Chinua Achebe, if you ask me, still remains the most profound west african, arguably african writer of all time. Saddled with sheer talent and a brilliant mind, Achebe sure knows how to tell a story, has a lot to talk about and knows how to “populate the page” with vibrant words and excellent grammar, even his punctuations are splendidly positioned. Just as Emma Okocha said- good prose is “words arranged in the best way”, Achebe’s kind of prose completely transcends that because reading Achebe feels like you’re looking at a mixture of Prose and poetry. My favourite african prose of all time will be and will always be Achebe’s Things fall apart, an undeniable masterpiece of african literature that has been published in over 50 languages and sold more than 10 million copies worldwide, probably the most successful piece of literature to emerge from West Africa. Last time I held that great piece of script was over 15 years ago in Junior secondary school, I never really appreciated it then because everybody had a copy so it just became like a general commodity. Come 2018, i cant seem to find it so easily anymore.
To have a feel of the story-telling magic of Achebe, I recommend these top 5 award winning books: Things fall apart, No longer at Ease, Anthills of the Savannah, Arrow of Godand A Man of the People
There was a country is just another literary paragon that Achebe brings forth, a powerful recount of history, culture, war and nationalism. To summarise, the book is a historical satire of Nigeria and biafra, a personal and first hand chronicle of his experience before and during the Nigerian civil war of 1967–1970, and how Nigeria unfolded from an Imperial colony, to an optimistic Independent nation and its aftermath decline into a war stricken zone (which constitutes the bulk of the book) and his personal experiences during this period. He narrates almost angrily and sentimentally on the Biafran War, on not only the genocidal atrocities and war crimes but also tries to capture the Image of what Nigeria used to be like before Independence and what it is now- a failed, corrupt, mediocre, ethnically bigoted and politically inept state.
PART 1: The book is divided into four parts. Part 1 starts on a comedic note, talking about his family, education, youth and “magical years” and how things used to be back-in-a-day. He writes of how he grappled with culture, religion and colonialism. There is a particular expression that Chinua tells about him coming to terms with western religion during his youth:
“I often had periods of oscillating faith as I grew older, periods of doubt when I quietly pondered and deeply questioned the absolutist teachings or the interpretations of religion. I struggled with the certitude of Christianity- I am the way, the truthand the life”- not its accuracy, because as a writer one understands that there should be such latitude, but the desolation, the acerbity of its meaning, the lack of options for the outsider, the other. I believe that this question has subconsciously influenced my writing”
However, Achebe also recounts on his academic years and a reader can see how intelligent and bright a student Achebe was from his primary school days even to University college, Ibadan. He studied alongside prominent academia like Chike Momah, Flora Nwapa, Mabel Segun and Elechi Amadi amongst others and the alma mater also produced great scholars like Wole Soyinka, J.P Clark and J. C Echeruo. Talk about Alumni…
After securing a good job at a broadcasting company, meeting his life partner and publishing things fall apart, he then narrates the trail of Nigeria getting its independence, to the dark days- the times of ethnic tension and resentment. The story gradually begins to darken with events like the 1966 military coup and the countercoup and assassinations that followed, the pogroms and mass killings of the Igbos in the north, the Aburi accord and the declaration of the the Biafra War, the beginning of the Nightmare.
PART 2: According to the writer, the final provocation for the biafran war was entirely a function of an Injustice committed by the Northerners against the Igbos by the widespread butchering of thousands of Igbo in the north as a response to the assassination of the highly revered Northern leader Sir Ahmadu Bello by Major General Kaduna Nzeogwu(The Hyena) when he seized power as military head of state in the 1966 coup. Even before this, there had been increased and heated tensions between these two ethnic groups and it had finally reached its tipping point. The Nigerians felt that the Igbos had a bloodlust for power as many of them seemed to occupy high position in government and academia. Subsequently, In response to these mass murders, the Igbo nation was furious and had to get justice whichever way possible because clearly Yakubu Gowon wasn’t providing it. Achebe writes:
“On May 30 1967, Ojukwu citing a variety of malevolent acts directed at the mainly Igbo easterners such as the pogrom that claimed over 30,000 lives of men women and children, the federal government’s failure to ensure the safety of easterners in the presence of organised genocide; and the direct incrimination of the government in the murders of its own citizens- proclaimed the Independence of the republic of Biafra from Nigeria”.
The Author looks back in retrospect and claims that the war was deemed inevitable and there was no other path to go than to secede. For the Biafrans at that point, there was no going back, it was either secession or death. An all-out declaration of war.
The War: The war accounts are holistic enough coupled with enough facts and data as he simultaneously captures the bloody atmosphere at the receiving end of the battering. Bombs, Napalms, shells and bullets rained constantly upon Igbo land with heavy loss of human life and mass destruction of property. It was more of a genocide than a war and the primary weapon of mass destruction was no other than- Starvation. As the Nigerian republic shut off food supplies to the east and effectively bombed arable land suitable for farming, the biafran men, women and children starved and died in cataclysmic numbers that it created an international media upsurge. Innocent children starved to death, victims of a war fought against an unapologetic, ruthless administration that endorsed the starvation of women and children as a “Legitimate weapon of war”.
