Visions of Nationhood: Prelude to the Nigerian Civil War 1960–1967 (review)

In the history of virtually every nation-state, in all regions of the world, there have occurred—and may still occur—certain pleasant and horrid happenings that help define and shape the sociopolitical disposition of that society, and such events tend to remain indelible in the memory of citizens of that polity. In Nigeria, however, the civil war of 1967–1970, which claimed the lives of between one and three million people,¹ remains an important symbol in the nation’s political history and character. The narrative of the clashing political and social interests of competing politicos and the attendant instability within the society from 1960 to 1967, which led the former Eastern Nigeria to secede, forms the basis of this book, written by Professor G. N. Uzoigwe, a preeminent Oxford-educated historian.

Professor Uzoigwe here provides an in-depth account of the political naiveté and self-cum-group competing interests of major actors who tried to control power in Nigerian politics during this period. The outcome was hardship for the citizens and the country as a whole, especially between 1960 and 1967. By using insightful explanations and a detailed timeline, Uzoigwe historicizes and chronicles why the political commotions in the polity happened the way they did at this epoch.

The book is made up of eleven well-document chapters written inside three parts. Part one is Nigeria’s Post-colonial Traumas, 1960–67 (chapters 1–6); part two is titled The End of Obedience is Protection: On the Social Contract and Biafra: A Treaties of Government (chapters 7–9); and part three is Select Documents (Chapters 10–11). It also contains a brief preface and an index. Within the context of the above suppositions and framework, Uzoigwe notes:

Essentially, the burden of this book is to provide an explanation as to why Nigeria’s three dominant sub-national groups—the Hausa-Fulani of the North, the Igbo of the East, and the Yoruba of the West—collectively were unable to reconcile their conflicting visions of Nigerian nationhood; and as a corollary, to emphasize how the failure of the central government to fulfill its sacred undertaking in the contract of government made the descent into civil war unavoidable.

(p. xv)

Utilizing the introduction as a prologue to the volume, Uzoigwe brings to the fore the rivalries and complications of political ethnicity in the governance of a society. In brief, he explains how the Igbo of Eastern Nigeria, a seemingly dormant group in the 1940s and 1950s, worked assiduously to become a powerful group, which competed professionally with the dominant Yoruba ethnic collectivity of Western Nigeria and its elites (p. 4).

The Hausa/Fulani of Northern Nigeria were well known for what critics saw as the group’s clever political character and peculiar partnership role with the former colonial power, Britain. This political attitude not only irritated the Yoruba and Igbo political class, but also problematized the relations among the three colossal ethnic groups in the struggle to control the nationstate that was amalgamated in 1914.² In the struggle for individual and group hegemony in the society, the major flag-bearers were Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe (Igbo and Eastern Nigeria), Chief Obafemi Awolowo (Yoruba and Western Nigeria), and Sarduana of Sokoto (Hausa/Fulani and Northern Nigeria). The competition for the control of power was sharpened by the philosophy of ethnic nationalism. This centrifugal tendency exacerbated conflict in the country between 1960 and 1967; unfortunately, this disagreement led in part to a bloody civil war.³

Chapter one, titled “Crisis in the Western Region, 1962: Struggle for Regional Power,” continues the story of the battle of ideologies and power within Nigeria. Chapter two is titled “Controversy over National Census, 1962–1963: A Portent of Things to Come”; while chapter three is dubbed, “Federal Election, 1964–1965: Democracy Nigerian Style.” The fourth chapter, “Western Region Election, October 1965: The ‘Wild, Wild...