I couldn’t tell OBJ that my father fought the civil war as a proud Igbo man and he died for what he believed in. My mother an Ijebu and Sagamu woman was also an ardent and avid supporter of the dream to carve out of Nigeria, ( The reasons for the civil war continue to haunt Nigeria till today 🇳🇬). I bear no grudges against Nigeria for my father’s death after the civil war from the wartime wounds but he still fathered myself and my brother just after the war. He lived and died for what he believed was right.
I ask myself if I will also have to fight another war to liberate myself from the choking grip of those that sit comfortably and feed fat on the people’s commonwealth. I was raised as a Yoruba boy maybe because my mother felt it was best to rest the spirit of my father and forget the trauma of the war. My mother loved my father. She was a nurse and often helped treat wounded soldiers and civilians on both sides of the war and chose to remain in the East despite pleas from her family saying a wife’s place is my husband’s side; War or not. My mother is a strong woman.
She told me of an experience when one of my aunts was raped and killed by the soldiers but they spared her because she was pregnant with my brother. So much pain from the past.
What lessons have we learned from the civil war? Have the wounds healed? It was mentioned by OBJ that history being banned from the education curriculum in Nigerian schools is a wrong decision. I agree. My children know nothing of the civil war or who fought for Nigerian independence or how Nigeria came to be a nation.
Can a nation survive without the hindsight of history? OBJ tried his best to extricate himself but he also and other Generals like him who have bestrode our nation’s leadership from independence are GUILTY of allowing a little evil for the benefit or the thinking of achieving a greater good.
Sir, I wanted to ask you. When a man is about to die, I hear that his life flashes before him. If you had a chance to see your “flashes” would you wish you had done differently with some decisions you took?? You are alive now and many will keep their peace with you but it is when a man is dead that the skeletons come out. What skeletons will we see Sir???
TJP
1 comment
This is heavy!!!!