Final Essay

Theresa Oceguera
Humanities
Guerrero
13 March

A War with No Winner

Once upon a time Nigeria gained independence from Britain. Like any other nation after independence, it struggled to have a stable government. Six years later, civil war broke out in Nigeria. A fictional book about this war called Half of a Yellow Sun, follows several different characters trying to survive as a part of Biafra. Biafra became a state in the Nigerian Civil War and was a symbol of independence and hope for the Igbo people. However Biafra failed for two main reasons: Nigeria had the military advantage over Biafra and Biafra’s economy was ruined.
To give a little background on the war, I will explain further. Complete independence was given to Nigeria in 1960 with a constitution. This constitution required that their government be legislative and that each region have partial self government. In 1963 Nigeria switched to a Republic and pressure between regions grew due the developmental gap. This led to the first Coup d'état by the military, in 1966. However, the General in charge, Aguiyi-Ironsi, was unable to relieve pressure between North and South. The Hausa of the north felt the Igbo of the South were being favored in the military. This causing the second Military Coup d'état led by the Hausa general named Gowon. With the Northerners in power and no one to stop them, thousands of Igbo were being murdered. Igbo quickly fled to the south and in 1967, and declared independence from Nigeria under Lt. Col. Emeka Ojukwu. This became known as the Republic of Biafra(Hamon121-129).
Biafra was a symbol of independence and hope. Many of the Igbo people were quick to adopt their Biafran Identity such as changing their newspaper names, and having rallies celebrating independence from the Nigerians (Harmon 121-129). This was mainly because the natural human need of an identity. They also tried to disassociate themselves as much as possible from Nigeria. Most people were optimistic and supported Biafra in any way they could. They tried to help out were needed like making donations of food and clothing (Falola). In the novel, we follow Igbo people living during the war, they attend several rallies one in which a coffin representing Nigeria is buried. The newly found Biafrans were very passionate about their heritage. One character in the book even shouted “Biafra is born! We will lead Black Africa! We will live in security! Nobody will ever again attack us! Never again!”(Adichie 205). Odenigbo, the character in the book who stated this, was full of pride much like every other Biafran. The Igbo people had been living in terror of the Hausa for some time because of the age old rivalry and the Hausa still had residual anger because of Ironsi. When Biafra seceded this allowed them to become their own selves; they didn’t have to put up with fear any more.
Unfortunately Biafra had the dangerous powerful military of Nigeria against them. First of all the Nigerians had a bigger army in addition to more equipment and money to finance the war .They had control over the military which included weapons(Diamond). Nigeria had many mercenaries from different countries. The Biafrans only had a small remainder of the Nigerian army left, that were of Igbo culture. It was hard for the Biafran Army to get weapons because they had no major production of their own and could not get much from others because most countries supported Nigeria in this war. A good amount of Biafran soldiers only carried wooden guns (Diamond). Nigeria was aided by both Russia and the North Atlantic Alliance, including Nigeria’s former master, Britain(Falola). This was mostly because within the limits of Biafran land there was an oil source. Many countries were being supplied with this oil through Nigeria. When Nigeria lost the land they proficiently helped for the sake of keeping the oil in their possession (Falola). Biafra only received non-political joint Church Aid Assistance. Although this was nice, church aid really couldn’t help too much in the time of war. Nigeria had mercenary Pilots flying for them. Biafra had no air forces (Diamond). Many other things had similar comparisons because Nigeria was again, aided much more. In the novel, the characters suffer from an Air attack during a wedding.”Somebody said, “Enemy plane! Air Raid” “Outside!” Master shouted, but some guests were running into the bedrooms, screaming, “Jesus! Jesus!” The sound was louder now, overhead. They ran-Master, Olanna, holding Baby, Ugwu, some guests- to the cassava patch beside the house and lay on their bellies” (Adichie 253). In the book, Biafra is pushed and pushed farther south and are unable to fight back, because of their limited supply in, well everything. This is like what happened in real life; actually this is exactly what happened in real life.
Biafra was also suffering from a ruined economy. First of all many of the Igbo being killed left a shortage in workers, especially soldiers in the army (Diamond). All the injured and refugees were left in need and were unable to work because they were not trained. With the entire state in crisis, minimum donations were able to be made. Biafra tried to finance the war with foreign exchange and also printed its own money, but both proved ineffective because many nations were unsupportive of Biafra and only so much currency was printed and in use (Hawley). On top of all this, cities, hospitals, transportation facilities, and schools were being destroyed by every advance of the Nigerians. In Adichie’s Novel, Odenigbo and his house boy go to drop of food donations to all the refugees and when they drop it off they notice that not much is being donated. “Take the bags into the store” he told Ugwu, pointing, as if Ugwu did not know from all the times he had come in the past to bring food for the refugees. The store was empty except for a small bag of rice in the corner” (Adichie 217). Clearly times are bad if there is barely any food for the many refugees.
The war started in 1967 and by 1969, Biafra was being closed in on. In the beginning their efforts were strong. Both sides suffered a large amount of deaths. Mercenaries were brought in and other armies aided both sides. But Nigeria was a much stronger and Biafra was being worn down. On top of all this, the amount of people being killed by hunger and disease was tremendous. After all the struggle, the destruction, and downfall, the Biafrans surrendered in January 1970 (Diamond). The union was restored. Ojukwu, the leader of the Biafrans, fled the country. Nigeria was Nigeria again missing millions of people.
This war if anything was a loss because in the end there was no significant change, except for the fact that each side was murdered and suffered greatly for it. In the End over three million people died from fighting or disease (Hamon 121-129). And afterwards there was no change things just went back to how they were. The government went back to instability because the war left the economy in ruins. Although technically Nigeria won, winning the war in this context isn’t really what had an impact, in this case it was the lives of its people. Both sides lost.