Any society where people allow themselves to be ruled not by common sense, objectivity or the dictates of justice but by base primordial emotions and other forms of tribalism is doomed. This was exactly the case when Chinua Achebe’s Nigeria-Biafra war memoir  “there was a country,” was published   last year, and the most primitive and shameful  display of crude emotions  and senseless tribalism was unleashed by hordes  of debased  individuals  reacting to Chinua Achebe’s  brief narrative   of the role Chief Obafemi  Awolowo  played in the needless and avoidable war of aggression  against  an injured  people in the then Biafra.

Reading through the outburst of primitive reactions, driven perhaps by a guilt complex and crass ignorance   you would think the whole book was all about Chief Obafemi Awolowo; but alas the 319 page book contained much more and only mentioned Chief Awolowo’s quote in a single sentence in page 233 where he said “that all is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war.”  Ironically, not one of those who launched into defensive and abusive tirades denied that chief Awolowo made such a statement that enabled and supported an unconscionable policy of starvation and thus genocide against victims that were primarily children. We also do know that all is not fair in war, because if all is fair in war we wouldn’t have war crimes and the Geneva convention that stipulates the rules of war, neither would we have had the Nuremberg trials were former Nazi war criminals were tried after the 2nd world war, nor would we have the International criminal court (ICC) in the Hague where people are tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Many war criminals including most recently Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, Robert Bales an American soldier and others have been convicted   for crimes committed in the course of war. So many others are on trial. War has rules and to premise that war no matter how prosecuted is legitimate was a great blunder on the part of Chief Awolowo.   It is not for nothing that the Bible said in Mathew chapter 7 verse 12,  “do unto others as you would like them to do unto you.” If roles were reversed and it was Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe that joined Yakubu Gowon to launch such a senseless, illegal  and atrocious war of aggression against  the Yoruba who for whatever reason decided to exercise  their  legitimate right to self determination and Dr Azikiwe was busy declaring to the world that all atrocities no matter how dastardly is legitimate in war, I am not sure the Yoruba would be clapping for, or praising  Dr Azikiwe. This is the simple truth.  It is always better to put yourself in someone’s shoes in order to be a more objective judge.

To make matters worse, the hordes of Chief Awolowo’s defenders tried so hard to dress Chinua Achebe in a tribal garb. An attempt that is at best laughable for Chinua Achebe is one African who was himself so disgusted by tribalism and racism that much of his work was focused on speaking out against such ills. In his book “the trouble with Nigeria,” the whole of the 2nd chapter was focused on the ills of tribalism and how to rise above it. In the same book,  Chinua Achebe delivered his greatest criticism of any Nigerian leader on Dr Azikiwe Nnamdi, a fellow Igbo,  whom he accused of “abandoning his principles when instead of remaining as an opposition leader in the western region after the carpet crossing incident he returned to the East and precipitated a crisis that that led to the removal of Dr Eyo Ita who was then the premier of the Eastern region.” Again, a whole chapter was dedicated to lambasting Dr Azikiwe not only for the unjust and needless removal of Dr Eyo Ita, but also for many other failings. It is also notable that Chinua Achebe joined Mallam Aminu Kano’s political platform during the 2nd republic because of  the latter’s credentials for social justice. This is definitely not the profile of a tribalist as chief Awolowo’s defenders tried desperately to dress Chinua Achebe.

 What is self evident is that Chinua Achebe has and always will be a social crusader who spoke out against any forms of injustice no matter whose ox was gored.  And this is further vindicated by his social crusade against racism. His rebuttal to John Conrad’s book “heart of darkness,” where Africans were serially dehumanised, remains one of the 20th century classics. Racist writers such as Joyce Cary, John Lok and others who described black Africans as a “beastly people who were like mice and rats whom civilisation passed by. A people without a God, laws, religion or civilisation who dwell in caves or dens  and who have no speech,”  bore the brunt  of the rebuttal  in his  books “home and exile”, “ hopes and  impediments, ” and others  where Achebe  castigated  the racist writers and the European  imperialist enablers who for centuries  dehumanised  Africans as a means to justify the slave trade and other forms of   imperialist exploitation. Chinua Achebe is the only renowned African writer who devoted much time to rebutting centuries of racist European literature intended to paint the black African as a subhuman.   His works are a lasting legacy of a lifetime devoted to social justice. 

