Biafra: Killer Cessnas and Crazy Swedes

[Jonathen]

The author of this article is Swedish and has no ties to Nigeria. Unlike many on this forum his opinion is fairly objective. Its Obviously an oversimplification of the war's causes ect, but I think it sums up, in simple terms, why Igbos are so frustrated with "black area".

Biafra: Killer Cessnas and Crazy Swedes
By Gary Brecher

I thought I"d talk about the bush war building up right now in the Niger River delta in Nigeria. The TV"s talking about how the locals are forming an army to make the Nigerian government give them a share of the income from all the oil they"ve found in the delta, but nobody mentions that this miserable maze of fever swamp was the focus of the biggest war in modern Africa -- the Biafra war.

Nigeria"s a typical West African mess of a country, only bigger and meaner. It"s divided up the usual way: the coastal tribes are Christianized from sucking up to the European colonists. The further inland you go, the drier, hungrier and more Islamic it gets. The Brits grabbed the Nigerian coastline from the Portuguese when they realized there was money to be made, and turned the two big coastal tribes, the Ibo and the Yoruba, into their overseers on the Nigerian plantations. That left a lot of the inland Muslim tribes, the Hausa-Fulani people of the Sahel, permanently pissed off, sharpening their knives and biding their time.

The Hausa-Faluni got their chance in 1963, when the last Brit in Nigeria hopped on a plane, yelling back to the Natives "Congratulations, chaps! You"re independent!" As soon as the Brits bugged out, the tribal massacres got going. Muslims in the north hacked to death every Ibo they could find. They hated these smartasses from the coast -- and now the Redcoats weren"t there to stop them from taking revenge. 30,000 Ibos were killed in a few days.

The massacres kind of soured the Ibo on the idea of Nigeria as one big happy intertribal family. In 1967 an Ibo General in the Nigerian Army declared that the Ibo region was now an independent country, "Biafra." The Nigerian Army, a big, sleazy outfit, begged to differ and invaded the Ibo region in SE Nigeria. The Army had 250,000 men. The Biafra/Ibo army had maybe a tenth that many, but they were brave and smart -- the Ibo had always been the brains of Nigeria.

Every time it was a question of real battle on anything like equal terms, the Biafran rebels won. They stopped the government troops cold, then grabbed tactical surprise by staging a long-range raid into Western Nigeria.

A risky advance like that by untrained civilian recruits (which is what most of the Ibo fighters were) is really impressive. But sad to say, courage doesn"t count for much in West African warfare. It"s ruthlessness that wins these wars, and the Nigerian junta had it.

Instead of facing the Ibo army man to man, the Nigerian troops grabbed the coastline around the Niger River delta, the supply route the Ibo needed. They stopped all food shipments heading for Ibo territory and sat back to let the Ibo starve.

The Biafrans were still winning every battle and losing the war like Lee in 1865 -- starved out, strangled from behind. They realized they needed to open the supply route and decided to take back the Niger delta. And they got some help from outside.

The best example, one of the few real heroes you"ll get in this sleazy world, was a Swede, believe it or not. A Swedish aristocrat, no less. Count Carl Gustav von Rosen volunteered to do close air support for the Biafran army, hosing down government troops and raiding their bases, flying tiny civilian prop planes like little Swedish Cessnas.

Is that glorious or what?

The mismatch in the air war was total. The Nigerian AF had MiG-17 fighters and Il-28 bombers, DC 3 transports converted to bombers and a few choppers. Those Ilyushin and MiG designs were the high point of Soviet military aviation. Don"t kid yourself -- the Soviets built some great planes. The Il-28 was a big, fast bomber with a bombload of 16,000 pounds and a three-man crew, including a tail gunner manning twin 23mm cannon. You wouldn"t want to tailgate one of these.

The MiG-17 was even better. It might have been the best fighter in the world when it went into service in 1953, and even in the mid-sixties it was good enough to win against our Phantom F-4s in dogfights over North Vietnam. US pilots were way more scared of the MiG-17 than the follow-on model, the MiG-21. The slick moves and big cannon of the MiG-17 were one big reason the USAF stopped thinking of fighters as manned SAMs -- all speed and no finesse -- and went back to planes with nose cannon, maneuverability and started teaching air combat at Top Gun schools.

Up against all this big international hardware, the Biafrans had...nothing.

Then this crazy Swede von Rosen came up with the kind of idea that would only work in Africa. Since he couldn"t get the Biafrans any jet aircraft, he"d just buy some prop-driven trainers and refit them for combat. Von Rosen is such a great character he almost makes me reconsider hating Swedes. He was a throwback to when the Swedish pikemen turned the tide of the Thirty Years War.

Von Rosen specialized in noble lost causes. Way back in 1938, when he was just a kid, he volunteered to fly for the Finns in their ultra-cool, hopeless fight against the Red Army. The Finns had no bombers so von Rosen just grabbed a civilian airliner, loaded it up with bombs and dropped them on the Reds from the passenger doors.

"Welcome, Comrade passengers! Coffee, tea or 500 pounds of HE?"

Thirty years later, in August 1968, von Rosen was working as a civilian pilot delivering aircraft to Africa. He ran into some priests who were trying to find somebody brave enough to fly medical supplies past the blockade into Biafra. The mercs they"d hired called it off as too dangerous.

