Nigeria’s war over Biafra, 1967-70
By Mark Curtis
An edited extract from Unpeople: Britain’s Secret Human Right Abuses
The formerly secret files on the Nigerian civil war in the late 1960s show very clear British complicity in the Nigerian government’s aggression against the region of Biafra, where an independence movement was struggling to secede from Nigeria. This brutal civil war resulted in between one and three million deaths; it also significantly helped shape modern Nigeria, and not least the division of oil revenues between the central government and the regions and people.
Background to civil war
For those in Britain old enough to remember the war in Nigeria in the late 1960s, ‘Biafra’ probably still conjures up images of starving children – the result of the blockade imposed by the Nigerian government in Lagos to defeat the secession of the eastern region, Biafra. For Biafrans themselves, the period was one of immense suffering – it is still not known how many died at this time as a direct result of the war and the blockade, but it is believed to be at least one million and as high as three million.
For those seeking to understand Britain’s role in the world, there is now an important side of the Biafran story to add – British complicity in the slaughter. The declassified files show that the then Wilson government backed the Nigerian government all the way, arming its aggression and apologising for its actions. It is one of the sorrier stories in British foreign policy, though by no means unusual.
The immediate background to the war was a complex one of tensions and violence between Nigeria’s regions and ethnic groups, especially between those from the east and the north. In January 1966 army officers had attempted to seize power and the conspirators, most of whom were Ibos (from the East) assassinated several leading political figures as well as officers of northern origin. Army commander Major General Ironsi, also an Ibo, intervened to restore discipline in the army, suspended the constitution, banned political parties, formed a Federal Military Government (FMG) and appointed military governors to each of Nigeria’s regions.
Ironsi’s decree in March 1966, which abolished the Nigerian federation and unified the federal and regional civil services, was perceived by many not as an effort to establish a unitary government but as a plot by the Ibo to dominate Nigeria. Troops of northern origin, who dominated the Nigerian infantry, became increasingly restive and fighting broke out between them and Ibo soldiers in garrisons in the south. In June, mobs in northern cities, aided by local officials, carried out a pogrom against resident Ibos, massacring several hundred people and destroying Ibo-owned property.
It was in this context that in July 1966 northern officers staged a countercoup during which Ironsi and other Ibo officers were killed. Lieutenant Colonel (later General) Yakubu ‘Jack’ Gowon emerged as leader. The aim of the coup was both to take revenge on the Ibos for the coup in January but also to promote the secession of the north, although Gowon soon pulled back from calling explicitly for this. Gowon named himself as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and head of the military government, which was rejected by the military governor in the eastern region, Lieutenant Colonel Ojukwu, who claimed, with some justification, that the Gowon regime was illegitimate.
Throughout late 1966 and 1967 the tempo of violence increased. In September 1966 attacks on Ibos in the north were renewed with unprecedented ferocity, stirred up, eastern region officials believed, by northern political leaders. Reports circulated that troops from the northern region had participated in the massacres. The estimated number of deaths ranged from 10,000 to as high as 30,000. More than one million Ibos returned to the eastern region in fear.
In January 1967 the military leaders met in Aburi, Ghana. By this time the eastern region under Ojukwu was threatening secession. Many of Ojukwu’s eastern colleagues were now arguing that the massacres the previous September showed that the country could not be reunited amicably. In a last minute effort at Aburi to hold Nigeria together, an accord was agreed that provided for a loose confederation of regions. Gowon issued a decree implementing the Aburi agreement and even the northern region now favoured the formation of a multistate federation. The federal civil service, however, vigorously opposed the Aburi agreement and sought to scupper it.
Ojukwu and Gowon then disputed what exactly had been agreed at Aburi, especially after the Federal Military Government (FMG) issued a further decree in March which was seen by Ojukwu as reneging on the FMG’s commitment at Aburi to give the eastern region greater autonomy. The new decree gave the federal government the right to declare a state of emergency in any region and to ensure that any regional government could not undermine the executive authority of the federal government. Ojukwu then gave an ultimatum to Gowon that the eastern region would begin implementing its understanding of the Aburi agreement, providing for greater regional autonomy, by 31 March.
While Biafra was threatening to secede and declare an independent state, the FMG imposed sanctions against it to bring it into line. On 26 May the eastern region consultative assembly voted to secede from Nigeria and the following day Gowon declared a state of emergency throughout the country, banned political activity and announced a decree restoring full powers to the FMG. Also announced was a decree dividing the country into twelve states, including six in the north and three in the east.
On 30 May 1967 Biafra declared independence and on 7 July the FMG began operations to defeat it. It lasted until January 1970 as an extremely well-equipped Nigerian federal army of over 85,000 men supplied by Britain, the Soviet Union and few others, took on a volunteer Biafran army, much of whose equipment initially came from captured Nigerian supplies and which only later was able to procure relatively small quantities of arms from outside.
The background is therefore very complex and it remains far from clear cut as to where the ‘blame’ lay for the failure of peaceful negotiations and the resort to war. It does appear, however, that the FMG did go back on its agreement at Aburi on the extent of regional autonomy it was prepared to offer the easterners. Before they began to back the FMG unequivocally once war began, British officials had previously recognised the legitimacy of some of Ojukwu’s claims. The High British Commissioner in Lagos, Sir Francis Cumming-Bruce, had told Gowon in November 1966, for example, that the September 1966 massacres of the Ibos in the north ‘changed the relationship between the regions and made it impossible for eastern Nigerians to associate with northerners on the same basis as in the past’. The issue was one of basic ‘law and order and physical safety throughout the federation’. He told Gowon that the FMG had to go ‘a considerable distance to meet the views of Colonel Ojukwu’.
British officials also recognised that the Aburi agreements were ‘extremely woolly on many important points and lend themselves to infinite arguments over interpretation’. By end January 1967 Cumming-Bruce was saying that both Gowon and Ojuwku were ‘seriously at fault and they share responsibility for poisoning of atmosphere [sic]’.
Then there was the wider question of whether it was legitimate for a region to secede and whether Biafra should have been allowed to establish its independence. Again, a lot of complex issues are involved. British officials feared that if Biafra were to secede many other regions in Africa would too, threatening ‘stability’ across the whole of the continent. Most of the great powers, including the US and Soviet Union, shared this view largely for the same reason.
Yet there appears to be no reason why Biafra, with its 15 million people, could not have established a viable, independent state. Biafrans argued that they were a people with a distinctive language and culture, that they were Christian as opposed to the Muslim communities lumped into the Nigeria federal state, which had, after all, been a colonial creation. In fact, Biafra was also one of the most developed regions in Africa with a high density of roads, schools, hospitals and factories. The struggle for an independent state certainly appeared to have the support of the majority of Biafrans, whose sense of nationhood deepened throughout the war as enormous sacrifices were made to contribute to the war effort.
