Short History of the Nigerian Civil War

A Short History of the Nigerian Civil War is an accessible and balanced scholarly account of the 1967–70 conflict (also remembered as the Nigeria-Biafra War or simply the Biafran War). More than a seminal event in the history of Africa’s most populous country, the war marked a tragic milestone in the narrative of African decolonization. It also helped shape both international humanitarianism and media coverage of conflicts in developing countries, and offers an interesting, counterintuitive footnote to Cold War history. Interest in the war remains high, though recent book-length treatments have gravitated to memoir and specialized accounts. This book offers readers a concise, evenhanded introduction to the war’s causes, major events, and consequences, presented with a balance of narrative and analysis.Author Douglas A. Anthony begins by explaining the influence of British imperialism on the country’s historical trajectory. Colonial geography and governance presented the leaders of newly independent Nigeria a template for ongoing polarization and suspicion, and when a military coup toppled the country’s short-lived First Republic (1960–66), existing geopolitical, economic, and ethnic tensions reached unprecedented levels. A second coup, accompanied by lethal coordinated attacks by civilians and soldiers on members of the Igbo ethnic group, triggered the return of most Igbos to their home region in southeastern Nigeria. Here, in May 1967, they declared independence as the Republic of Biafra, led by Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu.The war that followed, which Nigerian military leader Yakubu Gowon had promised would be a brief police action, lasted thirty months. During that time, Biafra, blockaded and diplomatically isolated, confronted larger and better-supplied Nigerian forces, an economic embargo, and escalating starvation. What the Nigerian government described as a war of unification was for most Biafrans a defensive war against a genocidal threat. By most accounts one million people died, the vast majority Biafran civilians.With the war’s end in 1970, Biafra’s people and greatly diminished territory rejoined Nigeria. But behind formal declarations of “No victor, no vanquished” lingered the war’s enormous human, economic, and political consequences, felt most acutely by Igbos, many of whom continue to contend with a legacy of marginalization.