IN WAR SITUATIONS, YOUR NAME COULD COST YOU YOUR LIFE!

... Omoba was booming with commercial activities, with people from different parts of Nigeria moving in there to do business.


This was the status of this rural town at the time the civil war started, which eventually drew a lot of negative interests to the town form both the Federal and Biafran sides, and as in all wars, with disastrous consequences for the inhabitants, like I said earlier.

The inhabitants of Omoba at that time included my grandparents, Bennett and Helena Otuoma Ogbonna.

My grandfather Bennett Ogbonna was a Mason, and one of the leading ministers of the Assemblies of God Church in the town. He was from Mbawsi.

My grandmother Helena was from the neigbouring village of Umuokegwu. She was in the food business. She used to prepare traditional beans called akidi, to the delight of her numerous customers that referred to her simply as ‘Mama Gold’, after the name of one of my aunties, Da Gold, that she brought up.

My grandmother’s day usually started at about 3:00 A.M, when she would start to inspect and prepare the akidi which she would have put on the fire before going to bed. This traditional bean usually takes much longer to cook, than non-traditional beans.

Her preparation and recipe usually had her clients queuing up in her home, to buy akidi, way before she gets to the Ogwumabiri (the name of the market at Omoba). In most cases, she would find it difficult to stop selling at home, but usually had to, because people would have been waiting for her to arrive in the market, to buy akidi from her market stall at Ogwumabiri.

I have often wondered why I have had to be the one to experience certain things or be at certain places at certain times.

Well Didie, my conclusion is that there is no accident in all of these situations, nor is there anything that really happens by accident in life.

I f I had not been at those places, or experienced those things at those times; I would not have had any stories to tell you. Nor would it have been possible for some of the insights and possibly, lessons that might be possible from these incidents and situations, to be outlined.

So, it is very important that we seek for whatever lessons are inherent in our experiences, and learn from them. So that the unpleasant ones may be avoided.

For instance, why did that war happen? Why did children like me then, have to pass through all I had to pass through, as you would see, as we continue with the story? What can be done so that children and the rest of us would not have to experience such hardships again?

These were the questions that rang through my mind before I eventually decided to write this book, telling you the story of my experiences as a child caught in the Nigeria-Biafra war that has come to be known as the Nigeria civil war.

As it concerns me, if you have been following, I have had to stop school twice, moved from Lagos to Port Harcourt, and we are now in Omoba, all because of the war.

And yet, they real hardships were just about to begin.

When I arrived in Omoba, my mother and my other siblings had moved into the upper floor in a one story building in the valley on the way to Umuokegwu.

The environment of this house was very serene. It was removed from the centre of the town, away from the noise of the market and the railway station. Again, this put us at a disadvantage later, as you would see.

My grandparents’ house, which was just about ten minutes walk to the market and the railway station, was a three bedroom bungalow which was too small to accommodate all of us.

I noticed there was something strange happening in our family.

My immediately elder brother, (Bj’s daddy), was called Ade, by all of us. His name is Adebunmi. I however, noticed that I was the only one that would call him Ade in the family then. And each time I had to call out to him, I would be cautioned not to call him Ade any more, but Kanayo.

The war had arrived in this small rural commercial town, before my arrival from Port Harcourt.

I was told that my brother could not be called by his Yoruba name, and neither could any of us because, people with names from the West and the North had had to flee, or were being rounded up and killed, by their erstwhile clients, neighbours, associates and even in-laws who were Ibos; in retaliation for the killing of Ibos in other parts of the country!

We stood the risk of being killed by our mother’s kinsmen, just by being called by our Yoruba names!

It therefore became like a taboo, for our Yoruba names to be mentioned. Even amongst ourselves.

So, we could not get to start school, while some other children were still going to school at this time...

----BIAFRA:LEST WE FORGET!