Sir: As a partner in a firm of economic con-
sultants long associated with East Nigeria and Biafra, may I be permitted a few comments on Robert Horton's astonishing summary of recent Nigerian politics (Letters, June 2I)?
Mr Horton's stylistic criticism of your assertion that Biafra is largely populated by Ibos loses sight of the two million mainly Ibo refugees who were driven home from other parts of the Federation as a result of the 1966 mass- acres. Perhaps he feels there is little point in counting them pending their final liquidation.
Since British colonial servants decided in 1914 to bulldoze North Nigerians into the same administrative unit as Southerners there have, quite naturally, been several moves toward secession, mainly from the North. There were cogent claims by the East Nigerian government that the object of the Northern officers whose bloody mutiny on 29 July 1966 gave birth to the present Federal government was '(a) domination of Nigeria by the North or, failing that, (b) the secession of the North from the South. Mr Horton will also remember the state- ment that if the East were forced out of the Federation the West would follow, which was made by Chief Awolowu before he decided on a meeker and less perilous course.
While it is interesting to see that Robert Horton's source on the intentions of Ibo politi- cians in 1958 and 1964/65 is confined to the fears expressed by unnamed oilmen in Port Harcourt, he should know better than to suggest that politicians were in a position to lay de- - tailed plans for secession' during the period of General Ironsi's military government when they were out of office and out of favour. Pre- sumably a part of these detailed secessionist plans was Colonel Ojukwu's broadcast appeal following the May '66 massacre of 3,000 of his people which forestalled the exodus at that time of the two million East Nigerians from Northern Nigeria. Presumably, also, Colonel Ojukwu was expressing his government's secessionist intentions when he said shortly afterwards: 'It mist, therefore, be our prayer that the innocent blood thus shed will be accepted as the supreme purchase price for the solid and everlasting unity of this country.' Ten times as many Easterners had to be slaughtered before the East Nigerians were prepared to insist upon a 'drawing apart' of the regions.
To believe that the sequence of horrific massacres to which East Nigerian civilians and soldiers were •subjected in May, July and September/October 1966 was merely the backcloth to a 'coolly conceived play for one of the world's largest oilfields' suggests either an ignorance of Nigerian affairs inconceivable in a Senior Research Fellow in 'Niger Delta studies or a chronic attack of Ibo-hatred.
. Mr Horton's language when he describes Radio Biafra 'obscenely spewing forth' the 'superman' myth leads me to ,tavour the latter explanation as does his pious hope that Harold Wilson will 'trust the Federal government to conclude this unpleasant business in a humane way and will supply it with any arms still re- quired for the purpose.' It could-indeed be said that cyanide gas would be a more 'humane' means of 'concluding' an 'unpleasant business! than the present clumsy methods of shooting, bombing and slow starvation.
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