That was the question a Permanent Secretary in one of the Ministries in Dar-es-Salaam asked me when I was introduced to him as a Biafran in Etiennes night club a few days after I arrived from London. The person who introduced me was Major Mbita whom I met almost on arrival. Till today I cannot remember what the circumstances under which we met were. In those days Tanzania under Mwalimu Julius Nyerere was a socialist country and security agents were all over the place. Whether he latched onto me as an agent or just as a friend did not matter to me. I had nothing to hide and I liked him as a person.
The Permanent Secretary looked at me in awe as he exclaimed, ‘Are you people black like us? How can you be refining your own petrol and making those things like tanks, armoured cars and ogbunigwe?’
I felt twenty feet tall. Ogbunigwe was like a scatter bomb that exploded with shrapnel in all directions. And the man proceeded to buy me and the Major beer after beer. I have never been a heavy drinker and only accepted two Pilsners. By this time I had already acquired a taste for the Pilsner beer, Pilsner moja baridi sana, meaning one very cold Pilsner in Swahili.
Tanzania had recognised Biafra and the citizens took to us in a big way. In Dar-es-Salaam we were about a dozen Biafrans one or two of whom were married. Being strangers and mostly bachelors we went places together. Whenever we decided to go nightclubbing we were easily noticed on arrival at the gate. Somebody would shout out, ‘wa Biafra wa me kuja’, the Biafrans have come. And chairs and tables would be hurriedly arranged for us. And we got quite a few free Tuskers and Pilsners. Altogether we had a very good time even though each of us had nagging worries in his mind about what was happening back home where a war was raging and the fate of relatives.