I Visited Ojukwu Bunker, The Hiding Place Of The Biafran Warlord During The Civil War. Here’s What I Found – By EMMANUEL AZUBUIKE

To slow down the invading enemy, Biafra soldiers began cutting down trees and digging trenches. But the more equipped Federal artillery began bombarding Enugu on September 26, 1967, while the Nigerian Air Force conducted raids on the city.

Despite Ojukwu’s plea for people not to abandon the city, Enugu fell to the Nigerian forces on October 4, 1968, with Ojukwu narrowly escaping the troops.

Surprisingly, the war was not over. With the Nigerian forces occupying Enugu, Ojukwu relocated the capital to Umuahia, a relatively unheard of town deep down into Biafra land, more than 50 kilometres from the Eastern commercial centre, Aba.

From Umuahia, Ojukwu coordinated the Biafran troops’ warfare against the invading Nigerian soldiers from 1986 until April 22, 1969, when the city fell to the Nigerian forces, and the headquarters was moved to Owerri. Less than a year later, Ojukwu fled out of the country to Ivory Coast on January 9, 1970, signalling the end of the two-and-a-half-year war that killed more than two million people.

52 years after Ojukwu fled Nigeria, his base, which served as the Biafran State House in Umuahia, now called the Ojukwu Bunker, has become an annexe of the National War Museum, the only war museum in West Africa.

Ojukwu, a rich kid and United Kingdom-educated soldier who had access to political power at the early stage of his life, was just 34 when he led the Southeast region out of Nigeria, where he said they “felt unwanted.”

I’ve heard a lot of stories about the Ojukwu Bunker as a young boy growing up in Isiala Ngwa North, about 51km away from Umuahia, and on May 26, 2022, I decided to visit the bunker.

It had drizzled in the early afternoon before I set out around 3:15 pm to visit the Bunker. The weather was cloudy, but it didn’t look like it would rain again, at least not soon. I trekked down from Umuahia State Library, where I chose to work on May 26, 2022. Google map showed that the Bunker was just 1.3km from my location. That’s a 10-minute walk.

To locate the Bunker faster without missing my way, I had called a friend a day before my visit. He lives a trekkable distance from the bunker and had promised to lead me there. However, several calls to his cell phone before I left the library were unanswered, so I decided to rely on Google map. After missing my way and walking around the area for about 20 minutes following a wrong description from a young man I had met on the street, my host finally called to lead me to the Bunker. Anyone visiting the bunker for a first time will be pardoned for missing the way, even with the aid of Google map. There was no signpost nor activity around the area to suggest that the white-painted one-storey building was the bunker.

As we headed into the premises, I discovered the home of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), was less than one kilometre from the bunker. The bullet perforation from the Nigerian Army’s invasion of the house in September 2017 was still visible, and the burial posters of his parents were still on the gate. I realised IPOB and Biafra are almost forbidden words in the area, as residents avoid often discussing them in public.

At the entrance of Biafra State House is a sculpture of Ojukwu’s bust, warrior-like and brave-looking. It’s an expanse compound, three times or more, in my estimate, the size of a football pitch. I greeted the soldiers at the gate, and they directed us to a storey building at the centre of the compound to make inquiries. There are also smaller houses that could best be described as chalets in the compound.

The sculpture of Odemegwu Chukwuemeka Ojukwu at the entrance of the Biafra State House. Ojukwu announced the separation of Biafra from Nigeria on May 30, 1967, which led to the civil war that lasted for more than three years. Photo Credit: The Nation Newspaper

To access the bunker, the receptionist asked us to pay ₦300, “but if we want the generator to be put on, the cost is ₦1000.” We chose the second option, and she directed us to our tour guide, Vicent Okpara, a middle-aged man and senior technical officer at the bunker. He led us into the one-storey building, and our first port of call was a large sitting room, about 7.5 meters wide, which now serves as a picture gallery.

‘This house belongs to Dr Michael Okpara, the premier of Eastern Nigeria during the First Republic. He donated it to the Republic of Biafra to be used as a State House when Enugu fell,” he told us.

“Was Okpara in support of Biafra? Could that be the reason he wasn’t killed during the January 15, 1966, coup, which was tagged an “Igbo coup” because of the casualties, who were mostly Hausa and Yoruba politicians and military officers?” I asked our guide, but he appeared to have no answers.

We walked around the big living room looking at pictures of Ojukwu in his Biafran Army uniform, Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Mohammad, a map of Nigeria, a map of Biafra and photos of Biafran children with Kwashiorkor.

