There is 'still' a country.

After taking the trouble to read Achebe's memoir "there was a country" which, with the intention of reviewing realized that it wasn't worth the effort. This memoir I must say, although is an elaborate depiction of what transpired before and during the war, it however PRIMARILY presented a tribe misconception and beatified the Igbo tribe above the other tribes in Nigeria.

I really do not need to exhume the ghost of the Biafra war or exclaim the inhumanity therein but the racist impressions borne by Achebe killed my courage to review the book. Some may review this piece of mind of mine as a candid review but i hold it a trickle of aspersion for the book. 

I do understand the betrayal Achebe suffered as a young man who believed in enhancing the development of a young country, until he was faced with either annihilation in Lagos or return to the safety of his home region. I also understand the campaign for a sovereign Biafra that failed. It was a bitter pill that had to be swallowed for no cure that had to be forgotten. The book if you manage to read it, although showed Achebe as one the greatest writers Nigeria could ever have but i must say it also wanes my belief in him as one of the greatest minds in cultural and traditional sustenance. 

The true Pan-Africanism spirit is lost in the book. This is not the kind of book our peace-fragile nation needs at this time. It is a kind of book that spurs young bloods to war and revive the dust of Biafra. What we need at this point are books to unite us as a country and not further put asunder to a wandering nation. No wonder Achebe has turned down many of the National Awards proposed to him. He was living in the fragmented world of Biafra. His ideal cultural limbo which, never did survive champions the basis of this so called memoir. 

Nigeria as a nation has come to stay. Any attempt of secession would appropriately lead to another civil war. At this point of our lives, this is not what we want. If Achebe hopes to invoke the spirit of vengeance in the youths, as he massages his approach to the great beyond, then he must very well have a rethink.