Address by His Excellency Lt-Colonel C. Odumegwu Ojukwu to a Joint Meeting of the Consultative Assembly and Council of Chiefs Saturday 27 January, 1968

30 Pages·1968·1.812 MB·English

by  C. Odumegwu Ojukwu

ADDRESS
by His Excellency Lt-Colonel C. Odumegwu Ojukwu
Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces
Republic of Biafra
To a Joint Meeting of the
Consultative Assembly and
Council of Chiefs
SATURDAY 27 JANUARY, 1968
DT
515,61
0393
1968

Address of His Excellency Lt.-Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu
Ojukwu, Head of State and Commander-in -Chiefof the Armed Forces,
Rpublic of Biafra, to a Joint Meeting of the Consultative Assembly
and Council of Chiefs held on Saturday, 27th of January, 1968.
RESPECTED CHIEFS AND ELDERS, EMINENT LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
PROUD AND BRAVE BIAFRANS :
It once again gives me greatpleasure to welcome you all to this
meeting which I have had to call at such short notice. As you know,
ithasbeenmypractice toconsult you from time totime and tokeep you
informed about the latest developments in the conflict between our
young Republic and Nigeria.
When I addressed this Assembly in October, we werejust recover
ing from the shock of the attempt by someof our misguided sons and
non-Biafrans, to whom we had entrusted the command of our forces,
to overthrow the Government of this Republic. The disaster of our
withdrawal from the capital city of Enuguwas the direct consequence
of that subversion organized by Gowon and his collaborators.
Our situation at that time was grave. The enemy were in parts
of our capital andwe needed to drive them completely out ofit; the
enemy were pressing on us from Calabar where they had landed
during the second week of October. We had to push them back to
the beaches. In the Ogoja area, the enemy were seeking means of
linking up with the forces in Calabar. We had to counter all these.
At that time, I reviewed for you in detail, the measures we were
taking to restore confidence within the army and to give leadership
to the lower ranks. I pledged my word before you that, subject only
to your assent, the Armed Forces would continue to prosecute the
war against our aggressors till victory is won. You in this august
assembly, signified your unanimous determination to prosecute the
war to the bitterest end. For my part and that of the Armed Forces,
we took up the challenge.
Today, three months since that date, we have not only succeeded
in avoiding what had loomed as grave disaster, we have also been
able to hold the enemy down in most of these sectors. In Bonny, we
succeeded in pushing the enemy out of all but the southermost tip
of the island. We repulsed the first enemy attack on Onitsha at a cost
of nearly three battalions against the enemy; but we weresure that
the enemy would make some further attempt on the town. Altogether
then, we had war on our hands in every sector.
p l y T R I C O
m
i
S
Through October and November, the enemy were either pinned
down to the positions they held before in September, or were pushed
back with significant losses for them in men and equipment. In the
Enugusector,we have on occasions come close to liberating the entire
town. Fighting still continues and we have completely demoralized
the enemy in that front, demonstrated to them that they are within
our Republic at terrible and enormous cost to themselves. The same
has been true of the Eha Amufu sector.
In November the enemy made another and more disastrous attempt
to invade Onitsha. Five ships were sunk and more than two enemy
battalions destroyed in the operations.
In the lastseveral days, theenemy have opened a new front in
the Nsukka West sector, with the aim of cutting our lines of com
munication between Udi and Onitsha, and thereby imperilling our
defence ofthe two positions.I am proud to say that ourtroops have
been equal to the new assault and have dealt a drastic blow on the
aggressors in that sector.
Theoperation to liberate Ogoja Province continues,andour troops
have already liberated several towns formerly held by the enemy.
With the co-operation of the local peopleour forces there will even
tually drive the enemy completely out of that section of our Republic.
During the period beginning October, we went into action in the
Bonny sector to clear the island ofenemy presence. In the last week
or so, the enemy have renewed their assault on that sector, in actual
combat and by claims over the radio. Generally, we have held our
position and the enemy toll in life and equipment has been staggering.
It was in this sector that yet another British mercenary, Captain V.C.
Martin, was killed in November.
You have heard of the alleged plan of the British Government to
send 1,000 regular marines to aid the Nigerian offensives on that island.
The British Government has denied it; and since that denial was made
by British Ministers in and out of Parliament we are prepared to
accept it, in spite of our previous unhappy experiences with British
official denials.We in Biafra have a duty to ourselves, and I can assure
this Assembly that we have taken necessary steps to maximize our
preparedness to deal with any renewed offensives from the enemy
in that sector.
