There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra

Achebe's Top Ten Teachable LessonsBy Biko Agozino,Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies, Virginia Tech.`... My father and his uncle formed the dialectic that I inherited.' Achebe stated on page 13 of There Was A Country, his new instant classic. For those who do not know, a dialectic is the negation or contradiction between opposites (the thesis and the anti-thesis, negation or contradiction) that results in a synthesis (or negation of the negation) through a combination of the best in the thesis and the anti-thesis. The synthesis becomes the new thesis to be soon contradicted by a new anti-thesis in endless struggles between ideas (according to Hegel) or struggles between social classes (according to Marx) but the struggles are between cultural traditions in the case of Achebe:Achebe's father was raised as a devout Christian by his own uncle who was a titled practitioner of Odinani (Igbo religion). No Christian or Muslim would be tolerant enough to raise a family member in African traditional religion today. Most reviewers of Achebe's book so far have missed the significance of this foundational thesis of Achebe in There Was A Coutry. Wole Soyinka corroborates this thesis, in Of Africa, where he identified the policies of exclusion and boundary enforcement as major threats to African tolerance and accommodation as exemplified by African religions that have never tried to conquer, enslave, convert or colonize non-believers.In case readers unfamiliar with the metaphorical Igbo style of Achebe missed this riddle, he repeats the message on pages 18-19 and 56 where he talked about the significance of the celebratory arts of Mbari among the Igbo, the name that he gave to the literary club at the University College of Ibadan that he formed with Soyinka, Okigbo and Ulii Beier. It was in the town of Nekede where he went to live with his elder brother who was a teacher that he was introduced to this cultural performance by which the Igbo community came together, artists and commoners alike, to build a miniature house with every race, gender, class, and ethnicity represented and even with the spirits of the deceased accommodated with models of living generations without any discrimination. Achebe emphasizes that the inclusion of European characters in the sculptures was `a great tribute to the virtues of African tolerance and accommodation.'The above is the central thesis of the whole book and part one of the book is an elaboration of this thesis with the example that the village mad man once walked up to his elementary school teacher who was giving a lesson about the geography of Britain under a mango tree, took the chalk from the teacher and wiped the black board, then proceeded to give a lesson about the history of the town, Ogidi, which was more relevant to the students. In Europe or North America, the teacher would have called the police to come and arrest the mad man as a threat but the teacher let him have his say as is expected in the radical democratic traditional culture of the Igbo where it is proudly asserted to this day that Ezebuilo or monarchy is enmity. Similarly, when Achebe abandoned his scholarship as a medical student and chose to major in English and theology, many parents today could have disowned him but his elder brother who was an engineer stepped up and paid his fees as an example in tolerance. Indirectly, Soyinka agrees in Of Africa that this is proof that democracy is not alien to Africa contrary to the ideology of dictators suffering from what he called deliberate cataract, who used to say that Africans were not ripe for democracy, as if we were some kind of bananas, according to Abdulrahman Babu.Parts two and three of the book focus on the Biafra war and represent the counter-thesis or contradiction of the original thesis of tolerance and accommodation as African virtues. Part four of the book presents the synthesis and the example of Nelson Mandela was used in the postscript to underscore this logical structure of the dialectical narrative in the book. Most reviewers glossed over this while presenting mere summaries or simply reacting emotionally to the excerpt in The Guardian condemning the Igbo genocide that cost more than three million lives. Unfortunately, too many people are running their mouths in knee-jerk reactions without even bothering to read the engaging book first with an open mind willing to learn from the great but humble teacher.Since many of the okirika reviews (Okirika is the Igbo town after which trade in second-hand clothes was named and the trade was banned by the military government soon after the war presumably to crush the restarting of the Igbo commercial dominance in buying-and-selling, but the pretense was that it was demeaning for Nigerians to buy clothing discarded by Europeans, not knowing that even in Europe, lots of people rely on second hand clothes shops provided by charities like Oxfam) have already summarized the story, I will dwell here on the ten teachable lessons that Achebe was challenging our blind sociologists, political scientists and historians to explore further beyond the limitations of his personal history in There Was A Country:1) Biafra was the foundational genocide in post-colonial Africa and the script is still playing from time to time across Africa perhaps because we have never really learned the lessons of Biafra as Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe has harped in Biafra Revisited. Genocide is not a part of our culture and the mass killing of millions of people is an absolute abomination that has no justification in any culture. Such atrocities were introduced to Africa following the hundreds of years of the enslavement of Africans by Arabs and then by Europeans before being formalized as gunboat diplomacy during the 100 years of colonialism, before finally being handed over to post-colonial dictatorships that were trained and armed by foreigners and egged on to wage proxy wars against fellow Africans to guarantee access to resources and wealth. Achebe could have made this lesson sharper by directly calling for reparations for slavery, colonialism and the Igbo genocide as Soyinka suggested on page 54 of his new text, Of Africa.2) Achebe's book is delivered in bite-sized passages of text rather than in intimidating long chapters perhaps to attract and keep the attention of the Nollywood (Nigerian films) generation and persuade them to shine their eyes away from media screens and ginger their swagger with valuable history lessons in a country where a democratically