The Virtue of Ethnocentrism

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shina7...@yahoo.com

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Oct 13, 2012, 3:35:16 PM10/13/12
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When the Awolowo interview on the Biafra war and the methods used in that war surfaced on this forum, I read the transcript as someone who knew close to nothing about the war. I I was born three years after the war ended. However, I wasn't at all surprised at the deluge of responses that trailed that transcript and the commentaries on Achebe's book and essay in The Guardian. If people had shrugged at those two issues, then there must be hope for Nigeria!

Yet, people could not have shrugged them off. The civil war and Awolowo's and Achebe's perceptions of it are significant to the survival of Nigeria as a tormented country. And the host of replies and responses have been enlightening. We've heard from igbos and the claim of being the most significant tribe in Nigeria. Yorubas have equally weighed in their opinion of Awolowo and his percieved good heart. We have even heard from Ibibios and the bitter lessons they have learnt on how not to trust in Nigeria!

What has been troubling for me, however, is another thread in the discourse which has been counseling ending the entire debate for many reasons. Some are disgusted by the potential for the disruption of friendship, others by the sheer magnitude of hatred and pent up fury flying across this cyber-forum. Still others are concerned about the binary opposition of ethnicities that has invaded the discourse. The question however still is: In spite of all these, why should people pretend that all is well, and move on with their lives? Shouldn't the time have come for the entire charade called Nigeria to blow up? And why are we at all surprised that the discourse is taking this shape, that ethnic rivalry is still alive and kicking in Naija?

Since our flag independence fifty two years ago, Nigeria has been managing the mechanical unity it imposed on its unyielding diversity with no success. The war and many other events till date are the result of the failure of that 'unity'. We have all also seen the failure of the NYSC and the quota system. And hence the inability of the Nigerian state to achieve national integration after 52 years of statehood. All plural states are confronted with that imperative of integration. Only few states have succeeded in transforming their diversity into national synergy. Nigeria certainly has not achieved that good fortune!

What does this tell us? A simple but neglected truth: Nigeria's future cannot be divorced from the ethnocentric prejudices of the ethnic diversities making up the Nigerian state.

Every human is born ethnocentric. It is an undeniable part of our human condition. In fact, our humanity and the vicissitudes of the universe is mediated by specific ethnos. Our desire to be cosmopolitan (or 'detribalise' as we say in Nigeria) most of the time deride this condition of our existence. In Nigeria, we could read our collective failure as a state as an instance of the leadership's attempt to ignore our ethnocentric situation and. Play the ostrich through series of funny 'national' policies meant to exorcise the genie of ethnicity. Yet, that genie had been out of the bottle for a while! It traumatised us between 1967 and 1970 and recently is bombing us silly.

I have not read Achebe's notorious book yet, but I believe I have the capacity to extrapolate from The Trouble with Nigeria as well as other interventions of the literary icon over the years. It seems to me that Achebe has equally been worried about why the quest for nationhood has consistently hit the rock in Nigeria. And, this is the catch, there is no other way by which Achebe could come at that trouble (or, at the manifestation of national failure instantiated in the Biafra war) except from an ethnic perspective. As far as I am concerned, no one has that archimedean standpoint. This is a position that is even most poignant given our historical situation as a country. Wouldn't Awolowo still have been in the eye of the storm if he had been, say, a Kanuri or an Itshekiri? Would the effect of whatevber strategy he advocated not been the same?

Further questions: Isn't it time to confront the albatross of the civil war and all it meant within the trajectory of statehood in Nigeria? Isn't it better to allow all the pent up furies a cathartic space for release? If every ethnic reasons and arrogance and reservations are allowed to roam the public sphere, wouldn't that allow for a reasonale assessment of our biases and prejudices, and hence make for a therapeutic reassessment?

If Nigeria must move forward, then it must allow for a cacophony of ethnic voices to speak their grievances without the arrogance of a 'detribalised objectivity'. That is the significance of Achebe's book for me. I am surprised people see him as being prejudiced. Of course, we all are! It is only through debate and confrontations that we can ever hope to arrive at what Georg Gadamer, the German philosopher, called the 'fusion of horizons' mediated by our collective resolve to speak and allow others their opinions too. Achebe has contributed an opinion within the conflicted space of discourse. That opinion must be dissected and assessed. Then others must contribute their own too with the same result.
The public sphere in Nigeria is one that has operated, for a while now, under the framework of tolerance. If another war were to happen right now, I fear for our 'objectivity'. We should remember the horror of Rwanda! What is needed, according to Charles Taylor, the American philosopher, is the transition from tolerance to recognition. You only tolerate what you can't stand! Yet, recognition requires two significant principles:

A. First, that the person I am relating with is different from me. In relating with me, s/he must necessarily relate from an ethnic perspective.
B. Second, that the person shares the same humanity with me. Our collective humanity offers a way out of the problems our ethnocentric condition may generate.

The Nigerian civil war had happened. But we have not confronted its consequences. We have been stupidly quiet about it. The Nigerian governments thought it was national wisdom to wrap it up. And we wonder why national integration had not happened! I'm surprised someone thought it had even happened for the igbos! And the reason is that they have status and governmental visibility! Ah! Of course, the South south have equally been integrated. wasn't that region offered the post of the Secretary to the Federal Government? National integration goes beyond mere visibility of any ethnic personality on the national landscape. If I ascend any professional height, I did it solely on my individual and even ethnic capacity. Or, through the patrimonial political opportunity afforded by the fact that I have a family or a friend in government. This doesn't imply that I love Nigeria or that she has provided the opportunity for progress for me. On the contrary, integration involves the ability of the Nigerian state to generate a feeling or sense of belonging that would necessitate the transference of ethnic loyalty to the Nigerian state. It is only then that nationhood would be born in Nigeria. As it is now, Nigeria is a mere contraption of nationalities and ethnicities. Integration has not happened for any group and subgroups. The ferocious tone of the debate around Awo and Achebe is a demonstration of that.

Integration translate into a fusion of ethnic energies. I cannot cease being a Yoruba just as you must remain Ibo (or Hausa, Efik, Edo, Kilba, etc). However, for Nigeria to succeed, it must make it possible for me to remain who I am; it must give me reason to transfer my ethnocentric allegiance to the national framework without losing myself in the process.


Adeshina Afolayan



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Nkolika Ebele

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Oct 13, 2012, 4:20:35 PM10/13/12
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You actually hit the nail on the head with this write up. 
Thanks
Nkolika

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OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU

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Oct 13, 2012, 9:49:44 PM10/13/12
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Beautifully written, Adeshina.

 I must commend your command of English. You are a true adept in that language. 

You go beyond utilitarian efficiency to arrive at poetic force. I would like such ability to conjure a fusion of image and idea  emerge in my own writing.

I appreciate your development of the concept of fusion of horizons, using that splendid quote from Gadamer.  

I get the impression though, that, in your interpretation of Achebe  you are superimposing your wishes on historical realities.

You are arguing, with Dasylva, that Nigerian ethnicities, as a whole, are not integrated into Nigeria. You describe integration as trans-ethnic identification with the nation.  You justify Achebe's argument that Igbos are unintegrated into Nigeria based on that premise.

First, Achebe in that essay never claimed to be speaking for all Nigerians as you claim to be. He did not present himself as representing the interests of Nigerian ethnicities generally. He did not describe himself as analysing the integration of various ethnicities into Nigeria. 

In terms of the content and prominence given to the paragraph where he declares his point, he describes himself as speaking  for the Igbo and the Igbo alone :

"There are many international observers who believe that Gowon's actions after the war were magnanimous and laudable. There are tons of treatises that talk about how the Igbo were wonderfully integrated into Nigeria. Well, I have news for them: The Igbos were not and continue not to be reintegrated into Nigeria, one of the main reasons for the country's continued backwardness."

Does this quote from Achebe not put paid to your effort to claim a pan-Nigerian argument for Achebe? Would you want to argue, perhaps, that Achebe meant that what was being done to Igbos was being done to everyone else? If so, by whom? Would that not be a contradiction? 

Secondly, Achebe's essay begins and ends with the discussion of what he understands as the plight of Igbos. The only effort to relate this plight to Nigerians in general is his argument for Igbo domiance before the civil war: 

"It is my impression that Awolowo was driven by an overriding ambition for power, for himself and for his Yoruba people. There is, on the surface at least, nothing wrong with those aspirations. However, Awolowo saw the dominant Igbos at the time as the obstacles to that goal, and when the opportunity arose – the Nigeria-Biafra war – his ambition drove him into a frenzy to go to every length to achieve his dreams."
 
and his argument that :

"The Igbos were not and continue not to be reintegrated into Nigeria, one of the main reasons for the country's continued backwardness."

Does this strike you as a pan-Nigerian argument of the kind you are invoking? 

Secondly, you argue that the prominence of Igbos in Nigerian national life does not imply national integration. You claim that integration is defined by identification with a national entity. 

I would describe that as contradicted by the reality of Nigeria. The  complex and varied points of integration of groups into social systems demonstrated by Nigerian social life demonstrates that a significant  degree of social integration is taking place in the nation. 

These points of yours are not true, to a significant degree,  with reference to Nigeria:

'...integration involves the ability of the Nigerian state to generate a feeling or sense of belonging that would necessitate the transference of ethnic loyalty to the Nigerian state. It is only then that nationhood would be born in Nigeria. As it is now, Nigeria is a mere contraption of nationalities and ethnicities. Integration has not happened for any group and subgroups...

Integration translate into a fusion of ethnic energies. I cannot cease being a Yoruba just as you must remain Ibo (or Hausa, Efik, Edo, Kilba, etc). However, for Nigeria to succeed, it must make it possible for me to remain who I am; it must give me reason to transfer my ethnocentric allegiance to the national framework without losing myself in the process.'

It is more realistic to describe national integration in terms of action rather than the speculative psychological states you are depicting, speculation contradicted by the social realities demonstrated by the  social actors in question. 

If, after the horrors of the 60s, Igbos could migrate to the North, it makes a statement about their conviction about their sense of belonging in the nation. To what degree is this commitment justified in the light of Boko Haram terror? Are Igbos evacuating the North as they did in the 60s? If they are not, and they are able to set down roots, both familial and professional in the North, they have achieved a significant degree of social integration in Northern Nigeria. 

If, after the Biafran atrocities in the Midwest and the anti-Igbo atrocities by Nigerian troops, Igbos can settle in the Midwest and become a force in the Catholic church, in academics, and in business, building families, living peacefully and owning homes without fear, across generations, then the Igbos have achieved significant integration in the Midwest. 

If Igbo organisations can come together and take to the governor of Lagos state a request/demand that, on account of their contributions to the state, they should have greater participation in the government of Lagos state, then Igbos have achieved significant integration in Lagos state. 

By what rights  of association are Igbos able to make such a demand/request in Lagos state? By what rights are they able to enjoy particular rights due to a Nigerian citizen wherever they live in Nigeria? 

By what rights are people of Igbo ancestry employed in the Nigerian government? 

All these rights emerge because they are Nigerians. They are not enjoying these rights because they are individuals from anywhere . They are not enjoying them only because they are qualified. They are enjoying them because they are Nigerians. They are employed because they are Nigerians.

In enjoying such rights of free movement, association, enterprise  and employment across Nigeria, they thereby  identify with Nigeria and are integrated into the Nigerian state. 

In those national appointments, whose interests do you know them as serving? Individual, ethnic or national? If they serve national intests and are paid for the job does that not demonstrate loyalty to Nigeria? Can you identify Akunyili, Okonjo-Iweala, Ezekwesili, Bart Nnanji and Ihejirika as not committed to Nigeria? 

Its not true, therefore, to describe these figures as not transferring their  loyalty to Nigeria.

So, to claim that Igbos are not integrated into Nigeria, as Achebe has done, is false.

To claim, as you do, that there is no sense of national integration in Nigeria, is not true. The most you can convincingly argue for is for degrees of integration. 

