They thought ‘One Nigeria’ would save them: The Asaba massacre, 59 years on

• October 7 marks 59 years since one of the goriest experiences of the Nigerian Civil War took place.

• There have always been disparities in how many people died during the Asaba massacre. Most research pegged the number of deaths at a few hundred shy of a thousand.

• The victims were killed by federal troops despite boldly signalling the ‘One Nigeria’ insignia.

59 years after hundreds of people were killed in the Asaba Massacre, the tragedy remains etched in the memory of the community.

On Tuesday, Asaba once again paused to remember the victims of one of the darkest episodes of the Nigerian Civil War, as leaders gathered to mark the anniversary.

Behind the annual remembrance is a story of a gathering that began with a message of unity. In October 1967, residents of Asaba, dressed in white, took to the streets to demonstrate their support for ‘One Nigeria’ as federal troops advanced into the town.

As the 59th anniversary brings the tragedy back into focus, here is what happened in Asaba in October 1967.

At the dawn of independence in 1960, Nigeria was a three-region federation: the south divided into the Yoruba-dominated Western Region, separated by the Niger River from the Igbo-dominated Eastern Region, while the Hausa-Fulani dominated the Northern Region. In 1963, an ethnically diverse Midwestern Region was created. 

With multi-ethnicity came regional politics, with each regional political party operating with the fear that the other could prevail over the others to gain control, hence the contested census counts and electoral irregularities in 1964 and 1965. 

These political tensions would soon devolve into the overthrow of the civilian government by a group of military officers, who were mostly of Igbo descent, on January 15, 1966.

Northerners saw the 1966 coup as a sign that the Igbos wanted to use the army to impose their dominance. This became an opening to express a deep-seated and long-festering animosity toward the Igbo.

What followed was a series of systematic massacres of Igbo people living in the North. Afterwards, a countercoup, led by northern officers this time around, led to the death of the Igbo head of state, General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, replacing him with a northerner, Colonel Yakubu Gowon, on July 29, 1966.

During these attacks on easterners residing in the north, relying on information from a journal article titled 'The Asaba Massacre: Trauma, Memory, and the Nigerian Civil War', some soldiers defied the orders of their officers to keep the peace by joining the civilian mobs to attack Igbos. 

They opened fire on a large number of Igbos trying to board aeroplanes in Kano to escape to their ancestral homes in the east, which included the east of the Niger and some parts of the Midwest, one of which was Asaba. 

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Before the civil war, Asaba was part of the Mid-Western Region, not Biafra, and had never been under Biafran control. Although the people of Asaba are ethnically Igbo, many identify as Anioma, seeing themselves as distinct from the Igbo communities in the Eastern Region.

The Mid-Western Region officially stood for the idea of “One Nigeria", although many people in Asaba were wary of the federal government because of its perceived role in earlier attacks against the Igbo. Onitsha, a core Biafran town, was just across the Niger River from Asaba.

According to a surviving eyewitness, the war came to Asaba when, under cover of darkness, some Biafran soldiers surprisingly advanced across the Niger Bridge from Onitsha into Asaba, which began the invasion of the Midwest on August 9, 1967

“It was very early in the morning. We just heard rumblings, so we knew something was up in the road. So, we all came out. We saw troops and tanks, singing joyously and advancing, going towards Benin. That was all. And after they passed, we continued with school. Nothing happened,” Joseph Nwajei, who was fifteen years at the time, recounts.

The segregationist soldiers, with the aim of pulling federal troops away from Enugu which was the capital of Biafra at the time and also undermine their claim of superiority, moved through the Midwest, taking control of Warri, Sapele, Ughelli, Agbor, Uromi and Ubiaja before overrunning Benin City. They continued towards Ore, which was about 100 miles from Lagos.

On September 20, 1967, Biafra declared the creation of the “independent and sovereign Republic of Benin". But a day later, federal troops led by Colonel Murtala Muhammed recaptured Benin City. Within days, the federal troops had pushed the Biafran forces back towards Asaba, leaving them with the Niger River behind them.

