Achebe and the Biafran Memoir

THE VERDICT ACCORDING TO OLUSEGUN ADENIYI

OLUSEGUN ADENIYI/THIS DAY

“…I had sent one copy of the novel (A Man of the People) to J.P. Clark two days earlier. When J.P. arrived at the meeting his voice rang out from several hundred feet away. ‘Chinua, you know, you are a Prophet. Everything in this book has happened except a coup!’ That very evening, unbeknownst to us, a military coup was being launched that would change Nigeria forever..”

Courtesy of Mallam Abba Kyari, I got on Monday a copy of Professor Chinua Achebe’s latest offering, “There Was A Country (A Personal History of Biafra)." Released in the United Kingdom last Thursday and due in the United States today, it is a book I will gladly recommend to anyone who wants a better understanding of our country and how we arrived at our current bind. But I have followed the debate (or lack of one) on the internet as Igbo writers, comprising mostly those in the Diaspora, and their Yoruba counterparts trade abuses, curses, insults and even threats.

It all started on October 2 when The Guardian of London published excerpts lifted from pages 233 to 236 of the book. There Achebe wrote: “The wartime cabinet of General Gowon, the military ruler, it should also be remembered, was full of intellectuals like Chief Obafemi Awolowo among others who came up with a boatload of infamous and regrettable policies. A statement credited to Awolowo and echoed by his cohorts is the most callous and unfortunate: all is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I don't see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight harder. It is my impression that Awolowo was driven by an overriding ambition for power, for himself and for his Yoruba people. There is, on the surface at least, nothing wrong with those aspirations. However, Awolowo saw the dominant Igbos at the time as the obstacles to that goal, and when the opportunity arose - the Nigeria-Biafra war- his ambition drove him into a frenzy to go to every length to achieve his dreams. In the Biafran case it meant hatching up a diabolical policy to reduce the numbers of his enemies significantly through starvation - eliminating over two million people, mainly members of future generations.”

This interpretation of Awo’s role in the course of the war and what Achebe considers his (Awo’s) place in history has been a long-held position by the author. But the late Biafran leader, Ikemba Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, had a better appreciation of Awo within the context of Nigerian politics and his view was at variance with Achebe’s. Ojukwu is on record as having said: “In political terms, he (Awolowo) would be considered an adversary of the Igbo given the intense rivalry between him and Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe. As a leader of the modern cast, he has left Nigeria standards which are indelible, standards beside which future aspirations to public leadership can be eternally measured. He was, for a long time, the only Nigerian leader that enunciated principles and played down personalities. He was a brilliant political administrator and a most erudite teacher.. At his death I had the singular honour of proposing for him this epitaph that has endured as the best President that Nigeria never had… Nigeria must continually regret that he never, for many reasons, had the opportunity to serve at the presidential level. That he did not fulfill a presidential ambition cannot detract from his leadership, and us, poor us, who were not his people, must continue to regret that our own leaders had not led us as he did his people or achieved for us as he did for his people.”

What the foregoing suggests is that Achebe is not an authority in this matter, and does not have the last word on Awo, so he is entitled to his opinion. The book is broken into four sections and is interspersed with interesting Igbo anecdotes that is vintage Achebe. It is easy for readers to see how his worldview was shaped by an inquisition into the traditions of his people. It is also quite revealing that Achebe actually got a scholarship to study Medicine at Ibadan but after spending a year, he had to follow his heart by changing to English, History and Theology yet by doing so he lost the bursary and would have paid tuition but for providence. Such providential intervention in his life is even more vivid in the story of his novel, “Things Fall Apart”. The account should inspire every aspiring writer who has faced rejection because given the naivety he recounted, the hand-written manuscript could even have been lost and the world would have missed what is without doubt the number one novel to come from Africa.

However, considering the patently Igbo-centric slant of his narrative, Achebe’s memoir will provoke a lot of reactions, especially from the North and the South-west but my hope is that the challenge will be only at the intellectual level so that our nation can benefit from the engagement that can only enrich our quest for a better society. There will be disputes about some facts and figures in the book while questions indeed would be asked about Achebe’s attempt to paint the Igbo people as the only ones who believed in the idea of one Nigeria and solely worked towards one.

According to Achebe, the pre-independence structure of the country was such that “there was an inbuilt power struggle among the ethnic groups, and of course those who were in power wanted to stay in power. The easiest and simplest way to retain it, even in a limited area, was to appeal to tribal sentiments, so they were egregiously exploited in the 1950s and 1960s. The original idea of one Nigeria was pressed by the leaders and intellectuals from the Eastern Region. With all their shortcomings, they had this idea to build the country as one. The first to object were the Northerners, led by the Sardauna, who were closely followed by the Awolowo clique that had created the Action Group. The Northern Peoples Party of the Sardaunians was supposed to be a national party, yet it refused to change its name from Northern to Nigerian Peoples Congress, even for the sake of appearances…”

However one may feel about his account, Achebe provided the philosophical underpinning for his thesis by arguing that African writers should have “some kind of commitment, some kind of message, some kind of protest. In my definition I am a protest writer, with restraint…the whole pattern of life demanded that one should protest, that you should put in a word for your history, your traditions, your religion, and so on.”

I am aware that many Yoruba people feel offended by what they consider Achebe’s unfair characterization of Awo. But whether we agree with him or not--and I certainly don’t, given Awo’s documented rebuttal of these same claims in the past--the fact remains that Achebe has been consistent because he wrote nothing in the book that he has not said before about Awo. Besides, what I expect is that those who contest his position should write their own account, not insult Achebe who deserves nothing but respect.

In the book, Achebe also raised pertinent questions about the late Ojukwu and the events leading to the war. He explained his role in the Ahiara Declaration while giving rare insights about Biafra that were never provided by anybody before. There is also an interesting account of how he and Christopher Okigbo declined from publishing Emmanuel Ifeajuna’s manuscript on the January 1966 coup because they considered it a vain attempt at self-glorification aside the fact that Nzeogwu had dismissed it as containing “lies”.

In all, there can be no doubt that Achebe is disappointed with what Nigeria has turned out to be. But can we honestly say he is alone? Instructively, there is the anecdote of a pre-civil war period in Lagos when some soldiers invaded his office with one of them saying he would find out which was more powerful, their guns or Achebe’s pen. While his pen has endured long after the last shot was fired, at the end what comes out of Achebe’s efforts is a regret of what might have been not only for Biafra but also our beloved country, Nigeria.