elected former military dictator disdainfully banned the teaching of history in schools but no one defied such a bizarre phobia about history lessons particularly following a traumatic bloodbath that would make the teaching of history mandatory. Achebe has come to the rescue and the amazing thing is that quite a few `intellectuals' are feigning annoyance at him for revisiting the national shame and pointing out valuable lessons. For instance, while claiming that he is yet to read the book after glancing at a Kindle copy of his friend, the poet, Odia Ofeimum, reacted emotionally by telling journalists that the leaders of Biafra should be the ones to be tried in Nuremberg-style courts for the genocide that resulted following the policy of `starvation as a legitimate weapon of war' cruelly canvassed by the hero of Ofeimum, Obafemi Awolowo, the then finance minister and vice chairman of the federal executive council. In 1983, Awolowo was reported as defending the same obnoxious policy of `all is fair in warfare' and starvation as a legitimate weapon of war, 13 years after the Biafra war. Today in 2012 the disciples of Awolowo continue to defend his shocking statements instead of learning from the Igbo proverb that says that when a vulture farted and told his children to applaud, they said, Tufiakwa (or Never) because we do not applaud evil but without disowning their father for as Achebe put it in `Vultures', one of the poems that illustrate the book, `...in the very germ of that kindred love is lodged the perpetuity of evil', p. 205. Ofeimum who was the personal secretary of Awolowo had earlier reviewed Achebe's 1983 The Trouble With Nigeria under the title, `The Trouble With Achebe' and unfairly suggested that Achebe obsessed too much with the Igbo question in Nigeria mainly because of Achebe's critique of Awolowo which was milder compared to Achebe's critique of his fellow Igbo, Azikiwe.3) There Was a Country develops in cyclical or fractal patterns with self-similarity, infinity, recursion, fractional dimensions, and non-lineal geometry in the sections found in the four parts of the book rather than follow a chronological historical timeline in the structuration of the narratives. This elliptical style is the hallmark of Wole Soyinka (although Achebe delivers with clarity except in the war-time poems that he probably did not want the Biafran Intelligence to understand or he could have risked being arrested, like Professor Ikenna Nzimiro who dared to argue with a police officer and like Achebe's cousin who unwisely shared his opinion with fellow soldiers that if they did not have the weapons to fight with they should give up. Soyinka probably adopted the cryptic style to conceal his acerbic critique from the moronic goons of the crypt of the title of his prison poems, A Shuttle in the Crypt, a cryptic style that distinguished his pre-detention lucidity in The Lion and the Jewel from his post-detention complexities like Season of Anomy). This elliptical style is consistent with the conclusion in African Fractals by Ron Eglash who saw it as the characteristic of the majority of designs in African culture in contrast to European designs that favor straight grids in conformity with the principles of Rene Descartes for the purposes of easier conquest, control and mastery. In the hands of Achebe, this fractal presentation of the complex story helps the reader to remain alert throughout the book and compels the reader to follow the story non-stop as scenes of chaos are interwoven with hilarious humor, just as the war was experienced with love and laughter and not exclusively with tears and mourning.4) The role of intellectuals as war mongers while other intellectuals struggled for hegemony or moral and intellectual leadership was highlighted by Achebe over and over again. Godfrey Chege recently asserted in an essay, `Africa's Murderous Professors', that educated Africans have played ignoble roles directly or indirectly in supporting genocide across the continent - a point that Soyinka made earlier in his detention memoir, The Man Died - but this is also true of European intellectuals in Africa and in Europe, according to Achebe. There Was A Country commends the bravery of Wole Soyinka who risked his life by opposing the genocidal war and critiques Ali Mazrui for condemning the poet, Chris Okigbo, who gave his life trying to save those that faced the threat of genocide. Achebe also critiqued the cavalier account of Emmanuel Ifeajuna who submitted a manuscript to Achebe and Okigbo for publication during the war in which he appeared to gloat over the assassination of the Prime Minister, Tafawa Balewa, in the first coup that led to the second coup and the pogroms that led to the war. Nevertheless, Achebe gives enough indication that it was regrettable that Ifeajuna and Victor Banjo, among others, were executed by Ojukwu following the distrust brought on by the siege mentality of losing battles without adequate equipments, or simply because Banjo was a poor speech writer. He also deplored the attack on an Italian oilrig in Kwale resulting in the killing of some and the taking of 18 hostages that cost Biafra much of the goodwill it enjoyed internationally. Although Achebe adored Okigbo, he mildly rebuked the poet for being obsessed with food from high school days when he would devise ways to get extra food that was apparently wasted, to his waking up of Achebe's cook early in the morning to cook a secret recipe according to his specification and to his absent-minded consumption of the special cravings of Achebe's pregnant wife that he ordered to be sent to his own hotel room instead, causing Achebe's three year old son to attack him playfully only to later cry, `Father, do not let him die', when news came that Major Okigbo died in the war front near the place that inspired his poetry. Although Achebe did not say so, that much gluttony could have been responsible for the mystery that the gifted poet and star athlete was never a good student academically, according to Obi Nwakanma, in his biography, Okigbo: Thirsting for Sunlight, in which it was reported that the poet used to steal crates of bear from one of the professors during his college days.5) Moreover, Achebe expressed disgust at Chief Obafemi Awolowo for repeatedly boasting that he stopped international relief organizations from sending food and medicine to Biafra because `All is fair in war and starvation is a legitimate weapon of war.' As Duro Onabule rightly stated in his column in The Sun Newspaper, Awolowo should not have continued to defend this statement that Achebe rightly