Personalizing Nigerian history is a favourable past-time for many. This tendency has come out clearly recently on Naijanet, especially regarding the Biafran War of 1967-70. This contribution is, in a way, an embelishment of Ukobasi Orji's rough chronology of the 1966-67 crisis. It also touches on the rejoinder by one other politicIZED scientist, Bolaji Aluko.

On Wed, 19 Apr 1995, Mobolaji E. Aluko wrote in extending Orji's argument:

> (1) WAS OUR OJUKWU MADE INTO A "FALL GUY" HERE ? HOW COULD
> SUCH A FINAL SERIOUS DECISION BE PUT ON ONE SHOULDER ?
> I SUSPECT THAT IT WAS MORE LIKE: LEAD US OR GET OUT
> OF THE WAY ! PERSONAL ACCOUNT (AGAIN MY FATHER)
> INDICATES THAT THE TIDE WAS BY THEN TOO FAR FOR HIM TO STEM,
> AND HE IN FACT FEARED FOR HIS LIFE IF HE DID NOT GO ALONG WITH THE SECESSION.
>
> Bolaji Aluko
>

Aluko's analysis is accurate on this score. His position should have answered a lot of questions. It does not seem to have done so for many who hear with one ear but let what they hear escape through the other. One is not suggesting that the tendency to blame Ojukwu for the war is confined to Naijanet. Some dramatis personae on both sides of the crisis also express this view. For instance, war-time federal commander, Brigadier Ben Adekunle, told *This Week* magazine in 1987 that the war arose out of personality conflict between Ojukwu and Gowon. Two ex-Biafran senior commanders, Col. I.N.C.A. and Col. E.O. (full names withheld), who in 1989 spoke to me on Ojukwu's role in the declaration of Biafra, also centred their analyses on the person of Ojukwu. For reasons that are given in the Footnote below, I had to accept their interpretation of this particular matter. These reasons are derived directly from these men's own separate accounts rendered to me in 1989. Moreover, their accounts are inconsistent with the historical record, that is, the well-known events of 1966-67 and their implications. My failure to accept their interpretations does not detract respect for these men.

Col. I.N.C.A. said that secession was not necessary at the time. He did not say why but gave me the impression that it should be obvious. He refused to elaborate. On the other hand, Col. E.O., said that secession was necessary, but he disagreed with the timing. He did not say why but insisted that "Ojukwu, with his education, would have been able to appease his people until they were ready." Col. E.O. did not say how Ojukwu could have done this, but continued, "That's what we are talking about. ... Why did he join the army with [a] masters [degree]? ... The man was looking for something."

Let us see the merits of Col. E.O.'s analysis. To be sure, Ojukwu was ambitious. He admitted this fact in an interview held in Umuahia on 4 November 1968. This is no news. The lack of ambition is not a virtue. Suffice it to say that in 1967 the question of ambition is secondary to what had happened to easterners and what was happening to them. To date, there has been no conclusive evidence suggesting that Ojukwu was bent on creating Biafra in order to satisfy some inordinate ambition. Available evidence points otherwise. After the initial phase of the pogroms in the north in July-August 1966, Ojukwu urged eastern survivors to return to the north after conferring with his friend, Ado Bayero (the Emir of Kano). (Ojukwu had just appointed this man the Chancellor of the UNN, as a replacement to Zik.) The easterners who heeded Ojukwu's call met more massacres. There is no need to revisit the pogroms of 1966 here. It is sufficient to say, a vast majority of easterners were disenchanted with a Nigeria that did not guarantee them freedom of life and property.