Also, this reductive understanding of  government in Nigeria is false with reference  to the role of the Igbos in government I mentioned and it does not apply to many government appointments across Nigerian history. I highlight the section I am referring to: 

'If I ascend any professional height, I did it solely on my individual and even ethnic capacity. Or, through the patrimonial political opportunity afforded by the fact that I have a family or a friend in government. This doesn't imply that I love Nigeria or that she has provided the opportunity for progress for me. '

It is false for Okonjo-Iwela, for example, whose tenure as Nigerian finance minster  who played a central role in Nigerian debt liquidation gave her expanded global prominence. She was also appointed, in the first place,  on account of her exemplary credentials  in global finance, not through patrimony. 

Dora Akuntil's performance at NAFDAC not only made her eligible to continue  in government  it gave a global recognition  . So, these figures have been advanced in their professions through working for Nigeria.

Finally, while ethnicity does define some  people, not everyone can afford to be defined by ethnicity. Achebe is not V.S Naipaul, who does not enjoy Achebe's hard earned trans-civilizational credentials and  can say what he likes when he likes and nothing is disturbed. 

Achebe was Achebe. I say was because Achebe has de-deified  himself. 

Achebe is understood as one of the world's greatest writers, who, making a name from an ethnic centred corpus, speaks for humanity.

This is evident from the ideational and disciplinary scope of the secondary literature on Achebe, the geographical range of Achebe scholarship and Achebe's own self presentations  in his expository writings represented by his essays. Achebe's location at the nexus of literary and national history is also one that privileges a trans-ethnic orientation, a role Achebe has played before now.

Achebe's mission with Soyinka and J.P Clark to Babangida to spare Mamman Vatsa's life so as to help stem the cycle of bloodletting in the name of power demonstrates a recognition that his place is properly with his professional compeers on national issues, speaking from a national standpoint. There was no mention of Vatsa's role as a Nigerian commander who had captured territory  in Igboland during the war.  

Achebe acted then as a member of a privileged generation who had reached maturity before the ethnic schism  of the war and who as members of the new African intelligentsia emerging at the entry into the post-colonial period, had assumed roles of national vision. 

This position is not contradicted by Achebe's  role in Biafra doing his duty for his ethnicity at a desperate time. This is not such a time, however. Whatever the unresolved fallout from the war, it would be historically inaccurate amd socially incongruous to respond to the present in  the spirit of the civil war period. 

In the light of his historical identity, therefore, Achebe cannot afford to be is identified  with a narrowly  ethnic focus. 

In the sad limitations of his essay previewing  his book, Achebe may be seen as falling victim to internal  contradictions, like Ezeulu in his Arrow of God. He could be described as falling victim to the dangers of  poor communication  as described in his essay "Language and the Destiny of Man". 

The dangers and benefits  of Achebe's intervention may  be assessed  in terms of the Mande description of the elder. The elder needs to be sensitive to the difference  between speech and silence. When the elder speaks, they should speak with a sensitivity that shapes what is said, how it is said, when it is said, where it is said, and to whom it is said.

thanks
toyin

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Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"

Mobolaji Aluko

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Oct 14, 2012, 6:26:22 AM10/14/12
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QUOTE

My whole point is that while Internet caterwaulers and other lesser landlubbing beings can make accusations of marginalizations of the Igbo, the erudite Prof. Chinua Achebe does not have the luxury of such throw-away lines, for he must back it up with good prose about what "lack of marginalization or the fullest integration of Ndigbo" would mean.  Is it a mental marginalization - in which case very little can be done about that -  or a physical one?  Prof. Achebe's excusable slips of post-war ethnocentrism showed in his slim piece "The Trouble with Nigeria" - but that was in 1986, twenty-five whole years ago.  I have attended two of his academic Colloquia on Africa and Nigeria at Brown University, even chaired one of the sessions, and I did not detect any ethnocentrism in the quiet man who sat through many of the sessions in his wheelchair, and made the occasional gracious comment.  To return to 1986 themes in this his 2012 piece without moderation is "troubling with Nigeria", no pun intended.

UNQUOTE


Toyin Adepoju:

I too join you in commending Adeshina Afolayan for his short piece, even if I do not agree with him 100%, as I cannot be expected to.  I however agree with him 100% in his concluding paragraph:

QUOTE

Integration translate into a fusion of ethnic energies. I cannot cease being a Yoruba just as you must remain Ibo (or Hausa, Efik, Edo, Kilba, etc). However, for Nigeria to succeed, it must make it possible for me to remain who I am; it must give me reason to transfer my ethnocentric allegiance to the national framework without losing myself in the process.

UNQUOTE

Yes, a nation must EARN the patriotism of its citizens by INTENTIONAL means, and not take its citizens for granted, lest they take their loyalties elsewhere in this technologically mobile world.  That is why, as far back as far back as February 1995 - more than 17 years ago now, as I was grappling during with my Nigerian citizenship abroad during the thickets of the June 12 crisis  -  I wrote in the concluding paragraph of my essay  "The Content of our Discontent",  the following:

QUOTE


THE PLACE OF THE INDIVIDUAL NIGERIAN AND HIS COMMUNITY

So what must we do ? First, each Nigerian must re-emphasise his DIGNITY, and emphasise that the (electoral) vote is his lowest level share of political power, and that it must be respected, both now and in the future.

Secondly, he must be free to identify without fear or loss of status with his community, that group with which he has historical, cultural and lingual similarity. Nigeria is in fact not a nation yet, but a COUNTRY OF NATIONS, for it is precisely historical, cultural and lingual similarities which define nations. We must also insist that as part of the country called Nigeria, all communities must be fully part of its ecumene, that is its economic-political territory, its economic, political and cultural life, or else some communities will ever chafe to define theirs.

Thirdly, our collective cause must be based on the twin assertions of DIGNITY and RESPECT for all ethnic groups in Nigeria. We must remember that no one can make us feel inferior without our consent. I am not asking for ethnic fascism nor must we assert ethnic superiority. In fact tolerance, sacrifice and inter-dependence should be watchwords.

But in Nigeria, while everyone must strive to save Nigeria from itself, if it so permits, "prideful communities" must also be ready to save themselves. The deterioration of our schools and social and physical infrastructure, the hopeleness of our youth and the heavy-heart being carried around by our adults can simply no longer be tolerated.

Anger we have, shame we must avoid and pride we must restore. We must build a sense of purpose and consensus which the generation before us has woefully lacked, and we must let that passing generation know that we can no longer tolerate dilly-dallying with our lives. We are merely six years away from Year 2001, and we are in a real danger of being swept aside by history.

Finally, we must also remember our history, much of which consists of numerous avoidable conflicts among ourselves. We can not take our unity for granted, rather we must work purposefully and tirelessly for it. We must, beginning immediately, spend some of our time carefully and unemotionally ruminating on what aspects of liberal democracy is compatible with our various cultures, so that we do not repeat the same mistakes of the past.

All of these are tasks that must be done.

UNQUOTE

That is why I HATE the description of the "detribalized Nigerian", which is a fiction, and which I have stated elsewhere is used as a backhand compliment to describe ONLY the Yoruba public person who ABUSES his Yoruba people publicly.

Toyin, you wrote:

QUOTE

In those national appointments, whose interests do you know them as serving? Individual, ethnic or national? If they serve national intests and are paid for the job does that not demonstrate loyalty to Nigeria? Can you identify Akunyili, Okonjo-Iweala, Ezekwesili, Bart Nnanji and Ihejirika as not committed to Nigeria? 

Its not true, therefore, to describe these figures as not transferring their  loyalty to Nigeria.

So, to claim that Igbos are not integrated into Nigeria, as Achebe has done, is false.

UNQUOTE

Exactly, absolutely false, unless there was massive/is massive deceit going on by Akunyili, Okonjo-Iweala, Ezekwesili, Bart Nnaji and Ihejirika, or by Ekwueme, Enwerem, Okadigbo, Nwabara, Nnamani, Chukwumerije, Anyim, Ekwerenmadu, Orji Kalu, etc. all of who have either gotten appointments on the national level and/or having been elected as politicians on the sub-national scale, or have sought national position, or have taken positions as Speaker, Members of the National Economic Council, President,  etc. on a national level.

What about on a voluntary level - and that hallowed level:  our football national team?

According to my trusted Wikipedia, here are the people that were called to camp for the October 2012 SuperEagles team that trounced Liberia 6-1 just yesterday:



and in the last 12 months here were those, in addition to the above, that were called to camp:

And what about the Super Falcons (women's) team:



In fact, on the field, there are times where there are as many as seven, eight Igbo players (male or female) out of the eleven players on the field - one would think it is a Biafran team with one or two Nigerian mercenaries -  and Nigerians don't worry/mind at all - they are all Nigerians after all! :-)

And what about our banks?  Here are the names of the various directors as at November 2011:


Access Bank (Nig.) Plc

 

1. Mr Gbenga Oyebode,   MFR

Chairman

2. Dr Cosmas Maduka   

Director

3. Mr Oritsedere Otubu        

Director

4. Mallam Mahmoud Isa-Dutse

Director

5. Mr Emmanuel Chiejina

Director

6. Mr Babatunde Folawiyo    

Director

7. Mrs Mosunmola Bello-Olusoga   

Director

8. Mr Aigboje Aig-imoukhuede 

GMD/CEO

9.Mr Herbet Wigwe

GDMD

10. Mr Taukeme Koroye 

ED

11. Mr Okey Nwuke         

ED

12. Mr Obeahon Ohiwerei     

ED

13. Mr Ebenezer Olufowose

ED

 

 

Citibank Nigeria Limited

 

1. Chief C. S. Sankey

Chairman

2. Mr. Emeka Emuwa

MD/CEO

3. Mr. Kallem Rizavi

ED

4. Mr. Fatai Karim 

ED

5. Mrs Funmi Ade-Ajayi  

ED

6. Mr. Munir A. Nnaji   

ED

7. Prof I. O. Oladapo

 

8. Alh M. H. Koguna

 

9. Ade Ayeyemi

 

10. Khalil Qurashi

 

11. Naveed Raiz

 

12. Chief E. J. Amana

 

13. Prof. Yemi Osinbajo

 

14. Chief Arthur Mbanefor

 

 

 

Diamond Bank Plc

 

1. HRM Igwe Nnaemeka U. Achebe

Chairman

2. Dr. Alex Otti 

MD

3. Alh. AbdulRahman Yinusa   

ED

4. Mr U. K. Eke  

ED

5. Mr Ohis Ohiwerei    

ED

6. Mr Victor Ezenwoko  

ED

7. Mr. Oladele Akinyemi

ED

8. Mr. Uzoma Dozie

ED

9. Mr. Onwunna Clement Mazi

 

10. Lt. Gen. Useini Jeremaiah, (Rtd)

 

11. Dr Hassan Olubola

 

12. Mr Ogbechie Chris

 

13. Mr. Harford Simon

 

14. Mr. Edozien John

 

15. Ms Ngozi Edozien

 

16. Mr. Ian Greenstreet

 

17. Mrs. Omobola Olubusola Johnson

 

 

 

Ecobank Nig. Plc

 

1. Sonny F. Kuku  

Chairman

2. Jibril John Aku 

MD/CEO

3. Ibironke Wilson  

ED

4. Morenike Adepoju 

ED

5. Jalone Okorodudu 

ED

6. Foluke Aboderin

ED

7. Oluwagbemiga Kuye

ED 

8. Muazu M. Anache

 

9. Wilfred A. Belonwu

 

10. Nadu E. Delonye

 

11. Edouard Dossou-Yovo

 

12. Oladisun Holloway

 

13. Evelyn Tall (Ms)

 

14. Kola Karim

 

 

 

Enterprise Bank Limited

 