dubbed a diabolic policy when neither Gowon nor the other genocidal military dictators that Awolowo served dared to openly canvass such an obnoxious war crime as a justifiable policy. As an intellectual, Awolowo should have known better and could have used his influence in the military government to push for a more humane ending of the war and the rehabilitation of the Igbo. Rather he imposed a vengeful policy of stripping the Igbo of their savings in exchange for a miserly 20 pounds per family head at the end of the war and proceeded to indigenize shares in multinational companies at the same time to exclude the Igbo who were feared as the dominant ethnic group in all aspects of Nigerian economy and society before the war. It is disappointing that some disciples of Awolowo are continuing to defend the same wicked stance today instead of agreeing with Achebe that any policy designed to kill three million Africans by fellow Africans and expropriate their wealth is indeed diabolical and indefensible. It is not too late for the followers of Awolowo to distance themselves from that shameful belligerence against an innocent people who had nothing against them. Without mentioning Biafra, Soyinka supports such dissociation in Of Africa by stating that the admission of sadism on the part of some does not condemn a whole continent as sadists.6) Achebe repeatedly described Awolowo as a brilliant leader who united the Yoruba politically and he also described the Sarduana of Sokoto as a brilliant politician who united the Northern region politically. He also expressed admiration for Aminu Kano for not joining Anthony Enahoro in threatening to crush Biafra during the peace talks in Uganda. By contrast, he was almost disdainful towards Azikiwe who never received a direct praise in the book but was slightly ridiculed for telling his supporters that when the British Governor General told him that he wanted to stay on after Nigeria's independence, Zik told him that he was welcome to stay as long as he wanted. Zik was directly critiqued for saying that Nigeria got independence on a platter of gold and Achebe likened it to the head of John the Baptist. Readers of The Trouble With Nigeria will know that Achebe has a long resentment against Zik for what he called the `abandonment syndrome' of never seeing anything through. Even when the Zik Group of Newspapers was praised for writing in a plain style that the Latin-loving colonial elite ridiculed but the masses loved, a style that Achebe was to adopt in his own writing but which he attributes to his experience drafting radio broadcasts at Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, the praise appeared to be for the editorial board led by Anthony Enahoro rather than for Zik personally. In There Was A Country, Achebe reveals the source of this seething resentment - `Azikiwe Withdraws Support For Biafra' but Achebe makes this appear understandable in the context in which an `Aristocrat' like General Ojukwu did not consult or take advice from Zik of Africa while the formula for peace, reconstruction and rehabilitation that Zik proclaimed at Oxford University was rejected as `unworkable' by Nigeria only to become the model for UN interventions around the world today.7) Achebe acknowledged the support of international media which rallied to expose the atrocities imposed on people in Biafra, mentioned an American student who set himself ablaze to attract the attention of a silent UN; Kurt Vonnegut, an American scholar, cried for days after his visit before writing `Biafra: A People Betrayed'; Auberon Waugh wrote a book lamenting the complicity of Britain in the genocide following a trip to Biafra and named his newborn baby Biafra Waugh; European missionaries who volunteered to defy the embargo and fly relief to Biafra, the few African countries that formally recognized Biafra and performers like John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix who played tribute concerts to support relief efforts. However, the international community was critiqued for supporting the genocidal war. Britain and The Soviet Union (cold-war enemies) supplied weapons to Nigeria and ensured that more small arms were used against Biafra during the 30 months war than were used in the five years of World War II. Achebe implies that the Nigerian government should take responsibility for allowing this to happen to its people and should endow a huge reparations fund for the survivors of Biafra. The UK and government of Russia (on behalf of the Soviet Union) should equally endow huge reparations funds to help heal the wounds of the Biafra genocide that they helped to engineer. No matter how big the reparations funds turn out to be, they would still be mere tokens of atonement that may help with healing the psychological scars that Nigeria and Africa continue to suffer from. No Nigerian group would be deprived of anything when the wrongs done to the Easterners are recognized and reparations offered as Soyinka has been demanding since the end of the war.8) The then British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson of the Labour Party, responded to the accusation that Britain was supporting the genocide being committed by religious fundamentalists by stating that the Nigerian army was 70% Christian just like the predominantly Christian people of Biafra. He also argued that General Gowon, as well as his field commanders, Olusegun Obasanjo (who bragged that he celebrated the shooting down, on his order, of a plane carrying relief supplies for the starving people during the war) and Benjamin Adekunle (who boasted that he did not give a damn if the Igbo got not a single bite of food and that he shot at everything that moved and even at things that did not move), and Theophilius Y. Danjuma, were all Christians. Such dishonesty is startling given that Christians have battled and killed Christians for millennia, just like Muslims. But for those who do not know, religious `fundamentalism' first emerged among self-proclaimed `Fundamentalist Christians' in the US who advanced the doctrine of the inerrancy of the Bible at a time that they enslaved millions of Africans for hundreds of years and committed genocide against American Indian Natives. One of the leading advocates of the Igbo genocide, Chief Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo - a self-professed devout Christian - later claimed that he was a friend of the Igbo despite blocking food supplies to their dying children on the pretext that he did not want the food to go to the Biafran troops. In contrast, the Igbo have no history of