“The Nigeria-Biafra War of 1967-1970 occasioned the Igbo pogrom and the lingering memory of starvation as a weapon of war. The collective trauma of the period has remained buried in the group’s consciousness. Existing literature on the war paid little attention to how the children of the survivors have appropriated the memories of their parents’ violent past. To address this gap in research, I aim to apply Hirsch’s framework of post-memory and Sakiru Adebayo’s ancestral memory to understand how the post-war generation of Biafran survivors have owned and reproduced that horrific past, and its current influences on their perception of the Nigeria-Biafra War as they attempt to create ‘a state within a state’,” explained Iso Lomso fellow Ngozika Obi-Ani of the Department of History and International Studies at the University of Nigeria, who is in her first residency at STIAS.
“It’s important to understand what the second generation of the Biafran survivors expected from those who had the power to change the course of their destinies but chose silence or indifference to the perceived injustices,” added Obi-Ani.
The Biafran War, also known as the Nigerian Civil War, lasted from July 6, 1967, to January 15, 1970. It was fought between Nigeria and the Republic of Biafra, which declared its independence from Nigeria in 1967. The war began following two coups d’état and violent attacks against the Igbo population, particularly in the northern regions of Nigeria.
During the conflict, the Nigeria blockade of ports led to widespread starvation among civilians. The revenge coup reportedly resulted in the deaths of approximately 100 to 150 Igbo high-ranking and junior military officers. However, it is estimated that around three million Biafran civilians died due to starvation, which was the primary cause of death during the war. The Biafran War, alongside the Vietnam War, was one of the first conflicts to be televised.
The ongoing calls for a new Biafra are rooted in the perceived marginalisation of the Igbo people, one of Nigeria’s three major ethnic groups. Despite its significance, much of the world largely forgets the Nigeria- Biafran Civil War and its legacy. Obi-Ani remarked, “We only know about Biafra through books like Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, which has also been made into a film, and Chinua Achebe’s There Was a Country.”
She hopes her work will show much more about the impact of this war and its current-day legacies. Her specific objective is to show the process through which intergenerational transmission of Nigeria-Biafra war memories occurs; and, to show how the perceived marginalisation of the Igbo in Nigeria invokes memorialisation. She also hopes that the research can contribute to debates on transitional justice, peacebuilding and conflict resolution, memory, civil society, nationalism and the role of social media in memorialisation in Africa.
The project will result in a book which will contain the following:
- Introduction: Historicising Biafran Memory, Trauma, and Identity
- Chapter One: Surviving the Peace: (Dis) membering Biafra, 1970-1999
- Chapter Two: Conscientising Biafran Memory: Its Resurgence, 1999-2017
- Chapter three: Government Reactions to Biafran Resurgence since 2017
- Chapter four: ‘Media witnessing’ and The Cost of Memory
- Chapter five: Unstable Stories: Children of Mixed parentage
- Chapter Six: The Hypothetical State of Biafra: Some Thoughts.
- Chapter Seven: Conclusion: Whither Biafra?
Obi-Ani comes from this region and her interest in the topic started with her PhD. “As a historian I wanted to ask about the process of transmission,” she said. “Why is it I hadn’t heard about this war at school or university? There was both official silencing and the victims decided to remember to forget.”
She uses an ethnographic methodology and has been conducting fieldwork and interviews since 2015. She has collected data on the oral tradition and Biafran historiography of Eastern Nigeria combining participant observation and focus-group discussion as well as using the go-along method which allows the exploration of the informant’s social realms, highlights the links between places and life histories, and uncovers how individuals lend depth and meaning to everyday activities. She has also undertaken reviews of print media and social-media platforms, and physical documentation of protests to explore in detail the history and formation of Biafran struggles across the southeastern region of Nigeria. “I interviewed men who fought in the war – joining them in their daily work. I found a shift from my PhD interviews – many of their graduate children had no jobs. They spoke with regret about how they could not give their children Biafra but still believe that their children will achieve Biafra.”
As a result of the economic consequences of the war (in particular the devastating impact of currency changes), the marginalisation of the Igbo and the lack of a solid peace-building process after the war the region has faced continual violent resurgences. “My findings highlight the tensions and ambiguities within Nigerian society leading to questions like: Will the Biafran state exit? What is the Beingness of a Biafran in Nigeria? And, what does it mean to be an Igbo?” she said. “While contributing to the conceptualisation of everyday life and civil society of postcolonial African society, my research advances understandings of conflict continuities in Nigeria.”
She pointed to the challenges in how the survivors of the war as well as their children are still viewed and in how they see themselves.
“Defeat has no friend,” she said. “People don’t want to be identified with those who lost the war.”
Currently, the Southeast region is subject to government checkpoints every three to five kilometers, as the Nigerian government continues to enhance security measures to eliminate the agitators.
“The desire for Biafran independence will only become clear through experience,” she added. “People seek Biafra because of the perceived marginalization they feel within Nigeria. However, the agitators should avoid bringing conflict into their home region. The insecurity and economic downturn in Igboland are creating more problems for the area.”
The trauma extends to subsequent generations with many Igbo youth struggling with how they are viewed today. “The Igbo youth still do not feel fully accepted. And Igbo children of mixed heritage, especially, battle with their identity and with not being safe. Those interviewed also indicate that they would never marry from ethnic group other than theirs. “ An informant of Fulani and Igbo parentage report being called Boko (among his Igbo relatives) – short for Boko Haram – an Islamic sectarian movement founded in 2002 that is associated with violence and kidnapping. He asked where do I belong?”
Obi-Ani also pointed to the challenges and dangers in this work including in following the social media of Biafran separatist groups and in conducting interviews. “The interviews are not easy,” she said. “There are challenges in language and dialects, but there is also suspicion and a lot of blaming others. Everyone has their own opinion.”
And what does she think a better result of the war could have been.
“Post-war Nigeria needed to regionalise or a confederation would have been best with each region allowed to develop according to their own goals. Now there is an inability to relinquish power from those benefitting most from the current Nigeria structure. Restructuring would have gone a long way.”
“There is nothing to bring us together as one in Nigeria,” she added. “The past lives side-by-side with the present. Each time there is an election, the civil war comes up while young Igbo invoke a Utopian Biafra of the mind.”
Michelle Galloway: Part-time media officer at STIAS
Photograph: SCPS Photography