The International Politics of the Nigerian Civil War, 1967-1970
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The International Politics of the Nigerian Civil War, 1967-1970
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Originally published in 1977.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780691602325 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Publication date: | 03/08/2015 |
| Series: | Princeton Legacy Library , #1582 |
| Pages: | 448 |
| Sales rank: | 1,005,024 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 3.40(d) |
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The International Politics of the Nigerian Civil War, 1967â"1970
By John J. Stremlau
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1977 Princeton University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-10051-7
CHAPTER 1
NIGERIA'S PREWAR FOREIGN POLICY
In June 1966, less than twelve months before Biafran secession, Nigeria's head of state, Major General Aguiyi-Ironsi, summoned his ambassadors from their diplomatic posts in Africa for six days of consultations in Lagos. The meeting was to have been the start of a series of ambassadorial gatherings leading to a comprehensive review of foreign policy, the first since Nigeria achieved independence from Britain in 1960. The decision to begin with an assessment of the federal government's interests in Africa was explained by General Ironsi:
In the whole sphere of Nigeria's external relations, the Government attaches the greatest importance to our African policy. We are aware that because of our population and potentials, the majority of opinion in the civilized world looks up to us to provide responsible leadership in Africa; and we realize that we shall be judged, to a very great extent, by the degree of success or failure with which we face up to the challenge which this expectation throws on us. We are convinced that whether in the political, economic or cultural sphere, our destiny lies in our role in the continent of Africa.
Seven weeks later, Ironsi was dead, a victim of Nigeria's second military coup in less than seven months, and the country slipped to the brink of anarchy. Aspirations for leadership in Africa had to be abandoned, as the formulation and execution of a coherent foreign policy became impossible under conditions of domestic chaos. Not until late 1967, well into the civil war, did the federal military government under General Yakubu Gowon succeed in establishing a policy framework for the conduct of international relations, and Africa emerged as the central focus of Nigeria's civil war diplomacy. The basic strategy, which prevailed until the end of the conflict in January 1970, was defensive, aimed at limiting Biafra's penetration of the international system. Nigeria — the would-be giant of Africa — ironically found itself tied to a foreign policy that depended in large measure on the willingness of other African governments to maintain a solid front of diplomatic support as a means of discouraging intervention that would foster Biafran independence.
Unlike the Congo crisis a few years earlier, the Nigerian civil war did not polarize Africa or seriously intensify tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union; nor did it bring an influx of United Nations peace-keeping forces. To understand official foreign reaction to the conflict in Nigeria, black Africa's richest and most populous country, one should be aware of the federal government's role in international affairs prior to Biafran secession on May 30, 1967. Diplomacy, after all, is a cumulative process, and Nigeria's previous behavior influenced foreign reaction to the civil war. The federal government's experience during this earlier period also helped shape its effort to control the degree of external involvement in its domestic conflict. This chapter will present a brief outline of Nigeria's prewar foreign policy, with special emphasis on intra-African relations, and it will conclude with a description of how the federal government conducted its diplomacy.
National Interests and Foreign Relations
In the years following Independence, Nigeria's civilian leaders became increasingly embroiled in conflicts resulting from their attempts to consolidate national authority over some 250 linguistically distinct groups, which are scattered across the country's 356,699 square miles — an area comparable to Italy, France, Belgium, and Holland combined. Nigeria was the epitome of what William Zartman referred to as the new "state-nations" in Africa: a former colonial territory that had acquired the formal institutions and sovereign rights of a modern state, but was so badly fragmented that national allegiance remained in doubt. Under these circumstances, Nigeria's political elite was too preoccupied with domestic affairs to pay much attention to international issues. Once the British had withdrawn, the various political groups within Nigeria sought to consolidate their positions and to seize control at the center by engineering a series of lavishly financed and ethnically rooted coalitions that were progressively disruptive and untenable. Shortly after the first military coup in January 1966, the Ministry of External Affairs undertook an analysis of Nigeria's global interests. The result of this exercise was not a report but a set of tables (see Appendix I). Nigeria's interests were divided into eighteen categories, and each state in the international system was graded, according to its relative interest to Nigeria, on a scale from one to ten in each of the eighteen categories. A foreign power's composite score thus could range from 18 to 180. Not surprisingly, Britain led the list (163), followed by the United States (145), West Germany (106), Canada (104), and France (101).
