Igbo group seeks memorialisation of Nigeria-Biafra war

(FILES) In this file photograph taken on October 28, 1967, Nigerian federal army soldiers survey a police checkpoint on the west bank of the Niger River at Asaba, from where they launched an amphibian offensive on Biafra, during the Biafran war. – A civil war opposing Biafra secessionnist tribes fighting for independance and the federal troops killed between one and two milllion people, most from hunger and disease, from 1967 to 1970 in the Biafra region in south-eastern Nigeria. (Photo by Colin HAYNES / AFP)

An Igbo group, Nzuko Umunna, has urged the Federal Government and relevant stakeholders to institutionalise the memorialisation of the 30-month Nigeria/Biafra Civil War.

The war was fought between July 6, 1967, and January 15, 1970, following the declaration of the state of Biafra from Nigeria by Odumegwu Ojukwu.  At the second edition of Nzuko Umunna monthly dialogue on the topic, ‘Memorialising the Nigerian–Biafran War: A Catalyst to Better Civic Engagement and Sustainable Development in South-East Nigeria,’ stakeholders from different sectors, including academics, traditional, civil society organisations, community leaders and policymakers reflected on memorialising the Nigeria-Biafra War and its implications for civic engagement and sustainable development in the region.

A communiqué signed by President of Nzuko Umunna, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, and Executive Secretary, Dr. Uju Agomoh, yesterday, said that participants deliberated on the devastating effects of the war on Igbo land as a whole, including the lives lost, people displaced and the economic devastation.

It said: “They extolled the resilience and determination of the Igbo people in the face of all the adversity, which brought about the significant progress made in rebuilding and reconstructing Igbo land despite all the social, economic and political challenges that tended to frustrate sustainable development in the region.”