Nchamere Nd'Igbo: The Pogrom, War And Starvation: Evidence Of Anti-Igbo Pogrom

ORIENT DAILY INTERVIEW Image via Orient Daily News Paulinus Omeje Ezema was a 15-year-old boy in Ede Oballa community , Nsukka local government area of Enugu state when the Nigerian civil war broke out. The Ezema family fled their house when Nigerian troops captured Nsukka, leaving behind everything they acquired through the years. By the time the war was over, they lost everything, including their father . In this interview with Uchenna Ezeadigwe, the three-time deputy chairman of Nsukka East Development Centre and former councillor of Eduku Ward in Ede Oballa , Nsukka local government area, shares his incredible survival stories during the 30-month civil war, among other issues. Can you recall exactly when, where you were and how you found out that there had been an outbreak of war between the federal government and Biafra ? I was a teenager but not too young to remember what actually led to the civil war. The war was actually a fallout of the killing of the Igb...

ORIENT DAILY EDITORIAL/INTERVIEW Kanayo Nnatu was a seven- year - old boy in Primary 1 in Ifite-Awka when the Nigerian civil war broke out in July 1967. Six months after the Nigerian military launched an audacious campaign against erstwhile Eastern Region which had declared itself as Republic of Biafra on May 30, 1967, the federal troops entered and conquered Awka, later to be the Anambra state capital. The young Nnatu fled with his family into the forest where they were to live throughout the rest of the 30 months during which the war lasted. In this interview with O’star Eze, the 59- year - old provides an intriguing account of his survival in that war which claimed over 3 million lives. How old were you the Nigerian civil war started? I was seven years old and in Primary 1 when the civil war started. In those days, you were not allowed into primary school until you were able to touch either ear with your hand from the opposite side of your body. I was seven ...

President Charles De Gaulle of France. Image: Reporters Associe/Gamma-Rapho Comments made by the President of France in Paris on September 9, 1968, at a press conference answering a reporter's question on Africa's most blood soaked event, The Pogrom: What is his view of the situation in Biafra? What does he think should happen there? What action does he refuse to take with regard to Biafra? Why? President De Gaulle's exchange with a reporter: Question: The drama taking place in Biafra seems to grow more tragic every day. You have alluded several times to the Biafran problem. Mr. President, could you give us your point of view on this problem ? De Gaulle: I am not sure that the system of federation, which sometimes, in certain parts and from a certain angle replaces that of colonization, is always a very good and very practical system, particularly in Africa. But not only in Africa, for in fact it consists in arbitrarily joining together peoples who are s...

(L-R): Rev. Fr. Joe McHugh, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, Archbishop Francis Arinze. Location: Onitsa. Image: TG4/IE/Declan Lynch. Circa 1967

Prof. S. Elizabeth Bird S . Elizabeth Bird is University of South Florida's Professor Emerita in Anthropology. She has authored many books and published numerous articles. She has been a visiting Fellow at the Annenberg School for Communications, University of Pennsylvania, and served on several editorial boards. She was awarded an American Council for Learned Societies Collaborative Fellowship with Fraser Ottanelli, to fund research on the Asaba Massacre of the Nigeria-Biafra War, in which over one hundred witnesses and survivors were interviewed. The book, "The Asaba Massacre: Trauma, Memory and the Nigerian Civil War," won the 2018 Book Award from the Oral History Society. She most recently co-wrote "Surviving Biafra: A Niger Wife's Story" with Rosina Umelo. In this interview, she gives account of her work and research project on The Pogrom, and other related events emphasizing that the Nigerian-Biafran Story "should be told primarily by Nig...

(ORLU, BIAFRA) -- Nigerian journalists happy to reunite with novelist Cyprien Ekwensi amid foreign journalists and observers upon armstice, and end to the Biafra-Nigeria War, January 1970. Image: A Abbas

BY JOHN OWEN NWACHUKWU The Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Monday, said that the Federal Government’s closure of the seaports in the South-South was to strangulate the economy of South-East. This was part of a statement signed by IPOB’s Media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful on Monday. In the statement, Powerful quoted IPOB leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, as demanding the reopening of Warri, Calabar and Port Harcourt seaports. The IPOB described their continued closure as one of the injustices it had been fighting. The statement added, “IPOB is about the liberation of all Biafra territories. Only mischief makers will imply otherwise. “Yet, some people from the coastal part of Biafraland will beat their chest to admit to working towards one Nigeria and foolishly channel their grievances against the same IPOB that is trying to save all of us. “These traitors hiding under the name of one pro-Biafra group or another cleverly forgot that their masters in the Federal Government have...