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A visitor to the East three months after such an enormous influx of refugees would have expected to find great camps of displaced persons living off charity; it would have been perfectly normal for appeals to have been made to the United Nations Refugee Fund to import aid and relief to prevent the refugees from dying of starvation. Ironically, if that had been the reaction of the East, their refugee problem might then have become a world conscience-issue, like the Gaza Strip, and the sympathy they might have received could have carried them through into separate independence with the blessing of the world. Alternatively-if they had opted to break with Nigeria there and then, they might have received instant support from a wide circle of sympathizers.

But the Eastern Nigerians were not the Arabs. They would tolerate no festering sore like the Gaza Strip on their landscape. The extended family system - the traditional structure under which everyone is obliged to take in any relative in distress, no matter how distant he may be - came into full play. Almost miraculously the refugees disappeared, finding shelter with long unseen grandparents, uncles, cousins, in-laws. In each case the breadwinner simply took on the added burden of more mouths to feed. This was the reason why, on the surface, the problem appeared to have been coped with so quickly.

But under the surface the problem was there, and it was enormous. The influx had caused an unemployment problem of hardly manageable proportions; health and social welfare services were unable to cope; medical services were overwhelmed with the casualties; educational services suddenly found several hundred thousand children of school age to teach. In most other countries in the world the central government would have felt itself obliged to launch a massive aid programme, either through an assisted rapid expansion of all services, or through wide-operating fiscal relief. Bearing in mind that the damage had been done by fellow-Nigerians, pretty extensive compensation would also have been the order of the day. Being Nigeria under Colonel Gowon, nothing of the sort happened.

There was no expression of regret; there was no demand by the central government that the North voice an expression of regret or remorse; there was no compensation, no recompense, no offer to make good the damage in so far as it could be made good. So far as is known, not one soldier was ever given a day's 'confined to barracks' punishment, not one officer was court-martialled, not one policeman was ever retired, and not one civilian ever faced a court of law, although many had been identifled.

The attitude of the Gowon Government in Lagos answered Easterners' questions about the impartiality of the centre with discouraging finality. The tension was by this time electric and the demand for a complete break with Nigeria, starting as a small murmur, grew to a hurricane.

Of the three original regions, the East was the last even to

mention the word. The threat to secede had come from the North periodically for twenty years. In 1953 at the talks in London that gave rise to the 1954 Constitution, Chief Awolowo heading the Action Group had threatened the West would secede if Lagos was made Federal Territory rather than a part

of the Western Region. He was only dissuaded from this course by a sharp warning from the Colonial Secretary Mr. Oliver Lyttleton, later Lord Chandos.

But by now most Easterners were convinced that the old Nigeria in which they had participated was dead. That is to say, the spirit of it was dead. Only the format remained, and without the spirit, the format was an empty shell, and a badly shattered one at that.

By contrast Colonel Ojukwu thought there remained a chance that Nigeria could be saved. He fought the separatist demands with all his authority, even though aware that in the process he might lose his authority. He could go so far but no further. He was convinced that on the basis of reality alone the best that Nigeria could get for herself would be a structure where, a temporary loosening of the existing regional ties would allow time to elapse for a cooling-off process, later to be followed by further discussions in a less feverish atmosphere.

But in Lagos Gowon was apparently being advised by a group of men who had not been to the East since the massacres in the North, and presumed that the aggrievement of the Easterners was a passing tantrum which could reasonably be discounted, or at least overcome if they later proved troublesome. This ability to underestimate the degree of the damage that had been done, and the reaction in feeling it,had caused east of the Niger also seems to have infected the British High Commission, whose subsequent advice to Whitehall was to pooh-pooh the crisis as a temporary brush-fire.

