These Walls.
Photo by Billy Freeman on Unsplash.
I.
We can only tell the story of Biafra as if it did not happen, as a speculation or riddle, or something that may yet happen—maybe as a vision, as fiction, or a prophetic warning.
—Sergeant Isaiah Nwankwo,
Biafran 39th Battalion, January 1970
I tell you, these walls knew about the war long before it broke out. It was revealed in a dream that Gowon had—a dream of cattle standing on their hind limbs, snatching whips from their handlers and lashing them into madness. At first, these walls, much like Gowon, did not understand the meaning of the dream. He was a somniloquist, you see; he spoke in his sleep. Sometimes, he spoke in full sentences, and other times, he mumbled incoherently. Once, he sang the national anthem from start to finish, marvelling at the walls with his melodious riffs and runs. But this time, he cried.
He startled the walls, rattled his wives and concubines. He awoke drenched in sweat, his face and chest glistening with it. And with a thunderous pulse of urgency, he raced to his bathroom. Though spacious enough to accommodate a displaced family, on that night, it felt claustrophobic. He rummaged through his medicine cabinet for his Accupril; his breathing labored as the dream replayed in his mind. There was something vicious about this vision, something stark and disturbing in the darkness that churned within him. The cattle towered over him, a language he’d heard countless times but could never understand on their lips. And as they struck him ten times with the whip, he laid there in submission— silent, petrified, powerless.
For three consecutive nights, the dream recurred, always ending with him lying still, unable to resist or escape the fate that loomed. And so, coupled with the coups he’d spent months dodging like they were intrusive questions, the bags underneath his eyes, heavy with exhaustion, sagged to his cheekbones. That was when his special adviser, Adewale, suggested the dream catcher.
II.
If a leader accepts himself as already dead to society, there will be no reason for cowardice in his leadership. One thing that frightens leaders and leads them to a number of excesses is usually fear of death. No leader should fear death. In fact, you should accept the fact that from the moment of leadership, you are sacrificed to death. Each subsequent day becomes a bonus for the preparation of one’s memorial.
—General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu,
Leader of the Biafran secessionist movement.
The dream catcher arrived as the day of judgment would, gripping a wooden rod with all his might like a prophet on parole. He was built with the daintiness of a pole, and he slouched so lowly the walls feared his back would snap. But his voice had the vibrancy of a new record and the ripeness of udara in April. So when he interpreted the dream, an air of self-assurance about him — everyone listened.
Before he had finished, Gowon’s eyes twitched, veins surging with relentless, pressing force. His spindly shoulders seemed as though they were threatening to dislodge his neck; he stood up, attempting to get a grip of them. He looked out his window and saw his children, Ibrahim and Saratu, playing in the garden, their sunlit laughter weaving through the blue Vanda orchids. He watched them for a while, palms pressed to the glass, the dream heavy in his throat. For the sake of their future, he could not allow any of the grim scenarios he had heard to unfold. He was no Pharaoh, but he vowed never to relinquish his hold. He set out in his bulletproof car, draped in his bulletproof babaringa and his bulletproof hula, planting spies in every state, town and street until he’d reached the house of the one the dream catcher revealed would oust him.
And these walls, though loyal to their nation, knew what was coming. So, they spread what they’d heard from wall to wall, from tree to abandoned scaffold, until it reached Ojukwu’s residence, but their whispers were no match for the loud machinations surrounding him—the fanfare of ambition, the cadence of marching boots, the clang of sharpened steel.
III.
A na-asị na ọkụ gbara fada, i na-ajụ ma ọ gbara afụọnụ ya. (The news says a Reverend Father was burnt, and you are asking if the fire burnt his beard.)
—Igbo Proverb
And it will be said that when the war broke out like an uncontainable virus, as families scattered like seeds in the dry wind and pregnant women slipped into the forest, clutching their bellies like broken promises, these walls tapered off.
Gowon, loving them like brothers, poured millions into their repair. Contractors arrived in waves, eyes glinting with greed, hands poised to grasp. They promised salvation. They swore they’d restore what was lost. But paint cannot revive unity. Cement cannot rebind memory.
Each time they tried, the walls cracked a little more. Their edges flaked off like dead skin. Still, they returned. Still, they lied.
And so, when Gowon rattled the walls once more with his screams in the still of the night, they wondered if it was the sound of defeat in battle or the grief of a lost child despite his efforts at protection. Or perhaps he had uncovered a betrayal, like the one that would claim a certain kleptocrat two decades later.
The walls absorbed his echoes, I tell you, crumbling under their weight like a bridge of glass. And when the bullets penetrated their cracks and the soft bellies of children with a conviction to kill to kill to kill, these walls tried to scream, but only dust came out of their mouths. And so, they consoled him, closing in and wishing more than anything that he had never had that fateful dream.
