Jos Boy's Tale of the Nigerian Biafra War is written to bring true reconciliation and to show those who are currently leading many countries of the world that, “you gain nothing by violence.” There is honour in peaceful settlement of any dispute. Onwusa Opiah in this book postulates that an inclusive government with qualified people in positions of authority, in line with their potential, would enable Nigeria to achieve greatness. He defines patriotism as the ability to give up selfish interest for the general good of the people. It encompasses taking action devoid of nepotism and the success of the country and its citizens. Writing this book is also aimed at correcting the erroneous impression held by many people in Nigeria that the war was fought because the Igbo people wanted to secede. As can explained in the book, this impression cannot be true as the Igbo people called home any place they found themselves in. It is written to provoke readers, that if within two and a half years, Biafra was able to build a refinery and manufacture other things, what stops Nigeria after sixty years of independence?

New Perspectives on the Nigeria-Biafra War: No Victor, No Vanquished analyzes the continued impact of the Nigeria-Biafra war on the Igbo, the failure of the reconstruction and reconciliation effort in the post-war period, and the politics of exclusion of the memory of the war in public discourse in Nigeria. Furthermore, New Perspectives on the Nigeria-Biafra War explores the resilience of the Igbo people and the different strategies they have employed to preserve the history and memory of Biafra. The contributors argue that the war had important consequences for the socio-political developments in the post-war period, ushering in two differing ideologies: a paternalistic ideology of “co-option” of the Igbo by the Nigerian state, under the false premise of ‘No Victor, No Vanquished,” and the Igbo commitment to self-preservation on the other.

Not quite four months after the Western Region's election of October 10, 1965, did the localized mayhem in that Region find its way furiously into the center of the nation on January 15, 1966! It was like a whirl-wind of nothing but anarchy and lawlessness. The serious aftermath of the marred and rigged election was that it acted as the last straw that broke the Carmel's back, providing immediate reason for the army to overthrow the government of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. Anarchy ensued; a counter coup led to the death of Major-General Ironsi. Callous barbarous massacre of thousands of easterners in the North followed. With their lives in jeopardy, easterners fled for safety to eastern region; refugee crisis followed. To guarantee their safety, easterners seceded from Nigeria and on May 30th 1967, formed an independent and sovereign nation of the Republic of Biafra. Determined to bring Easterners back, on July 6, 1967 Nigeria invaded Biafra; waged a gruesome thirty-month-civil war against Biafra. Nigeria blockaded Biafra on land, sea and air, to prevent food from entering Biafra. A malnutrition disease, Kwashiorkor that caused the deaths of thousands of Biafrans, followed. Nigeria bombed Biafran civilians, killing thousands. On January 12, 1970 the war ended leaving more than three million people dead in a war that was totally avoidable!

This first comprehensive study of the Nigeria-Biafra War (1967-1970) through the lens of gender explores the valiant and gallant ways women carried out old and new responsibilities in wartime and immediate postwar Nigeria. The book presents women as embodiments of vulnerability and agency, who demonstrated remarkable resilience and initiative, waging war on all fronts in the face of precarious conditions and scarcities, and maximizing opportunities occasioned by the hostilities. Women’s experiences are highlighted through critical analyses of oral interviews, memoirs, life histories, fashion and material culture, international legal conventions, music, as well as governmental and non-governmental sources. The book fills the gap in the war scholarship that has minimized women’s complex experiences fifty years after the hostilities ended. It highlights the cost of the conflict on Nigerian women, their participation in the hostilities, and their contributions to the survival of families, communities and the country. The chapters present counter-narratives to fictional and nonfictional accounts of the war, especially those written by men, which often peripheralize or stereotypically represent women as passive spectators or helpless victims of the conflict; and also highlight and exaggerate women’s moral laxity and sensationalize their marital infidelities.

Rich Schaffer served the Lord for 20 years as a missionary pilot with the Sudan Interior Mission in Nigeria, West Africa. Harold Fuller wrote .. Great stuff, Rich. You have a very interesting writing style .. reconstructing conversation, describing vividly, building suspense. Were enjoying the chapters as you send them. I knew you were an accomplished pilot, but had no idea of your writing skills. Glad you are now using them! Flying with Rich at the controls was always okay. Although my heart at times pounded as the tiny Cessna faced a threatening tropical storm. I knew this matter-of fact guy of few words had the courage and professional experience to find a hole through or around the thunderheads and bring us out safely on the other side. And Rich always acknowledged that the Lord had given him the qualities that made him a top-rate pilot for Africas uncertain weather and questionable landing strips. In this story about SIMAIR, Rich takes the reader through many an adventure that showed Gods hand to be on the Mission aircraft and its occupants. With vivid description and homey dialogue , Rich weaves an honest account how God took a little boy from a tarpaper shack in Americas Midwest and made him part of a team who brought the Gospel to the neglected interior of West Africa .. fullfilling his boyhood dream of flying. Down to earth humor, growing pains, high adventure, finding God in dry season and rainy-season tempest .. Rich holds the readers attention from pagecone to the storys end. W. Harold Fuller, Lit.D (SIM Nigeria Director for several years of the Shaffers ministry)

In 1966, several waves of rioting in northern Nigeria culminated in the brutal massacre of thousands of easterners by their northern Nigerian counterparts. Sensing that their safety could no longer be guaranteed, the easterners fled to the eastern region and established an independent nation called Biafra. Refusing to accept her sovereignty, Nigeria waged a thirty-month war against Biafra, targeting air assaults at civilian locations, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of children, women, and the elderly. Nigeria used land and sea blockade to prevent relief food from reaching hungry masses in Biafra and thousands of children died from a form of malnutrition called kwashiorkor. At the end of it all in 1970, two million people had perished.

Some were paid. Some felt compelled by a duty to God. Some volunteered. Some died doing it. All flew on rickety old aircraft into a nighttime, wartime patch of African forest called Biafra. Far Away in the Sky gives the personal account of one of them, a young American volunteer who joined the largest international humanitarian relief airlift ever attempted. In 1968 millions of people, mostly children, were starving due to a military blockade of Biafra, the former Eastern Region of Nigeria. The World Council of Churches and Caritas International mounted a relief airlift. Flying at night to avoid Nigerian Migs, without radar or any modern navigational aids, landing amid bombs on a stretch of road in the rain forest, the old planes delivered thousands of tons of food and medicines. UNICEF recruited six former United States Peace Corps Volunteers, including the author, to help unload the planes. The former volunteers had served in Nigeria and were familiar with the area and the people. To David Koren the people of Biafra, his former students and fellow teachers, constituted his motive for joining the airlift. More than just a memoir of events, Far Away in the Sky promotes a discussion of international aid, of the balance between the grace of giving and the dignity of receiving aid, and the policies of governments toward intervention or non-intervention in humanitarian disasters. How do the lessons of Biafra apply to modern eruptions like Rwanda, Darfur, Libya, Syria and those yet to come? .