Oliver; an excerpt from the Biafra story

Umuahia had become home to me. It could never replace my native town in Oron, and how I wish I never had to leave. But my life had taken a new turn, in my Father’s words. Leaving to the East was my only shot at western education, and that western education cost me my innocence. But who would I blame since everything is fair in love and war. Mostly war if I have to chose. 

Mmenyene said the people here were just as homely as we are at Oron, but my classmates did not live up to the hype. It took a while to understand that my sister only said that to encourage me. Before coming here I imagined knowing the language would allow me fit in, but now its apparent that having the right last name is more important. There was one boy though, Oliver. I would have sworn he is not Ibo since he was very receptive of me. However, my little stereotypical mind took the fall when I found out his surname was Igwe. The school compound was a lot bigger than any of the ones we had at Oron, having isolated buildings in every far corner. With all the space in between, its easy to watch whenever the men came. They would flood the school premises, pacing about and finally going to the head teachers office before they left. We all suggested it had something to do with the war, but no one was bold enough to ask. As far as the headmistress divulged, these military men were on our side, and we were safe. 

On this day they came as usual, perusing the compound and not forgetting to frown while at it. As if their monstrous frame and camouflage was not fierce enough. Instead of going into the head mistress office, one of them barged into our classroom. I glanced around to be sure this was as unusual as it seemed, and indeed all the other children looked frightened. The man held a long riffle, and was just about the blackest of them all. I had never seen a person that dark in my life. He paused in front of the class and started to look keenly at each of us. Like he was searching our souls for something. I had to look away as soon as he flung his eyes towards me.  

“Kulie nu, unu nile!” 

I’m sure he did not have to say it twice, and we were up in split seconds. I took a peep at Oliver, whose lips were already trembling. Surely, some of us did not understand the language, but none was foolish enough not pick a cue from what everyone else did. The uniform man took a walk around the classroom, when my class teacher asked a very simple yet reasonable question 

“What have these children done?” 

Years later, I now understand why the man looked at her and continued his aimless march around the class. He did not have an answer. Nor did his superiors, or everyone else responsible for us becoming mere collateral damages.  

“Oburu na i bu ony’igbo, nodu ala” 

Now my lips started to tremble. He had just asked that those who were Ibo should sit, and it made my belly turn. Something advised me to sit since I could speak the language, in case that would be used as a confirmatory test. It however seemed like fear took the most of me, seeing how I could not find the guts to lie to a man handling a riffle half my height. Like dead flies my mates had started to drop to their seats and soon it became clear that we were actually a handful who were not Ibo. I remember wondering if the people who sat were safe, or if we who stood were the ones in trouble. But my doubts were soon cleared. 

“All of you, out!” 

The man sounded angrier in English. Clearly his use of Ibo was a scheme to confuse the non indigens, who may not know the language. And here I was, a non indigene who understood the language but was too scared to be smart. Some of the boys started to cry, as the man gingered us to move quickly out of the class. By this time, I still did not accept that we had been marked for death, seeing how we were ordinary children. I mean, none of us was over twelve years of age. 

In the trunk of the van to which we had been carted into, I met children who had been selected from all the other classes. I’m sure by the same criteria with which we too had been singled out.. A few of them were older than my mates, but were in their mid-teens at most. School had obviously ended abruptly since all the other students lucky enough to had sat down when it mattered, googled at us from the wide windows of their classrooms. The vans may or may not have numbered up to three, and as we zoomed out of the premises, I still remember wishing I found the courage to lie. The further we drove into the forest, more and more of us started to join the others in suppressed cries. If anyone cried out loud, the men would holler at us, threatening to “gun us down”. That is how they said it. So we mourned our freedom as quietly as we could. 

The place we were taken to looked just like an open field surrounded by big trees. But upon further observation, it became clear that we weren't surrounded by just trees, but a forest. This was the training camp of the soldiers who had captured us. And as time would permit me to discover, they had a lot more of these kind of camps scattered around the Ibo speaking regions of Biafra. In this field, they were different structures that initially looked to me like decorations. In a few days to come however, these decorations would be the apparatus used to train us. We were commanded to sit on the floor after being off loaded from the trunk. Being one of the last to get down from my own van, I was positioned on the floor space close to the wheels. As soon as the vans zoomed off, sharp sand and very dark sooth filed the air around my face, and I began to cough. To my surprise, none of the soldiers cared to ask why I was coughing. My eyes soon became red and teary from the agony. 

“Hei, what happened?” 

I had not turned to see who was asking, but it offended me that everyone did not just see that van had ruined things for me.  

“Sorry..” 

His voice sounded familiar when he said sorry. It must be because he had said it to me a lot in class, whenever some of the other kids made fun of my accent. They claim that I do not pronounce J correctly, and that my stress pattern was weird. As I turned, it was Oliver as expected. The pain in my eyes subsided and for the first time in the last hour, I felt something other than fear. With Oliver around, it felt easier to live through the moment. We sat quietly on the floor next to each other not because we had been asked not to speak, but what exactly do we say to each other. In an instant, it occurred to me that Oliver was not supposed to be here. 

“Why are you here. Oliver Igwe?” 

I made sure to call his surname, if that is what he needed to remind him that he was actually Ibo.  

“Why did you not sit down. Or did you forget that you are Ibo!” 

