My father told me of the war. I was little
then but my eyes burgeoned in imagination as he told a story of sorrow, of
want, of death. I thought he looked animated as he spoke. Me at his feet
drinking his words and him seated at the edge of the parlour cushion spewing
them; a solemn picture of uninterrupted connexion. It might not have been that
way actually because it is a strange thing to sit on the floor in my home but
that is how it is in my mind’s eye; something ‘up’ imparting something ‘down’.
My father was a young boy in the time of
the war, hovering about his first decade and at certain times, in order to
increase the pace of fleeing, had to be carried on the backs of one of the
adults. He didn’t say much about the impoverished children with swollen bellies
and tawny hair as pictures have depicted now. They must have seemed normal to
him. He didn’t speak of their scrawny mothers who catered to them with withered
breasts and despondent gazes. Everybody’s mum must have looked that way. He
spoke of the things that were unusual, the things that would rattle a small
boy, excite him even.
He spoke of Ojukwu. The mighty leader, the
legend, the hero and redeemer of all Igbos. He said his voice whenever it was
broadcasted over radio seemed like a mixture of roaring waves, victory and hope
all in one, not to mention his admirable delivery of Queen’s English, his
fascinatingly huge eyes and fan ears and roguish beard. He was the one all the
boys aspired to, the character they all fought to portray in their role-plays.
He spoke of the love they had for him and how much more they would have
sacrificed without question.
My father spoke of his elder brother who
was old enough and did go to the battlefront like many of his peers. He was
brought back home a deaf mute a short time after. He had been around the spot a
bomb dropped; far enough not to be included among his friends ripped to bits
but near enough to have his eardrum torn by the blast waves. When he started
recovering, he spoke in bawls and had to be yelled at to hear. My uncle didn’t
return to the warfront though he begged so much for it.
The Fighter and Bomber planes and the
‘Ogbunigwe’ were another thing. The Ogbunigwe, ‘Killer-in-multitudes’ was an
indigenous contraption designed by university scientists to do like the name
opined. Father tried to explain that component pieces had to be hidden at
various points around a perimeter and linked inconspicuously with wires so that
when any group of enemy soldiers gathered within the area, a trigger would be
released. The device left no talebearers. There was a particularly remarkable
victory the Ogbunigwe garnered for the Igbos that had made it so celebrated and
after the defeat, led to the abolishment of a particular discipline within the repossessed
University of Nigeria. The enemy Fighter and Bomber were called planes but the
way father described it, they seemed like helicopters that could fly close to the
ground. The use of these ‘planes’ punctuated the unfairness of taking a war
into civilian ground. When they came, you saw them just as soon as you heard
them. You did not prepare for them and pandemonium always greeted them. My
father recounted stories of demise he had either witnessed or had been told.
There was the knock-kneed man who had gone to a nearby bush to relieve himself
and soon enough the planes invaded. After they had exhausted their bombs and
bullets and people could reappear from their underground bunkers, along with
bodies and ripped human parts littering the streets, his bare buttocks attached
to lower limbs was found stained with excreta.
There was hunger. Again, there was hunger.
The sort that made families cook wild herbs that no one before or after the war
touched. School boys no longer hunted lizards for the fun of it but for its
expediency, in collaboration with their fathers. There was also delight when the
hunger was ameliorated. With the capture of the seaports and despite the
embargo on relief supplies, infrequently, some foreign organizations flew planes
and dropped containers of smoked fish, powdered milk, multi-nutrient powders,
canned beef, cereals and the like into open fields belonging to schools or
churches. Then it was Christmas. The real life experience of Manna falling from
heaven. The smoked fish served both as meat and as a source of salt that was in
lack during the war. Those times, they would have respite from eating
unfamiliar vegetables or meat.
My father spoke of fleeing; of moving away
from his home at Enugu towards his maternal, and later paternal, village
further inside Biafran territory. Journeys were made on foot, adult backs,
carts, bicycles and rarely vehicles. He never mentioned animals. When the
heart-sinking news came that land had been lost to the enemy and the signal was
given, members of every family rushed to secure their ever-dwindling valuables
for the flight. They had to sleep on the road exposed to the elements at times,
or under a place called ‘Bacha’ within the courtyards of sympathizers in safer
towns along their route.
My father spoke of betrayal and saboteurs,
of a certain tribe pulling away. He mentioned the organic hate for the enemy in
those times and what it made them do to captured soldiers. He spoke of Aburi.
He spoke of the mingling of disillusion and relief at defeat, felt in peculiar
ways by young and old, great and small. He spoke too, of the mix of fury and
derision when Biafrans uniformly received twenty pounds in place of their
savings after the war. He mentioned many other things I will not be able to
forget.
How can I forget? Regardless of the growing
library documenting the events of this war, I will tell my sons the personal
stories my father told me and I will demand that they tell their own sons. So I
cannot forget these things. I should not forget because there are
responsibilities our unborn ones are unaware we owe, but notwithstanding, must
be delivered to them. Then, it would be me and them: something up imparting
something down.
BOLIK