by Dr. S. Okechukwu Mezu
"Would Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe have seceded from Nigeria and declared Biafra's Independence if he were in control of the situation. The answer is definitely NO. Would Dr. Azikiwe have worked out an accommodation under the Aburi Accord that projected a Confederation. The answer is definitely YES. General Ojukwu is General Ojukwu and Zik of Africa is Zik of Africa and never, never the twain shall meet. The above is a veiled and indirect response to the entreaty from John Okiyi viz: "I will write Dr. Mezu to weigh in and give us his honest view [about Dr. Azikiwe and General Ojukwu]. Our elders are still alive and can guide us." There will be time to talk about Ojukwu, the war and Ojukwu's return to Nigeria. I was privileged to hold a private and extended discussion with him after his return from exile. It would be inappropriate to delve into those discussions at this time." quoted from "Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe," by Dr. S. Okechukwu Mezu, http://eboeville.ning.com/
After writing the above on November 16, 2011, little did I know then that Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, born November 4, 1933 would die ten days later on 26 November 2011.
What would have been the nature and shape of my life, my forty-three years of marriage to my wife, Dr. Rose Ure Mezu, our family, the number of children (ten) we have? What direction would life have taken me, my family, the family of Dr. S. Okechukwu and Dr. Rose Ure Mezu, if, if my life and that of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu had not intersected during the Nigeria-Biafra War?
"Are you married?" asked Ojukwu finally.
"No," replied Dr. S. Okechukwu Mezu. "But I have a fiancée. We were engaged on June 10, 1968."
"You must get married immediately," continued Ojukwu. "I am sending you to Abidjan, Ivory Coast, as Biafra's Ambassador. You are a young man. I want you to travel with your wife. I have not allowed any Biafran diplomat or elder to travel out with their wife during this war - Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Dr. Kenneth Dike, Dr. Michael Okpara, Dr. Pius Okigbo, Dr. Otue, Sir Louis Mbanefo, Chief C. C. Mojekwu etc. - If they leave Biafra with their wives, I know they will never come back to Biafra. You are different. You were abroad, joined us from there. I can trust you fully. Tomorrow, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will prepare your passport and that of your wife and the two of you will leave for Abidjan with the next flight out of Uli Airport. They will also prepare the necessary letters of authority."
General Ojukwu did not even ask for my opinion. He seemed not to care whether I was from Owerri or Onitsha or Nnewi, or Calabar. He knew of my work for Biafra in Paris from all his emmissaries that came there. He probably saw something in me. Our ideas about the war, our fears about its prosecution were identical. We could communicate without talking. He was simple, calm and ponderous. He had no illusions about the daunting tasks ahead and the immense suffering of our people. He knew I would accept. I did accept. I was then twenty-seven years old. He was thirty three.
That conversation took place early in September 1968 at his Umuahia Bunker. I did not really want to leave Biafra again. I wanted to stay home and fight, fight and die if need be with my people. That was my second trip to the war-torn Biafra. I had made an earlier trip into Biafra in June 1968 in one of the night flights carrying arms to Biafra. I had traveled from Paris to Lisbon, Portugal where with the help of Biafra Special Representative, Mr. Ikpa, I joined a Biafra flight carrying arms to Biafra through Sau Tome. I was the Deputy Director of Biafra Historical Research Society, a pseudo-Biafran Embassy set up by Chief Ralph Uwechue and myself in Paris, Chief Uwechue as the Director, myself as the Deputy Director. Chief Uwechue before then was the Nigerian Chargé d'Affaires at the Nigerian Embassy in Paris who resigned his appointment and joined the Biafra struggle and pulled out with him, the French press and all the goodwill Nigeria had in Paris and with the diplomatic community.
The following day, as I went to arrange for the passports a Nigerian fighter jet shrieked across then came back and strafed us - the civilians below with relish and abandon. Lying low in the trench in front of the ministry, I could have picked out the Algerian pilot if I had a shot gun. I believe about seven people died in and around the Biafra Foreign Office Ministry during that raid. Two Nigerian jets came back in the afternoon that day, bombed again the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Information with disastrous casualties. My wife and I were quickly married (September 6, 1968) by Rev. Benjamin Dara, CSSp at St. Patrick's Catholic Church, Umuokrika, Ahiazu, my wife's home parish without a wedding dress and with about ten close members of both families in attendance. As we left the church, two Nigerian jets flew "ceremonially" past the Church. We learned later that a nearby busy market, Afor Oru, was bombed with disastrous consequences.
