Africa

by Guy Arnold

  Before the main Federal onslaught on Biafra, Gen. Gowon issued a ‘Code of Conduct’ to his troops in which it was stressed that the Ibo people were not the enemy. At the same time it laid down that mercenaries ‘will not be spared: they are the worst enemies’. The stated reluctance to employ mercenaries despite the fact that both sides did so was in part because senior Nigerian officers on either side in the civil war had formerly served with the United Nations in the Congo and had been up against mercenaries there. References to mercenaries almost always led to headlines in the African and Western press. When mercenaries were engaged the assumption was that they possessed military skills that the Federal or Biafran armies lacked; in the end this special advantage came down to pilots. Three kinds of mercenary were employed in the civil war: pilots on the Federal side; pilots and soldiers in Biafra; and relief pilots employed by the humanitarian organizations assisting Biafra. Combat mercenaries charged huge fees but gave poor returns and were rarely worth the money they were paid. The reputation of mercenaries suffered during this war. They were not seen as invincible forces; rather, man for man, the white soldier was no better than the black soldier although he wanted maximum pay while exposing himself to minimum risks. Disreputably, the mercenaries on the two sides engaged in a pact: the Federal pilots did not destroy Ulli airstrip, which they could have done, and avoided engaging with one another since they did not wish to forego their lucrative jobs. Their deliberate failure to destroy the Ulli airstrip greatly prolonged the war: ‘Without Ulli Biafra would have collapsed in a matter of weeks, perhaps days’.27 The French government actively supported the French mercenary role in Biafra, which was persuaded to use French mercenaries by Jacques Foccart, the French secret service chief, and it was his office that recruited Roger Faulques. Later in the war, when the French mercenaries had left, Biafra harmed its image by recruiting mercenaries from South Africa and Rhodesia. In real terms, whether in fighting or training, Biafra got very little value out of the mercenaries upon whom it spent vast sums of money, the greater part of which was wasted. Moreover, despite continuing support for mercenary activity, especially from France, they did little to retrieve the reputation that they had acquired in the Congo.28

  A number of peace initiatives were mounted during the course of the war: by the United Nations, the OAU, the Commonwealth, Prime Minister Harold Wilson and the Vatican, but none succeeded in bringing an end to the fighting. The Nigerians had to find their own solution and this was only possible once the Federal Military Government had won the war. For any peace talks to take place, Gowon first insisted that Biafra should renounce secession. The OAU, under intense pressure from its members, insisted that peace had to be within the context of ‘one Nigeria’, which in the circumstances of a war fought for secession and later ‘survival’ was bound to be rejected by Biafra.

  AN APPRAISAL OF THE WAR

  At the time of the war and into the twenty-first century a recurring subject of debate in Africa and between Africa and Europe has been about the extent to which European colonialism can and should be blamed for Africa’s post-independence problems. In 1968 Dame Margery Perham was the doyenne of British Africanists whose deep knowledge of and love for Africa, and particularly Nigeria, equipped her as a formidable critic. That year she wrote an important essay, Nigeria’s Civil War29, that provides a classic historical analysis of the background that made the war inevitable. It is worth examining this piece in depth not only for the light it sheds on Nigeria at that time but also because her arguments have much relevance to other aspects of post-independence Africa, both then and later. Dame Margery argues: ‘It cannot be said, however, that the Nigerians rushed altogether recklessly into independence or that the British government wholly neglected to prepare them for it. For some ten years before 1960 there had been almost continuous argument and experiment, with conferences between British ministers and officials on one side, and Nigerian leaders of all parties and regions on the other, hammering out the lines upon which independence was to be achieved.’ The author then examines how, in the nineteenth century, Britain expanded its trade, influence and ultimately its power from the coast into the interior.

  In 1861 Britain annexed Lagos and made it a colony and from Lagos created a Protectorate of the Yoruba hinterland. East of Lagos Britain created the Oil Rivers protectorate to control the traders of the region and then granted a charter to the Niger Company under Sir George Goldie who became the first creator of what became the British Nigerian empire. Perham describes the historic differences between the Yoruba grouped within states based upon cities; and the Ibo isolated in their forest region who had prevented political organization above the family and clan level, and points out how the British tried and failed to create any form of chieftainship among them. The Niger Coast Protectorate was proclaimed in 1891. As Perham then says, though the Ibo were hard to organize, under the system of British control over the whole of what had become Nigeria, during the 1940s and 1950s they became the most active, Westernized group in Nigeria and ‘streamed out of their poor and overcrowded land to employ their energies and their newly-gained skills and education in other parts of the protectorate’. The third major group of Nigerians were in the North where the open country and climate had encouraged the development of city states; they had also been open to Islam and influences from across the Sahara while a religious revival early in the nineteenth century had reinforced the influence of Islam. Lying between the North and the South were a number of pagan groups that formed what came to be called the Middle Belt of Nigeria.

