MY BIAFRAN STORY AND THE BIAFRA STRUGGLE; MORE THAN JUST A TALE WAR OF GUNS BUT OF IDEOLOGIES AND MEMORIES REJECTING A REPEAT. 

In the spirit of the moment, the state of the nation and the struggle for secession, I recount my own passed down stories of Biafra. 

As a little child, I had the luxury of my father telling me a lot of stories, you know the whole tortoise stories and his clichéd craftiness but as I headed for my first decade on earth things nosedive to an adventurous one, my father had exhausted all the tortoise story because I'll scream out, "daddy anu bu go m nka" (I've heard this before), the old man didn't have much to say anymore, and then he indulged into the sacreds of stories, the very thing I called history. He told me his personal account of the biafra civil war and how my grand dad, may his beautiful and brave soul rests in courtyard of my ancestors, left home and all that travailed becomes history and now my own personal stories about biafra. 

Frankly speaking, his own story could not account for the bulk of the whole war story but though it counted, at least to me. It counted more than enough to me because it's my first personal romance with the inglorious war tagged "Biafra civil war" and all that transpired from the very glass eye of Eugene Ndukaihe Ejionye, my good father.  

This biafra tale always had a touch of how much was lost when he speaks. Loss of lives and properties was just synonymous to all that happened in the war. It was a part he kept saying over years on different points this story that I've got to love and sparked my first interest into history in general. He told me of how everything was lost, close family ties and all. He was careful to say a lot because he wouldn't impact much hate into me, he didn't want to create a tribal chauvinist and hate and brutish machine what he called most of the young soldiers who lost their minds and thoughts in the cause of the war, so he would digress more and tell me more about the survival and not the bloodshed. Instances like how they went hunting for bush meat and when there was none anymore they succumbed to the lizards and frogs.

I remember as a teen, a cousin bought ero(mushroom) to the house to make a soup with it. I've never eaten ero till today and prior to that incidence I did not know why we did not. As my cousin brought in the mushroom, we did not know what took dad to the kitchen and he saw th pieces of "taboo" as I've come to see it. The next altercation was horrific, I never saw that in such manner. He screamed, Onye weba talu ife arua ni ime be m(who brought this abomination into my house?). He was furious and all that was thrown away and in my normal ritual of lying on his pot bellied tummy, I asked daddy "ke, ife melu iji si na ife anwa bu alu?"(why did you call that an abomination) and I saw goose bumps all over him and he said nwa m, that piece of white beauties reminds me of the war. 

He'll say nwa m, agha adiro nma, ma ncha ma ncha (war is not good, at all, at all). There was so much emphasis on the ma ncha, ma ncha and I noticed he always stopped when he got to a particular point in our story and he'll say nna na kpuo ula, chi ejigo k'anyi bido kwa echi. This repeated. a lot of times and no matter how much I break him to speak, he'll say nothing but smile and pat me to bed. Years later he called me and told me how he lost his favourite cousin to hunger, not that he didn't lose others but there was a subtle jubilation that the dead cousin's share of the meal would go round after all and there was more to rejoice about than to wail for.

He lived with this pains for years, he passed it on to me and I felt war was right, until I asked him again, what if we start another war and he screamed Mba, mechie onu ghi, don't think of it again.

He said war is terrible, it turns good people into animals, it leaves you no strength in helping those you love when they need your help. It breaks family apart and turns meek men callous. He'll give a million reasons why peace is greater.

Biafra will not die because it's not a human, it's a spirit and spirit are indestructible but then it can't be achieved by force but by the strength and sincerity in our voice and heart. we can win the most brutal army and vicious forces armed with the most ferocious arms and weapons just by been together in peace and persistent in a struggle with great potentials and beautiful Ideologies.

My father speaks of his experience, he was brave and the civil war was a necessity but now he said there's no reason for a war of bloods but that of ideas is welcomed.

Emmanuel Kelechi Ejionye writes from Abuja and he is a Writer, speaker, activist, grassroot leader, photographer, humanitarian and many more. He's also a graduate of Engineering from the prestigious University of Nigeria. He can be reached through 

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