Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era
Author: Godfrey Mwakikagile
Paperback: 740 pages
Publisher: New Africa Press (March 2010)
ISBN-10: 0980253411
ISBN-13: 978-0980253412
Tanzania Recognizes Biafra
HE WAS a staunch supporter of African unity, and lived up to his commitment to this Pan-African ideal.
He was the first East African leader to call for federation and even offered to delay independence for Tanganyika in order for the three East African countries of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika to attain sovereign status on the same day and form an East African federation. He also engineered the first union of two independent states, Tanganyika and Zanzibar - and the only one on the entire continent - which led to the creation of Tanzania, one of the most stable and peaceful countries in Africa.
Yet, under his leadership, Tanzania also was the first African country to recognize the secessionist region of Eastern Nigeria as the independent Republic of Biafra, a move his critics denounced as anti-Pan-African by one of the strongest advocates of African unity. Only three other African countries recognized Biafra. They were Ivory Coast, Zambia, and Gabon. And one non-African country, France, did so in practical terms although it did not formally recognize the secessionist region but supplied it with weapons.
Yet, Nyerere’s decision to recognize Biafra, which he himself admitted had been made with great reluctance, was based on moral grounds. The people of Eastern Nigeria, especially the Igbos, no longer felt secure within the Nigerian federation after tens of thousands of them had been massacred by their fellow countrymen, especially in Northern Nigeria, while the authorities did nothing to stop the pogroms. Therefore to protect themselves, they decided to withdraw from the federation and establish their own independent state.
Unity is based on the willingness of the people to be part of the union, and on the willingness of the government to be fair to all its citizens. A government which refuses to protect some of its citizens cannot claim to be fair and has abdicated its responsibility. Therefore the people who have been rejected have the right to choose the type of government they want to live under, and in their own independent state where they can be guaranteed protection and feel secure. That was the case for Biafra.
Critics of Biafra’s secession tried to draw parallels between Biafra and Katanga. But there were fundamental differences between the two. The secession of Eastern Nigeria was in response to the pogroms in Northern Nigeria and other parts of the federation, but mostly in the north, which claimed and estimated 30,000 - 50,000 lives in about three months in 1966. It was not foreign-inspired to break up Nigeria.
By contrast, Katanga’s secession was engineered by Western powers to secure their political and economic interests by detaching the mineral-rich province from the rest of the Congo which they feared could be ruled by a staunchly pro-African nationalist government that would threaten their interests. Moise Tshombe, the Katangese leader and Western puppet, was a traitor. Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Biafran leader, was an African patriot trying to save his people from oppression and possible extermination by other Nigerians who hated the Igbos reminiscent of the plight of the Jews under Hitler in Nazi Germany. As one of the two most educated ethnic groups in Nigeria and one of the most industrious and business-oriented, together with the Yoruba in Western Region, the Igbos were being punished for being successful. Even a number of Nigerian leaders made that clear. As one representative in the regional legislature of Northern Nigeria, Mallam Muhammadu Mustapha Maude Gyari, emphatically stated in the February-March 1964 session:
“On the allocation of plots to the Ibos, or the allocation of stalls, I would like to advise the Minister that these people know how to make money and we do not know the way and manner of getting about this business.... We do not want Ibos to be allocated plots, I do not want them to be given plots.”1
He was roundly applauded by other representatives in the Northern Regional Assembly, including the Northern Premier himself, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, who was also the most powerful man in the Nigerian federation. The federal government was controlled by northerners who dominated the federal legislature where the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) had the majority of the seats. Half of them were occupied by northerners. The party was dominated by Ahmadu Bello who also controlled Federal Prime Minister Alhaj Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, a fellow northerner and leader of the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) in the Nigerian federal parliament.
And it is important to remember that the anti-Igbo sentiments in the Northern Regional Assembly in February-March 1964 were expressed almost two years before the Igbo-led military coup of January 15, 1966, which triggered the massacre of tens of thousands of Igbos and other Easterners in Northern Nigeria in the following months. The anti-Igbo venom spewed in the Northern Legislative Assembly had also been preceded by the massacre of hundreds of Igbos in Jos in 1945 and in Kano in 1953.
Therefore, there was a history of anti-Igbo hysteria in Northern Nigeria, and even in other parts of the country, long before the 1966 military coup; a history which puts in proper perspective the secession of the Eastern Region as an inevitable response to the cumulative impact of Igbophobia on the people of Eastern Nigeria that had infected large segments of the federation. It is also in this context that Tanzania’s recognition of Biafra should be looked at, in order to understand why the government of Tanzania reached this momentous decision. As President Julius Nyerere stated in recognizing Biafra:
“The Declaration of Independence by Biafra on the 30th May, 1967 came after two military coups d’etat - January and July 1966 - and two pogroms against the Ibo people. These pogroms, which also took place in 1966, resulted in the death of about 30,000 men, women, and children, and made two million people flee from their homes in other parts of Nigeria to their tribal homeland in Eastern Nigeria. These events have been interspersed and followed by official discussions about a new constitution for Nigeria, and also by continued personal attacks on individual Ibos who have remained outside the Eastern Region.
The basic case for Biafra’s secession from the Nigerian Federation is that people from the Eastern Region can no longer feel safe in other parts of the Federation. They are not accepted as citizens of Nigeria by other citizens of Nigeria. Not only is it impossible for Ibos and people of related tribes to live in assurance of personal safety if they work outside Biafra; it would also be impossible for any representative of these people to move freely and without fear in any other part of the Federation of Nigeria.
These fears are genuine and deep-seated; nor can anyone say they are groundless. The rights and wrongs of the original coup d’etat, the rights and wrongs of the attitudes taken by different groups in the politics of pre- and post-coup Nigeria, are all irrelevant to the fear which the Ibo people feel.
And the people of Eastern Nigeria can point to too many bereaved homes, too many maimed people, for anyone to deny the reasonable grounds for their fears. It is these fears, which are the root cause both for the secession, and for the fanaticism with which the people of Eastern Nigeria have defended the country they declared to be independent.
Fears such as now exist among the Ibo people, do not disappear because someone says they are unjustified, or says that the rest of Nigeria does not want to exterminate Ibos. Such words have even less effect when the speakers have made no attempt to bring the perpetrators of crimes to justice, and when troops under the control of the Federal Nigerian authorities continue to ill-treat, or allow others to ill-treat, any Ibo who comes within their power. The only way to remove the Easterners’ fear is for the Nigerian authorities to accept its existence, to acknowledge the reason fir it, and then talk on terms of equality with those involved about the way forward.
When people have reason to be afraid you cannot reassure them through the barrel of a gun; your only hope is to talk as one man to another, or as one group to another. It is no use the Federal authorities demanding that the persecuted should come as a supplicant for mercy, by first renouncing their secession from the political unit. For the secession was declared because the Ibo people felt it to be there only defence against extermination. In their minds, therefore, a demand that they should renounce secession before talks begin is equivalent to a demand that they should announce their willingness to be exterminated. If they are wrong in this belief, they have to be convinced. And they can only be convinced by talks leading to new institutional arrangements, which take account of their fears.
The people of Biafra have announced their willingness to talk to the Nigerian authorities without any conditions. They cannot renounce their secession before talks, but they do not demand that Nigerians should recognize it; they ask for talks without conditions. But the Federal authorities have refused to talk except on the basis of Biafran surrender. And as the Biafrans believe they will be massacred if they surrender, the Federal authorities are really refusing to talk at all. For human beings do not voluntarily walk towards what they believe to be certain death.
The Federal Government argues that in demanding the renunciation of secession before talks, and indeed in its entire ‘police action,’ it is defending the territorial integrity of Nigeria. On this ground it argues also that it has the right to demand support from all other governments, and especially other African governments. For every state, and every state authority, has a duty to defend the sovereignty and integrity of its nation; this is a central part of the function of a national government.
Africa accepts the validity of this point, for African states have more reason than most to fear the effects of disintegration. It is on these grounds that Africa has watched the massacre of tens of thousands of people, has watched millions being made into refugees, watched the employment of mercenaries by both sides in the current civil war, and has accepted repeated rebuffs of its offers to help by mediation or conciliation.
But for how long should this continue? Africa fought for freedom on the grounds of individual liberty and equality, and on the grounds that every people must have the right to determine for themselves the conditions under which they would be governed. We accepted the boundaries we inherited from colonialism, and within them we each worked out for ourselves the constitutional and other arrangements, which we felt to be appropriate to the most essential function of a state - that is the safeguarding of life and liberty for its inhabitants.
When the Federation of Nigeria became independent in 1960, the same policy was adopted by all its peoples. They accepted the Federal structure which had been established under the colonial system, and declared their intention to work together. Indeed, the Southern States of the Federation - which include Biafra - delayed their own demands for independence until the North was ready to join them. At the insistence of the North also, the original suggestion of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) that Nigeria should be broken up into many small states with a strong center, was abandoned. The South accepted a structure, which virtually allowed the more populous North to dominate the rest.
But the constitution of the Federation of Nigeria was broken in January, 1966, by the first military coup. All hope of its resuscitation was removed by the second coup, and even more by the pogroms of September and October, 1966. These events altered the whole basis of the society; after them it was impossible for political and economic relations between the different parts of the old Federation to be restored. That meant that Nigerian unity could only be salvaged from the wreck of inter-tribal violence and fear by a constitution drawn up in the light of what happened, and which was generally acceptable to all the major elements of the society under the new circumstances. A completely new start had to be made, for the basis of the state had been dissolved in the complete breakdown of law and order, and the inter-tribal violence, which existed.
The necessity for a new start by agreement was accepted by a conference of military leaders from all parts of the Federation, in Aburi, Ghana, in January 1967. There is a certain difference of opinion about some of the things, which were agreed upon at the conference. But there is no dispute about the fact that everyone joined in a declaration renouncing the use of force as a means of settling the crisis in Nigeria. Nor does anyone dispute that it was agreed that a new constitution was to be worked out by agreement, and that in the meantime there would be a repeal of all military decrees issued since January 1966, which reduced the power of the Regions.
There was also agreement about rehabilitation payments for those who had been forced to flee from their homes, and about members of the armed forces being stationed in their home Regions.
The Aburi Conference could have provided the new start, which was necessary if the unity of Nigeria was to be maintained. But before the end of the same month, Gowon was restating his commitment to the creation of new states, and his determination to oppose any form of confederation. And on the last day of January, the Federal military authorities were already giving administrative reasons for the delay in the implementation of the Agreements reached at Aburi. It was in the middle of March before a constitutional decree was issued which was supposed to regularize the position in accordance with the decisions taken there.
But unfortunately this Decree also included a new clause - which had not been agreed upon - and which gave the Federal authorities reserved powers over the Regions, and thus completely nullified the whole operation. Nor had any payment been made by the Federal Government to back up the monetary commitment for rehabilitation, which it had accepted in the Ghana meeting.
In short, the necessity for an arrangement, which would take account of the fears created during 1966 was accepted at Aburi, and renounced thereafter by the Federal authorities. Yet they now claim to be defending the integrity of the country in which they failed to guarantee the most elementary safety of the twelve million people of Eastern Nigeria. These people had been massacred in other parts of Nigeria without the Federal authorities apparently having neither the will nor the power to protect them.
When they retreated to their homeland they were expected to accept the domination of the same people who instigated, or allowed, their persecution in the country which they are being told is theirs - i.e., Nigeria.
Surely, when a whole people is rejected by the majority of the state in which they live, they must have the right to live under a different kind of arrangement which does secure their existence. States are made to serve people; governments are established to protect the citizens of a state against external enemies and internal wrongdoers.
It is on those grounds that people surrender their right and power of self-defence to the government of the state in which they live. But when the machinery of the state, and the powers of the government, are turned against a whole group of society on grounds of racial, tribal, or religious prejudice, then the victims have the right to take back the powers they have surrendered, and defend themselves.
For while people have a duty to defend the integrity of their state, and even to die in its defence, this duty stems from the fact that it is theirs, and that it is important to their well-being and to the future of their children. When the state ceases to stand for honour, the protection, and the well-being of all its citizens, then it is no longer the instrument of those it has rejected. In such a case the people have the right to create another instrument for their protection - in other words, to create another state. This right cannot be abrogated by constitutions, or by outsiders.
The basis of statehood, and of unity can only be general acceptance by the participants. When more than twelve million people have become convinced that they are rejected, and that there is no longer any basis for unity between them and other groups of people, then that unity has ceased to exist. You cannot kill thousands of people, and keep on killing more, in the name of unity. There is no unity between the dead and those who killed them; and there is no unity in slavery or domination.
Africa needs unity. We need unity over the whole continent, and in the meantime we need unity within the existing states of Africa. It is a tragedy when we experience a setback to our goal of unity. But the basis of our need for unity, and the reason for our desire for it, is the greater well-being, and the greater security, of the people of Africa. Unity by conquest is impossible. It is not practicable; and even if military might could force the acceptance of a particular authority, the purpose of unity would have been destroyed. For the purpose of unity, its justification is the service of all the people who are united together. The general consent of all the people involved is the only basis on which unity in Africa can be maintained or extended.
The fact that the Federation of Nigeria was created in 1960 with the consent of all the people does not alter that fact. That Federation, and the basis of consent, has since been destroyed.
Nor is this the first time the world has seen a reduction in political unity. We have seen the creation of the Mali Federation, the creation of a union between Egypt and Syria, and the establishment of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. And we have also seen the dissolution of all these attempts at unity, and the consequent recognition of the separate nations, which were once involved. The world has also seen the creation of India and Pakistan out of what was once the Indian Empire. We have all recognized both of these nation states and done our best to help them deal with the millions of people made homeless by the conflict and division. None of these things mean that we like these examples of greater disunity. They mean that we recognize that in all these cases the people are unwilling to remain in one political unit.
Tanzania recognizes Senegal, Mali, Egypt, Syria, Malawi, Zambia, Pakistan and India. What right have we to refuse, in the name of unity, to recognize Biafra? For years the people of that state struggled to maintain unity with the other people in the Federation of Nigeria; even after the pogroms of 1966 they tried to work out a new form of unity which would guarantee their safety; they have demonstrated by ten months of bitter fighting that they have decided upon a new political organization and are willing to defend it.
The world has taken it upon itself to utter many ill-informed criticisms of the Jews of Europe for going to their deaths without any concerted struggle. But out of sympathy for the suffering of these people, and in recognition of the world’s failure to take action at the appropriate time, the United Nations established the state of Israel in a territory, which belonged to the Arabs for thousands of years. It was felt that only by the establishment of a Jewish homeland, and a Jewish national state, could Jews be expected to live in the world under conditions of human equality.
Tanzania has recognized the state of Israel and will continue to do so because of its belief that every people must have some place in the world where they are not liable to be rejected by their fellow citizens. But the Biafrans have now suffered the same kind of rejection within their state that the Jews of Germany experienced. Fortunately, they already had a homeland. They have retreated to it for their own protection, and for the same reason - after all other efforts had failed - they have declared it to be an independent state.
In the light of these circumstances, Tanzania feels obliged to recognize the setback to African unity, which has occurred. We therefore recognize the state of Biafra as an independent sovereign entity, and as a member of the community of nations. Only by this act of recognition can we remain true to our conviction that the purpose of society, and of all political organization, is the service of man.”2
The preceding statement by President Julius Nyerere was issued by the government of Tanzania on April 13, 1968, the day Tanzania recognized Biafra. It was also published in the ruling-party’s (TANU’s) daily newspaper, The Nationalist, whose editor during that time was Benjamin Mkapa who later became president of Tanzania from 1995 - 2005, and the country’s third head of state since independence in 1961. The statement was also published in another daily newspaper, the privately-owned Standard, whose editorial staff I joined in June 1969 when I was a 19-year-old high school student in Form V (standard 13, what Americans would call grade 13). They were also the country’s two major newspapers and some of the largest and most influential in East Africa.
President Nyerere also explained Tanzania’s position on Biafra in another statement, which was substantively the same as the preceding one, but with other nuances to his central argument. The statement was published in a British newspaper, in a country that was the biggest arms supplier to the Nigerian federal military government during its war against Biafra, and played a critical role in sustaining the conflict and wreaking havoc across the secessionist region, as much as Soviet-supplied MIGs flown by Egyptian pilots did. As Nyerere stated in “Why We Recognised Biafra,” in The Observer, London, 28 April 1968:
“Leaders of Tanzania have probably talked more about the need for African unity than those of any other country. Giving formal recognition to even greater disunity in Africa was therefore a very difficult decision to make. Our reluctance to do so was compounded by our understanding of the problems of unity - of which we have some experience - and of the problems of Nigeria. For we have had very good relations with the Federation of Nigeria, even to the extent that when we needed help from Africa we asked it of the Federation.
But unity can only be based on the general consent of the people involved. The people must feel that this state, or this nation, is theirs; and they must be willing to have their quarrels in that context. Once a large number of the people of any such political unit stop believing that the state is theirs, and that the government is their instrument, then the unit is no longer viable. It will not receive the loyalty of its citizens.
For the citizen’s duty to serve, and if necessary to die for, his country stems from the fact that it is his and that its government is the instrument of himself and his fellow citizens. The duty stems, in other words, from the common denominator of accepted statehood, and from the state government’s responsibility to protect all the citizens and serve them all. For states, and governments, exist for men and for the service of man. They exist for the citizens’ protection, their welfare, and the future well-being of their children. There is no other justification for states and governments except man.
In Nigeria this consciousness of a common citizenship was destroyed by the events of 1966, and in particular by the pogroms in which 30,000 Eastern Nigerians were murdered, many more injured, and about two million forced to flee from the North of their country. It is these pogroms, and the apparent inability or unwillingness of the authorities to protect the victims, which underlies the Easterners’ conviction that they have been rejected by other Nigerians and abandoned by the Federal Government.
Whether the Easterners are correct in their belief that they have been rejected is a matter for argument. But they do have this belief. And if they are wrong, they have to be convinced that they are wrong. They will not convinced by being shot. Nor will their acceptance as part of the Federation be demonstrated by the use of Federal power to bomb schools and hospitals in the areas to which people have fled from persecution.
In Britain, in 1950, the Stone of Scone was stolen from Westminster Abbey by Scottish Nationalists while I was still a student at Edinburgh. That act did not represent a wish by the majority of the Scottish people to govern themselves. But if, for some peculiar reason, that vast majority of the Scottish people decided that Scotland should secede from the United Kingdom, would the Government in London order the bombing of Edinburgh, and in pursuing the Scots into the Highlands, kill the civilians they overtook? Certainly the Union Government would not do this; it would argue with the Scots, and try to reach some compromise.
As President of Tanzania it is my duty to safeguard the integrity of the United Republic. But if the mass of the people of Zanzibar should, without external manipulation, and for some reason of their own, decide that the Union was prejudicial to their existence, I could not advocate bombing them into submission. To do so would not be to defend the Union. The Union would have ceased to exist when the consent of its constituent members was withdrawn. I would certainly be one of those working hard to prevent secession, or to reduce its disintegrating effects. But I could not support a war on the people whom I have sworn to serve - especially not if the secession is preceded by a rejection of Zanzibaris by Tanganyikans.
Similarly, if we had succeeded in the 1963 attempt to form an East African Federation, or if we should do so in the future, Tanzania would be overjoyed. But if at some time thereafter the vast majority of the people of any one of the countries should decide - and persist in a decision - to withdraw from the Federation, the other two countries could not wage war against the people who wished to secede. Such a decision would mark a failure by the Federation. That would be tragic; but it would not justify mass killings.
The Biafrans now feel that they cannot live under conditions of personal security in the present Nigerian Federation. As they were unable to achieve an agreement on a new form of association, they have therefore claimed the right to govern themselves. The Biafrans are not claiming the right to govern anyone else. They have not said that they must govern the Federation as the only way of protecting themselves. They have simply withdrawn their consent to the system under which they used to be governed.
Biafra is not now operating under the control of a democratic government, any more than Nigeria is. But the mass support for the establishment and defence of Biafra is obvious. This is not a case of a few leaders declaring secession for their own private glory. Indeed, by the Aburi Agreement the leaders of Biafra showed a greater reluctance to give up hope of some form of unity with Nigeria than the masses possessed. But the agreement was not implemented.
Tanzania would still like to see some form of co-operation or unity between all the peoples of Nigeria and Biafra. But whether this happens, to what extent, and in what fields, can only be decided by agreement among all the peoples involved. It is not for Tanzania to say.
We in this country believe that unity is vital for the future of Africa. But it must be a unity which serves the people, and which is freely determined upon by the people.
For 10 months we have accepted the Federal Government’s legal right to our support in a ‘police action to defend the integrity of the State.’ On that basis we have watched a civil war result in the death of about 100,000 people, and the employment of mercenaries by both sides. We have watched the Federal Government reject the advice of Africa to talk instead of demanding surrender before talks could begin. Everything combined gradually to force us to the conclusion that Nigerian unity did not exist.
Tanzania deeply regrets that the will for unity in Nigeria has been destroyed over the past two years. But we are convinced that Nigerian unity cannot be maintained by force any more than unity in East Africa could be created by one state conquering another.
It seemed to us that by refusing to recognise the existence of Biafra we were tacitly supporting a war against the people of Eastern Nigeria - and a war conducted in the name of unity. We could not continue doing this any longer.”3
Although the Igbos made the most determined attempt to secede from Nigeria, they were not the first of Nigeria’s main ethnic groups to demand secession. They were, in fact, the last. The first people who wanted to pull out of the federation were northern Nigerians, for no apparent reason, other than the fact that their region was more backward in terms of education and economic development than the other two regions - East and West in the south - and therefore could not compete with the rest of the country for jobs and other opportunities on the basis of merit.
As far back as 1950, northerners argued that the amalgamation of the North and the South was a “a big mistake,” and that the country should return to the boundaries established in 1914 when the two parts were virtually different colonies in terms of administration. Each had its own, separate, colonial administration. And throughout the 1950s, they continued to make secessionist demands, now and then, and seriously threatened to withdraw from the federation unless independence was granted on their terms and the federal government was dominated by them. Southerners conceded, in order to save the federation from falling apart.
Even as late as the sixties, a few years after independence, northerners wanted to secede and, in fact, almost did, during the second military coup of July 1966 executed by northern military officers who, with the full backing of Northern politicians and other leaders, almost dissolved the Nigerian federation and declared independence for the North.
Besides Northern Nigeria dominated by the Hausa-Fulani, the predominantly Yoruba region of Western Nigeria also threatened to secede in the 1950s. In August 1953 at the constitutional talks held in London on the future of Nigeria - to whom should power be transferred at independence - attended by Nigerian leaders from all three regions, the leader of Western Nigeria, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, threatened to pull his region out of the federation if Lagos, located in the West, was not incorporated into the Western Region.
Lagos, the federal capital of Nigeria until the 1980s, had been designated as federal territory by the colonial authorities since its founding, and was therefore not under the jurisdiction of the Western Region. And when British Colonial Secretary Oliver Lyttelton ruled that Lagos would remain federal territory, Awolowo stormed out of the conference in London, threatening secession of the Western Region from the rest of Nigeria. Had the British not been in control of Nigeria, the Western Region would probably have seceded from the federation.
Even as late as the 1990s, threats of secession came from all parts of Nigeria and continued through the years, although in varying degrees and in muted form in some cases, as different ethnic groups complained of marginalization by other groups in the giant federation. The Igbos, who never regained their former position when they were reintegrated into the Nigerian society after the end of the civil war (1967 - 1970), talked of another Biafra or an alternative arrangement - including confederation - which would give them complete control over their own destiny and equal access to power and the nation’s resources within the federation to end their marginalization. And other Nigerians, especially the Hausa-Fulani, were determined to keep the Igbos on the periphery after Biafra lost the war; a policy of marginalization and containment of the Igbos which continued through the years even after the 1990s. As George Ayittey states in his book Africa in Chaos:
“In Nigeria, this insidious tribalism has retrogressively evolved into what Nigerian columnist Igonikon Jack called a ‘full-blown tribal-apartheid,’ in which people of a particular tribal, regional, or religious origin enjoy more privileges than their fellow indigenous compatriots, the Christian Ibos of the Southeast. The Ibos, who lost the Biafran War, are the most disadvantaged and discriminated against. The Northerners, who are of the Hausa-Fulani ethnic group and predominantly Muslim, have ruled Nigeria for 31 out of 35 years of independence (won in October 1960) and the military, has also been dominated by the Northerners for 25 years.
Nigerian journalist, Pini Jason, concurred: ‘Since the North controlled political power, it also controlled, decided and manipulated the allocation of posts, resources and values. And with this power it kept the competition for the crumbs alive in the South and the cleavages and political disunity very wide. The fact that the North, like the Tutsis of Burundi (and of Rwanda since 1994), controls the military and uses its military might to monopolize political power, and is not willing to part with the privileges power has brought the North over the years, makes many Nigerians fear a possible blood-bath a la Burundi.’”4
Northern political control of the Nigerian federation theoretically ended in May 1999 when former military ruler Olusegun Obasanjo, a Yoruba from the southwest, became Nigeria’s democratically elected president after 16 years of military dictatorship by Northern soldiers. The last civilian government - also headed by a northerner, President Shehu Shagari, a Fulani - was overthrown in December 1983, by a fellow northerner, General Mohammed Buhari. But even Obasanjo’s election did not end the northerners’ hegemonic control of the federation.
His candidacy was backed and bankrolled by powerful northern generals and politicians, including former military dictator Ibrahim Babangida - one of the richest men in the world, reportedly worth more than $30 billion siphoned off from petrodollars - who felt that, as a fellow soldier and former military ruler himself (he was Nigeria’s head of state from 1975 - 1979), he would be sympathetic to them and protect their interests. And they were not disappointed.
But the transfer of political power to the south also had other consequences. Although northerners remained influential and the dominant force in the federation headed by a southerner - the vice president was a northerner, as was the defence minister and other key cabinet members and other high-ranking officials - the mere fact that the presidency had been handed over to the south rankled many northern Nigerians, including former military rulers. They were determined to undermine the new dispensation and found a ready weapon in religion.
Northern Nigeria is overwhelmingly Muslim, and the south predominantly Christian and animist. But Nigeria is a secular state. Yet, northerners invoked religious rights guaranteed by the federal constitution to introduce Islamic law, known as sharia, in all the predominantly Muslim states, a move that virtually amounted to the establishment of theocratic regimes in a secular nation. And the defiance by northerners, clearly demonstrated by their refusal to abandon sharia, posed a serious challenge to the federal government. It was unquestionably a deliberate attempt by northerners to undermine federal law in the northern states, and a repudiation of federal authority tantamount to secession, even if in a limited way.
If the introduction of Islamic law in the northern states was of paramount concern to northerners, and religion the only reason why they introduced sharia, why didn’t they do so when northern military officers and civilian rulers such as President Shehu Shagari were in control of the federal government? They didn’t convert to Islam just recently after Obasanjo, a Christian and a southerner, became president. It was only after a southerner, and a Christian on top of that, became president in 1999 that an Islamic revival swept the north, threatening all institutions of federal and secular authority in the region.
All this, together with the marginalization of many ethnic groups in the federation, led many people to question whether Nigeria would really be able to survive as a nation, prompting some to ask: Should Nigeria break up?
The threat to Nigerian existence came from other groups as well, besides the three major ones - the Igbos whose independent Republic of Biafra lasted for about three years; the Yorubas who felt marginalized even under the democratic presidency of a fellow Yoruba, Olusegun Obasanjo, which many of them believed was controlled by northern generals and political heavyweights; and the Hausa-Fulani and other northern Muslims who resorted to religion, employing Islamic law as a guerrilla tactic to undermine federal authority in their states and force southern Christians to leave Northern Nigeria and return to the south; a religious and ethnic conflict which cost thousands of lives between 1999 and 2002 in the northern states, especially Kano and Kaduna.
The Ogonis and other groups in the oil-producing states of the Niger Delta were, and continue to be, some of the most exploited and marginalized groups in Nigeria. In spite of the vast amount of oil pumped right from under their feet, earning Nigeria billions of dollars every year, they are among the poorest people in the world. They get nothing, or only a trickle, from the federal government and the oil companies. But such neglect also has had dire consequences. Groups of Ogoni and Ijaw youths among others have resorted to sabotage through the years, targeting pipelines and other oil installations, and kidnapping oil company employees, to dramatize their plight and extract concessions from the federal government and oil companies.
The militants have not only demanded money for development and provision of basic services, but also for cleaning up pollution. The environmental devastation wrought by the oil companies with the blessings of the federal government has taken a heavy toll on the people of the oil-producing states in terms of lost lives, disease, polluted water and dwindling fish supplies as well as lost vegetation. The neglect has been going on for decades since oil was found in the Niger Delta in the 1950s and has prompted some members of these minority groups to demand secession. And their minority status in a federation dominated by the three main groups - the Hausa-Fulani, the Yoruba and the Igbo - only compounds the problem.
One of the Niger Delta residents who eloquently expressed their plight was Ken Saro-Wiwa, an Ogoni writer and activist of international stature, who was hanged in November 1985 by the putative military dictator Sani Abacha because of his relentless campaign against the depredations suffered by the people of the oil-producing states at the hands of the oil companies and the federal government; their plight compounded by their minority status. As he stated in one of his last statements, in an interview with a Nigerian newspaper, the Lagos-based Guardian: “My only regret is that I was born a minority in Nigeria.”5
The idea of establishing independent ethno-states is probably very appealing to oppressed ethnic groups, but terrifying to African countries almost all of which are multiethnic societies. It may even be argued that they are multi-national states, if ethnic groups are considered to be nations, or micro-nations.
Yet, in spite of this complex configuration of African nations or ethno-polities - characterized by ethnic diversity - built into the very architecture of national identities, the continent has not experienced major secessionist movements in the last 40 years or so since independence, except Katanga and Biafra. That is because, despite the tenuous bonds of national unity among the different tribes and racial groups in a given country, there is still some acceptance of the idea of a common national identity among the majority of the people, largely forged by a common history of colonial experience; the coercive power of the state to maintain national unity and territorial integrity at all costs; the capacity of the one-party system - the most dominant political institution across the continent for decades during the post-colonial era - to embrace all ethnic groups by eschewing divisive politics typical of multiparty democracy in the African context; and by the cultivation of a personality cult - Nkrumah, Sekou Toure, Kenyatta, Mobutu, Banda - or the existence of a popular charismatic leader, such as Nyerere, who serves as a rallying point for the masses and the entire nation to forge a common identity and achieve national unity.
That is why even in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country which has virtually ceased to exist and function as a state and as a nation, the people across this vast expanse of territory still identify themselves as Congolese - thanks to the enduring legacy of Patrice Lumumba, and a common history of suffering probably more than anything else, infused with a dose of Pan-African solidarity. And there has been no major secessionist threat since the sixties when Katanga, and then South Kasai Province led by Albert Kalonji, declared independence. Even the different rebel groups which in the late 1990s and beyond virtually carved up the Congo into fiefdoms dominated by warlords, plundering the nation’s resources, did not say they wanted to break up the country into independent states; although their control of at least the entire eastern half of Congo by the late nineties and during the following years amounted to de facto partition, hence secession - in the practical, even if not in the legal, sense - from the central government in Kinshasa.
And tragically, Congo is only one example of the collapse of institutional authority and erosion of political legitimacy across the continent. What is needed in Africa, where - because of bad leadership - failed states are the norm rather than the exception, is an alternative configuration that will facilitate the establishment of institutional authority in many areas where the state is unable to function, or where it has abdicated responsibility. In many parts of the continent, people rely on foreign-funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civic institutions to provide them with goods and services - which they can’t get on their own - more than they do on the government. But one thing these organizations and civic institutions have not been able to provide is security. And it is this lack of security, especially for entire groups some of which have been targeted for ethnic cleansing, that can be a very powerful motivation for secession in a number of African countries.
The Igbos of Nigeria could have had all the goods and services they wanted and needed. But without security, all those would have meant absolutely nothing to them in terms of survival as a people. Theirs may have been a case of self-determination based on ethnicity, but precisely because they were targeted as an ethnic group.
Yet, the independent Republic of Biafra they established also included other ethnic groups in the former Eastern Nigeria. The ethnicity of these other groups was also grounds for secession from the Nigerian federation after they were also targeted for elimination in the pogroms directed against all Easterners by their fellow countrymen in Northern Nigeria. And in response to the charge by the federal government that the Igbos had forced minority groups to become part of Biafra, Biafran leader Odumegwu Ojukwu asked the federal authorities to conduct an internationally-supervised plebiscite if they sincerely believed that the minorities had been coerced into joining Biafra. But the Nigerian federal government refused to do so, thus losing its credibility. As he stated in his speech to the OAU summit on the Nigerian civil war in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on August 5, 1968:
“The Nigerian Army has occupied some non-Igbo areas of Biafra. But this cannot be regarded as a settlement of the 'minority question.' This is why we have suggested a plebiscite. Under adequate international supervision, the people of these areas should be given a chance to choose whether they want to belong to Nigeria or to Biafra. Plebiscites have been used in the Southern Cameroons, in Togo, in Mid-Western Nigeria - and by the British recently in Gibraltar - to determine what grouping is most acceptable to the people of disputed areas. If Nigeria believes that she is really defending the true wishes of the minorities, she should accept our proposal for a plebiscite in the disputed areas of Nigeria and Biafra.”6
By refusing to hold a plebiscite, the Nigerian federal government not only lost credibility on the disputed issue of minority rights but strengthened Biafra's case for self-determination. And ironically, the federal authorities tried to play the same ethnic card they claimed the Igbos were using in their attempt to establish an independent state. Yet they only ended up causing embarrassment for themselves.
But, besides its tragic aspect where ethnicity is seen as a liability and is used by some people to discriminate against some groups and even target them for extermination, ethnicity also has positive attributes which cannot be overlooked and must be acknowledged as an enduring feature of the African political landscape, and not the ugly phenomenon it is portrayed to be. As Professor Christopher Clepham states in his essay, “Rethinking the African State,” in Africa Security Review:
“Ethnicity, quite regardless of arcane academic debates over its ‘primordial’ or ‘constructed’ character, has likewise developed into an enduring feature of African life, and provides a ready basis for the consolidation of political identities.... Critical to the relationship between ethnicity and statehood is not just the existence of an ethnic identity as such, but more importantly the substantive content of this identity in terms of shared attitudes toward issues of political authority and control that it embodies.... The decay of viable and effective states has created massive political violence.”7
Although the Nigerian federal state was not weak when the Igbos were being massacred in Northern Nigeria and other parts of the country, it was an accomplice to their persecution because of its unwillingness to stop the massacres and provide security to the victims. It was this total disregard for their lives by federal and Northern Nigerian authorities which forced them to withdraw from the federation. They felt that the only way they could be safe and secure was by establishing their own independent state, in their home region, under their own government.
And it is in this overall context that the secession of Eastern Nigeria must be looked at, in order to understand why Tanzania recognized Biafra, a decision President Nyerere admitted was a painful one to make, yet necessary if we were to remain true to our conviction that “there is no other justification for states and governments except man.”
The secession of Biafra and subsequent civil war was a horrendous tragedy. But it also had an important lesson for Africa, especially for countries facing major secessionist threats; for example the Oromo Liberation Front in Ethiopia, which is fighting to establish its own independent state whose jurisdictional boundaries coincide with the ethnic identity of the people who want to secede. The Oromo, like other Ethiopians, live in a country, which, at least in theory, has acknowledged the imperative need for ethnic confederalism as the basis for national unity.
Yet, true unity cannot be achieved by force, and Africa may have to concede the legitimacy of major secessionist movements as one of the ways to resolve conflicts on the continent and guarantee equality and justice for oppressed and neglected groups. Such a concession is a first step towards conflict resolution, which entails: conflict management, containment, reduction, and finally, resolution. One of the best ways to resolve conflict is to address the grievances of the people who want to secede, and therefore prevent secession.
Trying to force them to remain in a country from which they want to secede will only exacerbate and perpetuate conflict and lead to national instability. But secessionist movements can be robbed of momentum if the regions, which want to secede, are granted extensive autonomy enabling them to rule themselves while remaining an integral part of the nation they want to break away from. Such extensive devolution of power can be achieved under federation or confederation far better than it can under a unitary state whose very nature is to centralize power, while assigning a peripheral role to its constituent units.
But the right to self-determination, hence secession, must also be enshrined in the constitution of every African country as a bargaining tool for oppressed groups to extract genuine concessions from the central government, short of secession. Therefore the intent here is not to encourage secession, but to discourage secession in African countries. Paradoxically, the right to secede serves to neutralize the very tendency it seems to encourage. More often than not, people want to secede, not just because they want to separate; they want to secede because they are ignored, oppressed, exploited, and even rejected by their government and by their fellow countrymen. And usually, there is a long record of historical injustices which serves as a catalyst for secessionist movements, fuelled by contemporary oppression.
In Nigeria, had the grievances of the Igbos - who had also been the victims of earlier massacres in Jos in 1945 and in Kano in 1953 - been addressed during those critical months in 1966 when their people were being systematically slaughtered in Northern Nigeria, and even in many parts of Western Nigeria, it is highly probable that they would not have seceded; especially if the federal government had agreed to extensive devolution of power to the regions under genuine federalism or even confederalism, as it did in the Aburi Agreements. But those grievances were never addressed, forcing Easterners to secede.
The Nigerian military head of state, General Yakubu Gowon, even reneged on his promise to implement the Aburi Agreements agreed upon by all the military governors, and Gowon himself, at a meeting in Aburi, Ghana, in January 1967, which could have prevented Biafra’s secession and the subsequent civil war, had they been fulfilled. And the Biafran leader, Colonel Ojukwu, was explicit in his condemnation of Gowon for refusing to implement the Aburi Agreements which granted more autonomy to the regions and rescinded any decrees which curtailed the power of regional governments and other institutions of authority to manage their affairs.
It was a betrayal of trust on the part of Gowon, and nothing was done through the years after the civil war to seriously address the grievances of the Igbos. As Ojukwu said in an interview with the BBC, 13 January 2000: Nothing had really changed since the war. The cause of the war was never addressed:
“None of the problems that led to the war have been solved yet. They are still there. We have a situation creeping towards the type of situation that saw the beginning of the war....
At 33 I reacted as a brilliant 33-year-old. At 66 it is my hope that if I had to face this I should also confront it as a brilliant 66-year-old.
Responsibility for what went on - how can I feel responsible in a situation in which I put myself out and saved the people from genocide? No, I don’t feel responsible at all. I did the best I could.”8
He articulated a sentiment shared by many Igbos and even by members of other groups who feel that they are marginalized in a federation still dominated by northerners. Ojukwu’s candor on this incendiary subject on a number of occasions prompted a sharp response from President Obasanjo who accused the former Biafran leader of again fomenting trouble and threatening secession, and warned that secessionists would pay dearly as they did in the last war (July 1967 - January 1970), and probably even more so.
In fact, it was Obasanjo himself, then a senior army officer in the federal offensive against Biafra, who accepted the surrender of the Biafran forces after they capitulated to federal might on January 15, 1970. Although the Igbos suffered tremendously during the war, the majority of them continued to support Ojukwu because they believed that they had no other choice besides continued domination and oppression at the hands of the Hausa-Fulani, their nemesis, who were determined to control the federation perpetually. As Ojukwu stated in July 1999, almost 30 years after the war, in an interview with USAfrica:
“It was a Hobson’s choice for Igbos and other Biafrans. What else could we have done? Line up, bare our necks, shave it if possible, and say ‘come on’ to the Hausas, Kanuris, Tivs, Fulanis and other members of the Nigerian army and civilians who were killing our people of Eastern Nigeria, later Biafra? No!....We never declared war on anybody....It was simply a choice between Biafra and enslavement.”9
Even today, hatred of the Igbos is an enduring obsession among a large number of them, and with it potential for ethnic cleansing, not only of the Igbos but other groups as well, in different of the giant federation.
The war itself remains a contentious issue in Nigeria and elsewhere, especially in other African countries where secession is a potential threat that could galvanize some groups to demand their own independent states, as happened in Casamance Province in Senegal, Cabinda in Angola, Caprivi Strip in Namibia, Anjouan and Moheli islands in the Comoros, Bioko island in Equatorial guinea, and in Nigeria itself, especially in the Niger Delta, in Yorubaland in the west as well as in the former short-lived independent Republic of Biafra in the east.
Although Biafrans lost the war because they were outgunned, they are still fighting another war on a different front, for inclusion in the Nigerian polity as equal members of society instead of being treated as traitors and outcasts because they fought for an independent homeland. They are also fighting against distortion of history about what really happened and what the war was all about. As Ojukwu said about the conflict and the distortion of historical facts about the war in an interview with Paul Odili of the Vanguard, Lagos, Nigeria, November 4, 2001, entitled “Ojukwu at 68 on State of the Nation: Why We Can’t Have Peace Now”:
“It is clear to me that many things are going on particularly in the recent interventions, by some of the ex-military officers, that Nigeria is not yet ready for the truth....They know that the distortions are deliberate....
Let me ask you, who mounted the coup of 1966? Clearly, it was Ifeajuna, but for their own reasons, some northern officers are insisting that it was Chukwuma Nzeogwu; against all the facts. Let me ask you again, who was the rebel in the crisis that befell Nigeria in 1966? Everybody knows actually that the rebel was Gowon. But no, they prefer to say that it was Ojukwu. How could it be me? I was a loyalist serving the army in Kano.
On the radio, I heard my name (that I had been) appointed governor of the East, by somebody who was legitimately appointed head of state. By the way, if Ironsi was not legitimately appointed head of state, then Gowon’s appointment under Ironsi would have been illegal too. But I continued the task assigned to me legitimately. The fact that Gowon decided to assume the position of head of state was a major departure from both military discipline and accepted norm. Now, everybody knows that. Gowon knows that, Danjuma knows that, Obasanjo knows that. So, why keep pretending?
I rejected the coup; that is an honourable act. And it is for that reason that I keep telling people that Gowon will go down in the Guinness Book of Records as the man who perhaps mounted the longest coup ever. In that actually, the war could be looked at as Gowon consolidating the coup, which he mishandled. You see, Gowon mounted a counter-coup...and never got complete control of Nigeria. He then proceeded to force the entirety of Nigeria to go under his command. I refused, and my refusal got to a point that he thought he should now fight me. And he never got control of Nigeria until he won that war. So it was a continuation of his coup actually.”10
In the interview, Ojukwu was also asked: “When Gowon maintained his position, you initiated the Mid-west invasion?” To which he responded:
“Absolute lie. I was in Enugu and it is on record that Gowon ordered the troops into the East. They had a two-prong entry. One from Nsukka and one from Afikpo axis. The war had been (going) on for months, before I mounted an attempt at capturing Lagos or destablising Lagos through the Mid-West. How can that be that I took the initiative? I suppose your answer should be that I should stay in the East and do nothing. Again that is part of the lie. Everywhere you go, they say Ojukwu waged, mounted, declared war against Nigeria. But it is a lie. I had the opportunity of declaring war. I had the opportunities of doing so many things, check.... Gowon is a liar....
He had already prior to that (declaration of independence by Biafra) committed certain acts that were tantamount to acts of war. How do you stay in Nigeria, if you were under a total blockade? Tell me....
There is no way Nigeria can move forward in peace and harmony, without some restructuring. There is no way we can all feel part of Nigeria, if we do not go through a quasi re-negotiation of Nigeria, and our Nigerianness. In saying this, I want to make it clear, because I am the most misunderstood Nigerian. Nigeria itself, there is nothing wrong with it, nothing. It is our position in Nigeria that we do not like.
There is nothing wrong with Nigeria; it is what we suffer in Nigeria that we can’t accept. There is nothing wrong with Nigeria; there is nothing wrong with West Africa. What we continue to oppose is the oppression in Nigeria of Ndigbo, that’s all. So, as far as I am concerned, a national conference is to make us feel better in Nigeria. Restructuring is to make Ndigbo feel part of Nigeria. That is how Ndigbo look at it....
I cannot help being sentimental about a Nigeria that has done me no good.”11
That probably sums up the way many Igbos feel, although one cannot be sure exactly how many. But it is a collective sentiment shared by a significant number of Igbos as demonstrated by their continued support of the ideals which inspired the emergence of Biafra on the international scene; they even had an office in Washington D.C. in the 1990s and beyond which some people - supporters and detractors - erroneously called “an embassy,” as if Biafra were a legal sovereign entity recognized by the United States and other countries, a far cry from reality.
However, this collective sentiment of Igbo nationhood, and marginalization in the Nigerian context, is a sentiment articulated by a man - Ojukwu - who is one of the most influential Igbo leaders in modern times and who continues to command allegiance among his people across the spectrum decades after the war when he emerged on the international scene as their saviour, leading his troops against the federal army. It was David against Goliath.
And besides the differences in the interpretation of what actually happened - Biafra’s versus Nigeria’s and vice versa - what Ojukwu said clearly shows that bitter memories of the war continue to poison relations between many Igbos and the rest of the Nigerians because of the injustices that were never corrected and which continue to be perpetrated against them as one of the most marginalized groups in the country; in spite of their high qualifications in many fields and their status as an integral part of the nation like the rest of their fellow countrymen.
Had the cause of the war been addressed, and had the grievances of the secessionists been redressed through the years since the end of the war, the Igbos would not be marginalized as they are today. And the Nigerian federation would be much stronger than it is now, and even more so if all the other groups shunted to the periphery of the mainstream were treated fairly. Interestingly enough, the situation is analogous to that of Tanzania, the first country to recognize Biafra, where secessionist sentiments in the former island nation of Zanzibar have grown stronger in recent years because of what many Zanzibaris consider to be their marginalized status in the union.
Whether Zanzibar really plays a marginal role in the conduct of union affairs, as a junior and not as an equal partner as a former independent nation, is highly debatable. But many Zanzibaris, rightly or wrongly, believe this. And they have other complaints, chief among them - restoration of their sovereign status that ended when the union was consummated in April 1964.
There is no question that if their grievances are not addressed, the union of Tanzania may face very serious problems in the coming years, even if it does not break up.
Should Zanzibar be allowed to secede? It depends on what the people want; a point also underscored by President Nyerere, the architect of the Tanganyika-Zanzibar union, when he explained why Tanzania recognized Biafra, as we learned earlier: “As President of Tanzania it is my duty to safeguard the integrity of the United Republic. But if the mass of the people of Zanzibar should, without external manipulation, and for some reason of their own, decide that the Union was prejudicial to their existence, I could not advocate bombing them into submission. To do so would not be to defend the Union. The Union would have ceased to exist when the consent of its constituent members was withdrawn.”
If a referendum were held in the former island nation and the majority of the people in Zanzibar voted to dissolve ties with Tanganyika and return to the status quo ante, that would be the end not only of the union but of any hope of even forming a confederation under which members enjoy far greater autonomy than they do under federation. As a Tanzanian myself and strong believer in African unity, I don’t want to see the union dissolved anymore than I would like to see any other African country break up. But there are cases when such dissolution of ties may be necessary.
If people are abused, oppressed, and discriminated against by their fellow countrymen, that’s grounds for secession, unless the injustices are stopped. Otherwise there is no reason why they should not be allowed to secede, and if that is the only way they can live in peace and security in their own independent state. If you don’t want them to secede, stop oppressing them and denying them equal rights. And if the right to self-determination has to be enshrined in the constitution of every African country as one of the best ways to guarantee equal treatment of oppressed groups, by threatening secession, so be it: “Treat us fairly. Or else, we are gone.”
Therefore, in a paradoxical way, the right to secession may not only prevent secession. It can also help maintain and strengthen unity by using the threat of secession to demand and get justice and equal treatment from the government which has failed or refuses to protect oppressed groups who have also been rejected by their fellow citizens. And it will enable all citizens to hold their leaders accountable for their actions. Otherwise they will have nobody left to lead.
But unlike Biafra, the case of Zanzibar presents a unique problem for Tanzania because there are many people in the former island nation who want to maintain the union. The secessionists on the islands - of Pemba and Zanzibar, but especially Pemba - are not motivated by any genuine desire to correct whatever injustices may exist, but to restore historical ties with the Gulf States, especially Oman, reminiscent of the era when the islands were an integral part of the Arab world and Zanzibar the seat of the sultan of Oman. Islamic fundamentalists want to turn Zanzibar into a theocratic state and use it as an operational base from which they will be able - or try - to export their radical ideology to the mainland in a country which is constitutionally a secular state. And contrary to what the agitators say, the majority of Zanzibaris - most of whom are Muslim - are not Islamic fundamentalists and, therefore, do not support the agenda for a theocratic state based on a radical interpretation of the Koran.
Yet, secessionist sentiments may continue to grow on the isles if the islanders are not granted far greater autonomy than they now enjoy. Tanzania may have to learn a lesson from one of the neighbouring countries, the island nation of the Comoros, which also has had historical ties with Zanzibar for a long time. In fact, many Zanzibaris are of Comorian origin, as are many Tanzanians on the mainland. And Kiswahili, Tanzania’s national language, is also spoken in the Comoros where the overwhelming majority of the people are Muslim just like those in Zanzibar.
Two islands, Anjouan and Moheli, seceded from the Comoros in 1997. Federal troops failed to suppress the insurgency. The Comoros, a federation of three islands, was left with one island, Grande Comoro, which is also the largest and the seat of the federal capital. In 2001, the federal government and the secessionist islands agreed to hold a referendum on a new constitution which would give extensive autonomy to all the islands in the federation. An overwhelming majority of the people, at least 75 percent, approved the constitution, and the secessionists rejoined the union. Extensive devolution of power saved the federation, although in some cases, it can be recipe for disaster, fueling secessionist movements if not carefully managed within well-prescribed limits. But such extensive autonomy, short of sovereign status, may also dampen and neutralize secessionists sentiments and tendencies in Zanzibar and strengthen the union of Tanzania.
It also could have saved Nigeria from exploding into civil war in the sixties, thus preventing the secession of Biafra and its aftermath including loss of at least one million lives, had the federal authorities implemented the Aburi Agreements to transform the highly centralized Nigerian federation into a confederation; a transformation that would have assured Igbos and other Easterners that they would be guaranteed security in their own autonomous region, under their own jurisdiction, but without attaining full sovereign status.
It is a tragic irony that more than 40 years after independence, African countries have not yet adequately addressed the question of ethnicity in a continent whose very traditional societies, the building blocks of African nations, are ethnic entities. Ethnic differences and loyalties are always and will always be exploited by unscrupulous politicians to promote their own partisan interests. Yet, ethnic groups have an enormous potential to serve as a solid foundation for stable nations, provided all the tribes and other groups in every African country, including racial minorities - Arab, Asian, European - in countries such as Kenya and Tanzania, are treated equal and have equal access to power and the nation’s resources. It is denial of such equality, and exclusion of some groups from participation in the political and economic arena, that has served as a lightning rod in many conflicts ignited across the continent. As Dr. Sam Amoo, a Ghanaian scholar and United Nations specialist in conflict resolution, states in “The Challenges of Ethnicity and Conflict in Africa: The Need for a New Paradigm”:
“Conflicts arise from dysfunctional governance or socio-political systems that deny or suppress the satisfaction of a group’s ontological needs, such as the universal needs for identity, recognition, security, dignity and participation. This denial generates conflict, which can only be resolved through alterations in norms, structures, institutions and policies. The causes and remedies of conflicts in Africa therefore essentially relate to the socio-political structures of the particular state....
Sources of conflicts in Africa are located in basic human needs for group - ethnic - identity, security, recognition, participation and autonomy, as well as in the circumstances, policies and institutions of political and economic systems that attempt to deny or suppress such basic needs.”12
The significance of ethnicity in African life across the spectrum cannot be ignored or underestimated. Attempts to ignore it, or gloss over it, have only exacerbated conflicts where they already exist, and generated new ones where there weren’t any. Like the English, the Scots, the Irish and the Welsh in the United Kingdom, African ethnic groups are not going to disappear, and would be a tragic loss if they did. That is because they are Africa itself. They constitute the African organic entity and the spirit that animates its very being. They are natural entities, not artificial constructs like the countries across the continent created by the colonialists.
The Kikuyu, the Luo, the Kamba and others existed before Kenya was created; the Ewe and the Ashanti before the Gold Coast, now Ghana; the Igbo, the Yoruba, the Hausa, the Fulani, the Ijaw, the Tiv and the rest of the ethnic groups in Nigeria and other African countries - they all existed, at different levels of social and political organization, long before Europeans came and created the countries we have in Africa today.
Europeans did not teach us our customs and traditions. Nor did they teach us our languages. Instead, they tried to destroy all that, one way or another, and exploited ethnic differences to consolidate their hegemonic control over Africa. The question is how all these groups can be harmonized as corporate entities, functioning smoothly as interlocking units that constitute an interdependent whole, without tearing African countries and the continent apart. And this requires a new - yet old, traditional - approach to nation-building and conflict resolution in Africa.
Therefore, there is a need for a paradigm shift in Africa; one that incorporates into its analytical framework the salience and primacy of ethnicity as an organizing concept, but one that does not nullify the legitimacy of the nation-state; one that also sees ethnicity as a basis for nation-building, and for power and resource allocation where it has generated and has the potential to generate conflict; and as a mechanism for conflict resolution through consensus building within a specific ethno-polity and across ethnic lines, with primary emphasis on the use of traditional institutions of authority as the key players in resolving conflicts.
If Africa takes this approach, she may be on her way towards reducing and ending civil wars and other conflicts which have devastated the continent for years, as hundreds of millions of her people continue to suffer, and look helpless, in a world which couldn’t care less if they all vanished today from the face of the earth.
In the Nigerian civil war, the Igbos would have suffered even more casualties - far more than the 1 to 2 million who had already died, mostly from starvation - had they not capitulated to federal might after fighting a brutal war for almost three years to sustain their short-lived independent Republic of Biafra. It was an unnecessary war, which could have been avoided. But after it started and kept on going, recognition of Biafra by Tanzania became a moral imperative. And President Nyerere made that clear. Denying Biafra recognition would have been tantamount to sanctioning genocide against a people whose only crime was their desire, and right, to be safe and free in their own homeland.
In a very tragic way, most African leaders sanctioned the massacre of the Igbos and other Easterners - but mostly Igbos - when they refused to take a firm stand against the Nigerian federal authorities who continued to wage war against Biafra even after the "contested" minority areas of non-Igbo ethnic groups (which the federal government erroneously claimed had been forcibly incorporated into Biafra), and the oil fields, had been "liberated" from the secessionist forces; and after they had captured most of the Biafran territory in a brutal military campaign which verged on genocide.
Even from the beginning of the war, most African countries supported the Nigerian federal government when they contended that this was a matter of "internal affairs" which could and should be resolved by the Nigerians themselves - which was tantamount to sanctioning a war of genocide against the Igbos; and when they invoked two of the most sacred principles of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), but in a perverted way. These principles were non-interference in the internal affairs of another state - no matter what the cost even if it meant extermination of an entire group of people; and maintaining the territorial integrity of a member state, again at whatever cost and by any means necessary: the end justifies the means.
Had African leaders taken an uncompromising stand on the war and told the Nigerian government that there would be a price to pay if it continued to wage war against a large segment of its own population, instead of negotiating an end to the conflict and seriously taking into account the fears and concerns of the Igbos; this catastrophe would have been averted.
The Nigerian federal government should have been told in no uncertain terms by other African leaders that they would recognize Biafra if the federal authorities did not stop trying to bomb and starve the Biafrans into submission. Threats of recognition of Biafra by them as a sovereign entity would have been a powerful bargaining tool to extract meaningful concessions from the Nigerian federal government which could have been accepted by the secessionists on the basis of mutual compromise; provided the Biafrans were guaranteed security in their own homeland under a different political system, probably a confederation.
President Nyerere took his fellow African leaders to task for not being honest and for refusing to confront the issue and putting the secession of Biafra in its proper context. As he stated in his pamphlet, The Nigeria-Biafra Crisis, which was labelled "For Private Circulation Only" - later declassified - published on September 4, 1969, and circulated among African heads of state and government just before the OAU summit on the Nigerian civil war held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from September 6 - 10, the same year:
“In arguments about the Nigeria/Biafra conflict, there has been a great deal of talk about the principles of national integrity and of self-determination; many analogies have been drawn with other conflicts in the world, and particularly in Africa; and finally, there has been a considerable amount of discussion about the role of the OAU and other international organizations in relation to the present conflict. It is my purpose to discuss some of these problems and to examine the lessons which are, and which I believe should be, drawn from the analogies.
Let me look first at the analogies and their relevance to the principles which are under discussion.
Gibraltar
The British give three reasons for their opposition to the demand for the incorporation of Gibraltar into the Spanish State. First is the Treaty of Utrecht 1713 - to which the Gibraltarians were not a party; second is the opposition of the Gibraltarians; and third is the dictatorship in Spain.
It is the second reason which Britain mostly uses to justify her position, and indeed it is the more important one. For if the Gibraltarians wished, they could say: "To hell with the Treaty of Utrecht: we were not a party to it anyway." If, after that, the territory were incorporated, Britain would not be able to do anything about it, unless she was to come out openly in favour of imperialism.
Yet I believe that Britain is simply using the fact of the Gibraltarians' opposition to incorporation, just as she is using the legalities of the Treaty. When Britain feels that it is in her interests to come to terms with Spain, I doubt that either the Treaty or the Gibraltarians' feelings will prevail - indeed this doubt is buttressed by the fact that Britain will not accept the "integration with Britain" policy. But this is not the point I want to argue.
My point is that two quite separate arguments are used by Britain in this dispute: one, an imperialist Treaty between several powers, including Britain and Spain; and two, the feelings of a group of people who were the object of that Treaty.
In the political climate of the modern world, the opposition of the Gibraltarians is the more important matter for winning world support for Britain's cause. But the Treaty argument also has an importance.
Look now at the analogy with the Nigeria/Biafra issue. Britain appears to be arguing that she is helping Nigeria to stop the Ibos from unilaterally breaking the "Treaty" under which all the peoples of Nigeria agreed to accept independence as a single Federation. In this case, in other words, she is leaving out the question of self-determination, although it is the main plank of her argument on the Gibraltar question.
But in the case of Nigeria and Biafra, the issue is not some minor, technical issue about the legalities or morality of a Treaty. It is an issue of life and death, involving a massacre by one party to that Treaty of more people among another party to the Treaty than all the inhabitants of Gibraltar. After the failure of several serious attempts to secure reassurance for the resultant fears, the People who had been the victims decided to break away to form their own State. If the principle of self-determination is relevant in the case of Gibraltar - as it is - then surely it is relevant under these circumstances? But the rest of Nigeria objects, and says: "These Ibos must remain part of Nigeria." Surely we should be saying to Nigeria: "Get their consent." Instead, what we are saying is: "Shoot and starve them into submission."
It may be argued that all those involved in a Treaty should be consulted about any change in it, and that therefore in this case the Nigerians should be consulted as well as the Biafrans. That is not actually my argument, but let us look at it in these two cases.
Consult the People of Spain about the incorporation of Gibraltar: I do not know what their verdict would be. Consult the People of Britain: they will vote against Spain - not because of the Treaty of Utrecht but because the Gibraltarians do not want to be part of Spain. They would vote, I hope - indeed I am sure - in support of the self-determination of the people of Gibraltar as it has been so freely expressed, not for Spain's claims.
Then ask the Nigerians about the forcible incorporation of the Ibos. At worst their answer would be equivalent to that of the Spanish Government, and of their own Government now: "Keep them part of Nigeria, even against their will." Ask the people of Britain about this issue: in this case I am not sure what their verdict might be, in spite of the clear determination of the 8 million Biafrans to be left alone. But neither is (British Prime Minister Harold) Wilson sure, so we shall never know.
What we do know is that the 29,000 Gibraltarians have been asked their opinion about the dispute in which they are involved, and they have given their answer. The 8 million Biafrans have not been asked, and will not be asked their opinion on their conflict; but they have given their answer nevertheless - with their blood.
Britain invokes the principle of self-determination in the case of Gibraltar, because it serves her interests to do so. She must justify her stand on some acceptable principle - international law, plus self-determination - because she still wants the Rock. Nevertheless, the principles she advances are valid. I am not going to say that they are not valid because they are advanced by Britain. In the case of Nigeria, Britain invokes a different principle - the principle of territorial integrity - because it suits her own interests to do so. The choice of principle is the result of a decision taken on the basis of British interests, not because one principle is more valid than another. If British interests had been different, we would have self-determination being advanced as a reason for supporting Biafra.
If the dictatorship of General Franco is an additional reason for supporting the Gibraltarians, one may rightly ask for similar consideration to be given to the people of Biafra. They object to incorporation because before secession 30,000 Easterners were massacred without anyone being punished; and the same regime threatens them with complete extermination through starvation unless they surrender. Are not such actions, and the attitudes they reveal, at least as good a reason as Franco's dictatorship for the Biafrans' opposition to being incorporated into Nigeria? Have the Gibraltarians so much reason to fear General Franco?
The American Civil War
What, then, about the analogy which is sometimes drawn to the American Civil War?
Like the Nigerian Civil War, it was about secession. Like that in Nigeria it caused very dreadful suffering. But we do justify wars, or condemn them, because of what they are about. And in America, the South was not trying to break away because Southerners had been rejected in the North, and had been massacred in their thousands with the connivance or the assistance of the forces of law and order. The Southern States were not swarming with millions of refugees who had fled from the North, leaving their property behind, in order to save their skins. Of course it is true that Lincoln fought to save the Union. But he believed, even before the war, that the Union could not last half free, half slave. He was concerned to make it what it had proclaimed itself to be - a society of free and equal men. Had there been a Lincoln in Nigeria, he would have fought the prejudices which led to that inordinate and almost pathological hatred of the Ibos which made secession inevitable and justifiable.
Katanga as a Comparison
A politically more serious comparison, however, is made between the secession of Biafra and that of Katanga. Tanzania, in particular, is accused of the most blatant inconsistency because it opposed Katanga and recognizes Biafra. I know that there are similarities between Katanga and Biafra. But these similarities can be grouped into those which are superficial and irrelevant and those which are real and crucial. An examination of the real and crucial similarities reveals some apparently unnoticed facts.
First, let me acknowledge the similarities which are advanced by the opponents of Biafra, but which I believe to be superficial and irrelevant to the main issue. Katanga was part of a United Congo; Katanga decided to secede; the Centre objected; a war then broke out between secessionist Katanga and the Centre. (Notice that I am not trying to say "why" Katanga decided to secede; I am merely stating the fact of secession). Similarly, Biafra - or the Eastern Region of Nigeria - was part of a federated Nigeria; Biafra decided to secede; the Centre objected; (this is not quite correct, but I must admit a few similarities); a war broke out between secessionist Biafra and the Centre.
Now, for a different and more fundamental group of similarities. Katanga had vast copper resources; the former colonial power was very much interested in this vast amount of wealth; her economic interests were threatened by Lumumba at the Centre; when war broke out between Katanga and the Centre, Belgium supported one side in an effort to safeguard her economic interests; she joined the side supported by the copper companies. No need to go further.
Now, for the conflict in Nigeria. Biafra had vital oil resources; the former colonial power was vitally interested in this vast amount of oil; her interests were threatened in the conflict; (the really vital matter was the threat, not whether the threat came from the Centre or the periphery; this is only important in deciding who is going to be ally and who enemy); but in this case, due to relations between the British and the Ibos, the threat came from the secessionists. When war broke out between Biafra and the Centre, Britain, like Belgium, was on the same side as the Foreign Companies - in this case the Oil Companies.
Let those who love the superficial similarities of secession have the courage and honesty to accept this unpleasant fact also. In Katanga, Belgium and the Copper Companies were on one side; in Nigeria, Britain and the Oil Companies are on one side. This is the one constant and crucial factor in both cases, around which everything else can be variable. In both cases, the former colonial power and the vested economic interests are on one side.
Tshombe was a stooge of the Copper Interests. They filled his coffers with their vast financial resources. Ojukwu is not a stooge of these interests; they refuse to pay him a penny from the wealth they derive from Biafran oil. This vital contrast is the corollary to the decision to support the Centre instead of secession.
In the one case it was the Centre under Lumumba which was the threat to the economic interests if the Congo remained united; and therefore it was the Centre which had to be starved of Revenue. In the other case it was a separate Ibo state which was the threat, and it was Biafra, therefore, which had to be strangled. Is this really so difficult to see? Only great simplicity - or even extreme naivety - could lead anyone to accept that Britain is defending the unity of Nigeria, or African Unity in general. She is defending her own economic interests. That may be natural and even understandable, but it is as well that it should be understood and not camouflaged by talk of a particular principle.
The Netherlands decision to stop the supply of arms to Nigeria after the capture of Port Harcourt and its oil-rich surrounding areas is a reflection of her assessment that the oil supplies were then assured. But the British wish to be more certain. I am told that Britain expects to get 25 per cent of her oil supply from Nigeria by 1972. With her traditional Middle East suppliers being (in her view) unreliable, this is a very serious matter indeed for industrial Britain.
From Britain's point of view, what is vital is her oil interests; as she decides on her own policy, this is what the war is about. The Biafrans are fighting a most unequal war, and if they go on fighting, God alone knows what their end will be. Completely blockaded as they are, Nigeria no longer needs to shoot them into submission. Starvation and disease can fight for Nigeria, and Britain can go on explaining to the world that this is inevitable and justifiable because it is part of warfare.
Those who want peace before the Biafrans are wiped out must convince the British of one of two things. They have to be convinced that, in their present helpless position, the Biafrans are no longer a threat to British interests. And truly, the Biafrans know how weak they are; they are less interested in the oil than in their lives. This is the relatively easier thing to try and convince the British. The more difficult one is to try and convince Britain that her oil interests would be safe in an independent Biafra. But how could they know that Russia would not help Federal Nigeria to win total victory against the Biafrans? And if that happened, where would Britain be?
These are the vital issues, and those who are saying that the OAU can solve this problem are being fooled, or are conveniently fooling themselves. Britain is the vital force in this conflict; more important even than Federal Nigeria. The Biafrans believe they are fighting for their very survival; they are fighting to live in freedom and security. The Nigerian people are not quite sure what they are fighting for. Some of their leaders hate the Ibos; some may have ambitions of being Lincolns; some may even believe that they can force others into a United Nigeria and still have a meaningful nation. But that is all.
Without Britain's military and - in particular - her diplomatic support, the Nigerians would have no hope of winning against the Biafrans. The Soviet Union would not have been able to help them secure victory. Indeed, without Britain, the Soviet Union would have become a huge diplomatic embarrassment to the Nigerians; (and Nigeria would have become a wee embarrassment to Russia). For if Russia had supported Lagos and Britain did not, most of the Western world would have been anti-Lagos; and since there is so much popular sympathy for Biafra in many Western countries, it is hard to think of a reason which would have prevented Western Governments from supporting Biafra. After all, they would be fighting against communism.
Under these circumstances it would not have mattered whether African Heads of Government had continued to fear the effect of an example of successful secession; the Western powers, the only ones who have real power in Africa, would be fearing a different example, and one more vital to their own interests.
But if this argument is not convincing, those who believe that there is a direct and valid comparison between Katanga and Biafra must be able to answer some few questions.
Which tribe in Katanga is the equivalent of the Ibos? Azikiwe, an Ibo at the Centre, was trying hard, under very difficult circumstances, to co-operate with the dominant North to build a United Nigeria: who was his equivalent in the Congo? The Ibos, because of their education, industry, enterprise (and consequent arrogance?) were almost universally hated in Nigeria. Who in Katanga represented this educated, industrous, enterprising, arrogant and almost universally hated People? Who in the Congo represented the 30,000 massacred Easterners? Who in Katanga represented the 1.5 or 2 million refugees? What in the Congo represented the National Council for Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), a party led mainly by Ibos it is true, but one which was nevertheless truly aimed at Nigerian Unity? Who in the Congo was the equivalent of the Sardauna of Sokoto, so powerful that he did not even bother to go to the Centre but governed the Federation through lieutenants while he himself governed the vital North? What in Katanga was the equivalent of the Northern People's Congress (NPC)?
Or again, who is Biafra's Tshombe? Who in Biafra represents the Copper Companies? Africa appealed to the United Nations to support Patrice Lumumba; why are we not appealing to the United Nations to support General Gowon, who in this analogy would be Nigeria's Lumumba? Perhaps the true answer is that it is not necessary; he already has strong support. But why is not necessary? Because the Ibos are simply fighting for their own survival and therefore have no strong supporter. That is their strength and weakness: it is the major difference between Katanga and Biafra.
In the one case, foreign economic interest was on the side of the secessionists and that made them very strong; in the other case, foreign economic interest is on the side of the Federalists, and makes them too very strong. They can even quote the OAU Charter on non-interference in the internal affairs of a member state. The devil can quote Scripture - when it suits him. In the one case, a despicable African stooge allowed himself to be used as a tool of foreign economic interests; in the other case, a brave African people are fighting against immense odds purely and simply for their own survival and their own self-respect and dignity. How does this analogy stand up to examination?
The break-up of Nigeria is a terrible thing. But it is less terrible than that cruel war. Thousands of people are being shot, bombed, or seeing their homes and livelihood destroyed; millions, including the children of Africa, are starving to death. (It is estimated that possibly more people have died in this war in the last two years (since 1967) than in Vietnam in the last ten years). We are told that nothing can be done about this. It is said that the sufferings of the Biafrans in the war are regrettable, but that starvation is a legitimate war weapon against an enemy. Yet by this statement you have said that these people, the Nigerians and the Biafrans, are enemies, just as Britons and Germans in Hitler's war were enemies.
If that is the case, is it rational to imagine that, once a Federal victory is obtained, they can immediately be equal members of one society, working together without fear? Or is the logic of being enemies not a logic which leads to conquest and domination when side is victorious?
We are told that Ojukwu should end the terrible sufferings of his people by surrender. We are told that he should reason thus: "The Nigerians are stronger than we are and they have stronger friends than we could ever hope to get. If we go on resisting, a combination of bombing, starvation and the inevitable epidemics, would exterminate us." Perhaps he should add, kindly: "Even if the Nigerians never intended to exterminate us." He should then convince the Biafran people about the wisdom of surrendering and then duly send the appropriate notice to the Nigerians. When the Federal Government gets this note, they presumably say: "At last you have come to your senses. As you rightly say, we never intended to exterminate you; but had you gone on resisting we would have continued the bombing and the blockade and the result would have been exactly the same as if we had intended to exterminate you." Perhaps they would add, kindly: "But, of course, the fault would have been yours." Then the Biafrans surrender and all is well.
Historically and logically, however, surrender on such terms as these - with the alternative being extermination - is for the purpose of creating empires. Surrender to an implacable enemy on his own terms, with the only condition being that you should not be killed, cannot lead to any kind of friendship, or even toleration. If it is a battalion which surrenders, the soldiers become prisoners-of-war; if it is a People, they become a colony, or an occupied territory, or something like that. Those who surrender cannot become an integral part of the conqueror's territory because they did not do so of their own free will; they did so as the only alternative to death.
The Internal Domino Theory
The argument is being advanced that if Biafra is allowed to exist, Nigeria cannot exist. Nigerian leaders themselves have advanced this argument. If the Ibos are allowed to go, so the argument runs, Nigeria will break up completely, for the others will also go.
To deal with this argument seriously, let us assume the worst: let us assume that, if the Biafrans leave the Federation, all the others will also secede and set themselves up as separate States. What this argument amounts to is that only two things bind the Hausa and the Yorubas (these being the major elements) together. These two facts are, firstly, the recent historical accident that all (plus the Ibos) were conquered by, and then governed by, the British; and secondly, the more recent historical fact that, when the British left, they left these Peoples as one Nation.
If these accidents of history were in fact the only reason for Nigeria, and if there is no feeling of mutual benefit arising from the political unity, then the secession of the Biafrans would certainly and inevitably lead to the break-up of the Federation as the Yorubas - and the Hausas? - secede. In using this argument, therefore, we are in effect saying: "The Yorubas, the Hausas (and the others) cannot remain together without the Ibos; we want the Yorubas and the Hausas to remain together; therefore we must forcibly prevent the Ibos from breaking away - even if this attempt to prevent them, together with their stubborn resistance, may lead to their extermination."
This is an extremely logical and nice argument. But it must be directed to people other than the Biafrans. They cannot be asked to sacrifice their freedom in order that two Peoples, who are not otherwise willing to attempt the building of a nation together, may carry on a precarious united existence. It is bad enough to force the Biafrans to make immense sacrifices for their own freedom; it would be worse than absurd to expect them to surrender the freedom for which they are dying in order to maintain a precarious unity among other Peoples - whose own commitment to that unity must be very slight if this argument has any validity at all.
In fact, the argument "If you allow the Ibos to go, the others will also go," inevitably provokes the question: "Who are these others, and where will they go?" For properly considered, this argument is an Imperialist argument. I can well imagine Winston Churchill saying: "If I allow India to go, the others will go, and I was not appointed the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire." But how can this kind of thing be said of Nigeria - most all by Nigerians? Who in the Nigerian issue represents Churchill? And who represents the "Others" who would break away if the Ibos are allowed to go? And who is the imperialist metropolitan power in Nigeria?
Those who advance this argument assume the Hausas to be the Churchill and the "others" to be the Yorubas in particular, and also the smaller groups. They assume that the Hausas would like to complete their conquest of the South, which was interrupted by the British, and are saying that the only way the Hausas will be able to continue to dominate the Yorubas and the smaller ethnic groups is if they succeed in dominating the Ibos.
If this is the basis of the argument, and if it stated the actual position, I would be amazed at Africa's reaction to an African Imperialism abetted and supported by British Imperialism. Indeed, it would be very shameful if Africa, which is still groaning from the yoke of European Imperialism, was to make a cynical distinction between that and an internal African Imperialism. Such an argument must be rejected by the whole of Africa. Not only would it make nonsense of the principles we have been proclaiming; it is also an insult to the people of Nigeria - the Hausas, the Yorubas, and the others.
Let us reject the Internal Domino Theory in relation to the Nigerian question. For it assumes that the people now in the Federation of Nigeria are, and wish to be, imperialists. I cannot believe that.
I still believe that they are capable of recognizing the tragedy which has caused one part of the Federation to break away, and of acknowledging that very different tactics are necessary if the old Nigeria is ever to re-created. For surely they could decide to leave the Biafrans to go their own way and, by the kind of Nigeria which they create, to show the Biafrans what they are losing by remaining separated from their brethren. For if the other peoples of Nigeria decide to work together, they will continue to be a strong and powerful force in Africa; they really have the opportunity to build a good nation of which every Nigerian - indeed every African - can be proud. Then it may be that at some time in the future the Biafrans will wish to rejoin the peoples from whom they now wish to part; if this happens, it will be the accession of a free people to a large and free political unit. For if the secession of Biafra is a setback to African Unity - as of course it is - no one is suggesting that we should consequently stop working for African Unity on the basis of willing commitment.
Why then are we suggesting that our Nigerian brethren have a different conception of unity, and that they want a unity of conquest only? I am not making such an argument: I am saying that, although our Nigerian brothers want to maintain one Nigeria, including Biafra, on the basis of equality of citizenship, they are wrong in thinking that this can be done now. I refuse to impute bad motives to General Gowon; I believe he is mistaken in his judgment and that Africa must not make the same mistake.
