Anthony Obi Ogbo
The Biafran Genocide – The Hell I Went Through as a Child
Yet, here I am still standing, pledging allegiance to NIGERIA with all sense of patriotism—a nation still being governed by some of the leaders that masterminded the devastating genocide I survived 53 years ago.
Evacuating a large family from the village, Achala, to remote farmland called Eziobibi, almost twenty miles away on foot, and through near inaccessible road-paths, and under severe weather conditions was not a joke. I was seven at the time, and I walked with a loaded bag unaided. Bomb booms and some crackling sounds of artilleries rattled my nerves as they loomed from afar. This was a flight for life and concessions for being a kid were off the table.
My immediate younger sister was five and was on her feet too. I was not carrying a time clock, but a journey set out in the wee hours through the sunset would have exceeded twelve hours. We made it on foot, and for the records – I was seven, and my sister was five.
Ever since the death of Ikemba Odumegwu Ojukwu who led this war, the print, electronic and social media have been agog with analysis and historical compositions about this leader, and his unfulfilled dreams of Biafran nationhood. With commentaries controlled by emotions and different socio-political interests, it becomes difficult at times to comprehend the physical and psychological realities of three-year bloody combat that decimated the people of Eastern Nigeria, their culture, and their prospects as a region.
Nonetheless, the most compelling opinion remains an eyewitness account of the individuals who fought in the region called Biafra
Psychologically speaking, it is obvious that different experiences underscore different analyses. For instance, those Nigerians who lived during this war and never experienced it speak from Google and Wikipedia. Those who remained overseas while the Igbo people in Eastern Nigeria underwent a genocide would speak from Timelife documentaries, and those who saw, or fought the war in Biafra would speak with emotions or anger.
Nonetheless, the most compelling opinion remains an eyewitness account of the individuals who fought in the region called Biafra; those victims who survived the refugee camps, who thrived in the forest region of various villages for thirty months under thunderous sounds of shelling booms, and rapid-fire of Russian-made raffles.
Yes, I was a child victim of the Biafran civil war, and my testimony came from memory rather than Google. As a 6-year old before the war and a 9-year old after, who also survived the post-war era, it is sometimes difficult to sit on the same panel of discussion with peers who lived normal lives in the same period in the war-free Nigerian territory. They would make you feel guilty or look at you as some unpatriotic nincompoop – a Biafran loyalist that is. Sometimes they argue from the rear in a sheer fallacy or even recite doctored Internet information or adulterated opinions retrieved from nowhere.
Without reaching any search tools, I can speak from the memory of this horrible past that I saw it all with my naked eyes. I was in Kindergarten when the initial war campaign started, and Coal City was under bombardment by fighter and bomber jets operated by White mercenaries. Trenches were dug in the schools to provide safe areas against fighter plane attacks. The teachers would always remove our white shirts, and throw us into these trenches anytime the bomb alerts went off. This was the initial stage.
As a child during that war, I witnessed dead bodies, wounded soldiers, hungry and sick refugees eager to eat just about anything. In Achala, Awka province, where I survived the war, refugees trooped in thousands, and relief workers fed them with cornmeal. A bowl a day could do for a person, and when supplies ran out, refugees walked around the town for anything chewable. I saw refugees feed on lizards, insects, rats, and just about anything that could ease a devastating need for survival. I also saw sick ones who got so sick out of malnutrition or other strange diseases. This was the time I knew about Kwashiorkor – severe energy malnutrition typified by insufficient protein consumption. It was a sorry sight to see my fellow kids crawling with protruded bellies, and emaciated body frames visibly revealing their ribs.
As a child, I stood awake with others, sleepless at nights for fear of unexpected bombardment. I knew what assault rifles looked like; saw how bombers descended from nowhere and dropped bombs at market places. Yes, I can recall the day we were playing kite in grand dad’s gigantic compound and two bomber planes descended from nowhere and flew over. The noise alone could till a rocky ground – then as these flying equipment vanished into a cloudy sky, a shocking sound trailed. Moments later we learned that a busy Otuocha Market was bombed, and bodies were crushed like roaches – eloquent of the fact that the Nigerian troops targeted civilians. This was just a tip out of a devastating 30-month horrific experience as a child who did not go to the war field but suffered it all.