What is crystal clear is that the wishes of the Biafrans were never a major concern of British planners; what they wanted, or what Nigerians elsewhere in the federation wanted, was simply not an issue for Whitehall. There is simply no reference in the government files, that I have seen, to this being a consideration. The priorities for London were maintaining the unity of Nigeria for geo-political interests and protecting British oil interests. This meant that Gowon’s FMG was backed right from the start. But the files also reveal astonishing levels of connivance with the FMG’s aggression.
Nigerian aggression, British support
British interests are very clearly revealed in the declassified files. ‘Our direct interests are trade and investment, including an important stake by Shell/BP in the eastern Region. There are nearly 20,000 British nationals in Nigeria, for whose welfare we are of course specially [sic] concerned’, the Foreign Office noted a few days before the outbreak of the war. Shell/BP’s investments amounted to around £200 million, with other British investment in Nigeria accounting for a further £90 million. It was then partly owned by the British government, and the largest producer of oil which provided most of Nigeria’s export earnings. Most of this oil was in the eastern region.
Commonwealth Minister George Thomas wrote in August 1967 that: ‘The sole immediate British interest in Nigeria is that the Nigerian economy should be brought back to a condition in which our substantial trade and investment in the country can be further developed, and particularly so we can regain access to important oil installations’.
Thomas further outlined the primary reason why Britain was so keen to preserve Nigerian unity, noting that ‘our only direct interest in the maintenance of the federation is that Nigeria has been developed as an economic unit and any disruption of this would have adverse effects on trade and development’. If Nigeria were to break up, he added: ‘We cannot expect that economic cooperation between the component parts of what was Nigeria, particularly between the East and the West, will necessarily enable development and trade to proceed at the same level as they would have done in a unified Nigeria; nor can we now count on the Shell/BP oil concession being regained on the same terms as in the past if the East and the mid-West assume full control of their own economies’.
Ojukwu initially tried to get Shell/BP to pay royalties to the Biafran government rather than the FMG. The oil companies, after giving the Biafrans a small token payment, eventually refused and Ojuwku responded by sequestering Shell’s property and installations, forbidding Shell to do any further business and ordering all its staff out. They ‘have much to lose if the FMG do not achieve the expected victory’, George Thomas noted in August 1967. A key British aim throughout the war was to secure the lifting of the blockade which Gowon imposed on the east and which stopped oil exports.
In the run-up to Gowon’s declaration of war, Britain had made it clear to the FMG that it completely supported Nigerian unity. George Thomas had told the Nigerian High Commissioner in London at the end of April 1967, for example, that ‘the Federal government had our sympathy and our full support’ but said that he hoped the use of force against the east could be avoided. On 28 May Gowon, having just declared a state of emergency, explicitly told Britain’s Defence Attache that the FMG was likely to ‘mount an invasion from the north’. Gowon asked whether Britain would provide fighter cover for the attack and naval support to reinforce the blockade of Eastern ports; the Defence Attache replied that both were out of the question.
By the time Gowon ordered military action in early July, therefore, Britain had refused Nigerian requests to be militarily involved and had urged Gowon to seek a ‘peaceful’ solution. However, the Wilson government had also assured Gowon of British support for Nigerian unity at a time when military preparations were taking place. And Britain had also made no signs that it might cut off, or reduce, arms supplies if a military campaign were launched.
The new High Commissioner in Lagos, Sir David Hunt, wrote in a memo to London on 12 June that the ‘only way… of preserving unity [sic] of Nigeria is to remove Ojukwu by force’. He said that Ojukwu was committed to remaining the ruler of an independent state and that British interests lay in firmly supporting the FMG.
Before going to war, Gowon began what was to become a two and half year long shopping list of arms that the FMG wanted from Britain. On 1 July he asked Britain for jet fighter/bomber aircraft, six fast boats and 24 anti-aircraft guns. ‘We want to help the Federal Government in any way we can’, British officials noted. However, Britain rejected supplying the aircraft, fearing that they would publicly demonstrate direct British intervention in the war and, at this stage, also rejected supplying the boats. London did, however, agree to supply the anti-aircraft guns and to provide training courses to use them.
The Deputy High Commissioner in Enugu, Biafra’s main city, noted that the supply of these anti-aircraft guns and their ammunition would be seen as British backing for the FMG and also that they were not entirely defensive weapons anyway since ‘they could also take on an offensive role if mounted in an invasion fleet’. Nevertheless, the government’s news department was instructed to stress the ‘defensive nature of these weapons’ when pressed but generally to avoid publicity on their export from Britain. High Commissioner Hunt said that ‘it would be better to use civil aircraft’ to deliver these guns and secured agreement from the Nigerians that ‘there would be no publicity’ in supplying them.
Faced with Gowon’s complaints about Britain not supplying more arms, Wilson also agreed in mid-July to supply the FMG with the fast patrol boats. This was done in the knowledge that they would help the FMG maintain the blockade against Biafra. Wilson wrote to Gowon saying that ‘we have demonstrated in many ways our support for your government as the legal government of Nigeria and our refusal to recognise the secessionists’. He also told him that Britain does ‘not intend to put any obstacle in the way’ of orders for ‘reasonable quantities of military material of types similar to those you have obtained here in the past’. Gowon replied saying that ‘I have taken note of your concurrence for the usual purchases of arms supplies to continue and will take advantage of what is available now and others when necessary’.
By early August Biafran forces had made major gains against the FMG and had invaded the mid-West region. Commonwealth Minister George Thomas noted that ‘the chances of a clear-cut military decision being achieved by either side now look rather distant’. Rather, ‘we are now faced with the probability of an escalating and increasingly disorderly war, with both sides shopping around for arms’. In this situation, he raised the option of Britain launching a peace offensive and halting all arms supplies. But this was rejected by David Hunt in Lagos and others since it would cause ‘great resentment’ on the part of the FMG against the British government and be regarded as a ‘hostile act’. Instead, the government decided to continue the flow of arms and ammunition of types previously supplied by Britain but to continue to refuse supplies of ‘sophisticated equipment’ like aircraft and tanks.
The decision to continue arms exports was taken when it had already become clear in the behaviour of the Nigerian forces that any weapons supplied would be likely to be used against civilians. It was also at a time when Commonwealth Secretary General Arnold Smith was making renewed attempts to push for peace negotiations after having been rebuffed by Gowon in a visit to Lagos in early July.
By early November 1967 the FMG had pushed back the Biafrans and captured Enugu; British officials were now reporting that the FMG had ‘a clear military advantage’. Now that our side seemed like winning, talk of reducing arms to them disappeared; George Thomas now said that ‘it seems to me that British interests would now be served by a quick FMG victory’. He recommended that the arms export policy be ‘relaxed’ and to supply Lagos with items that ‘have importance in increasing their ability to achieve a quicker victory’. This meant ‘reasonable quantities’ of equipment such as mortars and ‘infantry weapons generally’, though not aircraft or other ‘sophisticated’ equipment.
