In this second part, you would observe views that are manifestly contradictory and would leave you with the conclusion that they can be described as products of biased minds or the display of crass ignorance – the former should suffice. The posers raised last week regarding the following are dealt with: Which book did Achebe write which captured all but a coup, of all that was happening wrongly in the country during the First Republic? Was Nnamdi Azikiwe sounded out by Igbo officers on the possibility of carrying out a coup in 1964, two years before the January 1966 coup? What was the plan of the coup makers of 1966 for Awolowo? Was Awolowo privy to what the eventual coup makers planned to do with him? What was so important about the Emmanuel Ifeajuna manuscript that Olusegun Obasanjo wanted to get to read it?

The most comprehensive and almost cover-all organization of the documents of the Nigerian Civil War remains AHM Kirk-Greene’s CRISIS AND CONFLICT IN NIGERIA, A Documentary Sourcebook 1966-1970 Volume 1, and Volume 2, published by Oxford University Press London, New York and Ibadan in 1971. Volume One, according to the blurb, “describes the prelude to the war and the succession of coups from that of 15 January1966 which initially brought a military regime to power in Nigeria”.

“I must practice moderation and say that peace is better than the finest war in the world”, Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, 1762-1796. (VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p 183).

As the controversy created by Chinua Achebe’s new book, “THERE WAS A COUNTRY”, rages, social critic and poet, Odia Ofeimun – who has been thrown in the eye of the storm because of his first reaction which sought to exonerate Pa Obafemi Awolowo, who served as Vice Chairman to the ruling body of the Nigerian government and whom Achebe accused of war crimes because of the Nigerian government’s war-time policy which allegedly led to the starving of Igbos – presents in this piece never-before-revealed perspectives.

IF there is nothing to say, there are some people who would say, one should shut up. But, for writers, when there is nothing to say, is when they are at their best in saying nothing new.

I wept for Nigeria when the excerpts of Chinua Achebe’s MEMOIRS, were published in Nigeria. I instinctively knew that the season of media and social lynch-mobs had started. It is one of the inevitable, but unintended consequences of that book. Wounds which were gradually healing might once again be re-opened depending on how we handle the intellectual bomb handed to us. It is my strong belief that we should defuse it; for, if we fail, the results will be disastrous beyond our wildest nightmares.

It has taken 42 years for Nigeria’s (and Africa’s) greatest writer, Chinua Achebe, to produce a book of the tremendous passion as his personal recollection of Biafra. It couldn’t have been less controversial! More fundamental is his re-engagement with our country. His old passion to see it develop is embedded in the final words of the book

WAR is not a piece of cake. If you want to fight you better be ready. Biafra was neither ready nor equipped for the secession bid.

LAGOS—Ndigbo Lagos have condemned the controversies generated by the comments of Professor Chinua Achebe, in his new book, describing it as unnecessary.

Publication, this past week, of Chinua Achebe’s memoir of Biafra, There Was A Country, had the Awoist camp up in arms. The Awoists – followers and defenders of the legacy of Chief Awolowo- have expended a lot of verbal grapes on the person of Chinua Achebe. It felt like a dangerous mob unleashed on one of the world’s most important cultural icons. All Achebe did was tell the truth about Awo.