ABUJA, Nigeria — One night in November 2020, a year into his military service, peacekeeper Azuegbulam’s lifelong dream of being a soldier came to an abrupt end.
He was among a group of Nigerian soldiers deployed in the country’s tough counteroffensive against Islamic extremists in the northeastern state of Borno when an anti-aircraft gun was fired upon them. When he regained consciousness, his life was no longer the same and his left leg later had to be amputated.
He had what he described as a chance to bounce back when he joined the Nigerian team at last year’s Invictus Games and won Africa’s first gold medal at the biennial sporting event founded a decade ago by the United Kingdom’s Prince Harry to help in the rehabilitation of wounded soldiers.
“I thought I wouldn’t be able to cope with life, but Invictus gave me the opportunity to recover through sport,” Azuegbulam, 27, said of the games, which are in the spotlight with Harry and his wife visiting three days of Meghan to Nigeria.
Azuegbulam is among Nigerian servicemen injured and mentally battered in the country’s 14-year war against Islamic extremists and other armed groups in the country’s northern region. They say they feel better and are recovering faster since last year’s Invictus Games, when Nigeria became the first African country to compete in the event.
Although sports had been part of the recovery process for Nigeria’s wounded soldiers, military officials said the Invictus Games offered them a better opportunity, especially to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“80 percent of our soldiers who have participated in this recovery program are improving and their outlook on life is positive,” said Abidemi Marquis, director of army sports at the Nigerian Defense Headquarters.
Security analysts say it can help deal with the mental health crisis that is overwhelming Nigeria’s overstretched and underfunded military, but only if coupled with measures to improve soldiers’ well-being. In the past, soldiers have complained of low pay, old weapons and fatigue.
In Nigeria, Harry played an Invictus Games-related volleyball match with wounded soldiers in Abuja, the capital, and visited a military hospital treating critically wounded people.
The game with Harry was “like lifting our spirits,” said Lance Cpl. Dean Onuwchekwa, an explosive ordnance disposal specialist whose upper body was damaged in 2021 by a homemade bomb he was trying to disarm in Mallam Fatori town, Borno state.
“It’s very difficult to wake up and discover that you have no hands, that you have only one eye left and 25% of your hearing; it was as if life had ended,” said Onuwchekwa, 45.
He said that after the explosion, he more than once thought about turning the gun on himself as he battled post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks and nights filled with terrifying dreams and days filled with memories of the explosion.
Last September, he was selected to join Nigeria’s 10-person team to attend the games, where he participated in snowboarding.
“I was depressed when I got there, but when I came back I came to life,” he said, his functional left eye widening with excitement.
Sitting next to him was the sergeant. Monday Peter, whose legs were amputated after an armored personnel carrier destroyed them while patrolling villages in the northwestern state of Kaduna in 2011.
“I didn’t know what sitting volleyball was before,” Peter said of the game played with Prince Harry. “But today I can play it, I can play basketball and I can even swim. “The Invictus Games have strengthened my confidence and morale.”
Studies have shown that sports can help veterans recover from physical and psychological problems related to their combat experiences. Sports help, for example, improve social connections, stress management, self-esteem and mental well-being, according to Dr. Maymunah Yusuf Kadiri, one of Nigeria’s most popular mental health doctors.
“These Soldiers develop resilience and a new sense of purpose,” Kadiri said. “Sports provide them with a ray of hope and comfort as they face the difficulties of life after the war.”
Having served in Afghanistan as an Apache helicopter gunner co-pilot from 2012 to 2013, Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has also experienced post-traumatic stress disorder. In his recent Netflix series about the Invictus Games, he said he didn’t have the support he needed when he returned home from fighting in Afghanistan in 2012 and that it unleashed emotions he had repressed after the death of his mother, Princess Diana. him when he was 12 years old.
He later started the Invictus Games, inspired by the Warrior Games in the United States, to give military personnel and veterans the challenge of competing in sporting events similar to the Paralympic Games.
Harry visited the Nigerian Army Referral Hospital for critical injuries in northern Nigeria. Among the wounded soldiers there, Cpl. Iziogo Onyema, 31, had his right arm recovered after a gunshot wound. A bullet entered and exited the sergeant. Emmanuel Oyesigi’s stomach during an ambush. An explosion pierced the eyes of soldier Habu Sadiq.
But some people did not even use the prostheses that were made in the hospital.
“It’s partly stigma,” General Ndidi Onuchukwu, the hospital’s chief medical director, told Harry when he asked why they weren’t using the prosthetics.
At the officers’ mess in Abuja, service members spoke freely about how they dealt with shame in the past. Now, they say, it no longer bothers them when people stop to look at the burned or damaged parts of their bodies.
“After I got injured, it affected me mentally, emotionally and physically,” Azuegbulam said. “But today I am living proof of resilience and hope.”
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