On 23 November 1967 the Cabinet agreed that ‘a quick Federal military victory’ provided the best hope for ‘an early end to the fighting’. By early December, Commonwealth Secretary George Thomson noted that the ‘lack of supplies and ammunition is one of things that are holding operations up’. He said that Britain should agree to the FMG’s recent shopping list since ‘a favourable response to this request ought to give us every chance of establishing ourselves again as the main supplier of the Nigerian forces after the war’. If the war ended soon, the Nigerian economy will start expanding and ‘there should be valuable business to be done’. Also: ‘Anything that we now do to assist the FMG should help our oil companies to re-establish and expand their activities in Nigeria after the war, and, more generally should help our commercial and political relationship with postwar Nigeria’.
He ended by saying he hoped Britain could supply armoured cars since they ‘have proved of especial value in the type of fighting that is going on in Nigeria and the FMG are most impressed with the Saladins and Ferrets’ previously supplied by Britain.
As a result Britain supplied six Saladin armoured personnel carriers (APCs), 30 Saracen APCs along with 2,000 machine guns for them, anti-tank guns and 9 million rounds of ammunition. Denis Healey, the Defence Secretary, wrote that he hoped these supplies will encourage the Nigerians ‘to look to the United Kingdom for their future purchases of defence equipment’. By the end of the year Britain had also approved the export of 1,050 bayonets, 700 grenades, 1,950 rifles with grenade launchers, 15,000 lbs of explosives and two helicopters.
In the first half of the following year, 1968, Britain approved the export of 15 million rounds of ammunition, 21,000 mortar bombs, 42,500 Howtizer rounds, 12 Oerlikon guns, 3 Bofors guns, 500 submachine guns, 12 Saladins with guns and spare parts, 30 Saracens and spare parts, 800 bayonets, 4,000 rifles and two other helicopters. At the same time Wilson was constantly reassuring Gowon of British support for a united Nigeria, saying in April 1968 that ‘I think we can fairly claim that we have not wavered in this support throughout the civil war’.
These massive arms exports were being secretly supplied – indeed, massively stepped up – at a time when one could read about the actions of the recipients in the newspapers. After the Biafran withdrawal from the mid-west in September 1967 a series of massacres started against Ibo residents. The New York Times reported that over 5,000 had been killed in various towns of the mid west. About 1,000 Ibos were killed in Benin city by local people with the acquiescence of the federal forces, the New York Review noted in December 1967. Around 700 Ibo males were lined up and shot in the town of Asaba, the Observer reported in January 1968. According to eyewitnesses the Nigerian commander ordered the execution of every Ibo male over the age of ten.
Nigerian officials informed the British government that the arms were ‘important to them, but not vital’. More important than the actual arms ‘was the policy of the British government in supporting the FMG’.
This support was now taking place amid public and parliamentary pressure for a halt to British arms to Lagos, with 70 Labour MPs, for example, filing a motion for such an embargo in May 1968. Yet the real extent of arms supplied by Britain was concealed from the public.
Throughout 1967 and 1968, Ministers had been telling parliament that Britain was essentially neutral in the conflict in that it was not interfering in the internal affairs of Nigeria but simply continuing to supply arms to Nigeria on the same basis as before the war. As the declassified files, referred to above, show, this was simply a lie. For example, Wilson told the House on 16 May 1968 that: ’We have continued the supply… of arms by private manufacturers in this country exactly on the basis that it has been in the past, but there has been no special provision for the needs of the war’.
One British file at this time – mid-1968 – refers to deaths of between 70,000-100,000 by now as ‘realistic’. The Red Cross was estimating around 600,000 refugees in Biafra alone and was trying to arrange desperately needed supplies to meet needs, estimated at around 30 tons a day.
Humanitarian suffering, especially starvation, was severe as a result of the FMG’s blockade of Biafra. Pictures of starving and malnourished children went around the world. The FMG was widely seen as indulging in atrocities and attacks against civilians, including apparently indiscriminate air strikes, in an increasingly brutal war in which civilians were the chief victims.
The files show that Wilson told Gowon on several occasions in private letters that he had successfully fended off public and parliamentary criticism in Britain, in order to continue to support the FMG – clearly showing where the government’s priorities and sympathies lay. As in Vietnam at the same time, Wilson was not going to be deflected by mere public opposition from backing ongoing aggression by key allies, whatever the level of atrocities and casualties.
With federal forces in control by mid-year of Port Harcourt, the most important southern coastal city, British officials noted that ‘having gone this far in supporting the FMG, it would be a pity to throw away the credit we have built up with them just when they seem to have the upper hand’. Britain could not halt the supply of arms since ‘apart from other considerations, such an outcome would seriously put at risk about £200m of British investments in non-Biafra Nigeria’, George Thomson explained to Harold Wilson.
It was also at this point that British officials sought to counter widespread opposition to the Nigerian government by conniving with it to improve the ‘presentation’ of its policies – another example of Britain’s past ‘information operations’ described in earlier chapters. Britain urged the FMG to convince the outside world that it was not engaged in genocide or a policy of massacre and to make public statements on the need for a ceasefire and humanitarian access to Biafra.
High Commissioner Hunt suggested to Gowon that the federal air force be used for ‘psychological warfare’ and to drop leaflets over the Ibo towns which would help the FMG score a ‘propaganda point’. Officials noted that their support for the FMG was under attack and that ‘our ability to sustain it… depends very much on implementing enlightened and humane federal policies and securing public recognition for them’. What was needed was ‘good and well-presented Nigerian policies which permit that support to continue’. Wilson therefore urged a senior Nigerian government official, Chief Enahoro, ‘to make a greater effort to ensure that their case did not go by default’.
The files indicate that these ‘presentational’ issues were much more important to British officials than any actual suffering of the Biafrans themselves. London never did anything significant to press the FMG. British officials ruled out threatening to cut off, or reduce, arms exports to force the FMG to change policies. The issue that most concerned the government at the time was that it would be forced to withdraw or reduce its support for Gowon in the face of public pressure. This, therefore, had to be countered, and the FMG needed to make greater efforts.
By mid-1968 British officials had still had no contacts with Ojukwu and other Biafran leaders; offers from the latter had been refused. So supportive was Wilson of the FMG that he even asked the Nigerians in advance whether they would have ‘any difficulties’ if a British official met a Biafran representative. Chief Enahoro replied that this would be acceptable provided the contacts were ‘strictly private and had no formal character’.
In early August FMG forces had retaken the whole of the southeastern and Rivers states and the easterners were now confined to a small enclave, blockaded from the outside world. Commonwealth Minister Lord Shepherd minuted Harold Wilson saying, that 14 months since Biafran secession: ‘Our support for the FMG finds us in the position in which we are on comparatively good terms with the side which is in an overwhelmingly advantageous position… It is important, therefore, that we should not be manoeuvred by pressure of opinion inspired by Ojukwu’s publicity, into abandoning at this late stage all the advantages which our policy so far seemed likely to bring us’. The same month, the Red Cross estimated 2-3 million people ‘in dire need’ and a similar number were facing shortages of food and medical aid.
