50 Years After Biafra: Reflections And Hopes

By John Nnia Nwodo

1. I am grateful to Shehu Musa Yar Adua Foundation, Ford Foundation and OSIWA – the co-sponsors of this event for your kind invitation. I commend your foresight in convening this conference, the first major conference discussing Biafra outside of Igboland. Nigeria. In hosting this conference the Yar’Adua Centre, which is best known for promoting national cohesion, honours the legacy of a great patriot: Shehu Musa Yar Adua. He died building bridges of understanding across our nation. I salute his family and associates for sustaining the legacy of Shehu through the works of this Foundation.

*New Biafran Leader, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, taking the oath of  office as the Head of State of the Republic of Biafra (May 1967)

2. It is significant that you have chosen to harvest sober memories of Biafra. By so doing, you help us to wisely situate today’s talks of Biafra in the proper context: namely, as an opportunity for nation building; and not – as an invitation for invectives or recrimination.

3. 50 years ago, Nigeria faced disintegration by the declaration of the Republic of Biafra. Biafra was born out of the political crisis which engulfed Nigeria at that time. The crisis began with the struggle for leadership in the Western Region of Nigeria, the declaration of state of emergency in the West, the coup of January 1966, the counter coup of July 1966, the pogroms, the declaration of Biafra and the commencement of a police action that turned into a three years civil war.

4. I hope that our gathering today may contribute to the body of knowledge or body of lessons from the war. Lest we forget, there is wisdom in the words of George Santayana that: those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. That is why I thank you for the chance for us to collectively remember, reflect, hope and seek ways to build anew.

5.My most heartfelt reflection is that in the Nigeria-Biafra conflict, we can and should acknowledge the sacrifice – in blood, suffering and toil – by millions of citizens on both sides of that divide. They shared a common hope for their sacrifice: namely, that out of that war, we shall build a nation where no man is oppressed. The only difference was that for one side, Nigeria was that nation. For the other it was Biafra.

6. Let us spare a thought for every victim of that conflict and the crises before that: the leaders and the soldiers, ordinary men, women and children. Each one loved life; had hopes and dreamt dreams. They died prematurely and often, painfully.

7. For those of us that survived the war and others who came afterwards, we are both heirs to the sacrifices of fallen brethren. Let us commit ourselves today and always to their hopes for peace and justice. Anytime that we are violent, anytime that we are unjust in the exercise of our public trust, anytime we lower the ideals of this nation, we betray them; and we act as if they died in vain. As we honour their memory, today my worry is not only about the rising feeling of marginalization of Igbos or any other group but that our nation may emerge from this conflict a more united and prosperous country.