UNIPORT Killings: Soldiers, Police Take over Omuokiri

Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi

By Ernest Chinwo, Adebiyi Adedapo and Chiemelie Ezeobi/This Day

Soldiers and policemen under the Joint Task Force have taken over security at Omuokiri Village of Aluu where four students of the University of Port Harcourt were killed by a mob last Friday.

This came as the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Wednesday decried recent serial killings of about 46 students of the Federal Polytechnic in Mubi, Adamawa State, and four students of the University of Port-Harcourt by villagers of Aluu community, describing both incidents as evidence of total system collapse.

Meanwhile, the Inspector General of Police (IG), Mohammed Abubakar, has condemned the gruesome murder of the four students from the University of Port Harcourt.

Villagers and residents of the community had fled the community on Tuesday when the students, led by the South-south and South-east zones of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), went on rampage in the community in protest against the murder of their colleagues.

No fewer than 12 houses and 30 cars were destroyed in the protest, which was later brought under control by the JTF.

When THISDAY visited the university and the community yesterday morning, students were seen leaving the campus in droves, following the closure of the university and the consequent directive for them to vacate their hostels immediately.

UNIPORT’s Deputy Registrar, Information and Communication, Dr. Williams Wodi, had said Tuesday night that the school had been closed indefinitely, pointing out that the decision was to forestall further breakdown of law and order due to the students’ unrest.

At Omuokiri, five persons who were seen near the spot where the four students were killed were yesterday arrested by security operatives who had been deployed to the town to maintain law and order. They were handcuffed and driven off in two patrol vans.

A truck load of mobile policemen (MOPOL) were seen near the scene of the killings, while about 50 other heavily armed men of the JTF, Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Department of State Security and policemen were seen moving round the town.

Some of the security operatives were spotted retrieving some items suspected to have been used on the students before they died, including motor tyres, sticks and stones, at a place called ‘burrow pit’ in Umuokiri, probably for forensic analysis.

Non-security men seen in the community were only those whose houses and cars were burnt by the protesting students on Tuesday.

Meanwhile THISDAY observed that some of the students, especially those from outside Rivers State had taken refuge with friends at Choba, one of the host communities of the university.

NBA President, Okey Wali (SAN), said this yesterday at a press conference preceding the inauguration of the NBA working group on strategic planning. He also reiterated its support for the call for state police in the country, saying that the Nigerian police lacks adequate funding, training and intelligence gathering.

According to Wali, internal security was the biggest threats to national development, integration and progress of the nation.

He however disclosed that NBA was planning to organise a National Summit on Peace and Security in Nigeria, aimed at addressing the security challenges in the incessant security challenges rocking the country.

He stated further that the alarming state of insecurity in the country has led to a disregard for the sanctity of human life.

Wali urged security agencies to restore the confidence of Nigerians in their ability to protect lives and property of the citizenry.

“There is no disputing the fact that these show a total system failure, neither of this dastardly act took place in a time frame that the security agencies would not have arrived the scene and prevented the murders, if there had been timely intervention,” he said.

NBA charged the government should identify and prosecute the perpetrators of the inhuman acts and their collaborators to assuage the feelings of Nigerian’s. “Nothing short of the identification and prosecution of the Mubi and Allu Killers and collaborators will assuage the feelings of Nigerian’s,” he added. Abubakar pledged that the police would thoroughly investigate the matter and ensure that justice runs its full course.

Abubakar, who made this disclosure on arrival from Turkey to Lagos, however declined to reveal the actual number of persons that had been arrested in connection with the murder so far.

He said, “Even though I was not around then but I am aware of the situation and I was briefed on this even while in Turkey. We are on it and we have commenced investigation to the incident.

“The investigation would tell what exactly had happened, but I want to assure all Nigerians that we are doing our best to bring out the culprits of that very ugly incident.

Police Arrest Nigerian Woman For Trafficking 7 Girls

The Western Regional Anti-Human Traffic Unit of the Ghana Police Service has arrested a 41-year-old Nigerian woman for trafficking seven girls from Nigeria to Abidjan, allegedly for prostitution.

The suspect, Elizabeth Love Inabah, drew attention to herself at the Elubo Border in Ghana, when she engaged in a heated argument with a man, who claimed was a member of a Nigerian anti-human traffic body.

The argument was over an alleged bribe of CFA70,000 Elizabeth had agreed to pay to the man to facilitate the venture.

The police said following the argument at the entry point on October 7, 2012, the suspects were escorted to the Elubo Border Police Station, where the man, Frank Ike, 38 alleged that Elizabeth was a known human trafficker.

In reply, Elizabeth told the police that Ike demanded a bribe of CFA70,000 from her, for him to keep silent over the issue.

The girls all Nigerians, have since given their names as: Jessica Joseph, Annabel Joseph, Ebie Teli Okoire, Tressure Ovwigo, Sonia Bright, Glory Ayese, and Princess George.

According to the police, suspects Ike and Elizabeth have been placed in police custody by the Jomoro District Police Command while the victims are in the custody of the command.

The police told graphic.com.gh that CFA70,000 had been found on Ike, following a search on him, which had confirmed the claim by Elizabeth.

The police said upon interrogation, Ike told the police that Elizabeth, a known human trafficker, was wanted by the Nigerian Police. He claimed that upon seeing her in the company of the girls from Nigeria, he knew what Elizabeth was up to.

The suspect told the police that he managed to identify all the girls and also established that they were all travelling with Elizabeth.

The police said Ike alleged that Elizabeth told him she was sending another batch to Abidjan for prostitution and offered him a bribe of CFA70,000.

However, Elizabeth told the police that she was taking them to Abidjan for them to learn hairdressing.

She could not explain how she managed to cross with them from Benin and Togo to the Ghana border and was on the verge of crossing into Cote d'Ivoire.

She was also not able to explain why the girls could not learn hairdressing in Nigeria but had to travel to Abidjan for that purpose.

The girls told the police they did not know that they were being trafficked stating also that Elizabeth was responsible for their travel expenses.

When contacted, the Jomoro District Police Commander, Supt John F. Dzineku, confirmed the arrest and said the victims were being taking care of at the district command, while the two suspects are in custody.

........Ghana Web/Daily Graphic

Feds: Man arrested at LA airport not cooperating

AIKEN STANDARD/AP

AP file photo In this 2009 photo, airport police monitor the entrance of Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles.

LOS ANGELES – A man arrested at Los Angeles International Airport wearing a bulletproof vest and flame-resistant pants is not cooperating with federal officials working to discover why he was headed to Boston with a suitcase full of weapons, authorities said.

Yongda Huang Harris, 28, was taken into custody recently during a stopover on a trip from Japan when U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers reported noticing he was wearing the protective gear under his trench coat, triggering a Homeland Security investigation.

A search of Harris’ checked luggage uncovered numerous suspicious items, including a smoke grenade, knives, body bags, a hatchet, a collapsible baton, a biohazard suit, a gas mask, billy clubs, handcuffs, leg irons and a device to repel dogs, authorities said.

Harris has not cooperated with authorities attempting to interview him, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an open investigation Tuesday.

The official said Harris, who was taken into custody Friday, is not believed to be linked to a terrorist organization. His motive, however, has not been determined, the official said.

Harris has been charged with one count of transporting hazardous materials, an offense that carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. He made a brief court appearance Tuesday, but his arraignment was delayed until Friday and he was ordered held until then.

Harris is a U.S. citizen whose permanent residence is in Boston, though he recently started living and working in Japan, officials said. Attempts to reach Harris’ family in Boston and his associates were unsuccessful.

His attorney, Steven Seiden, was unavailable to comment, said Chris Williams, a spokesman for Seiden, who also represents Mark Basseley Youssef, the man behind the anti-Islam video that recently sparked violence in the Middle East.

It’s unclear what Harris had on his body and what he had checked in baggage, which will be crucial information to the defense, said Williams, who declined to comment on why Harris was carrying any of the weapons.

“It raises a lot of questions, and those questions will need to be answered. Right now, the case is very early,” Williams said.

The defense attorney’s spokesman described Harris as “very intelligent,” earning A’s in high school and college calculus.

The smoke grenade was X-rayed by police bomb squad officers, who said the device fell into a category that is prohibited on board passenger aircraft.

Such a grenade “could potentially fill the cabin of a commercial airplane with smoke or cause a fire,” federal officials said in a news release.

Many of the other items authorities say they found in Harris’ luggage – including the hatchet and knives – wouldn’t violate Transportation Security Administration guidelines for what is permissible in luggage that is checked. Also, bulletproof vests and flame-resistant pants are not listed among items prohibited aboard flights.

However, customs officers Kenny Frick and Brandon Parker believed in their initial investigation that the lead-filled, leather-coated billy clubs and a collapsible baton may be prohibited by California law, according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court.

A customs official said Tuesday night that Harris was not enrolled in any of the U.S. government’s trusted traveler programs, which could have allowed faster processing through security or customs. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss details of the ongoing investigation.

Harris traveled from Kansai, in western Japan, to Incheon, Korea, before landing in Los Angeles.

An immigration officer at Kansai International Airport, Masahiro Nakamoto, said authorities did not report anything suspicious at the time Harris boarded. Spokesman Keisuke Hamatani said Kansai security officials had not reported any suitcases containing the hazardous materials U.S. authorities say they found in Harris’ luggage.

Nakamoto said arriving passengers are checked more closely than those leaving the country.

Yasunori Oshima, an official at Japan’s Land and Transport Ministry’s aviation safety department, said there had been no official inquiry or request from U.S. authorities to look into the case, which he said would have been more of a concern if the hazardous materials were brought on board rather than checked.

“The case does not seem to pose any immediate concerns about aviation security measures in Japan,” he said.

Airport police said they do not believe the case constitutes illegal conduct under the Japanese domestic criminal code, but Japan may cooperate at the request of U.S. investigators.

Spagat reported from San Diego. Associated Press writers Rodrique Ngowi in Boston, Eric Talmadge and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Alicia A. Caldwell in Washington contributed to this report.

"There Was A Country: A Personal History Of Biafra" - Jumoke Verissimo Comments

Chinua Achebe Reflects On Biafra, But For Whom?

Jumoke Verissimo, Africa Is A Country

It is a long time already since the Biafran War (1967-1970) to write a memoir, and it makes me wonder how affective Chinua Achebe’s narrative in The Guardian is to his audience. Achebe’s new book, There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra appears to have reopened old wounds and resulted in widespread debate, whether in op-ed columns, on blogs or on social media.

I question, however, if it is possible for Achebe to remain faithful to a forty-five year-old war story? While it is important to account for history for posterity’s sake, when left too long, it might decline in veracity and become romanticised. I found an example in an excerpt of Achebe’s book quoted in the review by writer (and Achebe admirer) Chimamanda Adichie, where Achebe relays the death of his beloved friend, the poet Christopher Okigbo (Achebe has described him on occasion as “Africa’s greatest modern poet”) to his family:

When I finally got myself home and told my family, my three-year-old son, Ike, screamed: ‘Daddy don’t let him die!’ Ike and Christopher had been special pals. When Christopher came to the house the boy would climb on his knees, seize hold of his fingers and strive with all his power to break them while Christopher would moan in pretended agony. ‘Children are wicked little devils,’ he would say to us over the little fellow’s head, and let out more cries of feigned pain.

I stopped. How would a three-year-old conceive of death this imaginatively? This for me appears to be an affective narration of an adult’s hurtful experience transferred to a child. Is it not possible that other narrations in the story have also been idealised? Interestingly, this “much awaited” book is supposed to be a response to the war, and perhapsto become a reference point, as there are, in his words: “little relevant literature that helps answer these questions.”
Achebe’s Guardian article, for me, seems to have ended up promoting a self-serving perspective that encourages ethnocentricity. It has furthered ethnic cyber-war on social media and online pages of national newspapers like the The Nation, Punch, and in the Vanguard Newspaper, where a review of the book generated hate comments like:

You will never see me in a Yoruba Church, I don’t care if the pastor’s name is Jesus. This people lie like their father the devil, do you wonder why even the Hausa hates them, is not ironically that despite everything, Hausa’s still find Igbos more credible and trustworthy than Yorubas, even the south-south people can no longer trust this debased Yoruba characters, archtechs of crime and yet like the devil, always accusing others of sin, when they live and dine with the devil everyday. OGBONI-YORUBA MEANS SATAN WITH YORUBA, THE ONLY IGNORANT RACE THAT HAS PATH WITH THE DEVIL IN NIGERIA.(sic)

Some of the comments in The Guardian suggest that Achebe is propagating Igbo propaganda, especially, with his slight on Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who is accused of encouraging starvation during the war with his now infamous quote: “All is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I don’t see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight harder.” Ironically, this action was commended by Alex Ekwueme in a Vanguard article in 2010 as an act that displayed Awolowo as “a prudent manager of human and material resources by maintaining strict fiscal discipline in government spending and equally ensured that the Federal Government did not borrow money to fight the war.”

