Land of the Rising Sun: A Fictional Tribute to Biafra

By Dr. Ngozi M. Obi

Most people have never heard of Biafra or the war that nullified its birth and impending existence as a country. But those who lived the war still feel the sting and stigma of their wartime experiences.

Knowing the history of a people helps one to understand them, giving rise to compassion rather than condemnation or alienation. This is also true for a people’s posterity to ensure negative history never repeats itself.  Though the land’s rising sun is currently dimmed along its horizon, it will never be utterly extinguished and allowed to completely set because of the voices of those still crying out from it.
 
Read on to discover the indigene experience of wartime Biafra through the eyes of a young nurse, chronicled in a historical fiction tribute.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524688141

Dr. Ngozi M. Obi

Dr. Ngozi M. Obi is an American author of Nigerian Igbo descent whose love for writing has evolved into four published works of fiction (Love’s Destiny, 2009. When Dreams and Visions collide, 2010. Love’s Legacy, 2016. and Land of the Rising Sun: A fictional Tribute to Biafra, 2017.), A nonfiction collaboration (The Women of Purpose anthology, 2018, co-authored with thirty other women.) and two children’s books (Timmy’s Time Tale, 2020 and Shades of me, 2020.) to date. She also practices as a pharmacist in the love filled state of Virginia where she resides. In her spare time, when she is not busy writing books, she enjoys traveling, cooking and experimenting with different recipes, frequent spa escapes, shopping and reading. Visit www.ladyofdestiny.com for more information about Dr. Obi and her books.

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© 2017 Dr. Ngozi M. Obi. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/13/2021

ISBN: 978-1-5246-8815-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-8813-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-8814-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017905777

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Dedication

Preface

Historical Facts That Led To The Nigerian-Biafran War

A Tale Of War

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

The Biafran War In Pictures

Location Of Biafra In The World And In Nigeria

Biafran Kwashiorkor Children: The Unlikely Faces Of The Biafran War

Red Cross Mass Feeding Camps In Biafran Territory

The Biafran Flag

DEDICATION

To all who gave their lives and those who continue to struggle for the cause of Biafra, your labor of love isn’t in vain and will never be forgotten. You will forever be remembered by your posterity and your stories will be told and heard all over the world.

Daddy, the brave Biafran army captain who raised me, your fight for the cause has helped shape me into the relentless force of a woman I am today.

Mommy, the Biafran nurse who almost didn’t make it out of Biafra alive if not by God’s grace. I’m eternally grateful for your wisdom and impartation of it into my life. I miss you more than words can say. Continue to rest in the perfect peace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The future generation of Igbos and those who identify as Biafrans, knowing what really happened in Biafra’s past will help ensure a history of injustice doesn’t repeat itself.

Proverbs 22:28 and 23:10…Remember the old landmarks.

PREFACE

There are already a good number of books out there on Biafra and the war that denied its birth, as a country, into existence. Why write another, one might ask? I was motivated to broach the subject of Biafra and write about it again for several reasons I’ll outline in the following paragraphs.

For starters, what the people of Biafra endured during the war was unimaginable. It was so heinous that John Lennon, the late musician and member of the popular sixties rock band, The Beatles, objected by returning his MBE to the British monarchy in protest of British involvement in the war. The Nigerian-Biafran war should never be dismissed as an ordinary civil war within a nation to determine who had the right to wield power or pushed under some imaginary rug and forgotten. It was much more than just another civil war. It was essentially a plot to erase all Biafran Igbos and their posterity from the face of the earth much like Germany’s Hitler wanted to do with the Jews.

Knowing this fact about the war, makes it important to tell and keep telling all wartime stories of Biafra and her people to ensure they’re heard around the world and what happened during the war is never forgotten. It also serves to remind the international community that essentially turned their back on Biafra and abandoned its indigenes in their greatest time of need, allowing a good majority of them, particularly innocent children, to die like mere animals, of the vital role they played in ensuring Biafra’s defeat and hopefully realize the gravity of it.