An estimated thirty thousand had been murdered in other parts of Nigeria. Their relatives were not happy. Millions had returned empty-handed as refugees from other parts of Nigeria. Easterners' property had been "abandoned" for looting in other parts of Nigeria. Millions were looking up to Ojukwu to provide the kind of leadership that would lead to the fair resolution of this problem. On 19 October 1966, Gowon imposed a food blockade on Eastern Nigeria. On 31 October, Ojukwu wrote the other military governors inviting them to a meeting either in Port Harcourt or Calabar. The idea was to discuss the problems of course. Meanwhile, he also sent delegates for talks with representatives of other regions. These delegates were talking until the eastern participants felt unsafe to continue, or so they said. But tell me why I should not believe them. On 4 October, Gowon turned down the eastern proposal for confederation. UNN students began to protest chanting that "the push is complete." In effect, they were reminding Ojukwu of his earlier caveat that the east would not secede unless "pushed out".

These demonstrations continued all around the region. On new Years' eve 1967, Ojukwu warned that time was "running out while the ship of state is drifting." These were the circumstances that foreshadowed Aburi. At Aburi, Ojukwu pressed his case. He did so successfully because he had one, not necessarily, as Kirk-Greene put it, that Ojukwu was "the cleverest" or had "skillful histrionics and superior intellectual adroitness." Indeed, this characterization of Ojukwu vis a vis the other actors is true. (In fact, Brigadier Adekunle said that it was because Gowon was indolent.) But I cannot see what Ojukwu could have done if he had no case. Ojukwu went to Aburi as the sole representative of a people struggling for survival. He successfully negotiated self-determination for them. On the other hand, Gowon had ascended the highest throne in the land. He was beginning to feel comfortable in that post. The majrity of non-eastern elites were also comfortable. The fleeing easterners had abandoned property, civil and military positions which people from other parts of the country were quick to fill. While his colleagues of the SMC were wishing away the past, Ojukwu was serious consolidating his argument on that past. Ojukwu's success at Aburi owed more to the logic of immediate circumstances than to his political brinksmanship.

Back in the east, this success shored up Ojukwu's popularity. Rather than offset this popularity, Gowon's unilateral repudiation of the agreements fueled it. The crisis deepened because the interests of the two sides were diametrically opposed, in part, arising from the meddling of external interests. As easterners clamoured "On Aburi We Stand," the rest of the country clamoured for its repudiation. Ojukwu warned in a broadcast that, if by 31 March 1967, the federal side had not implemented Aburi, he would take "whatever measures may be necessary to give effect to those agreements." Ojukwu started to issue the "Survival Edicts" aimed at countering the federal blockade.

The federal government declared a state of emergency in the Eastern Region and announced the creation of 12 states on 26 May 1967. In response, Ojukwu presented three options for the consideration of the Joint Secession of the Council of Chiefs and Elders. These were: (1) accepting the terms of the North and Gowon and, therefore, submitting to the domination of the North; (2) continuing the stalemate and to drift; and (3) to ensure the survival of the people of Eastern Nigeria by asserting their autonomy. It is now history that the assemblymen and chiefs chose the third option. On 30 May 1967, Ojukwu proclaimed the independent state of Biafra. If one accepts the ambition thesis, then the Joint Session had given legitimacy to Ojukwu's inordinate desires.

But one cannot successfully condemn Ojukwu's action in presenting these options without suggesting [viable] alternatives that Ojukwu may have left out in his submission to the Joint Session. Could Ojukwu have postponed secession? In view of the federal government measures, such a postponement would have been unwarranted. For instance, the creation of states was unilateral and designed to undermine the geographical basis of Eastern Nigeria. Apart, from secession, the only option left to Ojukwu was to step down. This would have been dishonorable at a time when Easterners' grievances had not been addressed. In these circumstances, the real option open to Ojukwu was resignation. But this was dishonourable. People who never wished the easterners to live may continue to vent their frustration on Ojukwu for fulfilling a responsibility. This is how Nigerians come across when they scapegoat Ojukwu for leading their war of survival. No one can in good faith single Ojukwu out as a "former rebel," except if we accept that such a person is a crass ignoramus. One does not have to be Igbo or easterner, or their friends to see this fact.

