Word: nigerianism
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...Portuguese island of Sao Tome, Red Cross flights and gunrunners from Libreville in Gabon circled over the airstrip only briefly, then dropped swiftly through the African darkness for bumpy landings during the ten seconds in which the runway lights were flipped on by a camouflaged control tower. A Nigerian night fighter nicknamed "Genocide" tried to pick them off as they landed; occasionally he was successful. All told, ten cargo planes were shot down or crashed during the 31 months of the war and 25 crewmen were killed. Many are buried in a neat churchyard near...
...Ojukwu faced an overwhelming problem: how to feed a nation of 7,000,000 by air. A consortium of Catholic and Protestant relief agencies organized an air force of lumbering four-engine propeller airplanes to supply Biafra despite protests from Gowon that they were prolonging the war and violating Nigerian airspace...
...Nigeria from realizing its potential as the most powerful state in all of Black Africa. Black-ruled African nations, worried about the effect of the rebellion on their own disparate tribes (see box following page), were overwhelmingly pro-Nigeria. Officially, the U.S. took no sides, but it irritated the Nigerian government by undertaking an airlift of public and private food supplies to keep Biafrans alive...
...time was Military Governor of the Eastern Region, defied Gowon. On May 30, 1967, at a champagne party in the Eastern capital of Enugu, he announced the creation of the state of Biafra, which drew its name from the bay off the Atlantic Ocean that cuts into the Nigerian coast. The proud Ibos composed a national anthem-"Land of the rising sun we love and cherish, beloved home, land of brave heroes"-and dug in to defend their homeland...
...outset, Biafra fared well militarily. Ibos had been the backbone of the Nigerian army; their departure for home after the 1967 pogrom deprived Gowon of half his officer corps and three-quarters of the army's administrative force. Gowon had to replace the secessionists while building his army from a peacetime force of only 7,000 to an eventual total of 180,000. Five weeks passed before Gowon proceeded cautiously to battle by dispatching eight battalions against Biafra. The results were discouraging. Nigerian soldiers refused to fight at night because they were afraid of juju (evil spirits). Regardless...