https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g The Bigger Picture - Visions of Nigeria M II.1 en-us 2019-06-12 16:23:13 UTC 2025-09-26 14:22:46 UTC hello@padlet.com dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367220590 As they approached the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation they saw the soldiers around but did not know what was happening. They were not scared, even though they found the commotion a bit peculiar.]]> 2019-06-12 16:27:33 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367220590 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367220634 As we reached the brink of full-blown war it became clear to me that the chaos enveloping all of us in Nigeria was due to the incompetence of the Nigerian ruling class.]]> 2019-06-12 16:27:46 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367220634 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367220683 There were more and more reports of massacres, and not only in the North, but also in the West and in Lagos. People were hounded out of their homes, as we were in Lagos, and returned to the East.]]> 2019-06-12 16:27:57 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367220683 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367220722 In the end, Biafra collapsed. We simply had to turn around and find a way to keep those people still there alive. It was a desperate situation, with so many children in need, kwashiorkor rampant, and thousands perishing every week.]]> 2019-06-12 16:28:11 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367220722 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367220857 The post Nigeria-Biafra civil war era saw a "unified" Nigeria saddled with a greater and more [1]insidious reality. We were plagued by a home­grown enemy: the political ineptitude, mediocrity, indiscipline, ethnic bigotry, and corruption of the ruling class. Compounding the situation was the fact that Nigeria was now awash in oil-boom petrodollars, and to make matters even worse, the country's young, affable, military head of state, General Yakubu Gowon, ever so cocksure following his victory, proclaimed to the entire planet that Nigeria had more money than it knew what ]]> 2019-06-12 16:28:28 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367220857 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367220916 "Biafra is more than a human tragedy. Its defeat, I believe, would rnark the end of African independence. Biafra was the first place I had been to in Africa where the Africans themselves were truly in charge." ]]> 2019-06-12 16:28:43 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367220916 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367220949 There were many Biafran refugee camps dotting the landscape, from Enugu in the north to Owerri in the south, during the thirty-month conflict.]]> 2019-06-12 16:28:53 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367220949 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367220996 The story of the coup and how it happened started leaking out, first from the military barracks and then from the international media.]]> 2019-06-12 16:29:07 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367220996 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367221066 A lot of this hot-blooded anger was fanned by British intellectuals and some radical Northern elements in places like Ahmadu Bello University.]]> 2019-06-12 16:29:21 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367221066 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367221154 Food was short, meat was very short, and drugs were short. Thousands—no, millions by then—had been uprooted from their homes and brought into safer areas, but where they really had no relatives, no property; many of them lived in school buildings and camps. The Committee for Biafran Refugees, understandably overwhelmed, did what it could. I found it really quite amazing how much people were ready to give. ]]> 2019-06-12 16:29:46 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367221154 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367221206 The Nigeria-Biafra conflict created  a humanitarian  emergency of epic proportions. Million of civilians—grandparents, mothers, fathers, children, and soldiers alike—flooded the main highway arteriesbetween towns and villages fleeing the chaos and conflict.]]> 2019-06-12 16:29:57 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367221206 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367221270 Those who knew Nigeria were not very surprised, because part of the way to respond to confusion in Nigeria is to blame those from the other ethnic group or the other side of the country. One found some ethnic or religious element supporting whatever one was trying to make sense of.]]> 2019-06-12 16:30:12 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367221270 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367221351 It was a desperate time. Soldiers were being used by elements in power to commit a number of crimes against Igbo, Nigerian citizens. Military officers were rounding people up and  summarily  executing  them, particularly in the North, we were told by victims fleeing the pogroms.]]> 2019-06-12 16:30:34 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367221351 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367221400 At the end of the thirty-month war Biafra was a vast smoldering rubble. The head count at the end of the war was perhaps three million dead, which was approximately 20 percent of the entire population. This high proportion was mostly children. The cost in human lives made it one of the bloodiest civil wars in human history.]]> 2019-06-12 16:30:45 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367221400 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367221575 2019-06-12 16:31:41 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367221575 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367224027 2019-06-12 16:42:26 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367224027 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367224247 2019-06-12 16:43:18 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367224247 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367226519 1961 - 1966]]> 2019-06-12 16:54:22 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367226519 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367226604  6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970 ]]> 2019-06-12 16:54:43 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367226604 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367226704 1970 - 1975]]> 2019-06-12 16:55:11 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367226704 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367227078 2019-06-12 16:57:05 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367227078 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367244032 2019-06-12 18:18:52 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367244032 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367244617 2019-06-12 18:22:09 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367244617 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367245930 2019-06-12 18:29:37 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367245930 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367246397 2019-06-12 18:32:07 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367246397 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367246547 2019-06-12 18:32:57 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367246547 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367246813 2019-06-12 18:34:15 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367246813 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367247349 2019-06-12 18:36:57 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367247349 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367247395 2019-06-12 18:37:12 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367247395 dirkbeyer116 https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367247421 2019-06-12 18:37:24 UTC https://padlet.com/dirkbeyer116/s1rf1glzk63g/wish/367247421