Kids went to school barefooted, while others stayed home because their parents could not afford tuition, books, and uniforms.
Yet the worst was yet to come after the war in 1970. We were hauled back to a city we left three years back. A city now devastated by the war was left without basic amenities. School buildings, churches, and homes were torn apart by shelling and other destructive devices of the war. I attended school under the trees at times and classes shifted at intervals to secure a comfortable shadowed spot. Pupils brought their desks to school because there was just none at the time.
Kids went to school barefooted, while others stayed home because their parents could not afford tuition, books, and uniforms.
Now, this was the war I saw and survived. Yet it is more distressing to have gone through this ordeal as a child without a single post-war traumatic therapy. I could just close my eyes and think of what it is like for a young child to be in traumatic situations. He can feel helpless and passive. He could have the most difficulty with their intensely physical and emotional reactions; he could just lose out in the process of coping with ongoing threats to his survival; he could not afford to trust, relax or fully explore his feelings, ideas, or interests.
Yet, here I am still standing, pledging allegiance to NIGERIA with all sense of patriotism—a nation still being governed by some of the leaders that masterminded the devastating genocide I survived almost 50 years ago.
Young trauma victims often come to believe there is something inherently wrong with them; that they are at fault, unlovable, hateful, helpless, and unworthy of protection and love. Such feelings lead to poor self-image, self-abandonment, and self-destructiveness. Ultimately, these feelings could leave them vulnerable to subsequent trauma.
Yet, here I am still standing, pledging allegiance to NIGERIA with all sense of patriotism—a nation still being governed by some of the leaders that masterminded the devastating genocide I survived almost 53 years ago.
Now, for those who do not understand what this means to an average IGBO man, and who would sit down and utter insensitive analysis about the realities of this war without consideration of the unnoticed ravages of its outcome; I will say bring it on and I will eat you raw!
♦ Professor Anthony Obi Ogbo, Ph.D. is on the Editorial Board of the West African Pilot News. Article included Excerpts from my documentary, Biafran War – What I Saw With My Naked Eyes (2011). Initially published in the West African Pilot, May 30, 2020 >>>
“Buhari’s legacy is not a national treasure—it is a cautionary tale of tyranny cloaked in uniform and democracy.” —Anthony Obi Ogbo
In many cultures, including mine, it’s considered immoral to speak ill of the dead. But tradition should never demand silence in the face of truth, especially when that truth is soaked in blood, broken promises, and the battered dignity of a nation. General Muhammadu Buhari, former military dictator and two-term civilian president of Nigeria, has finally departed this world. He died in London, a city he frequented not as a diplomat or global statesman, but as a medical tourist—fleeing the ruins of a healthcare system he helped wreck with decades of authoritarianism, tribalism, and economic blundering.
Muhammadu Buhari emerged from the rotten womb of Nigeria’s corrupt military order — a regime where brute force outweighed intellect, and the rattle of an AK-47 silenced the rule of law. In this twisted hierarchy, competent officers were buried in clerical backrooms while semi-literate loyalists were handed stars, stripes, and unchecked authority. It was a theater of mediocrity, where promotion favored obedience over merit and ignorance was rewarded with rank. Within this structure of absurdity, Buhari thrived — a man with no verifiable high school certificate, yet elevated above the constitution, above accountability, and tragically, above the very people he was meant to serve. He didn’t just symbolize the decay; he was its product and its champion.
Let’s not sugarcoat his legacy. Buhari was no hero. He was a man whose grip on power twice disfigured Nigeria’s soul — first with military boots from 1983 to 1985, then under the guise of democracy from 2015 to 2023. His government jailed journalists, brutalized citizens, crippled the economy, and widened tribal divisions with unapologetic bias. His infamous Decree No. 2 sanctioned indefinite detentions. His so-called “War Against Indiscipline” terrorized the innocent. His economic policies were textbook disasters.
Buhari governed with the cold logic of a tyrant who believed brute force was a substitute for vision — and silence a substitute for accountability. The Southeast, in particular, bore the brunt of his vengeance-laced leadership. His disdain for the Igbo people was barely concealed, a poisonous remnant of civil war bitterness he never let go. In his death, that venom remains unresolved, unrepentant.