Wilson did not succomb to public pressure. The following month he told Gowon that: ‘The British government for their part have steadfastly maintained their policy of support for Federal Nigeria and have resisted all suggestions in parliament and in the press for a change in that policy, particularly in regard to arms supplies’. The Foreign Office argued that ‘the whole of our investments in Nigeria and particularly our oil interests in the south east and the mid-west will be at risk if we change our policy of support for the federal government’.
In November, Lord Brockway and his committee for peace in Nigeria met Wilson and urged him to halt arms sales and to press for a ceasefire, estimating that there could be two million deaths from starvation and disease by the end of the year. Wilson not only rebuffed this plea; the files reveal that two days later he agreed to supply Nigeria with aircraft for the first time in a covert deal.
The Nigerians had been pressing Britain to supply several jet aircraft, specifically to attack the runways used by Biafran forces (and which also needed to be used to deliver humanitarian aid). Wilson said that Britain could not supply these directly but there were such aircraft in South Yemen and Sudan previously supplied by Britain. The Nigerians, he said, should procure the aircraft from them which ‘would not directly involve the British government’. The company to deal with in those two countries was Airwork Limited, which was later to be again used by the British government to conceal its involvement in its covert dirty war in Yemen. The British government also agreed to put the Nigerians in touch with ‘suitable pilots’.
British arms supplies were stepped up again in November. Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart said the Nigerians could have 5 million more rounds of ammunition, 40,000 more mortar bombs and 2,000 rifles. ‘You may tell Gowon’, Stewart instructed High Commissioner Hunt in Lagos, ‘that we are certainly ready to consider a further application’ to supply similar arms in the future as well. He concluded: ‘if there is anything else for ground warfare which you… think they need and which would help speed up the end of the fighting, please let us know and we will consider urgently whether we can supply it’.
Other supplies agreed in November following meetings with the Nigerians included six Saladins and 20,000 rounds of ammunition for them, and stepped up monthly supplies of ammunition, amounting to a total of 15 million rounds additional to those already agreed. It was recognised by the Defence Minister that ‘the scale of the UK supply of small arms ammunition to Nigeria in recent months has been and will continue to be on a vast scale’. The recent deal meant that Britain was supplying 36 million rounds of ammunition in the last few months alone. Britain’s ‘willingness to supply very large quantities of ammunition’, Lord Shepherd noted, ‘meant drawing on the British army’s own supplies’.
At the same time the Foreign Office was instructing its missions around the world to lie about the extent of this arms supply. It sent a ‘guidance’ memo to various diplomatic posts on 22 November saying that ‘we wish to discourage suggestions’ that the Nigerians, in their recent meetings with British officials, were seeking ‘to negotiate a massive arms deal’. Rather, ‘our policy of supplying in reasonable quantities arms of the kind traditionally supplied’ to Nigeria ‘will be maintained but no change in the recent pattern of supplies is to be expected’. So great is the culture of lying at the Foreign Office, it appears that policy is even to keep its own officials in the dark.
By the end of 1968 Britain had sold Nigeria £9 million worth of arms, £6 million of which was spent on small arms. A quarter of Nigeria’s supplies (by value) had come from the Soviet Union, also taking advantage of the war for its own benefit and trying no doubt to secure an opening into Nigeria provided by this opportunity. British officials consistently justified their arms supply by saying that if they stopped, the Russians would fill the gap. It was Britain’s oil interests, however, that was the dominating factor in Whitehall planners’ reasoning.
By the last two months of 1968, with hundreds of thousands dead by now, the fighting had reached a stalemate. The FMG had taken all Biafran territory apart from a small enclave within it consisting of 3 million people in an area the size of Kent. Biafrans were now dependent on two airstrips for outside supplies which were limited by both Gowon’s and Ojukwu’s refusals to allow sufficient numbers of aircraft to land. Humanitarian agencies were continuing calls for a ceasefire as suffering, especially starvation, had reached crisis proportions. ‘We shall continue to maintain our present policy, despite these heavy pressures on us’, Wilson told Gowon in November. Foreign Secretary Stewart instructed Lord Shepherd, on a visit to Lagos, to tell Gowon of the extraordinary steps Britain was taking to support him. Gowon should realise, Stewart said, that opposition to British policy ‘cuts right across the normal political or party divisions in the country and is especially strong in the various churches’. He also interestingly said that ‘similar feeling is also expressed within the Cabinet itself’ – such was the extremely thin base on which British support for the FMG was being provided. (One wonders about similar memos being written by Tony Blair to George Bush in 2003).
The Wilson government was keen to present itself as engaged in the search for peace – the files show that officials did so knowing that without appearing to be active they would not have been able to justify their support for the FMG. British government activity in peace negotiations invariably sought to avoid the involvement of the United Nations and was intended to support the FMG to maintain a united Nigeria and to achieve a solution on its terms only.
In public, British statements consistently blamed only the Biafrans, not the FMG, for obstructing peace negotiations and the delivery of humanitarian aid. On the latter, there were numerous proposals and counter-proposals made by both sides on the issue of night or dayflights, and river or land routes into Biafra, which obstructed the delivery of humanitarian aid to millions of suffering people. The FMG feared that the Biafrans would use the cover of humanitarian aid supplies to slip in arms deliveries; while the Biafrans believed the FMG would poison the supplies. There is no doubt that Ojukwu and the Biafran leadership were partly responsible for the failure to deliver adequate humanitarian aid, yet so were the FMG. Starvation of the Biafrans was no accident or simply a by-product of the war; it was a deliberate part of the FMG’s war policy.
Several memos by British officials that reached Wilson and other ministers painted a more accurate picture than the one pushed in public. These said that it was as least as much the FMG that were to blame as the Biafrans. Yet this never upset British policy to side unequivocally with Gowon’s FMG.
In March 1969 Wilson gave a public interview and lied that ‘we continue to supply on a limited scale arms – not bombs, not aircraft – to the government of Nigeria because we have always been their suppliers’. Not only was this untrue as a result of the agreements late the previous year; on the very same day as this interview, the government approved the export of 19 million rounds of ammunition, 10,000 grenades and 39,000 mortar bombs – bombs, that is, that Wilson had said Britain was not supplying at all, still less on a vast scale.
A day before the Wilson interview, a Foreign Office official had written that ‘we have over the last few months agreed to supply large quantities of arms and ammunition’ to Nigeria ‘to assist them in finishing the war in the absence of any further [peace] negotiations’. He also noted that ‘we have flown small arms ammunition to Nigeria… using Manston airport in Kent without attracting unfavourable press comment’.
It was therefore perhaps no surprise that Gowon could write to Wilson in April saying that ‘of all the governments in the Western world, yours has remained the only one that has openly maintained its policy of arms supplies to my government’. France, Belgium and the Netherlands, among others, had all announced a halt while the US continued its policy of not supplying arms to either side.