Gowon has been threatening to capture Port Harcourt in the very
near future and has even set himself a date. As a man who cannot
learn from bitter experience, he is certain to renew his suicidal offensive
in the Port Harcourt-Bonny area. We know the strategic importance
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of Port Harcourt and shall do everything in our power to defend it.
War is determination and victory the triumph of that determination.
In the Calabar sector, our forces have gallantly resisted what was
obviously a major thrust by the enemy.As I address you, a grim
battle israging in that sector. For over three months of fighting, the
enemywere confined to the immediate vicinity of sub-urban Calabar.
Following Gowon's New Year desparate orders to his troops, the
enemymade more determined efforts to dislodge our forces from their
positions and actually succeeded in doing so in a few cases.
The story of enemy presence in the Calabar area has been the
same as in other areas where they were able to set foot. Mass killings,
wanton molestation and harassment, wholesale looting and assault have
been the order of the day. Reports keep coming in of barbaric crimes
and unspeakable cruelties. The enemyhave not hidden the fact that
it is their desire in this war to annihilate the people of this Republic
and expropriate or destroy all their property.
The last few days have witnessed massive and desparate offensive
by the enemy againstour troops in all sectors, particularly in the
Calabar, Nsukkaand Nkalagu sectors. They have been able to do this
as a result of continued massive assistance from Britain and Russia.
Two days ago the enemy virtually raised the Slessor Memorial Hospi
tal to the ground, killing the doctor and patients. But, in spite of these,
our troops have remained undaunted and determined to resist until the
enemy is vanquished. It is for you in this Assembly speaking the voice
of the people, to renew your mandate to the Government and the
fighting forces.
So far for the war.
In spite of the war, we have been doing other things than fighting
Gowonand his men. On December 8, 1967, I inaugurated the Biafra
Court of Appeal. Our peace-loving people are deeply committed to
the rule oflaw and the proper administration of justice. It is, therefore,
essential and proper that, even at this perilous period of our history,
the administration of justice should be upheld in all its independence
and impartiality. Itwas a mark not onlyof ourabsolute beliefin justice
and the rights of the common people, but also of our determination
to maintain our sovereignty.
AsNigeriawages her war of genocide againstthe peaceful people
of Biafra,Radio Nigeria continued to make the claim that Gowon and
hisNigerian and foreign accomplices and collaborators are engaged in
the nonsensical task of “keeping Nigeria one". It is revealing, however,
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that immediately after the enunciation of the slogan the Lagos pro
paganda medium proceeds to spell outin a war song the meaning of
"keeping Nigeriaone", namely, to pillage our property, ravish our
womenfolks, murder our menfolk and complete thepogrom of 1966.
Significantly, and characteristically of Nigeria, this war song is yelled
out in Hausaand is notreproducedin any otherlanguage of the country
which they are claiming “ to keep one”. Not that this bothers us in
Biafra; but its significance should be clear to those non -Hausas still
remaining part of ill-fated Nigeria.
What concerns us is that the reaction of the world to the genocidal
war being waged by Nigeria against Biafra has, for the most part,
been oneof silence and indifference and occasionally of veiled hosti
lity to Biafra. It is however gratifying that signs of change are
becoming evident. Expatriate doctors, clergymen, teachers, technicians,
businessmen, who have been in Biafra and seen the truth, have gone
home to narrate to their people their personal observations and expe
riences. A number of independent observers and presscorrespondents
have also come to Biafra to see things for themselves and have
consequently been impelled to disturb the studied silence of their fellow
countrymen.As a result, the case for Biafra has gradually begun to
be heard and understood. Only a short while ago, a foreign political
analyst cogently saw our case as a fundamental struggle against the
attemptby Nigerians to exterminate us in the name of maintaining
the territorial integrity of Nigeria. The analyst, Dr Conor Cruise
O'Brien, was the renowned United Nations Representative who
incidentally, had helped to bring to an end the foreign -organized seces
sion of Katanga in the early 1960's. Concluding his article, Dr O'Brien
remarked :
“ A sovereign legitimism which treats its boundaries as more
sacrosanctthanthe lives of stigmatized or refractory peoples
is no more attractive in Africa than it was in Europe, and
hardly likely to endure long”.
Here, I must crave your indulgence to deal in some detail, upon
the background of what has brought us to our present position. It
is not a new story; but it is worth reminding ourselves.
Any fair-minded observer who had followed or studied the evolu
tion of Nigeria since its creation by the British would not find it
difficult tounderstand the case and standpoint of Biafra in thepresent
conflict. In all spheres oflife in the now defunct Federation of Nigeria
economic, social, cultural, political and constitutional - Biafrans (then
Eastern Nigerians) were in the forefront of the struggle for unity and
equality, justice and progress.
