Saving the Giant

By William E. Smith

THE BROTHERS'WAR Biafra and Nigeria

by JOHN DE ST. JORRE 437 pages. Houghton Mifflin. $10.

"The trouble with Nigeria," Sir Alec Douglas-Home once observed, "is that it is so complicated." Certainly this was true of the Nigerian civil war (1967-70), which was perceived by many foreigners as a brushfire rebellion in a barbarian land where thousands of children were being allowed to starve to death. In truth, of course, it was a modern war that very nearly destroyed Africa's most populous and in many ways most promising nation. In this first complete account of that war, London Observer Correspondent John de St. Jorre is painstakingly evenhanded in his treatment of the two sides. But the effect of his book upon Western readers already mindful of the sufferings of Biafra is to arouse an equivalent sympathy for the plight of Federal Nigeria, faced with the secession of Biafra's hard-working and highly skilled Ibo tribesmen.

The strongest character in the narrative is the Jefferson Davis of this civil war, Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the sophisticated and somewhat theatrical Ibo colonel who led the Biafran revolt. But the real hero is Yakubu Gowon, who eventually succeeded in holding the country together.

Two military coups had ravaged Nigeria in 1966. The first, led mostly by Ibos, aroused anti-Ibo feeling that ended in the massacre of some 10,000 Ibos throughout the country. The second brought Gowon, a 32-year-old northerner, to power. As military governor of the Eastern Region, the Oxford-educated Ojukwu was too proud and too ambitious to recognize Gowon as head of state. Instead, following the massacres, he began to arm the East--and proceeded to use the Ibos' fear of genocide to stir up the phenomenal Biafran war effort. Gowon warned him sadly, "If circumstances compel me to preserve the integrity of Nigeria by force, I will do my duty." Ojukwu, by contrast, appears to Author De St. Jorre as less a patriot than "a man who has got into power and intends to stay there."

The book is at its best when presenting the author's personal impressions of the war: Biafrans going into combat with a Peugeot station wagon as a command car; customs officials who, in the terrible last days, still asked departing newsmen if they had any antiquities to declare; Nigerian officers who clustered around the author after his return from Biafra eagerly asking after friends on the other side. In describing the psychology of the white mercenaries who fought for both the Nigerians and the Biafrans, De St. Jorre suggests the real reason the Nigerians never managed to destroy Uli airstrip --which remained Biafra's lifeline to the very end--was that the pilots hired by the Nigerians had a vested interest in keeping it, and thus the war, alive.

Like most journalists who visited Biafra, De St. Jorre pays tribute to the courage and resourcefulness of the Ibos. He describes one village of 300 people that moved en masse seven times in two years. But he was equally impressed with the Ibos' uncanny grasp of propaganda. One day they might take foreign visitors on "the starvation tour." The next day, while trying to demonstrate that Biafra was stable enough to merit international recognition, they might show off their schools, their courtrooms presided over by periwigged judges, and the immaculate lawn of State House.

Ojukwu had vowed that he would never leave Biafra. "Even if I am the last person," he declared, "I will go forward with my rifle." On the eve of the surrender, however, he fled aboard an old Super Constellation, in the process bumping a group of sick children who were to be evacuated. From his exile in the Ivory Coast, he explained his action by saying: "Whilst I live, Biafra lives." Curiously, few Ibos have criticized Ojukwu for prolonging the fighting unnecessarily. His chief of staff, Philip Effiong, whom he left behind to make the peace, told the author: "He had one weakness -- he did not know when to apply the brakes."

De St. Jorre believes that Biafra's ,sudden collapse in 1970 was brought about less by the shortage of food and arms than by a gradual realization among the Ibos that the fear of genocide was not justified. The merciful peace that Gowon imposed on Biafra, invoking the Lincolnian phrase of "binding up the nation's wounds," demonstrated that the threat had been tragically exaggerated.

During the fighting, the author asked Effiong if he could ever shoot 'Jack" Gowon, who had in fact been lis friend and classmate at Sandhurst.

"Effiong looked startled and then ex claimed in his cultured British accent, Shoot Jack? Good God no. I could nev er shoot old Jack.' " The war ended formally when Effiong flew to Lagos, saluted Gowon and surrendered. "Lieutenant Colonel Effiong reporting for redeployment, sir," he barked, the black Englishman to the last.

William E. Smith

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