CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

The Nigerian Civil War which is at times referred to as the Biafran war is a terrible experience between the 6th of July 1967 and January 5th 1970. There was a war as a result of some unpleasant occurrences within the country and, the events of this war have greatly influenced Nigerian Literature. Writers have written mostly novels than plays or poetic works based on these horrifying happening. These writers are either reacting from the federal side like Ken Saro Wiwa, Festus Iyayi, etc, or from the Biafran side like Eddie Iroh, Chinua Achebe etc.

Dyson, Sally (1998) gives a summary of the Civil War, its causes and consequences on the country in the lines below:

The Civil War that broke out on July 6, 1967 was to last for two-and-a half years. In view of the pogrom of Ibos in the North in 1966 rebel soldier Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu and his followers regarded the conflict as a total war for actual physical survival. But by the end of 1969, the Biafran succumbed and the vital remaining airstrip … came within range of federal artillery. Military casualties reached an estimated 100,000. But the majority of death occurred among Ibo civilians: between 500,000 and two million Biafran civilians died in the war mainly from starvation (173).

The pogrom or the massacre of the Easterners in the north can be traced first to the coup of January 15, 1966. According to Senator Joseph `Lai (1995), it all started in the coup of January 15, 1966.

In the early hours of the morning, a dissident section of the Nigerian Army kidnapped the Prime Minister Alhaji Tafawa Balewa and the Minister of Finance, Chief Festus Okofi Eboh and took them to an unknown destination…. (64)

The coup is spearheaded by the revolutioner, Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogu and others which included; Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Major Chris Anufona and Major Don Okafor. They took it upon themselves to kill all the political Lords and thin gods who once fought for the liberation and independence of the country and its people from the clutches of colonialism, but are now in turn murdering those they liberated by their corrupt and heartless activities. All these Majors were assigned to each region to kill the top politicians. But, some people missed their targets and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Dr. M. I. Okpara who were among those mapped out to be killed escaped. Alhaji Tafawa Balewa (Prime Minister), Sir Ahmadu Bello (the Premier of the Northern Region) and Chief Samuel Ladoke (the Premier of the Western Region) are killed. As Senator Joseph `Lai puts it;

Others who lost their lives were army officers from the North and West. No Civil leader or Military officer from the East was killed. The only exception was Lt. Col Unegbo who was shot because he refused to hand over the keys to the armoury (64 – 65).

For this reason, the coup was termed an Igbo affair because, no Igbo top politician or military officer, except Lt. Col. Unegbo, was affected.

This coup according to Ojukwu,Chukuemeka (1969), lead to a Northern revolt and counter coup in 29th July 1966 by Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon and Major Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma. This coup lead to the death of the first military Head of State, Major General Aguiyi Ironsi and Lt. Col. Fajuyi, the Military Governor of Western Region, bringing the 32 year old Colonel Yakubu Gowon as chief of Army and Head of State of Nigeria. This Lt. Col. Ojukwu a senior military officer did not support.

There were other causes of the Nigerian Civil War which cannot be exhausted in this section; majority of the causes are engulfed in the leadership tenure of Gowon. He promised creating new states but did not on the agreed date. He promised bringing to justice the soldiers who raided Benin Prison, removed, freed Northerners and brutally murdered detainees who were mainly easterners in September 1966, who were all detained as a result of their alleged involvement in the attempted coup of 15 January 1966. Contrary to the decision of Aburi Accord, recruitment into the Army continued in different parts of the country except the East. His (Gowon’s) failure to abide by other decisions of Aburi Accord caused the Civil War. Lt. Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu the then Governor of the Eastern Region announced on Radio that all Igbos should leave all other regions and return to the Eastern region since their lives were no more save. He went further to have meetings and talks with some top Eastern rulers. Not minding the advice of Major Nzeogwu who told him that the aim of their coup was to stop tribalism and corruption, he went further to declare “the Republic of Biafra” on March 31st 1967. This action leads to the Nigerian Civil War which officially started on the 6th July, 1967.

The Civil War lead to the destruction of many lives in the battle field and in refugee camps. Women on the other hand could not keep to high value their body which is their most valuable item. They give it out for food, clothing and shelter for themselves and their children. Young ones are recruited into the army, so were the old, as the others die on daily basis. The Civil War, a horrendous experience Nigerians prays never occur again separated families, caused pain and tears to many, both psychologically and physically.

This research work is divided into four chapters. Chapter one deals with a general introduction to the work, background of study and the author, the significance of study, theoretical framework and review of scholarship. Chapter two handles predicaments and implications: the Nigerian Civil War and the morality of women in Forty-Eight Guns for the General; Chapter three deals with Predicaments and implications: the Nigerian Civil War and the morality of women in Toads of War; Chapter four deliberates on the predicaments of women in the Nigerian Civil War in The Siren in the Night; and finally gives a brief summary of everything that is discussed in the research.

