Blood in Biafra: Re‐evaluating politics and ethnocultural conflict in the Nigerian‐Biafran War

Abstract

AbstractIn 1967, just ​seven years after declaring independence from British colonization, a civil war erupted in Nigeria that left millions of civilians dead and the country known as the “Giant of Africa” fractured and reeling. In the decades since the conflict, historians delineated the causes and consequences of what became known as the Nigerian‐Biafran War. The aim of this paper is to examine historical and academic sources about the years leading up to the war in 1967, towards a nuanced understanding of a watershed moment in Nigerian history. The article contends that for Nigeria to progress towards political stability and economic prosperity in the twenty‐first century, the Nigerian‐Biafran War must be re‐imagined as a predictable aftermath of hegemonic colonialism and ethnicism. As such, this paper contributes to the emerging literature on the impact of the civil war on collective grief, ethnocultural relations, economics, and post‐colonial history.