Uli Airport is a symbolic shrine, which remains the height of Blackman’s greatest technological achievement to date. The wonder of Uli Airport is yet to be matched by Blackman anywhere in the world.
The Airport and its structures have been
deliberately left to decay, so as to attempt to obliterate the memory of an
Igbo symbol of technological advancement, military superiority, resistance, and
survival. Had Igbo Day been held at Uli as scheduled earlier, its significance would
have been almost impossible to express in words, in terms of its symbolicness
and what Uli Airport represented and represents to Ndi Igbo.
Uli Airport the story goes was completely
built from scratch by mostly Igbos. It was a military cum civil Airport. While
supply aircraft hovered overhead, the Airport below was said to be in pitch
darkness, and at the right moment, the runway lights would come on momentarily as
aircraft come in and landed.
The
aircraft were said, according to legend, to taxi along runways, which
terminated underground or into the trees, thus shielding them from enemy
air-to-ground fire. Meanwhile, federal airforce jets hovered overhead strafing
at every and anything in the pitch darkness below. It was said that any of the
several runways hit by a bomb or rocket was repaired immediately within
minutes to enable the next supply aircraft hovering low overhead to land. The
supply aircrafts often had to circle flying low above the trees for hours,
evading federal airforce Migs and jets.
Uli Airport became the Igbo lifeline during
the economic blockade, Biafra having become landlocked and surrounded. Uli
Airport was of such importance or indeed of the most singular importance to
Biafra and to Nigeria, so much so that the federalists landed a marine-borne
invasion force at “Oguta II”, which was only about 20 – 30 odd kilometers to
Uli, so as to bring the Airport within artillery range.
Uli was so indispensable to the survival of
Ndi Igbo, so much so that His Excellency General Ojukwu personally commanded
the Biafran forces that defended “Oguta I” and liberated “Oguta II” within
three days of the landing of federal forces in the area. I was a kid then and I
vividly recollect seeing General Ojukwu and his convoy drive past towards
Oguta. We were waving, cheering him and the troops being rushed to Oguta as
they filed along singing, some on foot, others on vehicles and tractors.
Not a single federal soldier who set foot on
Oguta went home alive. They all perished – including some who came with family,
livestock and supplies in several supply ships in the armada that invaded
Oguta. Many perished where their ships were sunk. The federal side risked and
lost so much in that operation because they wanted Uli Airport at all costs.
Ndi Igbo threw everything at them because Uli was our lifeline and last hope.
The defeat of the Federalists at Oguta left a
monument that remains at the Oguta lagoon until today – the carcasses of the
sunk federal ships are still there. Anyone who visits home should try to go and
see for themselves. General Ojukwu himself lead the operation – that was how
important and strategic Uli was and is to Igbo.
Then the federal airforce came up with a new
method. They would drop a round fluorescent light and suspend it in midair.
This light shone like a moon. It was midnight and sometimes the first hours of
the morning but you could pick up a pin or needle over a fifty or more
kilometers radius from the almost daylight generated by this artificial moon.
You would be in pitch darkness, either
sleeping or simply because the oil lamps had to be put out to avoid federal
jets that fired at any trace of light, and suddenly it was daylight from this
strange moon hanging over from the sky in the direction of Uli. The first time
it happened it was share panic and everyone, old and young scurried into the
bushes and the trenches. I say panic because we as children could sense the
disquiet amongst the adults and the share confusion and pandemonium that
reigned at the first appearance of this strange moon.
Then the bombs, rockets, and buffers (buffer
was the Biafran anti-aircraft guns used at Uli) would start to boom for what
seemed like an eternity and slowly the moon would die. Within minutes of the
silence of the guns, the supply aircraft hovering low all across the horizon
would again begin to land at Uli. I heard the roar of every aircraft that
landed at and took off from Uli and the deafening and terrifying boom and bang
of every aircraft that crashed into the woods.
