THE NIGERIAN CIVIL WAR AND BORDER QUESTION: 1966 -1981

Abstract

The Nigerias Civil war captured the sympathies and interest of the whole world for thirty months from July 1967 to January 1970. The secessionist enclave Biafra drew attention to itself by the manipulation of emotional evocative propaganda made more effective by the fact that the beleaguered peoples fought to sustain the doomed republic with incredible tenacity. Both Nigeria and the seceding Biafra spent nearly three years fighting, fighting for a cause, fighting to the finish… for freedom. Both groups also lobbied for support from their neighbours to disallow their opponents from making use of their territory as a staging point for military operations, or as a supply corridor for weapons. This article investigates the January 15, 1966 coup d'état, through the counter-coups (staged mainly by the Northern Nigeria officers, the progrom of May 1966, the secession of the Easterners, and the Nigerian general civil war which resuscitates boundary dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon. It argues that tribalism has more than any other factor frustrated a number of our development efforts. It helped to cause the breakdown of the first Republic and equally led to the failure of a number of Nigeria socio-economic programmes. Above all, what had been subjected to several decades of neglect suddenly became a center of increased attraction only after the discovery of huge oil and mineral reserves on the Peninsula and its maritime waters. This falls as an important source of conflict between most countries in Africa.