I dreamt of Biafra*

M. O. ENÉ

New Jersey, USA

egbedaa@aol.com

Sunday, January 15, 2006

“My contention is that we went to war to keep Nigeria one and to us there was no Biafra and therefore we cannot talk of the leader of the rebellion as the Head of State of Biafra (1967-1970).”

~ General Yakubu Gowon, rtd: African Concord, 1992

“I do not deny the fact of secession in 1967^__that is a historical fact. What I deny is that the Igbo community to which I belong has been planning for secession. Secession is not like COCAINE ^__ it is not addictive. Today other people are feeling the pangs of what I felt twenty-five years ago. These people have my sympathies. These people not having the guts to say so have continued to murmur in the hope that I will take up the refrain. I will not. Today I have more reasons to seek a better Nigeria than I did. ...I have invested so heavily in Nigeria.”

~ General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu: TSM, 1994

*

On the oil-painted wall hung the photograph of a regally dressed, pale-complexioned woman. Grandpa Chimé talked so much about her. I wondered why; half of the then 9 to 12-year-old girls in UmuChimé town were also called Eliza‑as the oyibo chief, a white woman.

Twenty miles away in our city house in the New Haven quarters of Enugu, an old photograph of Dr. Nnamdi (Zik) Azikiwe, last Governor General and first President of Nigeria, occupied a pride of place in dad’s studio. He was dressed like Lord Lugard in our history book. I saw another photo of Zik; he was dressed like the then Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, and other agbada men, as Nigerians called politicians.

I was yet to come to terms with the photo conflicts when my siblings brought in four prominent posters of khaki boys, as Nigerians called soldiers after the seized the political podium. The first three captivated me first: They were arguing. The first -- a bash, dark, tall, young, and very handsome man -- tore the photos of some agbada men as well as those of some senior khaki boys. The second was more mature and fatherly; he arrested the first and told the other khaki boys to cool it.

The third -- handsome, suave, and youthful -- said that talk was cheap. Obviously, he had never paid telephone bills in the USA. He set his hot-headed supporters upon the fatherly, second soldier and on some specially selected soldiers, both officers and men.

“Can we have one photograph, please?” I screamed.

Enter the fourth soldier: A camouflage-clad, confident, chain-smoking, and Castro-bearded khaki guy came in. He said he had spent time at Oxford and Cambridge thinking things over. He had the answer: BIAFRA.

The force-full folks on my right screamed: “A solution at long last!”

The ugly people on my left murmured and sashayed. “Wait a minute,” some suddenly said.

“No way,” the third khaki guy blurted. “In Sandhurst, we call it daydreaming. We must go on with one Nigeria.”

The manipulable mob on my left concurred.

I turned to see what was happening behind me. Pandemonium.  The left and the right and everyone in-between were at it. From the air rained screaming shells; from the seas came smoking shells; and from the land came everything the sea and the air could not handle. Then the smoke began to clear. The first and second khaki boys, the duo who disagreed first, were no more.

Thirty months later, the brave bearded guy gave up and went west to search for a solid solution somewhere beyond our shores.... or so we were told. The third khaki guy who had cheapened conversation claimed a chimerical victory. He said it was all over. We floated on a farrago of forgettery. No vanquished, no victor, right? Yeah, right. West and north, resentful reservations lingered.

“Seriously, it is all over,” everyone east appeared to be saying.

“Praise the Lord!” I chanted, still surprised and suspicious.

“Alleluia!” friendly folks and family members echoed.

A dream? Oh yes, I had a dream. Or did I? Trouble was, the apparent victor round 22 years later, wearing agbada like most professional politicians, and said I had no dream, that it didn’t happen even in my dreams!

I, Chikereuba Chimé of the Biafran Boys Brigade, had no dreams? Haba. C’est ne pas possible. Call the Pope. The Queen. Bill Clinton. I must tell my story. Mandela must hear about it. Tell Boris Yeltsin. Maggie Thatcher, can you hear me? The Chinese communists politburo knows. The Latinos in Paris… the Frenchmen… they knew all about it. Tanzanians. The Gabonaise. Côte d’Ivoireans. Haitians too. Everyone heard. Well, almost everyone.... except the khaki guy who started it all.

Talk is cheap, huh? Ha!

*

Of course, there was Biafra. One day, the principal actors will tell the full story. The horror. The senselessness. The sacrifices. People grew up fast and painfully too. Killing another human is terribly traumatic, but it came easily in Biafra with the wasting of human lives like unwholesome Christmas chickens.

Waste?