1. Mr. Emeka Onwuka

Chairman

2. Malam Ahmed Kuru  

MD/CEO

3. Mrs Louisa Olalokun

ED

4. Mrs Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe

ED

5.Mr. Aminu Ismail

ED

6. Mr. Niyi Adebayo

ED

7. Mr. Audu Kazir

ED

 8.Mr. Sanusi Monguno

 Director

 9. Mr. Ebenezer Foby

 Director

 10. Hajiya Asmau Sani Maikudi

 Director

 11. Mr. Lamis Dikko

 Director

 12. Mr. John Aderibigbe

 Director

 13. Mr. Garba Imam

 Director

 14. Mr. Ogala Osaka

 Director

 15. Mr. Ismaila Shuaibu

 Director

 16. Mr. Ezekiel Gomos

 Director

 

 

Equitorial Trust Bank Ltd

 

1. Otunba (Mrs) Y. Adegbola 

Chairman

2. Mr. Gbolahan Olukayode Folayan 

MD/CEO

3. Mr. Femi Obaleke

ED

4. Mr. Akinsola Fakeye

ED

5. Mr. Tilewa Adebajo

 ED

6. Hon. Nduka Irabor

 

7. Elder Isiaka Adisa

 

8. Col. Habibu Shu'aibu (Rtd)

 

 

 

Fidelity Bank Plc

 

1. Chief Christopher Ezeh, MFR

Chairman

2. Reginald Ihejiahi      

MD/CEO

3. Willie M. Obiano 

ED

4. AbdulRahman Esene  

ED

5. IK Mbagwu    

ED

6. Mrs. Onome Olaolu

ED

7. Mallam Yahaya Umar

 

8. Mr. Nnamdi Oji

 

9. Mrs. Bessie N. Ejeckam

 

10. Chief Elias E. Nwosu

 

11. Arc. Augustine W. U. Okam

 

12. Chief Nnaeto Orazulike

 

13. Mr. Kayode Olowoniyi

 

14. Mr. Stanley Lawson

 

15. Alh. Bashari Gumel

 

 

 

First Bank of Nigeria Plc

 

1. Prince Ajibola Afonja

Chairman

2. Bisi Onasanya 

MD/CEO

3. Kehinde Lawanson

ED

4. Bello Mohammed Maccido

ED

5. UrumKalu Eke      

ED

6. Mrs Remi A. Odunlami 

Chief Risk Officer

7. Ms. Ibiai Ajumogobia 

 

8. Alhaji Mahey R. Rasheed

 

9. Ambrose Feese

 

10. Lawal Kankia Ibrahim

 

11. Ibukun Awosika

 

12. Ebenezer Jolaosa

 

13. Ibrahim Dahiru Waziri

 

14. Tunde Hassan-Odukale

 

15. Khadijah Alao Straub

 

16. Obafemi Adedamola Otudeko

 

 

 

 First City Monument Bank Plc

 

 1. Dr. Jonathan A. D. Long

Chairman

 2. Mr Ladi Balogun  

MD

 3. Mr Henry Semenitari  

ED

 4. Mr Peter Obaseki 

ED

5. Mr Nabeel Malik        

ED

6. Dr John Udofa

 

7. Mr G. T. S. Adokpayi

 

8. Mr Tope Lawani

 

9. Mr Nigel Kenny

 

10. Mr Ladi Jadesimi

 

11. Mr Bismark Rewane

 

12. Alhaji Mustapha Damcida

 

13. Mr. Peter Nigel Kenney

 

14. Mr. Olusegun Odubogun

 

 

 

First Inland Bank Plc

 

1. Osanakpo Chike Theo

Chairman

2. Suzanne Iroche (Mrs)

MD/CEO

3. Omoruyi Iyamu   

ED

4. Mrs Caroline Anyanwu 

ED

5. Adam Nuhu

 ED

6. Alhaji Labbo Zanna

 

7. Kenneth Odogwu

 

8. Ernest Oji

 

9. Agnes Ebubedike

 

10. Anyaduegwu I. Ishmael

 

11. Aliyu Gaffar

 

12. Opeyemi Oye

 

13. Usman Umar

 

14. Charles Onukugha

 

15. Engr. E. O. Efobi

 

 

 

Guaranty Trust (GT) Bank Plc

 

1. Mr. Oluwole Oduyemi   

Chairman

2. Mr. Olusegun Agbaje   

Ag. MD/CEO

3. Mr. Jide Ogundare 

ED

4. Mrs. Cathy Echeozo  

ED

5. Mr. Akin George Taylor 

ED

6. Mrs. Titi Osuntoki    

ED

7. Mr. Ibrahim Hassan

 

8. Adetokunbo B. Adesanya

 

9. Mr. Olabode Agusto

 

10. Egbert  I. Mommoh

 

11. Mr. Adebayo Adeola

 

12. Mr. Akindele Akintoye

 

13. Mrs Stella Okoli

 

14. Mr. andrew Alli

 

 

 

Keystone Bank Limited

 

1. Mr. Jacobs Moyo Ajekigbe

Chairman

2. Mr. Oti Ikomi   

MD/CEO

3. Mr. Shehu Abubakar

ED

4. Mr. Demola Adewale

ED

5. Mrs. Yvonne Isichei

ED

6. Dr. Shehu K. Mohammed

ED

7. Mr. Raphael Ereyi

ED

8. Prince Niyi Akenzua

Director

9. Mr. Adolphus Ekpe

Director

10. Mr. Charles Chidebe Umolu

Director

11. Mr. Yakubu Shehu

Director

12. Mr. Mustapha Ibrahim

Director

13. Brigadier-General Aminu-Kano

Director

14. Maria Olateju Phillips

Director

15. Mr. Yusuf Pam

Director

16. Mr. Jacob Olusegun Olusanya

Director

 

 

Mainstreet Bank Limited

 

1. Alhaji Falalu Bello

Chairman

2. Mrs Faith Tuedor-Matthews

MD/CEO

3. Mr. Kola Ayeye

ED

4. Mr. Abubakar Saddiq Bello

ED

5. Mr. Bolaji Shenjobi

ED

6. Mr. Anogwi Anyanwu

ED

7. Mr. Roger Woodbridge

ED

8. Mrs. Yabawa Wabi

Director

9. Mr. Mohammed Gulani Shuaibu

Director

10. Professor Osita Ogbu

Director

11. Mr. Joshua Ogunlowo

Director

12. Mr. Abdullahi Sarki Mahmoud

Director

13. Mr. Shuaib Idris

Director

14. Mr. Shehu Saad

Director

15. Chris Osiomha Itede

Director

16. Mr. Ayo Ajayi

Director

 

 

Oceanic Bank Plc

 

1. Apostle Hayford Alile

Chairman

2. Mr John Aboh   

MD

3. Mrs Oyinkan Adewale   

ED

4. Mr Henry Oritseweyinmi Ajagbawa  

ED

5. Mohammed Lawal Balarabe

 ED

6. Abimbola Olaitan Ajagbawi

 

7. Werner Stanffacher E. C.

 

8. Mr. Simpson Ese Okoro

 

9. Amb. Bunu Sheriff Musa

 

10. Mr. Anthony Omoruyi esq

 

11. Mr. Ovie Edward Ukiri

 

12. Mr. Valentine Oboden Ibru

 

13. Amb. Hamza Ahmadu

 

14. Mr. Ngalaah Chuphi

 

 

 

Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc

 

1. Mr.  Atedo Peterside      

Chairman

2. Mr. Chris Newson

MD

3. Mrs. Sola David-Borha 

DMD

4. Ms. Roets Marna 

ED

5. Maree Jacko   

ED

6. Kruger Ben 

ED

7. Mohammed Wushishi

 

8. Mahtani Bhagwan

 

9. Dasuki Ahmed

 

10. Unuigbe Samuel

 

11. Adedoyin Moses

 

 

 

Sterling Bank Plc

 

1. Alhaji (Dr) S. A. Adegunwa, OFR 

Chairman

2. Mr. Yemi Adeola   

Group MD/CEO

3. Mr Lanre Adesanya   

ED

4. Mr Devendra Nath Puri

ED

5. Alh Garba Imam 

ED

6. Capt Harrison Kuti

 

7. Mr Yemi Idowu 

 

8. Alh Bashir Borodo MFR

 

9. Mr Yinka Adeola

 

10. Mr Abhay Kumar Singh

 

11. Mr Rasheed Kolarinwa 

 

12. Mr. Musibau Fashaun

 

 

 

Standard Chartered Bank Ltd

 

1. Joseph Oladele Sanusi, CON       

Chairman

2. Mrs. Bola Adesola

MD/CEO

3. Yemi Owolabi

 ED

4. Christopher R. Knight

 ED

5. Oluremi Omotosoh, MFR

 

6. Olusegun B. Ajayi

 

7. Sriram Padmanabhan

 

8. Mike Hart

 

9. Anil Dua

 

 

 

SKYE Bank Plc

 

 1. Mrs. Moronkeji Onasanya                            

Chairman

2. Mr. Kehinde Durosimi-Etti                

MD

3. Mr. Gbenga Ademulegun              

ED

4. Mr. Dotun Adeniyi                    

ED

5. Mrs Ibiye Ekong                   

ED

6. Mrs Amaka Onwughalu                            

ED

7. Mr. Timothy Oguntayo  

ED

8. Mr. Victor Odozi

 

9. Princess Adenike Adeniran

 

10. Mr. Olatunde Ayeni

 

11. Mr. Victor Adenigbagbe

 

12. Mr. Kolawale Awodein

 

13. Mr. Jaso Fadeyi

 

14. Mr. Micheal Tarfa

 

15.  Brig. Gen Anthony Ukpo (Rtd)

 

16. Mr. Vinaj Tuteji

 

 

 

 Unity Bank Plc

 

1. Alhaji Nu'uman Barau Danbatta, OON

Chairman

2. Alhaji Ado Yakubu Wanka

MD/CEO

3. Alhaji I. A. Galadanchi

ED

4. Alhaji A. Yusuf

ED

5. Mr. Rislanudeen Muhammed   

ED

6. Alhaji I. T. Mohammed

ED

7. Mr. Lanre Elisha Fagbohun

ED

8. Engr Ahmed Ibrahim

 

9. Alhaji Gimba Ibrahim

 

10.Mr. Gboyega Asabia

 

11. Mr. Thomas Etuh

 

12. Alhaji M. A. Kaugama

 

13. Engr. Oluseun Mabogunje

 

14. Dr. Oluwafunsho Obasanjo

 

15. Mr. Hakeem Shagaya

 

16. Alhaji Aminu Babangida

 

 

 

Union Bank of Nigeria Plc

 

1. Musa Gella Yakubu

Chairman

2. Mrs Funke Osibodu   

MD/CEO

3. Ibrahim Abubakar

ED

4. Philip Ikeazor  

ED

5. Kunle Odeosun  

ED

6. Ade Shomubi 

ED

7. Ahmadu Abubakar

 

8. Mansur Ahmed

 

9. Onikepo Akande Chief (Mrs)

 

10. Ibrahim A. Gobir

 

11. Festus Odimegwu

 

12. Onajite Okoloko

 

13. Olusegun Olusanya

 

14.Cosmos Paul Udofot

 

 

 

United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA)

 

1. Isreal O. Ogbue 

Chairman

2. Joseph Chiedu Keshi (OON)

Vice Chairman

3. Philips Oduoza 

GMD 

4. Victor Osadolor

DMD

5. Emmanuel Nnorom  

ED

6. Rasheed Olaoluwa

ED

7.  Abdulqadir J. Bello  

ED

8. Olalokun Oluwafemi           

ED

9. Onejeme Ifeatu Chinedu

ED

10. Kennedy Uzoka

ED

11. Kolawole Jamodu (OFR)

 

12. Adekunle Olumide (OON)

 

13. Runa N. Alam (American)

 

14. Foluke K. Abdulrazaque

 

15. Jafaru Aliyu Paki

 

16. Angela Nwabuoku

 

17. Zekeri Yahaya

 

18. Paolo Di Martino

 

 

 

Wema Bank Plc

 

