Phillip Effiong is a Professor of Drama at Michigan State University, United States of America, USA. His father, Gen Phillip Effiong was the second- in – command to Chukwuemeka Ojukwu during the civil war. In an encounter with him during a visit to Nigeria, he reminisces on the war and the post- war Nigeria, the agitations for resuscitation of Biafra, the historic and international dimensions of the war, why the full story of Biafra is yet to be told and how peace and unity in Nigeria can be attained among other related issues. He spoke with CHIDI OBINECHE.
In retrospect, how did Nigeria survive the deep socio- political upheavals of the 1960’s that culminated into a fratricidal civil war?
I don’t know that Nigeria has survived it in terms of moving forward, because I think, survival is not just existing. Survival is making progress. I don’t think we have learnt the lessons of that period or that we are even moving forward economically or politically. If you speak to most of the citizens of this country, you will realize that we are deteriorating. Things are not working out well. People do not feel safe; there seems to be a growing concern about violence especially about the fact that our security systems don’t seem to be doing anything about these problems. People are very worried about tomorrow; about basic needs; they are worried about infrastructure and think that perhaps, we are more divided than we were in the 60’s, even though the war was supposed to unite us. I don’t think that has been achieved.
What are your basic impressions of the strife of the 60’s, the events that led to them and how the resolutions came?
There was a talk I gave recently where I said that boundaries, especially with colonialism; new boundaries were created that made us very territorial. Increasingly, we became more conscious of what we own; our own states, and instead of cooperating with our neighbours, we tended to push our neighbours out of our states, and we see ourselves as controlling the political and economical resources we had in those boundaries; and that this will keep those people apart from those people who we had cooperated with in terms of trade, language, culture. And so there is a root cause of that problem and the more we fragment ourselves and believe that we can take care of ourselves and take care of our own business, the more we isolate ourselves and the more we cannot function together the way we should. Many people think that when you’re given local governments and states they have become autonomous, but we don’t realize we are balkanizing ourselves more and making us weaker. We are increasingly fragmented into smaller, weaker groups and as long as we remain weak, what other forces that come against us we are not going to withstand them; whether they are political forces, whether they are forces that manifest in the form of corrupt governments, or whether they are just violent groups. We are not equipped in our tiny units; in our weak units to withstand the challenges.
Let me talk a bit about your dad who was a top military officer in Nigeria and later became the second – in – command in Biafra behind Ojukwu. He handed the instruments of surrender of Biafra to Nigeria. What influenced his surrender speech? Secondly, were you scared he was going to be killed when he was going to do the surrender?
Well, to surrender was considered to be the right and most pragmatic decision at the time. That decision should have been made; it was agreed; in order to save lives. It has to be remembered that at this time, very little was left of what was originally Biafra. The morale was down; there was a lot of starvation. There were deaths on a large scale and the army had been weakened tremendously. Biafra had far little resources to withstand the larger and more equipped Nigerian army. So, it made sense that some kind of peaceful resolution should be pursued, and I think, this was done with a delegation. My dad didn’t just make that decision alone. Biafra was a well – structured government, and so the leadership of Biafra took that decision because he, at that time had taken over power from General Ojukwu. He led the delegation, and if you look at the surrender, the surrender was more of negotiation, requesting that our people need to be part of any new constitutional arrangements. If you look at it carefully, it was not all about surrender and submission. Of course, I feared for my father’s life. Although I was a mere boy, the war had already instilled the fear in us, with the bombings, strafing, and the deaths that were all around us. At some points we lived near refugee camps and every day people died. And so there was that sense of fear hovering over us. And when he went, quote and unquote into the lion’s den, we didn’t know whether he would come out or not. Yes, there was a lot of fear, not only at that time, but even after the war.
After the war he was detained. What was life like for him and for you, the family and relations, who were in a state of apprehension?
As a matter of fact, three days before the end of the civil war, we were among the groups of people who were living in the cargo planes, and though my mum and me weren’t physically in the country, but he was constantly receiving messages. So, we knew what was going on. There was a lot of fear, but we felt safe because we were outside of Biafra.
So you were outside Biafra?
Oh, like I said, three days to the end of the war, we fled. We were there in the theatre of the war until three days before the end of the war. And when he was in prison, we weren’t there. News was coming. We had resettled in a number of places and finally in the Ivory Coast where a huge number of refugees had been taken and a camp with a school was set up for them. Me and my brothers were availed with the opportunity of going to school. But my mum was constantly receiving information about family members that had died, about the destruction of our home in my state- Akwa Ibom, and about the situation with my father. So there was a lot of anxiety, even though we were out. But again, I want to reemphasize that we left probably three days before the war ended. So you know, it will be safe to say that we were there till the very end. My dad had been put into jail not by the federal government but by Col Obasanjo at the time. There were all kinds of mixed messages about how that happened. Some even said that Gen Gowon was not aware of it. There was a lot of pressure, international pressure, because of the war crimes that had been committed by the Nigerian side. There was a lot of pressure to release my dad especially since people didn’t know what his ultimate fate was going to be. But we thank God that he was eventually released on General Gowon’s orders.
