http://emeagwali.com My scientific story is more fragmented than the story of the theoretical physicist Albert Einstein. It was the story of my journey to the frontier of extreme-scale computational physics. That journey to discover how to solve the toughest problems in mathematical physics was interrupted during the last thirty months of the 1960s. That journey was interrupted when I fled from my all-boys Catholic boarding school—named Saint George’s Grammar School, Obinomba (Nigeria). I fled from Saint George’s Grammar School in late April 1967 and I fled because the Nigerian Civil War was in the air.
I fled to become a 12-year-old refugee
in the break-away
and short-lived nation
of Biafra.
Two months after I fled from Obinomba (Nigeria) to Agbor (Nigeria)
to Onitsha (Biafra),
and on the Sixth of July of 1967
that Nigeria-Biafra War began.
On the Fourth of October
of 1967,
my ancestral hometown
of Onitsha (Biafra)
was heavily bombarded for 24 hours
and bombarded from Asaba (Nigeria)
and bombarded from across the River Niger.
The following day,
that artillery bombardment
of Onitsha (Biafra)
by the Nigerian army
was followed by the invasion
of my hometown.
That night, Onitsha
was invaded by a 10-boat armada
that carried five thousand [5,000]
Nigerian soldiers.
Those Nigerian soldiers
were led by Murtala Mohammed,
who would later become the president
of Nigeria.
One in fifteen Biafrans died
when that Nigerian Civil War ended.
The Nigerian Civil War
was a nightmare and a bloodbath.
The Nigerian Civil War ended
after thirty months of non-stop fighting
and on January 15, 1970.
One million soldiers
died at the war fronts
of the Nigerian Civil War.
And about half a million
women and children
died in Biafran refugee camps.
I survived two years
in Biafran refugee camps
and survived six months of bloodbath
near the Oguta War Front.
I survived a war
that was described as
Africa’s bloodiest war.
14.1.2 One Day We Had to Run!
Biafra
was located in the southeastern region
of Nigeria, West Africa.
My family of seven children
lived in six refugee camps
within Biafra.
For two years and three months,
onward of April 1967,
my family lived in refugee camps
in the Biafran cities of Onitsha,
Ogidi, Oba, Awka, Awka-Etiti,
and Ndoni.
During the months of January,
February, and March of 1968,
Russian Ilyushin bombers
and Mig fighters
were bombing and strafing
our neighborhoods of around
14 Mba Road, Onitsha.
On my 14th birthdate of August 23, 1968,
my postal address was:
Chukwurah Philip Emeagwali
Saint Joseph’s Refugee Camp,
Awka-Etiti, Biafra, West Africa.
On the cover of the TIME magazine
that was dated August 23, 1968
is an artist’s portrait of “Colonel Ojukwu,”
the leader of Biafra.
The cover story of that issue
of TIME magazine
was titled “Biafra’s Agony.”
Philip Emeagwali Lecture 180125-2