MEMOIR: The Road to Aburi, The Road to War – A Biafran Story

 Mazi Pious Okafor 

I was a young man when the conflict began. I joined first as a militia, and later I was drafted into the army, part of the first group of 640 trainees—only 200 of us completed the training. We trained hard, stood together, and learned to rely on one another in ways that tested every limit of our courage.

Hunger, scarcity, and relentless battles became our daily reality, yet we never wavered. We built our own weapons, pushed each other forward, and faced the fiercest fights as a united force. I was later chosen for a special squad under Ojukwu, sent into the most dangerous missions, where the bonds we had built carried us through.

The war taught me one lesson I will never forget: “Two things kill a man—what he eats, and what he thinks.”

I am grateful and fortunate to be alive to tell this story—the story many will never get to tell. The Biafran story.

The Road to Aburi, the Road to War 

I still remember the days before the guns began to sound. The country was already trembling, like a pot about to boil over. In the North, danger hung in the air like smoke. Easterners—my people—were hunted, persecuted, and killed. Whenever a train or lorry returned to our towns, it carried stories of those who had barely escaped the flames. Many didn’t escape at all.

We watched our brothers and sisters come home with nothing but the clothes on their backs, eyes haunted by things they had seen but could not speak about. It was in those days that I knew Nigeria had reached a point of no return.

Amid the tension, a meeting was called in Ghana—a meeting that many hoped would save the country. They called it the Aburi Accord. I was not there, of course, but every young man in the East felt the weight of that gathering. 

Gowon came with his men from Lagos. Ojukwu led the Eastern delegation. They talked, they argued, and they agreed—at least, that was what we believed. But by the time they returned home, Gowon had rejected the spirit of those agreements. Trust broke like a clay pot dropped on a stone floor.

It was around this time that we, the easterners, gathered for our own conference. The hall was full—students, elders, market women, chiefs, young men like me who were already preparing for what felt inevitable. The chairman of the conference was Dr. Alvan Ikoku, the proud son of Arochukwu. That day, he stood before us with a calm strength I will never forget. His words carried weight, not because they were loud, but because they were true. He reminded us of our dignity, our heritage, and the need to stand for our people in a moment when silence meant death.

His words strengthened us. They gave us backbone. And with that newfound courage, the East began preparing for the inevitable path—war.

When Ojukwu declared that Biafra would stand as a nation of its own, it felt like a heavy curtain had been pulled aside. There was no turning back.

The war began.

My own journey into the conflict started humbly. I joined as a militia fighter, one of the countless young men who felt it was our duty to defend our homeland. Later, I was drafted into the army. We were taken into the first set of training fields established by Biafra. No fancy names, no foreign instructors—just determination and desperation pushing us through the drills.

We were 640 in number. Out of us, 200 passed and were commissioned. Another 240 did not make it. Their faces remain with me till today—young men with dreams, some barely grown, who wanted to serve something larger than themselves.

But the war was not only fought on battlefields. It was fought in men’s hearts. Betrayal is one of the deepest wounds in war, and we felt it bitterly.

Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna, an easterner from Onitsha, became a name many of us cursed in silence. Whether all the stories were true or not, what mattered was how deeply his alleged betrayal shook our confidence. 

A son of the soil, turning his back at our darkest hour—it cut deeper than any bullet.

Then came another blow: Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe (Zik) moved to the Nigerian side. The same Zik we admired, the man who once symbolized unity and hope for all of us. His departure left a hole in our hearts. And when Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who had earlier shown sympathy toward Biafra, withdrew his support, our isolation felt complete.

By then, the war had become a furnace. Supplies were gone, hunger stalked the villages, and yet our resolve did not break. If anything, it hardened. With no weapons coming from outside, we built our own. 

Men who had once been mechanics or school teachers turned into gunsmiths overnight. We built bombs, rifles, grenades—sometimes crude, sometimes brilliant. The world might have turned its back on us, but we refused to lie down and die.

It was during this period that I received a call that changed my life. I was chosen to join a special squad, created directly under Ojukwu’s instruction. They did not hide anything from us. It was a squad meant for the hardest missions, the ones other units could not survive. Some called it a suicidal unit. And in truth, it was. Many who joined did not live to tell the tale.

But when Ojukwu spoke to us, something stirred inside. He had a way of making you believe—not just in Biafra, but in yourself. He made you feel like dying for your land was not madness, but honour. He made the impossible seem like duty. And so we went, again and again, into the hottest parts of the war.

By the time January 1970 came, and the guns finally fell silent, Biafra did not fall because we lacked courage or heart. We fell because the world was larger than us, and because betrayal, politics, and hunger did what bullets could not.

But for three years, we stood.
We fought. We endured.
And though we did not conquer, neither were we conquered in spirit.

Those memories still live inside me—not as wounds, but as reminders of a time when ordinary men rose to extraordinary heights for the sake of their people.