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A Fresh Biafran Song: A Review Of Last Train To Biafra By Chuks Iloegbunam by shaddoww: 4:28pm On Oct 20, 2015 |
Many books have been written on the
Nigerian civil war, which has turned out to
be the greatest impetus to national
literary creativity. The factual and
fictional accounts of the war are in the
hundreds. Established authors wrote
some. Others are the works of those who
never thought circumstances would force
them into the drastic action of putting pen
on paper. Two of the best known Nigerian writers, Chinua
Achebe and Wole Soyinka, wrote profusely on
the war; Achebe as an instant participant, and
Soyinka as a distant but no less interested
party. It’s difficult to fully appreciate Nigeria’s
civil war without gleaning from their writings.
But it doesn’t end with the duo. There is hardly
a pre-war Nigerian author that didn’t end up
producing a volume – whether drama, poetry or
prose – on the conflict. Most of the second
generation of Nigerian writers honed their craft
writing on the war.
There are two interesting aspects to the
country’s war-induced literature. First, it
appears timeless. Which is why Chimamanda
Adichie, who was not even born when the
conflict took place, wrote Half of A Yellow Sun
(2006). It is also the reason Onuorah Nzekwu, a
first generation author now in his 80s, published
in 2012 a novel on the war entitled Trouble Dust .
Secondly, it insists that telling the story of the
war cannot be the exclusive preserve of
professional writers. This is where factual
accounts of the war weigh in. Two of the
better-known combatants, Olusegun Obasanjo
and Alexander Madiebo, published during 1980
their war accounts. Colonel Obasanjo, as
General Officer Commanding the Nigerian Third
Marine Commando Division, published My
Command . Major General Alexander Madiebo
wrote The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran
War as the Commander of the Biafran Army.
The war turned these soldiers into best-selling
authors. In 2013, Brigadier-General Godwin
Alabi-Isama reinforced the undying interest in
these war stories by former officers with his
authorship of The Tragedy of Victory .
The common thread throughout these ‘war
memoirs’ is the author’s obvious subjectiveness.
Thus, Elechi Amadi’s Sunset in Biafra and Ken
Saro-Wiwa’s On a Darkling Plain, both
biographical, eloquently announce their Biafran
antipathy. On the other hand Chukwuemeka
Ike’s fictional Sunset at Dawn and Achebe’s
biographical There Was A Country underscore
their Biafran partisanship. But reading Last Train
to Biafra: Memoirs of a Biafran Child,
(Constellation Publishers, Ibadan, 2014), affords
one a deep look into the circumstances of the
secessionist republic that is bereft of obvious
partisan justification. This fresh Biafran song by
Diliorah Chukwurah, a mere child at the
beginning of the civil war, is a priceless jewel,
worthy to be read by every Nigerian.
On seeing the book, I was somewhat put off by
what appeared like wild adulations on its blurb.
Dr. Onyebuchi Ile, who teaches English at the
Nigerian Turkish Nile University, Abuja, called it
“…the most touching account of the pogrom
against the Igbo after the 1966 counter coup as
well as their civil war experience that I have
ever read.” Noel A. Chukwukadibia, a former
Speaker of the Imo State House of Assembly,
pronounced it “…the only unadulterated story of
the Biafran war told with the passionate rigours
of the voice of innocence which impinges on
our collective guilt in that avoidable war…” As
for Dauda Abubakar of The Booksellers Ltd.,
Abuja, Last Train to Biafra is “A very brilliant
and gripping account of the Nigeria-Biafra war
perfectly rendered without politics or prejudice.”
On reading Last Train to Biafra , however, I found
to my pleasant surprise that it more than
deserved the encomiums showered on it.
Without fear of contradiction the book is one of
the very best on Biafra. How did the author
achieve this feat? Well, Achebe taught us that
good storytelling was different from the
employment of polysyllabic jargons, the aim of
reading being to understand whatever is on
offer. Now again, Diliorah Chukwurah has
strongly made the same point, telling a complex
tale with delightful diction and explaining the
seemingly mysterious with an exemplary
economy of words. The achievement is
tremendous. |
Re: A Fresh Biafran Song: A Review Of Last Train To Biafra By Chuks Iloegbunam by shaddoww: 4:29pm On Oct 20, 2015 |
Now, what is the story in this book? It starts in
Jos in 1966, when the author was a nine-year-
old pupil. By September of that year the
Chukwurahs, like most Igbo in Jos and the rest
of northern Nigeria, had fled to Eastern Nigeria,
to escape orchestrated pogroms induced by the
coups of that year. Months after their return to
what was considered a safe haven, the war
started. The family lived first in their hometown
of Enugwu-Ukwu. From there they started
hopping from one town to another, one step
ahead of advancing Federal troops. By the
war’s end 30 months later, they had stayed in
Port Harcourt, Emekuku, Imerienwe, Ekwolobia,
Ifite-Dunu, Isu, Achala, Otuocha, Oroma and
back to Ekwulobia. A projectile in the opening
battles of Port Harcourt had killed a child of the
family. The civilian father of the house had
taken a hit from artillery fire, and narrowly
missed the amputation of an arm. The five
children of the house came under the care of
Diliorah, who was not even 12 years old, when
both parents disappeared into thin air.
The children fed largely on rodents and slept on
bare floor or on bedbug infested bamboo beds.
During the day they passed time scavenging for
food and dodging bombing and strafing by the
Nigerian Air Force. Suddenly the war ended and,
fortunately, both parents returned days later to
the Ekwolobia refugee camp. The trek back to
Enugwu-Ukwu followed.
That was, more or less, the lot of most
Biafrans. What makes the story both terrible and
heroic at the same time is the sensitivity and
fidelity of the telling. This recommends it to
general readership. The book also cautions
warmongers, to please explore alternatives
other than warfare for settling political disputes.
The posthumous tribute to the late Chief Rwang
Pam, the traditional ruler of Jos and the Berom
people, who opposed the killing of Eastern
Nigerians in his domain, is touching.
Yet, the author misdirected himself when he got
to summations. From page 171 where he dealt
with Entrepreneurship, he blamed Ndigbo for not
maturing to the ownership of conglomerates 40
years after the war, despite their business
proficiency. He missed the point, of course. If
Ndigbo are shy of business conglomeration, it
cannot be their fault. The blame resides in
negative national politics. There were Slok Air
and Sosoliso Airlines in this country. Both were
shot down through presidential fiats. There was
Savannah Bank. It was shut down on a morning
it was still solvent and doing roaring business.
These businesses were killed because Ndigbo
owned them. All South East states are endowed
with crude oil deposits. But they are not being
mined, they being in “strategic” reserves! The
South East has the largest gas deposits
anywhere in Africa. No one is discussing their
exploration and exploitation. Oil blocs hardly go
to Ndigbo; they belong mostly to lucky guys
from areas unable to boast even cashew nut
oil. If those sworn to keeping Ndigbo
suppressed fail to realize that they are trapped
in time wasting, it is not our place to salve their
consciences by blaming the victim rather than
the victimizer. 1 Like |
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