CHAPTER ONE

1.1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

It is in the nature of man as a social being to live together in a community. But, to

achieve his utmost fulfillment, man desires to live in peace and harmony with his
environment, persons and things alike. Hence, every nation continues to search for
a workable system that would permit her citizens to live together in peace as much
as possible. It is this quest by man for harmonious living that Rousseau addressed
in his Social Contract, which he also refers to as: ‘the Principles of political right;’
a living reality which must be found present wherever there is a legitimate
government. This living reality according to S.E. Stump is the fundamental
principle underlying a political association; this principle helps to overcome the
lawlessness of absolute license and assures liberty, because people willingly adjust
their conduct to harmonise with the legitimate freedom of others. 1
By this
Rousseau seems set to present a prototype for all legitimate governments, which
when conformed to; the sky would be the limit of the political freedom, liberty,
equality and rule of law to be witnessed therein. And even Rousseau emphasized
that no demarcation should exist between morality and politics. On this statement
is hinged the belief that Rousseau motivated the French revolution of 1789.

However, the theory of social contract is so important in social and political

philosophy that it did not start from Rousseau. Political philosophers like Plato,
Hobbes and Locke had used it to situate the origin of the civil society. Plato holds
that the origin of the state is a reflection of people’s economic needs; “a state
comes into existence because no individual is self-sufficing; we all have many
needs,” there must, therefore be a division of labour. 2
Thomas Hobbes in his
Leviathan says of people giving up their rights of governing themselves, to this
man or to this assembly of men, who undertakes the function of protecting man
from the strife and war of the state of nature, which he says leaves “the life of man
solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” 3 On the other hand, John Locke talks of
man uniting into a commonwealth and placing themselves under government, for
the preservation of their property. ‘Property,’ here in Locke’s thought refers to
‘lives, liberty and estates.’ 4
Rousseau prefers to take a middle position on the
thoughts of his predecessors. He presents the problem of social contract as not
simply to find a form of association, which will protect the persons, and goods of
each member. But also to find an association in which each member will still obey
himself and remain as free as before. 5
This point brings out the reason why the
peoples’ consent becomes important in major decisions affecting them. Thus,
Rousseau summarizes the essence of the social contract in these words; each of us
puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the
general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an
indivisible part of the whole. 6
The general will he referred to is the will of the
“Sovereign”, where the sovereign stands for the total number of citizens of a given
society. Such being the case, the general will of the sovereign is the single will,
which reflects the sum of the wills of all the individual citizens. Now, the thoughts
espoused by Rousseau in his social contract have some affinity with the principles
of democracy, especially the use he made of the general will. These principles of
democracy are distinctly shown in the definition of democracy, given by the
Chambers Twenty-first Century Dictionary as ‘a form of government in which the
people govern themselves or elect representatives to govern them.’ 7
Obviously
democracy means rule by the people, the common people. A state of society where
freedom for the people, justice and equality of rights and privileges; both political,
social or legal equality are recognized.
Similarly, these principles of democracy are clearly enshrined in the constitution of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Hence section 14(1) of the 1999 constitution of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria declares it thus; “The Federal Republic of Nigeria
shall be a state based on the principles of democracy and social justice.” 8
Further,
same section 14(2a) of the 1999 constitution declares, “Sovereignty belongs to the
people of Nigeria from whom government through this constitution derives all its
powers and authority.” 9 And section 14(2b) has it that “the security and welfare of
the people shall be the primary purpose of government.” 10

However, the factual experience of the Nigerian democratic practice for three good
republics now, betrays the fact and makes the constitutionalised principle a huge
failure. The principles of the General Will and democracy have been completely
distorted and misrepresented. It was as if Franklin Roosevelt had Nigeria in mind
when he talked about people being fed up with a democracy that breeds
unemployment, insecurity, hunger and hopelessness. Nigerians have continued to
wait to no avail for the dividends of General Will and democracy. The present
dispensation leaves no light at the end of the tunnel. Thus, in this work the
researcher hopes to make some deductions from the social contract theory of Jean
Jacques Rousseau, and apply them to the Nigerian political and social process. The
aim is to effect a re-direction of our deceptive democratic principles and engender
proper implementation of democracy in all its facets and ramifications to ensure
equity and even development in Nigeria.

1.2. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The democratization process in Nigeria since independence has remained nascent

in every republic; it has produced confusion, frustration and chaos instead of what
the initial idea of it was . Ray Ekpu succinctly captures the situation in his article
the “End Justifies the Means,” when he said: “…the ingredient standing between
Nigeria and greatness is leadership.''

Some parts of the country ( Igbo ) has always continued to agitate for equal
distribution of the nation's wealth ,development and employment yet the
government since independence has paid no listening ear to such cry. While this is
being planned, some political office holders only scramble for public resources,
infrastructures are completely neglected, inflation is galloping, civil servants and
pensioners are owed their salaries and entitlements for several months,
unemployment has almost reached unmanageable levels, and poverty remains a
menace people must face. 11 This essay proposes to tackle, some of these
problems and to philosophically diagnose the Biafra agitation from the lens of
General Will of Jean Jacque Rousseau.

1.3 PURPOSE OF STUDY

The researcher was spurred and motivated by the words of the Nobel

Laureate, Wole Soyinka; when he said that: ‘the man dies in all who keeps silent in
the face of tyranny.’13 Thus, this work seeks to diagnose the political and social
arthritis and democratic rheumatism that have bedeviled Nigeria since
independence, and attempt a treatment with the deductions or implications drawn
from the Social Contract of Jean Jacques Rousseau.

