A Personal Review of Chinua Achebe's There Was a Country.

If you are privileged to get a hold of a copy of Professor Chinua Achebe's latest book, There Was a
Country, my sincere advise is please do read. However, I must warn you that you will not find within its
pages, the humorous Achebe you are used to, you will not find within the leaves the ever so intriguing
Igbo wise cracks and wisdom tips that Achebe the master story teller has been known for. In this book
you will find an angry Achebe, a hurting old man, who has gone beyond sugar coating the obvious to
sound politically acceptable pouring out his deepest grudges without mincing words or looking "Uche
face" in new age colloquial terminology.
A compelling book, well researched and concise. It does not assume what it wasn't certain of and does
not pretend to know what went down behind closed doors as most memoirs associated with such
significant incidents in history were wont to do.
The book however brought out a side of Prof Achebe which he had probably kept in for so long. Firstly,
the book did not ring true as a personal story, it felt more like a collection of research works which agreed
with the feelings of the writer. I'm sure those who had read the book will wonder how a personal memoir
of incidents of which you were a firsthand witness could be riddled with so much references and direct
quotes from multiple authors. I'm not a writer just a book enthusiasts so my opinion is entirely personal
and this article is just an attempt to put down my feelings about the book.
Secondly, I was a little surprised (alarmed would be more appropriate) at the unapologetic presentation of
the Igbo people as such wise and enlightened race, heads and shoulders above their Nigerian brothers,
as the only people who understood the needs of Nigeria at that time and were willing to sacrifice
themselves to lead their less enlightened neighbors to the promise land. The book was openly "arrogant"
and condescending of other ethnic nationalities which comprises the Nigerian state especially the
Northern tribes. The book presented the Igbos as the Messiah positioned to save the Nigerian federation
and their rejection as the antithesis to our progress and prosperity.
I am not in a position to affirm or reject this notion but as far as I know, no person is indispensable, is Prof
Achebe saying that if the secession of Biafra had been successful, the rest of Nigeria would have
disintegrated into chaos? Hardly so. The reason which Nigeria failed then and is still failing today as he
rightly proposed in the later chapters of the book is simply because it had the misfortune of being led at
every point in its existence by not only incompetent and inept leaders, but also heartless rulers who could
not stand up to any ideal in their personal nor public lives. The Federal govt under Tafawa Balewa was a
disaster incapable of making any decision objectively without a political bias, Gen Ironsi and Gen Gowon
were "boys" of the power blocs and always eager to show their masters how loyal they were and so it has
continued until today.
This praise singing of the Igbo intellect actually placed Achebe in a tight position where after praising the
Igbo intellect to high heavens, he swiftly attempted to dismiss Nzeogwu the leader of the Jan 15, 1966
coup as a more North than Igbo because he spoke Hausa fluently and was born in the North. What we
cannot change however was that while all other regions lost their political leadership, not one Igbo was
killed, that was difficult to understand. And as stated in the book, according to the military process, the
coup plotters were not executed but transferred to prisons in no other place but the East! How more can
you build distrust but by subverting justice! This is not to say that the violent reactions of clear genocide
against the Igbos across the length and breadth of Nigeria by the Hausa/Fulani North was in anyway
justified, however I'd hazard a guess that the coup plotters of Jan 1966 and subsequently Gen Ironsi were
foolish not to take the ethnic fragmentations of the Nigeria of that era into consideration.

Another impression I got from reading the book is that for Achebe this book probably provides closure for
all the anger and frustrations he has held in for so log while anticipating the emergence a prosperous and
truly united Nigeria which that generation had dreamed of since independence.
The book leaves me with the impression that Chinua Achebe was demanding an apology for all the pains
this nation had inflicted on him, his generation and the entire Igbo nation. I unconsciously muttered an
apology after finishing the book, in an attempt to calm this clearly furious elder. I also hope all the major
players especially Gen Gowon (because he was a major stakeholder and also because he is still alive)
would admit that the war and its prosecution was insincere, and unfair. Most especially because the root
cause was never because the Igbos actually wanted another country but because the Nigerian
government of that day looked on as a people were killed and did nothing. What would have been
unrighteous was the leadership of the Igbos then to also look on in despair doing nothing.
Achebe was however spot on in one issue which is the fact that Nigeria has not once even till date had a
competent and capable leadership and this has constantly resulted in the predicament we continually find
ourselves.