Nigeria's Triple Crisis

...With some businesses already halting investment plans because of blackout losses, a government tribunal has been hearing testimony in Lagos since July 12 on charges by a government counsel of graft and inefficiency in ECN...

...The Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (ECN), a government-financed power monopoly, is unable to produce enough power to supply Lagos and Ibadan, the country's two largest cities, forcing rotation of power around their various sections from day to day...

...As Lagos columnist Tai Solarin wrote recently: "We took over from the British the suzerainty of this country and we stood against one another with our venomous teeth bared...

...Neither yam, garri nor native beans would be palatable without a strongly-flavored stew, usually built around palm oil...

...and upset by the convulsive violence, much of the public now welcomed them back as leaders of their tribal groups for the impending struggle...

...We awarded scholarships not on their merits to the individuals deserving them, but to the sons and daughters of our cousin-in-law's elder brother's children, whatever their disqualifications...

...We borrowed money from the government and built houses which, in turn, we rented out to the same government at crippling prices and were soon in position to pay for the houses from the rent collected from the same government on the same houses...

...The murder of several leading figures from the old civilian government, followed by the deposing of the first leaders of the military government, had created a leadership vacuum the politicians were eager to fill...

...Corruption in public service was condemned in terms clear and crisp...

...Happily, however, though city streets and bush paths were full of people who feigned hunger to beg a shilling from a passing white man, famine was never a threat...

...To add to popular discontent, severe power failures have been plaguing many areas...

...The southern tribes, in addition, are pagan and Christian (they commonly worship tribal deities at the local ju-ju shrine on Saturday, then go to the Anglican or Catholic church on Sunday), while the Hausas are Moslem...

...In March, a market woman would fill up your used gallon motor oil can with palm oil for 70 cents...

...On August 8, Gowon announced that he would repeal Ironsi's unification decrees and return the country to its former federal arrangements...

...now it costs almost 25 cents...

...CAUSES OF A BLOODY RESHUFFLING Nigeria's Triple Crisis By William Quillnot Lagos The bitter tribal rivalry that brought a bloody reshuffling of power in Nigerian military government the weekend of July 29 seemed to signal the failure of the dream of Nigerian reformers: to bring honesty, unity and efficiency to a corrupt, tribalistic, wasteful government...

...So far market sales continue as briskly as ever and everyone is eating...

...The government also has asked food-growers not to raise prices and marketers not to hoard...

...During the first week in June, as refugees from Northern terrorism streamed into the southern provinces, and the government clamped curfews on Kano and Katsina, the trouble was seemingly alleviated by an agreement, with terms still not fully divulged, between General Ironsi and a group of Northern rulers...

...Some people blame it all on the weather...

...The politicians themselves, in their first statements, seemed to regard themselves not as repentant criminals but as victims of persecution and returning heroes...

...Now that the supply has been cut off, Camerounian farmers have begun breaking new ground for a decidedly inferior substitute, cocoyams...

...Iboland, the Eastern provinces, has an advantage over other areas in both natural resources (especially oil) and job skills...

...Last rainy season (May through September) the southern parts of the country underwent the heaviest rain in many years, and since then they have suffered a near drought...

...But the overwhelming initial enthusiasm had subsided...

...We sat on the corporation management only to channel all the funds there were into our own private purses...

...The politicians had amassed tremendous power and wealth during their years in office and their fingers still reach deep into the nation's economy...

...Whatever the cause of the situation, the government was clearly worried, though not panicky...

...Over the years the country has qualified for more than $2 million worth of milk and other food from the U.S...

...we filled every available genuine vacancy and the artificially created ones only with men from our own tribes...

...Ever since World War II, but especially since the years just before independence, the country has seen a mad dash by its young men for the prestige of education, a white collar job and a city residence...

...The price of tomatoes, another important ingredient in stews, has more than doubled...

...Other Nigerians impute the crisis to a plot by the politicians of the First Republic who were kicked out of office in January...