Two senior British RAF officers secretly visited Nigeria in August 1969 to advise the Nigerians on ‘how they could better prosecute the air war’. The main British interest, the files make clear, was to provide better protection of the oil installations, but the brief for the two officers stated that this impression should not be given to the Nigerians. The officers subsequently advised the Nigerians on a variety of tactics on ‘neutralisation of the rebel airstrips’. It was understood that destruction of the airstrips would put them out of use for daylight humanitarian relief flights. It is not clear whether such advice was put into action.
Britain armed the federal government all the way. In December 1969, just before the FMG’s final push that crushed the Biafrans, Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart was calling for stepping up military assistance including the supply of more armoured cars. These supplies by Britain, he wrote, ‘have undoubtedly been the most effective weapons in the ground war and have spear-headed all the major federal advances’.
Biafran resistance ended by mid January 1970. Wilson then sent another message to Gowon saying that ‘your army has won a decisive victory’ and has achieved ‘your great aim of preserving the unity and integrity of Nigeria’, adding: ‘As you know I and my colleagues have believed all along that you were right and we have never wavered in our support for you, your government and you policy, despite the violent attacks which have been made on us at times in parliament and in the press as well as overseas’.
The Deputy High Commissioner in Lagos added: ‘There is genuine gratitude (as indeed there should be) for what Britain has done and is still doing for this country, and in particular for Her Majesty’s Government’s courage in literally sticking to their guns over Biafra’.
The toll of the war was counted in a report for the British High Commission at the end of the month. It referred to a relief agency report estimating 1 1/2-2 million people were being fed with food relief supplies, around 700,000 of whom were refugees in camps dependent entirely on food aid. Three million refugees were crowded into a 2,500 square kilometre enclave in which not only food but medicine, housing and clothing were in short supply. The Biafran economy was shattered, cities were in ruins and schools, hospitals and transport facilities destroyed.
Thank you,Mark Curtis for this useful but difficult presentation of the plight of the people of the Eastern Region of Nigeria(Biafrans).
I should ,however,inform anybody who cares to know that 46 years on,there is still covert genocide going on within the Nigeria federation against the hapless people of Biafra.
The successes recorded in virtually all spheres of life and in fact the future of Biafrans in the Nigerian federation has been and is still in jeopardy with the increasing covert economic and political sanctions to which Biafrans(South East& South south) are being subjected by the ruling Hausa-Fulani-Yoruba oligarchy. It is no longer news that we fought a devastating and costly civil war of survival from 1967-1970 and still after the ensuing genocide against the Biafrans, the Eastern Region was forcibly re-integrated into the Nigerian federation with the promises of genuine program of Reconciliation, Reconstruction and Rehabilitation . Forty-six years on, the ugly, immediate and remote causes of the civil war have since been repackaged and indeed being unleashed in a most sophisticated and malicious manner on the Biafrans and their neighbors by the Hausa-Fulani-Yoruba oligarchy. The world is watching but prefers to nothing about it.It is records that first genocide in Africa took place in Biafra but till date,nobody has been brought to justice for directly or indirectly contributed to genocide that claimed the lives of about 2million people(including women and children)during the war.Biafra issue will continue to be a thorn in the conscience of the International community until justice is done.We continue to maintain that we are not Nigerians but Biafrans.Self-Determination is a right and not a privelege and which engages the united nations convention on Civil,Economic and political rights.We to protest:
Ø The unending police brutality and the extortion in Biafraland. The Nigerian government has sanctioned the killing of the Biafran people by the police and security forces and the recent shoot-to-kill policy in the commercial city of Onitsha and the entire Eastern Region. Members of the Joint Task Force bribe their way through to be posted to cities in Biafrand and other places where the Biafran people are doing their businesses.
Ø The further political and economic destruction of the Biafran people and Igboland with the recently declared results of the 2006 fraudulent census exercise. With this census results, the Igbos have been effectively relegated to a minority ethnic group. The next step could be the destruction of Igbo language and culture.
Ø The constant destruction of Igbo businesses and deliberate Nigerian government policy of neglect to develop or build infrastructural facilities in the Eastern Region.
Ø The gradual but steady Islamisation of Nigeria and the sporadic but constant killing of mainly Igbo Christians in other parts of Nigeria by the militant muslims and with no action taken by the authorities.
Ø Targeted violence, orchestrated by the Nigerian security forces against those who are members of the Movement For The Actualization Of The sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), including the destruction of property and the burning of houses.
Ø Punitive economic sanctions: closing of airports in the south Eastern Region and the look-warm attitude of the Nigerian government in tackling ecological disaster in the region thereby withdrawing the desperately needed government aids.
Ø And finally the continued incarceration of the peaceful MASSOB leader- Chief Ralph Uwazurike, other MASSOB leadership and Biafrans with no legal justification whereby the violent leaders of the OPC have since been released and accorded honorary titles.
Uche Mefor
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS,
FOR:BIAFRA LIBERATION LEAGUE
07886171427
Alternatively,contact us via the address below:
The Biafra Liberation League
The Biafra Liberation League is a group dedicated to the peaceful achievement of an independent state of Biafra. We are linked to MASSOB (the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra) who are currently taking the lead in the struggle for freedom in Eastern Nigeria, for which they are being killed, persecuted and illegally detained.
We welcome support from everyone who cares about human life and the prevention of genocide.
Please contact us by email- [email protected]
Or call- +44 (0)7838 265071 or +44 (0)790 8504052
Further information on the movement:
http://www.cwis.org/news/index.php?newsdate=biafra1
http://www.kwenu.com/index/index_pogrom.htm
Formal records of the killings:
http://www.biafraland.com/MASSOB_Casualty_Toll_2000-2006-feb.htm
I have ever believed that there are only good or bad people and not a race, tribe or nationality. However, that belief is being daily challenged by the realities of roles played by Britain on the war not based on belief but on economic consideration which had no interest of the Nigerian state it mouthed was being preserved factores into the equation. I suffered the effect of not having the love of a mother who died during the war while my immediate younger sister died few days after my mother from starvation and lack of medical attention. The sole thought nibbling at my mind is whether there can ever be any honest “white man”. These people straffed churches and markets, schools and all such areas that the war convention forbids; but because of oil and money, all that protected their interests became just and fair. I know that with more declassifications, more facts to the shame of the entire British empire will emerge
I am not completely surprised. The evil atrocities that go on around the world is perpetuated by a few people that want the world to see them as humanitarians. None the less, History will adjudge them as cruel, evil and barbaric horde that they are.
While we wait, their Nigerian experiment continues in the hands of demented so called nationalists.
It is a sin and shame that Wilson exchanged the innocent blood of Biafrans for the oil that he could not secure between 1967 to 1970. The ghost of the Biafrians had made him irrelevant in the British and World history. It is a shame to Wilson and his cohorts that Britain as at today is behind US, China, Germany etc (that did not supply arms to either side) in economic terms despite her exploited support to Nigeria against Biafria.
