The claim that the Nigerian Civil War was fought for Unity and Survival by Ibrahim Babangida is inaccurate. Babangida participated in the wa...
The claim that the Nigerian Civil War was fought for Unity and Survival by Ibrahim Babangida is inaccurate. Babangida participated in the war as a military officer. The war, which Nigeria declared, was primarily as a result of the declaration of the independent Nation of Biafra in 1967, a decision taken because of the unprovoked massacre of Southeasterners resident in the other regions of Nigeria. The Federal Government, under General Yakubu Gowon, viewed the declaration as a threat to Nigeria's unity and launched a military response rather than adhering to the dialogue, known as the 'Aburi Accord'.
During the war, Babangida's role was that of a military commander within the Federal forces; he was involved in fighting within Biafran territory and was wounded during the conflict. Babangida's account of Nigeria's foundational traumas—the 1966 coups and the Civil War—reads like a carefully curated dossier, one that acknowledges the chaos but absolves the military of its role in perpetuating ethnic divisions. The counter-coup of July 1966, which he describes as a "corrective measure," was, in reality, a Bloodbath. Igbo soldiers were hunted down in barracks across the North, and General Ironsi's assassination marked the collapse of trust in a unified Nigeria.
The Civil War, as Babangida narrates it, is a tale of tactical brilliance and "necessary sacrifice." He recounts commanding the 44th Infantry Battalion, the siege of Umuahia, and the "humanitarian" gestures of "no victor, no vanquished." But this sanitized version glosses over the war's atrocities: the Starvation Blockade of Biafra, the Asaba Massacre, and the Systemic Erasure of Igbo Political influence in the post-war period.
For Ndigbo, Babangida's narrative offers no solace. His admission that "mistakes were made" feels performative when juxtaposed with his regime's continued Marginalization of the Southeast—denying Infrastructural investment, Underrepresenting Igbo in Military Leadership, and sidelining the Region from key political roles. The memoir's failure to reckon with these structural inequities leaves Ndigbo's grievances unresolved, a festering wound in Nigeria's body politic.
Does Babangida's account bring closure?
For many Igbos, like me, it does the opposite instead. By reducing the war to a "strategic necessity" or Unity and Survival, it sidesteps the moral questions of collective punishment. The memoir reignites old frustrations. The Aburi Accord of 1967—a last-ditch effort to decentralize power and avert war is mentioned only in passing, with no reflection on how its collapse doomed Nigeria to conflict.
Babangida's silence on the postwar policies that entrenched Igbo marginalization (like the Indigenization Decree of 1972, which transferred economic control to non-Igbo elites) speaks volumes.
For a generation of Igbo who grew up hearing stories of abandoned property in Port Harcourt and the "20 pounds" policy, his narrative feels like a forever missed opportunity for accountability.
If the so-called civil war was a quest for unity, what efforts did Babangida make during his regime as a military head of state to reassure the Biafran populace about that unity? Instead, he deepened the divisions among us. A war that was labelled "No Victor, No Vanquished" in 1970, still the killings of people in southeastern Nigeria have not ended to this day.
How can you impose yourselves on people with whom you do not share common values? There is no cultural affiliation and no shared religious beliefs. When did war become a prerequisite for unity?
What transpired between 1967 and 1970 was essentially a war aimed at conquering and dominating a perceived group due to their natural resources. It was, in essence, a jihadist conflict. Today, the Fulani terrorists are waging an outright war against the people of the Southeast, with the backing of the Nigerian government and Britain, making every effort to seize and occupy the Southeast region.
If Babangida and his associates had been honest and adhered to the principles of "No Victor, No Vanquish" along with the 3Rs after the war, they could have fostered trust in the present day.
Written by
JayJay
Edited by
Oby M
For Delta State Media Team
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