Nigeria, Feb. 22 -- Nigeria's former military president, Ibrahim Babangida, has narrated his experience during the Nigerian civil war, describing it as "horrifying and painful".

The war, otherwise known as the Biafran war, was fought between the Igbo-dominated South-eastern Nigeria, which wanted a secession, and the Nigerian troops from 6 July 1967 to 15 January 1970.

Besides the about 100,000 soldiers that were said to have died in the war, between 500,000 and two million civilians from the Biafran side were said to have died of starvation.

Mr Babangida, 25 years old then, had just returned from a short training at the Royal Armoured Corps in England and was deployed to the war front as an infantry commander, the former Nigerian leade...