Top 6 striking facts about Nigeria's war over Biafra

Recently declassified secret files reveal so much about the Nigerian civil war, especially as regards Britain’s secret human right abuses.

The formerly secret files on the Nigerian civil war in the late 1960s show very clear British complicity in the Nigerian government’s aggression against the region of Biafra, where an independence movement was struggling to secede from Nigeria.

Background to civil war

For those in Britain old enough to remember the war in Nigeria in the late 1960s, ‘Biafra’ probably still conjures up images of starving children – the result of the blockade imposed by the Nigerian government in Lagos to defeat the secession of the eastern region, Biafra. For Biafrans themselves, the period was one of immense suffering – it is still not known how many died at this time as a direct result of the war and the blockade, but it is believed to be at least one million and as high as three million.

1. Ironsi was misunderstood

Ironsi’s decree in March 1966, which abolished the Nigerian federation and unified the federal and regional civil services, was perceived by many not as an effort to establish a unitary government but as a plot by the Ibo to dominate Nigeria.

Troops of northern origin, who dominated the Nigerian infantry, became increasingly restive and fighting broke out between them and Ibo soldiers in garrisons in the south.

In June, mobs in northern cities, aided by local officials, carried out a pogrom against resident Ibos, massacring several hundred people and destroying Ibo-owned property.

It was in this context that in July 1966 northern officers staged a countercoup during which Ironsi and other Ibo officers were killed. Lieutenant Colonel (later General) Yakubu ‘Jack’ Gowon emerged as leader.

The aim of the coup was both to take revenge on the Ibos for the coup in January but also to promote the secession of the north, although Gowon soon pulled back from calling explicitly for this.

Gowon named himself as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and head of the military government, which was rejected by the military governor in the eastern region, Lieutenant Colonel Ojukwu, who claimed, with some justification, that the Gowon regime was illegitimate.

Mark Curtis reports that throughout late 1966 and 1967 the tempo of violence increased. In September 1966 attacks on Ibos in the north were renewed with unprecedented ferocity, stirred up, eastern region officials believed, by northern political leaders.

Reports circulated that troops from the northern region had participated in the massacres. The estimated number of deaths ranged from 10,000 to as high as 30,000. More than one million Ibos returned to the eastern region in fear.

In January 1967 the military leaders met in Aburi, Ghana. By this time the eastern region under Ojukwu was threatening secession.

Many of Ojukwu’s eastern colleagues were now arguing that the massacres the previous September showed that the country could not be reunited amicably.

In a last minute effort at Aburi to hold Nigeria together, an accord was agreed that provided for a loose confederation of regions.

Gowon issued a decree implementing the Aburi agreement and even the northern region now favoured the formation of a multistate federation.

The federal civil service, however, vigorously opposed the Aburi agreement and sought to scupper it.

Ojukwu and Gowon then disputed what exactly had been agreed at Aburi, especially after the Federal Military Government (FMG) issued a further decree in March which was seen by Ojukwu as reneging on the FMG’s commitment at Aburi to give the eastern region greater autonomy.

The new decree gave the federal government the right to declare a state of emergency in any region and to ensure that any regional government could not undermine the executive authority of the federal government.

Ojukwu then gave an ultimatum to Gowon that the eastern region would begin implementing its understanding of the Aburi agreement, providing for greater regional autonomy, by 31 March.

On 30 May 1967 Biafra declared independence and on 7 July the FMG began operations to defeat it.

It lasted until January 1970 as an extremely well-equipped Nigerian federal army of over 85,000 men supplied by Britain, the Soviet Union and few others, took on a volunteer Biafran army, much of whose equipment initially came from captured Nigerian supplies and which only later was able to procure relatively small quantities of arms from outside.

2. Biafra was legit

Yet there appears to be no reason why Biafra, with its 15 million people, could not have established a viable, independent state.

Biafrans argued that they were a people with a distinctive language and culture, that they were Christian as opposed to the Muslim communities lumped into the Nigeria federal state, which had, after all, been a colonial creation.

In fact, Biafra was also one of the most developed regions in Africa with a high density of roads, schools, hospitals and factories.

The struggle for an independent state certainly appeared to have the support of the majority of Biafrans, whose sense of nationhood deepened throughout the war as enormous sacrifices were made to contribute to the war effort.

What is crystal clear is that the wishes of the Biafrans were never a major concern of British planners; what they wanted, or what Nigerians elsewhere in the federation wanted, was simply not an issue for Whitehall.

There is simply no reference in the government files, that I have seen, to this being a consideration. The priorities for London were maintaining the unity of Nigeria for geo-political interests and protecting British oil interests.