invasions, conquests, massacres, genocides or forced conversion against any other group and despite all the atrocities visited against them, they constantly demonstrate their goodwill by returning to the killing fields across Nigeria to provide essential services to their fellow citizens, name their children after other ethnic groups, adopt their styles of dressing and even teach their children other tongues as a first language. Yet the hatred continues perhaps due to envy over the astounding success of the Igbo, according to Achebe who suggests that Nigerians prefer mediocrity to empowering Igbo excellence for the benefit of the whole country.9) Achebe repeatedly praised the roles of women and indigenous technologies in helping the Igbo to survive the genocidal war. Women conjured up food to feed their families and fed the children folktales as Ngugi also reported in Dreams in a Time of War; they took great care of dying kwashiorkor babies as if they were beauty pageant contestants; they took refugees into their homes and charged no rents but offered to cook rice as a delicacy for the family of the teacher (Achebe's father) who was credited with introducing the town to rice as a staple food; they worked as nurses and organized the control of traffic without being asked; but above all, they organized educational classes during the war while also loving their husbands, making more babies; they also hid even eight year old daughters from drunken Nigerian soldiers who repeatedly massacred thousands of the Igbo males they could find in places like Asaba and Calabar but spared the valuable women as war booties. A Goddess was credited with helping to repel the enemy soldiers from the Oguta hometown of one of the heroines, the novelist Flora Nwapa and the Marxist anthropologist, Ikenna Nzimiro. The Biafran Army also devised Ogbunigwe explosives, built armored fighting vehicles, refined petroleum and flew their own planes to the amazement of neighboring African countries that still believed that only white people could fly planes. The diplomats of Biafra continued seeking a peaceful end to the war and drafted the Ahiara Declaration (modeled after Nyerere's Arusha Declaration) in line with the African virtues of tolerance and accommodation that Nelson Mandela personified when he came out from unjust imprisonment and avoided a race war and an ethnic war, served only one term as president and handed over to a younger generation.10) Implicitly, Achebe is calling on us to rebuild the African Mbari houses to accommodate all irrespective of race, class, gender or religion. The limitation of his analysis is that it is pitched at the Nigerian national level and not open to the possibilities that Du Bois, Azikiwe, Nkrumah, Nyerere, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Fela Kuti and Moumar Gadhafi envisaged - a united republic of all Africans that would make it impossible for any group ever again to rise up and attempt to destroy any ethnic group in Africa. The Biafra war involved African countries as supporters on both sides but the solution was wrongly seen by the OAU as an internal affair of Nigeria. Within the People's Republic of Africa, such a genocidal war will no longer be tolerated in the future as it has been across Africa. The corruption and ineptitude that Achebe blames for the stunting of the development of Nigeria following the marginalization of the enterprising Igbo would be reduced when all Africans have the right to move to any part of Africa and settle, work, study, marry, trade and contest for office as is the case in the US today. Let us turn the 55 countries in Africa into 55 states or more. The African masses have already voted with their feet by disregarding the fictitious colonial boundaries, it is high time we brought policy in line with the lived experiences and realities on the ground and finally synthesize the contradictions between our past and present theses and counter-theses into deeper democratic traditions that are consistent with African cultural virtues of tolerance and accommodation; Udoka (Peace is greater, in Igbo) or Ubuntu (`the bundle of humanity', according to Soyinka, citing Desmond Tutu). Soyinka, in Of Africa, agrees that the resolution of the fiction of exclusivity and boundary enforcement should be pursued in the self-interest of Africans rather than in the interest of those who divided and weakened Africa but not only in the direction of dissolution towards micro-nationalism but more importantly in the direction of greater unity across borders, despite the failure of some tentative experiments in that direction in the past.

Chinua Achebe is a great writer, with well thought out and concise work that is well presented and easy to read. However while his writing talent is unquestioned, I really feel his views in this book are biased and will result in the increase of tribalism, hence corruption and suffering of his beloved Igbo ethnic group as well as all Nigerians. Therefore he fails in his attempt to create unity and reduce tribalism and corruption which he so loathes.In the Chapter "The Role of the Writer in Africa", he says that a writer should align himself with the weak and powerless against the strong. This is an agreeable point. However, he tries to cast his Igbo people as the victims in Nigeria while ignoring the sufferings of other ethnic groups brought upon by the Igbos. This is not a recipe for national reconciliation.In the Chapter "Cradle of Nigerian Nationalism", he tries to cast the Yoruba Leader, Chief Alowolo as a tribal leader who reunited his ancient Yoruba people "with a powerful glue of resuscitated ethnic pride, hence creating the "Action Group" political party that reduced the dominance of the Igbo dominated NCDC. The irony here is that Achebe sees no problem with the NCDC being Igbo dominated while he complains about the Action Group being Yoruba dominated. This double standards is not a recipe for national reconciliation.In the same chapter, while calling Alowolo's Action group a tribal party, he says, without any misgivings, that it also galvanized support from not only the Yoruba, but also the Riverline and minority groups in the Niger delta who "dreaded the prospects of Igbo political domination". This proves two points. That the Action Party was not an exclusive Yoruba tribal party like the NCDC was becoming. Second, that the Riverline and Minority eastern Tribes "dreaded" the prospect of Igbo domination. So the Igbo's are starting to look, not like the poor victims, but a ruthless tribe that will dominate others with impunity. Again, Mr Achebe's biased, pro-igbo views will