What do you think?
Rate this book
The Biafra Story
The Nigerian civil war of the late 1960s was one of the first occasions when Western consciences were awakened and deeply affronted by the level of the suffering and the scale of the atrocity being played out in the African Continent.This book which marked Frederick Forsyth's transition from journalist to author is a record of one of the most brutal conflicts the Third World has ever suffered, it has become a classic of modern war reporting. But it is more than that. It voices one man's outrage not only at the extremes of human violence, but also at the duplicity and self-interest of the Western Governments - most notably, the British, who tacitly accepted or actively aided that violence.
The combination of the dramatic events and the shocking exposures combined with the author's forthright and perceptive style makes The Biafra Story as compelling a read today as when it was first written.
The combination of the dramatic events and the shocking exposures combined with the author's forthright and perceptive style makes The Biafra Story as compelling a read today as when it was first written.
291 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1969
362 people are currently reading
1102 people want to read
About the author
Frederick Forsyth
339 books4,295 followersFrederick Forsyth, CBE was a English author and occasional political commentator. He was best known for thrillers such as The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Fourth Protocol, The Dogs of War, The Devil's Alternative, The Fist of God, Icon, The Veteran, Avenger, The Afghan, and more recently, The Cobra and The Kill List.
The son of a furrier, he was born in Ashford, Kent, educated at Tonbridge School and later attended the University of Granada. He became one of the youngest pilots in the Royal Air Force at 19, where he served on National Service from 1956 to 1958. Becoming a journalist, he joined Reuters in 1961 and later the BBC in 1965, where he served as an assistant diplomatic correspondent. From July to September 1967, he served as a correspondent covering the Nigerian Civil War between the region of Biafra and Nigeria. He left the BBC in 1968 after controversy arose over his alleged bias towards the Biafran cause and accusations that he falsified segments of his reports. Returning to Biafra as a freelance reporter, Forsyth wrote his first book, The Biafra Story in 1969.
Forsyth decided to write a novel using similar research techniques to those used in journalism. His first full length novel, The Day of the Jackal, was published in 1971 and became an international bestseller and gained its author the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel. It was later made into a film of the same name.
The son of a furrier, he was born in Ashford, Kent, educated at Tonbridge School and later attended the University of Granada. He became one of the youngest pilots in the Royal Air Force at 19, where he served on National Service from 1956 to 1958. Becoming a journalist, he joined Reuters in 1961 and later the BBC in 1965, where he served as an assistant diplomatic correspondent. From July to September 1967, he served as a correspondent covering the Nigerian Civil War between the region of Biafra and Nigeria. He left the BBC in 1968 after controversy arose over his alleged bias towards the Biafran cause and accusations that he falsified segments of his reports. Returning to Biafra as a freelance reporter, Forsyth wrote his first book, The Biafra Story in 1969.
Forsyth decided to write a novel using similar research techniques to those used in journalism. His first full length novel, The Day of the Jackal, was published in 1971 and became an international bestseller and gained its author the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel. It was later made into a film of the same name.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
October 14, 2016
This book depicts the sentiments and personal opinion of a British citizen who witnessed the fighting on the frontlines of the Nigerian Civil war. The injutice pepetrated against the Biafran people by Britain, the US, the OAU, and the UN, can never be forgotten because of the facts this book carries. Hence the author wonders why the governments and organisations who claim to stand for freedom today, watched idly while over 3 million Biafran lives were wasted. It is a must read for every Nigerian and African...
December 21, 2020
Approach the Biafra war from many different angles.
Very interesting read.
As this is the first book I read on Nigerian - Biafran war, I know nothing about that subject.
And as the title suggest author is clearly on the side of Biafra. So I think it would be better to read this book with jaundice eyes.
Very interesting read.
As this is the first book I read on Nigerian - Biafran war, I know nothing about that subject.
And as the title suggest author is clearly on the side of Biafra. So I think it would be better to read this book with jaundice eyes.
April 10, 2015
While this book was first written 35 years ago, there are quite a few lessons that the modern world needs to learn. We still expereience the fall out as Middle Eastern and African countries / colonies come apart. Racial hatred is still prevalent. So many world leaders live in denial, and act as if appeasement is the solution.
This book is just as relevant now as the day it was written.
This book is just as relevant now as the day it was written.
April 16, 2013
What an author. What a man. Integrity, honour and courage - the only man who aired the truth about the plight of Biafra. A gripping read better than any of his novels. Petitioning for it to be published on Kindle!!
November 10, 2019
Excellent writing, and very informative, as ever by Frederick Forsyth.
Quoted from preface by author:-
"(Written at Umuahia, Biafra, January 1969)"
"This book is not a detached account; it seeks to explain what Biafra is, why its people decided to separate themselves from Nigeria, how they have reacted to what has been inflicted on them. I may be accused of presenting the Biafran case; this would not be without justification. It is the Biafra story, and it is told from the Biafran standpoint. Nevertheless, wherever possible I have sought to find corroborative evidence from other sources, notably those foreigners (largely British) who were in Biafra at the start of the war, and from those who stayed on like the magnificent group of Irish priests of the Holy Ghost Order in Dublin, or who came later, such as journalists, volunteers and relief workers.
"Where views are expressed either the source is quoted or they are my own, and I will not attempt to hide the subjectivity of them. So far as I am concerned the disintegration of the Federation of Nigeria is not an accident of history but an inevitable consequence of it; the war that presently pits 14 million Biafrans against 34 million Nigerians is not a notable struggle but an exercise in futility; and the policy of the British Labour Government in supporting a military power clique in Lagos is not the expression of all those standards Britain is supposed to stand for, but a repudiation of them.
"THE BIAFRA STORY is not a history in full detail of the present war; there is still too much that is not known, too many things that cannot yet be revealed, for any attempt to write the story of the war to be other than a patchy fabric.
"Because it would be unreal to suppose that Biafra simply came into existence out of a vacuum on 30 May 1967,1 begin by briefly recounting the history of Nigeria before the breakaway. It is necessary to understand how Nigeria was formed by Britain out of irreconcilable peoples, how these peoples came to find that, following British rule, the differences among them, far from shrinking, became accentuated, and how the structure left behind by the British was finally unable to contain the explosive forces confined within it.
............
"One of the main complaints made against the policy of the Biafrans, and in support of the Nigerian war policy to crush them, is that the breakaway of Biafra wrecked the unity of a happy and harmonious state, which General Gowon of Nigeria is now trying to restore. In fact, through all the years of the pre-colonial period Nigeria never was united, and during the sixty years of colonialism and the sixty-three months of the First Republic only a thin veneer hid the basic disunity.
"By 30 May 1967, when Biafra seceded, not only was Nigeria neither happy nor harmonious, but it had for the five previous years stumbled from crisis to crisis and had three times already come to the verge of disintegration. In each case, although the immediate spark had been political, the fundamental cause had been the tribal hostility embedded in this enormous and artificial nation. For Nigeria had never been more than an amalgam of peoples welded together in the interests and for the benefit of a European power.
"The first Europeans to make their appearance in today’s Nigeria were travellers and explorers, whose tales brought slave-traders in their wake. Starting around 1450 with the Portuguese, this motley collection of freebooters bought healthy young slaves from the native kings of the coast for re-sale. At first they were exchanged for gold in the Gold Coast, later shipped to the New World at a handsome profit. After the Portuguese came the French, Dutch, Danes, Swedes, Germans, Spaniards and the British.
"While the European slavers made private fortunes, several dynasties were founded on the African side and flourished on the profits from the role of middleman, notably at Lagos Island and Bonny Island. Penetration by the Europeans into the interior was discouraged by the coastal kings. Gradually other commodities were added to the slave trade, mostly palm oil, timber and ivory. In 1807 the British outlawed slaving and for the rest of the first half of that century British naval commanders supervised the coastal trading to ensure that the ban was effective."
"But the mood in Europe changed in 1884. Germany’s Chancellor Bismarck, having previously been as lukewarm as Gladstone to the idea of West African colonies, called the Berlin Conference. In the same year Germany annexed the Cameroons, lying to the east of present-day Biafra. The point of the conference was ostensibly to enable Bismarck to back French and Belgian demands for a cessation of British activities in the Congo basin – activities being carried out by Baptist missionaries and merchants from Manchester and Liverpool. In this he got his way; the conference declared the Belgians’ Congo Free State to be the authority administering the Congo. Not wishing to push Franco-German collaboration too far, the conference had little hesitation in permitting Britain to be responsible for the Niger River.
"The result of all this was the Berlin Act, which provided that any European country which could show that it had a predominant interest in any African region would be accepted as the administering power in that region, providing it could show that its administration was a reality."
"In 1897 the British Government sent out Sir Frederick Lugard, a soldier and administrator who had seen service in Uganda and Nyasaland. Within a year Lugard had pushed the French out of Nigeria and war with France threatened. The Niger crisis was settled by the Anglo-French agreement of June 1898, which established the basis for the new country’s borders.
"Britain had gained a colony. It had not been conquered, it had not really been explored. It had no name, so later Lady Lugard gave it one – Nigeria.