1. 1.1BACKGROUND OF STUDY

Literature is a creative art of writing that does not exist in a vacuum. It is an appendage to society. The occurrences within a particular milieu motivate writers to write either fictional or non-fiction literary works. The writers in Africa or Nigeria to be specific find in the activities and occurrences in society materials to write on. Literature therefore involves a group of people who share the experience of the fictional activities demonstrated in a literary piece. About the relationship between literature and the public, H. R. Jauss maintains that every

…work has its specific, historically and sociologically determined audience that every writer is dependent upon. The milieu, views and ideology of his readers … literacy success requires a book which expresses what the group expects, a book which presents the group with its own portrait (85).

From the above, one sees that literature portrays the society, it’s people and their experiences. This is applicable to African writers generally and Nigeria writers particularly.

Early African and Nigerian novels are influenced by the circumstances in history which molded the society from pre-colonial states and their cultural entities, where writer’s concern according to Oko Emilia 2005: …was to reinstate the validity of African culture and prove that the African way of life and thought were worthy subject of Art (12).

After this period of cultural affirmation came writers and writings about the most embracing influences of colonization which had created the political entity of that country. For instance, Nigerian colonialism becomes a significant factor in the socio-political life of the nation. Writers then wrote about colonial encounter. These works portrayed the destruction of the African believe and values as a result of their encounter with the European culture. In Nigeria we have writers like Achebe, Chinua, Ekwensi, Cyprian etc.

Then came the literature of independence or post-colonialism where African countries have gained independence and were now in control of themselves. These societies breed corruption, neo-colonialism and the disillusionment of the poor masses. These aspects of society influence not only writers of the novel but also writers of poetry and drama, which reflects the corrupt practices amongst political hoodlums in the country. Within this period, the Nigerians experienced the Civil War.

The Nigerian Civil War resulted to a certain kind of national literature. It produced writers who reported their terrible experiences either from the federal or Biafra angle.

           Iroh’s trilogy; Forty-Eight Guns for the General (1975), Toads of War (1979) and The Siren in the Night (1982) is a reaction from the Biafran angle and it portrays vividly the unpleasant experiences of the Biafrans, during the war

1. 1.2THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Eddie Iroh’s Forty-Eight Guns for the General, Toads of War and The Sirens in the Night express the historical ideology. This is because in this trilogy he tends to tell the history of the Nigerian Civil War, the happenings during and after the war.

Historicism calls for writing things that affect people according to their history. The events of the Nigerian Civil War according to Nwahunanya, Chinyere, 1996; …were traumatic experiences that threatened the very existence of the people as individuals and of a people as a corporate entity …. (2).

It is one memorable experience in the country’s history that cannot be forgotten. The Civil War is therefore indelible from the minds of parents, children and relatives who experienced it or heard about it. Writers therefore act as historians by writing these experiences either as fictional or non fictional novels, play text and poems, thereby making it unforgettable as other historical experiences of the country.

These set of writers are divided into federal and Biafran voices but, 90 percent of the literature on the Nigerian Civil War are written by Biafrans, from the east. There is this disparity because according to S. O. Mezu (1993) as quoted by Chinyere Nwahunaya (1996):

… since the war experience of Biafrans and the other Nigerians were not the same in spite of unification, divergent views of the reality of the Nigerian experience will for a long time to come modify the Nigerian’s vision of the world and consequently the literature emanating from Igbo land and the rest of Nigeria (12).

Eddie Iroh is a Biafran writer who tells us the experiences at the beginning of the war in Biafra in Forty-Eight Guns for the General, where mercenaries are flown in to help the Biafrans. In Toads of War, he takes us deeper into history by portraying the period before the Civil War which is the coup and the pogrom of the Igbos in Kalu Udim’s monologue:

…the massacres, during which my people were machine-gunned out of the federation in a brilliantly bloody spectacle that left the tactical imprint of sandhurst training …. Then along came Biafra. Yes, our Biafra. The heaven for a persecuted people; the answer to Nigeria and massacres, the bold response to cyclic decades of pogrom …. (46).

In The Siren in the Night, he brings his trilogy and war history to an end by portraying the tribalistic impulse on the society after the Civil War, using the characters of colonel Kolawole the antagonist of the novel who is against Colonel Ben Udaja the protagonist of the novel, who is not tribalistic.

Eddie Iroh therefore uses the historical ideology in writing the things that affected the people of Nigeria before, during and after the Civil War. Though these novels are fictional, they are quality historical materials that harbour the historical experiences of Nigerians before and after the period of 1967 – 1969.

1. 1.3Significance of study

This research work intends to explore in debt the predicaments of women and their moral imbalance during the Nigerian Civil War in Eddie Iroh’s Forty-Eight Guns for the General, Toads of War and The Sirens in the Night.

Women are humans as men but, possess certain qualities that are different from theirs. According to Umoren, Tonia (2002);

Scientific researchers in their study of the gametes have identified two sexes: male and female, strong and weak respectively. The female sex is the weak and it is the woman …. (2)

From the above one discovers that woman is the weaker sex while the man are the opposite. A woman therefore might prove hard at the beginning of something but by the virtue of being the weaker sex, she could easily be broken by situations. Other characteristics of women and men according to Nicholson, John (1993) are;

…men are thought to be physically tougher, more aggressive, more rational, better able to handle sex without love, and more like to be successful at work by virtue of their greater will to win. Women on the other hand are held to be more emotional and unpredictable, interested in people rather than ideas, and too suggestible and dependent to wield authority comfortable to anyone except perhaps their own children (2).

There are various differences given in the above quote but, two are very important to this researcher; these are the ideas that women are more emotional than men and unpredictable. They do not handle situations like men, they get emotional at the situations of their children and family as a whole. This deep concern and love makes them mostly unpredictable.

Women like men have needs like: shelter, clothing, feeding and most especially some specific needs like their toiletries which their male counterparts do not really need. All these needs are essential and pressing on a woman and can make her go the extra mile of giving her body to a man that can provide these needs.

During the Nigerian Civil War, families were torn apart, most fathers and grown up sons were recruited into the army and other children, left to the care of their mothers. Mothers have to carter for themselves and their children in a society where there is unrest and joblessness. Young women had to barter their bodies to stay alive, other women were raped by soldier who had guns to threaten their lives if they resisted. These are acts of total moral degeneration which on normal circumstances would not have happened.

The issues discussed in the paragraphs above are the predicaments of women during the war and its implications their morality. These will be analyzed vividly in the subsequent chapters of this research work as portrayed by Eddie Iroh in his trilogy.

1. 1.4REVIEW OF SCHOLARSHIP

According to the Encyclopedia of African Literature;

Eddie Iroh is one of the many writers who came of age during the Nigerian Civil War and like many works connected with this traumatic event in post colonial Africa, his novels are not concerned so much with the wider politics of the war but with the mediate effect on the people who lived through it. … Iroh’s novels are memorable for their concern with its immediate effect on the people who lived through the conflict rather than the wider politics of the war (1).

Forty-Eight Guns for the General focuses on the emotional tension of people living in a war torn enclave, the human carriage and waste caused by war situation and the pompous leader who does not know what it means to be completely patriotic and heeding to advice. The consequence of this according to Nwahunaya, Chinyere (1996);

…is that in the cause of the execution of the war which forms the subject of the novel, foreign mercenaries are trusted more than patriotic indigenous officers. Through the mercenary involvement in Civil War, Eddie Iroh in the novel shows us the imperialist and neo-colonial machination which underline the instability of African nations (209).

From the above it can be said that Nwahunaya describes Forty-Eighty Guns for the General based on the life in Biafra and the military. It expresses just the idea of the introduction of mercenaries to fighting in support of the Biafrans, a form of neo-colonialism. She also looks at the novel as portraying a leadership by people who are deaf to true and patriotic advice of citizens and blinded to trust the mercenaries. It can then be said that Nwahumanya, Chinyere in her analysis of Forty-Eight Guns for the General did not relate the novel to the portrayal of the women during the Civil War.

In Toads of War, Eddie Iroh exposed the evils that were common in Nigeria before the Civil War which surfaced with greater intensity in Biafra. This consequently caused the failure of the revolution as stated by Nwahunanya, Chinyere (1996):

His comments of the social ethics which informs the behaviour of many highly-placed persons in Toads of War, makes the book a remarkable achievement, for as the book suggests, the replay in war-time Biafra of the objectionable behaviours which in the first place made Biafrans want to pull out of Nigeria, means that some of the causes of our problems are congenital and so cannot just be wiped out by merely drawing a new map and hoisting a new flag (209).

She says in Toad of War that there are the harrowing memories of the pogrom when “Kalu Udim” for instance talks about:

…the massacres during which my people were machine-gunned out of the   federation … then came along Biafra. Yes, our Biafra … the bold response to cyclic decades pogrom …. (118)

She does not stop here, she goes further to state that:

Beyond the pogrom is the need to start afresh on a clean slate, to sweep into oblivion the vestiges of the corruption that had been the hallmark of political life in pre-war Nigeria. Iroh records that in the following interior monologue from Toads of War … fat men grew fatter sucking the blood of learn men. Lean men dried up and snapped like twigs … (118 – 119).

This corruption leads to the coup of 15 January 1966, the pogrom and then the Civil War. She also has it that:

it is these various corrupt power profiteers that Iroh refers to as the “toads of war “ … who are prepared to exploit whoever they can …. Given this situation where a few people have everything and the majority has nothing, the stage is set for the exploitation of whoever turns up. Women turn out to be the main victims of these power profiteers. A typical toad of war is Chima Duke. He is aware of the helplessness of Kechi Ugboma and girls of her type and therefore wants to exploit it to the fullest …. (128).

From the above analysis, it can be deduced that Chinyere Nwahunaya sees Toads of War as a novel that portrays the corruption in the society, which leads to the coup of January 15, 1966, the Pogrom and creation of the Republic of Biafra. She also sees the novel as that which tries to trace back the memories of the cause of the coup, the pogrom and the initial satisfaction of Biafrans, when finally “their own Biafra” is created. She does not widely state women’s immoral practices as a result of the war, she only sees women as instrument exploited by the rich because of their helplessness.

In The Siren in the Night things have deteriorated to a stage where the Biafran state cannot be salvaged from the doldrums and disillusionment it has already entrenched itself among the people. With the military disabilities to compound the problem, defeat is already indicated. Men of conscience like Ben Udaja see that the only solution to the problem is a defection to Nigeria as a way of accentuating the collapse of Biafra since the revolution failed. Ben Udaja before the formal end of the war initiates his own personal rehabilitation when he makes up his mind to defect from the Biafran cause. According to Nwahunanya, Chinyere (1989):

out of the conviction that it was no longer meaningful to continue the war when the leadership had not only derailed from initial objectives of the revolution, but was also becoming impervious to genuine advice (39).

Ben Udaja’s action is that of a disillusioned patriot who seeks the means of saving the number of masses from the continuous deaths by working as the Director of Civilian coordination to assist return Biafran masses. This employment of his according to Nwahunanya Chinyere (1996) results to an:

Issue of tribalism and power in a tribally pluralistic country like Nigeria …. Here he focuses on the use into which tribal sentiment are put by people who find themselves in positions of influence, and who want to use such position to achieve political ascendancy…. Because those holding power are often afraid of losing it, members of other tribes with the same political unit are often branded saboteurs, agitators or over-ambitious political enthusiasts …. This kind of experience in many African countries including Nigeria compel one to read the behaviour of Mike Kolawole and his perception of the responsibility given to Ben Udaja in The Sirens in the Night ….(209 – 213).

The extract above gives a summary of what Nwahunanya, Chinyere gives as an analysis of The Siren in the Night. She sees it as a novel written on the impulse of tribalism in the country as portrayed in the work by it’s author, Eddie Iroh between the activities of the protagonist Ben Udaja who is a Biafran returnee who surrendered before the war officially ended and is given an employment as the Director of Civilian Co-ordination but is envied by the antagonist Colonel Mike Kolawole, Head of the Federal Security and Intelligence Directorate. She also did not talk about the plight of women, now the war was getting to an official end, the Biafrans are surrendering and tribalism is getting at its peak as the “big men” try to stop the effects of a show casing returnees.

The above analysis of these novels given by Nwahunaya, Chinyere do not vividly reflect the predicaments of women during the war or their moral breakdown: This is what this researcher tries to do in the three chapters below

1. 1.5BACKGROUND OF AUTHOR

Iroh, Eddie is the author of Forty-Eight Guns for the General (1975), Toads of War (1979) and The Siren in the Night (1982); Without a silver Spoon (1981) and Bannana Leaves (2007). During the Nigerian Civil War, he was a desk editor for the Biafran War Information Bureau. Afterwards he worked for Reuters, the news agency, for Evans publishers and then for the Features and Documentation Department of Nigerian Television, Enugu. Since 1979, he has been the Head and Controller of the Documentary Department, Nigerian Television Authority Lagos where he is writing and directing a documentary series on the origin and development of the Nigerian people called “Portrait of a Culture”.

Eddie Iroh is championed by his action-packed trilogy of the war in Biafra; Forty-Eight Guns for the General, Toads of War and The Siren in the Night.

These three novels reflect three periods of the War. Forty-Eight Guns for the General reflects the beginning of the war as faced by the people and the military in Biafra. Toads of war reflect the period of war and the effect on lives outside the military. While The siren in the Night deals with life on Biafra after the war for the returning civilians and military men. A brief summary and analysis would be done on these novels in the subsequent chapters.

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