By Mazi Omife I. Omife MON (Mbuze Mbaukwu)
So much has been written about the Nigeria-Biafra Civil War.
Books have been published. Memoirs have been written. Soldiers have told their stories. Politicians, army generals, survivors and historians have all shared their experiences of those painful three years.
But there is one name I keep searching for.
Mbaukwu.
And each time I fail to find it, something inside me asks the same question:
How could a town that played such a remarkable role during the Biafran War be so completely forgotten?
Perhaps Mbaukwu did not fire the biggest guns. Perhaps no famous battle was named after it. Perhaps no major peace treaty was signed there.
But when thousands of people needed a place to run to, Mbaukwu opened its doors.
And that, too, is history.
The Town Behind the Story
Mbaukwu is a town in Awka South Local Government Area of Anambra State. It is a town that has produced many eminent personalities.
Among its sons and daughters are His Majesty, Igwe Peter Anugwu, OFR; Archbishop Alex Ibezim; Deputy Governor Onyeka Ibezim; internationally acclaimed sprinter Mary Onyali; Justice Chukwudi Nwankwo; Eleven Eleven, the legendary Igbo musician of long John fame; CHIEF Barrister O. B. Onyali, one of the pioneering Senior Advocates of Nigeria from this part of the country; and many other distinguished personalities.
But that is not the story I want to tell today.
My story is about Mbaukwu and Biafra.
It is about a town that, in the middle of the war, became a home for the homeless.
And it is about why I believe the story of Mbaukwu deserves to be told.
About the middle of the war, disaster struck.
The then capital of Awka District, Awka and many neighbouring communities like Amawbia, Nawfia, Okpuno, Amansea, Ugwuoba, Enugwu Ukwu and many others were forced to flee as Nigerian troops advanced into the area. Families abandoned their homes. Men, women and children began moving in search of safety.
Many of them and other surrounding communities found their way to Mbaukwu.
The number kept growing.
Soon, Mbaukwu was overflowing.
And when Mbaukwu could no longer contain the increasing population of displaced people, some refugees moved further towards Awgbu and Umuawulu.
The fear that followed the fall of Awka was understandable.
Awka was not just another town. It was known far and wide for its history and reputation in the art of blacksmithing and gun-making. To many people, the idea that Awka could fall to Nigerian troops was almost unimaginable.
But once it happened, every neighbouring community understood the danger. No one needed another warning. There was now fire on the mountain.
And so a popular expression was born: Hausa abata Awka!
Today, among Igbos, the phrase has become more than a report about Awka. It became a warning signal—a cry that danger was close. For thousands of people, that safety was Mbaukwu.
The Town That Refused to Run.
One of the things that made Mbaukwu remarkable was that, unlike many communities under intense pressure to flee, the people largely resisted the temptation to abandon their ancestral home.
They stayed. And because they stayed, Mbaukwu became a refuge. Mbaukwu people opened their hearts and their doors to welcome the refugees as brothers and sisters.
Those who had spare rooms offered them freely. Many houses became shared homes. Schools became refugee centres. Every available space was turned into somewhere people could eat and sleep.
At the beginning, Mbaukwu people took cooked food and raw food items to the refugees who were occupying primary and secondary schools across the town, until the Red Cross, Caritas and other charity organizations located them and periodically brought food items to them.
Mbaukwu people did not ask the refugees where they came from before offering food.
They did not ask for money for their services.
They did not ask whether the refugees would ever be able to repay the kindness.
There was only one question that mattered to Ndi Mbaukwu: How do we keep our brothers and sisters alive?
As the war continued, the crisis became longer than anyone had expected.
Food became more important than ever.
The people of Mbaukwu then took another remarkable step.
They provided free land to the refugees at Agu Namkpu and other vast farm lands where they could farm together with Mbaukwu people and produce food for themselves.
These were people who had lost their homes and communities. Now, in another town, they were being given land to plant crops and rebuild their lives.
It was an extraordinary act of generosity.