On September 10, 1968, a few days later, my wife and I left for Libreville, Gabon, from Uli-Ihiala airstrip, code-named "Annabelle" Airport, celebrated in 1970 in my historical novel: Behind the Rising Sun (William Heinemann Publishers, London, 1970). We stayed at Hotel Le Gamba and were received by then President Omar Bernard Bongo, another friend of Biafra. President Houphouet Boigny sent his private jet to pick us up from Libreville to Abidjan. We took along a Ghanaian, Mrs Sapara Grant, who was heading back home from Biafra. For a few weeks, Hotel Ivoire, Room 310, would be a new home for my wife and myself. That same week, my wife and I received the first batch of Biafran kwashiokor children as they arrived from Biafra and we flew them to Bouake and made desperate efforts to find them food and comfort. They spent the night in an elementary school open hall.
Approximately forty three years ago (in 1967), great challenges confronted the Igbos of Nigeria with the coup d’etat of January 15, 1966 led by Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu an outstanding progressive, who was buried with full military honors when killed by those he fought against. His coup d’etat was triggered by political lawlessness, uncontrolled looting of the treasury in the political arena and uncontrolled looting and lacing in the streets of Western Nigeria. Unfortunately the Sarduana of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Prime Minister of Nigeria, Sir Tafawa Balewa and the Finance Minister, Chief Festus Okotie Eboh (among others including military officers) were killed in the process. The pogrom of Igbos followed in Northern Nigeria beginning in July 1966 – atrocities we would rather not recount but should never forget.
I was then completing my Doctoral dissertation at The Johns Hopkins University, in Maryland. As a young man, I led demonstrations in front of the US State Department in Washington D.C. to protest the murder in the Congo of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and the Katanga secession. I believed in Pan-African Unity (in fact organized an International Conference on Pan-Africanism as President of the Organization of African and American Students. The proceedings of that conference were edited by me and published in 1965 by Georgetown University Press.) Beyond Pan-African Unity, we believed in a Pan Black world inspired by William DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Booker T. Washington, Kwame Nkrumah, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Julius Nyerere, and those I celebrated in my book Black Leaders of the Centuries published in 1970.
The war broke out in 1967. Biafra and the Igbos were attacked and faced liquidation through starvation and blockade from the sea, the air and the land. Many of us were conflicted. Can a committed Pan-Africanist like me really support the secession of Biafra from Nigeria. For me when the choice became clear, it was immediate. I was offered an appointment as a Senior Diplomat by Chief Simeon Adebo, Nigeria’s Representative at the United Nations. After a night in his house and as his guest at the Ambassador’s Residence in the elegant suburb of New York, my mind was made up. I must fight for the defense of my people.
I postponed the defense of my Doctoral dissertation which I had written in Paris as an exchange student at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, a joint program of the University of Paris with The Johns Hopkins University. Together with Ambassador Ralph Uwechue, we founded the Biafra Historical Research Centre in Paris (a pseudonym for the Biafran Embassy in Europe, from where we organized the steady supply of food and medicine through Caritas Internationalis, International Red Cross, Terre des Hommes, Medicins sans Frontier for the beleaguered citizens of Biafra. I hereby confess that we also sent planes, arms and ammunition through other sources for the defense of Biafra and its citizens and arranged the passage (through Yaounde and Douala) of six young Igbo Nigerian fighter pilots who had just graduated from a training school in Germany. They formed the nucleus of the Biafran Air Force with Chude Sokei then as the Commander. I was later appointed by General Ojukwu following the recognition of Biafra by Cote d’Ivoire as the Biafran Ambassador to Ivory Coast and President Houphouet-Boigny with concurrent accreditation to Anglophone West Africa and as an envoy to President Leopold Sedar Senghor of Senegal whose works and life (incidentally) was the subject of my Doctoral dissertation. Leopold Sedar Senghor et la defense et illustration de la civilization noire (Paris 1968).
Under Ojukwu, I had the honor and privilege of being a member of the Biafran Delegation to Niamey (Niger Republic) Peace Conference under President Hamani Diori (1968) and the OAU sponsored Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) Conference (1968) under the Chairmanship of Emperor Haile Selassie. This was the final effort by General Ojukwu and General Gowon to settle the conflict at the Conference Table. The night before the Conference, I translated into French and had printed General Ojukwu’s speech for simultaneous distribution in French and English following its delivery. The rest is history and even though General Gowon, a good man, promised “No Victor, No Vanquished,” the Igbos were not only defeated but were vanquished and treated as such but their heads were unbowed, and remain unbowed