Odumegwu Ojukwu, once the leader of Biafra, died during the last few days of November. He received respectable obituaries in the New York Times and the Washington Post. Both Robert D. McFadden and T. Rees Shapiro got all the facts right and understood the causes and the horrors of the Nigerian Civil War well. But, befitting a man who was only a minor figure in African history, the notices were relatively small, and there was no room to portray his audacity, his operatic flair, his demeaning wit, and his contempt for the many less gifted than he. I interviewed Colonel Ojukwu for the first time in June 1967 a day or two after he had seceded from Nigeria and proclaimed the independent republic of Biafra...

More than 40 years ago, I sat in the Western Nigeria House of Assembly in Ibadan and marveled at how well the British colonial government had implanted its democratic parliamentary system into this new African country. An African page in blue knee breeches and red stockings walked into the chamber carrying a mace. “The Speak-uh,” he cried. The Speaker, a tall African in white wig and black robes, entered, strode across the chamber and sat in his enormous chair. The page carefully put the mace on its stand on the table below the Speaker and saluted him...

Images play as important a role as guns in the Nigerian civil war. The Biafran secessionists, among Africa's most sophisticated peoples, have known from the beginning that their chances for success depended as much, on evoking world sympathy as on holding back the federal army. Now, after twenty months of war, it is clear that the Biafrans have been far more adept at propaganda than soldiering. If they survive in some sovereign form, they will owe it to their skill with images. Part of the Biafran success in public relations stems from the federal Nigerian Government's failure at it.

Two simple posters explain the civil war in Nigeria. The first, a thin strip, was glued to the walls and windows of most public buildings in Enugu, the capital of Eastern Nigeria, a few weeks before the region seceded on May 30 to become the Republic of Biafra. The poster shows four men. Three look alike, obviously Ibos, the dominant tribe of the east. The fourth man is a Hausa from Northern Nigeria. “This Is Your Region,” the poster says, “Report Any Strange Face to the Police.” The second poster, a little larger and more colorful, was slapped all over Lagos, the federal capital of Nigeria, a few weeks before federal troops invaded Biafra on July 6, the beginning of the civil war. This poster shows a monstrous drawing of the severed head of Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu, the ruler of Biafra, lying under the heavy combat boot of a Nigerian soldier. “Crush Rebellion,” the poster says...

Makes Fools of Federal Military Ruler, Other Opponents in Nigerian Crisis - Lt. Col. C. Odumegwu Ojukwu is a roughly bearded young man with soft eyes and gentle tones and an unconcealed contempt for the men who oppose him in the present Nigerian crisis. There is a feeling in Lagos, the capital of Nigeria, that all these Nigerian troubles with the secessionist state of Biafra would go away if only its leader, Ojukwu, would also go away. The feeling Is false. But it is worth recording because it reveals one of the problems In the crisis - the federal rulers know in their bones that Ojukwu has contempt for them...

[OPINION] The angry young men of Nigeria seem tired and subdued these days and not so young anymore. Five years ago, when I visited Lagos, they rushed from nightclub to nightclub, dancing the highlife and drinking and complaining, shouting abuse at politicians, accusing them of corruption, greed, nepotism, ignorance, inefficiency, sloth, lethargy. Their anger had excitement. One young man would pace back and forth and flap his arms in anguish over the sickness in his government. Their frustration was dramatic. "I am an angry young man," one told me, slamming his fist into his palm, "but I do not know what to do." When their frustration mounted, they would grow quiet and bitter, and talk vaguely about plots. Some day, they whispered, the army would put an end to all this...

One night in steaming, gamboling Lagos, a young Nigerian poet leaned forward and whispered, "Nigeria is made up of a caste of corruption on the top and a caste of grumblers on the bottom." A friend joined in. "The grumblers are angry." "No," the poet disagreed. "They are not angry yet. They still have too much." These words caught the mood of a generation in Africa...

FOREIGN AID PATTERN - Will the developing nations have to adjust their sights and hopes to meet the new look in American foreign aid? Officials at the Agency for International Development (AID) have declined to divulge just how the new guidelines for foreign aid will affect specific nations. But non-government experts surveyed by the Associated Press have applied the principles laid down by Gen. Lucius Clay's special study committee and by President Kennedy in his foreign aid message to congress on Tuesday, and generally have come up with these conclusions...