Von Rosen volunteered to fly a DC 7 into Biafra with the supplies. The Biafrans were so grateful, and were fighting so bravely against all the odds, that von Rosen warmed to them like he had to the Finns. The Biafrans needed help to deal with the Nigerian AF, which was fighting a nasty war even by African standards. In the whole war, there"s not one case of the Nigerian AF attacking a military target.

That would"ve been dangerous -- and not nearly as much fun as bombing refugee camps, strafing hospitals, and napalming fleeing civilians.

Von Rosen tried to find the Ibo some modern military jets, but nobody wanted to sell to the Biafrans for fear of upsetting the Nigerian government, a much bigger customer. So von Rosen started thinking about small prop-driven aircraft. There"s a long history of using slow prop planes in bush warfare. Even the USAF, which has a major hard-on for afterburners and chrome, was forced to adopt a slow, armored CAS plane, the A-10. They hated it at first but it proved itself in both Gulf Wars, when fancy toys like the Army"s dog of an AH, the Apache, left the field with its tail between its legs. In Nam, the classic jungle air war, we used two planes that were slow as molasses but did the job. One of the best and ugliest was the A-1 Skyraider, a chunky WW II style plugger. The USAF hated it and was always trying to twist combat reports to make the F-4 look good and the Skyraider look bad, but pilots agreed: you were better off going in low and slow in a Skyraider than zooming by in an F-4.

Even the Skyraider was like an SR-71 compared to the little putt-putt plane von Rosen built his force around: the MFI-9, a tiny prop-driven Swedish trainer that looks like those ultralights people build in their garages. This plane could park in subcompact spaces at the Stockholm mall. It had a maximum payload of 500 pounds -- me plus a couple of medium sized dogs. Lucky those Swedes are so skinny.

Von Rosen bought five of these little "Fleas" down the coast in Gabon, slapped on a coat of green VW paint to make them look military, and installed wing pods for unguided 68mm unguided anti-armor rockets. Then he and his pilots -- three Swedes and three Ibo -- flew them back to Biafra and into combat.

They blew the Hell out of the Nigerian AF and army. These little Fleas were impossible to bring down. Not a single one was knocked out of the sky, although they"d buzz home riddled with holes. They flew three missions a day and their list of targets destroyed included Nigerian airfields, power plants, and troop concentrations.

The Fleas turned their weaknesses into advantages in true guerrilla style. They were so slow that they had to fly real low -- which made them almost impossible to hit in the jungle, since you never saw them till they were on top of you. The low speed made for better aim: almost half the 400 68mm rockets they fired hit their targets, which is an amazing score for unguided AS munitions. (There used to be a joke in the USAF that if it wasn"t for the law of gravity, unguided AS rockets couldn"t even hit the ground.)

The Biafran AF managed to destroy three MiG-17s and an Il-28 on the ground. Killing enemy planes on the ground may not be as glorious as shooting them down in a dogfight, but they"re just as destroyed. The Fleas also took out a couple of helicopters, an airport tower, a Canberra bomber and a half-dozen supply trucks. And they blew away at least 500 Nigerian troops. It was one of the few really glorious exploits you get in war these days. Why they haven"t made a movie of it, I don"t know. Guess they think we"d rather see tennis pros fall in love or some **** like that.

Von Rosen"s Fleas weren"t enough to turn the tide of the war. The rest of the world turned their backs on the Ibo, let the Nigerians starve them into submission. The USSR sold the Nigerians every plane, tank and gun they could cram into their shopping cart, and the British loaned their pilots to fly as Nigerian AF mercs, bombing Biafran civvies and blowing up convoys bringing food and meds to the Ibo villages.

The famine in Biafra was the first time we saw pictures of African kids with skeleton arms and legs and big balloon bellies looking up at the camera. It was easy to get shots like that in Biafra, because the whole country was starving.

A year into the war, the Ibo had nothing left. No food, no ammo, not even fuel, which is ironic when they were sitting on the big Niger delta oilfiends.

Even the bravest troops can"t fight when they"re dying of starvation. So in 1969 the Nigerian Army sent 120,000 men pushing through the center of Biafra, dividing the Ibo zone in half. It was like Sherman"s march to the sea -- it broke the Biafrans" backs. Early in 1970 Biafra surrendered. Nobody knows how many people died. The low guess is a million, the high ones maybe three millions. Almost all were Ibo civilians.

The Nigerians punished the Ibo for their uppity behavior by freezing them out of the loot they got from oil revenues and other graft, the one industry in Nigeria. For 30 years the Ibo have been watching the oil pumped out of their land to buy more Mercedes for a bunch of sleazy generals and politicians. They"ve got a right to be pissed off -- but the Biafra war showed them that in Africa, right ain"t got much to do with it. Like the greatest Swede of "em all used to say, "God is on the side of the big battalions."

[No Smoking]

@Jonathen
Gary Brecher's article was, as you put it, "fairly objective". But he made some howlers that need to be mentioned.