The table provides an interesting insight into official perceptions of the scope and intensity of Nigeria's external relations barely a year before the outbreak of civil war. The perspective is much broader and more diverse than the British had projected when the Nigerian foreign office was created on the eve of Independence, and the subsequent institutional changes reflect the growing role Nigeria played in African affairs. In 1960, only two of Nigeria's seven diplomatic posts were in Africa, but by 1966 twenty-four out of a total of forty-two resident missions were located on the continent. If one refers back to the 1966 table of interests, and aggregates Nigeria's foreign concerns by region, Africa scores higher than the total for Europe and North America combined, primarily because of the importance ascribed to racial affinity.
At the global level, Lagos sought unabashedly to maintain close relations with Britain and other Western governments, for this was seen as the way to maximize economic development, a key element in promoting greater domestic integration. "Moderate" and "pragmatic" are the terms that Western scholars most frequently invoke to describe the international conduct of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa's government (1960-1966).3 From 1960 to 1968, Nigeria received $273 million in technical and capital assistance from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries — Western Europe, the United States, Canada, and Japan. Nigeria was the biggest recipient of OECD funds in Africa. While this figure pales when compared with the enormous oil revenues that accrued to the federal government in the 1970s, Western foreign aid and investment contributed significantly to the 5.7 percent annual rate of economic growth in real terms attained during the early 1960s. This economic input was considered vital by those political leaders who influenced the distribution of aid projects and federal revenue so as to reward important constituencies.
In addition to foreign aid, 85 percent of Nigeria's exports were sold to OECD countries, and close to 75 percent of Nigeria's imports came from that group. Nigeria offered the largest market in Africa, and its capitalist economy was among the most hospitable to Western investments. A further indication of Nigeria's steadily improving economic standing was the July 1966 agreement that provided for associate status with the European Economic Community, the first non-francophone African country to receive such consideration. Nigeria had for many years been the world's second leading exporter of cocoa and groundnuts, the foremost exporter of palm products, and the fifth largest seller of natural rubber. Earnings from these and other primary products financed most of the country's early development, and later helped pay for the civil war. Table 1-1 highlights the aggregate trade flow between Nigeria and her major partners during the war years, a pattern that had been established during the early 1960s.
Petroleum was a relatively insignificant source of foreign exchange until 1969, when it accounted for most of the sharp rise in export earnings that appears in the table. Approximately 400,000 barrels a day were produced in 1966, compared with 2,000,000 barrels a day seven years later. Yet the prospect of great oil wealth — even without any premonition of the sharply rising prices of the 1970s — naturally affected the rosy economic outlook in 1966, and was another reason for strengthening ties with Europe and America. The federal government sought to be recognized as a nonaligned power because, as the prime minister explained in his first foreign policy address, such a status "will ensure that full attention is paid to the opinions expressed by our representatives." Nigeria's overwhelming foreign economic interests were, however, with the major Western powers.
Economic dealings with the Communist bloc, by comparison, remained negligible throughout the 1960s. Little development assistance was sought or forthcoming, and only some 6 percent of Nigeria's imports came from the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe combined. Barely 3 percent of the country's exports were sold to the Eastern bloc. On a more basic level, there was in Nigeria a deep national commitment to a free enterprise system, a widespread admiration for Western democracies, where many of the modern elite had been educated, and a suspicion of Soviet intentions in Africa. The latter feeling was particularly strong in the Northern Region, where Communism was considered by a Moslem elite to be synonymous with atheism. This wariness was reflected in the federal government's decision to delay opening an embassy in Moscow until 1963.
