The First Republic and the Civil War
The First Republic's politics, the census controversies, the Western Region crisis and Awolowo's trial, the 1964-65 elections, the January and July 1966 coups, the killings of Igbo in the north, the Aburi accord, the declaration of Biafra, the war, blockade and famine, international involvement, the end of the war, and its memory today.
More than one account
The civil war remains the most contested event in modern Nigerian history. Biafran accounts (and many Igbo today) describe genocide: pogroms in 1966 and a blockade that starved civilians. The federal government framed it as a war to keep Nigeria one; it argued starvation was a consequence of Biafra's refusal of land corridors for relief. Historians document both the scale of civilian death and the political choices on both sides. Reconciliation policies after 1970 were partial: the "£20 policy" limited Igbo depositors to £20 regardless of their pre-war savings, a grievance still cited.
Literature is a key source for how the war is remembered: Chinua Achebe's There Was a Country (2012), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), and Wole Soyinka's prison memoir The Man Died (1972).
Max Siollun, Oil, Politics and Violence: Nigeria's Military Coup Culture 1966-1976 (2009); Chinua Achebe, There Was a Country (2012); John de St. Jorre, The Nigerian Civil War (1972); Toyin Falola and Matthew Heaton (2008).