By Chimamanda Adichie
I have met Chinua Achebe only three times. The first, at the National Arts Club in Manhattan, I joined the admiring circle around him. A gentle-faced man in a wheelchair.
‘Good evening, sir. I’m Chimamanda Adichie’, I said, and he replied, mildly, ‘I thought you were running away from me’.
I mumbled, nervous, grateful for the crush of people around us. I had been running away from him. After my first novel was published, I received an email from his son. My dad has just read your novel and liked it very much. He wants you to call him at this number. I read it over and over, breathless with excitement. But I never called. A few years later, my editor sent Achebe a manuscript of my second novel. She did not tell me, because she wanted to shield me from the possibility of disappointment. One afternoon, she called. ‘Chimamanda, are you sitting down? I have wonderful news’. She read me the blurb Achebe had just sent her.
‘We do not usually associate wisdom with beginners, but here is a new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers. Adichie knows what is at stake, and what to do about it. She is fearless or she would not have taken on the intimidating horror of Nigeria’s civil war. Adichie came almost fully made’.
Afterwards, I held on to the phone and wept. I have memorized those words. In my mind, they glimmer still, the validation of a writer whose work had validated me.
I grew up writing imitative stories. Of characters eating food I had never seen and having conversations I had never heard. They might have been good or bad, those stories, but they were emotionally false, they were not mine. Then came a glorious awakening: Chinua Achebe’s fiction. Here were familiar characters who felt true; here was language that captured my two worlds; here was a writer writing not what he felt he should write but what he wanted to write. His work was free of anxiety, wore its own skin effortlessly. It emboldened me, not to find my voice, but to speak in the voice I already had. And so, when that e-mail came from his son, I knew, overly-thrilled as I was, that I would not call. His work had done more than enough. In an odd way, I was so awed, so grateful, that I did not want to meet him. I wanted some distance between my literary hero and me.
Chinua Achebe and I have never had a proper conversation. The second time I saw him, at a luncheon in his honour hosted by the British House of Lords, I sat across from him and avoided his eye. (‘Chinua Achebe is the only person I have seen you shy with’, a friend said). The third, at a New York event celebrating fifty years of THINGS FALL APART, we crowded around him backstage, Edwidge Danticat and I, Ha Jin and Toni Morrison, Colum McCann and Chris Abani. We seemed, magically, bound together in a warm web, all of us affected by his work. Achebe looked pleased, but also vaguely puzzled by all the attention. He spoke softly, the volume of his entire being turned to ‘low’. I wanted to tell him how much I admired his integrity, his speaking out about the disastrous leadership in my home state of Anambra, but I did not. Before I went on stage, he told me, ‘Jisie ike’. I wondered if he fully grasped, if indeed it was possible to, how much his work meant to so many.
History and civics, as school subjects, function not merely to teach facts but to transmit more subtle things, like pride and dignity. My Nigerian education taught me much, but left gaping holes. I had not been taught to imagine my pre-colonial past with any accuracy, or pride, or complexity. And so Achebe’s work, for me, transcended literature. It became personal. ARROW OF GOD, my favourite, was not just about the British government’s creation of warrant chiefs and the linked destinies of two men, it became the life my grandfather might have lived. THINGS FALL APART is the African novel most read – and arguably most loved – by Africans, a novel published when ‘African novel’ meant European accounts of ‘native’ life. Achebe was an unapologetic member of the generation of African writers who were ‘writing back,’ challenging the stock Western images of their homeland, but his work was not burdened by its intent. It is much-loved not because Achebe wrote back, but because he wrote back well. His work was wise, humorous, human. For many Africans, THINGS FALL APART remains a gesture of returned dignity, a literary and an emotional experience; Mandela called Achebe the writer in whose presence the prison walls came down.
Achebe’s latest work: There Was a Country
Achebe’s most recent book, his long-awaited memoir of the Nigerian-Biafra war, is both sad and angry, a book by a writer looking back and mourning Nigeria’s failures. I wish THERE WAS A COUNTRY had been better edited and more rigorously detailed in its account of the war. But these flaws do not make it any less seminal: an account of the most important event in Nigeria’s history by Nigeria’s most important storyteller.
An excerpt from the book has ignited great controversy among Nigerians. In it, Achebe, indignant about the millions of people who starved to death in Biafra, holds Obafemi Awolowo, Nigerian Finance Minister during the war, responsible for the policy of blockading Biafra. He quote’s Awolowo’s own words on the blockade – ‘all is fair in war and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I don’t see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight harder’ and then argues that Awolowo’s support of the blockade was ‘driven by an overriding ambition for power for himself in particular and for the advancement of his Yoruba people in general.’
I have been startled and saddened by the responses to this excerpt. Many are blindingly ethnic, lacking in empathy and, most disturbing of all, lacking in knowledge. We can argue about how we interpret the facts of our shared history, but we cannot, surely, argue about the facts themselves. Awolowo, as de facto ‘number two man’ on the Nigerian side, was a central architect of the blockade on Biafra. During and after the war, Awolowo publicly defended the blockade. Without the blockade, the massive starvation in Biafra would not have occurred. These are the facts.