When a group of social scientists conducted an extensive survey of the attitudes of Nigerian legislators in late 1962 and early 1963, they uncovered an international outlook that held few surprises. Regarding the cold war, the legislators were asked whether Nigeria should: (1) side with the United States, Britain, and their allies; (2) side with Russia and its allies; or (3) side with neither. The responses were as follows:
Legislators
side with United States, Britain, etc. 41%
side with Russia, etc. 2
side with neither 50
qualified answers 6
no opinion 1
100%
Asked to indicate their opinions of various countries on a ten-to-one, high-to-low scale, the composite results were:
Composite Score
United States 8.3
Great Britain 6.9
Russia 4.6
The attitudes behind these figures revealed that "usefulness" was a principal criterion. The British had helped Nigeria before Independence, but they were less helpful currently. Six out of ten of the respondents gave as the reason for the high rating accorded the United States that "Americans have helped Nigeria" and "are prepared to continue to help us." The Soviet Union was admired for its science and space achievements, but criticized, first because it was Communist and totalitarian, and second because Russia had done nothing to help Nigeria.
By mid-1966, relations with Moscow seemed to be improving, although few would have predicted that when the civil war erupted, only the Soviet Union would agree to supply the federal government with the aircraft it considered necessary for preserving the integrity of the country. When the Conference of Nigerian Ambassadors met in June 1966, the Nigerian embassy in Moscow prepared a lengthy analysis of Soviet intentions in Africa, especially toward Nigeria. While noting that "Soviet leaders have never at any time repudiated the messianic communist doctrine," the report confidently observed that "Soviet campaigns in Africa so far have not met with any real or apparent success; [and] in the face of this unbroken record of failures, the architects of Soviet policy have been compelled to adjust the special ideological spectacles through which they had looked at Africa in the past ... current Soviet policy lays increasing emphasis on encouraging the image of the USSR as a benevolent industrial power whose only desire is to live and trade in peace ... while maintaining the same long-run strategy and goals ... the eventual victory of communism."
It was recommended that Nigeria take steps to exploit this change in Soviet tactics toward Africa in order to further two specific interests. The first suggestion was that the federal government sign an economic and technical cooperation agreement with Russia. In the absence of such an agreement, Lagos had learned that it could only take advantage of Soviet technical assistance on a commercial basis and that the Soviet contracts had proven exorbitant. Second, it was urged that Lagos sign a cultural agreement with the Soviets. At the time, more than five hundred Nigerian students were studying in Russian universities, most of them sponsored by Nigerian trade unions rather than by the Nigerian government. To get to Russia, the students usually secured travel permits to visit nearby West African countries, whence they could then depart for Moscow. The federal government considered this illegal, and the report concluded that a cultural agreement was essential "to force an undertaking that all offers of scholarships and recruitment of students should be done only through Nigerian government and approved channels." The cultural agreement was initialed in Lagos in March 1967 and signed in August of the same year; the agreement on economic and technical cooperation was not concluded until November 1968. Aside from these interests and the concern about possible Soviet influence among radical African states, Nigeria's relations with Moscow during the prewar years were correct but limited.
As for the close ties to Western powers, the Balewa government came under severe domestic criticism on only one occasion. This concerned a defense agreement with Great Britain that was arranged prior to Independence and was passed by the Nigerian legislature in November 1960. The agreement contained a secret understanding granting Nigeria military assistance as a quid pro quo for British air staging facilities, which would have remained under British control. Leaked information about the secret clause caused such a furor in Lagos that the treaty was abrogated by mutual consent in early 1962. Otherwise, there were few strains between Lagos and London during these early years.
When Ian Smith unilaterally declared the independence of Southern Rhodesia on November 11, 1965, Nigeria discouraged other African governments from breaking diplomatic relations or taking other reprisals against Britain. In return, Prime Minister Wilson agreed to devote the major portion of the January 1966 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference to the Rhodesian question, and the meeting was held in Lagos, the first time that the heads of government had convened outside London. The session helped to quell international criticism of the Wilson government; but if it enhanced the prestige of the Nigerian government, this was obscured by the military coup two days after the conference adjourned.