The Biafran War defined many things about Nigeria’s future. My father once told me that “we stopped being Nigerians after Biafra.” Many Igbos believe they have always been marginalised and were never really a part of the country before the war and even after. The debate on the marginalisation of the Igbo deepens each time the Federal Government is accused of attempting to exterminate Igbos during the Biafra war. Forty-five years since the war, this dirge is again revived in Chinua Achebe’s Guardian contribution.

Perhaps there are those who still see Achebe as a credible source for understanding Nigeria’s history and even that his newly published book would enlighten Nigeria on the ethnic divide since the 1966 war, it is important to note that it is not just the Biafran War that is missing in Nigeria’s school curriculum at this time; history and social studies have for a long time not been taught to students.

What is worrisome is that forty-five years after this war, it is difficult to know who exactly Achebe’s audience is: the Nigerian who lacks history or those with a manipulated history told to them by foreign media and regurgitated by the local media.

* Jumoke Verissimo is the author of I Am Memory. She is a postgraduate student of African Studies (Performance Studies), Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan. Her Twitter handle: @awapointe.

‘There Was a Country’: a review of Chinua Achebe’s Biafran memoir

BY IKE ANYA, AFRICAN ARGUMENTS

In our house in Nsukka, the small university town in eastern Nigeria where I grew up, my parents’ bedroom harboured a cupboard, reached only by standing on a stepladder. In that cupboard lay a battered brown leather satchel, filled with memorabilia from Biafra. I remember Biafran stamps, currency notes and coins, photographs, receipts, letters and a small green hard backed pamphlet: The Ahiara Declaration.

From time to time, under conditions of great secrecy, the satchel would be brought down and my brothers and I would be allowed to rummage through it as my parents told us stories of their harrowing experiences during the war. We would look at photographs of friends and family “lost” in the conflict, or during the massacres of Igbos that preceded it. We would marvel at the lightness of the Biafran coins. I don’t remember my parents explicitly saying it, but somehow it was communicated to us that the satchel and its contents were not things to be discussed outside the family home.

In Nigeria in the 1970s when I grew up, Biafra was only talked about in hushed tones, in an atmosphere of an unspoken fear that talking about it could bring reprisals.

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to be invited to an early rough-cut screening of the film version of Chimamanda Adichie’s book, Half of a Yellow Sun. At the end, in the darkened room in Soho, as I joined others to congratulate the director Biyi Bandele, I found myself hugging him instead and felt to my embarrassment, tears running down my cheeks. As I apologised, avoiding the bemused stares from some of the staff at the venue, I explained to Biyi that I had felt such a powerful reaction because the story he was telling was the story of my family – of my parents and grandparents.

That evening, as on the phone I described my feelings watching Biafran refugees fleeing the university town of Nsukka to my mother, who had herself fled the town with my father and elder brother in 1967, she said “I am glad that our story is going to be told, that the world will remember”.

Chinua Achebe’s new book There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra emerges into this landscape of memory and remembrance, forty two years after the war ended. In the book Achebe, a few weeks before his 82nd birthday, finally sets out to tell the story of his Biafra. The format he adopts is novel – involving a rambling mix of anecdotes, summarized histories, analysis, reportage, declamation and haunting poetry. In some ways, reading the book feels like I imagine spending an hour or two chatting with the distinguished novelist might.

He roams from the story of how Nigeria came to be, to his schooldays and burgeoning friendships with prominent figures like the poet Christopher Okigbo, whose presence looms large through the book. Interspersing the historical account is the story of his father, one of the early Igbo converts to Christianity, and his experiences growing up with newly Christian, trailblazing parents caught between the old traditions and cosmology of the Igbo people and the new Christianity. The personal glimpses into his early life are hugely enjoyable and indeed tantalizing – often outlined so succinctly, that he leaves the reader greedy for more detail.

Approaching the events leading up to the war - the descent of the first post-independence Nigerian government into an abyss of corruption and misrule; the role that the colonial government played in setting the stage for this descent and the first military coup in 1966 – he acquires a less personal and more straightforward recounting tone. This continues until the latter part of the book, when he begins to describe the counter-coup of July 1966, the massacres of Igbos that followed the coup, the failed attempts at negotiating peace and the subsequent declaration of independence and the harrowing consequences that followed.

Achebe, as is his right, does not pull any punches, although he does make some concessions to alternative points of view, especially in relation to the legacy of colonialism and the moral imperative on writers to produce committed literature. He is less conciliatory on the question of whether the actions of the Federal Government of Nigeria during the war constituted war crimes and, possibly, genocide. He is scrupulous in naming the officers and individuals responsible, and where possible provides their viewpoints based on news and other reports.

He also highlights the role played by Western countries and the international community. And he challenges the popular perception that General Gowon’s “No Victor, No Vanquished” policy at the end of the war in 1970 led to the successful re-integration of the Igbos into Nigeria, highlighting the egregious government policy which wiped out the savings of every Biafran who had operated their bank accounts during the war with an “ex- gratia” payment of just 20 pounds. He is also laser sharp in his conviction that part of Nigeria’s problem stems from its anti-meritocratic suppression of the Igbo people, and the refusal of the country to face up to insalubrious aspects of its history, issues that he argues continue to haunt it.

Of particular interest are the snippets that emerge of life in Biafra – the intense emotional connection of a people united by the fear and anger at the massacres, the ingenuity of the engineers who fond ways to refine petrol or build bombs and the efforts of artists and intellectuals to contribute to building a new nation. He also describes his own forays to foreign capitals to seek their support for the Biafran dream and the eventual withering and death of that dream. Sprinkled through the book are excerpts from a series of interviews commissioned by the Achebe Foundation with many of the key players in Nigeria’s history. These, when eventually published, should provide a rich resource and other perspectives on the events that the author describes.

The final section of the book picks up on Nigeria’s journey since the end of the war, dipping into the failures of governance and the consequences, raising several questions that need to be addressed for the future.

