CASUALTIES OF WAR

...BIAFRA: LEST WE FORGET!, is my recollection of the civil war that began in Nigeria in 1966 and ‘ended’ in 1970. I put ended in quotes because, yes that war has ended, but the effects of that war still linger psycho-socially, and if you like, there is still the economic angle to it. If you doubt me, go and read Professor Chinua Achebe’s THE TROUBLE WITH NIGERIA.


I was about seven years old when it started, and about eleven years old, when it ‘ended’. I am over fifty years now and still, the images and the effects of that war are still steely etched in my memory. They have refused to fade.

Some Nigerians (especially politicians) think that watching America bomb Iraq or Afghanistan (from the safety of their television sets via CNN or Fox or BBC) is what war is all about.

Our elders say that when two elephants fight, the grass suffers. I want to believe that you know who the elephants are, and of course, who the grass is? In case you do not know, the grass is all of us, and the elephants? Well, fill in the blank spaces, or do some math by adding or subtracting…not division.

In any case two of the ‘elephants’ that took part in that war, have already written books recounting their war experiences. One, General Olusegun Obasanjo called his book MY COMMAND. The other, Chief Emeka Ojukwu called his book BECAUSE I AM INVOLVED. A few others have also written about that war, notably, Alexander Modiebo; but all mostly from the view points of the military.

Well I believe the time is over due for the ‘grass’ to begin to speak. So, I am writing because I am affected.

I am the fifth of my mother’s children. Three of my elder siblings, my eldest brother, my sister (my mother’s only daughter), and my brother after her, participated in that war, albeit involuntarily. One of them, my eldest brother barely managed to escape the amputation of one of his legs after a bullet wound in active combat, just by the grace of my sister being around their area of operation, and then her intervention. He still walks with a ‘stylish’ limp. They are all alive today, and can be interviewed about their experiences.

I am writing because my generation that witnessed that war is hugely affected (go to the towns and villages in the South East, South-South of Nigeria and other areas which were ‘theatres’ for that war, and sample levels of livelihoods of fifty year olds who experienced that war). We lost out on going to school (I started school at about age 5, I remember my father had to go get my birth certificate, because I was finding it difficult to touch my left ear across my head with my right hand, which was considered proof for ‘old enough to be in school’ then, yet I graduated from secondary school at the age of twenty, even when I never repeated any class from the time I started school after the war), growing up properly, both physically and intellectually…

In 1988, I was travelling to Enugu, by road with Majek Fashek in the course of the MAMSER TOURS (which gave me an opportunity to travel round some towns and villages of this country and saw things for myself). I was Majek’s Publicist. My first published book later that same year, TRAILBLAZER, was about him. As we got to a stretch along the Onitsha-Enugu Expressway, we saw an army of limbless people on both sides of the road begging for alms, we stopped and chatted with them, Majek even pulled his box guitar, and played SEND DOWN THE RAIN for them. They are casualties from that war. That was the first time I thought of writing this book.

Like my son said, I am lucky to be alive. I do not want the same to be said of my son, and his generation…

----BIAFRA:LEST WE FORGET!