1. The Niger Delta was never a part of Iboland, whether before or after the civil war.
2. The minorities of the old Eastern Region struggled even under the Ibos in the quest for self-government. The COR (Calabar-Ogoja-Rivers) Movement was all about the struggle of the minorities to dislodge the stranglehold of the Ibos in the region.
3. The British did not fly for NAF. Britain actually sat on the fence, at least as seen on the surface. Nigeria's western friends turned their back, which opened the way for the Eastern bloc to supply the warplanes and ammunitions Nigeria used for the war.

[Obugi]

Smoker,

Britain actually sat on the fence

Even with your "surface" qualifier, this one is just too much. Also, the Western friends also backed Nigeria, even the USA. For your info, the CIA was running blocking ops against Biafran arms buyers. On the surface, US was neutral, but the UK and US are always on the same side in any foreign policy isssue.

UK was neutral in the Biafran War? Chineke God, there is nothing I won't hear on this board.



Obugi.

[No Smoking]

No agreement on that one, then. What about France? All out for Biafra, nobbe so? Which encouraged the Cameroun, Central African Republic and the Libreville Government to assist and/or openly recognise Biafra.

[Obugi]

Smoking,

No agreement on UK assisting Nigeria? Hmmm. Nothing further 2 say 2 u; take that as agreement, OK?



Obugi.

[No Smoking]

Informed dissent, or sitting on the fence.....

[Jonathen]

France helped, so did Israel.

Biafra according to wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biafra

The point of this article: Biafra would have beaten the living snot out of Nigeria were it not for their foreign collaborators. A tiny nation of outnumbered 10 to 1, and the "Nigerians" could not defeat them without foreign help. Then, with foreign help, it still took 3 years!

It is difficult to respect ethnic groups (Yuroba and Hausa/Fulani) that were complicit in genocide and so comparatively backward they were no match for you fighting man to man.

Question: Has anything changed? During the Darfur crisis Nigeria could not even manage to send troops to the Sudan to protect other black africans from the arab monsters around them (Europe and America provided the aircraft that later transported AU troops).

It is also difficult to respect ethnic groups (Yuroba and Hausa/Fulani) who were too dumb to realize they were being manipulated by foreign powers to provide their own nations with a gasoline. Why were the Igbo leaders not so blinded? What did all those Yuroba and Hausa/Fulani troops (spit) die for? A country where the average person cannot afford to buy mountain bike?

These same ethnic groups now walk around Nigeria, their failed and pathetic state, and complain about corruption and poverty. They have gotten exactly what they deserve...but have the Igbo?

The paste below is the official Wikipedia story of Biafra:

The Republic of Biafra was a short-lived secessionist state in southeastern Nigeria. It existed from May 30, 1967 to January 15, 1970. The military's Chief of Staff formally announced capitulation on January 12. The country was named after the Bight of Biafra, the bay of the Atlantic to its south.

Biafra was recognized by a small number of countries during its existence: Israel, Ghana, Gabon, Haiti, Côte d'Ivoire, Tanzania, and Zambia. Despite lack of official recognition, other nations provided assistance to Biafra. France, Rhodesia and South Africa provided covert military assistance. The aid of Portugal proved to be crucial to the republic's survival. Portugal's São Tomé and Príncipe became a centre of humanitarian relief efforts; Biafran currency was printed in Lisbon, which was also the location of Biafra's major overseas office. Israel also gave Biafra the arms that it captured in the 1967 Six-Day War, but that same conflict ruled out further assistance.

In January 1966, a coup in the Nigerian government was attempted, which was bloody and short-lived. Since mostly Igbo officers in the Nigerian army survived, it was assumed that they had initiated the coup, and in the months of May and September of 1966, Igbo migrants living in northern Nigeria were the targets of mass killings. Most of Nigeria's Igbo people, who were then estimated at 11 million, lived in what was then the Eastern Region of Nigeria, which had as military governor the Igbo Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. He declared the region an independent state with a capital at Enugu, and his troops began seizing federal resources such as inbound postal vehicles.

Currency of Biafra (£1 denomination)Nigeria responded initially with an economic blockade and brought military force to bear starting on July 6, 1967. In the ensuing civil war, raids were made by Biafran troops west into Nigeria in July and August. Nigerian troops soon recovered, however, advancing into Biafra and forcing the repeated transfer of the Biafran capital from Enugu to Aba and then Umuahia by the end of the year, and to Owerri in 1969.

By 1970, Biafra had been ravaged by war and was in great need of food supplies. Amid economic and military collapse, Ojukwu fled the country and the rest of the republic's territory was re-incorporated into Nigeria. Between 2 - 3 million people are thought to have died in the conflict, mostly through starvation and illness.

Biafra's national anthem used the tune to Finlandia by Jean Sibelius.

Nigeria later renamed the Bight of Biafra as the Bight of Bonny.

This conflict inspired musician/artist/activist Jello Biafra in his choice of stage name, contrasting Jell-O, a brand of highly commercialized gelatin dessert, with mass starvation.

A song was written entitled "Biafra" by Anarcho-Punk band Zounds. Biafra is also mentioned in Warren Zevon's song "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner".

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Excerpt from last wartime speech of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu Head of Biafran state.

