Word: nigeria
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Ojukwu was betting that the centrifugal forces of tribal, religious and economic rivalry would tear Nigeria apart in time to save Biafra. But his men ran out of food before that debatable historical process could run its course. Thousands of them faded into the bush, shed their uniforms and, clad only in shorts, melted into streams of refugees. The Nigerians overran Owerri, the last remaining city of any size (250,-000) in Biafra. Then they pressed on toward Uli with their 122-mm. Soviet cannon, shelling the strip from a range of 13 miles...
...become something of a cliche to note that Biafra's rebellion confronted Nigeria with the same issue that the U.S. faced when the South seceded more than a century ago. The great difference is that the American Civil War had few immediate repercussions outside the U.S.; Nigeria's conflict is certain to strike resonant chords across the continent of Africa for decades to come...
...they would also be extremely weak-which may be one reason why South Africa, concerned about Nigeria's potential strength, supported Biafra. Secession, moreover, would lead to the further balkanization of Black Africa, where many of the countries such as Gabon (pop. 480,000) and Swaziland (pop. 395,000) are already far too small to function as working national economies. Furthermore, attempts at revising Black Africa's map would undoubtedly plunge the continent into the same sort of bloody border wars that plagued South America in the 19th century. In its founding meeting in 1963, the 41-nation...
Still, as long as Africa remains afflicted by tribalism and mired in economic difficulties, secessionist movements cannot be ruled out. And what about Nigeria? One pessimistic and probably exaggerated view is that the only thing holding Nigeria together has been the war against the Ibos. Less exaggerated, unfortunately, is speculation that an end of hostilities could be followed by trouble from another of the country's major tribes, the restive Yorubas of Western Nigeria...
WHEN a U.S. diplomat called on Major General Yakubu ("Jack") Gowon last week, he noticed a well-thumbed volume of Carl Sandburg's biography of Abraham Lincoln on the desk of Nigeria's 35-year-old military leader. Gowon had apparently read it carefully. He quoted Lincoln on the problem of "binding up the nation's wounds" and the need to ensure that "the dead shall not have died in vain." Throughout Nigeria's civil war, Gowon operated on the Lincolnesque proposition that "a house divided against itself cannot stand." In the process, he became quite...