THE NIGERIA CIVIL WAR IN 1967

NIGERIA CIVIL WAR

In May 1967 Gowon announced the creation of a new 12-state structure.
The Eastern Region, populated mostly by Igbo, would be divided into
three states, two of them dominated by non-Igbo groups. The division would
also sever the vast majority of Igbo from profitable coastal ports and
rich oil fields that had recently been discovered in the Niger Delta
(which until then was a part of the Eastern Region). The leaders of the
Eastern Region, pushed to the brink of secession by the recent anti-Igbo
attacks and the influx of Igbo refugees, saw this action as an
official attempt to push the Igbo to the margins of Nigerian society and
politics. On May 27, 1967, the region’s Igbo-dominated assembly authorized
Lieutenant Colonel Odemegwu Ojukwu to declare independence as the
Republic of Biafra. Ojukwu obliged three days later.
The Biafran civil war was precipitated by an attempt by the Nigerian
government to lessen the political power of certain Nigerian ethnic
groups by dividing the country’s 4 existing regions into 12 states. The
former Eastern Region declared itself independent in May 1967 as the
Republic of Biafra, left, and the civil war ensued. By January 1970 the
Biafran forces controlled only a small portion of Biafra, right, and
surrendered.
War broke out in July 1967 when Nigerian forces moved south and
captured the university town of Nsukka. Biafran troops crossed the Niger
River, pushing deep into the west in an attempt to attack Lagos, then the
capital. Gowon’s forces repelled the invasion, imposed a naval blockade
of the southeastern coast, and mounted a counterattack into northern
Biafra. A bitter war of attrition followed, prolonged by France’s military
support for the Biafrans. In January 1970 the better-equipped federal
forces finally overcame the rebels, whereupon Gowon announced he would
remain in power for six more years to ensure a peaceful transition to
democracy.