There Was a Country: A Memoir

by Chinua Achebe

  Nzimiro always had trouble with the establishment from his Nnamdi Azikiwe youth wing “Zikist days.” He did not like the direction Nigeria was going in, and he had no trouble expressing his dissenting views. He was perhaps the youngest representative on the local government council in those days, and he was very well-known everywhere for his radical positions. He was educated in Germany and England, and his escapades were legendary. His stories kept us all laughing for weeks.

  Nzimiro disappeared in the middle of our writing the Ahiara Declaration, and we were all very concerned. One day we were informed that the police had locked him up. Apparently he had gotten into an argument with a police officer who did not care for his radical views. Insults were exchanged and Nzimiro was subsequently arrested. Emmanuel Obiechina told me what was going on. So we went to Ojukwu and informed him of what was happening to a member of our committee. Ojukwu called the chief of police, and we went to the police station to pick up our ultraradical colleague.

  On June 1, 1969, very close to the end of the war, Ojukwu finally delivered this major speech, the Ahiara Declaration. It was an attempt to capture the meaning of the struggle for Biafran sovereignty. He provided a historical overview of the events that had led to the secession from Nigeria and the founding of the Republic of Biafra. The speech was as notable for its concentration on a number of issues that Biafra stood for—such as the rights to liberty, safety, excellence, and self-determination—as it was for the things the republic was against: genocide, racism, imperialism, and ethnic hatred, which were squarely condemned. The speech also decried the blockade of Biafra imposed by the federal government of Nigeria that was creating an avoidable humanitarian crisis, particularly among children, who were dying in the hundreds daily, and attacked the support of Nigeria by the major world powers.

  The day this declaration was published and read by Ojukwu was a day of celebration in Biafra. My late brother Frank described the effect of this Ahiara Declaration this way: “Odika si gbabia agbaba” (“It was as if we should be dancing to what Ojukwu was saying”). People listened from wherever they were. It sounded right to them: freedom, quality, self-determination, excellence. Ojukwu read it beautifully that day. He had a gift for oratory.

  The Biafran State

  I would like to say something about the structure of the Biafran state. The Republic of Biafra took its name from the Bight of Biafra, the vast expanse of water covering the continental shelf into which the Niger River empties before flowing into the Gulf of Biafra. After Biafra’s surrender that body of water was renamed the Gulf of Guinea. The origins of the word “Biafra” are difficult to trace, although historical records point to Portuguese writings from the sixteenth century that it may have been derived from.

  The republic’s capital was initially Enugu, a metropolis of over one hundred thousand at the time. It was also known as the coal city, a reference to the nearby Onyeama Coal Mines and other coal deposits that once served as the fuel that drove a large part of the Nigerian economy. Enugu was also the old administrative capital of the Eastern Region. A well-planned, sedate capital, it had a pleasant climate and the advantages of all the amenities of an important urban center without the pathologies of a large conurbation.

  When Enugu fell to the Nigerian army on October 4, 1967, the administrative capital of Biafra was moved to Umuahia. Following the capture of Umuahia on April 22, 1969, Biafra’s capital was moved once again, to Owerri, the last administrative seat before the end of the war in January 1970.1

  The population of Biafra in June 1967 was just under fifteen million people, and it was home to a large number of ethnic groups in addition to the Igbo, who made up about 65 percent of the population. The other major groups were the Efik, Ibibio, Ijaw, and Ikwerre. Others included the Andoni, Agbo, Degema, Egbema, Eket, Ekoi, Ibeno, Ikom, Iyalla, Kana, Mbembe, Uyanga, and Yako.2

  Biafra was divided initially into eleven administrative provinces with as many administrators. Later that number was expanded to twenty.3

  Once secession was declared it became clear that the war effort required a great deal of military equipment—artillery, planes, boats, tanks, guns, grenades, mines, bombs, etc. Biafra needed a means to access foreign exchange and a legal tender for commerce. One of the first things the new government did was to establish the Bank of Biafra.

