Word: ojukwu
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...NIGERIA. Far more serious, and likely to last far longer, is the battle between the Nigerian Federal Government of Major General Yakubu Gowon and the energetic Ibos of Eastern Nigeria, led by Lieut. Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, who declared their independence two months ago and proclaimed the Republic of Biafra. Since federal troops attacked the dissidents two weeks ago, both sides have tried to keep foreign observers out of the battle zones, enabling each to report glowing daily accounts of success in the fighting...
Though most of the soldiers, including Gowon and Ojukwu, had never fired a shot in battle before, both sides claimed victories and at week's end filled the air waves with confident reports. Meanwhile, a number of African leaders, among them Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, assembled hastily in Nairobi to issue an appeal for an armistice...
...Major General Yakubu Gowon, 32, rolled out of the lush green hills of the Northern region to attack Nigeria's secessionist Eastern region, which now calls itself Biafra. Gowon's aim: "A short, surgical police action" to crush the rebellion led by Lieut. Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu...
...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 their own territory at one border point. Colonel Ojukwu called on the Biafrans to kill ten federal soldiers for every one of their Ibo tribesmen slaughtered last year in riots in the predominantly Moslem North. It was the massacres of thou sands of Ibos that convinced Ojukwu that his state (pop. 12 million) cannot hope to live safely within...
Never a Shot. Gowon's invasion may have been necessitated by the reported decision of foreign companies exploiting rich oil reserves in Biafra's Niger River Delta to pay their taxes and royalties (about $40 million this year) to Ojukwu's treasury instead of Gowon's. Ojukwu's troops had taken up positions at the oil installations, and the companies apparently felt that they had no choice but to pay the de facto government. This gave the Eastern regime a degree of recognition, and may have convinced Gowon that the time had come to demonstrate...