Odua Veronica Uwechia

Biafran Survivor


Odua Veronica Uwechia, 68

The warrior -- A courageous woman with infinite strength who refused to be chased out of her home by the war.

War Biography
Name: Veronica Uwechia
Occupation during the war: Business Contractor/Politician / Present: Grandmother
Age when war started: 32 / Present: 68
Marital Status: Widowed / Present: Widowed
Number of Children: 5 / Present: (same number of children)
Place of Residence: Onitsha /Present: (same place now)
Reason of Relocation: Surrendered

War Movements
In 1967, she surrendered to Murtala Muhammad, who was the commander of the Second Division of the Nigerian Army. According to her, when she surrended to him she asked him in flawless Hausa, "Did you come to kill or to make peace?" He replied and said he came to make peace. They were given an hour to get ready and were rescued.

Though she and her family was not physically harmed, the war did exact a physical and mental toll on them. Because she is very articulate and personable, she was chosen by the army to give a World Press Conference. During the war, she worked in the Refugee Camp where she oversaw the feeding of those in the refugee camp. She introduced the rationing of dry food on per family basis as the best means of ensuring that every family were equitably treated. Prior to that, the men that controlled the allocation of food to the refugees, had insisted on distributing cooked food. This type of mass feeding meant that people could not choose what they wanted to eat each day. They had to eat whatever was on the menu or risked going hungry. This method of food distribution removed automony from mature adults, who were then treated as helpless children. Yet, in opting for this method of mass feeding, the men in-charge were aware of the use of food to define a position of power. They politically used the dry rations to expand and extend their sphere of power and influence. Those who did their their bidding, especially women, were favorably treated, receiving generous allocations of food that was meant for everyone. But women who refused their sexual advances, or who refused to grovel before them, did not receive any dry food for their children. They had to go through the humiliating process of lining up for skimpy allocation of poorly cooked food with their children in tow.

Another program that Veronica Uwechia initated in the refugee camp was that of giving priority to the nutrition of pregnant women and nursing women. The two groups of women had to receive weekly allocations of milk and baby food to ensure that they had enough nutritional needs. Her eldest child, Nkiru received a scholarship from the new Commander of the 2nd Division, then Colonel I. B. M. Haruna, after he read her satirical poem about soldiers, titled , "The Soldier and the His Baboon."

Conversation Venue:
Venue of conversation: I spoke to her at her niece's house in Ajao Estate, Lagos.

Her Story:
"Odua" Veronica Uwechia was thirty-two when the war started. At that time she was lived in Onitsha where she was a business contractor. A few years before the war began, Veronica had lost her husband, who was the Commissioner of Law Revision for the Eastern region. He died quite suddenly, and she had to fend for herself and her children. As the war approached Onitsha, she decided to stay since she had nowhere to go other than Onitsha. As a widow mourning the death of her husband, the responsibility of raising her children was upon her. Veronica was not entirely alone because she had her mother, Mama Onitsha, who lived with her and gave her assistance. Mama Onitsha, Veronica and her children were in the house for five days before their capture. Prior to that, scores of Nigerian soldiers marched and rode into town on the Expressway. The family was determined not to move. Because of the extremely danger of stray bullets, and the risk of being shot by a Nigerian soldier only Mama Onitsha would go outside if any task needed to be done outside--such as fetching water from the tank. Mama Onitsha choose this policy on the premise that she is the oldest one and if anyone ought to die it should be her. In one instance, in a story recounted by Nkiru Nzegwu, Veronica's oldest child, she remembers how her grandmother had helped a feeble old woman carry the corpse of her husband off their property. This woman was determined that her husband's corpse would not be eaten by dogs and vultures, so she performed the near superhuman feat of carrying the deaseased to their home. Most times, some of the children slept in the two concrete wardrobes in the bedroom while some slept under the strategically placed, secured bed to keeping clear of any ricocheting sharpnels and bullets that unexpectedly pierced the wooden door and landed in the room. After five days of hiding, the family surrendered to Murtala Muhammad.

