USA Africa Dialogue Series - Achebe: There was a legend!

Achebe: There was a legend! KAYODE KETEFE   The globally respected literary icon, Professor Chinua Achebe, recently cast odium into the Yoruba's socio-cultural space by denigrating the Oodua legend, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, as a person so pathologically driven by lust for power that he recommended a policy that led to the annihilation of two million Igbo people. Prof. Achebe made this weighty assertion in his recently released book, "There was a country" in which he was quoted to have said the following about the immortal Chief Awolowo. "It is my impression that Awolowo was driven by an overriding ambition for power, for himself and for his Yoruba people. There is, on the surface, at least, nothing wrong with those aspirations. "However, Awolowo saw the dominant Igbo at the time as the obstacles to that goal, and when the opportunity arose – the Nigeria-Biafra War – his ambition drove him into a frenzy to go to every length to achieve his dreams. "In the Biafran case, it meant hatching up a diabolical policy to reduce the numbers of his enemies significantly through starvation – eliminating over two million people, mainly members of future generations." It is true that Chief Obafemi Awolowo, then as the Finance Minister, recommended to the Gowon government that there should be total blockade to the Biafra territories as a strategy to bring the war to a quick end.  But to say that he did that as a selfish ploy to liquidate the Igbo people whom he regarded as threat to his presidential ambition simply did not add up. This conclusion, in the mind of every objective analyst, untainted with biases, would appear essentially as an opinion, which by no logical inference could be described as a syllogistic emanation from the known facts. For example, If Papa Awo was fearful of the "dominant Igbo" seeing them as constitution obstacle to his "selfish" ambition; does it not stand to reason he would see their secession from the federation as development auspicious for his agenda- a case of good riddance? Secondly, who is to be blamed? If during a war your enemies devise a plot that would invariably reduce your people to hunger unless you surrender, is that not an avoidable development? Well, you may refuse to surrender (on time) if you are well-committed to your cause, that is understandable, but would it not sound puerile to continue to blame the enemies for conceiving the plot to force your surrender? Chief Awolowo was a humanist, there is no way you would be a humanist and be tribalistic. But people should know that the most detribalised person in the world must of necessity construe his primary enclave as a starting point of his worldview. Human's concept of selflessness is simply selfishness tempered with well-intended consideration for others and kindness spawned by the prerogative of intelligence- as a thinking, sentient being. Chief Awolowo was very consistent in his policy during the war. He did all he could do stop the war; his efforts included holding peace meeting with the Biafran warlord, Chief Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. When the war could not be averted, he made strategic recommendation on how to bring the war to a quick end.  At the stage when the now famous blockade policy was suggested and implemented, the war was becoming a ding dong affair with Federal and Biafran troops alternating major and minor victories while casualties kept escalating.  Chief Awolowo was a pragmatist person. He could not understand why you would be waging a maximum war and still allowed your enemies unfettered access to vital supplies. Using total blockade as a strategy of war dated back to the history of warfare itself and there is nothing original in that recommendation. Even during the Yoruba internecine wars we do read accounts chronicled by the worthy Revd Samuel Johnson how traditional warriors laid siege to town and cities, cutting off all supplies to reduce the encircled territories to submission.   Blockade is a strategy to force a surrender, not to annihilate or cause a holocaust. To hold Chief Awolowo liable for the fate of the famished Igbos during the war would be tantamount to holding Biafran generals liable for the great casualties inflicted on the federal troops at Abagana, where the federal troops were absolutely vanquished! Did these Igbo generals not have the right to lay ambush for the unsuspecting Nigerian troops? The morals of war are different from the morals of everyday life. If you have anything that would put your enemy at a serious disadvantage during warfare, you would be stupid not to deploy it. This is not to say that there are absolutely no morals in war. It would be wrong for instance, to continue to kill and destroy when the enemies have been put hors de combat, or when they have surrendered. In the final analysis, it is appropriate to state that all the problems that led to the civil war are, unfortunately, still here with us and it would be better for us to concentrate on how to tackle them to forestall the contingency of another tragic crisis instead of looking into the past for the solitary purpose of apportioning blame whether or not it is deserved.

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