There is no doubt that Jean Jacques Rousseau has several works to his credit, but
the concern of this work is the social contract theory (1762). The context of study
would be limited to the Nigerian experience and Biafra agitation.
1.4 METHODOLOGY

The method of approach employed in this work is philosophical, expository, and

evaluative. More so, narrative technique is adopted by the researcher to bring to
limelight, the condition of Nigerian democratic experience since independence and
cause of Biafra agitation.

The Work is divided into four chapters. Chapter one gives a general introduction
of the essay, the statement of the problem, method used, and scope of study and
purpose of study. Chapter two exposes the social contract theory of Rousseau,
while chapter three takes care of the origin of Biafra as well as its remote and
immediate causes of Biafra agitation. Then, chapter four brings chapter two and
three together in a general analysis.

1.5 LITERATURE REVIEW

The first work reviewed in this study is by Jean Jacque Rousseau, ''The Social
Contract and Discourses,'' translated by G.D. Cole .In the social contract, Rousseau
portrayed the nature of the higher organization where he attempted to show that a
human being's transformation need not always be for the worse ,provided the right
kind of polity could be built . Unlike the early contactualists ,Rousseau was keen to
show how the right rather the first society could be created ,for he was hopeful that
the right society would transform the noble savage to a humane person. This would
be according to him a polity that would aim for the general interest rather than the
particular interests of its members.
The second work reviewd in this study is by Anthony Afe.Asekhauno,''Towards an
Alternative political Structure for Nascent Africa: Demonarcracy ; NOT
Democrac''y.

This work talks about the concept of democracy and how the lives of the African
people can be bettered .''Philosophy was defined as the man's reflectionon his
being_in_ the universe of nature''. If this definition is taken seriously, and as
philosophers we study that a particular system is not working the way it should ,it
is our duty to think of an alternative system that can be for the interest of all
instead of getting a region of the country marginalized.

The third work reviewed in this study is by Joseph Omoregbe.''Social political

philosophy and international Relations''In this work ,Omoregbe explained that the
best way to achieving peace in any state is by making the welfare of the people
irrespective of their ethnic dispensations main objective of the government. In
other words, the government should be a people _oriented government both in
policies and in deeds so as to make any region not to feel cheated or marginalised.

The fourth work reviewed in this study is by Uti,Inwang Benson ,titled political
system and Underdevelopment in Africa( 1957_2010),the work discussed the
different political society in Africa in which it was divided into three which is the
centralized, medium centralized and the acephalous societies. This will help my
work because for us to know the reason for the chaso and agitations today,there is
need to look at the past to determine the future occurrences.

The fifth work reviewed in this study is the one written by Whole Soyinka titled ''
The man Died'', according to him ,it legal and normal for any people who feel
disrespected and marginalised to register his grievances in any form reasonable
enough.' According to him,the man died in him who refuses to speak or act when
oppressed.'

END NOTES
1 S.E Stump, Philosophy: History and Problems, 5th edition (New York: McGraw-
Hill Inc., 1994), p. 296.

2 Ibid., p. 70

5 J.J. Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses, translated by G.D. Cole (New
York: E.P. Dutton and Company Inc., 1950), p. 14

6 Ibid., p. 15

Joseph Omoregbe, Social politica philosophy and International Relations 2007.

8 The Constitution of The Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (Lagos: Federal

Government press, 1999), p. 10

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

11 R. Ekpu, Newswatch, October 6, 1986, p.26, Cited in J. Odey, The Rape of

Democracy (Enugu: Snaap Press Ltd., 2001), p. 115

12 See E.O. Ojukwu, Because I am Involved, Revised edition (Ibadan: Spectrum

Books Ltd., 1991), p. 28

13 W. Soyinka, The Man Died (New York: Penguin Books, 1977), p.13, quoted in
J. Odey, The Rape of Democracy (Enugu: Snaap Press Ltd., 2001), p.

CHAPTER TWO
2.1 J .J. Rousseau Social contract theory

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1778, lived and wrote during what was arguably the
headiest period in the intellectual history of modern France–the Enlightenment. He
was one of the bright lights of that intellectual movement, contributing articles to
the Encyclopdie of Diderot, and participating in the salons in Paris, where the great
intellectual questions of his day were pursued.

Rousseau has two distinct social contract theories. The first is found in his essay,
Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men, commonly
referred to as the Second Discourse, and is an account of the moral and political
evolution of human beings over time, from a State of Nature to modern society. As
such it contains his naturalized account of the social contract, which he sees as
very problematic. The second is his normative, or idealized theory of the social
contract, and is meant to provide the means by which to alleviate the problems that
modern society has created for us, as laid out in the Social Contract.

Rousseau wrote his Second Discourse in response to an essay contest sponsored by

the Academy of Dijon. (Rousseau had previously won the same essay contest with
an earlier essay, commonly referred to as the First Discourse.) In it he describes the
historical process by which man began in a State of Nature and over time
‘progressed’ into civil society. According to Rousseau, the State of Nature was a
peaceful and quixotic time. People lived solitary, uncomplicated lives. Their few
needs were easily satisfied by nature. Because of the abundance of nature and the
small size of the population, competition was non-existent, and persons rarely even
saw one another, much less had reason for conflict or fear. Moreover, these simple,
morally pure persons were naturally endowed with the capacity for pity, and
therefore were not inclined to bring harm to one another.

