THE BITTER STORY OF MY PEOPLE DURING THE CIVIL WAR

THE GO-TO-NIGER STORY

June 21

(THE BITTER STORY OF MY PEOPLE DURING THE CIVIL WAR)

By Barr. Elvis Sonny

Abonnema is a large town in the Kalabari kingdom founded in 1882 by notable Kalabari Chiefs in the old Kalabari kingdom. It is a community made up of people who love peace more than anything. They show love even to strangers. Everybody was welcomed in Abonnema irrespective of your origin.

Brotherly love existed all through until political difference infiltrated the people in the 1960’s political era.

The different political views led to impenitent attitude towards one another. This bad blood would be later fuelled to a collateral explosion by the advent of the Biafran Civil War. Thereon, the hatred grew among the people. It became an opportunity for the biafran soldiers to perpetrate all manner of inhuman maltreatment on those people they perceived or tagged saboteurs of the declared Biafran regime with the aid of those who are in their good books and who of course are of different political parties and idea before the war began.

Behold, the stage was set for atrocities in the once peaceful Abonnema. The Biafran troops saw themselves as gods on earth. They coveted our properties and beautiful women; raped the ones vulnerable. They took away foods of indigenes to their camps. Those who were bold enough to speak against the pogrom shot dead or tied up at the waterfront to face the fierce heat of the sun until life is drained out sliver by sliver.

Children battled with starvation, pregnant women abandoned without medical attention and young men forcefully conscripted to face the Nigerian army which many never returned till today. An uncle of mine was a victim too (God bless his soul). Many potential men wasted in the line of all these and as a result rendered many women widowed.

The entire atmosphere was tense. Every gathering was seen as the gathering of saboteurs. Young men no longer walked in peers how much more in groups. As we say in local parlance, OYO (on your own) was the case: it was now every man for yourself. Houses were looted by the biafran soldiers.

The whole scenario was as if God had abandoned the people of Abonnema to die. Everything was like hell on earth. The hunger and pain was totally unbearable. The people cried to God to save them.

Fortunately, God intervened in the matter. The Nigerian army launched into Abonnema. The Biafran soldiers hearing this information organised to evacuate everybody in Abonnema to an unknown place in Ibo land. The evacuation was to be made through the defunct Royal Niger Trading Company place. The plan was to take them to AGADA and from there the exodus would formally begin. This was how the word, Ga’a Niger was coined. Ga’a in ibo means “GO-TO”.  Thus, Ga’a-Niger means Go-to-Niger: meaning the people should go to the Niger company (Royal Niger Trading Company) where the evacuation would commence. At about 7 am June 21,1968 the people started parking their loads, starving children, sick persons, old persons, pregnant women and any item of survival available. It was like the children of Israel leaving Egypt.

As the people were on their way to Niger company, the Nigerian troops landed in Abonnema around 12 pm through the creek called ALICE OKOLO. Air strikes and land strikes began. The Nigerian army laid siege of the town and overpowered the biafran soldiers. Some of them jumped into the river and drowned while other that escaped through the creeks died of starvation and the flowing tide of the river.

And so, peace returned to Abonnema. A thanksgiving was held to mark the freedom of the people and a declaration that every June 21 be set aside to commemorate the sad event in honour of the heroes and those who sacrificed their lives to save Abonnema and all those whose lives were taken as a result of false allegations.

A cenotaph is placed in the town square in Abonnema to honour all the victims. Abonnema lived happily ever after.

My people, war is never an answer because eventually every war still ends up in a round table. Let us avoid war in any way we can. This brief history is not intended to hate the Ibo man. All those that committed these crimes are all dead. Love the Ibo man as your brother and treat him well. This write-up is to help us know where we are coming from so that we do not make the same mistake.

So many people only instigate and want war because of their personal gains just as we have seen how the political differences fuelled the atrocities during the civil war: people who were once brothers fingered their own brothers to be killed because of the political differences.

It is also worthy of note to say here that many countries that supported the biafran regim only did so because they wanted to sell their arms to them. Likewise any country supporting Nigeria during war is only doing so to sell arms to Nigeria. War to some is a business especially the Western countries. How come they never fight themselves but they have enough arms to sell? The answer is that they know the African countries would always fight out of political greed and so they instigate war or support a side in the war to sell their arms.

Even as we now have two major political parties in Nigeria, let us not use it to kill our brothers. As the General Election approaches in 2019, do not kill your brother for political gains.

WE ARE ALL NOTHING BUT DUST AT THE END OF OUR EXISTENCE.

ONE LOVE.

PEACE.

Barr. Elvis Sonny

(07019226797)