The unpreparedness of Biafra to withstand the rigours of independence at that time was widely known, even by Ojukwu himself. He took time to warn the Joint Session of the grave consequences of secession. (Don't mind that he would tell the world a few days later that no power in "Black Africa" could beat Biafra in war.) Most people in Eastern Nigeria realized that it was better to try and die fighting than just wait to be annihilated. The dangers were real. They were not merely "perceived", as i read often on Naijanet.

Ojukwu realized that the people were not looking for a wimp. A good number of capable officers could have filled the void, had Ojukwu created one. Some of these were the surviving executioners of the January 1966 coup such as Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Chukwuma Nzeogwu, Tim Onwuatuegwu and Ben Gbulie. There were also their Yoruba counterparts who had taken refuge in the east. These were Major Ademoyega, Col. Banjo, Lt. Olafemihon and Lt. Oyewole. All these January officers had no jobs or commands in the army parlance. (To give them commands to Nzeogwu & co. would be to give them power. Their remaining idle was not good as well.) I am sure that the saying, which my elementary school teacher later thought me, "an idle man is a devil's workshop," was already in vogue at the time. The January officers played cards and chequers. Nobody, including Ojukwu, was at ease with these men's presence. They had done it before and could well do it again. Actually, Major General Alex Madiebo, who later became the Biafran Army Commander, grumbles in his book that Ojukwu gave these men a lot of amenities in order to placate them. Proper attention has not been given to the implications the presence of these men may have had on the declaration of Biafra.

Both Col. I.N.C.A. and Col. E.O. were bitter with Ojukwu, for different reasons. Col. I.N.C.A. originally had a privileged position as Biafra's accredited arms purchaser in Lisbon. According to Col. I.N.C.A. himself, Mojekwu, who led a Biafran delegation to Europe, thought that it was absurd that such a well-trained, young major escounced in Europe while others were fighting the war. Col. I.N.C.A. made the necessary connections when Ojukwu recalled him a few days later. As the commander of a Biafran brigade in the bad days in 1968, Col. I.N.C.A. lost so much ground, men and equipment that Ojukwu found it necessary to summon the young colonel to account for his losses in the Oron-Ikot Ekpene-Uyo theartre. While going to meet Ojukwu at the State House, Umuahia, Col. I.N.C.A. did two suspicious things. First, he went with an unusually large convoy of troops. Second, he went in to meet Ojukwu, armed with a signal pistol. He was found to have a small arm when he went in to see Ojukwu, but was arrested. He remained in jail until the end of the war. He told me he had a pen-sized signal pistol, a non-offensive weapon.

Why I took Col. E.O.'s account with a pinch of salt was because he, a Sandhurst-trained regular, disliked all those university graduates, Ojukwu merely included, who "spoiled" the army as a result of political ambition. According to him, it was this section of the offier corps who masterminded the January 1966 coup. Col. E.O. was the Adjutant of the Ikeja-based battalion during that coup. He argued further that it was this ambition that drove Ojukwu into going to war. It is also clear that Col. E.O. did not quite like the prominence that Ojukwu gave to the Biafran officers like Joe Achuzia who had not been regulars in the Nigerian Army. Something else happened which Col.E.O. did not like.

In December 1968, when he was commanding the Otuocha-based 57 Brigade, he went to assume command of the Commando Division on the ostensible recommendation of Ojukwu. He found the Deputy GOC of the division, Col. Conrad Nwawo fully in charge. Col. E.O. went back to Otuocha and to his brigade a bitter man. Another grouse which Col. E.O. expressed against Ojukwu was that "Ojukwu led well, being that he made sure that nobody had any alternative [than to carry on with the war], especially those of us who were senior officers." It was Col. E.O.'s view that Ojukwu ordered the execution of some of his closest friends early during the war in order to instill fear into the Biafran officers. The executed men were Col. Victor Banjo, Major Ifeajuna, Major Philip Alale (Ojukwu's brother-in-law), and the star of the Biafran diplomatic corps, Sam Agbam.

G. Ugo Nwokeji