By Henry Akubuiro
A Shred of Fear, Uche Nwokedi, Narrative Landscape, 2022, pp. 218.
Uche Nwokedi (SAN) was only 7 when the Nigerian Civil War began. It was a war that left indelible scars on his memory. More than five decades after the war, he has revisited harrowing experiences suffered by his family and easterners before and during the three-year war, told from the perspective of a benumbed survivor.
Nwokedi’s memoir isn’t concerned about reopening old wounds. It is rather calling to remembrance how the past has shaped the present, and how Nigeria can navigate its current journey without repeating the same mistake.
Adds the author, “A Shred of Fear is an exploration of the past, of thread that connects me to the Biafra War. It recalls my journey through that war, drawing on my childhood memories. I was one of the lucky ones who, by the grace of God, came through to the other side. These snapshots from three years of my childhood are set down exactly as I remember them, all provoking the same question: where are we now?”
In fourteen chapters, the author recollects the confusion that greeted the early days of the war in Biafra as a schoolboy, the horrors that followed suit within and around him, the fall of Aba, where they lived, and its implications for his family and the breakaway region; the end of the war and its heavy price.
A Shred of Fear begins with a historical note on the foundation of Nigeria, described as “A short gun marriage of over 300 different ethnic groups of diverse cultures, languages and religious belief”, amalgamated in 1914 by Lord Lugard.
Rather than consummate the marriage of these diverse entities, the author says that the 1960 independence from Britain emphasised the differences across ethnic groups, especially the three major ethnic groups. He recalls the January 1966 coup by a group of “idealistic or misguided young army officers” from different tribes, which was wrongly interpreted as an Igbo coup, for Igbo officers constituted the bulk of the army officer corps then.
He also recalls the anti-Igbo pogroms in the northern part of the country that trailed the counter coup that ousted the new Igbo military president, General Aguiyi Ironsi, and the declaration of war by Nigeria against Biafra when it ceded out of the country.
The most heart-rending part of A Shred of Tears is the traumatic experiences recollected by the author while the war lasted, especially the air raids that sent everybody scampering for safety,
the exodus out of Aba by many dwellers and the exodus of the Igbo people from other parts of Nigeria to Biafra.
When the air raids became too frequent, Nwokedi recalls how his mother sent them to Ogidi, her maternal home, to stay with Mama Nnukwu. It was at this period that the author’s asthma attacks intensified. His father, a lawyer, was deeply involved in the war. A colonel in the Biafra Army, he was appointed the administrator of Awka Province.
Life in Biafra was mostly about survival, but there were occasional spells of fun, with plays, Christmas celebrations and music. Music, in particular, “lifted us up and gave us moments of joy and dance,” reveals the author. Breakthroughs made by Biafra in munitions and its war heroes also find a place in the book, as well as effects of economic blockage and kwashiorkor.
It was time to relocate to Umuchu in present Anambra State when Nwokedi’s Aba fell to the federal troops. “Umuchu was a relatively safe haven for us. It was more quiet and somewhat removed from the war,” writes the author. Apart from his father, who was involved in the war, his family members stayed in Umuchu from 1969 till the end of the war in 1970.
It was with so much relief that the war ended for young Nwokedi, which he pens on chapter 7, “Drifting in the Gloaming”, albeit with apprehension. His mother could speak Hausa, which was enough to save his father’s life at a checkpoint mounted by the federal troops after the war.
With the war over, Nwokedi’s father gave up politics and activism and faced his practice, riding to become the Chief Judge of old Anambra State in 1985 and retired from the Supreme Court in 1991.
The civil war is long over, but the author is of the view that the peace it won remains fragile and full of anxiety. He is afraid there is no lesson learnt from the war by anyone in Nigeria without exception. The call for restructuring, he believes, is just a call to make things better.