The Nigerian Civil War and Its Legacies

Bibliographic Data

ID23612958
AuthorsRoy Doron (Winston-Salem State University, corresponding author)
Year2022
Pages399-420
Publication date2022-03-18
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueOxford Handbook of Nigerian History (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190050092.013.26
OpenAlexW4221081364
ISBN9780190050092
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited18

This chapter refers to the end of the Nigerian Civil War on January 15, 1970, which concluded with Yakubu Gowon, Nigeria’s Federal Military Government (FMG) head, embracing Philip Efiong, Biafra’s second president. It reviews the civil war’s literature, which is replete with amplifications of the most extreme views and promotions of unfounded and irresponsible ideas regarding the war's genesis, ending, and enduring legacies. It also discusses how Biafran prospects as a viable nation-state never materialized and how the war on 1970 with the country’s reabsorption into Nigeria. The chapter cites Gowon’s 1970 proclamation about the conflict having no victors nor vanquished, which restricted debate to tropes that did not openly challenge the concept of Nigerian unity. It talks about how serious discourse about the civil war was harshly suppressed until the latest transition to civilian rule in 1999.

CITES · Government (linguistics) · Political economy · Political science · Proclamation · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · State (computer science) · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Law · Philosophy