By T. Rees Shapiro

Odumegwu Ojukwu, who attracted international attention when he led the Republic of Biafra’s secession from Nigeria in 1967 and subsequently waged a civil war that left more than 1 million dead — many of them children who succumbed to starvation — has died in London. He was 78.

News accounts reported that he died Nov. 25 or 26. A cause of death could not be confirmed.

Mr. Ojukwu was an unlikely rebel leader. The son of a Ni ger ian millionaire knighted by the Queen of England, he grew up in a mansion and attended a private high school in Surrey, England, where he set a school record for the discus throw.

At Lincoln College at the University of Oxford, he played on the rugby team and was known for his flashy clothes and red sports car. He graduated in 1955, then returned to Nigeria. He rebuffed his father’s offer to join the family transport business and enrolled in civil service, working on community projects building roads and digging culverts.

He later joined the military — partly to spite his father, he said, but also because he sensed that “Nigeria was headed for an upheaval and that the army was the place to be when the time came.”

The most populous nation in Africa, Nigeria is on the western coast, just north of the equator. For decades, Nigeria was a British colony until declaring independence in 1960. Three years later, Nigeria became a republic within the British commonwealth.

Mr. Ojukwu rose through the army ranks before the chaos he predicted arrived in January 1966. A gang of officers overthrew the government in a coup and assassinated the prime minister.

Although Mr. Ojukwu didn’t participate in the coup, he was made the military governor of Nigeria’s oil-rich eastern region, home to many ethnic Ibo Christians like himself.

A counter-coup followed a few months later that left Nigeria in disarray. Throughout the power struggle, Mr. Ojukwu kept the eastern region running smoothly and mostly independent of federal rule.

In September 1966, 20,000 Ibo were massacred in pogroms in the Muslim-dominated northern region. Mr. Ojukwu called the unprovoked aggression “organized, wanton fratricide.”

Mr. Ojukwu grew a thick, bushy beard “as a sign of mourning,” he said, for the injustice caused to the Ibo. He acceded to mounting demands of an Ibo-led secession of the eastern region, a total area of 30,000 square miles.

He announced the birth of the Republic of Biafra during a radio address at 3 a.m. on May 30, 1967. The ceremony featured a 42-gun salute and champagne served from waiters in white coats. He named his country after a Ni ger ian coastal inlet and chose Jean Sibelius’s “Finlandia” as the melody for his nation’s anthem.

For much of his 30-month rule, he was a revered figure among his people. A raconteur who charmed journalists, he quoted from Shakespeare and spoke authoritatively about the reign of King Louis XIV of France. He landed on the cover of Time magazine in 1968 and gained sympathetic followers such as the celebrated Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, who moved to Biafra’s capital and later wrote many books inspired by the secession.

“A state that failed to safeguard the lives of its citizens has no claim to their allegiance,” Achebe told a reporter. “Biafrans will not live in Nigeria and if they are constrained to do so by force, this part of the world will not know peace.”

Soon after Biafra declared independence, Nigeria struck back violently. From the outset, Biafra’s odds for survival were minimal. The Ni ger ian army outnumbered the Biafrans as many as 4 to 1. While the Biafrans carried single-shot rifles and five rounds of ammunition, the Nigerians were supplied heavy weapons from Britain and fighter jets from Egypt.

Facing such a remote victory, Mr. Ojukwu told his army to “be prepared to die so that our children may live.”

As months of combat progressed, Biafra was surrounded by Nigerian forces, cutting off food supplies. As a result, there was widespread starvation in Biafra. Mr. Ojukwu contacted a Swiss public relations firm, which sent out images to world publications showing Biafran children with swollen bellies and ribs as thin as rifle barrels.

Newspapers referred to the Biafran famine as a modern Holocaust, a comparison Mr. Ojukwu welcomed. He had read Leon Uris’s novel “Exodus” about the foundation of Israel.

“The Israelis are hardworking, enterprising people. So are we,” Mr. Ojukwu once said. “They’ve suffered from pogroms. So have we. In many ways, we share the same promise, and the same problems.”

Georgetown University visiting associate professor Herbert Howe said in an interview that the famine in Biafra was one of the first modern humanitarian crises to serve as an international cause celebre.

