The Nigeria-Biafra War: Genocide and the Politics of Memory By C ...

Indeed, the notion of Igbo distinctiveness has its origin in the early colonial period. To the British, the Igbo lacked the kinds of institutionalized political and religious structures found among the Muslim emirates of the North and the empires in the West. District officer for Aba Edward M. Falk captured the prevailing view when he wrote in 1929 about the so-called pagan in Igbo country, eastern Nigeria. Unlike the Muslim, the Igbo had “no institutions of which he is proud and jealous; he is being moulded like wax by his European teachers, he is as imitative of them as a simian and will retain little of his pre-twentieth century self but the vices which are inherent in the negro character to which are being added those of his conquerors.”¹⁰

The British perception of northerners was different. Although the British conquest of the Sokoto Caliphate curtailed the power of the old aristocracy, the British preserved some of its structures. Parts of the caliphate’s legal system, for instance—particularly matters relating to marriage, property, inheritance, and divorce—were incorporated into the colonial bureaucracy. These institutions were seen as far superior to those retained in other parts of the country. To both the British and the old northern oligarchy, this sophisticated culture gave the North the right to rule. The support generated by this compromise in the North did not exist in the Southeast, where the Igbo engaged the British through protests and revolts for most of the colonial period. The notion of Igbo distinctiveness was reinforced throughout the colonial period and acquired a more negative meaning owing to the Igbo’s spirited resistance of British rule. When independence came in 1960, the British ensured that political power remained in the hands of northerners—the more “enlightened” and more trusted ally of the British. And the British role as biased broker prevented the Igbo people from gaining political control of Nigeria.