This meant that Gowon’s FMG was backed right from the start. But the files also reveal astonishing levels of connivance with the FMG’s aggression.

3. Nigerian aggression, British support

British interests are very clearly revealed in the declassified files. ‘Our direct interests are trade and investment, including an important stake by Shell/BP in the eastern Region.

There are nearly 20,000 British nationals in Nigeria, for whose welfare we are of course specially [sic] concerned’, the Foreign Office noted a few days before the outbreak of the war. Shell/BP’s investments amounted to around £200 million, with other British investment in Nigeria accounting for a further £90 million.

It was then partly owned by the British government, and the largest producer of oil which provided most of Nigeria’s export earnings. Most of this oil was in the eastern region.

Commonwealth Minister George Thomas wrote in August 1967 that: ‘The sole immediate British interest in Nigeria is that the Nigerian economy should be brought back to a condition in which our substantial trade and investment in the country can be further developed, and particularly so we can regain access to important oil installations’.

Thomas further outlined the primary reason why Britain was so keen to preserve Nigerian unity, noting that ‘our only direct interest in the maintenance of the federation is that Nigeria has been developed as an economic unit and any disruption of this would have adverse effects on trade and development’.

If Nigeria were to break up, he added: ‘We cannot expect that economic cooperation between the component parts of what was Nigeria, particularly between the East and the West, will necessarily enable development and trade to proceed at the same level as they would have done in a unified Nigeria; nor can we now count on the Shell/BP oil concession being regained on the same terms as in the past if the East and the mid-West assume full control of their own economies’.

Ojukwu initially tried to get Shell/BP to pay royalties to the Biafran government rather than the FMG.

The oil companies, after giving the Biafrans a small token payment, eventually refused and Ojuwku responded by sequestering Shell’s property and installations, forbidding Shell to do any further business and ordering all its staff out. They ‘have much to lose if the FMG do not achieve the expected victory’, George Thomas noted in August 1967.

A key British aim throughout the war was to secure the lifting of the blockade which Gowon imposed on the east and which stopped oil exports.

In the run-up to Gowon’s declaration of war, Britain had made it clear to the FMG that it completely supported Nigerian unity.

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George Thomas had told the Nigerian High Commissioner in London at the end of April 1967, for example, that ‘the Federal government had our sympathy and our full support’ but said that he hoped the use of force against the east could be avoided.

By the time Gowon ordered military action in early July, therefore, Britain had refused Nigerian requests to be militarily involved and had urged Gowon to seek a ‘peaceful’ solution.

However, the Wilson government had also assured Gowon of British support for Nigerian unity at a time when military preparations were taking place. And Britain had also made no signs that it might cut off, or reduce, arms supplies if a military campaign were launched.

The new High Commissioner in Lagos, Sir David Hunt, wrote in a memo to London on 12 June that the ‘only way… of preserving unity [sic] of Nigeria is to remove Ojukwu by force’.

He said that Ojukwu was committed to remaining the ruler of an independent state and that British interests lay in firmly supporting the FMG.

4. Weapon supplies

Before going to war, Gowon began what was to become a two and half year long shopping list of arms that the FMG wanted from Britain.

On 1 July he asked Britain for jet fighter/bomber aircraft, six fast boats and 24 anti-aircraft guns. ‘We want to help the Federal Government in any way we can’, British officials noted.

However, Britain rejected supplying the aircraft, fearing that they would publicly demonstrate direct British intervention in the war and, at this stage, also rejected supplying the boats.

London did, however, agree to supply the anti-aircraft guns and to provide training courses to use them.

he Deputy High Commissioner in Enugu, Biafra’s main city, noted that the supply of these anti-aircraft guns and their ammunition would be seen as British backing for the FMG and also that they were not entirely defensive weapons anyway since ‘they could also take on an offensive role if mounted in an invasion fleet’.

Nevertheless, the government’s news department was instructed to stress the ‘defensive nature of these weapons’ when pressed but generally to avoid publicity on their export from Britain.

High Commissioner Hunt said that ‘it would be better to use civil aircraft’ to deliver these guns and secured agreement from the Nigerians that ‘there would be no publicity’ in supplying them.

Faced with Gowon’s complaints about Britain not supplying more arms, Wilson also agreed in mid-July to supply the FMG with the fast patrol boats.

This was done in the knowledge that they would help the FMG maintain the blockade against Biafra. Wilson wrote to Gowon saying that ‘we have demonstrated in many ways our support for your government as the legal government of Nigeria and our refusal to recognise the secessionists’.