...Many would like nothing better than to erode popular support for the military regime by instigating a food crisis...

...We were never Nigerians...

...Accompanied by the first hints of rising prices, the oracular predictions encouraged people to start hoarding food, sending prices still higher...

...Of the three crises, all hitting the country within two months, only the rioting could legitimately be blamed on the military government, and most people believe its catalytic anti-tribalism decrees were necessary and wise...

...When the Army ousted the civilian government January 15 relatively few people here opposed the coup...

...While vitamin deficiency has been common, empty stomachs have been rare...

...Then, with the revolt, the Army-seemingly the one hope for a reformed and unified Nigeria-revealed that it had fallen prey to the same tribal feuding that had plagued the politicians...

...Perhaps in its development, Nigeria has paid too much attention to its head and too little to its stomach...

...None of this is directly the fault of the military government...

...But a number of experts gloomily suggest that the real problem is a forced and precipitate attempt to modernize the economy...

...For the last two years, ECN irresponsibly has let its equipment deteriorate without investing money in maintenance or necessary expansion...

...In March, a yam large enough for two meals cost about 14 cents in the fertile southern regions...

...Some areas are getting electricity only one day of every three and no relief is likely soon...

...Since in the chase for prestige one cannot do worse than farming, most boys regard secondary school success as a permanent exemption from the sight of seed yams...

...Hausas and Yorubas (Westerners) justified their actions by charging that the Ibos were trying to dominate the country, and that Ironsi had been favoring them with jobs...

...Now the long tuber, resembling an overgrown Irish potato, and one of the two mainstays of the Nigerian diet, costs about 28 cents...

...Since independence, Nigeria has been pelted by problems as implacably as it always is by the June rains...

...and the unification of the civil service, taking patronage out of the hands of regional tribal organizations...

...The corporation is waiting for completion-optimistically scheduled for September 1968-of the $224 million Kainji Dam and hydro-electric plant on the Niger River in the somewhat dubious belief that it alone will solve the power problem...

...abolition of the old Federation's four regions, which were created according to major tribal groupings...

...Although Nigeria is the most heavily populated country in Africa (one of every six Africans is a Nigerian), there has been no serious talk of a birth control program...

...One victim was neighboring Cameroun, a country unsuitable for yam farming and long dependent on yams brought from Calabar in Eastern Nigeria...

...Ironically, what triggered the new flare-up of tribal suspicions and jealousies was a government move to help bury tribalism...

...These familiar claims stem in part from the economic aggressiveness of the Ibos, who have spread themselves throughout Nigeria as businessmen and laborers...

...The Northern party did capture the old Western region for two years through rigged elections supported by the Federal government, and it was popular uprisings against this government foisted on the Western region that provoked the Army takeover...

...A week later, hundreds of people in Benin City, the Midwestern capital, rushed to the palace of the Oba (king) of Benin, where a cock was said to have begun talking...

...No one knows just how the food difficulties began, but there have been several explanations offered...

...Usman Dan Fodio, the great Moslem leader of the early 19th century, once challenged his people to "dip the Koran in the sea" (gain control over the southern coastal tribes) and many Nigerians, north and south, never quite have forgotten it...

...It is possible, too, that the political violence in the West during the last harvest distracted many farmers from their work...

...Another common bulk food, black-eyed peas, or native beans, used to sell for 10 cents for a meal...

...At the beginning of April, word spread that a certain priest of Olokun, god of the seas and rivers, major deity of the Yoruba and several Midwestern tribes, had forecast famine for 1966...

...Hundredsperhaps thousands-were killed...

...The vast majority of Nigerians seemed disgusted with the politicians, infused with new patriotism, and genuinely eager to correct the political mistakes of the country's five year existence...

...Yet the massive enthusiasm for collective development and democracy was tragically dissolving...

...but as long as the scare persists, such requests are unlikely to be heeded...

