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

single nation is seen as the genesis of Nigeria’s postcolonial problems. British imperial design succeeded in Nigeria as long as British rule welded different groups together with an iron hand, but it began to collapse soon after Britain disengaged from Nigeria in 1960.

The complex ethnic makeup of Nigeria was a source of conflict and agitation even before British withdrawal in October 1960 and long before the civil war. Several of Nigeria’s minority groups clashed. The ethnic minority question and the fear of domination led to the establishment of the Henry Willink commission in 1956 to investigate the agitations by ethnic minorities over discrimination and to make recommendations to the government. The commission produced its report in 1958.⁷ But the agitations that had begun soon after the 1914 amalgamation of the southern and northern protectorates were not to be easily laid to rest. The diverse ethnic backgrounds of the country’s population, the groups’ sociopolitical and historical differences, and the land’s vastness comprised barriers to creating a unified nation.⁸ Thus the civil war was the culmination of nearly half a century of ethnic rivalry and mistrust and the peculiar vilification of the Igbo by other ethnic groups. The series of pogroms and the civil war were a means of dealing with the Igbo problem. The first military coup d’état of January 15, 1966, resulted in the deaths of Ahmadu Bello, leader of the Northern People’s Congress, the prime minister of the Nigerian federation (a northerner), and six senior northern military officers. The premier of the western region and the federal minister of finance (a midwesterner) were also killed. That no major Igbo political leaders were killed gave the incident the appearance of an Igbo coup. Two factors (discussed by Uzoigwe) apparently convinced northerners that a “grand Igbo design to rule Nigeria” was in play, driven by the Igbo people’s “uncouth bumptiousness and an arrogant belief in their own exceptionalism.”⁹ First, Major General J. T. U. Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Igbo, emerged as head of the military government; second, the federal structure of governance was abolished in favor of a unitary structure.