As time passed, however, humanity faced certain changes. As the overall

population increased, the means by which people could satisfy their needs had to
change. People slowly began to live together in small families, and then in small
communities. Divisions of labor were introduced, both within and between
families, and discoveries and inventions made life easier, giving rise to leisure
time. Such leisure time inevitably led people to make comparisons between
themselves and others, resulting in public values, leading to shame and envy, pride
and contempt. Most importantly however, according to Rousseau, was the
invention of private property, which constituted the pivotal moment in humanity’s
evolution out of a simple, pure state into one characterized by greed, competition,
vanity, inequality, and vice. For Rousseau the invention of property constitutes
humanity’s ‘fall from grace’ out of the State of Nature.

Having introduced private property, initial conditions of inequality became more

pronounced. Some have property and others are forced to work for them, and the
development of social classes begins. Eventually, those who have property notice
that it would be in their interests to create a government that would protect private
property from those who do not have it but can see that they might be able to
acquire it by force. So, government gets established, through a contract, which
purports to guarantee equality and protection for all, even though its true purpose is
to fossilize the very inequalities that private property has produced. In other words,
the contract, which claims to be in the interests of everyone equally, is really in the
interests of the few who have become stronger and richer as a result of the
developments of private property. This is the naturalized social contract, which
Rousseau views as responsible for the conflict and competition from which modern
society suffers.

The normative social contract, argued for by Rousseau in The Social Contract
(1762), is meant to respond to this sorry state of affairs and to remedy the social
and moral ills that have been produced by the development of society. The
distinction between history and justification, between the factual situation of
mankind and how it ought to live together, is of the utmost importance to
Rousseau. While we ought not to ignore history, nor ignore the causes of the
problems we face, we must resolve those problems through our capacity to choose
how we ought to live. Might never makes right, despite how often it pretends that it
can.

The Social Contract begins with the most oft-quoted line from Rousseau: “Man
was born free, and he is everywhere in chains” (49). This claim is the conceptual
bridge between the descriptive work of the Second Discourse, and the prescriptive
work that is to come. Humans are essentially free, and were free in the State of
Nature, but the ‘progress’ of civilization has substituted subservience to others for
that freedom, through dependence, economic and social inequalities, and the extent
to which we judge ourselves through comparisons with others. Since a return to the
State of Nature is neither feasible nor desirable, the purpose of politics is to restore
freedom to us, thereby reconciling who we truly and essentially are with how we
live together. So, this is the fundamental philosophical problem that The Social
Contract seeks to address: how can we be free and live together? Or, put another
way, how can we live together without succumbing to the force and coercion of
others? We can do so, Rousseau maintains, by submitting our individual, particular
wills to the collective or general will, created through agreement with other free
and equal persons. Like Hobbes and Locke before him, and in contrast to the
ancient philosophers, all men are made by nature to be equals, therefore no one has
a natural right to govern others, and therefore the only justified authority is the
authority that is generated out of agreements or covenants.

The most basic covenant, the social pact, is the agreement to come together and
form a people, a collectivity, which by definition is more than and different from a
mere aggregation of individual interests and wills. This act, where individual
persons become a people is “the real foundation of society” (59). Through the
collective renunciation of the individual rights and freedom that one has in the
State of Nature, and the transfer of these rights to the collective body, a new
‘person’, as it were, is formed. The sovereign is thus formed when free and equal
persons come together and agree to create themselves anew as a single body,
directed to the good of all considered together. So, just as individual wills are
directed towards individual interests, the general will, once formed, is directed
towards the common good, understood and agreed to collectively. Included in this
version of the social contract is the idea of reciprocated duties: the sovereign is
committed to the good of the individuals who constitute it, and each individual is
likewise committed to the good of the whole. Given this, individuals cannot be
given liberty to decide whether it is in their own interests to fulfill their duties to
the Sovereign, while at the same time being allowed to reap the benefits of
citizenship. They must be made to conform themselves to the general will, they
must be “forced to be free” (64).

2.2 The concept of general will

For Rousseau, this implies an extremely strong and direct form of democracy. One
cannot transfer one’s will to another, to do with as he or she sees fit, as one does in
representative democracies. Rather, the general will depends on the coming
together periodically of the entire democratic body, each and every citizen, to
decide collectively, and with at least near unanimity, how to live together, i.e.,
what laws to enact. As it is constituted only by individual wills, these private,
individual wills must assemble themselves regularly if the general will is to
continue. One implication of this is that the strong form of democracy which is
consistent with the general will is also only possible in relatively small states. The
people must be able to identify with one another, and at least know who each other
are. They cannot live in a large area, too spread out to come together regularly, and
they cannot live in such different geographic circumstances as to be unable to be
united under common laws. (Could the present-day U.S. satisfy Rousseau’s
conception of democracy? It could not. ) Although the conditions for true
democracy are stringent, they are also the only means by which we can, according
to Rousseau, save ourselves, and regain the freedom to which we are naturally
entitled.

Rousseau’s social contract theories together form a single, consistent view of our
moral and political situation. We are endowed with freedom and equality by
nature, but our nature has been corrupted by our contingent social history. We can
overcome this corruption, however, by invoking our free will to reconstitute
ourselves politically, along strongly democratic principles, which is good for us,
both individually and collectively.

END NOTES

1 S.E Stump, Philosophy: History and Problems, 5th edition (New York:
McGraw-Hill Inc., 1994), p. 296.

2 Ibid., p. 70

2 J.J. Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses, translated by G.D. Cole (New
York: E.P. Dutton and Company Inc., 1950), p. 14

6 Ibid., p. 15

3 Subrata Mukherjee and Sushila Ramaswamy,'' A History of Political Thought .

( plato to Marx.

