Olawale ogunjiobi wrote...........
The Nigerian civil war, popularly known all over the world as the “Biafran War” was fought from 2 July 1967 to 15 January 1970.
The war was between the then Eastern Region of Nigeria and the rest of the country. The Eastern Region declared itself an independent state which was regarded as an act of secession by the Federal Military Government of Nigeria. The war was fought to reunify the country.
The immediate cause of the civil war itself may be identified as the coup and the counter coup of 1966 which altered the political equation and destroyed the fragile trust existing among the major ethnic groups. As a means of holding the country together in the last result, the country was divided into twelve states from the original four regions in May 1967. The former Eastern Region under Lt. Col. Ojukwu saw the act of the creation of states by decree “without consultation” as the last straw, and declared the Region an independent state of “Biafra”.
The Federal Government in Lagos saw this as an act of secession and illegal. Several meetings were held to resolve the issue peacefully without success. To avoid disintegration of the country, the central government was left with only one choice of bringing back the Region to the main fold by force.
The Federal side expected a quick victory while the Biafrans saw the war as that of survival and were ready to fight to the last man. By August 1967, the war had been extended to the Mid – Western Region by the Biafrans with the aim to relief pressure on the northern front and to threaten the Federal Capital, Lagos. Both sides employed Political, Diplomatic, Psychological and Military strategies to prosecute the war.
By the end of April 1969, after almost two years of bloody and destructive war, the envisioned quick victory had eluded the Federal side, the rebel enclave had been drastically reduced in size but the Biafrans were still holding on. More peace conferences were held but none achieved a cease – fire and an end to the war. The Federals embarked on a strategic envelopment of the remaining Biafran enclave. By the Christmas of 1969, it was obvious that the end of the civil war was near.
The self – acclaimed Head of State of Biafra, Lt. Col. Ojukwu, realizing the hopelessness of the situation fled the enclave with his immediate family members on the 10th of January 1970. The Commander of the Biafran Army who took over the administration of the remaining enclave surrendered to the Federal Government on 14th January 1970 bringing an end to the war, secessionist attempt and bloodshed. Biafra died in 1970, May the souls of almost 3million igbos and those on Nigeria side rest in perfect peace.
Radio Biafra
Radio Biafra is not particularly new. For many years, it operated as an online pirate station by some faceless individuals operated by Nnamdi Kanu who goes by the pompously aspirational title “director” operating on a frequency Modulation (FM) band 102.1, and apparently received in most south-south and south-east states, according to claims by many receivers.
This radio has not only changed its mode of operations, it seems to have raised the bar in terms of its bloodcurdling rhetoric. The proprietors of Radio Biafra claim it is “dedicated to the defense of (the) rights of the indigenous people of Biafra and ultimately the actualization of the Republic of Biafra.” And the way they have gone about actualizing their aims leaves much to be desired. This radio is known for promoting hate and violence against other ethnic groups in Nigeria.
The director Kanu is still in detention as we write,he was arrested in lagos by the DSS operatives.
Col Ojukwu the founder of biafra died as a Nigerian. He died in the UK after a long illness, aged 78. The Nigerian Army accorded him the highest military accolade and conducted a funeral parade for him in Abuja, his coffin was draped in a Nigerian flag during his burial.
Before his death, Ojukwu ran for President of a united Nigeria.
His wife Bianca after his death was made the Nigerian Ambassador to Spain. His son, Mr Emeka Ojukwu, also contested in the 2015 Federal House of Representatives election in Nigeria.
The war had come and gone. The story of the war and what led to it has been told, is being told and will continue to be told.
What seems to me a human tragedy all through ages is the inability of man to learn a good lesson from the past so as to avoid the pitfall of those who had gone before.
There is also the innate and unconscious desire of man to remain oblivious of the lessons of the past. He hopes and believes that the past can be ignored, that the present is what matters, that no mistakes of the present can be as serious and grievous as the mistakes of the past. As a result history tends to repeat itself. However, there are exceptions of nations and men who had learnt from history to avoid collective and individual disasters or a repetition of such disasters. I feel confident that Nigeria must join the group of these happy exceptions if we are to have political stability, economic progress, integrated development, social justice, contentment and be the epicenter of African solidarity. Since the end of the civil war, Nigeria has made considerable progress in all these areas.


By Olawale Ogunjobi a political analyst and public commentator.