Word: nsukka
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Grudging Concession. While this activity went on behind the lines, the fate of troops at the front was still shrouded in a mist of claims and counterclaims. First, the federal troops of Major General Yakubu Gowon announced that they had captured the university town of Nsukka on the wooded northwestern plateau of Biafra, after days of shelling it with heavy mortars and howitzers. Radio Biafra grudgingly conceded the federal victory but accused the federals of using "white mercenaries who were painted black"-though no unprejudiced observer has spotted any such creatures. Then, next day, it proclaimed that Nsukka had been...
...truth seemed to be that the fighting had moved some 15 or 20 miles beyond Nsukka deeper into Biafra, and that the federal troops had simply moved through the city without bothering at first to garrison it. It was probably largely deserted anyway, since thousands of Nsukkans had fled the federal attack in trucks, taxis and mammy wagons, joined in the first retreat by large numbers of Biafra's inexperienced soldiers. The Biafran army consisted at secession of about 7,000 men, only 2,500 of them trained in the federal army-and those chiefly in supporting service roles...
Told to "fight a clean fight" and avoid atrocities,, Gowon's troops, at least 15,000 strong, launched a four-pronged attack. His small collection of English-made Ferret and Saladin armored vehicles pushed toward the Biafra capital of Enugu and the provincial centers of Nsukka and Ogoja. Large numbers of federal troops, which the government said were "moving cross-country on their flat feet," reportedly overran an Eastern military camp and captured 500 recruits. Determined Biafrans, whose army of about 7,000 is largely composed of Ibo tribesmen, claimed to have thrown Gowon's men back into...
...closed, trade between the regions has come to a standstill. Even Nigeria's universities, traditionally neutral meeting places for members of feuding tribes, have been crippled by the new crisis. Almost all the Ibos at the University of Ibadan in the Yoruba West have retreated to the University of Nsukka in the East. In late December, Dr. Kenneth Dike, head of the University of Ibadan and an Ibo, followed suit, complaining that he lacked "the support" of the community around the university...
...really a cannibal?" the reporter asked. "Yes," replied Dick Tiger, white teeth gleaming wickedly in his walnut-colored face. "I ate up the governor of Nigeria because he was making the natives restless-and right after that, I got real hungry and ate half the British garrison at Nsukka." The odds makers decided that the muscular Igbo tribesman was only half kidding. Last week, as he stepped into the outdoor ring at San Francisco's chilly Candlestick Park, Tiger was a 1-2 favorite to beat one of boxing's most durable champions: Middleweight Gene Fullmer...