Some Nigerians, in responding to Achebe, have argued that the blockade was fair, as all is fair in war. The blockade was, in my opinion, inhumane and immoral. And it was unnecessary – Nigeria would have won anyway, it was the much-better-armed side in a war that Wole Soyinka called a shabby unequal conflict. The policy of starving a civilian population into surrender does not merely go against the Geneva conventions, but in this case, a war between siblings, people who were formerly fellow country men and women now suddenly on opposite sides, it seems more chilling. All is not fair in war. Especially not in a fratricidal war. But I do not believe the blockade was a calculated power grab by Awolowo for himself and his ethnic group; I think of it, instead, as one of the many dehumanizing acts that war, by its nature, brings about.
Awolowo was undoubtedly a great political leader. He was also – rare for Nigerian leaders – a great intellectual. No Nigerian leader has, arguably, articulated a political vision as people-centred as Awolowo’s. For Nigerians from the west, he was the architect of free primary education, of progressive ideas. But for Nigerians from the east, he was a different man. I grew up hearing, from adults, versions of Achebe’s words about Awolowo. He was the man who prevented an Igbo man from leading the Western House of Assembly in the famous ‘carpet crossing’ incident of 1952. He was the man who betrayed Igbo people when he failed on his alleged promise to follow Biafra’s lead and pull the Western region out of Nigeria. He was the man who, in the words of my uncle, ‘made Igbo people poor because he never liked us.’
At the end of the war, every Igbo person who had a bank account in Nigeria was given twenty pounds, no matter how much they had in their accounts before the war. I have always thought this a livid injustice. I know a man who worked in a multinational company in 1965. He was, like Achebe, one of the many Igbo who just could not believe that their lives were in danger in Lagos and so he fled in a hurry, at the last minute, leaving thousands of pounds in his account. After the war, his account had twenty pounds. To many Igbo, this policy was uncommonly punitive, and went against the idea of ‘no victor, no vanquished.’ Then came the indigenization decree, which moved industrial and corporate power from foreign to Nigerian hands. It made many Nigerians wealthy; much of the great wealth in Nigeria today has its roots in this decree. But the Igbo could not participate; they were broke.
I do not agree, as Achebe writes, that one of the main reasons for Nigeria’s present backwardness is the failure to fully reintegrate the Igbo. I think Nigeria would be just as backward even if the Igbo had been fully integrated – institutional and leadership failures run across all ethnic lines. But the larger point Achebe makes is true, which is that the Igbo presence in Nigerian positions of power has been much reduced since the war. Before the war, many of Nigeria’s positions of power were occupied by Igbo people, in the military, politics, academia, business. Perhaps because the Igbo were very receptive to Western education, often at the expense of their own traditions, and had both a striving individualism and a communal ethic. This led to what, in history books, is often called a ‘fear of Igbo domination’ in the rest of Nigeria. The Igbo themselves were insensitive to this resentment, the bombast and brashness that is part of Igbo culture only exacerbated it. And so leading Igbo families entered the war as Nigeria’s privileged elite but emerged from it penniless, stripped and bitter.
Today, ‘marginalization’ is a popular word in Igboland. Many Igbo feel marginalized in Nigeria, a feeling based partly on experience and partly on the psychology of a defeated people. (Another consequence of this psychology, perhaps, is the loss of the communal ethic of the Igbo, much resented sixty years ago. It is almost non-existent today, or as my cousin eloquently put it: Igbo people don’t even send each other.)
Some responses to Achebe have had a ‘blame the victim’ undertone, suggesting that Biafrians started the war and therefore deserved what they got. But Biafrians did not ‘start the war.’ Nobody with a basic knowledge of the facts can make that case.
Biafrian secession was inevitable, after the federal government’s failure to implement the agreements reached at Aburi, itself prompted by the massacre of Igbo in the North. The cause of the massacres was arguably the first coup of 1966. Many believed it to be an ‘Igbo’ coup, which was not an unreasonable belief, Nigeria was already mired in ethnic resentments, the premiers of the West and North were murdered while the Eastern premier was not, and the coup plotters were Igbo. Except for Adewale Ademoyega, a Yoruba, who has argued that it was not an ethnic coup. I don’t believe it was. It seems, from most accounts, to have been an idealistic and poorly-planned nationalist exercise aimed at ridding Nigeria of a corrupt government. It was, also, horrendously, inexcusably violent. I wish the coup had never happened. I wish the premiers and other casualties had been arrested and imprisoned, rather than murdered. But the truth that glares above all else is that the thousands of Igbo people murdered in their homes and in the streets had nothing to do with the coup.
Some have blamed the Biafrian starvation on Ojukwu, Biafra’s leader, because he rejected an offer from the Nigerian government to bring in food through a land corridor. It was an ungenerous offer, one easy to refuse. A land corridor could also mean advancement of Nigerian troops. Ojukwu preferred airlifts, they were tactically safer, more strategic, and he could bring in much-needed arms as well. Ojukwu should have accepted the land offer, shabby as it was. Innocent lives would have been saved. I wish he had not insisted on a ceasefire, a condition which the Nigerian side would never have agreed to. But it is disingenuous to claim that Ojukwu’s rejection of this offer caused the starvation. Many Biafrians had already starved to death. And, more crucially, the Nigerian government had shown little regard for Biafra’s civilian population; it had, for a while, banned international relief agencies from importing food. Nigerian planes bombed markets and targeted hospitals in Biafra, and had even shot down an International Red Cross plane.
