Could this be part of the secret Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the
Indigenous People of Biafra threatened to expose? well, find out as you
read through the article below, after the cut...
While the British interests being paramount to them were very clearly
revealed in the declassified files, it very well revealed some daunting
facts about the lies told by Gen. Yakubu Gowon about trying hard to stop
starvation in the Biafran region, when he actually imposed blockade on
Biafra and used starvation as means of war. How could the same man claim
to have done enough to stop the ugly pictures of starving children?
The declassified files from the British government made available to The
Republican News exposed every lies and details of every steps taken by
Federal Military Government led by Gen. Yakubu Gowon to punish, stifle
efforts by Biafrans to have access to food and medical care and aids.
Due to the size of the documents, The Republican News promised to
serialize them on weekly basis until it exhausts these facts. The lies
about the civil war and the consequences of the evil actions taken to
kill millions of Biafrans must be dealt with whilst the perpetrators of
these evil acts are still alive.
‘Our direct interests are trade and investment, including an
important stake by Shell/BP in the eastern Region. There are nearly
20,000 British nationals in Nigeria, for whose welfare we are of course
specially [sic] concerned’, the Foreign Office noted a few days before
the outbreak of the war. Shell/BP’s investments amounted to around £200
million, with other British investment in Nigeria accounting for a
further £90 million. It was then partly owned by the British government,
and the largest producer of oil which provided most of Nigeria’s export
earnings. Most of this oil was in the eastern region.
It is succinctly clear that the British government cared not about the
Nigerian side or worse still the Biafrans, but the sole aim and
paramount interest was the economic advantage they commanded in
Nigeria. So, they cared less if the entire country is engulfed in flames
provided it does not consume their economic interest. This was further
explained by the British Commonwealth Minister, George Thomas.
Commonwealth Minister George Thomas wrote in August 1967 that:
‘The sole immediate British interest in Nigeria is that the Nigerian
economy should be brought back to a condition in which our substantial
trade and investment in the country can be further developed, and
particularly so we can regain access to important oil installations’.
Thomas further outlined the primary reason why Britain was so keen
to preserve Nigerian unity, noting that ‘our only direct interest in
the maintenance of the federation is that Nigeria has been developed as
an economic unit and any disruption of this would have adverse effects
on trade and development’. If Nigeria were to break up, he added: ‘We
cannot expect that economic cooperation between the component parts of
what was Nigeria, particularly between the East and the West, will
necessarily enable development and trade to proceed at the same level as
they would have done in a unified Nigeria; nor can we now count on the
Shell/BP oil concession being regained on the same terms as in the past
if the East and the mid-West assume full control of their own
economies’.
Ojukwu initially tried to get Shell/BP to pay royalties to the
Biafran government rather than the FMG. The oil companies, after giving
the Biafrans a small token payment, eventually refused and Ojukwu
responded by sequestering Shell’s property and installations, forbidding
Shell to do any further business and ordering all its staff out. They
‘have much to lose if the FMG do not achieve the expected victory’,
George Thomas noted in August 1967.
But the explicit clues that exposes Gen. Yakubu Jack Gowon’s claim that
he did everything he could to avoid the mass starvation and deaths of
Biafrans, mainly children and women who were not involved in the war,
were laid to bare.
We could recollect few weeks ago that Senator Godswill Akpabio debunked
that claim by Gen. Yakubu Gowon for doing his best to avoid the mass
starvation of Biafrans. How could he, Gowon claim to have done his best
to avoid the starvation of the Biafrans when he imposed total blockade
on the Biafra?
A key British aim throughout the war was to secure the lifting of
the blockade which Gowon imposed on the east and which stopped oil
exports.
In the run-up to Gowon’s declaration of war, Britain had made it
clear to the FMG that it completely supported Nigerian unity. George
Thomas had told the Nigerian High Commissioner in London at the end of
April 1967, for example, that ‘the Federal government had our sympathy
and our full support’ but said that he hoped the use of force against
the east could be avoided.
Sen. Godswill Akpabio Exposes The Lies Of Gowon, Nigerian Government On Biafra-Nigeria Civil War
On 28 May Gowon, having just declared a state of emergency, explicitly
told Britain’s Defence attaché that the FMG was likely to ‘mount an
invasion from the north’. Gowon asked whether Britain would provide
fighter cover for the attack and naval support to reinforce the blockade
of Eastern ports; the Defence Attaché replied that both were out of the
question.
By the time Gowon ordered military action in early July, therefore,
Britain had refused Nigerian requests to be militarily involved and had
urged Gowon to seek a ‘peaceful’ solution. However, the Wilson
government had also assured Gowon of British support for Nigerian unity
at a time when military preparations were taking place. And Britain had
also made no signs that it might cut off, or reduce, arms supplies if a
military campaign were launched.
The new High Commissioner in Lagos, Sir David Hunt, wrote in a memo to
London on 12 June that the “only way… of preserving unity [sic] of
Nigeria is to remove Ojukwu by force”. He said that Ojukwu was committed
to remaining the ruler of an independent state and that British
interests lay in firmly supporting the FMG.
Before going to war, Gowon began what was to become a two and half-year
long shopping list of arms that the FMG wanted from Britain. On 1 July
he asked Britain for jet fighter/bomber aircraft, six fast boats and 24
anti-aircraft guns. ‘We want to help the Federal Government in any way
we can’, British officials noted. However, Britain rejected supplying
the aircraft, fearing that they would publicly demonstrate direct
British intervention in the war and, at this stage, also rejected
supplying the boats. London did, however, agree to supply the
anti-aircraft guns and to provide training courses to use them.
The Deputy High Commissioner in Enugu, Biafra’s main city, noted that
the supply of these anti-aircraft guns and their ammunition would be
seen as British backing for the FMG and also that they were not entirely
defensive weapons anyway since ‘they could also take on an offensive
role if mounted in an invasion fleet’. Nevertheless, the government’s
news department was instructed to stress the ‘defensive nature of these
weapons’ when pressed but generally to avoid publicity on their export
from Britain.
The Commissioner Hunt said that ‘it would be better to use civil aircraft’ to deliver these guns and secured agreement from the Nigerians that ‘there would be no publicity’ in supplying then. Faced with Gowon’s complaints about Britain not supplying more arms, Wilson also agreed in mid July to supply the Federal Military Government (FMG) with fast patrol boats. This was done in the knowledge that they would help the FMG maintain the blockade against Biafra.
Source: Declassified British Memo
No comments:
Post a Comment