Do You Know Steve Jobs, Co-founder Of Apple Inc. Left The Church Because Of The British Role In The Biafran War?

By Okoro Ukata

Steve Jobs was the American inventor/entrepreneur and co-founder and ex-CEO of Apple Inc., makers of iPhone, iPod, iPad, and the Apple Computers; who was born and bred in San Francisco, U.S.A. Though the world lost him in death in October 2011, his products and businesses remain one of the most popular brands globally.

At a time, when an international magazine published the photos of famishing and dying children on their cover photo, Steve Jobs was rattled that Britain, a so called Christian country was behind the carnage and holocaust, overseeing the starving to death of over 4 million innocent women and children in Biafra land, a people who were 99% Christians, as well. 

It was in history that for over 3 years, the war lasted, British government and Army were the ones who planned and directed the Nigerian soldiers on the war fronts executing the extermination. Besides, their supply of Ferret armored cars, Saladin armored scout cars, Fox armored scout cars and other lethal weapons to the Nigerian government to wage the war against the Biafrans; a war that lasted from 1967-1970.

According to Washington State University website in an article written by COLE KIRKPATRICK, the Biafran war led by Colonel Ojukwu engaged the war to escape the "Dictatorship of the Northern Nigeria Military who were immensely discriminating the people of Southern and Eastern Nigeria."

This war, the University website blamed on the British as those who caused it as a result of how "Britain left the country at an uneasy state after Nigeria declared its independence in the beginning of 1960."

Steve Jobs could not understand how Britain a so called Christian nation could collaborate with the Government of Nigeria controlled by the Muslim North, against the Biafrans who are predominantly a Christian land. He imagined that as the colonizers of the people, they would have made peace for them, rather than side the Islamic federal government to exterminate another group of same faith.

Truly, this war that snuffed away over 4 million Biafran lives mostly women and children as a result of artificial famine created by the British's sponsored land and sea blockade preventing food and supplies entering the Biafran zone, and leading millions to waste away in extreme hunger and malnutrition. Thus the University website was right to call the war, "One of the most deadly inter country wars that took place in the twentieth century."



Starved Biafran children. Photo credit: Nairaland 

Opening image: Biafran children. Photo credit: Subversify Magazine

The American Who Died For Biafra

By Okoro Ukata

August Martin:

He was the first African American to pilot a commercial aircraft. His middle name was Harvey, born in Los Angeles, California. Her mother, a professional teacher taught her at home until he was 13. After which he went to Secondary School and also graduated from the University.
August Martin washed airplanes at the Oakland Flying Service to earn money that enabled him to train on how to fly.

He completed his training at the University of California, civilian pilot training program. He later joined the U.S. Army around 1943 and perfected in the flying of the B-25 twin-engine bomber and various other ranges of advanced fighter jets. 

He later left the army and went back to commercial piloting where he flew for Buffalo Skylines, El Al Airlines, and World Airways. He was the first black captain of an LI.S. at Seaboard World Airlines.

August Martin was convinced that the war being waged against Biafrans was unjust and took it upon himself to use his airplane on a Mercy Mission to come drop food for the millions of starving Biafran women and children dying because of the British sponsored air and sea blockade against the Biafrans. 

Despite all threats from the Nigerian government, August Martin continued to single-handedly fly food and other supplies to the Biafrans. 

But unfortunately, in 1968 he was killed while trying to land his aircraft in a rainstorm at Uli, though some account had it that his aircraft was shot down and crashed by the Nigerian troops. He died June 30, 1968, and all Biafrans remember August Harvey Martin this day, as one of the heroes of the Biafran people.

Today, a school in New York still bears his name in honor of this great African-American whose legacy can never be forgotten by the people he died helping: The massacred people of Biafra. 

He was born August 31, 1919.



Opening image: August Harvey Martin. Photo credit: Geni