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KWENU! Our culture, our future |
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Enduring experiences, lasting legacies# The relevance of the Biafra story in a developing Nigeria
M. O. Ené*
Sunday, April 13, 2003
INTRODUCTION I invited myself to the book launching when Alfred Uzokwe announced he would publish his wartime experiences in Biafra; but, sincerely speaking, I did not bargain to be so honored at this august, spring occasion. Be careful what you seek; you might just get a whole lot more! So what qualifies me to deliver this keynote address? First and foremost, to quote General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, “I am involved.”1 Second, I am a student of African history, and I have amassed a wealth of words in post-Biafran literature. Third, in the past seven years, I have spent time and resources preaching that we must revisit Biafra to heal and to learn its many lessons. Fourthly and finally but by no mean the least, this is my history and our untold story.
I took an interest in Uzokwe’s work at the same time I was reading the manuscript of a similar work, Unbroken Spirit,2 that partly zeroed in on the Biafran experience. This development signaled to me that Biafran babies are now ready to share their enduring experiences. Previous writings of this generation are mostly factionalized,3 fictionalized,4 depersonalized,5 or designed to take issues with what is already out there.6 Today, we witness the outing of Alfred Uzokwe’s Surviving in Biafra,7 100% fact, 0% fiction, and fully devoted to the Nigeria-Biafra War era. This is but a tip of the looming and welcoming mounting of works of Biafrans babes, who lost their youth and lived with their stories and the pains for over three decades.
BIAFRA Biafra is a legacy of life, a harrowing human heritage.8 Let this be known: No Biafran wanted that war. The Biafran government did not start the war. However, one way or another, there was going to be a critical crisis of sorts to resolve some stubborn issues in the marriage of colonial disingenuousness, which midwifed Nigeria as-is on January 1, eighty-nine years ago -- the so-called “Mistake of 1914.” It happened, beginning four decades ago with the elections of 1963, similar to what is going on today in Nigeria as we speak, through coups and countercoups to an anti-Igbo Pogrom most insidious. However, this presentation is not about details of the Nigeria-Biafra War. There is so much of the war out there, yet there is very little; so, of Biafra we must talk.
The Igbo people and, to a large extent, their neighboring nations in southeastern Nigeria, are the true Nigerians. They would have invented a bigger Nigeria if the British had not knocked up the current contraption! Why then was breakaway Biafra necessary? Venerated Nwalimu, Julius Kambarage Nyerere, summed it up in 1967:
Biafrans have now suffered the same kind of rejection within their state that the Jews of Germany experienced. Fortunately they already had a homeland. They have retreated to it for their own protection, and for the same reason - after all other efforts had failed - they have declared it to be an independent state.9
On July 6, 1967, Colonel Yakubu Gowon declared war on a people so morally wounded and so psychologically scarred they were incapable of hurting a fly. Brigadier Victor Banjo, a Yoruba officer caught up on the Biafra side, told Wole Soyinka in 1966: “The Igbo were not a danger to anyone. The May and July murders had sapped their capacity to make any serious trouble.” 10 Gowon unleashed what he called a “police action”; on the other hand, Biafrans saw it as the “final solution” hatched while the world still watched -- the extermination of a race. So Biafrans tapped into their spirit of survival and fought back. They survived as a people; many died to assure that we are here today with our heads held high. As George Orwell put it, “I believe that it is better even from the point of survival to fight and be conquered than to surrender without fighting.”
WAR IS RAW; NO WAR IS CIVIL War is wrong; no one wants it, but it happens. Thus, when the unholy Anglo-Arab-Soviet alliance came to town, Biafrans fought long and hard. At one point, it was obvious to the Western powers that an indigenous African power would emerge in Biafra and that the regime in Lagos could not stop it. France, which was nominally supportive, suddenly became reluctant; it failed to offer full and overt support. The French deputy foreign minister Ambassador Raymond Offroy had this to say: “Before I came to Biafra, I was told Biafrans fought like heroes. But now I know that heroes fought like Biafrans.”11 Major Williams, one of the long-lasting and better Biafran mercenaries, told Frederick Forsyth on August 25, 1968: “I’ve seen a lot of Africans at war. But there is nobody to touch these people. Give me 10,000 Biafrans for six months, and we’ll build an army that would be invincible on this continent.” 12 With what we have witnessed in Iraq these past three weeks and knowing that never in the history of modern warfare has there been such a deep disparity in firepower and manpower as in the Nigeria-Biafra War, that Biafran army would have been world-class. I know; I was there for three years.
