







































AJELLS: Awka Journal of English Language and Literary Studies, Vol. 8 No. 2, 2021 
 
 

9                 Ogene & Nwakaego 

WAR TRAUMA AND OTHER SIDES OF PAIN AND VIOLENCE IN 

ADAOKEREAGBASIMALO’STHEFOREST DAMES AND ALEXANDER 

MADIEBO’STHE NIGERIAN REVOLUTION AND THE BIAFRAN WAR 

                                                                              

Prof. Mbanefo Stephen Ogene 

Department of English Language and Literature 

NnamdiAzikiwe University, Awka 

sm.ogene@unizik.edu.ng 

& 

Obi Gladys Nwakaego 

Department of English 

ChukwuemekaOdumegwuOjukwu University 

Igbariam Campus, Anambra State 

nwakaegoobi@yahoo.com 

                                          

Abstract 

Most of the Nigerian fiction and non-fiction writings on war have depicted the violence and 

pains of war from various perspectives which are in consonance with the recurring tragic 

experiences the war goes with. During the bloody Civil War of 1967–1970, individuals were 

forced to experience different sorts of violence and pains which include sickness, death and 

killings to mention but a few and this defining historical moment has remained the most topical 

issue in Nigerian literature both from the fictional and non-fictional perspectives. This study 

investigates how both fiction and non-fictional works of AdaOkereAgbasimalo’sThe Forest 

Dames and Alexander Madiebo’sThe Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War portrayed the 

war trauma and other agonizing shades of the war. The aim is to portray the pains and violence 

as regards to fact and fiction of the war. The study adopted Psychoanalytic theoretical 

framework as a suitable theory to query and investigate the trauma and psychological 

imbalances in the characters capable of triggering depression and neurosis with loss of life at 

the very peak of its repressive effect.  The study adopted a textual analysis of the two texts 

from a fictional and non-fictional perspective. The study discovered that from AdaOkere’s 

perspectives, individuals suffered terribly during the war. Madiebo, in his own account, 

presented a real life narrative of the war while tracing its remote and immediate causes. The 

study concluded on the overall impact of the violence, pains and traumatic situations of the war 

gleaned from the selected works which have continued to serve as great materials for writers 

on both historical and fictional sides of the war literatures and narratives. 

Keywords: Violence, Pains, War, Trauma, Psychology 

 

Introduction 

There is no other experience in life or dreadful event which depicted violence and pains in 

Nigeria citizens than the Nigerian Civil war. The Nigerian Civil War which took place between 

1967 – 1970 left several indelible marks on the annals of the nation and raised several questions 

on the citizens viability as one sovereign entity. This thirty months gruesome experience, 

fought between what many scholars and war analysts refer to as “The aggressor and the 

aggrieved” or “The rebels and vanders”, brought untold hardship and tragedies in8 the lives of 

the teeming population of the country especially on the side of the Igbo people who identify 

on the side of the “rebels”. During this bitter struggle there were a lot of violence and pains 

meted against humanity.   

OlusegunObasanjo (1980) while quoting Von Clausewitz in My Command writes that: “War 

is an act of violence intended to impel our opponent to fulfill our will” (52). From the account 

of this war narrator, it is obvious that any attempt of violence intended to make one’s opponent 

mailto:sm.ogene@unizik.edu.ng


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10                 Ogene & Nwakaego 

to fulfill one’s will brings pains upon the oppressed opponent. With this, one can see that war 

is all about violence and pains which leave behind, long lasting traumatic experiences even 

years after the real war experience must have been over. This goes with Madu and Dozie’s 

(2015) ideas that: “The lives of many are torn apart by the civil war that broke out between 

Nigeria and Biafra” (56). During this bloody war, people passed through pains, meeting series 

of painful experiences like: sickness, hunger, death, killing, betrayal, hiding, etc. And these 

tore so many lives and families apart. Looking at these traumatic events, Goodluck Jonathan 

quoted in EmefienaEzeani’s in Biafra Africa Died (2013) attests to the disheartening violence 

and pains of war thus: “these act of mayhem are sad reminders of the events which plunged 

our country into 30 months of unfortunate civil war, referring to Biafran war in which more 

than one million people died” and the 1966 pogrom in the North”(50). This was a war which 

no one expected as it came as a surprise to the entire nation. Chinua Achebe in There was a 

country (2012)confirms that: “The war came as a surprise to the vast majority of artists and 

intellectuals on both sides of the conflict. We had not realized just how fragile, even weak, 

Nigeria was as a nation. Only a few Nigerians, such as the poet Christopher Okigbo, had early 

and privileged insights into the Nigerian-Biafran crisis. We the intellectuals, were deeply 

disillusioned by the ineptitude of Nigeria’s ruling elite and by what we saw taking place in our 

young nation”. (108) 

 

These violence and pains which the entire nation faced during the war triggered 

AkachiAdimora – Ezeigbo to opine in Fact and Fiction in Literature of the Nigerian Civil War 

(2019) that: “The Nigeria-Biafra conflict proved to be one of the most serious and devastating 

crisis that Africa had ever experienced” (39). The words of Sophie ObiajuluOgunde (2008) in 

Politics and Human Rights in Non-Fiction prison literature, an article, supports the above 

view, that: “The period of the Nigerian civil war is yet our darkest in history and even 30 years 

on the socio-political super structure still resonates with some of the ugliest vibrations of the 

war” (78). 

