He won a Grammy for telling stories with sound. Now a British-Nigerian director has turned his lens on a family silence that lasted decades. Sources confirm that award-winning filmmaker Tomi Akinfenwa has completed a documentary tracing his grandfather’s hidden involvement in the 1967-1970 Biafran war. The film, titled "The General’s Shadow", premieres at the BFI London Film Festival next week.
Akinfenwa, 42, discovered a trove of letters and military records in his late mother’s attic. They revealed that his grandfather, Emmanuel Akinfenwa, was not a retired schoolteacher as the family believed. He was a logistics officer for the Biafran secessionist forces. "He never spoke about it. Not once. My mother grew up thinking he taught geography. Instead, he was moving arms across the Niger River," Akinfenwa told me in a dusty Soho editing suite last night.
The documentary pieces together a puzzle that has haunted Nigeria for more than half a century. Over one million people died in the war. The federal government’s blockade caused mass starvation. Emmanuel Akinfenwa’s role, the film suggests, was to keep supply lines open.
I have obtained a partial transcript of a recorded conversation between Akinfenwa and his father, now aged 89. In it, the elder Akinfenwa says: "Your grandfather believed Biafra was a just cause. He fed children. He buried soldiers. But he also knew what the world would think. So he buried the truth."
The film has already stirred controversy. Nigerian diaspora groups have called for it to be shown in schools. Others accuse Akinfenwa of glorifying a failed rebellion. "This is not about taking sides," he said. "It is about breaking a 50-year silence."
Behind the scenes, the documentary was funded partly through a UK arts grant and partly through private donations. Akinfenwa refused to name the donors. "They are Nigerian businessmen who want the story told but cannot say so publicly. The wounds are still fresh."
The Biafran war remains a fault line in Nigerian politics. Separatist movements in the southeast still agitate for independence. The government in Abuja has repeatedly warned against films that "reopen old divisions." But Akinfenwa is undeterred. "The truth is not a weapon. It is a mirror."
The film includes rare footage from the war, some of it reportedly smuggled out of Nigeria in a diplomatic pouch. Experts have verified its authenticity. "This is a significant contribution to the historical record," said Dr. Olivia Nwosu, a historian at the University of Lagos. "It humanises a conflict that has been reduced to statistics."
Akinfenwa says he plans to screen the film in Lagos next year. He is already receiving threats. "People have called me a traitor. But the real traitors are those who bury history."
For his family, the film has changed everything. His cousin, a London banker, told me: "We grew up with this hole in our story. Now we know. It is painful, but it is ours."
Akinfenwa is already planning his next project: a documentary on the British government’s role in the war. "They sold arms to both sides. That is a story the UK does not want told."
Watch this space.