Thereafter, the table turned. The blockade of Biafra, in furtherance of the use of food as a weapon of war, demoralized and crippled the new nation. It injected the mortal virus that eventually killed the inventive genius of Biafran scientists and the fighting spirit of Biafran soldiers. The Catholic relief agency Caritas, World Council of Churches, volunteer American and Swedish pilots, and ordinary people all over the world sat up and watched no more. They did something about it. Swedish nobleman and veteran pilot, Count Carl Gustaf von Rosen, saw enough to make him stop pleading with the Lagos regime for reason. Since he could no longer sit and watch the choking of beleaguered Biafra, he took to the air to check the menace of mercenary pilots with the now legendary “Biafran Babies,” 13
Biafra became an issue in the presidential campaign of 1968, with Richard Nixon taking the high road in accusing the State Department of “not doing enough to ease civilian suffering in the besieged” Biafra.14 However, when Nixon took over, his campaign outrage amounted to nothing. Why the US State Department conveniently “never succeeded in establishing an independent relief program,” as Henry Kissinger put it, is obvious: British Prime Minister Harold “Wilson influenced Nixon’s policy to a degree and curbed our interventionist impulses.” 15 Thanks to Senator Edward Kennedy and others like him, Biafra remained in the conscience of moral America until the Biafra-Nigeria War ended on January 12, 1970.
Writing on the cost of the war, Edwin O. Reischauer stated:
None of us need to be reminded of the great cost to us of the war -- to say nothing of the suffering it is causing…. We pay first in the lives of our young men and in the sorrow and suffering of their families and friends. We pay in diversion of so much of our national wealth to destructive purposes, wealth we would rather see used for urgent constructive tasks.… We pay dearly for national unity…. We pay a high price for our relations with other parts of the world. 16
You would think that he was writing about Biafra. He might as well have been. In this case, the former American Ambassador to Japan from April 1961 until August 1966 was writing about the “The lessons of Vietnam” in 1997. In Biafra, the situation was worse. The use of hunger as a weapon of war was the worst war act committed by a constituted authority since Nazi Germany gassed Jews in ovens. As in the savagery of Sudan, or as in the ravages of Rwanda, the world watched it happen and allowed General Gowon to go on with the one-Nigeria mantra, to which he was a convert post-July 29, 1966.
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN Nigeria has made so many wrong turns on the fabled fork in the road to nationhood. A tawdry turn in 1970 probably took us way off the course of destiny. In a classic case of cutting off our nose to spite our nose, Gowon hunkered down to “killing” Biafra. Professor Godian Ezekwe and other famed Biafran scientists from Biafra’s Research and Production (RAP) agency were totally demoralized and later herded into the Project Development Agency (PRODA) in Enugu. In a country awash with money, PRODA was titillated with promises, but nothing was forthcoming. University of Nigeria, Nsukka had been destroyed, its library looted and burnt; Oji River hydrothermal Power Station that had supplied power to the entire east and beyond was crippled to this day. Nigerian Cement Factory, Nkalagu and Niger Steel, Emene were down and out. The Federal Government sited steel factories in out-of-way locations outside the East. Oh, the Metallurgical Institute is at Onitsha! Recognition eluded those who made scientific strides. A good example was Professor Augustine Njoku-Obi who, straight from the labs of Biafran ingenuity, invented the cholera vaccine. [As his wake takes place tonight in my New Jersey neighborhood, our prayers go with his family; may his soul rest peacefully.]
The attitude of the Federal Government is summed up by Brigadier-General Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia, who weighed in recently with a firsthand experience.