 

What makes the Nigerian civil war look ugliest than other wars fought in Africa are those 

enshrined in the enormity of violence and pains people suffered during the war and this still 

vibrates in our memories as ChukwuemekaOdumegwuOjukwu, one of the key players of the 

dreadful war confirms in his book, Because I Am Involved  (1989) that: “The memories of the 

war are still in the minds of people. A lot of Nigerians harbor sad memories of that period, so 

do I, yet, it is a period we just can’t abolish or erase because it has become part of our history, 

something we have to live with” (176). 

 

Following the war Lord’s opinion about war, it is clear that the injured party, which is Biafra, 

can never forget the violence and pains they passed through. InibongUko affirms this 

vociferously that“…the Igbo, who directly suffered and still bear the pains of war, reveals that 

the war was avoidable” (49). 

 

It is this violence and the manner it was unleashed on the injured and oppressed groups, 

especially the side of the rebels, the pains and trauma it left behind that prompted 

Chukwuemeka Ike (2014) to conclude in Sunset at Dawn that “War is evil…it is terrible” (147). 

Yes, war is evil, due to the violence and pains it goes with. War is neither glamorous nor 

attractive; it generally affects people socially, economically, physically and psychologically. 

 

Psychoanalysis as a Theoretical Anchor: A Justification 

Sigmund Freud, an Austrian physician (1876-1931), through his investigations brought up the 

idea of psychoanalytical theory through which human psyche is investigated. Psychoanalysis, 



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11                 Ogene & Nwakaego 

as IkechukwuAsika affirms, “is a branch of study that is interested in the study of the human 

mind and how the activities of the mind both in the conscious and the sub conscious functions 

in the buildup of a healthy personality. It is a method of analyzing psychic phenomena and 

treating emotional and mental disorders that involves treatment sessions during which the 

patient is encouraged to talk freely about personal experiences and especially about early 

childhood and dreams (202). This tells that from Freud’s observation, every action of man 

comes from his mind.  

Stephen OgeneMbanefo and Ezeonyi N. Onyinye(2020), while quoting Freud state that “in 

examining Freud’s Psychoanalysis, Freud explores the three persons “Id”, “ego”, and 

“superego”. Freud believes that his structured model of mind (id, ego, superego) could be in 

conflict at anytime since they perform different functions”(180). They further opine that “a 

person’s ego adopts  one or more defence mechanisms to protect him or her when he or she 

could not cope with the stress of conflict”(180). Psychoanalysis has become an interesting 

theory in the study and analyses of a work of art.  Supporting this view, Nebeife and Kanu in 

“Trauma of Migration: A Psychoanalytic Study of ChimamandaAdichie’sAmericanah” (2017) 

assert that: “Freud repeatedly talked about the role of the mind. He believes that the mind is 

responsible for both conscious and unconscious decision based on drives and forces … He 

believes that people are simply actors in the drama of their own minds pushed by desire and 

pulled by coincidence”. (93) 

 

In driving home the above point, and concomitantly justifying the choice of psychoanalytic 

theory as the theoretical anchor for this research, it is pertinent to explain that the actions and 

attitudes of characters in literary works (both from fictional and non-fictional dimensions) in 

many ways are reflective of their experiences, inner struggles and conflicts with forces largely 

against their control. Events come and go leaving behind, it’s indelible marks and shades of 

experiences on characters and individuals which however way it goes, are capable of affecting 

the characters in the positive and most cases, in the negative ways. Sometimes, bizarre 

experiences “may result to feelings of inadequacy and dependency for survival as the characters 

become entangled in finding a solution to his or her inner conflicts” (Odinye 43). Asika (2013), 

while dissecting Freud, supports that: 

Human minds are driven by several intrinsic and extrinsic forces often beyond 

our controls. How people react and respond to issues, events and situations, our 

actions and inactions are always dependent on the psychological composition 

of our minds. Our desires and wishes are always in a cross-road with that of 

others because the mind is channeled and propelled on a pedestal geared 

towards fulfilling a certain desire and awakening. (134) 

 

The Civil War, as gleaned from the perspectives of the writers under study, fell on an 

unexpected and unprepared generation and the violence, pains, torture and agonies that came 

with it was unprecedented and novel too.  The war fell on an innocent individual whose lives, 

joys, aspirations and sanities were altered in the thirty months of civil strife, chaos and violent 

brutal exchange for power and territorial control. The war, more than anything ever, altered the 

lives of the people and it is only natural that their psyches, emotions and behaviours will be 

deeply thwarted and affected by the pains and violence that ensued during the war and it is 

from this perspective that the postulations of Freud becomes apt in questioning and 

investigating the effects of these experiences on characters and the psychological and neurotic 

sides of these effects. Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory becomes the most interesting 

psychological construct through which this study will delve and investigate, espcially the 

feelings and emotions of individuals made possible by the trauma and pains of the war. The 

writers no doubt represented the traumas and experiences of the war on individuals in different 



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12                 Ogene & Nwakaego 

perspectives. According to Nebeife and Kanu (2017), “The word trauma” is used to describe 

experiences that are emotionally painful and distressing and which therefore overwhelm 

people’s ability to cope, leaving them powerless. Trauma has sometimes been defined in 

reference to experiences that are not normal for humans (92). 

