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Located in “Museum Road,” off Umuahia-Uzuakoli road, Umuahia Abia State. The National War Museum is sited at the last administrative capital of the Biafran nation after the fall of Enugu in 1967. It has the two bunkers which housed the Voice of Biafra (V.O.B.), Biafra’s major news outlet to the outside world and the Ojukwu Bunker, the subterranean seat of the Biafran Government.
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The Museum is considered as a memorials to the soldiers, civilians and all other casualties
of war and conflicts in Nigeria, particularly the Nigerian Civil War. The establishment of the
War Museum is not an attempt to glorify the war effort but an attempt to demonstrate that
wars are never solutions to conflicts. The exhibitions in the Museum are meant to promote a
society devoid of conflict, tribulation, rancor and disharmony.
The main reasons for the establishment of the War Museum was to preserve Nigeria’s war relics and to serve as a center for research and information on warfare in Nigeria. Also, the Museum is a tourist attraction and a place for the exhibition of war-time technology.
The Museum consists of permanent exhibitions in three exhibition galleries in addition to
the Open Air Museum and the Museum Annex.
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They are the Traditional Warfare Gallery that displays the evolution of weapons both in pictures and objects, from the earliest times to the present day; the Armed Forces Gallery showing the evolution of Nigerian Army from 1963 to date, the diverse roles of the Nigerian Army from 1963 to date and the important personnel of the Nigerian Navy, the Air Force and their soft ordinances; the Civil War Gallery which has on display photographs of the victims of the coup d’état of 15th January 1966 as well as photographs and objects related to the Nigerian Civil War of 1967 to 1970. The Open Air Museum which is in three sections, exhibits heavy military hardware used during the Nigerian Civil War by the Army, the Navy and the Air force. A guided tour of the Museum usually begins at the Traditional Warfare Gallery.
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Reference to Dr. Chijioke Onuora’s Guide to the National War Mar Museum, Umuahia