Secondly, the recent agitation for Biafra made me wonder if those carrying placards and marching for its birth or rebirth, if you will, truly understood what they were actively campaigning for. I wasn’t born during wartime Biafra but I lived the pain of it because of my parents. My father, a Biafran army captain and my mother, a young nurse during the Biafran war, frequently filled my imagination with countless stories of what happened to them and those they knew during the Nigerian-Biafran war. Trust me, what they endured wasn’t for the faint of heart and I’ve often wondered if they would’ve survived so many gruesome encounters if God hadn’t intervened on their behalf at every turn.

No war is ever easy to navigate by those involved in it and should never be entered into haphazardly, especially knowing what it cost in the past and the outcome that essentially branded Igbos as outcasts in their own homeland. Are those carrying placards and marching for Biafra today truly willing to sacrifice selflessly as those in the sixties did?

Lastly, I’ve heard a few people say the Biafran war was just a bunch of rebels causing problems in Nigeria, but Biafra’s fight was much more than that. I don’t know about anyone else, but Aleppo, Syria didn’t become real for me until I saw the picture of a young boy, barely a toddler, sitting by himself, covered in soot after being rescued from a bombed building on television. That image alone humanized the people of Syria and made clear their plight for me. In the same manner, I’d like to humanize the people of Biafra by attempting to recreate some of what they went through in a fictitious manner in hopes of making their plight clear to the world.

Biafrans, or more recently, Syrians are all human beings simply fighting for the right to live life fully and freely in peace with no tyrannical restrictions in their own country. They aren’t asking to come into international communities to become burdens to the rest of the world. The only reason most even agree to leave their homes in the first place is because of the negative effects that war has placed on their continued existence and wellbeing in their place of birth which makes them victims, not rebels. We must understand that a threat to one’s right to live peaceably in their own homeland in any area of the world is a threat to all citizens of the world because we’re all only as free and safe as the least free and safe of all of us.

My aim in writing this book isn’t to discourage those agitating for Biafra or to encourage its birth into existence but rather to educate on what happened and humanize the people in hopes that negative history doesn’t repeat itself. I’m a firm believer that knowing the history of a people yields a greater understanding of them. For their posterity as well, knowing your people’s history makes you aware of the sacrifices made for your freedom and ability to pursue happiness without restrictions. It also helps you understand the reason for your existence on earth and causes you to do your part by contributing positively to society while ensuring that the injustice of the past doesn’t repeat itself.

I understand that the continued marginalization of the Igbos has caused their current agitation for Biafra. After all, only in a country like Nigeria can an Igbo man not live freely in any part of it or ever ascend to become the president of his own country. However, though the Igbos have been marginalized, they still prosper, proving that God is with them.

For my young Igbo brothers and sisters and even all young Nigerians, read and understand what the fuss was and is really still about. For the rest of the world, read to know the significance of Biafra and understand the plight of its people and why the Biafran war was necessary.

It was my hope to include the words of the Biafran national anthem and a more extensive picture story of the war in this book but due to our inability to clearly decipher copyright ownership of the song and certain pictures in order to gain the appropriate permission to reproduce, we couldn’t include the song and were limited on the pictures we could include at the time of this publication.

I would like to note that the Biafran national anthem was a patriotic song written by Nnamdi Azikiwe and adapted to the tune of Sibelius’ Finlandia. It can easily be viewed by a quick search on most internet search engines for those interested in acquainting themselves with the words.

The pictures of the Biafran kwashiorkor children, who became the unlikely faces of the war and the feeding sites included in this publication are to the credit of Dr. Lyle Conrad and the CDC publications library. More of the Biafran kwashiorkor children and other pertinent Nigerian-Biafran war images can easily be viewed by accessing these and other news sources such as Time magazine archives on the subject.

We hope to include the Biafran national anthem and a more extensive picture story of the war in future versions of this book once further copyright determinations have been made and proper permissions have been obtained.