  The Bank of Biafra was located in Enugu until the city fell in October 1967, and then it was moved several times to different locations all over Igbo land, with the seat of government. The bank’s first governor was Dr. Sylvester Ugoh.4

  The legal tender produced by the institution in January 1968 was designed by Simon Okeke and other talented local artists.5 The first denominations were the five shilling and one pound notes. About a year later, the ten, five, and one pound as well as the ten and five shilling notes were issued. The currency was widely accepted in Biafra, although it was unavailable in large quantities, which quickly made it a prized possession. Despite its usefulness, it was not a recognized legal tender beyond Biafra’s borders and could not be used for foreign exchange. This dilemma produced a number of challenges for the Biafran government, which, we were told, used private bank accounts of wealthy Biafrans to perform transactions abroad.

  THE BIAFRAN FLAG

  The flag of the Republic of Biafra was based on the Pan-Africanist teachings of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL). Garvey was a towering and controversial figure, a major Pan-Africanist thinker and civil rights pioneer at the beginning of the twentieth century, and his philosophy, known as Garveyism, was widely admired by many Africans. It was Garvey’s organization that first came up with the tricolored morphology of the Pan-African flag, with three horizontal bands, red, black, and green, to symbolize the common ancestry and political aspirations of all black people around the world. Kenya, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Malawi are just some of the many African and Caribbean nations that adopted variations of this flag.

  The red in Garvey’s conception highlighted the blood that links all people of African ancestry, as well as blood shed during slavery and liberation struggles around the globe. In the Biafran context it was used to represent blood shed during the pogroms and the quest for independence.

  The black was seen as the affirmation of “an African nation State” by the UNIA-ACL. In Biafra, it was a symbolic ancestral connection to souls of years past. The green in both Garvey’s and Biafra’s concepts stood for Africa’s abundant natural wealth and resources, and its radiant future. The Biafran flag also highlighted these aspirations with a rising golden sun and rays representing the eleven original provinces in the republic.6

  THE BIAFRAN NATIONAL ANTHEM

  The Nigeria-Biafra War led to an explosion of musical, lyrical, and poetic creativity and artistry. Biafra’s founders tapped into this energy and commissioned a number of regimental drills, duty songs, and cadences7 that they hoped would “spur armies to victory and excite the populace to political and economic vitality.”8

  The Biafran national anthem, “Land of the Rising Sun,” was based on a powerful poem by Nigeria’s first president, Nnamdi Azikiwe, called “Onitsha Ado N’Idu: Land of the Rising Sun.”9 Laced with irony, the poem contained several phrases that would become all too prophetic: “But if the price is death for all we hold dear, / Then let us die without a shred of fear. . . . / Spilling our blood we’ll count a privilege; . . . / We shall remember those who died in mass; . . .”10

  The anthem was set to the beautiful music of the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius11—Finlandia (Be Still My Soul)—a personal favorite of, and calculated choice by, Ojukwu, “in reference to the Nordic country’s resistance to foreign domination.”12

  Later, after Azikiwe withdrew his support for the breakaway republic, we would learn that there was some controversy over the adaptation of Azikiwe’s poetry. According to Zik, Ojukwu had used his work w
ithout permission, a charge the Biafran head of state vigorously denied.13

  The Biafra National Anthem

  LAND OF THE RISING SUN14

  Land of the rising sun, we love and cherish, beloved homeland of our brave heroes; we must defend our lives or we shall perish,

  We shall protect our hearth from all our foes; but if the price is death for all we hold dear,

  Then let us die without a shred of fear.

  Hail to Biafra, consecrated nation,

  Oh fatherland, this is our solemn pledge: Defending thee shall be a dedication, spilling our blood we’ll count a privilege;

  The waving standard which emboldens the free shall always be our flag of liberty.