The book could benefit from a closer proof-reading and fact-checking process by an informed editor. Irritating errors crop up like “maul over” for “mull over” “deferral” for “federal”, “Iwe Ihorin” for “Iwe Irohin” and St Elizabeth’s Hospital for Queen Elizabeth Hospital, but these do not detract from Achebe’s attempt to present, from his perspective, an account of those dark days. As he says in the book, “My aim is not to provide all the answers but to raise questions and perhaps to cause a few headaches”. It is clear that this is his book, his view and his own particular nostalgic ramble. Ultimately, it is important that he has shared it, warts, unevenness and all. In doing so, Achebe has helped bring the contents of my parents’ brown satchel back into the open.

Ike Anya is a Nigerian public health doctor and writer based in London. His essay People Don’t Get Depressed in Nigeria appears in the current edition of Granta Magazine

There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra - TLE Review

Chinua Achebe: There was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra

Herbert Ekwe Ekwe (Independent scholar )

The Literary Encyclopedia

Chinua Achebe is Africa’s foremost novelist and one of the African World’s most outstanding intellectuals. The 1958 publication of his classic, Things Fall Apart,underscores the African-centred thrust of Achebe’s esteemed literary journey. In There was a Country, Achebe revisits the 1966-1970 Igbo genocide, the foundational genocide of post-(European) conquest Africa. It is also Africa’s most expansive and devastating genocide of the 20th century, in which 3.1 million Igbo or a quarter of this nation’s population were murdered. Achebe himself narrowly escaped capture by the genocidist army in Lagos where he worked as director of the external service of Nigeria’s public broadcasting corporation.

Safely back in Biafra, Achebe was appointed roving cultural ambassador by the fledging resistance government of the new republic to travel and inform the world of this heinous crime being perpetrated in Africa, barely 20 years after the Jewish genocide. He recalls with immense satisfaction the successes of his travels in Africa, Europe and North America during the period – meeting leading writers and intellectuals, addressing church, civil and human rights assemblies, and charity and humanitarian caucuses. Achebe praises, particularly, the writings and campaign work of opposition to the genocide by Jean-Paul Sartre, Francois Mauriac, Auberon Waugh, Kurt Vonnegut, Herbert Gold, Harvey Swodos, Geoffery Hill, Douglas Killam, Conor Cruise O’Brien and Stanley Diamond. On Diamond, for example, Achebe notes: “This world-renowned anthropologist … galvaniz[ed] a formidable American and Canadian intellectual response to the tragedy” (Chinua Achebe, 2012: 106).

These responses to the genocide from abroad are a sharp contrast to the appalling position of Nigerian intellectuals, Achebe’s own contemporaries of writers and academics mostly from the University College Ibadan, essentially Nigeria’s pioneer post-conquest circle of scholars who emerged in the mid-1950s (Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, 2002). Apart from dramatist Wole Soyinka, notably, a stretch of Nigerian intellectuals supported the genocide or were complicit in the crime by their deafening silence: “We expected to hear something from the intellectuals, from our own friends. Rather, what we heard was, ‘Oh, they had it coming to them’, or words to that effect” (68-69). Furthermore;

as many of us [who survived the first phase of the genocide] packed our belongings to return [home] some of the people we had lived with for years, some for decades, jeered and said, ‘Let them [Igbo] go; food will be cheaper in Lagos’. That kind of experience is very powerful. It is something I could not possibly forget. I realized suddenly that I had not been living in my home; I had been living in a strange place. (68)

Okwudiba Nnoli, the political economist, who, equally, cannot forget the nonchalance and hostility of Nigerian colleagues and others then, recalls: “[a]t that time, Nigeria seemed morally anesthesized” (Okwudiba Nnoli, 1980: 245).

The perpetrators of the genocide, who subsequently seized and pillaged the rich Nigerian economy, have by and large escaped sanctions from the international community. The consequences for Africa have been catastrophic, in that various autocratic regimes on the continent felt they could go on similar killing sprees with impunity. Forty-two years on, 12 million additional Africans have been murdered in the ever-expanding genocidal killing fields of the continent in Rwanda (1994), Zaire/Democratic Republic of the Congo (variously, since the late 1990s), Darfur – west of the Sudan – (since 2004), Abyei – south of the Sudan – (ongoing) and Nuba – south of the Sudan – (ongoing) and in other wars in Liberia, Ethiopia, Congo Republic, Somalia, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Conakry, Guinea-Bissau, Cote d’Ivoire, Chad, Mozambique, Algeria, Libya, Kenya, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Angola, Zimbabwe, Burundi and Mali.

Achebe reminds his readers that the perpetrators have still not shown any form of remorse for this crime (234-236). On the contrary, Nigeria’s genocidal campaign against the Igbo people has been followed, post-January 1970, by the implementation of the most dehumanising raft of socioeconomic package of deprivation in occupied Igboland, not seen anywhere else in Africa. This package includes the following 10 distinct features:

1. Seizure and looting of the multibillion-(US)dollar capital assets across Biafra including particularly those at Igwe Ocha/Port Harcourt conurbations and elsewhere in Nigeria

2. Comprehensive sequestration of Igbo liquid assets in Biafra and Nigeria (as of January 1970), bar the £20.00 (twenty pounds sterling) doled out only to the male surviving head of an Igbo family

3. Exponential expropriation of the rich Igbo oil resources from the Abia, Delta, Imo and Rivers administrative regions

4. Blanket policy of non-development of Igboland

5. Aggressive degradation of socioeconomic life of Igboland

6. Ignoring ever-expanding soil erosion/landslides and other pressing ecological emergencies particularly in northwest Igboland

7. Continuing reinforcement of the overall state of siege of Igboland

8. Nineteen cases of premeditated pogroms against the Igbo, particularly in north Nigeria, between 1980 and 2012

9. Ninety per cent of the 54,000 people murdered in Nigeria by the state operatives and agents since 1999 are Igbo people, according to the December 2011 research by the International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule Of Law – an Onicha-based human rights organisation

10. At least eighty per cent of people murdered by the Boko Haram islamist insurgent group’s attacks across swathes of lands in north/northcentral Nigeria since Christmas Day 2011 to date are Igbo.

These latter features, especially numbers 1-7 which inaugurated phase-III of the Igbo genocide on 13 January 1970, constitute one of the five acts of genocide explicitly defined in article 2 of the December 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide: “deliberately inflicting upon the group conditions of life designed to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part” (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2012).

There was an extensive coverage of the Igbo genocide in the international media throughout its duration. Yet in most countries of Africa in addition to the Organisation of African Unity, the continent’s supranational body, there was no condemnation of the Igbo genocide. On the contrary, in one conference communiqué after another issued throughout the 44-month duration of the slaughter, most of Africa considered the genocide a “Nigerian internal affair” (Achebe: 96-99). Achebe himself was part of the Biafra delegation to one such conference in Kampala, Uganda, in May 1968 (Achebe: 166-167). It is precisely because the perpetrators of the Igbo genocide appeared to have been let off the hook for their crimes that Africa did not have to wait very long before the politics of the Nigerian genocide-state metamorphosed violently beyond the country’s frontiers. Leaders elsewhere on the continent would subsequently wage their own versions of the liquidation of “opponents” of subjugated nations and nationalities as ruthlessly and horrifically as they could, à la Nigeria, because they expected no sanctions from either their African colleagues or from the rest of the international community. As a result, as already indicated, the killing fields of Igboland expanded almost inexorably across every geographical region of Africa.

As for the United Nations, it, too, never condemned the Igbo genocide unequivocally. Achebe appropriately uses the word “silence” (Achebe: 211) to capture the UN response to the tragedy. U Thant, its secretary-general, consistently maintained that it was a “Nigerian internal affair” (Achebe: 211-212). The United Nations could have stopped the genocide, instead of protecting the interests of the Nigerian state (Achebe: 212). In the wake of the Jewish genocide of the 1930s-1940s, Africa was, with hindsight, most cruelly unlucky to have been the testing ground for the presumed global community’s resolve to fight genocide subsequently, particularly after the 1948 historic UN declaration on this crime against humanity (cf. Hugh McCullum, 2012). Only a few would have failed to note that U Thant’s reference to “internal” is highly problematic, for genocide, as had been demonstrated devastatingly 20-30 years earlier in Europe, would of course occur within some territoriality (“internal”) where the perpetrator exercises a permanent or limited/ partial/ temporary sociopolitical control (cf. Nazi Germany and its programme to destroy its Jewish population within Germany itself; Nazi Germany and its programme to destroy Jewish populations within those countries in Europe under its occupation from 1939 and 1945). Between 1966 and 2006, the world would witness genocide carried out against the Igbo, the Tutsi/some Hutu, and Darfuri in “internal” spaces that go by the names Nigeria, Rwanda, and the Sudan respectively. The contours of the territory where genocide is executed do not therefore make the perpetrators less culpable, nor the crime permissible as the United Nations’s crucial 1948 genocide declaration states unambiguously.

The central role played by Britain in this campaign no doubt reinforced the failure of the United Nations to protect Igbo people during this catastrophe. Britain, a fully-fledged member of the United Nations – indeed a founding member of the organisation who enjoys a permanent seat on its security council and participated in drafting the anti-genocide declaration – supported the Igbo genocide militarily, politically and diplomatically. Britain was deeply riled by the Igbo lead-role in the 1930s-1960s in the struggle to terminate its occupation of Nigeria. A senior British foreign office official was adamant that his government’s position on the international relief supply effort to the encircled and bombarded Igbo was to “show conspicuous zeal in relief while in fact letting the little buggers starve out” (Roger Morris, 1977: 122). Indeed as the murder of the Igbo progressively worsened, Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who Achebe describes as “villain of the peace” (Achebe: 214), was unfazed when he informed Clyde Ferguson (United States State Department special coordinator for relief to Biafra) that he, Harold Wilson, “would accept a half million dead Biafrans if that was what it took” (Morris: 122) Nigeria to destroy the Igbo resistance to the genocide.

Achebe embarks on his all-important memoir by quoting that engaging Igbo proverb that reminds everyone of the urgency of trying to come to terms with a catastrophic history: “a person (sic) who does not know where the rain began to beat them cannot say where they dried their body” (Achebe: 1). Thankfully, for the interest of posterity, this subject, the Igbo genocide, is one of the most documented crimes against humanity. Leading university and public libraries across Europe (particularly in Britain, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, Denmark and Sweden) and North America have invaluable repositories of books, essays, articles, state papers (including, crucially, hitherto classified material now declassified as part of mandatory timeframe provisions and freedom-to-information legislations), church papers, human rights/anti-genocide/anti-war groups’ campaign papers, reports, photographs and interviews, Red Cross/other third sector papers, reports and photographs, newspaper/newsmagazine/radio/television/video archives and sole individual depositories, some of which are classified as “anonymous contributors”.

These data variously include extensive coverage of news and analyses of varying features of the genocide between May 1966 and January 1970 as well as still photographs and reels of film footage of the devastating impact of the genocidist’s “starvation” attack on Igbo children and older people, the air force’s carpet bombings of Igbo population centres (especially refugee establishments, churches, shrines, schools, hospitals, markets, homes, farmlands and playgrounds) and the haunting photographs and associated material that capture the murder of tens of thousands Igbo in north Nigerian towns and villages and elsewhere during the first phase of the genocide in May-October 1966. A stream of these archival references has flowed steadily onto the youtube website as well as other internet outlets and much more material on the genocide will be available online in the months and years ahead. On the whole, this documentation is a treasure-trove for the conscientious scholar and researcher on the genocide.

Works Cited

Achebe, Chinua Achebe, There was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra. London: Allen Lane, 2012.

Amnesty International, “Killing at will: Extrajudicial executions and other unlawful killings by the police in Nigeria”. http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AFR44/038/2009/en/f09b1c15-77b4-40aa-a608-b3b01bde0fc5/afr440382009en.pdf (accessed 24 September 2012)

Duffield, Caroline (a), “Nigerian hospital ‘overwhelmed by corpses from the police’”. http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/8400799.stm (accessed 25 September 2012).

Duffield, Caroline (b), “Nigerian police: Issuing corpses and denials”. http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/8401119.stm (accessed 25 September 2012)

McCullum, Hugh, “Biafra was the beginning”. http://www.africafiles.org/article.asp?ID=5549 (accessed 22 September 2012).

Morris, Roger, Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger & American Foreign Policy. London and New York: Quartet Books, 1977.

Nnoli, Okwudiba, Ethnic Politics in Nigeria. Enugu: Fourth Dimension Publishers, 1980. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, “Convention and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide”. http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/genocide.htm (accessed 25 September 2012)

Walker, Andrew, “On patrol with Nigeria’s police”. http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/7986039.stm (accessed 23 September 2012).

Citation:
Ekwe Ekwe, Herbert. "There was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 October 2012

The Literary Encyclopedia

Kenya Makes The List In Academy Awards Foreign Language Category

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced a record setting seventy-one entries to its list of official foreign language category Monday, October 8, 2012 for the Oscars in 2013 with Kenya making the list for the first time.

