Ogbunigwe, also called Ojukwu Bucket, was a series of weapons systems including command detonation mines, improvised explosive devices, and rocket-propelled missiles, mass-produced by the Republic of Biafra and used against Nigeria between 1967 and 1970 in the Nigerian Civil War.
Headed by Colonel Ejike Obumneme Aghanya, it was the aim and purpose of this group to develop an indigenous arms industry and they soon started with the production of ammunition, grenades and armoured cars.
[6] The engineers Seth Nwanagu, Willy Achukwu, Sylvester Akalonu, Nath Okpala, Gordian Ezekwe, Benjamin Nwosu and others were instrumental in the design and production of the weapons.
Following the fall of Enugu, a group of retreating Biafran soldiers were fighting rearguard action against a battalion of heavily armed Nigerian troops at the Ugwuoba bridge along the old Enugu-Awka road.
As the ammunition of the Biafran troops was exhausted their commander ordered them, as a last resort, to adapt the use of the Ogbunigwe surface to air missile they were equipped with, by launching them horizontally at the enemy instead of vertically as designed for anti aircraft action.
The Ogbunigwe mines and warheads generally had a killing range of between 180 and 800 metres,[14] an effective shrapnel radius of a 90° arc and could easily wipe out a company of enemy troops.
[17] The design was based on an air burst principle intended to destabilise the plane by shock wave effect, as well as throw shrapnel and debris in its path to clog up the engines.
[21]As recently as 2010 unexploded ordnance left over from the war recovered and destroyed by Nigerian clearing operations included 646 pieces of live Ogbunigwe bombs and 426 other improvised explosive devices in areas that were formerly Biafra.