"In the three years of the war necessity gave birth to invention. During those three years of heroic bound, we leapt across the great chasm that separates knowledge from know-how. We built rocket, and we designed and built our own delivery systems. We guided our rockets. We guided them far; we guided them accurately. For three years, blockaded without hope of import, we maintained all our vehicles. The state extracted and refined petrol, individuals refined petrol in their back gardens. We built and maintained our airports, maintained them under heavy bombardment. Despite the heavy bombardment, we recovered so quickly after each raid that we were able to maintain the record for the busiest airport in the continent of Africa. We spoke to the world through telecommunication system engineered by local ingenuity; the world heard us and spoke back to us! We built armored cars and tanks. We modified aircraft from trainer to fighters, from passenger aircraft to bombers. In the three years of freedom we had broken the technological barrier. In the three years we became the most civilized, the most technologically advanced black people on earth."

Contents [hide]
1 Reconciliation
2 Racial and Religious violence
3 Recommended reading
4 Literal Meaning of the word Biafra and the exact location of Biafra
5 External links

Reconciliation
On 29 May 2000, the Guardian of Lagos newspaper reported that President Olusegun Obasanjo commuted to retirement the dismissal of all military persons who fought for the breakaway state of Biafra during Nigeria's 1967–1970 civil war. In a national broadcast, he said the decision was based on the belief that "justice must at all times be tempered with mercy". It is also thought, that during the previous year, there had been a public resurgence of pro-Biafra sentiment among a section of the Igbo, who claimed that in the Nigerian federation, they have been marginalised.[1]

To date, the Igbo people of the country continue to insist they have been margainalised and agitation for Biafra's resurgence continues. In July of 2006, in Onitsha, Nigeria's biggest market and one of West Africa's largest, Igbo traders were accepting the Biafran Pound the currency of Biafra, over the Naira, Nigeria's currency.

Racial and Religious violence
Since the ending of the civil war in 1970, racial and religious violence in Nigeria (the reason the civil war took place in 1967) has continued.

Violence between Christians and Muslims (usually Igbo Christians and Hausa or Fulani Muslims} has been incessant since the end of the civil war.

In February of 2006, Muslims in Northern Nigeria protesting caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed (published in Denmark) attacked Christians and burned churches in violence that left dozens dead or injured. A majority of the dead where Igbo's of Christian or Jewish extraction.

In 2004, in the city of Kano (Nigeria's largest Muslim city) angry young Muslim men attacked "nonbelievers" with machetes, while others burned cars, stores and apartments. The violence came hours after thousands of Muslim protesters — some carrying daggers, sickles and clubs — marched from the main mosque in the northern city. Muslim Hausa-speaking men armed with sticks, knives and clubs were searching cars for Christians and animists asking passengers to recite Muslim prayers.

In 2002, Organzers of the Miss World Pageant announced that they would move the pageant from the Nigerian capital, Abuja, to London in the wake of violent protests in the Northern Muslim part of the country that left more than 100 people dead and over 500 injured. The rioting erupted after a newspaper suggested the Prophet Mohammed would have approved of the Miss World beauty contest because the women looked "beautiful". The death toll in the town of Kaduna was an estimated 105 with a further 521 injured taken to hospital. Angry mobs in the mainly Muslim city 600 kilometres (375 miles) northwest of Lagos burnt Christian churches and rampaged through the streets stabbing, bludgeoning and burning bystanders to death.

With thousands of Igbo killed since the end of the Civil war and Nigeria's continued economic stagnation, agitation for Biafra continues.

Recommended reading
Requiem Biafra by Joe O.G. Achuzia, ISBN 9781562560
Surviving in Biafra: The Story of the Nigerian Civil War by Alfred Obiora Uzokwe, ISBN 0595263666
The Ship's Cat by Jock Brandis, ISBN 0595129978 - a fictional account of the Oxfam Air Relief flights that penetrated the military blockade around Biafra. As a young man, the author participated in the effort.
The Last Adventurer by Rolf Steiner - Steiner was a mercenary for the Biafran forces.
The Biafra Story by Frederick Forsyth, ISBN 0850528542, first published 1969, Forsyth was a journalist before he wrote novels.

Gary Brecher's article
Biafra: A People Betrayed by Kurt Vonnegut found in Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons, ISBN 0385333811

Literal Meaning of the word Biafra and the exact location of Biafra
Concerning the literal meaning of the word Biafra little is known. It is not part of the Igbo language.
Manuel Alvares (1526-1583) in his work "Ethiopia Minor and a geographical account of the Province of Sierra Leone", writes about the "Biafar heathen" in chapter 13 of the same book. The word Biafar thus appears to have been a common word in the Portuguese language
back in the 16th century.

Ancient maps on Africa from the 15th - 19th centuries reveal some interesting information about Biafra:

The original word used by the European travellers was not Biafra but Biafara, Biafar and sometimes also Biafares. The exact original region of Biafra is not restricted to Eastern Nigeria alone. According to the maps, the european travellers used the word Biafara to describe the entire region east of River Niger going down to Mount Cameroon region (thus comprising Cameroon), and
a large area at SeneGambia.

Here are some links to some of the ancient maps about Biafara / Biafares / Biafar.