 

Through such psychological quest aided by Freud’s postulations, the unseen pains and hidden 

agonies of the war, its lasting effect on generation will be holistically articulated in the effort 

to condemn war in its entirety and add to the bulk of what is already known regarding the 

psychological and traumatic shades of the inevitable Civil War that exerted and still exerting 

lots of influences on our oneness as a nation after over fifty years of the dreadful experience. 

It is, therefore, on this fact that this paper focused on looking at the excessive repression and 

lingering traumas of the war which are capable of devastating individuals and groups and also 

degenerating to unabated bitterness, rancor, lingering acrimony, loneliness, alienation, 

violence, chaos, killing, ethnic rivalries, segregation, oppression and suppression witnessed 

and still been witnessed in the polity of the nation.  

 

Analysis of Trauma, Violence and Pains in AdaOkereAgbasimalo’sThe Forest Dames- A 

Psychoanalytic Approach 

The Forest Dames is a novel that talks about the bitter experience of the Nigerian Civil War. 

The account of the dreadful war novel focuses on peoples’ life especially women as the major 

victims of war. Some men were also captured and conscripted against their wishes; children 

were not left out of the suffering. They all have been starving as there is nothing to eat.  It is of 

course the violence and pains that these women saw during the war that made them take their 

daughters to the forest and this is as what made them the forest dames. The story being carved 

out from female perspectives tells that all female characters in the novel met violence and pains 

which war meted against them. The writer carves out two brave mothers and four courageous 

girls named Gonma, Deze, Sofuru and Lele who were hidden in the forest in avoidance of the 

violence of war as the novelist writes: 

The brooding darkness simmered with the sound of the wild. The dames had 

learnt to live with the sound. They had resigned themselves to the belief that 

both life and death were in the hands of their maker. Beside, at the rate people 

were dying, one thanked the Almighty if one saw the next day. ‘After all’, they 

asked themselves, ‘between being devoured by beasts and being shattered into 

pieces by mortar bombs, which is preferable? Either way the result is death’, 

they consoled themselves, ‘and, it is inevitable’. Brave stance! But the dames 

were still scared stiff, never failing to imagine the likelihood of a famished beast 

leaping towards them, and the muffled last prayers that would follow. (20) 

 

Gripped by fear none of them was in her right sense because the outcome of their act of hiding 

is unknown to them. We should not forget that the novelist made use of an irony here where 

she depicted it clearly, that despite that these dames were taken out from home into the forest 

yet; they still meet the pains and violence they were avoiding. Even the stories which their 

mothers told them about home also brought pains in their heart as the narrator writes about 

Gonma saying:   

Her mother was not there. She had gone to the distant market and had not 

returned. So Gonma simply listened to the conversation of the others. Her two 

brothers and only sister were home alone, finding it hard even to feed. Their 

middle-aged father had been forcibly taken away from home by some 

aggressors… Dennis’ daughter was captured yesterday… “She was. They came 

when she had returned from her hiding place and took her unawares. (21) 



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13                 Ogene & Nwakaego 

 

Such stories bring pains to those who are still surviving the war. There is no how that Gonma 

would be free from the pains of losing her mother who had gone to market and had not returned, 

her two brothers who are suffering from hunger and her father who had being captured by the 

aggressors. Dennis himself is not free from the pain of losing her daughter, Wakego who has 

been captured. All these bitter experiences traumatise them and   plant pain in the lives of these 

characters that have lost their lovely ones. Other stories told in the novel which tells the pains 

which people experienced during the war is also told by Sofuru’s mother on how Ogechi was 

forced to leave her food and follow the soldiers right at her husband’s presence as the narrator 

says: 

One of the aggressors had ordered the women to stop eating and follow them. 

Trembling she picked up her baby and got up to go with them but was rebuked 

and ordered to leave the baby there. Ogechi left her baby in obedience. As she 

was led away, her five-month-old baby who was still on breast milk cried as if 

she knew what was going on. Her husband, Obed looked on speechless. His 

wife was gone with the invading soldiers and he now had to take over the care 

of their baby. (22) 

 

With this situation it is obvious that any woman that experiences such must be affected 

psychologically. It also shows that children also suffer terribly during the war.  Most of them 

lost their mothers or fathers or even  both. The lucky ones lost only one, either father or mother. 

But those that met the bitter pains of war are those who lost their mothers and were left in the 

hands of their fathers as seen in the life of Ogechi’s five-month-old child. 