Okpara realised my attention was on the pictures of children, he said quietly, “over a million Birafans died of hunger. War is not good. No one who experienced war will ever ask for it again.”

From the living room, he led us through a passage which is about 20 meters long. It was covered with a roof, but it was outside the main building.

On the door is an inscription that read:

“The bunker was originally called the ‘Subterranean Office of the Government of Biafra.’ After the war, it was renamed the ‘Ojukwu Bunker’ by members of the public. It was built within 90 days from April to June and is 26.9 feet deep. It consists of a parlour, secretary room, kitchen, bathroom and store.

“The plan was drawn on April 3, 1968, by Frank Mbanefo Associates. Structural design was done by Agbim and Partners. The bunker was built by Engr Joel Onyemelukwe, who hails from Nnewi in Anambra State.”

The guide told us Chief Onyemelukwe is presently the CEO of Halcon Construction Company, Enugu. He also told us that all the builders of the bunker were in their early, mid and late 30s when they built the bunker are from the southeast.

As we walked in, Okpara pointed at the circular perforation at the concrete top and said, “these openings lead to an inlet pipe that supplies air from outside.” As we walked down 26.9 feet, I counted 10 of the openings on the side of the narrow passage. The inlet pipe is an iron pipe with two openings that supply air into the bunker.

“Is this a kind of bomb shelter?” I asked our guide, touching the walls.

“It is a bomb shelter,” he said.

The walls are thick, but I could not determine if they were thick enough to prevent a carving if a bomb drops on the dunker.

We continued our way down the narrow passage, which was so narrow that two people could not walk side by side.

Lit with yellow bulbs, the narrow passage that leads to the underground can only accommodate one person at a time. On the ground floor, there is no difference between a typical building and the underground. I forgot I was 26.9 feet beneath the ground level throughout the time we spent in the bunker.

The living room, the guide told us, hosted secret meetings at midnight. There are no furniture, and the wall looks pale, but the bunker’s magnificence is overwhelming.

In the living room, a large portrait of Ojukwu made me feel he was present in the room. The pictures of the late Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe and Christopher Okigbo, a renowned Poet, also hang on the wall.

Achebe, a minister in Ojukwu’s cabinet who wrote the official declaration of the “Principles of the Biafran Revolution,” was one of those that toured the world in search of world support for Biafra.

Aside from these pictures on the wall, the other prominent thing in the room is an iron safe built inside the wall.

“This is Biafra safe where Ojukwu kept Biafran secret documents,” Okpara told us.

It appears the bathroom was recently refurbished, the bathtub and toilet seat didn’t look like they were from the 1960s, but the tap wasn’t running. The kitchen is also empty, except for a wooden cupboard and a washing sink.

“What about the furniture, I asked Vincent?” I wasn’t expecting any answer, and I didn’t get any.

Behind the living room, secretary room, and bathroom were three tiny cells with a metal bar and a tiny window where prisoners of war were kept. Our guide told us he didn’t know the names of the prisoners held in those cells. But one name came to mind – Colonel Victor Banjo, Ojukwu’s friend and one of the Yoruba soldiers who chose to fight on the side of the Biafran soldiers. He was executed by Ojukwu on September 22, 1967, by the Biafran military tribunal for allegedly plotting a coup against Ojukwu.

As we prepared to leave the bunker, our guide told us we will be using the emergency exit. At the two ends of the bunker are 26.9 feet high iron ladders built inside the concrete walls.

“This is one of the exits,” our guide said. “So, we are going to exit the bunker from here.”

I looked at the tall ladder and declined. “I am Acrophobic. I can’t climb it.”

“Your visit to this bunker won’t be complete if you don’t climb these steps. Let me hold your phone,” Okpara told us.

I began to climb slowly while shivering. As I got to the top of the ladder, I kept wondering how it took just 90 days to build such an engineering masterpiece.

The bunker is another confirmation of the zeal and commitment displayed by young people to the Biafran movement.

As I walked around the large compound, looking at the Abia State Government House from a distance, I imagined men in their 30s working very hard more than 50 years ago to dig and build the 26.9 feet tunnel that would become the bunker.

Were they forced to do it or out of a rare conviction from their confidence in the movement?

52-years after the war, many in the Southeast still feel marginalised and excluded from the nation’s political leadership. The clamour for the secession of the southeast from Nigeria received a renewed energy from Nnamdi Kanu, the IPOB leader. The heightened agitation has fueled unrest in the region, with a substantial economic impact due to the Monday sit-at-home.