Nigerian Civil War

===Genocide question===
Legal scholar Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe and other academics argued that the Biafran war was a [[genocide]], for which no perpetrators have been held accountable.<ref>Heerten & Moses, "The Nigeria–Biafra War" (2014), p. 187. "The prolific independent scholar Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is perhaps the most outspoken articulator of this paradigm, which also depicts the Nigerian state as a prison house of nations, especially for the Igbo."</ref> Critics of this position acknowledge that starvation policies were pursued deliberately and that accountability has not been sought for the 1966 pogroms, but suggest that claims of genocide are incongruous with the fact that the Igbo were not exterminated after the war ended, alongside other arguments such as a lack of clarity surrounding Nigerian intentions and that Nigeria was fighting to retain control of Biafra and its people rather than to expel or exterminate them.<ref name="Njoku2013"/><ref>Heerten & Moses, "The Nigeria–Biafra War" (2014), p. 188.</ref> Biafra made a formal complaint of genocide against Igbos to the International Committee on the Investigation of Crimes of Genocide, a Paris-based [[NGO]] of international lawyers, which concluded that the actions undertaken by the Nigerian government against the Igbo amounted to a genocide.<ref>{{harvnb|Korieh|2013|p=731}}: "The International Committee on the Investigation of Crimes of Genocide found evidence of genocide and intent to commit genocide by northern Nigerians against the Igbo, and accused federal Nigeria of genocide in its report."</ref> With special reference to the Asaba Massacre, jurist Emma Okocha described the killings as "the first black-on-black genocide".{{sfn|Korieh|2013|p=737}} Ekwe-Ekwe places significant blame on the British government for their support of the Nigerian government, which he argued allowed for their depredations against the Igbo to continue.<ref>Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, "The Achebean Restoration", ''Journal of Asian and African Studies'' 48.6, 2013. "Britain was a central operative, along with the Nigerian state, in the planning and execution of the Igbo genocide right from its outset in 1966 to its concluding phases in 1969/1970. It was Britain's 'punishment' of the Igbo for its audacious lead of the struggle for the freeing of Nigeria from British occupation that began in the 1930s. Twice during that struggle, the occupation regime had casually watched two organised pogroms against the Igbo in north Nigeria—in 1945 and 1953. These murders, which also included the looting and destruction of tens of thousands of pounds' worth of Igbo property and businesses, were carried out by pro-British political forces in the region who were opposed to the restoration of African independence but who Britain would hand over supreme political power of the country to on the eve of its so-called departure from Nigeria in 1960. The pogroms were clearly dress rehearsals for subsequent genocide. / Without British complicity, it was highly unlikely that the Igbo genocide would have been embarked on in its initial phase by the Nigerian state with such unrelenting stretch and consequences between May and October 1966. Without the massive arms support that Nigeria received from Britain especially, it was highly improbably the Nigeria would have been in the military position to pursue its second phase of the genocide—namely, the invasion of Igboland—between July 1967 and January 1970. Harold Wilson, the British prime minister at the time, was adamant, as the slaughtering worsened, that he 'would accept' the death of 'a half a million' Igbo 'if that was what it took' the Nigerian genocidists on the ground to accomplish their ghastly mission (Morris, 1977:122)." See also: Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, "[http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category.php/comment/88468 Britain and the Igbo genocide: Now for the pertinent questions]", ''Pambazuka News'', 30 July 2013.</ref>