General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu



President May 30 1967 - January 08 1970
Vice President	Philip Effiong


Country	Biafra

Born	November 4 1933 (age 74 - 2007) Zungeru
Nationality	Nigerian (on the Birth Register)
Political party	Military, later APGA
Spouse	Mrs Njideka Ojukwu
Education	Epsom College;Surrey, Lincoln College; Oxford University
Profession	Soldier, Politician

Ikemba Nnewi, known as Emeka Ojukwu was the leader of the secessionist state of Biafra from 1967–1970, during the Nigerian Civil War, he was previously Military Governor of the Eastern Region of Nigeria. He is usually referred to in news and other sources just as Ojukwu.

Frederick Forsyth, a friend, wrote a novel about him titled Emeka. It was published in 1982. Ojukwu was also a prototype of anonymous General character in Forsyth's novel The Dogs of War published in 1974.

He was born in Zungeru,the son of Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu, KBE, a business tycoon who was believed to be Nigeria's first multi-millionaire. Chukwuemeka's name means "God has done well." He attracted publicity at a young age because in 1944, Emeka Ojukwu was briefly imprisoned for assaulting a white British colonial teacher who was humiliating a black woman at King's College in Lagos, an event which generated widespread coverage in local newspapers. He then went on to study in Britain, first at Epsom College, in Surrey and later earned a Masters degree in history at Lincoln College, Oxford University.

Biafra

Ojukwu decided to enter the military against the objections of his father, who wanted him to study law. He joined the Nigerian military and graduated from the prestigious Sandhurst Military Academy in England. He then became a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army of Nigeria and Military Governor of the oil rich Eastern Region. Following an anti-Igbo/Christian genocidal pogrom in the Muslim Northern Region, Igbo chiefs met at Umuahia in the Eastern Region. They decided to declare the region consisting of the Igbo heartland, the Niger Delta and the Cross River area independent.

Despite some early Biafran successes, such as the world - famous Abagana ambush in which two divisions of the Nigerian Army were annihilated, the Nigerians slowly gained the upper hand, supported by the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and by the United States Of America.

Biafra was recognized by a small number of countries during its existence: Gabon, Haiti, Côte d'Ivoire, Tanzania and Zambia. The aid of Portugal proved to be crucial to the republic's survival. Portugal's São Tomé and Príncipe, a pair of islands south of Biafra helped with humanitarian aid, taking in children from war-torn Biafra.

France, Rhodesia and South Africa provided covert military assistance to Biafra. Israel also gave Biafra arms that it captured in the 1967 'Six-Day War'.

On June 1, 1969, he delivered the Ahiara Declaration, a patriotic speech, in the village of Ahiara. The speech condemned racism and imperialism, and asserted 'our inalienable right to self determination'. Ojukwu condemned as genocide the actions of Nigeria, for completely blockading Biafra without exception, that is they did not allow aid to children or other civilians to get through, not even from the Red Cross.

Ojukwu left Biafra as military hostilities ceased, intending to set up a government in exile. He then lived in Ivory Coast for 13 years.

Attempting to gain more support from among the Igbos, President Alhaji Shehu Shagari pardoned Ojukwu and allowed him to return to Nigeria in 1980. He joined Shagari's National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and contested the 1983 election for the Senate.

As the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), he ran for President in the 2003 presidential election. He claimed to have won the election and filed a court challenge against what he said was the "massive fraud" that allegedly denied him the presidency.

These days Ojukwu lives in the East. In early December 2006 he was again chosen to be the APGA presidential candidate for the April 2007 election.

The Promise that was and still is Biafra....

"The war has come and gone but we remember with pride and hope the three heady years of freedom. These were the three years when we had the opportunity to demonstrate what Nigeria would have been even before 1970. In the three years of war, necessity gave birth to invention. During those three years, we built bombs, we built rockets, we designed and built our own delivery systems. We guided our rockets, we guided them far, and we guided them accurately. For three years, blockaded without hope of imports, we maintained engines, machines, and technical equipment. The state extracted and refined petrol, individuals refined petrol in their back gardens, we built and maintained airports, we maintained them under heavy bombardment. We spoke to the world through a telecommunications system engineered by local ingenuity. The world heard us and spoke back to us. We built armoured cars and tanks. We modified aircraft from trainer to fighters, from passenger aircraft to bombers. In three years of freedom, we had broken the technological barrier. In three years, we became the most civilized, the most technologically advanced black people on earth".

Chukwuemeka Ojukwu.

Declaration of the Republic of Biafra

Abie Nathan

Israel’s Forgotten Peace Ambassador

April 29, 2007, written by Maurice.

He sits alone in a wheel chair in one of metropolitan Tel Aviv’s many “parent’s houses”, otherwise known to Westerners as nursing homes. The man, Abie Nathan, who formerly dedicated his life to promoting peace between Israel and her neighbors as well as helping to alleviate the suffering of fellow human beings the world over, recently “celebrated” his 80th birthday as a sick and crippled pensioner. His main wish, as sadly noted in a feature article in last Friday’s Yidiot Ahronot newspaper: to be provided with a pistol in order to end his personal suffering.

