Memories of Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967–1970: A Case of Nsukka Igbo

This chapter is an appraisal of how the Nsukka people remember their war experiences during the Nigeria-Biafra War. The Igbo people of Nsukka geo-cultural zone are found in the northernmost part of Igboland located in Enugu State, Southeastern Nigeria. It was the first of the Biafran enclaves to be conquered by the federal forces. The area is the borderline separating Biafra from the Northern region of Nigeria, and is thus a gateway to the Igbo heartland from Northern Nigeria. The rapid over-running of this area by the Nigerian soldiers from July 6, 1967 threw the civil population into a scenario of summary executions, looting and arbitrary commandeering of young women as sex slaves by the Nigerian occupying army. These military activities, though little explored in studies, immensely altered the social life of the Nsukka people. Employing a qualitative method of narrative inquiry, this chapter interrogates and reinterprets existing literature of the period through an understanding of the people’s experiences and the meaning they attached to them. This research amply utilized both primary and secondary sources of data collection, analysis and interpretation of history. The chapter is also anchored on Giogio Agamben’s state of exception theory.