There were massacres indeed, and the most notorious of them was the Asaba Massacre carried out under the orders of General Murtala Mohammed and Ibrahim Haruna of the Nigerian Army 2nd division, 2 of the generals that led the 3 tonged offensive, the Pitchfork attack, that rained terror on the Igbos. Emma Okocha in his poetic classic The last dance on the Niger wrote that “Sons buried their fathers in their thousands and fathers buried sons in their thousands”. The Asaba Massacre and the Calabar Massacre joint together scores a death toll of over 3000 lives. The author horrifically recounts that Death and destruction were the order of the day and there was “blood, blood everywhere”. By the time the war was over the death toll hit around 3 million lives and even more displaced, thousands of buildings destroyed, property vandalised, women raped, children hospitalised and the whole eastern region came to the brink of poverty.
Notwithstanding, it was still a war and in war, you fight back. The biafrans sure fought back bravely. Perhaps the most important battle strategy used by the rebels was the Che guevara style guerrilla warfare, leveraging on home advantage, the rebels usually made late night/early morning sneak attacks on enemy soldiers and violently battered them to pulp and there were even rumours that Biafrans ate the cooked flesh of Nigerian soldiers. ewww..
He also reminisces on the contingent but creative technologies used by the Biafran engineers like the Ogbunigwe, a locally made bomb made up of explosive gunpowder and scraps of sharp metal. Nevertheless, the biafrans were completely outgunned and outmanned and the ratio of Nigerian soldiers to biafran rebels was about 6:1. The rebels had guns too mainly supplied by the french and the chinese but still not enough to go around for them all. He mentions:
Frederick Forsyth recalls in an excellent BBC documentary , Biafra: fighting a war without guns, that biafran soldiers marched into war one man behind the other because they had only one rifle between them, and the thinking was that if one soldier was killed in combat the other would pick up the only weapon available and continue fighting.
The Nigerians had advanced military equipment like fighter planes and armoured tanks while the biafrans could only make manage with Saracens, Howitzers and SUV’s. Also, The Ahiara declaration would have been the primary constitution and rule of law for Biafra if secession succeeded and the nation just like any other would have had a biafran flag, anthem, a military and an economic policy. That was the plan
Achebe also sentimentally reminisces of how he and his family were displaced 4 times and they had to constantly keep relocating to ensure their safety. He talked particularly a lot about his dear friend and confidante Christopher Okigbo, an astute and talented poet and thinker and the junior brother of the renowned economist Pius Okigbo. During the hardest periods of the war, Christopher remained close to his family until he signed up to join the biafran rebels and was sadly executed as a Major. One can tell how close and important Okigbo was to the author’s life.
PART 3: The war gradually draws to an end, the Biafra republic surrenders to the Federal republic of Nigeria and Ojukwu flees to asylum. One can see the myriad of events that led to the loss of morale on the Biafra side- the endless starvation, the silence of the United nations, Azikiwe’s withdrawal of biafran support, the bombing of the Uli strip, Ojukwu’s execution of the italians at Kwale oil rig that trumped International support and the recapture of Owerri, all which led to the biafan surrender in January 1970.
PART 4: After such a rough, bloody and terrible past, Nigeria was expected to arise from this miry clay into a peaceful, unified and productive nation but after all said and done, Nigeria still remains a hub of corruption, mediocrity and indiscipline largely controlled by the ruling class. He suggest ways for State resuscitation and recovery with this final note:
A new patriotic consciousness has to be developed, not one based on the well worn notion of the unity of nigeria or faith in nigeia often touted by our corrupt leaders, but one based on awareness of the responsibility of the leaders to the led- on the sacredness of their anointment to lead- and disseminated by civil society, schools and intellectuals.
Poems and Notes: The book is also decoratively laced with beautiful haunting poems positioned in-between chapters. Before I read this book I had no idea that he was such a great poet and I was indeed mesmerised by the quality of his poetry. Such of the poems included in the book are — The Penalty of Godhead(already on the blog in the poetry section), Biafra(1969), We laughed at himand After a War.
In conclusion, Achebe is also a very heavy indexer and a voracious researcher. I guess writing a book of this cadre requires a dense investment into research and data collection. He cited 391 articles and notes in the course of writing this Chronicle.
DID YOU KNOW?
- The Nigerian civil war of 1967–1970 is Africa’s bloodiest war to date with 3 million lives lost and over 4.5 million people displaced.
- Achebe turned down Nigeria’s second highest national award (Commander of the federal republic) twicein 2004 and 2011 as a result of his anger on the condition of Nigeria. He writes “I had very little at my disposal to protest with, so the strongest statement I could make was to turn down the honour of Commander of the Federal Republic, which i was awarded”
- The three Military generals picked by Gowon that led the attack on the biafrans were General Murtala Mohammed,Gen Mohammed Shuwa and the notorious Brigadier Benjamin Adekunle aka The Black Scorpion. They spearheaded what they call the Pitchfork Offensive
- Colonel Odimegwu Ojukwu(The Biafran Leader) came from a very affluent and wealthy family, his father Sir Louis Odimegwu Ojukwu was considered the wealthiest man in Nigeria at the time(similar to Aliko Dangote now). He was so rich that he was the only african to own a fleet of porsches as a student in Oxford University England.