Biafra in a child’s memory.

People expect that I wish away my Memories of a child gifted to remember events far back from less than 4 years.

People decree the erasure of my memories of the swamps of Portharcourt, where Brother Juli took me to run into as the aeroplanes hovered above us.

People condemn it as offensive when I can’t forget the long lines we qued to collect warm liquid milk in cups and bowels. Not even my father, who decreed we don’t go to the village square to take the relief milk with the excuse that it was causing diarrhoea. We found our way to join the large crowds of other children at the rowdy centres for relief milk and other food items. Our fellow children, mostly naked or in torn clothes, many with protruding stomachs.

Can I stop myself from remembering the day I believed a plane was targeting small me as I walked home in the village?

Can I not remember the day an uncle Korie made a meal of cornmeal for the kindred and there was a scramble, the crowd, and brother Joh Nwoko fell into the drum used for the cooking

How can I not remember our guests, Eddy Bros, a wealthy man from today’s Anambra state who, with his family, had relocated to occupy the garage of my father’s house? One of two such families?

How do I erase memories of the women of those two families who used hot iron combs to straighten their hairs, or the long hair tied with eri isi, while sitting near the garage door?

How can I decide not to remember that we lived downstairs and that a team of officers lived upstairs? How do I not remember the day the officers were evacuated for an offence, and my grandfather, Papa Job was singing, obiara nga m, egbula m, may my guest not harm me?

How do I not remember the days of screams about stragulars and sabotours?

How do I order myself to no longer remember those caught stealing and the punishment of igba mbembe? At least two women I still remember were paraded around the village with items they were caught with hung on their necks. We still had values to punish thieves, usually of food items, even in the midst of mass hunger?

How do I forget Uzoma Osueke, now late, my first friend in the village, whose fathers” corpse was the earliest that I recall, of a dead body, who had to die for stealing?

How do we erase memories of soldiers parading and singing from the various army camps around our village?

How do we forget the bigles we heard every morning from Madonna – 1.
Madonna – 1 was now state house, and so we were at the thick of military operations.

How do we erase memories of stories about the mercenary, Major Wiliams, whose name got weaved into what the biggler communicated at each morning parade from Madonna-1, less than 1 kilometre from our home? ‘Puta kwa, puta kwa, Major Wiliams agbagbuo gi, onye major gbagburu alarm ukporo; come out, come out, so major William wouldn’t shoot you to death, if major kills you, you are wasted.

How do you erase the night we heard clearly the booming ‘kwrapu, kwrapu, kwrapu, unu dum”? Sounds of bombs that got closer.
Then we learnt they had crossed the Imo river.

How do we not remember that night? That night! That night in early January 1970 that it seemed everyone gathered to listen to an anthem and an address after which men broke down and wept?
That night, it was decided we should run away from our home.

How do you erase memories of the long treck down the valleys to Nzerem. To Nzerem so we can zerele ndu, save our lives.

How do we erase the remembrance of a 6 year old, walking in the dark with Tim, and my grandmother, and Dada Happy, the people I can remember on that igba oso ndu to Nzerem. Then my father met us at some point on the road, his car already filled with my mother, my two younger siblings in front, a huge box on the back seat, then Tim and I had to be squeezed in through the windows and lay flat on the box on the back seat.
Then, at Nzerem, we stayed with the Uchegbus. The harmattan was severe. Morning baths were cold, and we made songs of the coldness, and our new friend, Onyekaozuru, would add a line, “oyi ututu, oyi ututu, nwoke gbara oso la wa’, coldness, coldness, man on the run go home.

How can I not remember the day we walked back home with my mum and her younger sister, Dada Mercy. I carried my chair on my head all through that long journey from Nzerem, may be about 5 kilometres. How did my chair even get to Nzerem? Most likely, my father ran shuttles that night we ran and would have brought my valued chair made of rubber twines of blue and white check. When I see pictures of flee refugees on TV, I say to my wife, we were liked that. It happened to us.

Good news! We returned home to find Papa Job, my grandfather, safe and well. Papa refused to run. He refused to leave his house. Papa had a simple justification – he had offended no one and had no reason to run away. It was said that Job Nwajiuba was the only person in the whole Umuezeala-Nsu who did not run.

We returned and we could see the changes of a new era. Everyone was in fear. People seemed to tip toe. The Madonna camps had new occupants. There were checkpoints, especially heading towards the major road and market at Isinweke. Women in particular were targeted.

Some survied the war but not the peace.

How do we forget the young siblings at Umuchiaku Lowa who picked a grenade thinking it was a small ball to be played with, and it exploded and killed them all. I still clearly see their compound the day of their burial. They survived the war but did not survive the ‘peace’. Then, the young boys at Umunumo, who playing, I believe with grenades, lost eyes and arm. One of who is a symbol of resilience growing to become a senator. How do they not remember what happened?

How does a man whose wife was forcibly taken forget? How does a daughter acquired as war trophy forget or how does her family forget, especially if the marriage collapsed and she returned home with children of absconded father? How does a man forget which child is from unknown soldiers, and such are still whispered in families?

Truth is, we never asked for these events.
We wish it never happened.
The social consequences, insufficiently studied, have redefined us.
We wish to forget, but Nigeria has continued to insist that the Igbo must not forget.
How do we forget when everyone around us insists we must not forget?
When a young Emeka, born in 2015, takes federal entrance examination into secondary school must make 150, but his friends and playmate, Ahmed may get in just with 5 marks, please what do we tell Emeka?

Philip Effiong Jr. recently gave us his childhood memories, ‘My Biafran Scar’. He had a front row seat as a child courtesy of his father’s position.
We did not have such privilege. Yet we from the area around the Madonnas had a different kind of front row. We hosted the last and longest state house. Our Orieagu market was bombed. The air raids were frequent. And it only ended when they arrived our Etiti area. We need more literature, especially on the social consequences of that experience. How that experience changed our values. We need to say to ourselves, not just ozoemena, may it not happen again, but also nchetaka, remembrance is critical. May the children not eat frogs thinking its a delicacy. May we also mourn our dead and remember them. In my own family, Lawrence Ugochukwu and Livinus Chukwu (who had taken his cambridge exams, a significant family investment lost), whose absence is still felt, and the consequences for young widows with children still evident. Then, the children who died due to malnutrition, whose names we can’t remember. May God be k8nd to their souls.

We need to ask our neighbours not just to end the war as we have, but to understand what happened and end the continued mischief of false narratives to their children. How do you convince a man over 90 years that its embarrassing to say he went to Aburi in January 1967 after so much bloodshed just to drink tea and shake hands while his opposite came prepared, and got an agreement he had to renege on, and decades after he feels no sense of shame, and seemingly no conscience. Is Nigeria such an unserious thing to him?
We also need to allow Nigeria blossom as in pre-1966. We need to convince the rest of Nigeria that the policies instituted from 1970s many of which are targeted at containing Igbo energy and drive have reduced Nigeria to less than less-endowed countries of the world. We need to let the rest of Nigeria agree with the Igbo that onye ji nmadu na ala ji onwe ya, when you hold somone to the ground, you are also on the ground. Nigeria may need to learn fom Malaysia and Indonesia where one part simply expunged the other. That was an adult act and an adult response. Both parts are better than Nigeria today.

The Igbo wants to forget.
May Nigeria stop insisting that the Igbo should not forget.

God bless.
By Prof. Chinedum Nwajiuba, 300526