Samuel Achilefu's experiences growing up during the Nigerian Civil War inspire his passion for science.
Originally from Nigeria, Samuel Achilefu is the Michel M. Ter-Pogossian Professor of Radiology at Washington University School of Medicine. He also holds joint appointments as a Professor in Medicine, Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, and Biomedical Engineering and serves as the Chief of the Optical Radiology Laboratory (ORL), Director of the Molecular Imaging Center, Director of the Center for Multiple Myeloma Nanotherapy, and a co-leader of the Oncologic Imaging Program of the Siteman Cancer Center. His lab harnesses the power of light to develop methods for understanding, diagnosing and treating human diseases and is made up of biologists, chemists, engineers, medical scientists and physicists. He enjoys biking, playing tennis, and travelling. Samuel lives with his wife and they have two college-aged children.
This story originally aired on August 31, 2018 in an episode titled “Trials by Fire: Stories about difficult paths to science.”
Story Transcript
You know, I did not know exactly what caused the event. What I clearly remember that one night in 1967 my life was changed.
My parents and I lived in Idah, a calm, beautiful, middle belt city in Nigeria. My mom was a homemaker who really enjoyed outreach activities and my dad, a surgical nurse practitioner who spent countless times attending to his patients and visiting the sick people. With so many friends and many toys to play with, enough food to eat as a child, I lacked for nothing, really.
However, that sense of security and wellbeing was shattered at the age of five when my parents woke me up one night, bundled me to a small van and, before I knew what was happening, we are taking the boat to the other side of the riverbank. The earliest relation that made sense at that time was we were in danger and we had to escape for dear life.
Shortly, as I looked around, there were many other Igbos, the tribe we come from from the eastern part of Nigeria debarking from different boats at that time. The scene was chaotic. Crying, sleep-deprived children, adults and teenagers, frantic parents all trying to make sense of this situation.
It was the beginning of Nigerian Civil War in 1967, a tribal war that saw the slaughtering of many Ibos from the eastern part of Nigeria that lived in the north. It was a war that was waged between the Nigerian Army, that were predominantly from the north, and the Biafran Army, that was created to protect the Igbos and a territory that was then called Biafra in the south-eastern part of Nigeria.
So a lot of the Igbos were bundled into a truck like sardines so that the drivers can take them to safety. We were heading home, without dad who had to stay behind to complete his clinical duties. Unlike in the U.S., in Nigeria, home is not where you were born or were raised or you've lived all your life. Home is the ancestral home of your parents. So we are heading home to the place that we will become strangers.
The journey home was very tortuous. The truck that we used really was uncomfortable and the local roads we took was not paved. A journey that could have taken only few hours took a couple of days, but somehow we made it home.
Upon arrival at Osaa Ukwu Village that is now part of a state we call Abia State in Nigeria, we were happy to be home.
Several years before this event, my dad had built a house in this village in anticipation that one day we would go to visit our home. As soon as we arrived, we hoped to go in there to live. But to our big surprise, another family had taken over our house. All of a sudden, we had no money, we had no food, we now have no house of our own. We became refugees in our own country.
That was the state of affairs as a five-year old I started wondering why did we leave the comfort of our home in the north to become refugees in the east? The thought of losing all my wonderful friends was unfathomable. And truly, this was a war, something that was caused by adults who do not know how to take care of the young ones.
As time passed, all these frustrations and anger started giving way to exciting events. Our kinsmen came together to welcome us and promise to help us in any way they could. I started replacing my old friends with new ones who taught me how to pluck fruit from trees. That was wonderful. I even had the opportunity to run around on barefoot without my parents scolding me, which was really difficult at that time. Not because my mom, who was with us, didn’t care, it was just because there were more important things to worry about.
So as good and as wonderful and welcoming as my uncle who took us in during this period was, we wanted our own house. With the help of our kinsmen and many others around the village, within less than a few months we built a house.
The house was made of clay and thatched roof. The house was beautiful. It had a window through which the air would blow through in the hot summer days and give us this cool air-conditioned room without air conditioner. It was just a place that for the first time we appreciated having a roof over our head and a place to go in at night to sleep.
So things were beginning to change. As such, we know that during this period, the moments of joy were always mixed with the thought that where is dad? Is he still alive?
As the war raged on, all channels of communications were lost. No letters, no telegrams, no words. The absolute silence was really deafening and, as such, we were wondering what’s going on today.
We remember several days later or months we heard rumors that he had escaped the northern part of Nigeria and made it safely to the east and that he was recruited to help treat some of the wounded Biafran soldiers. In those days, rumors were very rampant. People told you what you wanted to hear so that you will feel good about yourself even if it was a lie. But this time, even if it’s a lie, we believed it was true and we accepted it for what it is.
