Surviving in Biafra: The Story of the Nigerian Civil War

by Alfred Obiora Uzokwe

In 1966, several waves of rioting in northern Nigeria culminated in the brutal massacre of thousands of easterners by their northern Nigerian counterparts. Sensing that their safety could no longer be guaranteed, the easterners fled to the eastern region and established an independent nation called Biafra.Refusing to accept her sovereignty, Nigeria waged a thirty-month war against Biafra, targeting air assaults at civilian locations, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of children, women, and the elderly. Nigeria used land and sea blockade to prevent relief food from reaching hungry masses in Biafra and thousands of children died from a form of malnutrition called kwashiorkor. At the end of it all in 1970, two million people had perished.

Genres: Africa

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 27, 2003

Reviews

[Tony Gualtieri · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted to read this book after sitting through a "generations" presentation at work about the 1960s with a Nigerian friend. The speaker talked about the usual clichés (peace & love, new freedoms, cultural changes) while my friend quietly mentioned that for him the sixties meant hiding from soldiers.

The book is memoir of a child living in Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War. The author has a fine writing style and does an excellent job of vividly relating what life was like for him and his family. It gave me a sense of what my friend was talking about.

[Ted Farrell · Rating 2 out of 5]

A memoir of the Nigerian Civil War as experienced a young boy, this is an interesting, if not gripping account of the tragedy which cost so many lives. While the writer occasionally captures the feeling of the occasion, the writing for much the work is turgid and flat, failing, for me at least, to create the atmosphere of the time.

[Jamie Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enlightening first-person account of the Nigerian Civil War that shows the devastating impact this conflict had and contextualises ongoing ethnic tensions whilst highlighting the damage these can done in the hopes of avoiding a repeat of past mistakes.