I would like to thank my father and late mother for sharing stories of their Biafran war experience with me through the years. Though this body of work is primarily fiction, their stories are the foundation that helped shape it.

I would also like to thank my father for guiding the research and providing an oral account of the historical facts that led to the Biafran war.

Finally, thanks in advance to all who will buy and read this book. If in reading Land of the Rising Sun, you’re made aware of the plight of a few people around the world and your perception and preconceived negative stereotypes of them changes, yielding a better understanding of them as part of humanity and causes you to gain compassion for their predicament, then my job in writing this book is done.

Historical facts

that led to the

Nigerian-Biafran war

N igeria, the mighty giant of Africa, as she’s affectionately called, was birthed into existence because of British trade and exploration into West Africa. Several kingdoms, such as the Benin kingdom, the Igbo Nri kingdom and Arochukwu, the Yoruba Ife kingdom and Hausa Kano kingdom were already in existence and thriving in this area long before the formation of Nigeria.

The highly-regarded Benin kingdom was well known in the region for its culture, arts and conquests but was itself conquered by the British in 1897. This was the primary reason for their lack of resistance to inclusion during the formation of Nigeria into a country and their subsequently subdued presence post independent Nigeria. They were content to continue their monarchist way of life within the confines of the country without making waves of discord with their fellow countrymen.

Of all the tribes of people encountered by the British in the Niger area of West Africa prior to the formation of Nigeria into a country, the Igbos gave the British the most difficult time because they essentially and still to this day, dance to their own individual tune and not necessarily to the tune of a traditionally organized leadership who exercised monarchist rule over them as was done with most of the other tribes. Instead, leaders like those of Nri kingdom exerted rule over its subjects through religion while still managing all of the kingdom’s wealth and resources.

As a result, the British didn’t quite know what to make of the Igbos. Rather than leave them to revel in their non-militant opposition, they engaged them and made them partners in businesses such as that of slave trade. This yielded the Igbo Arochukwu kingdom as an epicenter of British slave trade in Western Africa from 1600-1800. Slaves sent to America and Britain from all over the region were often gathered in Arochukwu kingdom before being moved to other parts of West Africa and ultimately to their final destinations around the world.

It’s believed that most of the slaves settled by colonial masters in Virginia, Maryland, Jamaica amongst other places in the world are said to be people of Igbo descent. It wasn’t that the Igbo man could easily be taken as slaves but because business is in the DNA of an Igbo man, most of them wickedly sold their brothers into slavery primarily to make money, a serious atrocity the Igbo man needs to sincerely repent and apologize for in order to gain true redemption. It makes one wonder if this isn’t the true source of most of their issues as a tribe of people.

It’s important to note however, that while Arochukwu kingdom was the epicenter of slave trade, Nri kingdom in Igbo land was the place where captured slaves who escaped could go to be set free without fear of repercussion or retaliation.

In 1901, the Northern protectorate of West African Niger area, made up mainly of the Muslim Hausas and the Southern protectorate, which included everybody else in the Niger area, were independently formed giving rise to organized British colonization in this area. In 1914, Lord Frederick Lugard, the British colonial administrator and governor assigned to both protectorates at the time, amalgamated the Northern and Southern protectorates of the Niger area to form the country, Nigeria. They’d carved out the richest area in West Africa for this purpose.

The name Nigeria was given to the newly formed nation by Lord Lugard’s wife, Lady Flora Shaw Lugard. It’s rumored that Lady Flora Shaw, a journalist, was actually Lord Lugard’s girlfriend at the time she named the country. Nigeria’s name is derived from what the region was previously called by the British, Niger area, because of its proximity to the Niger River. Nigeria was also nicknamed the giant of Africa because it became the most populous nation in Africa after its formation.

Nigeria is made up of over three hundred different ethnic and tribal groups but the three largest groups include the Northern Hausa Muslims, the half Christian, half Muslim Yorubas of the Southwest and the mostly Christian Igbos of the Southeast. Taking people with strong cultures, different religions and throwing them together into one nation would prove to be futile yet the British were determined to try by continued colonization of the nation.

