations of the coup massacre as correlative explanations for the anti-Igbo pogrom but I am seeing that on the Northern centred groups I belong to.
Ojukwu's 1969 Ahiara Declaration makes some points related to the recurrence of mass killings violence in Northern Nigeria from before 1966, which could be useful to reexamine, regardless of the degree to which one agrees with its stark distinction between Igbo Christian and Hausa Fulani Muslim civilizations, if I remember it well enough.
Awolowo, Gowon and Ojukwu
Ralph Uwechue, Biafra's ambassador to France has a fascinating section in his book on the war where he laments what he describes as the political ineptitude expressed by the failure of the Biafran leadership to to woo Awo, a move cultivated by Gowon. He provides that extract in a newspaper essay. A correlative view is that Awo was deceived that the country was his after the war but was eventually shortchanged by the Hausa-Fulani oligarchy, described as the ultimate intelligence unifying all Hausa-Fulani initiatives in govt, as suggested by the membership of all Northern Nigerian leaders, coup plotters and those they overthrew, in the Arewa Consultative Forum, although the idea of the persistence of such view of a unifying intelligence needs revision in the light of the rifts shown in the run up to the last election when the Northern consensus candidate plan failed while Northern PDP govs supported GEJ for the Presidency in defiance of arguments for rotation to the North.
The Igbo After the Civil War
As for the post war developments, while Achebe has some important points, as you also point out, one needs to examine the efforts of reintegration of Igbos made by the Nigerian government. On Asika, I recently ran into "Ethnic "Betrayal", Mimicry, and Reinvention: the Representation of Ukpabi Asika in the Novel of the Nigerian-Biafran War", although it does not seem to deal with the post war period.
One might also find interesting the lamentations on listserves of Igbos over the fate of Biafran veterans of the war in their camp at Orji river (dont know if they are still there) and claims of Ojukwu's failure to visit them.
Of course, all this does not obviate the need to examine the rationale and effects of the 20 pounds policy, the indigenisisation decree and the claim of making importation difficult so as to strangle Igbo trading which Achebe makes.
I am also interested in the great achievement of Ndigbo after those difficult beginnings after the war and in how they did it.
I am not sure how meaningful what I have written is, but its part of my effort to understand.
thanks
toyin
On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 7:47 PM, dasylvang@yahoo.com <dasylvang@yahoo.com> wrote:
Toyin, you have placed it very perfectly, "We must not mistake fiction and story telling for historical fact. The two are completely different." I am neither a historian in the real sense of the word, nor have I gotten hold of a copy of Prof Achebe's book under reference yet, but your robust response is right on target. This "Igbo persecution syndrome" should be discouraged or it will force every ethnic group in the country to begin to expose the "dirty nyash" of one another. That to me will certainly not help this otherwise great nation.As a young secondary school pupil in those years of the civil war I used to wonder why the Igbo massacre? What could have sparked it up? How could Michael Okpara and Azikiwe have escaped the coup?Why should only the North and the West have suffered cassualties? Well, I know for example, that it is a question of cultural indifference and level of accommodativeness if the Yoruba did not react to what seemed then a betrayal of comrades in arm.Now, I think I have an answer to my puerile curiousity, particularly now, given the pedigree of the core North's fragile temprament in accommodatingj suspected insults from "infidels" and its zero tolerance on matters of religion, especially, the unfortunate assassination of its political/religious leaders. One expects the Igbo military officers who led the first coup, and late General Ironsi who benefited from the coup to have known better. In other words, if Book Haram of 2012 could kill, bomb and literally slaughter innocent Nigerians, including in places of worship even without any provocation, one could only imagin the manner, mode and magnitude of the Igbo massacre on the excuse that northern reverred religious leaders were assisinated. Now that I understand the political psyche of the core north, that as painful and bestial as the Igbo massacre was to any civilized mind, more traumatic and devastating it was to the core north the "shameful" death of reverred religious leaders in the hands of "infidels". So in a way, everyone is hurting, every tribe is smarting from the wounds of war. So Toyin you were damn right that it was not the Igbo alone that suffered the war, we all did in degrees. Now, who again remembers the ciurage and bravery of Francis Adekunle Fajuyi who chose to defend and die for his boss, General Aguiyi Ironsi?Besides, I also used to think then as a young adult at the time, that if there must be Biafra should it have necessarily extended beyond the core Eastern Nigeria, why should Biafran army overun Benin, and move to Ore in Yoruba heartland via Lagos, the former seat of Federal government? Was it not easier for the Biafran army to have attacked Lagos by air and get done with it? It was the belief of many at the time that Ojukwu carried his ambition too far beyond rhe immediate need of Igbo masses; they concluded that Ojukwu wanted to achieve through the war, what Gowon achieved through a counter-coup, that is, seizing power at the centre. Perhaps this explains Col. Banjo's relunctance to move beyond Benin and for which Ojukwu murdered him.
