Ofeimun , Adebanjo stoke controversy over Achebe’s comments on Awolowo

PREDICTABLY, more diverse reactions are pouring in over renowned author, Prof. Chinua Achebe's new book – There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra.  While Chief Olanihun Ajayi would not like to comment until he had read the book, a prominent member of the Pan-Yoruba organisation, Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo suspects that Achebe had been quoted out of context. He told The Guardian yesterday that he was preparing a treatise to put what really transpired during the Biafra war in proper context.

However, to a prominent poet and author, Odia Ofeimun, Achebe should not have thrown his weight behind the justification for the war in his book, because what the Biafran leaders did, he insisted, amounted to genocide against the Igbo people.

Ofeimun, who spoke at a Book Party organized by the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA), to celebrate the 10 authors shortlisted for the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Prize for Literature in Lagos at the weekend, argued that Achebe had the opportunity to set the records straight in his book but failed to do so.

Adebanjo wondered why anybody could have reported that Chief Obafemi Awolowo started the Biafra war when he (Awolowo) was in prison.  He said: "How can any one report that Awolowo started the war? He was in prison when all this (Biafra war) began. Ojukwu started the war. Even against all odds, Awolowo went to Ojukwu with Chief Samuel Mariere and Prof. Sam Aluko to try to persuade him to avert the war, but Ojukwu insisted."

However, Ofeimun insisted that the Biafran leaders should have been compelled to face the Nuremburg-Type trial, organized by the United Nations, similar to the one conducted by the Allied Forces in respect of the Nazi Germany war criminals.

He said: "All leaders of Biafra should be taken to Nuremberg-type Trial for committing genocide against their own people and made to face genocide charges. They knew they had no guns; they knew they were unprepared for the war but took the Igbos to war. And because the rest of us were angry, we allowed ourselves to be misled by propaganda. What happened to the Igbos was very bad; it was wrong. The leaders committed genocide. And the rest of us are being made to feel guilty for their crimes. And I expected Achebe to correct the story in his book, he merely took the jelly out of the jar".

Ofeimun, who, as a 17 years old, was ready to sign up to fight on the Biafran side, lamented that the Igbo leadership that took the war decision misled the rest of the world and the ordinary Igbo people with the propaganda that was mounted. The poet stated that even a Biafran commander, like Hilary Njoku, warned of Biafra's unpreparedness for the war. He insisted that they couldn't fight the war.

Achebe's book, like other various accounts of the bitter Civil War (1966 – 1970) before it, has lived up to the reputation of sparking off controversy.

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