Project title

Cultural Memory and the Legacy of the Nigeria-Biafra War in Southeast Nigeria

Research question

In what ways do the Igbo people of Nigeria pass down their memories of war to future generations, and how do these generations respond?

Project description

Ngozika Anthonia Obi-Ani’s project seeks to explore how successive generations of Biafran war survivors—including those who did not experience the conflict firsthand—have inherited and internalised memories passed down through their families. The Nigerian-Biafran Civil War, which occurred between 1967 and 1970, was fought between the Nigerian state and the Igbo ethnic group. It resulted in a historical trauma that remains deeply embedded in the collective memory and continues to resonate across generations. Obi-Ani examines how the war’s effects have been transmitted, prompting the post-civil war generation of Biafrans to feel a personal connection to their traumatic past.

This project aims to understand how the generations affected by the Nigerian-Biafran Civil War are coping with its legacies, and to interrogate the contestations surrounding post-war generations’ reconstructions of the conflict’s memory. In analysing the legacies of the Nigeria-Biafra war memories on the people of southeast Nigeria, Obi-Ani adopts a decolonial perspective that considers names, music, and art—cultural elements that resisted the state’s enforced amnesia. These names and musical expressions have become sites of memory, challenging hegemonic silences and preserving alternative narratives.

Selected publications

  • Ngozika Anthonia, Obi-Ani, (2024) “Unforgotten shadows: exploring the dynamics of Biafra agitation in south-east Nigeria”. Africa (2024), 94, 532-555. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0001972024000561
  • Eyo Mensah, Ngozika Obi-Ani & Utomobong Nsebot (2025) . War Is Fearful: The Recollection of War Memories Through Personal Naming Practices in Southeastern Nigeria..
    https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy9020053.
  • Ngozika Anthonia Obi-Ani. (2024). Memories of Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967–1970: A Case of Nsukka Igbo. In: Ndlovu, M., Tshuma, L.A., Mpofu, S. (eds) Remembering Mass Atrocities: Perspectives on Memory Struggles and Cultural Representations in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39892-6_13