"It was a land of great climatic, territorial and ethnic variety. From the four-hundred-mile-long coast of tangled swamp and mangrove a belt of dense rain-forest ran inland to a depth of between a hundred and a hundred and fifty miles. This land, later to become Southern Nigeria, was split into an eastern and a western portion by the Niger River flowing south from its confluence with the Benue River at Lokoja. In the Western part of the south the predominant group was the Yoruba, a people with a long history of highly developed kingdoms. Because of the British penetration through Lagos, Western culture first reached the Yoruba and other tribes of the West.
"In the eastern part of the south lived a variety of peoples, predominant among them the Ibos, who lived on both banks of the Niger, but mainly east of it. Ironically, in view of their later speedy development and progress which finally enabled them to overtake the other ethnic groups of Nigeria in terms of Europeanstyle development, the Ibos and the other peoples of the East were regarded as being more backward than the rest in 1900.
"North of the forest line was the woodland, verging into savannah grass and prairie, and finally to semi-desert and scrub. Along the southern fringe of this enormous area runs the Middle Belt, inhabited by numerous non-Hausa peoples, mainly pagan and animist in religion, who were nevertheless vassals of the Hausa/Fulani Empire. The North proper was the land of the Hausa, the Kanuri and the Fulani, the latter having originally come south from the Sahara in conquest, bringing with them their Muslim religion.
"Lugard spent three years subduing the North, conquering with his tiny force one emirate after another. The stiffest opposition was provided by the sultanate of Sokoto. Despite the greater numbers of the Fulani armies Lugard was able to depend on superior firepower, as expressed by Belloc in the couplet: ‘Whatever happens we have got/The Maxim gun, and they have not.’ Lugard’s repeating-guns cut the Sultan’s cavalry to pieces, and the last bastion of the Fulani empire in Hausa-land fell.
"Lugard forms the bridge between the haphazard trail-breaking of the merchants and missionaries and bona fide imperialism. Yet his was not the first empire in Northern Nigeria. Between 1804 and 1810 Usman Dan Fodio, a Muslim scholar and reformer, had led a jihad (holy war) against the Hausa kingdoms, and had subjected them to his Fulani kinsmen. What started as a crusade to clean up irreligious practices in Islam turned into a move for land and power. The Fulani Empire swept southwards into the land of the Yoruba. The movement of the jihad was stopped between 1837 and 1840 by the northward move of the British up from Lagos and came to rest at Ilorin and along the Kabba Line. Everything north of this line became Northern Nigeria, occupying three fifths of the land area of all Nigeria and having over fifty per cent of the population. The enormous preponderance of the North became one of the factors that later condemned the viability of a truly balanced Federation.
"During Lugard’s wars against the Emirs, the latter were largely unsupported by their Hausa subjects who comprised, and still do, the great majority of the people of the North. Yet, when he had won, Lugard opted to keep the Emirs in power and rule through them, rather than to sweep them away and rule directly. It may be that he had no choice; his forces were small, the attitude of London indifferent, the area to be ruled was vast and would have required hundreds of administrators. By contrast, the Emirs had a nation-wide administrative, judicial and fiscal structure already in place. Lugard chose to permit the Emirs to continue to rule as before (subject to certain reforms) and maintained for himself only a remote overlordship.
"Indirect rule had its advantages. It was cheap in terms of British manpower and investment; it was peaceful. But it also fossilized the feudal structure, confirmed the repression by the privileged Emirs and their appointees, prolonged the inability of the North to graduate into the modern world, and stultified future efforts to introduce parliamentary democracy.
"Lugard’s idea seems to have been that local government would start at the village council level, graduate to the tribal council, from there to the regional level, and finally produce a representative national government. It was a neat theory and it failed.
"For one thing the concern of the Emirs and their courts, like that of most feudal potentates, was to remain in power in conditions as unchanging as possible. To this end they set themselves against the biggest challenge to their own conservatism – change and progress. The obvious forerunner of these two is masseducation. It was no accident that in Independence Year, 1960, the North, with over half of Nigeria’s 50-million population, had 41 secondary schools against the South’s 842; that the North’s first university graduate qualified just nine years before independence. To the Emirs Western education was dangerous and they did their utmost to confine it to their own offspring or those of the aristocracy.
"By contrast the South, invaded by missionaries, the precursors of mass-education, soon developed an avid thirst for education in all its forms. By 1967 when the Eastern Region pulled out of Nigeria it alone had more doctors, lawyers and engineers than any other country in Negro Africa. Missionary work in the North which might have eased that area into the twentieth century was effectively stopped by Lugard at the request of the Emirs when he pledged to discourage Christian apostolic work north of the Kabba Line.
"In the sixty years from Lugard to Independence the differences in religious, social, historical and moral attitudes and values between North and South, and the educational and technological gap, became not steadily narrower but wider, until the viability of a united country which would be dominated by either area became impracticable.
"In 1914 Lord Lugard amalgamated the North and South as an act of administrative convenience – on paper at least. ‘To cause the minimum of administrative disturbance’ (his own phrase) he kept the enormous North intact, and the two administrations separate. Yet he also imposed the indirect-rule theory that he had found worked so well in the North on the South, where it failed, notably in the eastern half of the South, the land of the Ibos.
"The British were so concerned with the idea of regional chiefs that where there were not any they tried to impose them. The Aba Riots of 1929 (Aba is in the heartland of the Ibo) were partly caused by resentment against the ‘warrant chiefs’, men imposed as chiefs by the British but whom the people refused to accept. It was not difficult to impose measures on the Northerners, accustomed to implicit obedience, but it did not work in the East. The whole traditional structure of the East makes it virtually immune to dictatorship, one of the reasons for the present war. Easterners insist on being consulted in everything that concerns them. This assertiveness was hardly likely to endear itself to the colonial administrators and is one of the reasons why the Easterners came to be referred to as ‘uppity’. By contrast the English loved the North; the climate is hot and dry as opposed to the steamy and malarial south; life is slow and graceful, if you happen to be an Englishman or an Emir; the pageantry is quaint and picturesque; the people obedient and undemanding. Unable to run the newly installed offices and factories, the Northerners were content to import numerous British officials and technicians – one of the reasons why today there is a vigorous and vociferous pro-Nigeria lobby of ex-colonial civil servants, soldiers, and administrators in London for whom Nigeria is their beloved Northern Region.
"But the gaps in society caused by Northern apathy towards modernization could not be filled by the British alone. There were posts for clerks, junior executives, accountants, switchboard operators, engineers, train drivers, waterworks superintendents, bank tellers, factory and shop staff, which the Northerners could not fill. A few, but only a very few, Yorubas from the Western Region of the South went north to the new jobs. Most were filled by the more enterprising Easterners. By 1966 there were an estimated 1,300,000 Easterners, mostly Ibos, in the Northern Region, and about another 500,000 had taken up jobs and residence in the West. The difference in the degree of assimilation of each group was enormous and gives an insight into the ‘oneness’ of Nigeria under the public-relations veil.
"In the West the Easterners’ assimilation was total; they lived in the same streets as the Yoruba, mixed with them on all social occasions, and their children shared the same schools. In the North, at the behest of the local rulers, to which the British made no demur, all Southerners, whether from East or West, were herded...
Quoted from preface by author:-
"(Written at Umuahia, Biafra, January 1969)"
"This book is not a detached account; it seeks to explain what Biafra is, why its people decided to separate themselves from Nigeria, how they have reacted to what has been inflicted on them. I may be accused of presenting the Biafran case; this would not be without justification. It is the Biafra story, and it is told from the Biafran standpoint. Nevertheless, wherever possible I have sought to find corroborative evidence from other sources, notably those foreigners (largely British) who were in Biafra at the start of the war, and from those who stayed on like the magnificent group of Irish priests of the Holy Ghost Order in Dublin, or who came later, such as journalists, volunteers and relief workers.
"Where views are expressed either the source is quoted or they are my own, and I will not attempt to hide the subjectivity of them. So far as I am concerned the disintegration of the Federation of Nigeria is not an accident of history but an inevitable consequence of it; the war that presently pits 14 million Biafrans against 34 million Nigerians is not a notable struggle but an exercise in futility; and the policy of the British Labour Government in supporting a military power clique in Lagos is not the expression of all those standards Britain is supposed to stand for, but a repudiation of them.
"THE BIAFRA STORY is not a history in full detail of the present war; there is still too much that is not known, too many things that cannot yet be revealed, for any attempt to write the story of the war to be other than a patchy fabric.
"Because it would be unreal to suppose that Biafra simply came into existence out of a vacuum on 30 May 1967,1 begin by briefly recounting the history of Nigeria before the breakaway. It is necessary to understand how Nigeria was formed by Britain out of irreconcilable peoples, how these peoples came to find that, following British rule, the differences among them, far from shrinking, became accentuated, and how the structure left behind by the British was finally unable to contain the explosive forces confined within it.
............
"One of the main complaints made against the policy of the Biafrans, and in support of the Nigerian war policy to crush them, is that the breakaway of Biafra wrecked the unity of a happy and harmonious state, which General Gowon of Nigeria is now trying to restore. In fact, through all the years of the pre-colonial period Nigeria never was united, and during the sixty years of colonialism and the sixty-three months of the First Republic only a thin veneer hid the basic disunity.
