Biafra @53:We are all Biafrans-Ebuka Onyeji

By Ebuka Onyeji

The carrier, RwandaAir – the efficacious prototype of the proposed NigerianAir! that was shut for executive and parliamentary encumbrances – touched down in Kigali, the cold hilly capital of Rwanda in faraway Central Africa in mid-March last year.

How did Rwanda, a country of about 12 million people (barely half of Lagos) rise on the broken wings of a horrid past to become Africa’s tourist destination? How did they even do it? I pondered as I alighted from the aircraft.

To be sure, I visited the Kigali Memorial Centre and right in the walls, I read accounts and powerful testimonies of those who witnessed the 1994 genocide that within 100 days claimed almost a million lives – mostly Tutsi’s and moderate Hutus, the two dominant tribes in that country.

I saw clothes and skulls of the victims of that genocide and before my eyes, they died again as I lived the moment.

I saw rusty weapons! I felt humbled by the dignity in the utter confessions of the perpetrators of the bloodbath.

No matter the side of the divide, that incident became a defining moment for an average Rwandese.

They said never again!!!

Apart from building a memorial site, two public holidays were dedicated to mourning the genocide – April 7 and July 4.

Nigeria and Rwanda are world apart but seem to have a common history that like John – the Baptist, have become the harbinger of their futures. But while later chose to invest in their past for an honest and prolific future, the past is but only a clog in the wheel for the former and if anything should be avoided and swept under what is deeper than the rug…

Between 1967 and 1970 Nigeria fought a civil war that claimed lives in millions and this incident does not deserve a spot in the country’s calendar?

Countries like South Korea and the U.S. who also fought civil wars understood the potency of mending broken wounds to avoid an austere future that is why these gory incidents have a place in their history.

But in Nigeria, we are hell-bent on pushing that part of history into oblivion. As if by a stroke of a magic wand, we will all forget that about 1.5 million people that died during the war died of starvation? It doesn’t include those who died in combat.

We don’t want to remember that not less than half a million Igbos are lost in neighboring countries where they were taken as refugees and became assimilated? It was difficult to know their names because they were taken as children from kwashiorkor camps. Their parents were not there. None of them remembers who is their father or mother until today.

No cenotaph was built in remembrance of any of these people who died at least to strengthen unity and oneness in Nigeria.

An entire phase of history is a heartbeat away from obliteration and the government is hell-bent on cracking down any form of activity to remember this conflict.

At least 150 pro-Biafra protesters were killed between August 2015 and August 2016 as Nigerian security forces embarked on – what Amnesty International described as – a chilling campaign of extrajudicial executions and violence in the Southeast. A score was killed in the year that followed.

Can those who mischievously try to bury this history tell me they don’t know that factors that caused this war still live within us?

What has followed their poorly hatched attempt at cremating history has been resentment, chaos, and mutual suspicion of one another which has continued unabated.

But no matter the attempt, we should not forget!

Today, we reflect and reminisce on a conflict which is and will always be the darkest part of our history and I cannot pretend as if nothing happened. For crying out loud, people died on both sides.

My father, Allison Amobi Onyeji (Omokachie1 of Ufuma) fought and experienced the war. He told me stories that I hope I will one day pass down to my children hoping they will also pass to theirs.

We can and should acknowledge the sacrifice – in blood, suffering, and toil – by millions of citizens on both sides of that divide. They shared a common hope for their sacrifices: namely, that out of that war, we shall build a nation where no man is oppressed. The only difference was that for one side, Nigeria was that nation. For the other it was Biafra.

Let us spare a thought for every victim of that conflict and the crises before that: the leaders and the soldiers, ordinary men, women, and children. Each one loved life; had hopes and dreamt dreams. They died prematurely and often, painfully.

Ebuka Onyeji Writes from Abuja