Nigeria is a blessed country. It is a country blessed with many cultural heritages and several tribes that promote the beauty of the country. As populous as Nigeria is, there was a time in its history when the country went through a difficult time of civil war, which claimed lots of lives. Intolerance is the major source of the war; indifference makes the leaders of the tribes think they can't coexist together; thereby, they wanted to separate so that each tribe would have its nation, but when I thought about this, it wasn't a good idea because each tribe has its peculiarities and specializes in something that contributes to the development of the country as a whole.
The Nigerian civil war occurred from July 6, 1967, to January 15, 1970. It is also known as the Nigeria-Biafra War and was fought between Nigeria and the Republic of Biafra, a secessionist state that declared its independence from Nigeria in 1967. Nigeria was then led by General Yakubu Gowon, while Biafra was led by Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka "Emeka" Odumegwu Ojukwu. Biafra then represents the nationalists of the Igbo ethnic group, whose leaders felt they could no longer coexist with the federal government dominated by the interests of the Muslim Hausa-Fulanis of northern Nigeria.
The conflict then arises from political, economic, ethnic, cultural, and religious tensions that preceded the United Kingdom's decolonization of Nigeria from 1960 to 1963. The immediate causes of the war in 1966 included a military coup, a counter-coup, and anti-Igbo pogroms in northern Nigeria. The French supported Biafra due to the lucrative oil production in the Niger Delta.
During the period of this war, within a year, the Nigerian government troops surrounded Biafra and captured coastal oil facilities and the city of Port Harcourt. A blockade was imposed as a deliberate policy during the ensuing statement, which led to the mass starvation of the Biafran civilians. During the two and a half years of the war, there were about 100,000 military casualties, while between 500,000 and 2 million Biafran civilians died of starvation.
The Biafran children were malnourished, and the Nigerian civil war was televised around the world alongside the Vietnam War. The foreign countries were worried about malnourished children, and they raised funds through different non-governmental organizations. Biafra enjoyed humanitarian aid from civilians during the Biafra airlift, while the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union were supporters of the Nigerian government, while France, Israel, and some other countries supported Biafra.
The war exposed flaws in pan-Africanism early in the era of African independence from colonialism by providing evidence that the people of Africa are too diverse to find common unity, and it also revealed early weaknesses in the organization of African unity. The war also resulted in the marginalization of the Igbo people, as Nigeria has not had another Igbo president since the end of the war, leading some Igbo to believe they are being unfairly punished for the war.
Before the beginning of the war, both parties didn't think of the consequences of the outcome of the war. If I were to be present in the Nigerian government then, a peace talk would have gone a long way to making the Biafran see what they were to lose at their end if they went on with the war and also analyze what the Nigerian government stood to lose during the war, which might diminish the growth of the country. Because the two parties failed to realize that togetherness is the only way forward for the country, which cost them a lot, "united we stand, divided we fall", it took them time to understand this, which is why the war lasted for so long, which is one of the important lessons learned during this war.
The failure to tolerate one another was the first cause of the war; they failed to understand that a tree cannot make a forest. The northern part of Nigeria that they detest so much is the food basket of the nation; they supply 70% of the food taken in Nigeria because they are mostly farmers, and aside from that, they occupy a larger part of Nigeria's military. Only a small percentage of the Yoruba and Igbo tribes participate in the military.
I guess this is the main reason the Biafrans saw them as a threat because then Nigeria was ruled by the military. During the war, lots of lives were lost because of the unrest in the country, with every citizen fighting for survival with no food, no shelter, and no peace of mind, and in the end, everything they were fighting for wasn't possible due to some reasons.
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