Presently, Odua is sixty-eight years old and a grandmother. Her children are spread in the four corners of the world: Britain, Canada, America, and Nigeria. She never remarried. Instead she focused her energy on raising her children whom are college professor, lawyers, teacher, and nurse. This is from a woman who finished only high school. She resides in Onitsha with one of her daughters who founded and manages a nursery and primary school called RONIKA International.

My grandmother is a great storyteller and narrator. She is strong and assertive, and is a woman that wills her own destiny. The night before our conversation, several of my relatives had gathered in the lamp lit room as she recounted her stories. Sometimes, she would speak in Igbo, sometimes in Hausa, English or Pidgin English, depending on what language that came to her tongue because she was remembering a lot the stories. That night, as I lay on the bed and warm breeze of Lagos cooled my body, I listen to her experience about the war and how it had changed her life. I was learning about the history of Biafra and of Nigeria, which I have never quite known. As she recounted the tales, other relatives in the room will make audible sound that will encourage her to continue. But that night, not even the owl hooting outside will stop the old lady from telling her Nigerian granddaughter, who had migrated to America, her history.

As later recounted by her sister, Maria Gold Egbunike also known as Olikeze, when people were running from the war they had to cross Isiokwe Road, which leads to the Expressway. Most passers byes asked why my grandmother was not running. She responded to them that she had nowhere to go and that she is staying in Onitsha. Most passer byes' thought she was crazy, and that it was strange because her husband had died shortly before the war. The passer byes whispered among themselves, "Nwanyi ya Katalaru" meaning "this woman is bold." That is the sort of person my grandmother was and still is.

Odua's story is quite different from others because she never quite felt the ill fever of Biafra. According to her, she lived well during the war and her children were safe. But what happened to her before the war? Her experience of the war was not harsh in comparison to others who ran from one refugee camp to another. My grandmother who lived in Onitsha refused to run because Onitsha was what she knew. Her mother, Mama Onitsha, children and her later surrendered to then Col. Murtala Muhammad after five days, and were treated with privilege. According to Col. Muhammad, this was his first civilian war captives. He was part of the United Nations tean that fought in the Congo in 1961-2, and he had fought on two fronts in the Nigerian war and no civilian ever surrended to him. He felt that this civilian surrender was a sign that needed to be decoded, especially since the surrending civilian was interrogating him in Hausa, "Did you come to kill or to make peace?"

After the surrender and she gave a press conference, she was asked all sorts of questions about Biafra and about her decision to remain behind when thousands of Easterners (Igbo) were running away for their safety. Veronica told the press corps that her reason of staying in Onitsha was because of her children and it will be difficult to raise them anywhere beside Onitsha. Throughout the war, she lived in different military base and worked in the refugee camp. While in the camp, she introduced food rations as a more effective way of feeding the refugees. The food ration gave refugees options than mass-feeding. Another program she introduced is the pre-natal and post-natal care for pregnant and new mothers. Under this program, mothers and nursing women received milk and baby food.

When the war ended, she came back to Onitsha where she began relief work of feeding, clothing, and housing war refugees. Slowly, she started putting her life back but nothing remained the same ever again. That is the outcome of the war. It can often change people, or people often change during war, but whatever happens, the remnants of the war will never be the same.

My name is Veronica Uwechia. I am a Nigerian, and I was in Nigeria when the war broke out. Before the declaration of our own section of Nigeria as Biafra, I was at Onitsha. I was living in my house all through. I was a widow, with children, 5 children. My occupation was business and when the war broke out, there was a lot of running up and down and trying to save our necks from their stray bullets. In the morning, by the month of July in 19…ninety (When was Jideofo born), 19 ninety (airplane noise), 1968 (fades out). In 1967, there was a coup by the military and that was what sparked off the war. We the ordinary people then can't even understand what was going on but we know there was trouble between the states and we are the Eastern states and the whole trouble was more on our own state.

Everything got so heated that when they declared the state of Biafra, whoa, there was trouble everywhere, people started running and coming home from other states where they were living, we started seeing soldiers, moving around, hearing the booming of guns, no lights in the night, and we can't get certain things from the other states but we were trying to manage our life, it continued and by 1968, it got so heated that we couldn't even stay in our houses during the day. We keep running away into the bush to hide under thick clustered groves or we will run from our own area when the bullets started coming across the Niger. The other side of the Niger that is the western part, were coming into eastern states, we keep on running. We were running all the day.