Maps indicating the word Biafara (sometimes also Biafar) with corresponding year:

1662
1660
1707
1729
Here are several Maps from the 19th century showing Biafra as the region around today's Cameroon

1843
Several more maps

[Auspicious]

Well Biafra lost a couple decades ago, so get over it already! Who cares who
supported who or any other 'ifs' of the Nigerian Civil War? So, "IF Nigeria didn't get
external support, Biafra woulda smoked her arse" - well so what? Especially
as Nigeria remains and Biafra is non-existent..? Let ANYONE who is serious
about fanning the embers of warfare relocate home and stand on
his rooftop and declare war on Nigeria. That is when his suporters and
enemies alike can actually take him or her serious. Better that than sitting in
your little comforts abroad and chanting "Gimme Biafra" like it's some
automatic pass-port/word to Nirvana. That's just errant chest-thumping that is
as impressive as a limp phallus is to a horny woman. Enough jare!

Auspicious

[No Smoking]

Poor Jonathen. Are you flying a MASSOB flag at all??

Having started the thread with a so-called "fairly objective" article, you have now poured out your own deep-seated bitter agenda.

Chief Odumegwu Ojukwu long ago made the wise decision to move the Ibo nation back into the mainstream politics of Nigeria. However, die-hard breakaway fanatics have continued to fan the ember of discontent.

It is poignant that Igbo politicians who denied the Eastern minorities a chance to self-government, now have a massive appetite for the creation of more states out of Iboland. We have gone from a single East Central State of 1967 to the present count of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu (have I missed one?). There is an outstanding demand for yet another state.

The MASSOB dreamers should give peace a chance. If the Ibos could invent so many contraptions in a war situation, replicating that in peacetime should be a challenge. Unfortunately, all the drive on show today is to make Iboland ungovernable.

[Jonathen]

No Smoking:

We have given peace a chance, peace is not working.

Do you realize how many Igbo's have been killed in the North the past 10 years? How many deaths go unreported? Thousands.

How many "Nigerian" children of all ethnicities die needlessly each year because corruption denies them appropriate medical treatment and health facilities? Nigeria's corruption is a direct result of its absurd borders.

Are you truely so self depreciating as to imagine that the British, were decades ago brilliant enough to construct a state with borders better than those we can construct for ourselves?

I challenge you and any other "Nigerian Monkey" to name for me ONE country created by Britain in the indigenous world that has not modified its borders since independence and is still functioning well.

It is unfortunate you've chosen to be a "Nigerian monkey" No smoking, but people like you with the "Nigeria's not so bad" attitude are as much my enemy as the Northerners and their Yuroba trash allies. No people with dignity or self worth would complacently permit a terrorist state like "Nigeria" to rule them.

[VOR]

No people with dignity or self worth would complacently permit a terrorist state like "Nigeria" to rule them.

Last time I checked Nigeria is still ruling over your eastern states and your people are quite comfortable serving this terrorist govt!! if you feel it shouldn't be so, do something about it, ask your people to resign from government, stop asking for the presidency of the "terrorist state", and then declare your state of biafra. When you do these, then I will know you mean business.

Right now all you are doing is ranting all over the square like a deranged person. All bark and no bloody bite, please give it a rest you are boring the pants off of me with the drivel you spew forth here.

I have just about had enough of your types, stop threatening us with fire and brimstone - do it! declare biafra and secede from Nigeria. Then we will know how many of us are left to carry on with the country.
I have advised you to do it, if you fail to, then forever hold your peace on this board!!!

[No Smoking]

Pre-colonial Africa had her problems. The colonial masters lumped many strange bedfellows together to form single countries, for ease of governance. Incidentally, most countires in the world are also constituted by multi-ethnic groups. In majority of the countries, the diverse communities find some means of working together towards achieving common national goals.

On the other hand, it is also possible to find chaos and unrest in a family unit of just six persons. All it takes is one troubled individual. Multiply that troubled individual across the hundreds of tribes in the land and all the lands around the world... QED.

What you need, as Jesus said, is to have the Peace of God in yourself.

[Jonathen]

VOR:
You are clearly Yoruba trash. Just remember this: it took millions your pathetic people 3 years to beat us when we were outnumbered 4 to 1. Thats how much better we are than you and no matter the gravity of our loss, we will never forget it. Man to man no Yuroba and no Hausa Fulani was a match for the top Igbo commanders. You had better remember that boy, because the next time there's a war in that region and the foreign Oyibo arent there to save you pathetic people, you and the Palestinians will have something new in common.

No Smoking:
God helps people who first help themselves. We'll see how things go after this "election" in Nigeria (I may be going as an observer). If things go well, Nizeria may not be a lost cause. If my people continue to be margainalized however, I'll increase my support of the MASSOB resistance.

[VOR]

Sorry ooo igbo dog @#? with his horse manure spewing forth from his mouth.
Fact is biafra is over!! live with it!! if you don't like to remain in Nigeria, do something about it rather than sit somewhere in your hell hole (probably somewhere outside Nigeria) living, eating and spewing forth the horse manure you are so filled up with.

DECLARE BIAFRA NOW, and stop disturbing the sane people on this board with your crap. ewu biafra!!

[Fjord]

People:

Jonathen is dishonest; that is in addition to being the stupid person's idea of a clever person. Take the case of this last article. Aside from the stupid misinformation from Beecher, Jonathen couldn't be honest and reproduce all of the article. Below are Beecher's own words right at the beginning of the article, words which Jonathen cut off for maximum effect; of course, the article is older than the time Jonathen's thinking thing has been frozen for: a year and ten months. Link: http://www.exile.ru/2004-October-15/war_nerd.html ; the "bush war" predicted by Breecher is yet to happen, so Jonathen, thinking this does injury to the writer's story, simply cut it off. *****.

