Emeka Ojukwu, leader of breakaway Biafra, died on November 26th, aged 78

"Biafra’s failure to redraw colonial boundaries by force put an end to most further attempts. If any change is to be made now, it must be by consent, as in Sudan."

And what if consent is never to be granted? Must the Ibo and those like them suffer forever? No, the “cautionary tale” here is not for Africa, it is for Britain. After fucking your colonies over for hundreds of years, don’t screw them for a thousand with your careless, moronic, malignant borders. Britain bears responsibility for Kashmir too. And Palestine. And for the ever problematic border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Economist seems to have successfully forgotten this legacy, and we should not let them. Too many have suffered too much, and too many will suffer still more.

The author wrote "Biafra’s failure to redraw colonial boundaries by force put an end to most further attempts. If any change is to be made now, it must be by consent, as in Sudan."

Unless the earth was created a this year and our memories with it,
South Sudan did have a war.
And Eritria did, by force, withdraw and be independent.

Was this article written without an editor older than 16?
Or are the editors agreeing to this?

14 years ago I claimed to all that the Economist was the best source of new.
Frankly, it seems more and more like the news from the novel 1984.

I feel like an old man who's whole life was just a dream, with the Economist advocating state socialism for billionairs and denying the existence of reality as I know it.

RIP Ojukwu. Inspirational leader.

jayudoka,I am Nigerian and half Ibo,but I am sorry I totally disagree with you.I was in Nigeria during the civil war and as TE rightly reports the federal troops behaved impeccably.There is no debate here, all the relevant information you would need to disabuse your mind is out there on the internet.We are now Nigerians and the issue of tribal or ethnic diffrences should no longer apply in the modern world.Everyone else sees us as black African and not as members of some ethnic or tribal group etc.Rather than hanker after some reversion to a nation based on tribe,we should all work together to forge one strong nation devoid of tribal affiliation based on tribe.You may not think that way,fortunately the younger generation do think that way, and it is this thinking which is going to build the Nigeria of the future.
But do leave the 'Brits' out of this and let us tackle our problems without needless diversion.If you read this piece carefully and really know the history of Nigeria you would be compelled to conclude that TE have done a brilliant job within the limited space of the obituary.Be charitable enough to give TE credit where this is due,as in this case.Have a good evening.

It could be recalled that late Akanu Ibiam of the World Council of Churches renounced his Knighthood and returned his paraphenalia to the Queen in protest agaist Britain's ubabashed support of pogrom and genocide against the Igbos. It is a historical fact that killing of Igbos started in Jos - Northern Nigeria in 1945, moved to Kano in 1953 before the waves of pogroms of May 29, July 29 and September 29, 1966.It was the BBC that dubbed the January 1966 coup an 'Igbo Coup' which generated anti Igbo hysteria whereas all Igbos never met to organise it and inspite of the non Igbo participants while Igbo Officers countered and ensured that it failed.

For the Economist to echo the BBC almost 46 years after is not only callous and unfortunate but also mischievous.

Portraying the victim as the villain,the indisciplined as the insulted,the repudiator of an accord because he had might as beeing right,and the better negotiator as beeing clever are all means of papering over an otherwise unconscionable crime against hummanity for which Britain was complicit.If Ocampo were arround then, it is most likely that Gowon and his henchmen including Murtala Mohammed who massacred over 2000 defenceless civillian boys and men in Asaba would have bagged life sentences in the Hague.
The antics of the then British High Commissioner Sir Cummings- Bruce(who doctored Gowon's August 1, 1966 speech from 'araba' to 'Go On With one Nigeria') in Lagos and the Harold Wilson Government in London were well documented by history and their machinations to substitute western oil interests in the Niger Delta for the Eastern leg of Nigeria's geopolitical tripod by making the civil war inevitable.
Apparently, since indirect rule failed woefully in the East, the Igbos needed to be politically emasculated for unfettered access to oil in the Niger Delta such that Wilson's Government was so exasperated for inability to 'crush' Biafra sooner than later.
Britain was even more clever because as it is, the Nigerian Generals with the bigger battalions were unwittingly, mere pawns for Britain's proxy war.However, the victory has been nothing but pyrric.Has the truncated Aburi Accord not resurfaced as Sovereign National Conference, Conference of Ethnic Nationalities,Resource Control,BOKO HARAM,MASSOB,OPC,APC,etc and the despoilation of the Niger Delta by the oil majors not given rise to OGONI, MEND etc while both have combined to generate monumental corruption, political cum economic dysfunction and near failure of Nigeria as a state?

