The Secret Bombs of Iva Valley

History

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This book is the first true and full account of the 34 months of weapons manufacturing activities of Biafra’s “Research and Armaments Production” (RAP).

RAP was secretly nucleated and named by an Arrowhead Troika of engineers in March 1967, following privileged information on Nigeria’s war preparations, goaded by Harold Wilson, the British Prime Minister. The Troika’s mentor was a brave gentleman officer, Major Louis Chude Sokei, who established a Military Wing of the Troika’s RAP and named its only regular commissioned officer (this author) as the Head.

The university community and the organized private sector personnel joined the Troika four/five months later, and RAP’s weapons output soared exponentially. The Military Wing regularly deployed RAP’s weapons directly to the various field commands, along with its specialized weapon firing crews of soldiers. An account of the eight fiercest battles of the entire campaign is given in fair detail. Similarly, a brief description of twelve of the most intrepid Biafran officers and men is given.

The incredible mystery of the war is how the five-week-old Biafran Army, totally bereft of all ordnance and using its own manufactured weapons, without Navy or Air Force, managed to keep at bay, for thirty-four months, Nigeria’s gargantuan coalition with Britain and Soviet Russia, which was commanded by Britain’s General Alexander, until both sides became exhausted and a political gimmick of surrender was contrived by Gowon and Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria’s first President. How Biafra achieved this incredible feat is what this book is about.

Edward Chukukere attended the excellent Government College Umuahia, Nigeria (1947–1952). There he won his Boxing Colours, became the first student Editor of the College Magazine, and wrote a poem at age 15+, which was later, adopted as the College Anthem. He achieved the B. Sc. and Ph. D. degrees in Metallurgy from the Universities of Glasgow and Toronto in 1961 and 1966 respectively, thus becoming the first graduate in that profession in black Africa. In Glasgow, he was commissioned into the Scottish Territorial Army in 1960.

He was one of a troika of engineers that secretly founded Biafra’s “Research and Armaments Production” (RAP). Chukukere was awarded a Biafran medal, but after the war, was detained for four months as a Nigerian “Prisoner of War” (POW). General Ojukwu says of him:

“Major Chukukere is of the very best—entirely selfless.”