Living history

“An old man’s month may be twisted, but his words are not”. Zambian Proverb

Chinua Achebe’s latest book There Was a Country has predictably opened up a vigorous debate over some of the more sensitive aspects of the Nigeria civil war. Even before his countrymen and women have read the book, the more sensational parts of the book are being given very wide circulation. Suddenly, we are in the grip of a debate that involves many participants who were born long after the war, and a few who lived through it or participated in it. It is unlikely that key players like General Yakubu Gowon or some of the former leaders and military officers who were active in the execution of the war will join the fray. Which may be just as well, because while history has its value, there is also merit in being circumspect and avoiding maddening crowds who chase bits and pieces of history to make sense of the present.

Old man Achebe’s motives for waking up some ghosts in our chequered history may include a primordial but belated need to put himself forward as a champion of the Igbo people. For a man who has spent decades out of his slowly-decaying nation, content to throw in a condemnation here and a rejection of an honour there, history will judge him as a citizen who shines like a star that lights other peoples’ land more brightly. Perhaps this book is a form of atonement; or perhaps it is a genuine attempt to contribute to a sad chapter in the history of the nation, forty-odd years after the event. In any case, he must know that some of the positions he takes in the book will compound the current disarray at the political level, at a time when political leaders have failed to engineer a hegemony and national cohesion, and have all scurried into tribal holes.

Achebe says that General Yakubu Gowon and Chief Awolowo designed and implemented a policy of genocide against the Igbo people in the manner they deliberately starved the population during the war. The operative concept here is genocide, a now familiar and abhorrent policy of attempting, or succeeding in extermination of particular groups. At this stage of the history of our civil war, all that is left is emotion. And for a nation where quite possibly 70% percent of the population was born after 1970, and has been fed on a staple of widely-divergent versions of history, allegations of genocide against past leaders, (including one, Awolowo, who is still venerated) are bound to elicit major reactions. And reactions are coming in, thick and strong.

Apologists for the Igbo cause see vindication of the version that Igbo courage and character was defeated only by use of “inhuman” tactics like starvation, and callous connivance of Yoruba leaders against a “Hausa” (or northern) enemy. Defenders of the image and legacies of Awolowo remind the Igbo that they triggered a chain of events out of arrogance and disrespect for others, and paid a just price for their folly. If people starved during the war, they will say, it can only be part of the tragedies that all wars are, and parties in conflicts choose the safest and quickest routes to end them. Other versions of the history will highlight many of its elements that showed deeply-sensitive considerations for a nation fighting itself; for post-war reconciliation and rehabilitation; and for many wrong assumptions and mistakes made by leaders and commanders that cost thousands of lives. There are yet others who will remember thousands of soldiers who made the supreme sacrifice to re-unite the nation; citizens who will remember the incredible speed of genuine reconciliation among ordinary folks and people; and a world that still marvels at the ability of the Nigerian people to move beyond a very bitter civil war.

So Achebe’s views will join many others which compete in our minds in terms of our history. But they will do more than provide another version or insight into the history of the civil war. At a time when the nation is desperate to overcome massive faultlines emerging around ethnic boundaries, the allegations that Igbo people were a victim of callous and calculated policy of genocide by northern and western leaders cannot but deepen these faultlines. The allegation may serve to rally Igbo people around the sentiments of the underdogs of the Nigerian nation, the enterprising people we all have to conspire and put down in order to find space. It will feed a fallacy which has some political capital, but has no factual or historical credibility. The post-mortem assault on Awolowo may rekindle some age-old residue of Igbo-Yoruba rivalry and hostility, and harm some distant hope that the two most “progressive” groups in Nigeria may yet find a basis for working together to give this nation the best opportunity to utilize its considerable intellectual, economic and political potential. The dig at General Yakubu Gowon will be nothing new; and while he may not have an entire army of supporters to defend his integrity and his own version of history, there will be many in the north who will see him as representing the best in northern traditional commitment and sacrifices for the survival and unity of Nigeria.

In any case, the arguments and quarrels which Achebe’s book will generate will not drown those already engaging the nation’s attention. The book is being released at a time the nation is facing the biggest threats to its unity and security since the civil war. It will remind the nation of its current problems, some of which have parallels in the past. We have an insurgency which has tied down our entire security assets around its repudiation of the Nigerian state. We have a democratic system which is creating massive cleavages around groups and region, and an economy working to produce incredibly wealthy and tiny minority, and intolerable poverty among the vast majority of Nigerians.

If Chinua Achebe’s latest book will have any value, it will be located in its reminder that the Nigerian state has failed to produce citizens out of its many tribes. It reminds us that failures of our leaders to build genuine democratic systems and strong economies around the productive activities and needs of our people are reflected in the existence of tribe and faith as major categories in the manner we compete for, and allocate resources. If a new generation of Nigerian leaders should emerge, they should read authors like Achebe to chart a course different from those his generation charted.