1 The Nigerian Civil War or Biafran War: Nationalism and Ethno-National

2 Conflict in a Post-Colonial Society

3 Nigeria is a good example of a post-colonial nation where regional ethnic and

4 religious tensions have been an issue since independence. The most extreme

5 expression of these tensions manifested in the Biafran War (1967-70), which caused

6 tremendous loss of life

7 (1) What would each of the major theories of ethno-national conflict say about the

8 Nigerian case?

9 (2) What policies might ease further tensions and violence in Nigeria?

10

11 Nigeria is an excellent example of a country where the state-linked national identity

12 needs to compete with other, perhaps more deeply established, identities and interests

13 that precede the rise of the national state (Falola and Heaton 2008). Of course, every

14 case of state-sponsored national identity experiences this conflict to some extent-

15 national identity can conflict with other identities like religion, ethnicity, clan, tribe,

16 or locality--but the problem has often been acute in postcolonial situations where the

17 state is left to create a nation out of groups that do not necessarily identify with each

18 other. 
19

20 Nigeria was a colony of Great Britain. It had been the site of many different social

21 groups before colonialism, most notably the Hausa-speaking Islamic population of the

22 northern region, the Yoruba of the west (many of whom practice traditional animistic

23 religion), and the Igbo of the east (who are predominantly Christian). British

24 colonialism drew all of these groups together and artificially constructed a political

25 boundary around them. This issued in considerable tension that continues today. 
26
27 The importance of British colonialism does not mean Nigerians had no agency in the

28 creation of the Nigerian nation-state and Nigerian nationalism. Indeed, many

29 important Nigerian intellectuals and political actors from at least the late nineteenth

30 century sought to escape from British colonialism and to create an independent state

31 (or independent states). But it is clear that the idea of "Nigeria" as a nation was not the

32 single basis for national loyalty among these nationalists (Falola and Heaton 2008:

33 136-157). Some were Pan-African nationalists and hoped to craft an identity for a

34 nation much larger than present-day Nigeria. Others had their strongest affiliation

35 with their more local groups, expressing interest in, say, the Yoruba nation. 
36

37 British colonial West Africa saw a relatively peaceful transition to post-colonial

38 regimes. But in Nigeria, once the colonial authority was gone, jealousies and conflicts

39 became more problematic. Ethnic, religious, and regional tensions-which had been

40 present all along-spilled over into open violence and conflict. Two coups d'état in

41 1966 were related to these tensions, and the second of these issued in anti-Igbo

42 violence. In 1967, the mostly Igbo eastern region declared itself the independent state

43 of Biafra. The central government did not accept the legitimacy of this action, and a

44 bloody civil war lasted until 1970. The central government was victorious, and the

45 Igbo-dominated east remains to this day part of Nigeria. The war cost many thousands

46 of lives directly, and produced many more deaths as a result of the economic

47 dislocation and famine it generated, with estimates ranging from one to three million

48 (Falola and Heaton 200 158). In terms of human life and it was catastrophic. 
49

50 Some theories of ethnonational violence would stress the strong ethnic boundaries

51 and, perhaps, religious markers of identity difference here. Others would stress the tit-
52 for-tat nature of the conflict: Igbo people rebelled, this theory would suggest, because

53 oppression from the north led them to draw the rational conclusion that they would be

54 safer as an independent state. Instrumental theories would stress that Nigerian oil

55 reserves are heavily concentrated in the country's southeast, noting that the stakes for

56 both groups extended beyond ethnic conflict and rivalry, and concerned access to and

57 control over Nigeria's most important natural resource and the basis for its economy

58 and for the state's revenues. 

59

60 Debates remain about how to classify or characterize events like this conflict.

61 Proponents of the Biafran independence effort would likely classify these events as

62 political or even anti-colonial revolution, arguing that the central government was an

63 oppressive external imposition from which they were attempting to liberate

64 themselves, Others consider this conflict to be a civil war, since it took place within

65 an existing nation-state, regardless of whether that state itself was constructed from

66 the outside.