of cooks and bottle washers who would be no match for the British-trained Nigerian army. This force would soon march into the rebel enclave, sweeping all before it, topple the upstart colonel, and “restore order.”
I was not wanted in Lagos, the capital four hundred miles west of Biafra, constantly referred to only as the “rebel enclave.” Events out of Lagos would be covered by our veteran West Africa expert Angus McDermid. My job was to fly to Paris and thence to Douala in Cameroon, the republic east of Nigeria. Then over the border into eastern Nigeria and, as best as I could, cross-country to the regional capital Enugu.
It was not wanted that I actually file any report, as communications were cut off from all sides. I would report to the British deputy high commissioner there and stick close to him. As the Nigerian army swept south, he and his retinue would retreat south to the coast, where we would all be taken off the shore by an arranged vessel and returned to Cameroon. Once I had reestablished phone contact from the best hotel, I was to file an “upsummer”—a complete report on the short-lived revolt.
The operation would take between ten and fourteen days. Then I should fly home. Job done. So I flew to Paris and thence Douala.
I found traveling companions in the form of Sandy Gall of Independent TV News, his cameraman, and sound recordists, and we agreed to travel together all the way. The two assignments were rather different.
Sandy had a TV team, I did not. He had to spend one week covering a range of stories as they presented themselves, file nothing, ship no film, just return after one week with whatever he had got. I had to stay until the end.
We arrived in Douala, checked into the Cocotiers Hotel, chartered a small plane, and flew to Mamfe, the Cameroon-Nigeria border town. From there, a local taxi and a lot of persuasion took us across the border into the “rebel enclave.” After an exhausting drive, we arrived at Enugu and checked into the Progress Hotel, the principal hostelry of this pretty small provincial capital.
It must have been the next day, about July 12, that I made contact with the British deputy high commissioner, Jim Parker. He was a real veteran “old Africa hand,” steeped in knowledge of the country and the Eastern Region. I recall that I saw him alone. Sandy and his team were out filming what they could get of interest in a town still completely at peace. Jim asked me what I had been told.
I related my briefing to him, almost word for word. He listened, grim-faced, then put his face in his hands. He knew where the briefing had come from; I did not. The author and source for it all was the British high commissioner (ambassador) in Lagos, one Sir David Hunt. I had never even heard of him.
I would meet him eventually, years later and after the war, in the guest suite of a British TV program. He turned out to be about the nastiest piece of work I have ever come across. An intellectual who had missed out on every plum in the diplomatic service, he ended up in West Africa, the trash can of diplomacy, and seethed with resentment; a crashing snob and a racist who hid his unpleasantness behind a veneer of affability, about as convincing as a four-pound note.
The reason Jim Parker had put his head in his hands became plain as he talked. Every word I had been given was complete and utter garbage. But David Hunt had sold it hook, line, and sinker to the Commonwealth Office. Who in turn had passed it to the West Africa Service at Bush House and the Foreign News Department of the BBC at Broadcasting House. No one dreamed of disputing a word of it.
Jim Parker spent the rest of the morning explaining to me what had really happened and what was happening right then. Which was nothing. Starting on July 6, the Nigerian army, composed entirely of Muslim Hausa tribesmen from the north and numbering about 6,000, had captured the northern border town of Nsukka, which was not defended. Just south of the town, they met the first defenders, oil barrels filled with concrete. And stopped.
They could have gone round them, but they were frightened to enter the rain forest, which they believed was full of evil spirits. They remained there for weeks.
In the deep south, a landing party from the Nigerian navy had captured the offshore island of Bonny, which had an oil refinery. But the navy could go no farther into the shallow and treacherous Niger Delta and they had no amphibious units.
“So what is happening?” I asked. My briefing said the Nigerian armed forces should be sweeping across the rebel enclave.
“Nothing,” he said cheerfully. “Welcome to Africa. Let’s go for lunch.”
His houseboy had prepared pickles and salad. After that we went to a press briefing at State House, the residence of the regional governor, now of the newly announced head of state, to meet the demon Ojukwu.
The drive enabled us to see a microcosm of the crowds in the streets, consumed with exhilaration at what they saw as their present and continuing freedom at last. They were waving their new half-a-yellow-sun flags and the youths were queuing at the establishment booths to go and fight.
The populace had not yet learned to loathe the BBC and never learned to hate the British, so they ran grinning up to the car with the Union Jack pennant on the bonnet, waving and laughing.
Colonel Emeka Ojukwu was not quite as painted to me in London. The son of Nigerian multimillionaire and Knight of the Empire Sir Louis Ojukwu, he had been sent to a British-run preparatory school in Lagos, then to Epsom College in Surrey. Then to Oxford, where he gained a master of arts degree in history at Lincoln College.
As an ardent federalist, he had joined the army, because he considered it the only institution that was truly pan-national and devoid of regional jealousies. He had risen by merit to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and after the first of the two coups of the previous year, the one in January, had been appointed military governor of the east. His native Iboland. He had been in office for fifteen months until the declaration of independence. He was thirty-four.
In measured terms and an Oxford drawl he explained that he had resisted the clamor from the people for a separation from Nigeria for as long as he could before having to face a decision he could no longer avoid. He could either resign and leave or he could agree to lead his people along the path they had chosen. He opted for the latter.
He told all the foreign journalists present—about six, apart from Sandy and me—that we were free to rent cars and wander where we wished. His staff would issue a laissez-passer to all, in case there were problems at the overenthusiastic roadblocks.
Back at the Progress Hotel to change, I discovered there were more than a score of other expatriates, mostly British, in residence. These were businessmen representing large firms and franchises, who had been there for years, engineers from a number of foreign aid projects, and so forth. If I wanted confirmation of anything Jim Parker would tell me, I would find it in this community, also steeped in local knowledge.
I took tea with Jim Parker back at the deputy high commission and he explained to me where and why the London briefing was wrong on every single point.
It was the chastening seminar that confirmed the old adage for foreign correspondents: Never mind what the embassy says—go and ask the old sweats who have been there for years.
END OF CAREER
The trouble with Nigeria was that historically it had never been one country, but two. Some say it still is.
A hundred years before the British arrived, a Muslim warlord called Usman dan Fodio had led his Fulani army out of the Sahara, through the Sahel of semidesert and scrub, and into northern Nigeria to wage war on the Hausa Kingdom. His horsemen stopped at the line of the rain forests because their mounts contracted tick-borne diseases and died in the tropical rain. So the Hausa/Fulani settled the whole of the north, almost 60 percent of what would become Nigeria.
About 120 years ago, the British arrived by sea from the south. Sir Frederick Lugard conquered the tribes of the forest and annexed the north. Lady Lugard grandly called the place Nigeria and mapmakers drew a single line around it.