“After the civil war, while I was Military Governor of Midwest State, I quickly got Chief Salubi and Dr. Nwariaku to assemble in Benin some of our Igbo brothers who had, through ingenuity, refined petrol through locally made refinery in the East. These people had also converted tipper lorries into armored tanks, among many other incredible feats. I designed a programme that will ensure the utilization of their brains while they were still fresh and hot, for the good of the country. Surprisingly, I was summoned to the Supreme Headquarters and directed to suspend actions as this may be seen as an attempt to resurrect Biafra." 17 `
Professor Eugene Arene, one of the bright brains of Biafra’s indigenous technological revolution has this to say: I can make the assertion here that if what the ‘Biafran' Scientists had achieved in weaponry and general civilian goods manufactures (without any foreign technicians and inputs) and the tempo with which they did those things, had been copied by Nigeria at the end of the Civil War in January 1970, when Gowon made his famous quote 'no victor, no vanquished,’ Nigeria might not now be where it is scientifically and technologically, still very dependent on foreign inputs (in raw materials and personnel) for virtually all its so-called scientific and technological advances. 18
It is now that the no-victor-no-vanquished begins to make a modicum of sense. Thirty-three years later, we see that Africa lost an excellent opportunity to move along with others into the new technological millennium. Biafra was the best bet for indigenous African industrialization. Imagine what Biafra would have been today with the Internet technology, which many of its sons and daughters helped to found and nurture. Biafra lost the war, no doubt about it; but, sadly and shamefully, Nigeria lost the peace of a revolution that could have restored the dignity of the African. And this happened because some men blinded by pathetic pettiness and malignant myopia allowed the Sun to set and snuff out the wind beneath the wings of progress. Writing recently in Thisday of February 16, 2003 and on Nigeriaworld, Wale Adebanwi reminds us of the power of Biafran bang: Apart from catching up with the Yoruba in the area of education and even surpassing them in the 1950s, the dominant, but short-lived… state of Biafra, within 30 months, could claim to have established the first technologically efficient, aggressively modern, putative Black power, which technological effectiveness, mental resourcefulness, and human endurance in the pursuit of set goals, remain to be equalled, let alone surpassed, in contemporary African history. 19
Any wonder Nigeria remains in a puddle of stagnation when within its borders it has many of the best brains in Africa. Pini Jason recently called it squarely: “One of the things standing between Nigeria and greatness is the fear of freeing itself from the fear of the Igbo. Nigeria cannot be free until it agrees that the Igbo must be free, for as they say, you cannot keep a man down without staying down.” 20 This is true because, as our ancestral sages observed, the goat that lies on the ground is actually lying on its hide.
LASTING LESSONS OF BIAFRA Arthur Nwankwo wrote in 1970, “The traumatic bitterness of the [Nigeria-Biafra] war is rich with lessons for toleration and understanding.” 21 We must all come to terms with what actually happened during the War. That way, jaw-jaw warriors and warmongers would know when to stop, when to walk away, and when not to push people to the edge of endurance. If Nigeria had settled down to the sacrament of healing in the 70s or 80s… or even in mid 90s -- as I had proposed, we would not have the sad society of today. The lifelong lesson of Biafra is that all Nigerian nations must resolve to pursue peaceful solutions to their perennial problems and to end enduring and endemic ethnic enmities.
In human history, many nations at some point would take up arms and try to induce desired conclusions. Interestingly, the same conclusions are possible in a conference room. Crises do not always have to end in violence. There are two model responses to tyranny: one is to demonize and seek to eliminate [as in America’s view of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein]; the other is to tolerate evil in our midst and hope that our good will triumph [as in America’s attitude to Cuba’s Fidel Castro]. Both approaches are wrong, since they seldom lead to lasting peace. 22 Those who seek permanent peace must prepare for war; true, but we can also prime our preparations and preparedness for peaceful outcomes without violence. 23 Therefore, based on the enduring experiences and lasting lessons of the War, the following relevant roadmap is recommended in such multinational African country as developing Nigeria to help its nations jumpstart their economies and logon to the road to El Dorado.
1. Balance of terror: If Gowon had known that his “police action” would meet such stiff opposition from Biafra, he would have thought twice before starting a war. He could have been routed by Biafran forces were it not for the elaborate sabotage of the Mid West Campaign by the “Third Force,” spearheaded by Brigadier Victor Banjo, Colonel Emmanuel Ifeajuna, and Professor Wole Soyinka and coordinated in Benin City by British diplomatic details. Then there was the Anglo-Soviet alliance and America’s Vietnam. The self-evident truth of the Nigeria-Biafra War is that no ethnic entity, no matter how small, should be debased, dehumanized, and savagely subjugated to persistent persecutions without rebellious reactions. The Niger-Delta nightmare is a good example, and I am happy that the Federal Government is now talking peace, not sending in the military might as in Odi.
