WHO KILLED WHO DURING NIGERIAN CIVIL WAR IN 1968: A COMPENDUM FORM HIS HIGHNESS LATE CHIEF E. O EYO, OBONG IKPAISONG IBIBIO YE ANNANG’S WAR FILE.

Most recently, precisely on Sunday 6th April, 2014, Chief Godswill Obot Akpabio, Executive Governor of Akwa Ibom State, organized a Memorial Service in Honour of Akwa Ibom Heroes murdered during the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970) in Ibom Hall Grounds, Uyo, for the repose of the departed souls. The idea for the Solemn Assembly was mooted at Abak Town Hall meeting where the Governor decried what some sections of the state termed ethnic cleansing.

At the Ibom Hall Grounds where the Church Service for the repose of the souls of those men took place, the governor reminded the people of how some politicians betrayed their brothers and got them killed not by accident of war but as a deliberate act of hatred. He lamented the distrust that had existed and still exists among the various ethnic groups in the state and sued for peace and unity. Many people in the state had expected that the rather belated Memorial Service would take into consideration the souls of those innocent people who were brutally murdered particularly during the 2010/2011 political campaigns and the most recent being the cruel murder of Engr. Albert Ukpanah at Abak about three week ago. Unfortunately, their names did not appear in the list thus making the whole exercise obnoxious.

 Before now, and soon after the war, there had been a heated argument as to who actually was responsible for such dastardly act that plunged the people of the state into perpetual enmity along ethnic lines, causing them to live under mutual suspicion. While the Annang people openly accused their Ibibio brothers as being responsible for the atrocity, claiming that it was Chief Effiong Okon Eyo, popularly known as ‘‘Eyo Uyo’’ that directed or masterminded the killings, the Ibibio people, including Chief Eyo himself, denied any involvement in the act saying that it was a case of Nero setting Rome on fire and then blaming it on the Jews as an excuse for extermination them.

Fortunately, as I peeped into the War Archives of Late Chief Eyo, I stumbled on important documents kept by the supposedly arch-enemy of Annang people, Chief E. O. Eyo himself, concerning the ugly event, which I believe will help to set the records straight and disabuse the minds of those who had, since 1970, believed falsely that one ethnic group had, and still has plans to oppress the other or others leading to the current bad blood among them, which is not good for future generations of Akwa Ibom people.

Published hereunder is one of the several documents in ‘‘WHO KILLED WHO’’ publication during the Nigerian Civil War kept by Late Chief E. O. Eyo, who was Obong Ikpaisong Ibibio ye Annang, unedited as is extracted from his Nigerian Civil War Records.

Should anybody has reason to doubt this publication; more facts will be released from the Civil War records in my possession: