There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra

It was a very strategic piece of land at the commercial nerve center of the future capital of Biafra, Enugu. The building that was erected had a few rooms—one for Christopher, one for me, one for our secretary, one area for printing and publishing machinery, and a smaller one was a toilet. Christopher made all the arrangements himself. That was his nature: He would get the work done before even broaching the subject, so that when you eventually agreed to his idea (something he was sure you would), he would then release a torrent of information, in this case about the office location, its design, and what the building would cost us.

The first book we worked on was called How the Leopard Got Its Claws. John Iroaganachi, a talented author, submitted a manuscript of a version of the African myth “How the Dog Became a Domesticated Animal,” which Professor Ernest Emenyonu relates “abounds in various versions in many African cultures.”1 Christopher and I realized immediately that we wanted a different story, more or less, and decided to spend some time on it. Iroaganachi’s story transformed into something entirely different as I worked on it, and began to take and find avenues and openings in a way that the original narrative hadn’t. Christopher in particular was put off by the subservient character of the dog in the original version and was delighted to see the next incarnation of the story. To be certain that everyone was on the same page, Christopher asked Iroaganachi if he was ready to see his original story transformed. Iroaganachi had no problem with the changes we had suggested, and we settled on a joint authorship for our first book, between me, John Iroaganachi, and Okigbo, who wrote a powerful poem, “Lament of the Deer,” on my invitation.

Christopher was seen less often as the war intensified.

I kept on working at the office, and he came back whenever he had some time, and we discussed a number of matters.2 The war clearly influenced the crafting of the new story. In the second version the leopard is the king of animals and is a peaceful and wise king. One day he is cast out by tyrants, led by the dog, into the cold, wet wilderness. The leopard seeks help from the blacksmith, who makes teeth and claws of steel for him, Thunder and Lightning, that grant him his roar and strength. Then he returns to his kingdom to retake his throne, punish the usurpers, and banish the dog to the services of man in perpetuity. In the end the new story not only turned the ancient African fable on its head but also clearly had manifestations of the Biafran story embedded in it.

The Ifeajuna Manuscript

Christopher and I encountered a wide variety of projects during our time at Citadel Press. Emmanuel Ifeajuna, one of the so-called five majors who executed the January 15, 1966, coup d’état, presented a manuscript to Christopher, and he excitedly brought it to me. I too was excited to receive it; I opened the package it came in and began to read it. It was the story of the military coup. I read the treatise through quickly and became more and more disappointed as I went along.

Ifeajuna’s account showcased a writer trying to pass himself off as something that he wasn’t. For one, the manuscript claimed that the entire coup d’état was his show, that he was the chief strategist, complete mastermind, and executer, not just one of several. He recognized the presence of his coconspirators but did not elevate their involvement to any level of importance.

The other problem I noted was the inconsistencies in the narrative. For instance, the group of coup plotters are said to have met in a chalet at a catering guest house in Enugu at night, and because what they were doing was very dangerous, there was no light in the room, and they all sat in pitch darkness. Despite the darkness, Ifeajuna, our narrator, goes on to say: “I stood up and addressed them while watching their faces and noting their reactions.” The whole account was replete with exaggerations that did not ring true.

I also struggled with the fact that the writer seemed not to appreciate the seriousness of what he had done. Ifeajuna’s manuscript passed off the assassination of the prime minister as light fare, as if it was all in good sport, almost as if he was saying to his readers “I did this and I was right. I am a hero.”

When I saw Christopher Okigbo next I told him how impossible it was for me to believe this account—I wanted to get a real sense of what really happened on that fateful day in January 1966, not what Ifeajuna would want us to believe. Christopher, having read the manuscript as well said, “I thought it was lyrical.” He then told me that he bumped into Nzeogwu shortly after receiving the manuscript, and Nzeogwu said to him: “I hear you and Achebe are planning to publish Emma’s [Ifeajuna] lies.” That comment from Nzeogwu further placed the manuscript in disrepute.

My own private conclusion was that Ifeajuna’s manuscript was an important document, but it was not a responsible document. I believed Nzeogwu was right. But, unfortunately for all of us, the manuscript seems to have disappeared, which is not surprising considering what happened to all of the people involved in its story. Ifeajuna and Nzeogwu are both dead, robbing us all of the opportunity of reading two competing versions of what transpired. They are no longer here to help fill this void. This is what gives me my only regret: I could have published the manuscript and called it special publishing, as opposed to so-called regular or mainstream publishing, so that at least a version of what happened, however flawed, warts and all, would be available for debate.

