MY BIAFRAN EYES BY OKEY
NDIBE
My first glimpse into the
horror and beauty that lurk uneasily in the human heart came in the late 1960s
courtesy of the Biafran War. Biafra was the name assumed by the seceding
southern section of Nigeria. The war was preceded—in some ways precipitated—by
the massacre of southeastern (mostly Christian) Igbo living in the
predominantly northern parts of Nigeria.
Thinking back, I am amazed
that war’s terrifying images have since taken on a somewhat muted quality. It
requires sustained effort to recall the dread, the pangs of hunger, the crackle
of gunfire that once made my heart pound. It all now seems an unthreatening
fog.
~~~
As Nigeria hurtled towards
war, my parents faced a difficult decision: to flee, or stay put. We lived in
Yola, a sleepy, dusty town whose streets teemed with Muslims in flowing white
babariga gowns. My father was then a postal clerk; my mother a teacher. In the end,
my father insisted that Mother take us, their four children, and escape to
safety in Amawbia, my father’s natal town. Mother pleaded with him to come away
as well, but he would not budge. He was a federal civil servant, and the
federal government had ordered all its employees to remain at their posts.
The area’s Muslim leader arrived at the spot.
Uninfected by the malignant thirst for blood, he vowed that no innocent person
would be dealt death on his watch.
My mother didn’t cope well
in Amawbia. In the absence of my father, she was a wispy and wilted figure. She
despaired of ever seeing her husband alive again. Our relatives made gallant
efforts to shield her, but news about the indiscriminate killings in the north
still filtered to her. She lost her appetite. Day and night, she lay in bed in
a kind of listless, paralyzing grief. She was given to bouts of impulsive,
silent weeping.
Then one blazing afternoon,
unheralded, my father materialized in Amawbia, stole back into our lives as if
from the land of death itself.
“Eliza o! Eliza o!” a
relative sang. “Get up! Your husband is back!”
At first, my mother feared
that the returnee was some ghost come to mock her anguish. But, raising her
head, she glimpsed a man who—for all the unaccustomed gauntness of his physique—was
unquestionably the man she’d married. With a swiftness and energy that belied
her enervation, she bolted up and dashed for him.
We would learn that my
father’s decision to stay in Yola nearly cost him his life. He was at work when
one day a mob arrived. Armed with cudgels, machetes and guns, they sang songs
that curdled the blood. My father and his colleagues—many of them Igbo
Christians—shut themselves inside the office. Huddled in a corner, they shook
uncontrollably, reduced to frenzied prayers. One determined push and their
assailants would have breached the barricades, poached and minced them, and
made a bonfire of their bodies.
The Lamido of Adamawa, the
area’s Muslim leader, arrived at the spot just in the nick. A man uninfected by
the malignant thirst for blood, he vowed that no innocent person would be dealt
death on his watch. He scolded the mob and shooed them away. Then he guided my
father and his cowering colleagues into waiting vehicles and spirited them to
the safety of his palace. In a couple of weeks, the wave of killings cooled off
and the Lamido secured my father and the other quarry on the last ship to leave
for the southeast.
~~~
Air raids became a
terrifying staple of our lives. Nigerian military jets stole into our air
space, then strafed with abandon. They flew low and at a furious speed. The
ramp of their engines shook buildings and made the very earth quake.
“Cover! Everybody take
cover!” the adults shouted and we’d scurry towards a huddle of banana trees or
the nearest brush and lay face down.
Sometimes the jets dumped
their deadly explosives on markets as surprised buyers and sellers dashed
higgledy-piggledy. Sometimes the bombs detonated in houses. Sometimes it was
cars trapped in traffic that were sprayed. In the aftermath, the cars became
mangled metal, singed beyond recognition, the people in them charred to a
horrid blackness. From our hiding spots, frozen with fright, we watched as the
bombs tumbled from the sky, hideous metallic eggs shat by mammoth mindless
birds.
The jets tipped in the direction of our home and
released a load. The awful boom of explosives deafened us. My stomach heaved; I
was certain that our home had been hit.
One day, my siblings and I
were out fetching firewood when an air strike began. We threw down our bundles
of wood and cowered on the ground, gaping up. The jets tipped in the direction
of our home and released a load. The awful boom of explosives deafened us. My
stomach heaved; I was certain that our home had been hit. I pictured my parents
in the rumble of smashed concrete and steel. We lay still until the staccato
gunfire of Biafran soldiers startled the air, a futile gesture to repel the
jets. Then we walked home in a daze, my legs rubbery, and found that the bombs
had missed our home, but only narrowly. They had detonated at a nearby school.
~~~
At each temporary place of
refuge, my parents tried to secure a small farmland. They sowed yam and cocoyam
and also grew a variety of vegetables. We, the children, scrounged around for
anything that was edible, relishing foods that in less stressful times would
have made us retch.
One of my older cousins was
good at making catapults, which we used to hunt lizards. We roasted them over
fires of wood and dried brush and savored their soft meat. My cousin also set
traps for rats. When his traps caught a squirrel or a rabbit, we felt
providentially favored. Occasionally he would kill a tiny bird or two, and we
would all stake out a claim on a piece of its meat.
While my family was
constantly beset by hunger, we knew many others who had it worse. Biafra teemed
with malnourished kids afflicted with kwashiorkor that gave them the forlorn
air of the walking dead. Their hair was thin and discolored, heads big, eyes
sunken, necks thin and scrawny, their skin wrinkly and sallow, stomachs
distended, legs spindly.
As they ransacked the house, they kept my father
closely in view. Then they took him away.
Like other Biafrans, we
depended on food and medicines donated by such international agencies as
Catholic Relief and the Red Cross. Sometimes I accompanied my parents on trips
to relief centers. The food queues, which snaked for what seemed like miles—a
crush of men, women, children—offered less food than frustration as there was
never enough to go round. One day, I saw a man crumble to the ground. Other men
surrounded his limp body. As they removed him, my parents blocked my sight, an
effete attempt to shield me from a tragedy I had already fully witnessed.
Some unscrupulous officers
of the beleaguered Biafra diverted food to their homes. Bags of rice, beans and
other foods, marked with a donor agency’s insignia, were not uncommon in
markets. The betrayal pained my father. He railed by signing and distributing a
petition against the Biafran officials who hoarded relief food or sold it for
profit.
The petition drew the ire
of the censured officials; the signatories were categorized as saboteurs. To be
tagged a saboteur in Biafra was to be branded with a capital crime. A roundup
was ordered. One afternoon, some grave-looking men arrived at our home. They
snooped all over the house. They turned things over. They pulled out papers and
pored over them, brows crinkled half in consternation, half in concentration.
As they ransacked the house, they kept my father closely in view. Then they
took him away.
Father was detained for
several weeks. I don’t remember that our mother ever explained his absence. It
was as if my father had died. And yet, since his disappearance was unspoken, it
was as if he hadn’t.
Then one day, as quietly as
he had exited, my father returned. For the first—and I believe last—time, I saw
my father with a hirsute face. A man of steady habits, he shaved everyday of
his adult life. His beard both fascinated and frightened me. It was as if my
real father had been taken away and a different man had returned to us.
This image of my father so
haunted me that, for many years afterwards, I flirted with the idea that I had
dreamed it. It was only ten years ago, shortly after my father’s death, that I
broached the subject with my mother. Yes, she confirmed, my father had been
arrested during the war. And, yes, he’d come back wearing an unaccustomed
beard.
~~~
Father owned a small
transistor radio. It became the link between our war-torn space and the rest of
the world. Every morning, as he shaved, my father tuned the radio to the
British Broadcasting Corporation, which gave a more or less objective account
of Biafra’s dwindling fortunes. It reported Biafra’s reverses, lost strongholds
and captured soldiers as well as interviews with gloating Nigerian officials.
Sometimes a Biafran official came on to refute accounts of lost ground and vow
the Biafrans’ resolve to fight to the finish.
Feigning obliviousness, I
always planted myself within earshot, then monitored my father’s face, hungry
to gauge his response, the key to decoding the news. But his countenance
remained inscrutable. Because he monitored the BBC while shaving, it was
impossible to tell whether winces or tightening were from the scrape of a blade
or the turn of the war.
At the end of the BBC
broadcasts, my father twisted the knob to Radio Biafra, and then his emotions
came on full display. Between interludes of martial music and heady war songs,
the official mouthpiece gave exaggerated reports of the exploits of Biafran
forces. They spoke about enemy soldiers “flushed out” or “wiped out” by gallant
Biafran troops, of Nigerian soldiers surrendering. When an African country
granted diplomatic recognition to Biafra, the development was described in
superlative terms, sold as the beginning of a welter of such recognitions from
powerful nations around the globe. “Yes! Yes!” my father would exclaim, buoyed
by the diet of propaganda. How he must have detested it when the BBC disabused
him, painted a patina of grey over Radio Biafra’s glossy canvas.
~~~
In January 1970, after
enduring the 30-month siege, which claimed close to two million lives on both
sides, Biafra buckled. We had emerged as part of the lucky, the undead. But
though the war was over, I could intuit from my parents’ mien that the future
was forbidden. It looked every bit as uncertain and ghastly as the past.
Feigning obliviousness, I always planted myself
within earshot of the radio, then monitored my father’s face, hungry to gauge
his response, the key to decoding the news.
Our last refugee camp
abutted a makeshift barrack for the victorious Nigerian army. Once each day,
Nigerian soldiers distributed relief material—used clothes and blankets, tinned
food, powdery milk, flour, oats, beans, rice, such like. There was never enough
food or clothing to go around, which meant that brawn and grit decided who got
food and who starved. Knuckles and elbows were thrown. Children, the elderly,
the feeble did not fare well in the food scuffles. My father was the sole
member of our family who stood a chance. On good days, he squeaked out a few
supplies; on bad days, he returned empty handed. On foodless nights, we found
it impossible to work up enthusiasm about the cessation of war. Then, the cry
of “Happy survival!” with which refugees greeted one another sounded hollow, a
cruel joke.