He also told him that Britain does ‘not intend to put any obstacle in the way’ of orders for ‘reasonable quantities of military material of types similar to those you have obtained here in the past’.

Gowon replied saying that ‘I have taken note of your concurrence for the usual purchases of arms supplies to continue and will take advantage of what is available now and others when necessary’.

By early August Biafran forces had made major gains against the FMG and had invaded the mid-West region. Commonwealth Minister George Thomas noted that ‘the chances of a clear-cut military decision being achieved by either side now look rather distant’.

Rather, ‘we are now faced with the probability of an escalating and increasingly disorderly war, with both sides shopping around for arms’.

In this situation, he raised the option of Britain launching a peace offensive and halting all arms supplies. But this was rejected by David Hunt in Lagos and others since it would cause ‘great resentment’ on the part of the FMG against the British government and be regarded as a ‘hostile act’.

Instead, the government decided to continue the flow of arms and ammunition of types previously supplied by Britain but to continue to refuse supplies of ‘sophisticated equipment’ like aircraft and tanks.

The decision to continue arms exports was taken when it had already become clear in the behaviour of the Nigerian forces that any weapons supplied would be likely to be used against civilians.

It was also at a time when Commonwealth Secretary General Arnold Smith was making renewed attempts to push for peace negotiations after having been rebuffed by Gowon in a visit to Lagos in early July.

On 23 November 1967 the Cabinet agreed that ‘a quick Federal military victory’ provided the best hope for ‘an early end to the fighting’. By early December, Commonwealth Secretary George Thomson noted that the ‘lack of supplies and ammunition is one of things that are holding operations up’.

He said that Britain should agree to the FMG’s recent shopping list since ‘a favourable response to this request ought to give us every chance of establishing ourselves again as the main supplier of the Nigerian forces after the war’.

If the war ended soon, the Nigerian economy will start expanding and ‘there should be valuable business to be done’. Also: ‘Anything that we now do to assist the FMG should help our oil companies to re-establish and expand their activities in Nigeria after the war, and, more generally should help our commercial and political relationship with postwar Nigeria’.

He ended by saying he hoped Britain could supply armoured cars since they ‘have proved of especial value in the type of fighting that is going on in Nigeria and the FMG are most impressed with the Saladins and Ferrets’ previously supplied by Britain.

As a result Britain supplied six Saladin armoured personnel carriers (APCs), 30 Saracen APCs along with 2,000 machine guns for them, anti-tank guns and 9 million rounds of ammunition.

Denis Healey, the Defence Secretary, wrote that he hoped these supplies will encourage the Nigerians ‘to look to the United Kingdom for their future purchases of defence equipment’.

By the end of the year Britain had also approved the export of 1,050 bayonets, 700 grenades, 1,950 rifles with grenade launchers, 15,000 lbs of explosives and two helicopters.

In the first half of the following year, 1968, Britain approved the export of 15 million rounds of ammunition, 21,000 mortar bombs, 42,500 Howtizer rounds, 12 Oerlikon guns, 3 Bofors guns, 500 submachine guns, 12 Saladins with guns and spare parts, 30 Saracens and spare parts, 800 bayonets, 4,000 rifles and two other helicopters.

At the same time Wilson was constantly reassuring Gowon of British support for a united Nigeria, saying in April 1968 that ‘I think we can fairly claim that we have not wavered in this support throughout the civil war’.

These massive arms exports were being secretly supplied – indeed, massively stepped up – at a time when one could read about the actions of the recipients in the newspapers. After the Biafran withdrawal from the mid-west in September 1967 a series of massacres started against Ibo residents.

5. War crimes

The New York Times reported that over 5,000 had been killed in various towns of the mid west. About 1,000 Ibos were killed in Benin city by local people with the acquiescence of the federal forces, the New York Review noted in December 1967.

Around 700 Ibo males were lined up and shot in the town of Asaba, the Observer reported in January 1968.

According to eyewitnesses the Nigerian commander ordered the execution of every Ibo male over the age of ten.

Nigerian officials informed the British government that the arms were ‘important to them, but not vital’. More important than the actual arms ‘was the policy of the British government in supporting the FMG’.

This support was now taking place amid public and parliamentary pressure for a halt to British arms to Lagos, with 70 Labour MPs, for example, filing a motion for such an embargo in May 1968. Yet the real extent of arms supplied by Britain was concealed from the public.

Throughout 1967 and 1968, Ministers had been telling parliament that Britain was essentially neutral in the conflict in that it was not interfering in the internal affairs of Nigeria but simply continuing to supply arms to Nigeria on the same basis as before the war.