 

From the life of Obed, Ogechi’s husband, the narrator did not fail to tell her readers that men 

also experience violence and pains of war. She says: “You know Okedu, the fisherman? They 

stopped him as he strolled into his compound from the village stream and told him he must go 

with them. Okedu called out to one of his children and tried to hand over a hooked fish to him 

but was not allowed to do so. They abducted the fish as well as Okedu found himself in their 

military camp”.(23) 

 

From the novel, it is a clear fact that not only Okedu met such violence, Joseph has his own 

pains of war. This was a man who was beaten to death for refusing to let his bicycle go to some 

uniformed men who forcefully took it out from him. This stands as symbol of pains people 

undergone at the time of war. The narrator says: 

Deze’s mother told the girls about an elderly men, Joseph, who(sic) was beaten 

to death because he tried to stop the uniformed intruders from forcibly taking 

his bicycle. After they beat the man to death, they still took his bicycle away. 

They also took bicycles belonging to other villagers for no known reason. Yams, 

other food crops and livestock were loaded into a big truck with the bicycles 

and taken away. It did not bother them if we all starved to death (23). 

 

It is indeed an act of violence and pains that the innocent citizens during the war were exposed 

to so many atrocities, beating, killing and taking away from them their foods with which they 

survived the war without considering the pains of starvation they would pass through. Here, 

the narrator applies satire, ridiculing the lives and violent behaviour of the soldiers against the 

innocent citizens whom they were called to protect. Such violence is what these citizens saw 

even after the war from the enemy force. The narrator writes that: 

The soldier wondered what was in the sack. “Wetin be this?” he demanded, 

peeping inside. “Okwe, game”, Udunna answered, allowing the shells to clatter 



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14                 Ogene & Nwakaego 

in the sack.“Wetin?” The soldier did not understand. “Mgbo, bullets”, Udunna 

said, confusing him further. The soldier hissed loudly and planted a dirty slap 

on his cheek. The boy fell down but got up quickly. His grandfather walked up 

to the soldier in mild protest. The boy’s father had been in one of the battle fields 

and was expected to return soon. Oho o, na you be the papa, baa, I see, you are 

the father”, the soldier said, furious. Bikonwa m, spare him, he’s just a boy”, 

the old man begged but the soldier picked up his koboko instead and began to 

flog him in the presence of the helpless group. (232) 

 

This violent act meted against Udunna and his grandfather made both to pass through pains in 

the hands of the soldier. Another violence and pains which children saw during the war is what 

the narrator gives account of, in Chuka as the mother says: 

I had a small bag on my head as I ran and Chuka’s hand in mine while Okezie 

and Nneoma were running along. Suddenly, it felt like Chuka had become 

lighter to pull along but I continued running”. “Mummy Chuka, Chuka” Okezie 

and Nneoma were crying. “I stopped and saw Chuka’s mutilated arm in my 

hand. I screamed and ran back. My son was on the ground. I picked him up and 

we continued running, load still on my head. The shelling was too much and we 

needed to move faster, at least, a place of shelter. I dropped the dead boy and 

his hand and we continued the race. (65 – 66) 

 

People met their death by the shelling and bombers. The novel records: “It became a daily 

affair. Sometimes bombers came twice in one day, leaving behind mangled corpses and 

wrecked lives. In the communities, they became used to burying the victims… (67). 

At a time people became accustomed to death. Weeping and pains which come with death were 

also what they became accustomed to. The narrator writes: “They became accustomed to the 

air-raids but hunger became another challenge” (68). As it is said, hunger is the greatest weapon 

for war. This statement meant nothing but violence as was believed to be the reason why the 

Federal government blockade Biafrans from getting assistance or aids from other countries and 

this brought severe pains of hunger in the lives of the Biafrans. The novelist writes: 

Hunger and starvation still ruled, dealing with people treacherously. Death in 

the community, especially of children, the elderly and those who depended on 

others for their livelihood became a daily affair. Men were hardly seen on the 

roads. Women worked hard to sustain the family but their children dropped dead 

under their very noses. Starvation after a period of extreme emaciation or 

bloating was the major cause. (86) 

 

As a result of hunger, people met another pains stronger than the air-raids, taking cover in the 

bunker and death. Children could not bear this pain and in order to survive the violence they 

began to hunt rat and picked bush fruits. The narrator confirms, thus: “Those who had no 

reserves went hungry. Their children hunted for rats, rabbits and big insects; picked bush fruits, 

nuts, roots and tubers for dinner” (76). 