1. Chief Samuel O. Bolarinde    

Chairman

2. Mr Segun Oloketuyi   

MD/CEO

3. Mr Ademola Adebise     

ED

4. Alhaji Nurudeen Adeyemo Fagbenro

ED

5. Prof. Oshinpintan Taiwo

 

5. Dr. Ayo Akinyelu

 

6. Mr Adebode O. Adefioye

 

7. Chief Opeyemi O. Bademosi

 

 

 

Zenith Bank Plc

 

1. Sir Steve Omojafor 

Chairman

2. Mr Godwin Emefiele    

MD

3. Mr Peter Amango   

ED

4. Mr Elias Egbin Akenzua 

ED

5. Mr Apollos Ikpobe     

ED

6. Mr Andy Ojei  

ED

7. Mr Udom Emmanuel

ED

8. Alhaji Lawan Sani

 

9. Alhaji Baba Tella

 

10. Prof. Chukaka Enwemeka

 

11. Ms. Amal Pepple

 

12. Mrs. Jeffrey Efeyin

 

13. Mr. Babatunde Adejuwon


Go to Abuja, to where I go often these days.  Ndigbo seem to me as comfortable as ANYWHERE else in Nigeria - as they should. A vast number of the hotels are owned by Ndigbo, as I understand it, and as I know of a prominent few.  In fact, here is the list of the executive of the Hotel Owners Forum of Abuja (HOFA):


S/N

NAMES                                                                 

OFFICE

1

ENGR. ONOFIOK EKONG             

PRESIDENT

2

MRS. BOLA ONIGBOGI

VICE PRESIDENT

3

ARC. DAVID ALOZIE

GENERAL SECRETAR Y

4

MR. DENNIS IBE               

ASST. GEN. SECRETA RY

5

PRINCESS NNENNA NWACHUKWU         

FINANCIAL SECRETA RY

6

CHIEF FRANK ENEKEBE

TREASURER

7

MRS. LIZZY AKPABIO

P.R.O.

8

MRS. ALU DIM

SOCIAL WELFARE OFFICER

9

DR. EZEUDEH CC

PROVOST

10

SIR CHIKA CHIEJINE

 EX-OFFICIO

11

MR. TOMI AKINGBOGUN            

 EX-OFFICIO


My whole point is that while Internet caterwaulers and other landlubbing lesser beings can make accusations of marginalizations of the Igbo, the erudite Prof. Chinua Achebe does not have the luxury of such throw-away lines, for he must back it up with good prose about what "lack of marginalization or the fullest integration of Ndigbo" would mean.  Is it a mental marginalization - in which case very little can be done about that -  or a physical one? 

Prof. Achebe's excusable slips of post-war ethnocentrism showed in his slim piece "The Trouble with Nigeria" - but that was in 1986, 25 years ago.  I have attended two of his Colloquia at Brown University, even chaired one of the sessions, and I did not detect any ethnocentrism in the quiet man who sat through many of the sessions in his wheelchair, and made the occasional gracious comment.  To return to 1986 themes in this his 2012 piece without moderation is "troubling with Nigeria", no pun intended.

And there you have it.



Bolaji Aluko

Ikhide

unread,
Oct 14, 2012, 6:53:54 PM10/14/12
to Toyin Falola
"Yes, a nation must EARN the patriotism of its citizens by INTENTIONAL means, and not take its citizens for granted, lest they take their loyalties elsewhere in this technologically mobile world."
 
- Professor Bolaji Aluko,
 
Great point. I would also add that a nation's leaders must earn the respect and trust of its citizens by INTENTIONAL means, and not take its citizens for granted, lest they take their loyalties elsewhere in this technologically mobile world. Professor Aluko of all the combatants in this shameless orgy of finger-pointing comes close to moving the conversation beyond the true and tired brier of orthodoxy, to a new way of looking at our world. Perhaps, it is because, today, listservs like this cater almost exclusively to a certain age-group nearing the Geritol generation, conversations tend to be predictable in how they are authored and anchored. Youngsters do not think like this any more.
 
In a certain sense, for a long time now, Western education and civilization have foisted on Black Africa, two tribes, one made up of the self-serving intellectual and political elite, and the rest, the dregs, the dispossessed. The poor are the ones.that die by the millions, they are the ones that watch their children die of malnutrition and abusive education in the hands of intellectuals and politicians. They are the ones that are doubly victimized by thieving pastors. Their suffering knows no end.
 
I ask my fellow intellectuals today: How many of us are in Nigeria? How many of us have children in Nigeria? How many of our children can speak an indigenous language? How many of our children give a hoot about any of this? It is our collective hypocrisy that even as we fight over parochial leaders like Pa Obafemi Awolowo, our children are abroad at Starbucks, sipping lattes with their Spanish teachers. We will line up the poor, struggling in the dying remnants of ancient civilizations, to fight for our ideals.
 
Chinua Achebe has said his piece. I applaud him for jumpstarting a conversation. I believe his narrative more than that of a Pa Awo or Pa Enahoro (my townsman) garrulously defiant about the need to starve to death children, just to make a deadly point. I will also say that I did not need Achebe's book to come to that point. As a minority, my communal balls have been squeezed by the big three groups. Having said that, many igbo intellectuals have been reflected deeply on the war, and to their credit have been unsparing of Igbo leaders in the horror that was the Nigerian civil war. Ngozi Chimamanda Adichie for instance managed a certain distance from the war in her lovely book, Half of a Yellow Sun. That book should be required reading in every classroom in the world. 
 
The lack of ownership, the ability to self-reflect by my fellow intellectuals is everywhere. Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, that thug whose shenanigans are clinically chronicled here by Professor Moses Ebe Ochonu rules the Twitter waves along with fellow thugs like Dino Melaye, and Fani Femi Kayode. Dimeji Bankole will soon join them. Lately he has been vomiting howlers like this nonsense, "Nigeria has bad leaders". Perhaps, Africa is where bad ideas go to die. And yes, my point is this: Chinua Achebe's book, There Was a Country, has fueled the bile of ancients, flag barriers of ethnic prejudices, shaking gnarled fists at the truth of Nigeria's shame... There was a country indeed...Perhaps I exaggerate a bit, but nations and physical boundaries are so 20th century. Nations as we know them are dying, and not just because the great teacher, Chinua Achebe says so. There is no end to the finger-pointing and recriminations. My generation of intellectuals and rulers (I would not call them leaders) has proven eloquently that we have lost the plot when it comes to Nigeria's desired future. Many have taken to  open looting, and virtually all have become defensive and perhaps abusive when it comes to getting feedback. Professor Pius Adesanmi has a beautiful piece, The Gulag Ekitilago about the alleged excesses of Governor Fayemi. It is hard to believe, for those of us familiar with Fayemi's fine pedigree as a prodemocracy activist. But read it. And Biafra seems so far away: http://saharareporters.com/column/gulag-ekitilago-pius-adesanmi
 
We really do not need caterwauling gerontocrats to learn about our history. I say, dear Nigerian: Google is your friend and historian: To trace your history, google Nigeria, el-rufai, Femi Fani-Kayode, Obasanjo, corruption. I say to our youths, since elders won't read to you, teach yourselves; befriend Google, e-trek the world, read about how your heroes pillaged Nigeria...  I have not read Professor Achebe's new book, but I heartily recommend it. It is a great book.
 
Good night.
 
- Ikhide
 
Stalk my blog at http://www.xokigbo.com/
Follow me on Twitter: @ikhide
Join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ikhide

Samuel Amadi

unread,
Oct 15, 2012, 7:46:12 AM10/15/12
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com
My brothers and sisters,
 
I have followed as much as i can the threads on the listserve on Achebe and his book. I have read a bit about this book. There are three issues arising from this 'genocidal' online fight amongst intellectual friends. The first is Achebe's attack on Awo. The second is is whether what the Igbo suffered is genocide. The third issues is what caused this war and whether we have learnt any lessons from it.
 
In 2001 or thereabout i attempted a social science review of the Biafran war. I addressed the two issues but not Awo's issue. Please, please find out time to read this. Let's use this Achebe's work to gain enlightenement about the forces at work to impede Nigeria. Remember that every society is a social imaginary. we create from knowledge. There are no givens about Nigerian unity and development. The civil war (like every other war) is a failure of leadership. The next war will be a failure of leadership, only that this time it will be our own failure.
 
Happy reading
·         ssrc.org
·         Home
Reflections on How Genocidal Killings are Brought to an End
By Alex de Waal, Social Science Research Council; Bridget Conley-Zilkic, Committee on Conscience, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
Genocide in Somalia’s Jubba Valley and Somali Bantu Refugees in the U.S.
By Catherine L. Besteman, Colby College
Crawling Back from the Brink: How Conflict Resolution Can Respond to Genocide
By Melanie Greenberg, Cypress Fund for Peace and Security
Using What We Know: Politicizing Knowledge and Scholarship to Stop Group Violence
By Hugo Slim, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Geneva
Why the Discipline of “Genocide Studies” Has Trouble Explaining How Genocides End?
By Dirk Moses, University of Sydney
Averting Genocide in the Nuba Mountains, Sudan
By Alex de Waal, Social Science Research Council
From Pearl to Pariah: The Origin, Unfolding and Termination of State-Inspired Genocidal Persecution in Uganda, 1980-85
By Sabiiti Mutengesa, Justice Africa
Colonial Legacy, Elite Dissension and the Making of Genocide: The Story of Biafra
By Sam Amadi, Center for Public Policy & Research, Lagos, Nigeria
Colonial Legacy, Elite Dissension and the Making of Genocide: The Story of Biafra
By Sam Amadi
Published on: Jan 10, 2007
“The Nigeria civil war broke out on 6 July 1967. The war was the culmination of an uneasy peace and stability that had plagued the nation since independence in 1960. This situation had its genesis in the geography, culture and demography of Nigeria.”
– Major Abubakar A Atofarati1
Introduction
Between 1964 and 1970, the Ibos of eastern Nigeria were victims of mass violence. The violence occurred in two phases, first as a result of planned murderous assault by the Nigerian ruling elites, mainly of Hausa-Fulani ethnic origin in peacetime, and later in a full-blown civil war between Nigeria and Biafra. Biafra was an enclave that the Military Governor of Eastern Nigeria, General Odumegwu Ojukwu, carved out and declared a sovereign state at the height of the genocidal attack against the Igbo. Ibos were the overwhelming majority in the new Biafran state. They shared the state with minority ethnic groups in Eastern Nigeria. Ojukwu declared Biafra as Governor of Eastern Nigeria, not necessarily as the representative of the Eastern minorities.

The “genocide” in Nigeria raises a number of questions. Did the government intend to wipe out the Ibos as suggested by the statements of some of the war generals, or to politically confine the Ibos to a position of inferiority and subordination as later events indicate? If the intention was to wipe out the Ibos, why did the Nigerian army stop short of accomplishing the goal immediately after the secessionists surrendered, when it had the upper hand? As I argue later, the plausible interpretation of these complex and conflicting data is that the political elites intended to politically subjugate the Igbo and the genocidal dimension arises from the psychological orientation of the politics of Igbo-phobia.2
Patterns of Violence
Violence against Ibos occurred in phases. Significant “group-targeted”violence began as early as 1945, but the major and sustained phases began in 1966. About 30,000 Ibos, mostly civilians, were killed in three waves of genocidal attacks between May 29 and September 29, 1966. The killings were indiscriminate except that victims were Ibos, and they were killed for being Ibos. The killings were not outcomes of mob actions or riots. Evidence from survivors, victims and observers of the genocides prove that the various acts of violence against the Igbos were deliberated and coordinated by highly placed northern politicians with the connivance of some officers of the federal government.

The instigation for violence against Ibos in 1966 derived from various incitements by government functionaries who complained bitterly about Ibo dominance of commerce in the north. This complaint was extended to mean the existence of an Igbo conspiracy to become the new rulers of independent Nigeria.