There is no Nigerian that participated in the Ibo genocide nor war crime against Biafria that is in peace with his God despite their economic and financial advantages over the innocent Nigerians. Why is Gowon going about begging for the Ibos forgiveness over the war? Are all the Nigerian Generals that executed Ironsi not billionaires ? They did what they did out of jelousy and personal interest. They can fool Nigerians not Biafrans.
Am greatful to Mark curtis.At least for once he has shown me the other side of the British. We initially have the impression that they care for nothing but the truth, now curtis has revealed the real thing.The government of the day had hard core liars in the cabinet.Curtis just said one thing, that the british support for Nigeria in the war is strictly because of the oil reserve in the eastern part of the country where Biafra was located, thus first degree of genocide was overlooked,supported and chests were beaten over the feat.Its unfortunate that other nigerian connivance to the crime does not know this much, though they had strong resentment for the Igbo race that are very ambitious about meaningful devevelopment.Today we have seen the effect of the support in the activities of shell in Ogoni land and other Niger delta regions. Today their blood is shed because of the illfated agreement between Gowon and the British.It baffles me how the members of the British government were making approvals for the supply of deadly weapons to aid Gowon end the war quickly.I have one thing to nsay to all those that overtly and covertly supported the genocidein Nigeria , they will never have peace of mind,the treatment they meted out to Biafrans must be given back to them ten folds before the country finally disintegrates.
Thanks to Mark Curtis who provided this hidding file to us, your generation will never ever cease on earth. & I say a lauder amen to your prayer my brothers. Biafra must be free & all the countries especially Britain that contributed in any form no matter how little to the killing, mame & orchestration of the children of God”BIAFRANS” must be disgraced & receive the concequences befor the disintegration of Nigeria. & All Nigerians especially Gowon who took part in this attrocity must die shamefuly & be forgoten on earth.
This is a great, great article.
However, I believe people (paticularly foreigners who are not Nigerians) may not know the history of Nigeria, or indeed how that history affects Nigeria today.
Since independence, there has been a tacit agreement between the big three ethnic groups (Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo) that ethnic lines would remain distinct, i.e. ethnic borders would be in place. If each ethnic group remains within those borders, then no harm will ever come to them. The right to a motherland (Western Nigeria for the Yoruba, Eastern Nigeria for the Igbos, and the North for the Hausas) was a concept recognized and accepted by all three ethnic groups.
However, from the late 1950s, it became clear that Igboland (the smallest ancestral land of the three groups) was too small to sustain the Igbo people. Besides, labour-intensive economic opportunities in Nigeria were increasingly in Lagos and the Northern commercial centers, outside Igbo-land. It therefore became apparent that Igbos would have to intensify their travels, and indeed become permanent settlers in other parts of Nigeria. In other words, the tacit agreement to remain within ethnic borders had to be broken.
This “breach” in the agreement precipitated the civil war. There were simply far too many Igbos (and indeed Yorubas) in Northern Nigeria, and the Northerners had to solve the problem. Not only were Igbos asked to leave the North in the 1960s, so were Yorubas. The difference, however, came in 1966, when more Yorubas were asked to leave, while the remnants of the Igbos were killed (in what’s commonly called ‘the Igbo pogroms’). This led to the civil war. However, the Igbos were given enough warning of the coming war, and had a chance to prevent the war.
In addition, the word ‘genocide’ has been used by some scholars in describing what took place in Biafra. It is important for us to understand that there was never an attempt to exterminate the Igbo people. The Nigerian government had a chance to do this, since (at the end of the war), they had Biafra completely surrounded, and the Biafrans had no food, no weapons, or anything of the sort. In other words, they were at the mercy of the Nigerian army. Yet the army chose to forgive and forget. (‘No victor, no vanquished’)
And finally, Biafra was never solely about self-determination. The Biafran army took the (previously neutral) Midwest region, and Ore, in today’s Ondo State, which is a part of Yorubaland. In other words, they broke the other unspoken agreement: do not invade one another’s land.
There cannot be any logical analogies to the holocaust, because Biafra was just a war, and one side lost. Spectacularly.
At this point, I must raise a very important point. The issue of indivisible nationhood in Nigeria has never left the embryonic stages, and it has long been a tacit agreement that Western Nigeria belongs to the Yorubas, the North is dominated by the Hausa, and the Eastern Region belongs to the Igbos. In other words, if you are a migrant (say Igbo in Yorubaland or Yoruba in Igboland), what you see is what you get. In my opinion, the message since independence has been quite simple: Within your ancestral land, you will never be massacred. Outside it, you are a migrant, and your life is not safe. This is the reason many Yorubas prefer to stay at home. They have given up on this futile concept called ‘One Nigeria’, and they (perhaps more than anyone else) understand that pogroms wil be committed against them if they decide to migratye in large quanitities.
ossai, it sounds like u are promoting intolerance. Please dont hide under the name chukwuemeka with this kind of write-up. people should be free to migrate where ever they want as long as its done within applicable laws. Mr curtis just gave us an unbias revilatoin or account of what transpared before and during the war in question, and u are coming up with some baseless addendum. I dont think u ever accepted the facts of the civil war and I know u will never accept it but that ok.
Just take a look at the lies you called reasoning. How can you have an agreement for every tribe to stay on its home by 1960, whereas Zik and Ojukwu was both born in the North, Nzeogwu was also born and bred there. Igbos had been in the North since 1940s?
Your comment is very interesting, but one defect makes me wary of the rest of it. You say that the Nigerian Army policy of “No Victor, No vanquished” in effect prived their purit y of heart. But alas the widely known facts of the confiscation of Igbo bank balances and their replacement by a cynical Twenty Pounds, which reduced the people to economic slavery. This was not the action of people who saw “no vanquished”.
Mr Curtis,
I may say you are truly a blessing. You may be wondering why i am calling you are blessing, but this vital article you have put up has enabled and help me in so many ways concerning my British history courseowrk which is on Nigeria Biafra war! You have clarified certain issue in my mind, issue such as Britain involvement with the war and who had the power stop such “famine” and “Genocide”. Other speakers who has left comments has also nourished my argument within my essay on saying who was at fault or who tried to preserve Nigeria for the best of Nigeria!
Thank you so much.
God bless…
Honey (truly is my name…no lies)
Shame on you Great Britain! You have committed the most heinous genocide in the human history. Even without this articles we know- right from the onset that the British Government massacred our people.
I am under no delusion; I know that Britain is a country that knows nothing other than wars throughout its history. Britain should have a proper look at the Nigeria that you supported, examine the country and inform the International Community whether there is any good news that comes out of the Nigeria today, whether there is any improvement in the Nation’s economy, whether the country is being run as a modern State. The defeat of Biafra is a defeat against democracy, it is truly a defeat of civilization, human rights and it is a defeat of industrialization.
Now Nigerians lives in perpetual darkness, where all hopes has died, where fundamental freedoms is absent and where, as a matter of fact, British interests (the sole basis for the British aided genocide was committed and continues to this day) are not safe at all, where British citizens are being kidnapped, where British oil companies are still committing yet another round of genocide.
