₦airaland Forum

The conflict’s legacy continues to hold the country captive, half a century later.
By Max Siollun

Mr. Siollun is a Nigerian historian.

LAGOS, Nigeria — Fifty years ago, on Jan. 15, Nigeria’s civil war ended. Fought between the country’s southeast region, which seceded and called itself Biafra, and the rest of the country, which Britain supported and armed, the war was brutal. Over a million people died during three years of conflict. After being starved into submission by a blockade, the Biafrans surrendered and their leaders promised to be “loyal Nigerian citizens.”

Half a century later, the war’s legacy continues to hold Nigeria captive. It simultaneously brings the country together and pushes it apart.

In the early aftermath of the war, the country appeared to be unified. Despite the war’s shocking human tragedy, reconciliation was remarkably rapid. War and partition ironically created a consensus: The country, now united, should never be allowed to break apart again. The government declared a general amnesty for wartime combatants, refused to punish either those who led the secession or those who suppressed it and did not give medals to any soldiers who fought in the so-called Brothers’ War.

The country was re-engineered to prevent another secession. To find a way for Nigeria’s more than 250 ethnic groups to live together peacefully, the country was split into 36 states, most of which coincided with the location of a major ethnic group. The federal government, whose power was increased, provided the states with funds — which created a financial deterrent against secession.

Postwar leaders found another way of building national unity: the concept of “federal character.” A new Constitution required the composition and conduct of government to “reflect the federal character of Nigeria.” Its purpose was to ensure that no ethnic group would monopolize leadership of the government or be excluded from national economic and political opportunities. Still in place today, it in effect operates as one of the world’s biggest affirmative action schemes. Nigerian law even bans political parties if they adopt names, logos or mottoes with ethnic, geographic or religious connotations, or if their membership does not satisfy constitutional diversity requirements.
But these efforts to ensure national unity, however well intentioned, froze Nigeria in time-bound assumptions about what the country should look like. The postwar desire to prevent another secession generated a near obsessive ethnic micromanaging of national life — and created a nation that exists almost simply to share money and jobs. “Federal character” became the most controversial two words in Nigeria’s Constitution. An ethnic quota regulates almost every facet of public life: Admission to the government and the Civil Service, schools and universities, the military and the police is decided by regional origin.

Rather than working as a glue for unity, the fixation on ethnic sharing of national opportunities and resources made Nigerians more aware of their ethnic differences. Resentment rose in parts of the country badly served by the quota system. The irony is plain: To prevent the recurrence of a war fought at least partly on ethnic lines — Biafra was populated mainly by the Igbo ethnic group — Nigeria’s rulers solidified ethnic identities.

What’s more, instead of ensuring the country’s unity, the postwar settlement generated conflict. For much of the past 20 years, Nigeria’s military has been engaged in fighting insurgencies in the north and south of the country. The long-running insurgency in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, in the country’s south, has indirect links to the postwar settlement. By controlling revenues from the country’s lucrative petroleum industry and requiring them to be shared nationwide, the federal government stripped control from local communities.

The postwar settlement created another profound division: between Nigeria’s people and their political leaders. For much of the past 50 years, Nigeria has been governed by the soldiers who won the war. For three decades, the form of rule was direct: Nigeria was under military dictatorship. But the passage to democracy, undertaken in 1999, did not dispel the military’s hold on the country. Military rulers were reluctant to cede power to, or accept the demands of, civilian opposition groups that called for national restructuring and the devolution of power to state governments. Instead, the generals engineered what the civilian opposition criticized as an “army arrangement” and ceded power to one of their own — the retired general Olusegun Obasanjo, to whom the Biafran Army surrendered in 1970.

The generals’ reluctance to dismantle the postwar system mummified Nigeria, ushering in a kind of gerontocracy. In a country whose population is overwhelmingly young — two-thirds are under 30 — the distorting effects of such generational asymmetry cannot be understated. Even now, the officers of the civil war continue to rule the country. Muhammadu Buhari, a 77-year-old retired major general, is Nigeria’s current president.
Even one of the seeming successes of the postwar period — the speed with which the country moved on — brought difficulties. In the rush to “forgive and forget” after the war, Nigeria skipped key questions about its purpose, its form and its destiny. There was no official narrative of what happened, nor an appraisal of lessons learned from it.

The absence of official accounts led others to fill the void. Denied the chance to articulate their grievances through formal channels, such as a war crimes trial or a truth and reconciliation commission, the Igbo ethnic group, which spearheaded the secession, has richly chronicled its suffering and sense of injustice. Barely a year goes by without an Igbo author publishing a book about the war. One of the most successful African novels of the past 15 years, “Half of a Yellow Sun” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, tells the story of the civil war from a distinctly Biafran perspective.

