Katsumoto:

I understand the point that you are trying to make but you seem to have forgotten the issues which led to the war. Gowon was head of state but he did nothing to prevent or stop the murder of Igbo citizens in the North. As Head of State, he should have afforded protection to all Nigerians. How was Ojukwu to know what would have happened to his people if he had surrendered early?

The war lasted three years and by the end, most combatants were tired. We don't know whether some of the soldiers would have still being blood-thirsty and gone on a killing rampage if Ojukwu had surrendered after one year. What if instead of 1.5m children and women starving to death, they were massacred by Nigerian soldiers. We all know what Murtala did at Asaba.

I am not saying he should or shouldn't have surrendered, I am only playing devil's advocate.

henry101:

@ ndu chucks
As usual u ve exibited your cunning ways.
U ve refused 2 giv answers 2d questions raised.
Y did d FG led by Gowon n his team dciv Ojukwu at Aburi by accepting his terms n changed wen dey got 2nigeria.
Y didnt dey challenge him at Aburi? Rmbr Ojukwu was d only dat represented Biafra.
Answer d question n leave my person.

Onlytruth:

So ndu_chucks, we must lose all baggage to run the race of survival. Some of the baggage include things like morality and fairplay.

Katsumoto:

I understand the point that you are trying to make but you seem to have forgotten the issues which led to the war. Gowon was head of state but he did nothing to prevent or stop the murder of Igbo citizens in the North. As Head of State, he should have afforded protection to all Nigerians. How was Ojukwu to know what would have happened to his people if he had surrendered early?

doyin13:

Are we getting the chronology right. I read somewhere Gowon actually saved the lives of some of his Igbo colleagues by ordering their lockup when
Hausa soldiers went on rampage in Lagos. I might have read wrongly anyway.

About Ojukwu. What I still can't get my head around was the fact he surrendered anyway.

Katsumoto:

He may have saved some of his colleagues but what about the lives of ordinary Nigerians? The people who died in the pogroms needed more protection than soldiers who were trained to fight anyway.

Ojukwu did not surrender; he ran to Cote d'voire. Effiong was the person who surrendered.

ndu_chucks:

My friend, the decision did not require the mind of a brain surgeon. Please read the time magazine article posted by the OP and find that commanders refused to surrender even after women and children were dying at the rate of 3000 per day, haba! The dead women and children at that time were in the hundreds of thousands, sadly. Why should the war continue until over a million more civilian deaths? The reporter warned that the casaulties could reach 2 million and the reporter was right.

Katsumoto:

He may have saved some of his colleagues but what about the lives of ordinary Nigerians? The people who died in the pogroms needed more protection than soldiers who were trained to fight anyway.

Ojukwu did not surrender; he ran to Cote d'voire. Effiong was the person who surrendered.

mama-gee:

I can't laugh but who didn't know Ojukwu used different
mischevious means to stop him from fighting in the war.

Katsumoto:

No sweat
Eventually, ignorant posters will either finally get an 'education' or they will leave this section for other sections such as the jokes, romance, etc.

MrCrackles:

OJUKWU is a coward. . .
End off!

Dede1:

Why should you sacrifice the good nature of common sense on the altar of cheap and misguided political point? I guess you believe everything that is printed on a sheet of paper.

You believe that Biafran commanders at various sectors and battle theaters trying to fend off a determined enemy whose intensions were to massacre, despoil and kill women, children and all people of Biafra would at the same time visiting the countless refugee camps scattered all over unoccupied territories of Biafra.

Anyway aftermath stories of war are filled with conjectural load of rubbish. As usual, most of craps written after a war have never favored the loser.

ndu_chucks:

As I said earlier, we must agree to strongly disagree on this issue.  If the 1.5million civilian casualties, is not credible, then some people have been spreading lies on Igbo based websites. Here is a sample entry form kwenu.com,  a google search will reveal other similar claims.  How many women and children do you believe died of starvation if you disagree with the 1.5million number?