Ordinary Biafrians were steeped in distrust of the Nigerian side. They felt safe eating food flown in from Sao Tome, but many believed that food brought from Nigeria would be poisoned, just as they believed that, if the war ended in defeat, there would be mass killings of Igbo people. The Biafrian propaganda machine further drummed this in. But, before the propaganda, something else had sown the seed of hateful fear: the 1966 mass murders of Igbo in the North. The scars left were deep and abiding. Had the federal government not been unwilling or incapable of protecting their lives and property, Igbo people would not have so massively supported secession and intellectuals, like Achebe, would not have joined in the war effort.
I have always admired Ojukwu, especially for his early idealism, the choices he made as a young man to escape the shadow of his father’s great wealth, to serve his country. In Biafra, he was a flawed leader, his paranoia and inability to trust those close to him clouded his judgments about the execution of the war, but he was also a man of principle who spoke up forcefully about the preservation of the lives of Igbo people when the federal government seemed indifferent. He was, for many Igbo, a Churchillian figure, a hero who inspired them, whose oratory moved them to action and made them feel valued, especially in the early months of the war.
Other responses to Achebe have dismissed the war as something that happened ‘long ago.’ But some of the people who played major roles are alive today. We must confront our history, if only to begin to understand how we came to be where we are today. The Americans are still hashing out details of their civil war that ended in 1865; the Spanish have only just started, seventy years after theirs ended. Of course, discussing a history as contested and contentious as the Nigeria-Biafra war will not always be pleasant. But it is necessary. An Igbo saying goes: If a child does not ask what killed his father, that same thing will kill him.
What many of the responses to Achebe make clear, above all else, is that we remember differently. For some, Biafra is history, a series of events in a book, fodder for argument and analysis. For others, it is a loved one killed in a market bombing, it is hunger as a near-constant companion, it is the death of certainty. The war was fought on Biafrian soil. There are buildings in my hometown with bullet holes; as a child, playing outside, I would sometimes come across bits of rusty ammunition left behind from the war. My generation was born after 1970, but we know of property lost, of relatives who never ‘returned’ from the North, of shadows that hung heavily over family stories. We inherited memory. And we have the privilege of distance that Achebe does not have.
Achebe is a war survivor. He was a member of the generation of Nigerians who were supposed to lead a new nation, inchoate but full of optimism. It shocked him, how quickly Nigerian fell apart. In THERE WAS A COUNTRY he sounds unbelieving, still, about the federal government’s indifference while Igbo people were being massacred in Northern Nigeria in 1966. But shock-worthy events did not only happen in the North. Achebe himself was forced to leave Lagos, a place he had called home for many years, because his life was no longer safe. His crime was being Igbo. A Yoruba acquaintance once told me a story of how he was nearly lynched in Lagos at the height of the tensions before the war; he was light-skinned, and a small mob in a market assumed him to be ‘Igbo Yellow’ and attacked him. The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos was forced to leave. So was the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan. Because they were Igbo. For Achebe, all this was deeply personal, deeply painful. His house was bombed, his office was destroyed. He escaped death a few times. His best friend died in battle. To expect a dispassionate account from him is a remarkable failure of empathy. I wish more of the responses had acknowledged, a real acknowledgement and not merely a dismissive preface, the deep scars that experiences like Achebe’s must have left behind.
Ethnicity has become, in Nigeria, more political than cultural, less about philosophy and customs and values and more about which bank is a Yoruba or Hausa or Igbo bank, which political office is held by which ethnicity, which revered leader must be turned into a flawless saint. We cannot deny ethnicity. It matters. But our ethnic and national identities should not be spoken of as though they were mutually exclusive; I am as much Igbo as I am Nigerian. I have hope in the future of Nigeria, mostly because we have not yet made a real, conscious effort to begin creating a nation (We could start, for example, by not merely teaching Maths and English in primary schools, but also teaching idealism and citizenship.)
For some non-Igbo, confronting facts of the war is uncomfortable, even inconvenient. But we must hear one another’s stories. It is even more imperative for a subject like Biafra which, because of our different experiences, we remember differently. Biafrian minorities were distrusted by the Igbo majority, and some were unfairly attacked, blamed for being saboteurs. Nigerian minorities, particularly in the midwest, suffered at the hands of both Biafrian and Nigerian soldiers. ‘Abandoned property’ cases remain unresolved today in Port Harcourt, a city whose Igbo names were changed after the war, creating ‘Rumu’ from ‘Umu.’ Nigerian soldiers carried out a horrendous massacre in Asaba, murdering the males in a town which is today still alive with painful memories. Some Igbo families are still waiting, half-hoping, that a lost son, a lost daughter, will come home. All of these stories can sit alongside one another. The Nigerian stage is big enough. Chinua Achebe has told his story. This week, he turns 82. Long may he live.