" The eXile asked me to do a special 200th column, something about old wars and new wars, so I thought I"d talk about the bush war building up right now in the Niger River delta in Nigeria. The TV"s talking about how the locals are forming an army to make the Nigerian government give them a share of the income from all the oil they"ve found in the delta, but nobody mentions that this miserable maze of fever swamp was the focus of the biggest war in modern Africa -- the Biafra war.

Nigeria"s a typical West African mess of a country, only bigger and meaner. It"s divided up the usual way: the coastal tribes are Christianized from sucking up to the European colonists...."

One thing with war is: you gotta plan it well, same for seccession. Never will the suffereing of women and children be justifiable in war, but the responsibility for the humanitarian disaster that Biafra was must be firmly placed into the hands of the seccessionists. Rather than reading Breecher's nonsense, get some real education from this excellent article in the Journal of Humanitarian Research: http://www.jha.ac/articles/u036.htm the focus is as the journal says. The Nigerian government is reprehensible for the humanitarian crisis (and unfair tactic; they were thinking all is fair in war; but it's a curious reasoning too: to be feeding your enemy while he made guns to kill people on your side... but I digress), but so were the Biafran seccessionists. Not as entertaining as Breecher's drooling, but better food for Jonathen's undernourished brain. Just read it

.

[Jonathen]

Fjord:

Yawn.

[WallaceBobo]

Na wa for this jonathen guy. You seem to me on some kind of mission to badger everyone with your gospel of Igbo superiority. Look, my guy, you're not the first cyber wanderer to attempt this on NVS. Every once in a while we get your type who try very hard to ram their message into everyone. Good thing is soon enough you'll get bored and leave, just like the rest of your fellow fundamentalists.

Villagers, perhaps we could hasten this process by ignoring him? Either that or simply agree with everything he says...

[Jonathen]

Sigh.

The truth is I love the people of Nigeria. That countries citizens represent the best hope for Africa and indeed the "black man".

The importance of this hope is the reason I rage against the largest obstacle to our achieving greatness: Nigeria.

A terrorist state created by foreigners in which none of us, Igbo, Yoruba or Hausa/Fulani has true control of our destiny.

For Gods' sake, why do you people not see it?

[Big-K]

Na wa for this jonathen guy. You seem to me on some kind of mission to badger everyone with your gospel of Igbo superiority. Look, my guy, you're not the first cyber wanderer to attempt this on NVS. Every once in a while we get your type who try very hard to ram their message into everyone. Good thing is soon enough you'll get bored and leave, just like the rest of your fellow fundamentalists.

Villagers, perhaps we could hasten this process by ignoring him? Either that or simply agree with everything he says...

I for one agree with everything Jonathen has said and will say on Biafra

[DeepThought]

That countries citizens represent the best hope for Africa and indeed the "black man".

An insult and an affront to every black man dead or alive..does anyone wonder why other black people hate us?


Oya, Jonathan, continue dey abuse everybody. This will help you make your point

........Wetin no dey for NVS?

[Jonathen]

An insult and an affront to every black man dead or alive..does anyone wonder why other black people hate us?


Oya, Jonathan, continue dey abuse everybody. This will help you make your point

........Wetin no dey for NVS?

Well Deepthought,

In terms of population its certainly the most important "black" nation on Earth wouldnt you say?

[DeepThought]

Jonathen,
First, allow me to say WELCOME to this board.

I have no idea what you want to achieve, however, if rallying positive views for Biafra is you goal, you are not doing this very well. Please indulge me while I present a few words of counsel and a lesson or two in tolerance.

I had two very close friends, growing up as a young man. One fellow was Igbo and the other Yoruba. The three of us lived in the same neighbourhood , a few houses apart and were quite inseperable. Every day after school, we play all kinds of games together, rode our bikes, stole our parents cars and generally got into all kinds of trouble. We were as thick as thieves, probably even thicker.

It may come as a surprise to you that my youruba buddy just happened to be the son of a Yoruba officer who had fought on the Biafran side during the Civil war. Moreover, this officer was latter tied to a stake and brutally executed on Ojukwu's orders during the Civil war. Still, never, never, ever on any single occasion did this fact affect our friendship. We were always very close with and protective of our Igbo friend. Up till today.

While I understand your bitterness about the civil war, the question I want to ask you is do you think you or your “tribe” was the only one one which suffered during the Civil war? And if your father was executed on the orders of a Yoruba General, would you have been able to be friends with a Yoruba person (Don’t answer!).

Do you think other people don’t have pain or regrets about the Civil war?

It may furhter surprise you that myself and possibly more people on the board than you may know, who are not Igbo or Biafrans would normally feel your pain,sympathize with you and love to see an independent Biafra. Some would even be willing to fight and die for this cause.

Don't belittle the memory of those non-Igbo who died fighting for the Biafran cause, just as I don't belittle the memory of Igbo who died fighting for the cause of Nigeria.

War, is an evil which affects each and everyone of us, but we have to try to move on even onto reconciliation.