Let Achebe tell the world what the Igbo leaders did with every opportunity they have had since the post-war time, beginning with Ukpabi Asika, let him tell us what he did with the money he collected for rehabilitation and what he had to show for it; similarly, other federal and state government political appointees/leaders ...what did they do with the opportunity at each historical turning point. Ojukwu got it right hence his lament on the Igbo style of leadership. If you ask me I probably would say the Igbos should carefully search within the ranks for their real enemy, those who use cheap blackmail to distract undiscerning minds from real issues, certainly not Awolowo. Let the revolution begin with us by looking inward. We must free our minds from tribal chauvenism and crude distraction that Prof. Achebe's recent book has proved itself to be. His is a very bad example that must be delivered of his foibles by this generation.
Let the historians help with the following dates please: when did the massacre take place? When did Gowon release Awolowo from Calabar prison? When was Awolowo invited to join Gowon's government? In what way could Awolowo have been instrumental to the massacre of the Igbo in the north. I think Prof Achebe and those who think like him need "deliverance" from the spirit of tribal hate and persecution syndrome!
Ademola Omobewaji DASYLVA,Phd.
Visiting Professor,
Department of English,
Redeemer's University,
Km 46, Lagos-Ibadan Express Way,
Ogun State, Nigeria.
Mobile: +234 (0)802 350 4755
+234 (0)706 226 4090
+234(0)807 0710 050
Web: arts.ui.edu.ng/aodasylva
E-mail: a.dasylva@ibadanculturalstudiesgroup.org
a.dasylva@mail.ui.edu.ng
dasylvang@yahoo.com
Sent from Samsung Mobile
-------- Original message -------- Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: [talkhard] Obafemi Awolowo and Chinua Achebe's tale of fantasy From: OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU To: USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com CC:--Obafemi Awolowo and Chinua Achebe's tale of fantasy
Posted by: Femi Fani-Kayode Posted date: October 08, 2012
I am a historian and I have always believed that if we want to talk history, we must be dispassionate, objective and factual. We must take the emotion out of it and we must always tell the truth. The worst thing that anyone can do is to try to re-write history and indulge in historical revisionism. This is especially so when the person is a reverred figure and a literary icon. Sadly it is in the light of such historical revisionism that I view Professor Chinua Achebe's assertion (which is reflected in his latest and highly celebrated book titled ''There Was A Country') that Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the late and much-loved Leader of the Yoruba, was responsible for the genocide that the igbos suffered during the civil war. This claim is not only false but it is also, frankly speaking, utterly absurd. Not only is Professor Achebe indulging in perfidy, not only is he being utterly dishonest and disengenious but he is also turning history upside down and indulging in what I would describe as ethnic chauvinism.
I am one of those that has always had tremendous sympathy for the igbo cause during the civil war. I am also an admirer of Colonel Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu who stood up for his people when it mattered the most and when they were being slaughtered by rampaging mobs in the northern part of our country. At least 100,000 igbos were killed in those northern pogroms which took place before the civil war and which indeed led directly to it. This was not only an outrage but it was also a tragedy of monuemental proportions.Yet we must not allow our emotion or our sympathy for the suffering of the igbo at the hands of northern mobs before the war started to becloud our sense of reasoning as regards what actually happened during the prosecution of the war itself. It is important to set the record straight and not to be selective in our application and recollection of the facts when considering what actually led to the starvation of hundreds of thousands of igbo women, children and civilians during that war. And, unlike others, I do not deny the fact that hundreds of thousands were starved to death as a consequence of the blockade that was imposed on Biafra by the Nigerian Federal Government. To deny that this actually happened would a lie. It is a historical fact. Again I do not deny the fact that Awolowo publically defended the blockade and indeed told the world that it was perfectly legitimate for any government to impose such a blockade on the territory of their enemies in times of war. Awolowo said it, this is a matter of historical record and he was qouted in a number of British newspapers as having said so at the time. Yet he spoke nothing but the truth. And whether anyone likes to hear it or not he was absolutely right in what he said. Let me give you an example. During the Second World War a blockade was imposed on Germany, Japan and Italy by the Allied Forces and this was very effective. It weakened the Axis powers considerably and this was one of the reasons why the war ended at the time that it did. If there had been no blockade the Second World War would have gone on for considerably longer. In the case of the Nigerian civil war though the story did not stop at the fact that a blockade was imposed by the Federal Government which led to the suffering, starvation, pain, death and hardship of the civilian igbo population or that Awolowo defended it. That is only half the story.
There was a lot more to it and the fact that Achebe and most of our igbo brothers and sisters always conveniently forget to mention the other half of the story is something that causes some of us from outside igboland considerable concern and never ceases to amaze us. The bitter truth is that if anyone is to be blamed for the hundreds of thousands of igbos that died from starvation during the civil war it was not Chief Awolowo or even General Yakubu Gowon but rather it was Colonel Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu himself. I say this because it is a matter of public record and a historical fact that the Federal Government of Nigeria made a very generous offer to Ojukwu and the Biafrans to open a road corridor for food to be ferried to the igbos and to lessen the suffering of their civilian population. This was as a consequence of a deal that was brokered by the international community who were concerned about the suffering of the igbo civilian population and the death and hardship that the blockade was causing to them. Unfortunately Ojukwu turned this down flatly and instead insisted that the food should be flown into Biafra by air in the dead of the night. This was unacceptable to the Federal Government because it meant that the Biafrans could, and indeed would, have used such night flights to smuggle badly needed arms and ammunition into their country for usage by their soldiers. That was where the problem came from and that was the issue. Quite apart from that Ojukwu found it expedient and convenient to allow his people to starve to death and to broadcast it on television screens all over the world in order to attract sympathy for the igbo cause and for propaganda purposes. And this worked beautifully for him.