The most overt conflict between Nigeria and a Western power prior to the civil war occurred shortly after Independence, when France persisted in testing atomic weapons in the Algerian Sahara. After several warnings, the federal government suddenly broke diplomatic relations with Paris on January 5, 1961, imposed a complete embargo on all French goods, and gave the French ambassador forty-eight hours to leave the country. The action was uncharacteristically abrupt, and was taken soon after the embarrassing revelations about the British defense agreement, at a time when the opposition in Parliament was sounding increasingly radical and appeared to be gaining strength. The break with France was popular domestically, and may have helped the Balewa government. As a diplomatic move, however, the gesture appears to have been a serious mistake. In the short run, it caused enormous economic hardship for Nigeria's improverished, land-locked francophone neighbors to the north and for tiny Dahomey (Benin) on the west coast. Moreover, Nigeria's rebuke failed to stop the atomic tests and did not encourage other African governments to sever relations with Paris.
The expulsion of the French ambassador also contradicted Nigeria's more basic policy of striving quietly to supplant France as the dominant power in West Africa. As will be noted in later references to Nigeria's relations with its francophone neighbors, Lagos has never entertained any delusions about the extent of French influence over the former colonies or about the federal government's limited financial capability — at least before the era of oil wealth — to offer these countries sufficient incentives to lessen their dependence on France. Nevertheless, a fundamental assumption of Nigeria's foreign policy has been that over the long term, France's interests in West Africa would gradually recede and the former colonial areas would look to Nigeria for leadership in the areas of international security and economic development. In the meantime, Lagos sought to avoid exciting any fears among her weaker neighbors that might have encouraged them to seek closer ties with the former colonial protector.
The moderate to conservative diplomacy which, with the exception of the expulsion of the French in 1961, typified the foreign policy of the Balewa government also reflected the need to maintain a viable coalition in Lagos. Given the severe internal strains and constant readjustments that had to be made to sustain such a coalition, the prime minister usually sought to avoid becoming embroiled in world issues that might have afforded his domestic opposition an opportunity to stir up debate. Unless East-West tensions intruded on Africans affairs, they were generally ignored by the prime minister and his foreign office.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The International Politics of the Nigerian Civil War, 1967â"1970 by John J. Stremlau. Copyright © 1977 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents
- Frontmatter, pg. i
- CONTENTS, pg. vii
- LIST OF MAPS, pg. ix
- PREFACE, pg. xi
- CHRONOLOGY OF IMPORTANT EVENTS IN THE NIGERIAN CIVIL WAR, pg. xv
- 1. NIGERIA'S PREWAR FOREIGN POLICY, pg. 3
- 2. THE LOSS OF AUTHORITY AT HOME AND ABROAD, pg. 29
- 3. THE WORLD DECLINES TO TAKE SIDES, pg. 62
- 4. THE OAU BECOMES INVOLVED, pg. 82
- 5. BIAFRA PENETRATES THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM, pg. 109
- 6. PEACE CONFERENCE DIPLOMACY, PHASE I, pg. 142
- 7. PEACE CONFERENCE DIPLOMACY, PHASE II, pg. 181
- 8. A WAR OF ATTRITION, pg. 215
- 9. MAINTAINING INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL SUPPORT FOR NIGERIA, pg. 255
- 10. INTERNATIONAL REFLECTIONS OF A MILITARY STALEMATE, pg. 280
- 11. THE FUTILITY OF SECESSION, pg. 320
- 12. A NIGERIAN AFFAIR, pg. 357
- Appendix I. Schedule of Nigerian Interests in Other Countries, pg. 391
- Appendix II. Aid to African Countries 1960-1965, pg. 399
- NOTE ON SOURCES, pg. 405
- INTERVIEWS, pg. 409
- LIST OF WORKS CITED, pg. 413
- INDEX, pg. 419