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  • 4 - The Ahiara Declaration and the Fate of Biafra in a Postcolonial/Bi-Polar World Order

  • Edited by Toyin Falola, Ogechukwu Ezekwem
  • With contributions by Wale Adebanwi , Ogechi E. Anyanwu , Alabi Adetayo , Ofure O. M. Aito , Jane Bryce , Fiona Bateman , Meredith Coffey , Hugh Hodges , Biodun Jeyifo , Raphael Chijioke Njoku , Cyril I. Obi , Austine Okwu , Bukola Oyeniyi , Akachi Odoemene , Olukunle Ojeleye , Christian Chukwuma Opata , Ode Ogede , G. N. Uzoigwe , Françoise Ugochukwu and Egodi Uchendu
  • Book:
    Writing the Nigeria-Biafra War
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    17 June 2021
    Print publication:
    15 July 2016, pp 62-80

  • Summary

    ‘Proud Biafrans, I have kept my promise.’

    Gen. Emeka Ojukwu, June 1, 1969

    Background to the Declaration

    In order to properly understand why the Igbo leadership considered the Ahiara Declaration a necessity, it is vital to briefly highlight the tide of the civil war on the eve of the historic announcement. But first, it must be underlined that the notion of a ‘civil war’ is a myth for there were no wars in the postcolonial era that did not include multiple foreign involvements. The Nigeria-Biafra War lends credence to this theory in many ways. Both sides in the combat had external support, but the nature of the support was unbalanced and varied. Threatened by starvation, Biafrans received humanitarian aid from different agencies like the Red Cross and Caritas, individuals, and foreign governments, including the United States, France, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Ireland and Israel.

    The Nigerian federal government received huge supplies of weaponry and hardware and technical and logistics support mostly from Britain and the then Soviet Union. Egypt sent pilots who flew attack planes against the secessionists. These supplies, whether in the form of weapons, material, logistics, food, medicine, or simply unquantifiable moral and diplomatic assistance, contributed in prolonging the conflict which claimed an estimated 1.5 million easterners, most of them Igbo.

    The spike in civilian casualties between 1968 and the first half of 1969 was mainly as the result of aerial bombardments and humanitarian blockades imposed by the federal government. This required that the Biafran leaders speak to the people about the state of things in Biafra and reassure them about their future. Also, given that every secessionist conflict involves territorial claims and resource control, the Biafran soldiers in 1969 appeared to have somehow started to slow down the advancement of the federal troops though they had altogether lost a good chunk of the original Biafran territories. As a recently declassified US memo noted, in late 1968, the secessionist soldiers were still controlling about 10,000 square miles of the Igbo country. This translates to approximately 62 percent of the estimated 16,216 square miles of the Igbo homeland.

    Alluding to the successes made by his troops in his speech, the Biafran leader reminded the audience that in the Onitsha front of the war, for instance, his ‘gallant’ soldiers contained the advance of the federal troops who first took control of the town 15 months previously.

Writing the Nigeria-Biafra War
  • Edited by Toyin Falola, Ogechukwu Ezekwem
  • With contributions by Wale Adebanwi , Ogechi E. Anyanwu , Alabi Adetayo , Ofure O. M. Aito , Jane Bryce , Fiona Bateman , Meredith Coffey , Hugh Hodges , Biodun Jeyifo , Raphael Chijioke Njoku , Cyril I. Obi , Austine Okwu , Bukola Oyeniyi , Akachi Odoemene , Olukunle Ojeleye , Christian Chukwuma Opata , Ode Ogede , G. N. Uzoigwe , Françoise Ugochukwu and Egodi Uchendu
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    17 June 2021
    Print publication:
    15 July 2016
  • The Nigeria-Biafra War lasted from 6 July 1966 to 15 January 1970, during which time the post-colonial Nigerian state fought to bring the South-Eastern region, which had seceded as the State or Republic of Biafra, back into the newly independent but ideologically divided nation. This volume discusses the trends and methodologies in the civil war writings, both fictional and non-fictional, and is the first to analyse in detail the intellectual and historical circumstances that helped to shape these often contentious texts.
    The recent high-profile fictional account by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in Half of a Yellow Sun was preceded by works by Ken Saro-Wiwa, Elechi Amadi, Kole Omotoso, Wole Soyinka, Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta, Chukwuemeka Ike and Chris Abani, all of which stronglyconvey the horrific human cost of the war on individuals and their communities. The non-fictional accounts, including Chinua Achebe's last work There Was a Country, are biographies, personal accounts and essays on the causes and course of the war, its humanitarian crises and the collaboration of foreign nations. The contributors examine writers' and protagonists' use of contemporary published texts as a means of continued resistance and justification of the war, the problems of objectivity encountered in memoirs, and how authors' backgrounds and sources determine the kinds of biases that influenced their interpretations, including the gendered divisions in Nigeria-Biafra War scholarship and sources. By initiating a dialogue on the civil war literature, this volume engages a much-needed discourse on the problems confronting a culturally diverse post-war Nigeria.

    Toyin Falola is the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and University DistinguishedTeaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin; Ogechukwu Ezekwem is a PhD student in the Department of History, University of Texas at Austin.

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