The Nigerian troops had entered Asaba on the 4th day of October 1967, in pursuit of Biafran soldiers who had earlier crossed Ore after taking Benin and dislodging Nigerian troops there.
But because the Biafran soldiers had blown up the Niger bridge to make it impossible for the Nigerian side to pursue them, Nigerian soldiers led by Lieutenant-Colonel Murtala Muhammed simply settled in Asaba.
They started going from house-to-house killing people of the town who were accused of aiding the Biafran soldiers.
Hundreds of men, women, and children obeyed the summon and came out, mostly dressed in ceremonial white attire, singing, dancing, and chanting “One Nigeria”.
Orders were shouted. The guns were raised. The men and boys were showered with bullets, cut down in their prime. At the end of the bullet festival, more than 700 of them lay lifeless. There were dead bodies everywhere.
Most of them were later buried in a mass grave while the Nigerian troops still occupied the town, hunting down men and boys who escaped the October 7 massacre, and raping and forcefully “marrying” off women and young girls.
Ironically, those who led this massacre rose to become national heroes, with monuments named after them, and beautiful stories told about them.
However, for the Asaba people, the horrific and traumatic experience of the October 7 massacre still haunts them, even in silence, to this day.
Source: Nigerian Stories
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