4 Stumpf and Abel'', Eleents of Philosophy.

CHAPTER THREE
 3.1 The Remote Causes of the Biafra Declaration

By remote causes we mean those errors committed, mistakes made, events, etc.
that in one way or the other contributed to the Nigeria’s political instability, which
are often ignored, but form the bedrock of the immediate crises that led to the
attempted secession. We need to note, and importantly too, that these remote
causes date back to pre-amalgamation era, and equally too, that their negative
consequences still persist as freshly as ever till today.

Before the arrival of the colonial masters, the different peoples that make up what
we now call Nigeria lived as independent kingdoms, empires, republics, caliphates
etc. These peoples had their different socio-political structures, cultures and
(sometimes) religion, which in most cases differed greatly from one another’s. In
the North, it was a highly centralized socio-political structure, with the caliph at the
head possessing an absolute power both in political, judicial and religions matters.
It was a theocracy with Arab oriented culture and the official religion was Islam.

.In the South the case was different. Here we see diverse political administrative
systems and cultural orientations, with some little similarities among some groups.
In the Yoruba dominated South-West it was another form of centralized system of
government which was more democratic and largely less totalitarian than the one
in the North. Their orientation was basically African both in religion and culture.
The most prominent among the Yoruba kingdoms was the old Oyo Empire.
Moving eastwards from there you meet Benin kingdom in the Mid-West which had
some similarities with the Yoruba kingdoms but politically independent of them.
There are equally some other smaller independent political entities and kingdoms
in places like Bonny, Kalabari, Lagos etc.

Coming to the Igbo dominated East, the system of government was mainly
republican. The small political units scattered everywhere independent of one
another. The system was totally decentralized and no one had the power to lord it
over the other, yet they had leaders who just had the mandate to represent their
people the way the people wished. Everybody was involved in the political life of
the community and everything was by consensus; thorough republicanism.

When the colonial masters came, they signed treaties of protection with these
different peoples and these treaties were most often signed after long wars of
resistance1. This means that some of these peoples never for once accepted the
colonial masters’ protection, but were rather overpowered. What followed
immediately was total exploitation of their resources in the name of protective
administration. These different peoples were summarily administered separately
but the major dividing line was drawn between the North and the South as separate
entities. These peoples were later fused together for the British economic and
administrative conveniences without their consent; they were only talked to and
not talked with. This is how what we now call Nigeria falsely came to be a
country, after the 1914 amalgamation.
After the amalgamation, one would expect the colonial masters to begin to unify
the minds of these peoples who had little or nothing in common and more still who
never consented to the amalgamation. This never happened; instead the reverse
was the case. The British did all they could to plant as much disharmony as
possible among these different peoples till they left, that the effects are ever
strongly holding the so-called country to ransom till today. Yet they tried their best
very cleverly to prevent any section from leaving the fold and granted them
independence as a country and still fight for its corporate existence more than any
person till today. At this point a normal thinking mind will ask, ‘Why this double
standard?’. Alexander Madiebo puts the answer thus:

The federation of Nigeria as it exists today has never really been one homogenous
country, for its widely differing peoples and tribes are yet to find any basis for true
unity. This unfortunate yet obvious fact notwithstanding, the former colonial
master had to keep the country one, in order to effectively control his vital
economic interest concentrated in the more advanced and “politically unreliable”
South.

Despite all these, there have never been any serious efforts by either the British
themselves or the Nigerian government afterward to find a basis under which there
would be true unity, to bring these peoples together. The colonial master would not
allow that to happen for such a move would be a great threat to their economic
interest for which the disunity was deliberately created. They would rather go on to
introduce more measures of ‘divide and rule’ policy which would always go
further to widen the gap between the different ethnic nationalities.3 What this is
saying is that contrary to our belief, Nigeria as a country does not exist. What we
rather see is a mere shadow whose real existence is in the British economic world,
in the manner of Plato’s world of forms. Thus, it is only the peoples identified with
this name that exist.

My conclusions may sound superfluous, or frivolous, or even sentimental to some

ears. To such people I would demand to see the following with me. What should be
the case in a country? Is it not supposed to be a place where all citizens are equal
in everything as the case may be? A place where all citizens live safely in every
part of the territory without molestation by fellow citizens? A place where every
citizen has equal civil rights and can hold any political office in any place within
the territory? A place where citizens are recruited to government institutions based
on qualification and not on ethnic or religious identity? Is it not supposed to be a
place where all citizens are first class citizens and see the whole territorial
landmass as fatherland? The questions can go on infinitely. But what has been the
case in Nigeria from the time of colonialism to date?

The case has been extremely opposite in Nigeria. In the first place, there are as
many territories as there are ethnic groups in Nigeria. An Igbo who finds himself in
Hausa land is totally an unsafe stranger who can be attacked and killed any
moment by the citizens of the land. An Hausa who is in Yoruba land is in turn a
stranger, and the case continues on. All these are products of the British ‘divide
and rule’ policy which they carefully and consistently created and maintained in
their successive administrative constitutions. They emphasized what divide the
peoples than what unite them, and rather than treating them as a people, they
projected them as Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba, Christians, Muslims, etc, among
themselves and as enemies. They went further and polarized the so-called country
into Hausa-Fulani dominated North and, Yoruba and Igbo dominated South, with
the North having the seventy five percent of the total landmass and the purported
sixty percent of the total population.4 Yet some of the Hausa-Fulani dominated
minorities in the North have more affinity with the South than with the North. The
South was further divided into Igbo dominated East and Yoruba dominated West
and the later extraction of the Mid-West. This calculated unbalanced polarization
did not go without protests from the leaders of the two sides of the South, yet it
was imposed on them and meant to be the platform for political activities from that
moment on.