How could his have happened to a man, a former IAF and El Al pilot and Tel Aviv restaurant owner, whose AM/FM radio station broadcasted daily for so many years from “somewhere in the Mediterranean”, and whose good deeds became known by many unfortunate and disaster stricken people who had long given up hope – until he entered their lives? Abie Nathan was simply a very unique human being during the years that he invested so much of himself and his limited resources into trying to make the world a better place. These efforts were especially prevalent during the 1970’s and 80’s when his Peace Ship sat anchored less than a mile offshore Israel’s largest city, and whose bright and breezy radio broadcasts brought not only the latest pop tunes to his adoring listeners, but messages of hope, peace, and reconciliation to everyone in the eastern Mediterranean: From Greece to Egypt.

Abie could have made a sizable profit from the advertising revenues he received, as well as various donations to his various causes. Instead, he spent his entire revenues not only to promote his message of peace, but to provide food, medicines and other assistance to people as far away as Biafra Africa, Mexico and Nicaragua, whenever a natural or man-made disaster struck and caused so many to suffer.

News clips of him walking among children, passing out toys, candy and other items to their smiling faces, often brought smiles to many. His philanthropic projects were in fact so numerous that it eventually bankrupted him and forced him to shut down his radio station and even scuttle the very ship where his crew had mostly been made up of young volunteers who often put in 16 hour days without any financial compensation.

Abie Nathan’s efforts to promote peace between his adopted country and her hostile neighbors often got him into trouble with various Israeli governments, who viewed his clandestine meetings with Palestinian and other Arab personalities as seditious and even traitorous; and prevented him from receiving any formal recognition from his own country. These rejections resulted in him being prevented from nomination for such prestigious awards as the Israel Prize, and that “jewel in the crown” that is awarded annually in the city of Oslo, Norway, the Nobel Prize.

For many people, particularly we “Anglos” who gave up the comforts of Western countries to settle in Israel, Abie’s daily broadcasts from the Peace Ship made our lives more tolerable and helped us to persevere in spite of being so far away from our former way of life. Whether it was listening to the latest rock and roll and other pop music hits, or to the VOP’s evening Twilight Time mellow renditions of earlier more tranquil years, Abie Nathan’s comforting voice was appreciated by all who listened to his message.

And now, near the end of his long life, Abie sits alone and dejected; a forgotten crusader for humanity, unable to function, and barely able to speak after two paralyzing strokes – his only wish now is to be able to die with what little dignity still remains still remains in his aged, frail body in a country that has passed him and his dreams by in this ‘brave new world’ of religious and secular extremism that is now threatening to engulf us all.

Is this a proper and fitting end for a man to whom so many owe so much, and whose tireless efforts are only now beginning to be appreciated? Surely someone in the world, especially in Israel, will finally decide to give this great man the long delayed recognition he deserves – and hopefully while he is still alive to receive it.

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FREDERICK FORSYTH

British novelist Mr. Frederick Forsyth was born on August 25th, 1938, at Ashford in Kent, in the South-East of England. He was a pupil at the 'Tonbridge School', in Kent.

He was very interested in aeroplanes and he got his pilot’s licence shortly after his seventeenth birthday.

He studied at the University of Granada, in Spain and speaks Spanish.

He then joined the Royal Air Force in the UK and was the youngest man because he was only nineteen years old.

Mr. Forsyth left the RAF and became a journalist. He worked for a daily newspaper and then for Reuters.

He spent around 2 years at Reuters, then he got a job at the BBC as a journalist again, from which he was sacked, he says, because the Foreign Office didn't like his coverage of the Biafran war.

He returned to Biafra as an independent or freelance journalist and reported from Biafra for two years, when he left Biafra he had lost so much weight he only weighed eight stone.

It was while he was reporting on this war that he met many mercenaries from all over the world, and it was these people who were to influence his future stories.

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CARL GUSTAF VON ROSEN

Count Carl Von Rosen was born August 19, 1909 (Died: July 13, 1977). He was a Swedish aviator, son of the famous explorer Eric von Rosen. He was born in Helgesta, Switzerland.

He was interested in mechanics at a young age and became fascinated by flying and the machines that made it possible. His flying career started as an aeroplane mechanic and then as a pilot in a travelling aerial circus, in which he became skilled at aerial acrobatics, these skills served him well in later life.

Carl von Rosen joined a relief mission, flying food and supplies for the Red Cross when the Italians under Mussolini attacked Ethiopia. He survived several attacks by the Italian Air Force as well as harsh physical conditions.

