SURVIVING IN BIAFRA BOOK EXCERPTS

PartII

PartI    

Part III

Asaba Massacre hits home

When the Biafra war first started, I doubt that it occurred to many that hunger was going to be a major factor; at least not in Nnewi. There was subsistence farming in Nnewi; families planted yam, cocoa yam, cassava, maize and others. Infact, most people produced enough food to feed their families and even sell the excess in Nkwo Nnewi market. However, as the war progressed and as refugees, who were displaced from various parts of Biafra arrived in Nnewi, to seek sanctuary from the atrocious havoc federal troops were visiting on civilians, the subsistence farming was no longer good enough to sustain the teeming population of Nnewi.

The war refugees and even some Nnewi indigenes started at this time to look for other means of subsistence. Snail or "ejula" which used to be found in abundance in Nnewi and freely roamed the bushes when we first returned to Nnewi from Lagos suddenly started turning into endangered species! Snail became scarce because they were now being sought after as a major food source by all sundry; even people who never tasted it before then, developed a liking for it albeit reluctantly. It dawned on me that things had deteriorated badly when some of the kids started picking up, roasting and eating the small-sized snail we called "mpiolo". The only use we had for that size of snail before things got real bad, was for the shell; we used the shell to carve conical shaped objects we called "koso". The kids played with koso by positioning the tapered end on the ground and spinning it around to see who spun it faster. War exigency and absolute necessity had however turned mpiolo into an edible delicacy which was now fiercely sought after chiefly because the big-sized snail had all but disappeared in the face of mounting desire for it.

I do not know what Biafra and Biafrans would have done without CARITAS? CARITAS was a relief agency that brought foodstuff to Biafra to help the starving masses. They supplied cornmeal, stadit milk, stockfish, egg yolk, rice Gabon and the likes. Infact in appreciation of their generosity, there was a song people sang in their name which went thus " CARITAS, si anyi, taba okporoko, kwashiorkor g'ana" meaning, CARITAS, asked us to eat stockfish, kwashiorkor will stop. The relief food items were however very limited in quantity and the fact that officials given the responsibility of distributing it to the hungry masses did not do so equitably, exacerbated an already bad situation. The officials sometimes kept some of the relief items to themselves and their families while some people went hungry. I always felt bad at the sight of refugees at the St. Mary's School compound, struggling to get food from the distribution center in an adjacent building. I abhorred the fact that people who were already hungry and had lost strength, had to fight to get relief food. It became survival of the fittest; those who were strong enough to shove others out of the way, got more rations and those who had become exceedingly weak because of hunger, could not get enough food. I would have liked to register my displeasure against some priests and government functionaries in Biafra who turned the relief food into their personal property. They fed themselves fat while the less privileged and refugees starved! They failed to attend adequately to the primary people for which the food was provided by CARITAS. That was very troubling and sad, that was not compassionate, that did not show any priestly disposition neither did it show any patriotic fervor and was not good in the eyes of God and man. I hope that their collective conscience has over time bugged them enough that they have atoned in one way or the other for their sins. They should know that they erred indeed and may have inadvertently contributed to the demise of scores of children in Biafra who died of starvation. I however forgive them because a lot of people erred inadvertently during that war; I only hope that the good Lord would bestow peace and tranquillity on the troubled nation of Nigeria today to preclude any acts that would ever bring about a repeat of that conflict. We have paid our dues, Nigeria must now move forward. Forward ever, backwards, never!

Hunger notwithstanding, we did everything normal kids did, we went to scout, recited the Biafran anthem- "Land of the risen sun we love and cherish….". We went to choir, but as weeks turned into months and months into years, a strange phenomenon started manifesting itself mainly in kids. Some kids started developing bloated bellies, bloated feet and lighter skin color! The transmogrifying effect of this strange phenomenon on people was drastic. At first, some kids (including me) found this amusing because we did not understand the full implications of what was happening. We would often play with the kids afflicted with this ailment and jokingly call them "afo mmili ukwa" another way of saying that someone is a gourmand or big bellied. We never knew that the kids were gradually being condemned to untimely death because of a war they did not cause. We started getting our rude awakening when some of the kids actually started dying! A kid you played with in school would suddenly and progressively start changing in color like someone afflicted with jaundice or so, then the cheeks would start puffing out followed by the feet and legs. The end point is that the kid slows down from weakness and eventually gives up the ghost. I particularly remember Augustine; (may be this incident will still be remembered by some of my classmates then like Nwakaego Nzekwu, Joy Odunukwe, Chukwudi Ngwube, Georgina Obiazi, Anaemenam and others). We used as our class the "Ozobi" or meeting place of Mr. Michael Mbonu in Umumeagbu, Uruagu, Nnewi. Augustine had gradually developed puffy cheeks and bloated legs and even though he used to be slightly dark-colored in complexion, his color started changing. Admittedly, he was a naturally quiet boy, but as this ailment progressed, he no longer participated actively in our childish shenanigans during break time; he would just sit by himself away from others. The previous day at school, he had been so quiet that I could almost tell that he was not feeling any better at all although I never asked. That day, he did not participate in any recreational activities and later on, he regurgitated some of what he had eaten and we all stood around as our teacher (who was later conscripted into the army as I would recount later in another chapter) tried to help him. When we all arrived in class the next day, Augustine was not on his chair; minutes later, our teacher ambled in somberly and never said anything nor comment about Augustine's absence. In hushed tones however, we got news that Augustine was dead! I am not exactly sure who broke the news but Augustine's relative who was also in my class was absent that day. That was heart breaking; to think that someone we all played with not too long before was gone forever, was unfathomable. After school that day, I deliberately went by Augustine's house to verify things for myself even though I could have used a short cut to get to my house faster. As I got to the front of the his house, lo and behold, there were many people going in and out and I knew then that the news was true. I cursed those that started that war and prayed God to punish them duly; I was powerless to do anything, but all I could do was go home sad that day and cry. Augustine was no more, but this was not a peculiar episode, it was repeating in many places in Nnewi and Biafra; it was the price of war, a war that was fought so unconventionally that innocent civilians, women and children were denied food!