Time magazine reported that up to 1,000 people a day died of starvation in Biafra. To combat a protein-deficiency disease, Mr. Ojukwu’s government told Biafrans to eat rats, dogs and lizards.

The Biafran crisis “united Ted Kennedy and Strom Thurmond to push for changes in U.S. policy,” Howe said, referring to the liberal and right-wing senators, respectively. Governments around the world, including the United States (which was officially neutral), shipped food to Biafra by the planeload.

More than 1 million Biafrans were estimated to have died because of starvation. With the Ni ger ian army closing in, Biafra’s borders shrank, and Mr. Ojukwu became isolated.

In January 1970, he left in voluntary exile with his family and some close aides on an airliner packed with three tons of luggage and his white Mercedes-Benz. Biafra soon disintegrated. Only five countries — Gabon, Tanzania, Ivory Coast, Zambia and Haiti — officially recognized Biafra during its existence.

“Although he was very urbane and ambitious, he may have been deeply flawed and a political opportunist who played the ethnic card for all it was worth,” Howe said, noting that Mr. Ojukwu’s 30-month reign “amounted to incredible unity, incredible suffering and incredible courage, regardless of the rights and wrongs that occurred.”

Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu was born Nov. 4, 1933, in Zungeru, Nigeria. He was married three times. A complete list of his survivors could not be determined.

In exile, Mr. Ojukwu lived for many years in the Ivory Coast before returning to Nigeria in the 1980s. Pardoned by the government, he attempted a second run at politics and was defeated in his presidential bids.

By Burningpot Sources

Whatever the Federal Government says or does about the report of the Sheikh Ahmed Lemu’s committee on election violence, it cannot accuse the panel of being short on sincerity and comprehensiveness of its recommendations.  If anything, the committee did a thorough job and told the government the hard truth; that it has continually failed to deliver good governance to the Nigerian people.

Although the indictment is extended to successive governments virtually since independence, President Goodluck Jonathan, as the head of the incumbent administration, has responsibility to accept the report and rectify the past mistakes.  The question is: can the president turn around the country’s future positively?

The committee comprising 23 members, was set up on May 11, this year to among other things, investigate the immediate and remote cause(s) of the tide of unrest in some states of the federation following the presidential election. It was also tasked with unearthing the cause of the pre-election violence in Akwa Ibom State and make appropriate recommendations to avert a recurrence.

Among the committee’s cardinal observation was that successive governments failed to implement the reports of several committees they set up at various times concerning one civil disturbance or another.  The Lemu panel emphasised that non-implementation of these reports and particularly failure to prosecute and sanction erring persons led to impunity, a culture of reprisal and subsequent violence.

The committee also observed that Nigerians yearned for a change regarding failure of government to deliver dividends of democracy and good governance, reflected in epileptic supply of electricity, deplorable roads, corruption, insecurity of life and property, poverty, public frustration and disappointment.  The committee warned that “the true state of affairs could escalate to social revolution if preventive measures are not taken in time”, adding that the sporadic demonstrations in educational institutions and by labour unions were signals of impending more serious negative events.

Accepting the report, President Jonathan assured that his government would fully implement it, particularly the recommendations to prevent future occurrence.  The President’s enthusiasm, as reflected in the long speech he made, is ordinarily impressive.  But the situation on ground is serious, and certainly demands more than casual statements of intention.  The despair in the land and potential for a general protest are in fact more than the depiction by the Lemu committee.

As a first step, government must avoid the temptation of using the report to score cheap political points.  Rather, it should acknowledge the grave situation on hand and rise to the challenges so presented.  Political leaders may indeed be blamed for sometimes making unguarded statements that the masses misconstrue, but the greater offence is committed by serving public officers and political office holders who abuse their position to inflict economic adversity on the entire country.

As the committee noted, a major cause of violence and disturbance is “the manner in which political office holders have lucratised their respective position at the expense of the whole nation”, for instance through self-awards of outrageous salaries and allowances that provoke a do-or-die attitude among politicians.  The President, through personal example, ought to set the tone for cutting the huge cost of running government.

He should be personally concerned about the charge of non-implementation of reports of investigation committees, more so as the President has, in his short stay so far at the presidency, set up several committees on various issues.  The reports of these committees are yet to be implemented, prompting fear that the Lemu report may suffer the same fate.

