The Nigerian Civil War

Running head: THE NIGERIAN CIVIL WAR

The Nigerian Civil War
Molloy College

The Nigerian Civil War
Between 1870 and 1900 the continent of Africa and the Africans that inhabited it endured a European imperialist push that ended with the entire African continent, except for the nations of Ethiopia and Liberia under the colonial boot of the European powers. The European nations of Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain carved up the continent between them without regards to the African nations, ethnic, religious and tribal rivalries or even geographical boundaries that had previously existed. The effects of the European powers colonialist policies have had and continue to have ramifications that continue to be felt to this day. An example of the ethnic, religious and tribal complications was the Nigerian Civil War.
In 1960 Nigeria was given formal independence from Great Britain. This ended almost 100 years of English hegemony in the area that formally began in 1885 when Great Britain’s claims to a West African sphere of influence was granted by the other European powers. In 1886 Britain chartered the Royal Niger Company a mercantile company set up to trade in the Niger River basin. The company eventually merged with the Northern Nigeria Protectorate a company that had been set up for the same purposes in the area now known as Northern Nigeria; the merger of these two companies formed the British Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. The protectorate was divided in the Northern and Southern Provinces and Lagos colony (Government Printing office [GPO], 1991).
Nigeria became an independent state on October 1st 1960, at that time the country consisted of 60 million people from 300 different ethnic and cultural groups dominated by the Muslim, less educated Hausa in the north, the more educated and mostly Christian Igbo in the south-east and the Yoruba from the West. These three groups had divergent languages, cultures and religions and values. The northern Muslim Hausa were and remain more conservative than the eastern Christian, better educated Igbo. In Nigeria as in most of the Third World politics is based more on tribal than ideological factors. The same was and is true for Nigeria from the time of its independence from England till today. The Northern People’s Conference (NPC) in the north of Nigeria was dominated by the Muslim, conservative Hausa, while the Action Group (AG) was dominated by the Eastern Igbo and the National; Conference of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) was made up mostly of Yoruba from the west (Meredith, 2005). During the struggle for independence from Great Britain the Igbo and Yoruba parties wanted Nigeria to become an organization of several smaller states so that the more conservative north with its larger population would not dominate the newly formed Nigeria. The NPC however feared that a Nigeria as the Igbo and Yoruba wanted it would lead to economic and political control of the more westernized and educated south. They demanded that Nigeria continue, as it was with three regions that the north could dominate with their clear majority. The Igbo and Yoruba who wanted independence by any means acquiesced and the new nation of Nigeria was born.
Several military coups and counter coups in 1966 led to the murder of many northern political leaders and brought an Igbo, General Johnson Aguyiyi-Ironsi taking power and becoming President. The murder of the former Hausa Prime Minister of Nigeria Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the Premier of the northern region Sir Ahmadu Bello and Sir Ahmadu Bello’s pregnant wife by the Igbo leaders of the first coup and the ease with which the Igbo, Ironsi took power from his fellow Igbo military officers led to an increase in ethnic tensions in the north and eventually led to large scale massacres of Christian Igbo’s living in northern Nigeria. At the same time a counter-coup by mutinous soldiers from the north led to 32 year-old Lieutenant-Colonel Yakuba Gowon a northerner and a Christian from a minority tribe who had been educated at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was a standout officer. This did little to ease the ethnic tensions within the country and on May 30th 1967 Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu an Igbo, proclaimed the formation of the Republic of Biafra by seceding the southeastern region of Nigeria. Only five members of the international community recognized the new country Gabon, Ivory Coast, Haiti, Tanzania and Zambia. There followed several attempts to peacefully resolve the crisis these all failed and a shooting war soon ensued.
On July 6th 1967 the Nigerian government launched a “police action”(Friendly, jr, 1967) to retake the secessionist area. The Biafarans were ill equipped for war, the Nigerians had advantages in manpower and weapons; the rebels had the advantage of fighting in their homeland. Great Britain and the Soviet Union provided support to the Nigerian government, while France and Canada supported the rebels. The United States remained neutral.
After fierce battles at the beginning, the war settled down into a bit of a stalemate from 1968. Many mercenaries fought on both sides but by the end of 1968 Nigerian forces managed to encircle the Biafrans and imposed a blockade that led to a widespread humanitarian disaster after hunger and starvation broke out among the civilian populace in the besieged areas. The government of Biafra claimed that the Nigerian government was using genocide in an attempt to win the war and begged for help from the outside world. An airlift was launched carrying food and medicine many of these flights came under attack from Nigerian forces that claimed that they were carrying weapons. Volunteer care workers from around the world also went into the beleaguered areas and were subject to attacks by Nigerian forces. One of the Doctors who volunteered in Biafra, Bernard Kouchner returned to France after the conflict and concluded that the world needed a new aid organization that would ignore political and religious boundaries. In 1971 he with other French physicians founded Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) in 1971.
In January of 1970 the Nigerian military with increased British support finally managed to defeat the rebel forces. Colonel Ojukwu fled into exile in the Ivory Coast. The war cost the Igbos up to three million dead, most from hunger and disease. Many Igbos lost their property and had their businesses seized. The Nigerian government has mostly rebuilt the damaged areas of the former Biafra and there has been a consensus that the Igbo have been assimilated into the Nigerian mainstream. Todays conflict in Nigeria comes from the opposite direction as Muslim northerners led by Boko Haram an offshoot of Al Qaeda that is terrorizing Christians in the North and is demanding that the North break away from Nigeria and form an independent nation under Sharia law. Boko Haram’s terrorist campaign has now cost some 5,000 Nigerians their lives. Then end of this chapter in Nigeria’s history has yet to be written, however the beginnings of it are easy to trace back to Africa’s colonial past.

References
Friendly, A., jr (1967, August 6). Nigeria; a noose around Biafra growing struggle master plan. The New York Times, p. 143.
Government Printing office. (1991). Nigeria: a country study (). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Meredith, M. (2005). The fate of Africa, a history of fifty years of independence. New York, NY: Public Affairs Publishing.

References: Friendly, A., jr (1967, August 6). Nigeria; a noose around Biafra growing struggle master plan. The New York Times, p. 143. Government Printing office. (1991). Nigeria: a country study (). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Meredith, M. (2005). The fate of Africa, a history of fifty years of independence. New York, NY: Public Affairs Publishing.