2. Purposeful patriotism: Nigerian nations must learn the basic rules of power political play: No permanent foes, no permanent friends -- just permanent interests. Screaming “marginalization” or pointing fingers at imaginary bloc bandits is flawed, false, and futile. Accusing another ethnic group of pulling a fast one is a waste of energy; it could happen again while we moan and groan. What we should do is to work for the general good with those who harbor similar interests, those who are committed to getting the goods and to sharing the so-called “national cake” equitably.
3. Position of strength: Nations must have dependable accounts of human and material resources and make deliberate efforts to improve on their technological expertise, regardless of countrywide levels of development. Competition is good; besides, the ground squirrel says that those who walk must occasionally break into a strut in case the need to run arises. The great Biafra advances notwithstanding, the hurried and ad-hoc identification and utilization of resources derailed runaway triumph. In Nigeria, resources were grossly underutilized, making dependence on mercenaries and imports standard modus operandi.
4. Power of freedom: It is foolish to copy archaic feudalism just to whip up a show of ethnic unity. Man was created to be free -- to live free and to die happy within set state rules he could influence. Any constraint on this virtue is a surefire path to tyranny, which is anathema to the Igbo psyche. It is therefore desirable that we stand with any people whose freedom is compromised. There was no excuse for the silence and/or participation of many Nigerian nations in the anti-Igbo Pogrom. By their nature, the Igbo are the least likely to go to war. Traditionally, they have no organized army; they have no police force; they have no prisons; and they have no king -- and they needed none. In a society where everyone has the right to talk sense and nonsense and others have the right to disagree, the power of freedom for all is a virtue we must always defend. Today, therefore, there is no excuse for the deafening silence over the Niger Delta bloodbath. I encourage Nigerians not to turn away -- hearing nothing, seeing nothing, saying nothing, and doing nothing.
5. Religion: At the root of every culture is religion; it closes the gap between our present realities and the great beyond. Even though organized religions have their flaws and freckles, every African nation must revisit its religiosity based on its culture, not on revealed religions of the Middle East or on the dictated doctrines of Maharajas and Mullahs. The elasticity of traditional African creeds is enormous; unfortunately, the African embraced Christianity and Islam indiscriminately and injected these divisive foreign faiths into an already explosive environment of ethnic enmity.
6. Purposeful productivity: It’s all well and good to produce material goods, but goods that contribute to the degradation of the environment and social decay only sap the energy for purposeful productivity. Biafran Research and Production (RAP) showed the world that necessity is indeed the mother of invention, but only if you have the position of strength and purposeful patriotism, respectively the salt and pepper of purposeful productivity.
7. Passive resistance: Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi showed conclusively that an organized mass’s disregard of oppressive laws spells the beginning of its end and that there is no jail big enough to lock up an entire nation. If Nigerians had invested in such organized and peaceful protests, either for their nations or for others being oppressed, the national conference would have become a fait accompli. The major mistake of post-Biafra was that its last leaders folded up like General Robert E. Lee. The Federal army had instilled so much fear; nothing else inspired courage. Yet, a society devoid of any resistance to tyranny and torture is too dangerous to live in for one day!
8. New weapons: Nigeria attacked Biafra so ferociously in late 1969 to stop its development of biochemical warfare and long-distant rockets. Sounds familiar? Britain’s Harold Wilson ordered an immediate end to Biafra. The United States frowned, but Kissenger’s “curtain of silence” descended and prevailed on Nixon not to lose sight of “our long-term interests.” And the rest is history. The war of the future will require new weapons for balance-of-terror purposes, especially on the information superhighway. Malcolm X was right: “The future belongs to those who prepare for it today."
9. Social Jujitsu: I hate it when writers point the Igbo to the Yoruba or the Yoruba to the Hausa or the Hausa to the Fulani. No Nigerian nation is the same as the other. The Igbo, for example, are rugged republicans and consummate capitalists grounded by a sophisticated society that abhors ideational individualism -- even when you can be all you want to be, as granted by your personal providence, Chi. A lesson of Biafra is that we can strengthen the weaknesses of our perceived persecutors to accomplish desired changes in them. Any nation with enduring superior values should strive to influence the attitude of Nigerians toward true democracy, scientific advancement, and socioeconomic revolution. No matter how we slice it, Biafra still awes and shocks. It should not; we should use its lasting lessons and enduring experiences to make Nigeria and, indeed, all Africa a better society.
