The Once Mighty Biafra Movement Under Pressure

I was very young when I left home to join the Biafran army," he says. "I was scared and the recruiters said I was very young, but they later allowed me to join them because they needed men."The bloody war that Oliwe fought in, and whose mental and physical scars he carries to this day, started when Col Odumegwu Ojukwu declared Biafra an independent state. Many in the east rejoiced at the announcement, but it marked the start of a brutal and bitter war with the federal government. It ended three years later with millions dead and the region re-integrated into Nigeria. At a centre for Biafra war veterans in south east Nigeria, John Oliwe rolls his wheelchair into the backyard. He uses a small cutlass to uproot weeds from his vegetable plot as he recalls his role in the conflict that began when he was just 15 years old.