 

The violence and pains which the war brought upon lives never made mothers keep their 

motherhood or affections towards their children aside despite the horrors of war. They found 

remedies to make their children survive the war, taking risks, going distant markets, just to get 

food for their families and with this, they were exposed to violence. The novelist comments: 

The soldiers sometimes waylaid the women returning from the distant market 

and dispossessed them of their goods. Every woman who passed by that way 

had to part with some of the items she was carrying. When the military vehicle 



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15                 Ogene & Nwakaego 

was filled up, the soldiers drove off. The women on this day had walked up to 

the waiting soldiers and dropped a food item each. Dora dropped one tuber of 

yam but the soldier rejected it and insisted on collecting the only stockfish she 

was able to buy, hoping to resell it at a good price or barter it for a more needed 

commodity at home. (73) 

 

This is how these women met another side of violence on their return from attack trade, a 

market which exposed lives to violence during war time. After escaping bullets, air-raids and 

shells from these open markets, the soldiers would take away from these women what they had 

laboured to keep their families living. Most of them went back homes with pains watching their 

children dying due to starvation. The narrator tells of how Deze interpreted to Dr. Carol 

Harrison about a plight of Julie Ejema’s child who becomes sick as the cause of starvation 

saying: “Dr. Harrison, this woman named Julie Ejema…” Dr. Harrison began to scribble down 

particulars pertaining the woman”. …said that her son, Sunday, has been emaciating for the 

past one month. They all have been starving as there is nothing to eat. The boy has been 

vomiting and stooling frequently. She pleads with you to assist and not allow her child to die” 

(147). 

 

From the writer’s idea, the little Sunday is passing through pains as a result of sickness which 

made him vomit and stool. Even the mother also had her own pains for the fear of losing her 

child. The fact the writer wants to elaborate here is that the violence of war mostly made 

mothers and children suffer pains. These pains and violence still go even at the end of war. The 

narrator writes: 

Unfortunately, not every girl who saw the end of the war was so lucky. Deze 

learnt that Sofuru, after suffering as a forest dame, fell into the hands of the 

abductors on her way home with her folks. Deze’s group could be said to have 

been lucky since they suffered minimal molestation compared with the tales of 

others. Some told of vandals who, knowing that they would soon be leaving 

seized the opportunity to temporarily abduct girls hitherto in hiding. Members 

of one of the returning groups narrated how on passing an enemy camp, they 

were halted, the girls picked out and taken to their camp. All other members of 

the group, including parents and relations of the girls, waited on the grass around 

the area outside. After what seemed like an hour or more the girls began 

emerging, some frowning, others expressionless. There was no need to ask what 

had transpired. (235) 

 

Girls after the war met pains of molestation, violence of abduction and raping. Some of them 

after these acts were put into family way. The novel presents Ojiugo as one of the dames who 

meets such violence as she says that: 

I was not comfortable with the name his father called him at the camp. There is 

no way my son can come into our community answering that name so I renamed 

him after his father’s rank the moment I came home. The man knows that he 

has a son here. He knows this village from where he forcibly took me… have 

you forgotten that the abduction was like a death sentence?…What a horror! 

She wrapped her arms across her chest as if she was feeling cold. She was 

frowning. “That violation is worse than death; I don’t know what I am still living 

for. (258) 

 



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16                 Ogene & Nwakaego 

Ojiugo’s heart was filled with pains after been violated by an enemy soldier, a Major who 

forcibly raped her. She passed through trauma and depression and when she could not bear the 

pains, she killed herself. A violent act which Deze witnessed as the novelist says : 

Deze stood on tip-toe but could see nothing. “please, what is happening”? She 

asked again yet received no answer. At last she found a space and peeped. 

Ojiugo’s body was dangling from the roof of her mother’s kitchen; her eyeballs 

popping out, her tongue jutting slightly, her wrapper and the floor soiled. A mild 

stench oozed. “Oh God, did she have to do that? Why?” “She survived the war 

and should have put everything behind her. This is too much. “Ha, Ojiugo. She 

hinted at it – o. Ever since she came back with the baby, she has not been 

herself… “May God accept her soul.Rest in peace, Jugo!” (260). 

Ojugo’s death, which ironically meant to her a means of easing off her pains against the 

violation she had experienced, put her family members and friends into pains of losing her. 

This is a violent act, an abomination that made her hang herself. Following the analysis of this 

novel, in The Forest Dames, AdaOkekeAgbasimalo presents her perspective of war telling that 

war is traumatizing, violent and evil, those who experienced it met severe pains of their lives. 

  

A Psychoanalytic Approach to Violence and Pains in Alexander Madiebo’sThe Nigeria 

Revolution and the Biafran War 

Madiebo was one of the Biafran Majors who led and piloted the affairs of  the Nigeria Civil 

War. Being a soldier, he has firsthand information about war. His work is non-fiction; it is a 

real account of war where he elaborated on all the violence and pains that went with the 

Nigerian/Biafran war. His historical account of the war is traced from the origin, the cause of 

the revolution which finally led Nigeria into war. This revolution came as violence as, the 

historian says: “Over the telephone Gowon passionately described how he had come back from 

Britain on the night of 14 January 1966, a day before the coup started. Gowon narrated the 

story of his narrow escapes from death in the hands of the revolutionaries who, he said, were 

after him the whole night and throughout the following day” (25). 