How long did he spend in detention?
That is what I am not too sure about. I think it was probably a few months but for whatever reasons I don’t want to get the facts wrong and give a number of days, but it wasn’t too long. It wasn’t like a year.
Let’s go into the nitty- gritty of the war. The impression most people have is that it was a war fought by the Igbo against the Nigerian state and at the end of the war; some communities and individuals in Nigeria seized the properties of the Igbo. Now, as an Akwa Ibomite, were there any downsides or did you experience any dichotomy in Biafra as a non- Igbo?
The war was and had never been about Igbo. It was ultimately an international historical event because it involved Nigeria; it involved a lot of foreign countries. Of course the Igbo was the prime target. But of course if you look at certain facts, you understand that many non- Igbo played a key role. The Secretary to the Biafra Government, N. U Akpan was not Igbo. He was from Uyo. The person who suggested the name Biafra, Chief Opigo was not Igbo. He was from Bayelsa. We had people who fought diligently for Biafra like Col Archibong. He wasn’t Igbo. There was Okoginam Bassey, he wasn’t Igbo. Generals on Biafra side were six. Two of them were not Igbo. They were Major General Effiong and Brigadier Okon. In addition to these leaders, thousands and thousands of fighters were from areas around Ogoja, Cross Rivers, Akwa Ibom, modern day Bayelsa, and parts of what we refer to as Delta, Rivers. It just wasn’t an Igbo affair. That’s propaganda. However, let me say that with the creation of states, there were some divisions that were created between non- Igbo and Igbo. It was a deliberate ploy by the Nigerian government to create divisions, animosity against the Igbo within the enclave. The creation of states actually started to isolate the Igbo because the so-called minorities were given the impression that they had their states, they had their autonomy. And so, some of them actually switched sides during the war. Some switched sides after their communities were captured, for the sake of security. Some, after the war went into denial for self- preservation. Some who had wholeheartedly supported Biafra denied that they did that. Like I said, it was for self- preservation or for political and economic purposes. There was a lot of backlash. Many people would turn against the Igbos immediately after the war to say that my family had tried to fight the Igbos or to kill them or that the Igbos tried to destroy the unity of Nigeria. I have to say that, however, that Biafrans didn’t help matters. Some Biafran soldiers, and it wasn’t a government policy, took it upon themselves to go after whom they considered traitors. And a lot of these traitors were supposedly minorities. Non- Igbos were also subjected to suspicions and some form of vendetta. Even my father’s nephew, Sergeant Gabriel Effiong who fought for Biafra from the beginning to the end was almost killed under these circumstances. He was stopped by one of the vigilante groups in a community. The people who were with him were able to convince the people in that community that he was General Phillip Effiong’s brother, and so they spared his life. So, ultimately, Biafra should be held responsible on some levels for radically going after people who were not Igbos and claiming that they were traitors, and in some cases, even killing them.
That didn’t help issues and that also aggravated the tensions between non- Igbo and Igbo in Biafra.
Do you believe that the tensions have died down now?
I don’t know. It is easier to destroy than to build. So there has been a lot of rebuilding, but those sentiments still exist, because people still express them and you hear a lot of animosities against the Igbo by a lot of people in what used to be the Eastern region. It was as a result of the seed that was planted during the crises.
Your father died in 2003 before Ojukwu. When he was to die, did he leave any message for you the off springs? When you saw him, do you think he felt fulfilled before he died?
Yes, he felt very fulfilled. Sometimes when you do what you believe in, the consequences are not always positive. Sometimes you suffer for what you believe in. He was an officer in the Nigerian Army; he never participated in a coup; he never stole money, he never rigged an election. There was no corrupt practice that you can accuse him of. So, he was fulfilled as someone who lived a life of integrity. Unfortunately, the second coup plotters in 1966 went after him and tried to kill him. He was able to escape, first from Kaduna and later on to Lagos. He managed to take us his family from Lagos to the East. Then, as an officer and a soldier, he saw himself as someone with the responsibility to protect people. Then, the East was attacked. We should remember that the first shot was not fired by Biafra. Biafra was in negotiations with the federal side, we were not always in agreement, but we could have continued with the negotiations. When you are attacked, you reserve the right to defend yourself. Not just sitting down there and be slaughtered. So, he felt very, very fulfilled. The message he always gave us was that we should live in truth and integrity. He told us never to do anything that will destroy his image; whether it is mismanaging resources, abusing power, and all the things that we see that are wrong with this country, he told us to never be part of them, but to live fulfilling lives that will reflect on the training he gave us and the life he lived. He said the skills we have through education, we should use them to build our communities. And none of my brothers and sisters has done anything but that.