One precaution Colonel Ojukwu did feel obliged to take nevertheless was to import some arms. The departure of the Enugu garrison with all its weaponry and the arrival back home of the Eastern troops without any had left the East defenceless. Moreover Colonel Ojukwu had come into possession of a document from an Ibo diplomat in Rome showing

that a Northern Army Major, Sule Apollo, was in Italy buying large quantities of armsIn the meantime invitations had been issued to resume the constitutional talks. In view of the violence with which Northern troops were still threatening Easterners in the streets of Lagos, Ojukwu regarded these invitations as somewhat unrealistic unless adequate safeguards could be guaranteed. None was forthcoming, and as all the other three regions and the capital were under the heavy control of Northern troops, Ojukwu could not see how he could reasonably ask the Eastern delegates to risk their lives by returning. Gowon responded by dismissing the constitutional talks as being able to serve no further purpose, and announced that a committee would draft a new constitution based on a Nigeria composed of between eight and fourteen states.

Ojukwu was aghast, but knew his former colleague well enough to know that the weakling Supreme Commander had got into fresh hands and was being emboldened by a new

group of advisers. Sure enough he had and was.

Before the autumn killings some of the top positions in the civil service in Lagos had been held by Easterners who had reached the top through their talents. The Permanent Secretary - that is, the top civil servant in a Ministry - is a powerful man even in a democratic society. He knows his Ministry and the business of that Ministry often better than the Minister. By advising the Minister one way or the other he can often influence policy or even create it indirectly. In a military government of young and not-too-bright soldiers, happy enough behind a gun but bewildered when the bullets have finally brought them to power and faced them with the com-

plexities of government, the Permanent Secretary becomes even more influential. When the leader of the military clique in power turns out to be a man of straw, he (the civil servant) r@ns the show.

After the killings the Ibos and other Easterners had Red, leaving their posts vacant. There were not enough Northerners to fill them, and in any case a talented Northern civil servant is so valuable back home that he is likely to rate a better job in the Northern Region than he could get in Lagos. The Yoruba

from the West tend to stick to their own Regional affairs. The men who had moved in when the Easterners left in the autumn and early winter of 1966 were mostly minority-tribe men. As has been explained earlier, they had their

own reasons for not wishing to see a return to the powerful Regions of yesteryear. So long as Nigeria remained a multi-state complex with weak regions and a powerful centre, and so long as they ran the centre, the power was theirs for the first time in history. It was a chance not to be missed.

By the early winter of 1966 Colonel Gowon had taken on the aspect in Eastern eyes of a highly suspect individual who either could not or would not honour his agreements. This impression was later to be so heightened that today it forms one of the major obstacles to peace in Nigeria. The bases for this mistrust may be summarized as follows:

The unanimous agreement of the representatives of the Military Governors of 9 August had been for the repatriation of troops to their regions of origin, which had not been implemented; for the repatriation of the arms and ammunition they carried with them, which had not been implemented. Gowon had pledged that the killing of Eastern soldiers would stop, but it had not. He had promised that the inquiry into the May massacre set up by General Ironsi would 'certainly go on as scheduled'. It was never heard of again.

In early September a number of Northern troops from Ibadan, capital of the West, had raided Benin City in the Midwest and snatched from prison a number of officers in detention for their part in the January coup. The Northerners among the detainees were released in the North, while the Easterners were murdered. Gowon had promised immediately that those responsible would be punished, but this too went by the board.

Finally his dismissal of the Ad Hoc Constitutional Conference on 30 November on the grounds that the Eastern delegates had not attended it since the original adjournment on

3 October was seen in the East as dictatorial, since the reason for the non-attendance was the quite genuine fear of violence at the hands of Northern soldiers in Lagos. The bald announcement that a committee would draft a new constitution based on

between ten and fourteen states was seen in the same light. In the same broadcast on 30 November Gowon felt bold enough for the first time to threaten to use force 'if circumstances compel'.

The weeks rolled by without any spontaneous offer from central government of aid to alleviate the social problems caused by the tide of refugees in the East, and by early December Colonel Ojukwu told a journalist: 'I cannot wait indefinitely for Lagos, so I have to make other arrangements'.