"By 30 May 1967, when Biafra seceded, not only was Nigeria neither happy nor harmonious, but it had for the five previous years stumbled from crisis to crisis and had three times already come to the verge of disintegration. In each case, although the immediate spark had been political, the fundamental cause had been the tribal hostility embedded in this enormous and artificial nation. For Nigeria had never been more than an amalgam of peoples welded together in the interests and for the benefit of a European power.
"The first Europeans to make their appearance in today’s Nigeria were travellers and explorers, whose tales brought slave-traders in their wake. Starting around 1450 with the Portuguese, this motley collection of freebooters bought healthy young slaves from the native kings of the coast for re-sale. At first they were exchanged for gold in the Gold Coast, later shipped to the New World at a handsome profit. After the Portuguese came the French, Dutch, Danes, Swedes, Germans, Spaniards and the British.
"While the European slavers made private fortunes, several dynasties were founded on the African side and flourished on the profits from the role of middleman, notably at Lagos Island and Bonny Island. Penetration by the Europeans into the interior was discouraged by the coastal kings. Gradually other commodities were added to the slave trade, mostly palm oil, timber and ivory. In 1807 the British outlawed slaving and for the rest of the first half of that century British naval commanders supervised the coastal trading to ensure that the ban was effective."
"But the mood in Europe changed in 1884. Germany’s Chancellor Bismarck, having previously been as lukewarm as Gladstone to the idea of West African colonies, called the Berlin Conference. In the same year Germany annexed the Cameroons, lying to the east of present-day Biafra. The point of the conference was ostensibly to enable Bismarck to back French and Belgian demands for a cessation of British activities in the Congo basin – activities being carried out by Baptist missionaries and merchants from Manchester and Liverpool. In this he got his way; the conference declared the Belgians’ Congo Free State to be the authority administering the Congo. Not wishing to push Franco-German collaboration too far, the conference had little hesitation in permitting Britain to be responsible for the Niger River.
"The result of all this was the Berlin Act, which provided that any European country which could show that it had a predominant interest in any African region would be accepted as the administering power in that region, providing it could show that its administration was a reality."
"In 1897 the British Government sent out Sir Frederick Lugard, a soldier and administrator who had seen service in Uganda and Nyasaland. Within a year Lugard had pushed the French out of Nigeria and war with France threatened. The Niger crisis was settled by the Anglo-French agreement of June 1898, which established the basis for the new country’s borders.
"Britain had gained a colony. It had not been conquered, it had not really been explored. It had no name, so later Lady Lugard gave it one – Nigeria.
"It was a land of great climatic, territorial and ethnic variety. From the four-hundred-mile-long coast of tangled swamp and mangrove a belt of dense rain-forest ran inland to a depth of between a hundred and a hundred and fifty miles. This land, later to become Southern Nigeria, was split into an eastern and a western portion by the Niger River flowing south from its confluence with the Benue River at Lokoja. In the Western part of the south the predominant group was the Yoruba, a people with a long history of highly developed kingdoms. Because of the British penetration through Lagos, Western culture first reached the Yoruba and other tribes of the West.
"In the eastern part of the south lived a variety of peoples, predominant among them the Ibos, who lived on both banks of the Niger, but mainly east of it. Ironically, in view of their later speedy development and progress which finally enabled them to overtake the other ethnic groups of Nigeria in terms of Europeanstyle development, the Ibos and the other peoples of the East were regarded as being more backward than the rest in 1900.
"North of the forest line was the woodland, verging into savannah grass and prairie, and finally to semi-desert and scrub. Along the southern fringe of this enormous area runs the Middle Belt, inhabited by numerous non-Hausa peoples, mainly pagan and animist in religion, who were nevertheless vassals of the Hausa/Fulani Empire. The North proper was the land of the Hausa, the Kanuri and the Fulani, the latter having originally come south from the Sahara in conquest, bringing with them their Muslim religion.
"Lugard spent three years subduing the North, conquering with his tiny force one emirate after another. The stiffest opposition was provided by the sultanate of Sokoto. Despite the greater numbers of the Fulani armies Lugard was able to depend on superior firepower, as expressed by Belloc in the couplet: ‘Whatever happens we have got/The Maxim gun, and they have not.’ Lugard’s repeating-guns cut the Sultan’s cavalry to pieces, and the last bastion of the Fulani empire in Hausa-land fell.
"Lugard forms the bridge between the haphazard trail-breaking of the merchants and missionaries and bona fide imperialism. Yet his was not the first empire in Northern Nigeria. Between 1804 and 1810 Usman Dan Fodio, a Muslim scholar and reformer, had led a jihad (holy war) against the Hausa kingdoms, and had subjected them to his Fulani kinsmen. What started as a crusade to clean up irreligious practices in Islam turned into a move for land and power. The Fulani Empire swept southwards into the land of the Yoruba. The movement of the jihad was stopped between 1837 and 1840 by the northward move of the British up from Lagos and came to rest at Ilorin and along the Kabba Line. Everything north of this line became Northern Nigeria, occupying three fifths of the land area of all Nigeria and having over fifty per cent of the population. The enormous preponderance of the North became one of the factors that later condemned the viability of a truly balanced Federation.
"During Lugard’s wars against the Emirs, the latter were largely unsupported by their Hausa subjects who comprised, and still do, the great majority of the people of the North. Yet, when he had won, Lugard opted to keep the Emirs in power and rule through them, rather than to sweep them away and rule directly. It may be that he had no choice; his forces were small, the attitude of London indifferent, the area to be ruled was vast and would have required hundreds of administrators. By contrast, the Emirs had a nation-wide administrative, judicial and fiscal structure already in place. Lugard chose to permit the Emirs to continue to rule as before (subject to certain reforms) and maintained for himself only a remote overlordship.
"Indirect rule had its advantages. It was cheap in terms of British manpower and investment; it was peaceful. But it also fossilized the feudal structure, confirmed the repression by the privileged Emirs and their appointees, prolonged the inability of the North to graduate into the modern world, and stultified future efforts to introduce parliamentary democracy.
"Lugard’s idea seems to have been that local government would start at the village council level, graduate to the tribal council, from there to the regional level, and finally produce a representative national government. It was a neat theory and it failed.
"For one thing the concern of the Emirs and their courts, like that of most feudal potentates, was to remain in power in conditions as unchanging as possible. To this end they set themselves against the biggest challenge to their own conservatism – change and progress. The obvious forerunner of these two is masseducation. It was no accident that in Independence Year, 1960, the North, with over half of Nigeria’s 50-million population, had 41 secondary schools against the South’s 842; that the North’s first university graduate qualified just nine years before independence. To the Emirs Western education was dangerous and they did their utmost to confine it to their own offspring or those of the aristocracy.
"By contrast the South, invaded by missionaries, the precursors of mass-education, soon developed an avid thirst for education in all its forms. By 1967 when the Eastern Region pulled out of Nigeria it alone had more doctors, lawyers and engineers than any other country in Negro Africa. Missionary work in the North which might have eased that area into the twentieth century was effectively stopped by Lugard at the request of the Emirs when he pledged to discourage Christian apostolic work north of the Kabba Line.
"In the sixty years from Lugard to Independence the differences in religious, social, historical and moral attitudes and values between North and South, and the educational and technological gap, became not steadily narrower but wider, until the viability of a united country which would be dominated by either area became impracticable.
"In 1914 Lord Lugard amalgamated the North and South as an act of administrative convenience – on paper at least. ‘To cause the minimum of administrative disturbance’ (his own phrase) he kept the enormous North intact, and the two administrations separate. Yet he also imposed the indirect-rule theory that he had found worked so well in the North on the South, where it failed, notably in the eastern half of the South, the land of the Ibos.
"The British were so concerned with the idea of regional chiefs that where there were not any they tried to impose them. The Aba Riots of 1929 (Aba is in the heartland of the Ibo) were partly caused by resentment against the ‘warrant chiefs’, men imposed as chiefs by the British but whom the people refused to accept. It was not difficult to impose measures on the Northerners, accustomed to implicit obedience, but it did not work in the East. The whole traditional structure of the East makes it virtually immune to dictatorship, one of the reasons for the present war. Easterners insist on being consulted in everything that concerns them. This assertiveness was hardly likely to endear itself to the colonial administrators and is one of the reasons why the Easterners came to be referred to as ‘uppity’. By contrast the English loved the North; the climate is hot and dry as opposed to the steamy and malarial south; life is slow and graceful, if you happen to be an Englishman or an Emir; the pageantry is quaint and picturesque; the people obedient and undemanding. Unable to run the newly installed offices and factories, the Northerners were content to import numerous British officials and technicians – one of the reasons why today there is a vigorous and vociferous pro-Nigeria lobby of ex-colonial civil servants, soldiers, and administrators in London for whom Nigeria is their beloved Northern Region.
