{"id":10385,"date":"2015-01-28T07:43:20","date_gmt":"2015-01-28T12:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/verastic.com\/?p=10385"},"modified":"2015-01-28T01:12:28","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T06:12:28","slug":"didnt-teach-biafra-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/personal\/didnt-teach-biafra-school.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Didn’t They Teach Me About Biafra In School?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was going to title this post, “Why didn’t they teach US about Biafra in school?”<\/em> but I realized that I cannot speak for everyone. Maybe you were taught, but I wasn’t. This past Saturday – January 24th – it was my grandma’s birthday, so Igwe and I bought her a yummy cake and took her out to dinner. While waiting for our food, we somehow started talking about politics. We talked about upcoming election in Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, Buhari, what Nigeria used to be, and then, Biafra.<\/p>\n

Grandma told us of how they used to live in Lagos and everything was good. They moved to Port Harcourt because her husband, my Grandpa who was a government employee was transferred. It was while they were in Port Harcourt that the war started and Grandma and all her seven children had to run to the village. Grandpa opted to stay back in Port because he still had to work – although for peanuts. Eventually, things became so bad in Port than Grandma and a bunch of Igbo people had to flee. It took him a few weeks to walk from Port to Adazi Nnukwu (our town in Anambra).<\/p>\n

Even while in Adazi, the heat of the war kept coming closer and closer to their house. They considered running away like other villagers, but where were they going to go? There was barely food, and there was definitely no money. When bombs were thrown, some of the debris of its impact fell into Grandma’s house. They hid in the back rooms all days and came into the house to sleep at night. She said she prayed and figured that if it was God’s plan for her and her family to die, then so be it.<\/p>\n

Igwe was so into this conversation. The way he was picking Grandma’s brain and asking her all kinds of questions, it was entertaining to see. He asked Grandma if she thinks that Nigeria would be better off if we split. Grandma said she does not think that Nigeria will ever split, but that if splitting will bring about peace, then let’s split and we can get visas when going to other parts of Nigeria. I agree.<\/p>\n

Grandma also told us about how the government urged people to bring in all their money into the bank, and when they (Igbo people) did, the bank took their money and gave them N20, regardless of how much they brought in. This made people even poorer and more depressed, and then there were more deaths. It’s unclear to me if the money they took to the bank was Naira or Biafran Pounds.<\/p>\n

I don’t know why I wasn’t taught about Biafra in school. I grew up in Jos, Plateau State, and at no time was Biafra taught in school. Igwe grew up in Ogun and Lagos State, and it wasn’t taught to him either. As a nation, how are we supposed to move forward if we do not acknowledge our past? Are there no lessons to be learned from that war?\u00a0That war is probably part of the reason why there is so much tribal tension within us.<\/p>\n

A part of me actually wishes that Biafra succeeded. I’m curious about what life would have been like as a Biafran. Would we (my family) have visited Nigeria? Would the Yorubas and the Hausas and other tribes have stayed as part of Nigeria, or would they have split, too? Would Nigeria have been better or worse off, if Biafra had succeeded?<\/p>\n

P.S.<\/strong> Thank you for all your questions. Una fit ask ooo! I’m gearing up to demolish them all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was going to title this post, “Why didn’t they teach US about Biafra in school?” but I realized that I cannot speak for everyone. Maybe you were taught, but I wasn’t. This past Saturday – January 24th – it was my grandma’s birthday, so Igwe and I bought her a yummy cake and tookRead More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_14738191_14738191":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[561],"tags":[1153,121,417,208,1154],"class_list":["post-10385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal","tag-biafra","tag-grandma","tag-history","tag-nigeria","tag-war","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Didn't They Teach Me About Biafra In School? 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