Nigeria: The Determined Ibos

Ojukwu thinks I'll be just a titular head and sign the papers for him. I will like hell. —Lieut. Colonel Yakubu Gowon

Gowon is like a toddler trying to sweep out a room with a big broom—amusing and slightly pathetic. —Lieut. Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu

Such quarrelsome words usually lead straight to trouble, and that is just what was brewing last week in Africa's most populous nation. For months Nigeria has teetered on the edge of civil war, its fate hinging on relations between two young, untested leaders. Colonel Ojukwu, 33, governor of the Eastern Region of Nigeria, afraid of a repeat...

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