One would expect an otherwise respectable Journal like the Economist to do much better than this shallow obituary on a great man who saw tomorrow, gave a blueprint for unity in diversity and had the conviction and courage to fight for self preservation and against injustice still bedevelling Nigeria.

But since 'the cause of the problem' has passed away, it will be quite interesting to read the Economist's recipie for Nigeria's renaissance moreso since Gowon who won the major civil war is alive to see what Nigeria has become and witnessing a mini civil war in his own middle Belt Region.

The Economist must reinvent and redeem itself or lose credibility - the blatant lie about Southern Sudan cries to high heavens!

I'm sorry Femi, but you do not seem to understand the enormity of the trap a typical citizen finds himself in a modern African country finds itself, which explains why the last paragraph of the TE article is instructive.

You equate my observation to whining, even though you opined that Ojukwu Somersault as foolish, whereas if you look at the basis for armed secession in Nigeria, the issues underlying their cause were rightly or wrongly never addressed and yet the options the protesters had were few. Unfortunately they also end up losing the right to have a voice too eventually.

Your impression of the Nigerian problem is very summary and lacking of depth on the real issues which predates independence. Despite the intrigues that led to the war, some - if not majority - Ibos feel aggrieved (check out various Nigerian forums for a start, MASSOB, meanwhile, is pursuing a real cause for which government attends to it with force). While Gowon declared a "no victor and no vanquished" policy, it is a dagger-in-cloak in reality, and the hegemonization has been so far fetched that even young northerners (actually Hausa-Fulanis) still harbour a blind sense of a right to rule without consideration of even a democratic process, part of which led to the death of 11 university graduates operating as electoral officers this year.

I believe Nigeria is a good project. But if it cannot be run with consideration of the diversity and preferences of its inhabitants, I don't understand why we should be moping for a potential in perpetuity when there is only one life to live, the average value of which is less than some wild animal in some other part of the world.

Victim of a pig-headed tendency by European colonialist powers to keep their former holdings intact and in one piece. As were millions of Africans.

as an ibo man i have being itching to see what TE will write on
ikembas obituary.this goes to show the arrogance and lack of
understanding from the brits TE included.how do you negotiate
or even reach a civil understanding with a people that realy
wish death upon you.gowon was a christian and thats the big thing
that realy made him think like that.if it was a muslim we would
all be dead by now.the brit helped to creat this disaster called
nigeria and until the brits are ready to support the break up
of this fake nation,noting will be solved.and you will continue
to get all the crime and awful things that is emanating from
nigeria.

All said and done, Nigeria is essentially a failed state. Ojukwu is my hero and he will ever be. Femi, you may disagree with him on some of the position he took, but that does not make less of a hero. He is brave, bold and decisive. Non-igbos may choose to interpret it however they wants:they have the right to, after all we have freedom of thought and expression.

So, Femi,on Late Dim Ojukwu's burial day be sure i will be there to pay my last respect to an igbo man, a Nigerian and an African.

Even the late Namdi Azikiwe along with other eminent Igbo leaders like Dr.Akanu Ibiam,Professor Ndem etc advised Emeka not to embark on the disastrous war he was hellbent on engaging in, knowing, as every right thinking person could see at the time,that there was absoloutely no prospect of winning the war,then you say 'inspirational leader',have you really got your facts right ?

If any lessons are to be learnt from Ojukuw's life, they would be the following : -

1.Listen to your elders,this could spare you a great deal of trouble.He could have learnt this lesson from Yakubu Gowon who although far less educated and from a much more humble background was wise enough even in his youth to listen to his elders and who consequently reaped the rewards of obedience.Even today Gowon remains a respected elder-statesman,respected throughout the world.Emeka would love to have earned similar recognition,regard and respect,but he chose to blow his chances.Poseur to the very end, he never had the courage to face the reality of his failings and failures.
2.The fact that you are clever does not mean you are not mad.In fact the two [ often ] go hand in hand.I have always questioned Emekas mental balance,but I would leave that to psychiatrists and psychoanalysts,I am not one.
3.Hubris often leads to disaster.
4.Young men thrust into positions of power and authority often get carried away by delusions of their omnipotence - Lybia's Saif al Islam Gadaffi is one recent example.Young men in similar positions to that in which Emeka was thrust into, in the 1960's, would do well to exercise great care, caution and humility.
5.No amount of education can substitute for true wisdom,which is an innate characteristic of the individual; you either have it or you don't.You cannot force wisdom.Cleverness you can acquire from books and learning,wisdom you are born with,it is a gift from God.You could be uneducated and wise,there are numerous examples of such people,look around you and you would find them.Ilodibe the founder of the transport company Ekene dili Chukuwu was one of them, as was [ alas ] Emeka's own father.You would have thought he would have grasped this fact.

