Kinlore
6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970

Biafra and the Civil War

The Eastern Region secedes as the Republic of Biafra; a blockade and war kill somewhere between half a million and three million people, mostly from starvation.

  • Postcolonial Conflict and the Question of Genocide: The Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967–1970 — Lasse Heerten and A. Dirk Moses (eds.), Routledge (2018)
  • There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra — Chinua Achebe, Allen Lane (2012)
  • The Struggle for Modern Nigeria: The Biafran War, 1967–1970 — Michael Gould, I.B. Tauris (2012)
  • A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)
  • Oil, Politics and Violence: Nigeria's Military Coup Culture (1966–1976) — Max Siollun, Algora (2009)

Debated by historians conflictfamineethnicitystatehood

After the massacres of 1966, the Eastern Region’s military governor, Lieutenant-Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, refused to recognise Gowon’s authority. Talks at Aburi in Ghana in January 1967 produced an agreement on a looser federation, but the two sides disagreed over what it meant. When Gowon decreed new states in May 1967, splitting the East and cutting the Igbo heartland off from the oil-rich coast, Ojukwu declared the independent Republic of Biafra on 30 May 1967.

  • The Struggle for Modern Nigeria: The Biafran War, 1967–1970 — Michael Gould, I.B. Tauris (2012)
  • Oil, Politics and Violence: Nigeria's Military Coup Culture (1966–1976) — Max Siollun, Algora (2009)
  • A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)

The war

Fighting began on 6 July 1967. Biafra briefly struck west across the Niger into the Midwest, coming within reach of Lagos, before being driven back. In October 1967 federal troops entering Asaba killed hundreds of men and boys in a massacre long denied.

  • The Struggle for Modern Nigeria: The Biafran War, 1967–1970 — Michael Gould, I.B. Tauris (2012)
  • Postcolonial Conflict and the Question of Genocide: The Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967–1970 — Lasse Heerten and A. Dirk Moses (eds.), Routledge (2018)
Britain and the Soviet Union armed the federal government; France and some others gave Biafra quieter support, and only a handful of states, Tanzania, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Zambia and Haiti, recognised it.
  • The Struggle for Modern Nigeria: The Biafran War, 1967–1970 — Michael Gould, I.B. Tauris (2012)
  • Postcolonial Conflict and the Question of Genocide: The Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967–1970 — Lasse Heerten and A. Dirk Moses (eds.), Routledge (2018)

Starvation

Federal forces surrounded Biafra and blockaded it by land, sea and air. As territory shrank and refugees crowded in, food ran out. Children with the swollen bellies of kwashiorkor became, from mid-1968, some of the first images of famine shown on television worldwide, and they inspired a huge church-led airlift and the founding of the organisation that became Médecins Sans Frontières.

  • Postcolonial Conflict and the Question of Genocide: The Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967–1970 — Lasse Heerten and A. Dirk Moses (eds.), Routledge (2018)
  • There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra — Chinua Achebe, Allen Lane (2012)
Federal leaders argued that food could not be allowed to strengthen the rebellion; Biafran leaders were accused of rejecting relief routes they could not control.
  • The Struggle for Modern Nigeria: The Biafran War, 1967–1970 — Michael Gould, I.B. Tauris (2012)
  • Postcolonial Conflict and the Question of Genocide: The Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967–1970 — Lasse Heerten and A. Dirk Moses (eds.), Routledge (2018)

The toll

Nobody knows how many died. Estimates range from about 500,000 to 3 million, most of them Biafran civilians who died of hunger and disease; a figure of “over a million” is commonly used.

  • Postcolonial Conflict and the Question of Genocide: The Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967–1970 — Lasse Heerten and A. Dirk Moses (eds.), Routledge (2018)
  • A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)

The end and after

Ojukwu fled in January 1970, and Biafra surrendered on 15 January. Gowon proclaimed “no victor, no vanquished”, and there were no mass reprisals, which many observers had feared.

  • A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)
  • The Struggle for Modern Nigeria: The Biafran War, 1967–1970 — Michael Gould, I.B. Tauris (2012)
But many Igbo lost their savings, homes and jobs, and felt shut out of power for decades.
  • There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra — Chinua Achebe, Allen Lane (2012)

Since the 2010s a new generation has revived the Biafra cause, most visibly through the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) led by Nnamdi Kanu, which the federal government has banned as a terrorist organisation. Security crackdowns and violence by armed groups in the south-east have followed.

  • Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know — John Campbell and Matthew T. Page, Oxford University Press (2018)
Chinua Achebe’s memoir There Was a Country (2012) and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) brought the war to new readers, and the arguments they provoked show how raw it remains.
  • There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra — Chinua Achebe, Allen Lane (2012)

How it's seen
Federal Nigerian view

Secession was illegal and would have broken up Nigeria and encouraged other splits across Africa. The federal government fought to preserve the nation, and after victory Gowon declared "no victor, no vanquished" and launched a programme of reconciliation, reconstruction and rehabilitation.

  • The Struggle for Modern Nigeria: The Biafran War, 1967–1970 — Michael Gould, I.B. Tauris (2012)
  • A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)

Igbo and Biafran memory

After the 1966 massacres the East seceded to survive. The starvation of Biafra by blockade, and killings such as those at Asaba in 1967, amounted to genocide. Reintegration was unequal: Igbo depositors got only £20 regardless of their savings, and property in Port Harcourt was declared "abandoned" and taken.

  • There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra — Chinua Achebe, Allen Lane (2012)
  • Postcolonial Conflict and the Question of Genocide: The Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967–1970 — Lasse Heerten and A. Dirk Moses (eds.), Routledge (2018)

Historians on "genocide"

Scholars are divided. Some see genocidal intent in the 1966 massacres and the starvation policy; others argue the blockade was a brutal war strategy aimed at forcing surrender, and that federal treatment of Igbo after the war argues against intent to destroy them. Lasse Heerten and Dirk Moses's collection sets out the debate.

  • Postcolonial Conflict and the Question of Genocide: The Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967–1970 — Lasse Heerten and A. Dirk Moses (eds.), Routledge (2018)

Why it matters today

Nigeria

The war is Nigeria's deepest wound and least-taught chapter. Many Igbo feel the trauma and the economic losses were never acknowledged, and a revived Biafran movement draws on that grievance; many other Nigerians see the war as the price of keeping the country together. History teaching was dropped from Nigerian schools for years, and families often pass down their own versions.