Supervisors:
- Assoc. Prof Lyn Ossome (Chair)
- Assoc. Prof Setargew Kenaw
- Dr Tania Bhattacharyya
Abstract: The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) is one in a series of groups agitating for the separation of Nigeria’s old Eastern region from the Nigerian federation due to the war between the region (declared the sovereign Republic of Biafra) and the rest of Nigeria from July 1967 to January 1970. The study draws on IPOB’s use of history and historical narratives to mobilise membership as well as drive its political agenda. IPOB’s historical emphasis – including pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial histories – raises questions around the direct and indirect roles of the state in the mainstream (formal and state-sanctioned channels of learning) production of the war history. It equally points to the agency of differential subjectivities of individuals and groups, who produce history on and around the events of the first ten years of Nigeria’s independence. By reading the emergence and modes of expression of IPOB within the historical context of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic – including it’s state proscription as a terrorist group in 2017 –, the study aims to tease out the varied dimensions, implications and potentials of influence political power exerts on the process of historical knowledge production in Nigeria, as it traverses the grey areas within the broad spectrum of silencing and amplification in the production of the Nigeria-Biafra war history.