Nigeria ultimately gained independence from British colonial rule in 1960 after determination from the country to rule itself but Queen Elizabeth II, the monarch of the United Kingdom and its territories, remained the head of state under the Nigerian independence act of 1960. Her presence was represented in the country by a Governor General sent from Britain.

In 1963, Nigeria was declared a republic and Nnamdi Azikiwe became its first ceremonial president but the negative effects of tribalism still loomed and threatened the democracy of the newly independent nation. There was a push to divide the country at this time but Azikiwe was determined to be the president of one Nigeria and made significant efforts to unite the nation.

Independence saw the alliance of leading Hausa and Igbo political parties which ruled the country from 1960 to 1966. This alliance excluded the Western Yoruba people who considered the well-educated Igbo elite the main beneficiaries of the Hausa-Igbo alliance because they ended up with the top jobs and most of the business opportunities in the Nigerian federation.

The Yorubas initially supported the action group political party which had some prominent Yoruba members but later formed their own party, NNDP, and went into alliance with the Northern Hausas. This new political alliance excluded the Igbos and threatened to roll back the gains of the Igbo elite through their established and governing NCNC political party.

In 1965, the NNDP won the national election under Sir Abubakar Tafewa Balewa amid widespread claims of electoral fraud. This led to a military coup by Igbo officers in the Nigerian army devised by Major Nzeogwu, yielding General Aguiyi Ironsi as Nigeria’s head of state and the beginning of military rule in Nigeria. Several months later, the middle belt Northerners devised a countercoup, which yielded General Yakubu Gowon as the head of state. With this, ethnic tensions greatly increased, resulting in a massacre of Igbos living in Northern Nigeria. At the same time, oil was discovered in the Southeastern portion of the nation and hopes of the Southeast becoming self-sufficient increased.

In 1966, a congress of military leaders from the three major tribes in Nigeria convened in Aburi, Ghana to find a solution to its tribal issues and inequities. It was decided that regional governments would be empowered to govern the people with a weak central government in place for administrative purposes. This accord was met with staunch resistance from the Nigerian government leadership on advice from the British government, to which Colonel Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, the Southeastern regional governor at the time, declared On Aburi, we stand!

Resistance to the proposed strengthening of regional governments, continued marginalization of Igbos and increased ethnic tensions led the then governor of the Eastern region, Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, standing without wavering on the Aburi congress decision, to declare Biafra an independent republic and the war to separate from Nigeria ensued. The name Biafra was taken from the original identity of the Southeasterners who’d been said to live on the Bight of Biafra before its amalgamation into Nigeria and the rise of British colonial rule in the area.

From 1967-1970, three long and excruciatingly painful years, Biafra fought hard to be free from all Nigeria represented including the corruption introduced into Nigeria by foreigners attempting to dupe the nation out of its newly realized oil revenue. Most believe that corrupt acts including 419 and the like originated with Nigerians, when in actual fact, most are only imitating what they’ve been taught or seen done by foreigners doing oil business with them. I’m not by any means condoning corruption or absolving Nigerians for participating in fraudulent activities but Western greed brought this to the African nation and it only became a crime when it started affecting the pockets of those who introduced it in the first place. Talk about a true double standard.

Biafrans were highly successful in their quest initially, considering what few resources they had to work with and would’ve won their freedom if not for interference from the international community, particularly the British.

Determined not to let Biafra become the next Japan, they essentially made it clear to the Nigerian government that if the Republic of Biafra was allowed to leave with the newly discovered oil in its area and the revenue that came with it, Nigeria and the rest of its people would perish without those resources. This yielded the brutality in which Nigeria dealt with not only the Biafran soldiers fighting the war but its indigenes as a whole. The goal was to force them into staying with their oil or annihilate the entire Biafran race. Nothing else would do.

From this,