not improve unity in Nigeria.In the chapter "The Decline", Mr Achebe says that the original idea of a "One Nigeria" at independence was pressed by Eastern (read Igbo) leaders and intellectuals, especially Nnamdi Azikiwe. This is true because the Igbo were dominating every sector in Nigeria and they saw that a unified Nigeria would benefit them. They did not care about what other tribes felt.Initially, the the Northerners led by the Sardauna, Ahmadu Bello, resisted the idea of a "One Nigeria". Achebe tries to cast the Northerners as short sighted and not working to remove the British colonist, but their objections were based on a legitimate and true fear of dominance by the Igbo. Why would the northerners want to remove one oppressor, the British (who were actually competent and knew how to run a non-corrupt government), and bring in another oppressor, the Igbo ( who were corrupt and tribalistic)?. So Mr Achebe, your Igbo leaders should have been less greedy and less short sighted and tried to understand why the Northerners resisted a One Nigeria idea. Maybe the whole Nigerian people would be in a better position today.Don't take my word for it. Just listen to the Sardauna in his own words here ( [...] ) explaining the legitimate fear the northerners have about the Igbo. I think the Igbo, instead of arrogantly dismissing such feelings, should have taken them into consideration and tried to live in harmony with other tribes instead of trying to dominate them.In the chapter named "January 15, 1966 Coup", Mr Achebe shows his extremely biased attitude in favor of his Igbo tribe. This is the classic definition of a tribalist. He tries to minimize the January 15, 1966, coup as one led by "junior officers" protesting corruption, but he fails to accurately portray the tribal nature of that coup. The Sardauna , Sir Ahmadu Bello and Samuel Akintola, the greatest leaders of the North and West respectively were killed, along with numerous others from same regions, but there was no Igbo killed. Achebe says the coup was led by "junior officers most of them igbo" led by Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu from northern city of Kaduna. This is misleading. Major Nzeogwu was not a northerner. He was an Igbo born in Kaduna. Same applies to Emeka Ojukwu, Biafra's secessionist leader, an Igbo born in the North. So if he calls Nzeogwu a northerner, he should also call Ojukwu a northerner. This coup was a totally tribal affair and trying to say otherwise will not help improve the tribalism issues in Nigeria.In the chapter "The Dark Days", Mr Achebe, having minimized the coup as "non-tribal and one led by Junior officers protesting corruption and decay", starts railing against other tribes when they took revenge, rightfully so, against the Igbos who had killed their most senior leaders. He says that in a country where tribalism is endemic, the "rumor of an Igbo Coup" began to gain acceptance. I find it unbelievable that Mr Achebe would take such a position. This January 1966 coup, WAS AN IGBO COUP, there is no doubt about it, and denying that will not further Achebe's goal of reducing tribalism in Nigeria.In the same chapter, he says that other tribes started attacking Easterners, taking out their resentment against the Igbos who "had led the nation in every sector - politics, education, commerce and arts and had driven out the colonizing British from Nigeria". This comment brings two points to light. He tries to portray "Easterners" as one victimized group but this is not truth. As he said before, many minority Easterners "dreaded the prospect of Igbo domination", hence their joining of the Yoruba "Action Party" group.Second point is that he tries to portray other tribes as being driven by envy at Igbo's success. Mr Achebe, remember the Igbos triggered this by launching a coup and killing people from other tribes. Second, a nation will never be united if one group dominates all the rest. This is the biggest mistake we have in Africa. One tribe tries to dominate and shut out others, the others fight back and we all end up losing, just as we see in Nigeria, and so many African nations. So Mr Achebe, please try to be far sighted and use your talent to guide your Nigerian people (all tribes) to be more unified and not celebrate the Igbos for dominating the rest, and congratulating them for being superior, or for being the "Jews of Africa" as has been said before.Mr Achebe then describes his experience leaving Lagos. For those who don't know, Lagos is in western Nigeria, in Yoruba land and many Igbos had settled there as well as many other parts of the country. However we don't hear of other tribes settling in Igboland. This skewed migration tendencies were bound to bring problems. It is a fact that migratory tribes in Africa never assimilate with their host tribes, unlike the United States where different people integrate, learning English and adopting a common mainstream culture.So you when people from a different tribe come to your area, they are basically "not your neighbors" but an alien people just occupying your land. When Mr Achebe says he found it "a strange and powerful experience" when his non-igbo "neighbors" whom he lived with for decades started jeering him and saying that "food will be cheaper in Lagos" when Igbos leave, he is not being genuine. I can bet that he never socialized with the locals, learned their language, or tried to integrate with their culture. Even after living in Lagos for decades, he maintained his Igbo culture and language and probably had mostly Igbo friends. Not surprising, even his "intellectual non-igbo friends" said that he should have known what was coming to him as an Igbo.This point about Tribalism is illustrated again when Mr Achebe, fleeing to the east, arrived in Benin City in the Mid-west and he says there was a "distinct atmospheric change". There he found Igbo policemen who welcomed him as a brother, cheering him, saying "Oga, thank you". They cheered him just because he was a prominent Igbo man, even if he spent most of his life in Lagos or other regions. I bet non-igbos living in the East would never receive such treatment. So Mr Achebe should realize that tribalism goes both ways. Everyone, even the Igbos are tribalistic. So we should accept that fact and then we can start discussing how we can live together with justice for everyone.In the Chapter "A History of Ethnic Tension and Resentment", Mr Achebe clearly illustrates that there is something about the Igbo that makes other Nigerian tribes resent them so much. He points out that in his book, "The Trouble with Nigeria", that Nigerians