AS WE REMEMBER, NEVER TO FORGET
By Charles Ogbu.

Tomorrow is the 30th day of May.

For other Nigerians, it is just another day in the calendar month but for the people of old Eastern region, it holds a special meaning for that is the day we remember millions of our people who chose to die on their feet than live on their knees.
Outnumbered, outgunned and blockaded from land, Air and Sea while under the combined fire powers of Britain, Russia, Morocco, Egypt and of course, Nigeria, and with no one by their side other than their sheer will and determination to defend their right to life and dignity of the human person, the Biafrans were condemned to a war they were fated to lose but even more fated to fight.
Artisans, every day men, and Children volunteered and took up the duty of protecting their honor and right to live like free men even if they knew they would die doing so.

And even though this "thing" masquerading as a Nation, too ashamed of her past and too arrogant to acknowledge it, would do anything to delete that part of our history, we, your kins who were forced to bury empty coffins, WE WILL REMEMBER
We seek no monuments from the murderous Monster that is the Nigerian state, we already built enough of those in our hearts for you.
You were guilty of one "crime" - being born in a country that is deaf, dumb and blind to the sanctity of human lives but which must be sustained and kept as One even if it means the death of all that lives therein.

Although their fighter jets have been deployed to our land, their armoured tanks lie in wait and their guns on trigger mode waiting to feed off our blood in enactment of that which they did to our forebearers back then, come May 30th, WE WILL REMEMBER YOU.
Neither gods nor men will make us forget your sacrifices and uncommon bravery in the face of impossible odds.
Though you are no more, you yet draw breath in our hearts and you shall live on in our memories even when our memories cease to exist for we shall ensure that generations after us are NOT UNaware of your sacrifices.
WE REMEMBER WE WILL NEVER DIS-REMEMBER

And as we remember, may we also take cognizance of the fact that the butchers of our parents, brothers and sisters are still in the business of killing. At a time like this when we are facing the worst EXISTENTIAL THREAT in history, now more than ever, we must forgive ourselves and understand that we are not enemies but a people of the same fate and faith facing the same wars and woes. We all recognize our common tribulation. We just happen to have divergent views on the idea of an ideal way of salvaging our ancestry from the savagery of her numberless Savages.
But in the end, we will outlive all our troubles.
For me and my household, I will be remembering my fallen heroes tomorrow by SITTING AT HOME.

There's no alternative to sitting at home. Even the whole country is sitting at home with us.

Femi Fani-Kayode:

"The massacre began at the airport near the Fifth Battalion’s home city of Kano. A Lagos-bound jet had just arrived from London, and as the Kano passengers were escorted into the customs shed a wild-eyed soldier stormed in, brandishing a rifle and demanding ‘Ina Nyamiri?’ – the Hausa for ‘Where are the damned Ibos?’.

There were Ibos among the customs officers, and they dropped their chalk and fled, only to be shot down in the main terminal by other soldiers. Screaming the blood curses of a Moslem Holy War, the Hausa troops turned the airport into a shambles, bayonetting Ibo workers in the bar, gunning them down in the corridors, and hauling Ibo passengers off the plane to be lined up and shot.

From the airport the troops fanned out through downtown Kano, hunting down Ibos in bars, hotels, and on the streets. One contingent drove their Landrovers to the railroad station where more than 100 Ibos were waiting for a train, and cut them down with automatic weapon fire.
The soldiers did not have to do all the killing. They were soon joined by thousands of Hausa civilians, who rampaged through the city armed with stones, cutlasses, matchets, and home-made weapons of metal and broken glass.
Crying ‘Heathen’ and ‘Allah’ the mobs and troops invaded the Sabon Gari (strangers’ quarter) ransacking, looting and burning Ibo homes and stores and murdering their owners.

All night long and into the morning the massacre went on. Then, tired but fulfilled, the Hausas drifted back to their homes and barracks to get some breakfast and sleep. Municipal garbage trucks were sent out to collect the dead and dump them into mass graves outside the city. The death toll will never be known, but it was at least thirty thousand.
Somehow several thousand Ibos survived the orgy, and all had the same thought: to get out of the North."