"But the gaps in society caused by Northern apathy towards modernization could not be filled by the British alone. There were posts for clerks, junior executives, accountants, switchboard operators, engineers, train drivers, waterworks superintendents, bank tellers, factory and shop staff, which the Northerners could not fill. A few, but only a very few, Yorubas from the Western Region of the South went north to the new jobs. Most were filled by the more enterprising Easterners. By 1966 there were an estimated 1,300,000 Easterners, mostly Ibos, in the Northern Region, and about another 500,000 had taken up jobs and residence in the West. The difference in the degree of assimilation of each group was enormous and gives an insight into the ‘oneness’ of Nigeria under the public-relations veil.
"In the West the Easterners’ assimilation was total; they lived in the same streets as the Yoruba, mixed with them on all social occasions, and their children shared the same schools. In the North, at the behest of the local rulers, to which the British made no demur, all Southerners, whether from East or West, were herded...
September 7, 2021
Reading this a year and few months after Chinua Achebe's ‘There Was A Country’ is especially insightful. This Pro-Biafrian book makes present day events understandable. It is also not hard to miss that Nigeria hasn't changed its method of engagement of citizens with a differing opinion: unyielding stance, the employment of brutish force against dissidents, denial of crime even in the face of evidences and witnesses (the ENDSARS protest is a recent example), and finally, a lack of justice system. Good book really.
May 2, 2019
This is easily the most comprehensive documentation of the happenings during those dark days of the Nigeria Civil War. Every Nigerian needs to read this. It's totally awakened my consciousness to the suffering the south-east went through in those days and how more humble we all must become in engaging new ideas surfacing around Biafra. The people who don't know their history are wont to repeat the worst aspects of it.
March 20, 2020
This book is now over 50 years old and deals with the chaos and killings in today’s Nigeria. The people involved including many British politicians and civil servants ranged from despotic to brave and supportive .
The suffering of the people on the ground was horrific - have we learnt anything from this ? Probably not - but Frederick Forsyth certainly lays out what can happen when the mad and the bad gain power.
The suffering of the people on the ground was horrific - have we learnt anything from this ? Probably not - but Frederick Forsyth certainly lays out what can happen when the mad and the bad gain power.
June 23, 2022
Written before the end of the war, Forsyth's narrative basically presents the Biafran case, which clearly has the weight of justice on its side. The background chapter provides a solid overview of the regional and ethnic tensions behind the war. The second half focusing on British complicity with Nigeria is densely detailed, highly partisan. I found it a rough read this far down the line, partly because the political situation in Britain feels distant. If you're interested in it, add a star.
June 30, 2017
Muy buen libro sobre la guerra civil nigeriana , un tema poco tratado y eso que murieron por lo menos 1.500.000 de personas , Forsyth es un maestro narrando y aunque este libro no es ficción, se lee como novela.
August 4, 2019
3.5
Love how this book gave a comprehensive account of what happened prior, during and after Biafra war. However, I found it quite stressful to read, skipped multiple pages, because of the writing style.
Love how this book gave a comprehensive account of what happened prior, during and after Biafra war. However, I found it quite stressful to read, skipped multiple pages, because of the writing style.
January 3, 2019
Aku berani bertaruh bahwa amat jarang di antara kita saat ini yang pernah mendengar soal Biafra—apakah nama orang, nama tempat, nama kelompok, atau lainnya. Aku sendiri juga demikian, pertama kali aku mendengar kata tersebut adalah saat aku mulai mengenal satu grup musik punk rock asal Amerika Serikat yang giat mengusung topik-topik politis bernama Dead Kennedys, memiliki seorang vokalis yang menamai dirinya Jello Biafra. Aku baru paham apa definisi kata tersebut saat beberapa bulan lalu aku membeli buku non-fiksi bekas karya Frederick Forsyth berjudul “Pembantaian di Biafra”. Diterbitkan pada Februari 1978 oleh Cipress, aku tidak tahu bagaimana angka penjualannya di sini, hanya yang aku tahu, karya non-fiksi ini sempat laris di kalangan para pembaca, setidaknya, di Inggris Raya.
Biafra, adalah nama sebuah area di bagian timur Nigeria, yang dihuni sebagian besarnya oleh suku Ibo, salah satu suku area tersebut yang—berbeda dengan suku-suku area lainnya di Nigeria—memiliki intelektualitas tinggi, kuat kekeluargaannya, dan amat terbuka. Di Nigeria mereka biasa disebut sebagai orang Timur. Orang-orang Timur ini tidak dominan memang di Nigeria, kalah jumlah kalau dibandingkan dengan orang-orang Utara. Sementara di Selatan, tinggal suku-suku lain yang tidak secerdas orang-orang Timur tetapi cukup memiliki kemampuan nalar yang baik, terlebih lagi dengan banyak dibukanya sekolah-sekolah oleh para misionaris dari Inggris. Di Barat, tinggal suku-suku minoritas yang apabila dibandingkan dengan orang-orang Timur dan Selatan jadi terasa biasa saja, tidak terlalu pintar, sekaligus tidak terlalu berdedikasi selain hanya kepada sukunya sendiri. Sementara di area Utara, tinggal suku yang—maaf—tingkat pendidikannya masih rendah, mungkin malah tidak tertarik dengan pendidikan itu sendiri, dihuni oleh mayoritas muslim yang awalnya bermigrasi dari kawasan padang pasir di utara, dan diperintah oleh emir-emir yang berkuasa dengan gaya feodal dan tampaknya menikmati gaya kekuasaannya tersebut.
Masih dalam suasana era kolonial di mana negara-negara Eropa pada masa tersebut dengan congkaknya menganggap bahwa seluruh benua Afrika bisa dibagi-bagi sebagai daerah koloni dari Eropa, area tersebut—yang kemudian dinamai Nigeria atas usul isteri seorang administrator Inggris yang dikirim ke sana—mulai dianggap sebagai koloni Inggris dan menjadi tanggung jawab Inggris untuk membangunnya. Inggris di akhir abad ke-18 mulai melarang perbudakan setelah sebelumnya negeri tersebut dianggap sebagai salah satu koloni penghasil budak disamping berbagai komoditi lainnya seperti minyak dan gading. Inggris, yang merasa bahwa kawasan tersebut adalah koloninya, berusaha merealisasikan idenya untuk membentuk negara Nigeria yang akan mempersatukan semua suku-suku yang berbeda, memiliki tradisi berbeda, ke dalam satu negara kesatuan.
Masalahnya, Inggris sama sekali tak peka pada perbedaan-perbedaan yang ada di tiap suku tersebut dan selalu bersikukuh bahwa seluruh suku akan dapat dimodernisasai, apalagi setelah nanti sekian lama disuntikkan nasionalisme Nigeria terus menerus. Secara kontradiktif, Inggris juga malah membiarkan orang-orang Utara diperintah oleh emir-emir yang menolak modernisasi—menuduh setiap pola pendidikan yang hadir, terutama dari Selatan dan Timur, sebagai sebuah bentuk Kristenisasi dan pemurtadan terselubung. Sementara di kawasan Selatan dan Timur, pendidikan terus digenjot—sehingga setidaknya pada 1967 saja, orang-orang Ibo yang di awal pembentukan Nigeria merupakan suku paling terbelakang, telah memiliki persentasi tertinggi para profesional di bidang teknik sipil, dokter, guru-guru, dan pengacara, dibandingkan dengan suku-suku lain di sepanjang Nigeria. Nilai-nilai krusial seperti bagaimana tiap suku tersebut memiliki tradisi dan aturannya sendiri, dianggap remeh oleh Inggris.
Pada satu titik, akhirnya jabatan-jabatan penting di jajaran pemerintahan dan infrastruktur negara entah itu di Barat, Selatan, Timur (tentu saja) dan Utara, dipegang oleh orang-orang Timur. Para perwira militer juga mayoritas dipegang oleh orang-orang Timur. Hanya sedikit sekali orang-orang Utara yang mampu memegang tampuk kekuasaan dalam sebuah struktur masyarakat modern, bukan karena agama yang dipeluk, melainkan karena kemampuan intelektualitas dan dedikasinya yang melampaui batasan agama, ras, dan suku. Hal yang berpotensi menjadi bom waktu itu masalahnya tetap diabaikan begitu saja oleh Inggris sementara orang-orang Inggris itu sedikit demi sedikit mengganti jajaran pemerintahannya dengan orang-orang asli Nigeria.
Pada akhirnya memang terjadi, seperti yang juga banyak terjadi pada negara-negara pascakolonial di mana pun, tampuk pimpinan negara dipegang oleh seorang yang korup, yang hanya mereplika perilaku pengkoloni sebelumnya—berbeda ras tetapi sama dalam perilaku. Praktik-praktik korupsi merajalela, terutama dengan dipilihnya jajaran staf kenegaraan yang merupakan kroni-kroni koruptor.