The history written not by the war’s winners but by its losers has become yet another means of division. The parts of the country that won the war want to stop talking about it — and view the Igbos, with their memorializing habits, as something of a fifth column. Ironically, the Igbos, who may be Nigeria’s most widely dispersed ethnic group, are found in every corner of the country. With substantial nationwide business and trading interests, polyglot and intermarried with many other groups, far from a group set on secession, they show how much Nigeria has changed in the past 50 years.

But Nigeria remains haunted by the ghosts of its civil war. It simply stopped the war without addressing its root causes. And by refusing to discuss the war’s legacies, the country’s rulers bred a deep, dangerous disenchantment.

The war may have ended 50 years ago, but its effects are far from over.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/opinion/nigeria-civil-war-anniversary.html

Hm

If after 50years..what caused the war is still happening, then the unity is a wild goose chase.

The Igbos's been vindicated.

Let all the other tribes enjoy the Nigeria they fought to save.

It's like fighting hard to prevent a war, and then, tragically losing your entire generation of your people in the resulting peace.

Hmm...

What a country.

Poor repeatation by New York Times.
Telling us what we know from birth

It is what it is..... indeed there was country.

Civil War is past. Let's focus on the present

Too bad

50 years after, Nigeria has its best chance to finally lay the ghost of Biafra to rest in 2023 or ignite a fire that might burn higher than what burned in 1967.

The choice is theirs!

It simply stopped the war without addressing its root causes. And by refusing to discuss the war’s legacies, the country’s rulers bred a deep, dangerous disenchantment.

They so called rulers all pretend as if nothing happened, but rather focus more on using by force by fire approach to coerce people together.

No progress or peace can be achieved from humans out together by force by fire. It’s a fake unity that won’t last

Skyfornia:
If after 50years..what caused the war is still happening, then the unity is a wild goose chase.

hmmmmmm this is a deep statement with lots of wisdom and truth in it. Already we're yet to see the change or even be at peace with each other since the war ended. Nothing had changed. Same nepotism, tribalism,greed and corruption

Meaning another war is still coming.

I love this write up...

Ok

It's very clear that the post war strategies to keep peace and move on after the civil war have failed. They are not working and will never work. Nigeria will be a great country if only we can change strategies.

Buhari Nigeria is a reminder that the Civil war is very much on course and the deadly battle is actively in place on Biafraland and any SS or SE individuals who refuse to slave it out for HausafulaniKanuri Muslims of the North politically.

No be lie

The souls of the people that the Nigerian military brutally murdered during the war, especially the victims of Asaba massacre, are crying for vengeance.

There will never be genuine progress in Nigeria until this country makes efforts to right its wrongs. I have never seen a country so rich and yet so poor at the same time - thanks to the injustice this country has meted out on its own peoples.

The next President will address that

I no see Wike on that poster abi no Igbo man?

Grace001:
They so called rulers all pretend as if nothing happened, but rather focus more on using by force by fire approach to coerce people together.

No progress or peace can be achieved from humans out together by force by fire. It’s a fake unity that won’t last

It will keep being haunted until they let us go. We didn't agree then...we are not agreeing now.

As for Britain and this blunder they committed, they will never escape it for time indefinite. Already the bombings and terror attacks have started.

The war was between igbos and the military, where 3 million people died out of starvation by Igbo warmonger Ojukwu, so how does that concern me, the same set of people will suffer if they bring another calamity on themselves

Junk write up. Suppressing a lot of truths, and trying to make one nigerianists the victim.

nairavsdollars:
Civil War is past. Let's focus on the present

how, did you read this post the same mistake analysed in this article is what you are still proposing, black man has no brains

ObiOfOnitcha:
The war was between igbos and the military, where 3 million people died out of starvation by Igbo warmonger Ojukwu, so how does that concern me, the same set of people will suffer if they bring another calamity on themselves

when I say Africans are more of animalistic in behavior and devilish people get me wrong. A white man can never make this statement against another human, instead he will work to ensure harmoney even without pay that is why they are Godlike with pure heart and human feelings unlike the the black people with selfish and I don't care artitude,, me and me always me alone

Yeah that's because FG has refused to do what will reduce to resurfacing tension

If after 50years..what triggered the war is still occurring, then the united is a wild goose hunt.

If you're too fixated on yesterday, you'll be blind to the light of tomorrow.

It is glaring that the fear of breaking up is limiting our potentials in this country

Perhaps until the actors of the last civil war goes away from our polity, I don't think there is much we can do

We need to holistically determine the path we want the nation toll, Federal charcater has divided us the more, due to the birth of Exposure through the social media

In all, our current leaders have no answer to our problems or they are just afraid of the outcome of their results in the case of doing the right thing.