Mbaukwu’s contribution did not end with caring for refugees. The town also answered the call to support the Biafran soldiers. Mbaukwu PEOPLE played an unforgettable role. In response to the call by the Biafran Civil Defence authorities for voluntary war support, they took turns preparing and carrying food to Biafran soldiers stationed at Nise on daily basis and once or twice at Agulu.
These PEOPLE were not professional soldiers. They did not carry rifles. But they carried something equally important. Food. Hope. Encouragement. They reminded the soldiers that they were not forgotten.
At some point, Nigerian Air Force planes attacked Mbaukwu. Some believed that the unusually large population of the town may have made it appear from the air like a major urban centre. The population of Mbaukwu had changed dramatically. Thousands of displaced people were everywhere.
The schools were full OF refugees.
The markets were crowded.
The churches overflowed.
The town was alive with people.
But now, that same population brought another kind of fear. The possibility of further air attacks forced the people to adapt. Households began digging bunkers inside their compounds. These bunkers were not built only for Mbaukwu indigenes. They were used by refugees too. When danger came from the sky, everyone went underground together.
Further protective measures were introduced. Many zinc-roofed houses were covered with green leaves and palm fronds to make them blend into the surrounding vegetation. From above, the town was meant to look less like a settlement and more like a stretch of bushes.
People were warned against wearing bright or whitish clothes outdoors. Civil Defence personnel trained residents and refugees on what to do when aircraft appeared.
Imagine that. A whole town learning how to live under the possibility of death from the sky. And yet, somehow, life continued.
One of the saddest effects of the prolonged war was the disruption of education. Schools had become refugee centres. Classrooms were occupied by displaced families. Children were idle.
For some people, that might have been accepted as one of the unavoidable consequences of war. But the people of Mbaukwu thought differently. Under the leadership of Adaka, a respected headmaster then, an informal educational programme was organised.
Volunteer teachers came together. Classes resumed. But not in normal classrooms. The children were taught under the shade of trees. Individuals and groups within Mbaukwu contributed money to support the teachers.
At the beginning of the war, hundreds of young men from Mbaukwu rushed to join the Biafran Army. Some joined without even informing their parents. The passion was overwhelming.
Even under-aged boys came forward, determined to enlist. But my father, Sampson Omife who was then the President-General of Mbaukwu and his Secretary Gilbert Ibezim intervened and stopped the boys. They told them that it has not reached the situation where children needed to be sent to the battlefield.
But many of the older boys went. Among them was my eldest brother, Godwin Chiaghanam Omife, along with many of his age-mates like Issac Nwafor-Onyali (Ozoigbo) , Samuel Chiaghanam Ebede and others. Like many other young men from Mbaukwu, my brother never came back. That is one of the deepest wounds of the Biafra war in Mbaukwu.
The young people who could not join the military were not willing to stay idly. They joined the Civil Defence programme cordinated by Joe Ogu, father of colonel Ogu from Akabor and my father both of who were second world war veterans.
They trained them.
They marched along the road simging war songs.
They demanded weapons so they could join their colleagues at the battlefront.
Their songs echoed through the town:
“Ojukwu nyem egbe kam gbagbue Gowon, gbagbue Hassan…”
“Mmili zobe zobe, anwụ mụba mụba, aga m agbaba n’ụlọ be onye kpọrọ m asị…”
“Ebe ka ina eje? Hapunu m ooo, ka m nwee akam zọgbue onwe m…”
The songs reflected the anger, passion, fear and determination of a generation caught in a war they had not created but were determined to survive.
Towards the third year of the war, Biafran soldiers came to Mbaukwu on conscription exercise, may be because they saw Mbaukwu as a large town. But by then, virtually every Mbaukwu young boy from the age of 16 had enlisted into the Biafra army.
What pained people so much was the day the soldiers conscripted some under-aged boys. But fortunately the man who is today the Igwe of Mbaukwu—then a Colonel in the Biafran Army—was around and he quickly went after the soldiers and caught up with them on their way to their camp and ordered the release of the boys.
He did the same thing another day soldiers came to Mbukwu to conscript under-aged boys. After that, the soldiers stopped coming to Mbaukwu for conscription. There were many other things he did for Mbaukwu during that difficult period.
