INTRO TO NIGERIA
The Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Biafran War, July 6, 1967 – January 13, 1970, was a political conflict caused by the attempted secession of the south-eastern provinces of Nigeria as the self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra. Created as a colonial entity by the British, Nigeria was divided between a mainly Muslim north and a mainly Christian and animist south. Following independence in 1960, three provinces were formed along tribal lines, the Hausa and Fulani (north), Yoruba (south-west), and Igbo or Ibo (south-east). Tribal tensions increased after a military coup in 1966 which resulted in General Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Igbo, taking power as President. This was followed by a northerner-led counter coup a few months later. Aguiyi-Ironsi was killed and widespread reprisals were unleashed against the Igbo. Fearing marginalization within the state, on May 30, 1967 the Igbo-majority province declared its independence as the Republic of Biafra. Initially, its forces pushed back the Nigerian army but after a year of fighting, a stalemate developed.

PRE-COLONIAL BACKGROUND AND PRE-WAR POLITICS
The causes of the Nigerian civil war were exceedingly complex. More than fifty years ago, Great Britain carved an area out of West Africa containing hundreds of different groups and unified it, calling it Nigeria. Although the area contained many different groups, three were predominant: the Igbo, which formed between 60-70 percent of the population in the southeast, the Hausa-Fulani, which formed about 65 percent of the peoples in the northern part of the territory; and, the Yoruba, which formed about 75 percent of the population in the southwestern part. The semi-feudal and Islamic Hausa-Fulani in the North were traditionally ruled by an autocratic, conservative Islamic hierarchy consisting of some 30-odd Emirs who, in turn, owed their allegiance to a supreme Sultan. The Yoruba political system in the southwest, like that of the Hausa-Fulani, also consisted of a series of monarchs (Obas). The Yoruba monarchs, however, were less autocratic than those in the North. The Igbo in the southeast lived in some six hundred autonomous, democratically-organized villages. Although there were monarchs in these villages (whether hereditary or elected), they were largely little more than figureheads. The different political systems among these three peoples produced highly divergent sets of customs and values. These tradition-derived differences were perpetuated and, perhaps, even enhanced by the British system of colonial rule in Nigeria.

The British political ideology of dividing Nigeria during the colonial period into three regions North, West and East exacerbated the already well-developed economic, political, and social competition among Nigeria’s different ethnic groups. For the country was divided in such a way that the North had slightly more population than the other two regions combined. During the 1940s and 1950s the Igbo and Yoruba parties were in the forefront of the fight for independence from Britain. Northern leaders, however, fearful that independence would mean political and economic domination by the more Westernized elites in the South, preferred the perpetuation of British rule. As a condition for accepting independence, they demanded that the country continue to be divided into three regions with the North having a clear majority. Igbo and Yoruba leaders, anxious to obtain an independent country at all cost accepted the Northern demands.

Culled from: https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Nigerian_Civil_War

nothing to remember but the man who still kept this country united and going till today!

CAUSES OF THE WAR
Claims of electoral fraud were the ostensible reason for a military coup on January 15, 1966, led by Igbo junior Army officers, mostly majors and captains. The coup, despite its failure, was perceived as having benefited mostly the Igbos because all but one of the five coup plotters were Igbos, and Ironsi, the new military head of state, himself an Igbo, was thought to have promoted many Igbos in the Army at the expense of Yoruba and Hausa officers. On July 29, 1966, the Northerners executed a counter-coup. Ethnic tensions due to the coup and counter-coup increased and led, in September 1966, to the large-scale massacres of Christian Igbos living in the Muslim north.

The discovery of vast oil reserves in the Niger River delta made many fear that the oil revenues would be used to benefit areas in the north and west rather than their own. Prior to the discovery of oil, Nigeria's wealth derived from agricultural products from the south, and minerals from the north. The north, up until around 1965, had had low-level demands to secede from Nigeria and retain its wealth for northerners. These demands seemed to cease when it became clear that oil would become a major revenue source.

ADVENT OF WAR
The military governor of the Igbo-dominated southeast, Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, proclaimed the secession of the south-eastern region from Nigeria as the Republic of Biafra, an independent nation on May 30, 1967. Only four countries recognized the new republic; Gabon, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Tanzania and later, Zambia. Several peace accords especially the one produced at Aburi, Ghana (the Aburi Accord) collapsed and a shooting war followed. The Nigerian government launched a "police action" to retake the secessionist territory on July 6, 1967. The Nigerians advanced on the town of Nsukka which fell on July 14, while Garkem was captured on July 12. At this stage of the war, other regions of Nigeria (the West and Mid-West) still considered the war as a confrontation between the north (notable Hausas) and the east (notable Igbos).