The pattern of violence during the pogroms (May 29, July 29 and September 29, 1966) was similar to the attack against the Ibos during the civil war that would last for more than 3 years, between July 1967 and January 1970. Although official hostilities were declared between the federal and Biafran side, the conduct of the war by the federal troops in some instances offended the laws of war and invoked images of the pre-war violence against the Ibo. Even when Biafran strongholds were overrun by the federal side and there were no effective resistances, the genocidal dimensions of the war continued to manifest. Several foreign and local journalists reported cruel attacks on Ibos who were neither belligerents or in the way of battle.

There are many documented testimonies of victims and observers about the gross cruelty and barbarism of the Nigerian soldiers meted on Igbos civilians even after the surrender of Biafran rebel soldiers, acts that raised the question of a genocidal motivation. At least that was the conclusion of the Investigators of the International Commission of Jurists led by Dr. Mensah of Ghana. According to Dr. Mensah he received evidence from two witnesses about mass graves where dead, sick and wounded Biafrans were buried alive with some sucklings and “the cries and wailing of the sick, the wounded and the babies could be heard from a long distance away.” In this testimony, it was also mentioned that, when these mass graves had been covered, the Federal soldiers danced native war dances over them. Dr Mensa concluded that “I am of the opinion that in many of these cases cited to me hatred of the Biafrans (mainly Igbos) and a wish to exterminate them was a foremost motivational factor.”3

There is no doubt from the evidence of international and local observers of the pogroms of 1966 and the three year civil war that Biafran civilians, especially Ibos, were victims of gross cruelty reminiscent of the Jewish genocide. There is sufficient evidence that the masterminds of these attacks were motivated, as Dr. Mensah put it in the ICJ Report, by a “wish to exterminate” the Ibos. But how does this motivation square up with the policy and politics of the war? Is it really the fact that other ethnic groups, especially the Hausa-Fulani in northern Nigeria, wanted the Ibos completely wiped out or driven out of Nigeria?

The difficulty in understanding the genocidal behavior derives mainly from the nature of the civil war: how to reconcile the genocidal intent with the determination to keep Biafrans in Nigeria? It will appear that rather than other Nigerian ethnic groups wanting the Igbo outside the federation, they wanted them inside. Given that genocide usually involves determination to drive the victimized ethnic or religious group out of the territorial space, how do we understand the sort of genocide that wants the victims inside rather than outside?
The Political Economy of Escalation: History, Institutions, and Leadership
“Northerners” and “Southerners”

The ordinary fact of colonialism, as heinous and ruinous as it was, does not adequately explain the tragic direction Nigerian politics took after independence. But the colonial legacy, in which colonialists conceived and birthed the idea of Nigeria to serve largely imperial interests, cannot be overstressed. The Nigerian erudite political thinker and one of the foremost nationalists, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, has described the idea of Nigeria as a“geographical expression.” The various ethnic nations bounded together into the Niger-area by her majesty servants existed as a nation only in name.

The basic characteristic of British colonialism was that it assumed a “single model of customary authority in precolonial Africa…authority was considered an attribute of a personal despotism.”4 Unlike French colonialists who strived to create French citizens out of Africans, the British retained Nigerians in their ethnic constitutions. But the worst is that British administrative policies created the binaries of citizens and subject and of native and settler.

This bifurcation of citizenship manifested physically in the ghettoization of Nigerians in places outside their so-called states of origin. In the case of northern Nigeria, there developed many “Sabon Gari” (strangers’ quarters) in such major cities as Kano and Jos. The incessant incidences of ethnic attacks, often directed against the Ibos, could be explained by this ghettoization and the subsequent complex of “a stranger in his country.” The British colonial system relied on manpower and resources from the south to run the north. This opened the way for immigration to northern Nigeria. But the problem remained: how to maintain northern cultural exceptionalism as well as allow for needed economic interdependence? The result of the tension was a nation that was administratively interdependent but culturally and politically differentiated. The colonial governor’s wide-ranging powers were applied to demographically segregate Nigerians who managed to migrate to northern Nigeria in spite of dissuasion. Major cities in the north were organized around three categories: the walled city reserved for indigenous population; Tudun Wada housing non-indigenous northerners; and Sabon Gari for southerners.5

The politics of “northerners” and “southerners” beclouds the realities of deeper ethnic and cultural diversities and, similarly, deep interrelatedness.6 The politics of indigene and stranger breeds a psychology of envy and resentment. The Ibos were special butts of resentment and envy. Because of economic considerations, Ibos were the most eager to leave their native land in search of “white man” jobs in northern Nigeria. Many of them became successful merchants living in “Sabon Garis.” These pressures created an unhealthy competition in these cities between generally“northerners” and “southerners,” and in most cases, specifically between the Ibos and the indigenous ethnic groups.

Failure of the Rule of Law Institutions

As a result of minority disquiet, the colonial government commissioned a study of minority questions preparatory to independence, “The Willink Commission.” It toured Nigeria and elicited ideas on the constitutional fundamentals of post-colonial Nigeria that could guarantee peace among the many ethnic groups. The commission rejected the demand for creation of more regions for the minorities, and instead recommended the entrenchment of fundamental human rights in the independent constitution as a protection for minorities.7 Thus began Nigeria’s constitutional democracy. In 1960, a bill of rights was entrenched in the independence constitution, and has remained a permanent fixture in Nigeria’s many truncated, voided and breached constitutions.

The bill of rights guaranteed equality under the law and prohibited discriminatory treatment based on gender, membership or other affiliations with a religious or ethnic group. The problem was that whereas the constitution proclaimed citizenship rights for every Nigerian the colonial laws that regionalized and ethnicized access to privileges and rights remained effective. More importantly, political leaders did not take seriously the responsibility to protect those rights when they were breached in respect of any Nigerian. In May 1966, after the gruesome attack against Ibos, the Aguiyi Ironsi regime did nothing to ensure that those who fomented the crisis and directed violence against Ibos were prosecuted. Little wonder that the same genocidal attack was launched against the Ibos again on July 29, 1966.

The idea of common citizenship is the resource which keeps multiethnic states together. Where this idea is abandoned in practice, the empty platitudes of human rights or the institutions of the rule of law are incapable of protecting citizens from being victims. Hannah Arendt was right to have insisted on civil rights above human rights. For where the guarantees of citizenship are feeble or absent, as in Nigeria, common humanity means nothing; and the worst can be done against fellow citizens.8

The Failure of Leadership: Elite Dissension

Individual leadership flaws contributed both to the dynamics of conflict in Nigeria and the actual outbreak of violence. The personality conflict between Ojukwu and Gowon undermined efforts to peacefully settle the crisis that snow-balled into a war. Negotiations for the settlement of the secession crisis and the regaining of Ibo confidence in the idea of one nation fell through because neither Ojukwu nor Gowon could abandon hard positions.
General Gowon and his cabinet focused more on breaking the political power of the Ibos of Eastern Nigeria instead of reassuring and compensating them for the grievous wrong suffered in a year-long massacre. In the face of the threats of chaos and disintegration, these leaders could not rise to the requirements of forthrightness and selflessness. However, based on official statements, we can give the benefit of doubt to Gowon and conclude that in spite of brutality and violence against civilians, acts that contravened the Geneva Conventions, the policy for taking arms against Biafra was to crush Ojukwu’s rebellion and maintain the federation. But this conclusion has to explain such egregious violence against ordinary Ibos and statements by Nigeria war commanders like Benjamin Adekunle, a.k.a. “Black Scorpion,” that “I want to see no Red Cross, no Caritas, no World Council of Churches, no Pope, no missionary and no UN delegation. I want to prevent even one Ibo from having even one piece to eat before their capitulation. We shoot at everything that moves and when our troops march into the center of Ibo territory, we shoot at everything even at things that do not move…”9 Is such statement part of the conduct of a dirty war or does it evince a “motivation” to genocide? At a minimum, we can argue that there was strong hatred and demonization of the Ibos, which made such cruelty and gory killing of civilians conceivable and tolerable, even in the context of a civil war.

General Odumegwu Ojukwu has been faulted, notably by Ken Saro-Wiwa and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, for rejecting peace overtures from the federal government. Both Saro-Wiwa and Azikiwe believe that Ojukwu stage-managed the Eastern Region Constituent Assembly to authorize him to declare secession. The decision to declare Biafra was a product not of deliberative reasoning in the face of odds but of cajolery, bribery, coercion and sophistry tinged with elements of repression of dissent.

The feuding generals had an opportunity to reverse the momentum to war when the Ghanaian Head of State, Gen Ankra, hosted a peace meeting in Aburi, Ghana. An accord was reached at Aburi whose exact terms became a matter of renewed aggression between the federal government and the Biafran government. Ojukwu’s account of the agreement differed from the federal government interpretation on the extent of power and responsibility of the federal executive council vis-à-vis the regions. Ojukwu absented himself from a meeting called to implement the accord. In his absence the meeting approved Decree No.8 enacted by the federal government to implement the agreement. Ojukwu did not accept the decree because it compromised his position by not granting the regions complete authority in dealing with certain issues that concern their sovereignty.10 Azikiwe faults Ojukwu’s rejection of the decree as in service of greed for power and an attempt to “continue a calculated gambit which has led to the civil war.”11

Even as secession was declared the damage could still have been controlled but for the peculiar interplay of arrogance, ambition and naiveté. Ojukwu had boasted about the Biafran capability to face-down federal soldiers; that he had long planned for the crucial moment and that he knew that by starting the war he was “carving his name in History”; and that he had built the largest army in black Africa.12 The propaganda machines on both sides of the war were merciless in their prevarication and embellishment. They overrated their little successes in battle and diminished the scale of human tragedy in Biafra. Ojukwu and his war generals reluctantly admitted the huge loss the young republic was suffering for fear of demoralizing the people who were volunteering and being conscripted for battle. Propaganda helped to blind the people to the fact that the war could and ought to be avoided. It has been alleged that many deaths occurred because of policies by both the federal government and rebels to block food or medical supplies or to prioritize arms delivery above humanitarian aid. By certain perverse incentives the Biafran army was alleged to be compounding the human suffering in Biafra as a ploy to whip up sentiment against Nigeria and in favor of the Biafran republic.13
De-Escalation: What Factors Delayed and Led to the End of Violence
One characteristic of the Ibo massacres between 1967 and 1970 that made them come short of genocide, that is, to be near-genocides, is that they were brought to a halt by the aggressors themselves. Neither the United Nations nor the Organization of African Unity sent troops to stop the killings and keep the peace. The Ibo (Eastern Nigeria) secessionists did not win on the battlefield. As gallant as they were in the battle they were out-gunned by the more formidable Nigerian army equipped and helped by foreign powers. By the late 1969, when the Nigerian army had overrun the Ibo heartland, the civilian population was at the mercy of the Nigerian troops. Although trigger-happy and genocidal federal soldiers shot and killed civilians in conditions of surrender, on the whole the Head of State, General Gowon, was able to accept the surrender of the Eastern Nigeria (Biafra) and graciously proclaimed “no victor, no vanquished.” Although this policy was implemented more in default, it helped to avert open predation of Ibos when they returned back to the federation.

Gowon as a Factor of De-escalation

The Nigeria civil war is the best example of a civil war that ended without open post-war recrimination. Evidence of how quickly the Ibos reentered the Nigerian federation they had exited with belligerence is that in the 1979 general elections, nine years after the civil war, an Ibo, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, was on the Presidential ballot on the ticket of a predominantly Ibo party.14 The Ibos grew influential, although still marginalized and repressed, largely due to the permissible environment of the policy of “no victor no vanquished.” Their dynamism and resilience contributed immensely to their quick re-integration. But, if they had been made easy game for predators they would not have thrived. One man who can rightly take credit for conducting a largely decent war, promoting reconciliation and staving off post-war recriminations, is General Gowon.