will "achieve consensus in no other matter than their common resentment of the Igbo". He says that while the Yoruba had a huge historical and geographical head start, the Igbo, "in one fantastic burst of energy in the 20 years between 1930 and 1950" managed to wipe out that advantage. He also illustrates from the book by J.P Clark an image of "ants filing out of the wood", how the Igbo moved out of their forest home and scattered and virtually seized the floor.This scenario, as I said before, is a recipe for disaster in Nigeria and other African countries. When one tribe starts to invade other peoples territories and due to cultural, language and other factors, start to dominate everything there, that will definitely create resentment and conflict. The Igbo's congratulate themselves for being "superior" and "competent", and for being able to dominate other tribes in a fair competition, but they should also know they are not very smart because other tribes will resents them and drive them out, just as it happened, and they will end up losing.If Mr. Achebe is smart and loves Nigeria, he should not be celebrating Igbo "superiority" over other tribes. He should use his talents trying to think how different tribes can work together to ensure everyone gets a fair shake so that the whole nation can utilize its talents for the good of everybody.To his credit however, he concedes that the Igbos are prone to "hubris and overweening pride, thoughtlessness, exhibitionism and disregard for humility and quietness" which can offend others.However, he fails again because he continues to argue that in Nigeria's context, they "get the achievers (meaning Igbos) out and replace them with less qualified individuals from the desired ethnic background to gain access to resources of the state". I have heard this argument in Kenya where I come from, but it does not hold water.First, achieving "access to resources of the state for all tribes" is the only good and fair thing to do. There is no reason why Igbo's should to take over all jobs just because they "are more qualified" because competence is not exclusive to only one tribe. I live in the US and can tell you that you will find smart people from all backgrounds, all tribes and all races.Mr Achebe displays his scewed and totally wrong position by saying he was "dismayed" by a 1966 publication called "The Nigerian Situation: Facts and Background", which demonstrated the complete unfairness existing in Nigeria where 45% of managers were Igbo, over 50% of the posts in Nigerian Railways, over 70% of posts in Nigeria Ports Authority and foreign service were occupied by Igbos. Remember the Igbos account for only 18% of Nigeria's total Nigerian population.I don't know why Mr Achebe would not find such discrepancies disturbing and why he would be "dismayed" when someone reveals them. The only reason I can think of is because his Igbo people were on the benefiting end of this. This again, Mr Achebe, is not the attitude you should adopt if you want a Nigeria for everyone.In the Chapter "The Army", Mr Achebe again tries to minimize the "Igbo Coup" led by Major Nzeogwu saying that it was actually not an "Igbo coup". He tries to deny that Major Nzeogwu was an Igbo, saying that he was born in Kaduna (north) and spoke fluent Hausa and wore northern traditional dress. That did not stop him from massacring Northern and Western leaders like Sir Ahmadu Bello. Achebe also claims that the coup was stopped by General Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Igbo. However, he continues to note that General Ironsi refused to court martial the coup plotters and transfered them East where they were eventually released by Ojukwu. So Ironsi is not as non-tribal and fair as Mr Achebe tries to portray him.After trying to minimize the "Igbo Coup", Mr Achebe goes all the way to condemn the resulting "counter coup" by northern officers to revenge the "Igbo Coup". He says the killing of General Ironsi and Fajuyi were part of a larger and bloody coup led by the northern General Murtala Mohamed. This kind of double standard is not lost on anyone. Once again, Mr Achebe fails by trying to unfairly promote his tribe and minimize their failings while maximizing their opponents failings. This will not result in a unified Nigeria.In the Chapter "The Pogroms", Mr Achebe again goes overboard trying to minimize the "Igbo Coup" by saying that it was an "Idealistic Coup" that proved to be a disaster for the Igbo. I find it just unbelievable that a man of Mr Achebe's intelligence would not realize that his biased views will make other tribes think of him as just another unrepentant Igbo tribalist. Here again, he fails in his stated goal of unifying Nigeria for all its people.In the Chapter "Aburi Accord", Mr Achebe claims that majority of the Easterners had grown contemptuous of General Gowon's federal government for its failure to bring the culprits of the mass murder in the North to Justice. While this may be true, he also fails to say that his beloved Igbo General Ironsi failed to bring the "Igbo Coup" plotters to justice when he had the chance. He even transferred them to the East where they were released. This kind of double standard, again is not going to promote unity in Nigeria.In the chapter "The Nightmare Begins", after General Ojukwu seceded Biafra from Nigeria, General Gowon responded by declaring a state of emergency and dividing the nation into 12 states based on tribe. The federal government position was that this would foster unity and stability in Nigeria. This is actually a valid point. If different tribes have control of their areas and free from domination by other tribes, this can create stability, unity, justice and eventually success. However, the Igbos, arrogantly thinking that it was their birthright to dominate other tribes, saw this as "a Machiavellian Scheme to landlock Igbos into the East Central State and isolate them from oil producing areas", areas which in truth, don't belong to them.Mr Achebe seems sympathetic to this Igbo view although he inadvertently validates the Federal government's point by saying that the Non-Igbo minority easterners "dreaded for years - the prospect of Igbo domination". So again, Mr Achebe fails by aligning himself with the Igbo desire to dominate others, which eventually led to the destruction of Nigeria, Igbos included.In the Chapter "The Republic of Biafra", Mr Achebe shows his support for the secessionist nation of Birafra by defining the intellectual foundation of the new nation as one "which the supreme power lay with the citizens and respected the freedoms of all mankind". However