It warrants to state the obvious for more often than not, people think we [Africans including all people in every continent for that matter] all are cut from the same cloth. That is not only reckless but dangerous as well. Particularly, when men who are held with the highest esteem utilize a cookie-cutter approach when they are expected to broker peace in a complex situation which deserves not only impartiality and honesty but rigorous erudition about the particular history as well. And that is precisely the reason Tigray should be seen with in its own light where it is absolutely wrong if anyone thinks it has a semblance of Biafra and should be dealt with as such as well.
Here, I will take a subtext which deals specifically with Biafra and the tragic ending of its aspirations where one is tempted to think if those who are mandated to broker peace between the Government of Tigray and the Federal Government of Ethiopia mistake Tigray for Biafra and if they recommend the same solution as well. The piece of this particular history is taken from the book titled, “The Fortunes of Africa: A 5000-Year History of Wealth, Greed and Endeavor” by Martin Meredith.
“….Civilian rule in Nigeria survived for less than six years after independence. From the outset, rival political parties from the country’s three regions engaged in a ferocious struggle for supremacy over the federal government and the spoils of office. The North was determined to maintain its hegemony; the two southern regions sought to break it. Because each region produced its own political party dominated by the major ethnic group based there, the struggle turned into ethnic combat.
Politicians on all sides whipped up ethnic fear suspicion and jealousy for their own advantage and to entrench themselves in power. Public funds were regularly commandeered for both political and personal gain. In return for political support, party and government bosses were able to provide their followers and friends with jobs, contracts, loans, scholarships, public amenities and development projects. At every level, from the federal government to regional government down to local districts and towns, politicians in office worked the system to ensure that their own areas and members of their own ethnic group benefited, while opposition areas suffered from neglect. Election campaigns were increasingly marred by bribery, fraud and violence.
The end of civilian rule came with sudden and violent finality. In January 1966, spurred by disgust at the flagrantly corrupt and avaricious maneuvers of the country’s politicians, a group of army majors attempted to mount a revolution. Rebel officers in Lagos murdered the Federal Prime Minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, dumping his body in a ditch.
The premier of the Northern Region, the premier of the Western Region, and several senior army officers were killed. In a radio broadcast, one of the leading conspirators said, ‘…Our enemies are the political profiteers, swindlers, the men in high and low places who seek bribes and demand ten percent, those that seek to keep the country divided permanently so that they can remain in office as ministers and VIPs of waste, tribalists, the nepotists.’ But the revolution faltered then failed. Loyal army commanders took control. Instead of revolution, came army rule and a precipitous slide into civil war.
While the January coup was greeted by scenes of wild rejoicing in the South, it gave rise to deep suspicions in the North. Northerners noted that all but one of the seven principal conspirators were Igbos from Eastern Region, and that many of the principal victims were from the North while no prominent Easterner had been touched. Moreover, the result of the coup had been to wrest power from Northern politicians and to place Nigeria in the hands of a military government led by an Igbo General. Brooding over the course of events, Northerners became even more convinced that the majors’ coup, far from being an attempt to rid Nigeria of a corrupt regime, was in fact part of an Igbo conspiracy to gain control.
In July, a group of Northern officers struck back in a counter-coup, killing scores of Eastern officers and other ranks. In a savage onslaught, disgruntled Northerners attacked minority Eastern communities living in segregated quarters—sabongaris—in their midst, killing and maiming thousands. As Easterners sought to escape the violence, massive exodus to the East begun. Abandoning all their possessions, hundreds of thousands of Easterners—traders artisans, clerks and laborers—fled from Northern homes. From other parts of Nigeria, too, as the climate of fear spread among Igbos living there, thousands more, including civil servants and academics, joined the exodus. By the end of the year, more than a million refugees had sought safety in the East.
Led by the Eastern Region’s ambitious military governor, Colonel Emeka Ojukwu, an inner circle of Igbo officials began preparing the way of secession. Revenues from rich oilfields located in the Eastern Region had made the idea of independent state an eminently viable proposition. Starting production in 1958, the oilfields by 1967 provided Nigeria with nearly a fifth of federal revenue, a figure expected to double within a few years. To rally the Eastern population behind secession, Ojukwu relentlessly pumped out radio and press propaganda to keep popular opinion at fever pitch, stressing details of the atrocities that had taken place and warning of the dangers of genocide. On May 1967, he proclaimed the independence of the state of Biafra amid high jubilation.
The Nigerian civil war lasted for two and half years and costed nearly a million lives. As the federal noose tightened around Biafra, starving refugees sought to survive in fetid camps. Foreign relief agencies, alarmed by the spectacle of mass starvation, organized an airlift of food and medical supplies, but their aid was used by Ojukwu to prolong the war. Despite the appalling suffering of Biafra’s population, Ojukwu remained intransigent, doggedly holding on to the notion of independence even when there was nothing to be gained, spurring efforts at international mediation, and presenting himself as a symbol of heroic resistance. Two days before Biafra formally surrendered in January 1970, its people exhausted, demoralized and desperate for peace, he fled into exile declaring that ‘whilst I live, Biafra lives’…..”
One can glean from the above piece of history taken of the mentioned book, if the alleged mediator[s] confuse Tigray with Biafra and not only recommend similar solution but they seem to tacitly support the siege on Tigray when Biafra in the end surrendered on account of the siege imposed on her when the people were on the verge of collapse due to protracted starvation and isolation. That sure would be a serious mistake for Tigray and Biafra are not only strikingly different but their respective political and historical trajectories lead to different solutions as well. To get that kind of serious and sober insight however, one not only should be led by a genuine integrity and honesty but ought to be well versed on the distant past and recent history of Tigray as well. As they say it in Tigrinya, ለባም ኢልካስ ዝሰየበ ሰብ ከታዓርቕ ኣይትስደድ!