  In 1900 the British Government took over from the Niger Company, Lord Lugard was sent as administrator and over six years evolved the system of indirect rule. In 1906 the two contrasted southern regions were brought together and in 1914 Lugard returned to unite North and South. But, and this was the crucial event or non-event, ‘This was a union of three British administrations rather than three populations.’ There lay the key to what was to follow. For 30 or more years thereafter there was no British policy from above or African pressure from below to stimulate a real unity. Each of the three administrations worked separately from the other two and showed no urge to assimilate, while indirect rule in the North was carried to such an extreme as to preserve the differences between the Hausa-Fulani and the rest rather than help break them down. The result of this colonial approach was that the three peoples came to independence in different ways from different backgrounds and held little in common with one another. Unlike Tanzania where a range of tribes united in a single party, TANU, to demand independence from Britain, in Nigeria separate regionally based political parties were formed to fight for independence. The Yoruba under Awolowo formed the Action Group, yet even so divisions remained among their city states. The Ibo under Azikiwe formed a single democratic party, the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) (later the National Council of Nigerian Citizens). They wanted a unity that would allow them to migrate all over the region. Both the Southern parties saw the need to extend their influence outside their tribal bases. On the other hand, the Northern emirs, fearful of the more politically advanced Southerners, created a monolithic northern party, the Northern People’s Congress (NPC). The result, as Macmillan perceived during his visit of January 1960, was a vast country that should not have been united at all; or, if it had to be united, this should have been done in a very different way to that which the British had pursued. Two of the three regions had to combine to form a government and in 1960 it was the North and East that did so, leaving Awolowo and his Action Group out in the cold. There was no natural affinity between the Northerners and the Ibos and this soon became apparent. As Perham says towards the end of her essay, ‘The troubles, which broke out only two years after independence, were only a prelude. It was now dangerously clear that control of the federal centre and its finances would fall to the party, which in practice meant the region, with the majority of members. The census of 1962 not only recorded a population of 55.6 million… but p
laced 29.8 of these in the north, thus endowing it with a built-in majority over the other regions.’ From that time onwards, unsurprisingly, a census in Nigeria was cause for controversy.

  This historical prelude to the civil war should explain why there was much criticism of Britain then and later. The colonial system was about maintaining imperial control; it was not designed to create a nation. Margery Perham could be described as the British establishment ‘radical’ on African affairs at that time, yet as understanding as she was of African problems and developments and as clear and concise as is her analysis of Nigeria, she is never able, nor does she try, to explain why the British neither attempted nor intended to weld their multifaceted creation of Nigeria into a nation. Indeed, to do so, under the imperial system, would have been to create a nationalist force that would have proved irresistible long before 1960 and imperialism was not about such an approach. In her scrupulous account of how Britain united and yet kept Nigeria divided, Margery Perham lays bare the extent of British blame for the civil war. After reading such an analysis it becomes easier to understand the endless African diatribes against colonialism of the 1960s. At the end of the twentieth century thoughtful Africans could claim that many of the continent’s problems still resulted from the colonial era. It may be an easy way out of current dilemmas to blame the colonial past just as the ex-colonial powers dismiss such claims as a sign of Africa’s refusal to face present realities. But the debate cannot easily or quickly be made to disappear and the more we examine the decisions and policies of the colonial powers prior to independence, the more apparent it becomes that they have bequeathed to their former colonies an uneasy inheritance.

  THE END OF THE WAR, NIGERIA REMAINS UNITED

  By the beginning of 1969 the war had become curiously indecisive, a situation that led supporters of Biafra to argue, prematurely, that there could be no Federal victory. At the same time a rift had developed between the Federal field commanders and staff headquarters in Lagos with the former complaining that the latter were too complacent. By this stage in the war the strategy of the Federal Army, which in any case enjoyed huge superiority in numbers and arms, was to blockade the shrinking enclave of Biafra and bring about its surrender by starvation. Towards the end Biafra was confined to a small enclave of territory that was served by the single airstrip of Ulli to which supplies were brought by mercenary pilots. Over December 1969 and the first days of January 1970 the Federal Army deployed 120,000 troops for its final assault on Owerri and the Ulli airstrip. These fell to the Federal forces over 9–10 January and the war was over. At that stage the total strength of the Federal Army was 200,000 troops. Biafra, despite its handicaps, had demonstrated astonishing resilience: its propaganda had fostered the idea that surrender meant genocide, creating a fear that persuaded the Biafrans to fight almost to the end while, at the same time, engendering international sympathy and support. During the final year of the war Nigeria’s foreign policy was hard pushed to prevent other countries following the four African states that had recognized Biafra, while strengthening Western and Soviet support in supplying its military requirements. Increased Soviet military supplies arrived in the country in October 1969 and this allowed the Federal Chief of Staff, Brig. Katsina, to announce in November that final orders had been issued to the Federal forces to liberate the remaining rebel-held areas. At the same time Gen. Gowon suggested that the end of the war was in sight and accused ‘foreign meddlers’ of having prolonged the crisis by using the pretext of providing humanitarian relief. The final assault on what remained of Biafra was launched on Christmas Day.

