…Wrong Decisions & Missed Opportunities
According to the source document – recently declassified secret American diplomatic dispatches – “The North was minded to use the civil war as a tool to reassert its dominance of national affairs…The northern section of the Nigerian military was the best equipped in the country. To ensure the region’s continued dominance, the British assigned most of the army and air force resources to the North. It was only the Navy’s they could not transfer.
“All the elite military schools were there. The headquarters of the infantry and artillery corps were there. Kaduna alone was home to the headquarters of the Nigerian Army’s 1st Division, Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (Army Depot), Air Force Training School and Nigerian Defence Academy. (On the other hand), the Eastern Region had seized a DC-3 and a Fokker F-27 from the Nigerian Air Force in April (1967, and) NNS Ibadan, a Nigerian Navy Seaward Defence Boat (SDB) that docked in Calabar Port, was quickly made Biafran.”
