Nigeria And Her Ravaging Hunger

 By Ejike Anyaduba

Nigeria relishes the moniker - the giant of Africa - which she blazons like an armorial bearing. With enormous resources and a population of about 250 million people (Professor Lumumba, the Kenyan lawyer and activist, thinks she is more than that figure) she can afford to boast about her giant status. 

But that is not enough. Nigeria accounts for one sixth of Africa’s population which stands at about 1.4billion. This population has a chance of growing more if nothing catastrophic happens by way of natural disaster or a split as was the case with Sudan - erstwhile Africa’s largest country until the secession of South Sudan in 2011. 

Ndigbo: Caught Betwixt And Between In Nigeria (1)

 

By Tiko Okoye 

In a few weeks – July 6, to be more precise – it would be exactly 55 years since then-Nigerian military Head of State and Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the Armed Forces of Nigeria and Chairman of the Supreme Military Council (SMC), then-Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon, declared war on the short-lived Republic of Biafra. 

The United States State Department recently declassified top-secret diplomatic dispatches. They are spread over 21,000 pages and provide previously unknown information about the Nigeria/Biafra civil war. This columnist would be making use of copious excerpts from the declassified dossier to more objectively link the dots embedded in the potpourri of information in a four-part series.