As one would expect, based on the fact that this unbalanced division into regions
was meant to be the platform for political activities, the federal government
automatically became dominated by the North who had at least fifty percent of the
total seats in the Federal House of Representatives. This became the climax of
events that injected instability into the bloodstream of Nigeria’s polity. How can a
section of Nigeria dominate the rest put together and always dictate to them what
would be done? This single act destroyed every aspect of Nigeria’s life as a
political entity, starting from politics, which is the life wire of a society, to civil
service, economy and so on. Worse still the dictating North was far behind the
South intellectually that it became a case of the blind leading the sighted. What
would one expect from this other than a constant revolt by the sighted who would
always see the leading blind dangerously taking him to a pit? The situation is even
far from being better in the military as the ethnic quota system of recruitment
introduced shortly before the independence offered a compulsory sixty percent
recruitment to the North, fifteen to West and East each and ten to Mid-West in any
recruitment at all in the Army.5 The sum total outcome of this would be nothing
short of sacrificing merit, competence, excellence, productivity, etc, on the alter of
ethnic politics. Yet it is always imposed on me to say that Nigeria is a country. But
I know that in a country every citizen is as important as the other and everything is
therefore done on the basis of the most competent whether or not they all come
from one section or even a family, provided they do it for the general good.

At this juncture I would like us to think a bit. Do the above events appear
coincidental? Emphatically no! All the above happenings during the foundation
laying stone of the Nigeria’s permanent political structures were done for certain
ends, not for the people called Nigerians, but for the people that masterminded
them. They were permanently laying the foundation for the inter-ethnic rivalry,
conflicts, suspicion and hatred that has always made it extremely difficulty for
Nigeria to be a real country, besides laying the foundation for today’s Nigeria’s
steady movement away from development instead of the other way round. If one is
in doubt I would suggest that one casts one’s mind through the history and study
more closely the developments of events to date.

Before the arrival of the British, these different peoples, even though they were of
different political sovereignties, had some friendly and diplomatic relations among
themselves especially through trade. They dwelled side by side more peacefully
than now. Their relationship with one another turned very bad with the above
happenings. They now find it extremely difficult to co-exist and since then have
always held one another to the throat. Yet they were going to be a country by 1st
October 1960, without first being a people. How would they manage together to
get their independence, one may ask? What would follow afterwards?

The answers to the questions above are not surprising at all. They never worked in
harmony even close to the independence. At a point the date for the independence
itself became a source of serious political clash between the poles, which was
crowned with the Kano riot of 1953 that left tens of thousands of Southerners in
Kano dead and their properties looted. It further led to the attempted secession of
the North5. Even among the Southerners themselves there was no unity of purpose.
Apart from the earlier nationalists like H.O. Davies, Herbert Macaulay, Ernest
Ikoli etc. who were true nationalists, in the West, the younger generation of
Yoruba politicians led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo were ethnic nationalists who
were fundamentally interested in the welfare of their ethnic group other than the
general good. 6 The same was also the case in the North, were Ahmadu Bello was
totally playing egocentric sectionalism, especially after the independence. The
Northerners led by Ahmadu Bellow once said that the 1914 amalgamation of
Nigeria was a regrettable mistake in the Nigerian history7 while Awolowo said
that Nigeria is a mere geographical expression. In the East, you again find a people
of different belief altogether. Led by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, they strongly believed
and worked for a united Nigerian course, sometimes to a self-destructive extent.
Thus Uwalaka puts it:

The early Igbo positive disposition in the construction of this Nigerian project
contrasted sharply with the attitude of the leaders of the other two major tribes, the
Hausa and Yoruba… in 1947, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa(later to become the first
Nigerian Prime minister) said “since the Amalgamation of the Southern and
Northern provinces in 1914, Nigeria has existed as one country on paper…”…
Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto(later to become the first Nigerian Governor
of northern region ) said “Nigeria is so large and the people so varied that no
person with any real intellectual integrity would be so foolish as to pretend that he
speaks for the country as a whole.” We know the famous statement of Obafemi
Awolowo, the post independent Yoruba leader, that “Nigeria is a mere
geographical expression.”

After everything the summary is that there was no unity of purpose. There has
always been a strong division between North, East and West, but the division has
been stronger between North and South in general. Therefore the people we now
parade as Nigerian nationalists were actually ethnic nationalists, except in some
cases. But after everything, they got their so-called independence as a country.
How come that this could happen? At least from the story so far, there is no basis
for unity. Instead there have been some separatist signs. The Muslim North had
never wanted to associate with the Christian South, and had at least once made a
bold step to secession but which was neutralized by the British.

