A former Director of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, near Jos, Plateau State, Prof. Aja Akpuru Aja, has called on Generals Yakubu Gowon, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, Theophilus Danjuma and other key players to write their individual accounts of the Nigeria-Biafra Civil War so as to help Nigerians at large to learn lessons and prepare for the future.
Aja said this when he spoke as the Book Reviewer on Friday at the first public presentation and launching of a book: “The General’s Orderly… An Autobiography of a Biafran Child Soldier,” by Arua Okereke.
Aja, a senior lecturer with Abia State University, harped on the need to get all relevant accounts of the civil war that lasted from 1967 to 1970 and asked the Federal Government to commission scholars to do adequate research and writing to produce a national document chronicling the unfortunate war realities.
The front line policy strategist and political scientist celebrated Okereke, also a professor, as a cerebral scholar who always came first in class all through and in whichever school among the many across borders that he had found himself.
Prof. Aja noted that while this fresh account was not basically written in academic form, it added to existing accounts of the Nigeria-Biafra war.
He commended The General’s Orderly as special being the first book by an other rank and child soldier to tell the war story.
He described the book as a fulfilled true life story “as old as the author and told in his lifetime by himself”.
Aja advised President Muhammadu Buhari to rethink and uphold the resolutions of the 2014 National Conference in order to achieve a better and more all-inclusive Nigeria.
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