From Gowon’s experience, the revolution was indeed a violence even Nzeogwu and other 

revolutionaries experience the same. The narrator writes: “When we arrived, Nzeogwu was 

sitting in the Brigade Commander’s Office, with a heavily bandaged neck, surrounded by 

soldiers of Northern Nigeria origin. There was no doubt he was in pain but appeared calm and 

very serious” (19).  

 

The coup which took place on 15 January 1966 was indeed a bloody act which install pains in 

the hearts of the Northerners as the narrator reveals their anger:  

The real turning point came at the beginning of March when one morning, the 

Governor of the North called a conference of all army officers in Northern 

Nigeria. Addressing the conference in an angry voice, the Governor …speaking 

about the January Coup he described it as a well-organized “Murder operation” 

for which the participants ought to have been punished if the Lagos authorities 

were fair and sincere to all. He warned that when the Northerners were ready 

for their own coup, it would be conducted in a broad daylight and would be very 

“bloody indeed”, unlike the January coup when cowards went around by night 

murdering people in their sleep. (32 – 33) 

 

With this, it is clear that the Northerners were nurturing pains over the violence of the coup 

which took lives of their top Northern leaders like; Sir Ahmadu Bellow, the Sarduana of 

Sokoto, Chief TafawaBelewa and other high ranking military officials. In retaliation of this, a 

riot was carried out by the Northerners against the Igbos, the narrator writes about Shuwa an 



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17                 Ogene & Nwakaego 

eyewitness to the incident saying: “Shuwa said he saw private homes, churches, shops, schools 

and market stalls belonging to Southern Nigreians, in flames. He saw crying children, the 

young and the old, both men and women being chased about and being beaten to death while 

their homes were looted”. (38 – 39) 

 

Lives of the southerners were harmed even their properties and their innocent children. As if 

this violence was not enough, another riot began the following day. The history records that: 

On the 30th of May, 1966, the riots began again rather early. The rioting was 

much fiercer than the previous day, and the commanding officer himself with 

the assistance of his escorts, had to go round the town trying to disperse the 

mobs by firing in the air. In places where he rescued people who were still alive, 

he arranged to send them to the military medical centre for treatment. A story 

was told of a whole family that was locked up inside their house and the house 

set ablaze. I also listened to the story of an incident at the Kano Railway station 

where a large crowed of Southerners had gathered waiting to escape by train. 

They were attacked by a mob which killed or maimed most of them, and their 

property was looted. (39) 

 

As this violence was going on in Kano, Zaria was not exceptional. The Southerners like in 

Kano saw severe pains by the Northern rioters. The narrator writes: 

The Brigade major, Major Sam Ogbemudia, said that the expatriate staff at 

Ahmadu Bello University were leading the rioters in Zaria. According to him, 

these gentlemen were even using their personal cars to move the rioters quickly 

from one part of the town to another. The cars also had anti-Ironsi slogans pasted 

on them…There in Sokoto, while other towns rioted, the Southerners went into 

their church to pray to their God for the return of peace. While they all gathered 

there and prayed the church was cordoned off. Having poured petrol over the 

church building, it was set ablaze, and the multitude died while praying for 

peace (41) 

 

The way these people were murdered while they were praying in the Church tells that no prayer 

for peace could withheld the violence and pains meted against the Southerners at the time of 

this crises in Nigeria. This went on to an extent that AguiyiIronsi the then head of state, met 

his death on his peace tour. Madiebo writes: “However, he was determined to continue his tour. 

When he came back from Northern Nigeria, he left for Midwestern Nigreia on the 27th of July 

and as expected, never returned” (57). 

The death of AguiyiIronsi which was seen as counter coup was told by Captain Nwankwo. The 

narrator writes: 

According to Nwankwo, at 0630 hours on the 29th of July, 1966, Ironsi, Fajuyi, 

the Governor of Western Nigeria and himself were arrested at Government 

House, Ibadan by Northern troops under the command of Captain Danjuma… 

The troops used to affect the arrests were those detailed to protect the General 

during his tour. The captives were driven to an isolated jungle just outside 

Ibadan. By the time they go there, the three prisoners had been so thoroughly 

beaten that the older two – Ironsi and Fajuyi – could hardly stand up. Shortly 

after, Fajuyi was shot and then, Ironsi. (85 – 86) 

 

From the history, before Aguiyi could be shot to death, he passed through pains of torture by 

his captors in that isolated jungle outside Ibadan. After the death of Ironsi, other violent crisis 

came and this resulted to war. Fighting broke out between the two warring forces. The narrator 



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18                 Ogene & Nwakaego 

reveals that, “Fighting began with each enemy battalion poised against two platoons of Biafra 

Army. After two hours of intensive exchange of fire, the enemy turned round and broke into a 

run towards their start line. They were obviously surprised and for that reason suffered heavy 

casualties…” (126). 