Semua hal tersebut di atas terjadi kala negara kesatuan Republik Nigeria masih digodok dan disosialisasikan. Dari kesemua area, para pendukung terbanyak dan paling bersemangat untuk terbentuknya sebuah negara kesatuan Republik Nigeria justru datang dari orang-orang Timur yang kala tersebut berhasil melampaui kemampuan area-area lain dalam soal intelektualitas dan profesionalisme, dikarenakan pendidikan yang digenjot habis. Mereka yang menyadari adanya masalah dengan korupsi di jajaran atas pemerintahan pada akhirnya juga diprakarsai oleh orang-orang Timur. Masalahnya, orang-orang yang mulai terpojok oleh hadirnya kritik atas korupsi didominasi oleh orang-orang Utara. Di titik ini, bibit konflik mulai muncul. Sesuatu yang, lagi-lagi, tak diperhatikan oleh Inggris.
Memuncaknya korupsi—yang tak dianggap sebagai masalah oleh Inggris dan buntunya kritik-kritik yang dilancarkan pada jajaran pemerintahan—membuat sekelompok perwira militer muda di awal Januari 1966 melancarkan kudeta. Kudeta tersebut dirancang untuk menumpahkan darah seminim mungkin, hanya tokoh-tokoh kunci yang akan dihabisi—itu pun menurut kesaksian salah seorang perwira yang terlibat, sebenarnya tidak ada dalam rencana, hanya saja pada praktiknya para anggota militer terlalu bersemangat dan saking muaknya dengan tindak korupsi yang terjadi. Dalam waktu singkat, hanya beberapa jam saja, tokoh-tokoh kunci pemerintah berhasil dihabisi dan semua berjalan tenang. Bahkan masyarakat Nigeria pun tidak merespon kudeta tersebut dengan berlebihan karena sebagian besar memang merasakan akibat dari korupsi yang gila-gilaan oleh pemerintah sebelumnya.
Persoalannya, perwira-perwira muda itu memang terlalu muda dan naif, mereka melewatkan perebutan kekuasaan di beberapa area yang justru dipegang oleh para perwira yang lebih moderat—walaupun jujur. Keputusan yang dianggap terlalu terburu-buru tersebut ditentang oleh seorang perwira senior yang amat disegani dan juga seorang gubernur militer Timur. Maka demi menghindari kekacauan yang disinyalir dapat timbul, sang perwira senior, Ironisi, atau dikenal dengan nama Johnny Ironside, menjadi penguasa negara darurat. Para perwira junior yang bertanggung jawab atas kudeta ditangkapi tanpa kekerasan lebih lanjut, dan dipenjara karena dianggap melawan hukum. Hukum memang ditegakkan oleh Ironisi, yang berpendapat bahwa hukum adalah hukum, siapapun yang bersalah harus dihukum—termasuk para perwira muda perancang kudeta. Di bawah Ironisi, Nigeria, memang lebih baik, Jajaran pemerintahan barunya bekerja dengan bersih dan cekatan. Ia menempatkan orang-orang terbaik di tiap jajaran. Melihat hal demikian, Inggris juga tidak ambil peduli, karena toh Ironisi bekerja mewujudkan rencana mereka untuk terjadi dan kokohnya negara kesatuan Republik Nigeria.
Masalahnya, bersih dan tak memihaknya Ironisi justru dimanfaatkan oleh para emir dan jenderal-jenderal Utara yang selamat dari pembunuhan saat terjadi kudeta singkat di Januari tersebut. Mereka yang dirugikan oleh pemberantasan korupsi mulai berkonsolidasi. Berkat didanai oleh para emir yang luar biasa kaya, konsolidasi memang berjalan jauh lebih cepat.
Bulan Maret 1966, hanya dua bulan dari dilancarkannya kudeta, kudeta kedua yang dialami oleh Nigeria berlangsung mendadak dan bermula di bandara internasional. Secara mendadak, sekelompok tentara dari Utara menerobos masuk ke bandara dan membunuhi semua orang di sana yang bukan berasal dari Utara. Semua. Termasuk para pilot dan mereka yang masih ada dalam pesawat. Namun belum sempat masyarakat dan pemerintahan Irosini merespon, di barak-barak militer, para perwira dari Timur dibunuhi, lalu perwira Utara penggantinya menyerukan agar semua tentara berbaris di lapangan, di mana perintah penangkapan terharap tentara-tentara dari Timur dilakukan dengan alasan bahwa keadilan harus ditegakkan—karena perwira-perwira pelaku kudeta Januari adalah orang-orang Timur. Seruan bernada rasialis juga segera digemakan kemana-mana, setelah sebelumnya kasak-kusuk mengenai orang-orang Utara yang tergeser oleh keberadaan para imigran dari area Timur telah merebut lahan pekerjaan di area Utara dari orang-orang Utara sendiri. Seruan tersebut tampaknya disambut dengan baik.
Orang-orang Utara yang merasa tersisih dalam bidang ekonomi mulai turut serta dalam pembantaian yang dilancarkan oleh tentara Utara terhadap orang-orang Timur. Di mana-mana dilakukan perampokan, perkosaan, pembunuhan, dan pembakaran, terhadap orang-orang Timur. Di akhir kasus pembersihan—yang sayangnya berkelanjutan—pada bulan Januari 1967, komisi penyidik memperkirakan pembunuhan tersebut mencapai angka 30.000 jiwa. Di Barat dan Selatan, para tentara Utara merespon kudeta gerak cepat tersebut dengan turut membunuhi rekan-rekannya yang berasal dari Timur. Maka gelombang pengungsi mulai terjadi, orang-orang Timur hanya memiliki satu tujuan untuk dapat bertahan hidup: kembali ke area Timur.
Sementara di jajaran pemerintahan, Ironisi dibunuh, dan segera digantikan oleh Gowon, seorang perwira yang sama sekali tak cakap dari kalangan Utara.
Sampai pada titik ini, Inggris justru berusaha menutup-nutupi kejadian sebenarnya, karena reputasinya sebagai negara pengkoloni akan jatuh karena dianggap tak mampu membenahi negeri koloninya. Selain hal tersebut, yang menyebabkan penduduk Biafra, orang-orang Timur Nigeria, tersebut tidak terekspos oleh media internasional, adalah karena berbeda dengan gelombang pengungsi di Palestina sebagai akibat dari ekspansi Israel yang lantas tinggal di tenda-tenda darurat, mengalami krisis pangan dan air bersih, sehingga menarik mata PBB dan simpati dunia internasional, sama sekali tidak terjadi di Biafra. Di kalangan suku Ibo, ada sebuah tradisi kekeluargaan yang sedemikian kuat, bahwa apabila salah satu dari saudaramu tertimpa kemalangan—sejauh apapun relasi keluarga yang ada—maka kita harus menampung dan menghidupi ia yang tertimpa kemalangan tersebut. Maka, dalam waktu sedemikian singkat 1.8 juta pengungsi terserap begitu saja di Biafra. Tak ada tenda, tak ada krisis yang tampak dan dapat menarik simpati internasional. Dunia tidak tahu apapun mengenai Biafra, mengenai Nigeria.
Gubernur Jendral Militer di Timur, Kolonel Ojukwu, seorang anak dari miliarder Nigeria, yang menolak menggunakan nama keluarganya dan menikmati kekayaan keluarganya serta memilih karir di bidang militer, adalah seorang yang jujur, cerdas, dan penuh dedikasi. Menanggapi kudeta tersebut, ia masih berupaya meredam seruan-seruan kaum separatis yang mulai muncul di Biafra. Ia masih berupaya menempuh jalan diplomasi demi terciptanya negara kesatuan Nigeria. Selama beberapa bulan ia lagi dan lagi menempuh jalur tersebut, berupaya membangun mimpi negara kesatuan yang mulai retak. Hingga pada satu titik, setelah ia berkali-kali dikhianati di meja perundingan, ia mulai mengeluarkan ajuan terakhir, bahwa ia meminta kasus pembunuhan diusut tuntas, bahwa pemerintahan pusat Nigeria di bawah Gowon akan memberikan kompensasi pada korban, bahwa harta benda para pengungsi dari seluruh Nigeria dikembalikan pada pemiliknya walau pemiliknya akan tetap berada di Timur, bahwa semua orang Utara di area Timur akan ia lindungi dalam perjalanannya kembali ke Utara, atau Biafra akan melepaskan diri dari ide negara kesatuan Nigeria. Ajuannya ditanda tangani oleh Gowon dan beberapa perwira tinggi area Barat dan Selatan. Barat bahkan menyatakan bahwa mereka akan turut melepaskan diri dari Nigeria apabila Biafra menyatakan kemerdekaannya. Ajuan tersebut disetujui oleh semua pihak, bahkan Gowon sendiri turut menandatanganinya. Angin segar untuk orang-orang Timur?
Sayangnya tidak. Pembersihan etnis tetap terjadi. Semua poin perjanjian tak satupun dilaksanakan. Saat engkau begitu percaya pada sebuah ide kesatuan, lalu di tengah jalan orang-orang sepertimu dibunuhi, lalu saat kau meminta kompensasi diabaikan, saat kau meminta harta orang-orangmu yang dirampas diabaikan, saat kau memilih jalan damai dikhianati, saat kau ingin bermaaf-maafan malah diancam dibunuh, apa engkau akan tetap bersikukuh untuk hidup dalam satu kesatuan? Karena engkau bukan hanya diabaikan, melainkan diusir.