Let the record reflect that many of us do not weep. We remember.
Even more damning is the legacy of hypocrisy. After decades in power and access to untold national wealth, Buhari could not trust the hospitals he left for ordinary Nigerians. He died where he lived his truth — in exile from the very system he swore to fix. That is not irony. That is an indictment.
And now, as scripted eulogies pour in — from paid loyalists, political survivors, and the ever-hypocritical elite — let us not be fooled by the hollow rituals of state burials and national mourning. Let the record reflect that many of us do not weep. We remember.
- We remember the students gunned down.
- The protesters beaten in the streets.
- The journalists silenced.
- The dreams buried beneath military decrees and broken campaign promises.
We remember that Buhari was not simply a failed leader — he was a deliberate one, whose failings were not accidents but strategies.
And so, here lie the cold remains of one of Nigeria’s most divisive and mean-spirited leaders — a man who brutalized the democratic process with the precision of a tyrant and the coldness of a man utterly void of remorse. As Muhammadu Buhari begins his final, silent descent into the earth, one can only imagine him entering eternity still questioning the justice of creation: Why did God make women? Why did He place oil in the Niger Delta and not in Daura? And why, of all things, did He dare to create tribes outside the Fulani?
It is not my job to mourn a dictator. My duty is to chronicle them — how they ruled with iron fists, trampled their people, choked the press, and finally died, not as legends, but as small men stripped of all illusions. Dictators are counterfeit gods, tormenting peaceful nations while their delusions last. But sickness humbles them. Death silences them. And in the end, all their grandstanding collapses like dust in a grave.
As a journalist, I will record Buhari’s death with precision, not reverence. I will report the pomp, the propaganda, and the hollow eulogies that will rain down like cheap perfume on a corpse. I will write the truth, because history must never confuse power with greatness — especially when evil wore both the uniform and the ballot.
Let the living learn. Let the wicked sleep. And let the truth outlive them all.
I will not mourn a man who ruled through fear and died surrounded by foreign doctors while his people die waiting in overcrowded hospital corridors. I will not pretend this is a time for unity or healing. This is a time for reckoning. For too long, Nigeria has recycled tyrants and renamed oppression “leadership.” Buhari’s death should not be a moment of forced reverence but a pause for honest reflection. Let his final chapter be a lesson carved into our collective memory: that power without purpose, and rule without empathy, always ends in disgrace. History should not be kind to tyrants simply because they are no longer breathing. If we are ever to break the chains of corruption and cruelty, we must bury the lies with the bodies — and speak truth, even at the graveside. Let the living learn. Let the wicked sleep. And let the truth outlive them all.
♦Publisher of the Guardian News, Professor Anthony Obi Ogbo, Ph.D. is on the Editorial Board of the West African Pilot News. He is the author of the Influence of Leadership (2015) and the Maxims of Political Leadership (2019). Contact: anthony@guardiannews.us
Anthony Obi Ogbo
Dunamis Digital Dilemma: Why Shutting Down Virtual Worship May Alienate a New Generation of Believers
“Spirituality is no longer confined to physical sanctuaries” —Anthony Obi Ogbo
The demands of the digital and virtual age, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, are both undeniable and irreversible. The pandemic didn’t merely disrupt norms—it reshaped them. From global commerce to education and religious observance, the shift to digital platforms is now a defining feature of contemporary life. The surge in e-commerce has revolutionized how consumers behave, compelling organizations to reinvent their digital presence through social media, targeted marketing, and immersive experiences like augmented and virtual reality.
Yet, while many institutions have adapted to these realities, some remain entrenched in pre-pandemic mindsets. One recent example is the Dunamis International Gospel Centre in Abuja, Nigeria, under the leadership of Pastor Paul Enenche. The church announced the suspension of its live-streamed services, citing the biblical imperative for believers to gather physically, as referenced in Hebrews 10:25.
While the theological rationale was emphasized, the practical implications—particularly financial—were conspicuously understated. Churches around the world have successfully embraced virtual platforms not just to foster spiritual connection but also to maintain financial stability through online giving systems. In contrast, Dunamis’s move appears to prioritize physical attendance at the expense of accessibility and inclusivity.