38 comments
I have read many articles on Achebe’s memoir, harsh rejoinders and abysmal to read. I can see, Achebe has the right to give the painful story he witnessed. As I understand, to be a writer, one must be objective, he must possess the quality of being factual. One must also conbat lies and learn to become fearless. However, writers, mostly literary writers share common interests in most cases. But Adichie seems to share few command interests even with a writer she called a hero. On some grounds, Adichie doesn’t concur with her heroe, for they have different philosophy especially when Achebe accuses Awolowo for being a politician with ‘lust for power’ for himself and his fellow Yoruba ethnicity. For her, even Awo wanted political power such as presidency or whatever after the partition of the Biafra, the military war mongers wouldn’t have allowed him to reign.
But for me, each side of the regions have things to blame. Ironsi, the then Igbo Military Head of State refused to establish justice against the Igbo murderers of the premiers and co. It was a kind of tribal and ethnic sentment that made him to delay justice, which was metaphorically justic denial. Had Ironsi executed the culprits, I think the civil war would not be inevitable.
On Igbo participation, I think, since the end of the Civil War, they have been indifferent to the leadership, Academia, politics, military activities etc., and focused their attention on business and entrepreneurship. And virtually, became Biafran’s agents of separation for the establishment of their homeland. Most of the Igbo’s bigger problem is still how to be independent of Nigeria.
Finally, I agree with Adichi that There was a Country should have edited much better because it might have been a better gospel for us, Nigerians to embrace.
All the best. I still remain loyal to my leads: Achebe and Chimamanda.
@Huzaifa Sani Ilyas, first of all, you should’ve edited your piece well before posting it, (no insult intended). Who told you the Igbos were indifferent to these sectors you mentioned and focused solely on business? If you would have to do your assignment well, go and check the Scholars and Academics we have in Nigeria, you would find lots of Igbos there. Check the number of internationally acclaimed writers we have and tell me if you will not count lots of Igbos. The only thing is that in politics, Igbos have not been successful because they still have divided ideology towards politics in Nigeria. They will be at the helm of affairs in this nation the day Igbo politicians will come together and project one transparent person for presidency with the same positive minds.
We have a lot to learn by reviewing what happened before,during and after the war. Blames must be apportioned, restitution made and apolgies offered. This mentality of might is right. Or blame them them game will help no body. A dispassiopnate work by Amanda.
I have not read Chinua Achebe’s memoir “There was a country”, but was taken aback by some of the strong feeling provoked by it’s contents on the internet. I finally concluded that it was a good thing that old wounds have once more been exposed. In my general opinion Nigerians speak but do not talk. We do not seem to be skilled in the art of conversation and debate , and would rather sweep soul-searching subjects under the carpet. The current day Nigeria seem to be one with citizens that lack emotional depth who only concern themselves with material trivialities – ones that are skilled at surviving but oblivious to the art of living.
It is a national shame that, in our recent history, citizens of country experienced the horrors that happened during the Biafran war. It is a shame that some of us think it’s better forgotten not discussed. It is a shame that our country is stuck in an economic quagmire while its less naturally endowed peers experience economics boom. It’s a shame that we are plagued with arm robberies, power shortages, high unemployment to name only a few. It is a shame that Nigerians are so caught up in trying to survive that we are willing to sacrifice our values and compassion for a silver coin. It’s a shame that we have forgotten what it means to be our brother’s keeper.
We need a moment of self reflection and self assessment. If we think we deserve better and have perhaps lost our way then something needs to change. The truth is that our fellow citizens died – our brothers, sisters, family and friends perished. Perhaps this book is an opportunity to revisit our past and learn from our mistakes so it doesn’t haunt us in future as it is haunting us now. We need to start loving ourselves and it starts with not only taking but listening to ourselves.
@layi, you spoke like a learned person. it is your type that are called educated, not the being-to-school types.
This article is pathetically lop-sided and sympathetic to the Igbo people. It does not mention the Igbo greed and the infighting even among the Igbo people. The fact is that Igbo greed contributed and continues to contribute in no small way to the problems facing the federal republic of Nigeria. The writer waves aside the far-reaching consequences of the first military coup in the history of Nigeria, which was perpetrated by the Igbos.
The fact remains that most of the crimes in Nigeria and abroad are perpetrated by the Igbos…Fraudulent practices on the internet (the so-called Nigerian Princes), drug trafficking, kidnapping, armed-robbery..just name them. The Igbo man is very cunning and can do anything for money. When the Igbo man does something positive, he is a Biafran, but if he engages in fraud and crime, he is Nigerian. The Igbos have damaged the reputation of Nigeria more than any other ethnic group in the Republic.
It’s unfortunate that Chinua Achebe, whom I think is a great writer, has taken to propaganda. And for Ms. Adichie to assert that the Igbos are the elites of Nigeria is utterly ridiculous.
Your hatred of the Igbos is the positive driving force that is propelling them into their greatness and prosperity. Over two million of your tribes people will die of starvation very soon.
Please back up your statement with facts. Don’t just write things you can’t proof.