With this, it is obvious that the two enemies in open confrontation exchanged arms and exposed 

their lives to violence. The Biafran enemy, the Northern troops never expected such brevity 

from the Biafran troops after they had suffered heavy casualties and broke into a run. Despite 

the pains of exchanging fire between the two forces, war did not stop. The violence continues 

as the writer writes: 

The enemy attacked in Garkem at 0530 hours with two main Garkem – Afikpo 

road. His preparatory bombardment using artillery and heavy mortars was 

extremely heavy and sustained. Our own troops, even though they had suffered 

some casualties, were still firmly in their newly dug trenches but with no over-

head cover. By 0900 hours the first enemy assault of three ferret and one Saladin 

armoured vehicles came in. a landrover mounted with a 106 RR anti-tank gun 

moved in with the attacking vehicles which rained bullets in all directions and 

knocked down the mud huts of the village. (125) 

 

People of Garkem lost their homes and land as a result of heavy bombardment of the enemy 

with ferret and armoured vehicles. One can imagine the pains which these people must have 

passed through when their huts were all knocked down. With this violence, these people 

become homeless wonderers in their own land. In Onitsha, a similar violence took place as 

Madiebo records: “For ten days, there was a non-stop air bombardment of the town beginning 

at dawn each day and lasting till dusk. The Russian war planes strafed and bombed until neither 

life nor buildings were left in Onitsha; thereafter the planes resorted to attacking livestock”. 

(202) 

 

“The enemy” attacks against Onitsha was a severe violent operation. There is no doubt that the 

enemy must have planned this attack over her pains of losing Onitsha severally as the Biafrans 

see Onitsha and make a mockery song of it as Ono nsoelu aka “near, but beyond reach”. With 

the pains of their several failures of drawing close to Onitsha but not reaching it, they commit 

such violence, destroying lives with livestock roams around. Following this attack, the narrator 

reveals another violence committed by the aggressors on their vengeful desire to enter Awka 

thus: 

Biafra soldier fought desperately to prevent the enemy from entering the town 

until the afternoon of the 19th of January when the town came under heavy 

bombardment. The confusion that followed could hardly be described as men, 

women and children ran about under a rain of shells. Many died and the 

survivors abandoned the town intact. Many young men … were caught and 

executed by the enemy… The complete destruction of Awka town which 

eventually took place was therefore done by the enemy at a later date, in his 

own chosen time. (219) 

 

No one in Biafra believes that the enemy will capture Awka because of the strong defensive 

attack the Biafran troops often give to them each time they ventured. So when they made a 

successful entrance, every Biafra feared as a popular saying of fear arouse among the Biafrans 

saying “Hausa AbatagoAwka” (Hausa has entered Awka). This proved Biafran disbelief that 

the enemy troops would ever venture into Awka. Unfortunate to them, they ventured and 

bombarded the town. The Biafran troops could not withstand them due to shortage of 

ammunition and lives of men and women were violated with pains of death and destructions 



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19                 Ogene & Nwakaego 

of properties. Meanwhile, the falling of Awka into enemy hand gave the enemy a greater 

courage of installing violence in the hearts of Biafrans with hope that they would capture all 

Biafrans. But on reaching to Abagana, they met a counter attack from Biafra troops which 

caused violence to them. The narrator tells of the violent attack of Biafran troops against enemy 

troops in Abagana. Thus: 

This is how the battle was fought. When the convoy approached our troops 

around Ifite-Ukpo Junction, Major Uchendu very wisely allowed the advance 

party of armoured vehicles to pass. He then attacked the main convey from the 

front, middle and rear. The leading lorry was knocked out and blocked the road, 

and was quickly set on fire. None of the vehicles, thereafter could move 

forward, and being very bulky, could not turn about on the narrow road. The 

enemy was helpless and less than one hour, all the enemy soldiers were either 

killed or had escaped… (224 – 225). 

This violent experience which the Biafran enemy had in Abagana was what all Biafrans saw 

as miracle as they termed the battle, ‘Abagana miracle’. One of the most violence Biafrans saw 

during the war was deaths of their lovely ones as they had the painful death of Christopher 

Okigbo’. Madiebo writes: “The greatest disaster of that operation was that the well-known 

poet, Major Christopher Okigbo, one of the bravest fighters on that sector, died trying to lob a 

grenade into a ferret armoured car. The whole Army in general and the 53 Brigade in particular 

never completely got over his death for the rest of the war”. (166) 

 

The pain of death of Christopher Okigbo was a heavy blow to Biafrans especially the fighting 

men who knew his brevity in the war front. Okigbo was a poet, seer and a soldier, who had 

firsthand information about this war, which eventually took his life at Opi as he prophesied in 

his poem. Other death which caused Biafrans severe pain that they could not easily get over 

was the death of another brave soldier called CoporalNwafor. Madiebo narrates that: 

“…attempts were being made to recover the captured armoured vehicles. Both vehicles were 

finally recovered but Corporal Nwafor himself died during the recovery operation (259)”.  

