First, the number of Igbos he claims died is vastly inflated, by most estimates. Second, the number of Igbos who starved to death would have been drastically reduced if the Biafran leadership, especially it's head General Ojukwu, had given up their completely hopeless secessionist cause long before they did. It was evident soon after their rebellion began that they had no chance of defeating the federal army and achieving independence, yet they refused to come to their senses and admit defeat. You can be sure it was not the leadership that paid the price for this fatal intransigence. The federal forces did indeed try to starve the Igbos into submission, a cruel weapon, and probably never dreamed their adversaries would hold out so long and so uselessly.

Third, Ojukwu was hardly the knight in shining army portrayed by Ekwe in his various writings. Fourth, the origins of the strife that eventually led to war in Nigeria can hardly be attributed to the Igbo's enemies alone, as Ekwe wants to do. Fifth, the Igbos were not the only people living in eastern Nigeria. There were many other minority groups, many of whom opposed strongly the idea of living under an Igbo-dominated Biafra; their concerns were largely ignored, and they too suffered badly for a cause they opposed.

I was personally active throughout those years in Canada trying to convince the Canadian government to increase aid to Biafra, which it refused to do. I realized later that our extensive efforts in this regard, and similar ones in the UK and elsewhere, were closely monitored by Ojukwu's people and his highly-paid western public relations consultants. These misplaced efforts only served to help Ojukwu keep his hopeless rebellion going and his people dying.

The Biafran War was indeed, as Ekwe says, one of Africa's great tragedies, but the responsibility for it was hardly as one-sided as he claims. Indeed, we mustn't forget the central role of Britain, which forced this complex, heterogeneous slice of Africa into one nation, an error from which Nigeria suffers to this day. To keep open old wounds through distorted tales is the last thing Nigeria needs.