The coupling of history and war

KWENU! Our culture, our future

Remarks by Mr. Oseloka Obaze

at the Launching and Book Signing of Patrick A. Anwunah’s,

The Nigeria-Biafra War (1967-1970): My Memoirs

Kenilworth Inn, Kenilworth, NJ, 19 May 2007

It was Chinese General Sun Tzu who said that “warfare is based on deception.” But the history of any war cannot be based on deception, but on the commitment to keep history honest. This reality, explains why history of any war, is best written by those on both either side of the conflict.

The best anecdote about history and perhaps about war-related history, is credited to Sir Winston Churchill, wartime Prime Minster of Great Britain, who once surmised that history, even in its most perceptibly negative form, would still be kind to him. When asked how so? He retorted, “Because I intend to write it”.

Two critical values have orchestrated our presence here today. First, we all cherish history. And second, we know that the most debilitating aspects of war, has over time, proven extremely insufficient in dissuading mankind from going to war. Indeed, the Igbo have a saying, that “one does not foreclose on a war, on the mere account that people get killed”.

We must, therefore, be extremely fascinated that someone in the standing of Patrick Anwunah has taken time to document history that is vital to Nigeria and particularly to the Igbo.

I have reviewed Patrick A. Anwunah’s new book, The Nigeria-Biafra War (1967-1970): My Memoirs in great detailed and that review for those who care can be down loaded from the website Kwenu.com. Thus I will restrict my remarks here to the bare essentials.

I have been privileged to read like many others, most of the book already written on the Nigerian civil war. I know that many more will come. But (I know this for a fact. Though the subject matter is the same, not two books are ever alike, either in focus or narrative style. Also, those who write from the insider’s perspective, like Col. Anwunah bring credibility and added value to the subject.

Now permit me to turn to the subject of this evening’s gathering.

The Nigeria-Biafra War (1967-1970): My Memoirs is a welcome and compelling addition to the body of historical and academic works on the Nigeria civil war. Though written forty years after the event, with the benefit of hindsight, rationalization, as well as the attending lapses in details and distinct timelines and dates, the book is nonetheless a very worthwhile and candid effort, which brings added value and insight to the events that triggered the civil war. While not necessarily subscribing to the Churchillian dictum, Anwunah for his part, underlines that he “felt morally obliged to tell my own story in order to straighten out a few facts and correct certain misapprehensions created by slanted propaganda.”

Col. Anwunah, a ranking soldier and command staff in Nigeria and later in Biafra, writes with spellbinding candor, the tact and meticulousness of a lawyer, the scholarly dissection of a historian and the precision of the soldier that he is. The book, contrary to its title, is not all about the Nigeria-Biafra war. It is about the author’s youth, his military training, and career and how he was thrust into the vortex of Nigeria and later Biafran politics.

Having been compelled by fate to serve on both sides of the conflict, his rendition certainly qualify as a truly insider’s account of the Nigeria civil war. Some of the intimate details in this book and Anwunah’s closeness to certain personalities are revealing and enriches this work. The memoir documents also, the youthful orientation of some of Anwunah’s colleagues, like Gen. Yakubu Gowon, General Alexander Madiebo and late Col. Arthur Unegbe. Thus it brings to fore, some of the not-too-well-known factors and characteristics that may have influenced some of the decisions Gen. Gowon took as a Head of State and why until this day, many Nigerians, the Igbo included, have retained their abiding respect and endearment for the affable General.

The Nigeria-Biafra War (1967-1970): My Memoirs is rendered in three noteworthy parts, “The Great Build Up”, “The Prosecution of the War” and “The Cessation of Hostilities”. This nineteen-chapter work is engrossing, painfully candid, and poignant. Though the author states early that it is not meant to stoke controversy, or reopen healed wounds, it cannot escape attracting some scathing rebuttals in some regard. Nevertheless, this is a book that will be eternally invaluable to students of history and posterity.

As Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu noted in his forward to the book, “Col. Pat Anwunah, in his lucidity, has recaptured those sleepless nights and hopeless dawns that seemed eternal. He has filled a number of gaps in the record of our heroism and sacrifice. I am sure that all of us who had the privilege of fighting this cause, in reading this book, would end up wearing a smile of nostalgia as we read through the records of those urbane incidents that formed the foundation stones of our heroism. We shall remember those fleeting moments when as boys, we became men.”

