More bitter than death
Odimegwu Onwumere
Saturday, December 1, 2007
It is raining on the Monday morning when they hear the news. They do not like the rain, the thunder, and the lighting it brings, but the news the Provost brings is worse than the rain. He tells them that they are to leave the International Trainers Medical Centre, Enugu, (popularly called ITMC). They are to be relocated to Oji River. They do not want to leave the ITMC, not this place with its row of seven duplexes, standing like giant angels without the wings. They do not want to leave the green lawn, regularly mown once a week. They do not want to leave the stability of this place where they get fresh supply of clothes every three months. They do not want to leave this place that is beautified with different kinds of car. They do not even need to discuss it. They will not move. Like most African leaders, unwilling to leave office at the end of their tenure, they swear not to move unless they are dragged. And that is exactly what happens. When they refuse to budge despite the Provost asking them nicely, he has to bring in the security men. Big men dressed in black with leather whips they are not afraid to use. With the arrival of the men and the whips, they are thrown out and dumped in a van to Oji River.
The settlement in Oji River is nothing at all like the ITMC. This place is irritating. There is no electricity. Even the road is a pit-of-hell, not tarred. Cows’ and their herdsmen loiter everywhere. The surrounding is dirty, yielding unpleasant air. The lawn is not mown. They cannot even begin to compare the comfort they have left behind for this. And the behaviour that is meted out to them is comparable to the depressing surroundings. “This is hellish!” one of them exclaims.
While they stand in line to be registered, a passerby spits at them and shouts, “Lepers! You’re paying for your sins!”
They say nothing. The globe of saliva touches only one person. Silently, the person wipes it off.
Tired from the journey, one of the newcomers, a man with thinning hair and an English accent lies down on the pavement to rest. His presence seems to attract flies which arrive in droves to buzz all around him perching on his nose and on his eyes. He seems hardly aware of them. Just like he seems unaware of the people who have gathered at the gate to stare at them and who are now filling the compound, drawn by their emaciated looks, their threadbare clothes and the stench of excreta and urine on their clothes.
Among the uninvited spectators is an eager young journalist, Okam. It is his curiosity that drags him here: that curiosity that has made him a good journalist and his columns one of the best-read in the country.
Okam has heard that the newcomers are evil: witches, wizards, mad men, and lepers. He thinks that their story will make a good article for his newspaper. He can already see the headline: MAD MEN, WITCHES AND WIZARDS BESIEGE US! Fighting the stench, he moves closer to the man lying on the pavement. Beside the man is an old fashioned satchel. Something, curiosity, compassion maybe, moves Okam to touch the man. Their eyes lock.
Okam has seen a lot of mad men in Oji River. Enough to let him know that the man lying down is as sane as can be. Just like sane people, the numerous mad men he has seen appear in different fashion. Okam wants to say something but does not know what. While he is still wondering what to say, a woman with a scarf almost covering her eyes runs in, wailing. She makes her way to Okam. He cannot imagine what she would want with him.
Okam does not know this stranger. Not yet. He will find out later who she is: Mrs. Chika Igwe, a petty trader with a shop in the local market. She sells okporoko [stockfish] and mangala [dried fish], not the sort of trade to make her much money, but it keeps her fed. She is also a part-time evangelist, dedicated to spreading the gospel. Every afternoon, she takes a break from trading to evangelize, singing from one end of the market to the other, “May the kingdom of God come down…Oh Lord come down and manifest thy power…. There is none holy as our Lord… Satan shame unto you all power belongs to Jesus… ” Or “Arise, O God; let my enemies be scattered….” In response to any greeting, she says, “Let my enemies live long and see what I will be in the future.”
“What are you doing here, Mr. Man?” she asks. “What do you intend to do with my husband?”
“Nothing, Madam,” Okam replies. “So, he’s your husband?” Now, he thinks, maybe he can quote her in his article.
“Yes! Why are you here?”
“I am here to get information of who these people are,” Okam replies. “My name is Okam; I am a journalist.”
“A journalist? Oh!” Mrs. Chika Igwe exclaims. “That is great.” She wipes the tears with the back of her palm and ties the scarf properly. She puts her hand into the cellophane bag she has with her and brings out a pack of food. She motions to Okam for help. He pulls up the feeble frame on the pavement and holds him sitting up while his wife feeds him.
Once she is done feeding the man, Okam asks, “Who are they?”
Mrs. Chika Igwe stretches out and reaches for the satchel beside her husband. She opens it and brings out an identity card. She hands it to Okam. The identity card reads:
Biafran Soldier: ITMC War Disabled Camp, Enugu.
Name: Mr. Ike Igwe
Address: Mbelo Local Government Area.
File No: Bs/PEN-E-STATE 112
Next of Kin: Mrs. Chika Igwe
“These men fought for our nation?” Okam’s voice betrays his shock, his disbelief. He stands up and looks clearly agitated. “I’ve got to go!” he says. This is not the story he has come to cover. How can these homeless people be ex-soldiers? Soldiers who fought a just war? He has heard of the war, of the valiant soldiers, how can they be reduced to this?