- Times Magazine London, 7 October, 1966.

We will never forget.

In Honour of the Heroes of Biafra and Survivors of the Starvation
By Dr. Ola N. Uchendu

On the Remembrance Day of 2018, I shared with friends my recollections of the first horror of the genocidal war against Biafrans. It was titled “Terror in the Air”. It is yet another 30th May and more memories have flooded my mind. I recollect them as if the whole scene is being rolled in slow motion on a film projector. I marvel at the ability of our people to find humour in very ugly situations. They very humorously interpreted the incessant staccato sounds of the machine guns as a call by the Nigerian troops, warning us to pack and leave, hence the title of this story:
KWARA PU KWARA KWARA PU

In the course of time, “taking cover” became part of our daily lives. My parents would take us down to a valley not too far from home. It was usually like a picnic. Mother would pack assorted native snacks (Nsisa, Okasi, Eberebe, Azuma, etc), which we snacked on all day long. It was fun for my brother and me. We would play with fish fingerlings in the stream of the valley by trying to catch them with our hands. We never succeeded in catching any though. Those tiny creatures were always very smart.

There was an incident I remember well during those days of “Take-cover Picnic”. One of those days some people who were taking cover with us in the same valley decided to hunt for rabbits. There was this “Mkpu” (something like anthill) which they believed was housing a couple of rabbits. So they set out to dig out the rabbit. They could not smoke out the rabbit because making fire was not allowed, lest the enemy see the smoke. That's how they started digging. Two persons were digging from one side and another positioned close to the side they expected the rabbits to break out from in attempt to make their escape. The next thing was zaam! A rabbit darted out, and in that instant a hand and a machete made for the rabbit. The hand grabbed first and the machete landed on the hand. Red blood! The victim rent the air with his screams, but was immediately hushed up. Did he want to bring the enemy to find us? Meanwhile the rabbit made its escape unscathed. Some leaves were squeezed and the juice used to treat the machete cut. Some couldn't keep from laughing while telling the unfortunate boy sorry. Till today Nnanna and I still laugh at the memory of that day. There were other incidents that involved snakes and other wild creatures that we had to contend with during those days. But “taking cover” remained a regular routine; at the breaking of the day we would go down to the valleys to take cover. At sundown, we would come back home. Then one day, just as we had settle down to this routine of life, terror struck again to disrupt it.

It was night, we had come back from our normal “take cover” picnic; there was commotion everywhere. A crowd from a neighbouring village flooded the whole community. In their wake were the sounds of machine guns and artillery shelling. Some people later interpreted the message of the machine guns thus: “Kwara pu, Kwara pu, Kwara kwara pu, unu duuuum,” translated as “pack and leave, pack and leave, all of you”. So we left, but without packing.

The shelling was terrifying and bullets were zipping and zapping all over. Nnanna quickly grabbed my hand while mother scooped the both of us up. The strength of a mother is astounding when her children appear to be in danger. I don't know if she was trying to put us back in her womb or what. For at first, she grabbed both of us and held us close to her chest. Then she drew us even closer and wrapped us to herself with her wrapper. All the while she was shouting, “No, no, not again. Agaghi m ekwe...” (I will not agree). It took the combined efforts of my father and great grandmother (grandma had passed on earlier) to get us off the grips of my mother and wake her up to the reality of the fact that we had to run. She would later explain that it was the trauma of the first experience of nearly losing both of us that made her react the way she did at the threat of another terror.

We travelled on foot, climbing and descending many hills in what appeared to me like a never ending journey of uncountable miles. Many times an uncle or aunt would lift me on their shoulders. Nnanna would protest at having to let go of my hand. He must have given himself the responsibility of making sure that nothing separated him from me like the first experience. He compensated with holding the hand of whichever uncle or aunt that lifted me shoulder high. Both of us remained the object of their jokes into our adulthood. You would hear something like, “jutakwa Nnanna tupu i metu Nnenna aka. “ (Better take permission from Nnanna before you touch Nnenna).