After his return from the war in Ethiopia, he went to the Netherlands and joined 'KLM', the first commercial airline in the world and became one of their top pilots. He married a Dutch lady, but their happiness ended with the arrival of the Second World War, his wife joined the resistance and was killed during World War II. A year later, as the Germans attacked the Netherlands, von Rosen went to England and applied to be a pilot with the RAF but was turned down, because of his family relations to Hermann Göring, a German Nazi leader.

After the war, Carl von Rosen spent years in Ethiopia as an instructor for the Imperial Ethiopian Air Force. Carl Von Rosen's involvement in Africa continued after the Congo Crisis. He even gained international fame in 1967 when he flew relief missions for aid organistions into war torn Biafra, a break-away republic of Nigeria. He was disgusted at the suffering the Nigerian government imposed on the Biafrans. The French secret service and Count Von Rosen decided to hit back at the Nigerian Air Force for the continuous harassment of the relief flights.

A band of friends, including Count Von Rosen, decided to form a squadron called 'Babies of Biafra' to attack the air fields from which the federal Nigerian Air Force launched their attacks. He managed to bring five small civilian single engine Malmö MFI-9 planes produced by SAAB, into Biafra and which he knew to have been originally designed for a ground attack role in warfare. The planes were painted in camouflage colours of greens and browns and fitted with rockets. On May 22, 1969, and over the next few days, Carl Von Rosen and his friends launched attacks against Nigerian air fields at Port Harcourt, Enungu, and the other small airports the Nigerians were using.

The Nigerians were taken by surprise and a number of expensive jets, including a few Mig-17 fighters and half of their 6 Ilyushin Il-28 bombers, were destroyed on the ground.

During the Ogaden War between Ethiopia and Somalia, again flying relief for refugees, he was killed on the ground on 13 July 1977, during an unexpected Somali guerrilla attack near Gode.

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JAN ZUMBACH

Jan Eugeniusz Ludwig Zumbach was born on 14 April 1915 at Ursynów, Congress Poland, Russian Empire and died on 3 January 1986 in France. He was a Polish fighter pilot who became an ace while flying with the British Royal Air Force during the Second World War.

The son of Polish-born Swiss parents, Jan Zumbach was registered as a Swiss citizen and hid his nationality in order to join the Polish army in 1934. He served as soldier until 1936, when he transferred to the Polish Air Force. After graduating from flying training in 1938. It was a Bf 109 that shot Zumbach down over Dover on 9 May 1941 while returning from a mission, he bailed out unharmed.

Zumbach was demobilised in October 1946 but continued to fly for a living. Under a Swiss passport, he flew contraband around Southern Europe and the Middle East.

He went on to deal in second-hand aircraft before again becoming a mercenary as he organised and commanded the air force of Biafra, flying the B-26 Invader, using the nom de guerre John Brown.

In 1975, he published his autobiography, originally available in French under the title Mister Brown: Aventures dans le ciel.

It was later published in German and English under the title; On Wings of War: My Life as a Pilot Adventurer.

He died 3 January 1986, in France and was buried at Powzki Cemetery in Warsaw, Poland.

For his endeavours Jan Zumbach was decorated with the Silver Cross of the Virtuti Militari; the Polish Cross of Valour (with 3 bars); and the Distinguished Flying Cross (with bar). Note that Virtuti Militari Crosses are the most prestigious Polish military awards.

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ANDREW HENRY VACHSS

Andrew Henry Vachss (born in 1942) in New York, is an American crime fiction author, child protection consultant, and attorney exclusively representing children. He is also a founder and national advisory board member of 'PROTECT: The National Association to Protect Children'. Prior to becoming a lawyer, he held many front-line positions in child protection. He served in the relief effort in Biafra upon his return, he directed a maximum-security prison for violent juvenile offenders

He is the author of twenty-one novels, including the Burke series, and two collections of short stories, as well as poetry, song lyrics, and graphic novels. He has also written non-fiction works, including numerous articles and essays on child protection and a book on juvenile criminology.

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Andrew Vachss: Hot Biafra Nights

Thirty years ago in a bloody corner of Africa, America’s hardest hardboiled writer saw things that would make Philip Marlowe curl up and cry.

By Zach Dundas
Originally published at Mumblage.com, September, 2000.

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Andrew Vachss is the closest thing to a human incarnation of an attack dog you can find. He’s fiercely loyal to his friends—and an implacable bringer of doom to his enemies.

In his 20-year-old law practice, those enemies are child molesters. In his political life, ditto: He’s currently fighting for tougher federal child abuse enforcement through the CARE Act (www.careact.org), a law that would punish states that give people who commit incest an easier time than those who rape kids they’re not related to.

