Nkrumah Bankong-Obi

It is exactly 49 years today since the first shot was fired to herald the Nigerian Civil War at the wee hours of July 6, 1967. The area where this epoch occurred is called GAKEM now in Bekwarra Local Area of Cross River State (then Southeastern State). At about the time time,5:30am, war also rsged in Obudu, another settlement on the periphery of northern Cross River State. The exchange of firepower was between the Federal Forces on one hand and the Biafra Army on the other. Both parties seeking to defend their ‘republics’.

Those who launched Operation UNICORD have not told the world why Ogoja was chosen as the experimental ground. Providence perhaps chose that abandoned area as the scene of our nation’s most memorable occurrence.

Given the peculiarities of the defunct Province, one never hears of this episode of our history – the birthplace of the civil war because GAKEM, Obudu, Ogoja, Boki, Yakurr, Ikom and other locations that swallowed the first shots and on whose land the first casualties of the war fell, are somehow very minute dots on Nigeria’s ethnically drooled and polarized
geopolitical map.

So, not to let this moment fallow for life, I have documented this experience. The outcome is a
book titled “The First Shot: Old Ogoja Province and the Untold Story of the Nigeria/Biafra War… A Journalistic Post-Civil War Interrogation”

Reviewers indicate that the material is one of the most profound post-civil war research product from the standpoint of the minority areas. This is based on its three dimensional focus of: Biafran secssion, Methods used, including relationship with people in Ogoja, the response of the Federal forces and lastly the attitude of the people towards these feuding foes.

Gakem where the first civil war shots were fired

My aporoach has been to depend more on eyewitness accounts, visit to strategic sites, interview soldiers and other support cast during the conflict etc. The seven chapter material includes tracing the history of Ogoja, political development in Nigeria, the war in Ogoja Province, key actors and tributes, effects if the war and socio-economic boulders to build upon by the people of Norther and Central senatorial distrcts of Cross River State.

But not for unforeseen circumstances, the nearly 300-page book would have been presented to the public today. I believe time can only afford us the ooportunity to properly filter the lemonade before serving it to our patriotic countrymen who can still revisit Ogoja as well as some of us who are hitting hard on the drums of war while forgetting exactly where the rain began to drench us. I wasn’t sure where the project would end when I setout in 2013.

But today, it’s on the verge of being weaned by the publishing outfit of one of Nigeria’s first generation universities. Importantly for me, even though the vexed issue of dealing with the minority nationalities is little heard in the febrile cacophony of our national discourse, or perhaps wrongly thundered by war-mongers and ethnic flagfliers, I’m dedicating my life and abilities to ensuring that those who suffered the effects of that seemingly desultory war (1967-1970) are remembered grandly. In this order, I pay tributes to fuglemen like Major
Michael Olehi, Lieutenant Ojukwu, Captain Anah, Lt. Cols. Mohammed Shuwa, Alexander Madiebo, Major Martin Adamu, Capt. Muhammadu BUHARI, Abdullahi Shellenge, Lts. Gado Nasko, Haladu Halania, Gom, among others who fought on either the side of Nigeria or Biafra around Ogoja Province in defence of a cause they believed in.

Most importantly, I wish to remember the locals whose houses, farmlands were destroyed, women raped and valuables confiscated. I salute Chief Goddy Ushie, who is in the history books as the first civilian to sustain shrapnel injuries during the war even though he wasn’t
in the exact theatre of action. I thank the Late Chief Boniface Iyalla who, like many others, recounted his experience to me before he passed on early this year. I also thank my former bosses and colleagues at TheNEWS where this venture was conceived and tended.

I recognise those who ‘mentioned’ Ogoja in their memoirs, documentaries and analyses of the war. Theirs set the precedence for my own takeoff. For our friends who supported and may further support in one way or another, gratitude always. Even our kindred – including bishops and children of renowned politicians of that time who declined to share information with us, I salute you, still.

In the end, fulfilment will come only if GAKEM, Obudu, Boki, Ikom, Obubra and indeed the areas that witnessed the ‘police-action-gone awry are treated like deserving international war tourist sites one finds in Belgium, the USA, Japan, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel and elsewhere in the world.

The struggle has just begun in earnest. Ogoja was the beginning point of Operation UNICORD whose battle cry was “To Keep Nigeria One Is A Task That Must Be Done”. She should be healed of the wounds inflicted on her by that rude intrusion.

As John McCrae wrote in his world-famous poem, Flanders Field,
“To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.”
We are heart on sleeves in this calling.
God bless Nigeria.