However, the Biafrans responded with an offensive of their own when on July 9, the Biafran forces moved west into the Mid-Western Nigerian region across the Niger River, passing through Benin City, until they were stopped at Ore just over the state boundary on August 21, just 130 miles east of the Nigerian capital of Lagos. The Biafran attack was led by Lt. Col. Banjo, a Yoruba. They met little resistance and the Mid-West was easily taken over. The soldiers that were supposed to defend Mid-West were mostly mid-west Igbos and were in touch with their eastern counterpart. Gen. Gowon responded by asking then Col. Muritala to form another division to expel Biafrans from mid-west. As Nigerian forces were to retake the Mid-West, the Biafran military administrator declared the Republic of Benin on September 19.

Gen. Gowon also launched an offensive from Biafra's south from the delta to riverine area using the bulk of Lagos Garrison command under Col. Adekunle (black scorpion) to form 3 division, later changed to the 3rd marine commandos. Recruitment into the Nigeria Army increased mostly among other southern ethnics especially Yoruba and Edo people.

The Nigerians then settled down to a period of siege by blockading Biafra. Amphibious landings by the Nigerian marines led by Major Isaac Adaka Boro captured the Niger Delta cities of Bonny, Okrika etc. on October 18 by elements of the Nigerian 3rd Marine Commando Division. In the north, Biafran forces were pushed back into their core Igbo territory, and the capital of Biafra, the city of Enugu, was captured by Nigerian forces on October 4. The Biafrans continued to resist in their core Igbo heartlands, which were soon surrounded by Nigerian forces.

this biafran troop was stabbed to death and his blood oozed from the body..pathetic scene

STALEMATE AND THE HUMANITARIAN CRISIS
From 1968 onward, the war fell into a stalemate, with Nigerian forces unable to make significant advances into the remaining areas of Biafran control. But another Nigerian offensive from April to June 1968 began to close the ring around the Biafrans with further advances on the two northern fronts and the capture of Port Harcourt on May 19, 1968. The blockade of the surrounded Biafrans led to a humanitarian disaster leading to widespread civilian hunger and starvation in the besieged Igbo areas. The Biafran government claimed that Nigeria was using hunger and genocide to win the war and sought aid from the outside world. Many volunteer bodies organized blockade-breaking relief flights into Biafra, carrying food, medicines, and sometimes (according to some claims) weapons. More common was the claim that the arms-carrying aircraft would closely shadow aid aircraft, making it more difficult to distinguish between aid aircraft and military supply aircraft.

In June 1969, the Biafrans launched a desperate offensive against the Nigerians in their attempts to keep the Nigerians off-balance. They were supported by foreign mercenary pilots continuing to fly in food, medical supplies and weapons. Most notable of the mercenaries was Swedish Count Carl Gustav von Rosen who led five Malmö MFI-9 MiniCOIN small piston-engined aircraft, armed with rocket pods and machine guns. His force attacked Nigerian military airfields in Port Harcourt, Enugu, Benin City and Ughelli, destroying or damaging several Nigerian Air Force jets used to attack relief flights, including a few Mig-17s and three out of Nigeria's six Ilyushin Il-28 bombers that were used to bomb Biafran villages and farms daily. The Biafran air attacks did disrupt the combat operations of the Nigerian Air Force, but only for a few months.

THE END
The Nigerian federal forces launched their final offensive against the Biafrans on December 23, 1969 with a major thrust by the 3rd Marine Commando Division (the division was commanded by Col. Obasanjo, who later became president twice) which succeeded in splitting the Biafran enclave into two by the end of the year. The final Nigerian offensive, named "Operation Tail-Wind," was launched on January 7, 1970 with the 3rd Marine Commando Division attacking, and supported by the 1st Infantry division to the north and the 2nd Infantry division to the south. The Biafran town of Owerri fell on January 9, and Uli fell on January 11. The war finally ended with the final surrender of the Biafran forces in the last Biafra-held town of Amichi on January 13, 1970. Only a few days earlier, Ojukwu fled into exile by flying by plane to the republic of Côte d'Ivoire, leaving his deputy Philip Effiong to handle the details of the surrender to Yakubu Gowon of the federal army.

Cc: : Mynd44, OAM4J

hausa/yoruba were in jubliant mood after the victory while the pot belly children were queuing for food and other were just milling around in an aimless manner.trekked for miles to their destinations.incredible scene..No comment.

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