While Vachss’ legal practice and public crusades draw plenty of attention, he’s most famous for his tooth-chipping crime fiction. His novels—cold and dark, informed by the wolfpack morality of the underworld—take mystery readers coddled by Agatha Christie tea ‘n’ crumpets fantasies on an icy death trip to a place Vachss calls The Zero. He knows it well. Besides hounding molesters through the courts, Vachss has investigated syphillis transmission, run the toughest juvenile prison in Massachusetts and logged a stint as a field worker for the New York City Department of Family Services. Perhaps his roughest assignment, however, came as the ‘60s bled into the ‘70s and a corner of Africa tore itself to gory shreds. When the Ibo ethnic group attempted to secede from Nigeria, the federal forces of that country attacked. The fledgling Republic of Biafra suffocated under a blockade aided and abetted by the Western powers, who weren’t anxious to see a reliable partner in neocolonialism shatter into quarrelsome—potentially Red-friendly—mini-states.

Perhaps a million people died; starved, shot, raped, bombed, killed with fire and disease. As the slaughter reached its climax, Andrew Vachss, just a few years out of college, ventured to Africa to see if he could help.

Thirty years later, Vachss discusses this little-talked about experience in the heart of darkness.

Mumblage: Why did you go to Africa?

Vachss: You’ve seen clips about Rwanda?

Of course.

Okay. So you know what happens when two tribes decide that each one has to be exterminated. The British left Nigeria only in 1960. When they left, there were two essential tribes there, Ibos and Hausas. The Ibos were sort of the civil service class, the governing class, and the Hausas were not. As soon as the British left, they decided maybe they should be.

So this was a situation the British created?

I can blame the British for a lot of things, but tribalism in Africa? If there had been no colonialism, I think there wouldn’t have been tribal warfare, because Africans are essentially not territory-takers. It’s Europeans who take territory. If you have an agrarian society, what good does it do you to take territory? Unless you have a fairly commerical or industrial base, more land isn’t going to do you any good. So historically, you might be correct.

But these were tribal hatreds that were ancient, so they used any weapon at all, including fire and disease. Landlocking the country, blocking food from coming in. This was the first time Red Cross planes were shot out of the sky, the first time they refused to let relief workers in. Starvation became a weapon of war. So everytime you’d turn on the TV, you’d see nothing but footage of kids dying, starving to death with huge distended bellies and and just bones ... people couldn’t stand it.

Nobody talked about the United States intervening, because there was something else going on at the time, called Vietnam.

So a group of foundations, like Save the Children, that had UN consultant status, needed somebody to penetrate the war zone and try to determine two things: One was whether, if you contributed a dollar in America, it would buy a dollar’s worth of food in Biafra, not seven cents of food and 93 cents of fundraising. Second was to find a route to get the food in. It was tricky, because you can only fly in so much food. Airplanes are just not designed for that.

My qualification for that job was being nuts enough to do it. And I did. It was a long haul—I had to go to Lisbon and meet with some shadowy people and be sent to Geneva and meet with even shadowier people. These were whose faces literally did not come out of the shadows when they spoke. And then we went to Angola, which was not exactly a quiet place at the time, and then we went back across the equator to a little island called Sao Tome. And from there you got in any way you could, and there was only one way in. You waited until it got dark, you got into a plane, you went over and they shot at you and you either got in or you didn’t.

Once I got there, I realized it was too late.

I mean, I wasn’t on the ground for 30 seconds before I realized it was too late. You could never have gotten enough food in there, unless the fighting stopped that day. While I was there, I got some really wonderful malaria. I mean, all I remember is, we were pushing a jeep up a hill and there was shooting, and then I woke up seven days later. It really knocked me out. They had to evacuate me.

I saw every kind of death, every kind of mass death, you could ever want to see. A generation of children disappeared.

Mumblage: And to this day—do you fly a lot?

Yes.

Okay. To this day, every time you go to the airport, I can name one airport that’ll be on the prohibited list. One airport that the United States government will say is not safe.

Lagos.

You got it. It hasn’t changed. They’re still doing business the same way they did then. They’re still killing people in the public square who dissent, killing anyone who’s opposed. Nothing’s changed. And you ask yourself, we’ve intervened in all these other countries, but we’d never go in there. Why? Well, they’ve got oil. We’ll always make exceptions for those countries with oil.

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BERNARD KOUCHER

Bernard Koucher, born on November 1, 1939 in Avignon, is a French politician, diplomat, and Medical Doctor. He is married to Christine Ockrent. He is co-founder of 'Medicins San Frontieres' - 'Doctors Without Frontiers & Doctors of the World'(1980). He is currently the French minister of Foreign and European Affairs in the Fillon government.

He is currently The Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, France. He was elected into Office on May 17 2007. He was previously the Health Minister from 1992-1993, a Member of the European Parliament from 1994-1997 and Health Minister from 1997 to 1999.