There was increasing popular pressure that the Regional Military Governors should meet to sort the problems out, a

view strongly shared by Colonel Ojukwu. But since there was nowhere within Nigeria he felt he could go in personal safety, it was agreed to hold the meeting at Aburi, Ghana, under the auspices of General Ankrah.

It was there in ex-President Nkrumah's luxurious country seat in the hills above Accra that the Supreme Military Council of Nigeria met on 4 and 5 January 1967. Present were:

Lieutenant-Colonel Gowon, the four Regional Military Governors - Colonel Robert Adebayo (successor to the dead Colonel Fajuyi), and Lieutenant-Colonels Katsina, Ojukwu and Ejoor. Four others were also on the Council, representing the Navy, Lagos Territory, and two from the Federal Police; but the real talks hinged on the five colonels.

Intellectually Ojukwu towered above the rest, and they seemed to know it. To make sure there were no later misinterpretations as to what had been decided, a comple te steno

graphic record and a tape recording was made of the entire discussion. Later when Gowon reneged on the agreements, Ojukwu released the entire text of the two-day discussions as

a set of six gramophone records.

A study of these records leaves no doubt that only one man had a clear idea of the single way in which Nigeria could be preserved as a political entity, and that was the Military Governor of the East. Gowon's performance reveals that he wished the Federation to stay together, but beyond that had little or no ideas. The other three soon found themselves

West Africa, 24 December 1966.

forced to agree with the compulsive logic of the Easterner's arguments.

On the question of the repatriation of troops Gowon, con-

fronted with his failure to implement, lamely explained that he had only meant that Easterners should be repatriated to the East, and Northerners in the East should go back to the North. Although the Western Leaders of Thought Conference had unanimously agreed with the East's firm stand on the repatriation from the West as well, Gowon said he had to keep Northerners there as there were no Yoruba troops. At this Adebayo protested.

But the main question was the form of Nigeria and of its army in the immediate future. Here Ojukwu argued that

As long as this situation exists, men from Eastern Nigeria would find it utterly impossible to stay in the same barracks, feed in the same mess, fight from the same trenches as men in the Army from Northern Nigeria. . . . For these basic reasons the separation of forces, the separation of population is, in all sincerity, in order to avoid further friction and further killing.

Katsina agreed, as did Adebayo and Ejoor.

On the question of Ojukwu's non-recognition of Gowon as Supreme Commander, the Eastern leader argued that as the fate of General Ironsi was not known, there was no one who could succeed him. But in his absence there were at least six officers senior to Gowon, and that the next senior should manage the affairs of the country. And thirdly the East had never been a party to the nomination of Gowon to the post. At this point Gowon revealed what had happened to General Ironsi, admitting that he had thought it 'expedient' not to announce it sooner, although he must have known the details since Lieutenant Walbe reported back on the evening of 29 July the previous year.

The Leaders ofThought were first summoned under the Ironsi r6girne to advise each military Governor on local affairs and feeling. They comprised leading figures in the professions, business, commerce, administration and the chiefs and elders. But they were nominated by the Governors; hence Ojukwu preferred to listen to the popularly mandated members of the Consultative Assembly, which did not exist anywhere else.

The question was finally resolved by the decision to submit the army to the Supreme Military Council, which would have a chairman who would also be 'Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and Head of the Federal Militaxy Government'.

On the constitutional side the meeting agreed that the Ad Hoc Conference should resume its sitting as soon as practicable to begin from where they left off.

On the subject of the East's big headache, the refugees the meeting agreed that Permanent Secretaries of Finance should meet within two weeks to submit their recommendations on how to help rehabilitation of the dispossessed go forward; that civil servants and Public Corporation staff (including daily paid employees) should receive full salary up to the end of the financial year, 31 March, unless they had been re-employed; and that Regional Police Commissioners should meet to discuss the problem of recovery of property left behind by the refugees. These were the decisions Ojukwu had to take home to the people, for they were vital elements in calming tempers down. For instance, there were 12,000 railway workers alone among the East's refugees.