“Mounting secessionist pressures from his fellow Igbo finally compelled Ojukwu on May 30, 1967, to declare the Eastern region an independent state under the name of the Republic of Biafra. Federal troops soon afterward invaded Biafra, and civil war broke out in July 1967.The resulting Nigerian Civil war that raged between secessionist Biafra and Nigeria from July1967 to January 1970, resulted in 100,000 military casualties, and between 2 and 3 million Biafran civilian deaths from starvation and disease.”

Find the complete article here: http://www.kwenu.com/publications/okoye/2008/generals_general.htm

RichyBlacK:



Find the complete article here: http://www.kwenu.com/publications/okoye/2008/generals_general.htm


ndu_chucks,

It seems you're trying to inflate the number of possible civilian death due to starvation to somehow show Ojukwu to be insensitive. The truth is that the actual civilian casualty is unknown, however, estimates range from half million (http://www1.american.edu/TED/ice/BIAFRA.HTM) to three million (your reference).

Since you think Ojukwu surrendered too late, how soon should he have surrendered? After the first shot or after the first bomb? When? If you have no meaningful answer to this question then you have no business second guessing the actions of Ojukwu. Most Biafrans do not blame Ojukwu for the casualties of the war and that is what matters. The opinion of non-Biafrans is irrelevant on this issue.

Finally, that Igbos have turned around the losses of the war and made considerable strides in every facet of human endeavor within just four decades is indeed remarkable.

RichyBlacK:



Find the complete article here: http://www.kwenu.com/publications/okoye/2008/generals_general.htm


ndu_chucks,

It seems you're trying to inflate the number of possible civilian death due to starvation to somehow show Ojukwu to be insensitive. The truth is that the actual civilian casualty is unknown, however, estimates range from half million (http://www1.american.edu/TED/ice/BIAFRA.HTM) to three million (your reference)

Finally, that Igbos have turned around the losses of the war and made considerable strides in every facet of human endeavor within just four decades is indeed remarkable.

doyin13:

Its just sometimes I get the inkling many Igbos get paranoid and feel the rest of Nigeria
especially the South West are out to hold them down.

ndu_chucks:

Dede1, good try, but your excuse does not hold water. The high rate of starvation was reported by various international organizations, including time magazine. The whole world knew about the disaster that was about to happen which Ojukwu and his commanders allowed to happen, reportedly to score a cheap propaganda point and get the world's pity.

If you are now claiming that Ojukwu and his commanders were busy fighting hence oblivious to the high rate of death of their people, then Ojukwu and his commanders must have been incompetent, completely irresponsible, and should have never gone to war in the first place. How can they claim that they were ignorant of the deaths of say, half a million women and children because they were busy fighting? You mean to tell me that their scouts did not report these happenings to them? Your excuse is unreasonable to me, try another one.

Effiong eventually surrendered after the deaths of millions of women and children, while Ojukwu fled. I maintain that they should have surrendered much sooner because they had the information that these women and children were dying at the rate of 3000 per day!!!

Dede1:


I had rather blame the blockade employed by the Nigeria for causing deaths in millions of women and children than blame Ojukwu for fighting without surrounding. War is not fun in the sun. However, my people say regardless of death war should be fought.

Granted that Biafra was defeated, I still appreciate the fact the Nigeria’s nose and those of her bloody allies were blooded by the tinny Biafra. If Ojukwu had surrounded, north and west regions of Nigeria would have been flexing for war since the end of civil war.

At least, Nigeria realized the weight of the burden of what it took to make tinny Biafra to capitulate.

ezeagu:

Not entirely true, don't use mekusxyz as a sample of the population. People in the east are more worried about Orji Uzor Kalu and the rest of the snakes that it would almost be deadly to start focusing on somebody who is not your problem.