Abusing everybody and everything in sight without understanding is not the best way to make your points or advance your cause. So stop raining bombastic abuse on other “tribes” as I assure you this only guarantees that most people here will not take you serious. Unless of course your aim is merely to feel good at an emotional level and harm to your cause.

Concerning your belief about the importance of Nigeria. Population or mass alone has never and will never be a criteria for the judging importance of anything.

Are you aware that bacteria, fungi and other microbes outnumber humanity on this planet?
Do we care about their views or consult them about anything?. So just like Nigeria, microbes are are only important when we consider their nuisance value.

[Jonathen]

Thanks for the advice Deepthought, out of courtesy I'll give some of the innacuracies of your post a pass.

By the way Nizerians, earlier I asked a question that was NEVER responded to:

Name ONE state created by colonial Britain outside of Africa that has kept the SAME borders and become prosperous.

India broke into THREE separate states: Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. Asian states changed their borders to reflect cultural and ethnic boundaries, stupid African ones didnt. The result: over a half decade of civil wars.

[No Smoking]

India broke into THREE separate states: Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. Fine. But none of the three can be described as prosperous. Moreover, Pakistan and India have been warring against each other ever so often, to the point of a nuclear race.

Definitely not a glowing example to aim at....

[Jonathen]

Sigh.

Again out of respect, I'll go easy on you No Smoking.

All three countries, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have citizens who are wealthier than the average Nizerian.

All. Three. Period.

I'm not going to address your war argument, again out of courtesy to you. It is a terrible argument. Take a look at my "violence" topic to see the war the North has been waging against everyone but Muslims for decades.

Incidentally, Nizeria couldnt manage the technical expertise to build a nuclear powerplant if its life depended on it. Your "not a glowing example to aim at" comment at the end really stresses my attempt go easy on you here to the limits... Nizeria is one of the most backward states in the world, yet you think India, a future superpower, isnt a "glowing example" because of a border conflict in Kashmir. Out of courtesy to you, no comment.

[No Smoking]

I am touched by your recourse to courtesy. It's good. We can have a clean debate without resorting tp insults.

I have contributed in your thread on violence. You will see there that I am not unaware of the rampage of jihadists. Incidentally, Pakistan that you hold up as an example is ahead of Nigeria in the corruption league table. And, Pakistan, apart from being the hotbed of international terrorists, is also a land of religious intolerance. Christians face persecution there.

The wealth of a few individuals in a given country is not the same as the per capita wealth of the nation.

[Jonathen]

On near any credible measure of wealth the average Pakistani is much better off than the average Nigerian. Pakistan also enjoys a much healthier and industrialized economy.

You seem to have missed the point.

India, unlike Nigeria, went through a civil war where the group wishing to break away won. The result was three countries that are better off now then they would have been had they kept the same silly borders the British had given them.

Nigeria had a civil war where the people trying to escape lost (Biafra), and now, as a result of borders that are completely ridiculous there is corruption, mismanagement and constant civil stryfe.

"British India" was less than the sum of its parts, so is Nigeria. Unlike Nigeria however, the Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis freed themselves from the chains of British arrogance.

[No Smoking]

If the Indian sub-continent achieved such a development and prosperity as you describe, pray explain to me what factor is responsible for the large-scale emigration of the people from there into the country of their former colonial masters??

The UK is awash with these people. Local government councils have had to spend millions of pounds to produce translated versions of council literature, because the immigrants only read and write in Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu and other Asian languages. Surely, if all was well on the sub-continent, these people would be more comfortable in their accustomed climate and culture, rather than becoming dependent on handouts from a colonial master almost 60years after gaining their independence.

[Fjord]

Jonathen wrote: India, unlike Nigeria, went through a civil war where the group wishing to break away won. The result was three countries that are better off now then they would have been had they kept the same silly borders the British had given them.

Don't you see?! The break-away group was smart enough to win. This is simple evolutionary selection: there's more hope for a break-away group when they're able to win a war for their freedom. It is preposterous, and absolutely suicidal, to think that a group will succeed when it couldn't pass the test of successful secceession. Think again. Use your head.

.

[Ajibs]

India, unlike Nigeria, went through a civil war where the group wishing to break away won. The result was three countries that are better off now then they would have been had they kept the same silly borders the British had given them.

I think NVS needs to appoint a factchecker. The above statement borders on being false. I did some simple google checking and nowhere have I found that there was a civil war in India where the country was spilt into three. Please check the facts...

And that is so summerize, as Indian nationals fought (as one nation) to gain independence from the British, the Muslims also negotiated for a seperate state. (note the Muslims wanted their own state as the feared domination by the Hindus). When The british granted the Indians independence in 1947, India was split into TWO countries, India and Paskistan (West and East). Now it was in 1971, that there was an internal uprising leading to a war between West and East Pakistan And with the Indians backing East Pakistan, they gained independence to become Bangladesh.

The only wars fought between India and Pakistan were not independence wars, but wars over Kashmir, in 1947, and 1965, and the the Bangladesh war or 1971.

So to cut a long story short, India did not have a civil war resulting in the formation of two countries. That actually is not true.

[Tola Odejayi]

Name ONE state created by colonial Britain outside of Africa that has kept the SAME borders and become prosperous.

South Africa?

Australia?

New Zealand?