“Don’t leave! I wish you could report on this, to tell the world how these men are suffering. They have been abandoned since the Nigerian-Biafran War ended, over thirty-seven years ago.”
“This is a shocker. I will. I…I’ve got to go now, but I will come back. I will report on this. I promise.”
“Okay, I pray you do according to your promise. You know that journalists are the mouthpiece of the teaming masses, especially people like these men. Do not take this matter like a tea party. It is task-oriented duty for a journalist.” Her voice is loud but not angry.
“I will come back. Keep my words.”
“Please, do come back,” she sounds helpless.
Okam gives his word and then leaves. He is not sure he is the right person to tell this story. His paper runs easy articles: Stories on disgraced politicians, mad men with open sores and the volatile Niger Delta. Nothing as serious as war veterans reduced to what he has just witnessed. But now that he has seen them, how can he not tell their story? Perhaps, the woman was lying to him. But why should she lie?
He does not notice when he walks into a one-legged man with a skeletal frame. This man fought assiduously for the Biafran Army during the Nigerian-Biafran War and lost his right leg in the warfront. Okam does not know this yet, but he will find out later when he talks to the man. Now, he just staggers back from the force of bumping into the man.
‘Hey! Watch where you are going!” the man scolds him.
Okam mutters his apologies. “I am sorry.”
“You are…” the man stammers. “I can see that you are different from this crowd of people calling us names."
“So you have said.”
“Indeed. Who are you??”
“My name is Okam. I am a journalist.”
“A journalist?” he frowns. He does not like journalists. It was a report in the papers that made the authorities relocate them from Enugu to this hell in Oji River. Journalists are always up to no good, he thinks.
“Yes.”
“You are welcome.”
“Thanks.” This man does not want further discussion with Okam. He wants Okam to go, but Okam does not want to go; he wants to know this man. When the man turns away, Okam follows him and says, "Sir, would you mind talking to me for a minute?”
The man stops, looks at Okam and says, “I hate your type. I hate journalists. You people are saboteurs, traitors. Wherever there are journalists, there is trouble not far behind!”
“That’s not true, Sir. Journalists tell the truth. They are the mouthpiece of the masses. They change things. I can tell the world your story.”
The man thinks about this for a moment and sits down. Okam sits on the floor, beside him.
“I am one of the disabled Biafran soldiers. My name is Mr. Zulu.”
Okam looks at his one leg and almost wants to cry. “It is a pity,” Okam says. He wants to hear the man’s story.
“I know that something must kill a man, but do I deserve to die this way for a price I paid for my land?”
“Take it easy,” Okam admonishes him.
“There are two things my soul longs for now: food or death. Though, I am hungry. Death would be preferably now so that the son of Biafra will have a resting place.”
Okam brings out a reporters notepad and a pen. He will tell these men’s stories. Their stories deserve to be heard. He starts asking Mr. Zulu questions, firing them off quickly.
“You ask too many questions. I was a Biafran captain. I fought in Nsukka, Oni-Imo, Owerri, and Abagana sectors and in many other places. I saw that shelling machines were not merciful to trees, buildings, and on its target – human beings. Civilians covered the zinc of their buildings with palm-fronds for the aircraft not to locate them.”
Okam is astonished and does not say any thing.
“Before the war, I was a wealthy man and owned a building in Rivers State where I lived. But when the war ended and my younger brother went to claim it, the Erewki Community claimed it as an "abandoned" property. They said Erewki is not Biafra, but Biafra claimed Erewki as Biafrans. Erewki detest us the core Igbo. We are to them like ‘shit’ a dog detests to eat. They say that they are Rivers people, while the name they answer is Igbo. Being a Rivers man or woman is no nation. Rivers is not a nation!”
“Really?”
“Yes. Saboteurs! That’s what they are!”
“Why did you come to that conclusion?”
“While Biafra was fighting
Nigerians to claim their mandate of secession, Erewki were agitating for the
creation of Rivers State out of Biafraland. And they succeeded!”
He shakes his head and a sad smile comes on his face.
“But their presumed friends who gave them the mandate are now their foes. The creation of the state was meant to destabilize us, just as our colonial masters from Britain indoctrinated us with Indirect Rule. But God saw us through. We fought the war with barely anything. Our land of Bakassi Peninsula Biafra imported foods from was seized by Nigeria and was signed to Cameroon. Hunger stole many of us, but could not steal us all. We fought the war with tear and tears. We fought the war with antiquity in place of a gun. We used sticks as spears and were commended, 'One Nigerian, one bullet'. We manufactured ogbunigwe [improvised explosive device] ourselves. We dug bunkers and trenches with bare hands and lived with bedbugs. We ate cassava and other foods raw. We drove cars with coconut water and our wives delivered their children in the bush, on the plantain leaves. Our women and children were crying. But we consoled ourselves with songs!”
Suddenly he bursts into a song, his one good leg taping in tune:
I am going to shoot gun at Nsukka/
I am going to shoot gun at Hausa/
Baby, do you ask me to run?