Corporal Nwafor after using the only anti-tank rocket in the entire 54 Brigade to destroy the 

Hausa’s Saladin which he equally killed the crew, went ahead to recover Biafran’sarmoured 

vehicles, through which he lost his life this became a violent and painful experience both to his 

fellow fighting men and Biafrans at large. Nwafor stands as a symbol that narrates how most 

people lost their lives through violence of war while trying to protect their father land from 

pains of destructions by the enemy. At the cause of this violence and pains, the brevity and 

popularity of both Chris Okigbo and Corporal Nwafor were captured by some fiction writers 

like Chukwuemeka Ike in his Sunset at Dawn and others where they depicted a lucid picture 

of their death through which each of these writers according to his or her perceptions and 

perspectives present the violence and pains that follow war. The pains which children suffered 

as a result of hunger can never be neglected as violence meted against them. 

 

The narrator narrates: 

Immediately Ikot-Ekpene fell, I went into the prisons there and what I saw still 

gives me nightmares from time to time. I saw several hundreds of Zombie-like 

creatures – men, women and children, lying, sitting or squatting in the midst of 

others who were dead. The living ones were completely reduced to skeletons 

and could not talk. I was seeing for the first time what I later knew to be 

kwashiorkor. Frankly, I took fright, and so did a majority of Biafrans at the 

thought of what would happen the “Majorities” in the hands Nigerians, if the 

much-talked-about “Minorities” get nothing but slow and painful death by 

starvation. (263) 



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20                 Ogene & Nwakaego 

 

The violence which hunger brought to Biafrans mostly affected the children with a dangerous 

sickness called kwashiorkor which destroys their lives and leads them to slow and painful 

death. With the violence and pains that come through this starvation Biafrans lost their faith 

and became fate to violence. The faith which held and kept them all the three years of 

struggling. The narrator confirms that: “This faith in our ultimate victory was what kept 

Biafrans slugging on for three years in spite of heart-breaking set-backs, to the astonishment 

of the whole world. We felt that having been so unjustly treated, humiliated and massacred, 

God and international opinion could not stand idly by and allow us to be exterminated in our 

homeland. (377) 

 

The violence and pains of war respect no one’s faith in God or International back up. Despite 

that the entire Biafrans have faith in God as they believed, he could rescue them from unjust 

killings meted out against them in their homeland, they also strongly believe that since they are 

fighting a just fight the international opinion would raise alarm for their rescue but this is not 

so. Upon their faith in God and hope on the international opinion, they still being slaughtered, 

unjustly oppressed, humiliated and massacred in their own land. This tells the extent of 

violence and pains war could bring upon a country or nation not withstanding their faith in 

God. The narrator bemoaned the pains the war has caused to the entire nation saying: “In the 

end, the whole exercise of splitting and re-uniting Nigeria cost us over three million lives. The 

question is how could anyone ever justify the loss of so many lives in order to gain political 

control of his country?” (388). From the writer’s opinion the cause of these violence and pains 

which Nigeria as a nation experienced during her three years bloody struggle is caused by 

selfish decision of the leaders. Following the cause of war in Nigeria one will understand that 

the main cause of the war is ‘power tussle’, where leaders of that era struggled for power and 

leadership. This confirms what Chinua Achebe (1984) said in his book titled The Trouble with 

Nigeria where this author stated it clearly that; “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely 

a failure of leadership” (1). This problem of leadership split the nation apart and marched them 

into war which cost over three million lives. 

 

With this, we can see that Alexander Madiebo presented every detail and fact of the Nigerian 

Civil War. His perceptions, perspectives and experiences about war is what he presented with 

a real fact and truth rather than fiction. Following his narrations and presentations of account 

of the Civil war, one is made to see his work as a historical account of the Nigerian civil war 

where it is believed that every violence and pains of war are recorded. 

 

Conclusion 

The history of Nigeria will never forget those violence and pains which the bloody war of 1967 

– 1970 meted against lives of the people Children, young and adults perceived the pains, the 

pains of hunger, sickness, killing, death, betrayal, hiding, molestation, oppression and 

victimization. It is clear that every living thing during this war is casualty. 

AdaOkereAgbasimalo presents lives of four young girls who were hidden in the forest for the 

cause of war. From the novel, women were molested, intimidated and oppressed by both native 

soldiers and enemy soldiers. Men were killed in the north which made Deze’s father with some 

other men run down to the east. Children were starved to death. Mothers who went to markets, 

taking risk on attack trade as a result of hunger often molested and taken away what they have 

bought by the soldiers. All these ills of war can be traumatizing to humanity no doubt.  Madiebo 

as a historian went all round narrating the real events of war. His historical account is all based 

on violence and pains which individuals and Nation(s) Nigeria and Biafra experienced during 

the war. From his narrative, lives at the cause of war were destroyed. He presents killing and 



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21                 Ogene & Nwakaego 

death as the most things suffered during the war. The death of a poet Christopher Okigbo, 

Corporal Nwafor and other characters he presented tells of the pains of the war which he also 

pictured through starvation which led people into death and sickness, especially, to young 

children who suffered kwashiorkor due to lack of food and blockage. 

The two works depict terrible pain and trauma as regards to the fact and fiction of the Nigerian 

civil war which Nigeria as a nation experienced during the war. In order to avoid pains of life 

either through crisis, conflict or whatever that might cause shedding of blood, violent act must 

be avoided. 

 

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