Lastly had Emeka not studied history at Oxford,you would perhaps have excused and forgiven him for not appreciating the consequences of the cause he was embarking on when he chose to secede from Nigeria.He must have know what the full consequences would be,nevertheless he choose pig-headedly to plunge an entire people headlong into the ruin and disaster from which some families, to this day, have not recovered from.
I wish Emeka peace and repose in death,but we cannot shy away from his legacy and the consequences of the disastrous decisions he took at a fateful junture in Nigeria's history.The facts,thanks to the internet are there,let everyone read them and make up their minds.

FEMI, I THOUGHT THE SUBJECT IS VERY DEAR TO YOUR HEART AND ALL OF A SUDDEN, YOU BECAME BUSY!THE WAY TO PERSUADE A CRITICAL AUDIENCE LIKE THE READERS OF THE ECONOMIST IS NOT BY JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS WITHOUT PROPERLY LAID OUT PREMISES AND SYLLOGISM. BEING HALF 'IBO' AND LIVING IN LAGOS DURING THE WAR DOES NOT MAKE YOU AN AUTHORITY AND ORACLE WHOSE WORD IS FINAL.I MAINTAIN THAT INDEED YOU MAY JUST BE AS PARTISAN AS THE WAR PROPAGANDISTS AND I WONDER WHAT MAKES YOU AN AUTHORITY IN LEADERSHIP - PERSONAL AND COLLECTIVE- TO ASSERT THAT WHAT THE IGBOS ARE LACKING IS LEADERSHIP.IN CASE YOU DO NOT KNOW,INJUSTICE IS A UNIVERSAL BLIGHT WHILE JUSTICE IS A UNIVERSAL VIRTUE.IF YOU WISH INJUSTICE TO OTHERS, DO NOT BE SURPRISED WHEN IT COMES KNOCKING ON YOUR PERSONAL,FAMILY, EXTENDED FAMILY, UP TO TRIBAL DOORS.YOU APPEAR TO WANT PROGRESS FOR NIGERIA BUT REFUSE TO ADDRESS THE IMPERATIVE OF GENUINE PEACE(NOT PEACE OF THE GRAVE YARD OR JONAH IN THE BELLY OF THE WHALE)WHICH CAN NOT HOLD WITHOUT JUSTICE.FEMI, YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN OBSCURANTISM AND REVISIONISM.

Britain colonised Nigeria for a much less shorter period than Britain was itself colonised by the Romans,but you don't hear the British blaming all their problems on their colonial masters.We Nigerians should stop moaning,roll our sleves up and get on with the project of nation building.I am sick to the back teeth of hearing Nigerians blame all their woes on the British.The British colonised almost half the world at one time with their twenty and thirty year olds,they inevitably made mistakes,but on the whole given the resourcs at their disposal I think frankly they did a good job.It is our responsibility as Nigerians to repair whatever damage they did and to build from the abundance we undoubtedly have.One thing is for sure, the British owe us no obligation to come and fix our own country or indeed to fix any other country,they have enough problems of their own and like any mature people are making an effrot to resolve these,we should do the same.

Part of the apparent and real inertia of most African countries is due to the current structure of most African countries. Very few few of them operate Federal structures that reflect the diversities of their people due to a combination or either of ethnic hegemony or local elite consensus. Lack of an incentivizing and sustaining commonness that is immediately adoptable to the African (language, custom, religion)to give him a sense of nationhood and community will ensure that we continue to operate in parallelism and brief occasional heat for time to come.

It is good to note that there are people within the former Biafra who are helping to consolidate the Nigeria project. Ironically, the ones who led to forge Nigeria geographical unity in the civil are the ones who do most to undermine a common sense of Nationhood. Hence calls for a redraw of the country seems to hold a very high quality of reason especially if you are faced with the everyday reality of the average Nigeria (Note: the average Nigeria is not an Economist reader, and is probably less concerned about issues of Unity or not).