"Nairobi Half Life," directed by David "Tosh" Gitonga and writers Serah Mwihaki, Charles “Potash” Matathia, Samuel Munene and Billy Kahora about a story of an aspiring actor who goes to the big city, Nairobi, in search of fame and future; lost his belongings becoming destitute and while struggling to get back on his feet with the help of dubious friends, he finds himself in a series of criminal activities.

Iran did not submit its entry in protest of "Innocence of Muslims" which sparked deadly riots all across the globe. The Oscar nominations will be announced on January 10, 2013 while the ceremony will be held on February 24, 2013.

Calgarian sees the positive after homeless experience

Reasons for thanks abound

By Valerie Fortney, Calgary Herald

Tasha Brown - with her husband Oliver Okennah and her three children, Domanik, 10, Delilah, 16, and Diante, 12 - is speaking out on the issue of homelessness. Photo: Ted Rhodes/Calgary Herald

Her date was more than a half-hour late. As she walked out of the coffee shop, Tasha Brown made an uncharacteristic decision.

"I was throwing in the towel," she says with a laugh of her fleeting moment of defeat. "Just then, I looked up and saw the most handsome, tall man walking towards me."

That chance encounter earlier this year between a single mom and a new Canadian turned into a two-hour-long, impromptu coffee date. "We were together every single day from that moment on," says the 34-year-old Brown. "I pretty well knew Oliver was the one after a couple of dates."

On Sept. 29, Tasha Brown and 33-year-old Oliver Okennah were married in a northwest Calgary church, before close to 200 cheering friends and community supporters. Despite the couple's humble $1,000 wedding budget - her flowing gown was a gift from a friend, while others pitched in with such accessories as flowers and table decorations - it was a grand affair.

Anyone familiar with her can-do spirit would have little doubt Brown could pull it off. "I don't like to think about limits," she says with a chuckle as we chat in her Erin Woods home on Friday. "You've got to keep positive and work with what you have."

Brown first came to the attention of Herald readers Thanksgiving of 2006, when I was assigned the task of talking to people who knew first-hand the challenges of being homeless on Calgary streets. When I put in a request at the charitable organization CUPS Health and Educational Centre to help me find someone who could speak on homeless families, Brown was the only one who volunteered.

"I had nothing to be ashamed of," she says of that day six years ago. "We went without a home for only three months, but it was a devastating experience that had lasting effects. I really felt people needed to understand what it was like for us."

At the time, Brown was a single mother of three, who after being swindled out of a damage deposit - the man renting wasn't the real owner - found herself a client of such local agencies as Inn From the Cold and CUPS. Those long months were spent in church basements by night and CUPS' family resource centre by day.

Brown's no-holds-barred story of having to read bedtime stories to her kids from a cot in a gymnasium, as well as the stigma they experienced at school, struck a chord with readers.

"I was overwhelmed by people's generosity," says Brown, who was offered a rental home at an affordable rate, among many other generous donations.

Soon, buoyed by the experience, Brown and her then-15-year-old daughter Delilah began speaking publicly about their experiences and were profiled in a documentary on homelessness; Delilah was later selected as a finalist for "Top 20 under 20," a national program sponsored by the national non-profit organization Youth in Motion.

"A lot of great things came about by speaking out," says Brown, who began working for CUPS in its family resource centre. The support she received gave her the confidence to strive for even more: in 2009, she took a program sponsored by Momentum, a local non-profit organization run by the Mennonite Central Committee. That program got her in touch with representatives from the Own Hart Home Owners Program, which matched, at a ratio of four to one, what she was able to save for a down payment.

Last year, she and her kids moved into their three-bedroom townhouse. "We even got the dog," she says with a smile of Officer, their ab cross. "People take for granted having a roof over their heads, but without it, it's pretty hard to get anywhere."

Brown, who continues her work today with CUPS in its intake area, feels she can be an inspiration for those desperate clients who walk in the door.

"I understand why so many turn to such self-destructive things as addiction," says the non-drinker who was recently profiled in a book for the Calgary Homeless Foundation, Susan Scott's The Beginning of the End. "I've walked in their shoes, so I understand what they're up against."

These days, she is busy with writing a book on her experience of homelessness - "I want my kids to know what I was thinking and I want people to understand what goes on when you're in this situation" - while happily settling in to married life.

"We're saving up to go to Nigeria, where Oliver is from," she says. "I want to meet my new family."

Meanwhile, she says this Thanksgiving she will think of all the richness of her life that came out of her own courage to speak out those six years ago.

"It doesn't matter how much money you have, how important you are, what kind of car you drive," says the gal who'll soon go by the name Tasha Okennah.

"What matters is who is sitting around your table - that you're loved and doing your best with what God has given you."

Flood Sacks Jonathan's Home, Kinsmen As Group Warns of Impending Famine

It was a typical case of the powerful also cry as the nationwide flood has hit the homes of both the rich and the poor.

The flood has spread to the homes of political gladiators in Bayelsa State, including the homestead of President Goodluck Jonathan. His native community, Otuoke, just at the bank of the Kolo creek in Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, was over the weekend, submerged by flood, following the ceaseless downpour in the last few days. Over 90 per cent of Bayelsa State has been submerged by flood.

All attempts to get to Otuoke proved abortive as the road from Agbura community near Yenagoa was taken over by the water. Those venturing to the community could only go by canoes which were on standby along the road to the community.

The heliport where President Jonathan's helicopter usually lands in the outskirts of the Otuoke community has now been converted to a refugee camp, as the flood has sacked thousands of people from their homes.

Former governors of the state, Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha's country home at Amassoma and his residence at Yenagoa, the state capital have all been overtaken by the ravaging flood.

The Niger Delta University (NDU) also situated at Amassoma has also been swallowed by the flood.

Earlier last week, the country home of the present governor, Seriake Dickson, was submerged by flood as well.

Governor Dickson who spoke to the refugees at the sports complex yesterday said he had set up an emergency disaster committee to advise him on the situation.

He said that over three quarters of the people of the state were affected by the flood and that the normal expenditure of the state cannot cope with the magnitude of the situation.

Lamenting the disaster that the flood has wrought, Governor Seriake Dickson stated that six of the eight local government council areas in the state were under water, adding that the rest two, Nembe and Brass may be submerged soon.

He said that his country home in Toru Orua had been submerged also. "I couldn't land in my own community when I went there."

But the National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA) has set up three refugee camps in conjunction with the state government to house the over 10,000 internally displaced persons so far identified in Yenagoa.

