Little-known Facts About the Nigerian Civil War

This post contains facts about the Nigerian Civil War that young Nigerians may not know about. This post is not exhaustive in anyway and no post ever will, but attempts will be made to post more 'little-known' facts about the Civil War later.

• The initial plan was to create states in the Eastern Region only. The plan was shelved because it considered unwise, and 12 States were created throughout the country on 27 May 1967.
• Prior to the war, the North had the absolute majority within the rank and file of the Army because of the ethnic quota system. 
• The letters of the name of Head of state of Nigeria, GOWON, came to mean "Go On With One Nigeria" during the war.
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• The Biafra Army conducted a training exercise codenamed “Exercise Checkmate”.  This exercise was so realistic as the Nigerian Army reacted exactly the way Biafrans expected them to. Their enemies were not new to them; many Biafran officers were in the Nigerian Army before the war. 
• "Red Devil" tanks were the improvised armoured vehicles of the Biafran Army. They were created by the ingenuity of Biafran engineers. They were dangerous and cumbersome.  They were easy targets for anti - tank recoilless weapons during the war. 
  Patrick Chukwuma ‘Kaduna’ Nzeogwu, the leader of the first military coup in Nigeria, was killed by Nigerian forces while using one during the war.
• The Nigerian soldiers enjoyed rapid promotion and pay increase throughout the war.
• The Nigerian Government imported some pretty sophisticated weapons that could not be maintained. Many had to be discarded only after a few months.
• Lt. Col Steiner was a ‘mercenary’ (put in quotation marks because he reportedly fought without pay) for Biafra. He had confrontations with his Biafran commanders, and he was arrested and deported.
• Logistics was poor, especially on the Nigerian side. After the war, the Army School of Logistics was upgraded to produce highly skilled logisticians.
• Wole Soyinka (would later become a Nobel laureate) visited the Eastern Region Military Governor Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu in Enugu in August 1967 to try to avert war. The Gowon regime put him in solitary confinement for nearly two years because of this. He was released after the war.
• In 1966, a plane carrying weapons allegedly ordered by Eastern Region Military Governor Lt. Col. Ojukwu crashed over the Cameroun Mountains.
• General de Gaulle of France openly acknowledged ongoing support that his country had been giving Biafra.
• Many Russian MIG jets of the Nigerian Government were flown by Egyptian pilots during the war.
• Akanu Ibiam, Governor of Eastern Region from December 1960 to January 1966, returned his knighthood in protest against the British government's support of the Nigerian federal government during the civil war. He also changed his name from Francis Ibiam to Akanu Ibiam.