Looking at all these, there are certain things glaringly clear to any thinking mind.
The totality of the Nigerian political structure is a product of the British mind,
imposed on the people, for the former’s future use, despite protests by the later.
They had all this while been putting things in positions for use, mainly after the so-
called independence. Now look at it. The British strongly wanted to lock these
peoples together as a country, not in a real sense, but in a formal sense, so that they
would continually exploit them after the so-called independence, as they would be
at one another’s throats as had been institutionalized. For this they cleverly
neutralized every move towards disintegration. Because they felt they could always
deceive the North than the South, they put everything in the control of the North,
through the regional inbalance by which the North would always control every
political decision in Nigeria through their population domination, and then they
would now make the North their mouthpiece and hence control Nigeria through
them. That was why they hypocritically played romance with the North to the
detriment of other sections, to deceive them into believing that they were friends,
and always inspired every of their political moves. But the North is only a means
to an end; we are all looked at together as Africans. Therefore Nigeria is not real;
instead it is a mere economic institution of the British. The so-called Independence
Day was the day everybody in Nigeria ‘gloriously’ matched into the tract of the
race to perpetual dependence and slavery, otherwise called neo-colonialism. What
happened after the so-called independence, which I classify in this work as the
immediate causes of the Biafra declaration gives credence to this.

3.2 THE IMMEDIATE CAUSE OF BIAFRA DECLARATION

After the federal fraud called federal election 1959, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Sir
Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Chief Obafemi Awolowo became the Governor-
General, the Prime Minister and the opposition leader in the Federal House of
legislature respectively. Also, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Chief S.L. Akintola and Dr.
Michael Okpara became Premiers of North, West and East respectively and the
race started.

After the independence, Nigeria was hailed as Africa’s hope for democracy. This
was because the independence was by peaceful means rather than violent
revolution, and because Nigeria was economically viable with great potentials for
future development, particularly in view of the large market it presented for
industrial goods.10 All this big hope came to nothing for the destructive seed of
ethnicity, corruption, inter-ethnic mutual hatred already institutionalized in the
system during the foundation laying by the colonial masters, which had long
matured into a big tree, soon began to disperse poisonous fruits into every sector of
the society’s life. There were socio-political explosive situations originating from
unhealthy inter-ethnic rivalry, nepotism, chauvinistic and egocentric sectionalism,
corruption, power tussle etc.

In the West it was Action Group party crisis through which Awolowo and his
group were permanently neutralized with the purported treason offence and
Akintola imposed on the people despite their protests. The West turned into ‘Wild-
West.’ The East had relative peace except for the census crisis of 1962/63 and
federal election crisis of 1964, none of which was regional crisis in a strict sense,
and perhaps, the case of Isaac Adaka Boro. In the North, the Chief actor was
Ahmadu Bello who ruled the whole federation from Kaduna through the puppet
Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. He was a Muslim fanatic and an
Hausa-Fulani ethnic bigot.11 Biafra agitation

He was openly, and shamelessly too, an ethnic chauvinist to an embarrassing

degree.[2] He was the unrivalled leader of NPC, a party which developed from a
Northern ethnic organization. Because of the regional imbalance, this party would
perpetually have the majority seat in the Federal House of Representatives and
therefore was very powerful. The Sardauna was therefore very powerful and
enjoyed an unrivalled popularity in the North. Because of his unrivalled popularity
among the Northern politicians, coupled with the Northern domination in the
Federal House of Representatives, he held the whole federation to ransom, and was
politically undisciplined. He was actually the Prime Minister in the body of Sir
Tafawa Balewa.[3] He used federal institutions like the military at will. Thus he
used the military for private matters and mainly for political purposes; with the
federal Army he politically suppressed Tiv minority uprising in the North. He was
equally behind the crisis in the West.[4]

In his bid to stuff the whole rank and file of the federal military with the
Northerners he suffocated it with Northern chaffs, that every Northerner on
trousers became a military man, just to out-number the Southerners. Because of his
power and influence, military promotions were mainly based on ethnic identity,
which naturally favored the Northerners, while the Southerners who were
ambitious had to openly identify with Northern politicians before realizing their
dreams.[5] The military thus turned into a place of political maneuvers. The climax
of this maneuver was the competition between Brigadier Ademulegun and General
Aguiyi Ironsi on whom to succeed the last British General Officer Commanding
(GOC). Ademulegun was seriously romancing with Northern politicians by all
means while Aguiyi Ironsi showed little interest, but the latter was however made
the GOC after everything.[6] The result of all these was that the military became a
mockery; where seniority and competence did not matter again, and they became
politically conscious. The standard was fast running down to zero degree because
recruitments and promotions were based on ethnicity, rather than competence.
When all these things were happening remember, people were daily being killed in
the West and in Tiv land on political basis.[7] Worse still, there were strong
reasons to believe the rumours of an impending Islamic jihad which was again
linked to the Sardauna.[8] Biafra agitation

As usual, the poor masses bore the brunt of the above situation and could naturally
anticipate a military revolution. In the military, the issue of an impending coup
became a common talk. Seeing what was going on in the federation, some more
radical soldiers believed that coup d’etat was the only way out and consequently
struck on January 15, 1966. This coup, generally accepted as Nzeogwu’s coup (but
Ifeajuna’s for Ojukwu), took about a total of fifteen lives of both soldiers and
civilians, including the Surdauna and the Prime Minister.[9] It succeeded in the
North while failed in the South for the following reasons. Biafra agitation

The soldiers had different views about the coup d’etat. There were those who
believed that the only way to move the federation foreword was through coup
d’etat. They include Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, Emma Ifeajuna, Don
Okafor, Chris Anuforo, Wole Ademoyega and their accomplices. Some supported
the coup but would not risk their lives and thus, remained neutral. Some others saw
it as a mutiny, considering their reaction during the coup. There were equally some
others who would not support it if they knew about it. These were mainly those
who dinned with the corrupt politicians; the circumstance favoured them. And so
on. Biafra agitation

