USA Africa Dialogue Series - Achebe on Biafra war and the Role of Awolowo in the Conflict

Achebe on Biafra War and the Role of Awolowo in the Conflict        Since Achebe wrote his little book entitled: The Trouble with Nigeria in 1983, I thought he would have changed his parochial perception of the Yoruba and their revered leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo having lived in the US and taught in several Universities there. Living in the US would have normally been a reformative environment for a parochial minded scholar that Achebe is. Unfortunately at 80 he is still leaking the wounds of his defeat as a Biafra war veteran. His new book entitled, There was a Country has once again reenacted his tribal or ethnic prejudice against the Yoruba and their foremost leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. For now, one needs to wait for the book to be on the stand so that when one gets a copy to read, a proper review of it can be made. But for the time being, I just want to make a few comments based on what I have read from the excerpts and comments from others. Is Achebe speaking for all the Ibos or he is simply reliving his Biafra experience that he has not been able to psychologically outgrow? I want to believe that the later is the case. A defeat can be very traumatic and dangerously lead to a state of paranoia and I suspect that is the state of mind Achebe is today. I am sure Achebe is very conversant with the interview of the late sage shortly before the presidential election in 1983. No matter what Pa Awolowo might have said, a paranoid Achebe will not care a hoot. Achebe is already in a psychological state of mind that is not intellectually redeemable just as the sage said about Ojukwu who was the prime peddler of the lies of hatred of Awolowo against the Ibos. Did Achebe expect Pa Awolowo to support Ojukwu who failed to listen to the voice of reason and wise counsel of the Sage? Before anyone could go to war, he ought to have counted the cost including feeding, ammunitions, economic resources and strategies needed to win the war. You don't depend on your enemies to feed and armed you against their people. Or use their currency to purchase ammunitions to advance your inordinate war ambition. It is never done. The idea of feeding the combatants by the opponent is not part of war strategy. The innocent people during the war may not necessarily be innocent. If anyone cares to read Paul Ramsey's book on Just and Unjust War, the so called innocent who cheer the soldiers or cook for them are after all not innocent. If food items that are meant to feed children and those who do not participate directly or indirectly in the war are hijacked by the soldiers, how do you win the war?  Achebe is a literary story teller and perhaps he is not conversant with what waging war entails. The most disturbing aspect of Achebe's new book is the timing. Why didn't he write the book when the Sage was alive? The generations of Nigerians and particularly the Ibos who were not born before the war broke out could be corrupted with this kind of falsehood. For those of us who were adults then cannot be corrupted because we know the facts. We witnessed it. We know the ethnic group that first fired the first shot that led to the war. For firing the first shot the group became the aggressor. We know how much Gowon government put into the prevention of the war but Ojukwu and people like Achebe would not appreciate all the entreaties. The Ibos cannot in any way cry foul and blame anyone except themselves. Furthermore Achebe argues that the Ibos are individualistic in their tradition without fear of God and man but endowed to pursue their egoistic interests. If the Ibos are such individuals as described by Achebe, they need to be tamed if they are to live in any corporate existence apart from their own. In a corporate existence life is give and take and not that a group takes all. The earlier the generations of Ibos who were not witnesses of the events that led to the avoidable civil war learn this moral virtue the better. The 21st century offers a world of global village not the world of Chinua Achebe of hatred, bigotry and disrespect for elders. The vituperative attack on the Yoruba Sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo by Achebe is an aberration. We live in a corporate existence that is guided by reason and passion for the overall good of humans and not one's ethnicity takes all that Achebe's new book perpetuates.   Prof. Segun Ogungbemi.

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