In today’s digitally integrated society, suspending virtual worship risks alienating many who have come to rely on these platforms. Individuals with health challenges, mobility issues, or who live far from church facilities depend on livestreams to remain spiritually connected. More importantly, younger generations increasingly seek faith experiences that mirror their digital-first realities—flexible, inclusive, and globally accessible. By disregarding these expectations, churches may unintentionally push away the very audiences they aim to engage.
Pastor Enenche’s decision, while perhaps grounded in spiritual intent, may prove counterproductive in practice. The younger demographic—tech-savvy, mobile, and globally aware—now expects more from institutions of faith. They are turning toward worship centers that treat digital engagement not as an afterthought but as a vital dimension of spiritual life. The hybrid church model—integrating both in-person and online elements—has emerged as a powerful strategy for expanding reach while honoring traditional values. It allows churches to be both rooted and relevant.
The decision to suspend livestreaming church services reflects a deeper tension between tradition and innovation, between preserving ritual and adapting to contemporary realities. Faith institutions today are not just places of worship; they are also cultural anchors navigating an increasingly digital society. Ignoring this evolution risks rendering the church irrelevant to a generation that lives, works, and worships online. Spirituality is no longer confined to physical sanctuaries—it’s present in podcast sermons, Zoom prayer meetings, WhatsApp devotionals, and YouTube gospel concerts.
Virtual engagement is not a dilution of faith; it is an extension of it. It makes the message of hope and redemption accessible across boundaries of geography, ability, and circumstance. The pandemic revealed this, but the future will demand it. Churches that fail to embrace digital tools risk becoming spiritual silos—isolated, inflexible, and out of touch with modern believers.
Leadership in ministry, like leadership in any other sphere, must evolve with the people it seeks to serve. Pastor Enenche and others in similar positions should not view digital transformation as a threat but as an opportunity—an opportunity to reach farther, touch deeper, and uplift more lives. The gospel, after all, is meant for all—and now, more than ever, everywhere.
♦Publisher of the Guardian News, Professor Anthony Obi Ogbo, Ph.D., is on the Editorial Board of the West African Pilot News. He is the author of the Influence of Leadership (2015) and the Maxims of Political Leadership (2019). Contact: anthony@guardiannews.us
“Employers aren’t just filling vacancies—they’re investing in solutions” —Anthony Obi Ogbo
Long before graduation, I understood that success in the job market required more than just a degree. Throughout college, I committed to internships, apprenticeships, and vacation jobs—some unpaid—solely to build the kind of professional experience that would ease my transition into the workforce. By the time I completed my NYSC at The Nigerian Guardian, I wasn’t just another fresh graduate—I was a candidate with proof of performance. I was retained on merit and even offered two cartoon columns at Guardian Express in a separate contract. That preparation made all the difference.
Today, however, many college graduates enter the job market unequipped for its demands. They speak of rejection, frustration, and a lack of experience—all valid concerns in an economy where employers no longer train novice hires from scratch. In a hyper-competitive, fast-paced, and increasingly skills-based market, the burden of preparation rests squarely on the students themselves.
There was a time when being a “novice” came with room to grow. Employers saw potential and invested in it. Now, entry-level roles often come with mid-level expectations: practical skills, strategic thinking, and an ability to contribute from day one. Employers aren’t just filling vacancies—they’re investing in solutions.
This is why it’s crucial for students to begin preparing early. That means building portfolios, seeking field-relevant internships, volunteering in areas that sharpen communication and leadership, and using every academic project as a springboard for real-world insight. These experiences add depth to a résumé and provide talking points in interviews that distinguish candidates from the crowd.
Equally important is networking. The relationships students build—with mentors, professionals, or peers—often become the very bridges that connect them to employment opportunities.
Ultimately, preparing for employment as a college student isn’t optional—it’s essential. And the sooner students begin, the better their chances of entering the workforce with confidence, clarity, and competence.
♦Publisher of the Guardian News, Professor Anthony Obi Ogbo, Ph.D., is on the Editorial Board of the West African Pilot News. He is the author of the Influence of Leadership (2015) and the Maxims of Political Leadership (2019). Contact: anthony@guardiannews.us