Who will shoot the gun if Hausa comes?
Hei! Hei!! Hei!!! Biafra wins the war with armoured car,
shelling machine manufactured by us, and with heavy artillery/
they can never win Biafra.
As sudden as he starts, he stops and continues his story.
“Before I joined the army, I was a wealthy man.”
“So, as a wealthy man then, what prompted your joining the army?”
“I did not join the army by force, just as a lot of young and advanced men were forced into the army. But my joining the army was born the day I saw a trainload of mutilated Igbo people tied in raffia brought in from Hausaland – the said Nigerians. I was posted to Umuagbai in Ndoki, now in Rivers State. This was where I sustained the bullet wound that led to the amputation of my leg… Britain was not favourable to Biafra! Egypt was not favourable to Biafra! Russian women were piloting Nigeria’s aircrafts! Even some ethnic groups that sided with Biafra sold Biafra to Nigeria. I will not mention names. We had nobody except God… I am now praying for food to survive or death to rest.”
The man seems worn out from the memories he has brought up. Okam goes back to Mrs. Igwe. He has to hear her husband’s story too. When he gets there, Mrs. Igwe is talking to a man in a red beret whom she introduces as Mr. Obi, another veteran.
“Mr. Obi hails from Ukwa, in Imo State – a part in Biafra. He got a bullet wound at Abagana sector in Anambra State, where he was enlisted in the army at the age of eighteen. He has three children. They are all male. They are now in the village and have no job to do, nobody to help. They are not independent, but now they are because there is nobody to help, nobody to take care of them,” Mrs. Chika Igwe tells Okam. “His first son is barely four years old and he cannot visit them because of his condition.”
While she is talking, another man joins them. He is Mr. Oko. He is a rabble-rouser from Awka in Anambra State.
“Who were you before the war?”
“I was a British-trained palm wine tapper and also the only person who was able to read the Palm Wine Tappers Britainica Encyclopedia when the Duke of London visited the Nigerian Palm Wine Tappers Association.”
“How many were you in number?”
“We were sixty.”
“From all the parts of Nigeria?”
“No. The number was only for Awka Chapter of the association.”
“So, how many were you all over Nigeria?”
Mr. Oko raises his head to the heavens and is thinking.
“I guess, you don’t remember again?”
“Yes. You know it has been a long time. Memory fades. But I will remember. When I remember, I will let you know.”
“That would be thoughtful of you.”
Okam is about asking him a question when he says, “We were Six hundred palm wine tappers…”
“Oh! That’s great,” Okam replies. “Tell us how old you were when you enlisted in the army.”
“I was twenty years old when I fought the war…You can see that I am well built.”
Everyone laughs.
“I sustained this bullet wound in the course of trying to save a Biafran soldier who was shot in the warfront at Abagana."
Okam makes notes as he listens and as more men come, drawn by his camera and writing pad. He interviews them and scribbles madly in his notepad:
"Not every body in the Oji River Resettlement Centre is disabled like most of us who had spinal cord paralysis; some of us are in excruciating pains, but can walk.”
“We can not do any other work as men other than begging people for alms.”
“When spirited people heed to our plea that is when we would eat.”
“We were over three thousand wounded Biafran soldiers that were brought to this Centre by the Nigerian government, but we are now only sixty.”
“The death of others occurred after our administrator, Chief Ibakpu Akisa, died.”
“Chief Ibakpu manned the centre and looked after us tenderly without any form of partiality.”
“No body has been appointed in place, and as a result, we are bereft of care.”
“The Nigerian government only pays much gusto to the wounded Nigerian soldiers, but left us in anguish and despair.”
“The Nigerian government wants us to die, that is why they abandoned us to our fate.”
“Disabled Veterans of Biafra was formed as an organization to console ourselves; this was because the Biafrans, the Eastern States, Ndiigbo whom we sacrificed our lives and belongings to defend have joined those from the opposite and neglect us.”
“We want the government to review the Abandoned Property in Rivers State.”
“We are yet to agree that Nigeria is one.”
“There is no equality in the way it does things.”
“Ndiigbo are hated by the Nigerian government when it comes to the issue of Biafra.”
“This is more bitter than death.”
Okam thinks of how the article will be run; its headline: THEY FOUGHT FOR US AND NOW WE’VE ABANDONED THEM; SHAME ON US,” or “SHAME ON OUR GOVERNMENT FOR ABANDONING OUR HEROES.”
When Mrs. Igwe thanks him for coming, he tells her, “I shall not rest until these men, men like your husband, are treated well.” And he means it. Okam knows that he will not rest until the men get the honour that they deserve. He will fight the government with his pen and his paper to make sure that these heroes of the war that he grew up hearing about get proper recognition.
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© Odimegwu Onwumere, 2007
Odimegwu Onwumere is a vibrant prolific author and poet. His works have appeared in many traditional and Internet journals. He lives in Rivers State, but hails from Imo State; all in Nigeria.