Born to a Jewish father and a Protestant mother, he began his political career as a member of the French Communist Party (PCF), from which he was expelled in 1966. He worked as a physician for the Red Cross in Biafra in 1968 (during the Nigerian Civil War He founded MSF in 1971, and then, due to a conflict of opinion with MSF chairman Claude Malhuret, the Médecins du Monde (1980). He is an advocate of humanitarian intervention wherever it is needed.Current information on Bernard Koucher

Bernard Koucher

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AUGUST 'AUGIE' MARTIN

August Martin was born August 31, 1919 and died at Uli on July 1, 1968

Mr Augie Martin and his wife Gladys Riddle both models of the African American dream. Mr Martin was the first Black African American Commecial pilot and his wife was a famous American TV Soap Star Actress.

This distinguished husband and wife team in their service to humanity paid the ultimate price with their lives in Uli on an airstrip that comprised of a bush road ( http://www.hikokiwarplanes.com/shadows.htmin their brave attempts to supply food, aid and medicine to millions of starving and dying Biafran people including children.

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MICHAEL I. DRAPER

Mike was a co-pilot 40 years ago flying from Britain to Biafra, after agreeing to divert from another area to Biafra to deliver aid. Being only 24 at the time he risked his future life for the millions of Biafrans suffering during the war. He was based on the island of Fernando Poo, he met and talked to many mercenaries running guns and those who helped to deliver aid, such as medicines and food, into the war torn country. He was personally involved in an attempt to export a number of aircraft from Britain into Biafra, with great risk to himself and his career.

Since the war he has been an aviation researcher and author, being an editor of the historical aviation journal 'Roundel' and has had his own book published, about the aircraft in the Biafran war and his own experiences at that time; ''SHADOWS Airlift and Airwar in Biafra and Nigeria 1967-1970''. We have also gratefully used some photographs supplied by him on this website.

Christopher Okigbo

Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo (1932–1967) was a poet, who died fighting for the independence of Biafra. He is now widely acknowledged as an English-language African poet.

He was born on 16^th August 1932, in the town of Ojoto, about ten miles from the city of Onitsha in Anambra State, his father was a teacher in Catholic missionary schools during the heyday of British colonial rule.

Christopher Okigbo graduated from Government College Umuahia (in present Abia State) two years after Chinua Achebe, another noted writer, having earned himself a reputation as both a voracious reader and a versatile athlete. The following year, he was accepted to University College in Ibadan. Originally intending to study Medicine, he switched to Classics in his second year. In college, he also earned a reputation as a gifted pianist, accompanying Wole Soyinka in his first public appearance as a singer. It is believed that Okigbo also wrote original music at that time, though none of this has survived.

Upon graduating in 1956, he held a succession of jobs in various locations throughout the country, while making his first forays into poetry.

He also began publishing his work in various journals, notably Black Orpheus, a literary journal intended to bring together the best works of African and African American writers. He rejected the first prize in African poetry awarded to him at the 1965 Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, declaring that there is no such thing as a Negro or black poet.

In 1963, he left Nsukka to assume the position of West African Representative of Cambridge University Press at Ibadan, a position affording the opportunity to travel frequently to the United Kingdom. Here, he completed "Limits" (1964), "Silences" (1962–65), "Dance of the Painted Maidens" (commemorating the 1964 birth of his daughter, Obiagelit, whom he regarded as a reincarnation of his mother).

Okigbo in 1966 relocated to the East to await the outcome of the turn of events which culminated in the secession of the eastern provinces as independent Biafra on May 30, 1967. Living in Enugu, he worked together with Achebe to establish a new publishing house, Citadel Press.

With the secession of Biafra, Okigbo immediately joined the new state's military as a volunteer, field-commissioned major. An accomplished soldier, he was killed in action during a major push by Nigerian troops against Nsukka, the university town where he found his voice as a poet, and which he vowed to defend with his life. Earlier, in July, his hilltop house at Enugu, where several of his unpublished writings were destroyed in a bombing.

"Elegy for Alto", the final poem in Path of Thunder, is seen today as the poet's "last testament" embodying a prophecy of his own death as a sacrificial lamb for human freedom:

Earth, unbind me; let me be the prodigal; let this be

the ram’s ultimate prayer to the tether...

AN OLD STAR departs, leaves us here on the shore

Gazing heavenward for a new star approaching;

The new star appears, foreshadows its going

Before a going and coming that goes on forever....

Read what the famous poet; Obi Nwakanma has to say about Christopher Okigbo

Mwalimu Julius Nyerere

Tanzania feels obliged to recognize the setback to African unity, which has occurred. We therefore recognize the State of Biafra as an independent sovereign entity, and as a member of the community of nations. Only by this act of recognition can we remain true to our conviction that the purpose of society, and of all political organization, is the service of Man."

Biafra, Human Rights and self-determination in Africa.

By President Julius Nyerere

Mwalimu Julius Nyerere

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Dr. FRANCIS AKANU IBIAM

Letter to HM. Queen Elizabeth II of England

Your Gracious Majesty,

I am deeply and humbly constrained to present you with this letter. For many years, indeed throughout my mature life, I had been a proud but disinterested admirer of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and her peoples. The history of Your Majesty’s country is replete with heroism, discoveries which were near miracles, and institutions of higher learning of the most outstanding character and achievement. Britain, though insular and small in size and capacity, had centuries ago proved conclusively, to the world that for any community and nation to reach the acme of greatness and respectability, it is not quantity that counts but quality and the type of people who make up the nation.