I saw a Commonwealth Games silver medalist wasted. I was in trenches with wasted people. I saw enemies wasted with hot leads. I still believe the particular bullets didn’t come from my gun; no, good Catholic boys don’t kill. I saw my platoon commander shoot himself in the hand to keep a date with Afuluenu. Oh, yes; “bloody coward,” she called him. I once raced to our company rendezvous to request for supplies in the heat of a nasty battle and saw a highly regarded officer doing to a dusky damsel what I thought only babies did with their mummies’ mammary. I waited. Many fine boys wasted in the battlefield across the River Mmam in Awlaw before he struck milk! Enough milk for his coffee.

Yuck!

It was sheer madness. It took over three years for the top dogs to agree that it was an expensive mistake, a callous calculation made to look good. Game over. No ceremonies, not even a discharge paper. No thank you, no handshakes. No passing out parades, no nothing. I hitched a ride, ran, and walked home a hero.

They called me names:

Anu kporo nko na-eju onu (The dry meat that fills the mouth.)

Anu a na-agba egbe, o na-ata nri. (The game that chews its cud while the hunter aims.)

Ga-ga n’ogwu. (Fearless across thorns)

Ikuku ama n’onya. (The wind that cannot be ensnared.)

Nwata kworo aka, soro ogalanya rie nri. (The boy who washed his hands and dinned with elders.)

Oke mere ihe e boro enyi. (The rat that committed the crime for which an elephant was convicted.)

Oku na-agba ozala (The fire that rages and consumes the desert.)

I felt wanted, I felt important.

It was not all war in Biafra. I had my fair share of the available fun: Sex, even with the risk of contacting “Bonny Special” -- a dangerous strain of aggressive gonorrhoea. Kaikai Kinkana (“illicit” palm spirit). Wee-wee (Indian hemp or ganja). Cheap Mars fags… where “fag” is slang for cigarette. I drove cars, fast and furious… all the time on locally refined gasoline. I commandeered cars from bloody civilians to win the war, a fight to finish for the conservation and continuation of the Igbo nation and their neighbouring nations.

I beat up people for fun. I got the feel for raw power in Biafra. In Biafra, boys became men. No guardians instilled nor enforced rudimentary social norms. I was an Ojukwu soldier. A patriot. A mini mutant monster metamorphosed from a God-fearing, mass-serving, Coal-City boy of conservative Igbo Catholicism. Things simply fell apart. No one picked up the pieces.

After the war, I sustained my premature adolescence for awhile. I went back to school. We still sang the win-the-war songs. It was over, but we believed that General Gowon would still surrender to General Odumegwu-Ojukwu. Infantile fantasy but we still sang our heart out on the eve of Gowon’s first visit to now defunct Biafra. One particular song was popular, especially in north-western Igbo dialect:

      Gowon ejekwuru Ojukwu iyo ya:

      “Ojukwu, i merigo!”

      Gowon ejekwuru Ojukwu iyo ya:

      “Ojukwu, i merigo!”

      Aga m ejekwuru Ojukwu, iyo ya mgbaghara

      Ike agwugo mu na ami m-o; i merigo.

      Mgbo m agwusigo

      Ego m agwusigo

      Ekwensu dunyere m mu bia buso gi agha

      Mgbo m agwusigo

      Ego m agwusigo

      Ekwensu dunyere m mu bia buso gi agha

Then followed the English equivalent with an upbeat ending:

      Gowon has gone to Ojukwu to beg:

      “Ojukwu, you have won.”

      Gowon has gone to Ojukwu to beg:

      “Ojukwu, you have won.

      “I shall go to Ojukwu to ask for his pardon,

      “My army and I are tired; you have won.

      “My bullets are spent

      “My funds are spent

      “The devil pushed me into fighting you.

      “My bullets are spent

      “My funds are spent

      “The devil pushed me into fighting you.”

      Ojukwu soldiers: Major, Major, Major, Major

      Odumegwu-Ojukwu is another saviour.

The next day, the day of the visit, we were lined up and taught to sing a different tune. One tedious teacher came up with the worst psycho-denial, bootlicking verse anyone could dream up in the immediate postwar East Central State:

      Ojukwu wanted to separate Nigeria,

      But Gowon said Nigeria must be one,

      We are fighting together with Gowon,

      To keep Nigeria one.

We felt insulted. It sounded daft too. We tied the old man up and nearly choked him to death. He retired from his hospital bed. I was singled out and expelled. I was mad. If we had won the war, the principal would not have dared to expel me. I cried for Biafra. I was mad, but I was happy. I was happy because now late Major Patrick Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, who kicked off the wild dream on January 15, 1966, also led a school protest.  I was mad that I fought a war to settle for a bloody civilian joke called “secondary school.”

I chucked in schooling altogether. Yes, bye-bye high school, but my Dad, Chief Chimé, said he still had the last word, since the veteran still resided under his roof! He whipped me into line and pulled political and social strings. I went back to being a son and back to the best school in town. “Expulsion” suddenly read “suspension.”

The soldier in me died a slow but sure death. Someone please tell me I’m still dreaming.

*The story is fiction