He wrote some books. Though I have not been able to lay my hands on them to read, the books came after most of his compatriots had written their own accounts of the pogrom and the war. I am sure you must have read the books he wrote and what others also wrote. What, in your view are the basic differences between his account of the pogrom and war and what others like Ademoyega wrote. Unfortunately, the man at the epicentre of it, Ojukwu, never wrote “the book”.
My dad’s book went through a process where at a point he had almost completed it and he lost the manuscript. So, starting to write a book afresh is not easy. Anybody who has gone through that experience knows it. You have to recover a lot of details and materials. Another thing is that people; a lot of people came forward acting like they would represent him in publishing the book, but unfortunately, some of them were fraudulent and wanted to use his name. So it passed through that phase. And even after it was published, I had to drop one or two publishers. I actually edited the book I because I am a writer, an editor, apart from being a professor. I would eventually publish what I would call a revised edition, which was released in 2017. This is a South- African publisher that is yet to fulfill its obligation of marketing and distributing the book widely. So I am hoping that I don’t get to drop them. But I have alerted them that the market is in Nigeria, is in West Africa, is in the USA, and is in Britain. Unfortunately, that is why people are not really seeing it. I have been upset about that. But I think the publishers are beginning to talk to me about doing things differently. When I return to the US, later this month, I will continue with that conversation. If it doesn’t work out, I will have to look out for a publisher, perhaps, in Nigeria. But just because it is an indigenous publisher, a publisher from your country doesn’t mean they will do a better job. So, I am being very conscious. You can get their “E” book version on Amazon, while we await the hard copy. But if you want a quick read, you want to have immediate access to the work; we have it on ‘Kingdom’. Kingdom is like E book; electronic. Yeah! That is the only book he wrote. Now, the difference between that book and others was perhaps, the fact that he didn’t establish who the criminal was and who the victim was. On some levels he establishes the fact that different people on different sides made mistakes and did good things. He didn’t write a story in which one group of people is bad, and the others are good. I don’t think you have that in societies. I think that was his main goal. That he didn’t speak highly of Biafra didn’t mean he didn’t like Biafra or he didn’t believe in the Biafra cause. But you know, sometimes we even have problems with our families doesn’t mean we don’t like our families or dismiss our families.
What were his basic impressions about the man he worked with- I mean Ojukwu? How did he see him as a man, leader and soldier?
My dad wasn’t anything but a trained soldier. Ojukwu was a historian. Most of other officers had other professions. Some were Accountants, Engineers etc. My dad was just a soldier. There were those who he was higher than in rank, people like Ojukwu and Gowon. But as a professional, he was willing, when he returned to the East, he submitted to the authority of the governor, because position really takes precedence over rank. I would say that for the most part it was a professional relationship. He gave him his due respect. I don’t know easy it is to submit to someone who initially was your junior. That was how it functioned and I remember very well. Of course there may be some kind of disagreements, in terms of policy, military strategy, and so on. It exists everywhere especially in a war situation, very urgent and where there is a lot of desperation. There was fear, there isn’t a single answer to all the problems, and no one person knows it all. Of course there were disagreements and those disagreements had been expressed by other writers especially the disagreements in Biafran leadership. But I don’t think it is something that it is anything negative about Biafra. I just think it is natural to expect that in a situation like that, there will be disagreements and you remember that my father, in spite of those disagreements had no hate, or malice against Ojukwu. Actually, he helped to negotiate the return of Ojukwu from the Ivory Coast. He went there and visited him and was part of that process. You wouldn’t do that if you hated or disrespected someone.
You said Obasanjo locked up your father after the war. Was it a personal thing between the two of them or he just did it out of overzealousness to please his bosses?
I don’t know, but you know Obasanjo was not even a member of the Supreme Military Council, SMC. He was a Colonel in an army that had Generals. But at that point he had the power. What happened was that my father had given an interview with Drum magazine and the impression I get from what my dad said was that he was alleged to have said things that were considered inappropriate The DRUM interview is reproduced in his book. It was after that interview that Obasanjo threw him into detention or jail in Port Harcourt. So it may have been because of that. If you look at the history after the war there have been a lot of efforts by those who won the war to silence other people and not let them speak out. It is because if you speak out you’re going to reveal and expose a lot of atrocities committed during the war. And if they are allowed to speak out, they will give some kind of legitimacy to Biafra because Biafra did a lot of creative things- inventing its own weapons, building a lot of things indigenously in Science and Technology that had been allowed to rot away since after the war. Biafra was very creative. This is what I am saying essentially. And so, you give some legitimacy about Biafra if you talk about the war. Those who won the war do not want to give Biafra any literacy
Let make a quote from your father’s book. He wrote, “Healing will come with Justice. But Nigeria is not ready” What do you think about this quote?