he fails to mention the plight of more that 5 million minority Easterners in Biafra who "dreaded the prospect of Igbo domination for years".He also mentions his admiration for president Nyerere of Tanzania who supported the new State of Biafra by standing for equality, self determination and respect for human values. The Biafra leaders would have been well served if they followed Nyerere's example. Nyerere succeeded in creating the only non-tribal country in Africa where there is no tribalism, unlike Biafra, which was founded as a result of extreme tribalism.In the Chapter "Death of the Poet , Daddy don't let him die", Mr Achebe reveals a great irony. While he earlier described the "Igbo Coup" leader Major Nzeogwu as an "idealistic junior officer" whose thoughtless actions brought disaster to the Igbos, and while he earlier said that Major Nzeogwu was "an Igbo only by name", he now says that Nzeogwu's death in the war was a big blow to Biafra because he was a "darling and enigmatic hero who had risen from anonymity to legendary heights in a short period".This reveals two things. That Mr Achebe was not too upset about the "Igbo Coup" itself, and the resulting massacre of people from other tribes, but was upset it eventually turned out badly for the Igbo, when other tribes took revenge. He also reveals that Major Nzeogwu, whom he earlier tried to dissociate with the Igbo on account of his being born in Kaduna (north), was actually regarded as a hero by his Igbo tribesmen. Again, Mr. Achebe reveals he is a tribalist and fails in his stated goal of uniting all Nigerians.Mr Achebe tries to cast blame to everybody else other than the Igbo themselves. In the Chapter "The Silence of the United Nations", he bemoans how in October 1969, on the losing side, General Ojukwu desperately pleaded with the United Nations for mediation to no avail. His Opponent, General Gowon insisted on Biafra's surrender and rightly noted that "the rebel leaders had made it clear that it was a fight to the finish and no concessions will ever satisfy them". The Biafra Igbo rebels, in their "hubris, overweening pride, confidence and thoughtlessness" provoked a war and were not able to finish it. So they blame everybody else except themselves. Again, Mr Achebe fails. He is not interested in justice and truth, but in the welfare of only his Igbo people and not all Nigerians.Nothing demonstrates the folly of tribalism better than the case of Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria's first president, an Igbo. At independence, he campaigned against the British colonialists under a "One Nigeria" mantra, when it was beneficial for the Igbos because they were dominating other Nigerian tribes and taking over all resources. When things turned awry for the Igbos and they seceded, he suddenly forgot his earlier principles of "One Nigeria" and supported the new Igbo secessionist state of Biafra. However, he could not defend a challenge to his new position and had to turn back like a coward.So in the Chapter "Azikiwe Withdraws Support for Biafra" Mr Achebe tries to blame British intellectuals in northern universities and the Nigerian Army for challenging Azikiwe to explain why he suddenly changed his lifelong beliefs of a "One Nigeria" and now supported the breaking of Nigeria. Azikiwe was unable to explain that and decided to withdraw his support for his tribesmen's new state. Again, Mr Achebe fails. He is not interested in fairness and principles to benefit all Nigerians, but will support whatever benefits the Igbo at that particular time.The chapter named "1970 and the Fall" reveals the hypocrisy of Mr Achebe. He says that in the end, Biafra collapsed and there were thousands of children dying every day of starvation. He goes on to say that the "Notoriously incompetent Nigerian Government was not responding to those needs, and that with ill-advised Bravado, General Gowon was busy banning relief agencies that helped Biafra". I find this level of hypocrisy amazing. Where is Ojukwu in all this mess. He started the war, he was responsible for the death and starvation of millions of Biafrans. Remember Biafrans were fighting General Gowon and inflicted heavy casualties on his soldiers. So, to blame Gowon and completely forget the other responsible person, Ojukwu, is just unbelievable.Some other points I wish to note are in the chapter named "Gowon Responds". He was asked about Igbo property being taken over by the Government of New Rivers State. Something was said to the effect that the people of that state "felt like tenants in their own state" because the Igbos owned everything there. Again I want to reiterate that there will be no united Nigeria (or other African countries) when some tribes start dominating others with impunity, and in their own territory no less.In the Chapter "Nigeria's Painful Transitions: A Reappraisal" , Mr Achebe talks about the crime happening in his beloved, Igbo state of Anambra. He says it was encouraged by the federal government and by an unnamed former president of Nigeria, "whose attitude to this part of Nigeria, which he and some like him consider responsible for the troubles of Nigeria's Civil war".Mr Achebe, I have news for you. This part of Nigeria IS RESPONSIBLE for the Nigerian Civil war. That is the truth and trying to deny it is folly. Again, you fail because this denial will not endear you to Nigerians of other tribes, hence will not help to create a unified Nigeria.In one of your last chapters "State Resuscitation and Recovery" you ask how Nigeria can be salvaged and "bring all the human and material resources to bear on its development", how to end "organized ethnic bigotry" and "corruption". I am encouraged that you are thinking in this direction.I am no expert in nation development and reconciliation, but I can tell you that TRIBALISM, like the one exhibited by the Igbo, is one of the main causes of our backwardness in Africa.We have to deal with tribalism, ensure that no ethnic group moves to other ethnic group areas and try to dominate their resources. I believe the formation of states based on tribal lines will help. Or at least grouping together tribes that are in friendly terms and can live together in harmony. Then every tribe will control the resources in their state and ensure justice and welfare for their people and remove the danger of domination by other supposedly "more competent" tribes.In conclusion, Mr Achebe is a great author, with superior talent. But he is also biased and is a tribalist. Here he fails like a majority of our other brilliant, (or not-so-brilliant) Africans leaders and intellectuals.