There was no market any longer, people trade under shades of a tree, they bring what they can sell and you can buy. It started going like that and some people started going into the central part of the eastern states. Somebody like me didn't feel it right to keep running to other villages or towns because I have no relatives there and I can't manage five children outside Onitsha. So we stayed in Onitsha hoping that it will be alright. We started killing our chickens for meat and share it. We have cassava, we had yams, we had rice, these…thing that at least will last at least six months to one year. We were not talking of eating bread because we cannot afford it. We don't talk of sugar because we can't afford it.

We started living on our own Nigerian food. I had a lot of plantain trees in my house, luckily about that time they were fruiting, when it got ripe we will go and cut it. We either roast it or boil it, no more frying because we cannot get oil so easily and we have our own native things like Egusi growing in my house. We can wash it, shell it, and use it to cook soup. We have palm trees which we cut the nuts and make red oil and red soup out of it. We have cassava. We have different ways of eating cassava. There is one we soak, after it's soft, we wash it and make it into Akpu, we grind gari with a grater then we make abacha or Iwu Akpu. We dry that and soak it in the water, so at least we still have something to keep us going.

We didn't start running, and then what we heard is that the soldiers were advancing, and when the war started hitting was in 1968. Then people were moving out of Onitsha, evacuating the whole place because bullets have started to come into the town. We were hiding in our house, some of us slept in the wardrobe, some of us slept under the bed and when morning comes, we come out and do our daily job, until towards everyday. The whole thing was coming up, everyday they were coming nearer and nearer and people started moving for their dear lives, abandoning their house, their goods. We were still doing our routine, we didn't bother to run until on that eventful march a bomb fell in Onitsha and there was chaos. Everybody was running, everybody was running, we hid in our house, later by the afternoon the whole town was so cool, no noise, no voice, we keep on hiding in our house, and we were using kerosene stove to cook our food.

We were in the house for five days and we don't hear voice. We don't hear people, we were hiding inside hoping for change, there was no change until that eventful Monday. The only thing we have to know what is happening is a little transistor, instead of buying food, I will buy battery so that we could hear what is happening. Then when you want to hear what is happening from other parts of Nigeria, you tune to radio Kaduna, it will tell you everything and the locations of where the army are and if you want to hear about Biafra, you tune to radio Biafra and it will tell you. Its from this transistor that we heard from that Onitsha has fallen and that the soldiers have occupied parts of the town.

We didn't know what to do, we were just staying. But everyday when we looked out the window, one of the windows that is facing the major road--the Expressway, we saw army trucks moving towards from the left side and moving to the right side and the right side of it is where we call the Fegge area. We see them moving, every evening, so we knew that Onitsha has fallen but we didn't come out until after five days. And what made us come out that eventful day was that the bombing was very near our house because of the grove near our house. Then we were forced to run out and we surrendered ourselves, asking them what is their mission. Did they come to rescue or did they come to exterminate all of us? They said no, what they want is peace, and when I was talking I didn't know that it was the man commanding the Nigerian soldiers, the late Murtala that I was talking to. And we asked for help that if they could give us some soldiers so that we can get one or two things out. They told us no but that they will stay here and wait for us for one hour, if we don't come out, they would move on. So we rushed back, my mother was with me and when we got home we told the children, okay, come out, come out, come out, everybody came out and then we started running towards them. And that is how they rescued us. We entered a van, all of us, and we were driven to this part of Onitsha called Fegge where we were stationed for the night.

And in the morning I was called out to face the press. I later knew that it was the World International Press that I was facing. They asked me a lot of questions and I answered to my ability. And they asked me why I didn't run. Well, I said I did not feel like running because with my children I don't know what would happen to us. So I decided rather than leave Onitsha, let us die here. Luckily for us, we were rescued by the General commanding the two division and that we were very lucky.

Audio Files

Uwechia's Story 1 | Uwechia's Story 2 | Uwechia's Story 2

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