BIAFRA NEWS : Britain owes Igbo apology, compensation for Biafra’s destruction – Prof Anya

 

Nigerian-born American lecturer, Uju Anya, has been in the eye of the storm since her tweet wishing the late Queen Elizabeth   II ‘excruciating death’. The professor of Second Language Acquisition, Department of Modern Languages, Carnegie Mellon University, United States of America tells GODFREY GEORGE she spoke from a place of deep pain and is unapologetic about her post

Were you born in Nigeria?

First of all, I would love to say I am Ada Igbo (the first daughter of Igbo land). They cannot deny me (my heritage) because I am a lesbian. I am a child of Igbo land – I am of an Igbo father, and that is who I am. I don’t disown them; they cannot disown me. I am also a child of Trinidad because my mother is from Trinidad. So, I am African and Caribbean. I have lived in the United States for almost 40 years now; I have been here since 1986. I came here when I was 10 years old, and I am now 46. So, I also consider myself American. I am a very proud mother of two intelligent, loving and kind children biologically and I have one stepson. I am also a professor and academic researcher of language learning and multilingualism.

Your tweet wishing the late Queen Elizabeth II an ‘excruciating death’ sparked outrage from many quarters around the world. Are you regretful you made that post?

No, I am not, I have to be very honest with you. I am not. My tweet came from a place of deep pain and deep emotions. It was not something that I planned or calculated. It was spontaneous and was part of my emotional reaction to the impending death of my oppressor. It was spontaneous at the time. However, it is not something I regret or something that I will ever apologise for. I will rest, sleeping every night, knowing that I told the truth.

 

You mentioned that your ancestors suffered in the Biafran war, for which you hold the British responsible. Can you give some details of the kind of experience your people went through?

It was not just my ancestors, but also my immediate and living relatives. There were family members who died but there are also people who are still alive today who survived the genocide. This is because this is a very recent history and a recent memory. The war ended in 1970, and many people who witnessed it are still alive today. I was born in ’76 and I lived in the aftermath of the war. My family suffered and some died. It was traumatic. My parents are dead now, but I have siblings alive today who went through Biafra as children. They were under the age of 10. Our family also has a war baby. My mother was pregnant during the war and gave birth to my second oldest brother in Biafra. So, this is something that is extremely close to me, and it is in my personal existence and in addition to the overall history of my family and the broader history of the Igbo people.

What stories did your family members tell you about what they went through during the war?

I am not claiming that I went through Biafra because I wasn’t born yet then, but it didn’t end in 1970. There were a lot of issues that we had to deal with. My childhood was filled with the reconstruction of war-torn buildings and sites and projects. My father was involved in such projects of reconstructions. When you think of people who went through a holocaust, then, you can imagine how traumatic it must have been. When I speak of ‘holocaust’, I am not speaking of the Jewish holocaust where we lost over six million people. ‘Holocaust’ itself means a ‘mass slaughter’, and what happened to the Igbo during Biafra was a massacre, where more than three million people were killed. All my family dinner table conversations were always about who ran where, who took cover where, who was buried where, who was lost and where the displaced people went. When people survive genocide and mass displacement, there is always going to be that shadow or spectre above surrounding everyone. To date, we are still mourning and talking about it. Ask any Igbo person, they are going to tell you that they are still affected by the war. This is something that is now a part of our legacy as a people; it was something that was done to us. This is something that the British did to us in the very beginning of how they orchestrated the division that caused the separatist movements or the formation of an independent country and how they supported those who committed the genocide by giving them weapons and military vehicles, hiring mercenaries to come and kill the Igbo people and giving the Nigerian soldiers bombs and military supplies, such as planes and whatever they needed to slaughter civilians. The three million people that died were not armed combatants; these were village people. All my life I have heard stories of my mother running with two children under the age of 10 and being pregnant with a third from village to village after they bombed each village that they ran to.

One of the most horrific stories that I will never forget for as long as I live is one my mother told me. She said the airplanes that were sent to bomb the villages flew so low that one could see the pilot inside the cockpits, laughing as he sprayed people with machine guns. These were villagers who were desperately running for their lives. My mother told me that it was a memory that was a part of her life. That was the grotesque nature of this attack on our lands. Where did they get those planes? Where did they get those bombs? Did Nigeria manufacture bombs and guns at that time? The British gave it to them, because of their interest in the oil that was in Igbo land. I also heard stories from the Ada of our family. She is 14 years older than me. She has stories of her own children, lying in a hole. She would run and jump inside a bunker filled with dead bodies. She would lie underneath dead bodies inside the hole to hide from soldiers. Can you imagine that for a child under 10 years old? This is what my people suffered in this genocide! Some of the people are still looking for their loved ones or where they buried them to date. Go to Enugu; there are still buildings that were destroyed and have not been able to be rebuilt after the war.