British Christians had the privilege and honour of evangelizing not only a good part of Africa, my own continent, but also a greater part of the rest of the world. Her missionaries, men and women, left home and kindred and comfortable life, to spread Christianity far and wide in areas of the world where, for want of a better description, life was anything but civilized in the Western sense of the word, civilization. They endured lack of scientifically purified water, electric or gas light. They trekked long miles of single-file roads, endured our moist heat and drenching rains, the nuisance of mosquitoes, and sand flies and other indigenous African insects. In the earlier days of missionary venture, they imported tons of tinned foodstuffs and cared nothing for their lives so long as they could preach the Gospel and its Good News, heal the sick, and bring education and enlightenment to the people. The result of this effective humanitarian service, supported financially, morally, and prayerfully by the Churches way back in their homeland, has born exceedingly abundant fruit, and for us in Biafra (formerly Eastern Nigeria), their work has, by grace of God, made our homeland as much a Christian country as any other reputed countries of the world.

Despite annoying treatment meted to me and my fellow African students now and again in certain quarters, I was highly impressed with the religious life of the people of Britain, particularly in Scotland, where I lived and studied in the University of St. Andrews for seven years in one of the coldest parts of the United Kingdom. Altogether, I resided in Britain for ten long years. And having seen their homeland and lived in this Christian atmosphere in which they grew up, the self-denial and self-sacrifice of Christian Missionary came home to me very forcibly, I drew much inspiration from their splendid example, and my understanding and realization of the full meaning and significance of the Christian life dawned on me with great sense of joy and thankfulness.

After taking my medical degrees, therefore, I offered my services to the Foreign Mission Committee (now the Overseas Council) of the Church of Scotland, Edinburgh. I joined the Church of Scotland Medical Service, Calabar Mission, Nigeria, and served the mission and its offspring, the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria, from February 1, 1936 to January 31, 1967. With the consent and approval of the Overseas Council, I was on leave of absence without pay during the last five years, December 1960, to January 1965, of my missionary service, while I was Governor of Eastern Nigeria. As the only Nigerian among a group of some seventy European Missionaries for twenty five years, the going was in the main, stiff and at various times, I felt most frustrated and unhappy. For although Missionaries inspired me without knowing it themselves, I regret to say that, by and large, they did not encourage me. Such a situation did not bother me, however, because I was inwardly happy to serve my people in this unique capacity, and I was not going to quit, come weal, come woe, until, like other missionaries, I had served my turn for thirty years or reached the age of sixty years. If European missionaries, I argued within me, could leave their well-ordered homeland and ease of life, more or less, and where they could make a name for themselves academically or otherwise, and came to my homeland where amenities of life in the European background were hardly existent, I did not see any reason why I, an African, could not follow in their footsteps and serve my own people in my own country under conditions which called for naked hardship and demanded much self denial and self sacrifice.

In 1949 New Year Honours Awards, Your Majesty’s revered and late father, His Majesty King George the sixth, graciously conferred on me the honour to be an Officer of the Civil Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (O.B.E) for services to the Church and State. Again, in the New Year Honours, 1951, he conferred on me the dignity to be a Knight Commander of the Civil Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (K.B.E) for selfless service to the Church and my country. I happened to be in London at this time as a special guest of the British Council, and when I was invited by a Buckingham Palace Official to present myself before His Majesty to receive the insignia and accolate of Knighthood, I begged permission to have them conferred on me on my return home to Nigeria. I did receive the insignia and certificate at the hands of His Excellency the then Governor of Nigeria, Sir John Macpherson, but I had the unique distinction and singular privilege of receiving the accolade from Your Majesty’s august person during your Majesty’s Royal and memorable visit to Nigeria in February, 1956. On the attainment and independence of Nigeria and sovereignty by Nigeria on October 1, 1960, Your Majesty was graciously pleased to appoint me as Governor of Eastern Nigeria within the Federal Republic of Nigeria on the recommendation of the Honourable Premier of Eastern Nigeria with the assent of his Excellency the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. In August 1962, Your Majesty conferred on me the dignity of being a Knight Commander of the Civil Division of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George (K.C.M.G.).

For these great honours and special recognitions, I am humbly grateful to Your Majesty and Your Majesty's Britannic Government. They are a happy reflection of the importance of Africa and her people before God and man. Howbeit, I must renounce all of them at this time. I do so to register the strongest protest at my command against Your Majesty's Government of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland for supplying military equipment and arms to Nigeria which has waged a senseless and futile war of aggression against my country, the Republic of Biafra. My objection and protest are directed solely and entirely to the British Government because I believe that the staunch British friends of Africa, particularly the CHURCH, and informed British public opinion will deplore this unkindly act of the British Government to the Republic of Biafra. With the highest sense of responsibility, therefore, and bearing clearly in my own mind the moral issues which are at stake, and my own stand thereat, I return the insignia and paraphernalia of my title to Your Majesty’s Britannic Government through the British Deputy High Commissioner who is resident here in Enugu - the capital city of the Republic of Biafra.

