“Stories from the Forgotten War”

Elizabeth Bird, UK/Florida, USA

Creators of Justice Award 2022 | Third Prize: Essay

Born and raised in the UK, Elizabeth is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at the University of South Florida, residing in Tampa, Florida. She has

published seven books, including The Asaba Massacre: Trauma, Memory, and the Nigerian Civil War, and Surviving Biafra: A Nigerwife's Story, and she

now focuses on creative non-fiction. Her work appears (or will soon appear) in Under the Sun, Tangled Locks,Biostories, Streetlight, The Guardian,

Skeptic Magazine, and elsewhere.

 STORIES FROM THE FORGOTTEN WAR

"Testimonies such as these should become a kind of chain letter, hung permanently on the leaden conscience of the world." 

Wole Soyinka, The Man Died: Prison Notes, 1972

​You tell me your stories, trusting me with these gifts. Stories that hang heavy after 50 years. Stories that bring tears of grief and betrayal. Stories that defined your lives.

How they came, helmets adorned with palm fronds and fatigues festooned with cartridge belts. They looked like your brothers, your sons, your husbands. The elders told you not to be afraid, for this was not your war. You believed them, until it was too late. Until you became another page in the chronicles of innocents.

Celestina: Your Story

It is 1967 and you are 19 years old, back in the home of your father. Just two weeks ago, about to finish college 50 miles to the west, you were excited to marry your beloved Peter and become a teacher. You heard rumblings of war, and you learned that the East – the land across the Niger -- had seceded. Biafra, they were calling it; it meant little to you. But Biafra is Igbo. You are Igbo, even though your home is on the west bank, safely in Nigeria. But your classmates were starting to taunt you, and your parents insisted you come home.

Now safe in the ancient town of Asaba, you gaze across the broad river to the East. To Biafra.

They say there’s fighting already – the Federal troops are moving into this upstart nation, and there is news of bombs and air raids. But you are secure with your mum and dad, your married brother Emmanuel, and your little brother Osi. Just 16, he is your best friend – you look out for each other. Your father is an important man, and his house is the most imposing in town; you have nothing to fear.

First come the Biafrans, streaming across the bridge from the east, singing their patriotic anthems, the rising sun on their sleeves. They pass through, sure of victory as they head west toward the capital city of Lagos, almost 300 miles distant. Some cheer them – they are your cousins, after all. But most, like your father, are on edge. Leave them be, this is not our war.

Restless, you wait. Schools are closed, and families have come home, crowding compounds along the winding streets. Something is happening, but no-one quite knows what.

In weeks they are back. Jagged convoys of battered trucks bear corpses and wounded. You see the feet of the dead – naked, their boots long gone. Young men in shock, limping home across the bridge. This was not what they had planned. As they pass over the river, their commanders plant explosives under the towering bridge. And seal Asaba’s fate.

Now the Federal troops are right behind them, massed on the edge of town, by the school where Osi should be taking exams.  Stay calm everyone. They won’t harm you, your dad soothes. They are soldiers, and we are not. Relax and don’t antagonize them; they’ll be gone soon enough.

Only they can’t leave. You hear the bridge explode, lighting the sky like a giant firework show. There is no way forward for the advancing army, and they spill into town.

They are everywhere now, and suddenly they are not your brothers, not your saviors. Some remain disciplined; they take food and drink but are respectful. Others are tired, drunk, and angry. Who is in charge? Their mood is ugly and their eyes are blood-shot. They’re pulling people from their homes and shooting them. The slightest pretext is a death sentence. Boots? You are a Biafran soldier! They are assaulting women and girls; they have no decency. They are looting homes and burning what they cannot steal. Surely this is not real. We are Nigerians, and these are our people, aren’t they?

The elders meet, seeking a way to appease them, to make this mayhem stop. In the morning we’ll gather – we will bring out the whole town. We will wear our ceremonial white, and we will dance for them. We will sing until our voices are hoarse and they believe in our loyalty. We will offer them gifts and gold, and their commanders will listen and restore order.

In the morning you and your family are dressed and ready. But without warning, the soldiers are in your home. They pull Osi from hiding and bark accusations at the terrified boy. So casually they raise their guns; your brother lies broken and gone, his schoolmate Callistus beside him. They drag you all to the street to join the macabre parade, and you must leave them where they fell.

People come from every home, chanting and carrying makeshift signs: “One Nigeria!” You walk until you reach a crossroads and an open square. There the soldiers sort you – men here, women and children there. You are herded into the nearby hospital, as the rain beats down. Before long, you hear the rattle of machine gun fire, not far away. And then the women weep.

Ify: Your Story

You came out to join the dance, safe and surrounded by family -- your father Robert, brothers Paul, Gabriel, and Emmanuel. You are nervous, but your father told you the plan; it will soon be over. Your mum, Veronica, shepherds your sisters and the young ones, until you too reach the cross-roads. You are somewhere between a boy and a man, and the soldiers argue. One pushes you with your mum, another drags you back. This time, you are a man, and old enough to die. They tell you this as they ready their guns. Frantic mothers wrap their sons in women’s attire, desperate to disguise them.

But then the women are gone and the guns begin. A hellscape of bullets and screams, as people fall around you. White garments disappear in rivers of blood. Bodies fall, and you are trapped beneath them. You dare not move – they are picking off those who rise from the carnage.

Finally it is over and all is silent. Only the cries and sobs of the wounded and dying. Your father lies close by, his eyes open to the sky, near Emmanuel’s shattered body. You are steeped in blood, but unharmed. You run.  You are 13 years old.

