U.S based businessman and social media commentator, Ena Ofugara in a Facebook post on Sunday (yesterday) praised General Yakubu Gowon for keeping the country together. He likened Gowon to America’s Abraham Lincoln and posted excerpts of correspondence between late Odumegwu Ojukwu and his Public Relations Representative in the United States, Robert S. Goldstein.

Open letter of resignation to Odumegwu Ojukwu

From the Public Relations Representative of Biafra in the United States, Robert S. Goldstein

(Published in the Morning Post, Lagos, August 17, 1968)


As your Public Relations Representative in the United States, it is my distasteful duty to tender my resignation based on the following points:


POINT 1 - In November of 1967 when we met in Umuahia, you and your Cabinet were very impressive. You told me of the woes of your little Republic, that thousands of people had died, were dying and more were prepared to die for freedom's sake.


You and your Cabinet told me you believed world opinion would help your cause if you could get your story across. You expressed the opinion that very few if any people in the United States knew of the plight of the Biafrans.


You asked me to tell the world that Britain had teamed up with Russia in a conspiracy with the Federal Government of Nigeria to murder every Ibo in Biafra. You suggested I use my talents to induce the Press to write about the Biafran side of the war, as at that time all news came out of Lagos. You will recall I did not take the asssignment that day but stayed on several days before deciding to take that job.

To help win the peace, at that time I stated to you and your cabinet that I was taking the assignment making it crystal clear I would try my best to help win the peace not the war.


POINT TWO - I immediately arranged the first world Press conference in Biafra inviting the US Press as well as journalists and television people from England, France, Switzerland, Africa and other parts of the Globe. This was the first news break through. I arranged regular trips into Biafra for the world Press, helped set up stringers, etc., so that your statements and the statements of your Cabinet would be heard.

At that time, I was absolutely positive you were right and your cause was a just one in the best interests of the free world and your countrymen.


POINT THREE - Finally the Republic of Biafra was recognized first by Tanzania, then quickly followed by Gabon, the Ivory Coast and Zambia. Our public relations work was paying off, world opnion was starting to side with us.

Peace talks were arranged at Kampala. I thought that if anyone walked away from the table it would be the Federal Government. But to my dismay it was Biafra that left the Conference. After all the fighting and killing, I knew that peace would not come easy but I could not understand leaving the Peace Conference until the last point was negotiated and the avenue explored.


POINT FOUR - Then urgent telex messages were received from 'Biafra' telling of tens of thousands of people starving in the refugee camps, the villages, the bush country - stating if something werent done in the next few months over a million women, children and aged would be starved to death. I immediately contacted the Press, urgently petitioned the State Department for action on their part. Food, medicine and milk were sent to the only available ports open for immediate shipment to 'Biafra' via land routes through Federal and Biafra territory, under the auspices of world organizations such as the International Red Cross among others.

Then came the incredible answer from 'Biafra' that land corridors could not be acceptable until there was a complete ceasefire, and that an airlift was the only solution to feed the starving.

You then appeared before the various Heads of State and representatives of the OAU at Niamey in Niger. I fully expected you to at least accept the world help that was offered your starving throngs. However, you delayed, hoping to use these unfortunates with world sympathy on their side as a tool to further your ambition to achieve war concessions at the upcoming peace talks in Addis Ababa. Thus innocent victims continue to perish needlessly of starvation, the most agonising death that can befall any living creature.


Read More https://coseghale..com.ng/2017/07/who-is-blame-for-biafran-pogrom-gowon.html

History is history, Biafra is history n it's gone but watch out for who to blame for the millions of Igbo's that will perish in the self inflicted genocide KANU is about to unleash on his kinsmen. Rwanda is a good case study of how tribe that as been disparaged both on n off air will retaliate when the opportunity comes.

Ojukwu and Gowon should be held responsible,

I still wonder how people still support a country that cannot boast of any single achievement since its independence...

TUFIAKWA