Ojukwu may have made a poor judgement in taking his people to war, but the consequences of Britain not doing enough to Federalize the nation and recognizing need for minority protection in the clauses of the constitution lent credence to suspicions of tacit support for a northern-Nigeria led government reminiscent of English hegemony on Britain. Whatever the case may be, I live in Nigeria and I face the everyday reality of a poorly structured polity which even a constitutional review or Sovereign conference will do little to assuage now.

Maybe the British did not owe our people that obligation, but they owed it to their own legacy, and that failure will ever remain one of the many goofs around the world of the British Colonial Office turned the self-styled "world's best international diplomats".

Even though i wished that the civil war had not claimed millions of Lives, but it was inevitable. the northerners were intent in committing genocide and we Igbos rightly resisted.

And Femi, what happened in the 1960s is not ancient history. The truth is Muslim north and christian south are two radically different worldview. Chikena!.

Tochukwu

Femi, you seem to hold full custody of knowledge concerning this geographical expression called Nigeria (pardon me to borrow these words from PA Awo), and to that extent, a monopoly of knowledge of what is right or wrong about Nigeria. From your stand point you represent that generation of Nigerians that brought this country to this passé. It is evident that you do not like Ojukwu, but do not try to force it down the throat of others here. Here was a man who stood for his people when it mattered most; he committed class suicide by abdicating the luxury, the opulence and the comfort of his father's wealth for altruistic reasons. For you to write him off as a mere psychiatric case is the most-unkind thing to do .People like you should not be allowed to circumvent history. You claimed to be half Igbo but I doubt that, from your write up you are old enough to have witnessed the pogrom that saw the massacre of thousands of Igbos in northern Nigeria following the 1966 putsch by the military. The question is this, was that coup justified? What were the activities of those that lost their lives during the coup? What was the state of the nation then? And don't forget the objective of the coupiest was to hand over power to Awolowo a Yoruba man, even though the crop of officers that carried out the coup were mainly Igbos. Even at that, Ojukwu was never part of the coup; in fact he contributed immensely to the failure of the coup. He rose up in defense of his people when they were being massacred, he chatted a course for his people, and he negotiated for true federalism for the country during the Aburi conference, which Gowon your hero agreed to implement but later reneged. Here was a man who spoke truth to the nation and the powers that be, he fought for it and defended it with all he has. He is not like some lily livered individuals like you who have tallied along with injustice that brought this country to the edge of the precipice that it is today. What he fought for still exists today. The nation you pretend to defend has never be, despite your highfalutin talks about one Nigeria, has the nation ever been one? No! But you prefer it so because the misfortune of the down-trodden is your fortune, a vulture will for always hover around a carcass to defend it because he benefits from it. To have a nation Femi, you and those in cohort with you must answer the urgent and persistent question that Ojukwu represents. Ojukwu was a revolutionists, and few of his kind lives to see the overcome of their revolution. He is dead but the idea lives on. To every Igbo man Ojukwu is a symbol of Igbo nation; therefore, in honouring him we honour the best in us. You don't choose a hero for a people, the people knows their hero. The economist’s obituary was quite in order despite the fact that it focused more on Biafra rather than Emeka Odimegwu Ojukwu. That economist paid tribute to this great son of Africa shows that truly he is a hero.

I don't see what relevance Femi's being yoruba(or not) has to the point you make or how exactly you came to conclude he hates igbos,or anyone else for that matter. Speaks volumes about you if you ask me...
Having read all the comments and followed the modern(Igbo, Nigerian?) narrative there is an underlying dichotomy that undermines their cause.Do the igbos want to a shot at power in modern
Nigeria (ibo president) or do they want to finish what Ojukwu started?

