Half of a Yellow Sun: Part 2, Chapter 12 Summary & Analysis

The story now follows Richard, who is just touching down in Kano after his visit to London. He is reading a note he found from Kainene, which seems to profess her love for him. Richard smiles and cherishes this rare outburst of emotion from her. Richard walks out of the plane and decides he will propose to Kainene when he reaches Port Harcourt.

Richard talks to the customs officer, who is from the Southeast. Richard talks about his work in Nigeria and describes Kainene as his fiancée. He talks to the man in Igbo, and the man introduces himself as Nnaemeka. Nnaemeka starts to ramble about his family until a voice calls the passengers to their next flight. Richard bids him farewell.

Suddenly soldiers burst into the airport and start yelling for the Igbo “infidels” to identify themselves. One tells Nnaemeka to say “Allahu Akbar,” but Nnaemeka won’t, as he knows his Igbo accent will give him away. Richard sees the terror in his eyes, and then the soldier shoots Nnaemeka. The soldiers go on to shoot everyone speaking Igbo, and then to shoot all the bottles of liquor in the bar. They pull people out of the plane about to leave and shoot them too. Richard vomits and then gets on his next flight.

Richard comes to his old girlfriend Susan’s house in Lagos. She is totally calm and makes small talk with Richard, who is traumatized. Susan knows about the massacres going on, but she isn’t concerned about them. She says the Igbo had it coming to them, as they were acting “very Jewish” and controlling all the markets. She comments on how the Nigerians can’t control their hatred of each other, as they are uncivilized.

Richard goes into the bathroom and looks at himself in the mirror, feeling ashamed. He feels that he should be transfigured by seeing such horrors, and he feels guilty about worrying only about Kainene while Nnaemeka was being killed. Richard washes his face and starts to cry.

There is another section about The World Was Silent When We Died. The author of the book writes about the political forces that led to this Igbo massacre. When Nigeria was gaining independence, the North wanted to secede from the South, but Britain wanted to preserve the country as a whole because of its oil reserves in the Southeast. It rigged the government so the North would rule, and the South was so eager for independence that they agreed. Nigeria gained independence in 1960, and the author describes it as “a collection of fragments in a fragile clasp.”