Despite all its strange names and obscure terrain, surprise thrusts and counter-thrusts, wild claims and counter-claims, the Nigerian civil war is simple to follow and understand, for only one battlefield matters, the heartland of the Ibo people. Now that heartland has been penetrated. The federal military government says it has captured Enugu, the coal town of 60,000 that is the capital of Biafra, the name the Eastern Region took when it seceded last May 30, bitter because thousands of lbos, its dominant tribe, had been massacred in Northern Nigeria last year. If the claim about Enugu is true, Biafra may have received a staggering blow. Capitals usually have more than symbolic value in Africa. Since towns are small and communications bad, capitals usually are the center of all modern life. In general, they have the only good airport, the only control for letting telephone calls go from one city to another, the only radio transmitter, the only buildings big enough to house a government...

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