Canada?

Singapore?

Malaysia?


Sheesh... You'd think that the internet would actually encourage the spread of knowledge...

[Auspicious]

LOL! SBL..LOL! Easy on him willya?

[DeepThought]

NAR,
O.K, shall we add "Chief Fact Checker" of NVS to your handle?

SLB, S.A is still in Africa but I guess you can substitute Hong Kong

Auspicious,
Nice pic of you

[Jonathen]

South Africa?

Australia?

New Zealand?

Canada?

Singapore?

Malaysia?


Sheesh... You'd think that the internet would actually encourage the spread of knowledge...

This post and the ones preceeding it go to show why Nigeria has so many problems - shallow thinking, an abysmal indigenous education system and generally ignorant citizens.

The indigineous people of Canada, New Zealand and Australia have been destroyed you ape, those are examples of states in which the colonists became the majority. And even if you did include Canada in the list (it wouldnt belong) the french in Quebec nearly separated twice. De Gaulle compared them to the Igbo trapped in Nigeria you ignorant whelp, and Canada's borders are the result of a war with the United States you Nigerian chimp!

Your other examples are equally Nigerian like in their dumbness - Singapore is a city monkey boy, and an ethnically homogenous one at that, as is Hong Kong! Singapore is 78% chinese and Hong Kong yearly 100%. God I hate talking Nigerian apes like you, Fjord and the others. You are such unintelligent people and yet you talk and talk and talk.

Malaysia is dominated by Chinese immigrants! The indigenous Malays, like the uneducated Nigerian Hausa/Fulani, are the beneficiaries of one of the most agressive affirmative action programs in the world.

I'll say it one last time for you monkeys:

Only in Sub-Saharan Africa (where there have been civil wars non-stop for over 50 years) did the indigenous population decide to not change their borders. Some of them even have the same stupid names their exploiters gave them when they arrived - the "Ivory coast" ect. The result is backward dysfunctional states like "Nigeria" or the "Congo" that make no sense ethnically, religiously or culturally. I'm not even going to waste time on your other stupid examples, you even brought up South Africa. Unbelievable...you must have went to school in Nigeria, thats the only explaination. Do your people a favor and never speak in a public forum again.

Biafra would have been the FIRST subsaharan state CREATED by subsaharans.

God I hate you dumb, dumb people.

[Tola Odejayi]

Jonathen,

You asked:

"Name ONE state created by colonial Britain outside of Africa that has kept the SAME borders and become prosperous."


Was Canada created by colonial Britain? Yes.

Is it outside Africa? Yes.

Has it kept the same borders it had since it became independent in 1867? Yes.

Is it prosperous? Yes.


I'd ask you to explain which part of these answers are factually or logically inaccurate, but then I'd be wasting my time indulging your desperate need for attention.


By the way, here are some more primate names you can use in future posts:

- Gibbon

- Macaque

- Mandrill (use this only on Wednesdays and Saturdays)

- Lemur

- Orang-utang (close your left eye first before using this one!)

- Gorilla

Do let me know if there are other families of animals you wish to use as invective. I'll be happy to provide the necessary names and save you the bother of looking up names on Wikipedia.

Cheers,

SLB

[Jonathen]

You know, I originally had a paragraph long caveat before that question explaining what I thought were the obvious exceptions, but obviously gave chimps like you too much credit Shoko Loko Bangoshe.

Frankly, I dont have the will to carry on a conversation with you - you're just not very intelligent. Fjord, as much as I dislike him and know he's wrong, is at least more intelligent than you. Goodbye.

[Tola Odejayi]

You know, I originally had a paragraph long caveat before that question explaining what I thought were the obvious exceptions...

I think there's only one fitting response to this...



Yeah, right. I'm sure you had a detailed response, all properly researched from Wikipedia - no less.

Oh well, whenever you've grasped the subtle differences between reasoned argument and childish tantrums, feel free to return and explain the serious flaws in your original question.

I shan't be holding my breath, though.

Cheerio,

SLB

[Jonathen]

Shoko Loko Bangoshe:

Yawn.

[Obugi]

Deep Thought,

You are a true thinking man. I want you to know that there are some Igbo who recognize and honor the memory of those your ppl who placed ideology over ethnicity and supported Biafra, a noble idea that was nonetheless flawed in execution.

It may further surprise you that myself and possibly more people on the board than you may know, who are not Igbo or Biafrans would normally feel your pain,sympathize with you and love to see an independent Biafra. Some would even be willing to fight and die for this cause.

Don't belittle the memory of those non-Igbo who died fighting for the Biafran cause, just as I don't belittle the memory of Igbo who died fighting for the cause of Nigeria.

War, is an evil which affects each and everyone of us, but we have to try to move on even onto reconciliation.

Shoko & NAR

A true case of nitpicking. You know what Jonathen was trying to get at, but the guy needs to be more circumspect in his writing sha.

Get Yours!
Obugi.

[Tola Odejayi]

Obugi,

You're right. Of course I'm familiar with Jonathen's anti-Nigeria sentiment, so it's not difficult to know what he was driving at. I just felt like amusing myself, that's all.

Maybe one day, I'll write an article that properly captures my feelings about Nigerian unity and the right to self-determination of its constituent peoples.

Cheers,

Shoko