We crossed many streams, climbing and descending many hills, until we finally settled in a valley. My father and some boys built a shelter with palm fronds which became our new home. At first, it was exciting to slip out and go watch a group of boys chasing rabbits or squirrels, or stopping the water channel of a stream in order to catch fish. But soon, all the animals were no longer there. They had either all run away, or had all been hunted and killed for food: No more fish in the streams, and no more grass cutters or rabbits to hunt. Worst of all, the boys who used to organise the fishing and hunting expeditions were no longer there. They had all been conscripted as scouts, spies or “combing soldiers”. But I still had my brother (Nnanna). He was either too small or too young, or both to be conscripted. This was the beginning of hard times.

Meanwhile, we had relocated from the shelter my father built with palm fronds and bamboo to a better one, a mud house with thatch roof. The house was very spacious with many rooms to accommodate the numerous relations and friends of my parents that joined us from various places. Having all those people around was fun at first. But soon, the portion of food that got to me became smaller and smaller. I wished they would all go back to where they came from so that I would have enough food to eat as before. But nobody left. Whenever I asked my father why all those people didn't go to their own houses, he told me in a hush hush tone that they were refugees. “Ha gbatara oso agha,” he would explain. The people were refugees that had fled their villages and towns; they were not fortunate enough to have a large plantation that would accommodate them the way people from my community did. I had learnt not to ask too many questions of my mother. If she answered once and you asked a second question, you might end up with a headache from her knock on your head.

My father worked with a food directorate, so we were relatively better off than most people around us. Father used to come back with sacks of corn meal, some salted stock fish, Garri Gabon, powered milk and egg. He called them relief materials and would share them amongst the community of refugees. But a time came when no food was coming from the directorate. As time went on, when the land could no longer yield enough increase to feed the people because crops were uprooted before they even began to fruit, every plant and animal became food. My mother and my aunties would go hunting for roots and herbs that we could eat. And father would go out very early in the morning and come back very late at night. But he always came back without those “relief materials” as he used to.

My brother and I began to join in the food hunt. We would dig the ground for roots and gather wild vegetables that looked good enough to eat in our eyes. But my great grandmother (my grandma had died before our community fell), would scrutinized what we brought and throw away some of them. The ones she approved would be cooked and eaten. My mother didn’t know the herbs and vegetables the way great grandma did. So while we were gathering roots and vegetables, mother made sure we didn’t taste any of them until Big Mama gave approval. By the wisdom and knowledge of herbs and roots of Great Mama, we survived the starvation. Others were not so lucky, many succumb to Kwashiorkor.

never forget

This is Nigeria, anything can happen.

We will never forget. May the souls of our fallen heroes rest in peace.

teufelein:
Femi Fani-Kayode:

"The massacre began at the airport near the Fifth Battalion’s home city of Kano. A Lagos-bound jet had just arrived from London, and as the Kano passengers were escorted into the customs shed a wild-eyed soldier stormed in, brandishing a rifle and demanding ‘Ina Nyamiri?’ – the Hausa for ‘Where are the damned Ibos?’.

There were Ibos among the customs officers, and they dropped their chalk and fled, only to be shot down in the main terminal by other soldiers. Screaming the blood curses of a Moslem Holy War, the Hausa troops turned the airport into a shambles, bayonetting Ibo workers in the bar, gunning them down in the corridors, and hauling Ibo passengers off the plane to be lined up and shot.

From the airport the troops fanned out through downtown Kano, hunting down Ibos in bars, hotels, and on the streets. One contingent drove their Landrovers to the railroad station where more than 100 Ibos were waiting for a train, and cut them down with automatic weapon fire.
The soldiers did not have to do all the killing. They were soon joined by thousands of Hausa civilians, who rampaged through the city armed with stones, cutlasses, matchets, and home-made weapons of metal and broken glass.
Crying ‘Heathen’ and ‘Allah’ the mobs and troops invaded the Sabon Gari (strangers’ quarter) ransacking, looting and burning Ibo homes and stores and murdering their owners.