Maka, tidak heran lagi, bahwa pada 30 Mei 1967, Biafra menyatakan diri sebagai negara berdaulat bernama Republik Biafra.
Masalahnya, seperti yang tadi sempat dibahas sedikit, tak ada bukti adanya pembunuhan dan kasus pengungsian massal, belum lagi dengan pihak Inggris yang ingin cuci tangan dan tak mau kehilangan muka di panggung Eropa. Namun hal utama, adalah bahwa ada ladang minyak di kawasan Biafra, yang tentu saja membuat jajaran administratif Gowon tak mau melepaskannya begitu saja. Maka segeralah dikampanyekan bahwa apa yang Biafra lakukan adalah hal yang merusak cita-cita negara kesatuan Republik Nigeria ke panggung internasional—di mana lagi-lagi Inggris seakan menyepakati hal tersebut—yang tentu saja membuat marah negara-negara Eropa. Hanya dalam hitungan minggu, para komunis Soviet menyatakan diri mendukung Nigeria dan memasok senjata, Spanyol di bawah Franco segera memberikan dukungan, Inggris jangan ditanya. Para pendukung Gowon yang berada di atas angin, terus menerus menyuarakan slogan semacam “Kesatuan Nigeria adalah harga mati!”
Akhirnya jelas: Biafra dihabisi atas restu internasional.
Biafra, adalah nama sebuah area di bagian timur Nigeria, yang dihuni sebagian besarnya oleh suku Ibo, salah satu suku area tersebut yang—berbeda dengan suku-suku area lainnya di Nigeria—memiliki intelektualitas tinggi, kuat kekeluargaannya, dan amat terbuka. Di Nigeria mereka biasa disebut sebagai orang Timur. Orang-orang Timur ini tidak dominan memang di Nigeria, kalah jumlah kalau dibandingkan dengan orang-orang Utara. Sementara di Selatan, tinggal suku-suku lain yang tidak secerdas orang-orang Timur tetapi cukup memiliki kemampuan nalar yang baik, terlebih lagi dengan banyak dibukanya sekolah-sekolah oleh para misionaris dari Inggris. Di Barat, tinggal suku-suku minoritas yang apabila dibandingkan dengan orang-orang Timur dan Selatan jadi terasa biasa saja, tidak terlalu pintar, sekaligus tidak terlalu berdedikasi selain hanya kepada sukunya sendiri. Sementara di area Utara, tinggal suku yang—maaf—tingkat pendidikannya masih rendah, mungkin malah tidak tertarik dengan pendidikan itu sendiri, dihuni oleh mayoritas muslim yang awalnya bermigrasi dari kawasan padang pasir di utara, dan diperintah oleh emir-emir yang berkuasa dengan gaya feodal dan tampaknya menikmati gaya kekuasaannya tersebut.
Masih dalam suasana era kolonial di mana negara-negara Eropa pada masa tersebut dengan congkaknya menganggap bahwa seluruh benua Afrika bisa dibagi-bagi sebagai daerah koloni dari Eropa, area tersebut—yang kemudian dinamai Nigeria atas usul isteri seorang administrator Inggris yang dikirim ke sana—mulai dianggap sebagai koloni Inggris dan menjadi tanggung jawab Inggris untuk membangunnya. Inggris di akhir abad ke-18 mulai melarang perbudakan setelah sebelumnya negeri tersebut dianggap sebagai salah satu koloni penghasil budak disamping berbagai komoditi lainnya seperti minyak dan gading. Inggris, yang merasa bahwa kawasan tersebut adalah koloninya, berusaha merealisasikan idenya untuk membentuk negara Nigeria yang akan mempersatukan semua suku-suku yang berbeda, memiliki tradisi berbeda, ke dalam satu negara kesatuan.
Masalahnya, Inggris sama sekali tak peka pada perbedaan-perbedaan yang ada di tiap suku tersebut dan selalu bersikukuh bahwa seluruh suku akan dapat dimodernisasai, apalagi setelah nanti sekian lama disuntikkan nasionalisme Nigeria terus menerus. Secara kontradiktif, Inggris juga malah membiarkan orang-orang Utara diperintah oleh emir-emir yang menolak modernisasi—menuduh setiap pola pendidikan yang hadir, terutama dari Selatan dan Timur, sebagai sebuah bentuk Kristenisasi dan pemurtadan terselubung. Sementara di kawasan Selatan dan Timur, pendidikan terus digenjot—sehingga setidaknya pada 1967 saja, orang-orang Ibo yang di awal pembentukan Nigeria merupakan suku paling terbelakang, telah memiliki persentasi tertinggi para profesional di bidang teknik sipil, dokter, guru-guru, dan pengacara, dibandingkan dengan suku-suku lain di sepanjang Nigeria. Nilai-nilai krusial seperti bagaimana tiap suku tersebut memiliki tradisi dan aturannya sendiri, dianggap remeh oleh Inggris.
Pada satu titik, akhirnya jabatan-jabatan penting di jajaran pemerintahan dan infrastruktur negara entah itu di Barat, Selatan, Timur (tentu saja) dan Utara, dipegang oleh orang-orang Timur. Para perwira militer juga mayoritas dipegang oleh orang-orang Timur. Hanya sedikit sekali orang-orang Utara yang mampu memegang tampuk kekuasaan dalam sebuah struktur masyarakat modern, bukan karena agama yang dipeluk, melainkan karena kemampuan intelektualitas dan dedikasinya yang melampaui batasan agama, ras, dan suku. Hal yang berpotensi menjadi bom waktu itu masalahnya tetap diabaikan begitu saja oleh Inggris sementara orang-orang Inggris itu sedikit demi sedikit mengganti jajaran pemerintahannya dengan orang-orang asli Nigeria.
Pada akhirnya memang terjadi, seperti yang juga banyak terjadi pada negara-negara pascakolonial di mana pun, tampuk pimpinan negara dipegang oleh seorang yang korup, yang hanya mereplika perilaku pengkoloni sebelumnya—berbeda ras tetapi sama dalam perilaku. Praktik-praktik korupsi merajalela, terutama dengan dipilihnya jajaran staf kenegaraan yang merupakan kroni-kroni koruptor.
Semua hal tersebut di atas terjadi kala negara kesatuan Republik Nigeria masih digodok dan disosialisasikan. Dari kesemua area, para pendukung terbanyak dan paling bersemangat untuk terbentuknya sebuah negara kesatuan Republik Nigeria justru datang dari orang-orang Timur yang kala tersebut berhasil melampaui kemampuan area-area lain dalam soal intelektualitas dan profesionalisme, dikarenakan pendidikan yang digenjot habis. Mereka yang menyadari adanya masalah dengan korupsi di jajaran atas pemerintahan pada akhirnya juga diprakarsai oleh orang-orang Timur. Masalahnya, orang-orang yang mulai terpojok oleh hadirnya kritik atas korupsi didominasi oleh orang-orang Utara. Di titik ini, bibit konflik mulai muncul. Sesuatu yang, lagi-lagi, tak diperhatikan oleh Inggris.
Memuncaknya korupsi—yang tak dianggap sebagai masalah oleh Inggris dan buntunya kritik-kritik yang dilancarkan pada jajaran pemerintahan—membuat sekelompok perwira militer muda di awal Januari 1966 melancarkan kudeta. Kudeta tersebut dirancang untuk menumpahkan darah seminim mungkin, hanya tokoh-tokoh kunci yang akan dihabisi—itu pun menurut kesaksian salah seorang perwira yang terlibat, sebenarnya tidak ada dalam rencana, hanya saja pada praktiknya para anggota militer terlalu bersemangat dan saking muaknya dengan tindak korupsi yang terjadi. Dalam waktu singkat, hanya beberapa jam saja, tokoh-tokoh kunci pemerintah berhasil dihabisi dan semua berjalan tenang. Bahkan masyarakat Nigeria pun tidak merespon kudeta tersebut dengan berlebihan karena sebagian besar memang merasakan akibat dari korupsi yang gila-gilaan oleh pemerintah sebelumnya.
Persoalannya, perwira-perwira muda itu memang terlalu muda dan naif, mereka melewatkan perebutan kekuasaan di beberapa area yang justru dipegang oleh para perwira yang lebih moderat—walaupun jujur. Keputusan yang dianggap terlalu terburu-buru tersebut ditentang oleh seorang perwira senior yang amat disegani dan juga seorang gubernur militer Timur. Maka demi menghindari kekacauan yang disinyalir dapat timbul, sang perwira senior, Ironisi, atau dikenal dengan nama Johnny Ironside, menjadi penguasa negara darurat. Para perwira junior yang bertanggung jawab atas kudeta ditangkapi tanpa kekerasan lebih lanjut, dan dipenjara karena dianggap melawan hukum. Hukum memang ditegakkan oleh Ironisi, yang berpendapat bahwa hukum adalah hukum, siapapun yang bersalah harus dihukum—termasuk para perwira muda perancang kudeta. Di bawah Ironisi, Nigeria, memang lebih baik, Jajaran pemerintahan barunya bekerja dengan bersih dan cekatan. Ia menempatkan orang-orang terbaik di tiap jajaran. Melihat hal demikian, Inggris juga tidak ambil peduli, karena toh Ironisi bekerja mewujudkan rencana mereka untuk terjadi dan kokohnya negara kesatuan Republik Nigeria.