Gowon’s background as an ethnic and religious minority in northern Nigeria probably influenced his disposition to be less vengeful and spiteful against Ibos. He was a Christian in a predominantly Muslim north and also a Tiv, a minority tribe in northern Nigeria that suffered grave repression both at the hands of the colonialists and Hausa-Fulani feudalists. In spite of Nigeria’s overwhelming military advantage over Biafra, especially when more Ibo cities fell to the control of the federal soldiers, Gowon’s lack of murderous spite against the Ibos ensured that the war did not end as a war of extermination as some of his war generals like Benjamin Adekunle, who vowed to shoot every moveable or immovable thing in Biafran, wanted. Throughout the conflict Gowon allowed the possibility of pull-backs by creating incentives for negotiations. Although these opportunities were not well used because of his moral weakness and Ojukwu’s hawkish nature, the opportunities made it possible for leaders on both sides to intervene.

Gowon’s overall congeniality helped to smooth surrender and the reintegration of the Ibos, as can be seen from his speech accepting the terms of surrender from the rebel second-in-command, Major General Philip Effiong. After gladly accepting the surrender he painted the psychology of the war thus: “On our side we fought the war with great caution, not in anger or hatred, but always in the hope that common sense would prevail. Many times we sought a negotiated settlement, not out of wickedness, but in order to minimize the problems of reintegration, reconciliation and reconstruction. We know that however the war ended, in the battlefield or in the conference room, our brothers fighting under other colors must rejoin us and that we must together build the nation anew.” Most likely Gowon believed what he said, even as some of his commanders believed it was a war of extermination.

The role of charismatic and ideological leaders in fomenting and perpetuating conflict is well noted in the literature of conflict.15 It follows that well meaning and reconciliatory leaders equally help to end violent conflict earlier than predicted. In the case of the Nigerian civil war, Gowon’s lack of manifest residual hatred for the Ibos acted as incentive for Ojukwu’s lieutenants to turn to reconciliation when the tide turned against them.

The Role of Civil Society Leaders

What did important elites who were directly engaged in the secession crisis and the governance questions that triggered the later violence against the Easterners do to stop the violence and settle the conflict? Pretty little. In the context of Nigeria of the 1960s it is difficult to define who constituted civil society. There were no organized human rights or civil society groups apart from many tribal and cultural-cum-intellectual organizations. Even at that, these latter groups were not directly involved in political governance. Actually, it was ethno-religious organizations that played influential roles in governance. This started with colonial government who favored traditional rulers and traditional institutions against the newly emerging intellectual and academic class. The reason the colonialists disfavored the latter class was because they were prone to nationalistic fervor and agitation. Soldiers were made to perceive themselves as disciplined, while the chattering academics were unruly. So, the dynamism was set in motion for the impoverishment of civil advocacy.

But, nevertheless, one or two individuals played important roles in raising a different consciousness about the violence and the war and helped to stimulate non-partisan concerns about the horrors of the war. Notably among individuals outside the government who played key roles is Professor Wole Soyinka. Soyinka’s intervention in the violence dated from his engagement with the political crisis in Western Nigeria. He shocked the nation when as a young lecturer he stormed the Western Region Broadcasting Corporation to denounce the electoral fraud and the political manipulation in the region. It became known as the “Mystery Gun-man” saga.

Soyinka’s major contribution to de-escalation is in focusing attention on the stupidity and inhumanity of the war and increasing public scrutiny of the political process for the formation of the war. In the midst of war rhetoric and preparations, Soyinka opened up contact with the rebel leader to better appreciate the concerns of the government of Eastern Nigeria. He opted for a third way which neither supported the federal or eastern side of the conflict, but rather advocated for the rule of law and social justice for the Ibos and other persecuted people as the foundation for peace.

The impact Soyinka’s activism had on the crisis could be said to be minimal. The Gowon government perceived him to be a radical who was sympathetic to the rebel Biafra and imprisoned him. But, the moral stance he took against the regime and its war machine contributed to more transparent engagement with the process of decision making about the political crisis and helped to whip up more interventions for peace. One means of continuing mass violence is to enshroud the human misery in cloaks of dogmatism. Soyinka’s sharp wit demystified the ideology of war and brought home the human misery caused by elite contention for power.

Another major and influential intervention to defuse the war took place in May 1967 by a group of eminent Nigerians from different walks of life called the National Reconciliation Committee. This was a group of largely self-appointed interveners who desired to break the diplomatic impasse between the federal and rebel sides. Members of the committee included Chief Obafemi Awolowo (the leader of the Action Group who later became Minister of Finance), Professor Aluko (an economist famous for intellectual critique of government policies), Chief Rotimi William (Nigeria’s most eminent lawyer), Sir Kashim Ibrahim (a federal minister from the north) and many other notable politicians and academics. The group met with Ojukwu in Enugu, the Eastern Region capital, and canvassed a negotiated end to the stalemate between Ojukwu and Gowon.

The committee largely failed in its peace mission because Ojukwu objected both to its constitution and its terms of reference. The issue of representation was an albatross that drowned the committee’s peace efforts. Ojukwu had objected to certain members of the committee from the north on the grounds that their impartiality was compromised since the north was a party to the dispute. He also objected to the Eastern representative who was not his own appointee. As much as it tried, the committee could not convince Ojukwu to overlook the credibility of some of the members and the grievances of the past to give it a chance to break the impasse between him and Gowon. But the committee succeeded in convincing Gowon to relax (even if momentarily) the federal blockage of Eastern Nigeria that was already resulting in grave sufferings.

Apart from this, the success of the committee was merely symbolic. But, this symbolism is important for de-frosting the relationship between the East and the rest of the federation and making it possible for members of the rebel government dissatisfied with the war to reach out to their compatriots outside the rebel territory. This bridge assisted in putting pressure on Gowon to negotiate and ultimate accept the fall of Biafra on good terms.16

Another Nigerian whose clear minded opposition to the war contributed to nudging the international community to see the war from the lens of human tragedy rather than of internal sovereignty is Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the first Governor-General of Nigeria and the first President of the republican government toppled by the January 1966 coup. Zik, as he is fondly called, had a love-hate relationship with General Ojukwu, a fellow Ibo. The rivalry between them dates from the removal of Azikiwe as the Chancellor of University of Nigeria when Ojukwu was Military Governor of Eastern Region. Whether from resentment or not, Zik mounted a very spirited campaign to expose the foolishness of the war. He implored Ojukwu and Gowon to “listen to the voice of humanity and stop this senseless war… (they) together with those who counsel them, should now have second thoughts and suspend hostilities. They should proceed to the conference table to negotiate a rapprochement which would safeguard the lives and liberties of innocent citizens.”17

Zik did not restrict his advocacy for peace within Nigeria. He internationalized the campaign for peace. Zik was the first to locate the possibility of settlement of the crisis on a direct and decisive intervention of the United Nations through the Security Council. In an address delivered at Rhodes House, Oxford on February 16, 1969, Zik appealed to the UN to intervene because it is “the forum of last resort” when every other effort has failed. He proposed for a UN committee of nineteen to ensure “total arms embargo; armistice embracing cessation of hostilities on land, sea and air; revocation of blockages including economic and administrative sanctions; establishment of an international peace force, to act for and on behalf of the Security Council to assume administration of the war zones, to demobilize troops engaged in war zones,… to conduct a plebiscite to ascertain the wishes of the inhabitants of the war zones whether they want one Nigeria or a divided Nigeria.”18 These proposals were pretty revolutionary in cold war international relations of non-interference. If it was in the post-cold war period, they would have been possible action plans.

The OAU and International Community

Whether the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the United Nation played an important role in de-escalating the conflict is arguable. What is unarguable is that both organizations did not act as decisively as they could and when they ought. Of course, the political climate of international relations when the Biafran-Nigerian conflict occurred is important to understanding the organizations’ dilly-dalliance. Particularly for the OAU, the conflict occurred when the fundamental policy of the organization was the maintenance of the sanctity of the borders of post-colonial states. The leaders of Africa, as part of a policy of fighting neo-colonial interference after grim battles against European colonialialism, affirmed to each other respect for internal sovereignty. There is a rich, and still growing, literature on this ill-fated policy and how it induced the collapse of African states under the twin strike forces of arbitrary rule and weak civil society.19

The OAU made efforts to resolve the crisis before it degenerated into war. But these efforts were sometimes half-hearted, and every time paralyzed by the politics of internal sovereignty. Once military hostilities were declared between Eastern Nigeria and the federal government, Gowon let it be known that any country that recognized Biafra as an independent sovereign state would be viewed by his government as interfering in the internal affairs of the Nigeria. This reduced the organization’s intervention to mere exhortation to peace.

On July 8, 1968, the Presidents of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia and Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia made joint appeal to both sides to cease hostilities. The Head of State of Lesotho brought a motion in the OAU for members to consider ways and means of ending the conflict. In a September 1967 session in Kinshasa, African Heads of States succeeded in persuading Nigeria to agree that the issue be discussed at the floor of the General Assembly on condition that they would not interfere with its internal affairs. They formed a committee to go to the Head of State of Nigeria “to assure him of the Assembly’s desire for territorial integrity, unity and peace of Nigeria.” In its resolution the Assembly affirmed its adherence to the “principles of respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of member states, condemns secession” and the right of the Nigerian government to determine the nature of OAU’s involvement.20

In several other meetings and peace conferences the organization was crippled by lack of moral authority and the weakness of its voice on behalf of the suffering Ibo civilians. It almost demanded that the Biafrans call off military resistance before the federal government stopped aggression. A few Presidents felt the need for a more proactive engagement with peace and justice in the Biafran question, but the organization was too bogged down in its neo-colonial nightmares to act decisively as required by the conflict. In the midst of this misstep a few countries like Tanzania, Zambia, Gabon and Ivory Coast recognized the right of Biafra and further depleted the leadership resources of the organization. President Nyerere of Tanzania was so incensed by the religious commitment to internal sovereignty to the detriment of human life that he accused African Heads of State of “callously watching the massacre of tens of thousands of people for the sake of upholding territorial integrity of Nigeria.”21

The record of the United Nation in de-escalating the conflict is even more dismal. The United Nation as a body failed to intervene in any significant manner. It deferred leadership and responsibility to the Organization of African Unity, and supported the latter’s affirmation of the supremacy of internal sovereignty and the principle of non-interference. Like the leaders of the OAU, the then Secretary-General of the UN, U Thant, expressed concern at the worsening fate of the people of Eastern Nigeria but hoped that the Kinshasa peace initiative of the OAU would lead to quick resolution of the crisis. The deference to regional initiative may seem very sensible and well meaning in the geo-politics of that period. But, in the face of the huge human tragedy and the precedent of the Vietnam case, the Secretary General could have done more to move the United Nations to intervene to pressure the Nigerian government to reconsider its position and accept better terms of peace.

The Secretary-General laid the responsibility on important members of the UN Security Council or the General Assembly to table the issue for international action. However, most of the western countries that had both the diplomatic resources and stakes to effectively intervene were entangled in the conflict and could not find a neutral voice. Britain, being the former colonial ruler of Nigeria, had sufficient standing to intervene in the peace process. But she was already intervening in supplying arms and technical support to the federal side. The Russians were also supplying firearms to Nigeria. Not to be beaten, France allegedly granted Biafra a loan of 8 million pounds in return for a concession to French oil companies. The war was sustained by the involvement of western countries as arm suppliers and oil importers.

Equally, the war played into the cold war calculations of the world powers. It was obvious that these powers suspected the implication of the revolutionary moment unfolding in Nigeria and preferred to remain committed to the original Nigeria. They did nothing serious to end the war. On January 8, 1969, Radio Prague commented that “the great power rivalry is thus transferring the old West-East dispute into a particular hot part of Africa, and neither Nigeria nor Biafra can possibly benefit from it. For the matter now is no longer Nigeria or Biafra alone; the really big fight is over great power influence and over establishing new spheres of influence, and that is the biggest tragedy of the present Nigerian crisis.”22 With the possible exception of the United States, most western powers had economic interests to protect and hedged in making commitment or denouncing the massacres of the Ibos.