The soldiers led by Major Nzeogwu succeeded in the North as Nzeogwu was in
total control of Kaduna. However, it is clear Odumegwu Ojukwu anticipated the
coup and was on the watch out. He could therefore arrest those sent to take over his
unit and maintained peace in Kano.[10] In the South, the coup was a total mess-up.
General Aguiyi Ironsi, the legitimate commander of the whole federal military,
escaped those sent for him in Lagos and still retained the control of the army
especially in Lagos.[11] Those sent to the East were placed between the devil and
the blue sea. They were placed in dilemma of either endangering the life of an
international guest, Archbishop Makarios, the Cypriot leader who visited the
Eastern Premier, Dr. Michael Okpara, as they went on with the coup or, save his
life by waiting till he left, which means delaying the coup.[12] After everything,
the coup was a caricature. Ironsi, still retaining his power, having escaped the
soldiers and seeing the coup as a mutiny, could successfully foil it in the South.
When some of the soldiers taking part in the coup found out that Ironsi was still in
control of the army in the South, they immediately switched over to his side in fear
while others ran away.[13] Everything now boiled down to a situation of
polarization of power; Ironsi in control of the South while Nzeogwu in control of
the North. Ironsi ordered Nzeogwu to surrender but Nzeogwu was ready to have it
out to a conclusive end with Ironsi before he was advised by some army officers to
surrender to Ironsi, at least having succeeded in dethroning the corrupt regime.[14]
Nzeogwu eventually surrendered on certain conditions, which included non
execution of those who took part in the coup.

What remained of the first republic regime formally handed power over to General
Aguiyi Ironsi through Dr. Nwafor Orizu, who was the acting president as Dr.
Azikiwe was outside the country, purportedly on health reasons.

When Aguiyi Ironsi came to power, he made the greatest mistakes of his life which
cost him both his life and those of other millions of people. He wanted to impress
the Northerners by all means that he was not Igbo-centric but he ended up
worshipping them. He surrounded himself with too many Northerners and his
regime could in fact be called Northern regime, for he hardly took any decision
without their knowledge. To avoid suspicion, he forbade any Igbo person from
speaking Igbo in his office.[15] Again those he appointed to inquire into the
January 1966 coup were mainly biased Northerners.[16] Moreover, some
Northerners he placed in important positions were close associates of the corrupt
politicians killed in January coup, some of whom narrowly escaped the executing
bullets of the coup.

All these people, realizing that Ironsi was ready to please them, had and used the
whole time to poison the minds of the Northern populace about the coup, which
initially was very popular among them. They aroused their emotions against the
Easterners and prepared their minds for reprisal attacks, in a well planned
programme of events. Ironsi himself lost his life in one of these attacks. Biafra
agitation

All that eventually led to the civil war could have been avoided had Ironsi listened
to his Southern brothers, especially the Igbos. He only listened with full
confidence, to the Northerners around him who were heartlessly bent on destroying
him. The first part of the well organized pogrom which was evidently of Northern
government initiative, started on May 29, 1966, after which thousands of corpses
of Southerners littered the major cities in the North. The rioters afterwards could
not agree on a particular reason. For some, it was Ironsi’s unitary system of
government; some others, it was to avenge their leaders killed in January coup; but
for majority, they wanted secession for they would not be part of any federation
that is not headed by a Northerner.[17]

Seeing no punitive measure from Ironsi against their first act, with full confidence
they came back the second time. It started between 28th and 29th May when Ironsi
visited the West on his nationwide tour. He was killed along with Lt. Col. Francis
Fajuyi, the Governor of the West. The same fate awaited soldiers of Southern
origin and Easterners in particular, majority of whom were not lucky enough to
escape. After the soldiers, the Eastern civilians became the primary targets.
Already Gowon had taken over power and declared ‘no basis for unity’.

What followed afterwards was a momentary but continual massacre of Easterners

outside their region especially in the North, with a horrifying brutality that took
tens of thousands of lives. The killing cut across age, sex, status, and took several
barbaric forms. Some were locked up in houses and were either cut down with
sharp objects or set ablaze with the house. Many women above the age of ten were
raped to death while pregnant ones had their wombs ripped open, and their
foetuses publicly executed. Crying children scattered everywhere as they were
chased about and cut down. Some people’s heads were set on fire and allowed to
die a slow death, and so many other horrifying stories. Those who successfully
returned to the East alive were scarcely seen without serious damage in their
bodies and the East became over crowded as the Easterners streamed back to the
East. Biafra agitation

As Ojukwu was looking for a solution to this problem, Gowon remained heartless
and was officially pursuing Northern agenda aimed at perfecting a total
extermination of the Easterners. His diversionary ad hoc constitutional conference
that took off on 12th September 1966 was more of dictation than discussion for
within few weeks he and his Northern brothers endorsed one stand after the other
till they ironically came back to square one: They rioted for secession initially. In
the conference they now endorsed confederation. They later shifted to federation,
and eventually ended with the unitary system of government against which they
initially rioted, all within very few weeks, and with a threat to use force on any
group that failed to comply. What a hypocrisy and heartlessness! Biafra agitation

The last hope for peace was squandered when Ojukwu and Gowon interpreted the
Aburi Accord differently despite the fact that it was well documented. Ojukwu had
already seen the unrelenting thirst for the blood of the Easterners, and called the
Eastern Nigerian community leaders on May 26th , 1967, and detailed them on the
situation. The Consultative Assembly mandated him on May 27th, 1967, to declare
Eastern Nigeria at the earliest practicable date, a sovereign and independent state
with the Name ‘Republic of Biafra. Gowon’s swift reaction to this was to abandon
the Aburi Accord and create Nigeria into twelve states on May 27, 1967. Ojukwu
declared the republic of Biafra on May 30, 1967 and the Biafran war started on
July 6, 1967.[18] Biafra agitation.