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As the declassified files, referred to above, show, this was simply a lie. For example, Wilson told the House on 16 May 1968 that: ’We have continued the supply… of arms by private manufacturers in this country exactly on the basis that it has been in the past, but there has been no special provision for the needs of the war’.

One British file at this time – mid-1968 – refers to deaths of between 70,000-100,000 by now as ‘realistic’.

The Red Cross was estimating around 600,000 refugees in Biafra alone and was trying to arrange desperately needed supplies to meet needs, estimated at around 30 tons a day.

Humanitarian suffering, especially starvation, was severe as a result of the FMG’s blockade of Biafra. Pictures of starving and malnourished children went around the world.

The FMG was widely seen as indulging in atrocities and attacks against civilians, including apparently indiscriminate air strikes, in an increasingly brutal war in which civilians were the chief victims.

The files show that Wilson told Gowon on several occasions in private letters that he had successfully fended off public and parliamentary criticism in Britain, in order to continue to support the FMG – clearly showing where the government’s priorities and sympathies lay.

As in Vietnam at the same time, Wilson was not going to be deflected by mere public opposition from backing ongoing aggression by key allies, whatever the level of atrocities and casualties.

With federal forces in control by mid-year of Port Harcourt, the most important southern coastal city, British officials noted that ‘having gone this far in supporting the FMG, it would be a pity to throw away the credit we have built up with them just when they seem to have the upper hand’.

Britain could not halt the supply of arms since ‘apart from other considerations, such an outcome would seriously put at risk about £200m of British investments in non-Biafra Nigeria’, George Thomson explained to Harold Wilson.

It was also at this point that British officials sought to counter widespread opposition to the Nigerian government by conniving with it to improve the ‘presentation’ of its policies – another example of Britain’s past ‘information operations’ described in earlier chapters.

Britain urged the FMG to convince the outside world that it was not engaged in genocide or a policy of massacre and to make public statements on the need for a ceasefire and humanitarian access to Biafra.

What was needed was ‘good and well-presented Nigerian policies which permit that support to continue’. Wilson therefore urged a senior Nigerian government official, Chief Enahoro, ‘to make a greater effort to ensure that their case did not go by default’.

The files indicate that these ‘presentational’ issues were much more important to British officials than any actual suffering of the Biafrans themselves.

London never did anything significant to press the FMG. British officials ruled out threatening to cut off, or reduce, arms exports to force the FMG to change policies.

The issue that most concerned the government at the time was that it would be forced to withdraw or reduce its support for Gowon in the face of public pressure.

This, therefore, had to be countered, and the FMG needed to make greater efforts.

Mark Curtis reports that by mid-1968 British officials had still had no contacts with Ojukwu and other Biafran leaders; offers from the latter had been refused.

So supportive was Wilson of the FMG that he even asked the Nigerians in advance whether they would have ‘any difficulties’ if a British official met a Biafran representative.

Chief Enahoro replied that this would be acceptable provided the contacts were ‘strictly private and had no formal character’.

In early August FMG forces had retaken the whole of the southeastern and Rivers states and the easterners were now confined to a small enclave, blockaded from the outside world.

Commonwealth Minister Lord Shepherd minuted Harold Wilson saying, that 14 months since Biafran secession: ‘Our support for the FMG finds us in the position in which we are on comparatively good terms with the side which is in an overwhelmingly advantageous position.

It is important, therefore, that we should not be manoeuvred by pressure of opinion inspired by Ojukwu’s publicity, into abandoning at this late stage all the advantages which our policy so far seemed likely to bring us’.

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The same month, the Red Cross estimated 2-3 million people ‘in dire need’ and a similar number were facing shortages of food and medical aid.

Wilson did not succumb to public pressure. The following month he told Gowon that: ‘The British government for their part have steadfastly maintained their policy of support for Federal Nigeria and have resisted all suggestions in parliament and in the press for a change in that policy, particularly in regard to arms supplies’.

The Foreign Office argued that ‘the whole of our investments in Nigeria and particularly our oil interests in the south east and the mid-west will be at risk if we change our policy of support for the federal government’.

In November, Lord Brockway and his committee for peace in Nigeria met Wilson and urged him to halt arms sales and to press for a ceasefire, estimating that there could be two million deaths from starvation and disease by the end of the year.

Wilson not only rebuffed this plea; the files reveal that two days later he agreed to supply Nigeria with aircraft for the first time in a covert deal.

