Witness to hisory: National War Museum, memory preservation, other matters

By Bukar Usman

Dear Gloria Chuku, PhD
University of Maryland, Baltimore County,
USA

YOUR brief presentation at the International Society for the Oral Literatures of Africa (ISOLA) 15th Biennial Conference, held at the University of Abuja, Nigeria, July 9-12, 2025 (‘The National War Museum, Umuahia; The Nigeria-Biafra War Memorials, and the Preservations of the History of the War: A Critical Review’) took a critical review of the Nigerian Civil War and stressed the need to document the folk-history of the war with particular focus on the National War Museum, Umuahia and the bunker that houses some of the war memorials access to which was somehow initially limited.

Among other issues, you expressed the view that there was no serious effort made to write and preserve the history of the war to highlight the human misery and other lessons to be drawn therefrom. You also alluded that there was no apparent serious effort at reconciliation to date.

Unfortunately, there was no sufficient time for participants to discuss the issues raised. Given more time my intervention would have been to the effect that stakeholders may indeed have some reservations about the outcome of the war and return to normality. However, what is notable is that the war that lasted from June 5,1967 to January 12,1970 and the preceding events bred a lot of animosity and mistrust aside from the physical destruction on a large scale. It was in realization of this that the Nigerian government with the spirit of ‘no-victor, no-vanquished’ launched a programme of Rehabilitation, Reconciliation and Reconstruction (the famous 3Rs) immediately upon cessation of hostilities. Earlier, liberated areas were put under the administration of Ukpabi Asika, a respectable civilian, to quicken reintegration and return to normality.

Reconciliation included the reabsorption of persons in their normal places of work including the armed services and return of abandoned properties as far as possible. On an individual basis, I welcomed my former student colleagues in Lagos and helped in the little way I could to alleviate their sufferings. Aside from general amnesty, those who led the war were eventually granted pardon. Consequently, those who fled returned to resume normal life.

As for Reconstruction, my recollection was to the effect that immediately after the war, as an official of the Ministry of Mines and Power overseeing the resumption of petroleum activities, I travelled from Port Harcourt to Eket through Aba. I observed that to reach Aba by vehicle we crossed Imo River on wooden planks makeshift bridge. Also to reach Eket our vehicle was ferried across Cross River at Itu. Roads in the war zones expectedly were impassable. The famous Niger Bridge at Onitsha suffered severe damages that rendered it not motorable long after the war. The situation was a far cry to what it is today. The Patani Bridge that is crucial to traffic to the war zone was constructed afterwards.

Dr. Bukar Usman

For decades since the 1970s, I had further opportunities and the privilege in my official and private capacities to visit several other places in the former war zone. They include Nkwelle-Ezunaka, Uzuakoli (Leprosy Settlement), Abriba (Small London), Udi, Afikpo, Oguta, Oko, Nnewi (industrial hub), Nike Lake Resort and University of Nigeria, Nsukka, that gave me more opportunities of seeing several cities, towns and villages enroute to those places and many more. I can thus claim to have covered nearly the entire war zone.

I also have had the personal experience of visiting the War Museum at Umuahia and could appreciate your descriptions and concern about the need for documentation in the hope that lessons could be drawn for generations to appreciate the futility of war and avert a repeat of such calamity and miscalculation. Of course, the war has its positive aspect as it brought out human ingenuity of survival and endurance under extreme circumstances, the technical aspects of which could have been harnessed for the country’s technological and scientific progress. That was perhaps the rationale in the appointment of the former head of the Rocket Group of the Biafran Research and Production Directorate, Engr. Gordian Obumneme Ezekwe, to head the Ministry of Science and Technology and so was Prof Bartholomew Nnaji’s subsequent appointment to the same post. Not to forget, the former Biafran security intelligence chief, Bernard Odogwu, is another notable personality whose skills were enlisted in reviewing the Nigeria national security and repositioning the security organizations. In that regard, he participated actively and creditably.

With all sense of modesty, I should state that I was officially mandated to receive and accommodate Prof. Nnaji in a hotel when he first reported to assume duty as the Honourable Minister in Abuja. I complied to his pleasure. It is noteworthy that as an extension of his technical ingenuity, today Prof. Nnaji’s company provides electricity on commercial basis to Aba and its environs in Abia State.

That the opportunity was not fully and immediately taken as desired to harness the positives of the war and to go all out to also document the negatives was perhaps because given the misery arising from the war it was something one should strive to quickly forget and put behind than to perpetuate the regrettable situation. Not many people would want to retain the sad memory.

Prof. Gloria Chuku

Of course, a few former military officers who participated in the Nigerian Civil War among other Nigerians had written to narrate their experiences. Among them were Alexander A. Madiebo, Godwin Alabi Isama, Adewale Ademoyega, Elechi Amadi, Chukwuemeka Odumewu Ojukwu, co-authors Eghosa E. Osaghae, Ebere Onwudiwe and Rotimi T. Suberu. Others include Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Chinua Achebe, Buchi Emecheta, Emmanuel Idumu, Lambert Iheanacho and Paul C Tarfa. Your good self and co-author Sussie U Aham-Okoro among other notable academics have also written about the civil war. Notably all of you freely focused on subjects of your choice covering events prior to, during and the aftermath of the civil war.

At a personal level, I established cordial relationships with Lambert Iheanacho with whom I had the opportunity of exchanging our literary works even though we did not set eyes on one another. We only exchanged pleasantries by phone calls with him at Owerri and I at Abuja. Iheanacho of blessed memory reputed to be the last Biafran Army field commander was recruited into the Nigerian Army in 1970 soon after the end of the war. He retired in 1990 and passed on in 2020 aged 85.

The establishment of the War Museum itself was a step in archival preservation. So also, the field remains wide open for researchers who may still find it worthwhile to do so.

That in spite of everything, the negatives of the civil war could still linger in some minds decades after the cessation of hostilities is rather unfortunate. Perhaps that is the case with human misery as major human calamities/tragedies of the First and Second World Wars of 1918 and 1945 and subsequent localized wars all over the world from time immemorial continue to remain indelible.

The overall lesson to draw from all this is the futility of war that is better averted than to live with the consequences.

I thought I should share the foregoing with you and the participants at the ISOLA Conference having missed the opportunity at the panel discussion at the conference.

With best regards.

* Dr. Usman (OON) is the President, Nigerian Folklore Society, President, Dr Bukar Usman Foundation and former Permanent Secretary in the Presidency, Abuja (July 17, 2025)