My voice grew a bit loud, but anyone in my shoes would understand my shock. Some of the children who sat by turned quickly and I was forced to mellow down. He looked very pale and was unable to speak. God knows how confused I was, but he was already in tears so I had to stop asking. It made me feel bad that I had made him cry, even though I was not sorry for wanting to find out. 

Oliver could not talk about it at the moment. But in the following month, he finally confessed not to understand Ibo language, and only continued standing out of fear. Even though the majority of the class had sat, he said he felt safer since I was also standing. 

 The other children must have exhausted their tears, so the gathering was relatively quiet. In the background though, was the thunderous thud from a multitude of soldiers who had been jogging and gyrating around the field. For a second, I questioned their humanity. Those men looked happy and unnecessarily hyped about jogging under the sun after kidnapping a bunch of innocent children, and leaving them on the floor . As time went on, I would learn, or be forced to forgive them. Whichever the case, this too was going to pass.  

The longer we waited under the sun, the more real our situation became. I still would like to think of it as the first phase of our acceptance journey. Appreciating the fact that tears would not get us out, and finding something to amuse ourselves with. We started to watch the men who were shooting at the far end of the field. At first, the bang of the gun was very disturbing, forcing most of us to cover our ears with our palms. Not because we was not used to the sound of gunshots. In fact anyone who lived in Umuahia then, would have heard enough of them whenever the soldiers paraded the street.. It just got a lot intense since we could see the people who shot them. In a short while, my mind wandered deep into the possibility of one of us getting mistakenly shot at. Still in that thought, I looked more carefully at the distance between where we sat and where the men trained. Of course it was safe enough. 

We had become very weary and hungry, not to mention that the sun had left us dehydrated. So when we were finally marched to another section of the field and offered food, only a fool would refuse. I caught myself rushing the food, and feeling grateful to my captors. Then I remembered that this was not a thing to be grateful for. My eyes started to feel heavy, followed with a painful weight in my chest, and a lot of tears. That was the first time I cried that day.  

We were still left unattended to throughout the afternoon. Funny as it sounds, I finished the food after crying my heart out. Evening came slowly, so the soldiers discontinued training, and we followed them into the forest on their orders. Unsure of where we were going, some of the boys started to cry and sob. We must have begun to learn, seeing how nobody dared to cry loudly.  

“Where are we going?” 

Oliver stylishly whispered to me. I remember looking at him and trying my best to look as courageous as possible. For some reason, making him feel safe was important to me. Maybe its because he trusted me enough to think that I would have an answer. 

“Cant’t you see. They are carrying us to where we would sleep”. 

Truthfully, I believed myself after listening to what  I had just said. Moreover, it was common sense not to waste resources feeding us if we were to be killed. So I held unto my narrative and gave him a good nod as he continued to look at me for any sign of doubt.  

My expectations did not fail, as we were taken to a place that looked habitable. Although I had expected an actual living space, I concluded that the darkness must have caused the place to look unpalatable. In the morning however, my doubts were cleared. And if the darkness did anything, it undermined the haggardness of the place. None the less, these were just my initial thoughts. As time progressed, it looked less worse and I began to agree that my initial judgement had been skewed by the trauma of being captured. Now that we  were in the living area, the soldiers were no longer monsters. Some of them  attended to our wounds, and others brought extra food for us. In all honesty, their kindness became a little too weird and just like me, some of the other boys refused to be helped. Not Oliver though. 

After a few days of staying with the soldiers, many of us had loosened up. The soldiers had started to call us by our names, and it felt like a community. Nobody got hurt, or threatened or forced to do anything they did not want to do. Apparently, all this was to make us forget what we truly were. Captives.  

“Did you ever think these soldiers could be so nice?” 

Oliver had come with his questions as usual. And somehow, I’m supposed to answer them. Did he forget at some point that I was also a child. Because I had started to feel like an adult around him. 

“I don’t know..” 

That was the first thing that came to my mind and I said it. But he looked downcast by my response, so I had to control things. Oliver was just to soft and did not have a mind of his own. So if I told my distrust in the soldiers to him, he might end up living in fear. And if I’m wrong about them, then I would have killed his happiness for nothing.  

“Yes,… they have suddenly become very good to us”. 

I  tried to sound as convincing as possible. Now that I think about it, Oliver was my responsibility. He trusted my judgments and made sure that I was okay with anything before he did it. Seeing how he was good to me when the other students did not see a reason to, it was only proper that I was also there for him whenever he needed me to. 

The morning was quiet and most of the soldiers had gone for their daily training routine, while we just played and helped in any capacity assigned to us. 

“They don’t even used to send us to do anything. There is something else these people brought us here for”. 

I had forgotten that he was still sat there until he spoke, and his choice of words set me off slightly. Why would he insinuate that we were brought here. Like he had forgotten how we had been dragged down here in the trunk of a van like livestock. Holding tears that we were not even allowed to cry. He was either too scared, or caught up in the euphoria of whatever it is was happening here, to accept that we had been kidnapped. Taken forcefully.  Even if I had decided to wave the offense from his question, I did not have an answer to it. Without a response, I sprung off the floor where we sat, and walked away. Oliver was clearly surprised by my unexpected displeasure. Now that I’m an adult, I see how innocent he was with that question. But I had already gone through a lot even at that age. At that point, I had lost the ability to think like my peers. For many of the children, being abducted from school was a nightmare. It was for me too, but I may have experienced some other darkness in my life that somehow prepared me for this. I just wish I had understood that Oliver was a different person. Maybe I should have done more for him. Or according to my therapist, whatever happened to him was meant to be.