She shared this lovely tribute last week Thursday. I had to save it till today Tuesday so I can also wish her wonderful dad “A Happy Birthday!
My dad fought in the civil war. He was a Biafran soldier. He lived in Kano before the killings broke out. He was able to come back home to Nnewi and then joined the Biafran army. He was just 28.
He fought at different locations before he was made the commander of 87 battalion, Ogidi centre. He had close shaves with death. He has 3 bullet scars on his body till date. Each time he went home with a bullet wound, my grandma would cry and beg him not to go back again but daddy lived for the war and would be at the war front again in no time.
God saw him through the 3 years of war. He then met his former landlord’s son(all the way from Kano) when the war was over. He was in the Nigerian army. They hugged and thanked God they didn’t get to the point where one of them had to kill the other.
When he came back home after the war, he thought of the millions of Biafrans that died in the war then he still looked at all the people he met at home and concluded that “Agha agwu mba”.(War cannot eliminate a people) Till date “Agha agwu mba” remains my father’s alias. Even we his children call him by this name.
My dad has gone from that 28 year old young man that became a soldier out of necessity to an old man that will be 80 years old on Tuesday.
Happy 80th Birthday to a great man!