  In a statement Ibos in a United Africa Federal Policy the Federal Government said: ‘It must be stated quite clearly that the civil war has not been directed against the Ibos as a people but against an unpatriotic and rebellious clique. The Head of State, General Gowon, considers the unimpeded return of the Ibos into the Nigerian family the keystone of his policies and programmes.’ With three million Ibos crowded into 1,500 square miles it was malnutrition and starvation that forced them to surrender, plus the increasing difficulty of obtaining ammunition. Even so, the Ibos had kept going with great ingenuity and endless expedients.

  One of the most devastating civil wars in post-1945 history came to an abrupt end on 12 January 1970. On 10 January 1970 Lt-Col. Ojukwu handed over control to his Chief of Staff Lt-Col. Philip Effiong and fled to Côte d’Ivoire where he was accorded asylum. On 12 January Effiong instructed the Biafran forces to disengage. On 14 January the New York Times reported: ‘Nigeria’s future as a united nation and a respected member of the international community depends heavily on the compassion and wisdom displayed by her leaders in the wake of their military victory.’ As Gen. Obasanjo, who led the final assault, was to say later: ‘The task was honourably discharged by all Nigerians in form of relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction and reintegration, and success was accomplished, as in the civil war itself, to the amazement of friends and foes alike.’ On 15 January at Dodan Barracks in Lagos, the headquarters of the Supreme Military Council, Lt-Col. Effiong signed the formal act of surrender and declared: ‘We accept the existing administrative and political structure of the Federation of Nigeria. Biafra ceases to exist.’

  The war, with its terrible suffering, had nevertheless kept Africa’s largest black state intact. In the post-war period that followed, Gowon’s greatest achievement was the way in which he presided over the reintegration of the defeated Ibos into the mainstream activities of Nigerian life. The war proved a traumatic affair for Africa as a whole; just as the continent was emerging from colonialism it was both daunting and humiliating to contemplate the possible collapse of Africa’s largest and potentially most powerful state. The war provided comfort for the white racists in the south who could argue that independence merely brought chaos while it gave Nigerians pause to think at the readiness of the big powers to interfere in pursuit of interests that often had little to do with Nigeria’s needs. Britain and the USSR were the two main sources of arms for the Federal Government while France was the principal source of arms for Biafra, supplied mainly through its proxy, Gabon. International observers were unanimous that the reports of genocide were unfounded, which provided a boost for Gowon and his policy of rehabilitating the Ibos. A unique aspect of this war was the high rate of success achieved by Biafran propaganda and the widespread belief it fostered in the West that the Federal Military Government was pursuing a policy of genocide although no proof was ever adduced in support of the claim. The war was prolonged unnecessarily by two factors: the Ibo belief, cultivated by its own propaganda, that genocide would follow surrender; and the part played by international charities, which continued to provide relief when otherwise Biafra would have been forced to surrender. The war became a cause for various charities whose propaganda ‘to feed the starving Biafrans’, however well intentioned, prolonged both the war and the extent of the suffering. Estimated casualties were 100,000 military (on both sides) and between 500,000 and two million civilians, mainly as a result of starvation, while 4.6 million Biafrans became refugees. In the end, 900 days of warfare had not destroyed Africa’s largest black state, while Biafra’s bid for secession and independence had failed.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  West and Equatorial Africa

  The countries of West and Equatorial Africa (excluding the Congo and Nigeria, which have already been examined in chapters two and seven) are considered here as they faced their first decade of independence. The region covered is vast: the 17 countries of West Africa – Dahomey (later Benin), Upper Volta (later Burkina Faso), Cape Verde, Chad, Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire), The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Portuguese Guinea (Guinea-Bissau), Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo – have a total area of 7,342,000 square kilometres (2,835,000 square miles). The countries of Equatorial Africa – Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo (Brazzaville), Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and São Tomé and Principe – cover another 1,743,142 square kilometres (670,
646 square miles) to make a grand total of 9,085,142 square kilometres (3,505,646 square miles), approximately the size of the United States. The two Portuguese territories of Cape Verde and Portuguese Guinea remained colonies throughout the decade while Spanish Guinea became independent as Equatorial Guinea in 1968. Half the population of these 23 countries resided in Nigeria. The estimated populations as at the end of the decade were as follows: