Africa has been a hotbed of conflict for the last century. As the colonial regimes
of the Old World withered, the shadow of the Cold War enveloped the continent.
Vast natural resources were discovered and weapons proliferated, providing the means for idealists
and renegades to take power for themselves. This is Untangling Africa, and in this episode,
we’re examining the Nigerian Civil War, otherwise known as the Biafra War.
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Nigeria gained independence from Britain in 1960, but this statement isn’t entirely
accurate. What’s closer to the truth is, in 1960, Nigeria was created. Nigeria’s borders
were set by the Anglo-French Convention of 1898, also called the Niger Convention,
and were essentially a line in the sand between the British and French empires in Africa.
The border existed to divvy up resources on the Niger River, nothing more.
When the Nigerian state was established in 1960, it inherited those colonial
borders. That meant inside Nigeria, there were over 100 separate ethnic groups,
of which several also owned land across the border in Benin, Niger, and Cameroon.
Imagine if you drew a 1000-kilometre square over Europe and declared it a country.
How would you govern this state? Where would the capital be? What language would you speak?
This was essentially the dilemma facing Nigeria in 1960, but for them, it was far more complex.
When the Brits initially claimed Nigeria, they backed up their threats with military force.
But this wasn’t permanent. It wasn’t feasible to maintain a large garrison forever, so the
colonial officials used money. They bought off key locals and had them maintain order instead.
In Nigeria’s north, which had traditionally been governed by a strictly conservative Muslim
hierarchy, this was easy. The dominant local group, the Hausa, were used to not having a say,
and their lives changed little. In Nigeria’s south, where the Igbos and Yoruba resided,
things were different. Governance had traditionally been village-based and was
akin to local councils. Anyone who wanted to could participate in this form of government,
and consequently, the Brits found these areas much harder to control.
“Harder to control” meant the Brits established a stronger presence there,
checking up on things, making arrests, and managing their interests. With them came
Christian missionaries, who converted much of the population. Before long, wealthy Igbo
families were sending their sons to schools and universities in Britain. They were Christian,
had plenty of money, and spoke good English, meaning they fitted right in over in Britain,
and many pursued top-level academic qualifications before returning to Nigeria. This wasn’t the case
for the Hausa in the north, who remained largely shielded from British influence.
In the 1940s and early 50s, political parties formed from the highly educated and politically
conscious Yoruba and Igbo peoples. In Nigeria’s southwest, the Yoruba formed the Action Group
in the West or simply the AG, and in the southeast, the dominant Igbo formed the
National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons or the NCNC. The Hausa jumped on the bandwagon too,
forming the Northern People's Congress or the NPC to control the northern parts of the country.
Despite some of their similarities, a split existed between the AG and the NCNC,
particularly over Nigeria’s capital. Lagos, the parliamentary seat, was a Yoruba town,
and the AG didn’t want to lose sovereignty over it if it became the country’s official capital.
The AG also wanted to enshrine a right of secession into the post-colonial constitution.
The Igbo NCNC was firmly against this and pursued a platform of national unity at all costs.
British colonial officials had stacked the parliament so the less radical Hausa NPC always
had the final say in issues such as these. In this case, they sided with the NCNC, and Nigeria’s
1946 constitution did not allow secession. It also granted the Crown—which essentially meant
BP-Shell—exclusive rights over any oil found in the country. This would have deadly ramifications.
Nigeria gained independence on October 1st 1960, and exactly three years later became a Republic.
1964 was an election year, and tensions mounted. Workers’ strikes around Lagos
highlighted the inequality between ordinary people and politicians. The army was called
upon to put the strikes down, and they did so with brutal efficiency. But the soldiers were
ordinary people and began to resent the politicians whose orders they followed.
Fraud was rampant in the election and the Hausa NPC won a comfortable majority. They were happy
to work with British companies, and soon, nearly half of Nigeria’s export economy was
run by BP-Shell. The vast majority of this was from oilfields in the country’s south,
where the Igbo lived, and not in the north, where the Hausa leaders came from. For the Igbo,
it felt like they’d just swapped one colonial regime for another. They had to take action.
In 1966, Igbo military officers launched a coup. They executed many of Nigeria’s Hausa
and Yoruba elite in the capital but were not strong enough to seize power for themselves.
The Igbo head of the Nigerian Army, Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, filled the vacuum. He seemed
willing to work towards unification, but, fatally, failed to prosecute the Igbo coup plotters.
In October, dissatisfied Hausa soldiers launched a counter-coup and killed him. This wasn’t the
end of the violence. Far from it. In the north, soldiers massacred Igbos in the streets. American
anthropologist Charles Keil was in northern Nigeria at the time. He later recalled:
“The intent of the soldiers, the only power that counts in Nigeria now or then,
was painfully clear. After counting the disemboweled bodies along the Makurdi road
I was escorted back to the city by soldiers who apologised for the stench and explained politely
that they were doing me and the world a great favor by eliminating Igbos.”
To further punish the Igbos, the Hausa-controlled parliament split Nigeria into 11 states,
deliberately cutting Igbos off from their oilfields in the process.
With no legal path to secession, the Igbo-dominated southern region of
Nigeria broke away, becoming the Republic of Biafra in May 1967.
Nigeria blockaded Biafra immediately, declaring to the world that they were preventing Igbo
forces from receiving arms shipments. While this hamstrung the fledgling Biafra Army,
the blockade’s primary impact was a restriction of food and medical supplies.
People in Biafra began to starve, and children suffered the worst.
Nigerian statesman Obafemi Awolowo later said, “All is fair in war,
and starvation is one of the weapons of war.” It was a humanitarian crisis—a fully intentional one.
Oil tankers were initially allowed through the blockade. But this ended
when Nigeria discovered that BP-Shell had paid taxes to the Biafran government—which
contravened Nigerian law. The Six-Day War also broke out a week after the blockade began,
and Middle Eastern oil wasn’t passing through the Suez Canal. Global oil prices rose sharply.
This was when everything changed.
Genocides, pogroms, and widespread starvation are one thing, but messing with the world’s,
and more specifically Britain’s, oil supply is something else entirely. The world took sides.
In return for a guarantee that BP-Shell’s infrastructure would remain private,
Britain backed Nigeria. British intelligence officers began working for the Nigerian Army
and put the Nigerians in touch with arms dealers around the world. Despite the British PM declaring
otherwise, the British gave the Nigerians two naval vessels and at least 60 armoured vehicles.
BP-Shell were also happy to pay oilfield royalties early
so the Nigerian government had spare cash to spend on more British arms.
On the flip side, London-based charities Oxfam and Save the Children were flying food supplies
into Biafra to aid the starving population, working against the British government.
Many other countries took a humanitarian stance and sent food supplies to Biafra.
Among them were the Vatican, Canada, Sweden, Germany, and the US. As capitulation through
starvation was Nigeria’s goal, relief flights were targeted by Nigerian fighters. In June 1969,
an International Red Cross DC-7 donated by Sweden was shot down while delivering aid.
Before the war, Nigeria had no substantial air force, and both Britain and the US
refused to sell them fighter aircraft. So how did the Nigerians shoot down the Red Cross plane?
In the summer of 1967, the Soviet Union sold Nigeria 17 MiG-17s and provided them with
200 technicians. This was part of a broader mission to establish trade relations between
Nigeria and the USSR. It worked, and Nigeria began purchasing more Soviet hardware.
Training, however, was a different story. The inexperienced Nigerian aircrews couldn’t handle
their new jets, so they subcontracted the Egyptian Air Force to fly them.
To summarise, Egyptian pilots flying Soviet jets for Nigeria shot down an American-made
International Red Cross plane donated by Sweden and delivering aid to Biafra.
On the ground, things were just as confusing.
French planners were keen to limit British influence in Sub-Saharan Africa and were jealous
of Britain's domination of oil resources around the Niger River. They championed the Biafran
cause internationally but refused to officially recognise the young country. Just like Britain,
the French wanted to supply weapons, but they also wanted deniability. Luckily, they had a perfect
solution. Thousands of World War Two-era German and Italian firearms were still sitting in French
warehouses in the 1960s. By obliterating the serial numbers, these weapons couldn’t be traced
back to France. The “Biafran Historical Research Centre” was set up in Paris as a front to smuggle
weapons to Biafra via nearby Gabon and Cote D’Ivoire. The Portuguese joined in too, smuggling
weapons through French channels to Biafra to combat growing British influence in the region.
Wanting in on the action, communist Czechoslovakia began selling weapons
to the French, who imported them into Biafra too. But the Czechs stopped once
the Soviets found out and decided the Eastern Bloc was supporting Nigeria.
Like the communists, the Israelis also supported both sides.
They initially sold heavy weapons to Nigeria but switched allegiance after people began
likening the wholesale starvation of Biafran children to the Holocaust.
MOSSAD funnelled arms and cash to Biafra through clandestine routes similar to the French.
But not all the world’s communists were on the same page.
China declared its support for Biafra fighting against “Anglo-American imperialism
and Soviet revisionism” by supplying over 2 million dollars in weapons via Tanzania.
Mercenaries were heavily involved too. They came from many places, drawn to Biafra by the
promise of money and a good fight. They were funded directly by the Biafran government and,
by extension, Biafra’s international supporters. Despite a large presence in foreign media coverage
of the conflict, Biafran leaders later argued, “The [mercenaries did] not help. It would have
made no difference if not a single one of them came to work for the secessionist forces.”
In a way, the war was taken out of both Nigeria and Biafra’s hands. Each side was reliant on
foreign aid, and both promised foreign access to their rich oil fields to win over allies.
With big players like Britain, the Soviet Union, and France at the table,
whichever side acquired the most aid had a decisive advantage. In 1968, this was Nigeria.
In June, Biafra was surrounded by Nigerian forces. Both sides continued to launch offensives
throughout the year, but the Biafran military was increasingly impacted by the growing humanitarian
crisis. In December 1969, the Nigerians launched a major offensive that successfully split Biafra in
two. A month later, the key Biafran population centres fell to further Nigerian attacks.
The war officially ended on January 15th 1970. It lasted two and a half years and cost between
45,000 and 100,000 soldiers their lives. Estimates vary, but it’s likely that upwards of 2,000,000
civilians were indirectly killed via starvation during the conflict.
A similar number were displaced. The Igbo people still have not fully recovered, and
many continue to face the lifelong consequences of acute childhood malnutrition. The old tensions
remain deeply entrenched in modern-day Nigeria. In 2012, the separatist organisation Indigenous
People of Biafra was founded, and they continue to agitate for Biafran independence today.
THAT was the story of the Nigerian Civil War, or the Biafra War, which tore apart southeastern
Nigeria in the late 60s. But what do YOU think? Do you think a united Nigerian nation was
doomed from the start? How do YOU think things would be different if Biafra had won?
Would any of this have happened without the oil? Let us know in the comments!