Staying Alive

While I worked at the Citadel Press, Christie, with her characteristic ingenuity and flair for design, created a home for us in this new city. When we arrived in Enugu we quickly found accommodation on the outskirts of town. It was an apartment complex with two subunits. We took the flat upstairs and converted this empty space into a very livable, comfortable accommodation. She employed a number of workers, including painters, masons, carpenters, and electricians, over a short period of time in this miraculous feat of transformation. The other tenant of this building was a charming architect. He too went ahead, and architecturally altered the lower living quarters to meet his needs. We could leave to the eye of the beholder whether this pleasant artist’s taste was eccentric or eclectic. But one thing was clear: His new design did not go down well with the landlord.

I put my family to bed one hot night toward the end of the renovation, and opened a window to let a gentle, cool breeze in. At about 2:00 A.M. Christie first heard the noise of an intruder. She alerted me, and I shouted at the top of my voice, “Where is my gun?” We saw the outline of a figure in the dark dash past us and jump through the open window. The intruder thankfully did not realize that I did not possess a gun and was adamantly against the use of firearms. The next day the workmen were one person short. When we asked where the missing man was we were told that he had gone to the hospital to nurse a broken leg.

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I traveled abroad soon after the move to Enugu, on a mission for the people of Biafra. I asked my close friend Christopher Okigbo to take care of my family while I was away. Christie was pregnant, and I turned my young family over to Christopher for protection during this precarious time. In a quintessential Christopher Okigbo move, he promptly checked them into the catering guest house, a swank hotel chain of the day, first run smartly by the colonial British government and then quite well by the government of the first republic of Nigeria. This particular branch was now in the hands of the Biafrans and had, in the words of Christopher, clearly an unbiased judge, “returned to its former glory.” In any case, Christopher had connections with the manager and introduced my wife and family as one of his own.

One day Christie asked Christopher to get her a number of things for lunch from a nearby restaurant and said that she would “pay for it all.” She had a very powerful craving for fried plantains, beans, and a delicacy called Isi Ewu. Okigbo agreed to do so but instead telephoned the manager of the catering guest house, telling him that Christie Achebe, who was pregnant, needed the food items urgently, and that the food should be delivered to his room, and he would then make sure it got to her. After waiting two to three hours, Christie called Christopher about the food. Okigbo did not respond on the telephone but showed up in their room with the explanation that he had inadvertently eaten it, thinking it was a special lunch made for him. They could not believe it. On hearing this, my three-year-old son, Ike, who had uncharacteristically, for someone his age, been waiting patiently for lunch, launched at Okigbo, tackling him to the ground and punching him with everything he had. Okigbo howled and feigned pain, and then made sure he got my family a hearty dinner to eat.

I returned from my trip abroad to the news that my mother, who was quite frail, had suddenly become quite sick. Her able and diligent physician, Dr. Theophilus Mbanefo, had worked tirelessly to care for her, and now he thought it best for her entire family to come back briefly and pay their “last respects.” I was very close to my mother, and I sent Christie and my family ahead of me while I worked through my private pain and wrapped up some business at the Citadel Press. My family subsequently left with our driver, Gabriel, for Ogidi to join the rest of my family at Mother’s bedside.

Christopher and I were working in this office of ours that morning, the first day a military plane flew over Enugu. Our editorial chat was disturbed by the sudden drone of an enemy aircraft overhead, and the hectic and ineffectual small-arms fire that was supposed to scare it away, rather like a lot of flies worrying a bull. Not a very powerful bull, admittedly, at that point in the conflict. In fact, air raids were crude jokes that could almost be laughed off. People used to say that the safest thing was to go out into the open and keep an eye on the bomb as it was pushed out of the invading propeller aircraft. We heard the sounds of more bombs exploding in the distance, and Christopher, who already seemed familiar with planes and military hardware, shouted, “Under the table!” Most of the other Biafrans were going about their business as usual, unperturbed by this menace flying above their heads. As Christopher and I listened uneasily, an explosion went off in the distance somewhere, and the attack was soon over. We completed our discussion and departed. But that explosion that sounded so distant from the Citadel offices was to bring him back for a silent farewell on that eventful day.1

