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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 August 2021
Nigeria’s attainment of independence on 1 October 1960 was greeted with world-wide acclaim in the expectation that this new nation would eventually emerge as a model of unity and strength in a developing continent that was bristling with internal strife and local partisanship.
The events that followed proved this expectation to have been based on weak axioms. The political division of the country-first into three, and later into four regions—resulted in political, economic and social imbalances. Not only did such a structure favor the growth of tribalism with its attendant evils; it aided the emergence of a class sytem of “haves,” “have-mores,” “have-littles,” and “have-nots.”
1 The Federal Ministry of Information, Lagos, Challenge of Unity (1967), p. 1.
2 Nigeria is a country of many ethnic groups. Some, like the Hausa, Ibo, and Yoruba are large, while others, like the Tiv in the North, the Ibibio and the Ijaw in the South, are small. These small groups made allegations that they were being discriminated against by the major ethnic groups in government appointments and in the distribution of amenities. The British Government appointed the Willink’s Minorities Commission to look into the fears of the so-called minorities. The minorities rejected the report of the Commission on the grounds that it did not recommend what would constitute sufficient safeguards for them in the country following Independence. For further details, see the Willink’s Minorities Report (Lagos, 1957) and Nigerian Politics and Military Rule, Brick, S.K. Panter, ed., (Athlone Press, 1970)Google Scholar.
3 See map, p. . The majority of the people in the minority areas (the Rivers and the South-Eastern state areas) had for long been agitating for separate states. The people here did support the creation of states, and that was why it was easier for the Federal troops to “liberate” and take possession of the areas in the Rivers and South-Eastern states than it was in the East-Central State area (an Ixsbo-speaking area). This behavior was seen by the Biafran government as an act of sabotage, hence the reports of massive arrests of the suspects during the war.
4 This was the maximum amount of Biafran money held by individuals that could be exchanged for the new Nigerian pound. Any balance of the old Nigerian pound and the Biafran pound was deposited with the Central Bank for further consideration. Most of the deposits in old Nigerian pounds have now been exchanged. It is doubtful whether any further concession will be given to those who had deposits in the Biafran pound.
5 The Ibos were the hardest hit by the exchange exercise, since most of them had earlier turned in old Nigerian pounds to the Central Bank of Biafra.
6 The boards were set up to control the prices of consumer goods during the war. They have not been abolished.
7 It was a general belief that it would take a long time before normal relations would be restored between the Eastern states themselves and between them and the rest of the Federation.
8 The Ibos were employed in large numbers in the civil service of the Northern, the Western, and the Midwest Regions before the civil war. They were forced by the crisis which led to the secession and to war to abandon their posts and return to the Eastern Region. There was, therefore, a serious unemployment problem in the East-Central State at the end of the war. The voluntary recruitment of Ibos by other states has been viewed as a sign of restoration of normal relations. As a matter of fact, recruitment is not confined to the public service; it is frequent in the private sector as well.
9 Administrator of East-Central State: Budget Speech, 1973-1974.
10 The National Development Plan, 1970-1974, p. 33.