There were other Mbaukwu sons who sacrificed a lot for Biafra. One of them was Paul Ezeji, now a professor in America who suffered a severe and permanent injury in battle. He used to look very handsome in his army uniform. The story of his injury is very pathetic.
As a senior army officer, he was said to be a very gallant fighter in the front. On the fateful day, he and his boys engaged the enemy in a gruesome battle which lasted until only he was left to face the enemy. But he kept firing until he got critically shot at the waist joint and still manuvoered out alive.
A host of other Mbaukwu boys died in the Biafra war as one or more boys from almost every family in Mbaukwu the Biafra army.
ALMOST EVERY FAMILY
These names are part of the history of Mbaukwu. And history, I believe, should remember them.
As a teenager, I honestly believed that the population of Mbaukwu during the war was the normal population of the town.
People were everywhere.
From morning until night, the streets were full.
Everywhere you turned, you saw human beings.
The churches were packed and overflowing every Sunday.
The markets boomed.
For a young boy, it seemed as though Mbaukwu had always been a giant town. I did not quite understand that thousands of those faces belonged to people who had come from other communities seeking safety.
But even in terrible times, Mbaukwu had its comic characters too. There was a man named Dennis Okpala, who was always dressed in a long white robe, resembling the garment of a clergyman.
Whenever we passed his house on our way to or from St Lawrence school, we would call out: “Dennis Okpala!”
And his response would come immediately:
“Shut up! You are a bad man!”
We derived joy from the daily banters.
There was also another popular character known as Eugene Chianumba. He went about cracking jokes and entertaining people.
On Sundays, he would sometimes climb a tree and watch churchgoers walking past.
Then he would begin singing: “Ndi uka na-aba ooo, ogholu fio…” A playful song suggesting that church people were crafty.
In the middle of war, danger, hunger and uncertainty, people still laughed.
Eventually, the war came to an end.
And slowly, the refugees began returning to their various communities.
One after another.
Family after family.
Town after town.
They left Mbaukwu and went home.
It was only then that something dawned on me. The Mbaukwu I had known during the war was not the Mbaukwu that existed before the war.
The population became smaller.
The streets became quieter.
The churches were no longer overflowing.
The town began to return to its normal life.
And I remember wishing that the war had continued indefinitely—not because I loved war, but because, as a young person, I did not fully understand its terrible consequences.
I simply knew that I would miss those days.
I would miss the crowded streets.
I would miss the refugees who had become part of everyday life.
For me, those were unforgettable days.
The Story That Must Not Be Forgotten
Today, when I read the many accounts written about the Nigeria-Biafra Civil War, I still wonder why the story of Mbaukwu is rarely told.
How can we tell the history of a war only through battles and ARMY generals?
What about the communities that became homes for thousands of people who had lost everything?
What about the people who gave their homes free to strangers?
What about the farmers who shared their land?
What about the MEN AND WOMEN who carried food to soldiers free?
What about the volunteers who taught children under trees?
What about the bunkers that protected entire families?
What about the young men who went to war and never returned?
That is the story of Mbaukwu.
Mbaukwu may not have been the headquarters of a major military command. It may not have produced the most famous heroes of the war. But during one of the darkest periods in our history, it became something perhaps even more important.
It became a refuge, a place where strangers were welcomed as brothers and sisters, where hungry and displaced people were fed and given shelter.
That is why I believe the role of Mbaukwu during the Biafran War deserves to be documented. This is not just a story about a forgotten town.
It is a story about courage.
It is a story about sacrifice.
It is a story about hospitality.
It is a story about resilience.
And above all, it is a story about humanity.
I am therefore working towards a more comprehensive documentary on the role of Mbaukwu during the Nigeria-Biafra Civil War.
The younger generation needs to know. History deserves to remember. And posterity deserves to understand that, in those dark and difficult days, Mbaukwu was there for humanity.
It is true Mbaukwu was forgotten in many of the books about the war. But some stories cannot remain forgotten forever. The story of Mbaukwu deserves to be told.
And now, it is time.