After the plane disappeared into the distance, Christopher said he had to leave, and I went to check on something that was already in the press—the first booklet that we were publishing for children. As I sat there working that day I heard the sound of an aircraft above, followed by bedlam in the distance. I shrugged this particular katakata, or chaos, off as another bombing raid from the Nigerians and got on with my chores. I set out to visit a business colleague and decided to stop at the house for a minute before proceeding to my original destination. At the house I saw a huge crowd and realized that it was my apartment complex that had been bombed!2

I pushed my way through the assembly to the edge of a huge crater in the ground beside the building, about a hundred feet from my children’s swing set. Luckily Christie and the children had left in the nick of time. Had there been anyone in the house they would not have survived.3

Okigbo was standing among the crowd. I can still see him clearly in his white gown and cream trousers among the vast crowd milling around my bombed apartment, the first spectacle of its kind in the Biafran capital in the second month of the war. I doubt that we exchanged more than a sentence or two. There were scores of sympathizers pressing forward to commiserate with me or praise God that my life or that the lives of my wife and children had been spared. So I hardly caught more than a glimpse of him in that crowd, and then he was gone like a meteor, forever. That elusive impression is the one that lingers out of so many. As a matter of fact, he and I had talked for two solid hours that very morning. But in retrospect that earlier meeting seems to belong to another time.4

I set off after that brief encounter with Christopher, homeless, to see my mother. My entire family was present in Ogidi, huddled, with long faces, grieving. Women could be heard sobbing in the distance. Some, like my brother Augustine, had just come in from Yaba, Lagos. Others, like Frank, our eldest brother, had arrived from Port Harcourt, where he worked for the Post and Telecommunications Corporation (P&T). I was informed soon after I got there that Mother had asked to see us all. We trooped into her bedroom one at a time and got to spend some private time with her. Soon after that, she passed away. Our people report that her spirit called my family away from Enugu to save their lives. I will not challenge their ancient wisdom.

Death of the Poet: “Daddy, Don’t Let Him Die!”

I was driving from Enugu to Ogidi one afternoon, where I lived following the bombing, with my car radio tuned to Lagos. Like all people caught in a modern war, we had soon become radio addicts. We wanted to hear the latest from the fronts; we wanted to hear what victories Nigeria was claiming next, not just from NBC Lagos, but even more ambitiously, from Radio Kaduna. This station, also known as Radio Nigeria, was notorious as the mouthpiece of the Nigerian federal government; it only reported Nigerian military victories and successes, and those of us caught in a conflict wanted to hear balanced, unbiased news. We needed to hear what the wider world had to say to all that—the BBC, the Voice of America, the French Radio, Cameroon Radio, Radio Ghana, Radio Anywhere.

The Biafran forces had just suffered a major setback in the northern sector of the war with the loss of the university town of Nsukka. They had suffered an even greater morale-shattering blow with the death of that daring and enigmatic hero who had risen from anonymity to legendary heights in the short space of eighteen months: Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu. Christopher Okigbo had begun to talk more and more about Nzeogwu before his enlistment, but I had not listened very closely; the military did not fascinate me as it did him. In hindsight, I wish I had listened—listened for all our sakes.

I was only half listening to the radio now when suddenly Christopher Okigbo’s name stabbed my slack consciousness into panic life. “Rebel troops wiped out by gallant Federal forces,” the announcement proclaimed. Among the rebel officers killed: Major Christopher Okigbo.1

It’s rather different when a soldier is killed in battle—they get the body. I don’t know what happens, but if they can identify him, and if they think they can make capital out of it, they immediately announce it. The killing of officers is something of which they are very proud. Christopher was a major.2

I pulled up at the roadside. The open parkland around Nachi stretched away in all directions. Other cars came and passed. Had no one else heard the terrible news?

When I finally got myself home and told my family, my three-year-old son, Ike, screamed: “Daddy, don’t let him die!” Ike and Christopher had been special pals. When Christopher came to the house the boy would climb on his knees, seize hold of his fingers, and strive with all his power to break them while Christopher would moan in pretended agony. “Children are wicked little devils,” he would say to us over the little fellow’s head, and let out more cries of feigned pain.3