Biafra: Soldiers gave us human meat as Suya

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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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