  We shall emerge triumphant from this ordeal, and through the crucible unscathed we’ll pass;

  When we are poised the wounds of battle to heal, we shall remember those who died in mass;

  Then shall our trumpets peal the glorious song of victory we scored o’er might and wrong.

  Oh God, protect us from the hidden pitfall, Guide all our movements lest we go astray; Give us the strength to heed the humanist call:

  “To give and not to count the cost” each day; Bless those who rule to serve with resoluteness, to make this clime a land of righteousness.15

  THE MILITARY

  Biafra had only two thousand troops at the beginning of the war. Most of the soldiers were former Nigerian army soldiers—Easterners who were based in Enugu and other former Nigerian military bases in the east. General Philip Effiong, Biafra’s chief of general staff, quickly recruited an additional twenty thousand men and created a separate Biafran militia of civilian volunteers, who received on-the-spot training. The Biafrans were devoid of any heavy military equipment apart from that of the former Nigerian battalion stationed in Enugu, Saracen armored cars, and 105 millimeter howitzers.16 Federick Forsyth recalls in an excellent BBC documentary, Biafra: Fighting a War Without Guns, that Biafran soldiers marched into war one man behind the other because they had only one rifle between them, and the thinking was that if one soldier was killed in combat the other would pick up the only weapon available and continue fighting.17

  The Biafrans were completely outgunned compared to the Nigerians. The Soviet Union and Britain not only supplied Nigeria with brand-new MIG-17 and II-28 Beagle (Ilyushin) jets but also with Soviet T-34 battle tanks, antiaircraft guns, AK-47 rifles, machine guns, grenades, mines, bombs, etc.18

  In light of this imbalance of resources, international support for Biafra was crucial. Arguably the most notable of all the Europeans that came to the aid of Biafra was Carl Gustaf von Rosen. He was a Swedish nobleman and World War II veteran. Von Rosen became a legend in the 1930s when he volunteered to fly Red Cross relief supplies into Ethiopia and fight for Emperor Haile Selassie against the Italians.19 He again came into the world’s consciousness as the pilot of the much admired United Nations secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld, who was widely regarded as a “dove of peace.” Hammarskjöld “mysteriously” died in an air crash while serving as the chief mediator of the Congo crisis of the 1960s, unfortunately at a time when his much trusted pilot, von Rosen, was ill.

  It was von Rosen’s Biafran involvement, however, that truly catapulted him to worldwide recognition. Von Rosen was outraged by the injustice of the war and Nigeria’s imposition of an economic blockade on the Republic of Biafra, and he was moved to come to the aid of the suffering. It was in part because of this brave man’s involvement that the world was motivated to pay attention to this conflict in a heretofore forgotten part of the world. Von Rosen bore witness to the atrocities and humanitarian emergency in Biafra, and his public statements and influence propelled a number of Western relief agencies to respond to the crisis.20

  He led multiple relief flights with humanitarian aid into Uli airport—Biafra’s chief airstrip. Fed up with Nigerian air force interference with his peaceful missions, he entered the war heroes hall of fame after leading a five-plane assault on Nigerian aircraft in Port Harcourt, Benin City, Ughelli, Enugu, and some other locations. He took the Nigerian air force by total surprise and destroyed several Soviet-supplied aircraft in the process.21

  The Biafran air force was composed of a B-26, a B-25, and three helicopters22 until Carl Gustaf von Rosen23 came to the republic’s assistance in 1968. By year’s end the government of Biafra had procured a moderate amount of military ammunition from the neighboring former French colonies of Ivory Coast and Gabon.