At my mother's maternity home where babies were still being delivered almost on a daily basis and women attended antenatal and post-natal clinic, she always lectured the women every Monday on what type of food they should give to their kids to avoid kwashiorkor. You could tell by looking at some of the kids with yellowish colored cheeks and puffy feet that the dreaded disease had come. You could see the pain on the faces of the women carrying such kids. Essentially, the kids were being condemned to eternal damnation because food was scarce. A refugee family from Onitsha that lived close to our house captured the totality of what the Biafran war and hunger turned people into. We used to go there to play with the rest of the kids and it was always a sight to behold every time they got ready to eat; father, mother and kids would be struggling to get their fair share. Their father was already teetering on the edge of kwashiorkor so he always struggled with the kids to get his own share and never worried about whether the kids were getting enough to eat themselves. Again, it was survival of the fittest! As a result, the kids had no respect for him; they called him all kinds of derogatory names like "agudo". It was always a painful sight to behold and I always wondered why they felt compelled to all eat from the same plate? I do not know what became of that family after the war, but that man was a very fine pianist; he always came to our house to play our organ and I would sit on the floor listening to his beautiful rendition of the Biafran national anthem.

God bless those nations that recognized Biafra and helped out- Gabon, Ivory Coast, Zambia, Haiti and others. I knew their names by heart because every morning when we prayed, my father would always ask God to be with them and give them the fortitude to continue to stand with the truth even when it was not fashionable to do so. He always lambasted Egypt, Ian Smith and his Rhodesia, Russia and other nations he referred to as "ndi alakuba". We memorized a psalm we read every morning and night …."Chineke, buso ndi n'ebuso anyi ogu, ogu, buso ndi n'ebuso anyi agha agha…"-meaning, "God fight those that fight us…." I thanked the nations that supported Biafra because nations like Gabon took it upon themselves to airlift starving Biafran children to Gabon to feed them, clothe them and give them succor. Even those on the brink of death, slowed down by kwashiorkor, came back from Gabon at the end of the war looking hale and hearty. I recall that then, I used to think that Gabon was "obodo oyibo" and I envied those starving children that were being sent over there! Those were the thoughts of an eight or nine year old who was not quite in tune with the gravity of the holocaust in Biafra. Meanwhile, our heroes were dying in the war front!

ASABA MASSACRE

As I stepped into our compound with my little brother Nnamdi (we had just come back from boys' scout), there were several people gathered in our house inside the parlor. When we came closer, we could hear someone sobbing and the people were trying to console her; it was my mother! I was alarmed! I do not know about anybody else, but as a kid, anytime my mother looked sad for any reason, I felt terrible. This time, she was not just looking sad, she was crying uncontrollably and reeling on the floor; my heart was breaking! Not too long before the war started, she had gone through that type of grief in Lagos when her brother - Mr. Lloyd Gwam- the Nigerian Director of National Archives, suddenly died in Ibadan. This was sometime in 1965 or 1966. That day, I was sure that my mother was going to die also; it was very painful to watch her rolling on the floor and crying uncontrollably. So when I saw the people in our house trying to console her this time around, I thought to myself that my brother and hero -Fidelis had been killed. At the verandah stood Ezengozi (my maternal uncle), he was not crying but he was just gazing into the compound without saying a word to anybody. I went up to him first and asked what the problem was since I could not immediately get access to my mother; Ezengozi did not say a word. After trying for several more times and getting nowhere, I proceeded to ask others. I then heard that my mother's father and several other relatives had been summarily shot in Asaba by federal troops. At first, it was like a nightmare and I was hoping to wake up; word cannot describe what I felt; not too long before that, my mother had said that her first priority after the war would be to go to Asaba and reunite with her father and others. I hated Yakubu Gowon, I hated Danjuma and I hated the so-called black scorpion - Brigadier Adekunle who I later met in person in 1982. I hated these men not because of anything I know they did in particular, but because those were the names we always heard of as the core people driving the war and causing the killing of Biafrans. As a young Christian boy, I wondered why God would let such calamity befall my mother; I felt that all the prayers we offered to God every morning amounted to nothing since he would not protect us from the evil fangs of the enemy. I was feeling bad without even hearing the full story!

