By Omife I. Omife
Mbuze Mbaukwu
omifelord@gmail.com

Biafra win the war!
Armoured car,
Shelling machine,
Heavy artillery,
” Ha enweghi ike imeli Biafra…”

Most of us may not have heard this song unless those born before the Biafran war.

But I always remember this song as if it was yesterday. It was one of the popular songs that gave the Biafran soldiers courage and belief that no weapon on the surface of the earth could defeat Biafra.

Indeed, it was such songs that gave Biafran soldiers that courage to confront Nigeria which had the entire country’s pre-war military weapons with only 150 rifles which were the only weapons Biafra had at the commencement of the war.

Some of these songs were also the reason Biafra troops surprised the world in the first few weeks of the war, by advancing as far as to Ore, a few kilometers to the Nigerian seat of government at the time.

This move forced Nigeria to place an embargo on all categories of shipping goods, with the exception of oil tankers, suspecting that Ojukwu was importing arms through the channel.

As the Biafran pressure continued, the Nigerian government was forced to extend the blockade to oil tankers, believing that Ojukwu was using oil money to buy weapons.

The blockade spurred more Biafran support for the war. Thousands of Biafran youths abandoned their parents, traders closed their shops while secondary and university students left their schools and trooped into the streets chanting war songs and begging Ojukwu to give them more guns and machetes to face the enemy.

“Ojukwu nyem egbe,
Nyem nma,
Ka’m gbagbuo Gowon gbagbuo Hassan………”

But there were no guns to give them.

Poor boys.

You won’t blame them. They thought that the war was a war between just two African nations, Nigeria and Biafra.

At this point, Biafran local blacksmiths from Awka, Ebenebe, Ezeagu, Dikenafai, etc embarked on mass fabrication of dane guns and local canon guns for Biafran boys. With these local weapons, Biafran troops continued making waves.

In panic, the Nigerian government quickly ran to Britain and America who are inseparable allies for weapons which they quickly arranged for them.

As soon as Nigeria took delivery of the foreign weapons, Gowon chided Ojukwu that if Biafra failed to surrender within a given deadline, Igbos would be wiped out from the face of the earth within one month.

After the threat, Biafran troops became more resolute and swore to swim and sink with Ojukwu. Knowing that in war, death was inevitable and knowing the new capability of the enemy, they were ready to die as captured in an emotional but defiant war chant:

“Save my bullet when I die
Oh Biafra!
Save my bullet when I die
Alleluia, if I happen to die in the battle field
Save my bullet when I die.”

Touched and inspired by these songs, Biafran scientists rose to the challenge. They manufactured Biafran armoured personnel carriers nicknamed Biafran Red Devils.

They converted local canon guns, “Mkpo n’ani” (the Igbo traditional gun fire) to land mines which they later perfected to the famous Ogbunigwe (Mass killer). Nigerian soldiers nicknamed it Ojukwu bucket while their foreign mercenaries called it Biafran Wonder. Since that time, I don’t think any country in Africa has achieved this feat up till today.

Biafran scientists later upgraded the ogbunigwe to the flying ogbunigwe, a rocket-propelled missile which became a terror to Nigerian troops. The flying ogbunigwe became the first rocket-propelled missile to be wholly designed, developed, mass-produced and launched in Africa.

When Nigeria perceived that Biafra could match them artillery for artillery on land, they switched to sea battle with a fresh supply of modern warships from Britain, America and Russia.

Biafran scientists went back to the drawing board and came out with the famous shore battery, a sophisticated naval equipment that destroyed scores of Nigerian warships.

In October 1967, troops of the Nigerian 2nd Division under the command of Murtala Mohammed invaded Onitsha through Asaba and tried to cross the River Niger but were severally repelled by Biafran shore battery. They eventually managed to enter Onitsha after huge losses in men and weapons, but were quickly routed by Biafran troops under Major Joseph Achuzie and Col. Assam Nsudoh, capturing and killing most of the Nigerian soldiers.

In December 1967, troops of the Nigerian 2nd Division and the 6th Battalion re-crossed the Niger River at Idah and made their way again to recapture Onitsha, but were again held up in a gruesome battle by Biafran troops.

On 31st March 1968, the division with over 6000 tried to link up with the 1st Division at Enugu. How that attempt was completely devastated at Abagana is now history and a story for another day.

This drove the Nigerian government into another panic resort to air battle with the aid of Russian war planes and professional mercenary pilots from Egypt.

As Russia joined the war with her highly sophisticated MIG jets and professional pilots hired from Egypt to pilot the machines, Nigerian troops were thrown into jubilation, certain that the Russian air raids would finally seal the fate of Biafra.

Biafran soldiers reacted very emotionally to this new situation, again expressing their readiness to pay the supreme sacrifice for Biafra in spite of all odds.

“My Father, don’t you worry
My mother, don’t you worry
My brother, don’t you worry
My sister, don’t you worry
If I happen to die in the battle field
Never mind, we shall see again”

Touched by this heart-rending song, Biafran scientists went back to the laboratory and fabricated the Biafran Babes – Biafran locally manufactured military aircrafts which dealt several hits on Nigerian military bases in Makurdi, Kaduna and Kano.