3.3 The Resultant War, Its Challenges and Responses

As secession was the only remaining alternative for self-defence, the Easterners
wrongly believed that the world having seen how greatly they had been treated
unjustly, would not support any attack on them by the Nigerian government. But
this was not to be true for international politics is a game of gain and not of
conscience. Moreover, some of the so-called powers had all these while been
collaborating with the Nigerian government that immediately the war broke out,
they threw their weight behind Gowon. Britain was actively supporting Nigeria
while America, though claimed neutral, did not recognize Biafra. Most of the jets
used by the Nigerian troops were Russian jets. Even though these people posed as
their reasons that secession was illegitimate, it was all for selfish motives. Muslim
African countries like Egypt pitched their tent with the Nigerian government
perhaps, on religious ground. Thus Egyptian pilots were very active in Nigerian
Air Force during the war. The most outstanding European power on Biafran side
was France and Black African countries like Ivory Coast, Gabon, Zambia and
Tanzania recognized Biafra, but their total help was far from being sufficient.
Faced with extreme difficulties, the creative ingenuity of the Biafrans shone out.
Thus they could invent in the areas of Agriculture, armament etc. Biafra agitation

The nature of the war made Biafrans regard it as genocide, because from every
indication there were serious moves to exterminate every human being on the
Biafran side. The Russian jets were spreading explosives every place indicative of
human lives, like hospitals, market places, schools, houses etc. The total blockade
from foreign contact and the starvation measure which took more lives than
ammunition did, were basically targeted on the civilians. There was equally an
alleged poisoning of food coming into Biafra by the Nigerian government.

This war dragged on for thirty months and Biafrans unable to withstand the
pressures any longer, surrendered shortly after Ojukwu had left for Ivory Coast.
The total death estimate is about three million. Biafra agitation

3.4 The Consequences of the Biafran War.

After the Biafran surrender, the Nigerian military head of state, Yakubu Gowon,
declared that there was ‘No Victor No Vanquished’ and declared the move of the
federal government towards reconciliation, rehabilitation and reconstruction
concerning the war. In reality, the opposite became the case for the war continued
in a worse form; no longer as two independent sovereignties but as a conqueror
nation and the conquered territory. Contrary to the expectation of the Easterners,
there was a systematic further blockade of relief materials immediately after the
Biafran surrender by the Nigerian government, causing more civilian deaths even
more than recorded within the last weeks of the war. Many Biafran soldiers were
shot by Nigerian troops after their surrender and those who survived were
dismissed from the forces like army, police etc. Many people’s last drop of hope
for survival of the extremely dehumanizing war-caused conditions were destroyed
when they were allowed only twenty pounds each from all they loaded into
Nigerian banks before the war ended, while those paralyzed by the war have since
then been languishing at Oji uncared for. Again, the reconstruction propaganda has
not been matched with action as the wanton destructions of the war have remained
forgotten by the federal government. Biafra agitation

To ever increase their sufferings and equally create disunity among the Easterners,
the properties of the Igbos in some places, especially in Port-Harcourt, were
declared abandoned till today. Besides making life ever more difficult for the
Igbos, this was meant to create disunity between the Igbos and the inhabitants of
Port-Harcourt, who being desperate beyond control would most likely accept the
offer of inheriting the properties of the Igbos in their midst. To facilitate the
destruction of Igbo solidarity and identity, many Igbo communities have been
forced to states dominated by Igbo-hostile communities, which makes these Igbos
deny their Igbo identity in order to escape maltreatment. As these people were still
desperately battling with these blood-sucking and dehumanizing situations,
indigenization policy was introduced to sell the indigenized foreign companies to
the ‘real citizens’ of Nigeria; like the Yorubas who benefited most and are now the
sole controllers of the economic sector of the federation. This was systematically
done in order to permanently nail the Easterners to poverty and state of total
exclusion, while the ‘real citizens’ over-take them and permanently maintain
control of every sector of the federal government. Thus after everything, the
Hausas control power, Yorubas control economy, while the Igbos are labourers.

These and so many other steps continually being added in order to systematically
and completely shatter the ‘Biafrans’ have continually and increasingly been the
case for more than thirty years after their surrender. This ever worsening situation
of perpetual slavery and dehumanization becoming increasingly unbearable, and
without any hope for a future change, this people remembered Biafra again and
bounced back to it but in a new way; it is now a new Biafra.
END NOTES

1IR.A.Ozugbo,A History Of Igboland In The 20th Century, Snaap Press Ltd.,

Enugu, 1999, p.33. Biafra agitation

2 Mag-Gen A. Madiebo, The Nigerian Revolution And The Biafran War , Fourth
Dimension Publishers Co. LTD., Enugu, 1980, p.3. Biafra agitation

3 J.N. Uwalaka, Igbos To Be Or Not To Be, Snaap Press LTD., Enugu, 2003, P.50.

4 ] C. Enonchong., Who Killed Major Nzeogwu? Ranorama Books, Calabar,

1987., p.15-16. Biafra agitation.

5 ] C. Enonchong., Who Killed Major Nzeogwu? Ranorama Books, Calabar,

1987., p.15-16. Biafra agitation