On wading through the pages of this book, the first striking point of note, especially for those fairly acquainted with the Nigeria-Biafra war history, is that this book refutes consistently and factually, some so-called facts and myths, thus underscoring with great impetus the maxim that “truth” is the first casualty of war, even many years after it has ended. Clearly, without malice but with elegant language and nicety, it also demythologizes several individuals and the images and personas that has hitherto been ascribed to them.

In this regard, Anwunah’s assessment of Col. Joe Achuzia and his likes – “over-enthusiastic war zealots who pretended to have become war experts” - is noteworthy as is his insight to Major Chukwumah Kaduna Nzeogwu, and his fellow 15 January 1966 coup planners. Whilst much has been written of the individual reconciliatory efforts by the likes of Wole Soyinka, Allison Ayida and Ahmed Joda to bring the civil war mayhem to an end, he recalls having offered himself “for a talk with Gowon as a facilitator but nobody listened to me or took me seriously enough because the war was raging hotly.”

As to the interpretation of the conduct of the war, he clearly took umbrage at Gen. Joe Garba’s book Revolution In Nigeria: Another View, wherein Garba presented counterpoints to General Alexander Madiebo’s war memoirs. Of late Joe Garba, Anwunah asked: “How would he really sit in Nigeria and see the “inaccuracies” in Biafra?” Likewise, he upbraids his erstwhile friend and course mate, Col. Mike Okwechime for inferring that “the non-Igbo elements in the Biafran hierarchy fought with more vigor than their Igbo counterparts”, while some Igbo “were into smuggling, gunrunning and other illicit trade with the perceived foes”. Anwunah branded that allegation as patently “false”. Nonetheless, he left one pertinent question unanswered. Whereas Anwunah as the Quarter Master General of Biafra can attest to never hearing “of any cases of gunrunning by any officer”, he could not say the same about Biafran civilians, some of whom may have masqueraded as officers being involved in “smuggling” and “illicit trade with the perceived enemy”. The prevalence of such acts - the famed “Afia Attack” – across enemy lines were well known and indeed, offered Biafra part of its sustenance.

Anwunah’s biggest grouse in this book seems reserved for the architect of what he called “an unnecessary humiliation, not planned or organized by the military”. In this context, he was deprecatory and unreservedly trenchant in his criticism of Attorney-General Taslim O. Elias, who he said, “poisoned” and brainwashed General Gowon on what he referred to as the “Surrender Document” at the close of the war in January 1970. “Dr. Elias deliberately hijacked and transformed the occasion of a military reconciliation meeting into an unsolicited gimmick of surrender, in order to humiliate the Biafran delegation”. Though Gowon publicly yielded to legal counsel, as Anwunah noted, “Gowon’s mood was brought out clearly in a later speech, in which he unilaterally declared ‘no victor no vanquished’ in order to restore our dignity and honour from the mess into which Dr. Elias was trying to dump them”.

A key gist of the Nigeria-Biafra war, which Anwunah felt was incontrovertible and thus set out to reassert, was that causation of the war and the secession attempt that followed. As far as cause and effect goes, each episode was different both in time frame and the mindset of the key players. As he noted, “Biafra was simply self-preservation and self-survival in spite of all odds. It was in accordance with the first law of nature – self-preservation”.

Another war controversy, much rubricated and dissected by pettifoggers and revisionists, which Anwunah sort to set straight, was the cause of the January 15 1966 coup, which was the trip wire for the Nigerian civil war and the suggestion that it was “an Igbo coup” and therefore, planned and executed purely with ethnicity in mind. Quite on the contrary, Anwunah notes that “The five majors got together and decided to forestall the planned jihad and Islamization, by a military coup on 15 January 1966”. He did admit, however, that even though he was a ranking Igbo officer with command staff responsibilities, he was not canvassed to be part of the coup.

This reality presupposes two likely scenarios, both interestingly a testimony to Anwunah’s bona fides as a professional soldier. First, it was either that the coup plotters did not trust him to endorse their act of seeking a military solution to a political situation. Second, it could have been that they knew that even as a ranking Igbo officer, short of self-defense, he was too straitlaced to sanction soldiers taking up arms against their fellow Northern soldiers and democratically elected leaders, no matter how grievous the matter was. Anwunah recaps his distaste and disgust at the coup thus: “I was distressed about all the blood letting, which I thought was quite unnecessary. Although we were never taught the art or principles of coupmaking in any of our military training institutions, I did not believe that the only way to execute a coup was by killing. … I did not buy the idea of shedding blood, and quite frankly, I was not happy with that bloody coup.”