An exceptional account of the Biafra war and more generally of the plight of post-independence Nigeria. Achebe is unsparing and bleak on the failure of the country to rise above ethnic tensions, and the unbreakable grip of corruption. He comes close to saying that independence has not worked and while he attempts to come up with solutions at the end, the cupboard is pretty bare. He even resorts to asking why Africa's self-aggrandising and phenomenally corrupt rulers can't be more like Nelson Mandela! The happiest time for modern Nigeria emerges as c. 1930-60, the immediately pre-independence decades when the author was young and everything was to play for.The UK receives due recognition for the robust and impartial quality of its administration but the praise is tempered by the sad fact that we imposed an unworkable constitutional framework on Nigeria in order to protect our economic interests.My reservation is that the book's structure is rather episodic and free flowing. It's a mixture of reflection, personal memoir and reportage, which at times could have benefited from tighter editing. It's hard to get a clear sense of the war's major events. The inclusion of some of Achebe's poems didn't work for me but that is highly subjective. But when all that has been said, as a book about Biafra, how it happened and why things panned out as they did, this must be a unique text.

My uncle was a missionary priest in Owerri, Biafra prior to & during the Biafran war. In fact, the airstrip used to land emergency supplies from Fernando Poo was in his parish. After the war, he was imprisoned by the Federal forces and accused of helping the rebels. He admitted to providing spiritual and medical assistance. He was expelled from Nigeria which upset him quiet a bit, as he had spent 25 years there in total. When he came home, he was very angry towards the British & Russian governments who assisted the Federals with weaponry. He had great admiration for the pilots who flew supplies in at night and then took off again. He told us stories of his experiences during the war. I was a young boy at the time and I suspect some of his stories were sanitised for me. The events described in this book match my uncles tales. The author also describes the horrific end of the war and its aftermath which is probably what my uncle did not want us young people to hear. For me, this book was a good read. I have retained an interest in Biafra's struggle.

Chinua Achebe, the superb Nigerian (and Igbo) novellist, has turned his hand to creating a personal history of Biafra in this book. While in many ways autobiographical, he successfully manages to also cover the backgrounds to and the conflict more broadly, and given his involvement in it, surprisingly even handedly.The book starts in the pre-independence days of British rule and portrays the author's and the country's growing up, with lots of emphasis being placed on the institutions of higher learning and the notable Nigerians who graduated there. In the period leading to and immediately after independence this autobiographical element gets more and more supplemented by the goings on in the country, something that the author is particularly well suited to chronicle, given his intimate involvement in many aspects.While demonstrating the - in hindsight naive - optimism that everyone will work for the betterment of Nigeria all the way to the first ethnic pogroms carried out by the army against the Igbos, the author also with time recognised that his and his people's hopes for the country have been badly misplaced and that change was necessary.The aspect I found particularly interesting was the portrayal of Ojukwu as not only a sensible and shrewd statesman but also as at times the reason for the conflict not having been concluded faster and with fewer casualties. While certainly not the same class of villain as Gowon and his military junta, who in their own words condoned the use of hunger against civilians and in particular children, and of indiscriminate brutality against civilians if it meant winning, he does not come out of the account as a saint, either.The book is brilliant both in its language - as expected from the author - and its provision of a personal and at the same time historical account of this tragic episode of the twentieth century. At the same time it is likely to imbue the reader with a great sense of sadness that this genocide was allowed to happen, with active collusion of the UK government - in spite of mass popular opposition. It is an excellent complement to Forsyth's  Biafra Story  and definitely to be recommended for all who are interested in Africa and its problems, as well as for those who have previously enjoyed the author's novels (the book will provide an interesting context to some of them). Biafra Story

An interesting autobiography/ history of Nigeria and it’s relationship to Biafra from a Igbo position. Slightly over emphasising the role of intellectuals and under emphasising the role of the military and civilian victims.

Unresolved Infanticide,Genocide,or Pogrom do not really age. They continue to require our attention,our questions;our unease. We owe something- more than apology - to the innocent Children,Women,and Men who were massacred as a result of pernicious and fatal policies acted out by the brutal federal Government of Yakubu Gowon and the western allies.Prof.Chinua Achebe's latest book is not seditious, but rather an attempt to pay tribute to all the innocent victims of that atrocious acts of brutality; conveniently swept under the carpet for over forty years by the bloody federalgovernment of Nigeria.The awful truth has finally come out in the fullness of time; a bitter pill for Gowon and his coterie of friends andadvisers to swallow.History repeats itself. The menace of Boko Haram brings to life the conditions that forced the Biafrans to Secede.Achebe's goal (Cf. p.53); surely is to educate the younger generation by recasting that period of history as prose, poetry etc. The tell-all memoir has,however, stirred up a real hornets' net . All that remains now is for justice to take its course.Gowon -like Charles Taylor- has questions to answer; the earlier the better. (Cf. p.228):1. Did the federal government of Gowon engage in the infanticide/genocide of the Igbos through their punitive policies: 'starvation as a legitimate weapon of war.'To Nigerians:2. Why has the war not been discussed, or taught to the young , over forty years after its end?3. Is Nigeria suffering from a curse; by incessantly repeating the mistakes of the past?The Chickens come home to roost. Prof. Achebe is an old hand at writing; in THERE WAS A COUNTRY he spills the beans with taste and compassion about intense tribal hatred and evils that men did; which have unfortunately refused to heal.There could never be a better account of what happened in those dark years- 1966-1970 -in Nigeria.Long live Professor Achebe!