  Indeed, Paris’s ambassador to Gabon at the time of war, Maurice Delauney, worked with Jacques Foccart’s deputy, Jean Mauricheau-Beaupré—described by French journalist Pierre Péan as the “chief conductor of clandestine French support to the Biafran secessionists”—to supply arms to Ojukwu’s army.24

  Uli airport was the major airport in Biafra for military and relief goods at the height of the war, and it was described by various authorities as one of the busiest airports in Africa, with more than 50 flights a night.25

  Uli airport, originally part of a major highway, had been cut into the countryside in the middle of a tropical rainforest and operated mainly at night. I recall the airport’s traffic control terminal, passenger facilities, and hangars were constructed in such a manner that the entire runway and all of the planes on the ground could be heavily camouflaged with palm leaves and raffia fronds during the day, disguising it from Nigerian army aircraft reconnaissance missions and radar.26 At night the airport became a beehive of activity. Incoming flights carrying relief supplies, particularly from international locations such as São Tomé, Abidjan in Ivory Coast, and Libreville, Gabon, were given the airport’s coordinates after appropriate background checks were done. Pilots who were involved in the airlifts of relief supplies provided a compelling story:

  In the middle of the vast expanse of tropical rainforest, we would be told to descend from our cruising altitude to about two thousand feet to avoid enemy fire, barely atop the forest in the pitch dark. All of a sudden, bright floodlights appeared from nowhere, illuminating the forest floor. Right before us was a breathtaking sight—an entire airport appearing from nowhere!27

  OGBUNIGWE

  The economic blockade enforced by Gowon led to great ingenuity and some unprecedented innovations. Biafran scientists from the research think tank RAP—the Biafran Research and Production unit—developed a great number of rockets, bombs, and telecommunications gadgets, and devised an ingenious indigenous strategy to refine petroleum.28

  Still, some of these innovations deserve particular attention, though in doing so I would like to make it crystal clear that I abhor violence, and a discussion of weapons of war does not imply that I am a war enthusiast or condone violence.

  Perhaps no more important instrument of war lay at the disposal of the Biafrans than the bomb called “Ogbunigwe.” Gordian Ezekwe, Benjamin Chukwuka Nwosu, and the less well-known technician Willy Achukwe were among the group of originators of this notorious weapon. Ogbunigwe would later become widely adopted and manufactured by the RAP engineers. The bomb was a complex three-chamber apparatus that often included delayed action devices containing a propellant, an explosive substance—often gunpowder in an igniting base—and scraps of metal for maximal effect. Ogbunigwe bombs struck great terror in the hearts of many a Nigerian soldier, and were used to great effect by the Biafran army throughout the conflict.29 The novelist Vincent Chukwuemeka Ike captures the hysteria and dread evoked by it in a passage in his important book Sunset at Dawn: A Novel about Biafra:

  When the history of this war comes to be written, the ogbunigwe [sic] and the shore batteries will receive special mention as Biafra’s greatest saviors. We’ve been able to wipe out more Nigerians with those devices than with any imported weapons. . . .

  You must have heard that the Nigerians are now so mortally afraid of ogbunigwe [sic] that each advancing battalion is now preceded
by a herd of cattle.30

  BIAFRAN TANKS

  The first Biafran “tanks” turned out to be steel-reinforced Range Rovers. By their third incarnation these armored fighting vehicles, or AFVs, had become quite sophisticated, with rocket launchers added.

  Let me give one more dimension of what we were hoping to do in Biafra, and what this freedom and independence was supposed to be like. We were told, for instance, that technologically we would have to rely for a long, long time on the British and the West for everything. European oil companies insisted that oil-industry technology was so complex that we would never ever in the next five hundred years be able to figure it out. We knew that wasn’t true. In fact, we learned to refine our own oil during the two and a half years of the struggle, because we were blockaded. We were able to demonstrate that it was possible for African people, entirely on their own, to refine oil.31

  We were able to show that Africans could pilot their own planes. There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, that a Biafran plane landed in another African country, and the pilot and all of the crew came out, and there was not a white man among them. The people of this other country—which is a stooge of France—couldn’t comprehend a plane being landed without any white people. They said, “Where is the pilot? Where are the white people?” They arrested the crew, presuming there had been a rebellion in the air!