“As the commanding officer and leader of the troops that massacred 500 men in Asaba, I have no apology for those massacred in Asaba, Owerri and Ameke-Item. I acted as a soldier maintaining the peace and unity of Nigeria,” Maj-Gen Ibrahim Haruna, speaking at the Oputa Panel on 9 October, 2001.

Haruna’s has been, with the exception of Yakubu Gowon who apologised for the massacre, the attitude of Nigeria’s officialdom, to the massacre of hundreds of Nigerian citizens, fifty years ago on Saturday.

More: https://www.naijiant.com/guestcolumn/asaba-massacre-fifty-years/

Naijiant:

More: https://www.naijiant.com/guestcolumn/asaba-massacre-fifty-years/

this kind of things mks me hate Nigeria more n more the way they massacre my people. one day I will take revenge on Nigeria

1/As the commanding officer and leader of the troops, I have no apology for those massacred in Asaba, Owerri and Ameke-Item.

2/ "I acted as a soldier maintaining the peace and unity of Nigeria," Maj.-Gen. Ibrahim Haruna.

3/ Haruna said this at the Oputa Panel on 9 October, 2001.

4/ This week, people in #Asaba begin a series of events to commemorate a devastating incident that wiped the town off the map.

5/ Please follow @AsabaMemorial for more information.

6/ The very first person interviewed in this video

7/ He is by any measure, a successful person today. He is my mother's brother. Fifty years ago, he faced a firing squad.

8/ He lived to tell the tale. His father, my grandfather, did not. Neither did some of his brothers.


9/ Another brother of his, my Uncle Medua, also survived. The bullets were taken out of him in 1978.

10/ I have told their story before, here

11/ There are two other stories I want to tell.

12/ The first, was narrated to me by an elder relative, who would rather not be named. It is a short story.

13/ "We managed to avoid being rounded up, so we survived the massacre. So we ran. A group of us, trying to make our way to #Biafra.

14/ "Around Onwe, I saw a Nigerian soldier, very well kitted. That was when I knew that #Biafra had lost the war.

15/ "The soldier saw us, eight of us, and I was afraid. I thought we were dead.

16/ "Instead, the soldier looked at us, then nodded in the direction of the river and shook his head.


17/ "We look at where he had nodded, and saw some of his fellow soldiers, so we went into the bushes in the opposite direction.

18/ "One of our company, a woman, had a baby. The baby began to cry, and one of us told the woman, 'Nwa a ga laputa anyi.'

19/ "She understood the message, and crying, she smothered her baby.

20/ "I still remember her face as she did what she did. That woman was never the same again."

21/ On October 14, 1967, the National Radio Broadcasting Service, broke off scheduled transmission to make a special announcement.




FOLLOW @CHXTA ON TWITTER FOR MORE INFORMATION ON ASABA MASSACRE

Even though Asaba was not in Biafra, almost a thousand civilians were massacred just because Asaba was an Igbo city.

But Im happy that God avenged this wrong. Lt Colonel Murtala Mohammed who was leading the second division that conducted this massacre, and his right hand man, Major Taiwo, were both gunned down the same day almost 10 years later in 1976 in their prime. Both men had not even reached the age 40 yet.

Most of the Soldiers who participated in the Asaba massacre met their deaths a few days later when they tried to invade Onitsha in three disasterous attempts that were crushed by Biafran forces.