Free the Biafra Story (1969) by Frederick Forsyth

revenge on the Ibo for what had been an all-party coup in January, and partly the secession of the North. As soon as Lieutenant-Colonel Gowon set up base at Ikeja barracks a strange flag was seen flying from the main gate, and it remained there for eighteen days. It had lateral red, yellow, black, green and khaki stripes. It was the flag of the Republic of Northern Nigeria. For three days buses, lorries, cars, trains and planes were commandeered in Lagos and the Western Region to transport the enormous reflux: of Northern families home.
    The garrisons in Lagos, the West and the North were under the control of Northern-officered and -manned units. While the killing of the Eastern soldiers went on Lieutenant-Colonel Hassan Katsina, Military Governor of the North, rallied to the rebel cause, giving grounds for suspicion that if he had not been one of the instigators he had at least known roughly what was afoot. The West had no one to speak for it, Colonel Fajuyi being dead, and there was no one either to speak for Lagos.
    In the Midwest, however, there had been no coup; but neither were there any soldiers stationed there. As usual it was too small to bother about. In the East there was a strong Governor, a loyal garrison, and no attempt at a coup. As a result the rule of the old regime continued unbroken in that Region.
    When it became clear that the Northern officers intended to secede, a cold wind swept through several quarters, not least through the British High Commission. From the East Colonel Ojukwu saw the writing on the wall, and by telephone urged the Yoruba Brigadier Ogundipe, senior ranking officer in the army and legally the successor of General Ironsi, to take over and declare himself Supreme Commander. Ojukwu promised that if he did, he (Ojukwu) would recognize Ogundipe as such. The Yoruba did not rate his chances very highly, and after a crass radio speech of three minutes asking everyone to be calm, he disappeared to Dahomey and thence to London, where some months later he agreed to become the Nigerian High Commissioner. In the meanwhile frenzied efforts by the British High Commission and others had been going on to try to dissuade the North from seceding. But the Northern officers were not alone in their demand; separate independence, the message of the rioters' banners the previous May and of the Emirs' memoranda of June, was still the wish of the great majority of the North. There was only one way to keep them inside Nigeria; by putting into effect the old alternative, 'We rule the lot or we pull out'. According to later accounts from highly placed civil servants then working in Lagos, the British High Commissioner Sir Francis Cumming-Bruce had- a six-hour private session with Gowon on the morning of I August. Gowon then reported back to his fellow-Northerners. By the afternoon Colonel Ojukwu, telephoning from Enugu to ask Gowon what he intended to do, was told the group intended to stay in Lagos and take over the running of the country. When Ojukwu protested, Gowon replied: 'Well that's what my boys want and they're going to get it.' And stay they did. Gowon's first broadcast to the nation, already prepared and tape-recorded, had to be hastily but not very skilfully edited. What he said was:
    I now come to the most difficult but most important part of this statement. I am doing it conscious of the great disappointment and heartbreak it will cause all true and sincere lovers of Nigeria and of Nigerian unity, both at home and abroad, especially our brothers in the Commonwealth. As a result of the recent events and of the previous similar ones, I have come to strongly believe that we cannot honestly and sincerely continue in this wise, as the basis for trust and confidence in our unitary system of Government has been unable to stand the test of time. I have already remarked on the issue in question. Suffice it to say that putting all considerations to the test, political, economic as well as social, the basis for