The Nigerians had been pressing Britain to supply several jet aircraft, specifically to attack the runways used by Biafran forces (and which also needed to be used to deliver humanitarian aid).

Wilson said that Britain could not supply these directly but there were such aircraft in South Yemen and Sudan previously supplied by Britain.

The Nigerians, he said, should procure the aircraft from them which ‘would not directly involve the British government’.

The company to deal with in those two countries was Airwork Limited, which was later to be again used by the British government to conceal its involvement in its covert dirty war in Yemen.

The British government also agreed to put the Nigerians in touch with ‘suitable pilots’.

British arms supplies were stepped up again in November. Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart said the Nigerians could have 5 million more rounds of ammunition, 40,000 more mortar bombs and 2,000 rifles.

‘You may tell Gowon’, Stewart instructed High Commissioner Hunt in Lagos, ‘that we are certainly ready to consider a further application’ to supply similar arms in the future as well.

He concluded: ‘if there is anything else for ground warfare which you… think they need and which would help speed up the end of the fighting, please let us know and we will consider urgently whether we can supply it’.

Other supplies agreed in November following meetings with the Nigerians included six Saladins and 20,000 rounds of ammunition for them, and stepped up monthly supplies of ammunition, amounting to a total of 15 million rounds additional to those already agreed. It was recognized by the Defence Minister that ‘the scale of the UK supply of small arms ammunition to Nigeria in recent months has been and will continue to be on a vast scale’.

The recent deal meant that Britain was supplying 36 million rounds of ammunition in the last few months alone. Britain’s ‘willingness to supply very large quantities of ammunition’, Lord Shepherd noted, ‘meant drawing on the British army’s own supplies’.

At the same time the Foreign Office was instructing its missions around the world to lie about the extent of this arms supply.

It sent a ‘guidance’ memo to various diplomatic posts on 22 November saying that ‘we wish to discourage suggestions’ that the Nigerians, in their recent meetings with British officials, were seeking ‘to negotiate a massive arms deal’.

Rather, ‘our policy of supplying in reasonable quantities arms of the kind traditionally supplied’ to Nigeria ‘will be maintained but no change in the recent pattern of supplies is to be expected’.

So great is the culture of lying at the Foreign Office, it appears that policy is even to keep its own officials in the dark.

By the end of 1968 Britain had sold Nigeria £9 million worth of arms, £6 million of which was spent on small arms. A quarter of Nigeria’s supplies (by value) had come from the Soviet Union, also taking advantage of the war for its own benefit and trying no doubt to secure an opening into Nigeria provided by this opportunity.

British officials consistently justified their arms supply by saying that if they stopped, the Russians would fill the gap.

It was Britain’s oil interests, however, that was the dominating factor in Whitehall planners’ reasoning.

6. British taught Nigeria tactics to finish off Biafra

Two senior British RAF officers secretly visited Nigeria in August 1969 to advise the Nigerians on ‘how they could better prosecute the air war’.

The main British interest, the files make clear, was to provide better protection of the oil installations, but the brief for the two officers stated that this impression should not be given to the Nigerians.

The officers subsequently advised the Nigerians on a variety of tactics on ‘neutralisation of the rebel airstrips’.

It was understood that destruction of the airstrips would put them out of use for daylight humanitarian relief flights. It is not clear whether such advice was put into action.

Britain armed the federal government all the way. In December 1969, just before the FMG’s final push that crushed the Biafrans, Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart was calling for stepping up military assistance including the supply of more armoured cars.

These supplies by Britain, he wrote, ‘have undoubtedly been the most effective weapons in the ground war and have spear-headed all the major federal advances’.

Biafran resistance ended by mid January 1970. Wilson then sent another message to Gowon saying that ‘your army has won a decisive victory’ and has achieved ‘your great aim of preserving the unity and integrity of Nigeria’, adding: ‘As you know I and my colleagues have believed all along that you were right and we have never wavered in our support for you, your government and you policy, despite the violent attacks which have been made on us at times in parliament and in the press as well as overseas’.

The toll of the war was counted in a report for the British High Commission at the end of the month.

It referred to a relief agency report estimating 1 1/2-2 million people were being fed with food relief supplies, around 700,000 of whom were refugees in camps dependent entirely on food aid.

Three million refugees were crowded into a 2,500 square kilometre enclave in which not only food but medicine, housing and clothing were in short supply.

The Biafran economy was shattered, cities were in ruins and schools, hospitals and transport facilities destroyed.

Below is a Legit.ng video in which Nigerians react to the possibility of achieving the Biafra dream, as clamored for by many from the Southeast.

Source: Legit.ng