@mark, you are indeed a shallow thinker, and one would have to wonder if people like you are actually educated. It is obvious that it is Nigerians like you that would butcher innocent Igbos in the north yet the hausas in the east are treated with respect and allowed to walk freely in the east. Mutallab is he an Igboman? Yet he made the world declare Nigeria a terrorist country apart from the madness and evill of boko haram. Dangote is he an Igboman? Yet for he to progress to the level that he is today and because of the shares Obasanjo had in Dangote industry, he seized Obi Ibeto’s licence and made Dangote a monopoly of the importation of some vital commodities which Ibeto also did business in. Today, Dangote is the richest Nigerian and you say Igbos love money. Abacha emptied the Nation’s account yet he is not an Igboman. An Igbo man brought MTN to Nigeria but Obasanjo forced him to stage Lagos (west) as its head quarters. I want you to know something today, no matter how much school you and your generations to come will attend ( no insult), you people can’t contribute to the nation’s growth better than an Igbo man would do. Go to the north, that place would have been a no place at all, if the Igbos were not there. Anywhere an Igbo man goes, development comes to that place. If you do not know this, know it today. Business and commerce is what it is today in Nigeria because of the Igbos. We have our flaws, no doubt but when you castigate a tribe like the Igbos, senselessly, then you are bound to be a failure in life because it shows your type will not mingle with them to learn from the positive gift that they possess. Check Nollywood today, without government financial backup, it is waxing strong to waoh the world. I will not talk much. I grew up in Lagos, served in the north, was born in the east, I know the mentality of these tribes well, and I respect them. I do not castigate any tribe. I speak yoruba as well as I speak Igbo, but I can’t speak hausa because I did not move with them for fear of them cutting off my head for nothing sake. But in the west and in the east, I greet the hausas as brothers but I avoid then in the north. And I rarely go to north anyway. Grow up and let your right hand shake your left in friendship because the left alone or the right alone can’t lift off a heavy load from the ground. Begin to see beyond your nose, man.
It is rude to insult others because of their views. Say your piece and stop insulting others.
Why do people always ommit this fact of history that was part of Awolowo’s policy of economic strangulation of the Igbos soon after the war ?As Nigeria’s finance commissioner then Awolowo saved the salaries of all Nigerian army stationed in the east in bank accunts outside the eastern region to prevent the soldiers from using their money to buy things in the eastern region thereby making Nigerian currency to enter into the hands of the easterners(Biafrans) so that Biafrans will never have access to money after the war.
Chimamanda is one writer I have come to sincerely admire with her balanced view of events. Her approach to issues has been one of indisputable fact. Here again in this article, she has proven just that without a room for doubts of whatever variance. However, the story of Nigeria-Biafra civil war as is often held, is one of a double sided coin that should be viewed with the nonintimidating eye of equity, justice and fairness and consequently addressed and redressed the resounding questions whose echoes have been heard too far beyond the shores of its origin. It is very much unfortunate however that these unaddressed questions remain thus, and no one cares about how they could be answered. While I totally agree with Adichie, on her position about Achebe’s new book, THERE WAS A COUNTRY, and her critical objectivity in the entire story, rather than casting a one sided blame, I wish to disagree with Sani Ilyas’ position above, that Igbos have been indifferent to politics, academia and leadership but rather embraced business and enterpreneurship. This is the form of falsehood that has propelled the reluctant defence mechanism of the powers that be, whose insincereties have further plunged Nigera into an incontestable retrogressive journey that she may not return from. I so much believe that when the issues highlighted by Achebe’s book and those raised by some objective critics of the book are treated with fairness and sincerity, we then can talk firmly about the real reintegration.
THE CRITICS OF CHINUA ACHEBE’S BOOK WERE NOT FAIR TO HIM!
Because of the hue and cry that trailed professor Chinua Achebe’s latest book, THERE WAS A COUNTRY, I decided to get a kindle edition of it the other day to see with my own eyes what this great legend of our time could have said to irk his critics. Interestingly, the book in my judgement is one of the best Nigerian civil war memoirs that I have read. Actually, to me, it was like an autobiography of the literary legend himself. He talked about himself, his siblings, his school days, his parents, the war and the gladiators of that war. He did not take sides inappropriately, he gave literary impetus to many tales we have heard from local versions of the war incident. He blamed the leader of his side of the war, BIAFRA, General Ojukwu, where appropriate, he clarified the dual roles of the great ZIK, of Africa in that epic war, he documented his escapades and trips during that time. His role in the creation of the popular AHIARA DECLARATION document was well highlighted. If General Gowon, had read it, he would not have asked where Achebe was during that war. Because Achebe was everywhere in that war. That book was simply an unputdownable book. I read it with gusto, I read it with enthusiasm, I read it with a deep sense of curiosity to find out what he said about Chief Obafemi Awolowo that was so laconic as to stir such spate of criticism on a work that is simply a masterpiece. Fortunately, after several hours, I got to it in part four of the book! It was a couple of paragraphs, where he quoted a favorite statement of Awo and used that to nail home his point that Awo and Gowon had a slice of blame in the starvation of the Igbo race during the war because of the policies they came up with during and after the war. My surprise is that no one criticized Achebe for blaming Ojukwu in the areas that he faulted Ojukwu’s leadership strategy. His critics were only after him because of his critique of the policies of Gowon and Awo. I think it is not fair. Those policies are facts that spoke for themselves. Achebe simply extolled where he needed to and blamed where he needed to. When I attempted to wonder why many of his critics did not feel this way, I came to a reasonable clue. And what is that clue? Many of those critics probably did not read the book in full. They probably just rushed to part four of the book or never ever opened it at all, and simply joined the bandwagon of critiques. Whatever the case may be, I simply enjoyed the story-telling skill that the legendary novelist is blessed with. And that is why I am joining millions all over the world to wish him long life and prosperity on the occasion of his birthday. #WisdomMakesTheDifference# http://www.pastoriykenwambie.com
untill achebe and co learn to be dispassionate and objective about the Nigeria civil war, then we will keep getting literature work like “there was a country”. when will achebe start contributing positively to his country home? does achebe actually has the interest of an ibo man at heart? achebe at his dying days is writing a book 42 years after the civil war dat wld further increase the negative perception of the ibos. d ibos must learn to take responsibility for their actions and inactions, else there wld be no lesson learnt if they blame others for their actions. The ibos must show capacity to be trusted, as we look further to an ibo presidency soon and achebe is dragging us back. when the yorubas and hausas keep reminding their children dat the ibos in there quest for power, killed their founding fathers( ahamadu bellow, fajuyi, tafawabalewa and co) then d innocent ibos living in Nigeria wld not be as lucky as achebe who does not leave in Nigeria and may not even be alive wen d trouble he is hatching finally materialized. let us seek those tin dat wld reunite us rather than those dat wld tear us apart, as d force bringing us togather is greater than the ones tearing us apart. long live a positively minded achebe and happy birthday!
