Civil War

Even as the largest nation on a highly volatile continent, Nigeria has had more than its share of bloodshed in the past few years. When Eastern Nigeria decreed itself a separate nation six weeks ago, most of Nigeria's 57 million people waited with apprehension for another round in the bloodletting. Last week it began. "War, as everybody knows, is a necessary evil," proclaimed a Nigerian government newspaper, the Morning Post, in its "Teachings of Islam" column. Thus, with resignation, federal government forces led by Major General Yakubu Gowon, 32, rolled out of the lush green hills of the Northern region to attack Nigeria's secessionist Eastern region, which now calls itself Biafra. Gowon's aim: "A short, surgical police action" to crush the rebellion led by Lieut. Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, 33.

Told to "fight a clean fight" and avoid atrocities,, Gowon's troops, at least 15,000 strong, launched a four-pronged attack. His small collection of English-made Ferret and Saladin armored vehicles pushed toward the Biafra capital of Enugu and the provincial centers of Nsukka and Ogoja. Large numbers of federal troops, which the government said were "moving cross-country on their flat feet," reportedly overran an Eastern military camp and captured 500 recruits. Determined Biafrans, whose army of about 7,000 is largely composed of Ibo tribesmen, claimed to have thrown Gowon's men back into their own territory at one border point. Colonel Ojukwu called on the Biafrans to kill ten federal soldiers for every one of their Ibo tribesmen slaughtered last year in riots in the predominantly Moslem North. It was the massacres of thou sands of Ibos that convinced Ojukwu that his state (pop. 12 million) cannot hope to live safely within a strong federal union led by Gowon and Northern officers.

Never a Shot. Gowon's invasion may have been necessitated by the reported decision of foreign companies exploiting rich oil reserves in Biafra's Niger River Delta to pay their taxes and royalties (about $40 million this year) to Ojukwu's treasury instead of Gowon's. Ojukwu's troops had taken up positions at the oil installations, and the companies apparently felt that they had no choice but to pay the de facto government. This gave the Eastern regime a degree of recognition, and may have convinced Gowon that the time had come to demonstrate that he could en force his writ throughout Nigeria.

Though most of the soldiers, including Gowon and Ojukwu, had never fired a shot in battle before, both sides claimed victories and at week's end filled the air waves with confident reports. Meanwhile, a number of African leaders, among them Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, assembled hastily in Nairobi to issue an appeal for an armistice.

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