Masalahnya, bersih dan tak memihaknya Ironisi justru dimanfaatkan oleh para emir dan jenderal-jenderal Utara yang selamat dari pembunuhan saat terjadi kudeta singkat di Januari tersebut. Mereka yang dirugikan oleh pemberantasan korupsi mulai berkonsolidasi. Berkat didanai oleh para emir yang luar biasa kaya, konsolidasi memang berjalan jauh lebih cepat.
Bulan Maret 1966, hanya dua bulan dari dilancarkannya kudeta, kudeta kedua yang dialami oleh Nigeria berlangsung mendadak dan bermula di bandara internasional. Secara mendadak, sekelompok tentara dari Utara menerobos masuk ke bandara dan membunuhi semua orang di sana yang bukan berasal dari Utara. Semua. Termasuk para pilot dan mereka yang masih ada dalam pesawat. Namun belum sempat masyarakat dan pemerintahan Irosini merespon, di barak-barak militer, para perwira dari Timur dibunuhi, lalu perwira Utara penggantinya menyerukan agar semua tentara berbaris di lapangan, di mana perintah penangkapan terharap tentara-tentara dari Timur dilakukan dengan alasan bahwa keadilan harus ditegakkan—karena perwira-perwira pelaku kudeta Januari adalah orang-orang Timur. Seruan bernada rasialis juga segera digemakan kemana-mana, setelah sebelumnya kasak-kusuk mengenai orang-orang Utara yang tergeser oleh keberadaan para imigran dari area Timur telah merebut lahan pekerjaan di area Utara dari orang-orang Utara sendiri. Seruan tersebut tampaknya disambut dengan baik.
Orang-orang Utara yang merasa tersisih dalam bidang ekonomi mulai turut serta dalam pembantaian yang dilancarkan oleh tentara Utara terhadap orang-orang Timur. Di mana-mana dilakukan perampokan, perkosaan, pembunuhan, dan pembakaran, terhadap orang-orang Timur. Di akhir kasus pembersihan—yang sayangnya berkelanjutan—pada bulan Januari 1967, komisi penyidik memperkirakan pembunuhan tersebut mencapai angka 30.000 jiwa. Di Barat dan Selatan, para tentara Utara merespon kudeta gerak cepat tersebut dengan turut membunuhi rekan-rekannya yang berasal dari Timur. Maka gelombang pengungsi mulai terjadi, orang-orang Timur hanya memiliki satu tujuan untuk dapat bertahan hidup: kembali ke area Timur.
Sementara di jajaran pemerintahan, Ironisi dibunuh, dan segera digantikan oleh Gowon, seorang perwira yang sama sekali tak cakap dari kalangan Utara.
Sampai pada titik ini, Inggris justru berusaha menutup-nutupi kejadian sebenarnya, karena reputasinya sebagai negara pengkoloni akan jatuh karena dianggap tak mampu membenahi negeri koloninya. Selain hal tersebut, yang menyebabkan penduduk Biafra, orang-orang Timur Nigeria, tersebut tidak terekspos oleh media internasional, adalah karena berbeda dengan gelombang pengungsi di Palestina sebagai akibat dari ekspansi Israel yang lantas tinggal di tenda-tenda darurat, mengalami krisis pangan dan air bersih, sehingga menarik mata PBB dan simpati dunia internasional, sama sekali tidak terjadi di Biafra. Di kalangan suku Ibo, ada sebuah tradisi kekeluargaan yang sedemikian kuat, bahwa apabila salah satu dari saudaramu tertimpa kemalangan—sejauh apapun relasi keluarga yang ada—maka kita harus menampung dan menghidupi ia yang tertimpa kemalangan tersebut. Maka, dalam waktu sedemikian singkat 1.8 juta pengungsi terserap begitu saja di Biafra. Tak ada tenda, tak ada krisis yang tampak dan dapat menarik simpati internasional. Dunia tidak tahu apapun mengenai Biafra, mengenai Nigeria.
Gubernur Jendral Militer di Timur, Kolonel Ojukwu, seorang anak dari miliarder Nigeria, yang menolak menggunakan nama keluarganya dan menikmati kekayaan keluarganya serta memilih karir di bidang militer, adalah seorang yang jujur, cerdas, dan penuh dedikasi. Menanggapi kudeta tersebut, ia masih berupaya meredam seruan-seruan kaum separatis yang mulai muncul di Biafra. Ia masih berupaya menempuh jalan diplomasi demi terciptanya negara kesatuan Nigeria. Selama beberapa bulan ia lagi dan lagi menempuh jalur tersebut, berupaya membangun mimpi negara kesatuan yang mulai retak. Hingga pada satu titik, setelah ia berkali-kali dikhianati di meja perundingan, ia mulai mengeluarkan ajuan terakhir, bahwa ia meminta kasus pembunuhan diusut tuntas, bahwa pemerintahan pusat Nigeria di bawah Gowon akan memberikan kompensasi pada korban, bahwa harta benda para pengungsi dari seluruh Nigeria dikembalikan pada pemiliknya walau pemiliknya akan tetap berada di Timur, bahwa semua orang Utara di area Timur akan ia lindungi dalam perjalanannya kembali ke Utara, atau Biafra akan melepaskan diri dari ide negara kesatuan Nigeria. Ajuannya ditanda tangani oleh Gowon dan beberapa perwira tinggi area Barat dan Selatan. Barat bahkan menyatakan bahwa mereka akan turut melepaskan diri dari Nigeria apabila Biafra menyatakan kemerdekaannya. Ajuan tersebut disetujui oleh semua pihak, bahkan Gowon sendiri turut menandatanganinya. Angin segar untuk orang-orang Timur?
Sayangnya tidak. Pembersihan etnis tetap terjadi. Semua poin perjanjian tak satupun dilaksanakan. Saat engkau begitu percaya pada sebuah ide kesatuan, lalu di tengah jalan orang-orang sepertimu dibunuhi, lalu saat kau meminta kompensasi diabaikan, saat kau meminta harta orang-orangmu yang dirampas diabaikan, saat kau memilih jalan damai dikhianati, saat kau ingin bermaaf-maafan malah diancam dibunuh, apa engkau akan tetap bersikukuh untuk hidup dalam satu kesatuan? Karena engkau bukan hanya diabaikan, melainkan diusir.
Maka, tidak heran lagi, bahwa pada 30 Mei 1967, Biafra menyatakan diri sebagai negara berdaulat bernama Republik Biafra.
Masalahnya, seperti yang tadi sempat dibahas sedikit, tak ada bukti adanya pembunuhan dan kasus pengungsian massal, belum lagi dengan pihak Inggris yang ingin cuci tangan dan tak mau kehilangan muka di panggung Eropa. Namun hal utama, adalah bahwa ada ladang minyak di kawasan Biafra, yang tentu saja membuat jajaran administratif Gowon tak mau melepaskannya begitu saja. Maka segeralah dikampanyekan bahwa apa yang Biafra lakukan adalah hal yang merusak cita-cita negara kesatuan Republik Nigeria ke panggung internasional—di mana lagi-lagi Inggris seakan menyepakati hal tersebut—yang tentu saja membuat marah negara-negara Eropa. Hanya dalam hitungan minggu, para komunis Soviet menyatakan diri mendukung Nigeria dan memasok senjata, Spanyol di bawah Franco segera memberikan dukungan, Inggris jangan ditanya. Para pendukung Gowon yang berada di atas angin, terus menerus menyuarakan slogan semacam “Kesatuan Nigeria adalah harga mati!”
Akhirnya jelas: Biafra dihabisi atas restu internasional.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 27, 2018
Biafra entered my life while going to school in the late 1960's. No one could not be left untouched by the photos of starving children, even if they were being used as propaganda. Afterward, I read about the use of airpower during the conflict (Jan "Mr. Brown" Zumbach, Swedish Count Carl Gustav von Rosen and his "Minicoin"or "Minicon" light planes, etc...) but it was only now that I have read a book about the war in general .....Frederick Forsyth's study about the conflict (written at the time, but with new info added later) is a very good book, although lacking an index...that would have been very helpful in keeping the different actors straight all through the narrative. It is quite clear from the beginning , as a reporter, where his sympathies lie. His mentions of aviation-related events are also excellent which proves his credibility. His Epilogue also is welcome, and confirms that his relationship to rebel leader Ojukwu was (or had become) quite close. A very good read.
July 10, 2017
Forsyth's first, and only non-fiction book. It tells in angry detail the story of the Biafra War, also known as the Nigerian Civil War. As usual, the conflict was stoked and fuelled from outside, and the local ordinary members of the public paid the price - a very heavy one. A very informative read, and a good introduction to the recent history of West Africa's most prosperous nation.
Want to read
December 4, 2015I read this book as a 12 year old and that's the first profoundly written book I read on war. Need I say how much it shaped my thoughts about the British and where their interests lie?
October 13, 2018
Frederick Forsyth gets to the point and writes a dam fine story. Tells the story of the Nigerian Civil war and he actually takes sides. Highly recommended.
