Nigeria: Man Must Whack

On the surface, Nigeria seemed tranquil enough. A dozen ocean-going freighters thrashed seaward from Lagos’ Apapa Quay, laden with cocoa, groundnuts, rubber and timber. In the Eastern Region’s capital of Enugu, helmeted coal miners queued up as usual at the “Drink Tea and Eat Fried Meat and Radio Servicing” shop. At the Iddo Motor Park, beside the Bight of Benin, the lorries and “mammy wagons” of Ibo refugees were drawn into a frontier-style circle, while families clustered around huge pots of palm-oil chop—a bubbling mass of rice, meat, fish and coconut squeezings. The fatalistic mottoes on the mammy wagons seemed symbolically apt. “God knows best,” read one; “I shall return,” promised another. But the most appropriate said: “Man must whack.”

Far to the north, Nigerians were whacking with a fury. In the Northern capital of Kaduna, raging mobs of Moslems armed with iron bars and broken bottles surged through the streets shouting anti-Ibo slogans. They killed at least 30 of the Ibo “aliens” from the east. In Kano, a swarm of Northerners marched out of the mud walls of the old city and stormed toward the airport, seeking Ibo blood. At the site of the huge Kainji Dam on the Niger, six Ibo bodies were scattered in the dirt, and at least 50 more Ibos were badly injured. In such Northern towns as Jos and Samaru, Zaria and Maiduguri, communal violence raged with the intensity of last May’s infamous “Ibo hunt.” By week’s end, confirmed deaths stood at 200.

Fading Away. As black Africa’s most populous nation marked its sixth anniversary last week, it teetered on the brink of civil war. The cause of its problems is the age-old struggle between three dominant tribal groups: the ambitious Ibos of the oil-rich Eastern Region; the ebullient Yorubas of the cocoa-growing West; the feudal Hausas and Fulani of the semiarid “Holy North.” Their differences are basic and, unfortunately, all too typical of the tribal divisions that plague other African nations. The Northerners are rigid Moslems, suspicious of outsiders, wary of progress, ruled by reactionary emirs whose palaces are made of mud and whose law is adamantine. The Ibo

Easterners are Christian, democratic, enterprising—and far wealthier than the Northerners. The Yoruba Westerners, whose capital of Ibadan (pop. 750,000) is Nigeria’s largest city and the world’s largest shantytown, are farmers and small traders whose passions are High-Life music and politics, often accompanied by endless draughts of pungent palm wine.

Nigeria’s disintegration began with the overthrow and murder of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, which broke the North’s stranglehold on national politics; the ensuing “strong central government” of Major General Johnson (“Johnny Ironsides”) Aguiyi Ironsi failed to end rampaging disunity; sporadic rioting took more than 2,000 lives. When a second military coup exploded last July 29, Ironsi himself reaped the whirlwind of Northern revenge. Nigeria’s new boss, Lieut. Colonel Yakubu Gowon, 31, shed no tears over Ironsi’s death, but set about imposing spartan discipline on the army, the civil service, and on all of the nation’s free-swinging politicians. He promised that his government would soon “fade away.” In the light of his predecessors’ fates, it very well may.

Silent Drums. Gowon’s stern call for austerity has taken the heart out of many a Nigerian institution. In Ibadan, trade is moribund. “The politicians and embezzlers are gone,” moans an Ibadan market mammy, “but they kept the money flowing. The market has become dull and the wives and mistresses who used to patronize us have disappeared.” Uncertainty has also dulled the High Life, as the nation’s minstrels and “talking drummers” have learned. Townsmen who were once prominent now prefer obscurity for fear of army arrest. “Now nobody wants you to drum his praises,” complains one, “as this may put the soldiers on his trail.”

More damaging has been the flight of refugees to their old tribal lands. At least 250,000 have fled, and roads are glutted with wagons piled high with enamelware pots and moldy mattresses. Many of the refugees are Ibos, whose competence in administration and technology put them in many of the most responsible jobs of the North and West. Their flight has brought many of the nation’s basic services to a halt. The railway that connects coastal Lagos with the northern interior has been running only sporadically for weeks. There is talk that the big international airport at Kano may have to close for lack of ground crews.

Beer & Pepper Chicken. All of that is of grave concern to Nigeria’s Establishment—a group that includes such disparate types as Mrs. B. O. Banjo, president of the Ibadan Market Women’s Association, and the dons of Ibadan and Ife universities. They are working together in a concerted effort to “Keep Nigeria Together,” a sentiment heartily endorsed by the Yoruba intellectuals and high-society types who gather nightly in Lagos’ exclusive Island Club over beer and pepper chicken to discuss the nation’s future.

That future rests in large measure on the decisions of Yakubu Gowon, the slim, unassuming young soldier from the Northern Region’s “middle belt,” who as Nigeria’s head of government still sleeps in a simple camp bed at Ikeja army barracks, commutes daily into Lagos by army helicopter, and argues cryptically that “it is not for me to make any prescriptions for curing the ills of the country.” Disclaimer aside, Gowon has been prescribing like a corner drugstore.

His first inclination on taking power last July was to drop all semblance of a strong central government, and plug for a confederation of almost independent states. Taking him at his word, Northern politicians put together a proposal that envisaged a loose league tied together only by common currency, post office and diplomatic service. But Gowon soon realized that that would have meant splitting the army—a notion that he could not countenance.

So he reversed himself, and his 14-man constitutional convention sat down again with orders to scuttle regional autonomy and seek a stronger central system.

One Man, One State. For the past two weeks, the delegates have been seeking a solution that would satisfy both Gowon and the regions. Plans to split the country into as many as a dozen regions were being aired. “One man, one state,” gloomed a conference member. “That seems to be our motto.” It did indeed: Northern delegates, some of whom had to be restrained from dashing home during the rioting, were dead set against the notion of splitting the North into several separate regions; Easterners were threatening to secede from the nation, and arguing among themselves over internal secession from the region; Western leaders were despondent; even the tiny Mid-West—originally the only insistent voice in favor of federation—was getting cold feet. Any hopes of quick consensus were fading fast, and with the resumption of rioting, the entire fabric of nationhood was fading as well.