There Was a Country by Chinua Achebe

Author:Chinua Achebe [Achebe, Chinua]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2012-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

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Soon after I arrived in Ogidi we were told that Nigerian soldiers, led by Murtala Muhammed, were trying to cross the Niger Bridge from Asaba into Onitsha, and were being kept at bay by the Biafran colonel Achuzia (aka “Air Raid” Achuzia). Shuwa’s troops were marching into Igbo land across the Benue River in the north at the same time. There was quite an overwhelming sense of anxiety in the air.

We had all gone to bed on one particular night—my family, Augustine and his family, and Frank and his family. We did not realize that Biafran soldiers had set up their armory outside my father’s house, on the veranda, the porch, and outside in the yard. The house was in a choice location, atop a small hill, and was clearly chosen by the army as a perfect site from which to shell the advancing Nigerian army and to surprise them with sniper fire.

By this time in the war we—at least some of us—had gotten used to sleeping with the sound of shelling and explosions, and occasional howls of pain and what some villagers called “the stench of death.” Others would recount that they did not sleep a wink through the war, an exaggeration of course, but a valid point nonetheless; sleeplessness was endemic. On this particular night we were oblivious to what was going on outside our father’s house. While we were sleeping the Biafran army was turning our ancestral home into a military base of sorts. No one asked us for permission. They did not knock to ask or to inform. In hindsight, what happened next was enough to have caused sudden cardiac arrest in some people. We all were awakened violently from sleep by a loud ka-boom!, followed by the rattling of the house foundation and walls, indeed of the entire house. A number of people who were asleep fell off their beds, violently ushered back into reality by the vibrations, the shock, and the noise of the artillery fire outside. It was awful.

The men in the house went outside to find out what was going on. A colonel who was in charge of this exercise explained that they had decided to use our home as a tactical base because it provided them a logistical and strategic advantage as they shelled the encroaching federal troops. Surely it was time for us to leave.

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