Echoes of War: Remembering Tragedies in Liberia and Sierra-Leone

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Echoes of War: Remembering Tragedies in Liberia and Sierra-Leone

Vanguard (Lagos)

July 23, 2004
Posted to the web July 23, 2004

Eze Anaba


Last Wednesday night at Hilton Hotel Abuja, the horror of the Rwandan Massacre and the tragedy that befell Sierra-Leone and Liberia seized Nigerians who made up the audience at a remembrance organised by the Open Society Justice Initiatives. For many Nigerians with civil war experience that ended in 1970, time has deadened the pain.

Although the civil war was Nigeria's tragedy, most adults in the hall were either not born or were toddlers when Nigeria declared war against herself.


Aptly dubbed night of remembrance, the event drove home the point that the Rwandan massacre and the conflict in the Manor River countries affected Nigeria. The Rwandan holocaust exposed the impotence of African leaders while the civil war in Sierra-Leone and Liberia cost Nigeria heavily. Beside, soldiers that died in their hundreds, innocent Nigerian businessmen living in both countries became soft targets of crazed guerrillas whose vision and senses had been dulled by a thirst for blood. Anybody that was not from their camp that his blood spilled.

The Open Society Justice Initiative, organisers of the event wanted the it to be a catharsis for victims of the tragedies; the head of the Nigeria Office, Chidi Odinkalu provoked instant recall when his emotions betrayed him in his attempt to set the tone for the night's proceedings.

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