This is a cross post.
I've been spending the last 24 hours searching fruitlessly for any kind of information to corroborate or contradict the account offered here, but have come up completely dry. The source in question is overtly biased and secondary at best, and I hoped some of you here might be able to help shed further illumination on the topic, given the disturbing nature of the accusations rendered by the author.
Thanks in advance, apologies if I've done something wrong or against etiquette.
Adding in any potential references I've found myself, and things I read that seemed like they might pertain to the topic at hand. Consider this post little more than a collection of notes; I figured I might as well "show my working".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_Civil_War#Britain
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/30/newsid_3733000/3733321.stm
https://www.pambazuka.org/governance/most-tragic-day-igbo-history-29-may-1966
The Harold Wilson-led British government of the day underwrote this devastating stretch of genocide militarily, politically and diplomatically – from its early conceptualisation, liaising continuously with the Gowon-Mohammed-Danjuma genocidist cells of the Nigeria military at varying stages between January and May 1966, to the savage, spiralling aerial, naval and ground onslaughts on encircled Igbo population centres (the ‘shooting everything’-raging inferno) especially between March 1968 and January 1970. London’s strategic goal in supporting the genocide was to ‘punish’ the Igbo for ‘daring’ to spearhead the termination of the British occupation of Nigeria. This foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa and the worst in 20th century Africa would probably not have occurred without British active involvement. It is inconceivable that a contemporary British government would continue to delay any much longer in offering its unreserved apology to the Igbo for Britain’s role in the execution of this genocide and pay reparations to the survivors.
death camps in the sabon gari residential districts
On a visit to London in spring 1969 I learned the efforts the British establishment will take to cover up its tracks. Every reporter, peer or parliamentarian who had visited Biafra and reported on what he had seen was smeared as a stooge of Biafra – even the utterly honourable John Hunt, leader of the Everest expedition.
https://theconversation.com/nigerian-writers-compare-genocide-of-igbos-to-the-holocaust-110766
I'm conscious that my actions might well be reaffirming my own bias :/
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/59261/1/Smith_UK-and-genocide-in-Biafra_2014.pdf
https://stonecrabs.co.uk/stonecrabswp/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Biafra_to_England_FINAL.pdf
https://rememberingbiafra.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Biafra-and-the-Discourse-on-the-Igbo-Genocide-.pdf
Andrew Brevin and David MacDonald, two members of the Canadian Parliament, on their return from Biafra, “reported that genocide is in fact taking place.” One of them stated that “any-body who says there is no evidence of genocide is either in the pay of Britain or being a deliberate fool”
the British colonial administration in Nigeria had cast the Igbo in a very bad light. Such anti-Igbo sentiments became deeply embedded in both public and private discourses. Indeed, the British had a hard time implementing indirect rule among the Igbo from the inception of their administration in Nigeria
The mutual relationship that existed between the British and the northern elite continued in the post-colonial period, and the deep distrust for the Igbo people from both did not abate. British nationals in northern Nigeria in the 1960s placed their footprint on the crisis and were not shy to reveal which side they supported. During the pogroms of 1966, British expatriates played an active part at Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) in articulating the proposed elimination of the Igbo from the north.
http://www.cameronians.org/regiment/regiments_story_afterwar.html
https://www.sllccameronians.co.uk/info/4/collection_and_history/4/1901_-_present
There appears to be a gap in the history of the regiment just prior to it's dissolution?
The source you're quoting is very problematic. There are several different problems with it, and I'll try and deal with them each in turn. Let me summarise as best I can what I think the article is saying, and then I can deal with the source's problems.
This article alleges that the Cameronians were deployed to Nigeria in secret to build concentration camps which were intended to incarcerate Igbo rebels then engaged in a revolt against British colonial control. The Cameronians refused, and as a result a Kenyan regiment was brought in to do the job for them. The Cameronians were brought back to the UK from Africa, and because of their refusal to participate in the building of a concentration camp, the regiment was disbanded. After the disbandment, any National Servicemen with time still to serve were moved to other regiments to complete their service. This story is partly taken from first-hand testimony from "Big Wullie", who claimed to have been serving with the Cameronians as a National Serviceman and who remembered the circumstances of the regiment's service in Africa and its disbandment. The rest of the story comes from the author's recollection of a conversation with a former BBC journalist in the 1980s who claimed to have been in Nigeria at the time, and who claimed to have been witness to a "First Biafran War" which was not reported on by the media. This war would have occurred some time before the conflict which the world now knows as the Biafran War.
The first thing to do is to get our chronology straight. The article alleges that Big Wullie served in the Cameronians as part of his National Service. This was a system of peacetime conscription which operated in Britain between 1948 and 1963. The system ended on 31st December 1960, and the last individuals to be called-up would have entered the armed forces in around November 1960. The last National Servicemen left the armed forces by May 1963. So, for "Big Wullie" to have served in the Cameronians as a National Serviceman, he would have had to have done so before May 1963.
The Cameronians were disbanded as a result of the re-organisation of the British Army's infantry which was initiated in 1966 and 1967. The details of this re-organisation can be found in several sources, but the structure of the British Army infantry as at May 1967 were stated before the House and entered into Hansard as it appears here. An explanation of this structure is given here. It's also worth reading the 1966 Defence White Paper and the 1967 Statement on Defence Estimates to understand some of the context around that structure.
At this time, The Cameronians were a single-battalion regiment. This battalion sat within the Lowland Brigade. This was a purely administrative change which continued a process begun earlier in the decade with the creation of several "large regiments", which re-named and amalgamated previously extant regiments to form them into more cohesive, larger entities. The Lowland Brigade was not a deployable formation HQ, but was rather a regional administrative unit which exercised functions somewhere between a Regimental HQ and a regional Brigade or District HQ. This process of infantry re-structuring was viewed as diluting the individual character of each regiment, and two regiments chose to disband rather than allow themselves to be made part of a large regiment or regional brigade. The Cameronians chose to disband, alongside the York & Lancaster Regiment. The Cameronians disbanded on 14th May 1968. You can see that this had happened here and here.
So, Big Wullie's National Service would have ended no later than May 1963. The Cameronians disbanded five whole years later. So, he could not have been serving with the Cameronians as a National Serviceman when the regiment was disbanded. It is possible that he chose to stay on as a regular soldier once his two years of National Service was complete, but I'd need to do some further research (using sources I can't access) to understand how transferring from National Service to a regular engagement would have worked in practice.
This fact also calls into question the statement that any National Servicemen with time still to serve were moved to other regiments to complete their service when the Cameronians were disbanded. Simply put, there were no National Servicemen serving in the British armed forces in May 1968, so there were none still in the Cameronians to be transferred to other units. So, at least some part of this story is factually incorrect.