For me, it makes a lot of sense. To say you are attaining unity by bombing people and destroying their properties and communities, and starving them is nonsense. If you want to achieve unity and peace, treat people with justice; treat people with respect. And if you get to know them and understand them meaningfully, substantial progress can be made in building trust that can translate to peace and unity. That is essentially what my dad was saying. That is, you earn peace and unity through justice. You don’t earn them by destroying peoples’ lives and killing people. That is nonsense. For some reason, we tend to think that the destruction that took place in Biafra was supposed to achieve unity and peace. That is mere hallucination.
There appears to be a resurgence of Biafra. In the last 10 years it has assumed a life of its own with a mammoth crowd of groups in the vanguard of Biafra. With the tales of suffering and deaths that mired the old Biafra, why do you think that there are still some people who would want to thread that path again?
These people pushing for Biafra are not demanding war. They are not asking to fight a war. What they are doing is self- determination, even though they are re-invoking Biafra. I don’t see them declaring war. Hopefully, it won’t come to that. Now, we need to remember that there have been efforts; through the media, academic institutions, government, and so on, over the years, because they have been controlled by those who won the war, to try to silence a lot of people so that they don’t tell the story. There have been efforts to suppress the story but you can’t do that looking at the loss of human lives on a tremendous scale. A lot of these young people pushing for Biafra may not have been there during the war, but they have heard of that experience because they have parents, uncles, older brothers and sisters who were directly affected by the war and some even died. A lot of them are looking at buildings all over Nigeria that they learnt belonged to their families but have been taken over and declared as abandoned property. So, the pain is there, as much for as for those who were there during the war. They have a right to agitate; they have a right to speak out in any democracy. In any civilized society, people have the right to agitate as long as they are not breaking laws. Now, what the leadership should do is to reassure them, engage them. When people are not happy, that‘s what leaders do. They engage them. They listen to them, they reassure them, even if they disagree with them. I thoroughly respect the rights of different groups to agitate. How they are doing it is a different issue and I can’t go into those details. If I were to advise them, I would say, first of all, arm yourselves with knowledge and history. If you don’t know the source of a problem, you don’t have a solution. Also, you need to be organized. While this is emotional for all of us, at some point we have to try and reason together and not just rely on our emotions. The groups also need to be prepared to engage those who disagree with them. We shouldn’t dismiss them, but they shouldn’t dismiss those who disagree with them. You see, there has to be a sense of organization on their part. That’s as far as I would advise them, but as far as the details of what they are planning and how they intend to manage the country and what that country will look like, I really don’t know.
Let me come directly to you now. How did you survive the war?
First of all, let me admit that we enjoyed a good degree of privilege. But privileged people died during the war. When the planes came and bombed, they didn’t look for privileged or unprivileged people. I have to give some credit to God because I do believe in God, and we were also fortunate. But we did lose family members. I lost my grandfather, my cousin, and my aunt.
Through the strafing and bombing?
Strafing and bombing? Most people didn’t die through strafing and bombing. They died through starvation. And that what my relatives succumbed to. Ikot ekpene, where they were staying was taken over by the enemy and our home was blown up. They became destitute and died as a result of that, just like many others. Even Ojukwu lost his half brother during the war. We should remember that, that was through bullet. Survival for us was running around from place to place. We must have lived in five different places. At a point we were homeless but fortunately we were taken in by my Dad’s ADC’s father who had a large home in Ifeakala. He gave us space there. That‘s how we survive. Of course, I must say we enjoyed a lot of privileges that many people didn’t have. We must also remember that beyond the war, the larger question is how did we survive the post- war, because wars don’t end with ceasefire The post war can just be as devastating and it was devastating for my family.
With the things that are playing around in the country now especially the power game and insecurity, do you foresee another bloody war?
I mean, there is already a bloody confrontation; there is Boko Haram insurgency, so called Fulani herdsmen attacks, all the kidnappings and banditry, shootings on highways. They are there. What I don’t know is whether they will transform into a full-scale war. I don’t know and I hope not. Again, our security forces do not encourage me. Every government establishes a strong security force or forces that are meant to protect the people. I don’t know whether we can trust our security forces at this time. That‘s my greatest fear. The other thing is that we are increasingly polarized, increasingly fragmented. We talk about similar problems but we talk about them with different voices. That’s not going to work. We have to come together and address these problems, if indeed; we believe they are serious problems. We can’t continue to delude ourselves that everything is fine. The violence is already there. There are already bloody confrontations. Now, whether it is going to escalate, I can’t say. I hope not. But our security forces do also not encourage me.