Chinua Achebe is thus a social crusader who on behalf of all of us Africans; fought back against racists who sought to diminish our humanity. He is a man who speaks out against perceived injustice and his criticisms of Chief Obafemi Awolowo just as he also criticised Dr Azikiwe in the past should be seen in the same context.  Accepting that Chief Awolowo made a blunder does not diminish his person; it only serves as a learning process to prevent the same mistakes in future. While I will not bother to go into the peculiar circumstances that forced the hands of Eastern leaders to declare the secession of Biafra, may i just remind my Yoruba brothers and sisters how they came very close to declaring secession from Nigeria over the mere cancellation of the June 12 election in which no lives were lost, because they felt sufficiently aggrieved.  We must come to terms with the fact that as Lt General Alanni Akinrinnade declared recently, “the right to self determination is a fundamental right which no group has the right to usurp.” Had the Yoruba gone ahead to declare secession over the June 12 saga, they would have acted within their right and any group fighting to usurp that right would be acting illegally. 

                Campaign For Sovereign National  Conference  Has Vindicated  Ojukwu:

As I said earlier, any society where people allow themselves to be ruled not by common sense, objectivity or the dictates of justice but by base primordial emotions and other forms of tribalism is doomed. The average Nigerian always gets carried away by emotions and by so doing miss the all important dictates of justice with terrible consequences.  The Nigeria-Biafra war was fought not because  people did not know the war was  unnecessary but because they were ruled by emotions rather than common  sense or the dictates of justice. The contradictions that led to the war remains with us because Yakubu Gowon and his goons choose to go to war rather than resolve the contradictions.  Nigeria is consequently paying a terrible price for that blunder which has entrenched all forms of impunity and injustice in the system and led to a campaign for SNC. One injustice leads to another and today Nigeria is awash with all facets of monumental injustice.

The strident campaign for a sovereign national conference anchored on self determination for more than two decades   is a veritable outing of the jury on the rights and wrongs of the Nigeria-Biafra conflict.  It is a creeping verdict of history that has vindicated Chief Emeka Ojukwu. Most symbolic is the fact that erstwhile civil war generals and enablers such as Lt General Alanni Akinrinnade, late chief Anthony Enahoro before he died and the Awolowo family amongst others are all presently   joined in the campaign for a sovereign national conference. Indeed if Chief Obafemi Awolowo   was alive today, being a progressive; it is certain he would be among those today clamouring for a sovereign national conference.

The aftermath of the civil war inadvertently produced a dominant and oppressive North, who saw Nigeria as their private estate in which they are “born to rule” and to dominate-oppress all the others with the suffocating instruments of a unitary system which they used to arrogate every advantage to themselves at the expense of others. It didn’t take too long before it became obvious that Nigeria had been “internally colonised” by the North in the words of “Afenifere.” The nation is presently hobbled by its contradictions, which is manifested in increasing ethno-religious conflicts,  on  foot of  the faulty structure, social injustice and  impunity  imposed by the civil war. 

We can’t change the mistakes of the past, but we can learn from them and make changes accordingly.  It’s  time the Igbo and Yoruba  who according to the CIA world fact book make up about 40%  of the nation’s population moved beyond the  past  and worked together as Sir Herbert Macaulay and Dr Azikiwe once did  to seize the centre stage  and salvage their people from the , injustice , failure and  flawed contraption Nigeria represents.

Lawrence Chinedu Nwobu
Email: lawrencenwobu@gmail.com