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Journal of Retracing Africa
Volume 1 | Issue 1
Article 2
2-17-2014
The Forgotten Victims: Ethnic Minorities in the
Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967-1970
Arua Oko Omaka
McMaster University,
omakaao@mcmaster.ca
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Recommended Citation
Omaka, Arua Oko. "The Forgotten Victims: Ethnic Minorities in the Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967-1970."
Journal of Retracing Africa:
Vol. 1,
Issue 1 (2014): 25-40.
http://encompass.eku.edu/jora/vol1/iss1/2
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Encompass. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Retracing Africa by an authorized
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Omaka | 25
The Forgotten Victims: Ethnic Minorities in
the Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967-1970
Arua Oko Omaka
McMaster University, Canada
Abstract:
The Nigeria-Biafra War attracted enormous international
attention not just for the brutal events of the period, but also because of
how the conflict was interpreted, especially by foreigners. The ghastly
images of victims of the war dominated the international media and
roused the world’s conscience. The conflict took a toll on human
lives on both the Igbo and the ethnic minorities in Biafra. While the
Igbo tragedy was largely perpetrated in Northern Nigeria, that of the
Biafran minorities – Efik, Ijaw, Ogoja, Ibibio – occurred mainly in their
homelands. The gory experiences suffered by the Biafran minorities
have largely been neglected in the historiography of the Biafra War.
This paper examines the experiences of the ethnic minorities in Biafra
during the war between July 1967 and January 1970. It argues that the
minorities suffered a high degree of persecution, molestation, injustice,
psychological torture and other forms of suffering which have not been
fully examined in existing literature. The war subjected them to layers
of loyalty and disloyalty both to the federal authority and the Biafran
government. The paper asserts that these minority groups in Biafra
were as much victims of the war as the Igbo. Hence, they should be
accorded due recognition in the historiography of victimhood in the
Nigeria-Biafra War.
Keywords:
Biafra; Ethnic; Igbo; Massacre; Minorities; Nigeria; Victims;
War.
Introduction
The idea of “minority” is a concept that has posed some definitional problems
among scholars. Owing to the
fl
uidity of the concept, there has not been any
internationally accepted definition. The earliest attempt to provide a definition for
the term was made in 1977 by Francesco Capotorti, the former Special Rapporteur
of the United Nations, who defined minority as:
A group numerically inferior to the rest of the population of a State, in
a non-dominant position, whose members – being nationals of the State
– possess ethnic, religious or linguistic characteristics differing from
those of the rest of the population and show, if only implicitly, a sense
of solidarity, directed towards preserving their culture, traditions,
Journal of Retracing Africa,
Volume 1, Issue 1, Spring 2014
http://encompass.eku.edu/jora/
26 | Omaka
religion or language.
1
The problem with this definition is that it only covers persons belonging to ethnic,
religious, or linguistic minorities. There is no provision for other minority groups
in terms of different social categories grounded in sexuality, gender, age, class,
race, etc.
Article 1 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Persons
Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities adopted in
1992 recognizes minorities as a group of people with similar national or ethnic,
cultural, religious, and linguistic identity, and provides that states should protect
their existence.
2
The article makes reference to the same groups already identified
by Capotorti. But other groups such as sexual minorities, gender minorities, age
minorities, and other minorities who also need rights, are omitted and consequently
appear voiceless and unprotected. With the rapidity of socio-cultural, political,
and economic changes taking place all over the world, the concept of minority
continues to pose more questions than can easily be answered. A more workable
definition of minority should thus be seen in terms of context. Based on this, I
define minority quite broadly as any group of people that is disadvantaged when
compared to the rest of the population. The “minoritization” of a group should
therefore be seen in terms of the situation and not just numerical weakness. For
instance, a group can be a majority in terms of numerical strength but a minority in
terms of political representation. In this situation, the group sees itself as a political
minority and agitates for equality and justice. The minorities referred to in this
paper are the ethnic minorities in Nigeria, and they are minorities because of both
their numerical weakness and poor representation in the national politics.
The Igbo Victims
The Nigeria-Biafra War started on July 6, 1967 and ended on January 15, 1970.
The former Eastern Region of Nigeria seceded from Nigeria and declared its
independence on May 30, 1967, following the massacre of the Igbo people who
were living in the northern parts of Nigeria. The federal government of Nigeria
responded to the secession with “police action,” that is, a partial military operation
designed to crush what it perceived as a rebellion. These actions were the beginning
of a war that lasted about thirty months. But what was originally interpreted as a
 
Francesco Capotorti quoted in Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights (OHCHR), “Minority Rights: International Standards and Guidance
for Implementation” HR/PUB/10/3, accessed August 5, 2012, http://www.ohchr.org/
Documents/Publications/MinorityRights_en.pdf, 2.
2
 
OHCHR, “Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious
and Linguistic Minorities Adopted by the General Assembly Resolution 47/135 of December
18, 1992,” accessed February 28, 2013, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/
MinorityRights en.pdf.
Journal of Retracing Africa,
Volume 1, Issue 1, Spring 2014
http://encompass.eku.edu/jora/
1
Omaka | 27
domestic conflict later took on an international dimension as state and non-state
actors like Britain, the USSR, France, the Red Cross, and the World Council of
Churches became involved in the conflict. The war received one of the highest
humanitarian interventions in recent history. The massive number of children and
women facing starvation attracted the attention of groups like the World Council
of Churches, the International Committee of the Red Cross,
Caritas Internationalis,
Interreligious Affairs for the American Jewish Committee, and UNICEF.
3
The
relief effort resulted in unusual Jewish-Christian co-operation.
4
Countries like
the United States, Germany, France, and the Nordic Countries made enormous
contributions towards the relief effort.
5
The international media also highlighted
the humanitarian crisis in the war-torn region and successfully brought this part
of the world into global focus.
The New York Times, The London Times, La Stampa of
Italy,
and
Le Monde of France
were some of the newspapers that effectively covered
the war.
The dominant argument in the historiography of the Nigeria-Biafra War,
both within academia and the popular media, is that the Igbo were targeted
for extermination by the Muslim north. A year before the war, during the 1966
massacres of Easterners in Northern Nigeria, the alleged indiscriminate bombing
of civilian targets and the widespread hunger in secessionist Biafra did a lot to
rouse the world’s conscience to the humanitarian crisis facing Biafran peoples.
The international media played a significant role in exposing the humanitarian
tragedies, especially in the Igbo-speaking parts of Biafra. And many years after the
war, scholarly accounts of the war, mostly by scholars from the Igbo-speaking parts
of Baifra, have privileged insights into some of the most hideous acts unleashed
on Biafrans during the war. Yet, not much has been reported about the atrocities
perpetrated against the minorities in Biafra, both by the Nigerian military forces
and the Biafran militias. This is a gap in Biafra’s history.
Newsweek,
in one of its reports titled “The Resurrection of Biafra,” stated that
“some of the worst massacres of the war, in fact, occurred when federal troops
captured minority regions -whereupon the minority tribesmen turned on the Ibos
in bloody fury.”
6
This quote presents the Igbo as the victims in the hands of the
minority groups, without reference to any experience the minorities might have
 
National Archives Enugu (NAE) MSP/6 Catholic Relief Services, Special Issue: Nigeria/
Biafra Relief, Summer Edition, 1968.
4 
NAE, MSP/6 Catholic Relief Services, Special Issue: Nigeria/Biafra Relief, Summer Edition,
1968.
5 
The Nordic countries comprise of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden and
their associated territories, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Svalbard, and Åland Islands.
6 
“The Resurrection of Biafra,”
Newsweek,
March 24, 1969. Ibo refers to the same group as
Igbo. Ibo was commonly used in colonial writings.
Journal of Retracing Africa,
Volume 1, Issue 1, Spring 2014
http://encompass.eku.edu/jora/
3
28 | Omaka
had in the Igbo-dominated region before the arrival of the federal troops. Another
report claimed that “in some areas outside the East which were temporarily held
by Biafran forces, as in Benin and the Mid-Western Region, Ibos were killed by
the local people with at least the acquiescence of the federal force: about 1,000 Ibo
civilians perished at Benin in this way.”
7
Nigerian troops were said to have hunted
and killed Igbo males above the age of
fi
ve, leaving the impression that the war was
waged in a genocidal spirit.
8
Colin Legum, a Commonwealth correspondent for
The Observer,
London, also noted that “the worst killing occurring among the Ibos
has come from the struggle itself that inevitably produced conditions of famine.”
9
Peter Enahoro, who seemed to have sympathised with Biafra wrote: “The Ibos are
bearing the burden that rightly belongs to all who sought progress for Nigeria.”
10
Gordon Wainman, a volunteer for the Canadian University Service Overseas at
Kurra Falls in Nigeria, reported the massacre of 30,000 Igbos in Northern Nigeria.
11
Wainman said that many of those who were killed were either buried in mass
graves or left to rot in the
fi
elds with a thin layer of dirt thrown over them to
reduce the stench of the decaying
fl
esh.
While not denying the gruesome atrocities committed against the Igbo during
the Biafra War, there is an error in the representation of the victims of the massacres.
For instance, some of the victims of the 1966 massacre in Northern Nigeria were
members of minority groups but were generally grouped with Igbos. The report
of the G. C. M. Onyiuke-led tribunal clearly shows that many people belonging to
ethnic minority groups in Eastern and Mid-Western Nigeria were victims of the
May 1966 attack perpetrated by Northerners.
12
Members of the minority groups
were easily mistaken for Igbos because it was difficult to differentiate between the
two by mere physical appearance. There were no facial marks as could be found
among the Hausa and the Yoruba, and the pattern of dressing, mostly western,
was similar. N. U. Akpan, Secretary of Government, Republic of Biafra, noted:
The killings in North in 1966, particularly those which occurred from
 
Conor Cruise O’Brien, “A Condemned People,”
The New York Review
ix, no. 11, December
21, 1967.
8
 
Ibid.
9 
Colin Legum, “Nigeria vs. Biafra: On Taking Sides,”
Christianity and Crisis: A Christian
Journal of Opinion,
xxix, no. 9 (March 26, 1969): 151.
10
 
Peter Enahoro, “A Night of Deep Waters”
Nigeria/Biafra,
April 1969. Peter Enahoro was
the brother of late Anthony Enahoro, former Federal Commissioner for Information and
Labour under General Gowon. Peter’s support or sympathy appears to have been with
Biafra.
11 
Gordon Wainman, “I had a Ringside Seat at a Nigerian Massacre,”
Toronto Daily Star,
December 14, 1968.
12
 
Report of the Atrocities Tribunal: Appendix B: Eyewitness Accounts of the 1966 Pogrom,
December 1966.
Journal of Retracing Africa,
Volume 1, Issue 1, Spring 2014
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