As you tell me your story, your eyes fill with tears. You tell me how Gabriel, grievously wounded, was carried by your cousin to safety. How he bears those bullets in his body to this day. How Paul was never seen again – perhaps buried with so many others in the shallow graves or dumped into the river. How for years afterwards, your mum held out hope for his return, as she worked all hours of the day to feed her surviving children. How years later, a classmate scoffed at your story, because trained soldiers would never do such a thing. How your fury erupted and you pulled a knife. You are grateful to the teacher who calmed you.     

So Many Stories

Catherine, you are 9 when they hammer at your door. Your father answers, and they blast out his brains. You crouch on the floor, piecing together the shattered fragments of his skull. If it is just made whole, he will sit up and smile. Half a century later, you weep and shiver as you tell me.

Emeka, you are 6 years old when they come to your home. Your mother and her friend kneel before them, begging. Your father takes you to another room. You did not understand at the time, but you do now.

Joseph, you run away when the soldiers burst in, killing your uncle. You hide on the edge of town while your brothers, aged 12 and 17, join the parade. You are gone when your mother brings their bodies home in a wheelbarrow and buries them by your home. You cannot say goodbye. You describe the depth of her mourning, and your tears flow. She says your survival was the only mercy God gave her, and she fiercely guards you the rest of her life.     

Patience, you are heavy with your fourth child. The soldiers march your husband Eddie away. It will be fine, he assures you – I’ll be back soon. Later you find him in a ghastly heap of death; you see his bright white underwear first. His brother nearby. You tell me how you raised your children alone, marking each year of his passing.  You could not let them see you weep, because you were their only strength. You show me a smiling photo of his young, gentle face. Your daughter carries his name.

Martina, you are 14 years old. Your daddy, Leo, is a respected man – a teacher. He gave you his love of education and reading; he is your hero. After the soldiers pull him from your home, you and your sister Apollonia bury him in a makeshift grave. A shamefaced soldier helps you; young girls should not be doing such things. Half a century later, you say that God alone knows why you lived. He needed you to remember when the world had forgotten.  And that’s why you are telling me now, you say with urgency in your voice.

All your stories frame nightmare losses, burned into your memories. And they speak to the long afterlife of such losses:  orphans, widows, families plunged into destitution. Homes burned, defiled, reduced to rubble. Children born from rape, who will bear the stigma forever. The pain is not over when the guns go silent.

Whose War?

What is it that lights a flame in the eyes of soldiers and transforms them from men to monsters? What did they feel as their guns mowed down innocents? Ordered to cross the Niger in a fruitless flotilla of boats, they drowned in their hundreds under Biafran bombardment, adding their deaths to the mounting carnage. Asaba people say that Onishe, the ancient Niger goddess, rose up in vengeance and took them to their graves. But surely it was not their war, either.

So whose war was it? Not the thousand Asaba civilians who were slaughtered, or the countless survivors left to grieve. Not the million shriveled Biafran children across the Niger, battered by unabating air-raids and starvation, their country ravaged after three years of unrelenting war. Children who would never live to see a classroom or a peaceful moment.

And what of the two hopelessly young men who led the opposing forces through those three dark years? Was it their war? Both were trained in the elite schools of the colonial masters, both believed in the justness of their cause, both were ready to sacrifice their own people for that cause. One, 34 when he led his people to destruction, went into exile before returning home to acclaim, forgiveness, and honorable burial in a golden casket. The other, 32 when he came to power, led his nation to war, seeking to reclaim the rebel land and restore a country created by colonialism. Later he too was driven out, eventually returning to play elder statesman. He told me a story too – how he was appalled at the atrocities committed in his name, how he regretted the carnage in Asaba. How the slaughter in Biafra was necessary to restore the unity of Nigeria.  How he visited his old adversary in the post-war years, and they talked and laughed together. If it was their war, it seems they paid a small price.

The Endless Replay of Death

I think of you all – Celestina, Ify, Martina, and so many more -- as I hear new, grim stories of mass graves and brutal executions ordered on another continent in the name of unity. More young soldiers who have abandoned decency and listened to the blood rage in their heads. Will this commander pay the price for his war? Your stories will be told one day too, and like those of Asaba, your nightmares will not recede. After half a century, the world has moved on from the bloody civil war in Nigeria – on to endless replays of the same stories, in nation after nation. Where innocents pay the price, just as they have since wars began.

The people of Asaba mark their loss each year. Dressed in white, they retrace the steps of the dance of death. Each year, the numbers of witnesses dwindle, but they tell their stories in hopes they will make a difference, and that we will at last listen.  They plan to plant 1,000 trees in remembrance of those lost, and in mourning for the world.

To honor the generations of innocents, caught in wars that were never theirs, we would surely need to reforest the earth.

Author’s note:

The Nigeria-Biafra War (or Nigerian Civil War), broke out in July 1967, following the secession of Nigeria’s predominantly Igbo eastern region, under the name Biafra. The war pitted the Biafra leader, 34-year-old Emeka Ojukwu, against the Nigerian head of state, 32-year-old Yakubu Gowon, both educated in Britain. Biafra surrendered in 1970, with up to 2 million people dead, mostly from starvation resulting from a blockade by the British-backed Nigerian government. Thousands of civilians also died from air-raids and massacres as troops entered their towns, as happened in Asaba. Though often over-shadowed by the Vietnam War, the conflict, framed by many as a genocide, sparked international protests. Joan Baez and Jimi Hendrix played benefits for Biafra, while John Lennon returned his Member of the British Empire award. In 1969, Columbia University student Bruce Mayrock died after setting himself on fire outside New York’s United Nations building in protest. The war’s devastation sparked mass migrations from Nigeria, and festering grievances have fostered a Biafra resurgence movement. The war may have been forgotten by many, but the trauma suffered by the Igbo people was profound, and still resonates today. The author’s website, devoted to her research on the Asaba Massacre, is at www.asabamemorial.org.