A Review of “War Child of Biafra: Memoir of a Boy Soldier” by Ike Ude-Chime
M. O. ENE
The Igbo ancestors said everything there is to be said about the fundamentals of life. Sadly, we have done a poor job of collating and critiquing their punch-packing proverbs. Luckily, our ancestors were highly intelligent: They packaged many wise sayings in such a way that the words keep trickling down through generations.
In preaching the importance of history, we were reminded that revisiting a resolved crisis that killed one’s father without proper review of the causes and consequences will trigger a repeat with same fatal result. Thus, a child who prematurely dons adult underwear will be blown away by a wild wind.
The definite story of Biafra has not been told. No one has a general view of happenings in all areas of breakaway Biafra. Even with several direct appeals, General Odumegwu-Ojukwu left only a volume (“Because I Am Involved”) that has more on Bianca than on critical issues about Biafra proper.
The major actors are fast passing. Some wrote: Madiebo, Gbulie, Effiong, Achuzia, Anwunah, Arene, etc. Regina Maduabum gave us an insider story that peeled off many layers in “A Soldier’s Spouse.” Novels are plenty, including Adichie’s “Half of a Yellow Sun” and my “Jaundice Justice”—the only fictionalized story of situations behind the enemy line in so-called ‘Biafra 2.’
On Friday, December 9, 2022, I ordered my winter readings. Two books were memoirs of Nigeria-Biafra War boy soldiers. I have been meaning to complete “Son of the Sun,” my wartime experiences; I reckoned their stories will refresh my memories. On Monday, December 12, on my way out of the house, Amazon dropped a package by the door. It was Ike Ude-Chime’s “War Child of Biafra.” It did not take me all of four days to squeeze out time and read all 474 pages. The book is that interesting and intriguing.
Ike Ude-Chime wrote extensively about his experiences as a youngster whose junior secondary school career was disrupted by a war that robbed many of childhood dreams. He stepped up to save his people from annihilation by misguided military forces waging a genocidal war on a people traumatized by an insane pogrom.
The book revisits postwar, wartime, and immediate postwar Enugu, starting from the age of innocence, when things worked beautifully… compared to today’s Coal City of apparent abrasiveness. Ude-Chime takes us through the early war days, the movement of refugees out of Enugu and environs, his volunteering with the Red Cross, enlisting to fight in Rangers unit of behind-enemy-line Biafran Organization of Freedom Fighters (BOFF), and his pitiful postwar traumatic detention that was undeserved and unnecessary, except that the Nigerian army was living up to the epithet “vandals.”
The book takes us to the country backwoods with which I am too familiar. Unbeknownst to many, it did not take days to travel from Enugu environs to Imo areas on foot and on smugglers’ trails.
A graduate of the University of Helsinki, Finland, Ude-Chime had worked extensively in the electronic broadcasting before emigrating to Europe, raising a family, and continuing his chosen career in broadcasting. These achievements were a thread-width away from not happening. Imagine the millions that did not cross that fine line, whose lives were wasted in a war that was not for Easterners to fight, a war that they fought anyway!
Ude-Chime serves us a bit of Biafran story, a story that will never be complete until everyone who played any role has written about it. Only then will future historians comb through the volumes to compile a defining story of Biafra and of Nigeria-Biafra War. It will take many more decades and may never fully be told. Until then, any absurd attempt to revisit the revolution will end as our ancestors posited: a fatal failure.
The book is loaded and super-spaced for easy read. Thanks to modern publishing, a different typesetting format could chop off 100 pages. The curious cover choice of “Warchild….” was corrected in inside pages. Still, it could have brought in a new word into the English language. Why not? Just like the term ‘girlchild,’ the use of ‘warchild’ makes sense. The cover is appealing and well done: the dark mighty Nigeria stained by the blood of Biafra.
Some crucial Igbo sentences were so offhand it could have been Finnish (page 73)! An immediate English translation was rendered; else, it would have read like Igbo phrases in Olaudah Equiano’s famous slave narrative. There is no “Milken hill” —just meandering Milliken Road on Udi Hills. Some pop phrases are excellently translated. An example: “Ọsọ ndụ ágwụ iké” (“The strife for survival is never tiresome,” p. 144). This phrase captures the force that drove a youngster to enlist and endure all the trials and tribulations that Ude-Chime narrated nicely.
It is a joy to read other cultural narratives from ‘ụlaga’ masquerade tradition in Enugu urban to traditions of hilltop Ngwo people. The story of Udene Ọgụ is a joy to read, especially the translation as “Mystic Warrior.” (p.278) Excellent!
The book has many compelling stories. He told some so shrewdly one could not but smile in the face of life-threatening situations. Ude-Chime felt queasy eating “cooked cricket in vegetable soup.” (p 142). I understand; the roasted version is crunchy cute. I bet agama lizard could not have been better, huh?! LOL
The book achieves what it set out to do: tell a true story for generations. It accomplishes what I set out to know and then some. It brings back memories of when boys were men, especially around Umunze-Ekwuluobia stretch. The activities of the Red Cross and Caritas were popular in the zone. The battlefields along Mmam River are still fresh in my memory as the picture of a boy who should be in primary school riding a mobilette with an iron-butt Madison rifle hanging on his back!
One factor holding back stories of Biafra is the cost of publication and our poor reading culture. Luckily, the book is available in Kindle format. The Amazon method is so efficient that one copy of a book published in Finland, Europe could be printed in Connecticut and delivered to New Jersey, USA over a weekend. This is a business model that could stimulate reading culture in Nigeria as well as check the callousness of copyright contraventions.
Two things are evident from the daredevil acts of 2K1 Ranger Ike Ude-Chime, which lead to his near-death experiences and detention through the end of the war. One: Biafran commanders made a good decision to cease hostilities on a no-victor-non-vanquished agreement, though General Gowon reneged on the agreement—as he did with Aburi Accord and then launched a senseless strife that achieved nothing good.
Two: The spirit of Biafra is a powerful force that Nigerian army could not have overcome, not even with the Egyptian pilot that Ude-Chime wanted to take out nor the material support of the strange Anglo-Soviet alliance. Those banking on that spirit to reactivate the revolution, albeit much older than the war children of Biafra, are like the proverbial youngster trying to put on an adult underwear: A wild wind will blow him away with his underwear.
George Santayana nailed it: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In other words, forget your history and relive it! As quoted in the book, “History is not what happened; history is what it felt like to be there when it happened” (George F. Kennan). Ike Ude-Chime has done his bit for a great generation of Nigerians. He has put us at the center of “a chaotic crisis.” The rest is up to us all.
The book is for keeps. Feel free to enjoy a sample of the script and grab a copy.
MOE, 12.14.2022
@aladimma
aladimma.net 