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Economically, from the Amalgamation of 1914 down to the late
1950's, Biafra, as an area, wasrelegated to the background as a
destitute area. National installations, projects and utilities were
deliberately sited outside Biafra. The siting of military, police and
other security establishments are relevant tothe present situation. The
National Munitions Factory, the Training Baseand Headquarters of
the Nigerian Army, and the Training Base and Headquarters of the
Nigerian Air Force were all located in Northern Nigeria. The National
Naval Base was set up in Apapa. The Northern Police Training
College wasbuilt at Kaduna (Northern Nigeria) and the Southern
Police Training College at Ikeja (Western Nigeria). But Biafrans in
theirunflinching beliefin Nigerian unity were prepared to entrust their
security to people in various parts of Nigeria.
Biafrans lost a tremendous lot economically when they were
expelled from Nigeria. To the neglect of our home districts we had
invested confidently in the economic development of Nigeria. We
unreservedly built houses, hotels, market stalls, etc., invarious parts
of Nigeria, sometimes on the strength of mere Certificate of
Occupancy which could be, and indeed often were, revoked at will in
Northern Nigeria.
We provided highandintermediate level manpower for the econ
omicdevelopment of the whole country, only to belater frustrated and
expelled from positions we had earned on merit. Biafrans built schools
and colleges and supplied teachers and lecturers for general education
throughout the country. In every corner of the then Federation of
Nigeria, we built hospitals and nursing homes and provided doctors
and nurses for healing and tending the sick. Culturally, we strove to
identify ourselves with the peoples of any areas in which we settled.
We spoke their language; we inter-married with them and on the
floor of the Northern House of Assembly (in February-March 1964 ),
Northern Nigerians declared that theyhad conquered us culturally
because we wore their dresses. In spite of all these, wewere physically
andsociallysegregated from the indigenouspeople in Northern Nigeria.
As for Western Nigerians, they prided themselves on their “ traditional
reluctance ” to reside in and contribute to the development of places
outside their region.
But it is in the struggle for unity, equality and justice, in the field
of political and constitutional development that there was perhaps
themost striking contrast between the attitutde of Biafrans and Nige
rians. Ever since the Amalgamation in 1914 of the two Nigerias
Northern Nigeria and Southern Nigeria, theconstitutional merger was
always "far from popular” among Northern Nigerians who consistently
and openly denounced it as " a mistake”.
5
On six different occasions since 1950 onwards- in January 1950,
in May 1953, and in May, June, July and September 1966— Northern
Nigerians threatened or demanded virtual or actual secession from
the rest of the former Nigeria. And at one time during this period,
in 1954, Western Nigeria also threatened secession. In January 1950,
at the General Conference summoned at Ibadan to discuss proposals
for the review of the Richard's Constitution, theNorthern Nigerian
delegates announced that "unless the Northern Region was allotted
50 per cent. of the seats in the Central Legislatureit would ask for
separation from the rest of Nigeria on the arrangements existing before
1914” in other words, Northern Nigeria would secede.
Three years later, in May 1953, during one of the recurrent
constitutional crises of those years,Northern Nigerians again agitated
for secession. They published an eight-point proposal for the dissolution
of the unitarysystem of government then in existence and the establish
ment of a “Central Agency” to maintain what was in effect a
"Common Services Organization". Part of the Northern Nigerian
proposal read :
“ (1) Each Region shall have complete legislative andexecutive
autonomy with respect to all matters except the following :
(a Defence;
(b) External Affairs;
(c) Customs;
(d) West African Research Institutions.
(2) There shall be no central legislative body and no executive
or policy-making body for the whole of Nigeria.
(3) There shall be a central agency for all Regions...9
To obtain the implementation of this proposal by force, Northern
Nigerians organizedand carried out violent demonstrations during
which they slaughtered and wounded numerous Biafrans then resident
in Northern Nigeria --acts of genocide whichthey had perpetrated
with impunity earlier in 1945. In the end, Biafrans abandoned the
unitarysystem of government which they had been advocating and,
with difficulty, persuaded Northern Nigerians to accept a stronger
federal system ofGovernment than that envisaged by Northern Nigeria
a federal system which, in the words of Sir Ahmadu Bello, thethen
Premier of Northern Nigeria, "would give the Regions thegreatest
possible freedom of movement and action; a structure which would
reduce the powers of the Centre to the absolute minimum ".
6
The following year, 1954, as a result of its failure to absorb Lagos,
>
Western Nigeria threatened to secede and was only prevented from
proceeding to make good the threat by a timely warning from the
then British Colonial Secretary, Mr. Oliver Lyttleton (afterwards
Lord Chandos).