I was only a child a few kilometers away from
Uli. Most nights you would come out and watch these huge metal birds with large
wings hovering so low over the roof you had thought it would uproot the house
with it like an eagle would lift a prey. But these were no birds of prey, they
brought us food, medical, military supplies, and life, but you were scared all
the same, lest they crashed onto the roof. After all, they flew in pitch
darkness, low, almost hugging the trees, with federal jets ruling the heights,
strafing, and rocketing any trace of light. They also had to keep away from
ground fire from the buffer guns. I still wonder how those pilots flew those
planes then.
Uli Airport was such a fortress that at a
stage, the federal airforce jets and their pilots contrived to jettison their rockets,
bombs, and cannons at targets and bushes as far away as possible from Uli
Airport. And all the neighbouring communities, including mine paid dearly in
lost lives and damaged buildings, farms, and economic trees. That was how
powerful Uli Airport was.
Almost every Igbo who survived as a refugee,
every child who was rescued from kwashiorkor, and many who lived to tell the
tale and to continue the procreation of the Igbo race today, towards its
destiny, owed their survival to Uli Airport. Every grain of rice or corn meal
or garri gabon, every drip drop or tablet, every stick of stockfish or other
nutrients, every and every single bullet or gun fired by NdiIgbo in self-preservation
and survival, at a stage was landed at Uli Airport.
His Excellency, General Ojukwu left the
embattled Biafran enclave through Uli so he may live to fight another day,
hence he is with us today.
In the last days and hours of Biafra in
January 1970, even when the expedition force sent out probably from Uli Airport
to blow up the Njiaba bridge at Awo-Omamma so as to hold the advancing federal
troops there had been destroyed by federal troops who had crossed the bridge
much earlier than the Biafran forces could arrive and hold it, and the whole of
Awo-Omama and environs had been taken by the rampaging federal forces, Uli
Airport continued to fire mortars and shells in the direction of Awo-Omamma
where they thought the federal troops were located. In this respect, Uli
Airport is symbolic of firing the first shot in defense of Igboland since the
demise of Biafra.
In a sense, Uli Airport remained undefeated
and unsurrendered. The airport smoked even after the very last moment of Biafra
and the federals could not venture into its precincts until General Effiong and
other officers had ensured and guaranteed their safety.
There could be no better place and symbol of
Igbo resistance and survival than the vicinity of Uli Airport. Igbo detractors
hate the place, they had rather it was wiped off the maps, never to be
mentioned again. It was one place that was impenetrable and undefeated, defiant
to the last, firing shells and motors even after Biafra had formally seized to
exist.
Egyptian pilots, Russian Migs, and British
jets and military advisers could not stop Uli Airport – the most sophisticated
piece of engineering designed and constructed by a Blackman anywhere, and which
surpassed what many a Whiteman can ever design or construct. Any other country
that had proper values would have turned Uli into a monument – tourist,
spiritual, or otherwise. The Igbo Nation will ensure that Uli Airport lives
forever.
What about the courageous pilots who
continued to fly to Uli Airport against all odds? There were not Igbo, but many
of them perished trying to save Ndi Igbo, either shot down by federal airforce
jets or ran out of fuel or crashed into the trees flying too low for hours
waiting for the federal jets to run out of ammunition. Part of the reason many
of those pilots kept coming, notwithstanding the risks, was not only because
they loved Igbos, but also because they had confidence in Uli Airport. We have
to rebury those pilots too.
Denying Igbos the use of such an edifice and
symbol as Uli Airport as a place to celebrate the remembrance of their war dead
is the most treacherous act that can ever be perpetrated against Ndi Igbo. It is
an act that appeases those who fail to appreciate the values of Ndi Igbo and it
is an act that diminishes the Igbo spirit and a celebration of their survival
and their triumph over adversity. That singular act is sacrilegious and
deserves appropriate punishment in accordance with Igbo traditions and customs
as laid down by our ancestors, deities, and gods.
Credit: Francis Nnamdi Elekwachi
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