Biafrans are still alive today, and just as before the war, are the most educated people in the Nigeria, the most prosperous and the most inventive. And they are still demanding that their right and choice be respected; the right to determined their own political identity for themselves.
Mr curtis, thank you. Many a time i had wanted to know the cause of this way but non, not even the autors of these stories have made it easier for us to reach a conclution. I am very sorry for my own people whom Ojuwku was out to help but was betrayed by those mentioned because many were involved in killing the baifrans. The so call south south now who are claiming everything as theirs, were once in the eastern region and now see what if i understood Enahoro was a cat. Now, is the good going well with the south south or is the northerners trying to own everything themselves? What from i am seeing it seems that northerners, have proved to be more wiser than even the west stop at south south for that, no issue yet they did not understand coz the are cawards What a pity. Ojukwu had really visioned this earlier, that the hausas want to impose their religous ideas all over the country he fought to safeguide but traitors opposed it. But one thing, Nigeria will never escape from the hands of the foreigners who think that the oil is world property because it was not theirs country and the north and the west of nigeria feel that, that is the only way they could make a better live. Yes they will never give a rule to you because they know that you know how to handle your resoure while the south south claiming that they where born their did not know that the west and the north of nigeria are ready all times cast them away. How do you do this? Who do you think will do this again? Same that supported the earier civil war. Please tell them. Would you please ask the south south to stop sabotage for the game will soon be over.
Gud day ur article has just help me to do my assignment on the nigeria biafran war cos i was given a question that i should list the remote and immediate causes of the Nigeria Biafran war of 1967 to 1970. thank u and God bless.
Thank you, mr.curtis. I would’nt mind to share your revealed roles played by britain on biafra/nigeria war, to my fellow biafran who used to doubt this reveald truth. Long live biafra, biafra is blessed- we biafran ought to know that. Once again, mr curtis. Thank you for convincing my critics.
Charles taylor was sentensed to fifty years imprisonment,for supplying arms to troubled area, why is it that nobody has brought the British to book for the role they play in the massacre of people of Biafra?
Civilised British government? Outrageous.
They say a man without the knowledge of history is like a man without memory. As a northern Nigerian under the age of 30 I’ve always wondered why the Igbos tend to refuse to apply themselves very well politically.
I guess they’ve always wanted to be Biafrans (and justifiably so), not Nigerians. They didnt just want to ‘threaten’ Nigerian unity like they have always been accused of doing… I now understand where they’re coming from.
Just imagine if the Igbos were simply allowed to break away and form their Biafran Republic, how this entity called Nigeria would have fared. Maybe we will have ended up becoming prosperous friendly nations and economic allies with special ECOWAS relationships. And certainly the shameless massacre by the Nigerian and British governments will have been completely avoided.
Nigeria may be better off united economically and militarily, but the true yearnings of the peoples involved count more than mere economic growth on paper. Everyone has to feel among and feel important. Maybe, just maybe, if we were all allowed to go our separate ways we will end up becoming friends and allies and everything will eventually turn out for the better.
Abdullahi,I am well pleased by ur manner of knowledge and understanding may GOD bless you for that.!!! British is the caused of Nigeria problems.
Worse still was the fact that Igbos made up a large percentage of the operational soldiers in 1966, but just a fraction of those actually involved in the putsch
It is truly tragic that this happened in Nigeria. The issues of strong ethnic and cultural differences are still there. The marriage of all 250 tribes into the entity called Nigeria was a mismatch from the start. The black man is gullible to fall for everything he hears without having first exhausted all avenues of reconciliation. Perhaps, it would have been better to have the three major tribes and other nations in Nigeria breakaway. Then every of the new nation-states will want to outdo the other in providing for its people to prove that being independent is the best option available
BLAME IT ON THE BRITS. ALL COUNTRIES INCLUDING NIGERIA HAVE EVIL,GREEDY MILITANT LEADERS WHO KILL AND DESTROY THE PEOPLE FOR OIL.
Nigeria will soon be a history in the name of Chukwuabiama.
‘As long as the earth remains, seed time and harvest shall not cease’, so says the Bible the British introduced to us. The blood of the innocent Biafrans still cry against the world, the British most especially and the northern part of Nigeria. There is always nemesis. Now the sword has turned against the Northern part of Nigeria. They are shooting, maiming and pounding themselves with bombs, grenades and mortars. All the rapes perpetrated against the Igbos are having expressions in the North. This will continue until the blood of the Biafrans are fully avenged. For Biafra, there were local and international enemies but for them, they will be their own enemies. They will eat their own flesh and feed themselves with their blood. As for Britain, Wilson and his cohorts brought a curse upon Britain. Imagine how Britain lost its position and became a wife to her former slave – USA. Now, Great Britain is balkanised. They have lost their glory. Recently Scotland is threatening to break away. The Bible says,’touch not my anointed and my prophet do no harm’. There re repercussions for every action must elicit a reaction. Like Rechab, Biafra will continue to cry, refusing to be comforted, weeping for her children because they are no more. They were taken by Gowon, Britain and Northern Nigeria. And until Biafra is appeased, these will have no peace.
I would also denude the maltreatment of the biafrans.it is indeed undeniable.we all would have remain cohesive even without being united as one nation nigeria but being as in continental brothers one africa.nigeria we pray to stand again to unite once again earlier as ninty sixties because i sense the grudge they bear we.the secession of the biafran state would have bring the freedom of the 1960s independence.
This is just a fraction of what British did to us, before Berlin conference they had already seen the Greatness in Igbo man, and from when they came to this path, they have continued playing out their orchestrated plan to destroy the Igbo man completely, they took many steps in doing that, when they destroyed the sacred institution of NRI was the climax and further created warrant chiefs to render you asunder, and then sold a RELIGION to you telling you, you re a pagan, and we bought it,
What baffles me is, after all the exposition my people are still wallowing in darkness, still sticking to the same RELIGION these wicked people sold to you to make you docile, while they are busy taking your resources,
My people wake up.
A big thanks for your article Mr Curtis for unconcealling the truth. It is unmistakenly clear that Britain was the brain behind the geonocide against the industrious ambitious people of Biafrans. Decades may have passed but the impact of this unjustiable injustics still lives with us, as there is apparently no place for the igboman in the false nation Nigeria. No wonder they seek for comfort all over the world travelling sea and land yet no place like home( Biafranland). Therefore, Britain and her leaders should rise and amend what they have caused via their oil self-centred interest and the un consulted amalgamation by Frederick Lugard for in Biafra we stand. Long lives Biafrans.
