True, many reasons defeated Ojukwu’s vision for a Republic of Biafra. One, the minority question; secondly, the poverty and frustration question. Thirdly, the perceived sabotage as every opposition to Ojukwu’s view was seen as economic or political sabotage.
Ojukwu slaughtered most of his best brains both in the force and among civilians branding them saboteurs. Col. Victor Banjo and Col. Emmanuel Ifeajuna were executed on the orders of Ojukwu after a chequered tribunal trial in this circumstance.
According to my friend, Barrister Paul Osasunwen Eboigbe, a Benin man and an Abuja based Legal Practitioner, Biafra was a decision reached in panic defended in anger and abandoned in fear: it did the Igbos no good. Barrister Eboigbe may be right but no reasonable leader would fail to do what Ojukwu did, given the circumstances that led to the world. Yes, it was out of anger but Ojukwu was not wrong to stand to defend his own people who would not see reason and passion or patriotism. Millions of Easterners including Niger Deltans were slaughtered in the consequent 30months civil war.
On June 1st, 1969, Ojukwu made the historic Ahiara Declaration in Ahiara in Mbaise now in Imo state the declaration criticized corruption in Nigeria and in Biafra. It encouraged the people of Biafra to persist in their efforts, assuring them of the moral value of their sacrifices.
Ojukwu was quoted as saying “The Biafran Revolution is committed to creating a society not torn by class consciousness and class antagonisms. Biafran society is traditionally equalitarian. The possibility for social immobility is always present in our society. The new Biafran social order rejects all rigid classifications of society. Anyone with imagination, anyone with integrity, anyone who works hard, can rise to any height”
However, even after such declaration the internal racism against the non-Igbos within the enclave of Biafra was unbearable and unimaginable. The minorities; to wit, the Ogonis, the Ijaws, the Effiks, the Ibibios, the Ikwerres, the Annangs, the Ogojas, who before the crisis that led to the war were demanding for a separate region from Eastern Region were constantly humiliated. They were seen as the brothers and sisters of Isaac Jasper Adaka Boro who had earlier declared the Niger Delta Republic in a 12day Revolution which was crumbed and crushed by particularly the Eastern Regional military might; in clear opposition to the Boro’s struggle.
The minorities were seen as brothers and sisters of Diete spiff who was appointed as military Governor of Rivers State newly created to frustrate the Biafran agenda.
The minority tribes were seen as brother and sisters of young Ken Saro Wiwa who was a commissioner for education in the newly created Rivers state and who was an administrator for Bonny a position that was akin to that of a Governor at the beginning of the war.
It was reported that the Ogonis were especially selected and persecuted. Infact, some post civil war books stated that the minority tribes were really hunted because of the roles of their kinsmen on the side of the federal government. It was here the epithet; “Ogoni piopio” came as a mark of disregard and total mockery of the entire Ogoni race by the Igbos.
Their men who were conscripted into the Biafran army were deliberately forced to the battle front to face the cruel ballistic missiles of the Federal force. They were killed and slaughtered at the battle fields like beasts of burden. The ones who were littered in various Ibo villages were maltreated, malhandled and their women raped and even taken away by Biafran soldiers.
My father told me how Biafran soldiers would just invade every camp or settlements of the non-Ibo refugees, hunting for able bodied men or sometime, any man or youth at all and force them to the war fronts without any adequate training. My dad said they were given names as saboteurs, underdogs, animals etc. Their crime was simply that some of their brothers were in support of Nigeria.
However, it is interesting to note that some other beautiful Ogoni brains were on the Biafran side, people like the late A.T. Baddey who was a director in Eastern Region, the late Chief Edward Nna Kobani and the late Ignatius Kogbara who was even a Biafran Ambassador in London. The solidarity of these great Ogoni men for the Biafran war did not by any means quench the Ogoni Piopio syndrome and the untrammeled molestation of the Ogoni people. The story of the Effik/Ibibio whose kinsman was the second in command to Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu was not different as the same hostility was meted to them. It was really hell for the non-Igbos during the war. Now supposing the Biafran secession was a success, verily, I say unto you that the present day south/south people would have remained in the bondage of the core Biafrans. This I say with due respect to my friends from Igbo. The truth is bitter but it remains the truth. There was no spirit of unity in the Biafran territory as these injustices meted to the south/south people who found themselves on the Biafran divide led to the minority question. The minorities were now asking the pertinent questions; what is our place in the Biafran struggle? What goal are we fighting to achieve? Are we really fighting our war? Or we are only being used to fight another’s course? How did the war begin? What culminated into the war? Were we actually consulted? Supposing we were consulted what was our resolve? to fight? If to fight, what becomes our fate after the war? What is the linqua franca of Biafra? Can we speak same? If we cannot speak the Biafran language, how can we be brought into the main stream? Why are we maltreated if Biafra belongs to all of us? Infact, questions were numerous and dazzling.
There was thus an internal and secret struggle within struggle for the emancipation of the non-Igbos in Biafra. Those who were seen as the arrow head of this struggle were of course treated as coupists or anti-Ojukwu. Of course, the punishment for such dissidents was a death sentence.
Barr. Gideon Kpoobari Girigiri
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