Quite naturally and as one would expect, Anwunah devotes an entire chapter (Chapter 8) to the progrom (Araba riots) of 1966, noting that “generally, the progrom was planned to be a three-phased concerted attack and massacre of southerners throughout Northern Nigeria on 29 May 1966, 29 July 1966 and 29 September 1966.” He further observed that “the progrom grand finale massacres which started on 29 September 1966 spilled over into early 1967. That moved Lt.-Col. Gowon into making a national comment about the continue killings in February 1967 when he said, ‘Enough was enough.’”

Addressing why the civil war persisted and failed to come to a negotiated settlement, especially with the earlier attempt by Ghana authorities to broker peace at Aburi, Anwunah draws a conclusion that is manifestly well known, if not a rudimentary political science 101 fact. On Gowon’s retraction and Nigeria’s attempt to redact the principles and agreement reached at Aburi due to external and domestic pressures, Anwunah observed, “these pressures on Gowon in Nigeria and similar pressures on Ojukwu later in Biafra go a long way to reveal the weaknesses of military regimes or other dictatorships, as against democratically-elected government where forums for debates in a National Assembly or a House of Representatives give ample room and opportunity for dialogue and exchange of ideas.”

As far as the vagaries of Nigerian politics goes, he opines, that “regrettably, the Yoruba(s) perhaps under the fear of an imaginary Igbo domination deliberately joined the northerners in expelling easterners from Lagos in order to occupy their abandoned posts.” Anwunah rationalized this disposition by acknowledging that “there was practically no channel of human communication between the different levels of society in the East and West.” In wrapping up the chapter, he draws on similar views by Brigadier Benjamin Adekunle, that “until we separate religion from politics, we may be repeating the cycle of our national history”, to surmise that “the biggest problem that exist in Nigeria is religion in politics.” Drawing from that thread, he concludes that there is no way of saying that the progrom of 1966 followed by the civil war of 1967-1970 was not a jihad against the Christian Igbo(s) of Eastern Nigeria. Unfortunately the Coup of 15 January 1966 provided an unsolicited excuse for this catastrophe”.

Anwunah devotes Chapter 10 – “Governance of Biafra”, Chapter 11 - “The Conduct of the War”, Chapter 13 -“The Myths and Might of Biafra” and Chapter 18 - “The Sprit of Biafra”, to chronicling the tour de force that gave impetus and sustained Biafra against all odds. His perspicuous accounts are introspective and as such shed light on the imponderables Biafra confronted well beyond its superficies. While the accounts are by no means exhaustive, certain realities were stark and immutable. As he noted, “Ojukwu found himself leading an unprepared defenseless people, in much the same way Moses found himself leading the Israelites”. This is a point equally borne out by General Madiebo, who is quoted by Anwunah as saying, “with limited resources available to it, it was obvious that the Biafran Army could not win a war against Nigeria. One was not even sure whether the Army could put up a meaningful defence.” Perhaps, that it did for thirty-months was the greatest myth about Biafra among many others that Anwunah so ably referenced in Chapters 19 and 20 of his book. After all, “stopping the enemy for 2½ years (or thirty months) was long enough to show that the war was not a walkover.”

As Anwunah shows, there were mistakes on both sides. On the Biafran side, Anwunah noted that “the military regime not being a democracy, created room and opportunities for all sorts of people and advisers from both good persons and sycophants alike.” Another issue was absence of dialogue. “Dialogue could have assured us an honorable exit out of the civil war unlike the total collapse which saw the exit of Biafra.” And the stark realities too. “The ‘Republic of Biafra’ ceased to exist as a political and constitutional entity in 1970.” But the questions pertaining to its rise and fall remain mostly unanswered. As Anwunah parsed it, “If self-preservation remains the first law of nature, how wrong then was Biafra? The question is mine. The answer yours.”