Ambassador Ralph Uweche, who was the Special Envoy to France for the Biafran Government during the civil war and who is the leader of Ohaeneze, the leading igbo political and socio-cultural organisation today, attested to this in his excellent book titled ''Reflections On The Nigerian Civil War''. That book was factual and honest and I would urge people like Achebe to go and read it well. The self-serving role of Ojukwu and many of the Biafran intelligensia and elites and their insensitivity to the suffering of their own people during the course of the war was well enunciated in that book. The fact of the matter is that the starvation and suffering of hundreds of thousands of igbo men, women and children during the civil war was seen and used as a convenient tool of propaganda by Ojukwu and that is precisely why he rejected the offer of a food corridor by the Nigerian Government. When those that belong to the post civil war generation of the igbo are wondering who was responsible for the genocide and mass starvation of their forefathers during the war they must firstly look within themselves and point their fingers at their own past leaders and certainly not Awolowo or Gowon. The person that was solely responsible for that suffering, for that starvation and for those slow and painful deaths was none other than Colonel Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the leader of Biafra, himself.
I have written many good things about Ojukwu on many occassions in the past and I stand by every word that I have ever said or written about him. In my view he was a man of courage and immense fortitude, he stood against the mass murder of his people in the north and he brought them home and created a safe haven for them in the east. For him, and indeed the whole of Biafra, the war was an attempt to exercise their legitimate right of self-determination and leave Nigeria due to the atrocities that they had been subjected to in the north. I cannot blame him or his people for that and frankly I have always admired his stand. However he was not infallible and he also made some terrible mistakes, just as all great leaders do from time to time. The fact that he rejected the Nigerian Federal Government's offer of a food corridor was one of those terrible mistakes and this cost him and his people dearly. Professor Chinua Achebe surely ought to have reflected that in his book as well. When it comes to the Nigerian civil war there were no villains or angels. During that brutal conflict no less than two million Nigerians and Biafrans died and the yoruba who, unlike others, did not ever discriminate or attack any non-yorubas that lived in their in their territory before the civil war or carry out any coups or attempted coups, suffered at every point as well. For example prominent yoruba sons and daughters were killed on the night of the first igbo coup of January 1966 and again in the northern ''revenge'' coup of July 1966. Many of our people were also killed in the north before the outbreak of the civil war and again in the mid-west and the east during the course and prosecution of the war itself. It was indeed the predominantly yoruba Third Marine Commando, under the command of General Benjamin Adekunle (the ''Black Scorpion") and later General Olusegun Obasanjo, that not only liberated the mid-west and drove the Biafrans out of there but they also marched into igboland itself, occupied it, defeated the Biafran Army in battle, captured all their major towns and forced the igbo to surrender. Third Marine Commando was made up of yoruba soldiers and I can say without any fear of contradiction that we the yoruba therefore paid a terrible and heavy price as well during the war because many of our boys were killed on the war front by the Biafrans.
The sacrifice of these proud sons of the south-west that died in battle to keep Nigeria one must not be belittled, mocked or ignored. Clearly it was not only the igbo that suffered during the civil war. Neither does it auger well for the unity of our nation for Achebe and the igbo intelligensia that are hailing his self-serving book to caste aspertions on the character, role and noble intentions of the late and reverred Leader of the Yoruba, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, during the civil war. The man may have made one or two mistakes in the past like every other great leader and of course there was a deep and bitter political division in yorubaland itself just before the civil war started and throughout the early '60's. Yet by no stretch of the imagination can Awolowo be described as an igbo-hating genocidal maniac and he most certainly did not delight in the starvation of millions of igbo men, women and children as Achebe has tried to suggest. My advice to this respected author is that he should leave Chief Awolowo alone and allow him to continue to rest in peace. This subtle attempt to denigrate the yoruba and their past leaders, to place a question mark on their noble and selfless role in the war and to belittle their efforts and sacrifice to keep Nigeria together as one will always be vigorously resisted by those of us that have the good fortune of still being alive and who are aware of the facts. We will not remain silent and allow anyone, no matter how respected or reverred, to re-write history. Simply put by writing this book and making some of these baseless and nonsensical assertions, Achebe was simply indulging in the greatest mendacity of Nigerian modern history and his crude distortion of the facts has no basis in reality or rationality. We must not mistake fiction and story telling for historical fact. The two are completely different. The truth is that Professor Chinua Achebe owes the Awolowo family and the yoruba people a big apology for his tale of pure fantasy.
Sent from my BlackBerry® Smartphone, from Vodafone.
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