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please i copied this from vanguard


Jon Lawrence says:
February 15, 2010 at 9:28 pm

I was just 18 years old, my last session in the secondary school when the war was visited upon us. My father’s second brother along with his wife (who was 6 months pregnant) and their three kids were already murdered in Kaduna by mobs, we never saw their corpses till this day.

Who will stand with us? Was the question of most Easterners, not just Ndigbo. Our Ikemba stood tall like a man and was counted. Those we called our brothers/neighbours abandoned us and rather joined our enemies, they were raining bombs on us 24/7 without let up with the big hands of the Soviets, Egyptians, the British for support and the American that turned a blind eyes as they had their own problem in Vietnam occupying them.

Despite my age, I have to go and fight. My father and my two brothers went too. My father did all he could to stop me going but I persisted and told him that I rather die fighting to defend our future than to stay at home and die with women and children from the hail of bombardment. In one single bombardment, the Soviet MIG plane was so low that you can physically see the pilot as he pillage my village and on that single day, over 600 people, ,mainly women and children were slaughtered, in a town with a population of not more than 10 thousand people.

Almost every single family were burying someone, because the plane was flying so low, that it can pick its most bounteous target- our local crowded Eke market. That day I made up my mind to go to the war front and fight.
Brave men dies once but coward dies twice.

I fought at Oguta along with my two brothers before we were separated (That was the last I will ever see them again). I was drafted to Obudu/Ogoja were I was when the war ended and I walked on foot with any food or drink, except wild berries in the forests along with 7 other guys from Obudu to my home town in the present day Imo state for more than a week.

We were Only walking in the night and hiding in the forest in the day because Nigerian soldiers were still executing our guys returning back from the front for fun, though unarmed having surrendered our weapons.

Today, It doesn’t bother me when our detractors taunts Ojukwu by saying that he abandoned his people, because I have to ask them, whom this his people are? Does that include people like me that saw Ikemba first hand and knew what he sacrificed for us. I knew why they kept saying that. Frustration!! They wanted him alive as a war trophy but we asked him to go into exile as Ojukwu’s capture and humiliations would have been the final straw for Biafrans and we would never have bounce back as we did to their utter surprise.

My only problem lies with some few fellow Ndigbo, they are in minority but very vocal, they tend to find joy to insult our icon in Emeka Ojukwu.
To those Umu-Igbo I will only say: You have no idea!!

You may insult him for few Abuja pennies, bread crumps and contracts but you are only dancing on your own grave. You are only insulting the likes of my two senior brothers that never came back because they are trying to preserve our dignity. Anyone that insult a palm tree should never drink palm wine.

Our Ikemba is a one-off, a living icon, who talks straight, not the most talented politician but someone you can rely upon in need (ask Peter Obi). Ikemba was very unfortunate to be born into the world of what has becomes the mistake/ worst legacy of the British Empire in Africa- the contraption called Nigeria