NATIONAL WAR MUSEUM: Lest We Forget

Air Force Outside Gallery: Relic of one of the air crafts during the war. Below it is the famous Biafran Baby, according to the curator, that 'bird' almost changed the course of the war in favour of Biafra.

Its brown rusted roofs, punctuated by few corrugated aluminium roofs, are washed each morning by the rain of dews. The ray of sun that sweeps the city at midday wrings wild fragrances from its towering bushes. And at night, the castanet music of the crickets, the croaking symphony of the frogs and the beautiful glimmers from the fire-flies lull its inhabitants to sleep. This is Ebite –Amafor, the countryside in Umuahia, Abia state that houses the National War Museum.

If you were not around during the civil war, you might never be able to imagine the horrendous effects of a war that tore the fabrics of this nation to shreds. This is because those who wrote it in the textbooks and those telling the stories can hardly capture the true picture with mere words.

The closest attempt to represent the Nigeria’s Civil War in print is the work of the award-winning Chimanmanda Adiche in her Half of a Yellow Sun. But the poor reading culture has damaging impact on Adiche’s efforts to document history in fiction. Hence, we all forget in a hurry.

But the human and material costs of Nigerian civil war are so colossal that we cannot afford to forget them in a hurry. Its scientific and technological innovations are most insightful; and should not be dumped into the pit of forgetfulness. Also, its economic and tourism potential are huge, thus, should not be left to rot in the heart of a village. The National War Museum therefore presents three possibilities that we cannot afford to bury in the sod of forgetfulness.

First, the arsenal of heavy-duty machine guns, armoured vehicles, aircrafts and warships displayed at the outer gallery paint a picture. They paint a picture of the reality of a war, and how costly it was. You would imagine in your head, how many lives were cut short and how many homes were visited by sorrow courtesy of this arsenal.

One of the Biafran-made Armour tanks

One of the Biafran-made Armour tanks

When you walk through the photo gallery and you look and read on both sides of the stairs; pictures and names of legends of the civil war; you cannot but admit that Nigeria is a state blessed with men of clout and gallantry.

After descending through the stairs to the underground gallery, you need the heart of a lion to behold the horrible pictures hung on the walls. The pictures of children turned-apes by groaning starvation, the plague of kwashokwo and shred of human flesh tore to pieces by grenades.

You will struggle with tears when you look at a picture of an emaciated mother feeding her son with a milkless, dehydrated breast; and the son sucks; just to stay alive. Those who are alive in the photos have death dangling on their faces, like the Roman Catholic bell. They have seen death; they only expect it to come either by starvation or annihilation.

By the time you exit through the burrow created by the former warlord, Odumegwu Ojukwu, as an escape route, you would sigh a hundred times and silently ask: how did this happened? What led us to this? Was there no alternative to this war? Also, you would unconsciously mutter some words of prayers that God forbid this again.

But in sheer forgetfulness, these monuments rot and rust from rain and shine that beat them day and night. The surrounding bushes are covering up the significance of this historical monument. Most pitiable however is that government officials- many of whom were not born, or too young during the war, look the other way when they pass through the jungle road that leads to the museum.

Ironically, these are people who need to be schooled in this museum. The Nigerian political and elites’ class need to be reminded through this museum, the fierce urgency to contain the snippets of violence ravaging the country today.

Second, when President Goodluck Jonathan visited the South- East during his campaigns, he opined that the first Nigerian made air-craft will be “made-in-Aba”. I think the President is a good student of history- he may not have forgotten so soon and he had said that as patronisingly to the people of Aba. The President’s assertion I think is against the backdrop of “Aba- boys”creative ingenuity to imitate anything. One may safely conclude that technological and scientific ingenuities midwived during the civil war were prematurely buried in Aba.

A Biafran-Made Machine gun. Marked on it is the Biafran emblem. Red signifies blood; Black, mourning and Yellow, the rising sun of Biafra - a new nation!

 The arsenal of weapons displayed on the gallery are of two brands – ‘made in Biafra’ and the ones imported by the Nigerian government. The Biafran engineers and scientists (like their protégées in Aba) quickly went to work and imitated any new weapon acquired by the Nigerian government. Of course, Biafra also imported some air- crafts, for example, “the Biafran baby”, but a large part of their weaponry were made in-country by local engineers and scientists – sons of soils!

This opens another dialectics to the Nigerian Civil War; it is an era of technological, scientific and intellectual advancement. The Biafran sides were master-imitators. They imitated air-crafts, armoured-vehicles, radio transmitter, e.t.c. One should be thinking they fathered the ‘Aba Boys’.  

Worthy of note is that they coined indigenous Igbo names for all their crafts and rename the captured ones in Igbo too. For example, “Ogbunigwe” (mass killer) is a name of a missile engineered by Williams Achukwu and members of the SIT group to stop the then newly acquired Nigerian low-flying Russian MIG 15 jet fighter. This missile also killed thousands of Nigerian troops at Awka, near Onitsha.

The Biafran-Mande Grenade Launcher called  “Ogbunigwe” (mass killer)

The big question is where are those gallant scientists and Engineers? Perhaps they are languishing in remote villages East of the Niger. We have forgotten that some of them paid the supreme price for the Nigeria we are today. We have forgotten so soon.

Third, it is only a forgetful nation that can obscure how much wealth values is accruable from tourism in the world today.

It is arguable that the first two reasons above are core to the establishment of the museum. It is however noteworthy that if Nigerian entrepreneurs, investors and government obscure these purposes, it would mean a huge loss, not only in pecuniary gains, but in historical forms.

If something is not done fast, the museum could fade away, like the stories of the war. The museum would soon be forgotten like we have all forgotten about the pains and agonies of the war. History may keep sleeping in the heart of Abia State like the officials of the museum sleep due to idleness and in-activities.

A Biafran-Made Machine gun. Marked on it is the Biafran emblem. Red signifies blood; Black, mourning and Yellow, the rising sun of Biafra - a new nation!

Today, Obudu Cattle Ranch attracts tourists from with-in and outside Nigeria because the site is well cultivated and the facilities are state-of-the-art. The hospitality industry is flourishing there and of course it took a number of people off the unemployment row. Also, private beaches are springing up in 

Lagos. These are beaches with well secured and ample facilities where business executive, government agencies and corporate entities hold meetings, conferences and share in the beauty of natures. It is needless estimating the profits of the daring entrepreneurs who took up the challenge of investing in tourism and hospitality.

The National War Museum also has these potentials. It is situated in a serene, conducive environment. The grandeur of Nature from the hills is splendid as well as spectacular. The nascent Ebite-Amanafor village could be gentrified because it still has vast expanse of land lying fallow. It is only natural that economic activities in Abia State and its environs will receive a boast if the government and investors take a second look at the reasons for establishing the museum.

The government should not forget in a hurry, the cost of the war. It should explore all available avenues to preach the gospel of peace. The cost of bombings, attacks, arsons, etc are souring by the day. Therefore, the government should collaborate with investors to preserve this historical monument for generation yet-to-be-born.

We do not have another civil war at hand, but the human and material costs of the Snippets of religious, political and ethnic violence are alarming. Rather than take cue from history, we forget history, forgetting that history should mould today and today should plan tomorrow.

Let us wake up from the tranquilizing dose of forgetfulness and make the National War Museum stand like rainbow, reminding us that we shall never go to war again.

An panoramic view of the Ebite-Amafo community in Abia State.

The Interior of the War ship used during the war by the Nigerian side.

Front view of the war ship.  

Another interior part of the war ship. 

One of the foreign-made armour tanks.