The African Domino Theory
There is another Domino Theory which relates to the rest of Africa. We are told that, if we allow "tribalism" to break up Nigeria, no African country would be safe; for every African nation consists of tribes which find themselves in the same country by an accident of history and by the grace of the Imperialists. I fully accept the danger of tribalism in Africa. When we started TANU (Tanganyika African National Union) in 1954, the first of the objectives of our Party was preparation for independence, and the second was "to fight against tribalism." We have not completely succeeded in eradicating tribalism from our society; indeed I was recently forced to remind our people of this objective, and to warn them about certain tendencies.
But the dangers of tribalism are so well-known that, although I would never wish to minimize them, I do not think it is now necessary to expound them afresh. There is, however, a different fact which can be equally dangerous. Sometimes, indeed very often, the spectre of tribalism is raised by the enemies of Africa against Africa. It is dangerous for Africa to accept the argument of tribalism without examining its relevance in every given case. Indeed to the extent that we need to learn from Nigeria's "tribalism,' I have a feeling that Africa is being bamboozled or mesmerized into learning the wrong lesson.
But first, what is a Tribe? And how comparable is Nigeria's position to that which exists elsewhere in Africa? Are the Hausas a tribe? Are the Yorubas a tribe? Are the Ibos a tribe? It may be said that they are not "Nations"; but are they Tribes? There are Scottish clans, but the Scots are not a Tribe simply because of the fact that they are not a Nation. The Welsh: are they a Tribe? Are the Protestants of Northern Ireland a tribe? The Hausas, the Ibos, and the Yorubas, are not Nations in the legal sense; but they are not Tribes either. Each one of them is a "People" which could easily become a very coherent Nation. Each one of these "Peoples" of Nigeria has a better chance of forming a really viable and stable Nation than many of the legal Nations of Africa and other parts of the world.
Indeed, those who glibly compare Nigeria with other African countries show that they did not begin to understand the immense significance for the rest of Africa of the Nigerian experiment. Nigeria was trying (and if they do not allow themselves to be convinced by the internal Nigerian Domino Theory, they may continue trying) to build a Nation which incorporates several Peoples who could have become Nations on their own.
Had Nigeria succeeded (and Nigeria can still succeed if she rejects the argument of all or none), Africa would have a great example before it. We would be able to say: "Within Nigeria there are several Peoples, each conscious of itself and conscious of its ability to be a Nation on its own. If they have nevertheless succeeded in submerging their natural unity into a larger artificial unity, for the greater benefit of them all, then the rest of Africa can submerge its smaller artificial units into that greater artificiality (indeed that more natural unit of all Africa) which holds greater promise for all the peoples of Africa." In other words, any success in Nigeria - even if partial - is a demonstration of the practicability of our declared aim of African Unity - even though a Nigerian failure would not make this aim impossible of achievement. This, I repeat, is Nigeria's real significance to Africa.
No other political unit in our continent has the same significance for Africa; not even the Sudan, although the two cases are similar in one respect. Both have a basic problem of "Peoples" in the sense that the North of Sudan is different from the South, racially, religiously, culturally, and socially - although the one "People" of the South are divided into several different tribes. The Sudan's problem, therefore, is very serious - just as Nigeria's problem is.
But fortunately for Sudan, and for Africa, Southern Sudan is not blessed (or cursed) with immense mineral wealth. As a result, foreign economic interests are not involved in this conflict (until years later when oil was discovered in significant quantities in the South after Nyerere wrote this pamphlet).
However agonising the problem may be for the authorities in Khartoum - and for the people of the country - the former Colonial Power is most unlikely to pour arms into the Sudan to help maintain Sudanese unity. It is also unlikely to intervene in support of any attempt at secession. This situation will continue irrespective of the ideological leanings of the Government in Khartoum, and irrespective of what Russia does. In this case Sudanese leaders, and African leaders, have a real chance of solving the problem provided we do not make the same mistake as we made in Nigeria and act as if there is no genuine problem to be solved.
The solution, as the present Government in the Sudan has rightly foreseen, lies in a constitution which recognizes both the unity of the Sudan, and the legitimate interests of the South. This is what Eastern Nigeria was asking for before it seceded; this is what the Aburi Agreement was all about. It was the refusal, by Lagos, to accept this necessity that finally led to secession and the present situation.
The fact is that the Peoples of Nigeria have less in common, historically, linguistically, culturally, and as regards religion, than the Peoples of Scandinavia. The only thing that the Peoples of Nigeria hve in common is that they are all Africans and all have been under British rule for a few decades - and Britain governed them virtually separately.
It would be infinitely easier for the Peoples of Scandinavia to form one nation than for the Peoples of Nigeria. Those who do not see this do not understand Nigeria's significance for Africa.
One final point must be made about this tragedy. In spite of attempts on both sides of the quarrel to bring in religion, the conflict between Nigeria and Biafra is not a religious one. Yet if it were, that would be simply an additional complication: it would not justify the war. In fact, however, there are Christians and Muslims on both sides: religion cuts across the divisions between the Peoples.
The True Lesson for Africa
I said earlier that Africa is learning the wrong lesson from the Nigerian tragedy. We are saying that if Biafra is allowed to secede, every country in Africa is going to have its own Biafra. But what we are doing is looking at results without looking at the cause of those results, and then saying that the same results will happen elsewhere without there having been any causes. That is nonsense. But there is a very serious lesson to be learned from the present tragedy.
We should learn that where in any African state there is a dominant group, whether that group is ethnic, religious or otherwise, it must wield its power and influence on behalf of all the elements which go to form that country. In particular, it should be very solicitous of the interests of the minorities, because they are the ones which need the protection of the State. If a dominant group does not act in this protective manner, then civil strife and consequent Biafras become inevitable. That is the lesson Africa should learn from the Nigerian tragedy.
We African leaders had a golden opportunity at the OAU Summit Conference in Kinshasa (in September 1967), but we missed it because we were confused by the tribal domino theory. At that time the whole of Africa, including those countries which now recognize Biafra, supported the territorial integrity of Nigeria. Yet I believe that all States had some sympathy for the Easterners, who had already experienced a massacre of some 30,000 of their brethren, and who were trying to absorb nearly 2 million refugees in the Eastern Region.
Previous to secession the Ibos were simply asking for a loosening of the constitutional structure so as to maintain the Unity of Nigeria and still meet the understandable fears of the Peoples from that Region. Africa should have accepted the legitimacy of this demand. Since we were all supporting Nigeria in its main objective of maintaining national unity, we should have used our moral strength to urge Nigeria to listen to those demands. We should have pointed out that under the circumstances of the two coups and the massacres, what they were asking for was not only understandable but was also justifiable. Since we were supporting the Nigerian authorities in their efforts to keep Nigeria one, and since by that support we were rejecting any claim by the East to secede, we were in a very strong position. We did not have to worry about Domino Theories and the Charter of the OAU. But we were so obsessed, bewitched and terrified by the Domino Theory that we did not dare raise a voice for the Ibos even when we all supported the Federal Authority.
That opportunity was lost. But we must not therefore even appear to acquiesce in the present situation of war and suffering. The least we can do is now ask our brethren in both Nigeria and Biafra to stop fighting and to begin talking about their future relations. It is being said that the situation has changed from what it was two years ago, and that Biafrans need no longer fear for their future. If that is the case, we should ask Nigeria to convince the Biafrans of it at a conference table. You cannot convince people that they are safe while you are shooting and starving them.
The OAU was established by the Heads of African States. But it is intended to serve the Peoples of Africa. The OAU is not a trade union of African Heads of State. Therefore, if it is to retain the respect and support of the People of Africa, it must be concerned about the lives of the People of Africa. We must not just concern ourselves with our own survival as Heads of State; we must even be more concerned about peace and justice in Africa than we are about the sanctity of the boundaries we inherited. For the importance of these lies in the fact that their acceptance is the basis for peace and justice in our continent, and we all have a responsibility to the whole people of Africa in this regard.
Many African Governments, some of them very good governments, have been overthrown through coups. Some countries have had more than one coup; but none of them has broken up. Only the Nigerian Federation is in danger, and this from the effects of a failure to meet the legitimate interests of the Easterners, not directly because of the coups. And the fall of African Governments, however regrettable, is not the same thing as the disintegration of African countries. we must not be like the French monarch who said: "L'etat c'est Moi" - "I am the State." The OAU must sometimes raise a voice against those regimes in Africa, including independent Africa, who oppress the Peoples of Africa. In some countries in Africa it might be the only voice that can speak on behalf of the people. If we dare not do that, even in private, we shall deserve the scorn of those who accuse us of double standards.
In this connection we could learn a good lesson from our former masters. For European Governments are not often very polite to European regimes which fail to show respect for basic human rights within their own countries. Europeans do care about what happens to Europeans. (Sometimes, as in the case of Stanleyville, we are reminded of that fact rather unpleasantly). I think that is a lesson worth learning.
Thus, for example, European Governments do not invade Greece, for they respect the territorial integrity of fellow European States; but they have not left, and will not leave, the Greek regime in any doubt at all about what they think of it. Yet what have the Greek Colonels done? They have carried out a military coup against a constitutionally established government, and are detaining and persecuting the supporters of the constitution - an occurrence so familiar in young Africa that is hardly considered wrong anymore.
If we do not learn to criticise injustice within our continent, we will soon be tolerating fascism in Africa, as long as it is practised by African Governments against African Peoples. Consider what our reaction would have been if the 30,000 Ibos had been massacred by whites in Rhodesia or South Africa. One can imagine the outcry from Africa. Yet these people are still dead; the colour of those who killed them is irrelevant. We must ask Nigeria to stop more killing now, and to deal with the problem by argument, not death.
Justice is indivisible. Africa, the OAU, must act accordingly.”13
Nyerere became the most eloquent spokesman for the Biafran cause besides the Biafrans themselves.
But even more tragic is the fact that the Nigerian civil war was not the last major conflict in Africa. It was only one in a series of catastrophes that have befallen the continent since independence in the sixties, mainly because of the unwillingness of African leaders to address the grievances of some groups and treat them as equal members of society; and because of their failure to institute mechanisms of conflict management and resolution within their borders and on regional basis. And Africa has paid a heavy price for that, blood-soaked through the decades in conflicts which could have been avoided.
The Biafrans were ignored and lost about 2 million people within three years since the war began. But they were also vindicated by history, best summed up in the words of Emperor Haile Selassie when Italy invaded Ethiopia, in his plea to the League of Nations: "It is us today. It will be you tomorrow."14
Wars and other conflicts through the decades have almost destroyed Africa as if nothing was learnt from the Nigerian civil war, one of the bloodiest conflicts in modern times.
Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era
Author: Godfrey Mwakikagile
Paperback: 740 pages
Publisher: New Africa Press (March 2010)
ISBN-10: 0980253411
ISBN-13: 978-0980253412