It was the first instance of black pilots manning war planes without expatriate accompaniment.

Yes. Biafra may not have won the Nigeria Biafra war. But they gave a good account of themselves to the amazement of both Nigeria and the world. This made Gowon to declare the No victor, No Vanquished at the end of the war.

Apart from the ingenuity exhibited by Biafran scientists in the local manufacture of a wide variety of war weapons under the famous RAP, short for Research And Production Unit, they also achieved other feats in the area of war logistics and human survival that utterly confounded Nigeria and the world..

They converted local palm oil to crude oil and processed it into motor fuel, diesel, kerosene, lubricants and other motor oils.

They converted and processed coconut water to vehicle break fluids and gear oil.

After the fall of Port Harcourt and later Enugu, which cut off vital Biafran airforce services, Biafran civil and aero engineers and technicians quickly converted a tarred road at Uga into an emergency airstrip under 48 hours of the fall of Enugu airport.

They later constructed a more standard airport at Uli, which landed all categories of aircrafts that flew in relief materials and weapons mostly in the nights.

Whenever Nigerian bomber planes trailed Biafran pilots on air, Biafran pilots radioed the airport control tower personnel to put off landing and other airport lights to prevent detection by the enemy jets and still landed safely in the dark.

Unbelievable ingenuity!

Each time the Nigerian bomber aircrafts struck and damaged the airport runway, Biafran technicians mended the damages and potholes with improvised cement devise in a matter of hours and flights resumed.

Biafran scientists used all available sources of protein and carbohydrates, including cassava leaves, lizards, and rodents to produce food formulas to supplement supplies from the Red Cross, Caritas International and other foreign food donor organizations.

The local food production helped to drastically reduce malnutrition and kwashiorkor especially on Biafran children, preventing the kind of situation we have in some IDP camps today.

To combat the dearth of drugs in Biafra, especially in military hospitals, Biafran pharmacists stormed the bushes and came out with tons of herbs and vegetables of all types like ogirisi igbo, onugbu, azam and other crops which they analyzed and processed into drugs for all types of cures.

They processed some of these herbs into drips for emergency treatment of war casualties and other accidents.

They processed palm oil, firewood, charcoal and ash into highly effective orthopedic accessories like POP and other medical appliances.

For the most part of the war, several schools in Biafra were in session until about 1969 when the volume of refugees became all time high, forcing many schools to vacate their schools to accommodate refugees while some were converted to hospitals.

Markets, churches, farming, name it, all were booming in spite of regular air raids by Nigerian jets. But did not daunt the Biafran spirit.

For most part of the war, civil servants, including refugee civil servants were still receiving their monthly salaries as and when due, even up till the time Umuahia was the only remaining Biafran center of government.

One of Ojukwu’s many war magics.

Business and trading for which Igbos are known were in full swing, as many Biafran business men and women crisscrossed Nigeria cities of Lagos, Jos, Makurdi and Enugu and Biafra in the popular “afia attack” (smuggling) to supply Biafrans with essential commodities of all types including latest wears for boys and girls.

Biafran commandos and militia outfits operated “behind the lines” i.e., within Nigeria held Biafran territories where they attacked Nigerian barracks and looted armouries which they dispatched to Biafran military units “across the line”.

For all intents and purposes, Biafra was not defeated in the war until Ojukwu left Biafra to seek peace and freedom for Biafra.

As far as I know, Ojukwu, as the symbol of Biafra, did not surrender.

As for General Effiong’s reported surrender, there was no time he said Ojukwu directed him to surrender. He could have used his discretion.

When Ojukwu eventually came back from exile, he did not surrender to anybody. All he said was that he wanted to lead Igbos back to the Nigerian mainstream, reason why he joined the then NPN and contested for the Senate.

The truth we all know is that he was rigged out by his own NPN party; he was not actually defeated by his NPP opponent, Dr. Edwin Onwudiwe as was orchestrated.

The truth is that, even at that time, Nigerian government was still afraid of Ojukwu and chose to play safe by keeping him at a distance.

After all, he did not surrender, they must have thought.
Is there more to say except that Biafra and Biafrans truly lived up to the ideals and vision of their national anthem as composed by the great Zik:

“Land of the rising sun, we love and cherish,
Beloved homeland of our brave heroes;
We must defend our lives or we shall perish,
We shall protect our lives from all our foes;
But if the price is death for all we hold dear,
Then let us die without a shred of fear.”

So much of this brief history of the Nigeria-Biafra war for now. Even though history has been banned from our schools, there is no law yet to that effect, so I am on the safe side.

Should we also ban reading of the bible in churches and reading of the Koran in mosques since a large portion of both books are history in religious robe.

In any case, we know the reason for removing history from our schools, just to prevent the younger generation of Nigerians from knowing about the Nigeria-Biafra war, and future generation of Igbos from imbibing the Biafran spirit and ingenuity manifested during the war.

However, I have no intention of inciting anybody to war as we cannot achieve anything by war.

Rather, I believe that dialogue is the best approach to resolving issues. My write-up is just for historical purposes.