Thank you for this comment. As a Nigerian, I wonder why Chinua Achebe decided to write a memoir about a 42 year old war that most Nigerians have left behind and moved on. He is a revisionist and that will not bring unity in the polity. Please Mr. Achebe, do not blame the yorubas for Ibos/Ojukwu’s intransigence. War has consequencies and that was the choice the Igbo leadership took. Agreed, Igbos were slaughtered in the North by Northerners and not yorubas yet in your revisionist history of the war, you put all the blame of Igbo suffering on Awolowo rather than Gowon who had the last word being the President of the Republic of Nigeria.
As a Nigerian, I have no sympaty for the plight of those that took us into war and benefited from it. You will not get Nigeria to tell the Igbos we are sorry for the war. The Igbo leadership decided they prefered war of secession and they failed. After the war ended the same grouping joined the political party of those that killed them in the north in search of relevance and power and they failed.
Igbo presidency will not materialise without the solid Yoruba vote. Hausas will not vote for non Hausa en-masse. Let’s move on and build a great nation .
You dont know anything about history. If you knew, you wouldn’t have said those things you said about the Igbos. The war wouldn’t have started in the first place if thousands of Igbos were not murdered in the north because of the failure of one Igbo military head of state from prosecuting some coup plotters that happen to be from his tribe. Nevertheless, I have never been a supporter of violence, especially when violence is used to correct a formal violence. I think just like Nigeria, herself, has not recovered from the war, Achebe too is yet to recover. And that’s why he had to come out with that book, ‘There was a country’ after a long while. He had to take his time to let the nightmare of the war cease from coming before he told his own side of the war story. Remember he lost a literary brother (Chris Okigbo) in that war. He’s entitled to his opinion. He’s a great writer. I hate tribalism but I have read a whole lot of the war story and I still can’t forgive Gowon and even Ojukwu for being responsible for the death of millions of people who could have contributed to the development of this nation, yet their blood still cry till today and that’s why Nigeria has not recovered from the lost of her children in that war of selfish egos of two military men. But I plead to my fellow Igbos to let our wound heal. Let by-gone be by-gone. I wish my literary mentor a happy birthday. He will live longer and stronger than Nelson Mandela. Adichie, I love the way you write. I have been able to pick one or two things from your style and have used it to improve my writing.
Thank you for your comment. I have read at least over 200 comments on the book and you are the first Igbo to lay blame on both leaders. I do have hope with minds and objectivity like yours, we shall build a better Nigeria. Peace.
A dispassionate writeup,I think. I believe that blame and correction should be apportioned where it is due,and also praise where due. Adichie has shown here once again her grasp of history while being objective. I would view this as the tribute that it is,believing that the solution is not in castigation but in mutual respect.
Kudos to my role models,Achebe and Adichie.
He has done well, and written so very well, its very healthy for one to criticize ones write up,by and large dis war needs to be address. Appologies needs to be rendered, the igbos need to be appreciated
@ Mark i could tell from your comment that you are a shallow thinker am not surprise that you could not make a deep and meaningful impression, listen to yourself. You sound like my nephew who is just 7years old… Who are you to talk about the great Ibos like that..? If an individual commits a crime you don’t have to generalize it, even if you do not in that manner….. According to Iyke Nwambie (I am joining millions all over the world to wish him long life and prosperity on the occasion of his birthday) Happy Bday PAPA..!