On October 4, the Biafran troops retreated across the Niger Bridge into Onitsha. Before leaving, they blew up two sections of the bridge, cutting the road connection between Biafra and the Midwest. This made it impossible for the federal troops to immediately pursue the retreating Biafran forces across the Niger.

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Many Midwestern Igbos were sympathetic to Biafra’s independence, but most of them believed that remaining Nigerians was in their best interests. 

Besides their region being openly ‘One Nigeria’ after a July statement their leaders had released, these Midwesterners believed they would be safe from the returning federal troops since Yakubu Gowon had signed an issue known as ‘Operation Code of Conduct for the Nigerian Army’ in July. In line with the Geneva Conventions, the issue was an instruction for troops to treat civilians and captured enemies with human dignity.

On the other hand, many had reasons to be wary due to reports of what happened to Igbos in Benin City in September 1967 when the federal forces ‘liberated’ it from the invading Biafran soldiers.

Emmanuel Nwanze, an 18-year-old Asaba indigene at the time, living in Benin with his aunt, described how the mood turned sour against the Igbos when he joined a crowd to welcome the Nigerian troops:

“I went into the back of the compound knowing that the house was no longer safe because everything had been vandalized… The windows torn open, our foodstuff and the stove brought out and spread all over the ground. And then you could hear from around the corners - youths with soldiers… hounding and hunting people out and you could see the people being dragged, even on the streets. Nude. They'd take them out for, uh, slaughter, we'll call it now.” 

Federal troops reached the outskirts of Asaba and occupied the grounds of St. Patrick's College boys' school on October 4. They finally entered the town on the afternoon of October 5.

After the troops took control of the town, they began to go house-to-house to loot, rape and round boys and men they accused of being sympathetic to Biafran cause. They either killed these males or collected money from those who were spared. The streets soon became desolate as families either fled or hid in the ceiling of their houses.

A woman recounts how the soldiers killed the men in her family:

“My husband and brother, and all those - about 400 people who were following them, were shot in front of the police station at Asaba. That made me hysterical... I held onto the person I saw, the soldier, I said, "Why did you kill my husband?".... The man with the butt of the gun hit me on the chest and said, "Woman, if you're not careful, you'll get killed as well." Papa - that's my father-in-law - when he heard that his two sons were killed, he went out….They shot him. They killed him in fear that they were going to wipe out everybody in Asaba, especially male children.”

Testimonies also have it that the Asagba-in-Council, a group of most-senior-age grades, with the town’s chief resolved that each of the town’s five quarters would contribute £50 for the troops in order to impress them, while the Omu of Asaba would present a traditional woven to their commander. 

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The four men who delivered the first quarter’s set of contributions on the morning of October 6 never returned. A second group sent to fight to find out what happened to them also vanished in a similar manner. 

In the evening, leaders then announced that everyone would gather to welcome the federal troops and pledge to ‘One Nigeria’ to them. They also encouraged Asabans to wear the akwa ocha, a ceremonial white clothing that signifies peace.

Things did not go as planned on October 7. The soldiers quickly flanked the assembled hundreds of men, women and children. They then began to pick males at random and killed them in full view of the marchers.

With only the women left, they had to step in to bury the decomposing bodies. An eyewitness gives account: 

“Some were already decomposing, where you can poke somebody, and their head would roll off. And we just put them into one grave, there was no coffin, nothing, nothing shallow graves, and then put them there. We knew it was our duty at that time to bury the dead.”

For the women, eyewitness Gertrude Ogunkeye narrates what happened to a young woman who was abducted by soldiers for a week: 

“When she came back, she was a different girl… She wouldn't talk to anybody, she was very weepy… You see, we come from a culture where, where talk like rape is taboo, you know, a girl says she's been raped, getting married is like an impossibility.”

To survive, mothers had to disguise their boys as women and their daughters as older women.

By mid-October, most Asabans had escaped the area, while others had absconded to Biafra, not to return until the war ended in 1970.

By Akinjide Adebowale