Evidently, chronicling traumatic war experiences and perspectives has its inevitable pitfalls. Painful as they may be, such accounts have added value due to their historical imperatives and because they serve as a guide for avoiding past mistakes. Ultimately, they offer “lessons learned” to those who, perchance, may think that the wisdom of policymaking is their exclusive remit and therefore, venture into attempts aimed at reinventing the wheel. Anwunah exhibits a deep understanding of the imperatives and exigencies that prevailed during the Nigeria-Biafra war, which even though they still call for setting the facts straight, also call for a recognition of the subjectivity involved, when facts are juxtaposed with figments, and when two sides of the same coin render differing motifs.

It is, therefore, understandable and accepted, that in writing this memoir, Col. Anwunah, courageously approached it with an open mind, perhaps in the realization that his, will never be the last word on this issue. As he rightly observed, “Books, articles and stories had been written about the war from different perspective of the writers. The war accounts and stories except for definite facts, which must remain sacred and true, must vary according to views and visions of the author. Consequently, all books and records ever produced on the Nigeria-Biafra War must be accepted as consequential to the events, circumstances, feelings, emotions, and actions, thoughts, words or deeds of commission or omission relevant to their authors at the time of their records. If that being the case, the Nigerian record of the war must be clearly different from the Biafran record and vice versa”.

The Nigeria-Biafra War (1967-1970): My Memoirs is a national and international story, but one that will surely resonate with the Igbo. But the book also has some intensely personal facets. Anwunah recalls without reserve, his schoolyard days at Government College Umuahia where, without prejudice to his pedigree, I suspect his youth, noble character and leadership traits were molded. While as he rightly claimed, Umuahia was an exceptionally good school, its supposedly being the “best secondary school in Eastern Nigeria” is contestable.

On this point, I have an ax to grind with the author. Government College Umuahia, was unquestionably a great school., which by its mere existence has offered a distinctive pedigree to those who were privileged to attend it. The likes of Chinua Achebe, Chukwuemeka Ike, Chike Momah, Ferdinand Ofodile, Col. Anwunah, and many other distinguished Nigerians are shining and proud alumni of that great school. Regrettably, while I was not privileged to go to that great school, Government College Umuahia, I was privileged to go to a better school, Christ the King College (C.K.C.) Onitsha.

Now, back to the book.

Also, Col. Anwunah recalls fondly his time as an officer trainee in the United Kingdom and his visit to Buckingham Palace. He extols to no end, the virtues and values of the British. He reveals how ranking British military and civilian officers reveled in their interaction with Nigerian and other West African officers and cadets. Yet in the case of Nigerians, he also recalled, very painfully, I suspect, how in 1956, close to on the eve of Nigeria’s independence, a specific question cropped up whenever the Nigerian officers at Camberly attended cocktail parties. “Are you Igbo? If you answered yes they quietly left you. Our friend and colleague Yakubu Gowon who answered no was well surrounded by our hosts. It dawned on me that something had gone wrong somewhere with the Igbo. It was much later that I realized that the cause of that was politics in Nigeria.”

Anwunah has written a bold, spirited and masterful memoir suffused with strands of military and political history and ethics. He is not bashful about documenting his joy, his disappointments and pathos. Neither is he diffident about quoting the Bible to buttress his point.

As a soldier and lawyer, he is at his original best with his synthesis of issues on which, he differs from the views of the others. Readily, on more than one occasion, he admitted not being competent to address a particular issue on grounds of not being privy to it. That is indeed ennobling! Persons of a lesser stature would in such circumstance grandstand and gild facts just to sound credible.

Today, Anwunah is a Nigerian and an Igbo elder statesman. As much as he has preached forgiveness, Anwunah clearly comes across just as many of his Igbo kinsmen, as considering the postwar doctrine of “no victor no vanquished” as being in its intent and implementation, platitudinous and nothing more than a hackneyed phrase. All said, this book is rich in facts and snippets about Nigeria and Nigerians and how political and religious undertones permeate our everyday existence. These realities are manifest not merely as human nature, but as variables Nigerians were made to imbibe under British colonial leadership, which continuously articulated them, either obliquely or covertly. They have dogged us ever since as a nation and still do.

The Nigeria-Biafra War (1967-1970): My Memoirs is a book for every Nigerian, more so the Igbo, for who it is a must read. It is as authoritative as any such book can be. The only downside is that it would have been a much more detailed and informative book, had Anwunah not destroyed his personal papers towards the end of the war. Nonetheless, its value and veracity will stand the test of time. Anwunah’s, book is indeed the coupling of history and war for the benefit of posterity and for that, we remain indebted to him. [END]