Sir: Everybody is 'oot o' step except oor Jock.' 'Oor
Jock' in this case is Auberon Waugh.
This does not necessarily mean that Mr Waugh is wrong and those of us who see the much-publicised secession and rebellion as a cruel and calculated Ibo attempt to subjugate Nigeria are right. None the less, Mr Waugh should remember that other people, including me, are just as sincere in their views as he. And there are some, including me, who have spent nearly all their adult lives in West Africa, and we feel that we know something about Nigeria and the built-in Ibo power-desire.
Mr Waugh is a trained observer, and it may be that in a few days he can decide that all Ibos are good and all Nigerians are bad. In twenty-
four years on the coast I reached a rather differ- ent conclusion. And I know, deep down, that I
am more right than is Mr Waugh in the final analysis of what we both agree is a horrible situation.
May I be allowed to rebut some of the more alarming of Mr Waugh's statements?
(a) The Ibo mutineers started the war by firing on Nigerian troops, not the other way round.
(b) If there is genocide how does Mr Waugh account for the thousands of Ibos who live and work in Lagos and other Nigerian towns? Genocide is the 'deliberate extermination of a race of people.' Some other description, please, Mr Waugh.
(c) The Biafrans may be, as Mr Waugh states, the4nost highly intiThgent and best educated people in Africa, but this surely does not, in all conscience, give them carte blanche to take over Nigeria, as Mr Waugh seems to be arguing.
(d) Mr Waugh outlines how the 'bad' Niger- ians have treated the 'good' Ibos. My experience over many years was that the Ibos treated the other Nigerian tribes deplorably. Hundreds of times have I checked rude, overbearing, arro- gant Ibos for the way they dealt with Nigerians less well endowed. Perhaps the killings in Nor- thern Nigeria in 1966 were the accumulation of decades of ill-treatment of the simple Hausas by the Ibos. I don't agree with those who say the Ibos deserve what they got, but their be- haviour over the years certainly merited some kind of reprisal. And I don't mean killings.
Mr Waugh has been brainwashed by the Ibos —they're adepts at it. Ask any young ADO who served there. May I suggest that Mr Waugh now' visits Nigeria and travels around the country? Don't let him stick in Lagos. Lagos is as much Nigeria as London is Britain. Maybe then we'll get more balanced reporting on a subject which should not be made a shuttlecock between Mr Waugh and The Rest.
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