10. Equivalent-of-war environment: Our ancestors enjoined us to be eternally vigilant when surrounded by enemies. If what it took to bring out the best in Biafra is war, then we might as well create its equivalent to bring out the best in Nigeria. An equivalent-of-war environment is an enabling environment for political, moral, economic, and technological advancement of societies. It should be designed to address and release the creative ingenuity that saw nations jump onto the front row with state-of-the-art inventions. Before he embarked on unnecessary territorial expansionism, Herr Adolf Hitler used the lingering pain of World War I defeat of Germany to build autobahns and superior automotive technologies. America took full advantage of the Cold War; the Internet, bunker-busting bombs, anti-missile Patriot Missile, GMS, and GPS are some of the known outcomes. The environment I propose will not release inventive geniuses without a leadership devoted to the people and to progress in society, as was provided by peerless General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu.
BEYOND BIAFRA I am happy Alfred did not title his book “Surviving Biafra.” In the wise words of Lewis Obi, “Biafra still lives… And the power of Biafra remains that, as an idea against political oppression, it can never die.” 24 If we do not beatify Biafra and its enduring experiences, and if we choose not to talk about what it did to us and what we did with it, the no-victor-no-vanquished mantra would remain a vision of the blind; generations yet unborn would be vanquished. Therefore, those who say remembering Biafra resurrects the pains are right. The process of remembering injustices and atrocities is a process of reclaiming our sanity and humanity. By reclaiming our humanity, we capture our sense of self and lost innocence. The explosion of ear-piercing evil in our society and the present political paralysis are all products of failed postwar programs. If we cannot talk about the roots of this melancholy, we are condemned to relive it.
No one wants to go through hell; no one really wants to go through it all over again. I don’t. The Commander of the Biafran Armed Forces, General Alexander Madiebo, should know: “If the Igbo can only give others a chance to fight their own wars, there may never be any more wars in Nigeria in which they will be involved directly.” 25 If we must avoid another war, we need a few good men and women to sign up for constructive coexistence of Nigerian nations. 26 In Aba, Aburi, Abuja, or Asaba, we must talk about Nigeria’s cooperate, not necessarily corporate, existence. Everything else is embellishment.
CONCLUSION Alfred ended his book on a high note of “widening Igbo consciousness.” Hopefully his work will help bring it home to Ndiigbo and make us all whole again. As Kevin Ani pointed out, “It is ignorance about the suffering and sacrifices of the defenders of Biafra that cause some Igbo people to show disrespect to those who led us in those days. This is also why everyone is after his own pocket today.” 27 So, sincerely speaking, the meat of the matter is more as Dr. David Asonye Ihenacho summed it up recently:
…. It appears as if the loss of the war dealt a major blow to the Igbo psyche, esteem and courage. The Igbo pride and creativity that created the first Nigerian project and sustained the war for about thirty months have all but vanished completely. It seems as if the war had ended with a proclamation: "To your tents oh Ndi Igbo!" Since that time, the Igbo nation has hardly enjoyed any cohesion. The Igbo of today look permanently demoralized, alienated and indifferent to the political realities of Nigeria. The Igbo of 2002 are far less competitive, less focused and less deep than say their counterparts who fought the British to a standstill because of the Indirect Rule taxation. 28
Biafra has lived in the souls of its younger citizens for over three decades. Their stories are only now beginning to appear in print and electronic media. This calls for a big celebration. I am therefore proud of this great contribution to our human history. I have read the book, and I cannot thank Alfred enough for picking up my 1997 plea: “Let the healing begin.” 29 I thank him for the records. I thank him for letting us into his family’s history. I recommend buying and reading the book without an ounce of reservation. I am happy to be a part of today’s celebration of a man who broke out from the psychological pagoda and exhaled so loudly that we all assembled from different parts of these United States. For this wonderful feat, we owe Alfred Uzokwe and the entire extended Uzokwe family a standing ovation. Thank you.
Finally, I thank all the good people assembled here tonight in the Keystone State of Pennsylvania for having me come across the Delaware River, over which I always reflect on the great sacrifices of many men under the first president of this great nation, George Washington. It is always energizing to reflect on the labors of heroes past; it reminds me of the admonition of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy to always ask what we can do for our country,30 not what is in it for us. This too is for country; it is for the good of our humanness and to the glory of those who extend hands of friendship to persecuted peoples. May freedom and friendship, peace and prosperity, reign in our human family.
Thank you for listening.
# A keynote address delivered at the launching and signing ceremony of Surviving in Biafra: The story of the Nigerian Civil War, written by Alfred Obiora Uzokwe, P.E., in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA on Saturday, April 12, 2003.