...But almost at once the new government and its popular following was demoralized by a series of political, technological and agricultural crises...

...Unquestionably, the revolt represented a severe defeat for the Ibos...

...But many people an saying prices will keep on soaring until finally there will be no food to be bought, and many are scared...

...By the end of July, when the Army's internal revolt occurred, the government still commanded widespread support, nearly universal in the southern provinces...

...During the first phase of the military rule, the Nigerian public was treated to a note it had never heard before...

...For such a program to succeed, moreover, Nigerians would have to change their belief in family and tribal numbers as a source of prestige...

...As the country teetered, the new Army leaders tried to appease the fears of the people by releasing the politicians detained for investigation after the January coup...

...Food for Peace program...

...Suddenly, in the past few months, food prices all over the country lurched up, more than doubling in many places, and people began talking seriously of famine...

...and the Nigerian economy has been able to produce enough yam and palm oil stew at low enough cost to make starvation appear a remote prospect, particularly since Nigeria still has much arable but uncultivated land...

...Another Nigerian government reaction has been official glorification of the bucolic life in an attempt to get educated people to stay in the farming villages...

...Now you must pay 98...

...The food scare and the power failures were followed by rioting in the North, posing the first real political challenge to the new regime...

...Because the local diet always has revolved around such a limited number of items, cheap and plentiful in the past, Nigerians feel they have no alternatives if these become too costly or too scarce...

...We were Aworis, we were Yorubas, we were Ijaws, we were Hausas, we were Ibos, we were Moslems, we were Christians, we were chiefs, we were princes...

...The Northerners, controlling the Federal government and a large portion of civil service jobs, had had the best of the old system...

...A few months ago it banned the export of foodstuffs, thus exporting the food shortage itself...

...While large groups of Ibo officers serving in the North and West were reported murdered by Hausa troops, a Northerner, Lieutenant Colonel Yakubu Gowon, became the new head of government, shunting aside his superior officer, Brigadier Babafemi Ogundipe, a southerner...

...The other major food source here is garri, a substance ground from the casava root that forms a thick paste when mixed with water and is eaten at least once a day by many Nigerians...

...The breakdown of two of the five generator motors supplying Benin City, with no spare parts on hand, has caused a similar situation there...

...A week's supply, formerly costing about 56 cents, now costs 98 cents...

...Everyone admitted he came too late to hear for himself, but was convinced nonetheless that the cock had warned of famine...

...Ironsi's directives evoked fears they would lose their jobs to the better educated southerners, particularly the Ibos...

...The politicians are waiting for tribal hatreds in and out of the Army to return them to the posts of political pelf they had so recently been forced to vacate...

...William Quillnot is a freelance journalist now living in Africa...

...For 10 days beginning May 28, Hausa tribesmen in Kano, Kaduna and Katsina, three major Northern cities, sacked and burned the homes of many Ibos (Easterners) living and working in the North...

...It is said now that either Ironsi's attempt to meet those terms, or his failure to meet them, brought his downfall and death...

...Although a shaky peace was obtained a week later, the country's future looks its darkest since independence in 1960...

...This combination is said to have played havoc with the crops...

...The head of the Army government, General Johnson Aguiyi Ironsi, himself an Ibo, decreed a ban on all tribal organizations until 1969...

...Privately, some government agricultural experts agree that food is going to get scarce in the next few months, and have advised people to build up stores in preparation...

...He added that he would summon an advisory committee of civilian appointees of the regional military governors to recommend a new constitution and to provide for a return to civilian rule as soon as possible...

...We gave our fabulous contract jobs on behalf of the country, but every time with the sole aim of feathering our own nest...

...Once more, in August, members of the tribe had to flow homeward from the North and West, some of them talking of withdrawing from the country to form a separate state...

...or even of arming themselves to invade Hausa territory in the North...

...Until the recent revolt, the Army had remained in complete control and commanded the loyalty of most Nigerians...