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Biafra’s Captives: The “Oilmen Incident” and International Diplomacy in the Nigerian Civil War

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Captivity in War during the Twentieth Century

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Abstract

In the Nigerian Civil War, also known as the “Biafran War,” captivity was an important issue of transnational dimensions. This chapter looks at the capture of Western oilmen, who worked for the Italian oil company Eni, by Biafran forces in 1969. Hereby, the main focus is on the ensuing negotiations for their release. Not only the Italian state was involved in the mediation efforts, but so, too, various other transnational actors such as the Western European Union, the Portuguese government, the presidents of Gabon and Ivory Coast, the Vatican and some international organisations. The oilmen’s eventual release was a huge success for the negotiators, but a defeat for Biafra, which had hoped to use the captives in order to strengthen its claims of sovereignty.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo and Samuel Udochukwu Ifejika, The Making of a Nation: Biafra (London: C. Hurst & Company, 1969), 3.

  2. 2.

    Godfrey B. Warren, “Petroleum and the Nigerian Civil War, 1967–1970,” The Fletcher Forum 3, no. 2 (2000): 66.

  3. 3.

    David Tattersall, “Biafra Captive Sally is Home,” Daily Mirror, June 18, 1969.

  4. 4.

    TNA (The National Archives of the UK), FCO 65/362, West African Department. Mercenaries in Biafra, Press Release on the Capture of a Portuguese Pilot from Lagos, Telegram no. 2361, 12th November 1969. Information on prisoners of war and other captives was highly classified during the conflict. Not even international journalists or military attachés of the British High Commission and of the United States Embassy in Lagos knew much about the actual number of people captured in the war. See: TNA, FCO 38/297, West and General Africa Department. Nigeria. Relief Operations and Financial Aid for Nigeria. Confidential: Minute on Red Cross Developments from British High Commissioner in Lagos, Sir David Hunt, to Commonwealth Office, telegram no. 38, 28 October 1967, 26 August 1967–1 May 1968.

  5. 5.

    A.H.M. Kirk-Greene, Crisis and Conflict in Nigeria: A Documentary Source Book, 1966–1969, vol. II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 116.

  6. 6.

    Gerhard Seibert, “São Tomé and the Biafran War, 1967–1970,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 51, no. 2 (2018): 263–292.

  7. 7.

    Bridget Bloom, “Biafran Threat to Nigeria’s Oil,” Financial Times, May 31, 1969. See also: Onianwa Oluchuchukwu Ignatus, Oilfields and Airpower in African Conflict: The Case of Biafra (Washington, DC and London: Academica Press, 2019).

  8. 8.

    TNA, FCO 65/436, West African Department, Nigeria, Oil: General policy. Sir L. Glass to Foreign Office, June 19, 1969.

  9. 9.

    Alexander A. Madiebo, The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War (Enugu: Fourth Dimension Publishing Company, 1980), 328.

  10. 10.

    Chinua Achebe, There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra (London: Penguin Books, 2012), 218.

  11. 11.

    Ibid.

  12. 12.

    Madiebo, The Nigerian Revolution, 328–329.

  13. 13.

    Ibid.

  14. 14.

    Ibid., 328.

  15. 15.

    “No Oil Upon the Waters,” The Economist Foreign Report, November 27, 1969.

  16. 16.

    Suzanne Cronje, The World and Nigeria: The Diplomatic History of the Nigerian Civil War 1967–1970 (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1972), 148.

  17. 17.

    Madiebo, The Nigerian Revolution, 329.

  18. 18.

    Arua Oko Omaka, “The Nigerian Civil War and the ‘Italian’ Oil Workers,” War and Society 38, no. 3 (2019): 203–224.

  19. 19.

    Madiebo, The Nigerian Revolution, 329–330.

  20. 20.

    Michael Gould, The Struggle for Modern Nigeria: The Biafran War, 1967–1970 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2013), 82.

  21. 21.

    Ibid., 82–83.

  22. 22.

    American Committee to Keep Biafra Alive Inc., “Oilmen. Current News from and About Biafra,” 15 (1969): 1.

  23. 23.

    Gould, The Struggle for Modern Nigeria, 83.

  24. 24.

    TNA, OD 30/168, Department of Technical Co-operation and successors: West and North Africa Department, Nigeria: Biafran War; Humanitarian Aid. Confidential: Minute on International Committee of Red Cross and Nigerian Civil War Relief from the British Consular-General in Geneva to Foreign and Commonwealth Office London, 25 June 1969.

  25. 25.

    John Stremlau, The International Politics of the Nigerian Civil War, 1967–1970 (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1977), 332.

  26. 26.