* M. O. Ené lives in New Jersey, USA [egbedaa@aol.com]
REFERENCES 1. Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu (1989): Because I am involved, Spectrum Books Limited, Ibadan, Owerri, Kaduna 2. Loretta Aniagolu (2003): Unbroken Spirit, the Autobiography of Loretta Ngozichukwu Aniagolu, with Charles Chukwuka Aniagolu, Ifany, Lagos, Nigeria, 3. M. O. Ené (1992): “I dreamt of Biafra.” [www.kwenu.com/biafra/moe_dreamt.htm] 4. M. O. Ené, (2000) Jaundiced Justice: A careless whisper and you are history, Reedbuck, Bloomfield, NJ 5. John Durueke, Jr. (2002): The horror of war from the Eyes of a Child, JAHS Publishing Group, Hyattsville, MD 6. Egbebelu Ugobelu (1992) Biafra War Revisited: A Concise and Accurate Account of the Events That Led to The Nigerian Civil War. Obiesili Publishing Co.. Spartanburg, SC, USA Second revised edition, 1994 7. Alfred Obiora Uzokwe (2003) Surviving in Biafra, Writers Advantage, New York, Lincoln, Shanghai 8. M. O. Ené (1997): “Beyond Biafra: What Biafra did to us and what we did with it.” First Biafra Memorial Lecture, delivered in the Nursing Amphitheater, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey, USA, Friday, May 30, 1967 9. Julius Nyerere (1967): Dar es Salam on April 13, 1968 http://www.usafricaonline.com/nyererebiafra.html, 10. Wole Soyinka (1972): The Man Died: The Prison Notes of Wole Soyinka The NoonDay Press edition, New York, 1988 11. Alexander A. Madiebo (1980): The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War Fourth Dimension Publishers, Enugu 12. Frederick Forsyth (1969): The Making of an African Legend: The Biafra Story, Penguin Books, 1977 reprint, Page 116 13. KWENU: “Biafran Babies A Noble Swede: From Relief to Raid” http://www.kwenu.com/biafra/biafran_babies.htm 14. Henry Kissinger (1979): White House Years, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, Toronto, Page 417 15. Henry Kissinger (1979): Ditto 16. Edwin O. Reischauer (1967): Beyond Vietnam: The United States and Asia, Alfred A. Knopf , New York, Page 3 17. S. O. Ogbemudia (2001): “Biko Nwayo, Nwayo Ndigbo” ThisDay, Nigeria http://www.thisdayonline.com/archive/2001/05/20/20010520com01.html 18. . Eugene Arene (1997): The 'Biafran' Scientists: The Development of an African Indigenous Technology Arnet Ventures (Nigeria) Ltd, Lagos First production as “Restricted” Document, 1987 19. Wale Adebanwi (2003): “The Obasanjo tragedy, the Yoruba and the future of Nigeria,” [Nigeriaworld, http://nigeriaworld.com/columnist/adebanwi/021603.html] 20. Pini Jason (2003):”Weep not for Ekwueme…” Vanguard, Tuesday, January 21, 2003 http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/columns/c421012003.html 21. Arthur A. Nwankwo (1972): The Challenge of Biafran Fourth Dimension, Enugu 22. Cecil E. Henshaw (1956): Nonviolent Resistance: a nation’s way to peace, A Pendle Hill Pamphlet #88, Pendle Hill/Wallingford Pennsylvania 23. Richard B. Gregg (1935): The power of nonviolence, Schocken Books, New York Second revised edition, 1971 24. Lewis Obi (1997): “Why Biafra lives (4)” African Concord magazine, July 7, 1997 25. Alexander A. Madiebo (1980): Ditto 26. M. O. Ené (1996): “Constructive Coexistence: The solution to Nigeria’s perennial political problems” Guest lecture presented at Essex County College, Newark, NJ during the African History Month, February, 1996 27. Kevin Ani (2003): Igbo Forum, Wednesday, 19 March 2003 28. David Asonye Ihenacho (2002): “Ojukwu and the Igbo Case for Justice” http://nigeriaworld.com/columnist/ihenacho/041302.html 29. Beyond Biafra: A souvenir journal, Reedbuck, 1997 30. John F. Kennedy (1961): President’s Inaugural Address, Washington, D.C. January 20, 1961, http://www.cs.umb.edu/jfklibrary/j012061.htm
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