Dede1:


I had rather blame the blockade employed by the Nigeria for causing deaths in millions of women and children than blame Ojukwu for fighting without surrounding. War is not fun in the sun. However, my people say regardless of death war should be fought.

Granted that Biafra was defeated, I still appreciate the fact the Nigeria’s nose and those of her bloody allies were blooded by the tinny Biafra. If Ojukwu had surrounded, north and west regions of Nigeria would have been flexing for war since the end of civil war.

At least, Nigeria realized the weight of the burden of what it took to make tinny Biafra to capitulate.

<sup>There should be no argument about blockade being a legitimate weapon of the war. The issue in discourse is that since it is a strategic tool of the war and rightfully applied by the Nigerian side should not compel Ojukwu to surrender. Why is there no argument that Ojukwu should have simply surrendered at the sight of NNS Lokoja in the waters of Bight of Biafra?

For clarity sake, I must submit that Ojukwu never declared war on Nigeria. Anybody that fought against Biafra should be looked upon an indelible enemy to Biafrans. Yoruba as an ethnic nationality fought against Biafrans. The sons of Yoruba have flaunted pride and joy for being part of the enemy forces that fought and defeated Biafra. Few of them were worthy adversaries such as Alain Akirinenade, Alabi-Isama, Francies Shande and Olu Bajuwa</sup>

In the Second world war, the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin lost 22 million to its war of attrition against the invading Nazi Germany. I'm sure the same people blaming OJukwu would have wanted Stalin to surrender to Adolf Hitler to avoid the Soviet deaths.
ndu_chuks, you and I have had this conversation before and I remember asking you whether the war has ended; whether Ojukwu's death (because frankly that is what snakes like you would have wanted, stop trying to fo'ol yourself) would have saved or killed more Easterners. I put it to you that if Ojukwu had died as you planned, you would have since wiped out the easterners if not outrightly turning us into slaves in our own land. So, for the umpteenth time, Ojukwu served us well. Warts, mistakes, idiocy, or whatever his faults were in the war, we LOVE AND APPRECIATE all he did. We love him to death. So, go hang if you don't like that.

okooyinbo:

Onlytruth, please dont compare Stalin to Ojukwu. I think Ojukwu is beyond Stalin. Stalin was no better than Adolf Hitler. Do you know how many people died through the hands of Comrade Josif Stalin?

okooyinbo:

No, the enemy were not the same. Nigeria was not as murderous as Hitler. Hitler wanted to completely annihilate the Soviet union whereby Nigeria wanted to keep herself ONE. And some in the Nigeria GOVT wanted to teach that "proud" Ojukwu a lesson.

The comparison is not meant to be complete, but they fought the same type of enemies. If Stalin never fought the way he did, there [b]may [/b]be no Russia today.

okooyinbo:

Well it could be! But do you know that Stalin was actually the useless person that put the Soviet union on danger list in the first place? Did you know he killed the top brass of Russian Army to secure his power and wanted to buy time by signing a bogus "aburi" like agreement with Nazi Germany? Ojukwu is a finer person than Stalin.

okooyinbo:

Or are you suggesting that Ojukwu should have sacrificed more Igbo and Southeastern people lives by fighting harder? Josif Stalin got an enormous aid from the allied, else he would have defeated the Nazis. Besides, the cold winter in Russia aided him too. It is always warm in Biafra and there was no serious millitary aid to the too.

The Biafran war brought a permanent change to the way wars are fought in Africa. There has not been another war in Africa where starvation was allowed ever since. The world have developed a conscience since Biafra.

okooyinbo:

My friend, where there have been war there have been blockade and its resulting devastation and human tragedies. Did you study the Sudan crisis very well? What about Ethiopia and Eritrea, they did employ blockage tactics in these conflicts. The difference is that in the case of Biafra, it was devastatingly efficient in breaking moral and killing and maiming. Something I am happy about though is that the Nigerian conflict parties (FMG and Biafra) did not make an extensive use of landmines as witnessed in Mocambique, Angola etc.