Re-How Ojukwu ruined the Igbo

Newsflash

Opinion

Re-How Ojukwu ruined the Igbo

Written by By Chuks Ibegbu Sunday, 22 January 2012

As a student of history and wars, I owe it a duty to contribute to social discourse that seems controversial or contentious. I read the beautiful and masterfully drafted work of Mr. Osy Odife in one of the popular Nigerian dailies on the futility of the civil war and how Ojukwu ruined the Igbo.

Mr Osy is free to air his democratic views , but I beg to disagree on some of the points he raised. Ojukwu did not in anyway ruin the Igbo. If anything, Ojukwu brought to the attention of the world the admirable ingenuity and resilient spirit of the Igbo. Yes, we lost materially and humanly in that war of attrition, but wars are not tea parties where everything is all about merry making.

Europe lost more than 10 and 20 million lives during the first and second world wars.

That did not diminish the giant stride of Europe today. It is easy to adumberate that the war would have been prevented by a more adept and tactful political or military leader. But in practice and in reality, the Nigerian side then was not ready for that. The Igbo and Easterners fought then to prevent the annihilation of the Igbo race and Easterners.

They fought a good fight, despite all odds. Mistakes were naturally made as in any other wars or human conflicts. Ojukwu was, ofcourse, a military dictator, but that cannot obviate the fact that the room for a peaceful settlement, both before and during the war, was trammeled by the Nigerian side.

Some people had, sometimes, attributed the loss of the war to Ojukwu’s ego. Well, all of us have ego and it’s only when we have the opportunity that we begin to manifest it. Gowon had ego. Nigeria and Biafra had ego. The Biafran ego was injured. The Nigerian ego sought to crush the Biafran ego. It was clear to Biafrans and Ojukwu that they would fight on unequal pedestals, but when faced with annihilation, would they not, at least, try to protect themselves? Would they wait until they stand on equal pedestals with Nigeria before they defend themselves? Despite the fact that America crushed the Panamanian forces in their bid to remove Gen. Noriega from power, did the Panamanian tiny armed forces and people not stand up against the euperpower? The first laws of nature is self-preservation and self defence. There were and are many instances in history where injured people fought to defend themselves, despite the odds against them.

The real reason Biafran did not win the war had little to do with Ojukwu’s ego or even the unequal strenghts of the Biafran and Nigerian military machinery. The real fact was that the view and orientation of the world then was against self-determination and secession. Nation states were just emerging and balkanization, even on moral grounds, was not encouraged then. If it were today, it would have been different. This was why Britain, despite being a Christain nation, sided with the principally Moslem North. By his palpable intrasigence and foreclosed room for a decent corridor of hope for the Easterners, Gen Gowon and his masters made it difficult for the East to sheath their wounded pride and physical injury.

What was not done by Ojukwu and the East to avoid the war. Agreed that thosen standing on weak position may need to change strategy to survive, but could we sincerely agree that if the Biafrans had accepted the Nigerian terms for cessation of hostilities, Igbo and Easterners would not have been slaves in Nigeria today?

It must be stated here that left alone and without foreign support, Biafra would have crushed Nigeria within days, even with their limited military weaponry.

But for Banjo’s treachery at Ore, Biafra would have captured Lagos on 10 August, 1967 and the world would have quickly sided with Biafra since it valued those in charge of capitals of countries.

Well, I repeat that Ojukwu did not ruin the Igbo. Its uncharitable to say so. He was not a saint, of course, as none of us is, but Biafrans supported him to defend them in a war that was levied on them. What later happened in the course of the war is a different thing.
That we are disadvantaged now in Nigeria structurally and demographically is expectedly one of the outcomes of the inability to win the war. Like the Japanese and Germans, the Igbo should forget about the outcome of the war and chart a course to reclaim their rightful place in Nigeria. We fought a good fight which would remain indelible in history. Please let us allow our HERO, DIM ODUMEGWU-OJUKWU, TO HAVE HIS WELL-DESERVED REST IN ETERNITY.