Also everyone needs to take a chill pill plz

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

In May 1966, at the age of 32, General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu was thrust, centrally, in the politics of his people as the leader of the Biafran resistance to the Nigeria state’s premeditated genocide against the Igbo people. Between 29 May 1966 and 12 January 1970, Nigeria and its allies, particulary Britain led by Prime Minister Harold Wilson, murdered 3.1 million Igbo (or one-quarter of this nation’s population) in this foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa. Africa and the rest of the world largely stood by and watched as the perpetrators enacted this horror most ruthlessly. As the slaughter of the Igbo intensified, especially in those catastrophic months of 1968-1969, Wilson was totally unfazed as he informed Clyde Ferguson (United States State Department special coordinator for relief to Biafra) that he, Harold Wilson, “would accept a half million dead Biafrans if that was what it took” Nigeria to destroy the Igbo resistance to the genocide. Such is the grotesquely expressed diminution of African life made by a supposedly leading politician of the world of the 1960s – barely 20 years after the deplorable perpetration of the Jewish genocide. As the final tally of the murder of the Igbo demonstrates, Harold Wilson probably had the perverted satisfaction of having his Nigerian subalterns perform far in excess of the prime minister’s grim target. The world could have stopped this genocide; the world should have stopped this genocide. This genocide inaugurated Africa’s current age of pestilence. During the period, 12 million additional Africans have been murdered in further genocide in Rwanda (1994), Zaïre/DRCongo (variously, since the late 1990s) and Darfur – west of the Sudan – (since 2004) and in other wars in Africa. General Odumegwu-Ojukwu’s leadership, throughout the cataclysm of the Igbo genocide, was focused, selfless, stellar. Three urgent goals that Igbo intellectuals will effectuate, in his memory, are: (1) contribute, robustly, to continue to inform the entire world of the nature and extent of this genocide (2) ensure that all those who planned/ordered/murdered the Igbo during the genocide are brought to justice (thankfully, the crime of genocide has no statute of limitations in international law) and (3) the restoration of Igbo sovereignty.

Omooba,I do sympathise with you,to the extent that you clearly don't understand Nigerian history correctly,or if you have any understanding,you choose to give it a spin favouring your own apparent prejudices against 'northerners'.I would start by saying that had I been a nortnerner in 1966 there is a good chance that I would have justified the reaction in the north to the events earlier in the year in response to the abject failure of Major General Aguiy Ironsi to bring those who were responsible for the failed coup to justice.For historical reasons much of the northern parts of Nigeria have had less access to western education than the south , and as such right from the beginning the southern part of Nigeria has had significant advantages over the north ; that is still the case.Left to the south,the north would clearly have been marginalised much more than it has been.In any case I do agree that there are significant diffrences between various parts of Nigeria,that is true for all large countries.My argument - if you like,is that Nigerians as a people are much stronger together than they would be if the country [ heaven forbid ] were to disintegrate.I know that many Nigerians unfortunately still see themselves as belonging, at best, to a particular region of the country and tend to have allegiance to a tribe or an ethnic group,but such parochial allegiances ultimately do not serve the long term interest of the the individual units that make up Nigeria today.We do need to strengthen the ties that bind the various ethnic groups instead of creating fissures and calling for the breakup of the country.Outside of Nigeria,Nigerians are seen as one people, and few foreigners would pay much attention to the ethnic groups.It will be difficult,I admit,but frankly I hardly see a way out.Today for instance we see modern states like Germany or Italy as strong unified states without realising that these powerful modern states are also artificial creations, in the same way as Nigeria it could be argued is an artificial creation.We should go beyond short term convenience and work to preserve what we have rather than call for a 'divorce' which is inevitably acrimonious and expensive.Tensions still exist in Nigeria,but these are not insurmountable and it can be said that for all these tensions we [ together ] are still a wonderful people.Have a good afternoon.

An absoloutely balanced obituary by TE,although perhaps still partial to Ojukuwu in some respects.What is galling though is that the lives of millions could have been spared if Ojukwu had surrendered earlier.Indeed if he had been wise instead of clever,it is just possible that the civil war might have been avoided altogether.At the Aburi conference to which this piece alludes,Ojukwu clearly trumped all the other officers who were there to negotiate a peace settlement with him.He could, if he were not so arrogant and stubborn, have negotiated an advantageous deal for the Ibo people,but he chose to blow it.Had he grasped the opportunity to do this he would have gone down in history as a saviour and champion of his people.Arrogant,he certainly was and it is open to question as to whether he suffered from some sort of psychopathy.It would be interesting to see what psychoanalysts make of his personality but he certainly came across to all who met him as clever but flawed and perhaps somewhat unhinged.

this femi guy what are you?some angry tribalistic racoon claiming to be half igbo man.you are writing and replying a thousand letters on ojukwus obito.what do you know about modern states and its breakups.nations with far more in common have broken up and you are here monkeying around defending a nigeria that is basically a muslim christians british creation.what and i mean give me one thing that I share with a northerner from kano.is it on foreign policy or economics then what about culture.nations are united on similarities and common belief in the future and if you havent realized that then shut your computer down and go to sleep.