The British government notoriously declined to take a resolute stand in favor of ending the misery of millions of Easterners. The Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, expressed doubts that arm supplies to the warring parties could cease. In his words, “I know of no mediation that will be successful in ending this tragic fighting. I think the general recognition is that it need take an African solution.” Michael Stewart, the Labour Foreign Minister justified British continuous supply of arms to Nigeria in similar terms: “It would have been quite easy for me to say: this is going to be difficult – let’s cut off all connection with the Nigerian government. If I’d done that I should have known that I was encouraging in Africa the principle of tribal secession – with all the misery that could bring to Africa in the future.” The British diplomatic machine refused to grind into action, in spite of the remonstration of humanists like Lord Bertrand Russell, who argued that the doctrine of non-interference in situations like the Biafran civil war leads to much evil.23

The Role of Humanitarian Organizations and Famous Stars

When the United Nations foot-dragged and the OAU was belabored by its burden of history, some well-meaning individuals and organizations set out to reduce human suffering in the war. The Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), formed as a result of the human suffering of the dead and wounded, and did much to help humanitarian relief, as did the Red Cross. These groups, in addition to helping the wounded and the hungry, also lent their voices for calls to end the war. The reports on the suffering of Biafran civilians, especially the genocidal attack on sleepy villages and fleeing women and children, helped to thaw the ice of the politics of “internal conflict” and present the picture of a genocidal attack. These insights drove global revulsion against the war and helped to put pressure on the Nigerian government to conduct the war with fewer violations of the Geneva Conventions.

Their effort was dramatized and glamorized by famous actors and musicians who signed to the “Biafran” cause and raised money for the suffering in Biafra. In 1968, American folk singer Joan Baez and rock singer Jimi Hendrix performed in a Biafran Relief Benefit in Manhattan to raise money for the refugees of the Biafra-Nigeria war. Several such fund-raisers were organized across western societies by Ibos in Diaspora and by charitable persons and institutions. The allegation was that these charitable funds helped Ojukwu prolong the resistance instead of helping to end the war.24 This perverse incentive was unavoidable in the context of the war. In the end these interventions helped to limit the degree of human tragedy in Eastern Nigeria. The infamous starvation policy adopted by the Nigerian government as part of its war strategy contributed to the death of more Ibos than actual military hostility. But for the interventions of these organizations and individuals, extermination would have been a possibility in the war.

Defeat: The End of all Things

Ultimately, Biafra lost the war. That was the saving grace for the Ibos and Nigerians in general. On 14th of January, 1970 Biafra formally surrendered and Gowon pronounced the end of the war. By the end of 1969 Biafra has lost all its strongholds. General Ojukwu jetted out of the republic in search of peace and handed power to General Philip Efiong, his deputy. As defeat stared him in the eyes, Effiong consulted with the strategy committee and surrendered. Chinua Achebe captured the battle fatigue in a Biafran camp in a story of a palm wine tapper who was asked to come down from his palm wine tree and join the army. The man after thanking the soldiers for their heroism, begged them to tell Ojukwu that he had acted like a man, he should now throw in the towel.25 Better late than never. The war ended and reconstruction began.

Genocide usually ends by either of two ways – the victims are completely exterminated or their attackers are restrained or overcome. In the Biafran conflict none of this happened. Nigerian soldiers were not restrained by Biafran soldiers. No external forces aided the victims against the aggressors. When the aggressors overran the victims, they drew back the sword – meaning,“We did not intend genocide.” For me this is the best evidence that what happened, at least between 1967 and 1970, was a misconceived war – a war waged on the ticket of egregious persecution of Ibos and senseless brinkmanship of arrogant and insensitive leaders. Although there were moments of genocidal madness among war generals and strategists, the war policy was, as Gowon, says, to keep Nigeria together; albeit, without addressing the structural injustice that led to the pogroms. The massacres of the Ibos in 1966 seem to carry the signature of ethnic cleaning of the mild type. It was promoted in order to weaken the political and administrative advantages enjoyed by Ibos, and it was conducted on the diabolical mobilization of northerners to believe that the Ibos wanted to enslave the rest of Nigerians.
After The Violence: Old Problems, New Manifestations
The war ended and Gowon graciously proclaimed “no victor, no vanquished” and then came the tasks of reintegration, reconciliation and reconstruction. The scorecard is dismally poor on all three. The Ibos still feel marginalized, although some reintegration has occurred in the polity. The conflict between citizenship as a bundle of equal rights and indigeneity as a bundle of exclusive privileges is unresolved. Decades of military dictatorship – with its unaccountable use of power – have compounded the problem of ethnicity in politics. Added to the old problem of ethnic chauvinism is now religious fundamentalism. The result is that Nigeria suffers an average of three major ethno-religious and inter-communal violent events every year. Since 1999 more than 5,000 persons have been killed in these violent attacks.

The Ibos are still restless, but nothing near the disenchantment of 1966-1967 that drove them to the cold hands of death in a mismatched war. The Ohaneze Nd’Igbo, the Ibo umbrella cultural and social organization, in its petition to the Human Rights Violations Investigation Committee, alleged systematic marginalization of Ibos in the civil service and military agencies of the constitution. With the aid of statistics it has argued quite persuasively that a glass ceiling exists to stop the Ibos from occupying important and sensitive offices. Besides, it has alleged systematic and deliberate under-provision of social goods and infrastructure in Ibo states. With the notorious bad leadership in Nigeria it is difficult to know which proportion of this under-provision is ethnically constructed. But, the relief is that the Ibos are acting to regain their economic and political power through legitimate political activities.

There remains a significant proportion of Ibos, especially those in diaspora, who agitate for the resumption of the struggle for the Biafran Republic. An organization, the Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), is championing this agenda. It has greatly scared the government by its open organizing of resentment against it. The movement has set up chapters in Europe and America and runs a mock embassy in Washington. It mock-heroism is paying off as disenchanted and unemployed and economically displaced Ibos are signing on to the dream of an Ibo state able to provide justice and prosperity. MASSOB’s activities are in sync with other ethnic organizations eating away the nationalism from the distressed Nigerian state.

How these forces play out is uncharted. In November, 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa, a champion of the rights of minorities in Nigeria, was executed after a ruthless persecution of oil-rich Ogoni. Interestingly, Saro-Wiwa fought Biafra as administrator of Bonny for the federal government in the war period. Saro-Wiwa defended the economic rights of the Ogoni and alerted the world to what he termed genocide against Ogoni by the Nigerian Federal Military Government and Shell. In 1999 another oil community – Odi – was sacked by rampaging federal soldiers. It was called genocide. In 2004, Hausa (Muslim) and Indigenous (Christian) communities clashed in Plateau State in northern Nigeria leaving many dead and wounded. President Obasanjo, who led the conquering federal troops against Biafra in 1969, declared a state of emergency to save lives and property. The cause of the violence is conflict over rights to resources by those who claim to be natives and those they call settlers.

The war ended but the battle continues. When will the legacy of colonialism be overcome and transformed? Will elites overcome their brinkmanship? When will human rights provisions in the constitution be experienced as national rights alive in state institutions? Until then the Ibos of Nigeria will keep their festering wounds.
Endnotes
1Major Abubakar A. Atofarati “The Nigerian Civil War: Causes, Strategies, and Lessons,” Report, US Marine Command & Staff College (Academic Year 1991/92).
2Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe attributes similar intention to the shadowy conspiratory group – “The Kaduna Mafia,” whom he claims was behind the killings. The group intended by the killings to (a) expel Ibos in the civil service from their posts and Ibo industrialists and business from their enterprises, (b) destroy Ibo political influences, (c) achieve the secession of the “north” from Nigeria. See Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, The Biafran War: Nigeria and the Aftermath (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990) page 64.
3Dr. Mensah, Report of the International Commission of Jurists, 1969.
4Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), page 39.
5Okwudibia Nnoli, Ethnic Politics in Nigeria (Fourth Dimension Publishers, 1978), pages 115-116
6Nigeria is a nation-state of over two hundred and fifty ethnic nationalities who are different either in culture or language but also share many similarities arising from different degrees of interaction before and after the advent of colonialism. For general readings on the cultures of the peoples of Nigeria, see C.K. Meek, The Northern Tribes of Nigeria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1925); P.A. Talbot, The Peoples of Southern Nigeria(London: Oxford University Press, 1926); Michael Crowther, The History of Nigeria; Kenneth Onwuka Dike, Trade and Politics in Niger Delta, 1830-1885: An Introduction to the Economic and Political History of Nigeria (Clarendon Press, 1956).
7The Minority Commission Report, 1958
8Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1951). Arendt argues “Not only did loss of national rights in all instances entail loss of human rights; the restoration of human rights, as the recent example of the State of Israel proves, has been achieved so far only through the restoration or establishment of national rights,” page 299.
9Quoted by Dr. Philip Emeagwali, “After the Biafran War Was Over”. See www.emeagwali.com/photos/biafra/photo-essay-on-biafra.htmlpages 15-6.
10Decree No.8 of 1967 vests in the Supreme Military Council the legislative and executive powers which are exercised with the concurrence of the regional military governors on issues like trade, industry, Armed Forces, the police, and the territorial integrity of the regions. The London-based West Africa magazine of March 28, 1967 described the decree as entrenching a“pseudo- confederacy.” See Nnamdi Azikiwe, Origins of the Nigerian Civil War (Apapa: Nigerian National Press, 1969), pages 8-9.
11Azikiwe, page 8
12Saro-Wiwa, On a Darkling Plain: An Account of the Nigerian Civil War(London: Saros International Publishers, 1989), page 83.
13“The issues in this war were relegated to the background and the human and humanitarian aspects came to the fore. Most of them were genuine in their contributions were used to purchase arms and ammunition which prolonged the war and thereby increased and heightened the sufferings of those who were dying.” Abubakar Atofarati
14Apart from Azikiwe, another Ibo was the Vice-President of the two other major parties and one of them, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, became the Vice-President from 1979 to 1983 under the ticket of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN).
15For a recent book dealing with ethnic violence and treating the role of charismatic leaders and elite manipulation in exhorting to violence see Monica Duffy Toft, The Geography of Ethnic Violence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003).
16A full transcript of the meeting of the committee with Ojukwu can be found in Awolowo, Awo on Nigerian Civil War (Lagos: John West Publication, 1981).
17Peace Proposals for Ending the Nigerian Civil War (London: Colusco Limited, 1969), page 22.
18Published as Peace Proposals for Ending the Nigerian Civil War, 1969 supra.
19For samplers, see Francis Deng, et al., Sovereignty as Responsibility: Conflict Management in Africa (Washington D.C.: Brookings, 1996); Obiora Okafor, “After Martyrdom: International Law, Sub-state Groups and the Construction of Legitimate Statehood in Africa,” Harvard International Law Journal Vol. 41 No.2 Spring 2000; Deng & Lyon “Promoting Responsible Sovereignty in Africa” in Deng and Lyon (eds.), African Reckoning: A Quest for Good Governance (Washington D.C.: Brookings, 1998).
20See C. O. C. Amate, Inside the OAU: Pan-Africanism in Practice(London: Macmillan, 1986) for a detailed study of the record of the OAU in settling disputes internal disputes and conflicts in African countries.
21Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Peace Proposasl for Ending the Nigerian Civil War(London: Colusco Limited, 1969), pages 6-7.
22Cited in Azikiwe, Peace Proposals for Ending the Nigerian Civil Warpage 4
23Azikiwe, page 8
24Atofarati comments that the great publicity given to the war and the images of Biafran starving children and ruined villages by Markpress elicited strong humanitarian feelings which drove the humanitarian intervention on behalf of Biafra. See Atofarati, page 31
25Chinua Achebe, Girls at War and Other Story (London: Heinemann, 1971)
 
 
Dr. Sam Amadi
Abuja, Nigeria
234-803-329-9879
From: Ikhide <xok...@yahoo.com>
To: Toyin Falola <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2012 11:53 PM

Mobolaji Aluko

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Oct 14, 2012, 7:21:09 PM10/14/12
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Ikhide:

You wrote:

QUOTE

  I have not read Professor Achebe's new book, but I heartily recommend it. It is a great book.