During the months of May, July, August, and September, 1966, Northern Nigerian soldiers and civilians planned and committed the most atrocious crimes against Eastern Nigerians—now citizens of the Republic of Biafra. Sadistically, brutally and in cold blood, they murdered and slaughtered thousands of my brothers and sisters who were then living in Northern Nigeria and other parts of the former and defunct Federal Republic of Nigeria. They killed innocent children, helpless women, and defenseless men without any reason or rhyme. They entered churches and hospitals and slaughtered them in cold blood. And most unbelievably yet only too true, they massacred women in actual LABOUR and their unborn children. They plundered, looted, assaulted and raped women and burnt down the homes of Easterners and left them penniless.

The most painful and unsoldierly act of all was that these Northern Nigerian soldiers killed their superior officers, including and especially His Excellency the Military Governor of Western Nigeria, Lt. Col. Francis Adekunle Fajuyi, and his guest and comrade, His Excellency, the Head of Supreme Military Council and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the former Federal Republic of Nigeria, Major-General J.T.U. Aguiyi-Ironsi, both of them of blessed memory. On July 29, 1966, they were kidnapped by Northern Nigerian soldiers and ruthlessly killed after torturing them. It must be stated here that the late Major-General J.T.U. Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Eastern Nigerian at that time, went all out to build up ONE UNITED AND STRONG NIGERIA through a unitary Government Administration, but paradoxically and ironically, he met a cruel and untimely death for that very reason. It is very strange, therefore, that Nigeria should be futilely waging a war of aggression against Biafra in her impossible bid to force Biafra back into this very same union—One Nigeria from which she had been so purposely and systematically forced out. Be that as it may, all kith and kin fled Northern Nigeria, Western Nigeria, and Lagos and returned to their homeland of Eastern Nigeria, the only place they knew they could have protection. In the process, Eastern Nigeria was left to look after and cater for at least two million refugees, and she has done and is doing so with commendable achievement. Eastern Nigeria did not retaliate in any way, for we do not kill strangers within our gates, and being humble and sensitive Christians, we refused to commit murder, contrary to the commandment of God, particularly as we believe that two wrongs can never make a right. Northern Nigerians in Eastern Nigeria were therefore collected together and escorted safely by train across the border to their own section of Nigeria.

In the succeeding months, the Hausa/Fulani controlled Lagos Government of Nigeria purposely, directly, and inexorably forced Eastern Nigeria out of the Federation, and our Military Governor with advice and consent of out Consultative Assembly had no other choice but to declare Eastern Nigeria a free, independent and sovereign state to be known as the Republic of Biafra. This happy and historical occasion took place on May 30. On July 6th, Nigeria attacked Biafra in her mad wish to force Biafra to return to the Nigeria federation. Having killed 30,000 of us in their land and seized our property worth millions of pound sterling, they have now come to kill more of us in our own homes and make the rest of us slaves to the Hausa/Fulani Feudalists and Moslems.

The people of Biafra are, therefore, fighting a war of LIBERATION AND SURVIVAL. We adamantly refuse to be colonized by the Hausa/Fulanis of Northern Nigeria or any other people in the world. Moreover it is an ardent desire of the Hausa/Fulani and Moslem Northern Nigeria to subjugate Biafra and kill Christianity in our country.

Your Majesty, the British officials in Nigeria are fully aware of all these. They know that we are injured and deeply grieved people and had been cruelly treated by our erstwhile fellow citizens of Federal Republic of Nigeria. The British officials not only knew the crux of the matter, but they also encouraged Northern Nigeria to carry out and execute their nefarious plan against us. They are angry with Biafra because Biafra categorically refused to remain as part of the Nigeria federation and political unit only to be trampled upon, discriminated against and hated, ruthlessly exploited and denied her rights and privileges, and slaughtered whenever it suited the whims and caprices of the favoured people of Northern Nigeria. To add insult to injury, Your Majesty’s Britannic Government, instead of being neutral in our quarrels or finding ways and means to mediate and bring peace to the two countries, has now taken it upon herself to supply military aid to Nigeria to help them defeat and subjugate Biafra.

It is simply staggering for a Christian country like Britain to help a Moslem country militarily to crush another Christian country like Biafra. This is just too much for me, Your Gracious Majesty, this act of unfriendliness and treachery by the British Government towards the people of Republic of Biafra who, as Eastern Nigerians, had so much regard for Britain and British people.

In the circumstance, Your Majesty, I no longer wish to wear the garb of the British Knighthood. British fairplay, British justice, and the Englishman’s word of honour which Biafra loved so much and cherished have become meaningless to Biafrans in general and to me in particular. Christian Britain has shamelessly let down Christian Biafra.

I love the Republic of Biafra very dearly and pray that, by grace of God, she may remain and continue to grow and live and always act like a truly Christian country for all times.

I am, Your Majesty

Yours Most Respectfully,

(AKANU IBIAM)

G.C.O.N. LL.D. (HON. ST. ANDREWS); LL.D. (HON. IBADAN); D.LITT. (HON BIAFRA); D.Sc. (HON. IFE); M.B., CH.B. (ST ANDREWS); PRESIDENT, WORLD COUNCIL OF CHRISTIAN EDUCATION (1962 - 1967); A PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES; CHAIRMAN, UNITED BIBLE SOCIETIES; DECORATED WITH THE INSIGNIA OF THE ORDER THE ORTHODOX KNIGHTS OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE BY HIS BEATITUDE BENEDICTUS I, PATRIARCH OF THE HOLY CITY OF JERUSALEM, 1965 (GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH); DECORATED WITH A GOLDEN STAR MEDAL OF THE FIRST DEGREE OF THE ORDER OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AFTER THE GREAT VLADIMIR (APOSTLE) BY THE PATRIARCH OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUSSIAN, ALEXEI, 1965, AND A GOLDEN CROSS WITH A CROWN (RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH); SELECTED TO REPRESENT THE CHRISTIAN WORLD IN THE WORLD CHRISTIAN COUNCIL FELLOWSHIP ISSUE OF THE UPPER ROOM CITATION, 1966; RULING ELDER, ST. ANDREW'S PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ENUGU; CHAIRMAN, GOVERNING COUNCIL, UNIVERSITY OF BIAFRA; ADVISER TO THE MILITARY GOVERNOR AND HEAD OF STATE OF THE REPUBLIC OF BIAFRA.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,

Buckingham Palace,

London.

Thro':

The British Deputy High Commissioner,

Mr. J.R.W. Parker,

Enugu

The Republic of Biafra

Dr. Akanu Ibiam

The soul of Biafra

----------------------------------------------------------

CORNELIUS COLBERT WOULFE C.S.Sp

Born in Abbeyfeale, Ireland
Died on Nov. 1, 2006

Fr. Cornelius “Con” Colbert Woulfe, C.S.Sp., former chaplain at Kingston Hospital, died Wednesday, All Saints Day, November 1, 2006 at Kimmage Manor, Ireland. Fr. Woulfe was named for his uncle, Cornelius Colbert, who was one of the leaders of the EasterWeek Uprising in Ireland in 1916, for which he was executed.
A native of Abbeyfeale, County Limerick, he was educated at the National School of Abbeyfeale and Rockwell College in County Tipperary. He was a graduate of the National University of Ireland and the Holy Ghost Missionary College in Dublin. He was ordained a priest of the Holy Ghost Fathers on July 16, 1944.

On completion of his studies in 1945, he was assigned to Nigeria. He taught in the College of the Immaculate Conception in 1946, then served as education secretary for the Archdiocese of Onitsha from 1947 to 1970. During the Biafran Civil War, he worked in that area and because of this work, he was expelled from Nigeria in 1970 along with 70 other priests.

He came to the United States in 1971 as the Superior of the Irish Holy Ghost Fathers in the U.S.
For 25 years, he resided at St. Mary’s Church and served as chaplain at Kingston Hospital. In 1990, he served as co-Grand Marshal of the Kingston St. Patrick’s Day Parade. He served for many years as chaplain of the Division One, Ulster County Ancient Order of Hibernians which was named in his honor.
Please keep in your prayers Fr. Con Colbert Woulfe.

Information taken from Ulster AOH, 2007.

JELLO BIAFRA

Erik Reed Boucher was born on June 17, 1958 in Boulder, Colorado, USA and is more widely known by the stage name Jello Biafra. He first gained attention as the lead singer and songwriter for San Francisco punk rock band the Dead Kennedys. After his time with the band ended, he became involved with political activism.

He is a member of the Green Party and actively supports liberal political causes. As a 'self-proclaimed' anarchist, he feels that civil disobedience and direct action are the ways to effect political change. Biafra is known to use weird tactics in the Press to highlight issues of civil rights, social justice, anti-corporatism, peace movements, anti-consumerism, environmentalism, anti-globalization, universal health care, feminism, the separation of church and state and many more issues he cares about.

His stage name is a combination of the brand name Jell-O ('Jelly' in the U.K.) and the name of the short lived country of Biafra which attempted to secede from Nigeria in 1966. After four years of fighting and horrific starvation in Biafra, Nigeria regained control of Biafra.

Jello Biafra created his name as an ironic combination of a nutritionally poor mass-produced food product and mass starvation. He said he 'likes how two ideas clash in people's minds'.

Jello Biafra

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