SINGING IN BABYLONIA NIGERIA AFTER OWERRI FELL TO ENEMY FORCES.
I woke up to pray early this morning, and I was led to Psalm 137. I read it and pondered over what Isaelites went through, as I remembered what we as young teens ( I was just 13 years ), went through after Owerri, the last standing city in Biafra fell into Enemy hands in 1970 .
I wept very bitterly at Njaba River bridge when we ran into a troop of Nigerian Army at Njaba River near Owerri on the 16th January 1970.
Today also happens to be the last Sunday in 2019, and as God wanted it, our Pastor by Devine arrangement, opened to Psalm 137!
But as he preached, my mind was heavy as I listened, and clearly can now relate to the Isreali experience in losing a war, being taken captive, taunted, mocked and jeered at by the invading army!
How can I sing my Biafran songs in this strange Nigeria? Nigeria is indeed a very strange land in too many ways, especially to good Biafrans. This is what came out Psalm 137:
By the rivers of Njaba , there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Biafra.
We hanged our tambourines , Ayoro, Yaghiri-yaghiri, our war worship instruments, near the pillars at the river bank, we could not swim, their soldiers watched, chased and snarled at us by the Njaba roadside.
Sexually starved, psychologically inferior and insecure, these soldiers carried away our beautifully curved damsels, promising them food money and security, they took them captives.
In doing this madness, some of them took our beautiful wives, and there they humiliated us, to the highest, and took many of our minds captive .
When they wanted to mock us, they requested that we sing Biafran songs, as their captives required of us a song; How shall we sing the Lord’s Songs of power and victory as captives and defeated people?. Then some Ndigbo opened their mouths and sang.
By singing they sold their Devine birth rights for money, for positions of power as slaves in the strange land! They summarily destroyed their generations unborn, Lord have mercy.
If I forget you, O Biafra, if I forget your glorious cities of Enugu, Nsukka, Onitsha, Awka, Nnewi, Umuahia, Aba-Ngwa, Owerri, Okigwe, Orlu, Abakaliki , Asaba, and Ikwerre land, let my right hand forget her cunning.
If I do not remember you O hills of Biafra, And let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I like the slaves of money and power I do not prefer Igbo land for my chief joy, the land blessed by God!
Remember, O Lord, the children of Fulanis, Tivs, and their allies from Oduduwa, in the day of Biafra ; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.
O daughter of our stranger Victors, from the northern sahel, the Babylon of Nigeria, destined to be destroyed, happy and joyful shall be the generations of he who will reward them and their allies equally, as they have treated us.
Happy shall he be, that takes and dashes your little ones against the stones in the very manner you dealt with us .
We serve and fear our good and merciful God to whom all vengeance belongs. We shall be quite and calm till we see His salvation, when Biafra shall be hallowed once again by God in His good ways and manners.
Our weeping may endure through the night, our great joy shall come in the morning.