There is urgent need to enthrone an inclusive system of government in which everyone has a sense of belonging.  So far, government has not shown any inclination to achieve this.  Nor does it seem to be bothered by the growing disparity between the rich and the poor, itself a growing cause of disenchantment.  Ultimately, these problems, along with increasing criminal activities and insecurity of lives and property are underlined by the absence of justice and fairness in treating the average citizen.

Government must put in place concrete measures to address these issues; and Sheikh Lemu’s panel report can provide the much-needed impetus.  Where for instance are the jobs that government continually creates only on paper?  Unemployment, particularly graduate unemployment, remains a daunting problem; and manufacturing companies are still unable to function under the country’s stifling business environment.

Again, the Lemu report hits the nail on the head when it lamented “the declining spirit of God-consciousness and of accountability before God, very low moral standard as well as social indiscipline in the Nigerian society”.  These traits are manifest in the style and conduct of public officials, with the resultant open dislocation in the country.

Nevertheless, despite the failure of successive governments to respond to the people’s yearning, and change the face of government, all hope is not lost.  Government needs to show the political will and muster the courage to do things differently.

Fixing basic problems such as roads, railway, electricity and the education system will go a long way to provide jobs, keep public restiveness at bay and reduce the hopelessness pervasive in the country.  Government at all levels must cut the current profligacy, avoid nebulous projects of little public value, and do things that will directly lift the people.

Ultimately, the country needs restructuring.  It simply is not working as currently constituted and there is no point in pretending otherwise.  The earlier government commits itself to restructure, and to overhaul the constitution appropriately, the quicker it will stave off the violent revolution feared by the Lemu committee.

C. Guardian

By Anthony A Kila

At fifty-one, Nigeria is definitely is old; old enough to deal with some hard facts of life regardless of how unpleasant or mind numbing these might be. If Nigeria were human and a woman, at this age her prospects of finding love and conceiving children will belong to realm of tales and miracles. If Nigeria was a man, at this age, his prospects of achieving his boyhood dreams of playing for the national team will be based on a misconceptions of what happens in the Eagles camp.

Whether man or woman, anyone lucky enough to reach the golden age of fifty and then move to fifty-one must also have had encounters with some of the grey and gruesome aspects of life that force one to view life devoid of myths. Everyone at fifty-one knows children are not made the mythical way we were told at five. By fifty-one, most people must have dealt with bereavement, betrayal and witness the triumph of some form of evil. The consequence of all these experiences is of course a healthy dose of realism, mind you, not cynicism please, that will be unhealthy and even immoral I daresay. Even though most Nigerians are not fifty-one, every Nigerian citizen has the duty to reason like a mature adult that has seen life in its fullest and must be ready and able to deal with civic realities devoid of myths and unrealistic hopes.

In the last few days, a lot has been said and written about the challenges facing the country and how people’s expectations have not been met. In the face of all the well documented painful and irritating challenges the people of Nigeria are facing I am however bewildered by how even some fine minds continue to perceive and judge our governments and those in power. There is an accepted tendency to blame those leading the country for all the woes of the country and a general expectation for them to do better.

Just like their counterparts across the globe, Nigerians expect their public leaders to be patriotic, committed and accountable to their people. You might be tempted to say yes, of course, but any assessment based on real analysis or built on of functions of real variables as mathematicians love to say, will quickly reveal that a lot is missing in such assumptions.

When Nigerians lament that their public leaders are not building and managing good roads and schools or hospitals and efficient power stations or cannot secure their lives and properties like other leaders do elsewhere in the world we tend to forget to ask why. We tend to forget that those leaders elsewhere in the world were shaped and are powered as leaders by their people. In those democratic countries where leaders work tirelessly to tackle unemployment and genuinely worry about economic growth, infrastructures and security, they do so not because they are particularly noble or generous, rather they do so simply because they know that the unemployed and users are of bad roads are those that fund their campaigns and vote for them hence their real masters and makers. They do so because they know that if they don’t please their citizens there will be rebellion. They don’t loot their country’s wealth because they live in fear of an irreverent press ready to disgrace them and an independent judicial body eager to jail them. Under the military, our public holders used their guns to get into power. In this democratic Nigeria, they self fund their way to power, many of them get there without or even against the consent of their people. Once in power, everyone treats them with undue reverence. It is not rocket science to understand that if those that get to be in charge of everybody’s wallet and the right to use force do not owe allegiance to anybody but themselves and maybe the very few that got them into power then the rest of us should expect very little from them.