UNQUOTE

That oxymoron could only have been penned by you...

Moving on ....

I have not read Chinamanda's factional book, but I read recently that it is being made into a movie starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandie Newton as the protagonists, with locations in Nigeria.  What struck me in the piece I read in the upcoming movie is that the script writer is   and the producer is Biyi Bandele

Go figure......there is too much aggressive caterwauling in Cyberspace, and more cooperation by landlubbers.

And there you have it.



Bolaji Aluko


'Yellow Sun' rises in West Africa

Hollywood finds funding, crew for Nigerian tale

"Half of a Yellow Sun," with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandie Newton, shot in Nigeria with a largely local crew.

"Half of a Yellow Sun," with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandie Newton, shot in Nigeria with a largely local crew.

CREEK TOWN, NIGERIA -- Six days into shooting the film adaptation of "Half of a Yellow Sun," the bestselling novel by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, cast and crew in this small tropical village had grown used to life in the trenches.

Daytime temperatures hit muggy highs in the 90s. The start of the rainy season had the makeshift dressing room for a cast that includes Thandie Newton, Dominic Cooper and Chiwetel Ejiofor looking like a triage unit.

But spirits were high, as the production, which wrapped principal photography in June, marks the most ambitious attempt yet to bring Hollywood-style filmmaking to a nation best known for the low-budget fare of its local Nollywood industry. Far from the smoothly run locations industries of South Africa and Kenya, the producers know they're blazing a trail in a country that still scares off most potential filmmakers and investors.

For co-producer Andrea Calderwood, who lensed "The Constant Gardener" and "The Last King of Scotland" in Kenya and Uganda at a time when both nations were largely uncharted territory for filmmakers, the upside is clear.

"At that time, nobody wanted to let us make a film in East Africa," she says, "but now people don't think twice about shooting in Kenya."

In order to give investors confidence in filming in a country that remains untested, Calderwood says the goal of "Yellow Sun" was to show the film as being international in scope from the beginning. The cast includes recognizable foreign talent. When executive producer Yewande Sadiku began to raise financing, she worked with a U.K. sales agent and secured a bond for the film. Her pitch to Nigerian investors -- who ponied up roughly 80% of the coin -- was based on international sales estimates. Foreign partners like the British Film Institute gave the proposal more muscle.

Nigeria, as Calderwood points out, is a business-oriented culture with a can-do attitude. Once investors were confident in the film's potential, they began lining up. In the end, the producers raised more than $7 million.

Sadiku sees the film as a bridge between Nigerian cinema and the international film community. Most of the local crew members, who make up roughly 60% of the production, are getting their first chance to work on a film with a high level of technical detail, acquiring skills that will help the local industry moving forward.

Calabar, the city in which the production is based, boasts Tinapa Studios, a topnotch facility that is being redeveloped by Nigerian media mogul Mo Abudu, and has been used throughout the shooting of "Yellow Sun."

The high cost of filming in Nigeria, however, remains a hurdle. Much of the lighting and grip equipment had to be brought into the country; problems getting it through customs delayed work for a week. Despite the assistance of companies like Jungle Filmworks and Audio Visual Services in Lagos, there are no production-services companies equipped to handle the logistics of a full-scale Hollywood production.

Such services will only come as filming in the nation grows, Calderwood says. "It needs a critical mass to support this level of technical infrastructure," she notes.

Most important, though, government needs to get onboard. Calderwood estimates that the film's budget was 25% higher than it would have been in a country like South Africa, which offers significant incentives and rebates. Despite what she calls "a lot of support and goodwill" from every level of government, a similar system to officially offset production costs is still lacking.

Still, Calderwood feels that for Creek Town and the rest of Nigeria, such progress is just a matter of time. "Once the first film comes, and people see that it's possible, then more will follow," she predicts.

Contact the Variety newsroom at ne...@variety.com


Samuel Amadi

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Oct 15, 2012, 8:22:47 AM10/15/12
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My brothers and sisters,
I have followed as much as i can the threads on the listserve on Achebe and his book. I have read a bit about this book. There are three issues arising from this 'genocidal' online fight amongst intellectual friends. The first is Achebe's attack on Awo. The second is is whether what the Igbo suffered is genocide. The third issues is what caused this war and whether we have learnt any lessons from it.
In 2001 or thereabout i attempted a social science review of the Biafran war. I addressed the two issues but not Awo's issue. Please, please find out time to read this. Let's use this Achebe's work to gain enlightenement about the forces at work to impede Nigeria. Remember that every society is a social imaginary. we create from knowledge. There are no givens about Nigerian unity and development. The civil war (like every other war) is a failure of leadership. The next war will be a failure of leadership, only that this time it will be our own failure.
 
 

Ikhide

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Oct 15, 2012, 9:40:50 AM10/15/12
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Thanks for yours, Bolaji. Yes, I have not read Professor Achebe's new book, but I heartily recommend it. It is a great book. For teaching Nigerians how to spell B-I-A-F-R-A and G-E-N-O-C-I-D-E he deserves next year's $100,000 NLNG Prize...
 
Not many people care about Biyi Bandele's ethnic background; I certainly don't. He is an accomplished playwright, author and producer. He also has an interest in these things, haviong written Burma Boy, (which I reviewed here). He will do a great job with the movie and I will probably watch it first, along with millions of Nigerians, before I read Professor Achebe's tome. Again, my point is that looking at today from a pure ethnic lens is silly. Our children do not care as much about these things. They may bear Yoruba and Esan names but they are not Yoruba and Ishan as you and I once were. Every day, notions of ethnicity and relationships change. Bolaji, you and I are of the same ethnic group, I would trust you with my life; not sure I would necessarily trust some of my relatives similarly ;-)
 
Ngozi Chimamanda Adichie's book is helpful because she manages an emotional distance from the war and situates many actors roles and responsibilities in the hell that was Biafra. I think it should be required reading in every Nigerian classroom. One thing I have learned from all of this is that there's definitely a hunger for reading and for our literature (see my review here).
 
Missing in the discussions so far, Bolaji, is the minority narrative, what your mom, my Ishan aunt, what my mom would say about the civil war. It seems to be all about the Yoruba, the Igbo and the Hausa Fulani. As a little boy trapped in Benin City during the Biafran occupation, I'd say this is very complicated. I would also remind this ilo that Nigeria continues on a downward spiral, in a democracy we are witnessing Aluu, Mubi, etc... If you step out of this hallowed ilo, the things that are happening in Nigeria are frightening. We should worry.
 
Finally, there is something offensive about expecting Achebe to be "objective" in his narrative. There was a conflict and he is telling his side of the story. We as readers are mature enough to understand that he is coming from a certain perspective and we respect that.  For as Achebe reminds us, until the lion tells the story of the hunt, the hunt will always be glorified by the hunter. Facts are facts and not even the saccharine hagiographies offered by insincere architects of Nigeria's ruin (Femi Fani-Kayode? Give me a break) can change that. Pa Awolowo and Pa Enahoro are culpable in the genocide that wiped out millions of Nigerians. They said it themselves, garrulously and loudly. We can't run away from that.  
 
- Ikhide
 
Stalk my blog at http://www.xokigbo.com/
Follow me on Twitter: @ikhide
Join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ikhide

From: Mobolaji Aluko <alu...@gmail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2012 7:21 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Virtue of Ethnocentrism
-- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogueFor previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.htmlTo post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.comTo unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue- unsub...@googlegroups.com  

Florence Studstill

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Oct 15, 2012, 3:12:57 PM10/15/12
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Shina73 - You raise some good points on this topic but I'm tempted to believe the contrary on this one:  "Every human is born ethnocentric. It is an undeniable part of our human condition. In fact, our humanity and the vicissitudes of the universe is mediated by specific ethnos. Our desire to be cosmopolitan (or 'detribalise'  as we say in Nigeria) most of the time deride this condition of our existence." Ethnocentrism, which is a behavior of "judging another culture solely by the values and standards of one's own culture" is learned behavior. Because it is learned, it can be unlearned and that is why society continues to "fight" for social justice not to mention the overall change in how we perceive and treat others on the basis of the socially constructed scripts.

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shina7...@yahoo.com

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Oct 15, 2012, 4:13:34 PM10/15/12
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Allow me make some clarifying points. And I feel compelled to make them because it seems to me that the best we can do to make sense of Achebe's book at this time is to take it as an occasion for thought and discourse on the 'troubles with Nigeria'. At the core of that trouble, as far as I am concerned, is the issue of national integration-how to make one normatively motivated people out of the unruly and unwilling many.

We are NOT one people...yet. Forget the wishful yearning in the national anthem. If many nationalities and ethnicities are complaining now (and everyone believes s/he is marginalised one way or the other!), it is because the national arrangement has been lopsided, yesterday! We can't even come to a consensus about what went wrong with the war!

Now: in spite of the complaint of colonialism-engineered lopsidedness, we must necessarily and mechanically work together. The quota system ensures that. Each section of the country must contribute its own share of mediocrity and greatness to the cauldron of 'national' stew. Yet, that is still less than integral! Working at the national, state and local levels, for me, is simply going through the motion. It does not instantiate integration. Finding Ezekwesili, Akunyili, Sanusi, Okonjo-Iweala and so on at the national level tells us many things: one, that we must necessarily find some people at the top or within the contrived space of the 'national', even in failed or failing states. Two, stepping from that 'national' assignment to a global recognition tells us nothing about integration. Three, patriotism and nationalism are more a group emotion than individual.

And this is my destination. Of course, national integration is in reality a system of actions and reactions. On the one hand, as the Prof mentioned, there is an intentional arrangement on the part of the government to positively affect the lives of the people in terms of basic bio-social, psychological and cultural need like food, dignity and other forms of expressions. This will-by force and fire- generate a reaction which is best captured in psychologically terms as an emotional swollen-headedness about Naija, my fatherland. That masculine concept references achievements! National integration, for me, begins from the desire, by the many, to come to 'Nigeria' and everything concerning it IN CONSCIENCE. This implies that we all pool our energies from the belief that we owe it a delightsome duty to do so, rather than going through the motion of doing so. The only set of people who delight in serving are those who (a) by dint of expertise, derived in the first place by personal efforts, felt they could make a difference; and (b) by hook or crook have slithered their way into the nooky alleys of the national treasury.

I take Ekeh's analysis of the two publics in Nigeria serious. Believe me, we have not overcome our primordial sentiments. And, again, we can't! The best we can do is, pardon me, sublimate these primordial sentiments at the altar of a justifiable and legitimate national vision. Is it not the case that majority of 'Nigerians' conduct their lives within the murky frameworks of the multidimensional informal sector? Most people have abandoned the government and the promises of civic betterment. I sincerely want to believe in 'Nigeria'. I am sure that goes for all these people at the national, state and local levels that we hear about daily (as well as the footballers and bankers Prof. Aluko highlighted). Yet, our primordial spaces seem to promise better.

When integration happens, it would not be limited to the 'national' activities of certain individuals. It would not be limited to the burst of 'national' pride we feel at an occasional football victory over lowly rated countries. Rather, it will be a deep and critically entrenched national pride motivated by the achievements of the Nigerian leadership. The most crucial of these would be the concerted effort at surmounting the social question rather than our many fruitless efforts at consolidating national integrity. The latter must take its cue from the former.

I just worked myself into a profuse sweat. But this is serious business. I sincerely wish Nigeria will survive. I don't think Achebe is otherwise minded.


Adeshina Afolayan
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN
From: OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU <toyinvinc...@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2012 02:49:44 +0100
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Virtue of Ethnocentrism

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