The Handle Is One of Us – Official Book Site & Historical Evidence Archive
This is a history that nobody wants you to read, the uncovered truth about the role Africa played in the origins of World War II.
Damola Awoyokun
The Handle is One of Us: Hitler, Biafra and Benin City challenges accepted narratives around British involvement in West Africa, the invasions of Benin City, and the Biafran conflict, drawing a provocative line back to the origins of WWII.
Released on February 25th 2027
Read it before the world does.
The Handle is One of Us publishes in February 2027. Bound proofs are available now for early readers and reviewers. If the book moves you, a few words in its support would help carry it to the readers it was written for.
Two Germans in 1938 arrived in Nigeria, a British colony, seeking asylum. Arriving without papers, they were arrested and sent before a Nigerian judge, Oxford-educated. Months before, an Italian deserter also arrived fleeing Mussolini’s Italy. To understand why these Europeans were coming to Nigeria for a promise of a better life, one need to see what the British was building there.
The Handle is One of Us
THE ARCHIVE DOES NOT FORGET.
The Larger Story
A study of how a society meets a tyrant – and who sees clearly first.
The Handle is One of Us restores Africa to the central crisis of the twentieth century – not as victim or backdrop, but as witness, analyst and actor. It is, finally, a book about recognition: who looks away, who refuses, and how the record remembers them. In an age newly anxious about democracy, the question could hardly be older, or more urgent.
Boxing taught me to persevere, adapt and see the bigger picture, especially when life confronted me with the unexpected. For me, Damola Awoyokun's most powerful idea in this book is that history is not the past; it is you. In this book, Conrad Nwawo walks unarmed into a rebel stronghold in Congo, keeps his head high as the crowd closes in, and brings thirty kidnapped nuns out alive. This is a book about mindset, performance and resilience.
Einstein changed how we see gravity, The Handle is One of Us changes how we see history. This book is a singular achievement.
Fascinating… controversial… exhaustive research… you need to read this book.
An Investigative Historical Narrative of Non-fiction
Revisionist history
Hidden connections
Forgotten evidence
Historical accountability
Challenging accepted narratives