At fifty-one, Nigerians should all be able to deal with the fact that we cannot reap where we did not sow. By now, we should be mature enough to understand that given how much each private Nigerian has invested in the Nigerian project those that are milking the system to the detriment of others have actually invested more time, money and energy into the Nigerian project and that they owe it to themselves to deliver profits to themselves and their few backers.

At fifty-one, we should be able to deal with the fact that in a system wherein people don’t write letters of complaint, petitions or demand that public holders do their duty rather the poor take money from politicians and the rich stay at home to complain it is out of their generosity and nobleness that Nigerian public leaders even bother to anything at all for the country. Think about it, if they don’t what will happen?

Unlike other leaders in the world who live in fear of their people and constraints of the law, Nigerian leaders are free to do what they like so for the very few good they do Nigerian leaders are the best in the world.

Recent revelations from Wikileaks about the interactions between senior American diplomats and the leadership of their host countries have unsettled quite a few countries. From Washington to London, Sydney to the Vatican and Rabat to Abuja, leaders have lost quite some sleep on revelations from Wikileaks. Sometimes these leaks leave serious intelligence trails.

Concern over the Wikileaks variant of journalistic intrusiveness in major Western countries has been about the security content of some of the leaks. In the process of publishing Wikileaks material in the last couple of months, both high officials of major nations and the very sources of the leaked information have been unveiled sometimes in rather unflattering roles. Newspapers and sundry publications, both online and in street copy format, have had a field day.

The fear that unbridled dissemination of sensitive information about countries or the mundane undertakings of highly placed persons in the service of important countries may endanger world peace and global security is not new. But what Wikileaks has revealed is instead the uncomfortable truth that in a world ruled by multiple information channels and new dissemination technologies, old concepts of state secret and international security no longer hold water.

Those on whom democracy confers the benefit of freedom to seek information have acquired new and sophisticated ways to source their wares. The challenge is now for those whose responsibility it is to safeguard such sensitive information for our collective good to device better ways of protecting state and institutional secrets from inquisitive information hounds engaged in legitimate undertakings.

We are concerned about the pattern of interaction between Nigerian officials and United States diplomats that have informed recent Wikileaks stories on Nigeria. These are largely based on conversations between highly placed Nigerian public officials and officials of the United States embassy in Nigeria, especially the former ambassador, Ms. Robin Sanders. In these exchanges, the Nigerian officials who spoke freely and rather unguardedly have been reported to have revealed a great deal about the private dealings of their compatriots. In the process, these exchanges have unwittingly revealed a great deal of information about the inner workings of the Nigerian state to the key representative of a foreign nation.

There is nothing wrong with our senior officials interacting with or accepting invitations from foreign diplomats. But there is everything disturbing with persons entrusted with key positions of responsibility using these interactions to make unguarded utterances about their country.

It is unfortunate that a great deal of what Wikileaks has leaked about Nigeria and its leaders has to do with the now familiar trail of corrupt acts and shady deals. It does not matter that it is a foreign source that has brought out some of these yet unproven allegations. We believe that credible information concerning corruption in our midst can come from any source for as long as it serves the end of aiding in the drive to reduce the scourge to a manageable scope.

Nonetheless, there is an unfortunate dimension to the Wikileaks phenomenon as it concerns the attitude and disposition of Nigerian officials and citizens that have been so far cited. In the presence of senior embassy officials of major Western countries, our highly placed officials and citizens tend to be unguarded, immature and insensitive to whatever national security sensitivities we may still have left. Our leaders and sundry officials tend to see it as a privilege to be invited to the odd dinner or cocktail by these Western diplomats and see these as opportunities to run down their country and worsen our already declining international rating.

Unfortunately also, a certain underlying attitude of supremacist arrogance can be read in the approach of the United States’ diplomats so far cited in the recent Wikileaks stories. Our officials are routinely summoned, even if politely, and subjected to subtle debriefing sessions on nearly every subject dictated largely by the national interests of the United States, not necessarily Nigeria’s. It is a national tragedy that our highly placed citizens are all too willing to oblige our guests with an array of unflattering information sometimes for reasons of personal ego and even in return for the favour of being seen in the company of senior foreign diplomats