Looking at that, the whole event that was happening in that time, my mom took on the additional role of being our protector, our provider, our doctor and our consoler in chief. That was a lot to ask for and, with limited resources, it was difficult to ask her to use our resources to buy toys for me. But I really did miss my toys, especially my toy car.
This probably was one of those first events that led to many of my failed inventions. I remember going with a friend and we found this flat wood that was really suitable to serve as the base of a car. Then we looked around in the villages, in the dumpsters and found tin cans that you can drill holes in between both edges and they became tires. Rounded woods from the forest that you can then use to insert between them and, wonderful, you have a car.
And that car was speedy. It could run as fast as I could pull it. That’s possibly why I became a sprinter in school. It’s true. That car was pathetic. And I used it, one day, as we were walking down, I saw there was this bluff and as a child, all of a sudden I was excited to climb on my car and let it drive me downhill. Guess what happened? It broke apart. My invention has failed me when I needed it the most.
But however, as pathetic as my car was, we figured out by the way how to fix it by using woods and solid things and it worked better. But as pathetic as it was, it taught me that the fact that I can make something from pieces of neglected materials was really empowering. That was one of the beginning of my life journey in trying to make things out of nothing.
So as we made that car and life was beginning to take shape in a way that we really appreciated it, but then all of a sudden we started seeing the influx of refugees into the Osaa Ukwu village. What’s going on? The war is now coming closer home and there were countless parents, children, orphans with nothing but a piece of cloth on their back knocking on doors hoping that somebody will let them in and give them shelter.
We did. So did many other families that opened their doors to these refugees. But there were so many that we couldn’t accommodate all of them. Then we found out sooner than later, we suddenly see the Biafran soldiers themselves also flooding the village in search of their own safety. Tanks, guns, and all types of motorcycles covering the villages home schools were seized and converted into military camps.
It was a terrible time. The peace and the life that I used to have in this village had eluded me. Once again we have to flee for safety. We were lucky that we could walk, because the elderly and the sick that couldn’t walk were left behind at the mercy of the soldiers.
This time, unlike the first one when we did escape, we had no truck, we had no boat, even worse we had no destination. All we have was a burst of hope that somehow we’ll keep on living.
So we started moving along, the whole family and everybody walking along the way, sleeping anywhere we find space in the evenings, maybe in the fields. Or sometimes some people will welcome us to stay at their homes as we got near to flee for safety.
This was a time that I wished my dad was around because we missed him. My mom had taken this role. She's such a powerful and strong woman that tried not to show any emotion so that she can keep us safe. But at that time, I still remember one day that she missed him the most when she saw somebody that looked like the semblance of my dad and she broke down crying uncontrollably. “Where is my husband?”
That was consistent. Those breakdowns were very rampant in the camps because there were always news, sad news of lives cut short by bombs or bullets or even hunger. We could have died of hunger ourselves but we are fortunate that in the process the Red Cross workers as well as Igbo philanthropists were able to give us food when we needed it.
The journey to nowhere really was painful. I still remember one day when we got up wondering what next to do, where are we going next, all of a sudden there were shouts of joy and jubilation across the different refugee camps. “The war is over! The war is over! We are going home.”
This time, we are going home to a destination. What a joy! Before we knew it, we are taking so many paths, we are walking back and we are approaching our home. Then this sudden thought came to mind. Did dad make it? Are we going to see him?
Before long, we got the answer from a young guy that said, “Your dad made it. He's home waiting for you all.”
What a joy! All of a sudden, the unification gave us such a happy period that we forgot all the pains and sufferings that we faced during the war. We had a second chance at life and living and, boy, did we take it all. It was a wonderful thing.
The Nigerian Civil War left devastating effects, consequences that remain until this day: mistrust, tribalism, and apprehension. And we see that everyday wherever you go. But also the war did reveal the good and the worst of humanity. One day we had all that I thought we needed and then the next day we had nothing and we were in search of something to support our lives. That has helped me to see work today as a privilege and opportunity to do the best while I can still work. It allows me to see my family as precious commodity to treasure, my friends and colleagues at work as partners to be able to solve pending problems that we can do today.
You know, the worst moments of my life did help shape me into the scientist and researcher I am today. I take on my work with the same intensity and tenacity that reminds me of the Nigerian Civil War, that frustration, hopelessness, anxiety, loss of quality of life and even sometimes death will one day give way to the hope that cancer will come to an end. The fact that Nigerian Civil War did come to an end and is part of the history books today gives me this burning hope that one day cancer too will become history. Thank you.