The Samson Siasia Sports Complex, the Bishop Demieri Grammar School (BDGS) and the Igbogene Heliport have been converted to refugee camps.

The NEMA zonal coordinator, South/South, Emenike Umesi said that three large tents capable of holding 200 families each would be erected at the Sports Complex while 24 small tents were being erected at the heliport.

THISDAY gathered that the two communities are under heavy flooding each year, hence the decision of the state government to relocate the state airport from the area to another location.

But fearing the effect of the nationwide flooding, Civil Society Organisations have warned of imminent food shortage throughout the country following the flooding of many communities in over 21 states in Nigeria.

One of the Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Global Initiative for Peace, Love and Care (GIPLC) has warned that Nigerians could suffer severely if positive and urgent steps were not taken to address the situation.

The National Coordinator of the organisation, Malam Nuhu Fulani-Kwajafa in Abuja at the weekend during a sensitisation rally observed that the affected communities were commercial farming takes place.

Kwajafa said they were embarking on a coordinated effort to secure money and other relief materials from voluntary donors to assist the affected communities.

The coordinator, also emphasised the need for urgent steps to be taken by government at all levels to ensure that the victims were rehabilitated and alternative farmlands provided for them to resume farming.

And in what seems like a response, Minister of Agriculture, Dr Akinwumi Adeshina at the weekend said that, federal government would partner with the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines for the introduction of rice that can do well under flooded conditions.

Adeshina disclosed this in Ilorin, Kwara state capital over the weekend after a visit to the state governor, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed.

The minister who was in the state to inspect flood-ravaged farm lands in Edu and Patigi local government councils of the state, said the federal government would also distribute high yielding maize seedling that can mature in 60 days, free of charge to farmers.

According to him, "these efforts are part of federal government's effort in ensuring that the floods, across the country which ravaged farm lands, does not lead to food scarcity in the country".

He said that, he was in Kwara state to express the sympathy of the federal government to the people of flooded areas and the state government.

The minister, who attributed the floods to climate change in the world, said the federal government, apart from provision of high yielding and flood resistant seedlings, has mobilised other measures to deal with the situation.

........THIS DAY

Book Review: “There Was a Country”: Chinua Achebe’s Memoir of War

Chinua Achebe’s memoir of the Biafran war

Uzodinma Iweala, The Daily Beast/Newsweek

Steve Pyke / Courtesy of the New Yorker-Contour by Getty Images

I met Chinua Achebe for the first time when I was in high school, but I knew him through his works long before that. “Uncle,” as my siblings and I were told to call him, came to our house in Washington, D.C., for a teatime reception my mother had organized. She had just co-written a biography of him for children, inspired in part by my lament that there were few books about the lives of famous Africans. It was hard to reconcile the taciturn, elderly, black-beret-wearing gentleman in his wheelchair beneath the bougainvillea with the unapologetic in-your-face voice of Africa I had imagined while reading his seminal work, Things Fall Apart, or the determinedly angry man I had pictured working through the arguments of his ever-relevant 1982 essays, The Trouble With Nigeria. The man who sat in our living room reminiscing with my father—who remarked to my best friend’s mother when she apologized for presenting a dog-eared copy of Things Fall Apart for him to sign, “Well I know that you have truly read the book!”—was unassuming, not substance over style, but substance as style.

It is perhaps for this reason that Achebe’s works have become the foundational texts for much of African literature and his person a role model for many Africans, writers and nonwriters alike. Things Fall Apart, his first and most influential novel has sold more than 12 million copies since it was published in 1958. It is a staple in any course on the modern English-language novel, and has even inspired an eponymous hip-hop album by the The Roots. His essay on Conrad’s Heart of Darkness has so profoundly shaped the way Conrad is read that the two texts are now taught alongside each other. Achebe’s refusal twice to accept Nigeria’s National Honors on the grounds that many of the problems with governance he illuminated in The Trouble With Nigeria remain unsolved, has only solidified his reputation as a man of ultimate principle. But the cultural, historical, and personal antecedents of this “Teacher of Light” have largely remained the focus of postcolonial theorists who have often rendered the world’s most accessible author inaccessible.

It seems fitting, then, that Achebe who turns 82 this November, would attempt to offer himself to us in his new memoir, There Was a Country. The book has all the elements of an author’s journey through his own life. There is the story of how his orphaned father’s conversion to Christianity set the stage for Achebe’s education and love of reading; how his own personal early experiences with both traditional religion and Christianity created internal conflicts that form the subject matter of his early novels; how he bounced from studying medicine to English, into a career at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corp., and through that into the arms of Christie Okoli, his wife for the last 56 years. But this narrative stops short, as if Achebe partially subscribes to the thinking of Toni Morrison, who famously canceled a memoir, saying, “There is a point at which your life is not interesting, at least to me.” For Achebe it appears that his life is only interesting within the context of the Nigerian Civil War (also known as the Nigeria-Biafra War) of 1967–70, which claimed up to 3 million lives, most of them from the Igbo ethnic group of which Achebe and I are both members. This war began after the mass slaughter of Igbos in northern Nigeria inspired the flamboyant Oxford-educated Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu to declare an independent state in the Igbo-dominated southeast, and inspired many to humanitarian action, even as it became a proxy battleground for corporate and Cold War interests.

Forty years on, it is impossible not to see the impact of that civil war. For many Igbos, the impact is still very personal. Both of my grandmothers can only shake their heads and repeat “It was so terrible” when asked about that time in their lives. As does Achebe in There Was a Country, my grandfather can recount numerous near brushes with death at the hands of often-ruthless Nigerian fighter and bomber pilots. My mother and father speak vividly of the initial excitement following Ojukwu’s declaration of Biafran independence followed by fear, deprivation, and eventually an absolute weariness as the conflict dragged on. For the children and grandchildren of Igbos who lived through the war, these stories of trauma have left an indelible impression that underlies a certain mistrust of Nigeria’s attempt at national unity. Equally devastating is the war’s impact on our national political system. Achebe writes that after the war, “the Igbo were not and continue not to be reintegrated into Nigeria, one of the main reasons for the country’s continued backwardness, in my estimation.” A trip to the Igbo-dominated southeast reveals abysmal roads, bridges threatening to collapse, and a power grid that is all but entirely useless, all what many Igbos believe is a deliberate policy of neglect as punishment for the sin of secession. The country has suffered as a result of what Achebe calls the evil of tribalism.