A veteran journalist and
professor of journalism, Idowu Sobowale, has revealed how he and other
journalists were served human meat as Suya while covering the events of the
civil war.
He said this while calling on
people singing war songs to have a rethink, adding that war is not something to
joke with.
Sobowale, who also served as a
political adviser to a former Lagos State Governor, Lateef Jakande, told Punch
how the capital of Anambra State, Awka, was levelled to the ground with no
single building standing.
He said, “If you hear people
singing war songs, they are most probably people who have never experienced
war. Even if you escape, seeing the sufferings of others can be terrifying.
“There was a day when we got to
the third marine command and the commander, Benjamin Adekunle, asked if we
(journalists) liked Suya, he said we should get into the vehicle and he took us
to where Biafra armoured cars had been disabled, with soldiers killed inside
them. The place was terribly stinking.
“He said that was the Suya, we
should eat. There was also a day we were taken to a small stream that separated
the federal troops from the Biafra troops and those people had sharp shooters.
The war was so fierce that when we were about to leave, out of the battalion
that went, fewer than 20 people came back alive.
“Many had died, many had been so
terribly wounded and they were just packed in lorries that brought them to
Calabar for treatment. On many occasions, we would be eating and we would just
hear gunshot and the soldier or someone else beside you would have been killed.
“That happened several times when
we were eating. I had several instances of close shave with death. Let me not
say more than that.
One crazy soldier was just coming
from behind and he just took a cutlass and split the person ’s head into two
just like that.
“It was not a pleasant thing to
watch or wish for anybody . Look at Awka , the capital of Anambra State, it was
levelled to the ground . Not a single house was standing; not one.”
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