What Achebe wrote and concur by Adichie is what my father who fought for my freedom told me, i have read many books on Nigerian civil and went ahead to study History and International Studies and also went ahead to choose then undergraduate project topic in “History and Politics of Oil in Nigeria”, i am now well armed with the remote and the immediate cause of the first attempted coup and the counter coup. We have fail to ask ourselves the motive of the counter coup plotters “ARABA” And i ended up to see Nigeria as vampire country whose citizens has been brain washed with ethnic identities even before the British left Nigeria. History has taught that it was a grand plan by the Northern Oligarchy to subdue the rest of Nigeria and plant the Koran in the sea. Hear him Sir Abubakar Tafawa Belewa, who later became the First Nigerian Prime Minister brandishing his ethnic and religious agenda “If the British quited Nigeria today, the Northern Oligarchy will continues their uninterrupted conquest to the sea” This is a fact that must not ignored. Facts Two. Hausa/Fulani has umpteen times asserted that Igbo are the only obstacles remaining to Islamized West Africa. Igbos might have their own flaws like any other nation but i agree with Achebe based on current realities that Nigeria backwardness is mainly attributed to the neglect of people from the East. And i will go on to prove that Igbo even been defeated in the war are currently the most prosperous people densely populated in Nigeria and far better than Gowon Plateau and Murtarla Kano State and has make Nigeria a dependency nation. These debate must continues. I will send my research findings on the “History and Politics of Oil in Nigeria” Why Oil is central to all lies before and after the Nigeria/Biafran Genocidal war. igbokwefelix@gmail.com
Achebe, you will always be my true great writer any day, any time for writing wonderful books like, ‘There was a country’. No matter the criticism it receives from all quarters, that is what makes it an important book because it must have touched the soul of the readers whichever way, to speak out in review of it. Nigeria’s soil is still wet, forget the fact that it happened many years ago, with the bloods of the innocent children that were made to return to their Maker untimely, crying for justice to be done. Just like Cain was cursed with hardship after murdering Abel, his brother, Nigeria still faces hardship as if the bloods of the innocents have made God to curse it. Achebe must have realized this, and that is why he had to expose the bad stones Nigeria have swept under the carpet, for all to pick them out so that all would walk on the carpet comfortably. Let the truth be known and let this truth heal the wounds of many and make these weeping little bloods rest in perfect peace. Happy birthday my hero. You will live long and when you go finally at a very advance age, may those innocent children welcome you with joy to the great beyond as their true voice and hero.
Reading through the lines of Adichie article is quite thrilling, considering her maturity in treating the issues involved, her uncompromised stand point and indepth analysis of the content THERE WAS A COUNTRY… If think objectivity is much portrayed knowing quite well that she is from the victims side of view which could have ordinarily given her an edge to wholistically concur with Achebe in all facet, but she declined at some point, laying bare her reasons. Meanwhile, thumbs up to all! Happy Birth Day Prof!!
I am happy another sound mind has added her voice in support of there was a country,quite an interesting piece.Chimamanda i differ from you in some respect.
1,The absence of igbos from the mainstream has affected Nigeria’s progress,the answer is in the affirmative.In 3 years Biafra proved to the entire world that the could a d do it and i strongly believe that if after the war the were encouraged Nigeria would have being diffrent place ttoday.
2,That every Igbo man recieved 20 pounds after the war and Nigeriani government introduced indigenization afterwards will lead to only one conclusion which is excluding that tribe from anything that money played a role in,so for Achebe to say that certain actions were fueled by unbridled desire for power might not be entirely wrong.
3,That Awo is a great leader is not in dispute but that his conduct during the war is above board is an issue that will always be subject to great contention.
please can someone define greatness in the context of state in relations to an individual of that state (country) like awolowo
i would like for miss adichie to explain what greatness is in her own way, because i dont understand what she meant by saying awo was a great man, dose she mean that he succeeded in empowering his people at the detriment of others, cos if he was a great man in NIGERIA he wouldnt have done what he did with akintola, cause it was that same issue that lead to the first military coup, the some man that wanted Confederate Nigeria, n wen he had d opportunity he choose the opposite, so what is great about him, he had achieved so much for himself is that it, please educate me more on greatness
If you were born in the 50’s in Nigeria you will appreciate why Awo is called great. As Premier of Western Region of Nigeria, he started the free primary education for his region and Lagos where I benefited. Many Nigerians mostly easteners said it was not feasible. Many Igbo students moved to Lagos and West to take advantage of free education. While as premier, he ventured into business for the region. Odu’a Group of companies was his brain child. Please tell the rest of us that lived during that period equivalent of his achievements in the East and in the North.
Without Awo’s management of the war, many Nigerians, both Federal and Biafrians would have died by extending the war. Ask Ojukwu why he called Awo the greatest president that Nigeria never had.
am sorry, but you haven’t answered my question, please let us look at it from a broader perspective, which is the time line we are looking at your basis from, who were the most educated Nigerians rather the most educated ethnic group in Nigeria, what was the population of Igbos in lagos at that time, what were awos interest in free education at that time what was the the cost implication and the average income of the westerner and why oduwa investment not western investment or company and to answer your question the east produced merchants, patriots and more importantly intellectuals, the elite class of the society, and the north produced the great men of our dear Nigeria like Tafawa Ballewa and Aminu Kano, men that will forever inspire and please people should stop talking as if it charity that funded free education in the west and he awo was the benefactor of it, please awo is a Yoruba man not the Yoruba people
i am not impressed.
Ms Adichie’s piece is hardly objective, lacking in depth and rushed.
While Chinua Achebe’s book is mired in controversy, this obviously was the point of the piece itself. Suffices to posit though that this is hardly candescent of his position as an elder or becoming of the wisdom borne of years and experience.
