When
targeted killings of Easterners forced Emeka Ojukwu, a Colonel in the Nigerian
Army and military administrator of Eastern Nigeria, to unilaterally declare the
independent Republic of Biafra Nigeria advanced to the precipice. What followed
was a 30-month barrage of killing fields concentrated in Igbo territories.
Official
figures from international agencies have put the number of civilians who
perished with that civil war at 1 million. Equally, the war claimed the best
minds and human capital of that part of the Nigerian society. Photographs of
starving children with huge distended stomachs from protein deficiency emerged,
sparking outrage around the world then.
There
was no Truth and Reconciliation Commission setup after that brutal civil war
that came to a peaceful end in 1970 by the two young and brilliant military
leaders of Nigeria and the renegade Biafra. Igbos began to return to the north
and post-civil war era witnessed unprecedented levels of inter-marriages
between indigenes of the two warring sides.
Johnson
and I grew up together as inseparable friends. Johnson, a proud Igbo and I were
not born during that brutal civil war. In fact, Johnson like me was born in the
north. We were not perturbed by Nigerian leaders that decided not to teach us
the history of the civil war. I was not obliged to apologize to Johnson or him
apologizing to me for the grave mistakes of our parents, we shared everything
and grew up happily.
Johnson,
could speak my local dialect Pabur or Bura better than I could ever attempt. He
introduced me to one of my most favourite African menus, an Igbo delicacy, the oha soup. He would wait for my
arrival before having his lunch. In effect, we regularly ate together. In 1989
my late sister met and fell in love with a young Igbo man from Abakiliki (in)
my home town, and they got married in 1990. I now have an Igbo nephew and two
nieces’ two of whom have since returned to the South East and one is currently
living with my parents in Borno.
I
am still nostalgic of my days in Obiagu, in Enugu where each evening I strolled
from Obiagu to Uwani then to Ogbete market, making acquaintance with Hausa and
Kanuri smoked-fish traders that felt at home in the region then. As a boy, I
befriended several Igbo boys and girls. I believe they are now men and women
like me today. Sadly, it is increasingly becoming difficult for our children to
enjoy such co-existence in Nigeria.
In
a recent email, Johnson had this to say to me: “Until quite recently, when
unfolding events in the Northern parts of Nigeria compelled me to relocate to
the Southern parts, I have always regarded the north as home. I had induced
myself into an alluring contemplation of growing old in the North and dying in
my dotage amongst friends and relations. While enamored of these delusive
thoughts it had never crossed my mind that Northern Nigeria would in a space of
a few years be turned into something as unimaginably frightful as what is in
evidence today.”
My
friend and thousands of his kinsmen including my nephew and nieces have been
forcefully uprooted from the North by the gale of destructive forces that is
sweeping through Northern Nigeria. The families that have inter-married with
Southerners in the north, and many kind hearted northern Muslims and Christians
that are in the majority cannot even protect themselves, let alone, Igbos from
the clutches of Boko Haram violence and other pockets of violence in the
region.
Johnson’s
connection to his origin, Eastern Nigeria is at best tenuous since he only
stayed there occasionally, mostly during Christmas and other family
engagements. He has moved to Asaba in Delta State. Recently, when I planned to
visit him he expressed serious concerns about my safety. The same thing applies
in Borno, where Johnson grew up and graduated as an excellent Mass
Communication student in the University of Maiduguri.
This
grave danger is not limited to the likes of Johnson who is a Christian and
Igbo. My parents are both from Borno but Christians and are therefore in as
much at grave danger each day as just any Christian from the Southern part of
Nigeria. What is more confusing to me is, as a Muslim I am not spared either,
as long as Muslims do not share the Boko Haram doctrine there is no difference
between Ahmad and Johnson.
The
kind of violence in northern Nigeria today is not about Igbos that led to the
Nigerian civil war or about Christian and Muslims, or sectarian or ethnic
violence. This violence is like a wildfire, it destroys everything in its path.
No sectional leader can save us, only and only a selfless and unifying Nigerian
leader can curb this tide of violence.
Recently,
when some of us from Borno were crying for lack of empathy from the entire
country over the increasing abductions and genocide in our troubled region, an
online mob mostly from the South on social media said, ‘northerners are paying
for the genocide of Igbo kids that were left to starve to death in their
hundreds of thousands. Sadly, most of the perpetrators and victims of recent
violence in the north served by Boko Haram know nothing or have nothing to do
with the misdeeds of Nigeria over Biafra.
Northerners
are not doing Igbos any favours either for welcoming them in the north, the
Igbos have contributed to the economy and provided economic opportunities more
than most northern political leaders have ever done. The reliance of one region
for agricultural produce, land and another for trade and resources would have
been sufficient to turn Nigeria into a united and strong economic giant were it
not for bad leaders.
The
same way relocation to the southern axis of the country has given Johnson a
strong feeling of displacement. The same way I might feel for inability to
freely walk the streets of Enugu as I did decades ago. For Johnson, ‘Northern
Nigeria would always be home to me despite all the troubles that have beset the
area in recent times.’ For me, Chinasa, Sandra and Graham are so dear to
me that I can do anything to protect them in as much as they can go to any
length to do same. Come to think of it, I am a Muslim with Christian parents
and siblings, who is an uncle to 3 Igbos, and who was brought to journalism, my
source of livelihood by two remarkable Igbos; Uche Ezechukwu and Obiora
Chukwumba.
Johnson
concluded his mail to me with the following words, ‘My earliest reminiscences
when I became conscious of myself was of running round in Biu with boys of my
own age about whom we had the most wonderful experiences replete with
conviviality and camaraderie. All my bosom friends were Bura boys of which
Ahmad Salkida happens to be one of them. There was an air of quiet acceptance
of each other’s way of life. This recent feeling of mutual distrust between
adherents of these two religions was then alien, and Ahmad, I think we must
find ways to reverse this ugly trend.’
Salkida
can be reached at twitter: @contactSalkida while Johnson can be reached at
Facebook:/johnsonchinedu.edwin
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