The first time I heard about Biafra was
while reading the Steve Jobs autobiography by Walter Isaacson. The
second time I heard about it was while watching the Nigerian version of
the Rick Ross “Hold Me Back” video.
To put this in perspective, I lived in
Nigeria for 18 continuous years, went to nursery school, primary school,
secondary school and if it counts A-level college…all in Nigeria. I did
Social Studies and History along the way…took numerous notes and read
plenty text books. And at no time in my long Nigerian school history was
I taught about the Biafran war. It did not appear in my JAMB exam,
common entrance exam, JSS exam or SSCE exam or any of the many exams the
average Nigerian kid is blessed forced to write. And I definitely did not see any documentary’s on TV or radio. It was as if the war never happened…
Or at least we like to act like the war
never happened. It was as if we went out of our way to erase every trace
of the war from our memory. It is omitted from our history and our
educational curriculum.
So the only history we have has been
largely oral, from the stories of people who experienced the war to
others who heard stories from those that experienced the war. And for
years this is how the war has been documented…orally….from generation to
generation. And perhaps one day we would all wake up and find the war
erased from our memories.
But it won’t disappear…because civil war
did not end in 1970, it still goes on today. It is not in the same
bloody manner as the first civil war, there are no guns being shot,
explosion being triggered, there are no children starving or armies
fighting…there is none of that. Instead the war has shifted into stealth
mode…a quiet war. An ethnic type of war fought in small pockets across
Nigeria, on our streets, in our schools and in our politics. It is a
kind of clandestine war of ethnicity that pits one ethnic group against
the other.
People want to hire their own tribe,
others want to marry from their own village all because this ethnic
group hates that other ethnic group and so on. Nigeria as we stand is
united on paper but fragmented in reality.
Fragmented, largely, because we have chosen not to remember
face our history. But until we face the past, we will not be ready to
face the future. Until we can discuss, teach and debate about the civil
war in our classrooms and radio stations we will continue to wage a
quiet civil war. We would try and patch it with presidential rotations
(south and north) and other quasi solutions, but it would not solve
anything until we tackle our issues head on.
But sadly Nigeria suffers from severe
memory loss. Not because we can’t remember, but because it is easier to
forget. Forgetting requires no effort. So we forget events and dates. We
even forget the meaning of the words in our National Anthem, for
instance…“the labors of our heroes past shall never be in vain…”
Because for years the labors of our
heroes past has been in vain. Because we forgot what they died fighting
for. We forget that on June 12th 1993 a certain man IBB cancelled, for
no reason what so-ever, the freest and fairest presidential election in
Nigerian history. And that as recent as 2011 that same man IBB…the one
who for no reason cancelled the 1993 presidential election attempted to
run for President. It takes a nation that forgets for that to even
happen. If June 12th had been made a public day or better yet the
national democracy day, I doubt that IBB would have been bold enough to
even think of running.
And
while we are on the topic of forgetfulness, let’s not forget about Ken
Saro Wiwa, civil rights activist who led a peaceful protest against the
destruction of the Ogoni land by big oil companies, only to be tried and
And we need to change that. It is a
travesty when our children know more about the American Civil war and
World Wars than they do about the Civil War that happened in their own
background. That is outrageous. Nigeria needs to start telling its
history to its children. Our children like me should not have to learn
about Nigeria from foreigners that live thousands of miles away. That
has to change.
Now I am not saying we should talk about
the war to figure out who is right or wrong, which I think is the fear
of many. I believe we need to talk about the war and other ethnic issues
so that we can become comfortable with ethnicity. The moment Nigerians
become comfortable and can discuss freely about ethnicity with other
ethnic groups, that is the moment the civil war will begin to end.
I conclude with the words of Stephen Colbert:
“There’s an old saying about those who forget history. I don’t remember it, but it’s good.”
In the same way there are many things
Nigeria can learn from its history. Ironically we don’t remember
them…but we swear it’s good! Let’s remember our history…
Illustration courtesy of ofilispeaks.com and picture courtesy of LIFE Magazine
This entry is an excerpt from the upcoming book How Intelligence Kills: A Critical Look At Our Dangerous Addiction To Religion, Intelligence and Respect.