Shame on Yakubu Gowon and British as far as after their Genocide against Ibos / Biafrans but today Gowon and Britain can see a male child in Ibo land.Till i finished reading this report i never hear that Hausa or Yoruba invented a single weapon they used in fighting against Biafrans. After Hausa and Yoruba man red this report the person will say Nigeria defeated Biafrans in battle i will know the person is lower than monkey.British fought the war for Nigeria.Peace will never be in Nigeria from generation to generation for Nigeria atrocities to the Igbos.For Yoruba people even if Nigeria break up peacefully we Biafrans must go to War with Yoruba people in future to come.Chukwuma Nzeogwu coup was pure Yoruba planned coup to put Awolowo the criminal in power as Nigeria prime minister,when it fall as it was planned Yoruba media labeled it Ibos coup.Hausas killed Ibos officers with help of Yorubas.That is not enough Ojukwu agreed with Awolowo to released him in Calabar prison where Hausa man sent him to prison awaiting to poison him to death and Ojukwu rescued him and agreement was he should go to West and declared Oduduwa republic which he accepted on released him Gowon made him financial Minister he turned against Ojukwu and starved Biafrans children and seized Ibos money.Yoruba must pay for their betrayal to the Ibos.
The truth cannot be buried nor our ones conscience because we must all stand before God-Chukwu Abiama of the Biafranland the Almighty God. Ever since I made the comment on the article “Nigeria War Against Biafra 1967-70” by Mark Curtis my page have been blocked. Why? Even as at 1 April 2015. That stands to affirm my stand in Biafra we stand. Long live Biafrans that the world may know that Chukwu Abiama is the Almighty God. Unblock my page and bring justice to the perpetrators of the unjustiable genocide against the Biafrans as well as the full restoration of her sovereignty or face the wrath of God-Chukwu Abiama when it is too late.
Ego is the main reason Britain did what they did to Biafra without thought of what will befall their future generations. Mr. Wilson is gone many years ago. The offspring will bear the sins/atrocities committed by their fathers, so says the Holy Book of all religions. Look at what has happened to Britain in the past few years. A muslin lunatic from the same “niger area” killed an innocent British soldier in broad daylight. However,I was sympathetic to the young soldier killed but how I wish it was Wilson’s family member who was murdered so that the family will test the inhuman treatment of British government. Anyway there is still time for that to happen. My uncle and cousin were murdered through British connivance and I have been praying to the God we worship that all those that were responsible will definitely be paid back in what they did to me and all the people of Biafra. The result of my prayers is on-going and will not stop until Britain seek forgiveness which I know, the brits will never do out of pride. However, brits should know that this is the starting point and will continue forever until justice is done. I doubt if the brits believe that there is God the creator, who made man/woman in His/Her image. Whatever they believe in, they shall receive the full “benefit” of the genocide they committed in Biafra for 200 million pound investment in crude oil found in my ancestor’s land.
shame on britian !
Its not all about the freedom of Biafra rather is all about what comes after it. Applying a diplomatic legal means of breaking up with the present day Nigeria should be considered. Yes,freedom is what everyone needs and what should be given to everyone but the strategytic constitutional means of gaining it should be thought of and not the call for war, loosing life to protect life is what i see as absolute stupidity that is mostly seen among lunatics, Biafrans are not lunatics so they should think twice and consider its effect at the end of successful break up with Nigeria.
I could not refrain ffrom commenting. Perfectly written!
What can I say? I am short of words, But God will surely judge those involved in massacring innocent Biafrans.
I always cry when ever I read about history of BIAFRA ..I will never forgive the British people and my children, children,children,children,children,children will never forgive them..BRITISH WILL NEVER EXPERIENCE PEACE till amen..they will never enjoy what they stole from us with peace of mind ,TERRORIST WILL BE ON THEIR LAND AND TROUBLE THEM TILL AMEN.
I never imagined the British still holding grudges against they Igbo race after their defeat in Ekumeku in the 17th century. I have always known their complicity in the Biafra genocide. Most of our history books conceal these facts. I think it is high time we peaceful part ways from the rest of the colony. Sorry to say this, I don’t envisage her been any other thing. Biafra self determination is legitimate.
They were “knee deep” in the initial plot to overthrow the Saurdana and a lot of the confusing accounts from participants and observers clearly point to that; this lays bare the “kill the Igbos” pogroms in the aftermath of Jan 66 for what they were: “Coverups” of key personnel who were agents of Whitehall who Whitehall didn’t want caught on the wrong side
The connivance of the British government was amply evident even in the initial coup of January 1966, mysterious postings of key personnel and so on. Like all failed plots, they become immediate orphans and this one was not different
Concise,beautiful and well articulated.Thank you curtis for this eye opening revelation on the complicity of The british govt over the genocide meted on Biafrans.
People may say it has been long gone issue but i tell you the problems that culminated into the war is still very evident in 2016,more than 40yeats since the british genocide.But i want to make something very clear here;Biafra will be established and all all the evil generals who participated in the genocide will be put in chains by ICC.
Furthermore,i hereby call on the world and lovers of peace and freedom to voice out by calling for the unconditional release of Mazi Benjamin Onwuka and Director-RADIO BIAFRA,MAZI NNAMDI KANU who are illegally detained by the NiZooria Chief terrorist Muha-mad Osama Buhari, the 21st century Adolph Hitler despite many court orders for their release.
…God bless Nnamdi Kanu
…God bless Ben Onwuka
…Chukwu Okike Abiama bless Biafra and Biafrans..All hail Biafra!!!
So bad, we need our freedom. Biafrans has suffered a lot, the war is still on.
This is truly an eye opener. As a young, Yoruba Nigerian, it is easy to be disconnected from the facts of the Biafran war, because my generation did not live through it. The young people of the country are largely disconnected, in fact, judging by how easily we coexist, unlike the older generation which still bear the scars of the war.
I will say this though: no one was entirely to blame, buy some people bear far more blame than others. From what I read in Mr Curtis’ treatise, it seems clear that there are many things ojukwu could have done differently. The origin of the war must also not be discounted. Both sides bear blame, judging from the failed coup and the Igbo pogroms.
However, it is overwhelmingly clear that the Nigerian government took on the role of shameless aggressor, and the British government was the glue that held the genocide (yes, that’s what it was in the end, no matter what “chukwuemeka ossai” thinks). Who knows what would have happened had the Igbos gained ground and won the war? Would Biafra have been content with winning, and withdrawing to the land they originally fought for? We might be telling a different story now under different circumstances.
But the facts are the facts, and the fact is that in the end Gowon, with the help of the British government, committed a grave injustice for which Nigeria has to answer for. The nation as a whole needs to be better educated about the events of the war, in order to forge a lasting peace, by acknowledging all wrong doing by all parties involved and trying to make amends. And above all, the British government owes Nigeria and unreserved apology.
By the way, the actions of the UK in Biafra and Yemen makes them so much more hypocritical when they stand in the UN now and accuse Russia and Syria of having no shame in relation to Aleppo. So easy to forget the past now that they think they have the moral high ground
Posterity will never forgive the British nevertheless, there will never be tranquility in Nigeria unless Biafra conceded freedom and autonomy from Nigeria the blood of the FALLEN HEROES SHALL NEVER BE IN VEIN.