Again, in May 1966, Northern Nigeria demanded secession from
Southern Nigeria. The pretext was the promulgation of the “unifica
tion” Decree No. 34 by the Supreme Military Council on which
Northern Nigeria was fully represented; a decreewhichmerely sought
to formalizethe existing centralizedMilitary administration which had
replaced the previous system whereby the Regions had considerable
autonomy. Immediately after the publication of the decree, Northern
Nigerians carried out a series of ghastly riots during which violent
demonstrators carried placards demanding the secession of Northern
Nigeria. Again, in the process, several thousands of Biafrans in North
ern Nigeria were massacred and maimed in cold blood and their
property looted. Many Biafrans fled to their native land to escape this
tragic experience. You will recall that it was the Supreme Commander
of the Nigerian Armed Forces, Major-General J. T. U. Aguiyi-Ironsi,
and myself— both of us of Biafran origin — who,on the strength of the
assurances given by the Sultan of Sokoto and other NorthernNigerian
Emirs andin order “ to keep Nigeria one”, persuaded those Biafrans
who had returned home to go back to their stations in Northern
Nigeria. Most ofthese refugees did indeed returnto Northern Nigeria
only to meet with greater calamity and loss of life and property.
The nextmonth, in June 1966, the Supreme Military Council set
up a Commission of Inquiry under a British High Court Judge to
investigatethe tragic episode and make recommendations. Again, the
Northern NigerianEmirs convened a meeting, declared their opposition
to any investigation of the riots, and demanded the break -away of
Northern Nigeria. The Commission never met.
Yet again, in the following month of July 1966, Northern Nigerian
Army Officers and men organized and carried out a rebellion which
had for its motto "ARABA", the Hausa term for SECESSION. After
the murder of General Ironsi and other Biafran Army Officers and
men, so the rebels planned, Gowon was to declare himself the "Supreme
Commander” of the “Republic of the North” and was to flythe North
ern Nigerian flag — apiece of cloth with lateral stripes of red, yellow,
black, green and khaki. General Ironsi and a large number of Biafran
Army Officers and men were indeed murdered, and Gowon did hoist
his secessionist flag in front of the Headquarters of the 2nd Battalion
of the Nigerian Army at Ikeja, where it flew from the end of July to
the end of August 1966.
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The rebellious Northern Nigerian Army Officers and men only
agreed to a cease-fire on two conditions which granted the secession
they were demanding, namely : that the then Federation of Nigeria
be split into its component parts; and that all Southern Nigerians
resident in Northern Nigeria be repatriated to their homeland,and
vice-versa. In accordance with this demand, all available aircraft at
IkejaAirport were immediately commandeered and used inrepatriating
the families and belongings of Northern Nigerian Army Officers and
civil servants in the Lagos area. Again, it was at my instance that on
August 9, 1966, abouta week after these secessionist demands and
genocidal activities, representatives of Military leaders met in Lagos
to seek what should bedone “ to keep Nigeria one”.
Lastly, as late as September 1966, NorthernNigeria returned to
>
its earlier proposal of 1953 for the break-up of Nigeria and the esta
blishment of a “Common Services Organization ”. The Memorandum
submitted by Northern Nigeria to the Ad Hoc Constitutional
Conference which openedin Lagos on September 12, 1966,
advocatedthat Nigeria be broken upinto "a numberof autonomous
states ... that is to say, Northern Nigeria, Eastern Nigeria, Western
Nigeria, Mid-Western Nigeria or by whatever name they may choose
tobe called ”. The futureassociation of these independent states was
to be through a “Central Authority” whose powers " shall be delegated
by the component States except that powers connected with external
or foreign affairs (and) immigrationcan be unilaterally withdrawn
by the State Government”. According to the Northern Nigerian pro
posals, there should nolonger be a Nigerian Citizenship, butratheran
“Associate Citizenship”. Above all, Northern Nigerians insisted that
a secession clause be written into the Constitution they were proposing.
The relevant proposal reads :
“Any Member State of the Union should reserve the right to
secede completely and unilaterally from the Union and tomake
arrangements for co -operation with the other members of the
Unionin suchamanneras theymayseverallyor individuallydeem
fit”.
To drive their point home, the Northern Nigerian delegates attached
to their Memorandum a paper on the East African Common Services
Organization which theyhad implied in their proposals of 1953. They
also attached another paper on the Central African Joint Services— a
document which outlined the agreements signed by the Governments
of Rhodesia, Zambia and Malawi for the dissolution of the Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
8