Despite the hazards, we,
the children, daily thronged the food lines. We operated around the edges
hoping that our doleful expressions would invite pity. Too young to grasp the
bleakness, we did not know that pity, like sympathy, was a scarce commodity
when people were famished.
One day I ventured to the
food queue and stood a safe distance away watching the mayhem, silently praying
that somebody might stir with pity and invite me to sneak into the front. As I
daydreamed, a woman beckoned to me. I shyly went to her. She was beautiful and
her face held a wide, warm smile.
“What’s your name?” she
asked.
“Okey,” I volunteered,
averting my eyes.
“Look at me,” she said
gently. I looked up, shivering. “I like your eyes.” She paused, and I looked
away again. “Will you be my husband?”
Almost ten at the time, I
was aware of the woman’s beauty, and also of a vague stirring inside me. Seized
by a mixture of flattery, shame and shyness, I used bare toes to scratch
patterns on the ground.
“Do you want some food?”
she asked.
I answered with the
sheerest of nods.
“Wait here.”
She went off. My heart
pounded as I awaited her return, at once expectant and afraid. Back in a few
minutes, she handed me a plastic bag filled with beans and a few canned
tomatoes. I wanted to say my thanks, but my voice was choked. “Here,” she said.
“Open your hand.” She dropped ten shillings onto my palm.
Too young to grasp the bleakness, we did not know
that pity, like sympathy, was a scarce commodity when people were famished.
I ran to our tent, flush
with exhilaration. As I handed the food and coin to my astonished parents, I
breathlessly told them about my strange benefactor, though I never said a word
about her comments on my eyes or her playful marriage proposal. The woman had
given us enough food to last for two or three days. The ten shillings was the
first post-war Nigerian coin my family owned. In a way, we’d taken a step
towards becoming once again “Nigerian.” She’d also made me aware that my eyes
were beautiful, despite their having seen so much ugliness.
~~~
Each day, streams of men
set out and trekked many miles to their hometowns. They were reconnoiterers,
eager to assess the state of life to which they and their families would
eventually return. They returned with blistered feet and harrowing stories.
Amawbia was less than 40
miles away. By bus, the trip was easy, but there were few buses and my parents
couldn’t afford the fare anyway. One day a man who’d traveled there came to our
tent to share what he’d seen. His was a narrative of woes, except in one
detail: My parents’ home, the man reported, was intact. He believed that an
officer of the Nigerian army had used my parents’ home as his private lodgings.
My parents’ joy was checked only by their informer’s account of his own
misfortunes. He’d found his own home destroyed. Eavesdropping on his report, I
imagined our home as a mythical island of order and wholesomeness ringed by
overgrown copse and shattered houses.
The next day my father
trekked home. He wanted to confirm what he’d heard and to arrange for our
return. But when he got back, my mother let out a shriek then shook her head in
quiet sobs. My father arrived in Amawbia to a shocking sight. Our house had
been razed; the fire still smoldered, a testament to its recentness. As my
father stood and gazed in stupefaction, the truth dawned on him: Some envious
returnee, no doubt intent on equalizing misery, had torched it. War had brought
out the worst in someone.
My parents had absorbed the
shock of other losses. There was the death of a beloved grandaunt to sickness
and of a distant cousin to gunshot in the battlefield. There was the impairment
of another cousin who lost a hand. There was the loss of irreplaceable
photographs, among them the images of my grandparents and of my father as a
soldier in Burma during WWII. There was the loss of documents, including copies
of my father’s letters (a man of compulsive fastidiousness, my father had a
life-long habit of keeping copies of every letter he wrote). But this loss of
our home cut to the quick because it was inflicted not by the detested Nigerian
soldier but by one of our own. By somebody who would remain anonymous but who
might come around later to exchange pleasantries with us, even to bemoan with
us the scars left by war.
~~~
At war’s end, the Nigerian
government offered 20 pounds to each Biafran adult. We used part of the sum to
pay the fare for our trip home. I was shaken at the sight of our house: The
concrete walls stood sturdily, covered with soot, but the collapsed roof left a
gaping hole. Blackened zinc lay all about the floor. We squatted for a few days
at the makeshift abode of my father’s cousins. Helped by several relatives, my
father nailed back some of the zinc over half of the roof. Then we moved in.
This loss of our home cut to the quick because it
was inflicted not by the detested Nigerian soldier but by one of our own.
The roof leaked whenever it
rained. At night, rain fell on our mats, compelling us to move from one spot to
another. In the day, shafts of sunlight pierced through the holes. But it was
in that disheveled home that we began to piece our lives together again. We
began to put behind us the terrors we had just emerged from. We started
learning what it means to repair an inhuman wound, what it takes to go from
here to there.
In time, my father was
absorbed back into the postal service. My mother returned to teaching. We went
back to school. The school building had taken a direct hit, so classes were
kept in the open air. Even so, our desire to learn remained strong. At the
teacher’s prompting, we rent the air, shouted the alphabet and yelled
multiplication tables.
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