Word: biafras
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...informed before they take a stand. "The idea that a strong human intelligence can be brought to bear on any subject under the sun may date from the Renaissance, but there were then fewer subjects under the sun." Abstract pronouncements are useless in deciding between the "respective rectitude of Biafra and the Nigerian Federal government. It is only surprising that intellectuals still back countries or factions in countries as others back football teams or horses...
Gowon himself knew better. Desperately he recalled 600 troops from Bonny, a federal foothold in Biafra. From the Northern capital of Kaduna, another 500 came racing in on railroad cars. From Lagos itself, more troops moved out to meet the invading Biafrans. For transport they commandeered everything available; groundnut wagons rolled toward the front behind big red-and-silver municipal passenger buses. But hard as the federal troops hit back, the rebels continued to hold Ore. And since the rebel forces of Oxford-educated Lieut. Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu are largely Ibo tribesmen, Nigerians behind the front in Lagos retaliated...
...Northern soldiers set one foot in side Biafran soil, not a single inch of Nigerian territory will be safe from our attack." That was the vow of Biafra Secessionist Leader Odumegwu Ojukwu just before Nigeria's federal troops, led by Major General Yakubu Gowon, invaded Ojukwu's Eastern Region six weeks ago. Ojukwu was slow to make good his threat. But last week, having fought his attackers to a standstill, he was ready to take the offensive. In a swift twelve-hour drive, he captured the federal government's oil-rich Midwestern State...
...hundreds of Biafran troops rolled across the Niger River Bridge that connects the Biafran town of Onitsha with the Midwestern town of Asaba. There, the troops split into two columns-one heading south toward the seacoast, the other sweeping west to the state capital of Benin. With nice timing, Biafra sympathizers in Benin were already staging a military coup against the Midwestern governor, and the city fell with hardly a shot. Other towns soon followed, including the bustling southern port of Warri. That night, a Biafran B-26 bombed three heavily populated suburbs in the federal capital of Lagos; next...
...federal military government will reply with heavier blows to every act committed by the rebels and will pursue them in an all-out drive until the rebellion is completely stamped out." So far, Gowon's 15,000 troops-double those of Ojukwu-have barely won a foothold in Biafra. But Ojukwu's forces are spread thin, and the more territory they invade the more vulnerable their lives will become. It is still anybody...