November 8, 2024
This was a gripping account!
October 24, 2020
Very good reporting of the Biafra Civil War. The British and Americans exposed for their greed. Sad to read about the genocide that took place and two major powers did nothing to save the people.
August 18, 2022
In the late 1960s Forsyth is a cub reporter for the BBC. He is sent to Nigeria to report on unrest in that nation. He reports what he sees. A mistake. He is informed that he works for the BBC, and the job of the BBC, then as now, is to support the British government 100%, as long as that government is Labour. Thus ends his service with the BBC. Forsyth, on his own dime, returns to Nigeria and reports what he sees anyway as a freelance writer, and this is his story. He admits that he is only telling the one side, but that side has no other outlets.
For 18 months Nigeria is in civil war. The eastern section, known as Biafra, secedes from the rest since they are not in favor of all the genocide against them. The other parts of Nigeria are happy to be rid of the Biafrans, except that they are sitting on all the oil. They round them up and shoot them, burn their villages, bomb their schools and hospitals, and in the end decide to starve them out. All with the support of Great Britian. Forsyth is an eye witness to it all.
The Nigerian Civil War holds a place in history with all the other civil wars in Africa, which means that no one not directly involved remembers it at all. It was another example of European colonialism, like India or Rhodesia or South Africa. The reason it is actually important to the world is that it is one of the first conflicts that showed the suffering of the children. Starving African children with vacant eyes and bellies bloated from malnutrition are the stuff of TV commercials today, but it was Nigeria that first brought them into the public eye.
Forsyth gives an extremely detailed account of the entire war, covering all the military aspects, the relief efforts, all the people involved, with especial emphasis on the venal and immoral actions of the British government. His reporting is not unbiased, but he is trying to get out the side of the story that is actively being suppressed by his own people. A very good on the spot story by an actual honorable reporter.
For 18 months Nigeria is in civil war. The eastern section, known as Biafra, secedes from the rest since they are not in favor of all the genocide against them. The other parts of Nigeria are happy to be rid of the Biafrans, except that they are sitting on all the oil. They round them up and shoot them, burn their villages, bomb their schools and hospitals, and in the end decide to starve them out. All with the support of Great Britian. Forsyth is an eye witness to it all.
The Nigerian Civil War holds a place in history with all the other civil wars in Africa, which means that no one not directly involved remembers it at all. It was another example of European colonialism, like India or Rhodesia or South Africa. The reason it is actually important to the world is that it is one of the first conflicts that showed the suffering of the children. Starving African children with vacant eyes and bellies bloated from malnutrition are the stuff of TV commercials today, but it was Nigeria that first brought them into the public eye.
Forsyth gives an extremely detailed account of the entire war, covering all the military aspects, the relief efforts, all the people involved, with especial emphasis on the venal and immoral actions of the British government. His reporting is not unbiased, but he is trying to get out the side of the story that is actively being suppressed by his own people. A very good on the spot story by an actual honorable reporter.
April 5, 2021
As a writer I have enjoyed Forsythes fictional books but this one, a factual book, is not his best. I cannot determine whether the issues presented are factual or not, the whole story is told from an obviously biased viewpoint. In many ways this book represents the screaming outrage of a witness to terrible events which the author obviously felt deeply about (and justifiably so). It is however very one sided and frustrating to read as at each page the author vents his outrage, admittedly with some evidence, without any balance. In essence it just seems to be "and another thing" time after time.
As an aside I could not help but feel that the leader of Biafra, as presented in the book, was well intentioned but naive in the extreme and because of this was set to fail. Politics in Africa and indeed everywhere, regretably, is not well represented by honest persons with a strong moral compass and a concern for the majority. This is well illustrated in the book in all parties involved in Nigeria/Biafra conflict.
As an aside I could not help but feel that the leader of Biafra, as presented in the book, was well intentioned but naive in the extreme and because of this was set to fail. Politics in Africa and indeed everywhere, regretably, is not well represented by honest persons with a strong moral compass and a concern for the majority. This is well illustrated in the book in all parties involved in Nigeria/Biafra conflict.
November 16, 2017
Huge inaccuracies abound in this book, but you will understand as you read, that this comes from Frederick Forsyth accepting everything he was told in the field in Biafra, as true. He had no journalistic filter in place, he fell in love with the people and the country and this is his partisan passionate response.
So, read his assertions with a careful eye and double-check what facts he gives. This book is best read alongside others concerning this incredible piece of history-- the war that created Medecins Sans Frontieres, by the way.
John de St Jorre's Brother's War might be a good suggestion for an accompaniment.
So, read his assertions with a careful eye and double-check what facts he gives. This book is best read alongside others concerning this incredible piece of history-- the war that created Medecins Sans Frontieres, by the way.
John de St Jorre's Brother's War might be a good suggestion for an accompaniment.
February 28, 2019
This book, aside from being a firsthand historical account, also gave me such a better view of “war” as a concept pulling together the 50,000 foot political/strategic view, the 10,000 foot battle view, and the first-person “soldier in the trenches” view, more so than any other media ever has. The condemnations of the press and the international community are eerily reminiscent (?) of current events. This book can be a little dense, especially on the kindle where one can’t flip back and forth to the map easily as events are described, but I would recommend this to anyone.
December 22, 2023
If there was a 10-star rating, I would have given this book 11.
Africa has a tragic history. Frederick Forsyth, " Day of the Jackal" and many other fiction reads has penned a rare non-fiction account of 1970s Biafra.
Emeka Ojukwu was an extraordinary individual. Born into a wealthy family, he led Biafra during the civil war enduring siege and starvation of his people.
When he and the author returned to Nigeria in 1982, a million followers swamped the airport.
Many Igbos regard him as a messianic figure,
He died in London, age 78.
Africa has a tragic history. Frederick Forsyth, " Day of the Jackal" and many other fiction reads has penned a rare non-fiction account of 1970s Biafra.
Emeka Ojukwu was an extraordinary individual. Born into a wealthy family, he led Biafra during the civil war enduring siege and starvation of his people.
When he and the author returned to Nigeria in 1982, a million followers swamped the airport.
Many Igbos regard him as a messianic figure,
He died in London, age 78.
August 20, 2025
The war in Biafra was happening when I was in high school. I have recently met a number of people from Nigeria, many of the ethnic group that broke away and established the short lived country of Biafra.
I also enjoy novels by Fredrick Forsyth so decided this would be a good read, which it was.
One lengthy chapter described in great detail many battles of the war. It was too long with too many unpronounceable names so I skipped through that chapter.
The rest of the book covered the post colonial/ pre war period - setting the scene. Other chapters dealt with the actions of the British government during the war which was not good; attempts at peace; international aid to those starved by Nigeria and the international press.
I also enjoy novels by Fredrick Forsyth so decided this would be a good read, which it was.
One lengthy chapter described in great detail many battles of the war. It was too long with too many unpronounceable names so I skipped through that chapter.
The rest of the book covered the post colonial/ pre war period - setting the scene. Other chapters dealt with the actions of the British government during the war which was not good; attempts at peace; international aid to those starved by Nigeria and the international press.
April 29, 2023
I had read 'Half a Yellow Sun', about the civil war in Nigeria and the creation of the Biafran state; this is a dry, journalistic account of those years of fighting, written with due regard and constraint by a writer of genre thrillers. I hold Forsyth in a much higher regard based on this book than on any of his others.
December 24, 2023
This book horrified me, I have never felt more ashamed of my country and its foreign policies. Who say that history won’t repeat itself? Just look at the current situation in Gaza - once again UK and America have a lot to answer for. It saddens me that Biafra no longer exists and its people do not have the society it so richly deserved.
July 13, 2024
Quality historical report
Non fiction from the greatest story teller.This book is not really what I was expecting, but I enjoyed the account of events in Africa which were taking place when I was reaching adulthood. I don't suppose many will be interested in the events which took place half a century ago.
Non fiction from the greatest story teller.This book is not really what I was expecting, but I enjoyed the account of events in Africa which were taking place when I was reaching adulthood. I don't suppose many will be interested in the events which took place half a century ago.
August 4, 2019
The events in this book look more like fiction but it's sad that these events took place. It might not be a totally accurate description of the Nigerian civil war but it gives a fair Biafran perspective.
Read
June 16, 2020One of the best accounts of the Biafra-Nigeria War that I have ever read!
My dad was the Major in charge of Uli Airport. Although in his novel, "The Dogs of War," he identified him as Dr. Okoye.
Anyway, a great read. fast-paced. Helped me in the memoir I am currently writing about the war.
My dad was the Major in charge of Uli Airport. Although in his novel, "The Dogs of War," he identified him as Dr. Okoye.
Anyway, a great read. fast-paced. Helped me in the memoir I am currently writing about the war.
March 26, 2021
Popravdě jsem se trochu ztrácel v ději a osobách. Ta jména bylo často velmi složité zařadit na tu správnou stranu barikády a díky tomu, že skoro každá kapitola brala časově trochu jiné odvětví, tak měl občas člověk problém umístit vše do kontextu ostatního.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews