Chinua Achebe in chapter 9 of his 1983 book The Trouble With Nigeria, states:
“Modern Nigerian history has been marked by sporadic eruptions of anti-Igbo feeling of more or less serious import; but it was not until 1966-7 when it swept through Northern Nigeria like “a flood of deadly hate” that the Igbo first question the concept of Nigeria which they embraced with much greater fervour than the Yoruba of the Hausa/Fulani.
“The Civil War gave Nigeria a perfect and legitimate excuse to cast the Igbo in the role of treasonable felon, a wrecker of the nation. But thanks to Gowon’s moderating influence, overt vengeance was not visited on them when their secessionist State of Biafra was defeated in January 1970.
“But there were hardliners in Gowon’s cabinet who wanted their pound of flesh, the most powerful among them being Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Federal Commissioner for Finance. Under his guidance a banking policy was evolved which nullified any bank account which had been operated during the civil war. This had the immediate result of pauperizing the Igbo middle class and earning a profit of 4 million pounds for the Federal Government Treasury.
“The Indigenization Decree which followed soon afterwards completed the routing of the Igbo from the commanding heights of the Nigerian economy, to everyone’s apparent satisfaction.”
Note:
The Ahiara Declaration, a revolutionary document drafted during the Civil War defines the aspiration of the Igbo. Biafra, as stated in the document debunks the claim that the Igbo struggle against the Nigerian state was necessarily a “tribal conflict” or one propelled by “the mad adventurism of a fictitious power seeking clique anxious to carve out an empire to rule, dominate and exploit”. The Igbo asserts that the struggle is against racism, Arab-Muslim expansionism and white economic imperialism. Convinced about this, the State of Biafra is born to defeat these traditional scourges of the black man and build a healthy, dynamic and progressive state that would be the pride of the Blackman in the global system.