All night long and into the morning the massacre went on. Then, tired but fulfilled, the Hausas drifted back to their homes and barracks to get some breakfast and sleep. Municipal garbage trucks were sent out to collect the dead and dump them into mass graves outside the city. The death toll will never be known, but it was at least thirty thousand.
Somehow several thousand Ibos survived the orgy, and all had the same thought: to get out of the North."

- Times Magazine London, 7 October, 1966.

Despite the fact that they went through all these, they are still beating the drums of war. They should continue

Dr. Chidume Chudi:

The Igbo people and some non Igbo ethnic groups of former Eastern region of Nigeria have by common impulse and consent adopted this day as a day of eulogy and mourning in remembrance of our millions that were mindlessly and genocidally killed through bombings, shootings and starvation between 1967 - 1970.

The oath to defend Biafra from all enemies, foreign and domestic, is one that not all have the will and fortitude to volunteer. Losses and hardships experienced serve as reminders that the freedom we seek daily are not free and will only be possible through bold and courageous sacrifices. Without the strength and dedication forged into every serviceman and woman, we would not be the people we are today or the nation we aspire for. The call to action is ever present, and we are always ready to respond to it. Keeping in memory that this is what every Biafran take to heart every day. This is the core value inherent to all of us. As history has proven, for the valiant warriors who did not return home, we their countrymen and women for whom their life was given, should not forget those sacrifices.

So, today, on Remembrance Day, let us pause for a moment. Consider all the Biafran servicemen and women who have lost their lives in the call to duty; the honourable cause to defend the freedoms of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To the Biafran service members who lost an extension of themselves, be it physical or psychological, it is not a memory but a daily battle. For their sacrifice on our behalf, let us ensure they don’t struggle alone. In memory of the families who lost the irreplaceable affection, confidence, and strength of a loved one. We often don’t take the time to consider that because for them every day is Remembrance Day.

Finally, I salute my cousin, a cousin I never met because as a patriotic Biafran he joined the Biafran Army and paid the supreme sacrifice for the freedom of the born and unborn Biafrans. Victor Chidume, continue to rest in the bossom of our Lord, Jesus Christ. You fought the noble fight and died an honourable death.

Also, may the souls of all fellow Biafrans who died for freedom cause and the souls of our massacred and starved to death innocents, through the mercy of God respect in peace.

Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them. We remember, you sacrificed your lives for us all....

may their souls rest in peace.

We Will Never Forget RIP & RESPECT to all our fallen HEROS and HEROIENS We Must Continue, Till Biafra Is Achieve,its Either We Get BIAFRA or die trying!!

Dr. Onyemaechi Ogbunwezeh:

Biafra is an idea! Ideas born out of the cauldrons of injustice don’t die easily!
Unless the ghosts of Biafra are propitiated, Nigeria can pretend all she wants; she would never know peace!
We remember today, the victims of the genocide inflicted on these people that were forced to secede; and murdered as well for accepting that Nigeria has no room for them.
We remember!

its heroes day. a day for sober reflection

#NCHETA, an Igbo poem by Amarachi Atama, the producer of #BIAFURU, to honor our BIAFRAN heroes and also celebrate us for surviving all our challenges.
Please, a lot of money went into this with absolutely no sponsor. All I ask is that as watch, click on this YouTube link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZjy6LG-IPs

I love my people, almost 89% compliance...what a wonderful success.
On Biafra We Stand.

more photos here:

https://www.facebook.com/MaziNnamdiKanuTheLeaderIPOB/

We have not forgotten and we will not forget. We will pass down our story to generations unborn. 30th of may will forever remain a public holiday in Biafra land. Rest on our heroes! We will never forget!

We remember them

Dr. Obiageli Oby Ezekwesili

A country of leaders & people who quickly move on from every Horror it suffers and never learned how to properly grieve and empathize with victims. Just look at us.... forever repeating tragedies because we have refused to learn. May our children end the horrors. #OZOEMENA #BiafraRemembranceDay