His name is Daniel Lawrence, but he was known as ‘Pampas‘ in the Biafran army. He is a mullato who was born in Liverpool to a British mother and a Biafran Ogoja father who was a sailor from Ikom. He was a solitary child.
His mother died of malaria on her first journey to Nigeria, and his father died in a shipwreck later that year. He resided in Onitsha with his paternal uncle as an ORPHAN and worked as a young DRIVER at his uncle’s company. As destiny would have it, the war broke out, and Pampas, who was just 17 years old at the time, eagerly enlisted to serve in the Biafran Army.
He was soon fighting as a tank driver in a taken enemy Panhard armoured car in Onitsha, but his most famous contribution to Biafra was onboard another more dangerous captured enemy armoured combat vehicle, a Saladin, which he operated for over 18 months. Pampas’ Saladin, with tank gunner Sasa Nwoke, was a nightmare for the enemy and functioned as a force multiplier for the Biafran troops by providing fire support. Pampas’ Saladin, aided by Sasa Nwoke, destroyed more than ten enemy tanks in various regions of the fight, including Saladins, Panhards, Saracens, and Ferrets.
When their divisional commander Brig. Ogbugo Kanu presented them with the Biafra-Cross, his fieldcraft as a tank driver matched Sasa’s gunnery talents, and the Biafran Military high command recognized them with the highest military distinction for valor. Unfortunately, he lost his tank in a bizarre accident shortly after that and had to flee holding his AK-47 rifle. BUT he lived through the war.
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