    Italian Parliamentary Discussions, Chamber of Deputies, Sitting of 10 June, 1969, accessed July 1, 2020, http://legislature.camera.it/_dati/leg05/lavori/stenografici/sed0141/sed0141.pdf.

  27. 27.

    TNA, FCO 65/242, West African Department, Nigeria, Western European Union: Discussion of the Nigerian Crisis, Confidential: Minute on the proposed talks between the British Foreign Secretary and the Foreign Ministers of Italy and Germany over the capture of their citizens from Head of West African Department of British Foreign Office John Wilson to Barrington, June 29, 1969.

  28. 28.

    TNA, FCO 65/241, West African Department, Nigeria, Multilateral Relations. Western European: Discussion of the Nigerian Crisis. Confidential: Foreign Office Brief No. 4: Nigeria’s Background Notes for Western European Union Ministerial Meeting Held in Luxemburg, February 6–7, 1969.

  29. 29.

    TNA, FCO 65/242, West African Department, Nigeria, Western European Union: Discussion of the Nigerian Crisis. Secret: WEU Ministerial Meeting at The Hague, CR (69) 14, June 5–6, 1969.

  30. 30.

    Ibid.

  31. 31.

    Ibid.

  32. 32.

    Ibid.

  33. 33.

    Like the protagonists in Brian K. Feltman’s chapter in this book, the Italian now explored every diplomatic channel they could think of to get their captured nationals released.

  34. 34.

    Lawrence Chuks Osuji, “Transnational Organizations as Actors in the Nigerian Civil War, 1967–1970” (PhD diss., North Texas State University, 1979), 62.

  35. 35.

    Stremlau, The International Politics, 332.

  36. 36.

    Seibert, “São Tomé and the Biafran War,” 285–286.

  37. 37.

    Mario Pedini, Biafra 1969: Notebook of a Mission (Brescia: La Scuola, 1989).

  38. 38.

    Ibid., 24.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., 18. Pedini informed Nenni that he had a longstanding, good personal relationship with the President of Ivory Coast as well as other important men in the country’s then-capital, Abidjan. Reference to these connections was made in the abovementioned letter.

  40. 40.

    Ibid., 21.

  41. 41.

    Ibid., 22.

  42. 42.

    In his speech on May 30, 1969, General Ojukwu did not mention the issue of the Italian captives, despite using harsh words against those who profiteered from the war. See: Pedini, Biafra, 26.

  43. 43.

    Kirk-Green, Crisis and Conflict in Nigeria, 116.

  44. 44.

    Pedini, Biafra, 26.

  45. 45.

    Cronje, The World and Nigeria.

  46. 46.

    Seibert, “São Tomé and the Biafran War,” 269.

  47. 47.

    Ibid.

  48. 48.

    Ibid., 285.

  49. 49.

    Ibid.

  50. 50.

    Ibid.

  51. 51.

    Ibid., 286.

  52. 52.

    TNA, FCO 65/242, West African Department, Nigeria, Western European Union: Discussion of the Nigerian Crisis Confidential: Minute on Oilmen and Nigeria, WEU Ministerial Meeting from Foreign Office to The Hague Telegram No. 155, June 5, 1969.

  53. 53.

    Seibert, “São Tomé and the Biafran War,” 286.

  54. 54.

    Ojukwu, Odumegwu, “Transcript of a Speech by General C. Odumegwu Ojukwu on the Release of the Eighteen Expatriates Captured by the Biafran Troops During an Operation at Kwale,” Biafra News, June 6, 1969.

  55. 55.

    Pedini, Biafra, 42.

  56. 56.

    Seibert, “São Tomé and the Biafran War,” 286.

  57. 57.

    Ibid.

  58. 58.

    Pedini, Biafra, 46.

  59. 59.

    Gerhard Seibert, “São Tomé and the Biafran War,” 286.

  60. 60.

    Pedini, Biafra, 47.

  61. 61.

    Seibert, “São Tomé and the Biafran War,” 286.

  62. 62.

    Chuks Osuji, “Transnational Organizations,” 61.

References

Archival Sources

  • Italian Parliamentary Discussions, Chamber of Deputies, Sitting of June 10, 1969, http://legislature.camera.it/_dati/leg05/lavori/stenografici/sed0141/sed0141.pdf. Accessed July 1, 2020.

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  1. University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria

    Oluchukwu Ignatus Onianwa

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  1. Military Academy, ETH Zurich, Birmensdorf, Switzerland

    Marcel Berni

  2. Military Academy, ETH Zurich, Birmensdorf, Switzerland

    Tamara Cubito

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Onianwa, O.I. (2021). Biafra’s Captives: The “Oilmen Incident” and International Diplomacy in the Nigerian Civil War. In: Berni, M., Cubito, T. (eds) Captivity in War during the Twentieth Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65095-7_8

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