MORE THAN KWASHIORKOR

Part 1

Wikipedia defines Kwashiorkor as a form of severe protein-energy malnutrition characterized by edema, irritability, ulcerating dertmatoses, and an enlarged liver with fatty infiltrates. It goes on to posit that the name is derived from the Ga language of coastal Ghana, translated as "the sickness the baby gets when the new baby comes", or "the disease of the deposed child".₁ The sample image of this topic on Wikipedia is a 300 pixel picture of a starved girl, one of many children with kwashiorkor in relief camps during the Biafra War.

This piece concerns itself with the only civil war that Nigeria has ever felt. A war that can never be overstated due to the fact that, not only did it alter the destiny of the Country with the largest population of black race on earth, it wholly impacted the world and its various stellar institutions, and will keep doing so I guess.

How?

First on my list is one major impact of the war, which was on the organisation and birth of the modern ICRC. "The modern ICRC was born in Africa, in the smoking ruins of Biafra in the late 1960's. This is where the new ICRC was brought to the baptismal front of a new humanitarian era, during the development of a huge rescue operation for hundreds of thousands of victims of the Nigerian civil war".₂

In her publication abstract, Marie-Luce Desgrand Champs writes:- "This article analyses how the events of the late 1960's - and in particular the Nigerian - Biafran war - marked a turning point in the history of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). . .This article shows how difficulties encountered during the conflict highlighted the need for the Geneva based organisation to reform the management of its operations, personnel, and communications in order to become more effective and professional".₃

This was a relief effort like no other in the history of the ICRC. If you couldn't see it from the explosive manpower and staff base of the organisation, you will see it in the surmounting delivery logistics where planes literally had to land at night in a small village with a makeshift airport, where human bearing lamps will replace landing/tarmac lights.

Till date, researchers are still finding it useful to understand this war and so much of its visible impact on the world. "In their study, Smallpox and its Eradication, Fenner and colleagues describe how vaccine supply shortages during the Biafra smallpox campaign led to the development of the focal vaccination technique, later adopted worldwide by the World Health Organization, which led to the early and cost effective interruption of smallpox transmission in West Africa and elsewhere".₄

In 2010, researchers from Karolinska Institute in Sweden and University of Nigeria, Nsukka, showed that Igbos born in Biafra during the years of the famine were of higher risk of suffering from obesity, hypertension and impaired glucose metabolism compared to controls born a short period after the famine had ended. The findings are in line with the developmental origin of health and disease hypothesis suggesting that malnutrition in early life is a predisposing factor for cardiovascular diseases and diabetes later in life.₅

"The Biafran child was the first post-colonial exemplar of the generic 'African Child' that became the common currency of the disaster Africa imagery". We can say that the dying and sick children of Biafra supplied the world its first 'Emotional Material' to fuel their empathy towards the African continent. "As such, the appeals were based on representations of suffering which would provoke a humanitarian response in the viewer".₆ Today, simulating same techniques, charities and civil societies all over the world have utilised and employed this same strategy to appeal for more dollars to achieve their so-called mission and vision.

Another vast and notable impact borders on our literature and its translations. "Unsurprisingly most of what was published on the Nigerian civil war is in English. Yet, the French involvement in Biafra resulted in a number of publications on the war, while attracting the attention of the French public to Nigeria. This in turn encouraged the translation of a number of Nigerian writers - Achebe, Ekwensi, Adichie, Soyinka and others. ₇