I dare say that this is hardly the time to point fingers after all factions are nearly dead. You’d expect Achebe to be ready to foster a legacy of peace and common animus.But instead this old bitter man chooses to tell the objective truth and exhume long buried skeletons.
I expected better from Ms Adichie(a mistake i wont make again of course). Achebe’s epoch and reign have long seen their end. You’d expect a so called “young wise one” to understand the importance of learning from the past but letting it stay….in the past. I am beyond disappointed in Ms Adichie’s willingness to join in the finger pointing. The igbo people suffered immensely during the civil war, so did the yoruba and so did the hausa. The country’s indigenous groups have all suffered some immense form of injustice individually and collectively quo and ante independence.
But, That said, achebe is outside nigeria, so is adichie, so is soyinka. I cannot but posit (with bias) that these people should stay outside and stop murking up contigencies with long dead and forgotten ghosts. Its time to either give viable solutions or shut the hell up.
@thatguy, you seem to be less knowledgeable about the war. You probably was not born during that period. And even if you were not born then, you have not done your homework well. Do you like the way Nigeria is doing now? Somebody need to tell the truth or make the culprits face the law. The blood of those innocents kids that passed on during that war, have not forgiven Nigeria today and that is why you probably will find it hard to eat well or every member of your family will sweat hard to make a living just like Cain after he murdered Abel and tried to bury the truth. Also, you seem to be rude to your father and your aunty. Your tone in calling Achebe ‘old man’ is kind of rude when your could have referred to him as elderly man. You can also tell your aunts at home, I mean all of them, to ‘shut the hell’ and you ‘shut your hell as well’.
While you accuse one of being disrespectful to an elder statesman, you are doing the same. That does not add value to your argument.
@yomster, forgive me about that. I was just not happy with the insolent people.
@chuksbuxco,
We all get angry sometimes and I appreciate your response my brother. We have a lot to do to build a better Nigeria. Let keep working for a better Nigeria.
So you are saying Achebe should not have written his own personal account of the civil war? which he owe to the coming generation. or do u think we the upcoming generation has no right to know what happened during the civil war? all this acrimony simply cos awolowo was blame? you people make me sick to the bone marrow. every war is documented in films or written,and i know if awolowo wasnt mention here you will be singing a different tune. Truth is bitter and its only a fearless writer like Achebe that is not interested in your lip praise that will say things the way they are. funny enough,they are playing the victim when the actual victims are been attacked. RIP the great man.
Hmmm…i sigh a relief to the Adiche’s review about the book: THERE WAS A COUNTRY. written by the living literary legend of our time, Prof Chinua Achebe. Also to the comments poured on the review. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but do not insult and don’t be bias. Adiche and Achebe are two great author i look up to. First of all like Olamide sing, i don’t read history books because it made me flipping pages and at the get dizzy and doze off but this one got me hooked. Achebe’s book came out in a furious tone, personnal and how d injustice was planted on the part of the igbos. I hate to read or dig back to what happened at the biafran war because of the massacre, blood shed, tears, lost of life and properties, brutallity,man slaughter,starvation and tears of children. Wnen my father used to tell me abt d story of biafra, my mind is always soaked with tears and mercy 4 dose who lost their life. D killing of humans like animals was ridiculous. Achebe writing the book was okay for the history of biafra be known but he spoke in a tone of anger.Biafran has come and gone and so we shd stop digging to the past, pointing fingers at anyone and lets work together to make dis country a great. I totally agree wit Adiche that Nigeria would be just as backward even if the had been fully integrated, disagreeing with Achebe that d fallout of Nigerian was because d igbos were disintegrated. Everyone has his role to play to make dis country great. One nemesis of Nigeria is that we do not love ourselves. Ethnic and tribal discrimination has rotten the mindset of Nigerians,greed and corruption, even from d grassroot. It is happening right under our nose how d so called boko haram sponsored by group of some Nigerians are inhumanly destroying lifes and property all to tarnish d image of the country and d ruling power all bcos of lack of love and ethnic differences. Embezzling of public money due to lack of greed and love. So my take on dis is that we should stop digging d past and pointing fingers at anyone. A saying goes in Ezza language: If u are pointing one finger at anyone, d rest four fingers are pointing at you. Everyone need a question to answer.Until we start loving ourselves and seeing ourselves as one irrespective of language,ethnic and tribal differences, Nigeria will still be lieing in the mud.
Chimamanda Adichie and Chinua Achebe are great inspiration to humanity
@Felix Igbokwe, Tafawa Balewa was never tribalistic. He was a leader by example. But it buffles me when people take sides in argument such as this. The idea of Araba was raised by Igbos at the begining. But you wanted to make it sentimental that it was Hausas who did it. In fact, Yoruba had the same motion by then. Gawon who’s not a Muslim, was able to reunite the nation yet you still blame him. While there was nothing resourceful in the east. You need to revisit the project because it seems to be arnacronistic.
I read the book “There Was A Country” and this has been my take from the book. Why do we not teach these to our kids. why has it never been discussed openly. When I was A kid I remember my mother telling me that Igbo’s did not lose in the Nigerian Civil war. Nne Thanks for this