It turned out that even though we were just hearing the story then, it actually happened a while back . According to story, when the Federal troops entered Asaba, they rounded up as many natives as they could, accused them of collusion with Biafra and then lined them up and started shooting! Story further had it that some men were shot right in front of their wives and then the women were made to bury their husbands. It was gruesome! The following were the people my mother lost in that massacre: her father - G.W. Gwam also called insurmountable, her uncle called Gwam nta, her brother Gibson Gwam and very many relatives were lost in this mayhem also. That was too much to bear in one swoop. I pitied my father because he had his hands full; his prayer that night was the most passionate I have ever heard someone offer, his prayer was full of questions to God, why, why, why Lord? Why have you forsaken your children, Lord why? He blamed Britain in his prayers for aiding and abetting the federal troops, he blamed Czechoslovakia, he blamed Egypt, and he blamed all those supporting the federal troops and causing this suffering. I had never seen my father that emotional before then. Before that time, I saw him as a pillar of strength but on this day, I saw the other side of a man who was working hard to guard against loosing it, it was also very painful to me, I simply hated that war, hated Gowon and abhorred his lieutenants.

A CHANCE MEETING WITH BRIGADIER ADEKUNLE- THE BLACK SCORPION

I heard so much about Brigadier Adekunle during the war; my understanding then was that he was a tough, no nonsense army commander who was so brave that he ate bravado as lunch and washed it down with ruthlessness! For that reason, I conjured up an image of him as probably six feet tall and very charismatic. I surmised that those qualities caused people to fear him and respect his commands during the war. This image quickly evaporated when I met the Brigadier in 1982. I had just returned from the United States where I, along with my friend and roommate at the University of Nigeria - Mike Ukoha (Micky Jagger) had gone to prepare our final year thesis projects. Because of flight arrangements, we had to have a layover in Lagos before heading back to Enugu to commence classes. This must have been sometime in October or November of 1982. My sister who returned with her family from the States that very period, stated that Micky and I could stay in the house of her friend- Betty, for the night to resume our journey the next day. Miky and I were given the address so we went and luckily, Betty was on hand to receive us; our baggage was taken to one of the rooms.

Micky and I went to Surulere to see a friend of mine but by the time we came back, our boxes which had hitherto been sent up to the room upstairs, were now stacked against one another in the foyer. As we stood looking around and wondering what happened, a slim built man of no more than about 5 ft 7inches, alighted from the stairs followed by Betty. He had a very stern look on his face; even when we said good evening, he did not respond so I stepped back. Then I heard Betty saying something to him in Yoruba dialect which I did not quite grasp, but I understood the part about "Brigadier, aburo Ije ni" which I translated as "Brigadier, this is Ije's junior brother". Ije is my sister and Betty's friend. It seemed as though that statement made the magic because right after that, his countenance softened and he invited Miky and I to his study. As we were going upstairs in that gigantic mansion, in one of his living rooms hung a color picture of him in ceremonial military regalia; there was also a picture of a black scorpion hanging on the wall. In his study, he formally introduced himself as Brigadier Adekunle. In my exuberance I asked him: "are you the Adekunle of the Nigerian War?" It was as if a bomb had exploded; he thundered back in response, "Yes, I am, what did they tell you I did?" I spent the next 20 minutes or so trying to tell him that no one said anything but that I heard a lot about him during the war as a little boy. Again he turned the tables on me aggressively asking what I heard about him. Again it took a lot of rhetorical gerrymandering on my part before he finally gave me a break. Apparently, Micky had never even heard of him before and Micky is about two years older than myself! The next I knew, he hurried downstairs, and came up with two plates of porridge and spoons; he gave Micky and I a plate each. After the obvious badgering we had just received, I was not sure if the food was given to us in good faith, I wanted to say no thanks but I knew that was going to spark another round of questioning from him, so I subdued my feelings and ate slowly meanwhile wondering silently if that was our proverbial last supper!

During subsequent visits to his house in the company of my sister to see Betty, we met his other wife, Jumoke. In these instances, he seemed very pleasant even making jokes. You could still sense the aura of authority around him, he was even called Brigadier in his own house and he definitely issued orders like a Brigadier he was.

The only thing that surprised me about Adekunle was that he was not tall neither can he be described as charismatic; I kept wondering to my self how he managed to effect all the bravery and commanding personality we heard about during the war. This is the same thought I had about Col. JOG Achuzia when I understood that he was just about 5" 6 inches tall and yet was able to effect all the heroics that were attributed to him during the Biafran War……

PartII

PartI